In The Electric Mist

Tommy Lee Jones stars as Dave Robicheaux, small-town Louisiana sheriff investigating a murdered prostitute named Cherry Leblanc. On top of that, he has to deal with drunk film star Elrod Sykes (Peter Sarsgaard) and his more-responsible girlfriend (Kelly McDonald) roaring around the backwaters, who stumbled upon a chain-encrusted corpse on their set. Said corpse belongs to Dewitt Prejean, a young black man who “escaped” jail into the bayou, where he was shot by two men—a scene that’s etched into the memory of Dave, who happened to see the event as a tween.

As Dave continues his investigations—digging up a troubled past to find Prejean’s history, and finding that Leblanc is just the start to a chain of serial killings—he finds that they’re not as disparate as he thought they were. Instead, the crimes are linked. And that investigation will unearth the twisted and diverse history of this small backwater of Louisiana swamp… ranging from ghosts of Confederate generals to the 1960s racial tensions.

The cast does an admirable job. Tommy Lee Jones hands in a solid performance, better than some of his phoning-it-in roles (Captain America) even though you’ve seen him play this character before. Peter Saarsgard is great, but woefully underused; Kelly MacDonald does just as well in her small role. John Goodman is hamming it up in fine form. Very good performances, and the use of local talent is excellent—legendary guitarist Buddy Guy is the weak role in the acting department, but makes up for it with atmosphere and local flavor.

The film has plenty of interesting bits to play with. There’s some post-Katrina allegory here, with the local Mafia (run by John Goodman) buying up property, and commentary on the relief efforts; some social consciousness using the Jim Crow-era’s racial tensions as a touchstone; and a healthy dose of Southern Gothic and magical realism revolving around the Civil War, to go with its neo-noir mystery-thriller parts. Plus the big-city/rural divide, with the Robicheaux family and their neighbors contrasted with the hot-rodding actors and snide film crew. Safe to say, there’s a lot of great stuff going on.

If only the film knew how to use it. As a Franco-American production, the film has more of a European subtlety to it, eschewing the big-bang Hollywood techno-wizardry and action in favor of moody setting. After using all those pieces, crafting that fine plot, and layering that thick atmosphere, the film leads slowly to an underwhelming finale and a twist ending that wouldn’t have made it into a bad Twilight Zone episode. (We’re talking Outer Limits mediocrity with the ending.)

The use of long, slow shots is beautiful for atmosphere, and that subtle touch is masterful. It’s a soft, delicate, but deliberate pacing—the film knows where it’s going, and moves with ambient grace. But instead of bringing it home for a satisfying conclusion, the plot blows away with the wind, and the film’s beauty fades away in lost possibility. In The Electric Mist starts out with an excellent noirish miasma, looking like a clear-cut winner. But when it comes time to seal the deal, it slipped on its own lack of initiative. It’s not a bad film, but the blase ending failed to deliver on the buildup’s promises.

I wonder if the original novel is more satisfying, or if the longer director’s cut was improved—it saw theatrical release oversees; the shorter US version went straight to DVD. Which is what it feels like: an artsy European film that went straight-to-DVD in the States. And I wonder how its production woes, which delayed its release to 2009 after a 2007 shoot, affected the film.

Prometheus and Bad Science

In the wake of Ridley Scott’s new film, Prometheus, science-fiction fans have been quick to point out the many, varied ways in which science is butchered for the sake of plot stupidity. As in, ignoring not just Einstein but Newtonian physics, idiotic scientists, B-movie style mindless alien monsters, and one of those laughable scenes where something big and inanimate (a spaceship) chases a character (Charlize Theron) who runs along its path instead of going sideways. After it drops straight out of the sky, instead of, y’know, falling in an arc, like Newton’s laws of inertia proscribe. (Also in last link, the CEO going on away missions was an implausibility Star Trek got rid of in its second series.)

RUN. SIDEWAYS. YOU. MORON.

Needless to say, the criticism has been bagging on the movie’s scientific inaccuracy. And more often than not, someone will point out that the film is science fiction, emphasizing the FICTION part. Well… yes and no.

Science fiction has always had an elitist edge about it, holding the genre and its components to the highest standard. (Sad truth, it can be really blatant elitism with some authors/historians, though for most it’s more about adhering to science fact.) I’d say that that rigorous elitism, that staying true to science, is what makes science fiction. It’s why people derisively referred to film, TV, and other visual media as “Sci-Fi” instead of science fiction—because of its lower scientific rigor, considering it more low-brow entertainment, and later, because the media referred to it as Sci-Fi.

The genre’s founder, Hugo Gernsback, was an enthusiastic immigrant engineer; in his Amazing Stories magazine, he promoted didactic “scientifiction” designed to educate as well as entertain, full of technocrats emerging from their ivory-tower meritocracy to dispense scientific wisdom and technological inventions to the masses… while fighting off bug-eye-monsters and protecting nearby comely young ladies.

The man who formed science fiction as we know it today was John W. Campbell; his idea for SF was to write what popular fiction of the 2500s would be like; he revolutionized the genre, moving it away from Westerns with their horses traded in for spaceships and sixguns replaced by blasters, and away from the didacticism of Gernsback. He was also something of an egotistical blowhard. Read any of his introductions to Analog short-story collections and you’ll see him arguing that SF is the hardest genre to write in because it has to adhere to science as we know it, yet say something meaningful about the human condition. You’ll hear him say that Science Fiction is the greatest genre, because it is every genre, or hear the glories of prophetic science fiction—the fans of one of Campbell’s best-remembered authors, Robert Heinlein, are quick to point out Heinlein’s successive “prophecies” compared to his contemporaries.

Heck, the entire genre from the mid-40s to the early ’60s was heavy into the benefits of science—glorious new devices, utopian futures, with brilliant super-scientists leading us ever onward.

True, the ’60s and ’70s saw SF turning away from Campbell’s mold—the rise of Soft Science Fiction, focusing on the soft science: anthropological science fiction, social science fiction. Authors like Delany and Zelazny and Le Guin and Philip K. Dick asked deep, biting questions about the human condition, something that Campbell’s authors often gave only a second glance to. But even in the Soft SF revolution, science as we know it—often the soft sciences, but the “hard” physics and engineering sciences as well—are adhered to. While its protagonists are often no longer scientists, they’re still pretty smart and capable. Yet it was Campbell’s ideals SF returned to: social science fiction merged into the tech-savvy, fight-the-power anarchy of cyberpunk, whose technological focus helped bring about a return to the hard sciences.

(Consider science fiction’s reflection of its eras, progressing views of science pushing back the boundaries of the unknown and impossible. In Gernsback’s lifetime, humanity had introduced cars, airplanes, radio, and dozens of other brilliant technologies which fascinated him; he introduced science fiction in his Modern Electronics magazine, as something for fellow engineer-futurists, who became some of its earliest authors. Campbell’s boom years were after the War, when millions of Americans took advantage of the G.I. Bill to get a college degree, and when scientists praised future glories of the recently split atom. Hence, scientific optimism and super-educated scientists. Soft SF arose during an era of change: the Civil Rights and Women’s Lib movements, anti-conformity and fighting the establishment, hippies, free love, recreational narcotics. What does Prometheus say about the 2010s?)

pretty pretty pretty visuals.

The point being? Rigorous adherence to known science has always been a cornerstone of the genre; it’s an expectation of many of its adherents, hence why fans hold science fiction films to higher expectations. Get rid of the science, and you can still have science fiction. Thanks to subgenres like “space opera” and “science fantasy,” essentially dumping ground terminology for science-lite science-fiction, fans can still enjoy John Carter and Star Wars by holding them to a less rigorous set of expectations. But without the “science,” you don’t have science fiction: you have fiction. Which is something I don’t think Hollywood has realized, in its bad writing and misguided marketing.

And, more to the point: by promoting shitty writing, dull plotting, impossible science, and idiotic characters, is Prometheus promoting anything beneficial for either science, science fiction, or even film? No. It’s promoting lackluster, bad, and stupid filmmaking under the veneer of pretty visuals and hoping the viewers don’t notice, building high expectations which are rudely squashed. I’m ashamed that it has a 74% on Rotten Tomatoes and didn’t get a fraction of the scathing other, better SF films often get. Not every science fiction film can be Blade Runner or Moon or Inception, but it’d be nice if they tried.

Kicking the Calot When It’s Down

When I’m skimming through my Tweets to see which lead to articles worth reading, some titles jump out at me. Such as: “Why Disney Is Fighting with Redbox and Netflix Over A Film No One Wanted To See.” Yeah, you guessed it, it’s another John Carter post.

This is some pretty awesome advertising. Where the hell did they put it?

Now, I realize that it’s important for media to choose headlines that attract attention; seeing “Redbox and Netflix Jumping Disney’s 28-Day Rental Ban” is not going to snag the kind of viewership/readers that the article needs. But it’s irritating to see the film continually denigrated because, no, it wasn’t that bad. Not as bad as Prometheus, the end result of putting a cerebral horror-thriller and a psychological discourse on science in a blender: a thick paste that’s not what either side expected. No, it wasn’t Avengers good, either; it didn’t have the same marketing hype, four lead-in movies, years of viewer expectations, decades of comic fan history, and thus didn’t generate the same level of income. Small wonder.

I guess my problem is that reviewers and critics demonize the film, to an unwarranted degree. Did people call the Star Wars prequels movies that nobody wanted to see; I don’t remember. Though, while they might not be films “nobody wanted to see”—what kind of cultural reprobate wouldn’t want to see more Star Wars?—the actual real-world executions were things every good nerd wanted to un-see. (The second two films at least had some pretty action sequences; the first one had Jar Jar Binks, Ethnic Stereotype, doing slapstick in a poorly-rendered CGI battle. Meesa wanna forgetta thata, Annie.) Rather than stand up for a passable film, the film’s now a given target, something you can freely bag on without fear of another critic calling you on your decisions.

Of course, looking at the comments section, which is near-unanimous support for the film, does make me feel a bit better. (Until you see the old armchair general grognards complaining that Dejah Thoris had too much clothes on; for all the female empowerment the film tried, that kind of antiquated casual misogyny makes me weep.) I guess that’s what matters: the people who saw it are ravenous in their support. When a film “nobody saw” made $282,584,435 worldwide, despite the worst marketing campaign since the Edsel was a no-go, it becomes clear: it’s less about how many people saw it, and less about the percent of viewers who liked it, and more the fact that the hyper-inflated $250m budget and total lack of support killed the movie. And I’m not sure how that correlates to the film being “bad.”

Though, seriously, where the hell was it all: John Carter the kids meal, John Carter the action figure, John Carter the nerf gun, John Carter the bedsheets, John Carter the flamethrower… You know damn well that those awesome Barsoomian fliers in 12″ plastic form would sell like hotcakes, and who wouldn’t want a stuffed Woola?

Other than that, the article’s point—movie companies have a 28-day (4-week) delay period before their media can be uploaded to Redbox and Netflix rental centers, and both of those companies jumped the gun, allowing people to rent John Carter well in advance, irking Disney—was enlightening. (Related to the above: nobody wanted to see it, yet two companies jumped the waiting list to rent it?) Given the options for cloud streaming and easy DVD rentals, it’s obvious why DVD sales are going down; on top of which, Blu-Ray has split the market segment. I’m in the group who’d rather just stream/cloud everything instead of buying a third hard-copy media edition of, say, Jurassic Park or Independence Day.  (And just think, there are people who bought into the HD-DVD thing, or Laserdiscs (which I admit I still think are kinda cool), or those little movie discs for your PSP: no matter how many media players you own, how many copies of Full Metal Jacket do you really need?)

To be honest, I think the smart, future-thinking companies would come up with deals with someone like Netflix to get their product out before it’s even in the stores, the way some record labels get albums streaming on Spotify on the same day they release as CDs. Why fight the losing battle of DVD sales when you can give Netflix the option buy expensive but exclusive streaming rights to your product for a limited time (4-6 months), saving your warehousing and distribution and other hard media costs, and do so before anyone else can get their hands on said product (be it Redbox or Best Buy)?

Death Rides a Horse – 1967

Continuing on from earlier, the second half of a spaghetti western double feature.

I’ve come to the opinion that you can’t have a spaghetti western without a score by Ennio Morricone. Just can’t do it. I remember watching Hang ‘Em High right after seeing the Dollars Trilogy, and y’know, its music stood out too much—pure Hollywood bombast. Morricone’s music has its own epic bombast, but a unique vibe all of its own: twangy guitars, warbled animal howls, mournful choral interludes. Without Morricone’s score, it’s just another western. Of course, it helps if you have a hardboiled anti-hero, minimalism in design and dialogue, gritty noir tropes, and a strong kinetic energy that was otherwise lacking in the flagging western genre in the ’60s. And you hit the pure spaghetti western definition when it involved American actors filming overseas for Italian cinemas.

“Vengeance is a dish that must be eaten cold.”

As a child, Bill Meceita (John Phillip Law) saw his family murdered—the women raped—before his eyes. Growing up with vengeance in his heart and his hand quick to his gun, he vowed to track down the men involved. Things begin to heat up when gunman Ryan (Lee Van Cleef) is released from a chain gang, and returns to the town where he was betrayed. I think you can see where this is going. The two rivals eventually form an uneasy friendship: the old gunfighter and the young gun, a complex relationship between mentor and pupil, with bad blood between them.

Lee Van Cleef was born to chew scenery; I’m at a loss to think of a point where he didn’t deliver a great performance. I’m less impressed with John Phillip Law, who has the demanding presence of Van Cleef or Eastwood, but not the voice or acting chops. I wouldn’t say he’s bad in this role, but that he didn’t convince me. He’s kind of like a stolid, monotone John Wayne Lite, which I guess has some appeal. On the bright side, there’s not as much dialogue in the film, relying more on action and visuals.

The movie’s pacing starts off slow, with an air of looming dread beginning with the gothic horror-style murder in a pouring rainstorm. The two main characters start off beset by rivalry, each trying to get to their quarry first—Ryan wants to extort them before killing them, to get the fat stacks of cash they took from Bill’s father, and Bill just wants to shoot all of them. But patience will be rewarded, first with the two characters’ relationship building in interesting ways, and then with the suitable explosive finale, with the two gunslingers taking on the old posse and their mob of mooks. Outmanned, outgunned, but not out for the count, it’s a great shootout set-piece to end things once and for all.

There are a few parts that fly over the top, even for a B-movie. Early on, there’s a scene of Bill shooting, to show off his prowess, and it’s little more than unabashed gun-porn. I didn’t count the shots, but I’m pretty sure he’s got Hollywood specials, since he’s blazing away at eight or ten shots per pistol—and hitting with incredible accuracy. Recurring flashbacks recall the murder sequence when Bill sees some telltale mark that points out a killer, one of the few instances where John Phillip Law shows a sliver of emotion. The coolest is near the finale; after walking through a graveyard of half-buried mummified heads in the middle of a dessicated Mexican town, John Phillip Law’s Bill himself is buried alive by the bandits. (No, that doesn’t count as a spoiler since it’s in the trailer.)

The Morricone main theme is a lot rougher; a jaunty guitar track strumming along like a wild pony, overlapped by the screeching flute, which bleeds into a vocal chant that makes a lot more sense when you know the lyrics. Overall pretty good, but I’m not a huge fan of the screechy flutes—it’s unnerving, which fits with the theme at least.

This was one of Quentin Tarantino’s favorite spaghetti westerns, making his top-20 list and getting referenced in Kill Bill a lot. I thought it was good; maybe not that good, but a contender nonetheless. It’s an excellent film with a lot of unique twists, such as the impromptu father-son relationship between the two main stars, and the perfect epic showdown. Death Rides a Horse is a fine spaghetti western, something that fans of the genre will love, but not a requirement for those outside that group.

Two Mules for Sister Sara – 1970

I’ve come to the opinion that you can’t have a spaghetti western without a score by Ennio Morricone. Just can’t do it. I remember watching Hang ‘Em High right after seeing the Dollars Trilogy, and y’know, its music stood out too much—pure Hollywood bombast. Morricone’s music has its own epic bombast, but a unique vibe all of its own: twangy guitars, warbled animal howls, mournful choral interludes. Without Morricone’s score, it’s just another western. Of course, it helps if you have a hardboiled anti-hero, minimalism in design and dialogue, gritty noir tropes, and a strong kinetic energy that was otherwise lacking in the flagging western genre in the ’60s. And you hit the pure spaghetti western definition when it involved American actors filming overseas for Italian cinemas.

That’s my benchmark for a spaghetti western, and I’m sticking to it… because that way I can include the first film below, which was filmed by an American in Mexico, rather than an Italian in Spain. But it’s close enough to a spaghetti western, alright? It has a Morricone score. (And a bunch of familiar faces from Sergio Leone’s flicks.)

“Dear Mary, Mother of God, help this no-good atheist to shoot straight.”

A drifter named Hogan (Clint Eastwood) saves a woman from being gang-raped out in the desert; surprise of surprises, it turns out she’s a traveling nun named Sara (Shirley MacLaine) on the run from the law. She’s working for some Mexican revolutionaries trying to overthrow their French colonial overlords, which gets Hogan’s interest—he agreed to help the same revolutionaries assault a French fort, in return for a portion of the treasure in the garrison’s strongbox. They only have a few weeks to get to the cash, but Sister Sara lived in the church overlooking the fort, so she knows how the garrison operates. Of course, Hogan and Sara’s working relationship is strained, and there are plenty of complications that arise from French patrols and Sara’s devout pre-Vatican II Catholicism.

What I really liked about this one? Besides the stunning vistas, excellent action, and a return to Eastwood’s “Man With No Name”-style grim antihero, was its snippet of history. As you might recall, France under Napoleon III tried to invade Mexico and turn it into a French client-state under Maximilian I, something that’s oft forgotten because the United States had split in twain and was fighting a civil war at the time. (You’d have known this if you’d been listening to your teacher explain Cinco de Mayo all those years ago.) And as far as I can tell, this is one of the few films to even touch on the subject. Since the film was shot on location in Mexico, covering an important time in Mexican history made the film feel more unique.

That’s not to forget the film’s other high points. Such as the excellent acting, with Eastwood at the top of his lone-gun game, and MacLaine keeping up with him, if not outdoing him at times; the snazzy dialogue matches their ace performances. Their character relationships and character development is classic, making for some complex and interesting situations. Such as the film’s awesome set-pieces, such as blowing up a train—right after Hogan lost the use of his shooting arm, relying on Sister Sara to aid in the demolition job. The blazing finale is impressive—a brutal combat sequence depicting the assault on the garrison.

There are, of course, a few complaints. The movie has its slow-burn character-driven moments, and its rapid-fire action sequences, so balancing and transitioning between them doesn’t always work—some on both sides feel drawn out and a bit too long. While the film’s money shots are golden, the parts linking them aren’t as captivating. And the dialogue is either excellent or awkward, there’s no middle ground there. The ending wasn’t what I expected, but then again, proving this is a different character than the Man with No Name.

Morricone’s in fine form here, with an amazing main theme that’s evocative of his unique style: twangy guitars leading into a soaring, mournful choral dirge, broken with strings akin to the braying of mules. Another fine score from the master, and one of my favorite Morricone main themes.

A very pleasing film, Two Mules for Sister Sara is choice spaghetti western. Vintage Eastwood, backed and paced by Shirley MacLaine—the last time the actor would receive second-billing behind a woman before The Bridges of Madison County. Excellent action sequences, some great character development, and picturesque scenery round out a stellar flick. It’s not perfect, but it remains an impressive and enjoyable film. A definite must for spaghetti western aficionados and Clint Eastwood fans.

The Hunger Games

Maybe it’s just me, maybe it’s something built into my jaded generation, but I end up assuming everything will be a steaming plate of shit and chips unless it first provides certification of its not-shit nature. In triplicate. Such was my assumption about The Hunger Games; when I first heard about it, my reaction was Didn’t I already read/watch this when it was called Battle Royale? An attempt to reformat the Japanese original’s totalitarian state and teenage gladiatorial death arena for the palate of Western audiences, namely the post-Potter Twilight generation?

Yeah. I should stop assuming things.

The setup is pretty straightforward. Generations after a failed uprising/civil war, the post-apocalyptic remains of North America have restitched themselves under the control of the victorious state of Panem. As punishment for their attempted rebellion, the outlying areas have been divvied up into districts, operating as combination collective farms and industrial plants and kept in a state of suppressed poverty. Once per year, two teenagers—a boy and a girl—are chosen from each district to compete in the Hunger Games: a futuristic deathmatch where these Tributes fight to the death, with the Panem and District citizens watching the ordeal in a rapt fervor. Twenty-four teenagers enter, one teenager leaves.

Katniss Everdeen lives in District 12; when her younger sister is chosen, she volunteers in her stead. A talented archer, she manages to overcome the prejudices weighted against her district through unconventional tactics. See, well-to-do viewers may sponsor the participants with air-dropped gifts, such as medicine or food, and the Games are equal part survival course, combat mission, and showboating for fans. District 12′s other Tribute, a strapping young lad named Peeta, manages to showboat a little too far when he reveals he has a secret crush on Katniss—snap! I wonder what her boyfriend back home thinks about this?

Their drunken advisor—Woody Harrelson, since Woody Harrelson is in freaking everything—urges them to play up this star-crossed lovers angle. Even as they get into the meat of the film—the third act is the Games themselves, after some long and bloated setup—their relationship develops onward, despite the foregone outcome that one of the two will die. The hope is that Katniss will get more sponsors this way… because they’re all guessing Katniss is the only one with a chance, and needs all the help she can get. Their strained relationship ebbs and flows during the game, but by the end, it becomes both the foundation and moving force of the film.

On the one hand, this is a grim futuristic dystopia with a Young Adult love-story that can appeal equally to girls and boys. On a deeper level, this film a scathing satire of our glorious technological future. Contrast the pastoral, 1950s-drab outlying Districts with the glitz and glamor of the Capital City, an amalgam of the stereotypical worst excesses of D.C. insiders and the Hollywood elite, the One Percent turned to eleven—it’s a modern-day Metropolis gone Lord of the Flies.

And note the connection between the Hunger Games and modern society, with their sponsors and mass-media appeal, the vicarious viewers whose emotions are played by this reality TV show gone Thunderdome. It’s in the same vein as Battle Royale, yes, but also treks back through the history of the totalitarian dystopia through Logan’s Run (check out those jumpsuits!), Orwell, and Huxley; it emerged with many similarities, but still has something new and interesting to say.

As the first installment of a trilogy, it has that problem where unique and interesting concepts are introduced but left undeveloped. For example, the Games take place in an artificial, controlled environment, and Gamesmasters are shown to have the ability to drop in new threats to herd, or weed out, the participants… something that’s used about twice. I’ll bet that comes back in the sequels, since it’s a concept that shouldn’t be so woefully underused. There are a number of blatantly obvious questions, many about the setting, that are never answered, and any social criticism is left in the allegorical stage, buried under the surface-level narrative.

An actual film complaint—pretty much my only one—is that is uses the bane of today’s moviegoer… the shaky-cam. Imagine dropping a half-dozen teenagers,  a camcorder set to record at full zoom, and some pit bulls into a cement mixer, and you have The Hunger Games‘ fight sequences. The first time it’s used, it can follow its purpose: that would be the initial slaughter when the Tributes are released into the Games, the scrimmage over the supplies left before them. Reflecting the stress and chaos of the moment, with distanced sounds and nervous breathing, it works, without obscuring the action too greatly. And the scenes in the Games have these hand-held, documentary look, which could reflect Katniss’ unsteady nerves or whatever, so there’s already some unsteady-cam action going on.

After that, it does pretty much what shaky-cam cinematography always does: acts as a crutch for inept/lazy directors and/or actors, obscuring the lack of choreography. “You actors, just sprawl around on the ground slapping each other while Bob films from inside a tumble dryer; don’t worry, we’ll fix it in post.” The fight sequences are a muddled mess of close-ups and jerky handheld cameras and bad lighting; as either consolation or an addendum, they’re also way damn short.

The teenage actors all did admirable performances. Josh Hutcherson stumbles occasionally as Peeta, but he gives an all-around solid performance that I can’t complain about. Supporting cast such as Lenny Cravitz, Woody Harrelson and Donald Sutherland are excellent, and Stanley Tucci hams things up as the Games’ newscaster/reporter. But it’s Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss who steals the show; her ability to emote is sublime, which is in high demand in The Hunger Games, with some emotionally powerful scenes. She also manages to pull off a strong, independent Tomboy who’s still sexy—and since the traditional genre stereotypes are thrown on their heads, with Katniss caretaking an injured Peeta, we have yet another solid female rolemodel from a science-fiction-tinged action movie.

Within The Hunger Games we have an entertaining action film, a Young Adult love story, a dystopia, a cunning social satire, a modern parable for the 99% generation, and probably two or three other things I left out. It’s one of those few films that appeals to teens and adults without compromising—the thematic allegories are vague, not dense or bludgeoning; the action is frenetic, but not the focus; the love story is engaging, not sappy. The effects are slick, and the film’s vision is sweeping and uncompromising, if under-detailed. Its pre-Game half grew long, and the shaky-cam sequences are shit, flaws marring an otherwise solid movie.

I don’t think it’ll go down in history as a landmark film—save for making bank at the box-office—and it might not be the one 2012 movie you remember ten years from now. But The Hunger Games is certainly worth watching.

We Can Remember It for You Wholesale – Again

Okay, I’ve been pretty skeptical about this one, dating back to when I first heard they were remaking it. I mean, the Schwarzenegger one wasn’t brilliant, but it managed to keep Philip K. Dick’s paranoia and questioning of reality intact inside an entertaining ’80s trashy action movie. Probably one of the top three PKD book-to-movie adaptations… behind Blade Runner, of course, and I’m growing to like Spielberg’s Minority Report more than the original story.

And Hollywood has a tendency to make… well, really shitty “sci-fi” movies out of hot-shit science fiction properties (anyone else remember Surrogates? Cowboys and Aliens? Predators? Green Lantern? Need I go on?). For every District 9 or Inception, we get a good number of science fiction films that are forgettable, or best left forgotten. Just look at all the failed attempts to turn Dick’s novels into films—don’t get me started on Paycheck or Next. (I’ve realized that the irony of The Adjustment Bureau is that they didn’t develop the concepts far enough; probably why Rango, which went far enough and then some, beat it down at the box office.)

So, yeah, after seeing the trailer, I’ll eat some crow and say the new Total Recall looks pretty damn good. As in, see it opening day damn good. The visuals are astounding, for one, and the plot seems as Dickian as Dick’s original story. Also, the cast is pretty stellar. Colin Farrell stars, with support from Jessica Biel and Bryan Freaking Cranston as antagonists, and Ethan Hawk, Bill Nighy, and Kate Beckinsale in support.

The whole Mars subplot has been dropped, but honestly, what made the story interesting was Dick’s surrealist paranoid mindfuckery. The Mars angle was great flavor, but the meat of the story wasn’t the Martian rebellion, it was Dick’s eternal attempts to define reality and humanity, the sense that you never knew what was the true world and which was the implant. Something the poster hypes up:

Well, you know how to market a Philip K. Dick-based film and stay true to Philip K. Dick’s overarching vision; you have my interest.

So, here’s hoping that screenwriters and directors have figured out the proper way to adapt PKD to film, rather than skimming the surface-value concepts into another formulaic, chase-scene-rific shitty action film. (I really hated Paycheck and Next, okay?)

The Italian Job (1969)

When I say “The Seventies was the best decade for crime films,” your answer should be “No shit, Sherlock.” The French Connection, Dirty Harry, The Godfather, The Taking of Pelham One-Two-Three, Night Moves, The Gauntlet, pretty much anything with Michael Caine… speaking of whom, was in a classic of crime cinematography on the border year of 1969. That would be The Italian Job, a heist flick known for its classic car chases.

So, The Italian Job. After an intro scene where the Mob bumps off some guy in Italy, dapper gentleman gangster Charlie Croker (Michael Caine) is released from prison, and immediately sets off on a new job. This time, a heist in Italy, finishing the job planned by the guy killed in the opening sequence: making off with $4 million in gold bars the Chinese are delivering. With the aid of Mr. Bridger (Noël Coward), still living in a luxuriant prison cell, and his girlfriend Lorna (Margaret Blye), Croker assembles a team to pull off this heist. It includes a number of screwballs, such as Professor Peach (Benny Hill), a computer whiz with a thing for large ladies. They’re walking a fine line, avoiding both the police and the Mafia; with the roaring of engines and crashing of the Italian transit system’s mainframe, they’re off.

What strikes me most is how you can’t make a movie like this any more. Never mind the costumes and so-very-’60s music, I’m talking about the plot and setup: the entire movie is so-very-’60s. Everything is set up, through perfect planning and careful legwork, so that the heist goes in the Brits’ favor. And while there are some surprises for them, it ends up with madcap chase sequences going in favor of Caine’s crew, the Italians stumbling around confusedly, crashing into walls, wrecking their cars, and so on.

There’s no sense that the robbers are in any kind of trouble; the Mafia thread purports to some trick ending, something related to Caine’s girlfriend, but that never appears; and up until the literal cliffhanger, there’s no sense that these guys aren’t going to make off with four million in gold bricks. Part of the problem is that a proposed sequel never appeared, but I was struck by how short the film was—making it shallow in both plot and character development, and its lack of emotion detracts from its attempts to build tension or drama.

Of course, that’s not why you’re watching this movie. You’re watching to see a well-coordinated planning sequence turn into Mini Coopers driving up, through, and over buildings—down into a subterranean mall, into a church, through a sewer system, on a roof, etc. And it’s a fine chase sequence, even if it’s pure Mini glorification, something that the remake latched onto to the point where it was the best two-hour ad for Minis ever made.

For some reason, this confused poster didn't entice American audiences.

And because of that well-executed heist—and chase—the film is deservedly a classic. It’s nice to see an old-fashioned heist go well for the heroes, and the chase scenes are entertaining for their madcap nature, blazing through every kind of location imaginable. But I guess the dark old film noir and gritter late ’60s/early ’70s flicks are more my cup of tea; while I liked The Italian Job as an enjoyable lighthearted romp, with good characterization and fantastic car chases, I thought it was too straightforward, with a feeble plot lacking in suspense or depth. To each their own.

Crime Double Feature – The Mugger (1958)

To reiterate (and copy/paste), I’ve been reading Ed McBain’s (really Evan Hunter’s) 87th Precinct novels lately (more reviews on the way). And I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only did several of them become feature films, but two are also on Netflix streaming. Yay for me! Movie execs weren’t ones to let grass grow on their feet, and bought up the licenses to McBain’s first few novels in 1958, McBain having published the first 8-7 novel in 1956. So, here they are, in all their glory: Cop Hater and The Mugger. I already dealt with Cop Hater, so next up:

The Mugger (1958)

There’s a new mugger in town preying on women within the 87th Squad’s jurisdiction, and he doesn’t seem to be letting up. Having stumped the detectives, psychiatrist and former detective Dr. Pete Graham (Kent Smith) comes out of pseudo-retirement to try and crack this nut. Graham is also contacted by an old friend, who wants him to look into his troubled young sister-in-law; she’s acting like something’s wrong, but tells Graham she doesn’t have any problems. Then she’s found stabbed to death in a city park, with the mugger’s trademark sunglasses crushed in her hands, and Graham has a personal motivation to catch this killer.

Whereas the book and Cop Hater were more character-driven police procedurals, The Mugger is more of a low-key psycho-detective analy-gation. It doesn’t break down into psycho-analyzing witnesses or anything—that’s just a fringe thing—but it doesn’t go as heavy into the detecting, either. In fact, the film just sort of muddles around without any sense of character or depth. Graham looks into several potential suspects and works around the mystery of the girl’s death while he keeps up his relationship with his wife Claire; meanwhile the 87th is continually stymied, and eventually tries luring the mugger out using a female detective as bait.

Now, I have read this novel, and it’s one of the best books in the 87th series, which is nothing like the film. And the changes are for the worse. The protagonist was originally a young cop—Bert Kling, see the first movie—and he met his on-off college-student girlfriend Claire Townsend during the course of the investigation, where in the film they’re married and working out of the same building. Note cop, not criminal psychiatrist; that sounds like a horrible change made to play up the contemporary growth of psychiatrists. And I should emphasize young, because I think the changes didn’t work, because the film then proceeds to point out how every loose woman in the world thinks this middle-aged, psychologist Kling is the sexiest man on Earth.

The film lacks any kind of detective/investigation work until near the end, which then results in a very unconvincing car chase (perhaps at speeds up to forty miles an hour!), and while the villain’s ending is suitably gory, there’s no real reason or lead-up to it. (In the book, it ends with the perp nailed and arrested and jailed, not brutally slain.) And the mugger himself was amped up from socking women to cutting them, probably to inflate the drama/tension needlessly. All in all, a tight, taut fraternal order of detectives with a strong sense of character was lost into a banal, featureless film. The things that were kept from the novel include the mugger, the general plot about the younger sister, a beatnik informant, a few of the set-pieces (like the female detective bait sequence), and some of the character names.

Again, McBain’s 87th was strong because it had a large, rotating cast of characters, and each subsequent novel made them feel more fleshed-out and developed. Losing that humanist approach makes the film feel shallow and lifeless, and gives it a strong emotional distance: we don’t even see the murder victim long enough to make her death anything more than a plot device, which I’m pretty sure would have irked McBain. It’s hard to incorporate that developing texture in film; Cop Hater gave it a good try, while The Mugger avoids it completely. You can tell it had a shoestring budget from its lack of characters and cheap-o sets.

When the lobby cards have such fascinating scenes as this...

Unlike Cop Hater, which wasn’t bad, The Mugger was nowhere close to good. The film is sluggish, listing, and banal, lacking any sense of character or plot depth to result in monotonous and shallow tripe. That also means it’s short—74 minutes—so there’s a reason for its lack of anything; that brevity is something of a plus. The change in character could have worked great, but instead we’re left with a rather bland psychiatrist-detective with a rather bland wife and some uninspired coworkers; the most interesting characters are the bit-players and suspects. Kent Smith was no newcomer to crime/detective cinema, and while he doesn’t phone his role in, he doesn’t seem very enthusiastic either. The film as a whole just didn’t do anything for me.

I’m unsure this film will please hardcore McBain readers given all the alterations that were made, nor did it blow me away as a standalone police mystery, so I’m unconvinced this film has enough of an audience to give it some rediscovery comeback: it’s just not that good.

Crime Double Feature – Cop Hater (1958)

I’m blazing through Ed McBain’s (really Evan Hunter’s) 87th Precinct novels of late, and was pleasantly surprised to find that not only did several of them become feature films, but two are also on Netflix streaming. Score! Movie execs weren’t ones to let grass grow on their feet, and bought up the licenses to McBain’s first few novels in 1958, McBain having published the first 8-7 novel in 1956. So, here they are, in all their glory: Cop Hater and The Mugger. First up:

Cop Bait! I wonder what this poster's selling the film on?

Cop Hater (1958) – MGM

On the hottest, steamiest summer in the City’s recent memory, somebody is out killing cops. Detectives of the 87th Precinct are getting gunned down while off duty. One murder is problematic and depressing; two is an endemic. The rest of the 8-7 cops are uneasy, on edge, unsure how or when this cop hater will strike again. Detectives Steve Carelli (Robert Loggia) and Mike Maguire (Gerald O’Loughlin) are put on the case, and are racing against the clock before another cop dies. Meanwhile, a nosy reporter is trying to uncover dirt to blow this story wide open, and rookie detective Bert Kling has a rough few days on the job.

McBain’s novels have a strong character-driven, humanist approach as their centerpiece: these are average, everyday guys, blue-collar-workers with guns kind of thing. They’re not the super-exaggerated detectives of most noir fiction; combined with McBain’s inclusion of real technique, procedures, and documents, it gives his 87th a very realistic feel.

That’s important to realize since the film follows the same approach. We see Maguire and Carelli hanging out and drinking, going for a night on the town with their wives; we see their two respective home lives, which have a major impact later on the plot. They’re also an interesting parallel. Carelli’s engaged to Teddy, a deaf-mute; two young lovers kind of thing. Maguire is the older cop, with a slightly burnt-out home life; you get the feeling his wife Alice (Shirley Ballard) really wants something more in her marriage now that the spark is flickering out.

The film deals with some very heavy adult themes for the ’50s; the deaths have a lot of weight and grit—murder, after all, of the protagonists’ figurative brothers—and we see a lot of sexual tension and implications without any real detail. Alice dresses quite provocatively—at one point she models her new swimsuit—and Teddy’s later caught in nothing more than a bath towel. Meanwhile, we have a trip to a brothel, and a large subplot about a youth gang who might include suspects, and who are antagonized by the reporter’s grilling. (Juvie gangs are so nostalgically ’50s, when the corruption of our youths’ innocence to violence and drugs was the second greatest threat to our civilization, behind Communism.)

I haven’t read the novel yet, but from what I can tell most of the pieces are there. Aside from Carella becoming Carelli, all the big-name characters still here; “Carelli’s” wife Teddy is still a deaf-mute; the City is no longer McBain’s nameless amalgam but is more clearly New York. Many of the huge cast of detectives with bit-parts in the series are rolled into faceless characters here; that’s understandable, given the difference between the two forms of media, and there’s a large cast of nameless actors in the Precinct’s offices to create the illusion of a large, overworked police squad. Everything I see is accurate enough, though I don’t remember seeing Maguire in any of the book reviews or synopsis I’ve read, so there’s that.

So what we end up with is a good, well-rounded film, yet one that’s overall unexceptional, not much more than drive-in fare; it’s a little too short, and it feels rushed when its credits are rolling over the action to save time—seriously, people are talking and running around while names, and later The End, fill up the screen. It looks like a B-movie, and feels like a B-movie, even as it sticks to the rigorous authenticity of life as a detective. That said, I thought it was very enjoyable for what it was, and is worth checking out for the noir/crime/detective movie fan. I liked it well enough.