To Put Away Childish Things #17

I went to the cinema this week.

The choice of films in Harrow was quite restricted and it came down to a straightforward toss-up between The A-Team and Inception. As the A-Team was just about to begin when I got there that's what I chose.

It was Big Dumb Fun. With a capital DUMB. It was loud, brash, utterly preposterous and I enjoyed every minute of it. It's also absolutely chock full of obscure references that most people won't notice, that some people will notice and won't get and that fans of the original will quietly smile at. (Director of the movie showing when Murdoch escapes? Reginald Barclay. If you don't get it, then you can find out for your homework. Professor Google will help you.)

Anyway it reminded me that it's about time I did another nostalgia post because I get very nostalgic about the kind of program The A-Team represented. Daft adventure or cop series that had exactly the same plot every week, completely ridiculous premises, special effects ripped on license from low budget cinema releases so that the stories had to be written to fit the available footage.

Ah those were the days. The A-Team was the sublime tip of the iceberg. I have a couple of series on DVD and terrific they are too. But what about The Incredible Hulk? By the numbers episodes down to the last detail. You can set your watch by how long it will be before poor old David "Don't Make Me Angry" Banner is going to go all green and muscle-bound. And let's not forget The Six Million Dollar Man and its better spin-off The Bionic Woman. Let's also give a nod towards the Invaders, a series I never saw the last season of and must buy on DVD some time. Over on the police end of things there were dozens of quirky detectives from scruffy Columbo (apparently on a never ending cycle of afternoon repeats) to fat Cannon, moustachioed cowboy  McCloud and the partnership of Starsky and Hutch.

Occasionally these programs slipped in a bit of social relevance or an episode with a slightly harder edge but mostly they were the very definition of formulaic entertainment. Nowadays everything has to have morals and points and ongoing storylines but back then things could just be the big dumb fun that they were.

Which brings us back to the A-Team.

If you think the following exchange of dialogue is wonderfully, gloriously, insanely ludicrous go to see the movie.

"Are they trying to shoot down the other drone?"

"No, they're trying to fly the tank."

Priceless.

It was a favour after all

In a way the decision of the chains to go head to head with Disney over Alice in Wonderland has done me a favour. I know that Cineworld has now backed down and said they will show it but it's too late, I've decided that as there is an IMAX cinema about fifteen minutes walk from my work I will go to the opening day showing at three O'clock - I finish early on Fridays. I've booked my ticket and I shall be there at least an hour before it starts to try to get a good seat.
This will be the first of this latest generation of 3D films that I've seen, though a long time ago I saw an IMAX presentation of an underwater documentary.

Alice all over the place

They are really testing out the limits of my willingness to collect every version of Alice in Wonderland that I can lay my hands on. I've commented before on how much sounds wrong, on paper at least, about Tim Burton's forthcoming version. There is also a new ballet version set for this year and, apparently in production, a television version that sounds only marginally less free and easy with the story than the Tim Burton one.

Now, on top of all this, pushing the envelope of my collecting even further, there is, I learn, to be a Bollywood version. (See also here.)

The future wears spandex

On the plus side all of the following are now listed as being "In Production".

Iron Man II
Green Lantern (sadly not the one with that awesome faux trailer)
Captain America
The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn
Jonah Hex
Spider-Man 4
Thor
The Avengers
a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

and the following are all possible projects

a new version of The Crow
Doctor Strange
The Flash
a new version of Flash Gordon
two more Tintin movies
Green Arrow
Nick Fury
two more SIn City movies (God help us!)
another revamp of the Superman franchise
Wonder Woman
no less than four new X-Men franchise movies

and many more. Buy the magazine and read all about them.

Holy Discrepancies, Batman!!!

It's quite remarkable really.
Yesterday I bought a special edition of the science fiction magazine SFX that focuses entirely on cinema and television adaptations of comics. The bulk of it is taken up with an A to Z of such adaptations with reviews. What is quite remarkable about it is how many of those reviews have reached the exact opposite conclusion to mine. Some films that I like, they hate. Some films that I hate, they like. It isn't universal, and it's more marked for the films that they disparage, but it's noticeable enough.We do have some common ground on the middling stuff.

To just pull a few examples (not quite) at random.

Let's start with Blade:The Series. They are pretty disparaging about it in comparison to the first and second Blade movies (although, to be fair, they are even more disparaging about the third movie) but it's a decent enough piece of work. As with something like Robocop (not part of this sub-genre) the levels of violence that are in the films were never going to be shown on television but it does handle itself pretty well. They also don't like the way that the focus is often off Blade himself and on the other characters but then rather confusingly add that when it focusses on those characters it's actually better.
By contrast they quite like, though not whole-heartedly, Sin City - a movie that I found so totally devoid of heart and soul that it was almost unwatchable. It may be a visual treat but on screen it shows up the total lack of sympathy of the source material. Scoring a similar half-hearted plus in their review is Constantine which, though it's so heavily adapted that it bears almost no resemblence to it's source material, I really liked. And for a Keanu Reeves movie that's rare enough to merit mention in itself.
It's sequels that they most often go to town on. The Crow, a movie that they mostly like (though not as much as I like it) spawned three sequels. In the case of City of Angels, they give it the thorough slating that it deserves but for entirely the wrong reasons. It is, they claim, no more than an inferior re-run of the first movie. I beg to differ. Given the set up the basic plot outline of any Crow movie has to be similar but what City of Angels does is add a level of unpeasant fetishism to the procedings that is totally at odds with its setting. The two remaining movies Salvation and Wicked Prayer they like even less and this is just plain wrong-headed. Sure they all have similar plots. Certainly the budgets and stylised set pieces from the first film are missing but so what? The films are well enough played and a damned sight better than City of Angels.
Moving on Elektra they really dislike but I think it's a competent - though by no means wonderful - and entertaining flick. Flash Gordon (the Sam Jones version) gets a good review and the reasons listed are all the things I don't like about the film - its arch campness, its ridiculous action sequences, its inconsistent special effects, Brian Blessed: to name just a few.
We are however almost in agreement about Hellboy which has to date produced two terrific films. They prefer the second one to the first which is, in my view, back-to-front but its six of one, half a dozen of the other really. On the same page they give the customary one star to Howard the Duck but once I got past the terrible duck suit, I thought it was enjoyably daft.
It goes on and on. The TV movie of the Justice League is a weird blend of Superheroes and Friends but it's OK, though SFX disagrees.
They actually give the same, indifferent three stars to Ang Lee's Hulk and to Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk though the former deserves no stars and the latter four stars.
Judge Dredd they hate though it deserves a couple of stars just for the look of the film and another for how many of the comic book elements they managed to shoe-horn into a confusing plot. Doctor Strange, which I have recommended for years as really having the spirit of the original they call "woeful". The Mask they love but I see it as being just more of Jim Carey's irritating schtick.

I could go on (and I'm aware that I already have) but all any of this goes to show is that a) nobody really agrees about this stuff anyway and b) you should never pay too much attention to reviews.

Even mine.

Weird, huh?

So. Weird movies then. I've been giving them some thought in between packing things into boxes for our move to a new staffroom. And while attending a union meeting. And on the metro to and from work. Quite a lot of thought really.
So. Weird movies then. There are plenty to choose from but the question is, what do I mean by "weird"? And in at least a couple of cases, what do I mean by "movie"? Can a movie with a perfectly logical structured plot be weird? Can an otherwise mainstream movie that suddenly lurches into weirdness be counted (Repo Man, anybody?). What about a piece of out-and-out surrealism?
As for "movie", will a short piece made for television count?

Ah well, pondering the imponderables.

Anyway, because it's a rather suitable number I'll mention 13 of my own favourites, though I'll leave the reviews to others and make do with single comments that may or may not be an accurate reflection of the films in question.

First the ones mentioned already.

Donnie Darko : Harvey's evil twin.
The Naked Lunch : William Burroughs novel, thought by many to be unfilmable. Many who have seen it, that is.*

Now for the rest.

Brazil : Terry Gilliam creates an unholy cross between Monty Python and Franz Kafka.
Eraserhead : I'll give sixpence to anyone who can tell me what it's about. (I'm lieing) You can always rely on David Lynch for something disturbing.
La Cabina : Short? Yes! Weird? Yes! You'll never use a public phone box again.
Videodrome : No I don't know what it's all about either but Cronenberg is more reliably weird than Lynch.
The Bed-Sitting-Room : Spike Milligan is in it. A man mutates into a bed sitting room. Need I go on?
Pan's Labyrinth (aka El Laberinto del Fauno) : A touch more mainstream but still very odd indeed.
Jacob's Ladder : Cop out ending but a strange enough journey getting to it.
L'age d'or : Luis Bunel and Salvador Dali. Expect surrealism.
Being John Malkovich : Probably the strangest plot ever conceived.
Dark City : Possibly shouldn't be here. Has a plot with a beginning, a middle and an end, but I think it's weird.
Neco z Alenky (aka Alice) : The most utterly disturbing vision of Alice In Wonderland ever commited to film. And likely to remain so regardless of what Tim Burton does with the story.

I suggest you go out and get them all and watch them. Then, assuming you haven't commited suicide, tell me if you know any that are weirder so that I can get them and watch them.

*Actually this is a lie. I thought that The Naked Lunch was a terrible film. It was weird though, especially the giant typewriter bug.

Perversity

It seems there's a sequel to Donnie Darko, one of my all time favourite weird movies. I like weird movies. I'm known for it. Hell, I saw The Naked Lunch. In the cinema. I was the only person there. Anyway, there is apparently a sequel called S. Darko, set seven years later and featuring the now teenage sister of Donnie from the original movie.
As I only heard of it yesterday I thought I'd go on line and check what it was all about. What I found was the worst collection of reviews I have ever seen for a movie. A couple managed to find isolated good points but the majority pan it to an almost unprecedented degree.

"I can't review this film properly because I can't make any goddamn sense of it!"
"like tuning into last week’s “Lost” episode without having ever seen another episode"
"I know what the “S” stands for in S. Darko."
"The worst offense? The film is flat-out boring."
"S. DARKO makes a point of not answering any questions that Kelly didn’t, but adding such fresh twists makes the new film too convoluted."
"the story and the characters are just not compelling at all."
"so inferior to the original that it’s destined to be forgotten in a matter of months"

are just a few of the kinder things that are said about it.

The question is this, is my love of weirdness perverse enough to make be buy and watch this movie? That of course, like the movie, remains to be seen.