10/6/14 (Part One) Et Tu, Spock?

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'70s films, 31 Days of Halloween, alien invasion, alien spores, aliens, Art Hindle, based on, Brooke Adams, cinema, classic films, clones, cult classic, Don Siegel, Donald Sutherland, films, films review, hobo-faced dogs, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Jeff Goldblum, Kevin McCarthy, Leonard Nimoy, Michael Chapman, Movies, outer space, Philip Kaufman, pod people, pop psychology, remakes, San Francisco, sci-fi-horror, set in the 1970s, Veronica Cartwright, W.D. Richter

As a general rule, I don’t care for remakes, finding them to be alternately lazy, creatively bankrupt and, in worst case scenarios, downright offensive to the original property. That being said, there are always exceptions to every rule and I must admit that I do swear loyalty to a handful of remakes. John Carpenter’s remake of The Thing (1982) is the definitive version of that tale, despite not being the first. I’ll always feel that Gore Verbinski’s version of The Ring (2002) is a more frightening film than Ringu (1998) and I’ve always enjoyed Philip Kaufman’s version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) more than Don Siegel’s 1956 original.

For the record, there’s not much wrong with the original version of Invasion, despite my predilection for the remake. Siegel’s always been one of my favorite directors and he brings a taut, razors’ edge sense of tension to many of the film’s scenes. Kevin McCarthy is a more than able hero and the shadow of the McCarthy Red Scare that hovers over everything is just as palpable a menace as those sinister pod people ever were. That being said, the 1956 version is not without its problems. The framing device, added at the insistence of the producers, dilutes the film to a considerable degree and the movie definitely comes off as more dated than many of its contemporaries. In many ways, the original version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a product of its time, although its never been anything less than imminently watchable in the nearly 60 years since its release.

Kaufman’s re-do begins with one of the single most inventive intros I’ve ever seen, a superbly imaginative four-minute-epic that tracks the titular alien spores from their home planet, through the vast reaches of space and down onto the Earth’s surface via rain and condensation. Scored like an old-fashioned nature show, the sequence is a real eye-popper and sets a pretty high bar for the rest of the film. The effects in this scene, particularly the one where the leaf becomes “infected” and grows a pod, are superb, allowing for a pretty decent suspension of disbelief. The sequence also allows for a smooth transition into the film, proper, as we witness one of our protagonists, Elizabeth (Brooke Adams) pick the resulting flower off the plant: with that, we officially begin our descent into sci-fi madness.

Elizabeth works for the San Francisco Department of Health (the city’s various sights and locations are utilized to good effect throughout the film), where she works side by side with Matt (Donald Sutherland), our other erstwhile protagonist. Matt’s a stoic, by-the-book health inspector who brooks absolutely no bullshit from anyone: one of the film’s many highlights is the introductory scene where Matt finds a rat turd in a restaurant’s soup cauldron, only for the manager to argue that it’s a caper. After going back and forth for a few moments, Matt holds the offending item out to the manager: “If it’s a caper, go ahead and eat it.” Game, set, match.

The body snatching really begins in earnest after Elizabeth brings the sprouting pod home to her boyfriend, Geoffrey (Art Hindle). Geoffrey is kind of a jerk, right off the bat, but he gets distinctly odder after a little exposure to the unknown flora: he becomes rather strange and emotionless, leading Elizabeth to tell best friend Matt that her boyfriend isn’t himself…as in, really isn’t himself and might actually be someone else. Matt thinks his gal pal is going a little loony until his friendly neighborhood laundry owner makes the same strange comment about his wife. Something, clearly, is afoot.

After Elizabeth tails her husband and witnesses him handing off strange packages to various strangers around town, she’s pretty sure that her initial suspicions are correct: Geoffrey is involved in something very odd and, potentially, very bad. In the interest of “helping” his friend, Matt takes her to see his friend, Dr. David Kibner (Leonard Nimoy), a pop-psychologist who’s seen more than his fair share of these “Person X is not Person X” cases lately. Meanwhile, Matt’s other friends, Jack (Jeff Goldblum) and Nancy Bellicec (Veronica Cartwright), have found something a little strange at their bathhouse: a partially formed humanoid that bears a striking, if rudimentary, resemblance to Jack. In one of the film’s most chilling moments, Nancy watches the humanoid’s eyes spring open at the exact moment that Jack’s close: the clone also has a nose bleed, just like Jack. It would seem that Elizabeth was right, all along: something very strange and terrible is going on.

As the situation around them continues to spiral out of control, Matt, Elizabeth, Jack and Nancy have only themselves to rely on, as any and everyone around them, including the police and government authorities, might very well be “pod people.” The group must also avoid sleeping, if at all possible, since that seems to be when the transformations become complete, resulting in a fully formed clone and a pile of dust where the “real” person used to be. Paranoia, both real and induced by lack of sleep, ensues and the group sees danger wherever they turn. With no one else to turn to, Matt seeks the counsel of Dr. Kibner but is the good doctor really on their side? Or has he become a part of something much bigger, something which could very well spell the end of humanity as we know it?

Above all, Kaufman’s version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is one sustained chill after another, punctuated by several setpieces that tip the film into full-blown horror territory. There’s one moment, shocking for how untelegraphed it is, where Matt splatters his clone’s head with a hoe: in a film that’s remarkably restrained as far as violence goes, it’s a truly bracing, horrific moment. The film’s piece de resistance, however, has to be the skin-crawling sequence where Matt dozes on the lawn while pod people form on the grass around him. Not only is the scene unbelievably tense, as we, literally, are watching Matt sleep his life away but the effects are astoundingly grotesque and rather nasty, with the forming pod people resembling nothing so much as the soupy mess at the center of the exploitation class The Incredible Melting Man (1977). It’s a great scene, one that has no equal in the original film. Likewise, the discovery of Jack’s clone is handled with considerably more tension and rising horror than the parallel scene in the first film.

Overall, Kaufman’s remake has a slightly different focus than the original: whereas Siegel’s original bemoaned the increasing lack of cohesion within America, as an outside force sought to drive us apart, the remake takes the much more paranoid viewpoint that we, as individuals, are hopelessly surrounded by mobs of sinister, conspiring others. It’s the same notion that makes us believe people are talking about us from behind their hands or planning some terrible event whenever they meet in secret: it’s the modern notion that no individual should have privacy or secrets in order to “protect” the masses that drives such modern institutes as the NSA. Kaufman’s version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers makes the point that sinister groups of people probably are making sinister plans at this very minute: how would we really know?

Despite enjoying McCarthy’s performance in the original quite a bit, I’m much more taken by Sutherland’s performance in the remake. Channeling the same sort of “lovably assholish genius” that Hugh Laurie mined for years in the TV show, House, Sutherland is a thoroughly charismatic presence. Brooke Adams, likewise, is a great relateable character, someone with just steel nerve to get the job done but enough vulnerability to still fill the “damsel in distress” quotient required of film’s from this era. Goldblum and Cartwright are great as the bo-ho best friends, with Cartwright bringing a particularly strong performance: she’s a vastly underrated actor who will probably always be best know for her performance in Alien (1979) but deserves recognition for so much more. And, of course, there’s the colossally fun performance by Leonard Nimoy as the platitude-spouting shrink with an agenda: his character is a great riff on the emotionless performance he perfected as Spock on Star Trek, featuring a truly wonderful bit where he appears to stuff all of the over-the-top emoting normally associated with former cast-mate William Shatner into one little diatribe. It’s a truly great performance, especially since it so ably plays against expectations.

The film looks fantastic, filled with the warm tones and vibrant colors (particularly greens) which always characterized the best of ’70s cinema. The man behind the camera for this one is none other than Michael Chapman, the savant who also shot Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), The Fugitive (1993) and Space Jam (1996): without a doubt, the remake of the film is a much better-looking film than the original and this comes from someone who really digs on the look of ’50s-era sci-fi films. Kaufman’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers is in a whole other category, however.

As a remake, Kaufman’s film sticks fairly closely to the original and its source material, Jack Finney’s novel, “The Body Snatchers.” Many times, scenes will parallel similar scenes in the first film, although writer W.D. Richter makes a few, significant changes from Siegel’s version. One of the niftiest bits of fan service in the remake is the scene where Kevin McCarthy reprises his role from the original: he jumps in front of Matt and Elizabeth’s car, pounding on the hood and screaming that “They’re coming! They’re already here!” just like he did at the conclusion of the original. A new addition that works spectacularly is the ultra-creepy “howl” that the pod people use whenever they discover a human: it’s a great, skin-crawling bit and Kaufman uses it to perfection in several key moments.

Truth be told, there’s really only one complaint that I have about the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and it’s a pretty specific one: the dog-hobo hybrid that makes an appearance during the pivotal “sneaking through the clones” scene is a real howler, so thoroughly goofy as to completely kill the mood of the film. I’m hard-pressed to think of any other cinematic moment that matches this bit of inanity but the stupid “Chaos reigns fox” from Von Trier’s Antichrist (2009) certainly comes to mind. In an interesting bit of coincidence: co-star Goldblum would go on to appear in another remake that featured a human-animal hybrid when he starred in Cronenberg’s remake of The Fly (1986): what the hell are the chances of that?

As I stated earlier, there’s very little wrong with the original film and modern audiences would be well-served by checking it out, if they haven’t already. That being said, Kaufman’s 1978 remake is a much better film on nearly every level, not least of which is an ending that manages to not only beat the original by a country mile but to be one of the single best cinematic endings of all time. In a time and age when we find ourselves increasingly connected to the rest of the world and the notion of “group-think” is becoming more prevalent than ever, much of Invasion of the Body Snatchers has begun to seem rather prophetic. Perhaps the invaders were already here…how would we really know?

 

4/22/14: Set the Way Back Machine to Groovy, Baby

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'70s films, '70s-era, AIP, American Independent Productions, Bullitt, cinema, crime film, drug smuggling, film reviews, films, gangster films, gangsters, heroin trafficking, Italian cinema, Ivo Garrani, mafia, Maurizio Lucidi, mean streets of San Francisco, Movies, race-car driver, Roger Corman, Roger Moore, San Francisco, Stacy Keach, Street People, The French Connection, Ulysses

When it comes to exploring new films, I like to let my instincts do the walking. Like some sort of mutant bloodhound, my nose is finally attuned to sniff out those cinematic delicacies that will most likely keep me entertained, if not actively jumping from my seat and thrusting devil horns into the flat-screen. Sometimes, the cover art can fire my imagination, leading me to wonder how much was made up by the artist and how much actually exists within the framework of the movie proper. Other times, I can be intrigued by a familiar name in the credits, some favorite actor “slumming” it in a B-grade effort to make some pocket cash. In a perfect storm situation, however, all of these disparate elements will align to make a previously unknown film into an absolute must-see. When I found out that Street People, a 1976 Italian gangster flick set on the mean streets of San Francisco, featured Roger Moore as a Sicilian/British mob lawyer and Stacy Keach as his best friend and champion race-car driver…well, let’s just say that the next move was obvious.

Following in the Italo-film tradition of spaghetti Westerns, Street People features an all-Italian cast, supplemented by Moore and Keach as the token Hollywood names. In many ways, the film is a very stereotypical ’70s Italian gangster film, filmed with gauzy flashbacks, double-crosses, conflict between the church and the mob, car chases, shoot-outs and familial drama. Moore, smack-dab in the middle of his residency as James Bond, plays the Sicilian/British lawyer Ulysses, tasked by his mob-boss uncle Salvatore (Ivo Garrani) with finding a missing shipment of heroin (hidden in a large crucifix, no less). Sal’s brother, Francis, is a cardinal and the theft of the crucifix/heroin, which included the messy murder of its guards, has put a black mark on the church. It’s up to Ulysses and his race-car drivin’ buddy Charlie (Keach) to get to the bottom of the mess and they’ll go from San Francisco to Sicily and back to solve the crime. Along the way, they’ll find out the truth about Sal and Francis’ relationship, the best way to send a message via fish and that every friendship is only as strong as its weakest link.

First of all, Street People is an absolute mess. It’s an awful lot of fun, don’t get me wrong…but it’s a complete mess. The narrative tends to jump all over the place, a problem which is only made worse by the frequent flashbacks. The flashbacks, themselves, tend to be so confusing and loopy (at one point, two characters seem to share a flashback in what must be the strangest attempt at economy I’ve ever seen in a conventional film) that they’re more fever dreams than plot elements. Combine this with the inherently thorny nature of the plot (it is, after all, supposed to be a mystery) and Street People often comes across as frustratingly vague. We always get the general sense of what’s going on (Ulysses and Charlie are looking for the drugs) but who they question, why they question them and where they go afterwards often seems arbitrary, as if we only ever get bits and pieces of any one scene. Chalk this up to the fact that the film was, most likely, re-edited when Roger Corman’s AIP company released it in America but, regardless, it doesn’t make for particularly smooth sailing.

As with other films of this era/ilk, much of Street People is decidedly low-rent, consisting of anonymous people pointing guns at either Moore or Keach, lather, rinse, repeat. The one exception to this, however, would have to be the films numerous and consistently impressive car chases. All of the car chases are thrillingly staged and executed, bringing to mind much more capable films like Bullitt (1968) and The French Connection (1971) but a few of them are particularly great. One scene, in which Ulysses and Charlie must maneuver in and around a group of hostile semi-trucks during a high-speed freeway chase is fantastic and recalls a similarly good scene in one of the Bond films (perhaps even one of the Moore bond films, which would be a pretty neat extra layer). While the rest of Street People is neither noticeably better (or worse) than the average Italian gangster pic of the era, with the exception of Moore and Keach, the car chases are always exemplary and certainly worth a look.

Although the rest of the cast is so generic as to become easily interchangeable (including the mob boss), Moore and Keach do just fine in the their respective roles. Moore brings a slightly hard edge to Ulysses, although he keeps enough of the Bond finesse to make him a pretty cool customer. This is a much different tough guy than Bond, however, and it’s to Moore’s credit that he doesn’t play him as a carbon copy of his more famous day job. Keach is a blast and a half, bouncing around the camera frame like a manic wind-up monkey. His dialogue is some of the most outrageously dated in the entire film (the moment where he tries to buy drugs with a plaintive, “C’mon, mama…don’t you jive me now!” is an instant classic, as is his warning to a close-mouthed informant that he’ll “Spread the word that you’re a turkey deluxe”) and Keach manages to steal any and every scene he’s in. Although he plays Charlie as decidedly subservient to Ulysses (an odd choice, considering how take-charge Keach normally is in films), the two have an easy rapport that marks them as genuine friends and makes their scenes together a breezy joy. It also makes the film’s “twist” conclusion a real head-scratcher but it’s certainly not the only narrative lapse in the film.

Overall, Street People is an easy film to sit through but a slightly more difficult one to completely appreciate. While the story is needlessly convoluted and downright nonsensical, Moore and Keach make a constantly delightful duo and there’s no shortage of action scenes to keep things humming along, as well as some genuinely great car chases to offer a little needed eye-candy. If you’re a fan of ’70s-era Italo-crime films, Roger Moore or Stacy Keach, Street People should definitely scratch your itch.

See it now, fool, before I tell everyone that you’re a turkey deluxe.

1/23/14: To Boldly Go…Home

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1980's, action-comedies, Chekov, cinema, Enterprise, films, franchises, Kirk, Leonard Nimoy, McCoy, Movies, San Francisco, sci-fi, Scotty, sequel, space operas, Spock, Star Trek, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Star Wars, Sulu, time travel, Uhura, whales, William Shatner

As a child, I was a huge Star Wars fanatic: I must have had every action figure, vehicle, play-set and pajama-set in the history of the original trilogy. Star Trek, on the other hand, wasn’t quite my thing. I’m not sure if it had more to do with the ration of laser-blasts to philosophical discussions or if I was just more partial to Han Solo than Capt. Kirk. Whatever the reason, I just never felt a big connection to the Enterprise and its crew when I was younger.

As I got older, however, I found my alliances shifting. The Star Wars films lost some of their original luster, particularly once the prequels were tossed into the mix. Star Trek, on the other hand, was finally beginning to appeal to me. I ended up falling in love with the original series (I can still watch those episodes any time: it’s cinematic comfort food like mashed potatoes and meatloaf, as far as I’m concerned) and became a fan of The Next Generation, although I’ve never seen any of the other . I also began to really pay attention to the Trek films: I’d already seen many of them since my family was always big on new releases and action/adventure films but I’d never really paid attention.

Currently, my admiration for the two series still tends to lean towards Star Trek, although I definitely wouldn’t consider myself a hardcore fan of either. I think that Star Trek has tended to stick with me longer because the social problems and philosophical issues raised seem to have more real-world applications than the space operatics of Star Wars. At any rate, I find that some time has passed since I saw either a Star Trek or Star Wars film. When it came time to choose last Thursday’s entertainment, my lovely wife suggested Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (her personal favorite in the series) and this seemed like a perfect time to get reacquainted with the series.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is certainly an odd Star Trek film but I think that’s actually one of its biggest benefits. Coming right after the triple punch of The Motion Picture, The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock, The Voyage Home is a much lighter affair, more comedy and satire than pulse-pounding space shoot-em-up. This also makes it an easy film to mock, particularly when we get to elements like Spock using the Vulcan nerve pinch on a mohawk-bedecked “punk rocker” on a bus or Kirk’s constant swearing (this affectation, however, is one of my favorites in the film, particularly when he responds back to a rude motorist with the classic retort, “Double-dumbass to you!”

Story-wise, The Voyage Home takes place immediately after The Search for Spock ended. Spock is once again alive and with the crew, the crew is on the run from the Federation in a stolen Klingon warbird (dubbed the HMS Bounty, in a particularly nifty touch) and some strange probe is draining the energy from every vessel and planet it comes near. When it begins to drain Earth, the renegade crew put their heads together and realize that the strange signal emanating from the probe is a whale song. Where to find a whale to respond to the probe since they’ve been extinct for hundreds of years by that point? Why, the past of course: San Francisco in 1986, to be exact. The crew heads to the past, endures the typical fish-out-of-water shenanigans that we’d expect (including the aforementioned bus antics and a gloriously goofy sequence where Spock dives into a whale tank to commune with the big lugs) and, of course, ends up saving the day.

Since The Voyage Home isn’t played strictly seriously, it may seem easy to discount it, especially when compared to earlier fare like The Wrath of Khan. Despite a few particularly dodgy effects moments (especially the dated time-travel effects), a few silly moments (Spock’s IQ test scene is really silly, one short step from being eye-rolling) and a distinct lack of action (there’s some minor action sequences at the beginning and a rather quickly resolved one at the end), however, the film actually holds up pretty well. Leonard Nimoy wrote and directed the film and there’s a general sense of amiability that permeates everything: at no point do any of the actors look like they’re having anything less than a great time. Shatner, in particular, is in fine, mischievous form and gets a few choice lines to rattle off.

As a rule, the effects are pretty simple and clean (aside from the ridiculous time travel scene): I bet The Voyage Home must have looked pretty good in theaters on opening weekend. I was initially concerned that the film would lose its footing completely once the crew made it to Earth but Nimoy keeps a pretty consistent visual thread running through the film, making the Earth scenes no less (but certainly no more) visually arresting than what’s happening in space. Add in a pretty rousing finale, with a truly great final scene, and you have one pretty decent film. Certainly nothing ground-breaking (or even something to make people forget the three films that came before) but Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is consistently entertaining and fun: that’s certainly more than I can say for Attack of the Clones.