Tonight I watched another horror movie from Dario Argento : "Inferno" (1980), which was his sequel to "Suspiria". As it turns out, the two films are part of a trilogy called "The Three Mothers", with the third film being "Tenebrae" (1982). I'm not certain I saw "Tenebrae" when it was released, and we may have to wait to find out because the library doesn't have a copy. Maybe I'll buy it, but anyhow, I did see "Inferno" in the theater in 1980, but I don't recall being aware at the time that it was the sequel to "Suspiria". As I noted in my review of that film, much was made of it's unique artistic style, it's use of colored lighting and the "staged" look of the entire production. Because the storyline of "Suspiria" was rather thin, I remembered nothing of it 42 years later before I watched it for a second time last week. I only remembered that Argento had given it an indelible "look", which I wrote about at length in my review.
The same was true for "Inferno", which I remembered even less. What I did recall was that it had a score written by Keith Emerson, which would have been at least as much of a drawing card for my friends and I as Argento's name and our collective appreciation for "Suspiria", which could have been summed up in a sentence such as, "Wow it was really good but not what we were used to or expecting". I think now, looking back, that Argento's take on horror was so artsy, and so European, with it's heavy Latin references and the look and dress of the actors, that - while it was impressive - it just didn't stick, because "Suspiria" came out at the same time as "The Hills Have Eyes", with it's grim locale in the dried-up Mojave desert, where the monsters were mutants who had no accents and didn't wear makeup, not to mention the absence of all the colored lights. We were used to what I will call "the awfulness of horror", the kind that could happen in real life if you were stuck out in the desert with a flat tire, or if you were stupid enough to wander into a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere in Texas.
Argento's horror, on the other hand, looked like a garish dream, a nightmare of liquid colors, all of them carefully arranged in every shot for just the right contrast in the director's design. I think it didn't stick in my brain because, for me, horror was supposed to be gritty, i.e. featuring real life psychos in run down locations. "Don't Go In The House" was good advice indeed, a title that fit the horrific movie to which it was attached, so that you knew exactly what you were walking into. With Argento, every detail in his films was saturated with color, every scene stylized and thought out, staged, like a play. I think they seemed exotic, so even though I went with my friends because of the rave reviews, I left thinking "wow really cool" but not remembering the films for very long because of that exotic aftertaste. That was what I remembered, that Argento style. But I remembered nothing whatsoever about the movies themselves.
Having seen both "Suspiria" and now "Inferno" in the last two weeks, I think a reassessment is in order. I've already reviewed the former, praising it's artfulness while lamenting it's thin story, but now that I've seen "Inferno", which has a more developed plotline, I think I can better understand what Argento was going for. He was perhaps trying to develop his trilogy of "The Three Mothers" slowly, building his plot over the course of the trio of films instead of simply having the story resolve in each and every one. To be sure, both films that I have seen can be watched as separate entities, but now that I've watched them in close proximity to each other, I can see how they work as a pair, and I'm sure that "Tenebrae" completes the story (whether I've seen it or not I can't recall).
'The Three Mothers" are three witches of Latin legend. In "Inferno", Rose (played by an actress named Irene Miracle), is an American woman living in an old building in New York. She is interested in the occult, and buys old books on the topic from a man who owns an adjacent antique store. As the movie begins, she has just opened a book called "The Three Mothers", which she has purchased on a tip having to do with the building's history.
Rose has a brother (Leigh McCloskey) who is a music student studying in Rome. She sends him a letter detailing her suspicions about the building, and what she has learned from her book. He doesn't get a chance to read the letter immediately, but his Italian girlfriend does. She is so shocked by what she has read that she travels to New York herself, ahead of McCloskey, and into dire circumstances.
The building is lit up in dark blues and reds. Vicious stray cats surround the place, rats flood the sewer pipes in a nearby alley. Rose has disappeared down into a cellar through a grate that opens from the pavement. Now her brother's girlfriend is making the mistake of going to search for her in the same location, where you and I would never venture, especially if it was all lit up in blue and green with a guy with extra long fingers hunkered down inside.
That is all I can tell you because the hour is late, and i want to finally finish a blog all at once instead of piecing it out over two days. But you can imagine that after the follies of his sister and his girlfriend, that Leigh McCloskey is gonna take a plane to New York to investigate the building himself, and that when he does, he is going to uncover quite a lot more color schemes than he bargained for, not to mention some very evil witches and their solemn, vampyric hechmen.
"Inferno" is slow paced, and 15 minutes too long, but it has a more developed and therefore involving story than did "Suspiria", from which it is built. The art direction is almost as amazing as it was in that first film, and maybe more refined. There are many shots, including a nighttime scene in Central Park, that will have you gasping and marveling. Overall, if you watch it in tandem with "Suspiria", it will give you a better idea of what Dario Argento was trying for : a feeling of total isolation, created by matched and ever changing color patterns.
Two Thumbs Up, then, for "Inferno", with Huge Thumbs once again for the production design, and Two Thumbs for Keith Emerson's score, instantly recognizable as his style. It's a touch too rockin' in places, but overall very suspenseful. I think I'll have to order the soundtrack from Amazon. ////
That's all I know for tonight. I'm off work and have had two nice hikes out at Santa Susana the past two days. Sorry I missed you last night, but I didn't have a movie for ya and I was bone tired, coming off a four week work cycle.
But now I'm back and will see you tomorrow night, with much love sent to you until then.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Saturday, August 10, 2019
Thursday, August 8, 2019
"The Land Unknown" starring Jock Mahoney
(note - this blog was begun last night, August 7 2019) :
I had originally intended to watch another horror film tonight : Wes Craven's "The People Under The Stairs", but after last night's debacle at "Sleepaway Camp", I decided against it. Though it boasts one of the spookiest titles in all of horror, I saw "TPUTS" when it was released in 1991, and I recall being underwhelmed. It wasn't a bad movie, just not very scary and with a different tone than what I was expecting (which was pure gruesomeness). I had reserved "People" from The Libe in the same batch of movies that included "Sleepaway Camp", and though I had initially been looking forward to watching it, my experience with"Sleepaway" was so awful that I didn't wanna chance two crummy movies in a row. So, I decided to go with something that was guaranteed to be good : "The Land Unknown" (1957), chosen from my Ultimate Sci-Fi Collection Volume Two.
So far, from Volume Two, we've seen "Dr. Cyclops" and "Cult Of The Cobra", both of which proved to be not only entertaining but made with first class production values and transferred to dvd from nice clear prints. Nothing like a classic 1950s sci-fi to clear the decks and set the record straight, and so I was even more enthused when I saw that "Land" was being presented in widescreen Cinemascope and shot in black and white, the only way to photograph sci-fi, I think.
Jock Mahoney stars as a Navy Commander, a geologist by trade, who is about to embark on an expedition to the South Pole, to map out Antarctica and explore a region of warm water discovered by Admiral Byrd during an earlier trip. The movie begins in a military briefing room, which gets high marks from me, because anytime you have the military involved, you know you are gonna have some hardware and also some stock footage, both of which are indicative of great science fiction. Sci-Fi is supposed to be weird, which is why I love it, haha, so when you have a title like "The Land Unknown", and it starts out with a Navy expedition to Antarctica, you know there will be weirdness involved.
All kinds of stuff is said to be buried under the ice down there, from Gigantic Alien Spaceships to Secret Nazi Bases to Lost Civilizations. :)
As the expedition nears the South Pole, the ships must wait at the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf. There, Jock Mahoney and his three person team (a pilot, an assistant and a civilian female reporter), board a helicopter to fly the rest of the way to the site. As you would expect, they encounter trouble when a storm nears. Having to fly around it, they find themselves enveloped in thick fog. Visibility is soon near zero, and the pilot says they have to land immediately.
But where are they? They can't see a thing. All the pilot has to rely on is his altimeter as he lowers the chopper to what he hopes will be a smooth enough surface. The altimeter is nearing zero; the pilot tells the team members to hold on!, brace for landing! But then it passes zero and keeps going.
"We're below sea level"!, he exclaims. "200 feet.......300 feet...................500 feet".......
Holy Smokes! Would you believe they wind up at 2500 feet below sea level? Yep, and they still can't see where they've landed because of all the steam rising everywhere around them, and boy, is it ever hot and humid. On top of that, the copter was buzzed by something just before landing, and whatever it was that flew by knocked their radio antenna off and broke one of the rotor struts.
Lucky for them they have enough food to last 'em six weeks - they're gonna need it, because as they will soon find out, they are stuck in The Land Of The Dinosaurs.
Yow! (although we the viewers knew this before they did. We saw the Thing that flew by).
The Navy team isn't stuck in a time warp, ala The Twilight Zone, but rather a place so isolated that it was entirely resistant to the factors that contribute to evolutionary change. You'll have to have Jock Mahoney explain it to you because it's complicated, and anyway I don't believe in evolution. :)
No, for real. I don't believe in it, as you know if you've been following the blog for a long time. I'm not a nitwit like most folks who don't believe in evolution. I have very specific reasons, backed up by certain well-researched books and my own common sense. But anyway, for the movie's sake, Jock Mahoney's explanation will suffice.
I am writing from home, off work for several days, and this is yet another blog in the Disturbing Trend of Blogs That Were Begun The Previous Night and Not Finished Until The Next Afternoon. I need to go to Trader Joe's to stock up on supplies for my own refrigerator (which is usually empty because I'm rarely home) so I need to finish up this movie review.
I guess all you really need to know other than what I've told you is that the crew is in for quite an ordeal, once old Mr. T Rex comes stomping out of the jungle and spots their helicopter. They have enough gas to keep the rotor blades spinning, which irritates the heck out of Rex, but keeps him at arms length from the ship.
Unfortunately, there are worse critters hanging around, including a guy I referred to as "Old Ugly". And there just may be another presence besides the grimacing Dinos.
"The Land Unknown" features some excellent prehistoric jungle sets (even though we aren't in prehistoric times, remember). There's a big creepy plant that'll try to grab ya if you aren't careful. There are deep caves and bubbling volcanic cauldrons.
And somebody's been eating their food. Hey! Does T. Rex have a can opener? What's going on here?
Though it is once again more of an adventure film rather than pure sci fi (which has to have aliens or mad scientists), I nonetheless give "The Land Unknown" Two Substantial Thumbs Up, for an involving plot, decent acting and the aforementioned excellent sets. A fair chunk of change was spent on the production, I imagine.
You can't go wrong with 1950s Sci-Fi, even if it's cheesy, which this film bordered on but wasn't. In fact, it's one of the best Prehistoric Movies With "Land" In The Title that I've ever seen.
Well, I've gotta go to Trader Joe's now. I'll probably stop at The Libe, too, to look for more movies. I still have "The People Under The Stairs" checked out, but I am thinking I might skip it all together. Many other reviewers are saying what I was remembering, that in retrospect it wasn't all that good.
So, I'll find something for us to watch and I'll be back again later tonight to tell us about it.
See you then at the usual time. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoo :):)
P.S. Do ya need anything at the store?
I had originally intended to watch another horror film tonight : Wes Craven's "The People Under The Stairs", but after last night's debacle at "Sleepaway Camp", I decided against it. Though it boasts one of the spookiest titles in all of horror, I saw "TPUTS" when it was released in 1991, and I recall being underwhelmed. It wasn't a bad movie, just not very scary and with a different tone than what I was expecting (which was pure gruesomeness). I had reserved "People" from The Libe in the same batch of movies that included "Sleepaway Camp", and though I had initially been looking forward to watching it, my experience with"Sleepaway" was so awful that I didn't wanna chance two crummy movies in a row. So, I decided to go with something that was guaranteed to be good : "The Land Unknown" (1957), chosen from my Ultimate Sci-Fi Collection Volume Two.
So far, from Volume Two, we've seen "Dr. Cyclops" and "Cult Of The Cobra", both of which proved to be not only entertaining but made with first class production values and transferred to dvd from nice clear prints. Nothing like a classic 1950s sci-fi to clear the decks and set the record straight, and so I was even more enthused when I saw that "Land" was being presented in widescreen Cinemascope and shot in black and white, the only way to photograph sci-fi, I think.
Jock Mahoney stars as a Navy Commander, a geologist by trade, who is about to embark on an expedition to the South Pole, to map out Antarctica and explore a region of warm water discovered by Admiral Byrd during an earlier trip. The movie begins in a military briefing room, which gets high marks from me, because anytime you have the military involved, you know you are gonna have some hardware and also some stock footage, both of which are indicative of great science fiction. Sci-Fi is supposed to be weird, which is why I love it, haha, so when you have a title like "The Land Unknown", and it starts out with a Navy expedition to Antarctica, you know there will be weirdness involved.
All kinds of stuff is said to be buried under the ice down there, from Gigantic Alien Spaceships to Secret Nazi Bases to Lost Civilizations. :)
As the expedition nears the South Pole, the ships must wait at the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf. There, Jock Mahoney and his three person team (a pilot, an assistant and a civilian female reporter), board a helicopter to fly the rest of the way to the site. As you would expect, they encounter trouble when a storm nears. Having to fly around it, they find themselves enveloped in thick fog. Visibility is soon near zero, and the pilot says they have to land immediately.
But where are they? They can't see a thing. All the pilot has to rely on is his altimeter as he lowers the chopper to what he hopes will be a smooth enough surface. The altimeter is nearing zero; the pilot tells the team members to hold on!, brace for landing! But then it passes zero and keeps going.
"We're below sea level"!, he exclaims. "200 feet.......300 feet...................500 feet".......
Holy Smokes! Would you believe they wind up at 2500 feet below sea level? Yep, and they still can't see where they've landed because of all the steam rising everywhere around them, and boy, is it ever hot and humid. On top of that, the copter was buzzed by something just before landing, and whatever it was that flew by knocked their radio antenna off and broke one of the rotor struts.
Lucky for them they have enough food to last 'em six weeks - they're gonna need it, because as they will soon find out, they are stuck in The Land Of The Dinosaurs.
Yow! (although we the viewers knew this before they did. We saw the Thing that flew by).
The Navy team isn't stuck in a time warp, ala The Twilight Zone, but rather a place so isolated that it was entirely resistant to the factors that contribute to evolutionary change. You'll have to have Jock Mahoney explain it to you because it's complicated, and anyway I don't believe in evolution. :)
No, for real. I don't believe in it, as you know if you've been following the blog for a long time. I'm not a nitwit like most folks who don't believe in evolution. I have very specific reasons, backed up by certain well-researched books and my own common sense. But anyway, for the movie's sake, Jock Mahoney's explanation will suffice.
I am writing from home, off work for several days, and this is yet another blog in the Disturbing Trend of Blogs That Were Begun The Previous Night and Not Finished Until The Next Afternoon. I need to go to Trader Joe's to stock up on supplies for my own refrigerator (which is usually empty because I'm rarely home) so I need to finish up this movie review.
I guess all you really need to know other than what I've told you is that the crew is in for quite an ordeal, once old Mr. T Rex comes stomping out of the jungle and spots their helicopter. They have enough gas to keep the rotor blades spinning, which irritates the heck out of Rex, but keeps him at arms length from the ship.
Unfortunately, there are worse critters hanging around, including a guy I referred to as "Old Ugly". And there just may be another presence besides the grimacing Dinos.
"The Land Unknown" features some excellent prehistoric jungle sets (even though we aren't in prehistoric times, remember). There's a big creepy plant that'll try to grab ya if you aren't careful. There are deep caves and bubbling volcanic cauldrons.
And somebody's been eating their food. Hey! Does T. Rex have a can opener? What's going on here?
Though it is once again more of an adventure film rather than pure sci fi (which has to have aliens or mad scientists), I nonetheless give "The Land Unknown" Two Substantial Thumbs Up, for an involving plot, decent acting and the aforementioned excellent sets. A fair chunk of change was spent on the production, I imagine.
You can't go wrong with 1950s Sci-Fi, even if it's cheesy, which this film bordered on but wasn't. In fact, it's one of the best Prehistoric Movies With "Land" In The Title that I've ever seen.
Well, I've gotta go to Trader Joe's now. I'll probably stop at The Libe, too, to look for more movies. I still have "The People Under The Stairs" checked out, but I am thinking I might skip it all together. Many other reviewers are saying what I was remembering, that in retrospect it wasn't all that good.
So, I'll find something for us to watch and I'll be back again later tonight to tell us about it.
See you then at the usual time. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoo :):)
P.S. Do ya need anything at the store?
Wednesday, August 7, 2019
"Sleepaway Camp" Sucks
Okay, so I had fun last week watching those three old horror movies (Children of The Corn, Suspiria and The Hitcher) and I wanted to order some more, preferably from the 1980s, which was a great era for youth-oriented scare flicks. The only problem was that I'd already seen so many of 'em. I was really looking for ones I'd never seen, like "Hitcher" and "Children", but such titles were proving tough to recall, so I did a little Googling and came up with some lists, like "The 100 Greatest Horror Movies From The '80s" and others that were similar.
A few titles jumped out at me, ones I remembered from back then. They were movies I would not have attended at the time, due to reasons I've mentioned before, i.e. I would've thought they were too wimpy or too stupid or not on the level of True Horror (Texas Chainsaw, et al).
But these days I've been feeling nostalgic for 80s horror, with it's big-haired teenage victims and the according lingo of the times, and just "the look" of the 80s in general, and so in my search for unseen horror from that decade, I've been willing to overlook deficiencies that would have caused me, in my twenties, to denounce certain films and swear off ever seeing them.
Reading over an IMDB list, I came across the title "Sleepaway Camp".
Oh yeah.......I remember that one. It was a minor hit if I recall correctly, an indie movie that sounded like a steal from "Friday The 13th".
I looked it up on Amazon to be sure that it had at least some redeeming quality, and the reviews I read were uniformly positive. Not a single reviewer had anything negative to say. One remarked that it was indeed similar to "Friday The 13th", only more cerebral. Wow, imagine that. It all sounded good to me, and I needed my 80s Horror Fix, so I ordered it right away from The Libe, which has everything.
Tonight I watched "Sleepaway Camp" (1983), which has apparently become a cult favorite in the 36 years since it's release.
Oy!
Sometimes, dead is better. Stephen King said that. What I mean here is that sometimes, it's better not to dig something up that you knew was gonna suck in the first place, when you were using your first intuition many years ago.
The film opened with some nice photography of an east coast camping area, set around a lake. The trees were colorful and the mood was pensive and I thought, hmmm.......maybe I've stumbled upon an unsuspected gem. Maybe this is gonna be the Cult Classic that all the reviewers swear it to be.
I was unfortunately stripped of that notion soon after the first set of characters began to speak. As more scenes followed, and more characters were introduced - mostly adolescents from the camp - I thought to myself, "Boy, if they ever gave Academy Awards for stilted acting, this group would make a clean sweep"! Within fifteen minutes, the movie began to look more like a student film with a budget, like it was made by amateurs who had enough money to get the job done without it looking too cheesy.
Once I accepted that it was gonna be a C-Grade production, but with pro camerawork & editing, I settled in to watch, just hoping to get at least something I could sink my teeth into. I only wanted my 80s Horror Fix, and I was willing to sit through a daffy plot and goofy acting to do so. The story was all about kids away from home at camp for the summer, and the Dolphin-shorted, muscle bound, feather haired counselors who kept watch over them. The kids ranged in age from 12 to 18, and make up the bulk of the cast, so I wasn't expecting the characters to have any depth, I just wanted to be entertained and scared, if possible (haha). The script turned out to be fairly energetic. Many different relationships were built between the various factions of boys and girls, as the slightly older camp counselors took them through a variety of outdoor activities. Lots of stuff was happening, in other words, and every so often a camper was getting killed by an Unknown Psycho, just like in "Friday The 13th".
There is a fourteen year old girl in camp who won't talk to anybody. The other girls all make fun of her, as do most of the boys. Only one boy, the nice type, will approach her in an attempt to be her friend.
I don't want to make too much of their relationship or even to describe it in detail, but for what it's worth, this is the thrust of the movie, if it can be called that.
I hung in there because of the lively script, even when there was a decidedly non-PC moment early in the film that made me almost want to turn it off ten minutes in. By the one hour mark, though, I thought I might be able to cruise home unscathed, having seen a forgettable but mildly watchable horror film from the era in question.
Boy was I wrong about that.
I have already devoted way too much time and space to "Sleepaway Camp", but I will close by saying that in the final five minutes of what had been a third rate, though fun, ersatz slasher movie, a curve is thrown to the viewer that, to my mind, is so disgusting and downright demeaning to a certain segment of the population that I was completely repulsed and regretted that I'd sat through the film after all.
Just to mention, there is a "flashback" scene near the end that I thought was not only incoherent but also could be interpreted as prejudicial.
I mean, the ending of this flick is a mess, and it might make you throw up as well.
What could have been a low grade diversion turned out to be one of the worst films I have ever seen.
It's just garbage, in the end, and so I give "Sleepaway Camp" my very first Two Thumbs Decisively Down that I have ever given in any of my reviews.
I tried to like it, it has it's "good points" if you are being generous, and I know it's a cult favorite for less discerning horror fans than myself.
But I found it to suck, overall, on a level reserved for only the very worst of motion pictures.
Whatever you do, don't see "Sleepaway Camp". /////
See you in the morning, love all the night long. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
A few titles jumped out at me, ones I remembered from back then. They were movies I would not have attended at the time, due to reasons I've mentioned before, i.e. I would've thought they were too wimpy or too stupid or not on the level of True Horror (Texas Chainsaw, et al).
But these days I've been feeling nostalgic for 80s horror, with it's big-haired teenage victims and the according lingo of the times, and just "the look" of the 80s in general, and so in my search for unseen horror from that decade, I've been willing to overlook deficiencies that would have caused me, in my twenties, to denounce certain films and swear off ever seeing them.
Reading over an IMDB list, I came across the title "Sleepaway Camp".
Oh yeah.......I remember that one. It was a minor hit if I recall correctly, an indie movie that sounded like a steal from "Friday The 13th".
I looked it up on Amazon to be sure that it had at least some redeeming quality, and the reviews I read were uniformly positive. Not a single reviewer had anything negative to say. One remarked that it was indeed similar to "Friday The 13th", only more cerebral. Wow, imagine that. It all sounded good to me, and I needed my 80s Horror Fix, so I ordered it right away from The Libe, which has everything.
Tonight I watched "Sleepaway Camp" (1983), which has apparently become a cult favorite in the 36 years since it's release.
Oy!
Sometimes, dead is better. Stephen King said that. What I mean here is that sometimes, it's better not to dig something up that you knew was gonna suck in the first place, when you were using your first intuition many years ago.
The film opened with some nice photography of an east coast camping area, set around a lake. The trees were colorful and the mood was pensive and I thought, hmmm.......maybe I've stumbled upon an unsuspected gem. Maybe this is gonna be the Cult Classic that all the reviewers swear it to be.
I was unfortunately stripped of that notion soon after the first set of characters began to speak. As more scenes followed, and more characters were introduced - mostly adolescents from the camp - I thought to myself, "Boy, if they ever gave Academy Awards for stilted acting, this group would make a clean sweep"! Within fifteen minutes, the movie began to look more like a student film with a budget, like it was made by amateurs who had enough money to get the job done without it looking too cheesy.
Once I accepted that it was gonna be a C-Grade production, but with pro camerawork & editing, I settled in to watch, just hoping to get at least something I could sink my teeth into. I only wanted my 80s Horror Fix, and I was willing to sit through a daffy plot and goofy acting to do so. The story was all about kids away from home at camp for the summer, and the Dolphin-shorted, muscle bound, feather haired counselors who kept watch over them. The kids ranged in age from 12 to 18, and make up the bulk of the cast, so I wasn't expecting the characters to have any depth, I just wanted to be entertained and scared, if possible (haha). The script turned out to be fairly energetic. Many different relationships were built between the various factions of boys and girls, as the slightly older camp counselors took them through a variety of outdoor activities. Lots of stuff was happening, in other words, and every so often a camper was getting killed by an Unknown Psycho, just like in "Friday The 13th".
There is a fourteen year old girl in camp who won't talk to anybody. The other girls all make fun of her, as do most of the boys. Only one boy, the nice type, will approach her in an attempt to be her friend.
I don't want to make too much of their relationship or even to describe it in detail, but for what it's worth, this is the thrust of the movie, if it can be called that.
I hung in there because of the lively script, even when there was a decidedly non-PC moment early in the film that made me almost want to turn it off ten minutes in. By the one hour mark, though, I thought I might be able to cruise home unscathed, having seen a forgettable but mildly watchable horror film from the era in question.
Boy was I wrong about that.
I have already devoted way too much time and space to "Sleepaway Camp", but I will close by saying that in the final five minutes of what had been a third rate, though fun, ersatz slasher movie, a curve is thrown to the viewer that, to my mind, is so disgusting and downright demeaning to a certain segment of the population that I was completely repulsed and regretted that I'd sat through the film after all.
Just to mention, there is a "flashback" scene near the end that I thought was not only incoherent but also could be interpreted as prejudicial.
I mean, the ending of this flick is a mess, and it might make you throw up as well.
What could have been a low grade diversion turned out to be one of the worst films I have ever seen.
It's just garbage, in the end, and so I give "Sleepaway Camp" my very first Two Thumbs Decisively Down that I have ever given in any of my reviews.
I tried to like it, it has it's "good points" if you are being generous, and I know it's a cult favorite for less discerning horror fans than myself.
But I found it to suck, overall, on a level reserved for only the very worst of motion pictures.
Whatever you do, don't see "Sleepaway Camp". /////
See you in the morning, love all the night long. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Tuesday, August 6, 2019
"Sullivan's Travels" by Preston Sturges
This blog was begun last night (Monday August 5 2019) and completed just now :
Tonight we were hanging out once again with our pal Preston Sturges, who directed this evening's movie : "Sullivan's Travels" (1941), starring Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake. The film opens with McCrea, a successful motion picture director, screening his latest work for a group of studio executives. It looks exciting, but the execs are not thrilled. McCrea has made his name on fluffy comedies. This time he has given the producers a "message" picture, about how the of evils of capitalism have resulted in the Depression and their response is predictable : "But will it play in Pittsburgh"?
Of course it won't play in Pittsburgh, nor most likely in any place except New York and Los Angeles, where all the Commies live, haha. McCrea has messed with the formula, it's bad for box-office and the executives don't want to release his movie. "Why would you want to make such a picture"?, they ask him. "What do you know about trouble"? McCrea was brought up in a wealthy family; the executives all claim to come from hard scrabble backgrounds. The Great Depression is still affecting a wide swath of the population, war is raging in Europe and on the horizon for America. What indeed does McCrea know of trouble? He should stick to what he does best, which is to put people in the seats and make them laugh.
But McCrea has clout with the studio, so the executives still have to placate him. When he announces his plan to "find out what trouble is", they are horrified, because he wants to dress as an anonymous hobo and venture out alone, hopping trains on a cross-country information gathering trip, to find out what it's like to live in poverty in America. Maybe when he returns, the producers will take him seriously in his desire to make meaningful pictures. But this is a Preston Sturges film, so nothing - and certainly no plot line - is going to be as simple as it may seem.
McCrea forces the hand of the executives by stating that he'll just as soon walk away from his next movie if they don't allow him to take his road trip, so they reluctantly agree, with one proviso : he has to agree to let a group of studio lackeys follow him on his travels. They will be in a motor home, armed with cameras to document him from afar and generally keep an eye on him. The motive is money. He is worth a fortune to the studio so they have to protect their investment, even if he has gone a little crazy in the head by wanting to Make A Big Statement with his next film.
So McCrea sets out, dressed in rags and deliberately carrying only a dime in his pocket. He hops his first train with some difficulty, rides down the tracks a way during the night, and then jumps off, only to discover that he's made a round trip. He's back on the outskirts of Hollywood, and actually - this is me taking now - he is back in the San Fernando Valley, and it is amazing to see the location shots from back in 1941. Canoga Park was one big fruit orchard. Boulevards that are now wide with congested traffic were, at that time, two lane blacktops with no stores in sight but only trees on the side of the road. Oh, to have lived here then. And, I sort of got to do that, because I was born into the Valley in 1960, at the tail end of it's rural existence, which would continue, in diminishing proportions, for another dozen years. We Valley Old Timers are farmers at heart, I certainly am, so I get excited anytime I see footage of the way things were.
But back to the story, McCrea awakes in a boxcar to find himself not out of state, not cross country, but near to where he started, so he jumps off and makes his way to the nearest diner. He is hungry, but has only the thin dime in his pocket, just enough for a hot cup of coffee.
Luckily for him, there is a nice lady in the diner in the person of Veronica Lake. She sees that he is down and out (even though he really isn't), and offers to buy him ham and eggs. She is on the road herself, a would-be actress who has tried and failed to make it big in Hollywood. Now she has had enough, and is headed back east to her hometown. Little does she know that she is talking to one of the biggest directors in the business, in disguise as a hobo to further his career and become an artiste.
McCrea takes a liking to her, one thing leads to another, and soon his story crumbles. Lake, as it turns out, really is poor, and she has just spent her last 35 cents buying him breakfast. He feels an obligation to help her out, so he concocts a story about "borrowing a friend's car" to drive her to the bus station, except that the "friend's car" is really his own, a luxury auto and she can sense that she is being played in some unclear way. McCrea can't hold up under her scrutiny, so he admits who he is, and drives the both of them back to his mansion, where he plans all over again to set out on the road, to complete his original mission.
Only this time, Veronica Lake has taken a shine to him and wants to come along. She is only 19 (in real life, too, and in her first starring role) and she is not about to take no for an answer. The sequence at the mansion involves some great Preston Sturges comedy, including a lengthy pool scene that begins with Lake pushing McCrea into the water, fully clothed of course, and ultimately brings the household's two stuffy butlers into the act. This is the kind of comedy Sturges excelled at, and put a personal stamp on as well.
"Sullivan's Travels", though, is by no means the maniacal Screwball Fest we are used to from Sturges, that we got, say, in the recently reviewed "The Lady Eve", or to an even greater extent in "The Miracle Of Morgan's Creek", one of the nuttiest movies we've ever seen. "Sullivan" has light comedy filtering through it's dialogue and staging almost from start to finish, but the foundation, the context of the film is very serious. Sturges, perhaps stepping for himself in McCrea's director character, wants to really examine how the extremely poor are living in America at that time, and as McCrea and Lake set off on the real journey this time, he shows them riding trains and crashing in flophouses with what looks like roomfuls of real hobos. Now McCrea is getting a taste of what trouble is like and he and Lake scrounge food from garbage cans. At the same time, he is also getting material for his movie, and a romance is blossoming between him and Lake, mostly from her youthful insistence. It must be said here that Veronica Lake was a real talent, much more than just a beautiful woman with a peek-a-boo haircut. She was a natural at comedy, and could play the tough dames of film noir just as well. Unfortunately, as we have all too often seen, she had a short and difficult life, but her work has stood the test of time and she is just great in this movie, perfectly paired with Joel McCrea, himself a good actor and major movie star who was one of the most likable screen presences of the Golden Era.
"Sullivan's Travels" will take, in it's last half hour, a turn so out of left field that I can't reveal any more of the story to you. All I can say is that, as this third act was playing out, I came to realise that Preston Sturges was not only a comedic genius but was also one of the greatest American film directors who ever lived. Therefore, I am giving the movie my highest honor, Two Gigantic Thumbs Up, and my ultimate recommendation to make sure you see it as soon as possible. There aren't the same endless laughs that you get in other Sturges movies, but what you get instead is a monumental work of art, from the heart, and the comedy is still there, too. See it, see it, see it. /////
This is me again, writing to ya on Tuesday Afternoon (Moody Blues, get it?). I am running late on my blogs again, even though I keep promising not to. Right now I'm gonna head to the Libe to pick up more movies, then back to Pearl's. But I'll be back here at The Blog tonight, at the Usual Time, and once again I'll make every effort to finish before I fall asleep, lol.
See you tonight. Tons of love in the meantime. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Tonight we were hanging out once again with our pal Preston Sturges, who directed this evening's movie : "Sullivan's Travels" (1941), starring Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake. The film opens with McCrea, a successful motion picture director, screening his latest work for a group of studio executives. It looks exciting, but the execs are not thrilled. McCrea has made his name on fluffy comedies. This time he has given the producers a "message" picture, about how the of evils of capitalism have resulted in the Depression and their response is predictable : "But will it play in Pittsburgh"?
Of course it won't play in Pittsburgh, nor most likely in any place except New York and Los Angeles, where all the Commies live, haha. McCrea has messed with the formula, it's bad for box-office and the executives don't want to release his movie. "Why would you want to make such a picture"?, they ask him. "What do you know about trouble"? McCrea was brought up in a wealthy family; the executives all claim to come from hard scrabble backgrounds. The Great Depression is still affecting a wide swath of the population, war is raging in Europe and on the horizon for America. What indeed does McCrea know of trouble? He should stick to what he does best, which is to put people in the seats and make them laugh.
But McCrea has clout with the studio, so the executives still have to placate him. When he announces his plan to "find out what trouble is", they are horrified, because he wants to dress as an anonymous hobo and venture out alone, hopping trains on a cross-country information gathering trip, to find out what it's like to live in poverty in America. Maybe when he returns, the producers will take him seriously in his desire to make meaningful pictures. But this is a Preston Sturges film, so nothing - and certainly no plot line - is going to be as simple as it may seem.
McCrea forces the hand of the executives by stating that he'll just as soon walk away from his next movie if they don't allow him to take his road trip, so they reluctantly agree, with one proviso : he has to agree to let a group of studio lackeys follow him on his travels. They will be in a motor home, armed with cameras to document him from afar and generally keep an eye on him. The motive is money. He is worth a fortune to the studio so they have to protect their investment, even if he has gone a little crazy in the head by wanting to Make A Big Statement with his next film.
So McCrea sets out, dressed in rags and deliberately carrying only a dime in his pocket. He hops his first train with some difficulty, rides down the tracks a way during the night, and then jumps off, only to discover that he's made a round trip. He's back on the outskirts of Hollywood, and actually - this is me taking now - he is back in the San Fernando Valley, and it is amazing to see the location shots from back in 1941. Canoga Park was one big fruit orchard. Boulevards that are now wide with congested traffic were, at that time, two lane blacktops with no stores in sight but only trees on the side of the road. Oh, to have lived here then. And, I sort of got to do that, because I was born into the Valley in 1960, at the tail end of it's rural existence, which would continue, in diminishing proportions, for another dozen years. We Valley Old Timers are farmers at heart, I certainly am, so I get excited anytime I see footage of the way things were.
But back to the story, McCrea awakes in a boxcar to find himself not out of state, not cross country, but near to where he started, so he jumps off and makes his way to the nearest diner. He is hungry, but has only the thin dime in his pocket, just enough for a hot cup of coffee.
Luckily for him, there is a nice lady in the diner in the person of Veronica Lake. She sees that he is down and out (even though he really isn't), and offers to buy him ham and eggs. She is on the road herself, a would-be actress who has tried and failed to make it big in Hollywood. Now she has had enough, and is headed back east to her hometown. Little does she know that she is talking to one of the biggest directors in the business, in disguise as a hobo to further his career and become an artiste.
McCrea takes a liking to her, one thing leads to another, and soon his story crumbles. Lake, as it turns out, really is poor, and she has just spent her last 35 cents buying him breakfast. He feels an obligation to help her out, so he concocts a story about "borrowing a friend's car" to drive her to the bus station, except that the "friend's car" is really his own, a luxury auto and she can sense that she is being played in some unclear way. McCrea can't hold up under her scrutiny, so he admits who he is, and drives the both of them back to his mansion, where he plans all over again to set out on the road, to complete his original mission.
Only this time, Veronica Lake has taken a shine to him and wants to come along. She is only 19 (in real life, too, and in her first starring role) and she is not about to take no for an answer. The sequence at the mansion involves some great Preston Sturges comedy, including a lengthy pool scene that begins with Lake pushing McCrea into the water, fully clothed of course, and ultimately brings the household's two stuffy butlers into the act. This is the kind of comedy Sturges excelled at, and put a personal stamp on as well.
"Sullivan's Travels", though, is by no means the maniacal Screwball Fest we are used to from Sturges, that we got, say, in the recently reviewed "The Lady Eve", or to an even greater extent in "The Miracle Of Morgan's Creek", one of the nuttiest movies we've ever seen. "Sullivan" has light comedy filtering through it's dialogue and staging almost from start to finish, but the foundation, the context of the film is very serious. Sturges, perhaps stepping for himself in McCrea's director character, wants to really examine how the extremely poor are living in America at that time, and as McCrea and Lake set off on the real journey this time, he shows them riding trains and crashing in flophouses with what looks like roomfuls of real hobos. Now McCrea is getting a taste of what trouble is like and he and Lake scrounge food from garbage cans. At the same time, he is also getting material for his movie, and a romance is blossoming between him and Lake, mostly from her youthful insistence. It must be said here that Veronica Lake was a real talent, much more than just a beautiful woman with a peek-a-boo haircut. She was a natural at comedy, and could play the tough dames of film noir just as well. Unfortunately, as we have all too often seen, she had a short and difficult life, but her work has stood the test of time and she is just great in this movie, perfectly paired with Joel McCrea, himself a good actor and major movie star who was one of the most likable screen presences of the Golden Era.
"Sullivan's Travels" will take, in it's last half hour, a turn so out of left field that I can't reveal any more of the story to you. All I can say is that, as this third act was playing out, I came to realise that Preston Sturges was not only a comedic genius but was also one of the greatest American film directors who ever lived. Therefore, I am giving the movie my highest honor, Two Gigantic Thumbs Up, and my ultimate recommendation to make sure you see it as soon as possible. There aren't the same endless laughs that you get in other Sturges movies, but what you get instead is a monumental work of art, from the heart, and the comedy is still there, too. See it, see it, see it. /////
This is me again, writing to ya on Tuesday Afternoon (Moody Blues, get it?). I am running late on my blogs again, even though I keep promising not to. Right now I'm gonna head to the Libe to pick up more movies, then back to Pearl's. But I'll be back here at The Blog tonight, at the Usual Time, and once again I'll make every effort to finish before I fall asleep, lol.
See you tonight. Tons of love in the meantime. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Monday, August 5, 2019
Peace and Love + Shakespeare By The Sea + "A Guy Named Joe"
A quick note about the previous blog, I just wanted to point out that it was written before I was aware of the terrible news out of El Paso, which was unfortunately followed by the other horror in Dayton. I mention this because I published that blog in the wee hours of August 3 (late Friday night), and I didn't want anyone to think I was being callous by running the subject matter of Charles Manson or my own troubles having to do with 1989. I don't know exactly when the news about El Paso was first broadcast, but had I heard about it, I never would have written, on that particular night, about another horrible person like Manson, nor would I have written about '89, because on such a night of horror in the news, I would only have wanted to convey peace and love, which is always my bottom line message anyway. Even when I write about 1989, if I write in what seems a negative way toward people I have known, it is only because I am very frustrated by not knowing what happened to me, nor why it happened. But in the final analysis, I really do love everybody, all the people I have known will always be my friends.
So that's all I wanted to say. Sometimes I write about hardcore stuff, like the Manson case, which I have followed since 1969. It's just that I wanted to explain to you the timing of the blog, which coincided with a horrible incident of violence.
As Ringo would say, "Peace and Love", and I say it too, and please repeat it.
Here then, is a little snippet from last night, followed by tonight's movie :
(this part is from Saturday night, August 3 2019) : This evening I went to Los Encinos State Historic Park to watch a fantastic performance of "Henry V" put on by Shakespeare By The Sea, the troupe from San Pedro that tours the SoCal area every Summer. I've been attending their shows since 2014, and I've seen them at Los Encinos every year since then. They used to play at Warner Center Park too, until 2016, but the attendance was always paltry there compared to Encino, so they no longer schedule that venue. But tonight at Los Encinos, the announced attendance was over 600 people, which is not too shabby. SBTS shows have always been admission free, though they rely on donations and major grant funding to achieve their budget goals. It costs more dough than you might imagine, over 300k to put on all their shows for the summer. Like everything else I do, I've been going alone to the SBTS shows for the most part. Grimsley went a couple of times, but I don't think Shakespeare is really his thing. If it's your thing, maybe I'll see you there next August.
(and this part is from Sunday night August 4 2019) : I didn't write more about Shakespeare because by the time I began writing, the news about Dayton was just breaking and I was worn out. We are all sickened by the violence in this country, but here at the blog we try to keep going and we focus generally on movies and the arts. For the most part, I take my cue from radio station Classical KUSC, which never diverts from the music, even on the worst news days. The reason being that there are plenty of places to turn to if you need that information, and hundreds of pundits and bloggers who will input their opinions on tv and on the Internet. I don't want to put my opinion forth anymore, so far as the news is concerned, because I am not sure I even have an opinion about a solution to the current state of affairs. I know what I would do if I were President, and it would be a gradual, military-enforced, door-to-door removal of all guns from this country, followed by a ban on gun manufacturing. My solution would be very radical, and likely not feasible. But I don't have an opinion other than that one, and I basically don't care for most politicians, and I think Trump should be in prison.
So now we will switch to tonight's movie, which was "A Guy Named Joe" (1943). Spencer Tracy stars in a role tailor made for him, that of an Air Force fighter pilot stationed in England during the war. He is the best pilot on the base, known for taking risks, which his boss the Colonel doesn't like but overlooks, because Tracy gets results. Tracy has a girlfriend (Irene Dunne), who is also a skilled pilot. She flies supply transports between bases and is herself a daredevil. They plan to marry, but then Tracy receives orders for a dangerous mission over Germany. The Colonel offers him a chance to opt out, because Dunne has had a premonition that "this is his time". She knows he is going to die on this flight. He assures her that everything will be okay, and then.......of course he dies on the flight.
Now the movie switches to it's main plot (with a patriotic script written by Dalton Trumbo, proving he wasn't a Commie, haha). We are now in fantasy mode. Victor Fleming, who also directed both "Gone With The Wind" and "The Wizard Of Oz" (I didn't know that until just now!) is a natural for this kind of material. Newly deceased Spencer Tracy has become an Angel in a sort of Air Force Heaven. God is a kindly General, played by Lionel Barrymore. He has a new mission for Tracy, to watch over the new pilot who has replaced him in his squadron. This will prove to be difficult, because the new guy (Van Johnson), meets up with the still grieving Irene Dunne, a great actress who was known as "The First Lady Of Hollywood". Though Van Johnson tries to romance her, she cannot let go of the memory of Spencer Tracy. He in turn has been riding invisibly in the back seat of Johnson's P-38, coaching him on the finer points of flying, in a voice Johnson cannot hear. Tracy knows Johnson is hot for his former girl, so he also exhorts him to stay away from her, at the same time as he is helping Johnson to perfect his piloting skills.
This dramatic context will form the basis of the plot for the second half of the movie. Van Johnson has been a washout pilot who only improved when Spencer Tracy became his Guardian Angel instructor, coaching him from the back seat. Now Johnson is a war hero, confident enough to win over Dunne. But near the movie's climax, she confesses that she really doesn't love him. She is still beholden to her dearly departed Spencer Tracy.
Will he maintain his hold over her, which his Angelic Powers enable him to do? Or will he let go? She doesn't seem to love Van Johnson anyway. What will God (aka The General, Lionel Barrymore) have to say about it?
"A Guy Named Joe" is a WW2 fantasy romance catering to the sad fact that wartime couples were faced with the possibility that the soldier might not return. What is beautiful about this movie is that it turns death into a rebirth, in the Christian tradition. In this way, Spencer Tracy is every bit as influential in the life of Irene Dunne as he was when he was alive. The difference is that he cannot be with her anymore. If you as a viewer have a romantic spirit, there are two ways to look at this conundrum. One way is portrayed in the famous movie "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir", in which Mrs. Muir is loyal to her deceased husband and is ready to remain alone until they meet again on the other side.
The other way to look at the question of a love that is broken by death, is to say, as this movie does, that life is for the living, and that it is best for the survivor of a lost loved one to move on from grief, and if possible to remain open to new love. All of this is set very skillfully against a wartime backdrop, with excellent character support provided by Ward Bond, Barry Nelson and, briefly, a young Esther Williams.
How were war brides to carry on if their newlywed husbands or fiancees didn't return home? This is the question the movie poses, and answers, in the form of an Angelic fantasy.
I give "A Guy Named Joe" Two Big Thumbs Up, for all the main reasons : great acting, direction and script. As usual in a movie from this era, there is a ton of stuff going on, in an amazing Hollywood-style story. Bonus points are awarded for some very exciting footage of dogfights between American P-38s and German Messerschmitts. A must see for the WW2 Film Fan. ////
Well, that's all I know for tonight. I should be back with regular movies all week long. I've gotta order a new batch from The Libe, and I may be looking to score some more 80s Horror Classics. I really enjoyed watching those we saw last week (even "The Hitcher", lol).
We had good singing in church this morning. I hope you had a good day too.
Peace and Love always, and don't forget to repeat those words. See you in the morning.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
So that's all I wanted to say. Sometimes I write about hardcore stuff, like the Manson case, which I have followed since 1969. It's just that I wanted to explain to you the timing of the blog, which coincided with a horrible incident of violence.
As Ringo would say, "Peace and Love", and I say it too, and please repeat it.
Here then, is a little snippet from last night, followed by tonight's movie :
(this part is from Saturday night, August 3 2019) : This evening I went to Los Encinos State Historic Park to watch a fantastic performance of "Henry V" put on by Shakespeare By The Sea, the troupe from San Pedro that tours the SoCal area every Summer. I've been attending their shows since 2014, and I've seen them at Los Encinos every year since then. They used to play at Warner Center Park too, until 2016, but the attendance was always paltry there compared to Encino, so they no longer schedule that venue. But tonight at Los Encinos, the announced attendance was over 600 people, which is not too shabby. SBTS shows have always been admission free, though they rely on donations and major grant funding to achieve their budget goals. It costs more dough than you might imagine, over 300k to put on all their shows for the summer. Like everything else I do, I've been going alone to the SBTS shows for the most part. Grimsley went a couple of times, but I don't think Shakespeare is really his thing. If it's your thing, maybe I'll see you there next August.
(and this part is from Sunday night August 4 2019) : I didn't write more about Shakespeare because by the time I began writing, the news about Dayton was just breaking and I was worn out. We are all sickened by the violence in this country, but here at the blog we try to keep going and we focus generally on movies and the arts. For the most part, I take my cue from radio station Classical KUSC, which never diverts from the music, even on the worst news days. The reason being that there are plenty of places to turn to if you need that information, and hundreds of pundits and bloggers who will input their opinions on tv and on the Internet. I don't want to put my opinion forth anymore, so far as the news is concerned, because I am not sure I even have an opinion about a solution to the current state of affairs. I know what I would do if I were President, and it would be a gradual, military-enforced, door-to-door removal of all guns from this country, followed by a ban on gun manufacturing. My solution would be very radical, and likely not feasible. But I don't have an opinion other than that one, and I basically don't care for most politicians, and I think Trump should be in prison.
So now we will switch to tonight's movie, which was "A Guy Named Joe" (1943). Spencer Tracy stars in a role tailor made for him, that of an Air Force fighter pilot stationed in England during the war. He is the best pilot on the base, known for taking risks, which his boss the Colonel doesn't like but overlooks, because Tracy gets results. Tracy has a girlfriend (Irene Dunne), who is also a skilled pilot. She flies supply transports between bases and is herself a daredevil. They plan to marry, but then Tracy receives orders for a dangerous mission over Germany. The Colonel offers him a chance to opt out, because Dunne has had a premonition that "this is his time". She knows he is going to die on this flight. He assures her that everything will be okay, and then.......of course he dies on the flight.
Now the movie switches to it's main plot (with a patriotic script written by Dalton Trumbo, proving he wasn't a Commie, haha). We are now in fantasy mode. Victor Fleming, who also directed both "Gone With The Wind" and "The Wizard Of Oz" (I didn't know that until just now!) is a natural for this kind of material. Newly deceased Spencer Tracy has become an Angel in a sort of Air Force Heaven. God is a kindly General, played by Lionel Barrymore. He has a new mission for Tracy, to watch over the new pilot who has replaced him in his squadron. This will prove to be difficult, because the new guy (Van Johnson), meets up with the still grieving Irene Dunne, a great actress who was known as "The First Lady Of Hollywood". Though Van Johnson tries to romance her, she cannot let go of the memory of Spencer Tracy. He in turn has been riding invisibly in the back seat of Johnson's P-38, coaching him on the finer points of flying, in a voice Johnson cannot hear. Tracy knows Johnson is hot for his former girl, so he also exhorts him to stay away from her, at the same time as he is helping Johnson to perfect his piloting skills.
This dramatic context will form the basis of the plot for the second half of the movie. Van Johnson has been a washout pilot who only improved when Spencer Tracy became his Guardian Angel instructor, coaching him from the back seat. Now Johnson is a war hero, confident enough to win over Dunne. But near the movie's climax, she confesses that she really doesn't love him. She is still beholden to her dearly departed Spencer Tracy.
Will he maintain his hold over her, which his Angelic Powers enable him to do? Or will he let go? She doesn't seem to love Van Johnson anyway. What will God (aka The General, Lionel Barrymore) have to say about it?
"A Guy Named Joe" is a WW2 fantasy romance catering to the sad fact that wartime couples were faced with the possibility that the soldier might not return. What is beautiful about this movie is that it turns death into a rebirth, in the Christian tradition. In this way, Spencer Tracy is every bit as influential in the life of Irene Dunne as he was when he was alive. The difference is that he cannot be with her anymore. If you as a viewer have a romantic spirit, there are two ways to look at this conundrum. One way is portrayed in the famous movie "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir", in which Mrs. Muir is loyal to her deceased husband and is ready to remain alone until they meet again on the other side.
The other way to look at the question of a love that is broken by death, is to say, as this movie does, that life is for the living, and that it is best for the survivor of a lost loved one to move on from grief, and if possible to remain open to new love. All of this is set very skillfully against a wartime backdrop, with excellent character support provided by Ward Bond, Barry Nelson and, briefly, a young Esther Williams.
How were war brides to carry on if their newlywed husbands or fiancees didn't return home? This is the question the movie poses, and answers, in the form of an Angelic fantasy.
I give "A Guy Named Joe" Two Big Thumbs Up, for all the main reasons : great acting, direction and script. As usual in a movie from this era, there is a ton of stuff going on, in an amazing Hollywood-style story. Bonus points are awarded for some very exciting footage of dogfights between American P-38s and German Messerschmitts. A must see for the WW2 Film Fan. ////
Well, that's all I know for tonight. I should be back with regular movies all week long. I've gotta order a new batch from The Libe, and I may be looking to score some more 80s Horror Classics. I really enjoyed watching those we saw last week (even "The Hitcher", lol).
We had good singing in church this morning. I hope you had a good day too.
Peace and Love always, and don't forget to repeat those words. See you in the morning.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Saturday, August 3, 2019
The Truth Matters
(This part of the blog is from last night, August 1, 2019) : Tonight I watched Episode 4 of Spielberg's "Taken". This show just gets weirder and weirder, folks. We have jumped ahead to 1970. The sinister Colonel Crawford, who has been at the helm of the Roswell coverup for 23 years, is being forced out of his position after summoning the President to the site of a crop circle in Indiana, which has turned out to be a deliberate hoax perpetrated by someone who wants to make him look bad.
I have to interject here to say that I myself do not think that crop circles, in general, are hoaxes. While it is possible, I suppose, that some of the simpler patterns might have been created by yokels armed with scythes, two-by-fours and lengths of rope - and even there I will only say "might have" - there is no way on Earth that the more complex and ultra-precise patterns were made in this way. I am not saying that UFOs made them, although that is a possibility, for it is a certainty that UFOs exist and have mindboggling technological capabilities. All I am saying is that with crop circles, there is zero chance that most of them were made by Billy Bob and Jimmy John in the middle of a single night.
I mean, please. Is there a chance you could give me a break?
But at any rate, in this episode, the usually circumspect Colonel Crawford (who is also a psycho killer, remember) is for some reason taken in by the prank of the Crop Circler, who has done a pretty good job with his Circle, but not enough that it should be taken for an Alien Landing Strip, as Crawford designates it.
So now he is on the way out, and at the end of his military career. His son, however, a budding journalist from UC Berkeley, takes up his father's cause with a vengeance. The next thing we know, he has journeyed up to Alaska, where an archaeological dig has uncovered an ancient burial ground located at the end of a tunnel. Painted on the walls of the tomb are strange hieroglyphics in no known language. Also, a mummy has been unearthed.
The Alaskan locals are not pleased about the dig, and the town Sheriff is especially pissed off. The townsfolk apparently have a very dark secret that they are not willing to talk about, involving some unusual children who are rumored to live out in the woods.
No, we're not talking about the Children Of The Corn. That was from another movie (and it was better than we thought, eh?).
But no, in "Taken", where we are up in the dark forests of Alaska, we are talking about some hybrid children who were conceived in the 50s and have been hidden away all their lives.
(this part of the blog is from tonight, August 2, 2019) : No movie tonight because Grimsley came over. He wanted to tell me about the David Crosby documentary that is currently playing in theaters. I am interested in seeing it too, because Crosby is quite a character, not to mention a legendary figure in the history of rock n' roll. Grim is a huge fan of his; my own interest is more peripheral, so I will probably wait for the dvd and then reserve it from the Libe.
He also asked me if I'd seen the new Tarantino flick, "Once Upon A Time In Hollywood". I said no, but that I wanted to see it - even though I think QT is basically a hack director with the exception of "Pulp Fiction" - because of the supposed "big reveal" about the Manson case. The posts I've seen on Facebook all mention a surprise ending. I've been averting my eyes whenever I see such a post, because I don't want any spoilers, but I inadvertently read enough of one to get the idea that the Big Deal about the movie is that it shreds the whole "Helter Skelter" race war theory behind the motive for the Manson murders, and suggests something more prosaic, like a Hollywood sex and drugs connection that was covered up by the cops.
I don't know if this more current theory is what is in Tarantino's movie, but if it is, then he isn't the first person to suggest such a thing. I've followed the case on and off for much of my adult life and have read many books on the subject, including Jeff Guinn's "Manson" (2013), in which the author went back to Indiana and Ohio to interview Charlie's surviving relatives, i.e. his real Family, and those folks put the lie to much of the cosmic mythology surrounding Manson and the sensational press coverage his case has received for all these years. The more I read, the less that prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's book "Helter Skelter" seemed the real version of events.
Now I have just begun a book called "Chaos : Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the 60s", and this book already feels like the real thing. We already know about the LSD brainwashing experiments done by the Agency during the 1950s and 60s. We know about MK Ultra. We know about Laurel Canyon and the very interesting and coincidental military intelligence backgrounds of almost all of the fathers of the rock musicians who became famous after moving to that rustic neighborhood.
In short, we know all about the CIA influence on the creation of the "turn on, tune in, drop out" Hippie movement of the late-1960s, just in time to derail the more serious nationwide college student uprising against the Vietnam War. Just as the CIA introduced crack cocaine into the black communities of America in the late 70s and early 80s, in order to stop the black upward mobility into the middle class (which was already happening in the 1960s), so did they introduce LSD into the hippie scenes across the country in the late 60s, to get the young people so stoned that they could no longer organise against the war. They wanted to discredit the youth movement in general. LSD was their weapon.
I don't yet know where Charles Manson and his followers fit in to all of this government brainwashing, because I have only just begun the book, but it is well known that Charlie was exposed to, and became an ardent follower of, Scientology during his long stint in prison before his release in 1967. It has also been suggested that he had a "handler" when he was behind bars, someone who was aware of his natural abilities in the ways of mind control and may have helped him to sharpen them.
Was Manson a "project" of the CIA? This theory has been put forward before, in different books, but always with little to no evidence. In this case, however, Tom O'Neil has included that reference in his book's title, and he claims in his prologue that Bugliosi fabricated the whole "Helter Skelter" angle in order to secure convictions of the killers, and also perhaps for a more devious reason.....to protect the cops who were covering up a huge mess behind the Manson murders, that involved a lot of lowlife, hedonistic sex-and-drug people in the movie and music businesses.
I would bet you a nickle (or even more) that some version of that theory is closer to what really happened. As you know, I have had a similar theory over the years to explain as least part of what happened to me in 1989, which certainly involved sex, and drugs, and psychopaths with occult behaviors, such as Jared Rappaport, the CSUN professor who kidnapped and tortured me inside his house in September of that year.
So I dislike these kinds of people with a passion, these Hollywood types who engage in degenerate behavior in a wanton manner, and I hate the whole "swinger culture", because what lies behind it is sadism and violence. If you don't believe me, ask the women from the metoo# movement, which was born out of Hollywood.
Hollywood makes a ton of money, the cops cover for those moneymakers, and so if a Frankenstein's Monster like Manson (or O.J.) goes haywire and slaughters people, the coppers and the prosecutors and the newspapers make sure to keep the names of others involved out of the general picture.
It took a long time for the public to be made aware of the truth surrounding the JFK assassination, but after more than 50 years, it is safe to say that we know who was behind it. Thank goodness we have diligent researchers who never give up. We also now know the truth about the Martin Luther King assassination. It seems to take about 50 years for the truth to come out in these cases. The truth about the death of James Forrestal took 55 years to be revealed. 9/11 is the most sought after subject that researchers are currently working on, and we are getting toward the truth in that case also.
Here in America, it's just lie after lie after lie. Look at the President we have. The whole thing is a joke.
But Americans themselves, despite our problems, are by and large a good people, and one day we will put an end to all the lies and phony "national security" secrets. The secret keepers will lose their control and the various truths about important, life altering subjects will be known, and when that happens (and it will, but not because of a phony like Julian Assange), we will all see what an eff-ed up mess we've been living in.
We need to know the truth of things if America is to continue. If Charles Manson turns out to have been a CIA construct, then let's hear about it. This new book "Chaos" is a page turner. I will report back on it as necessary. I have also begun another book by Robert Heinlein, "Starship Troopers", one of his most famous works.
Man does it ever start off with a bang! Instantly I can see again why he is considered the Godfather Of Sci-Fi.
So that's all I have for tonight. Sorry about the socio-political tirade, but doggone it, it's soon gonna be thirty years since 1989 happened to me, and still, to this day, not a single person, from the people I once knew who know all about it, to the people in the government agencies to which I've sent FOIA requests, not one has ever even acknowledged that anything happened, let alone what it was all about or the details.
I have lived my life for the past thirty years trying and hoping to learn what happened to me, and hoping to process it so I can "move on" (whatever that means), but not a single person has ever come forward to help me, even though many people have information that would be of help.
People who would call themselves my friends, and even one person who was closer, have let me twist in the wind all this time........
I have to interject here to say that I myself do not think that crop circles, in general, are hoaxes. While it is possible, I suppose, that some of the simpler patterns might have been created by yokels armed with scythes, two-by-fours and lengths of rope - and even there I will only say "might have" - there is no way on Earth that the more complex and ultra-precise patterns were made in this way. I am not saying that UFOs made them, although that is a possibility, for it is a certainty that UFOs exist and have mindboggling technological capabilities. All I am saying is that with crop circles, there is zero chance that most of them were made by Billy Bob and Jimmy John in the middle of a single night.
I mean, please. Is there a chance you could give me a break?
But at any rate, in this episode, the usually circumspect Colonel Crawford (who is also a psycho killer, remember) is for some reason taken in by the prank of the Crop Circler, who has done a pretty good job with his Circle, but not enough that it should be taken for an Alien Landing Strip, as Crawford designates it.
So now he is on the way out, and at the end of his military career. His son, however, a budding journalist from UC Berkeley, takes up his father's cause with a vengeance. The next thing we know, he has journeyed up to Alaska, where an archaeological dig has uncovered an ancient burial ground located at the end of a tunnel. Painted on the walls of the tomb are strange hieroglyphics in no known language. Also, a mummy has been unearthed.
The Alaskan locals are not pleased about the dig, and the town Sheriff is especially pissed off. The townsfolk apparently have a very dark secret that they are not willing to talk about, involving some unusual children who are rumored to live out in the woods.
No, we're not talking about the Children Of The Corn. That was from another movie (and it was better than we thought, eh?).
But no, in "Taken", where we are up in the dark forests of Alaska, we are talking about some hybrid children who were conceived in the 50s and have been hidden away all their lives.
(this part of the blog is from tonight, August 2, 2019) : No movie tonight because Grimsley came over. He wanted to tell me about the David Crosby documentary that is currently playing in theaters. I am interested in seeing it too, because Crosby is quite a character, not to mention a legendary figure in the history of rock n' roll. Grim is a huge fan of his; my own interest is more peripheral, so I will probably wait for the dvd and then reserve it from the Libe.
He also asked me if I'd seen the new Tarantino flick, "Once Upon A Time In Hollywood". I said no, but that I wanted to see it - even though I think QT is basically a hack director with the exception of "Pulp Fiction" - because of the supposed "big reveal" about the Manson case. The posts I've seen on Facebook all mention a surprise ending. I've been averting my eyes whenever I see such a post, because I don't want any spoilers, but I inadvertently read enough of one to get the idea that the Big Deal about the movie is that it shreds the whole "Helter Skelter" race war theory behind the motive for the Manson murders, and suggests something more prosaic, like a Hollywood sex and drugs connection that was covered up by the cops.
I don't know if this more current theory is what is in Tarantino's movie, but if it is, then he isn't the first person to suggest such a thing. I've followed the case on and off for much of my adult life and have read many books on the subject, including Jeff Guinn's "Manson" (2013), in which the author went back to Indiana and Ohio to interview Charlie's surviving relatives, i.e. his real Family, and those folks put the lie to much of the cosmic mythology surrounding Manson and the sensational press coverage his case has received for all these years. The more I read, the less that prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's book "Helter Skelter" seemed the real version of events.
Now I have just begun a book called "Chaos : Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the 60s", and this book already feels like the real thing. We already know about the LSD brainwashing experiments done by the Agency during the 1950s and 60s. We know about MK Ultra. We know about Laurel Canyon and the very interesting and coincidental military intelligence backgrounds of almost all of the fathers of the rock musicians who became famous after moving to that rustic neighborhood.
In short, we know all about the CIA influence on the creation of the "turn on, tune in, drop out" Hippie movement of the late-1960s, just in time to derail the more serious nationwide college student uprising against the Vietnam War. Just as the CIA introduced crack cocaine into the black communities of America in the late 70s and early 80s, in order to stop the black upward mobility into the middle class (which was already happening in the 1960s), so did they introduce LSD into the hippie scenes across the country in the late 60s, to get the young people so stoned that they could no longer organise against the war. They wanted to discredit the youth movement in general. LSD was their weapon.
I don't yet know where Charles Manson and his followers fit in to all of this government brainwashing, because I have only just begun the book, but it is well known that Charlie was exposed to, and became an ardent follower of, Scientology during his long stint in prison before his release in 1967. It has also been suggested that he had a "handler" when he was behind bars, someone who was aware of his natural abilities in the ways of mind control and may have helped him to sharpen them.
Was Manson a "project" of the CIA? This theory has been put forward before, in different books, but always with little to no evidence. In this case, however, Tom O'Neil has included that reference in his book's title, and he claims in his prologue that Bugliosi fabricated the whole "Helter Skelter" angle in order to secure convictions of the killers, and also perhaps for a more devious reason.....to protect the cops who were covering up a huge mess behind the Manson murders, that involved a lot of lowlife, hedonistic sex-and-drug people in the movie and music businesses.
I would bet you a nickle (or even more) that some version of that theory is closer to what really happened. As you know, I have had a similar theory over the years to explain as least part of what happened to me in 1989, which certainly involved sex, and drugs, and psychopaths with occult behaviors, such as Jared Rappaport, the CSUN professor who kidnapped and tortured me inside his house in September of that year.
So I dislike these kinds of people with a passion, these Hollywood types who engage in degenerate behavior in a wanton manner, and I hate the whole "swinger culture", because what lies behind it is sadism and violence. If you don't believe me, ask the women from the metoo# movement, which was born out of Hollywood.
Hollywood makes a ton of money, the cops cover for those moneymakers, and so if a Frankenstein's Monster like Manson (or O.J.) goes haywire and slaughters people, the coppers and the prosecutors and the newspapers make sure to keep the names of others involved out of the general picture.
It took a long time for the public to be made aware of the truth surrounding the JFK assassination, but after more than 50 years, it is safe to say that we know who was behind it. Thank goodness we have diligent researchers who never give up. We also now know the truth about the Martin Luther King assassination. It seems to take about 50 years for the truth to come out in these cases. The truth about the death of James Forrestal took 55 years to be revealed. 9/11 is the most sought after subject that researchers are currently working on, and we are getting toward the truth in that case also.
Here in America, it's just lie after lie after lie. Look at the President we have. The whole thing is a joke.
But Americans themselves, despite our problems, are by and large a good people, and one day we will put an end to all the lies and phony "national security" secrets. The secret keepers will lose their control and the various truths about important, life altering subjects will be known, and when that happens (and it will, but not because of a phony like Julian Assange), we will all see what an eff-ed up mess we've been living in.
We need to know the truth of things if America is to continue. If Charles Manson turns out to have been a CIA construct, then let's hear about it. This new book "Chaos" is a page turner. I will report back on it as necessary. I have also begun another book by Robert Heinlein, "Starship Troopers", one of his most famous works.
Man does it ever start off with a bang! Instantly I can see again why he is considered the Godfather Of Sci-Fi.
So that's all I have for tonight. Sorry about the socio-political tirade, but doggone it, it's soon gonna be thirty years since 1989 happened to me, and still, to this day, not a single person, from the people I once knew who know all about it, to the people in the government agencies to which I've sent FOIA requests, not one has ever even acknowledged that anything happened, let alone what it was all about or the details.
I have lived my life for the past thirty years trying and hoping to learn what happened to me, and hoping to process it so I can "move on" (whatever that means), but not a single person has ever come forward to help me, even though many people have information that would be of help.
People who would call themselves my friends, and even one person who was closer, have let me twist in the wind all this time........
Thursday, August 1, 2019
"The Hitcher" starring Rutger Hauer and C.Thomas Howell
Concluding our little three night Horror Fest, this evening I watched "The Hitcher" (1986), which I reserved from the Libe to pay tribute to the late actor Rutger Hauer, who was so great in "Blade Runner" and other films of the 80s and 90s. I had never seen "The Hitcher", in which he played the title role. It is the other film for which he was most well known.
Back in 1986, they showed a lot of TV commercials promoting "The Hitcher". At the time, my friends and I laughed. As I have remarked, we were more of the Hardcore Horror school. For me, though I loved all kinds of horror (so long as it was well made), my measuring stick was always gonna be "The Exorcist" or "Texas Chainsaw" or "The Hills Have Eyes" original version. Now, "The Hitcher" didn't seem to be passing itself off as a horror movie anyway - more of an intense thriller with horrific elements - but the reason for our scorn at the time would've had more to do with the film's stars, and the idea that Hauer's character was being promoted in the film's trailer as Indestructible.
He's "The Hitcher". I think the name got to us as well. Please remember we were in our 20s, when everything has gotta be just so, in order to be considered "cool".
But yeah, I mean.....he was "The Hitcher". I don't know why, but right there, that title was a problem for me. Also, and perhaps more problematic, "The Hitcher" was Rutger Hauer. Like everyone else, I love the guy, but in 1986, he had a "larger than life" persona as a screen villain, and here he was being mythologized as the ultimate unstoppable psycho, but he also had a very emotional quality to his acting. He had an expressive face, where even a slight muscle twitch communicated another nuance to the audience, so as menacing as he was, he was not your garden variety maniac. He was a Maniac With Feelings, even if he wanted you to think he didn't have any. He was just so Rutger Hauer, with his funny Americanised accent.
To top it all off, he was going one-on-one with C. Thomas Howell, who in retrospect - having now seen the film - did a good job as his victim. At the time, however, my friends and I would've had a field day with this combination. Howell had been in the same Hollywood freshman class as Tom Cruise and Rob Lowe, all of whom we considered "pretty boys" at the time, so the idea of him taking on Rutger Hauer made "The Hitcher" seem all the more laughable.
In 1986, we deliberately avoided the movie for all the above reasons.
But after Hauer passed away a couple of weeks ago, I thought I finally needed to see his other most famous film. I checked IMDB and saw that it had a 7.3 rating, which again is huge for an older movie. "Maybe it's better than I thought it was", I thought, and so I ordered it from The Libe.
In hindsight, I probably should've stuck with my initial intuition, gleaned 33 years ago upon seeing the TV commercials.
"The Hitcher" is pretty bad, folks.
I find myself, now - as I write - trying to be kind to "The Hitcher", because it is trying very hard to be monumental, to be The Real Deal. To the filmmakers' credit, there is no irony involved, no attempt at levity. "The Hitcher" takes itself seriously, while also taking implausibility to new heights. C. Thomas Howell is driving through the Texas desert, at night during a rainstorm, and he stops to pick up a hitchhiker. Is he insane, or what?! You will find yourself asking this question of Howell many more times during the picture, should you ever decide to sit through it. Once inside the car, Rutger Hauer wastes little time in making his intentions known. He is pretty much The Devil, in person, and this is really the point of the movie, because we never get much out of him other than a fake name. We never find out who he is, where he came from, or what his motivations are.
If I have ever decried a movie for having a thin script, then "The Hitcher" tops them all in that category. There is no script for this film, except to direct the action from one scene to the next. The actors do a good job, including Howell (who is very good) and later on Jennifer Jason Leigh. Hauer is great in the lead role, and without him there would've been no movie, because the story is non-existent.
The outdoor desert photography is top notch, and there are some spectacular car crashes, but once again there is almost zero tension, because the director is so intent on mythologizing Hauer's villain, that he telegraphs every single "boo" moment before it happens. There is nothing to make you jump out of your seat, and maybe they weren't trying for that, because Hauer keeps asking C. Thomas, at different stages of the film, to kill him.
If the filmmakers had explored this psychological theme, behind the Hauer character's mental state, they might've had a really good movie instead of just a "chase 'em down" psycho thriller. Watching Rutger Hauer's performance, which again is very expressive in the context allowed, it almost feels as if he was trying to improvise in order to express more than what was in the script, perhaps to help out a novice director. For that reason - for his performance and Howell's reaction to him - I can understand why "The Hitcher" has become a cult classic for folks who may not be as discerning as I am, as to what constitutes classic horror (or suspense in this case).
"The Hitcher" is still very watchable, because it looks good and moves along. It doesn't lag.
But boy, there is absolutely no story whatsoever. It is all about a nameless murderer who will never be known. And that's it, that's all you get.
I would love to give at least a single thumbs up to "The Hitcher", if only in memory of Rutger Hauer. As mentioned, the other actors are good too, and as the years went on we all came to enjoy, for the most part, the work of the Hollywood freshman class of 1983, which included Howell and Tom Cruise when they both acted in Coppola's "The Outsiders". Rob Lowe was in that movie too, and Patrick Swayze, Matt Dillon and Emilio Estevez.
C. Thomas Howell could've been in Cruise's shoes, could've been chosen to be the Big Hollywood Star, except that he lacked perhaps the Tom Cruise emotional explosiveness.
I was wrong about the onscreen pairing of Howell against Rutger Hauer. C. Thomas holds his own against the big Dutch madman. The film works on all technical levels, too. Unfortunately, there is not even a thin wisp of a plot, none whatsoever, and so I must really stretch my generosity here to award "The Hitcher" with a single thumb up, a slight recommendation to "see it if you must" if you are an 80s horror fan like me , but for everyone else to avoid at all costs. /////
Thank goodness the air quality was a little better today. Not a lot better, mind you, but enough so that I could breathe without "hitching".........haha, nudge nudge.......did you get me? "Hitching" my breath?
Well anyway, I don't think even Rutger Hauer would make it in this smog. But again, it wasn't as bad today, so I went for a hike up at O'Melveny Park. Then I finished my James Forrestal book by David Martin, which I can't recommend highly enough. Read it to learn what really goes on in this country.
That's all for tonight, see you in the morning. Tons of love, as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Back in 1986, they showed a lot of TV commercials promoting "The Hitcher". At the time, my friends and I laughed. As I have remarked, we were more of the Hardcore Horror school. For me, though I loved all kinds of horror (so long as it was well made), my measuring stick was always gonna be "The Exorcist" or "Texas Chainsaw" or "The Hills Have Eyes" original version. Now, "The Hitcher" didn't seem to be passing itself off as a horror movie anyway - more of an intense thriller with horrific elements - but the reason for our scorn at the time would've had more to do with the film's stars, and the idea that Hauer's character was being promoted in the film's trailer as Indestructible.
He's "The Hitcher". I think the name got to us as well. Please remember we were in our 20s, when everything has gotta be just so, in order to be considered "cool".
But yeah, I mean.....he was "The Hitcher". I don't know why, but right there, that title was a problem for me. Also, and perhaps more problematic, "The Hitcher" was Rutger Hauer. Like everyone else, I love the guy, but in 1986, he had a "larger than life" persona as a screen villain, and here he was being mythologized as the ultimate unstoppable psycho, but he also had a very emotional quality to his acting. He had an expressive face, where even a slight muscle twitch communicated another nuance to the audience, so as menacing as he was, he was not your garden variety maniac. He was a Maniac With Feelings, even if he wanted you to think he didn't have any. He was just so Rutger Hauer, with his funny Americanised accent.
To top it all off, he was going one-on-one with C. Thomas Howell, who in retrospect - having now seen the film - did a good job as his victim. At the time, however, my friends and I would've had a field day with this combination. Howell had been in the same Hollywood freshman class as Tom Cruise and Rob Lowe, all of whom we considered "pretty boys" at the time, so the idea of him taking on Rutger Hauer made "The Hitcher" seem all the more laughable.
In 1986, we deliberately avoided the movie for all the above reasons.
But after Hauer passed away a couple of weeks ago, I thought I finally needed to see his other most famous film. I checked IMDB and saw that it had a 7.3 rating, which again is huge for an older movie. "Maybe it's better than I thought it was", I thought, and so I ordered it from The Libe.
In hindsight, I probably should've stuck with my initial intuition, gleaned 33 years ago upon seeing the TV commercials.
"The Hitcher" is pretty bad, folks.
I find myself, now - as I write - trying to be kind to "The Hitcher", because it is trying very hard to be monumental, to be The Real Deal. To the filmmakers' credit, there is no irony involved, no attempt at levity. "The Hitcher" takes itself seriously, while also taking implausibility to new heights. C. Thomas Howell is driving through the Texas desert, at night during a rainstorm, and he stops to pick up a hitchhiker. Is he insane, or what?! You will find yourself asking this question of Howell many more times during the picture, should you ever decide to sit through it. Once inside the car, Rutger Hauer wastes little time in making his intentions known. He is pretty much The Devil, in person, and this is really the point of the movie, because we never get much out of him other than a fake name. We never find out who he is, where he came from, or what his motivations are.
If I have ever decried a movie for having a thin script, then "The Hitcher" tops them all in that category. There is no script for this film, except to direct the action from one scene to the next. The actors do a good job, including Howell (who is very good) and later on Jennifer Jason Leigh. Hauer is great in the lead role, and without him there would've been no movie, because the story is non-existent.
The outdoor desert photography is top notch, and there are some spectacular car crashes, but once again there is almost zero tension, because the director is so intent on mythologizing Hauer's villain, that he telegraphs every single "boo" moment before it happens. There is nothing to make you jump out of your seat, and maybe they weren't trying for that, because Hauer keeps asking C. Thomas, at different stages of the film, to kill him.
If the filmmakers had explored this psychological theme, behind the Hauer character's mental state, they might've had a really good movie instead of just a "chase 'em down" psycho thriller. Watching Rutger Hauer's performance, which again is very expressive in the context allowed, it almost feels as if he was trying to improvise in order to express more than what was in the script, perhaps to help out a novice director. For that reason - for his performance and Howell's reaction to him - I can understand why "The Hitcher" has become a cult classic for folks who may not be as discerning as I am, as to what constitutes classic horror (or suspense in this case).
"The Hitcher" is still very watchable, because it looks good and moves along. It doesn't lag.
But boy, there is absolutely no story whatsoever. It is all about a nameless murderer who will never be known. And that's it, that's all you get.
I would love to give at least a single thumbs up to "The Hitcher", if only in memory of Rutger Hauer. As mentioned, the other actors are good too, and as the years went on we all came to enjoy, for the most part, the work of the Hollywood freshman class of 1983, which included Howell and Tom Cruise when they both acted in Coppola's "The Outsiders". Rob Lowe was in that movie too, and Patrick Swayze, Matt Dillon and Emilio Estevez.
C. Thomas Howell could've been in Cruise's shoes, could've been chosen to be the Big Hollywood Star, except that he lacked perhaps the Tom Cruise emotional explosiveness.
I was wrong about the onscreen pairing of Howell against Rutger Hauer. C. Thomas holds his own against the big Dutch madman. The film works on all technical levels, too. Unfortunately, there is not even a thin wisp of a plot, none whatsoever, and so I must really stretch my generosity here to award "The Hitcher" with a single thumb up, a slight recommendation to "see it if you must" if you are an 80s horror fan like me , but for everyone else to avoid at all costs. /////
Thank goodness the air quality was a little better today. Not a lot better, mind you, but enough so that I could breathe without "hitching".........haha, nudge nudge.......did you get me? "Hitching" my breath?
Well anyway, I don't think even Rutger Hauer would make it in this smog. But again, it wasn't as bad today, so I went for a hike up at O'Melveny Park. Then I finished my James Forrestal book by David Martin, which I can't recommend highly enough. Read it to learn what really goes on in this country.
That's all for tonight, see you in the morning. Tons of love, as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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