No Good Very Bad Movies Countdown Finale: The one based on the worst Shakespeare play

 

 

Title: Titus

What Year?: 1999 (copyright)/ 2000 (US release)

Classification: Irreproducible Oddity

Rating: Disqualified!!!

 

In the course of this feature, one thing that’s taken me by surprise is that there have only been a couple movies I disqualified, defined in advance as films I would not give a viewing by my own “rules”, and then for different reasons than might be expected. There was the Gobots movie, which simply wasn’t available at a price I would pay, and Creepers (now subject of one of my videos), which pushed my patience enough that I skipped through a significant part of it. Most tellingly, there have been a few movies on my radar that I know I wouldn’t watch in full for reasons that don’t necessarily reflect their quality. With the present review, I come to the most notable example, a film that was never my thing yet still interested me. Here is Titus, the big-budget Hollywood production of the most infamous play in history.

Our story begins with a boy playing soldiers, which soon is interrupted by apparently real destruction. We then jump to the armies of Rome, who for some reason have guns and motorcycles that we see occasionally, and the general Titus, who returns with a captured barbarian queen Tamora. To avenge the death of his own son, of which he boasts over 20, he kills Tamora’s firstborn without dealing with her or two more sons who we will see definitely shouldn’t be left to their own devices. Complications come when the new emperor sets his mind on marrying Titus’s daughter Lavinia, a scheme the general goes along with so enthusiastically that he kills one of his remaining sons for standing up for her current fiancée. By the time Titus has sorted things out, the emperor instead chooses Tamora as his bride. She quickly schemes with her sons and her servant Aaron to ruin Titus’s family. It’s all just the beginning of a saga of murder, retribution, violation and mutilation, and revenge is a dish you definitely should not accept from the guy who played Hannibal Lecter!

Titus was a 1999 film written and directed by Julie Taymor, based on the play Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare. It was the first cinematic adaptation of the work, an early work believed to have been popular with contemporary audiences but later condemned as the worst of Shakespeare’s plays to survive. The film starred Anthony Hopkins as Titus and Jessica Lange (see 1976 King Kong) as Tamora, with Laura Fraser as Lavinia and Harry Lennix as the Moor Aaron. The film was accepted for distribution by Fox Searchlight; however, the film received significant cuts and a delayed release after the MPAA gave it an NC-17 rating. An R-rated version of the film was given a limited US theatrical release in early 2000, following screenings at 2 theaters in December 1999. The film was an unquestioned commercial failure, earning a box office of under $3 million against a reported $18M budget despite favorable reviews. It was released on home video, both in the R-rated and “unrated” cuts. It was reported unavailable for streaming through at least early 2020. As of mid-2022, it is offered on the Roku platform.

For my experiences, I grew up going to the local Shakespeare company, so inevitably, I knew of Titus Andronicus at a fairly early age. In my further recollections, there was a revival and partial rehabilitation of the play within the Shakespearean community in the 1990s. It was indeed a perfect expression of the growing “so bad it’s good” aesthetic. Where scholars had once sought for justification to deny whether Shakespeare even wrote the damn thing, the new wave freely played up its gory absurdities. Regretfully, I never saw any of these performances myself, but I heard more than enough to be intrigued when word of a genuine Hollywood treatment came out. Of course, the rest of the story is that the movie itself was never really allowed to arrive, for reasons that were probably justified for the “mainstream” of the time. For my part, I honestly wasn’t interested enough to run it down until I started this feature, which was when I became fully aware of the extent to which it has been censored and suppressed. I finally went in enough to pay a modest sum for the DVD, then sat on it long enough to round out the “countdown”. I have to say, my immediate reaction was that I had not missed out.

Moving in, the most difficult thing about a project like this is judging how much is a matter of the adaptation or built-in from the source material. Titus himself is a pretty clear example of the latter. As a matter of plot, he’s pretty much a bystander in his own story, which correspondingly limits Hopkins’ performance. Worse, his treatment of his own family is so atrocious that he’s less sympathetic to any modern sensibility than outright villains like Shylock or Macbeth. The collateral damage is that we rarely get a sense of Hopkins having fun with this, until he dons the chef’s outfit for the finale. (I can’t believe that this is not a reference to his most famous performance…) Strangely, we don’t get a lot from Lange as Tamora, either. The real interest comes from the strange triad of the Moor and the Goth’s sons. The princes are interchangeably feral, ultimately no more evil than high school jocks with more opportunity for mayhem. In Aaron, on the other hand, we have self-aware sociopathy on the level of Iago, with even more racial baggage. The most surreal part is that they actually function together after a fashion, despite if not because of Aaron’s mindboggling confession.

Meanwhile, the bigger problems that become evident are in its inconsistencies. This is most obvious with the intentional anachronisms, which are exactly the kind of thing you get from mainstream filmmakers trying to adopt genre concepts. The “right” ways to do this are to stick to one real or assumed period and setting, like Battle Beyond The Stars, or create a developed and consistent world where quasi-historical and modern/ futuristic tech coexist for logical reasons, like Krull or Wizards. Here, what we have is just a mess, even compared to Wizards' motley mixed media. (Dear Logos, you know we’re in trouble when I use Ralph Bakshi as a “good” example.) There’s a kind of momentum when the emperor-to-be and his cronies ride through town on cars and motorcycles accompanied by 1920s jazz/ swing, which tellingly all fit within a Weimar setting and “look”. But the bulk of the film stays with the Roman trappings, making the anachronisms merely minor affectations. I absolutely link this to the film’s wild tonal whiplash. You can see the outlines of a “so bad it’s good” tale here, but it’s repeatedly disrupted by the graphic content and especially the hyper-realistic effects. Needless to say, this is especially true of the assault on Lavinia, which is so uncomfortable in dialogue alone that I preemptively skipped well before I felt I had “seen” anything. Having done so, I can say all the more confidently that the horrific aftermath serves the story as well as anything that could have been shown directly.

That leaves the “one scene”, and for all the strangeness in the adaptation, the most truly surreal moment is straight from the Bard. In the third act (the disc menus apparently follow the play well enough), Titus and the family have dinner, already minus a number of body parts. When Lavinia refuses to eat, her father consoles her, demonstrating that he can understand her gestures. It’s interrupted by an exclamation from his grandson, who explains that he has killed a fly. Hopkins gives a high point of his performance as the mad general goes into an inexplicable rage, declaring that the boy has killed an “innocent” who “with his pretty buzzing came to make merry with us”, and further laments for the fly’s grieving family. (I checked all of this against the original text.) The boy counters that it was “a black, ill-favored fly”, and makes a further comparison to a certain character. Titus promptly commends the boy for his deed, even striking at the bug. It’s all silly enough that Lavinia joins in the laughter. Finally he muses, "We are not yet brought so low that we cannot between us kill a fly..." It’s a weird scene that’s really as dark as anything else if you think about it, yet it’s as entertaining as a story this bonkers should be all the way through.

In conclusion, this is one where I truly feel out of things to say. The one thing I find fit to add is that the 1990s were a period as full of strange experimentation as any other decade. The present movie was a fitting end to the decade, century and millennia, as an effort that would surely have been quite different if it was made at all 10 years before or 10 years after. The culminating irony is the clear effort of the mainstream studio system to sweep it from the public mind, as academia once tried to discount and dismiss the play itself. It’s an imperfect effort, still fitting for its source, and I will be the first to say that the one thing it doesn’t deserve is to be forgotten. With that, I can bring my own chapter to a close. “I have done thy mother!”

Fiction: The adventures of Sidekick Carl, Part 23!

 To round out the month, I kind of had to get in Sidekick Carl. Nothing to say, beyond the acknowledgement that this could be the first chapter when Carl has done something. As usual, here's links for the first and previous chapters.

Again, John Carter flew into the night. This time, however, three other agents flew with him, all in the same powered armor. “We’re within 50 kliks of the installation,” he said. They followed a series of ridges that blocked their target from view. Still, a display inside his helmet highlighted the mall and the warehouse. He could see signs of the neomorph colony in the near distance. “Damn it, Audrey must have known there was something here all along,” he said to nobody in particular. “We’re making our final approach from the north. Get your weapons powered up...”

That was when the warehouse exploded, in a brilliant column of white. In the midst of the flame smoke and debris, he made out a twisted rag doll form pinwheeling through the air. “Carl,” he said. He added, “You idiot.”

* * *

Carl tumbled and rolled as he landed, though there would have been little risk of harm. He stayed in a crouch as he surveyed the warehouse. It was as empty as he had thought on arrival. However, there were offices that looked less certain. He found a door locked. At a touch, one of his wholly artificial fingers shaped itself into a perfect facsimile of a key. As he stepped inside, he called out, “I know someone’s in here.”

He advanced into another room, where a light shimmered just out of sight. It proved to be a small bank of monitors showing the feeds from the security cameras. Before he could turn his head, a voice said, “Yeah, you found me.”

He turned is head and beheld a rather slight man in the yellow suit and incongruous hat of the Toxo Warriors. Of course, he already wore a gas mask. “I know you,” he said after a moment. Already, the nanites had brought up a precisely recorded memory. “Back at the construction site, I saw one of you, alone, looking around. We figured we were spotted. Then we saw two of you, only they came out of that silly shed. I thought that was odd, but then I hadn’t seen anyone else, yet.”

“Like I said, you got me,” the Toxo Warrior said. “And I’m sure you can figure out, if I was supposed to kill you, I would have tried already. I just want to talk.”

“About what?” Carl said. “Old times?”

“No,” he said. “The past is in the past. Even back then, it was nothing personal. Not to me.”

“Maybe I do want to talk,” Carl countered. “Like the time you gassed all those people to get at a chemical that wasn’t any good. We knew you were cold, but it never made sense that you would make that kind of mistake. Except, we never thought about there being someone else.”

“Maybe I did the research, but I never did anything like that,” the Toxo Warrior said. “That was the other guys; you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t know about them.”

“What about the lab?” Carl said. “That never made sense, either. Whatever the Hell the experiment was, somebody should have been watching it. And if it had been watched properly, there definitely wouldn’t have been a bucket left out.”

“So I bailed,” the Toxo Warrior said. “They could have done the same thing. They were the ones who got off on the supervillain schtick.”

“Then what about the other other guy?” Carl mused. He peered at the figure. The bright suit made him very visible, but also made it harder to discern details. Even so, it was clear there was a small chemical tank slung over his back. He could just make out a hose and a sort of pistol grip. “We know there’s two of you, again, and I can already tell you’re not the type who would just pop out of retirement. So did he find you, or was he in it all along?”

“Maybe, maybe, a little of both,” the Toxo Warrior equivocated. “We had help from a lot of people back then. Some knew more than others.”

“Listen to me,” Carl said firmly. “You know what you did then was wrong.  You know what you’re doing now is wrong, and dangerous, too. You can still put a stop to it all, if you surrender and come with us. We might even be able to help you stay out of prison.”

“To be honest?” the Toxo Warrior said. “I only do this because I’m a follower, not a leader.  What I am is curious. There’s big things happening, really, just wow. I’m giving you a heads up, just stay out of it. We won’t even try to kill you any more. Well, maybe not.”

“I can’t do that,” Carl said.

“No,” the Toxo Warrior said. “I suppose not.” He was already reaching over his shoulder. He came up with a long, thin nozzle. Carl had barely a second to weigh his options, which he knew was still far too long. He pivoted in a kick, narrowing his profile. A spray of liquid shot past him, close enough for perhaps a few dozen droplets to hit him. The chemical, which could only be acid, burned a line of tiny pinholes through the outer layers of his suit, which the nanites rushed to seal. The bulk of the spray hit the wall, melting plaster and brick into a uniform brown mass. Then his foot caught the Toxo Warrior’s hand, knocking the nozzle from his grip.

The Toxo Warrior cast the tank aside. A trail of drips followed its arc, ending in a small puddle that sizzled beneath the damaged nozzle. Carl sidestepped again, then he lunged forward. Already, the Toxo Warrior had another weapon in hand, a rusty but clearly effective axe. It crossed Carl’s mind that in the old days, he would have taken the blow just to entangle the the weapon; that, of course, was so Constructor or one of their allies could go for the real target. Now, he dodged a devastating blow that could have dismembered an ordinary man, so quickly that the villain gaped in surprise as the blade scraped the concrete. Carl countered with a second kick that caught his opponent in the abdomen, knocking him back with an audible groan. He closed for a punch that staggered the Toxo Warrior. There was a crack, and one glance confirmed that an eyepiece of the gas mask had broken.

But time was already against him. The pool of acid was still spreading, in fact doing so faster. Carl recognized that the floor beneath the tank must have already been reduced to an inert crust that the acid ran over without being absorbed. On examination, there were signs that the tank itself was taking damage. The Toxo Warrior had clearly made the same calculations even faster; he was darting for the door. Carl hopped over a long, thin rivulet of acid to continue the pursuit… and stepped in a bear trap.

“Seriously?” he said.

“It was what we could come up with,” the Toxo Warrior said. He had already opened a trapdoor. “For what it’s worth, I told them you’ll probably live.” The door slammed.

 

The blast came 10 seconds later.

Really Good Movies! The one that's a remake that got a remake

 

 

Title: The Thing

What Year?: 1982

Classification: Improbable Experiment/ Weird Sequel

Rating: Classic! (2/3)

 

In the course of my reviews up to creating this feature, the recurring common denominator has been outright random. With the present review, I have an example more egregious than usual, as I had already considered not one but two promising films that weren’t even bad. Then, by total happenstance, I discovered that a local theater was going to show an all-time favorite film that’s been well-known and liked. I took the shot, and once I did, I knew I had to go back in while things were fresh. With that, I introduce The Thing, a movie that kind of made its own legend.

Our story begins with a flying saucer hurtling towards Earth, in what’s revealed to be ca. 98,000 BC. Flash forward to the present, and we come to the barren landscape of Antarctica, where a small American research station is threatened by two seemingly crazed foreigners out to kill a dog. The encounter ends with the dog alive and its pursuers dead, so the expedition’s animal lover takes in the animal while the doctor Blair and the goofy pilot Macready try to figure out what happened at the foreign base. Soon, the dog transforms into a hideous alien creature that attacks and assimilates several of the expedition’s animals before it is destroyed. The horror isn’t over, as it becomes clear that at leas one of the human expedition members is already infected. The fate of the Earth depends on finding the Thing among them- and it’s up to Mac to do it!

The Thing was a 1982 film by John Carpenter (see Dark Star, They Live), based on the 1938 novella “Who Goes There?” by John Campbell and the 1951 film The Thing From Another World. The film starred Kurt Russell (see… Sky High?) as Macready and Wilford Brimley (see… Battle For Endor???) as Blair, with Keith David as Childs. The creatures and other practical effects were created by Rob Bottin. Additional effects for the transformed dog were provided by Stan Winston (see Invaders From Mars). The soundtrack was scored by Ennio Morricone, otherwise best known for The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. The film was considered a commercial disappointment, earning a box office of under $20 million against a $15M budget. It attracted further controversy over its effects, gore, and typically unfavorable comparisons with the 1951 film. Peter Nicholls writing in 1984 commented favorably on the reintroduction of the “shape-shifting” element of the original story, and further praised the film as “an object lesson in building tension and atmosphere economically”. The film gained in popularity on home video, culminating in a 2011 prequel/ remake. It remains available on multiple formats and platforms.

For my experiences, this is one movie where I truly feel like I was “there”, despite it coming out barely within my own lifetime. I was aware of it quite early, mostly because it incomprehensibly turned up on TV, and I believe I may have seen the very end once or twice. What was pivotal for me was that I read and loved Campbell’s story at a fairly early age in the middling 1990s. After hearing a little more about it, including plot points I recognized from Campbell, I watched it and honestly wasn’t that impressed until I gave it a couple viewings. By the early 2000s, I was a full-blown convert, showing my own tape to quite a few friends who as far as I knew hadn’t seen it or heard much about it. (Right, and I used it for an Exotroopers adventure I never finished proofreading...) What really stands out is that even then, many of the books I consulted were critical at best, usually repeating the refrain that the ‘50s film was so much better. It was surely quite a bit later, therefore, that the present film reached the heights of fame praise it had now, and I can’t avoid the feeling that my experiences are a microcosm of a reality people are already forgetting.

Moving forward, the one thing I have to say by way of comparison is that this is one time a movie actually improves on the literary source material. (The ‘50s film is a cluster rant I won’t even try to fit in here…) Campbell wrote for a time when characters were subordinate to concepts and the exposition dump was an unquestioned convention. He also dragged into his writing and subsequent editing a notorious “pro-human” bias that would help cement the happy-ending formula of the alien invasion genre. Carpenter belatedly completed the long, slow revolt by offering a version of Campbell’s own tale where there’s never any question the Earthlings can lose, and (spoiler) do lose on a certain level. There is still plenty that’s conventional or cliched, which accounts for most of the “cons”. The heroic tough guy is really glorified comic relief. The conflict and paranoia of the middle act (still not quite up to the level of the story) is mostly interchangeable melodrama. The resolution hinges on a good idea that arrives when it is needed rather than naturally evolved. On the pro side, there is a postmodern sensibility that leads to several scenes that are more unnerving if you already know who is Thinged, inviting analysis and speculation where the real moral may simply be that the alien cannot be understood by human minds.

That leads to two things, one obvious and one easily missed. The obvious is the astonishing effects, perhaps the closest there will ever be to creature design as abstract art. What really stood out watching this on the big screen is that the effects are done in quite brief glimpses, in which even things you are looking for are easy to miss, yet you can also notice something new. My personal favorite is the behavior of Thing tissue carried over from Campbell, modestly described in print, but here so extreme Mac himself is completely unprepared for what he’s expecting. The less obvious element is the grungy, rickety base, whose defects and lived-in charm are all the more prominent on a theater screen. It makes even the Nostromo look sleek and clean by comparison. At the same time, I find the same symbolic significance played even more effectively. This isn’t just a place, but a man-made ecosystem essential to keeping both the humans and the alien alive. In a fitting symbol of both ecological interdependence and Cold War politics, the only way to achieve certain and total victory is to destroy your own life support, a price that the self-reliant male ultimately accepts with psychotic ease.

Now for the “one scene”, I’m going with a creature sequence, something I do very rarely. Here, my pick for the flat-out best is the sequence in the kennel. The commotion starts soon after the well-meaning animal lover leaves the mutt survivor to make friends with the other dogs. It’s when Mac and the others arrive that we see the full extent of the transformation. At this point, I’ll mention that I noticed people laughing during the screening that led to this review. It is a sight I will admit I found just weird on my very first viewing. The transformed dog-Thing is hairless, slimy and almost crusty, like a piece of orange chicken. (Oh yeah, going to an all-you-can-eat buffet after this one might be a bad idea…) The extra touch that makes this nightmare fuel is the bizarrely asymmetrical shape of the head, most visible in the skewed eyes, all while we witness the already horrific fate of the dogs. As Childs/ Keith David (more underused than one tends to remember, possibly to unavoidable circumstances) arrives with a flamethrower, it finally sprouts a couple appendages for an escape. Then there’s the detail embedded in my mind, a not-quite-circular fan of anemone-like tentacles that unfurls as the Thing tries to break out, and next to that, I just noticed, is an extra eye. What the Hell is it, and what would it do? We’ll never know, because that’s when the flame finally takes light…

In closing, I come back to the rating on a still very new scale. Make no mistake, this film is as good as any I’m remotely likely to review, and a favorite of mine. (They Live would probably still pull out ahead on my “best” list.) The real reason I have given it less than the highest rating is a “narrative” that I have finally decided to challenge. In retellings, the “story” that has emerged is on the same template as the martyrdom of a saint: Carpenter made a great film that bombed at the box office and was hated by critics, but we now recognize it as a classic. I can attest better than anyone that this is a part of the truth, not the whole. The movie probably lost money, but it earned a gross better than its budget. It faired poorly with critics, but that was after the studio invited comparisons with an already popular film that Carpenter in particular didn’t want. Above all, while it wasn’t immediately accepted by genre critics or fans, it certainly was not ignored or forgotten. Plenty of us knew about it, and there are plenty of films (see Lily CAT and Godzilla Vs. Biollante) that show its influence from a very early date. On the balance, it got what it deserves, and certainly better than might have been expected. The final verdict is, not bad for a remake.

Image credit Cinematerial.

The Legion of Silly Dinosaurs Special: T. rex Vs Everything!!!

 

In the course of my blogging, I’ve covered toy dinos, and in the process, I’ve covered a fair amount of genuine science. This all reminded me that once upon a time, I tried my hand at actual paleontology. That led me as mar as Youtube and other dark corners of the internet, where I quickly found people fixated on one question: What could kill a Tyrannosaurus rex? For something different, I decided to throw my hat in the ring. So, here goes…

 

What’s the big deal about Tyrannosaurus?

Since the time of its discovery, Tyrannosaurus rex has been the most famous of dinosaurs, especially in the United States. In the process, however, it has become iconic enough that comparatively little is known about what made it unique. Here are the facts about what made T. rex different from other carnivorous dinosaurs.

 

1.     T. rex was part of a lineage that lived in the latest Cretaceous period. Its most notable relative was Tarbosaurus bataar, believed by some to be a second Tyrannosaurus species. T. bataar is also among the best known of all carnosaurs by the quantity and quality of specimens.

2.     It was among the largest therepod dinosaurs species by size and weight. It was 12 to 13 meters in length and about 4 meters in height, dimensions probably only significantly exceeded by the semi-aquatic carnivore Spinosaurus aegypticus and the herbivorous protobird Therizinosaurus cheloniformis respectively. Its total weight is estimated as 8 to 10 tons (imperial or metric doesn’t matter much), roughly twice the size of typical T. bataar specimens and comparable to Giganotosaurus and Carcharadontosaurus.

3.     It was among the most robust carnosaurs, with an especially heavy skull. The massive skull would have provided a correspondingly powerful bite and significant resistance to impacts and other trauma. It may in some cases have outweighed significantly larger carnosaurs, notably Spinosaurus.

4.     The Tyrannosaurus/ Tarbosaurus line were among the last known large therepods, with T. bataar dated 70 million years ago and T. rex found virtually up to the K-T boundary marking the end-Cretaceous mass extinction 65 million years ago. As a result, most if not all other carnivores had disappeared, with the exception of the dromaeosaurid and troodontid protobirds.

 

Can we make T. rex mortal???

In the course of looking at material on hypothetical face-offs between T. rex and other dinos, what immediately stood out to me is that lay audiences seem genuinely surprised or confused by the idea of a tyrannosaur being vulnerable to anything, even other dinosaurs. This all goes along with my long-running rant about dinosaur movies. It makes for good drama to have humans powerless against dinosaurs, as they might well be if you simply dropped a band of civilians into a Mesozoic ecosystem without warning. But when it comes to armed and prepared human parties who might face dinosaurs on equal terms, Hollywood’s answer has usually been either to make weapons inexplicably useless (see Planet of Dinosaurs) or just have the only properly armed person(s) get eaten first.

A good start to overcoming the hype is to consider the largest common predator in the present, the African lion. A typical male lion can weigh between 180 and 220 kg, while females weigh 120-140 kg. On further consideration, their size is a major but rarely decisive factor in conflicts with other species. Lions can and do kill considerably larger prey, like the Cape buffalo, which can weigh over 850 kg, as well as the young of even larger hippos and elephants. At the same time, there are plenty of smaller animals that offer a significant threat to a lion. The spotted hyena, the lion’s most numerous competitor, is only about 60 kg, but has literally crushing jaws and often far superior numbers. A warthog is as big as a lioness, with formidable tusks. An ostrich weighing 100-140 kg has claws that can deal with a lion of any size. Even a zebra is capable enough that lions will usually wait until one can be separated from the herd.

The lesson of this exercise is that the effectively invincible predator simply cannot exist in a terrestrial ecosystem. Size alone can only decide the issue at 5 to 1 or more, and to get that kind of difference in a living apex carnivore, you would have to turn from the big cats to the bears, which alternate between predation, scavenging and omnivory. The T. rex, as we will see, may have had more advantages than a lion, but even it could not have existed without other species large enough to hold their own and conceivably win against it. So, let’s consider the lineup…

 

Spinosaurus

This is the one that simply must be put out of the way. Thanks to the Jurassic Park franchise, this is the one people think of as a rival to rex. Alas, even setting aside the problem that the latest spinosaurids predate the tyrannosaurs by over 20 million years, what we have is less like an epic duel than the time Muhammad Ali fought a sumo wrestler. (Yeah, that happened…) To begin with, the spinosaurs lived in lakes, marshes and brackish waters, where the tyrannosaurs would have lived in open plains and even semi-arid deserts. For a confrontation to happen at all, there would have to be an inciting incident, like a large carcass on the shoreline or perhaps an intraspecies conflict that pushed a tyrannosaur from its normal habitat. It would still be the spino’s choice to attack, retreat or simply let the intruder eat and leave, with the last being far more likely if the element of surprise was already lost. If it did take aggressive action, the spino’s advantages would all come from the greater reach of its unusually long head and claws. Ultimately, it would be on par with a rapier against a battle axe, and if the first strike did not settle the matter, things would go rapidly downhill for the side with the lighter weapon. All in all, this simply demonstrates why large carnivores will usually avoid each other given the opportunity.

 

Deinocheirus

This dino, full name D. mirificus, was once the greatest unsolved mystery in paleontology, known only from a gigantic pair of arms. It remains the most intriguing of several herbivorous and omnivorous “mega raptors” to approach the tyrannosaurs’ size and mass, of further note for coexisting with T. bataar as well as the similarly armed Therizinosaurus (pun unavoidable). From what we know now, it was a very large, somewhat primitive ornithimid, as heavy as T. bataar and comparable to Rex in height. In ecological terms, it was equivalent to a bear, complementing its plant diet with fish and possibly small or already deceased dinosaurs.  While several specimens show chomping from T. bataar, their relationship may have been more complex than that of prey and predator. Under specific conditions, the species could have fought on equal terms over carrion, territory, and even access to water. As with the spino, Deinocheirus would have the advantage of reach in the first exchange, and could easily deal a fatal blow. Against a tyrannosaur already moving at attack speed, however, this would amount to mutually assured destruction, and matters would be far worse if the full-time predator got in a strike from behind. The likeliest outcome is that both species would have stayed out of each other’s way in all but the most trying circumstances.

 

Ankylosaurus

Now, we’re getting into dinos that actually coexisted with T. rex, and this is another that would have been best avoided. It was “only” about 5 tons and 9-10 meters long, but it was the epitome of armed and armored, with plates, spikes, a massive tail club and a wide, thick skull that by my own assessment would have been effective for head-butting. With its own massive head, Rex probably would have had as good a chance as anything at surviving a direct hit from the club, but a strike to the lower leg or foot could have had even more dire consequences for its ability to hunt and fight. The only angles of attack would have been to tear open the belly or cripple a leg. Even in Hollywood, Rex leaves these guys alone.

 

Triceratops

This is the most important one to consider, as these dinos were not only among the most numerous herbivores in Rex’s habitat, but have been found with clear evidence of being chomped on by it. As with Deinocheirus, the parameters are favorable if the predator can get in the first strike from behind, rapidly less so in a frontal attack. Here, however, the herbivore was about the same mass as Rex, and had a solid frill that could have actually stopped its bite. The most likely course of an engagement would have been attrition in the manner of a Komodo dragon. Most ideally, a first strike to a hind limb would have inflicted both heavy blood loss and enough damage to limit the trike’s ability to bring its horns to bear against a second pass. From there, the point-blank grappling loved by the movies really is about right; however, it was only likely if something had already gone wrong for the Rex. Ironically, the one thing that could have driven a tyrannosaur to impatience was if a wounded or dying prey from going into the territory of another predator or somewhere entirely inaccessible. Otherwise, it could afford to wait.

 

Hadrosaurs

These are the dinosaurs that usually get counted as easy prey, something I personally have found misguided. At face value, they are the equivalent of a zebra, large but neither armed nor well-protected. The deeper lesson, however, is that temperament matters as much as anatomy, especially for social animals, and if there’s one thing we know about hadrosaurs in particular, it’s that they were among the most gregarious dinosaurs that ever existed. They were tougher than they look individually. Among other things, the characteristic beaks were more like that of a parrot or a snapping turtle than a duck. In terms of size alone, familiar species like Parasauralophus and Corythosaurus routinely fell in the 2-4 metric ton range, with outliers like Shangtungasaurus approaching or even exceeding that of Rex.  An entire herd standing their ground would have been formidable, while a nesting colony of the kind known for Maiasaura would surely have been highly dangerous even to approach. The bottom line is, creatures like these do not get to be among the most numerous in their ecosystems without being very capable of defending themselves.

 

Sickle-claws

Another face-off set up by the JP franchise is that of Rex against the sickle-clawed dinosaurs. What I have found amusing is that there is little if any suggestion of the raptors posing a threat to the tyrannosaur in the movies or the original books (and I read the novel first, dammit). What is true is that these little scrappers were among the only carnivores that even coexisted with Rex, so they were “competitors” in that sense. However, this does not mean they were hyenas to a Rex’s lion. Even the generously sized Velociraptor/ Deinonychus composites shown on screen and in the novel would be in the 100-200 kg range, which is only 1-2% of a somewhat conservative 8 metric ton size for Rex. Throw in more recent finds like Utahraptor and Dakotaraptor, and you will still only get 300-450 kg, maybe 500 on the outside. Realistically, the only occasions when raptors would have fought a Rex would be if the hypercarnivore tried to take their hard-earned food, which is a fair enough reading of the finale of the first JP movie. For once, Hollywood got this right the first time; when Rex arrives, the raptors leave or get their tails chewed off.

 

Alamosaurus

This was a late-surviving titanosaur coexisting with Rex, with a mass possibly rivaling the 80+ tons of now more familiar South American species like Argentinosaurus. Like all sauropods, it was armed with a powerful tail and clawed forelimbs. By conventional wisdom, even Rex would only have fed on subadults and carcasses of the already deceased. However, the sauropod did have significant armor, which only makes sense if it was at least occasionally threatened by the theropod. By implication, the absolute power of Rex’s bite was consequential even to an animal that outweighed it 10 to 1. As with Deinocheirus, it is also possible that conflicts occurred for reasons beyond simple predation. A clash between the two would have been rare, terrifying and awesome.

 

Alioramus

This may be saving the least for last, yet it is in many ways the most intriguing in its implications. Alioramus remotus was a tyrannosaurid found with T. bataar, described from a single set of fragmentary and apparently juvenile remains. More recently, a second species A. altai was described from more complete remains. Between the two, size estimates range from 400 kg to 700 kg. As such, they are quite possibly the largest predators to coexist with either tyrannosaur species, and the most direct evidence that a carnosaur larger than the Utahraptor could survive in their habitat. Alioramus would have remained fairly inconsequential to an adult T. bataar, but would have been a credible threat to juveniles. Given the poor state of remains, the apparent rarity of Alioramus must be at least in part an artifact of preservation bias. By implication, their longevity, range and even size are fairly likely to have been underestimated. Even so, their absence from later strata and North America in particular paints a bleak picture of the fate of smaller theropods once Rex arrived.

In conclusion, what we come back to is the problem of perspective. To us, T. rex is almost unimaginably huge, far larger than any existing predator except the whales. It is only natural that we would see it as an unstoppable monster. To view it as a living, vulnerable animal need not be a letdown. On the contrary, it should reinforce the respect for nature that good dino fiction has taught all along. A bear, a dog, an ostrich, or even an irate parrot can all kill you if you do not show them respect. So follow the example of the prudent T. rex, and give all living things the space and care they deserve. That’s all for now, so I’m signing out with a Rex lineup!

No Good Very Bad Movies Countdown 9: The one that's absolutely depressing

 

 

Title: Absolutely Anything

What Year?: 2015 (UK release)/ 2017 (US release)

Classification: Mashup/ Anachronistic Outlier

Rating: Who Cares??? (2/3)

 

As I write this, I’m closing on another milestone for my reviews, and 10 for the countdown for this feature. In the process, I’ve looked into a few movies of interest, in a good or bad way. The result was that a few movies got set aside, for the moment, while a few others rose higher, in part based simply on what I could get hold of. That left one in particular that had already been very high for this feature, despite the fact that it kept slipping out of my mind when I tried listing movies to cover, and as always, my memory getting hazy is a very, very bad sign. With that background for context, I present Absolutely Anything, and truly, it will make you want to watch absolutely anything else.

Our story begins with the launch of Voyager, which is enough for a flashback to “Trek 1”, and an introduction to a group of aliens who have taken it on themselves to judge which sentient species are fit to survive. We then meet Neil, an everyman who works as a teacher while fancying to be a writer, seemingly devoid both of redeeming qualities and the ambition to be evil. The aliens decide to give our antihero virtually godlike powers, which in turn becomes a framework for a series of hijinks and sight gags including an alien attack on his school and a general zombie apocalypse. Meanwhile, a romance begins to unfold with a pretty journalist who inexplicably lives in the same building, complicated by the influence of his powers and a stalker with military training. He gets some grounded advice when he gives his dog sentience. His final trial will be whether to keep his powers- not knowing that the aliens are prepared to destroy Earth!

Absolutely Anything was a 2015 science fantasy/ comedy film directed by Terry Jones, known for comedies including Monty Python and the Holy Grail, from a script cowritten with Gavin Scott. The story was acknowledged to be based on the H.G. Wells story “The Man Who Could Work Miracles”; by Jones’ further accounts, a version of the script had been shown to Douglas Adams, who died in 2001. The film starred Simon Pegg as Neil and Kate Beckinsale as his romantic interest Catherine, with real-life military veteran Rob Riggle as Col. Grant Kotchev. Robin Williams was cast as the voice of Neil’s dog Dennis, in his final film role. Additional voice acting was provided by John Cleese and other Monty Python veterans as the aliens. The film was in production beginning in 2010, with live filming being completed by May 2014. The film was not released until August 2015 in the UK and 2017 in the US. It received mixed to poor reviews and a box office as low as $6.3 million. Jones retired after receiving a diagnosis of dementia around the time of the film’s release. He died of the same condition in 2020.

For my experiences, my real frame of reference for this film is the most complicated of my personal classifications, the Anachronistic Outlier. By my own admission, I have been back and forth about what films really deserve this designation, and there have been times when I used it for entries I no longer consider that unusual for the time. On the other hand, I have had significant successes, films that felt just a little out of place to me that had indeed been prolonged and delayed in ways I had absolutely no knowledge of until I dug deeper (see The Brain That Wouldn’t Die). The present film is in many ways the most egregious example of all. It was obvious that it had taken a while for it to make its way over here, which can in itself make the difference between timely and self-dated in a genre as topical as comedy. Yet, there were still things about it that still seemed more fitting for ca. 2002 than 2012, and I felt absolutely no surprise when I found proof that it was knocking around even earlier than that.

Moving forward, the central reality of this movie is that it is just random. This is an approach which certainly can work, especially in the under-90 minutes running time of this film. Here, however, the law of averages is not in anybody’s favor. The “good” gags trend toward mildly amusing, if usually predictable, like the accidental general resurrection. For the rest, the best that can be said is that few if any are actually confusing, while the unkindest assessment is that they are unnecessarily crude without achieving actual shock value. On the latter vein, this anticipates the bad example of The Happytime Murders as an R-rated movie that doesn’t go far enough to “earn” it. It has to be added, the dialogue supplied by the Python crew doesn’t contribute one bit either way One more thing, when Neil/ Pegg refers to his classroom as “10C”, the accent is so wonky I swear I repeatedly heard it as “Tennessee”. The real reason I bring it up here is that, if my confusion had actually been part of the plot, the resulting gags could have been far more amusing than what we see onscreen.

On the usual “pro” side, the only thing that stopped me from giving this film the lowest rating is that things do pick up by the second half. The most obvious reason is Williams as Dennis, yet not nearly as much as might be expected; his role is quite limited on paper, without his first line until past the halfway mark. In fact, the more philosophical arc starts as the romance between Neil and Catherine heats up, without him knowing how little his powers are at work. I will further admit that the “cringe” factor isn’t nearly as bad as I might have said from memory; among other things, Neil wishes for the lady to be “in love” with him, not for that to lead to anything outside her presumably normal behavior. We get further contrast from Grant/ Riggle, who gleefully drives his character off the rails with villainy Neil would clearly never dream of. Then we do get an emotional resolution from the dog, who proves himself as the one person (???) who can give up the power. In the meantime, there’s at least two sophisticated satirical bits in Dennis’s revelation about belly rubs and the darkly comical consequences when Neil wishes away “reasons” for war.

That puts me at the “one scene”, and there’s one more intriguing by far than any other. At about the 45-minute mark, Neil is moving around books and objects with a sort of telekinetic levitation that doesn’t really fit what we know about his powers unless it’s something he gave himself. In the midst of it, Dennis starts parking, while he monologues about Catherine. For a while, it seems as if he understands the dog, or thinks he does, until he finally complains he can’t understand Dennis. Of course, he promptly gives the dog the ability to talk, then to reason, which only gets a continuous plea for a treat. He finally gives the dog a treat, then muses that he thought he has made Dennis a reasoning creature. The pet promptly counters, “Reasoning creatures still have desires,” which he promptly connects with Neil’s dilemma. There’s an extra twist as the dog refers to the woman with what is after all the proper term for females of his own kind, drawing further argument from Dennis until Catherine rings the bell. What’s impressive is that this all fits within maybe 3 minutes. For all the complaining I would usually do, this is genuinely representative of the film’s better moments… but they are still not nearly enough.

In closing, I come back both to the rating and the classification. As already noted, this is another movie I have gone easy on just by not giving the lowest rating. The better parts of the film were already enough to talk me out of that. Having uncovered its full history, what I was left with was a sense of true tragedy, for Jones even more than Williams. (There’s a lot more there, both heroic and depressing, that I haven’t touched.) It would be easy to be beguiled by the tantalizing “what ifs”, a film either made when the script was timely and the director was still of unquestionably sound mind, or put in the hands of someone who could update it appropriately. It might have been great. Then again, it might have merely been forgettable. However you look at it, it’s an exceptionally sad end to several great careers. That, for me, is enough to call it a day and look for a happier tale to tell.

Fiction: The Adventures of Chelsea the Social Worker, Part 8!

 It's the start of what I planned to be the second of two full weeks this month. I'm back with more of Chelsea, this time not because I don't have anything else, but because I needed a chapter to stay on a pace to finish this. In the process, I decided it was time to work in a character who was always the arch enemy of Percy and the Evil Possum, and yes, this was always how he talked. I'm trying again to put links for all chapters at the end.

She had barely taken a seat before the Examiner said, “Is there anything you have to say about who damaged police unit Percy?”

She looked coolly into the large sauravian eyes. “If we’re going to discuss it,” she said, “can you tell me what charges could be filed?”

The Examiner paused and clicked its beak. “That is a question we’ve been considering,” he said. “Usually, injury to a municipal AI would be counted as damage to Arcostate property. Inspector Simmons is a special case. He was manumitted some time ago, but he has chosen to remain at his post. Several motions have been made to grant him the status of Citizen, but none proceeded as far as a hearing. The most current status assigned to him is Special Person, Non-Voting.”

Chelsea looked back at Deve. She was long past being unnerved as his two pairs of arms became three, so quickly and naturally that it seemed that they had merely been behind the others the whole time.  “If I might clarify that point,” he said, “if there are no charges against Mr. Feaghan or Ms. O’Keefe, neither of them are required to answer questions. Certainly, it’s not a matter for this hearing.”

“For the moment, I agree,” the AI judge said. “I advise that the issue be set aside.”

“Certainly,” the Examiner said. “At any rate, I am interested in the conditions at Mr. Feaghan’s residence. Ms. O’Keefe, it’s a matter of record that you had been residing in a premium residential unit in Aster Plaza, specifically as a consideration for your service. When the Protective Order was delivered, however, you were occupying the lower level of a housing module that your own Department is still reviewing whether to condemn. It was further reported that you and your partner were sleeping on a convertible couch because he had converted his bedroom into a workshop. Surely you will admit, it would seem to be a deterioration in your circumstances.”

Chelsea smiled. “We’re only staying there till we can get our own place,” she said confidently. “I still have a Housing credit, as long as I don’t lose my position. He does better as long as he has a place laid out for his work.”

“Were you aware, then,” the Examiner said, “that the Feaghan family has made several offers to pay for his relocation? Even to buy the module and restore it to factory condition?”

“We don’t talk about his family,” Chelsea said. “He doesn’t need their money. I don’t need it.”

Doctor Charleton stood up promptly. “I would like to speak to that,” he said. “Mr. Feaghan’s family has prepared an extensive record of their financial assistance to him, and to his friends and associates as well. He has most certainly been in `need’ of their money.”

The Examiner looked back to Chelsea. “Like I said, we don’t talk about his family,” she said preemptively. “That includes the money.”

“Have you discussed having a family of your own?” the Examiner said with evident curiosity. “A number of persons have mentioned you speaking openly of having children together…”

“Of course,” Chelsea said. “We’re waiting, for now. And by the way, do the family records say how much they spent having us followed? Trying to split us up?”

“Ms. O’Keefe, that is also outside this hearing,” the Examiner said. “Unless, of course, you have ever felt there was a threat to your safety or that of your partner…”

“Oh, no,” Chelsea said. “I’m sure they would never do anything like that.”

The doctor spoke up. “I would like to question Ms. O’Keefe,” he said. “I believe I can clarify some further points.” The Examiner yielded politely. The doctor had barely taken the floor before he said, “How many people in your department have you had `therapy’ with? That is to say, as part of your work?”

“That’s not how it works,” she said.  “I have training and certification to simulate certain acts, fully clothed, in the presence of an observer. Anything more than that requires the participation of a credentialed Instructor.”

“Then you never did anything beyond your training?” the doctor said. “Perhaps with a partner of one of your coworkers? Or perhaps, if we must be hypothetical, did you ever hear of such a thing?”

“Hypothetically,” she said, “we can participate in a session overseen by an Instructor, if neither we nor the client have a current Partner. At least, that was the rule.”

“Did you ever hear of Department employees pressuring their partners to participate?” the doctor said. “Even trading for other favors?”

“If there were complaints, it would go to the next level of administration,” she said.

The doctor smiled. “Might I ask, have you ever participated in a session with Mr. Feaghan, since he started training as an Instructor?”

“He invited me to be his partner in some of his lessons,” Chelsea said. “I asked about being his partner, if he becomes an Instructor. Kloe says he does better on his own.”

“I see,” the doctor said evenly. “Then have you had any more sessions of your own with Ms. Garcia?”

“We completed a full set of sessions,” Chelsea said. “She certified that we had… improved.”

“I’m curious,” the doctor said, “what led you to ask for an Instructor?”

Before Deve could object, Chelsea answered. “We were having a lot of fun, but we weren’t going anywhere,” she said. “We needed a push to get things in gear. The sessions were everything we both needed. When he got offered Instructor training, it bumped his self-esteem way up. Got him frisky, too.” As she spoke, Shad gave a somewhat sheepish smile.

Again, the doctor circled in his mind. “Do you now recall,” he said, “your first meeting with Mr. Feaghan?”

“Of course, I remember it now,” she said. “At least, I remember the day. We were really busy.”

“Then do you recall,” the doctor said, “if you told any other man you could tell if he was a virgin?”

“I talk about it once in a while,” she said evenly. “It can help break the ice.”

“And what is your, shall we say, success rate?”

Chelsea folded her hands behind her head again. “All right, I can see where this is going,” she said. She pointed at one of the panelists. “That guy. Not you, him. That’s right. He’s a virgin.”

All eyes turned to the panel box. The man was clearly surprised, yet not flustered.

“This is clearly a distraction,” the doctor said. “I ask that the panelist remain silent.”

“It’s a point you raised,” the Examiner said.

“The panelist is free to respond, if he chooses,” the judge said.

“It’s no secret,” the man said. “My fiancée and I are members of the Orthodox Church; we’re waiting for a religious service.”

“Very well, you’ve had your fun,” the doctor said. “Now, why don’t you give a real answer, did you recognize Mr. Feaghan when you met at the Gordon Center?”

“No,” she said. “I’ve admitted it to him. I really didn’t know.”

“Then if you couldn’t recognize your own client under ideal conditions, how are you fit to be his partner and an agent of the state?”

“Do you think I haven’t thought of that?” Chelsea said. “The fact is, maybe I’m not. But what happened was real, and so is what we have. Say whatever you want, do whatever you want… I don’t even care. Just don’t hurt him.”

The judge sent them away. It was less than an hour before they were summoned back. “The panel has ruled that the protective order is justified,” the judge said immediately. “However, their support is qualified. The order was put in effect for up to one year. By normal procedure, it can be reviewed at three month intervals. Therefore, I set the next review after another 6 weeks. Finally, the panel has lowered the protective order to Class 1, which will allow supervised contact during counselling. That will be all.”

Diane looked at Chelsea. “It still could have been worse,” she said.

“It’s kaka,” she said. “And they aren’t letting this go. Another six weeks is the same as a year.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Diane said. “So how about we make sure you at least aren’t handing them ammunition?”

They emerged into the courthouse atrium, on opposite sides. Shad looked at her, again looking miserable. She formed her plan then. All she had to do was… Then she saw the two burly men at the door, and two more carrying a very large box. She shivered as she saw a fifth figure between the elevators, strangely thin with a coat straight out of a detective movie, doing nothing. She was still ready to move, when Percy’s hand gripped her shoulder. “He’s not worth it,” he said.

“Yes he is,” she said. “He’s worth it to me.”

“So maybe he is,” Percy said. “It’s still not going to help.”

“There’s places we can go,” she said almost dreamily. “There’s other Arcostates, Osgiliath. Carcassonne. Xuthal. If we can make it out just once, they’ll take us in.”

“No,” Percy said. “You won’t do it, because you love this city. I know.” Then he steered her for the door. As they left, she looked back at the elevators. Nobody was there.

Deve and Diane were waiting outside. “We can take the train back to your residence,” he said. “Diane can come back for your van later. It will be faster. Safer, too.” It wasn’t, least of all for Diane, but she went with them.

They boarded an elevated monorail that hung from the underside of the city’s main elevated roadway. Two of the burly men followed them up to the loading platform. Deve looked over his shoulder and smiled, then closed his lower left hand into a fist. There was a metallic crack. His fingers seemed to fuse into a studded mass of metal. Simultaneously, two blades seemed to sprout from his hand, a doubly curved blade just above the wrist and a claw that hooked forward from the joint of his thumb. The men waited for the next train. Deve shook out his hand as they boarded.

Chelsea got off the train a block away from the apartment building where she had taken refuge. It was a radial building of a type called a stacker, shaped like a 20-sided polygon with a scalloped roof. As she stepped off the train, she saw a shadow beside hers. A voice said, “Keepa walking.”

She walked half a block in the other direction. The voice continued, like that of a thing trying to sound human and not quite succeeding. “I’ma very old, you know,” it said. “I’va been a lotta places, seen a lotta dings. Even one-a or two lika your friend wid de arms.”

They reached an aquatic recreation area, consisting of several pools shaped like wedges of a single circle. “What do they want?” Chelsea said.

“Not dem, her,” the voice said. “She already hava what she wants. I’m here to maka sure you know de score. I worka for dem before, others too. There’s always people lika dem. Remember that, and you canna get by.”

“I thought this was when they’d try to pay me off,” Chelsea said.

“No,” it said. “If dis was about de money, you woulda ask for it at de start. Dey prob’ly woulda pay. Now, woulda no matter if you did. Just stay away, or sooner or later, you runna into me.”

“Why?” Chelsea asked succinctly.

The shadow of the thing shrugged, with a strangely undulating motion that made her shudder again. “She don’ta say,” he said. “You aska me, it’s de appearance of de ding. Ifa you take him once, she would no care. De rest woulda dank de Logos he get a woman. Dey calla me about him before. Ifa you move in quiet, she prob’ly woulda letta you run. But you taka de boy in lika stray dog dat follow you home, dat maka people talk, dat getta someone made an example. It always come down to dat.”

“It doesn’t matter if you stop me,” Chelsea said. “He loves me. If I don’t come for him, he will come looking for me.”

“Perahaps,” the thing said. “Only timea will tell.” When she looked over her shoulder, no one was there.

Part I: The romance!

Part II: The parking violation!

Part III: Capsule hotel destruction!

Part IV: The Kelsiraptor, and Harryhausen monster bureaucrat!

Part V: The restraining order!

Part VI: The trial, part 1!

Part VII: The trial, part 2, with the King Kong Moral Contraband film!