The Trifecta: Snake, MacReady, Burton!

If you google "best trilogies" you'll get the usual. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, The Godfather... A friend of mine recently sent me a photo message of her 55" television and on it was a map of Middle Earth. She was tucking into the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I was so jealous as I don't seem to have that kind of time these days and it made me think of movie sessions I'd done and enjoyed. Obviously Lord of the Rings has been done several times. But there was also "theme days", like creature features or Spielberg only or Christmas movies... you get the idea. In the spirit of this I think the Kurt Russell/John Carpenter collaboration is a worthy addition to the list. Contrary to the title, they've worked on five projects together but the middle three are an exercise in movie making perfection and should be watched by anyone with a shred of cinematic dignity (and you know, the time).

                                                        Escape From New York
I'm a bit freaked out by the start of this movie now. A bunch of militant assholes hijack Air Force One and crash it into the heart of New York. Bear in mind, this movie was made 20 years before the attacks on 9/11. Anyway, for the uninitiated: As mentioned above Air Force One has been crashed into the heart of New York. That's bad enough but what's worse is, due to a continued spike in crime, The Big Apple is now a maximum security prison. Walls have been built up around it and are manned by police. Mines have been placed on bridges and anyone hoping to get out on a raft will be blown out of the water (literally) by a lurking helicopter. You'd assume there's boats out there too... So, the President (Donald Pleasance) has managed to escape in a pod and with him is a tape which he needs to bring to a summit involving USA, China and Russia in order to restore world peace.

Enter the coolest anti hero in the history of cinema, Snake Plissken. Snake is a gun fighter, thief and all round badass! He wears an eye patch. I've been told it's because his eye is sensitive to light but I always assumed he only had the one. Either way it matters not because it's fucking COOL! Snake has finally been captured by the establishment and is being transported to New York Prison to serve out his life sentence... When the President's plane goes down, Hauk, played by the amazing Lee Van Cleef, helicopters into the prison city to try to negotiate with one of the inmates. He's given one of the President's fingers and told, "if you're not up in the air in 30 seconds he dies"...

Optionless, Hauk dangles freedom in front of Plissken. All he has to do is sneak into New York and rescue the president using any means necessary and deliver him within 24 hours. Snake reluctantly accepts (see clip below) As you can imagine hi-jinks ensue. Isaac Hayes, Harry Dean Stanton, Adrienne Barbeau, Tom Atkins are all excellent additions and what a genius piece of casting it was to get Ernest Borgnine in as the eccentric "Cabbie".


However, the biggest piece of genius in a movie riddled with it must go to Kurt Russell who decided to play Snake like Clint Eastwood because Lee Van Cleef was Eastwood's enemy in The Good The Bad and The Ugly. To say that decision paid off is a huge understatement. Snake's quiet sibilance is extremely effective and only adds to his coolness. As for the movie itself. It is a quiet riot. Fast paced but not without moments to gather yourself. And, apart from the inferior sequel, there really isn't anything else quite like this. Just bad character imitations. Riddick enthusiasts have EFNY to thank for paving the way. I'll leave you with a Plissken quote, "I don't give a fuck about your war or your president". Still relevant? Oh hell yes. Great way to start the trifecta!

                                                                The Thing
The Thing is that rare beast. A remake that is not only good but improves upon the original. Oddly enough, as good as the movie is, when it was released in 1982 nobody went to see it. Why not? ET. That's why. Spielberg's favourite alien was winning the hearts of movie goers all over the world and when The Thing came out, nobody wanted to watch a movie about a shape shifting alien that becomes a copy of the person it infects. They missed out. The Thing is a powerhouse of performances, special fx, pace and story telling all under the watchful eye of a director at the very top of his game.

You'd have to feel sorry for Carpenter. To make a movie this good only for everyone to turn on you (the critics called him the pornographer of violence, a title he now adores) must have been tough to absorb. But The Thing is much more than a sci fi horror. It's a commentary on AIDS, the alien in this movie infects you and takes you over cell by cell but it doesn't reveal itself until it needs to fight. It's also a commentary on the fear of Communism. In 1982 America was still suspicious of Russia and vice versa. Trust, is a huge plot device in the movie and MacReady alludes to it in the scene below which, despite being a basic "recap of events" scene, is nonetheless perfectly lit by DP legend Dean Cundey. Check it out:

Russell plays MacReady as a tough pilot who doesn't say anything unless it's worth saying and doesn't do anything unless it's worth doing. Unfortunately for "Mac" shit gets real in a big way in this movie and from the moment an infected dog arrives at their base in the Antarctic, his gruff and tough ways are called upon. From flying a helicopter out to the nearby Norweigian camp in high winds to torching aliens left right and centre, Mac is kept pretty busy. It all leads to the now legendary "petri-dish scene". Mac takes everyone hostage and demands a blood sample from the remaining crew. Each are assigned their own petri-dish. He dips a hot needle into each dish and if there's a reaction, they'd be able to identify who the "thing" is. It's pure brilliance! If Spielberg or any of the "top men" wrote this scene, they'd still be banging on about it. It's not just the special fx (which are spectacular) it's not just the acting (also top notch) but the way the camera moves. The way it leads you into every incident in the scene. It's easy to miss how smooth a job Carpenter does because the shocks come fast and furious but when you've watched it for the umpteenth time, you start to grasp just how much of a genius Carpenter was...

The music by Ennio Morricone is predictably excellent. Not what you'd expect but it really fits. Rob Bottin (picture) was 21 when he did the fx for this movie. He got a little help from Stan Winston who took over for the famous dog kennel scene. The fact that Winston's scene which is horrifically brilliant, isn't the best fx scene in the movie says a lot about Bottin's work.

The movie is not for everyone. It has dollops of humour for those of a darker disposition but everyone else may find it all a bit too grim. It's extremely shocking and that's too much for some. But the talent involved is too big to ignore and the class of the movie overcomes the idiotic reviews it initially received. Time has also been really good to the movie: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1021244-thing/  and it's an excellent "middle movie" in this trilogy. Where do we go from here? Bonkers town!

                                                    Big Trouble In Little China
When you've just watched The Thing and you've another movie to go you need something different. You need something special. You need something, dare I say it, happy. Big Trouble In Little China is described as "A mystical action adventure comedy kung-fu monster ghost story". It's all those things and more... so much more. For this is the movie of Jack Burton! And Jack Burton means hilarity to those of us who get him. Sadly, we live in a world where not everybody gets him. As heroes go, Jack is a guy who thinks he is the absolute bollocks but in actual fact doesn't succeed because of himself but succeeds in spite of himself and the size of his delusions are matched only by the size of his truck which he lovingly calls "The Pork Chop Express". All aboard!

Did I mention that Kurt Russell is a genius? Having played Snake Plissken like Clint Eastwood he decided to play Jack Burton as a full on John Wayne piss take and it's wondrous! We meet Jack Burton on his way to San Francisco, Chinatown in the Pork Chop Express and he's "talkin' to whoever is listening out there" gabbing pearls of Burton wisdom out through his CB radio. None of it making any sense, all of it immensely quotable. So he meets up with his buddies and they immediately start gambling. Jack comes out on top (for once) but his good friend, Wang, has no money so they go to the airport together to pick up Wang's girlfriend after which he'll pay Jack his dues (ahem).

Anyway, Wang's green eyed lady gets kidnapped and shit escalates.... big time. Turns out Jack and Wang have stumbled into a battle that's been raging for thousands of years. David Lo Pan (played hilariously by James Hong) is a demon cursed to walk the earth as a kind of ghost and the only way he can lift the curse is to marry a green eyed Chinese girl and then kill her... hence the kidnapping. If he does this he then intends to rule the world because, ya know... demon. Good guys come together to fight him and with Jack Burton leading them, what can go wrong? Well lots actually and all of it is hilarious. Thanfully Egg Shen (Victor Wong also superb) is on hand to give aid. You find out as the movie progresses that he has been fighting Lo Pan forever... If you don't know what's happening in the movie don't worry about it. It's kind of the point. Jack Burton has no idea either. Take a look:                              

You may have noticed Kim Catrall by now and, hard as it is to believe, she was attractive once. She also had "cracker jack (comic) timing" and contrary to the dreadful persona that's attached itself to her like a disgusting arse barnacle (I am of course referring to Samantha from that hideous show) she was more than a one note actor. She plays plucky lawyer, Gracie Law (no really) and her chemistry with Russell is hugely enjoyable. It really helps to centre the movie and give you a plot point to hold onto when everything starts going insane... which it frequently does. David Lo Pan takes a fancy to Gracie and you really can't blame the old guy.

There's an abundance of joy in this movie for those who give it a chance. There's serious re-watch value too. It has nothing in common with the previous movies in this trifecta and it feels utterly original. It's another Carpenter movie that nobody went to see but did well with audiences years later. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/big_trouble_in_little_china/

Ahead of its time? I don't know. I just think there's a sense of humour in here that isn't for everyone. I put it to you like this, if you can't see the humour in a centuries old demon using phrases like "now this really pisses me off to no end" then this movie probably isn't for you.

So there you have it. A trifecta of movies that should be savoured by all. If you find yourself with a spare 6 hours, you could do an awful lot worse.

Cheers,

G.

Are You an Atheist? Not Exactly.

I'm not really sure why but I've been asked several times recently if I am an atheist. People just assume I am because of my loathing of organised religion. The truth is, I don't think it's as easy as placing a label on someone and summing them up with a title. "There's Graham, he's an atheist." I'm not actually but I will allow that I hold more in common with atheism than any "person of faith". Still, a question has been asked so here goes.

Short answer: I'm a humanist. If you must label me, label me that. To quote Al Pacino (ironically enough playing Satan) in Devil's Advocate, "I'm a fan of man". Stick me in with the guys who like evidence to back up their beliefs. Put me in the category of people who think what's happening at NASA or what a pediatrician does every day is way more inspiring than any religious concept. The problem with this thinking (for some) is that proof puts us on firm ground in any existential debate and if you are continuously backing your beliefs up with facts while the other side revert to Book of Mormon type soundbites like, "I just believe", you start to look like a bit of a dick. "Stop insulting my faith" is an oft used line. "I'm not insulting it, I'm merely backing mine up with facts. What have you got to back yours up?" No matter what they come back with you will end up listening to unsubstantiated drivel. And again, you'll look like an asshole for pointing that out. It's worth it though and I've always been comfortable being right. If you want a more long winded answer, read on.

Long answer: Born in '76 a Catholic, I was never really sold on its teachings. Too much judgement and damnation for my liking. Couple of serious plot holes in there too... Fast forward to the 90's and the child molesting scandals were all over the news. At that point, priests who had always made me pretty uncomfortable with their "forgiveness powers" (how anyone ever let their kid go into a confession booth is beyond me) and generally crazy opinions were exposed. Some of them were molesting children. The rest of them were apologising for the crimes. Hardly any of them went to jail. Catholicism, which had been on life support anyway was, at that point, dead to me. You only need watch one History Channel documentary to see what a destructive force it has been through the centuries. Burning women for being witches, The Crusades, Magdalene Laundries, cover ups and continued child abuse etc. It is literally drowning in innocent blood.

I'm also uncomfortable with how relaxed we are with people who say things like "God spoke to me and told me to run for President"- Michele Bachmann. Now, I know this woman is crazy and maybe you do too but many people believe her. It doesn't occur to them to follow that statement to its conclusion. Here's Maggie in The Newsroom, she's a Christian but isn't afraid to ask questions:

While we're at it, doesn't the Pope have a direct line to Heaven? There are people who believe he hears the voice of God. And I remember as recently as the 1980's this was a commonly held belief. Now, since then people have changed their view on this but they still see the Pope as a beacon of hope. Before I get into why he isn't, shouldn't we give this whole Pope thing a serious rethink? Most of us agree that the Pope doesn't talk to God. That being the case, why should his opinion hold any weight at all? Because he's the head of a corrupt organisation? Granted, this latest Pope seems to have a firm grasp on the reality that we are destroying the planet and he's also trying to make Catholicism more accessible. The problem is, the rhetoric remains the same. Allow me to paraphrase Pope Francis: "Gays, single mothers, women who've had abortions you are all welcome in the house of God... as long as you seek forgiveness". How dare he! How dare he ask a gay person to beg forgiveness for being what they are. How dare he ask a woman to apologise for making a choice only she can fully understand! He also thinks smacking kids is fine... nice chap, eh.

Lastly, on Catholicism. Let's have a little chat about sex. The Catholic church is fucking obsessed with it. They don't want you to have pleasure sex. You're only meant to screw if you're married and trying to have a baby. This is a very worrying concept. Sex is healthy. It's good for you. It's not some dirty, wretched thing that will corrupt you. Marriage isn't for everyone either. There are some people who simply don't do well in long term relationships. Are they to go without sex? The joke here of course is that many priests in Ireland were and still are in very healthy relationships and are screwing all around them while enjoying the benefits of safe sex. Some of them even have children. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this. It's natural. What's unnatural is the idea that having sex with an adult* is somehow cheating on God. It's fucking mental!!! There's always been craziness when it came to sex though. For example: Women used to have to visit a priest after they'd had a baby to be "churched." I'm not making this up. The priest would bless the woman which would mean she was cleansed and at that point it was okay for her to go have sex with her husband again (as long as it was in the name of trying for a baby). The woman would have to do this even if the child had died while the mother gave birth. It all stems from this obsession they have with sex. For some reason, they see it as a bad thing. I honestly do not get it. Sexual repression is a tragedy and can cause real harm. There's a lot more I could say on this subject but I'll leave it there. You may view this as Catholic bashing but these are facts. So, yeah, I opted out of Catholicism and I can't understand how intelligent and otherwise sane people accept it as a legitimate "thing".

Am I going to go through all religions? No. Just the one that did its best to poison my mind. But having looked at them all I don't buy into any of them. There's just nothing there for me.

Let's move on to the "things happen for a reason" stuff. For me this is complete bollocks! Things that we have no control over just happen... constantly. Bad things, good things, insignificant things. To apply some master plan, logic or intelligent design to this is fucking insanity and downright insulting to anyone who has ever endured true suffering. How we react is what shapes who we are. That reaction is on you. It is not on some higher power or some ghost or angel looking after you. You choose how you respond to any given situation and this makes you the person that you are. At least, that's how I see it. And in my world seeing is believing. If anyone has any physical evidence (not some anecdotal ghost story) to the contrary, I'd love to take a look at it.

World events have had a huge bearing on me too. I think if we apply God to what's happening with Syria today we'd have to say "how fucking dare you let this happen." Of course, that doesn't apply to me as I don't believe he's up there anyway. I'm not sure when I came to the conclusion that there was nothing out there looking after us but I suspect the break up of

Yugoslavia and the ensuing war had a lot to do with it. Or maybe the half million slaughtered Rwandans pushed me over... I'm not sure. I'd like to think that intelligent, open minded people of faith would look at what is happening in the world today and ask themselves is the convenient "god gave us free will" argument really good enough? Or is it time to accept that we have free will because we just fucking have it.

There's a line in the underrated Mike Nichols movie Wolf where a guy says, "life is mystical, it's just that we are used to it". That's a throw away line in the movie but it stayed with me and has done for 20 years now. At the time, I was a believer in a "higher power". But I began to really dwell on this line. Do we really need to read the bible to get our miracles? It is pretty fucking amazing what we can achieve when the need or desire is there. I mean for fuck sake, we just sent a robot to Mars. We landed a probe on an asteroid, we have photos of Pluto. James Cameron has explored the Mariana Trench. We've cured countless diseases. We created languages, music and literature. We've climbed Everest and we're bouncing signals from satellites that put moving pictures into your living room 24 hours a day just to keep you abreast of what's happening. Amazing!


For all that though, scientists allow for things to happen and change their views accordingly. It's no use sticking rigidly to one view as you cannot grow, adapt or evolve (it's also why I don't like belief labels). I think this is the main problem with religious belief, there's just no flexibility there. The text remains the same. So you're left with three kinds of religious people. Those who use their faith as an excuse to be scumbags, those who just believe despite all reason and those who know on some level the teachings are bullshit but go along with it anyway for reasons known only to themselves.

So what happens when you die? I don't know. Many people say they've had outer body experiences. Others say they flew on the wings of a giant butterfly on the way to heaven and that it felt beautiful. Others say their whole life flashed before them... I think that your body is going through some serious trauma and your brain is frying. So, with all that activity you could see anything and think it was real. That's not to say that there isn't something out there after you die. There may very well be something more, I just feel like your brain frying while it shuts down is a more reasonable explanation and until someone can prove to me that there is life after death I'm going to stick with the more reasoned explanation.

Finally and quite simply, I'm going to continue to bask in what's happening here: "The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper."

Cheers,

G.

*the fact that I had to put the words "with an adult" into that sentence tells me all I need to know about the Catholic Church.

RIP Wes.

It was almost like a sporting rivalry. Who's better Wes Craven or John Carpenter? This was a question that horror fans asked each other for years. For the record it has to be Carpenter but while the "master" hasn't made a truly great movie since In the Mouth of Madness (1994) Craven managed several hits with the Scream franchise and worked with Meryl Streep in Music of the Heart.

But we'll come back to those. Wes Craven was a talented film maker with a very dark sense of humour. For all his talent though he's made, by my count, one essential movie: A Nightmare on Elm Street. Since then he's made some really solid movies and some really terrible ones. For every Scream (I like all of them) there's a My Soul to Take. For every New Nightmare there's a Cursed.

What he did do was pave the way for other film makers to play in the horror yard he helped build.

In 1972 he directed The Last House on the Left which was also produced by Friday the 13th creator Sean S. Cunningham. Steve Miner also worked on the project. With that trio involved it was always going to be nasty. However, I felt it was just exploitation and it repulsed me. I'm sure that's what they were going for and they succeeded admirably. However, the movie didn't once hint at the talent within Craven. For me, it detracts from a decent legacy... I'm sure the man himself would disagree. People still cite the movie as hugely influential and it was remade in 2009 with Craven and Cunningham producing.

In 1977 he fared better with The Hills Have Eyes. The idea is similar to The Last House on the Left. Normal people forced to fight for their lives, this time against mutant cave dwellers. It started a kind of "love letter" relationship between Sam Raimi and Wes Craven. Raimi saw The Hills Have Eyes and loved it so much he put a poster of it in the basement in his classic The Evil Dead. Craven returned the favour in A Nightmare on Elm Street when we saw The Evil Dead on television in that movie. Eagle eyed viewers of The Evil Dead 2 will find Freddy's glove hanging over the door of the tool shed...

After "Hills" he lumbered from one bad project to the next. It's a pretty terrible list of movies actually: Deadly Blessing, Swamp Thing, Invitation to Hell and an ill advised sequel to The Hills Have Eyes. However it was at this point that he managed to pull a rabbit out of the hat... and what a rabbit. Craven had read about this kid who was convinced he would fall victim to whatever was chasing him in his dreams. When the kid finally did fall asleep, he never woke up. He apparently died screaming. Craven, like any of us was deeply upset by this story. Unlike any of us he decided to make a movie based around the concept.

The first time I saw A Nightmare on Elm Street I was completely absorbed. Terrified but unable to take my eyes off the screen. Suffice to say, I LOVED the movie (and still do). There's just so many fucking amazing visuals in it... too many to mention here. Freddy himself is pure genius. A nasty irredeemable bastard who is going to get you and he genuinely is the stuff of nightmares. It feels like a cross between Halloween and Phantasm. It has that Halloween slasher feel (though isn't quite as scary) and it has a lot of the fuckeduppedness of Phantasm (again not quite as effective) However when you combine the two and add Freddy Krueger to the recipie, it is every bit as effective.

The success of the movie basically built New Line Cinema and gave Johnny Depp a decent start. It also became its own animal as Freddy Krueger became a household name and the biggest of all the horror movie icons. While Freddy became the new rock n' roll, his creator's career seemed stuck. His next picture would be the well meaning but ultimately forgettable Deadly Friend. Okay, we'll never forget that basketball scene but by and large, it's a poor enough movie.

Wes wasn't really happy with the sequel to A Nightmare on Elm Street so he wrote part three. You could tell. It's a really fun horror movie and solidified Freddy as the new dog in the yard. Jason and Michael were starting to feel very old hat (pun intended). He'd stay away from the franchise until the New Nightmare. More on that later.

1988 saw him direct The Serpent and the Rainbow. Again, it's a well meaning attempt but ultimately must go down as a failure. And Shocker, while full of interesting ideas was an attempt to bring forth the new Freddy... It failed. 1991 saw him come back to form with the unusual but rather good "People Under the Stairs". Again, Craven was moved by the true events of a couple who kept their kids locked in a basement. His movie, while horrific is also riddled with darkly comic moments and showed Craven's use of humour which would become a bigger part of his career. "People" made a few quid but it also showed how good he could be. He proved it again in with his next flick...

In 1994 Wes Craven went back to the Freddy well. To his credit though, this was no cash grab. Craven was happy with the success of the "Nightmare" franchise but less happy with what Freddy had become. He was, for all intents and purpsoes, a joke. This had to change. Craven wrote and directed The New Nightmare and with this movie he showed he had a lot left in the tank. First up, Freddy needed to be scary again. Now, given that Freddy had his own lunch boxes by now, this was a big ask. However, Craven writes Freddy as a menacing bloodthirsty nightmare in the movie and uses the pop culture aspect that made him so famous as the "energy" that ultimately brings him to life. It's a genius concept, executed to perfection by Craven. He goes after the actors from previous movies in the franchise and Craven himself is in the movie explaining just what is going on... Craven is also smart enough to know that humour is expected in these movies now but rather than have Freddy deliver yet another awful pun, he straight up pokes fun at previous sequels. Poking fun at horrors would become a nice little earner for Craven but I digress, despite being a truly fantastic movie Wes Craven's New Nightmare made fuck all money. He followed it up with the risible Eddie Murphy vehicle, Vampire In Brooklyn. He needed a hit. It didn't seem like it was going to come. A lesser man may have thrown in the towel...

Make no mistake about it, Scream was a fucking sensation when it hit. It was cool, it was scary, it was funny and it brought horror movies to a whole new audience of people who'd usually never watch them. Scream was a very simple concept. A teenage "whodunnit" set in a small town. You've all seen the movie, you don't need me to remind you of how much fun it is. What I will do is tell you about my experience of it when I went to see it on preview night way back in 1996. Cinema was half full. I was waiting for my favourite horrors to get a mention. They all did with Halloween's amazing score being used to excellent effect in the last act. I had to bite my hand so as not to scream the answer to the question that sealed Drew Barrymore's fate and over all I had a hell of a time.

Craven and his writer Kevin Williamson didn't back away from the big issues either. "Movies don't create psychos, movies make psychos creative" is a fucking superb line. The movie was a deserved success and launched a four movie franchise. Scream 2 was even more successful and was for me an improvement on the original. Parts three and four also had their moments but, as you'd expect, the magic dissipates with the later installments. That's okay though. All of these movies know what they are and they aren't ashamed. Nor should they be. Scream kept horror alive and Craven was deservedly proud of his creation.

Craven and Kevin Williamson teamed up again for what we all expected would be a fantastic horror. It was a werewolf movie called Cursed. It proved, if nothing else, that Craven was just as capable of soiling the nest as he was of building it. Cursed is a fucking awful movie. One hilarious gag in the final minutes is not enough to save it. How this creative team put this garbage together is beyond me, but they did and it can't be erased. Lost its bollocks too!

Moving on. On the back of his Scream success Wes Craven got to make a movie with Meryl Streep. When Madonna backed out of Music of the Heart (something the studio must have been happy about) Streep stepped in. Suddenly Craven was working with the world's best actor. The movie itself is the usual "kids in shit neighbourhood have awesome teacher" and it's fine but the point here is, Wes "last house on the left" Craven was working with Meryl "better than everyone" Streep. If that's not a bucket list moment for a director I don't know what is.

Soon after he put together the serviceable thriller Red Eye starring Rachel McAdams and Cillian Murphy. The movies best moments are, predictably enough, on the Red Eye but the last act falls into the absurd and very nearly undoes all of the good work of the previous hour. Still Red Eye must go down as a success. If you haven't seen it, I won't ruin it. Worth a look.

His last two movies that had him behind a camera were My Soul to Take and Scream 4. My Soul to Take is such a terrible movie that I simply refuse to give it anymore air by talking about it. Scream 4 on the other hand is a much more worthy epitaph for this man. It's rock solid fun. It flirts with genius and has some great moments... This for me, sums the man's career up.

Cheers,

G.