"The Day The Earth Stood Still" review

So much more than a classic

Directed by the legendary Robert Wise, “The Day the Earth Stood Still” is one of the best science fiction films of all time.  Adapted from the sublime short story “Farewell to the Master” by Harry Bates, this iconic movie was released in 1951, when the threat of global nuclear obliteration was at its frenzied apex.  Since then, the story has not lost one iota of its urgency and relevance.  In fact, the more than half century that has passed since the film's premiere has made its final warning even more poignant.

Humanoid alien Klaatu, subtly underplayed by Englishman Michael Rennie, lands his flying saucer in Washington DC, unintentionally instigating a worldwide wave of panic.  Though his purpose is peaceful, Klaatu is accidentally shot by a jittery soldier.  When his requests to address prominent international leaders about his mission are met with snorts of derision, Klaatu decides to magically vanish from his military hospital bed and see for himself if the everyday citizens of Earth are more open-minded and less fearful.

With the authorities searching desperately to find their escaped prisoner from another world, Klaatu befriends a young boy named Bobby, whose youthful enthusiasm is still boundless despite his father’s passing in World War II.  Klaatu knows something about the futility of armed conflict, and he enlists Bobby to help him find someone who will hear what Klaatu has to say: someone who will listen without prejudice. 

So begins the lead-in to one of my most cherished moments in all of cinema.  At Bobby’s suggestion, he and Klaatu pay a visit to Professor Barnhardt, delightfully portrayed by Sam Jaffe.  Finding the professor absent from his office, Klaatu leaves a calling card by solving a complex mathematical equation on the professor’s chalkboard.  This earns him a private meeting, and when Klaatu arrives, he reveals his identity to the professor’s astonishment and joy.

Klaatu puts his life in Professor Barnhardt’s hands, and there is no question about the answer.  The professor quickly walks to his office door and tells the MP that he can go because he knows this man.  Klaatu is pleased and says: “You have faith, Professor Barnhardt.”  Barnhardt replies: “It isn’t faith that makes good science, Mr. Klaatu, it’s curiosity.”  Is that not the argument of the age?  Doesn’t it so succinctly encapsulate the struggles of all human history?

At last we come to the one line of dialogue that utterly undoes me every time.  Professor Barnhardt bids Klaatu to sit down and fixes him with a piercing gaze of intense longing and says: “There are several thousand questions I should like to ask you.”  I am in tears at this heartfelt plea because only the professor understands the colossal potential of what this meeting represents.  Barnhardt is the one person on the entire planet who sees Klaatu for what he is: the greatest single source of knowledge that humankind has ever encountered.

Everyone else on Earth has been mentally hobbled by the hysteria spread through radio and television.  They have stopped thinking critically and calmly.  Instead, the murmuring mob reacts like children crowded round a campfire, shivering with fright at the scary stories being spun with reckless abandon.  Ignorance looms like the advancing twilight.  Only Professor Barnhardt, with his intellect and healthy ego is immune to the subconscious mewling of the lizard brain.  His aching desire to learn is a light in the darkness and serves as a shining example to us all.

Klaatu's final speech to the scientists and other luminaries gathered by Professor Barnhardt is a jaw dropper.  Standing proud and stern on the hull of his ship with the imposing Gort at his back, Klaatu issues an ultimatum of total annihilation should we extend our fledgling atomic activities beyond our little globe.  No threat to the security of the other worlds will be tolerated.  Yet, there is still hope, for Klaatu promises that the Earth will be spared if we can finally put away childish things.  The choice is ours, and if we choose wisely, the entire galaxy will be waiting for us.

“The Day the Earth Stood Still” is not only one of the best films of its genre; it is one of the greatest of all time.  It confronts us with our greatest failings and also celebrates our fondest aspirations.  It shows us who we are and what we would like to be.  It is a dream from the past about a future we could all share if we could only open our hearts and minds wide enough to see the stars and the dazzling destiny that awaits us. When we can finally create the sense of unity that enables us to love our differences and leave our fears behind, then we can truly begin to live.

"Making A Murderer" review

A tragic collusion of presumptions

Documentaries are a snake pit of competing perspectives.  Regardless of any director’s claims to objectivity, the very nature of filming is subjective.  No matter how vociferously one may swear to have no agenda, the moment a camera is picked up and shooting begins, choices are made.  Since both the filmmakers and the audience take part in constructing their own personal narrative, the final frame rarely creates a complete consensus on the truth.  Netflix’s original documentary series “Making A Murderer” is compelling and also galling precisely because even after ten hour-long episodes, certitude is scanty.

I binge-watched the entire series one Saturday afternoon and finished at three the following morning.  I had never done this before, and it clearly demonstrates the alluring complexity of the extraordinary circumstances in the life of Stephen Allen Avery.  The story is mesmerizing, the twists are shocking and “Making A Murderer” had instant appeal to a wide audience because of the lingering questions about what Stephen Avery did or did not do.  The case is catnip for conspiracy theorists, who delight in having so much fodder from which to peddle their own theories.

From the very start and throughout the series, every single viewer becomes an armchair detective. When it’s over, they recast themselves as prosecutors or defense attorneys as they argue their particular viewpoints with their family, friends and co-workers.  Everyone has a hypothesis and is sure that theirs is correct.  This is an easy position to adopt since the incomplete evidence, the inconsistencies in testimony and the outright malicious actions on the part of local law enforcement create holes through which many alternate tales can be woven.  The case is a tantalizing puzzle and possibly the greatest gift to water cooler conversation since the JFK assassination.

However, I believe Stephen Avery is innocent for several reasons.  First of all, if Teresa Halbach had been murdered and disposed of as the prosecution claims, then those rooms on Stephen Avery’s property would literally be dripping with her DNA.  Yet the investigators found nothing.  Blood cannot be completely removed from most objects without leaving a chemical trail of some kind, and I don’t believe that Stephen Avery possesses the brains or ability to so utterly expunge all the forensic evidence from a crime scene that should have resembled an abattoir.

Secondly, the key fob from Teresa’s car is found by someone who should not have been allowed to participate in the investigation much less visit the actual crime scene due to a direct conflict of interest.  This person “discovered” the key lying in plain sight after six previous searches by other individuals failed to spot it.  Here’s the kicker: only Stephen Avery’s DNA is detected on the fob.  This is f*cking IMPOSSIBLE.  Teresa Halbach had that key fob in her possession for years, and it should have been soaked in her DNA in the same way as a wet sponge.  Such an obviously manipulated piece of evidence should never have been judged admissible.

Finally, though he is never interviewed on camera, Stephen Avery’s voice and face is present throughout the series via recordings of phone interviews and trial proceedings.  While he is clearly of average intelligence, I could not detect anything in Avery’s choice of words or manner of speaking that contained the slightest whiff of malevolence.  What little is known about Avery’s childhood is certainly not enough in my opinion to justify the despicable things of which he is repeatedly accused.  Furthermore, even after the majority of Avery’s adult life is destroyed by these unfounded accusations, he never displays any rage nor swears any oaths of vengeance.

Now, left alone to rot in prison for the second time, deemed an indefensible pariah even by pro bono legal organizations, Stephen Avery has taken up his case upon himself.  His assertion of innocence has never wavered, and the news and notoriety generated by the series has raised hope from the ashes again.  But even if Avery is granted a new trail, the process will already have been irrevocably stained by the previous assumptions of guilt.  The muckraking media knows a lurid story when they see one, and refuses to address the contradictions of the case.  The court of public opinion has largely condemned Stephen Avery, having also ignored problematic evidence.  I would wager that were he still alive, Lee Harvey Oswald would sympathize.

"Nightcrawler" review

A dark chocolate with a hollow center

Martin Scorcese’s “Taxi Driver” is a heartrendingly tragic spiral into the black hole of loneliness, and Robert DeNiro’s career-making performance as war vet turned cabbie Travis Bickle epitomizes the emptiness of someone becoming emotionally disconnected from the rest of the world.  Travis is drowning under rising waves of impotence and rage, and this psychological abyss threatens to consume him.  “Nightcrawler” tries to capture this same, sinking sensation of impending doom, but the film's story, much like its main character, remains callow and superficial.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s stark-eyed turn as freelance news videographer Lou Bloom is effectively unsettling, but it lacks the emotional fragility that made Travis Bickle so sympathetic.  Nothing is revealed about Lou Bloom's background to make his actions credible and therefore somewhat understandable.  By the time the credits roll, any glimmers of humanity have been extinguished and Lou Bloom has become a monster. The problem is that we still don’t know why.  This absence of personal motivation is particularly glaring when Lou seeks a romance with Nina Romana, a producer for a bottom tier news channel.

Rene Russo’s performance is compellingly creepy, but unfortunately her character also remains hastily sketched.  Both Lou and Nina are horrible husks of human beings, so Lou’s attraction to Nina makes some twisted sense in that he would find her "quirks" familiar.  However, Lou's pursuit of Nina still feels more like a plot contrivance than a need driven by character desire.  Near the end, when Lou betrays his young assistant and receives no rebuke from Nina, their relationship transforms this sordid story into something truly loathsome: a serial killer soap opera.

“Nightcrawler” feels like a documentary about pornography in which the filmmaker was unable or unwilling to take a stand on whether porn is good or bad or something in between.  The film is sumptuously shot.  The wee small hours of LA's city streets are a lurid labyrinth of glitz and grime, yet very little of substance comes to light as Lou willingly submerges himself deeper into amoral darkness.  Without an origin for his impulses, Lou’s actions become increasingly incomprehensible, and watching this slow, deliberate descent soon fails to be exciting or even interesting.  Instead it just makes you want to take a shower.

"The Legend of Hell House" - review

A titillating thriller with class

Author Richard Matheson penned many stories over in his long career that were turned into films, and one of the best adaptations is the 1973 version of Matheson’s novel “Hell House.”  With a screenplay by Matheson and direction by Hammer Film’s John Hough, “The Legend of Hell House” rubs ghostly shoulders with Robert Wise’s “The Haunting” and Lewis Allen’s “The Uninvited” as one of the best of all haunted house movies.  While the two earlier films are more subtle in their supernatural shenanigans, all three share an excellent emphasis on the building of dramatic tension.

While “The Legend of Hell House” is a more recent horror film and thus able to be increasingly explicit, thankfully both Matheson and Hough appreciate the value of restraint.  The movie is not cheapened by pointless bloody set pieces, and Matheson also understood that certain sexual aspects of his novel would not pass muster with the movie censors.  There are many lurid elements, but the story never becomes vulgar.  Like its predecessors, this film is suggestive but still remains sophisticated.

As the brooding physicist Dr. Barret, Clive Revill is unswerving in his belief that the spiritual forces in the Belasco mansion can be expunged scientifically with his newly minted machine.  His wife Ann, played by the mature yet sensual Gayle Hunnicutt, is more open to the dark influence of the moldy mansion, yet she never becomes a one-dimensional victim.  Roddy McDowell steadfastly forecasts doom as the weary parapsychologist Benjamin Fischer, the sole survivor of a previous attempt to investigate the Belasco mansion.  Pamela Franklin as young medium Florence Tanner brings a youthful optimism and pride that her skills alone will reveal ancient secrets and bring healing to the phantom palace.

The production design is superb, and the camera placement consistently frames each scene to capture all the gothic details and the devils that may lie within.  The eyes are drawn to every dark corner, hideous sculpture, and loathsome painting, waiting for something to leap from the shadows.  Despite repeated attempts to "clean" the sepulchral space, the malignant mayhem in the mansion only increases in ferocity.  The finale is terrific because it not only makes sense, but it also aligns with everything that has been alluded to previously.  Though the horror is over, uncertainty hangs in the air, insinuating that spectral memories may linger long after the last rites.

"Electric Boogaloo" review

So bad it’s good, or is it?

Ah, the eighties!  The narcissism, the snowdrifts of cocaine and the hurricane of hot pink and neon yellow fashion that assaulted the eyes in much the same way that Cannon Films assaulted multiplex audiences with their cheaply produced and sleazily advertised action flicks and teenybopper sexcapades.  Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus had worked hard to realize their childhood dream of coming to Hollywood to make their own films, but depending on who you talk to, it’s still up for heated debate whether they made any good ones!

The truest answer is a mixture of both.  There are a few actually decent movies in the library of Cannon Films, and they even managed to earn an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film with their Dutch production of "The Assault" in 1986.  However, the vast majority of Golan-Globus productions were honestly exuberant yet hideously day-glo disasters.  Nonsensical, nearly plotless monstrosities that wore their clumsy pastiche like a patchwork cloak robbed from the grave of a former king.  These movies didn’t care how bad they were, they practically reveled in their tawdry glory!

Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus began their careers in their native Israel with tiny budgets and almost no preparation, yet both men learned quickly how to make the most of very little.  However, the success they earned did not teach them to make better films as they moved forward.  Instead, this dynamic duo focused on quantity over quality, and this emphasis eventually brought about their downfall.

Even the most undiscerning viewer will eventually tire of the same formula, and the output and style of Cannon Films was never able to exorcise the distinct aura of exploitation and sensationalism so redolent in their early films.  This lurid and prurient pall hovered over all their succeeding works, leaving an lingering unease inside, as if the viewer had just consumed a cheeseburger that while not spoiled, did not sit well in the stomach.

Still, sometimes garbage can be fun, and Cannon Films has the distinction of making some of the best “So Bad It’s Good” movies of all time.  Such hilarious atrocities as “The Apple” are astonishing examples of how bad a movie can be right from the start and get worse through its entire running time.  Though made with the best of intentions, this putrescent rock and roll fable is a musical train wreck that steadfastly refuses to stop exploding with sound and fury while signifying nothing.

Regardless of your taste in films, I recommend that a few Golan-Globus productions be experienced if only to bolster the appreciation of the fact that while commitment and perseverance are key factors in filmmaking; if you are unable or unwilling to learn from your mistakes, you will be doomed to repeat them.  At least in the case of Cannon Films, everyone’s funny bone can unintentionally benefit!

"Fright Night" 2011 - review

A Rippingly Good Remake

Horror reboots are certainly not a new trend in cinema, but as most are usually greedy cash grabs from opportunistic studios with no respect for the source material, such offerings are often rightly reviled before they are even released.  Therefore it is a delight to discover a scary movie that is not only a proper tribute to the original, but one that also works surprisingly well on its own.  The first “Fright Night” from 1985 was a creepy yet very funny horror film which adeptly balanced genuine scares with cheesy camp.  Director Craig Gillespie’s remake retains both these admirable qualities while adding some adroit alterations to the story.

While the original film took place in an old-fashioned, tree-lined street to evoke that nostalgic fifties feeling, Gillespie smartly sets his retelling in a modern, newly-built suburb outside glitzy Las Vegas.  Aside from being encircled by endless acres of empty desert which stretch to the horizon in all directions, many of the houses in this lonely bedroom community are still unoccupied.  This creates a superb sense of isolation because even before the danger takes wing, we know that the characters have no one to help them and literally nowhere to hide.

Anton Yelchin, more recently of “Star Trek” reboot fame, plays Charlie Brewster, the teenager who ultimately realizes that he lives next door to a vampire.  In a nice role reversal, it is Charlie’s best friend Ed who first suspects that something evil is loose in the neighborhood and Charlie is the one who needs convincing.  Yet students keep disappearing from their school, and when master vampire Jerry Dandridge gets wind of Charlie and Ed’s suspicions, the blood really begins to spurt.

The choice of Colin Farrell as the master vampire may seem odd at first as Farrell’s previous acting talents had mostly consisted of a sad parade of furrowed brows and pouty lips.  He was a pity puppy shamelessly trolling for sympathy.  Farrell obliterates this saccharine sweetness with a terrifying performance that radiates ruthless malevolence.  Jerry Dandridge wears his cruelty like a crown, and you love to hate him as he callously toys with his “food” before eating it, the fear adding flavor to the meal.

Since Late night horror movie hosts are more obsolete than the VHS players which replaced them, Charlie Brewster’s unlikely ally against evil becomes a burnt out glam magician.  Peter Vincent, deliriously played by David Tennant, has a Grand Guignol-style Vegas act chockfull of cheesy nineties Goth themes. While Peter’s moral exhaustion at whoring his talent with such undead clichés makes for some hilarious quips, he’s never so cynical that all empathy is extinguished, and his character provides yet another clever change from the original film when Peter reveals that certain elements of his act are not as fantastical as they seem.

The final descent into Jerry’s lair is a mostly silent, breathless and nail-gnawing exercise in claustrophobia.  There are no lights, and the darkness is compounded by the fact that though the house is furnished, there are no signs of human habitation.  This sterility is horrifying, because we know something lives here, and the shifting shades of black and grey incite the imagination to run wild even before the fangs and talons finally erupt from the shadows.  Craig Gillespie's “Fright Night” is that rarest of remakes; a modern version of a classic story that honors the past while offering a spine-tingling vision of the present!