Ah, andrew.   One of the glorious things about andrew is that not only do I get to chit chat about hockey (did you know I like other things outside of movies?!) with andrew, I get to chit chat about a variety of movies we both love.

One of these that popped up was Scanners.

I’m unapologetic about my crazy love for David Cronenberg.   After watching The Brood at my house with a cynical, jaded friend who spent the entirety of the movie exclaiming, “What the HELL OH MY GOD OH MY GOD” every five minutes, I have wholly embraced the nutty goodness that is Cronenberg.   Cronenberg movies are like puppies and rainbows and chocolate bars in film form for me.   After every Cronenberg movie I watch, I kinda want to hug the man and give him some flowers or something.   It shocks me how much attention Tim Burton generates for being, in essence, a “freaky auteur” when Cronenberg does it so much better, far more skillfully and relies less on the same aesthetic motifs throughout his films.  So it’s no surprise I eagerly awaited my copy of Scanners arriving to me in the mail…and of course, then Netflix experienced “shipping delays”.   Boo, Netflix!

Scanners is the story of Cameron Vale, who has become essentially a homeless freakshow who wanders the city with crazy bug eyes due to the fact that, well, he’s telepathic and telekinetic.   These kinds of people are called “scanners” and Vale’s problem is that he cannot control his scanning, especially in large groups of people.

Revok, a fellow scanner, has started an underground society of scanners who want to take over the world, and he’s far enough over the “batshit insane” line to decide that if you don’t join his fun little Tupperware party of death and destruction, you’re going to meet a rather unpleasant end.   Thus, Revok travels all over, basically getting his killing on everywhere he goes.

It’s really good not to be on this guy’s bad side, as this is what happens to you when you are (cut for extreme head-exploding goodness, for those of you who might be at work and don’t want your boss looking at a EXPLODED!HEAD! OF AWESOME!)

Vale is recruited by a shadowy corporation that convinces him to help them essentially save everyone from Revok and he dutifully sets about his task, and an awful lot of people die along the way.

If I have to be perfectly honest, Scanners is not a fantastic movie.  I think it’s pretty good, but it’s not great, mainly because there’s a ton of close-ups of people having Bad Acting Moments, especially when they’re “scanned” to death.   Cronenberg really nails you with the head explosion, mainly because it is really fun to watch, but after a while some of the scan-deaths wear.

That’s okay, because it totally pays off in the end.  The showdown between Vale and Revok at the end is one of my favorite things ever, quite simply because it’s so inexplicably cool.   Eye-popping and face-melting all around!

Revok is played by Michael Ironside who I irrationally really like.   I own Total Recall for a variety of reasons but the main one is Michael Ironside.   And he really, really, really plays a bad guy like very few others can.  There’s something menacing but altogether strangely identifiable about him.   He’s a bad, bad man in most of his movies, but there’s something odd and almost relatable about him.   Scanners, in my opinion, isn’t sellable if isn’t for Ironside.

There’s something distinctly different about Scanners, something that I’ve never been able to put my finger on.   The plot’s predictable and there’s definite weak points.   But it’s so darn fun.   I mean, twenty tons of fun!

Plus, head explosions.   You simply cannot top that head explosion.

Genius, I say!

What a shame.

The sad thing about Lost Horizon is that ten or so minutes of the film are missing. The score is intact, but through years of struggling to piece together surviving film, only ten minutes could not be recovered.  The result is a little jarring, but you have to respect the film preservationists who worked to save the movie some credit - only losing ten minutes out of 130 minutes total is pretty darn good.

Based on the book by James Hilton, Lost Horizon tells the story of a group of people fleeing a revolution in a small area in China who have to fly over the Himalayas.  Their plane crash lands and they are rescued by a group of people who take them to a strange place called Shangri-La — a place where aging slows to a crawl and the inhabitants live in peace and harmony.   The intrepid group of travelers has no idea what to make of this.   Some are confused and one, George Conway, is perfectly content to stay.   Conway quickly discovers they were brought to Shangri-La for an express purpose, one that involves him.

At the time, this was one of the most expensive movies ever made.   It shows, especially in the sets, which are amazing.

What’s impressive about Lost Horizon is the fact that Frank Capra directed it and it feels oddly not like Capra did it, in contrast to his other works.   In fact, Capra struggled greatly from what I’ve read to get Lost Horizon made.

Lost Horizon presents the utopian ideal and also seeks, in a way, to depict why people reject it.   In fact, you could probably best describe the entire thing as an interpretation of sorts of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, in a way — enlightened versus unenlightened and the schism that arises therein.   It’s pretty heady at times, since Conway is given two very black and white kind of choices:   stay in Shangri-La or go.
Conway distinctly understands and loves Shangri-La, while the others cannot understand the inherent ideas in Shangri-La, nor can they accept them.   The inhabitants’ way of life is so foreign to the other travelers that they refuse to accept any of it as truth.

The one Capra-esque feel it has to it is the “man with the world on his shoulders”, a la It’s A Wonderful Life or Mr. Smith Goes To Washington.  Conway is the one reasonable traveler out of the group, and the one, in the end, who has the best understanding of what Shangri-La is all about.

As with any Capra movie, it’s beautifully lit and wonderfully staged.   And more than anything, Jane Wyatt and Ronald Colman really do a fantastic job.   I don’t feel very strongly for quite a bit of the supporting cast, but Wyatt and Colman are worth the proverbial price of admission alone, especially Wyatt, who was a surprise.

Even with the missing reels, it’s a real treat (and not just for the scene where you figure out Conway’s love interest, played by a strong Jane Wyatt, has figured out how to make music all day by tying whistles to pigeons) and an excellent film.   It’s an absolute shame that the ravages of time (and according to Wikipedia, Capra himself) destroyed so much of the film, but what we do have left is well worth the viewing.

“Would you like me to tell you the little story of right-hand/left-hand? The story of good and evil?”

In Depression-times, a man robs a bank out of desperation to provide for his family in the long-term.   Having killed two men doing so, he is immediately hunted down by the police, but not before he hides the money he stole.   Knowing that the only two other people, his children, are aware of the location of the money, he extracts an oath from them both that neither will tell a soul about the money - not even their own mother.

The father is hauled off to jail and while he awaits execution for his crimes, a strange man comes to share his cell.   Preacher Harry Powell, a man who knows that the Lord “don’t mind the killins” but hates “other things, lacy things…things with curly hair” is a fire and brimstone type of preacher, a man who has the words “LOVE” and “HATE” tattooed on his knuckles, but one who was nonetheless caught with a stolen car.   Upon finding out his new cellmate’s crimes, Powell attempts to worm out the secret of the hidden money, but all he gets are some mumbled words from his cellmate in his sleep.

So, upon his release, Harry Powell tracks down the man’s widow - Willa - and promptly marries her, hoping to leverage his position into forcing the children, John and Pearl, into revealing the location of the money.  The children refuse, and Willa eventually begins to put the pieces together.   Upon revealing that she knows that he’s hounding the children about the money, Powell kills her and tells the town people that she ran off after he found her drinking.

John and Pearl run away after being threatened by Powell.   Pearl reveals the location of the money, but they make their escape, eventually seeking refuge with an older woman who takes in unwanted children, but it’s not long before Harry Powell shows up again, looking for the children - and the money.

I think the most striking thing about Night of the Hunter is the fact that it feels very unique for its time period.   The way the director made the movie is something wholly different than what you’re used to seeing from the mid fifties.

Robert Mitchum, as I’ve said before, is so seriously underrated in comparison to his peers.   His portrayal of Harry Powell is at once creepy and yet believable; even when Powell is at his best in the presence of others, Mitchum gives him a palpable sense of danger under a veneer of the upright holy man.   Mitchum’s “love/hate — right/left” scene ought to be in a montage of great scenes, right up there with Stewart and Bogart.

More than anything, Charles Laughton, the director, seemed to have a great understanding of the fact that film can transcend things and say so much more than a lot of people realized.

He sets everything in a way that’s realistic, yet at the same time, foreign, leaving you just a little uneasy, which of course, lets Mitchum come right in and freak you the hell out.

Shelley Winters plays Willa, the wife and mother who eventually marries Powell.   I wouldn’t say she does a good job, but she’s not bad, either.   In fact, most of the movie it feels like she’s really reaching for something, but she can’t quite get there.   It also hurts her performance that Mitchum is so damn good.  However, it does make you sad when she dies, for someone who has demonstratively suffered so much during the film, and she does well enough that you care about what happens to her in the end.

The kids are kid actors; they do their best, but nothing fantastic.   Mitchum carries the load of the film and he does it excellently.

Lillian Gish does very well as Miss Cooper, the kind lady who takes poor, unwanted children in and is strong enough to hold her own against Mitchum.  She is part of the only reason I would say the film is not nearly perfect; her asides to the audience are distracting and jarring, at times.

The main fortes of Night of the Hunter are the fact that Laughton was an excellent director, Mitchum is terrific and the story is paced well to provide varying levels of tension throughout the entire film.  It’s an absolute loss that Laughton never directed another film, because one can only imagine what Laughton could have done if Night of the Hunter was a jumping-off point for him.   The plot and story move along well enough, to where you never tire of where you are in the story, nor are you anticipating the next turn in the bend; the viewer is merely watching and paying attention to the suspense in the here-and-now.   Not just that, Night of the Hunter was freaky, scary and perverse in a time you wouldn’t necessarily expect a Hollywood film to tackle some weird issues (like Harry Powell’s issues with women) and the shocking thing is that Night of the Hunter still holds up.   It’s still freaky.   It’s still scary, fifty years later, and Mitchum is still intimidating and scary.

More than anything, Night of the Hunter is still excellent.

Edited to Add: It figures my 100th post would be about this damnable movie.   Somewhere, my dad is laughing at me…in good fun, of course.

There’s a story with this one.

Years ago, when we were all smaller and shorter, my family always watched movies together. Usually my parents picked the movies, and every so often, my dad would insist we watch a certain movie, knowing if he didn’t insist, we’d never watch it.

Such is the case with Night of the Lepus. We were eating dinner together, and my dad told us, “There’s this wonderful movie on tonight, and we’re going to watch it. Together. And it’s called Night of the Lepus.”

My sisters and I probably stared rather blankly at my dad. As a group, we began to speculate what a lepus was. Was it a shark? A monster? A dinosaur? Cue a young me: “Knowing Daddy, it’s probably about chipmunks or something.”

Well, I wasn’t far off.

The movie we watched, incidentally, is not this one. The Internets claim (wrongly, I think) that this is the only version of Night of the Lepus. It’s not. We watched this one, which is a ’70’s facsimile of the original..only worse (if that was even humanly possible).

But if you’re still wondering, dearests, what in the world a lepus is…look no further:

That’s right. Night of the Lepus is about KILLER RABBITS.

I think when we first realized what a lepus was, my father nearly had a full scale revolt on his hands. We stayed, though, and we watched, and to this day when my father suggests watching a movie of dubious character, we ask, “Is this like the time we had to watch Night of the Lepus?” Dad, meanwhile, sat back and I’m sure internally laughed at us all the way through the movie.

In a small town in Arizona, rabbits are eating ranchers out of house and home. So, some local dude (played by DeForrest Kelley) goes to the local university and digs up some scientists who are supposed to be pioneering some sort of research that kills off only one kind of animal, instead of poisoning everything in general. The ranchers don’t want to kill everything, you see, only those cute little cuddly bunny rabbits.

There’s one problem, though: Our intrepid scientists? Work with bats.

Somehow, DeForrest Kelley convinces them to drop their uber-important research to apply the same principles to the rabbits. And, as you can see, our intrepid scientists are married with a twee little kid.

The intrepid scientists return to the lab and inject the rabbits with some sort of super serum that’s supposed to keep them from breeding. However, some children, and I’m not naming names here, do not understand the greater goal of science and are instead upset that their favowitest bunny wabbit has been injected with Super Serum. So what does Little Kid do?

She performs the whole “Gee, Mom and Dad aren’t looking so I’ll do the whole genetically mutated rabbit switcheroo” when Intrepid Scientists have their back turned. Then, she begs Mommy to please let her have a bunny rabbit, so Mommy lets her have one of the “control group”. Little does Mommy know…

And as they go home, Little Girl stupidly lets the rabbit escape. Oops.

That’s okay, though, because in the span of thirty seconds, Little Girl decides to go play with her ranching friend at the safest place in the world: The Old Abandoned Mineshaft Where That Crazy Hobo Lives.

Little Girl’s rancher friend is upset that he can’t find the hobo, so he directs her to go into the mineshaft all by her lonesome. And what does she find?

ENORMOUS, BLOODY MUTATED BUNNY RABBITS. AIEEEEEEE! (Thirty seconds after she let hers loose. WTF?)

Little Girl, between this and seeing the body of Crazy Old Hobo, goes all shock-like and has to be carried to her parents, who are decidedly thinking, “What in the hell? WHAT COULD BE IN THAT MINESHAFT?“

The rabbits are like, “Score! We’re scary! Let’s rampage and do some…rampaging!”

First, they knock off a produce truck and kill this poor man — who didn’t even have time to properly wax the ends of his mustache.

As you can see, this poor dummy has been unnecessarily mutilated and then had Heinz 57 vomited all over it.

By now, the rabbits are like, “Double score! We leveled up! We’ve gone from scaring people to being homicidal bunny MANIACS!” What better way to move on from killing a produce truck driver and eating his deliveries than by massacring a perfectly innocent family at a rest stop?

The Ketchup Vomiting Monster strikes again.

By now, the Intrepid Scientists and DeForrest Kelley have figured out something amiss is going on - and maybe, just maybe - it might have something to do with the rabbits and the Super Serum. So they consult a random, wheelchair bound scientist who never pops up again for some advice.

Mr. Scientist blathers on uselessly for a few minutes until it’s decided that, well, those pesky rabbits have to be destroyed.

Yeah, they have to be destroyed alright - destroyed by blowing ‘em up! Whoo!

They carefully rig Old Abandoned Mineshaft and then Male Intrepid Scientist and a rancher go in for a closer look. Big mistake, as then they’re running away from enormous bunnies while Female Intrepid Scientist must fend off a guy in a horrible ghillie suit with what appears to be a spray painted Easter Bunny head. I mean, she must fend off a terrible, vicious lepus of doom…my bad.

DeForrest Kelly mainly stands on top of Old Abandoned Mine doing jackshit and looking vaguely concerned.

Then they blow it up, but surprise! That didn’t get all of the killer bunnies. Er…not good.

So, the bunnies are understandably pissed. They’re probably thinking, “Hey, man, we got a right to live too! What’s up with THAT?” And then they decide to go on a killing spree, much like Michael Douglas in Falling Down, but where they have actual problems instead of getting upset over breakfast not being served after 11 a.m.

First stop: The ranch!

This woman comes out on the porch and then, aside from a few shots in the movie, is never seen nor heard from again. The hell? I suppose she was supposed to just stand there and look ominously serious. And a bit judge-y.

Rancher and Co. hide in the storm cellar while the bunnies rampage and pillage. Unfortunately, as you can see, one was killed. By the Rancher. In the storm cellar. With the shotgun.

And the rabbits make their way into town!

Somewhere along the way, Intrepid Scientists and DeForrest Kelly decided that yes, people did need to know about these enormous carnivorous rabbits, and that someone needed to be informed. So they called the National Guard, after looking decidedly heavy about it.

The National Guard shows up at the drive-in, where the entire town is MAGICALLY located and informs the residents: “Warning, evacuate. Killer rabbits are on their way into town”. If you think I’m kidding, I’m actually…really…not.

Meanwhile, Male Intrepid Scientist has instructed Little Kid and Female Intrepid Scientist to get the hell out of Dodge for safety’s sake, but of course, they can’t even do THAT right, so they wind up stuck in the middle of nowhere with a broken down camper. And the rabbits? The rabbits are coming!

What is Janet Leigh’s brilliant plan?

Lock stupid Little Kid in the camper and fearfully brandish FLARES at the rabbits.

But that’s okay, because Daddy shows up soon, with his tricked out helicopter to save the day - yay!

By now, there’s like, thousands of deadly killer rabbits heading their way, so they’ve hatched an ingenious plan to kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out. They decide to lure the eeeevil rabbits on to an electrified train track with a wall of the townspeople’s cars serving as a barricade, so thus:

Kentucky Fried Rabbits. Yum!

Thus, the scientists kill their awful creations (see what happens, Scientists, when you muck with things you shouldn’t?! HMM?!), the Little Girl has learned no discernable lesson…

DeForrest Kelley and Janet Leigh still have some disgustingly awful clothing. Janet Leigh’s hair is still not moving…

But that’s okay, because ding dong, the rabbits are dead, so let’s go frolicking through the fields! Hurray, the bunny menace is over!

Night of the Lepus is an awful movie. The initial version which doesn’t exist, according to the Internet, was actually shockingly better than this in a far campier way. This is an overly serious piece of crap, one which I only look back fondly on thanks to my dad essentially pulling a prank on my sisters and me.

In fact, it’s so bad, I’m shocked - utterly shocked - that it was never MST3Ked. Really, it’s that self-important and disgustingly bad.

Killer rabbits? For real?

(This was made in the ’70’s, so undoubtedly someone involved would blame this on Quaaludes, I imagine. At least that’s the only explanation that pops into my mind.)

So, my three readers, something horrible happened recently.

I had all these ideas for cool things to do after Reader’s Choice and I was supposed to sit down and do a movie review tonight, but I find I just cannot focus properly.

My copy of The Hunt For Red October has gone MIA.

The Hunt For Red October is my comfort movie.   Whenever I need a good brain-cleansing, a lazy day movie or just a good popcorn movie, Red October is my standby.

My copy is gone.   There’s no mistaking it, no denying it; it’s not hiding anywhere, it didn’t get kicked behind the TV, it’s not squirreled away in some other DVD case by accident.

I have called off the search and rescue teams and now…now I’m left with an empty DVD case and winsome memories.    Goodbye, copy of Red October.   You were good to me, and you had submarine awesomeness, and now, I just can’t focus very well until I replace you.

Sigh.

I love movies like this.   I love movies where you know, you just know, someone made something so perfectly awesomely bad on purpose.

How, you ask, is it so awesomely bad?

Let’s take it step by step:

The super stealthy clown tracking method:   Make your own bird dog animal balloon and have at it.

Okay, so these clowns like to um, mummify people in cotton candy, and they do it with this nifty cotton candyfier gun thingy..majig.   Aren’t the special effects AMAZING?

Sally Jesse Raphael is totally pissed that her make-out session was totally interrupted by a bunch of jerks.

The clowns pose as pizza delivery men…

And as Candygram delivery men to sugar-mummify the local townies.

Oh, dear.

Death by shadow finger puppets!

The town’s mean, nasty, Jack Daniels drinkin’ cop meets a rather nasty end.

But that’s okay, because apparently, you kill clowns from outer space by blowing off their noses…which results in this:

And this:

The real fun in Killer Klowns is the cheese-factor.   I’m sure you can already predict how it ends, all the movie cliches it contains, and probably would still be entertained by the rampant cheesiness of it all.   It remains one of my favorite movies from the ’80’s, partially because it’s just so fricking ridiculous and low-brow that it makes me laugh to watch it with people who have never seen it before.   There’s no use expounding on how awful it is, because it’s pretty much everything ever in this movie.   It’s bad.  It’s wrong.  It is, however, funny - not in a normal way, but an “oh my god, someone actually made this movie” kind of way.

I’d kill to have been a fly on the wall when someone came up with the idea for this ridiculous movie.   If you can’t gain fame for a good reason, I guess shooting for notoriety and infamy is pretty good, too.  You can’t imagine that anyone that decided to make Killer Klowns From Outer Space has an even keel, if you know what I mean. (And I think you do).

A horribly awful movie, for sure, but one that’s so very entertaining.

REST IN PEACE, SALLY JESSE RAPHAEL

May you run in syndication for many years to come

]]> http://1416andcounting.wordpress.com/2008/08/10/flashback-killer-klowns-from-outer-space-shawns-choice/feed/ Caitlin http://1416andcounting.wordpress.com/2008/08/07/a-letter-to-tarantino-on-self-control/ http://1416andcounting.wordpress.com/2008/08/07/a-letter-to-tarantino-on-self-control/#comments Thu, 07 Aug 2008 06:06:42 +0000 Caitlin http://1416andcounting.wordpress.com/?p=332

Dear Quentin,

This is like… the second letter I’ve written you.  It’s not good when I write you letters, is it?

THEN LET’S STOP DOING SILLY THINGS, SHALL WE?   Casting Eli Roth in Inglorious Bastards?   Really?

Have you lost your ever-loving mind?

Don’t get me wrong.   I know you and Eli are all buddy-buddy.   You probably watch movies together and go bar-hopping and whatever it is that you do, but he is not an actor. Presumably, you’ve seen him act since he was in one of your own movies.   Dear God, QT, just look at the man.   I like Roth’s movies when he’s behind the camera, not in front of it.   And I’m assuming the role you’re putting him in is not a pervy frat-boy role, is it?

No disrespect to Roth.   I thought Cabin Fever was funny and a good horror film, and I liked both the Hostel films.   I thought his trailer for Thanksgiving was delightfully campy.   But every time I see him, I just have flashbacks to:  “Yeah, he’s a Professor!   A professor of being a dog!”

Bless his heart, I just don’t think Eli Roth was cut out to be an actor.   No harm, no foul, except for him being in this movie.

You need to hire someone to tell you “no”, Quentin.  You need to hire a “no person”, who will tell you when you’re out of your damn gourd and you sound like you’ve been inhaling paint fumes because your thinking is schizoid.   Is it fun to go shoot a movie with your friend for a few months in Europe?  Sure!   Will that make your movie good!?    IS YOUR FRIEND ELI ROTH?  Just say NO.

Your no person, incidentally, should be equipped with one of those enormous and squishy inflatable plastic mallets - the kind with the squeaky toy inside - so that when you “leak information” - like “I want to cast Leonardo DiCaprio as a German SS dude” - said no person can administer a swing to your head like Mickey Mantle.  It won’t hurt you, but it will keep your wits about you and you’ll even get the added bonus of sound effects.

It’s not hard, QT.

For God’s sake, just get on with it.

No love (at the moment),

Caitlin

Look, I know why remakes get made - the almighty dollar. I get it. Well, in some ways I do and in some ways, I don’t. But for the love of all in this world that is sunshine and rainbow-y goodness, can we not leave some things alone? Can’t some movies be like art in a museum, where you get fifteen feet from them and if you get any closer, the burglar bars and silent alarms activate before you can get your nasty, greasy, grubby hands all over that Picasso?

I just read this: Natalie Portman will star in a remake of Suspiria, due in 2010.

Is nothing sacred?

First Halloween. Then Friday the 13th. Now they’re in the process of remaking Nightmare on Elm Street. And then comes the announcement that Suspiria is going to be remade.

Why?! Tell me why, God, tell me why!

For heaven’s sakes, there’s NOTHING wrong with the original. If we have all really reached the point in movie-going culture where people are too lazy to watch the original damn movie, or complain that it’s too “old” or whatever, we have some serious problems. Guys, I have an idea, let’s just not make anymore new movies. Let’s just remake the same damn movies over and over again. It’s all easier on our brains, right, rather than coming up with something new-fangled and original?

For the record, I call shenanigans.

This is why we can’t have nice things. And I swear to Jimmy Stewart, I’m going to pull this car over if one of you in the backseat even remotely thinks about messing with one more Hitchcock movie, because there CERTAINLY IS one unnecessary Birds remake in the pipeline right now.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to quietly slink into my premature old ladyhood and feel sad.

I have a personal anecdote to share.   For a long time, The Warriors and I just did not get along.  I would rent it from the video store, only to have something crop up everytime I rented it.   With only the first fifteen minutes watched, I would trudge dutifully back to the video store to return my copy only slightly late, but despairing that I would never watch it all the way to the end.

FINALLY.  I finally got to see it all the way to the very last shot, something which I have been attempting to do off and on for years.

The Warriors are a gang in a town of many hundreds of gangs.   There is a big, huge communal meeting of all the gangs called by this smart dude named Cyrus, who is the leader of the baddest gang around.   And Cyrus proposes something altogether heady to these gangs, which is simply to unite and take over the city…until someone shoots Cyrus and promptly blames it on the Warriors.   The Warriors must then run for their lives across New York, hoping to reach Coney Island, their home base and therefore, safety.

To say I loved The Warriors would be a massive understatement.   The Warriors was Molotov cocktail-y goodness that was so worth the wait.   I had seen bits and pieces of it, but it’s so much better when you watch it all at once.

One of the first things I noticed was the gangs themselves.  Dude, there’s a mime gang.  Like if Marcel Marceau went hardcore crazy and make with the street violence and break out of his invisible box.  There’s a crazy girl gang, a gang of baseball players with bizarre clown type makeup and every other gang you can think of.

The costumer deserves immortal recognition for this one.

And the actual scenes of the Warriors attempting to make it back to Coney Island are fantastic.   They’re well paced and the movie moves along at a rapid clip.

Besides, who doesn’t want to see eight thousand people (approximately) get beat up in one movie?

The main bad guy is this dude who screams psychopath.  I mean, just in the face and the crazy whacko eyes he’s got going on, you can tell.   It’s kind of like the guy that played Malachi in Children of the Corn; you just take one look at that oddly shaped, oblong face with the crown of red hair and you run away screaming in terror before he has a chance to yell, “OUTLANDERRRRRR” at you.

It’s the kind of movie that leaves you refreshingly satisfied in the end and the iconic imagery burned into your brain long after.

It’s so much fun!   And sure, the movie has definite thinking-required subtexts…if you want to go there…and you don’t have to if you don’t want to…but mimes! Clown baseball players!   Angry, conniving, beeyotchy girls!   Classic lines like “CAN YOU COUNT, SUCKAAAS!”  Totally awful faux-biker leather vests!  How can one resist?

P.S.:   “Can you count, suckas?” is totally my new motto in life.  In case you were wondering and all.  Which, of course, I KNEW you were.

What a delightfully trippy movie.

Fantastic Planet is an animated movie that tells the story of two species: the giant Traags and the miniature Oms. The Oms are a put upon, abused sort of people who either live in some sort of freedom but absolute squalor or are kept by pets by the freaky looking Traags. One Om is kept as a pet by a Traag family and through a complete accident, begins to learn what they know, including reading and writing. Upon his escape, he joins up with other Oms, helping them to learn Traag knowledge and inspiring them to move forward.

First of all, Piper, if I have nightmares about freaky, blue-skinned people with fins for ears, I’m blaming it on you.

Secondly, Fantastic Planet has kind of an ethereal feel. It’s not really describable, but I guess if I had to compare the feeling you get from it, the closest thing would be Saint-Expury’s Le Petit Prince. The Oms and the Traags are nice little analogies for the human race, even if the Traags are very blue, very red-eyed and obsessed with meditation (’cause they are). Eventually they both decide that after the Oms rise up and use their own knowledge against the Traags, that mutual destruction solves nothing. (Seems strikingly similar to messages of other movies also made during the Cold War, eh?) No one wins when everyone dies.

Edited to Add: So. like a weirdo, I surfed on over to the Wikipedia page after writing this. The source material for Strange Planet is a book, which was apparently written a long time before the Cold War. Jeez. Serves me right for making stupid assumptions. Carry on, carry on, and feel free to throw rocks at me.

The animation is really, really amazing, but not in a traditional sense - it’s a whacked out, weird world with crazy predators and bizarro trees. It’s like if you threw Dr. Seuss, Monty Python’s animations and a healthy dose of a French philosopher’s view of the world with a splash of science fiction into a blender, Fantastic Planet might be what you would get.

It’s not very long - it clocks in at an uber short 1 hour, 11 minutes - but the time it does spend packs a lot in, whether it’s in the message or the world they’ve created.

There was only one minor quibble I had with all this. The scene where Terr (the former pet Om) has to fight another Om with some sort of squicky saw-toothed creature attached to them made me giggle uncontrollably. I really don’t think that was what the filmmakers intended, but it’s kind of unintentionally hilarious.

Either that, or I’m twelve (at heart), which is a very distinct possibility.

All in all, an excellently made movie that’s worth the time to sit down and watch, even if there is a squicky creature battle to the death. Ha.