Author Archives: Bob Evans

The things one remembers

I can clearly remember a disappointment of my young life. I was 11 or 12 when this occurred. As is quite normal for a boy of that age I adored monster movies. For me big rubber monsters smashing cities were the height of cinema. Usually I could only watch such fare on TV during the Creature Feature that played late night on Saturdays.

Ahh, that was a show that consumed many many of my hours. It literally was called ‘Creature Feature’ and, in my mind, I can still see the opening logo. So many classic and far far from classic films played during that late night and early morning hours.

However this particular summer I am remembering was not about an old black-and-white film playing on a local television station, but rather about a new release I desperately wanted to see,

Based on release dates this had to be 1972 or 1973 and Godzilla vs The Smog Monster had come to the local drive-in I burned to this movie. I had never seen a Godzilla movie in any other format than televised and the idea of seeing one on the huge screen at the drive filled me with an unquenchable desire.

I laid out hints to all the adults on the household, but to no avail. The weekends came and went and there was no surprise announcement that we were going to the drive-in, nothing but bitter disappointment

Now, I am not faulting my older brothers and sisters for their film choices. This was pretty much a kiddie Godzilla and it would have held little to no attraction to anyone with a discriminating taste. So the film played and moved on, leaving me behind, my desires unfulfilled.

Over the years I have seen many Godzilla movies, bastardized and cut-up American versions, subtitled original versions, movies that were Godzilla in name only, and even the most recent American adaptation, but somehow in all those years, and with that early bitter miss, I never watched Godzilla vs The Smog Monster.

Until recently.

HULU Plus has quite a library of films and I discovered, quite by accident, that via the Anime Network their collection included Godzilla vs The Smog Monster. Suddenly I remembered being that young boy and that movie I had so desperately wanted to see. Naturally I treated myself to the long long delayed satisfaction.

So two weeks ago over several night I watched the film in bit and bites as I relaxed after a long day working and writing. I can say that the younger me probably would have loved the monster fights, but many aspect of this, the most trippy of Godzilla movies, wouldn’t have played well to me.

You know how Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ has those animated sequences? Well so does Godzilla vs The Smog Monster. It also has musical/dance numbers and Japanese hippies.

I’m glad I got to see it, and pay off that younger me who wanted it so badly, but man it was to date the strangest Godzilla film I’ve watched.

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Sunday Night Movie: The Body Snatcher

This could be a repeat entry in this series for me, but this is also one of my favorite films and easily my favorite Boris Karloff performance.

The Body Snatcher (Not to be confuse with iteration of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.) is a 1945 film helmed by then novice director Robert Wise as part of Val Lewton’s cycle of the-body-snatcher3psychological horror films, which included Cat People, for RKO. Based upon the short story by Robert Lewis Stevenson this movie is about doctors, students, and grave robbers. Rather than a retelling of the Burke and Hare affair, though that one has been put to film a number of times including in a flawed but lively comedy staring Andy Serkis and Simon Peg, this story deals with fiction characters involved in the sordid business of robbing graves and murdering people to supply medical schools with dissection specimens.

A young student, without the means to continue his education, becomes the assistant to a famous doctor, McFarland, and quickly finds himself caught in the middle of McFarland’s antagonistic with the cabman and resurrectionist John Gray, played with wonderful oily charm by Karloff. The young man, a person of good morals, find himself pulled deeper and deeper into the crimes of the school as he desperately tries to get the doctor to save the life of a paralyzed little girl. When grave-robbing turns to murder the stakes are raised and the confrontation long delayed between the doctor and cabman explodes.

This is a wonderful little film. I remember getting this on laserdisc when I still watched movies on that pre-DVD format. I found it in a used shop for something like $8 and I had never seen it. Figuring it wasn’t too much of a risk I bought the disc and that weekend discovered this classic of horror cinema. This is not horror that beats out from supernatural monstrosities , but rather from the pride and need to dominate in the human condition. Not all of the Val Lewton psychological horrors of this cycle are to my tastes, but this one and Cat People certain are worth the scant time they take to view. This film is highly recommended.

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Sunday Night Movie: Godzilla 1985

So with the upcoming release of another American production of a Godzilla movie, I godzilla-1985-posterdecided to revisit the franchise for my Sunday night viewing pleasure. At first I was going to watch Godzilla: King of the Monsters, the Godzilla movie that most American would
mistakenly call the original film. It was in fact the Japanese film, severely cut down and with an American reporter, Steve Martin, (Played by Raymond Burr) stuck in with some ham-handed editing and thoroughly unmatched cinematography. Then It struck me that the right film in the franchise to watched was this one from 1985. Continue reading →

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How Life Has Changed

I remember clearly a bit of frustration from my youth. I had read the Isaac Asimov novelization of the film “Fantastic Voyage” and I desperately wanted to see the movie. I have always been a fan of film and fantastic genre fiction particularly so. The problem was that this was the 1970s. There were no Blu-rays, DVDS, VHSs or Betamaxes around to sate one’s entertainment cravings.

The town I lived in did not have a revival theater, and all I could do was searched the listing on the weekly TV Guide and hope that some station like TBS , which aired a lot of films, would pay it.

I remember weeks of searching the guides, with no indication of an upcoming presentation, only my fondest hopes for one. It didn’t appear.

This weekend on a whim while scanned through the instant view option at Netflix I started watching Fantastic Voyage. Now I had seen it in the intervening years, so I was not watching to to satisfy that unscratched itch from decades past. It was just a way to pass the time and look at the filmmaking of years gone by.

However it did get me thinking about those months when I forlornly hoped against reality that it would appear in the listings.

We truly live in an age of Science-Fiction, so many treasures await our pleasures. We are approaching a film lover’s paradise.

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I’ve been very busy

In addition to working 50 hours a week at my day job, I have been racing to complete my novel in progress. The final section has been handed over to my sweetie-wife for her proofing and when that is done I will be ready for beta readers.

To pass the time here is a picture of Obama on the iron throne as tweeted by the White House.

Obama Iron Throne

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Sunday Night Movie:Zero Dark Thirty

Thanks to getting back onto a disc plan with Netflix, my selection of films has opened op and last night I watched a film I have wanted to see for some time, Zero Dark Thirty.

This is the dramatized account of the hunt for and the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden.220px-ZeroDarkThirty2012Poster From my basic knowledge of the facts I did not spot any glaring inconsistencies and the film was written and produced with a minimum of political bias.

The film uses as it’s focus a CIA operative named Maya, we never learn her last name and as for film purposes I wouldn’t even assume that this is her real name. We follow her multi-year trek through shards of intelligence data and bureaucratic infighting to try and located the world’s most hunted man. The tension is real and the filmmaker, Kathryn Bigalow who won an Oscar for ‘The Hurt Locker’ showed deft skills in managing a story that spanned such a vast amount of time and locations.

I appreciate that Ms. Bigalow did not using the stomach-wrenching video we have all seen of the attacks on 09/11. There was no need for that sort of exhibitionism in a tale this deftly told. She also never gave us the face of Bin Laden, I suspect so that even in the form of an impersonator as to deny him all manner of publicity and fame.

The script was well written by Mark Boal who was responsible for the reporting about Black Hawk Down that Ridley Scott turned into a fine film. The cast boasted no superstars, but was well represented with talented actors who seemed to inhabit their characters.

This film is worth the time.

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Saturday Night Movie: Lawrence of Arabia

This is not a Sunday night movie feature because Saturday evening I had the very special opportunity to see the 1961 classic Lawrence of Arabia on properly projected on the big screen. In a post last week I lamented to death of San Diego last single screen theater, the Ken, an art house theater. The management planned a series of special presentations to hero_EB20010902REVIEWS08109020301ARsay good-bye to their patrons and Lawrence was Saturday’s. In a happy turn of events, the landlords and the business found common ground, apparently after the ground-swell of support from the community, and the Ken will not be closing, so these special presentations became a celebration rather than a wake.

Lawrence of Arabia is the dramatized film version of Col. T.E. Lawrence’s adventures in Arabia, helping the Arab revolt against the Turkish Empire during the first world war. The consequences of that war reverberates in our geopolitical problems today, but let’s set that aside and look at David Lean’s masterpiece of filmmaking.

Lawrence is a minor functionary in Cairo, with a deep love for the country and its people. He is paying attention to the Arab revolt long before the generals notice. Everything changes for Lawrence when at the behest of Britain’s Arab Bureau , he is dispatched on a 3 month mission to find Prince Feisal and appraise the state of the revolt.

Lawrence exceeds his mandate and becomes deeply entwined in the Arab revolt, harboring dreams of freedom for Arabia not only from the Turks, but all European powers.

While this film dates from 1962, the cynical nature of politics and the its corrupting nature would have made it a topic well suited to the dark period of filmmaking from the 1970’s.

The film boast a cast that is unrivaled, Alec Guinness as Prince Feisal, Omar Sharif as Ali, a trusted friend and loyal support of Feisal and Lawrence, Anthony Quinn in a wonderful performance as Auda Abu Tayi a brigand with a quite realistic approach to life, Claude Rains, Jack Hawkins, and Jose Ferrer also are notable in command performance from incredibly talented actors. Most notably is that this film has the credit Introducing Peter O’Toole As T.E. Lawrence.

If you have never seen this movie, it is one that really should be seen. Sadly the chance to see it properly, on a big screen is rare, and one I was very grateful to experience.

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Dreams at 24 Frames per Second

I came to San Diego, courtesy of the United States Navy, late in 1981. The west coast had kensington-ken-cinema-lbeen a choice of mine and I do not regret that, but when I arrived I knew no one in this town. First the first few months my only recreation were movies and one of my favorite places to visit, though the bus ride was tedious, was the revival house, the Ken Theater.

I have always loved films, and some of my earliest memories are of movies, so it was natural that I sough out the theaters of my new home town, the Ken however was unlike anything I had ever experienced of even heard of in my naively limited knowledge.

Check out this image from one of our local weekly papers, The San Diego Reader.

KenCult6_t620

That is the Ken Guide as it appeared when I first arrived at this city, double features that changed daily, except for when the theater would run a festival of some sort, which might block out a week or two. I did not get to th Ken as often as I would have like to during this period, but I made enough time to have forged some rosey cinematic memories.

The Maltese Falcon, M, Little Shop of Horrors (the original non-musical), The Seven Samurai, Creature from the Black Lagoon (in 3D!), this is a small sample of the wonderful film experiences I have had at the Ken. Truly classic films on the big screen.

The Ken is also where I met and made friendships during the mid 80’s as I attended the midnight showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I have written in another essay the importance that period played if helping me come out of a very tight introverted shell, and I will not belabor the point again, but the Ken was there for me during that time. Many fond and funny memories were forged on that sidewalk as we waited for the film.

Home video killed the revival theater. When you could own or rent the movies, fewer people would take the time and trouble to see them as they should be seen. By the 90s The Ken turned from revivals to art house films and I remained a true fan of the theater. So many smaller and independent films that never played in mainstream house played here, Cube, Raise The Red Lantern, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra are just three that I had the good fortune to see there. I missed the revival days, but the art house experience remained fulfilling.

All that is ending. The business owners and the landlord can not come to an agreement on a new lease and the announce has been made that the theater is closing down at month’s end. This was not part of my childhood, but this feels like childhood’s end. The last single screen theater in San Diego, a place that has shown movies for over 100 years, will so be no more.

The dreams will stop flickering, but my memories are eternal.

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Sunday Night Movie: Yojimbo

After the light-hearted fare of the past couple of weeks I thought I might turn to something of a more serious tone for my Sunday night movie pleasures. Several of my favorite dramayojim however proved to be too lengthy for the time I had to watch a film. I settled on a classic Samurai movie, Yojimbo.

This is a movie that you are likely familiar with even if you have never seen it or heard the title. The director, Kurosawa is in my opinion one of the most copied directors to ever helm a picture. The plot of Yojimbo you may know under the remake’s title ‘A Fistful of Dollars.’ Or the really bad remake ‘Last Man Standing.’ But I feel the best is the original.

The story is simple a penniless wandering samurai – the character has no name – comes to a small town torn asunder by warring criminal gangs. While the Samurai creates an air of lawlessness around himself, he is actually a very moral man and works to bring peace to the town and the innocent people suffering under the stupid cruelty of the gangsters.

I said that I selected this film because I was looking for a darker tone, and there are certainly dark elements to this movie, but I had forgotten the moments of levity and genuine humor throughout the piece. It is a story about a good man in bad times. It is timeless and I am fortunate that I have been able to not only own a Blu-ray of this classic movie, but I have seen it projected on the big screen.

If you get the chance, rent it, this movie will not disappoint.

 

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The Non-Utility of the Bechdel Test

Hmm what’s this I see? A hornet’s nest? Let me get a stick surely nothing bad will come from probing it, right?

There has grown in popularity a test for sexist bias in film and other media known as The Bechdel Test. This test simple, composed of three elements, and if a film or piece of writing passes all three elements it is considered to have passed. Passing is good because that means your work is less sexist than the works that fail.

I think the Bechdel Test is far too blunt an instrument to be used in anything other than a light conversational manner.

Before I continue let me state without equivocation that I want strong well-realized characters of all genders, orientations, ethnicities, creeds, and all the other bewildering array of conditions that humans inhabit.  In now manner am I defending works where women are seriously presented in lazy, sexist stereotypes.

That said, sexism is far too broad a thing to be tested so simply.  The Bechdel test has three elements:

1)   The Film must have more than one named female character.

2)   The Female characters must talk to each other.

3)   Their conversation must not be about a man.

This has a witty simplicity and certainly there are scads of films where the female characters exist solely as wives/girlfriends with no other dimension to their character. However I contend that is the Test fails by producing both false positives – scoring a film as good when it’s depiction of women is sexist and stereotypical –and also false negatives – scoring a film as a failure when it’s females characters have real depth and characterization beyond a simple love interest – then the test has no real utility.

So here’s an example of a false positive: The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra.

Element 1

Named female characters 2 or 3, Betty Armstrong, Lattice, and it’s debatable if we should could Animala/Pammy. After all she’s not a real woman, but a construct of one from 4 Forrest animals.

Score – Passed

Element 2

Betty and Lattice have more than one conversation together.

Score – Passed

Element 3

The conversations are about shopping, cooking, their loves of dresses, and who cleans up in the kitchen. They do not in fact discuss their husbands.

Score – Passed

Now if you have seen this film you know that these two women are presented deliberately as bad stereotypes of wives. They have little self-direction, are subservient to their husbands, and in the words of the director/writer set back man/female relations half a century. While this film presented it as comedy and satire, any number of films earnestly presenting the same material would have passed the test, despite having horrid sexist tones throughout.

Now for the False Negative: Marvel’s: The Avengers

Element 1

Named female characters, 3. Natasha Romanoff, Pepper Potts, S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Maria Hill.

Score – Passed

Element 2

None of these characters have a conversation with each other. All their conversations are with men.

Score – Failed.

Element 3

Since they did not have conversations, this too is a fail, but I suspect if they had engaged in conversation they would have still failed as it would have been likely that the subject of their discussion would have been the film’s antagonist, Loki, a man.

So Joss Whedon’s screenplay and film fails the Bechdel test. It must be sexist, right?

Of course this film has three very smart, capable women who hold their own against the male characters and prove repeatedly that there is far more to them than just a pretty face. Pepper maintains her own way in the headwind that is Tony Stark – not a minor feat, Hill has the spine to buck Nick Fury something even Coulson doesn’t do, and of course Romanoff is so talented she outwits Loki the god of trickery, winning valuable intelligence while the men uselessly debate torturing the captive deity.

 

The Bechdel tests is capable of both false positive and negatives, making it for me a tool not to be trusted. Ferreting out sexism in a piece of art can require a subtle eye, it is not achieved by a test less complex than Buzzfeed’s which Game of Thrones House are you?

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