Inconceivable
March 8th – March 14th
Under Great White Northern Lights — See review.
Academy Award Nominated Animated Short films – Managed to catch 4 of the 5 nominees in online videos (unfortunately missed out on the Wallace & Gromit short). The Oscar winner Logorama took a clever concept that ties pervasive marketing with cinematic conventions to create a cop chase turned ad-pocalypse. French Roast, Granny O’Grimms Sleeping Beauty, and The Lady and the Reaper were all adequate animated shorts. But none of them rose above my standard for animated shorts this year–the Ellie and Carl scene at the beginning of Pixar’s Up.
Paper Bag — As part of the FUTURESTATES project, Ramin Bahrani (Man Push Cart, Goodbye Solo) has created a brilliant short film about a plastic grocery bag. A comment on both excessive pollution and consumerism, the movie also manages to be something more. With his voice work contribution, Werner Herzog allows the film to also be a touching piece of existentialism.
The FUTURESTATES project has tasked “11 renowned and up-and-coming filmmakers to take the current state of affairs in the United States, and extrapolate them into stories of the nation in the not-so-distant future.” I can’t wait to check out the other ten.
The Breakfast Club – Another one of those movies that I could say I’ve seen countless times but in reality have not seen in an un-cut, from beginning to end, way in quite some time (at least since I last had a working VCR). It certainly inhabits a Hughesian world where the “criminal” can hook-up with the “princess” by the end credits. It’s all a bit hokey and stupid, but there are enough hints at honesty and genuine nostalgia to allow the film to hold up after twenty-five years.
Hamlet 2 – An okay movie with some genuinely hilarious moments that didn’t add up to much. Steve Coogan is great. And there are some really funny scenes. And a wonderful song–”Rock Me Sexy Jesus.” But, I was underwhelmed with the film as a whole. I was wanting it to be something that it was unable to live up to.
Them! – The fourth installment in our Sci-fi Horror Marathon. This one was released way back in 1954. New Mexico State Police are soon joined by the FBI after one of the Bureau’s own goes missing in a mysterious attack. The two agencies are joined by a father-daughter team of scientists from the Department of Agriculture. After pursuing the various leads, the investigators finally discover that the attacks have been perpetrated by giant ants which have mutated as a result of recent atomic weapons testing. Eventually supplemented with military firepower, the group tracks the giant ants to the Los Angeles storm sewer system where they are eventually destroyed.
This movie was surprisingly well paced and plotted. The eventual appearance of the giant ants does provoke a modern chuckle. By today’s standards, the thing looks a bit silly. After that initial appearance though, I did not have a problem with the ant monsters. They were photographed nicely and used sparingly enough to not be off-putting.
I thought the catatonic girl who starts screaming upon smelling the formic acid was particularly creepy and added to the initial suspense of the film. The female scientist, Pat Medford (Joan Weldon), was an interesting role. While it wasn’t a major role, the fact that this female character was both a doctor and scientist and not simply shoehorned in as a romantic foil was a true surprise. There was a sexist remark made her way (something along the lines of: if she’s the kind of doctor that makes house calls, I could develop a fever real fast). If anything, the line just makes the man saying them seem like a pig.
The film obviously plays against the very real fears of the atomic age. The giant ants suggest a scary outcome to this atomic tinkering.
When Man entered the atomic age, he opened a door into a new world. What we’ll eventually find in that new world, nobody can predict.
The ants also suggest the spread of communism in the age of McCarthyism. The monster ants suggest both a domestic spread of communism as well as the fear of a global march of communism. Destroy the queen, and you destroy the colony. It is the policy of Containment used to prevent the domino-like spread of communism. Bonus: an early Leonard Nimoy appearance.
The Princess Bride – A personal favorite that I haven’t seen in quite a while (also since I had a working VCR). It’s also one that my wife has never seen in its entirety. Now that it is available on Netflix Instant Viewing…she still hasn’t seen it in its entirety (falling asleep about two-thirds of the way through). Perhaps it’s one that you just have to fall for at a younger age.
I still have a great time with it. The movie has everything. Wallace Shawn. Andre the Giant. A six-fingered Christopher Guest. A princess. Romance. Sword fighting. Poison. Pirates. Torture.
