Attack of the B Movie!

Here we are again. Four Octobers ago, I bit off far more than I realized needed chewing when I decided to dedicate the month to reviewing one zombie movie per day, and I'm still not quite sure how I pulled it off. This year, I've finally gotten my act together enough to attempt something similar for the Halloween season, and this time, I've done a bit more in the way of prep work before the month actually began. Here goes... something.

Since a youth largely obsessed with anything and everything aired on the Sci-Fi Channel (as it ought to still be spelled), the 1950s have been a favorite period of mine for the genre, and it is my hope to gain an even deeper appreciation for it over the next 31 days. Already I've discovered several treasures I'd never before even heard of (expect much love for Richard and Alex Gordon along the way), and had a change of heart for one movie that struck me as impossibly lame when I first watched it. With any luck, this will help win over some new fans of these frequently overlooked works, which, even at their most unpolished and MST3K worthy, strike me as a kind of beautiful art.

I realize the title of this marathon is a misnomer, as many of these movies had rather substantial budgets and don't quite fit into the B movie category. Too bad. I liked the title enough to stick with it, and hey, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms comes from the ice of the Arctic, not the ocean, so if you're going to split hairs, have at it. If you want the best resource on this topic, look no further than Bill Warren's exhaustively researched book "Keep Watching the Skies!" My efforts will be considerably less comprehensive, but I expect they'll be a blast all the same.
































Day 1: The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms
Day 2: I Married a Monster from Outer Space
Day 3: Them!
Day 4: The War of the Worlds
Day 5: Plan 9 from Outer Space / Bride of the Monster / Night of the Ghouls
Day 6: The Blob
Day 7: Teenagers from Outer Space
Day 8: The Manster
Day 9: When Worlds Collide
Day 10: Gojira / Godzilla Raids Again / Godzilla, King of the Monsters! 
Day 11: Forbidden Planet
Day 12: The Atomic Submarine
Day 13: The Thing from Another World
Day 14: Fiend Without a Face
Day 15: Creature from the Black Lagoon, Revenge of the Creature and The Creature Walks Among Us
Day 16: The Day the Earth Stood Still
Day 17: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Day 18: Attack of the 50 Foot Woman
Day 19: 20 Million Miles to Earth
Day 20: The Fly / Tarantula, The Wasp Woman 
Day 21: Invaders from Mars
Day 22: The Monolith Monsters 
Day 23 & 24: Attack of the Giant Leeches, Attack of the Crab Monsters
Day 25 (Supernova B Movie Explosion): Gog, The Beast of Hollow Mountain, Rodan, The Amazing Colossal Man, War of the Colossal Beast, The Brain Eaters, The Alligator People, The Giant Behemoth, The Giant Gila Monster, The Killer Shrews
Day 26: The Incredible Shrinking Man 
Day 27: Red Planet Mars
Day 28: Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Day 29: This Island Earth
Day 30: It Came from Outer Space / It Came from Beneath the Sea / It! The Terror from Beyond Space
*Day 31: Robot Monster

And now that we're done with all of that...superlatives! But first, the question of legacy. The genre of 1950s monster movies (and all sci-fi/horror and the like) is by no means bound by the years of 1950 through 1959. These five are among those that carry on the torch, and all but one gets the official P'Booth stamp of excellence (Mars Attacks! gets the benefit of the doubt for now on account of my having not seen it in a decade).

In some attempt at order of quality, i.e. my opinion.

1. Mission to Mars


2. Gremlins 2: The New Batch


3. Tremors


4. Killer Klowns from Outer Space


5. Mars Attacks!


The there's the question of remakes, something on which I have strong opinions. Here's the deal: plenty of remakes are terrible, but that's no reason to refuse acknowledgement of the fact that plenty of them are good, even great. In fact, you probably like a lot of remakes without knowing it. The Frankenstein most everyone knows is in fact the third filming of that story. And The Wizard of Oz with Judy Garland was by no means the first. This genre has afforded plenty, some of which are superior to their predecessors. (On the basis of it not being a "formal" remake, I've disincluded Alien from this roster, but the real reason is because I refuse to choose a favorite between Ridley Scott's film and John Carpenter's of a very similar nature, in both quality and ass-kicking quality.) There are other worthwhile remakes amongst these (for example, there remains something to be said on the casting choice of Keanu Reeves as an alien), but these are the top contenders.

1. The Fly (1986)


2. The Thing (1982)


3. War of the Worlds (2005)


4. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) and Body Snatchers (1993)
[Embedding conveniently disabled on both]

5. The Blob (1988)


And now, the superlatives.

Best title shot: The Thing from Another World

Best opening credits/theme song: The Blob


Best eventual use in a music video: Attack of the 50 Foot Woman


Best robot: Gort


Best monster: The Blob


Best robot monster & best line of dialogue: Ro-Man, self-explanatory


Best monster in a terrible movie: The Ymir, 20 Million Miles to Earth


Best monster in an okay movie: The Gill-Man, Creature from the Black Lagoon


Best opening shot & scariest alien: It Came from Outer Space

Best opening monologue: Plan 9 from Outer Space


Best monster that's actually real: The giant squid, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, at about the 1:00 mark.


Best animal & best death: The Rhedosaurus enjoys a snack, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms


Best mineral: The Monolith Monsters


Best vegetable: The Thing

Best monster you don't actually see: The id monster, Forbidden Planet

Most Kubrickian scene: It! The Terror From Beyond Space. This clip is nowhere to be found. Just rent the sucker on iTunes. It's a dollar.


Most Lynchian scene & best musical score: The Atomic Submarine


Best resultant episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000: War of the Colossal Beast


Best movie poster & least convincing monsters: The Killer Shrews; best movie I didn't have time to review: First Man Into Space


And finally, a top ten, which may or may not include only ten titles, and may or may not correlate with star ratings, for what it's worth.

1. The Day the Earth Stood Still
2. Robot Monster
3. The Atomic Submarine (plus Fiend Without a Face and First Man Into Space, by the transitive property of the brothers Gordon)
4. Godzilla
5. It Came from Outer Space
6. Invasion of the Body Snatchers
7. Forbidden Planet
8. The Blob
9. The Monolith Monsters
10. Attack of the 50 Foot Woman and Plan 9 from Outer Space (c'mon, they're two sides of the same coin)

That's all, folks!

*Okay, yes, I didn't write something up on this one for this month, and instead subbed an old capsule review. If you knew what my month consisted of besides this self-induced marathon (much as I enjoyed it...wow, how did I ever find the time), particularly this past week and today specifically, you'd be happy I took a break, too. The next time I write about this movie, I want to write the Bible on it, and I just don't have it in me now. Good night. Good luck. The end.

Memories of Jurassic Park

[This post is my contribution to the Steven Spielberg Blogathon co-hosted by Adam Zanzie (Icebox Movies) and Ryan Kelly (Medfly Quarantine).]


As an 8-year-old, Jurassic Park held remarkably little sway over me in the days before I saw the film. I'd been caught up in hype before: Disney's Beauty and the Beast was my favorite movie by far for a time, and I remember counting down the days before I got to see it (seven times in theaters, a record unmatched by any film until Inglourious Basterds) and even being something of a prick towards my parents when I didn't get to go see it right away. Similarly, I'm pretty sure that word of the production of Home Alone 2 made me jump with excitement. I liked dinosaurs terrifically as a child; in the case of Jurassic Park, you'd think I'd have been jumping out of my skin. Alas, the preview was memorable but, once passed, left little impression on my young mind.

The reason, I think, is that at even that early point in time, I had mentally checked Steven Spielberg as someone to watch out for, in a bad way (ironic now, I know). E.T. had already rubbed me the wrong way, so clearly I was the one who had gotten off on the wrong foot (other than that negative feeling, I don't remember watching it, only knowing that it had happened). A few years later, I'd see and love Duel, but for now I was confronted with a film that had earned important notice amongst people my age (along with pogs, among other things of such importance) and, concurrently, in the local newspaper for having drawn such young interest in a PG-13 rated movie. My dad showed me editorials and cartoons on the matter as if (a) I gave a shit (I hadn't pressed to see the film, and would later be denied access to see The Nightmare Before Christmas; adventurous, my parents always are) and (b) such noise was worthwhile (already, media banter struck me as reactionary and inane). And when my first chance came to actually go see the movie, I actively dismissed it. Even I don't get my weirdness sometimes.

Suffice to say, when I finally was able to see it (a few months into its run, around Halloween, I remember), Spielberg's film disturbed me profoundly. I wasn't entertained so much as paralyzed, from the opening scene on (even the jovial first half couldn't overcome the effect). I remember ticking off the number of people who had died in the film, finding it (the film) to be horribly, sickeningly exploitative (this being the second time such an effect had happened to me: a terrible disaster picture in a tropical setting, When Time Ran Out, made for a disturbing television experience several years earlier; with no concept of special effects, these people drowning and burning were actually dying to my young eyes). My anger at the film culminated in the form of a written letter to one Mr. Spielberg, in which I disparaged him for wallowing in perceived filth and gore. I'm unsure of what happened to this letter; part of me wishes to read it, while another hopes it no longer exists, so as to not become potential blackmail fodder.

In time, I came to enjoy Jurassic Park (for the record, I've now possessed four copies of the film, the first, a VHS, being a gift, later a widescreen VHS, and two DVDs, the most latter bought for the purposes of this 'thon because the first DVD copy is still on loan to the co-host himself!), and more recently, to love it quite unabashedly. A late-night solo viewing of the film two or three years ago convinced me of its singularity: as an action film, as an auteurist vision, as a blockbuster, as a humanist statement. It's a masterpiece, and I'd go so far as to call it life-affirming. Among the many recommendables: Spielberg's exquisite character shorthand, a finely tuned orchestra, of performers, and the visual effects, which - although easier to spot these 17 years later - are still an enthralling landmark in digital evolution. The nighttime T-Rex attack might be the finest f/x set piece ever filmed, and that's coming from a died-in-the-wool Terminator fan (and you can throw all six Star Wars on the keeper pile, too).

What I eventually realized, with so much hindsight, was that Jurassic Park disturbed me at that age because this was a film that took death seriously. Unlike most of the flimsy monster movies I'd seen up until that time -- in which a cop snatched from traffic by the hungry jaws of a monster was just a throwaway figure in a fun but surface-deep framework -- this was the work of someone who considered the spirit and flesh and blood of everyone involved, even the cowardly lawyer and pudgy, scorned hacker. Films that toss off human life (singular or plural) without due cause (be it laughter or tears or something between) sicken me yet, but time has shown layers where previously none shown.

Spielberg was too experienced even at that point in his career to not be aware of an inherent silliness in the material (something Peter Jackson would fumble with in his adaptation of King Kong), and yet this awareness doesn't manifest itself as camp; it grounds the material, and with the help of technology, renders it as real as flesh and blood (Hammond's second act speech about a flea circus would be unforgivably lame if it wasn't such a blatant surrogate for Spielberg's intentions). By relocating the narrative pull away from the physical action (which is beautiful pop art) to the universal human impulses laced within (life finds a way), Spielberg elevates the material to the timelessly sublime.

It's this core of humanity that appeals to me so strongly in all of Spielberg's films, and yet he's not one without his darker sides. If Jurassic Park (and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and The Lost World, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, among others) tells us anything, it's that Steven likes to kill people in his movies. Humanistic or not, villains need dispatching, but his portrayals always hit a gut response of authenticity because they represent an actual loss. Nowadays, Jurassic Park's film-as-a-ride extravaganza is one of my favorite popcorn titles. And I'm entirely grateful that it, and not War of the Worlds, was there to torment my childhood.

A final tangential note: if you saw Jurassic Park at midnight at New York City's Sunshine theater early 2010 (a good showing, even if the audience was a little bit too ironic towards the movie for my taste), you'll probably remember the big audience cheer for Sam Neill when his character is introduced. Immediately following was a guy who then singly called out Laura Dern's name with meek enthusiasm. Yeah, that was me.







I love these faces.


Nedry and Hammond's past is deliberately obscured in this script. Is this line meant sincerely?






This is one of my favorite acting moments in the film. Compelled, as if by an involuntary force, to rush to the aid of the children, Alan realizes, immediately after getting the attention of the T-Rex, that he is now the prey of choice. His face twitches delightfully as he conveys dawning fear and redoubled resolution in the matter of about two seconds.



Listen at this moment for a antiquated slipping sound file, like something out of an old cartoon. Fitting.


He looked down.


What are they looking at? Limbs? Fleshy scraps?


lol


I wonder how many takes this shot required.





I love how this gotcha moment suggests greater unseen intelligence of the raptors. One of those creatures had to stuff that arm into the crevice, as if hiding all traces of themselves before the arrival of the next potential victim.


Be vewy vewy qwiet....I'm hunting waptors.




If you don't give yourself away, cheap utensil hooks surely will.


Are you there, God?