Tag Archives: Comedy

Sunday Night: Movie The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra

Last night I was in the mood for something playful, genre, and most of all not infused with important themes. Scanning my library of DVD and Blu-ray I quickly settled on The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra.

Released in 2001 Lost Skeletonis a love letter and satire of the terrible B-movies dealing with aliens, monsters, and scientist from the late 50s through the mid 60s. Shot of video with the color removed and without complex camera tracking movements the film recreates the feel of those productions striving to capture material that lay beyond the filmmaker’s budget and abilities. The dialogue is comically stiff, the acting more wooden than a lumberyard, and the characters exist only in a continuum of stereotypes. All of this combines for a hilarious satire made with love from people who like myself wasted far too many late night hours devouring any sort of SF or horror film.

Dr. Paul Armstrong, a scientist, and his clichéd wife Betty as come to a remote cabin searching for a fallen meteorite made of the rarest of radioactive elements, Atmospherium. Also in the dry parched mountains is Dr. Paul Fleming, an evil scientist who has come searching for the Lost Skeleton in hope of using its ill-defined abilities to become the most powerful man in the world, however to awaken the skeleton from its slumber he requires Atmospherium. Completing the triad of search characters are the space aliens Kro-Bar and his wife Lattice. Their ship was forced to land in these same mountains, their pet mutant has escaped, presenting a lethal danger to everyone on Earth, and the power source of the ship has been depleted. Of course their ship is powered by — you guessed it — Atmospherium. Rounding out the cast as secondary characters as Forest Range Brad, the Lost Skeletonhimself, the Mutant, and Animala played with seductive style wearing a body-suit, gloves, and slippers as an ‘animal’ costume. Hilarity ensures in a story that sets back male/female relations several decades. I think it is worth noting that this film fully passes the Internet’s famed Bechdel Test while never leaving the sexist tropes of the late 50s and early 60s.

I saw this movie in an art-house theater on its initial release and it was quite refreshing to find something this light, this fun, playing in the same venue where deep and serious foreign films often screened. The cast reunited for a sequel, naturally titled The Lost Skeleton Returns Again, and while the follow-up film plays well it is not quite as fresh as that first pure experience. For anyone who loved those bad, cheesy, Black and White genre movies this is something you should give a scan.

Movie Review: The Death of Stalin

This is a film my sweetie-wife and I have been looking forward to for a few months. From the creative mind Armando Iannucci, the man behind Britain’s The Thick of It and HBO’s Veep. The Death of Stalin is a fictionalized, partially farcical partly horrific account of the power struggle following the death of the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin 1953. As with all dramatic films based on historical events one should not aspire to learn history from a movie.

While the film possesses Iannucci’s distinctive farcical characterizations and sense of absurdity when dealing with powerful bureaucratic people it also has sense of totalitarian terror. Often these two disparate elements are separated by only a cut creating a juxtaposition truly worthy of Soviet film montage theory. This clash of the farcical and the terrible has been commented in other reviews and for many reviewers it was off putting. However I think that the effect Iannucci was striving for was an understanding and emotional reality of how the absurd becomes the terrible so easily. The whiplash of the competing tones keeps the viewer off balance and unable to emotionally predict the coming scenes much like how the people brutalized by such a reign of terror live in a constant state of anxiety.

The plot concerns itself with two man who are vying to take Stalin place following his fatal stroke, Nikita Krushchev head of the Communist Party, and Lavrentiy Beria, head of the NKVD, the regime’s dread secret police. Krushchev is presented as the reformed, the man who wants to stop the mass murders, the false imprisonments, the reign of terror, while Beria, in addition to being the man carrying out all the murder and torture, is portrayed as a ruthless figure with depraved sexual appetites. Like all worthy protagonists Khrushchev is fighting beyond his weight class, Beria has prepared for this moment and moves with ruthless efficiency as he consolidates the power into his hands. Given the brutal nature of the struggle this rapidly transforms the contest into one of survival.

Steven Buscemi plays Krushchev. He makes no attempt, nor for the most part does the other actors, to adopt a Russian accent and his portrayal is one filled with the anxiety of a man over his head. There is a passing reference to Krushchev’s service at Stalingrad so it is also clear that this man is no wilting flower. Simon Russell Beale plays Beria and it is about as far from his role of Falstaff in The Hollow Crown as is possible. Despite these powerful performances the scene-stealer in this movie is Jason Isaacs, possibly best know to genre fans as Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter franchise, as Zhukov, head of the army. Zhukov both historically and in the film is a larger than life character and one that dominates every scene in which he appears.

The final casting element I want to discuss is Foreign Minister Molotov. A man who is on the outs and destined to appear on one of Stalin’s dreaded lists, Molotov is played with nervous energy my Python alumni Michael Palin. In addition to a fine bit of casting, this also I think draws a direct connection between The Death of Stalin and it cinematic cousin, Brazil. There is no doubt in my mind that these two absurd dark films are speaking with one voice. Gilliam and Iannucci both seem to be concerned, and rightly so, about the abuses of power, the childish nature of those chasing it, and in the end the terror that promises for everyone under their heels.

The Death of Stalin is not a movie for everyone. The clashing of humor and horror is designed to be jarring but it is a film I thoroughly enjoyed.

Retro Review: Real Genius

Over the last two nights as I sat unwinding from editing my latest Work In Progress I re-watched Real Genius. Hailing from 1985 the movie is about abnormally bright people and the University that they attended. (A very thinly disguised cinematic version of CalTech.) Real Genius is the second movie to introduce me to Val Kilmer. This first is Top Secret! the box office failure that is a favorite of mine and Weird Al Yankovic. Unlike the better known Revenge of the Nerds Real Genius has a genuine affection for its smart and somewhat socially outcast intelligent characters.

The plot is direct and straight-forward, Mitch Taylor a genius at 15 has been discovered and selected by professor Hathaway for early admission into the school. Hathaway has an secret motive in recruiting Mitch. Hathaway, played by 80’s light villain William Atherton, is late in delivering a laser capable of assassinating a person from orbit and he wants Mitch’s brilliance to help his team deliver the weapon no one knows that they are working on. On Hathaway’s team is Chris Knight, (Val Kilmer) the leading smart man but also someone who lives life to the fullest and is a cut-up. This is a coming of age story for young Mitch, learning hard lessons about being lied to and find love with the quirky, manic, but certainly not a ‘pixie girl’ Jordan. (Played wonderfully by Michelle Meyrink who, but the end of the 80s, retired from acting for personal fulfillment via Zen Buddism.) Truly, I remember 30 years ago sitting in the theater just captivated by Michelle’s Jordon. Who could not love that character?

This is a farce, the characters are overdrawn, the science is not possible but nor is it simply magic, and the being an 80s movie there are several musical montages, but this film works and it is worth your time.

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Sunday Night Movie: Big Trouble in Little China

After spending the afternoon watching The Godfather on the big screen yesterday afternoon I decided that for my Sunday Night Movie feature I wanted something lighter, something more fun.

Big Trouble in Little China is an 80’s martial arts/comedy directed by John Carpenter, written by the director W.D. Richter, and starring Kurt Russell. It concerns Jack Burton (Russell) as he gets involved in supernatural affairs hiding in the heart of San Francisco’s Chinatown. What starts out as kidnapping by a street gang transforms into a battle of good and evil against a two thousand year old wizard.

This movie did poorly when it was released, panned by critic and ignored by fans, but over the years and through the sorcery of home video it has gained a devoted following of fan.

Despite Russell leading credit and having a majority of the lines, his character of jack Burton I think can best be understood as the sidekick to Dennis Dun’s Wang Chi and that this film is really a story told from the point of view of a sidekick who thinks he is the hero.

Big Trouble in Little China has many elements that are never explained and several that are used for convenient comedic effect but it is a fun romp with sharp funny characters.

Movie Review: Colossal

This morning I finally found the time to drive into Hillcrest to one of our local Landmark theaters and catch the Anne Hathaway Kaiju flick Colossal. Now those are words you really should not have expected to go together. In addition to being a giant monster movie, Colossal is also a comedy and a dramatic take on addiction and poisonous relationships.

Very fitting for this film the word Kaiju is actually Japanese for ‘strange beast’ and the story is a wonderfully weird and strange beast.

Ann Hathaway plays Gloria, a woman whose life due to alcoholism is spinning out of control. She loses her home, her relationship, and has lost job. Without resources or money she returns to her childhood home where she reconnects with a childhood friend Oscar played by Jason Sudeikis and continues her self-destructive drinking and behavior.. Things take a strange turn when an enormous monster appears in Soul South Korea. Gloria possesses an unexplained connection to the monster, one that in the end brings to a head all her unresolved issues.

Written and Directed by Nacho Vigalondo Colossal is an example of something I mentioned in an earlier essay, a movie with a message that is not a message movie. Vigalondo, like Joss Whedon, understand that comedy is best frontloaded, but one serious stakes are raised, the light-hearted approach gives way to drama, character, and real consequences.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching this film, it has very nicely written characters that are well realized by the cast. Anne Hathaway and Jason Sudeikis are terrific, particularly Sudeikis who manages a twist that feel organic without creating a sense of falsehood. The story moves along at a good pace but without sacrificing the essential moments that develop and reveal character. The resolution is organic and emotionally satisfying. Colossal has gotten a limited ‘art house’ release so it may not be showing in your area but if you can see it do so.

It’s not the Close-ups, it’s the Script

A failed film that I still enjoy and own on blu-ray home video is the musical version of Little Shop of Horrors. (I also own a copy of the original which I had seen some years earlier at a local art house theater.) Th film is fun, the actors are talented, and the music endearing, but the film is seriously flawed and the theatrical release version is substantially different from the original cut. The blu-ray hosts both version the original release a director’s cut restoring the ending. In the following discussion there will of course be spoilers for the film and one for the television series Breaking Bad. (Trust me it will make sense to link the two properties.)

Still with me? Good.

The original ending of the film, just as with the stage play, our hero, Seymour Krelborn feeds his dead girlfriend to the carnivorous, intelligent, and evil plant Audrey II (Named after the girlfriend) and then later himself in a bizarre suicide. The film continues for more than seven minutes of the plant and its offspring conquering the world until it burst from the screen to threaten the audience directly.

The ending played horribly with test audience and reshoots quickly changed the ending. Now Audrey I, the girlfriend, survived her wounds, Seymour battles Audrey II and saves the world with only a hint that the danger has not been fully bested.

Even with the happy ending the film never found a wide audience and continues on as a minor cult favorite. In interviews and audio commentaries Director Frank Oz as stated that he had not understood the power of ‘close-up’ and how they transform an audience’s relationship to the characters and thinks this is why the test audiences rejected a movie where the hero dies at the end. The close-up had erased the distance and now the audience possessed too much empathy for such an ending to work.

I think his analysis is wholly wrong.

In the story Seymour, poverty stricken and almost certainly doomed to a life on skid row discovers that through the alien plant he can have fame, wealth, and love of the girl he adores, Audrey. The wrinkle is that the plant feeds on blood, human blood and quickly its appetite grows beyond what he can safely provide from pricked fingers. Audrey II manipulated Seymour’s infatuation with Audrey I to convince Seymour to murder her boyfriend, a cruel and sadistic dentist, so that the corpse can be fed to the plant.

When Seymour goes armed with a pistol to kill the dentist a serous of comedic accidents lead to the situation where the dentist is suffocating on laughing gas and Seymour stands by and does nothing as he dies.

In articles published before the movie was released Oz confessed to shooting the story in such a way as the preserve Seymour’s innocence and not make him a blatant murderer. He failed.

In Breaking Bad the protagonist Walter White goes on a five season decent into evil until he transforms into a thoroughly rotten man. At one point, rather than loose an associate to a new girlfriend, Walter stands by and watched as the girlfriend, passed out from a heroin binge, chokes to death on her own vomit.

In both case the characters were presented with the ability to prevent a death and took a knowing and willful act to do nothing, both are murderers.

An altered song from the soundtrack stressed how the play understood this dynamic but that Frank Oz did not. There is a song, and it’s quite good, call The Meek Shall Inherit. The song plays out with a chorus as Seymour is presented with numerous contracts and deals to solidify his fame, fortune and change of luck. Seymour almost rejects the offers, knowing that means more blood, more bodies, more murder, but he fear of losing Audrey is too powerful and knowing all this he signs. The song ends with chorus sings that ‘the Meek will get what’s coming to them.’ In the film, both versions, the entire second half of the song with Seymour’s knowing decision has been edited out. The set-up for the ending has just been removed.

These two elements are the largest factors why that ending didn’t play, the story was altered so that it promised one thing and delivered another. Few stories can survive that. You have to set-up and payoff the right ending for the right story.

Two other elements, not as critical, also play into the film’s failure.

First, this was 1986 and dark film about doomed heroes were on the outs. The cinematic landscape demanded relentless upbeat movies and clear heroic victories, big mainstream movies no longer engaged in ending that were better suited to the 1970s.

Second, seven minutes of the monsters taking over the world? In a movie that ran a total of 103 minutes, not even two hours? It’s dull to watch that much film roll bye without a single character that is known the audience. Al the named characters are dead or gone, it’s spectacle for the point of doomed and dark ending that won’t play in that decade.

No, Mr. Oz, it was not the close-up of Rick Moranis or Ellen Green that doomed your movie, it was botched story telling.