Vic Sage

I had written that review for my old college paper, so i was talking to a college-age audience. I should have cut that line out when i reprinted it here.

When FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH came out, it was 1982 and I was in the first of my consecutive senior years at SUNY Stony Brook. I was running the film committee and writing film reviews for the school paper, and saw for myself a future of poverty, but one full of intellectual and artistic fulfillment. 26 years later and I�m a lawyer. Some dreams die hard. But back to 1982. FAST TIMES was a revelation. Like ANIMAL HOUSE, which came out just before my freshman year, TIMES was a touchstone for a generation. Aside from the fact that a lot of talented actors got their starts in that film (Forest Whitaker, Nicolas Cage, Anthony Edwards, Judge Reinhold and Eric Stoltz), it featured Phoebe Cates and Jennifer Jason Leigh (both baring a lot of skin, god bless `em) and Sean Penn�s star-making turn as the stoner-surfer dude Spicoli. It was one of the first honest movies I�d ever seen about high school. Having been raised on Godard, Andrew Sarris and the auteur theory, I credited first time director Amy Heckerling for the film�s wonders. Time has not borne out that gross conclusion, as her career has included JOHNNY DANGEROUSLY, EUROPEAN VACATION and LOOK WHO�S TALKING (1 and TOO) and LOSER. I paid little attention to the fact that someone actually wrote the movie (not only wrote it, but based it on his own book). A kid named Cameron Crowe (was that his REAL name?) went under cover in a Southern California high school, wrote a book about what he saw, then adapted it as a screenplay. It still stands up as a brilliant, journalistic insight into the early 80s and adolescence. Of course, Crowe went on to do a few more quite excellent movies, as both writer and director. SAY ANYTHING, with Jon Cusack, is a tragi-comic tale of young love that has developed a cult audience. When asked by the girl�s father what he wants to do for a living, with a nod to THE GRADUATE, Cusack says: �I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that.� After FAST TIMES at High School, SAY ANYTHING said everything about that scary time right after graduation. Crowe�s next picture, SINGLES, talks about relationships amongst 20-somethings, during and after college, in the era of Seattle grunge garage bands. It�s a flawed movie, but he obtained one of the handful of great Matt Dillon performances ever recorded on film. The use of music in FAST TIMES, SAY ANYTHING and SINGLES is integral to the characters, not just an excuse to release a soundtrack album. When Cusack stands outside his girl�s apartment in SAY ANYTHING, he holds a boom box over his head blasting Peter Gabriel while standing in the rain. He�s using music to communicate from his soul and it�s one of the most moving moments from any movie in the last 20 years. Then, writer-director-producer Crowe created JERRY MAGUIRE, his first breakout-commercial Hollywood mega-hit. Despite that reputation, the movie is really about a young guy finding some personal commitment and professional redemption. Or is it vice versa? Doesn�t matter� it works both ways. The movie is actually a small, personal film at heart. Except, you know, with Tom Cruise. And it made a star of Renee Zellweger. If you look closely, you can see the arc of Mr. Crowe�s films as they mirror his own journey from precocious adolescent to successful professional, with an in-depth analysis of the painful and necessary growth endured at each stage of his life, with music always seeming to mark the trail he has taken. Now a successful 40-something, Crowe does what we all do at that stage. He looks backwards, with longing. And so, in ALMOST FAMOUS, he offers us a loving reflection on his youth and the music that lit the way. With this picture, Crowe does the impossible� he made me nostalgic for the 70s. Now, at this point, �let me make something perfectly clear.� The 70s sucked. I don�t mean for me, personally. Well, yeah, I mean for me personally, but not JUST for me. I�ll say it again. THE 70s SUCKED. You weren�t there. I was. Trust me on this, if nothing else. The clothes, the TV, the music, the politics, the national zeitgeist. It all sucked. Everything but the movies. This was the era of Coppola, Scorsese, Spielberg, Lucas. The auteur-inmates were running the studio-asylums and brilliant, personal pictures were being made by big studios for big money. Of course, Cimino�s HEAVEN�S GATE sunk UA and Hollywood has never been that way again. But I digress. Back to my point. THE 70s SUCKED. And yet� somehow, thanks to Crowe, they�ve taken on that burnished glow that only memory can endow. Before we praise him, or damn him, further for this accomplishment, let�s take a closer look at how he did it. Crowe starts his film with credits... not an unusual technique. Except these credits are being written in pencil on a yellow note pad by a disembodied hand. The hand writes out each name, even misspelling �Frances McDormand� then erasing the error and fixing it. The credits have not even finished and I already love this movie. Why? It has a point of view. This in not some generic, Hollywood story, measured and sliced with a cookie-cutter called �market research.� This is a personal story being told by somebody. And a young somebody, to boot� inexperienced, but gamely writing as fast as he can, fixing his mistakes along the way. If the credits are this good, what will the movie be like, I wonder. Now I knew that Crowe was a rock critic writing for Rolling Stone in the 70s, before his FAST TIMES adventure. I didn�t read Rolling Stone then, other than the occasional Hunter S. Thompson article, but my older brothers sure did. The magazine stopped being cool because the music stopped being cool. But I knew Crowe was this teenage Rock n Roll savante, and that is ostensibly what ALMOST FAMOUS is about. Crowe cast as his adolescent self the young Patrick Fugit, an unknown kid with a couple of episodes of TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL under his belt. He is Crowe as a decent, nerdy, talented boy (William), who is barely surviving his loving, overbearing mother. As the mom, Francis, um, I mean, Frances McDormand is unnerving and endearing at the same time. The boy�s loving but irritating big sister clashes with mom and takes off with a boyfriend to become a stewardess. In an effort to save him from mom�s influence, William�s sister leaves behind her record collection. William is an �un-cool� high school kid, isolated and in pain, father-less, sister-less� but Rock n Roll becomes his world and his salvation. He is a talented writer, penning rock criticism for local papers. He is befriended by the burned-out editor of Creem Magazine, Lester Bangs, brilliantly played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Hoffman has been a ubiquitous presence in films since BOOGIE NIGHTS, and his dual/dueling Broadway performances in Sam Shepard�s TRUE WEST last year was an electrifying experience. Now he creates a curmudgeonly mentor for William, a sort of ghost of Christmas-yet-to-be, telling him �Rock is dead� and providing other such heartening insights, while also giving him a willing ear and an encouraging word. Though based on a real person, Hoffman�s Les Bangs is an original film creation� a Rock prophet-guru-nerd who, seeing his end in sight as he slouches toward Bethlehem, can�t help but try to pass the torch. William is offered the chance to cover a touring band on the rise (�Stillwater�) for Rolling Stone by an unsuspecting editor that doesn�t know William is only 15. The kid travels with the band while his worried mother, who lets him go because she knows how much he needs this adventure yet afraid of losing her last child, screams �musicians have kidnapped my son!� Upon boarding the tour bus (bearing the sign �ALMOST FAMOUS�), young William/Cameron journeys like Dante into the inferno, chased by worried messages from his mother (�Don�t take drugs!�) and accompanied only by his yellow note pad, his long-distance calls to mentor Bangs, and the �Stillwater� family that teaches him about who he is and who he can become. Still waters run deep, indeed. One of his Virgils is the band�s enigmatic guitarist, Russell, brought to vivid life in stage actor Billy Crudup�s breakthrough film performance as the Rock n Roll hero with feet of clay. The other is the siren Penny Lane, the beautiful free spirit who, as a �band-aid�, acts as both muse and sex toy for Crudup. She is an ephemeral but damaged girl, leading other girls into a romanticized life of low self-esteem and self-delusion, living in devotion to the music, or so they claim, and not just the musicians they service. Of course, Kate-Russell-William form an eternal triangle, resulting in pain and growth for all concerned. Kate Hudson�s Penny Lane is a magical character, and Hudson fills out her genes (Goldie Hawn is her mom) quite nicely. It�s a star-making debut performance. There is a moment in the movie when everyone is on the bus, and it has been a long, bad night. Emotions are frayed. The mood is fragile. Elton John�s song �Tiny Dancer� is heard and, one at a time, everyone starts to sing along. Music heals. Families hurt each other, but they can heal, too. As in Crowe�s earlier films, music is the heart and soul of this film, both in the dramatic moments and concert scenes, dramatizing the effect on both the players and the audience as together they create, for a moment, a surrogate family for all who need one. It seems at first a small story to build a movie on. Nothing blows up. The sex is mostly off-screen. Like all of Crowe�s other pictures, it�s a coming-of-age picture. But, when seen through the context of his career to date, you realize it�s about Crowe coming of age, as much as the characters in the film. Crowe is unlike his contemporaries, like writer-director Kevin Smith who tells us interesting things in a cinematically uninteresting way, or the Coen brothers, who say nearly nothing, but with a delightful visual style, or Spike Lee, who is wildly inconsistent and political rather than personal. Crowe is a both a writer and a filmmaker, and he makes movies about himself and about human relationships. Unlike film-school filmmakers, he doesn�t make films about films, but about life. And so, he tells stories about us. They are stories worth telling. ALMOST FAMOUS made me reconsider the 70s (damn him!), and the person I was and am. That�s the power of a great storyteller and, make no mistake, Crowe is perhaps the foremost auteur of his generation.

The Third Wave of anime, if anyone cares, can be seen in the invasion of Pokemon and YuGiOh in the late 90s, through the present day.

Battle of the Planets made me the man I am today. Battle of the Planets (1978-1985) was part of the second wave of anime, cashing in on the SF craze caused by STAR WARS. This second wave washed over the US in the 1980s with shows like Gundam (1979), Starblazers (1979), Transformers (1984), Fist of the North Star (1984), Robotech: Macross (1985), Lensman (1987), Ranma 1/2 (1988), and Dragon Ball Z (1989).

In the mid-60s, US broadcasters starting buying Japanese "anime" (cartoons), and dubbing them into English, for domestic audiences. After their initila runs, these shows, including Astroboy (1963-66), Gigantor (1964), Tobor the 8th Man (1965), Kimba the White lion (1965) and Speed Racer (1967-68), went into syndication on weekday afternoons from the late 60s into the early 70s. They were unlike anything else i'd seen, and they had a huge impact on me, especially Speed Racer. The show had a subtext about family and honor that marked it as particularly Japanese in its cultural viewpoint, and a level of violence uncommon in u.s. kiddie fare. The Mach 5 was the coolest car ever, Spritle had a monkey for a playmate, and oh, that song!

soupcan wrote: Is Racer X in the movie? but of course! He provides the major plotline of the movie.

I didn't think it was awful. It's certainly overlong, especially for kids, at 2.15 hrs. And it doesn't add anything of interest for more mature audiences, earning its strictly PG rating. But if you love "SR", it serves it up as best one could hope. The movie's video game aesthetic is, for once, an appropriate style for the subject, and the characters are rendered with affection. And the story lines and themes are all ones that were essential elements of the series. And when the Mach 5 gets forced over a cliff and then Speed hits one of the buttons on the steering wheel, enabling the car to drive straight up the side of an icy mountain, i got chills, as my inner 10-year old jumped for joy. It's not great, by any means, but i liked it well enough. And the classic theme song keeps playing in my head.

My son took me to see it for my birthday. Comments later.

which is your team?

AG/DC wrote: Is there a word for rule by the youngest? What's the opposite of a gerontocracy? Parenthood

Have i stunned you all into silence?

This essay was inspired by my research for my Charlton Heston essay. 70s Sci Fi: From 2001 to BLADERUNNER The 1950s are often lauded as the era when Science Fiction cinema grew up. Until then, SF was mostly low budget �b-movie� stuff and cheap serials� primarily kiddie fodder. But the neuroses of the nuclear age and the cold war brought a more mature style of SF stories to the local bijou. By the 1960s, however, it was once again a virtual wasteland for science fiction cinema. Movies of that period were either holdovers from the 1950s, like DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS and DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE, which presented thoughtful, narrative-driven SF stories, but with primitive SFX and dull visuals, or campy, colorful Euro-trash compost like DR. GOLDFOOT & THE BIKINI MACHINE and James Bond super-spy movies and their progeny (like the �Matt Helm� and �Flint� movies), which were only tangentially SF. There was little in the way of thoughtful, literate SF films that took advantage of the advances in movie-making technology to create new state-of-the-art SF movies that appealed to both the mind and the eye. Until 1968. In 1968, the Apollo missions put the first men in orbit around the moon, and brought the first transmissions from space. Meanwhile, civilians were being massacred in My Lai, King and Kennedy were being assassinated, Columbia University students were taking over the campus, �Hair� was opening on Broadway, Soviet tanks rolled into Prague, black power salutes were offered from the winner�s podium at the Mexico City Olympics, the Beatles released the �White Album�, the police rioted in Mayor Daly�s Chicago, and the country elected Nixon to get us out of Vietnam. It was a watershed year in our culture, and, for SF movies, the films of �68 set the stage for the era to come. 1968: The Shape of Things to Come 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - Kubrick�s masterpiece was unlike anything that had come before. Both literate and visual, it was simultaneously a cinematic work of realism, romanticism and expressionism. Ambiguous and dreamlike, it was also meticulous in its attempt to render realistically the images of Man at the dawn of time, Man in space, and Man transcending his limitations. It was also very much about Man�s relationship to his tools as an impetus to our growth and evolution, and Kubrick�s mastery of his own tools is very much at the heart of this landmark movie. But the relationship of man & machine was only one thread of SF cinema that continued through the 70s. The other films of `68 set up or described other thematic tropes that would wind their way across the silver screens of the years to come. Charly (1968) � This adaptation of the classic short story �flowers for Algernon� earned Cliff Robertson an Oscar for best actor, the first (and last) for an SF film since Fredric March�s portrayal of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde in the 1930s. It gave the genre more credibility as grownup subject matter. It also dealt with the psychological impact of the �mad scientist� oeuvre, rather than just its technical or biological aspects. Wild in the Streets (1968) � This wild �youth culture� pic from AIP is the quintessential 60s social statement, as adults are imprisoned in LSD camps while teens take over the country, though the victory of youth culture it depicts is pyrrhic, in the end. It seemed very hip then; now, it�s just campy weirdness. But it anticipates 70s-era �dystopian future� pix like LOGAN�S RUN and the political paranoia that was a staple of later films. Barbarella (1968) - Jane Fonda gives it her all in hubby Roger Vadim�s 60s psychedelic Eurotrash campfest. Though its pop-art style and libertine attitudes are very 60s (similar to 1965�s THE 10TH VICTIM, with Ursula Andress and Marcello Mostrianni), Dino DeLaurentiis�s later adaptation of FLASH GORDON (1980) is almost identical in style and substance, and the soft-core porn elements also anticipate such 70s eroticism as Invasion of the Bee Girls (1973), Flesh Gordon (1974), Heavy Metal (1981) and Caf� Flesh (1982). It is also the first feature length adaptation of a comic book superhero (as opposed to the serialized treatments of the 30s and 40s), anticipating the explosion of the superhero genre in the 1970s. Night of the Living Dead (1968) � Not even AIP would take on Pittsburgh�s enfante terrible George Romero and his little indie horror/sf film that could, but Romero birthed a sub-genre and, more importantly, became the first indie auteurist of the burgeoning 70s film scene, followed soon by bio-horror/sf master David Cronenberg and SF/actioner John Carpenter, as well as the twin towers of Lucas and Speilberg. Though primarily a horror filmmaker, Romero gets SF cross-over points for �NoftLD�, since the movie�s zombification process is instigated by radiation from a crashing NASA satellite. His next, The Crazies (1973), is also SF-based horror, where bio-weapons make a town go nuts. While Martin (1977) , a compellingly weird little vampire movie, is pure horror, the grandmaster of Grand Guignol returned to his zombie-verse with Dawn of The Dead (1978), a gloriously entrail-laden full-color sequel to his b&w original, which goes even further in its black humor and social satire. Before producing 1985�s DAY OF THE DEAD (later making LAND OF THE DEAD in 2005 to conclude the tetralogy), he collaborated with Stephen King to make the SF-tinged horror anthology CREEPSHOW (1982) , as a sporadically effective homage to the EC comics of the 1950s. Planet of the Apes (1968) - The big SF Blockbuster of �68 had both literary antecedents and great makeup and SFX for its day. It spawned an �ape� industry that would dominate the genre for years, including 4 feature film sequels, TV series and movies, comic books and merchandise. It set the stage for the type of cultural saturation of STAR WARS and STAR TREK and other SF properties of the 70s. Not bad for an anti-nuke story in the �dystopian future� and �time travel� sub-genres. It also repositioned screen icon Charlton Heston as a 70s SF hero. For more on Heston, including an annotated filmography, see http://cranepoolforum.qwknetllc.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=8611&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=20 The rest of the series: Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) - terrible; Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) - decent; Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) � not terrible; and Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973) � pretty bad Two films in 1969 also laid some additional groundwork for 70s SF cinema: VALLEY OF GWANGI (1969) was a �cowboys vs dinosaurs� story that, while not the first of its kind, was a solid forerunner for the �lost valley� concept that played out in the mid-70s, including ,The Island at the Top of the World (1974), and the cheesy adaptations of E.R. Burroughs� Land That Time Forgot (1975), At the Earth's Core (1976), and People That Time Forgot (1977), all starring Doug McClure. In Marooned (1969) , 3 astronauts are stuck in space and the world must cooperate to retrieve them. Oscar-winning FX and no musical score (just ambient sound) makes for a realistic, tense spaceflight thriller, released at the height of the space age. While similar to 2001 insofar as it�s a �hard SF� men-in-space adventure, the film was itself a precursor of things to come. Capricorn One (1978), where NASA fakes a mission to Mars, is a slick conspiracy thriller by cameraman-turned-director Peter Hyams. Hyams would go on to do the excellent Outland (1981), a remake of HIGH NOON, with Sean Connery as a sheriff on a space station, and 2010 (1984), a decent but unexceptional sequel to 2001. Like Marooned, all these films focus more on the socio-political dimensions of men in space, rather than the technology itself. 1970s & beyond The success of the auteur directors of the 60s combined with the disintegration of the Hollywood studio system to create a power vacuum in the American film industry in the 1970s. As a result, the asylums were taken over by the inmates, as filmmakers gained unprecedented power. It is no surprise, then, as we turn to the SF movies of the 70s, that they represent a flowering of the genre. Since an era�s cultural output doesn�t divide neatly based on arbitrary dates, analysis of the films and evolving themes of the period indicate that the �decade� may be best understood if one continued through 1982, which seems to signify an appropriate cutoff to mark the end of one era and the beginning of another. MAN & MACHINE: the space babies of 2001 2001�s essential SF concept was that the interface between man and machine would become the impetus for either our evolution or our destruction. Over the course of the next generation of movies, the echoes of 2001 reverberated and, like a Phillip Glass opera, the sound repeated, built and variated. Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) - this obvious precursor to the TERMINATOR and MATRIX series dramatizes the dangers of a computer-controlled weapons defense system that becomes sentient and makes all of humanity its slave. The ultimate killer computer, it makes HAL 9000 look like a tinker toy. The movie looks made-for-TV, but it is still chilling. Westworld (1973) � Novelist turned filmmaker Michael Chrichton wrote & directed this, his first feature, where the battle of Man vs Machine is played out in a fantasy vacation world where nothing could go wrong� go wrong� go wrong� 2001�s �killer robot� theme is seen again in adaptations of other Chrichton books in this period, THE TERMINAL MAN (1974) and STEPFORD WIVES (1975), as well as the lame sequel to WESTWORD, the Chrichton-less Futureworld (1976). Dark Star (1974) � 80s auteur John Carpenter started this SF spoof as a student film with writer Dan O�Bannon. It mocks a lot of elements from 2001, but its low budget cheese has wit, and shows affection for the genre. Many of its elements could be found in later films, like O�Bannon�s script for ALIEN (1979). Demon Seed (1977) - HAL 9000 spawns Rosemary�s baby, as killer computer Proteus rapes Julie Christie, wife of his mad scientist inventor, in order to perpetuate and evolve. Robert Vaughn�s vocal performance as the computer is creepy, though other elements seem laughable today. Black Hole (1979) � Mad Scientist Maximillian Schell and his robots try to fly a ship�s crew into a black hole, which was pretty much what this movie was for Disney, though the SFX were state-of-the-art for their day. While we�re on the subject, Saturn 3 (1980), with its mad scientist and killer robot, couldn�t cash in on the pop iconography of Ms. Farrah Fawcett to make their movie work, either. Nor could Playboy centerfold Dorothy Stratton�s presence save Galaxina (1980), where boy loved android, from its deserved obscurity. On the other hand, the little, low-budget indie Android (1982), in the �mad scientist/ killer robot/isolated spaceship/space station� category, is much more interesting and emotionally effective than any of the aforementioned turkeys. TRON (1982) � Computers are as evil or benign as their users, and so �MCP�, the movie�s HAL 9000, is treated more sympathetically. But the notion of an entire universe within the computer�s own �virtual reality� was a bold new vision. While Disney�s first feature to make extensive use of CGI was a flop, the video game based on it was a huge success, outgrossing the movie, and demonstrated that a new generation�s attitude towards its own technology had evolved since Kubrick�s 2001. While its initial commercial failure may indicate that its time may not have yet come, TRON�S eventual success as an arcade game is one of the signifiers that a new age had begun. The other �killer robot� movie of 1982 that indicated the end of one era and the beginning of the next is BLADE RUNNER, but more about that one later. DYSTOPIANS `R� US While WILD IN THE STREETS didn�t invent dystopian visions (and, ironically, may have seen itself as actually utopian in outlook), the dystopian adventures of 70s SF films were a signature style of the era A Clockwork Orange (1971) � Kubrick goes beyond 2001 with an x-rated explosion of the old ultra-violence and Ludwig Van. His adaptation of the acclaimed Burgess novel portrays a future of youthful gangs plaguing British society, but the government�s cure is worse than the disease. Controversial and much acclaimed, this contemplation on the nature of free will is one of the greatest films of this or any other era. THX 1138 (1971) � George Lucas�s student thesis was produced as a feature by his mentor, Francis Ford Coppola, and it depicts an underground world where people are pacified by drugs and religion to deny their basic sexual and aggressive natures. In as much as the world is controlled by computer programs and robot police, you could see THX as offspring to 2001 as well. But Lucas�s themes are more socio-political than technological. Omega Man (1971) - This second adaptation of Mathewson�s novel, I AM LEGEND, is pro-science, with messianic hero scientist Charlton Heston, as a survivor of a bio-weapons world war that killed off or mutated most of the human race, fighting off the anti-science quasi-religious mutants out to kill him. This is the middle chapter of Heston�s classic SF trilogy of the period. Silent Running (1972) - After the success of EASY RIDER, Universal Studios decided to let young filmmakers make "semi-independent" films (no studio interference and directors had final cut) for low budgets (under $1million) in hopes of generating similar profits. On this basis, 2001�s SFX wizard Doug Trumbull was given this project to direct, about a pollution-ravaged Earth sending out a space-ark comprised of various interlinking Earth eco-spheres, tended to by the growingly demented groundskeeper Bruce Dern and his cute little robot buddies, Huey, Dewey and Louie (precursors to R2D2). The movie�s �green� message is heavy-handed, and the Joan Baez score is dated, but it�s still worth seeing. Soylent Green (1973) � The 3rd chapter of Heston�s 70s SF trilogy, this one adapts Harry Harrison�s cautionary novel about overpopulation, where suicide is encouraged and people are on an interesting diet. A gritty, tough little movie. The line "Soylent Green is people!" was voted as the #77 movie quote by the American Film Institute Zardoz (1974) - As in SOYLENT GREEN, Death is still a sleep devoutly to be wished for� this time by bored immortals. And Sean Connery, as a death-dealing �brutal�, is happy to oblige � all in the name of Zardoz. This trippy pic by Brit filmmaker John Boorman is quintessential 70s filmmaking, with an auteur dealing incoherently with social issues amidst visual pyrotechnics. It�s become something of a cult classic. A Boy and His Dog (1975) � Harlan Ellison�s great short story is perfectly adapted, with the young Don Johnson trudging through a post-apocalyptic landscape with his psychic dog, just trying to find food and pussy. The underground world he is ensnared by suggests THX 1138, and the above-ground world feels like ROAD WARRIOR, but the story is pure Ellison. One of my absolute favorites of the era. Rollerball (1975) - Sport is the arena for corporate control of our society, which feeds our violent urges in exchange for our subservience and conformity. But James Caan�s �Jonathan E� becomes a star and rises above the herd, and so must be destroyed. With its depiction of corporations replacing governments and the suppression of individuality, accompanied by bone-crushing action and startling visuals, it is vintage 70s SF. A 21st century remake proved the superiority of 70s auteur-driven cinema over the soulless corporate endeavors critiqued by the original. Death Race 2000 (1975) � Racers get extra points for running over pedestrians in indie filmmaker Paul Bartel�s low-budget black comedy which, like ROLLERBALL that same year, uses �sport� as the arena for depicting a dystopian future Bartel, like Romero, was an indie filmmaker who made his mark with this one, and the subsequent EATING RAOUL. Logan's Run (1976) � An antiseptic future requires anyone over 30 to participate in �carousel�, a ritualized murder ceremony. Like WILD IN THE STREETS, the victory of youth culture is pyrrhic, and Michael York and Jenny Agutter go on the run. Apparently, the future is a shopping mall in Houston, but its still worth a look, if just for the awful performance of the young Farrah Fawcett, seen later to equally bad effect in SATURN 3 (1980). She was much better as a famous wall poster than as an actress, until she developed some skills later in her career. Damnation Alley (1977) - This failed attempt to adapt Roger Zelazny�s post-apocalyptic landscape features intrepid heroes fighting off mutant cockroaches from an armored RV. Not worth watching, except out of historical curiosity. Director Jack Smight had earlier butchered Ray Bradbury�s Illustrated Man (1969) Quintet (1977) - Auteur Robert Altman�s reviled SF indie flop presents a future ice age, where Paul Newman and others play a bizarre and deadly game of �quintet� to pass their dwindling days. �Sport� is once again the arena, and survival the reward. For Altman completists only. Wizards (1977) - Ralph Bakshi�s animated tribute to (or �rip-off of�) Tolkein and underground commix creator Vaughn Bode� is an epic battle of magic (�good�) vs science (�evil�). Bakshi captures the look and feel of 70s comic art and post-Vietnam anti-war zeitgeist. He would later do the rotoscoped animated feature of LORD OF THE RINGS. Mad Max (1979) � George Miller�s dystopian future from down under, the 1st Mad Max plays out as an adrenaline-fueled DIRTY HARRY in a car culture on the fringe of the present. However, his followup, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981), is pure post-apocalyptic fury with a world gone to hell over a tankful of gas. Western in spirit, Mel Gibson�s Max is a Shane-like hero who begrudgingly looks past his self-interest to save an outpost of civilization. Later, in Mad Max 3: Beyond Thunderdome, he becomes a biblical messiah, leading the children through the desert to a new world. One of the greatest trilogies in SF history (literary or cinematic), its hero evolves to fill the expanding dystopian worlds he confronts. ROAD WARRIOR is one of my top 10 faves of all time. THUNDERDOME, however, with its Tina Turner MTV pop single, seems like another era. Escape from New York (1981) � One of Carpenter�s best, Kurt Russell is Eastwoodian anti-hero Snake Plisskin sent into a NYC that has been turned into a walled-in maximum security prison populated by strangely evolving criminal subcultures. The cynical nihilistic payoff is total 70s� depicting a distrust of authority and political institutions so acute, that the world might just as well go to hell. 1982�s �dystopian future� movie is BLADE RUNNER, but, like I said before, more about that one later. Horrors of the Body As with 1968�s CHARLY and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, there was an ongoing theme of 1970s SF cinema that depicted the horror and power of our own biology, and certainly the �mad scientist� theme is an ever-present one in the history of SF. One can�t discuss this theme without dealing with FRANKENTSTEIN. Mary Shelley�s SF/horror story is the Ur-text for this theme, and the 70s had a variety of takes on it: Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969), Horror of Frankenstein, The (1970) , Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1971) , and most notoriously, Andy Warhol�s Frankenstein (1973). Most notable, however, was Mel Brooks� spoof, Young Frankenstein (1974), amongst the gag master�s best works. In fact, after THE PRODUCERS (1968), THE TWELVE CHAIRS (1970) and BLAZING SADDLES (1974), it could be considered the high water mark and last great film of his career. Everything else he made after that was various degrees of crap, especially his only other SF film, the �star wars� spoof SPACEBALLS (1987). In contrast to Brooks, the leading 70s auteur in this �vein� is David Cronenberg� Canada�s bio-horror king. His films are horrific meditations on disease and the physical manifestations of our darkest psychic states. Shivers (1975)...aka �They Came from Within�� was Cronenberg�s first feature, where a �mad scientist� infects the tenants of a Canadian apartment building with a sex-hungry parasite. As is often the case with Cronenberg, he depicts the interwoven relationship between EROS (sex, life) and THANATOS (destruction, death). That relationship is played out again in his vampire horror film RABID (1977), with former porn-star Marilyn Chambers as a sexual predator with a penis-like syringe growing out of her armpit (I shit you not). The Brood (1979) is the embodiment of Cronenberg�s divorce, as an ex-wife is birthing strange murderous devil children, manufactured by her own psychic rage while undergoing experimental treatments, and subconcsciously siccing them on her ex-husband. With Scanners (1981), Cronenberg broke through in the U.S. with a low budget hit about powerful killer psychics who can blow your head apart, and the mad scientist trying to control them. Cronenberg�s VIDEODROME (1983) seems of a distinctly different period, however, as it takes on Rod McCluhen and the effect of media on society, which was a more common theme of the 80s. On the subject of SF auteurs, we turn once again to Michael Chrichton and his adaptation of his own novels, TERMINAL MAN (1974) and COMA (1978), and his original film LOOKER (1981), where, in each film, mad scientists and corporate conspiracies have bio-horrific consequences. In a similar mode, there is the low-budget cloning/political conspiracy thriller THE CLONUS HORROR (1979), but the less said about it the better. I think there was an MST3K version that is preferable. Day of the Dolphin, The (1973) � the �Graduate� team of director Mike Nichols and writer Buck Henry produced this slice of political paranoia about scientist George c. Scott, who teaches his dolphins to talk and, unwittingly, involves them in a presidential assassination plot. �Fa loves Pa� indeed, but is it a love that dare not speak its name? Island of Dr. Moreau, The (1977) � This remake of Charles Laughton�s ISLAND OF LOST SOULS is likewise adapted from HG Wells and falls squarely in the �mad scientist� bio-horror theme. The last remake, with Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer, was a disastrous misfire, but this Burt Lancaster / Michael York version holds up pretty well. Boys from Brazil, The (1978) � This adaptation of Ira Levin�s novel makes for a good SF/thriller, with Gregory Peck cast against type as a Nazi scientist cloning the Fuhrer all over the place. Political paranoia + bio-horror = classic 70s SF. Fury, The (1978) - The poor man�s Hitchcock, Brian DePalma�s �killer psychic� movie came out a few years before SCANNERS and on the tail of his other classic ESP horror film, CARRIE (1976). It�s got the requisite levels of gore and paranoia, but I have little patience for DePalma�s derivative shtick. The whole �killer psychic� theme, which even has a 1968 antecedent with George Pal�s little seen THE POWER, is finally parodied in ZAPPED(1982), where Scott Baio uses his telekinetic powers to see naked high school girls. If anything would indicate the terminal point of an idea, it�s a Scott Baio spoof. Some of the other awful �bio-horror� monsters of the era include the Incredible 2-Headed Transplant, The (1971), Thing with Two Heads, The (1972) , Incredible Melting Man, The (1977), Shock Waves (1977), and Incredible Shrinking Woman, The (1981) But all these creatures are nothing compared to the chest-bursting bio-horror of Ridley Scott�s Alien (1979), one the best horror/sf movies ever made. Our bodies are so fragile in space� where no one can hear you scream. It was said that Galaxy of Terror (1980), a low-budget Corman cheesefest, was an "Alien" ripoff, but it has its own unique charm, where a space crew�s darkest psychic fears are brought to life in an alien ziggurat, including a worm-phobic space hottie getting raped by a giant maggot. Bio-horror then took a new turn when presented in the form of alien invasion: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) � This excellent remake of the 50s Sf classic is a 70s parable of paranoia, where your neighbors and loved ones are not who they pretend to be. This time, even the hero succumbs. The bio-horror dimension of alien invasion in this one recalls Chrichton�s Andromeda Strain, The (1971), in which a virus from space invades our world. In Phantasm (1979), we are invaded by a mortician from another dimension, stealing our dead and reanimating them as slaves in his alternate universe. This one knocked the top off the bizarro-meter, and there were eventual sequels. Anyone who ever saw those flying bladed spheres had nightmares for years thereafter. Like Body Snatchers, Carpenter�s gory remake of the The Thing(1982) is another alien invasion movie that focuses on paranoia and the unreliability of our physical forms as markers of our true selves� our bodies ARE our monsters. Carpenter also composed the haunting Morricone-like score, effectively replicating the human heartbeat. Carpenter�s film is a smart gore-fest miles ahead of the original. Liquid Sky (1982) � This quirky little indie film about aliens that kill us at the height of orgasm brings us back to Cronenberg�s Eros/Thanatos symbiosis theme, but its post-punk NYC sensibility really anticipates the indie film scene of the 80s, and so `82 again becomes a good boundary marker for the end of one era and the beginning of the next. As for the other �alien invasion� movies in the 70s: The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The (1975) was a flop adaptation of a hit stage musical, but it went on to great reknown as one of the earliest midnight cult movies. In fact, the �midnight movie� was itself a 70s movie phenomenon worth noting, fueled in part by the SF films of the period. Man Who Fell to Earth, The (1976) � Brit Nick Roeg�s UK art film features David Bowie as the man who fell to Earth, an innocent alien, eventually corrupted by our ways. David Bowie as an alien? There�s some typecasting for you. It remains a fascinating critique of 70s social values. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) � After JAWS, Speilberg gave us his epic contemplation of an alien invasion of nice little fellas who just want to jam. And 5 year later, Spielberg�s vision is even more gentle and benign, even achieving a spirituality and certain grace in E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982). But the Reeses Pieces? Product placement is so �80s�, man. Speaking of utterly benign, lets not forget Disney�s The Cat From Outer Space (1978). On the other hand, lets. And Hangar 18 (1980) is a low budget take on a UFO in Area 51, from Sunn pictures, which mostly did nature documentaries. This creepy indie predates Scully & Mulder. Of course, no discussion of the �horrors of the body� or invasion of Earth by alien cyborgs would be complete without BLADE RUNNER� but you already know the drill on that topic. Man v Nature On the subject of Bio-horror, there is also the biology of other living things to consider. And the 70s had its share of killer animals and insects, usually as a result of Man�s screwing with the environment. The best of these was Phase IV (1974), directed by graphic designer Saul Bass. This �killer ants� movie is strange, arty, and almost documentary-like in its ant photography, as ants form a collective intelligence and begin to wage war on some desert inhabitants. But most �killer bug� or �monster� movies of the period, like their antecedents in the 1950s, were pretty lame affairs, including: Frogs (1972), Night of the Lepus (1972), Sssssss (1973) , Bug (1975) , Giant Spider Invasion, The (1975) , Food of the Gods, The (1976) , Empire of the Ants (1977) , Kingdom of the Spiders (1977) , Piranha (1978) and Piranha Part Two: The Spawning (1981) , Swarm, The (1978) , Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! (1978) , Prophecy (1979), Humanoids from the Deep (1980), and Alligator (1980). Speaking of Piranha and Alligator, let us also mention Battle Beyond the Stars (1980), which put the �7 samurai / magnificent 7� in outer space, as the third of the SF screenplays of the period by auteur filmmaker John Sayles. He used the fees for writing these genre films to finance his indie films, like RETURN OF THE SECAUSCUS 7, LIANNA, BABY ITS YOU and an excellent SF film some years later, Brother From Another Planet (1984). Time travel: From Lady Liberty to British midgets The time travel concepts played with in PLANET OF THE APES can also be seen in: Slaughterhouse-Five (1972) � this interesting adaptation of Vonnegut�s novel, about young Billy Pilgrim unstuck in time, has a distinct 70s aesthetic and a literary pedigree. It was an anti-war film made and released while we were still hip deep in Vietnam. Sleeper (1973) � This is Woody Allen at the peak of his powers, where he wakes up after 500 years in a sterile, de-sexed future with really big vegetables, orbs and orgasmatrons. As much a consequence of �mad science� as time travel, it still is a movie worth mentioning and is very much near the top of the Woodster�s career. Time After Time (1979) - H.G. Wells travels forward in time, chasing Jack the Ripper to present day (then) San Francisco. The kicker? While the Victorian Wells is a stranger in a strange land, Mad Jack fits right in to our society. Nick Meyer�s excellent film depicts our present as the dystopian future of Wells� nightmares. Altered States (1980) - A mad scientist uses technology, not to time travel, but to de-volve his human form into a more primitive state. It�s a silly movie, with some cool visuals and interesting ideas. Director Ken Russell has the cast reciting Paddy Chayevsky�s dialogue so fast, it becomes a self-parody. But the whole 70s �self-actualizing� movement is really the target here. Final Countdown, The (1980) � Big budget Hollywood adventure where nuclear aircraft carrier Nimitz gets sent back in time to Hawaii, just before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Do they launch a pre-emptive strike and change history? Nobody cared. The Kirk Douglas trilogy of THE FURY, SATURN 3 and FINAL COUNTDOWN didn�t exactly make him Charlton Heston. Time Bandits (1981) � This Python-esque black comedy has a British lad traveling with midgets who�ve stolen God�s map of time, falling into one era after another. Funny and utterly bleak in its outlook, both in its depiction of heroism and of family. BLOCKBUSTERS The �blockbuster� was a 70s phenomenon. Sure, there had been big hit films in the past, but the baby boomers went back to JAWS again and again, creating the �$100m� blockbuster feature, and this vein was tapped over and over, especially by Spielberg and Lucas, the twin towers of modern SF cinema. Star Wars (1977) � After Spielberg�s JAWS, Lucas�s epic space opera kicked the table over. Repeat viewing, cultists, merchandise, multi-media tie-ins, sequels like Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) , became the new way of doing business. None of which should distract from the greatness of these movies and their influence on the next generation of filmmakers. For more on SW and EMPIRE, see http://cranepoolforum.qwknetllc.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=1972&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=20 The other wunderkind, Spielberg, gave us the alien invasion blockbusters Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), as previously discussed, but always worth mentioning twice. Superman (1978) � After BARBARELLA, SUPERMAN was the next superhero to get the big screen treatment, leading to Superman II (1980) Superheroes have become a genre unto themselves, and this is where they got kickstarted. Of course, they got buried again with Swamp Thing (1982), but were resurrected for good with BATMAN in 1989. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) - After merchandising, comics, novels and cartoons, the long awaited sequel to the 60s TV series finally made it to the big screen by the end of the decade. While it is a snooze, the next sequel, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) lived up to the promise and all was forgiven. A dozen feature sequels and 3 TV series later, the property has seemed to finally run out of steam, but it may yet rise again, like Excalibur, or Dr. Phibes. And, of course, 60s icon James Bond had not yet run his course as a genre unto himself, with two entrees in the 70s: Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Connery�s first �last Bond film� (before his last �last Bond film�, NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN), and Roger Moore�s Moonraker (1979), which was perhaps the most SF-ish of the entire series, seemingly trying to cash in on the success of the genre after STAR WARS. The same year, Connery starred in Meteor (1979), a big budget Hollywood ARMAGEDDON / DEEP IMPACT-type story that didn�t work on any level. The Outer Rim Blade Runner (1982) - After the success of ALIEN, Ridley Scott was given the reins to direct a new �blockbuster�� an adaptation of Philip K. Dick�s DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP. He took the themes of 2001 (�killer robot�, and �technology as impetus for evolution�) and the 70s �dystopian future� trope, along with standard �mad scientist�, �bio-horror� and �alien invasion� concepts, and created an iconic film that became the visual and thematic template for the next generation, from TERMINATOR to MATRIX and beyond. Like TRON, this film was a financial flop at first before finding new audiences in the decades to come, indicating a film ahead of its time that could represent a marker for the end of one era and the beginning of the next. For more on Blade Runner, see http://cranepoolforum.net/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=7590 conclusion From 2001 to Blade Runner, the SF films of the 70s era are marked by the socio-political views of the day: paranoia, dystopia, science that kills, bodies that betray us, invaders from without and within� but executed by a new breed of filmmakers coming into their own, with greater technology at their behest and greater control over their filmmaking process. With the failures of Blade Runner and Tron (as well as the studio-destroying fiasco that was the western Heaven�s Gate), the auteur cinema of the 70s era ended, and multimedia companies seized control of the various studios. Feature films of the subsequent decades have demonstrated a homogenized, screen-tested, focus grouped approach to Hollywood filmmaking. As a result, more interesting SF work has been done on TV, where the writer/producer �showrunner� has greater control than is currently in vogue on the big screen. As a result, SF TV is in a renaissance� ... but that�s another story.

2/3 of an excellent movie.

Not flawless, but a better film than NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN by any standard. DDLewis is just about the best actor working today. He can drink MY milkshake any time. For some reason, the movie put me in my mind of a Peckinpah "comedy" called THE BALLAD OF CABLE HOGUE with Jason Robards. I think it had something to do a strong man carving an "empire" (such as it was) out of the wilderness, and being destroyed by the process. Of course, Hogue is a tragic hero and Plainview is a monster. Also, LIFE & TIMES OF JUDGE ROY BEAN comes to mind as well. I prefer both of those pix to this one, but BLOOD definitely has its ... um... charms.

i voted "yeah, that's a Coen Bros movie", but i didn't intend that to be a compliment.

None of the Beatles was from London... they were from Liverpool. And those are very different places. And John Lennon lived out his life and death in NYC, not London. In fact, there is nothing inherently, London-ish about the Beatles, other than they're both English. But the story of the Beatles is not about England. Its about leaving England. First, for Germany, then for the U.S. And musically, from the mersey beat to sitar psychodelia to a more mature sensibility. They were about constant transitions to something new, until they stopped. The movie is about the 60's in America, not the UK. The fab 4 came here, changing our music and culture (not single-handedly, but still), so Taymor naturally constructs a story about a Liverpudlian coming to NYC and becoming involved in our youth culture, witnessing the violence and radicalization of the times, and not only commenting on it but becoming involved in it. Jude's deportation problems in the story parallel Lennon's, too. And Jude's rejection of violence, acting instead out of love, is totally consistent with the songs sung to tell the story. So, Edgy, i completely disagree with you on this. Not to say this is a great or flawless movie... i don't think it is. Psychodelia is best digested in very small doses (so to speak), and this movie is a half-hour too long because of it. And it adds almost nothing except imagery that has become excrutiatingly cliched. And some of the performances and interpretations of the songs leave something to be desired. In fact, I have little interest in hearing the soundtrack of this movie. But on the whole, I felt that the love story at its heart is a genuine one, and it uses the songs to trace the development of their story, as well as parallel the times in which they lived, even tracking the lives of the Beatles themselve (including the final concert on the roof, which evokes the LET IT BE concert footage). I don't see the "shoehorning" problem... i see a narrative that rises organically from the songs.

i guess i was the victim of hype, but i wasn't blown away. Random thoughts: - Yes, Bardem's psycho-killer is a great character, and Brolin is excellent, too. They're all great, in fact. Even Woody Harrelson in his little bitty part. - The Coens covered similar ground in their first flick, BLOOD SIMPLE, a Texas-noir made with alot more style and more fun. - Bardem walking around with that compressed air tank reminded me of Dennis Hopper's character, Frank Booth, in BLUE VELVET, sucking off a nitrous tank before going on his murderous psycho rampages. - Tommy Lee Jones' sheriff reminds me of the FARGO sheriff... grounded, sympathetic, smart. But he's given alot less to do. He seemed utterly peripheral until the last 20 minutes, when the filmmakers decided to make him the protagonist. A little late for that, guys. That, in a nutshell, was my problem with the ending. I'm ok with a story where [spoiler alert] the bad guy wins, or where the tight, chase structure of the narrative is purposefully undermined by a vague, philosophical, contemplative ending. But the shift in viewpoint seemed unearned to me, and unestablished by what preceded it, and so was frustrating and unsatisfying, in a narrative sense. Disclaimer: I didn't read the book, and I don't like the Coen Brothers. In fact, of their entire output, I really liked only MILLER'S CROSSING, and i liked only aspects of BLOOD SIMPLE, FARGO and RAISING ARIZONA. The rest either leave me cold, or inspire me to hurl rotten vegetables at the screen. But that's just me.

it was popular, but utterly mediocre.

Chuckie, you're certainly entitled to your opinion. But the depth of your ignorance on this topic is so profound, I've been rendered nearly mute. Nearly.

if all he wanted to do was get Clooney out of the car, he could've just had him stop to pee on a tree. Of course, then, the gesture that saves him isn't one of purity and beauty, but one of having to relieve himself. so that whole "redemption" thing gets lost. The fact that you didn't get the scene doesn't make it a "plot hole".

RealityChuck wrote: On of Sondheim's better scores (he may write great lyrics, but he's a third-rate composer, and his best work is when someone else wrote the music)... You've said some stuff in the past that has made me scratch my head, or just shake it in vigorous disagreement, but this one is a topper.

lovvvvve this movie.

What... no love for MIDNIGHT EXPRESS, BIRDY or THE WALL? I'd take any of those over MISSISSIPPI BURNING, but that's just me.

I hate my team. No power, no saves and Andy Pettitte on my staff. fucking auto-draft.

It's a cop movie to me. The setting is just a part of the story. Though I can see why that's objectionable. I don't like the idea of burning down the World Trade Center all over again just to tell Nicholas Cage's story, and I don't like sinking the Titanic just to tell some ditzy upstair-downstairs romance. But i don't think it was just story backdrop to Parker, because he so often examines social themes in his movies, as i tried to describe above. If all he wanted was to tell a compelling police procedural, you don't need to re-write history to do it. That he DID use the historical events around this racially-charged pivotal moment of the civil rights era suggests it was central to his point, not just a context or backdrop. The fact that you perceive it basically as a cop movie is, to me, just an example of how he failed to make his point, not that he wasn't trying to make one.