Space 1979: The one where an evil medicine man is reincarnated from a tumor

 

Title: The Manitou

What Year?: 1978

Classification: Irreproducible Oddity/ Mashup

Rating: What The Hell??? (3/5)

 

In working on this feature, some of the biggest surprises have been the ones I didn’t think of. There were some I decided didn’t suit my needs at the start, and most of those have remained outside consideration. There were some I included because I got hold of them around the time I needed a review, like The Andromeda Strain. There were even a few I hadn’t heard of until they were either suggested to me or mentioned in the course of reading, like Space Mutiny. But then there have been some well within the parameters of the feature that I certainly knew about, but still didn’t think of until I was very far along. This review is for one of those movies, and it happens to be one of the strangest and most unclassifiable movies from the period under consideration.

Our story begins with a woman named Karen who reports a strange growth on her neck. Her doctors soon realize that it has the characteristics of a fetus. For no  obvious reason, she seeks the help of an old boyfriend Harry, who works as a shady psychic. He is observant enough to notice she has started speaking an unknown language in her sleep. Meanwhile, the men of science prove helpless to remove the growth, in part because their equipment keeps failing or seemingly turning against them. After consulting with various colleagues and an apparently knowledgeable scholar, Harry concludes she is under the influence of the spirit of an evil medicine man, intent on being reborn through her. Their best hope is a present-day elder named John Singing Rock, who is convinced the spirit is an old enemy named Misqamacus. But by the time the friendly shaman arrives, Karen has already given birth to a malevolent-looking midget. The halls of the hospital shake, burn and freeze as the medicine man fights to contain the reincarnated spirit and its demonic allies. With the powers of benevolent magic failing, it’s up to Harry to join science with the supernatural in the final battle with evil.

The Manitou was produced by the company of Melvin Simon, a real estate developer who also financed Porky’s among other movies in the 1970s and early 1980s, based on a novel by Graham Masterton. The film was directed by William Girdler, previously best known for a string of “blaxploitation” movies, and distributed by chronic offender AVCO Embassy Pictures (which I just realized I haven’t included before). The cast was led by Tony Curtis as Harry, with Michael Ansara as Singing Rock and Burgess Meredith in a small role as an anthropologist. Karen was played by Susan Strasberg, one of several children of Lee Strasberg, a distinguished theater director and acting coach. The movie was rated PG, despite a sequence in which Strasberg appears nude; some sources report it rated R, which may have been given in later distribution. The movie received very hostile critical reviews and was listed in the book The Golden Turkey Awards, though how well it did at the box office is less clear. By coincidence, Meredith was known for playing The Penguin on the 1960s Batman TV series, while Ansara was the voice of Mr. Freeze on Batman The Animated Series. A case cited at the end of the film of a Japanese boy found with a “fetus” may refer to a case of a parasitic twin or a dermoid cyst.

This one is by almost any standard a total mess, though partisans will still debate whether that is entirely a “bad” thing. It mixes horror, fantasy and science fiction, with just the kind of brazenness that makes many entries in this feature worthwhile (see especially Krull and Adventuresof Hercules). Unfortunately, it is difficult to make the case that it does this particularly well, and far too easy to argue the reverse. For well into the first hour, it remains a quite routine horror movie, readily inviting the critics’ frequent and unfavorable comparisons with The Exorcist. Even the horror is quite tame, outside of a sequence where a possessed surgical laser routs the hospital staff. What is missing throughout is a sense of pain and debilitation from Karen, who usually shows as much concern as would be expected for a bad pimple. Things start to get lively when John Singing Rock comes in, then it goes from 0 to 600 when Misqamacus arrives.

Almost everything memorable comes from the last 40 minutes or so, apart from Burgess Meredith’s appearance as a fractured intellectual. (Amusingly, he welcomes meeting the resurrected medicine man as a research opportunity, which would be an intriguing viewpoint if his character had any more screen time.) This is where the critics usually have a field day making fun of the effects, including Misqamacus himself. Yet, the visuals certainly “work” in context. The lighting and camerawork usually discourage close examination of the makeup and creatures, while greatly enhancing an effective “old school” atmosphere. Then there are genuinely eerie touches, particularly the desolate scene of the frozen corridor and a doorway that seems to open onto an empty starscape. The centerpiece is the “birth” of Misqamacus, who clambers right out of the cocoon of the growth. It’s not “’good”, even by the production’s uneven standards, but the pacing and the grim appearance of the being prevent it from breaking the mood if it has taken hold at all.

The one thing that will make or break the movie is Ansara’s performance. Time and evolving sensibilities has certainly been against it on this point: While the actor had played Indian characters a number of times, he was in fact of Lebanese descent, the kind of typecasting that was getting dicey even in the ‘70s. The script and story don’t help matters, painting the character in broad strokes that don’t hold up for anyone with experience dealing with actual natives. (Among other things, many/ most native Americans claim to follow some form of Christianity.) But this allows a boldness and honesty that goes beyond the sum of his lines and screen time, freely criticizing Christianity, science and western civilization in general. In his most hypnotic monologue, he pronounces, “Your God won’t help you… not prayer, not holy water, not the weight of a thousand of your churches…” That his own magic doesn’t really do much better just makes the proceedings that much more interesting.

For the “one scene”, I really couldn’t avoid the finale, which I have already mentioned several times. The final minutes find Harry and Singing Rock trying to hold the door of a hospital room against Misqamacus. The whole room has disappeared, leaving the medicine man and Karen’s hospital bed seemingly floating in space; Singing Rock declares it an “illusion”, without seeming to convince himself or anyone else. Behind the gloating dwarf, a much larger and clearly more powerful entity comes into view, in the likeness of a dull orange sun that looks like a giant eye. Harry tries to harness the electricity and technology of the hospital as a spirit with its own force, a notion that actually follows from the concepts of animism. That revives Karen, who sits up; while she is clearly unclothed, there really isn’t a lot to see if you aren’t really looking for it. In the finest nuance of her performance, Strasberg smiles gleefully as she releases volley after volley of lightning at the medicine man and the entity he has summoned. It’s like a cross between Star Wars and The Sword And The Stone, and 49 reviews in, it’s still easily one of the most surreal sequences of any movie I’ve covered here. The only real problem is, it took all the preceding running time to get here.

With all I’ve already said, the one thing I can add is that this movie truly defines what I meant when I came up with “Irreproducible Oddity” as a category. There’s a lot of things that wouldn’t be accepted or allowed in more recent times, and plenty more that would easily be dismissed or ridiculed. But all those involved still clearly gave it their best, and the result is still worth watching. You might not like it, or understand it, but you will not forget it.

Legion of Silly Dinosaurs: Definitely Dinosaurs Minis

 

I'm back for another installment of dinos, and this time I'm going back to something I'm surprised I haven't covered more often, the Playskool Definitely Dinosaurs line. I've already extolled this line at least once, but it hasn't come up a lot so far simply because they were already well above the kind of toy dinos I wanted to cover here. They were well-made, they were awesome, and above all, people then and now knew what they were and where they came from. But there was an offshoot that has remained a little more mysterious, which was the source of a new acquisition not too long ago. Here's a few more pics of my two Definitely Dinosaurs "minis", including a reference pic with the excellent Pachycephalosaurus.

For my personal story, I somehow picked up the stegosaur when I was a kid, probably as a reward or maybe as a trade. I easily identified it as a Definitely Dinosaur based on the logo on the underbelly, and I must have heard from someone that it was a kids' meal toy (which as we will see is true but not quite the full story). It immediately impressed me, but it also puzzled me a little. In many ways, it was better than the dinos of the regular line, both in detail and overall realism; by comparison, the full-sized stego in particular had always stood out as one of the line's few genuinely disappointing  entries. (I am sure I will get to him, but didn't feel like it today.) What seemed strange was that so much had been put into an otherwise small and cheap dino, though in hindsight Definitely Dinosaurs were always better than they really needed to be.

It was really only in preparing for this blog post that I pieced together the full story. The little/ mini Definitely Dinosaurs were indeed distributed in Wendy's kids' meals in 1988 and 1989, about a year after the release of the regular line. (Dates for the line get very sketchy even on authoritative collectors' websites, but I'm sure I got at least a few in 1987.) However, they were also sold on card in stores, reportedly into the 1990s. This would have kept them in circulation when the rest of the line was fading away. From my own further recollections, the toys passed out of my awareness well before their actual end in 1992. If I had seen the wave of recolor jobs that was the final series, it probably would have depressed me even then.

Meanwhile, I found some leads on the mini line while looking up online listings for other dinos. The one that caught my interest was the Anatosaurus. Like the stegosaur, it was modeled after one of the dinos of the regular line. I had actually considered ordering the full-sized dino first, but it proved to be decidedly inferior, particularly compared to the Parasaurolophus I had from back when. The annatosaur mini still wasn't quite as good as the stego, but still  well-done and intriguing. I wasn't disappointed on arrival. What impressed me most was that the soft plastic was still flexible enough to squeeze. When I did compare it with the stego for this post, I found that it was also still quite soft, if anything a little more so. Here's some close up pics.

All in all, this line of little dinos are still among the best then or now. Above all, they demonstrate the work ethic that drove the line. If you were a kid, you didn't notice how good they were, not because you didn't care but because it was easy to take for granted, especially if you didn't have many other dinosaur toys. It was only later that you notice just how much better they were than anything else. With that tribute, I wrap this up. More to come!

Super Movies! The one with a homeless superhero

 

Title: Hancock

What Year?: 2008

Classification: Parody

Rating: It’s Okay! (3/4)

 

With this review, I’m skipping ahead of what I’ve done or planned to do for this feature. At the same time, I will be covering one of the first movies that made me think of this feature, to the point that I mentioned it in my Space 1979 reviews. Even with my usual flexibility for that feature, I knew there was no way a movie from the present millennium was going to fit. Still, I definitely wanted to do this one, and now that I have a place it will fit, I decided to cover it sooner rather than later.

Our story begins in the middle of a running gun battle between a gang and the police. A kid wakes up what looks like a homeless man sleeping on a bench, calling out the clearly familiar name “Hancock!” The hobo takes to the air, and we know this is a superhero movie that’s not quite like anything we’ve seen before. As the story progresses, it’s revealed that our super sort-of hero has been hanging around without appreciably aging for most of the last century, after being found injured and unable to remember his real name. Along the way, he has sunken into substance abuse, depression and general misanthropy, accompanied by semi-random battles with evildoers that tend to do more harm than good. Things change when he rescues a public-relations professional who urges him to improve his image and clean himself up. That leads to him voluntarily going to jail, followed by a work-release to fight a clever and manipulative villain. Then the story takes another turn when he meets the wife of his friend, whom he soon realizes is the one person who might know who and what he is. The finale unfolds between the trio, with the villain in the mix, and it all builds up to a choice between being a hero and being human.

Hancock was a 2008 release by Columbia Pictures, starring Will Smith, with Jason Bateman as the publicist and Charlize Theron as his wife Mary. The film was made and marketed as a superhero comedy/ parody, following a wave of “straight” genre films including Columbia’s own Spider Man series. However, it effectively preceded the modern “Marvel Cinematic Universe”, which was launched with Iron Man the same year. Initially, the film received an R rating, resulting in significant cuts and changes before release. The film received mixed to hostile reviews, though it made $629 million box office against a $150M budget. Subsequent commentators have focused on the film as a factor in the arguable decline of Smith’s career. It has remained available on disk and from digital platforms. The Blu Ray release includes an “unrated” cut with material previously removed.

For my experiences, I saw this one in a dollar theater. What stands out to me is that I have at least as many memories of the advertisements for the movie, as well as reviews complaining about it. At the time, I thought it fairly interesting, and definitely odd. I also distinctly recall getting the impression that it had been a box office failure, which certainly hasn’t been corrected by later critics. After that, I suppose even I forgot about it. What really brought it back to my mind was getting involved in self-advocacy for the homeless and disabled. In the course of that, I had a random idea for a homeless superhero, which somebody else pointed out was pretty close to Hancock. Even then, I didn’t seek out the movie. However, I eventually bought a used Blu Ray that turned up, and watched it again. My immediate conclusion, based on the hindsight of a decade of Marvel movies, was that this is one of the best superhero movies of the “modern” era.

For why I say that, I will admit it’s hard to point to anything in particular. The casting and performances are certainly a major factor. Smith is in good form, benefiting from a time when he was seen as both an action-star box office draw and a good actor. (If there’s blame to pass around for changing that, I Am Legend is the real place to start.) Theron fairs at least as well, despite surprisingly limited screen time, while the real standout is Bateman, the one cast member who has arguably improved his standing since. The production values and effects are also obviously good, as they certainly ought to be for the price. What is less tangible yet clearly evident is that it succeeds at being both an action movie and a comedy, in the process managing a difficult shift to a more serious tone in the final act.

All of that is still not getting to the crucial reality: The main character was and still is one of the most genuinely original superheroes to appear in any medium. His flaws are obvious, but he remains likable, at times almost in spite of the actual story. Just as importantly, the character’s arc does not rely on heavy-handed melodrama to be “dark”, a path that had been trampled flat even then. If anything, the character’s tragic side is understated up to the very end. That brings me to something else I considered as a closing comment; this is not the kind of “parody” that settles for mocking the superhero concept, one more thing that has been done to death by now if it wasn’t back then. Instead, it is almost subversive in its respect for the source material. We are not told that Superman is really the bad guy, or that Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen should know he’s Clark Kent. Instead, the movie simply asks the question what the existence of such a being would be like, invulnerable, possibly immortal, able to defy or simply outlive all human ties and all rules and norms outside of his own vague desire to help those in need. If the answers are in many ways grim, it’s because the lens of comedy has shown what was there all along.

Unfortunately, it will be clear from the rating that this is going to come with a hefty side of criticism. What may seem counterintuitive is that the “’real” problems rise not from Hancock but the world around him. For the most part, the setting is made to seem indistinguishable from our own; the hero’s battles are with mundane robbers and gang members, not cackling supervillains or rampaging monsters. Yet, there are not too many things not quite right, and the cumulative effects are very much on the “uncanny valley” order. On close examination, the ordinary people of this universe are either lazy, indifferent or actively mean. Railroad crossings don’t come with simple safety precautions, nor do drivers panic at the sound of an oncoming train. Children casually swear without any sign of guilt or fear of repercussions. And at the heart of it, at least two superhumans have wandered the US for a good part of its history, yet the only people who seem to care what they are and how they might be killed are petty criminals. (What a black superhero was up to during the Civil War is at least an intriguing tangent.) The troubling part is that the movie is clearly intelligent enough to answer these questions, but more attention is applied to a weak “political correctness” joke than to any of them.

For the “one scene”, I will be going with the first that I truly consider a “spoiler”. After Hancock has discovered that Mary is a superhuman, she voluntarily follows him back to his trailer. (It’s really only clear that it is his home in the unrated cut.) Things are tense as they both go inside. Hancock immediately presses her about their own history together, but she remains evasive. Instead, she gives a fascinating account of the larger story of the superhumans, wandering in and out of history and prehistory as gods and heroes seemingly remembered only in myth. She remarks, “Different cultures call us by different names, now all of a sudden it’s superheroes.” When asked if other superhumans exist, she insists that all others have died, something that is explained later and never unambiguously confirmed. The trailer literally heats up as Hancock asks again about their own history, and things go downhill quickly from there. All in all, it’s the kind of world-building that could have been loopy even by comic-book standards. But Theron’s delivery and the story’s setup, it’s convincing enough for the viewer to wonder at least a little about the tales handed down from our own past.

With the full benefit of hindsight, Hancock is an egregious example of a movie that could have been better received and flat-out better-made either ten years earlier or ten years later. In the 1990s, it would probably have ended up as a relatively low-budget film, with the creative freedom that usually entails.   Perhaps even more importantly, it might have escaped the intensive and in many ways misleading star-centered ad campaign that was all but required for high-profile studio releases.(Unfortunately, we have Mystery Men as a cautionary tale how studios handled such material at the time.) Looking at things from the other direction, it’s hard to say whether Hancock would or could be made in circa 2020. Perhaps it would be trampled underfoot in the much denser environment, by so-called “satires” as well as straight material. Perhaps it would have been pushed in other, equally questionable directions, making Hancock even more of a lout if not an outright villain. But if it did get made, it would stand out all the more. In that, at least, we can still go back and better appreciate what we already have.

Rogues' Roundup Special: Last stand!

 

For today, I'm back with another roundup, this time for something that wasn't going to fit anywhere else. Lately, I've been keeping the Truckstop Queen and sisters on my desk for morale, and that's meant a lot more accidental clonkings, including a few near misses to the Spiff ships. That finally drove me to invest in some action figure stands. In the process, I figured out the sisters were made for a different peg size than other figures in my collection, including the Dumpster Drag Queen from the same manufacturer, which finally drove me to make a special acquisition. But first, let's start with the first set I got.

The stands shown here are from NECA, purchased as a 10-pack for about half price and still more than I cared for. They were advertised for 6 to 8 inch figures, but the pegs are the right size for a Star Wars figure. Inexplicably, this proved too big for the sisters. The pegs are also a bit long, though it's easy enough to pare them down. Fortunately, they were just right for two other troublesome figures. One is Funko Darkwing Duck, previously introduced, who is rather unaccountably prone to falling over. (It might be the hat.) The other is the Predator, apparently a mail-order entry in the 1990s Kenner Aliens/ Predator line, which I picked up for dirt ages ago. He's obviously big, and he has the kind of stance first popular in the '90s that makes it look like he's doing stretches. The stands were just right for these two, especially the Predator. It also turned out the stands would fit the Drag Queen. Here's one more pic with her in the lineup, plus Bossk.

Meanwhile, I was back to square 1 with the sisters. I had already ordered one figure in the box, which turned out not to have the stand, and the one that came with the Drag Queen was a bust. I might have ended up ordering yet another figure, but I finally found a halfway decent deal for a loose stand from the carded version of the figure. When it arrived, I was ready to believe it still might not work. Of course, it was the right size, finally. As a bonus, it turned out it would support the Truckstop Queen (aka Kate) in what I always thought her most natural pose would be. Here's some more pics.

Taken on Couch Mark 2. You might be able to see a gold button that I use to tell them apart.

My real hope was that the stand might support two figures as well as one. As shown above, it was no trouble to get one figure to stay upright on one peg and even on one foot. The real problem was that two figures made for a tight fit. Still, I could make do.

"Sure, Kong's fun, but the Big Red Robotech Guy is husband material...."

When I was putting this together, I thought of one more experiment. I knew the Drag Queen and the Predator could fit on the same pegs, but the stand the former came with was more complicated. I think the sculpted can did as much to keep him upright as the pegs, but I did get the Predator on the Drag Queen's stand, and it fits him as well as anything else. Here's the pics.

I told my agent Predator 2 was a bad idea.

That's all for now, more to come!

Space 1979: The one with trees in space

 

Title: Silent Running

What Year?: 1972

Classification: Prototype

Rating: Dear God WHY??? (1/5)

 

As I write this, I’ve been slowing down the pace on this feature to develop some other material. I’ve used the time to think over what I want to cover, ultimately including when I might actually wrap this up. I came up with some good ideas and plans, which I will be getting to shortly. Then in the meantime, I finally got a break on the one movie I was ready to write off, to the point of specifically presenting a replacement for it. I can’t say I was really looking forward to it, but I waited long enough for this one that I certainly wasn’t going to set it aside. So here is Silent Running, the movie I refused to pay money for.

Our story begins in a garden, tended by a man in what looks like a monk’s habit. His meditations are interrupted when several guys in motorized carts race through. We learn that our protagonist Lowell and his companions are aboard a spaceship, part of a fleet that carry the remnants of Earth’s forests in self-contained domes. We learn from his arguments with the others that plant life on Earth is extinct, with food crops being replaced by synthetic sources. Lowell is committed to their mission to preserve the planet’s terrestrial ecosystem, but can’t seem to get along with his crewmates as well as he does with the animals or a trio of robotic drones on board. When an order comes through to destroy the forests so the ships can be used for commercial purposes, Lowell stages a one-man mutiny, killing the rest of the crew in the process. He pilots the ship into deep space, where he must learn how to take care of the forest and teach the bots to do the same. However, Earth’s command hasn’t given up on him, and his hardest trial still lies ahead.

Silent Running was the first film directed by effects pioneer Douglas Trumbull, following fine work for big-budget films like 2001 and The Andromeda Strain. The effects and models for the $1M production included a 25-foot miniature of the ship Valley Forge and full-sized puppets of the robots, dubbed Huey, Dewey and Louie. The soundtrack was provided by the late Peter Schickele, otherwise known as PDQ Bach, with two original songs performed by folk singer Joanna Baez. It received mixed reviews both from mainstream critics and science fiction writers, but still achieved lasting “cult” status. Trumbull continued his effects work for films like Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Blade Runner, but his only other directorial credit would be 1983’s Brainstorm. The script cowriter Michael Cimino went onto fame for The Deer Hunter and infamy for Heaven’s Gate. The film received a Blu Ray release in November 2020, ending an extended period when it was available mainly through digital purchase or rental.

The best frame of reference I can give for Silent Running is by comparison with Logan’s Run.  From the time I was growing up, the latter film was an old movie everyone said was “cool”. This one was more like the “classic” that got assigned in class. I knew of it for a very long time solely from mentions elsewhere, including the NPR show Schickele Mix. As with many things, I looked it up soon after I got Netflix, and was more underwhelmed than I expected. When I thought of this feature, it was one that I both considered and had suggested to me early and frequently; I even got a comment suggesting it had influenced Dark Star when I posted my review of that movie. But it turned out to be pure hell to get without paying for a rental, and I had other leads that covered the same territory, particularly Phase IV, a surreal ecology parable in its own right. In the end, I had no trouble moving forward without it, but the unfilled entry still hung around in my own mind. When I finally got the damn thing, it was first and foremost a chance to get it over with.

Something I could have said about Silent Running long before I saw it is that the movie’s premises makes so little sense that it undermines its own point. If an extinction of photosynthetic organisms on the order the movie posits really happened, the free-living human population would be either without food or without air long before any meaningful solution could be developed or implemented. (On the other hand, introducing artificial food sources in a manageable timeframe could easily reduce deforestation and pollution.) At a certain point, erosion alone would force the survivors off-planet or into artificial habitats of their own, a scenario that could be harmonized with the movie if certain points are taken as propaganda rather than fact. (The quite casual line that “everyone looks the same” becomes entirely chilling.) The one thing that would never be allowed under any circumstances would be for the large and elaborate life-support domes shown onscreen to be abandoned, much less willfully destroyed. If a very little had been done to address these considerations, we could have had a compelling conflict where both sides might have a point. Instead, we have from the start a story that’s too simplistic to argue the science or the ethics.

With all that out of the way, we still have plenty of flaws left to cover, most of them centering on the simple fact that the protagonist is unlikable at best. He has so many issues with his crewmates and for that matter the bots that he only seems to be on the trees’ side because they don’t argue. When he has to face the deaths of the crew, there is still little sign of real remorse, only a vague discomfort at getting the solitude he may well have wanted all along. What makes matters far worse is that he clearly doesn’t really know much about plants, an already evident flaw that gets magnified to a ludicrous degree toward the film’s finale. In the face of his literally dangerous ignorance, all his semi-spiritual communing with nature is quickly exposed as mere posturing. Even as an ecoterrorist, he has no more credibility than a self-described Marxist who holds a six-figure job at Halliburton.

After all that venting, I might as well go straight to the one scene, and this time I will look at a bit more material. The one thing that usually gets this movie favorable mention is the robots, a set of non-anthropomorphic machines (resembling the scutters of Red Dwarf more than anything else) that literally waddle around the ship. In fact, they play a limited role until relatively late in the film, when Lowell finally gives them attention. That leads into a sort of montage near the hour mark, after one of the bots is destroyed. It starts with Lowell naming the bots. He then tries to teach the bots to plant a tree, with comical results. Then there is an awkward moment when the remaining bots pause after discovering the leg of their lost companion, leaving the human more tongue-tied than usual. Finally, there is an all too brief scene when Lowell teaches the bots to play cards. Here, we get a sense of personality, as the bots click and whir to each other as they examine their cards. (I believe this was what was suggested as an influence on Dark Star, but I don’t see close parallels, and the original version of that one would have been near completion when this movie came out.) It’s a good moment, to be sure, but still an isolated one, placed at precisely the point when the movie’s already wonky pacing starts grinding to a standstill.

That just leaves the rating, which was a difficult decision. My usual criterion for the lowest rating is quite simply that I can actively hate the movie just for existing. On those terms, this one doesn’t willfully provoke me the way others do, but that is because it has just enough polish to hide its worst qualities. Even then, it would have been easy to go easy for all the movies that it undoubtedly anticipated or influenced: Star Wars and Trek, Blade Runner, Short Circuit, Red Dwarf and even Wall-E. The problem is, every last one of those were vastly better, and so were near-contemporary movies like Dark Star, Phase IV, and Westworld. In my book, a movie that could and in this case certainly should have been better is far more offensive than a bad one, and that leaves this one as one of the worst offenders of all. And I’m hard-pressed to think of any time I’ve been more happy to put a movie behind me.

Mystery Monday: Rocket sled speeder glider thingy???

 

I decided it was time to bring this feature back, and I very quickly decided there was one thing overdue to cover. The big surprise is that it's something I picked up recently, which doesn't look like it should be that old. I found it at a used book/ video store, last year or maybe year before, in part because I hoped closer examination would give me a better idea. Fast forward, and I'm more stumped than I would have thought I could be for something I'm sure was made after 2000. Before I go deeper, here's a couple more pics with the Truckstop Queen.

One thing that's very clear about this is that it was meant to come with something else, presumably a figure. That was and is a pretty typical gimmick, but this is at the threshold between an accessory and a vehicle. Someone apparently decided it was the former, because I'm absolutely sure there's no copyright or manufacturer's information. One might think it would be easy to work out the scale, but I'm genuinely unsure. It obviously wasn't meant for a figure as big as the Truckstop Queen, but Star Wars figures seem a bit small. I suspect that there were missiles, weapons or other pieces attached at one time, but all that's visible are a few openings in the underbelly. The cone in front might look like a missile, but i's not removable. Here's some more pics. of the detailing.

Another obvious question is when this was made. I could see it coming from as early as the 1990s, but I have no serious doubt it comes from the 2000s or possibly later. It looks very slightly like the snowspeeder from Empire Strikes Back, another reason to put it after 1990. The evident concept is suspiciously similar to the Green Goblin's glider from Spiderman, which was in the comics all along but would have had a lot more sale value when the movies started coming out. Another intriguing detail that looks like would be a clue is that symbol on the front, but I tried searches without getting anything out of it. One last thing is those pegs on either side. They look like supports for a figure, and they certainly fit regular-sized holes. But they're way too far apart for one figure, even the Truckstop Queen, and it makes even less sense to have two figures aboard. I'm tempted to think they were meant for some other purpose, but I can't think of anything that would make any more sense. Here's a pic with Bossk and IG-88 to show just how out of proportion this is.

That's all for the time being. Maybe with this out there, somebody will figure out what this is and it will all seem obvious. But that's what mysteries are like. And while we're at it, here's one more pic with the sisters!

Super Movies! The one where the bad guy from Robocop is president

 

Title: Captain America

What Year?: 1990 (copyright)/ 1992 (video release)

Classification: Mashup

Rating: What The Hell??? (2/4)

 

When I started doing movie reviews for this blog, something I realized quickly is that at a certain point, I have to go with what I have on hand. It may be possible to find almost any movie online, but to me it’s not the same as having a physical copy. When the internet is the only option, I need to take a bit more time, both before and after watching it, especially if I haven’t seen it before.  For this feature in particular, I reviewed the first two entries back to back because I already had them both lying around. This time, I’m getting to the one I originally hoped to put in the middle. I must also say that the delay was partly due to reluctance, because this is the one superhero movie that has a reputation possibly worse than The Fantastic Four. And with that happy thought, I introduce Captain America… the 1990s version.

Our story begins with the abduction of a child for a Nazi experiment that has previously created something resembling the rat-monkey from Dead Alive, We then meet the parallel Allied project, which produces a supersoldier known as Captain America. His first mission takes him to the heart of Germany, where he meets the mutated Red Skull. The battle ends with Cap commandeering an intercontinental rocket to steer it away from Washington. Fast forward to ca 1990, and it turns out that he has survived in suspended animation. He emerges to discover the radically changed world where a hero-worshipping kid has become president and the girl he left behind is married with an attractive daughter. But the Red Skull is still around, at the head of a cabal that doesn’t like the new president’s policies. They execute a daring plan to kidnap the president and put in a mind-controlling implant, while the Skull’s minions go looking for Cap and his surviving acquaintances. It’s up to the superhero and his lady friend to foil the plot, and it’s personal!

Captain America was originally a project of the Cannon Group, the perpetrators of the Lou Ferigno Hercules movies, Lifeforce and Superman IV. The notorious crew were on track to be the first and perhaps only studio to produce a DC and a Marvel superhero movie, until senior producer Menahem Golan departed and took the rights for Captain America with him. The subsequent production was produced by 21^st Century Film with Marvel and Jadran Film, a studio based in Croatia, with an estimated budget of $3 million. Matt Salinger, son of the reclusive author J.D. Salinger, was cast in the title role, with Ronny Cox of Robocop as President Kimball and Scott Paulin as the Red Skull. Bill Mumy, infamous as Anthony in The Twilight Zone, had a minor role as a general in on the plot; Michael Nouri of The Hidden also appeared as military brass.  The movie became subject of negative press due to reshoots and a repeatedly postponed release. It was ultimately withheld from US theatrical release, but was made available on video and shown in theaters in the Philippines.

Of the trio of movies covered so far, Captain America is the one that truly fell through the cracks. I personally knew of it mainly because I had run seen it mentioned in a book from the 1990s, and even then I might have mixed it up with the Reb Brown TV version if the same source hadn’t covered it separately. (No verdict on whether that one is getting in here.) It’s not hard to see how this happened through no fault of the movie. It didn’t have the comparative star power of The Punisher, nor did it suffer the extra notoriety from the hastily cancelled release of The Fantastic Four. However, it is hard to go through the reviews and commentaries of those who have heard of it without sensing a higher level of contempt. In these accounts, it easily comes across as not necessarily worse, but certainly less interesting, either comparatively conventional, or bland, or flat-out boring. As we will see momentarily, it’s none of these things; however, the realities are not particularly in its favor.

On cautious viewing, what really stands out about this movie is that its relatively good points quickly become more frustrating than its more obvious flaws. Conceptually, it feels like a cross between a superhero movie and a spy story with overtones of film noir, and that much unquestionably works. The acting is quite good, to the point that one can easily stop noticing. The story and plot are comic-book bonkers, yet presented with disconcertingly satisfactory logic. The action/ fight sequences are perhaps the most effective element, making it entirely befuddling to me that critics have specifically complained that Captain America doesn’t “do” anything. If anything, there’s a more steady stream of fight scenes than in The Punisher, which nobody would complain is short on action. The real difference is that outside of the occasional flying leap, most of the altercations feel like “real” fights, usually settled with a few quick blows that Cap can quite convincingly deliver first. It is here that the movie feels more like an adventure of Sam Spade or James Bond than a Marvel superhero, and is all the better for it. But what it all adds up to is a whole that should be more than the sum of its parts, and instead seems decidedly less.

This brings us to the question previously raised for Fantastic Four, whether the characters could be relevant when the film came out. On that front, the movie justifies itself better than more recent treatments. The “fish out of water” theme and the deeper clash of ideals with new realities are played out more effectively and at greater length than in the MCU (at least outside of The Winter Soldier). It’s not afraid to portray Cap as confused and vulnerable in the new world, with an uglier streak of paranoia, while the setting of the last days of the Cold War is even more fitting in hindsight than it might have seemed at the time. It is his adversary who struggles to remain applicable, in no small part because of a changed backstory that makes him more like a victim than a villain. But rather than being developed as a conflicted character, he simply seems generic. Then there is the simple fact that neither actor is a good fit for the role, a problem that is obvious for the egregiously uncharismatic Salinger but possibly even more destructive for Paulin, who spend far too much of his time coasting along on being vaguely dislikable.

For the “one scene”, my pick is what could have been a throwaway scene (as many of these things are). After the new president’s impassioned speech about pollution, we meet the Red Skull and a room full of stock conspirators who complain about petty losses. One very matter-of-factly asks how soon they can assassinate the new leader. The Red Skull promptly responds with a conspiracy theorist’s bingo game of killings he has engineered, including an incongruously casual mention of “the King job”, all merely to make the point that making martyrs can be self-defeating. He then lays out his own plan, which really doesn’t make any more sense even assuming the technology existed to make it work. Still, it’s an absolutely hypnotic moment for a character who doesn’t get many of them, and convincing enough for both the plotters and the viewers to go along with it.

The bottom line here is that the “critics” weren’t so much wrong as right for the wrong reasons. It doesn’t have the obvious flaws of other pre-2000s Marvel movies, but the one thing it can’t quite do is rise above its own self-perpetuating sense of mediocrity. The strongest indictment I can offer is that its budget was half again that of Killer Klowns From Outer Space, yet it still doesn’t look half as good, and falls much further short in the less tangible terms of energy and style. (As much as I like that movie, I really hate that this is the second time I’ve had to use it as a “good” example.) What it should be, but never will, is the memento mori for every newfangled movie that tries to impress audiences by throwing money at them. If there’s one principle that applies to superhero movies more than other genres, it’s that it’s better to be fun than good, and there are far too many films much more expensive and technically competent than this one that are neither.

Image credit Robot Geek's Cult Cinema.

Rogues' Roundup: Dumpster Drag Queen?

 

I needed another short piece today, and in the process I realized there was something I hadn't even gotten to. Not long after picking up the Gas Station Duchess (and Cassie) to join the Truckstop Queen, I ordered one more from the source, the Moore Action Collectibles Buffy/ Angel line. This one is officially a character called Faith, and she was... odd. Here's a few pics.

"So are we sisters? Cousins? Roommates?..."

As seen above, this one came with a stand or base, presumably designed to look like an alley or something equally gritty. The most interesting thing about it is that the pegs don't fit the Truckstop Queen or the sisters, meaning the same manufacturer made at least two sizes. The figure herself is sculpted with elaborate hair that keeps the head immobile. On the other hand, the feet are articulated, sculpted with what look like heavy-duty boots. The outfit above the waist is obviously more revealing, which is odd since the face looks decidedly unfeminine. Here's one more pic with the Truck Stop Queen for comparison.

"Seriously, is this supposed to be a drug deal gone bad?"

The best thing about the new arrival is that she (?) can sit down without doing the splits. I quickly paired her up with the McKenzie Brother on Jabba's throne, which finally gave him some company besides the Hutt. You can decide if their relationship is platonic. As one more bonus, she came with a crossbow, which rounds out a collection of accessories from the line. I didn't take a pic of her armed, mainly because the hand that it fits is damaged at the wrist, but here's the sisters fully equipped.

If it bleeds, we can kill it. And make fun of dreadlocks.

And speaking of...

That's all for now. More to come!