Month: June 2024

Released: July 1979

Director: Hal Needham

Rated PG

Run Time: 89 Minutes

Distributor: Sony Pictures

Genre: Western/Comedy

Cast:
Kirk Douglas: Cactus Jack
Ann-Margaret: Charming Jones
Arnold Schwarzenegger: Handsome Stranger
Paul Lynde: Nervous Elk
Jack Elam: Avery Simpson
Strother Martin: Parody Jones

We all have those moments from our childhood that we THINK that we would like to relive.  Whether it was a road-trip or vacation, or a restaurant you’ve been to, or a movie that you’ve seen.  We’ve got those movies that we see as fun and enjoyable as children.  Some of them do end up standing the test of time and are just as good as we remember them.  However, the trip down memory lane is often littered with potholes and sections that are under construction.  It can be a bumpy ride.  Well, recently I decided to watch the western Shane from 1953.  I hadn’t seen that movie since I was a child and you know what? It still holds up.  It’s an absolute classic film.  So, I was in the mood for another movie that I saw when I was a kid, and I remember LOVING it: The Villain from 1979.  If I could go back in time, I’d grab myself by the ear and slap me silly for thinking this movie was any good, because it’s not.

The story of The Villain is…what story?  There’s a loose plot where this wandering ne’er-do-well, Cactus Jack, gets roped into robbing a mine-owner’s daughter.  There literally is no meat on the bones to whatever narrative this movie claims to have.  What we have here is a Roadrunner cartoon with a live-action coat of paint, with Kirk Douglas’s Cactus Jack being Wile E. Coyote.  He spends the entire movie trying to rob Charming Jones and her hired-gun Handsome Stranger using a book filled with bad guy schemes.  I’m not lying.  He’s also got a smart-ass horse named Whiskey.  He’s chasing these two all over the valley only to fall flat on his face every step of the way, usually literally.  There’s literally a scene in this movie where Jack paints a tunnel into the side of a hill…and his victims-to-be ride right on through.  It’s ridiculous to the nth degree, and not in a good way.

If you’ve read my blog for any amount of time, you would know that I’m not a fan of straight comedies.  At all.  The harder that somebody tries to make me laugh, the less likely I’m going to.  For me, comedy has to be mixed with another genre, be it action, horror, or fantasy.  What The Villain is, is a parody of the entire Western genre.  In the hands of a better film-maker, it might’ve worked.  But far too often do shots linger on potentially funny situations like when Jack tries to get a better look at Charming Jones only to pull out the plant that he’s hanging on to.  He looks at the audience and then he SLOWLY falls out of frame.  In a cartoon, that works because it doesn’t linger on the shot, Coyote falls out of frame IMMEDIATELY and the camera cuts to him falling into the ground below.  Timing is EVERYTHING in comedy, but this movie doesn’t have it.  This movie tries too hard to be funny and it fails because of shitty writing.

I will give credit where it’s due: The movie’s leads throw themselves into it with total abandon, especially Kirk Douglas.  Cactus Jack’s reactions to his failures is pretty funny, as is Charming Jones attempts to woo Handsome Stranger, who is totally clueless.  Seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger dressed up in that goofy powder blue cowboy get-up does get some laughs.  Also, Whiskey the horse was great. Where I really started getting irritated with the movie was with its portrayal of Native Americans.  Granted, this was 1978-79 when the movie was made, so the humor was…different.  But Paul Lynde as the chief Nervous Elk was incredibly offensive, even to someone who ISN’T of Native American descent.  I literally had to fast-forward through those parts, because the character and actor were incredibly cringy.

What I will also give The Villain credit for is it’s cinematography.  It’s beautifully shot.  The movie was shot on location in Monument Valley, here in Utah, as well as various places in Arizona including Tucson.  There’s a lot of really great wide shots of the surrounding environments.  A lot of the stunt-work is also pretty impressive.  Unfortunately, a handful of laughs from the leads and the horse, some decent visual shots, and some impressive stunts don’t make up for an incredibly half-baked western and bad comic timing.  Don’t even get me started on the movie’s ending.

I’m very picky when it comes to comedies, especially parodies.  There are only a few that I really like that haven’t been done by Mel Brooks, and they are Airplane and Airplane II: The Sequel.  I’m sorry, The Villain has NOTHING on Blazing Saddles.  Comedy is a very hard to get right, especially for someone who really doesn’t like the genre.  Westerns are also hard to do, because it’s difficult to come up with something that hasn’t been done before.  But when you have a movie that sucks at being both, it makes you wonder who gave the movie the greenlight.  The Villain got shredded by a critics when it was released and for good reason.  It’s a bad movie.  I’m not going to say that it’s entirely disposable, but it will be a long time before it graces my DVD player again.  1979 was an incredible year for movies.  This wasn’t one of them.  God, it sucks to come down so hard on a movie that I really enjoyed as a kid, but I can’t let nostalgia get in the way of being honest about a bad movie.  This one is definitely a stinker, but I so desperately wanted it to live up to my childhood memory.  It didn’t.

I want to do something really fun today.  I want to talk about STUNTS.  Stunt-work is an incredibly important part of the film-making industry and is designed generally to keep actors safe during movies that require their characters to be in…highly dangerous situations.  There are different kinds of stunts: Free falls, car crashed, full body burns, the list goes on.  The training and prep required for these stunts can take weeks if not months to plan in advance, especially if you plan on doing them without the use of visual effects or CGI.  Stunts have been performed for centuries in stage plays up until Vaudeville entered the picture.  Movies and television just took it to another level.  Usually, stunt-men do the work, but every once in a while you will have an actor that will do his or her own stunts, much to the chagrin of certain insurance companies.  What I want to do, is highlight some of the most spectacular stunts in the modern film era.  Most of these need to be practical and done for real.  So, let the show begin:

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life: Wingsuit Escape

Yeah, Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life is a movie based on a video-game, but that doesn’t diminish how amazing this stunt is.  Skydiving had been around for quite some time, but the use of wingsuits was really developed in the late 90s, so Cradle of Life is one of the first movies to utilize the wingsuit.  Obviously, Angelina Jolie and Gerard Butler didn’t make the jump themselves, but regardless, this is awesome.  What makes it even more spectacular, is that Hong Kong allowed the film-makers to do this, and the shot lingers on the stunt doubles making their way out to sea.  Say what you will about the rest of the film, but the stunt-work in these first Tomb Raider movies were spectacular.

Goldeneye – Dam Bungee Jump

Leave it to a James Bond movie to start a movie off with an incredible spectacular stunt.  In Goldeneye, Pierce Brosnan’s first film as the legendary spy, we see the character infiltrating a Soviet base by bungee jumping off the top of a dam.  This is awesome because they only did it once.  All the cameras were working so we got multiple angles of the jump.  This particular stunt is in the Guinness Book of World Records for the highest bungee jump from a structure in a film.  Goldeneye has no shortage of amazing stunts, but this bungee jump is a hell of a way to not only start off a movie but a new iteration of James Bond.

Casino Royale – Car Crash

Goldeneye wouldn’t be the only James Bond movie to break records.  Oh, no.  Casino Royale would set a new Guinness World Records for most barrel rolls in a car.  As someone who has been in a rollover, this is not exactly the easiest thing to watch, but I’ll be damned if it wasn’t one of the most spectacular car crashes put on screen.

Raiders of the Lost Ark – Desert Chase

Honestly, I couldn’t pick and choose which stunt in this sequence was better.  The whole thing is great.  Spielberg and Lucas have gone on record saying that they were inspired by the adventure serials of the 30s and 40s, and this desert chase is basically a 9-minute homage to the stunts that inspired it.  I mean, Indy going under the truck and getting dragged behind is clearly a classic stunt that was updated with a more modern approach.  The whole sequence is exciting, it’s got humor, and it’s all bolstered by John Williams’ legendary music.  This is a desert chase for the ages.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol – Burj Khalifa

There truly is something to be said for shooting on location.  This little stunt in Mission Impossible 4 takes place on the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.  It involves Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt climbing the outside of the Khalifa to reach a server room and back again before an assassin shows up.  Say what you will about Tom Cruise, but you can’t fault his dedication to his craft.  His willingness to do ALL of his own stunts makes the Mission Impossible movies far more fun and intense, knowing that the stunts are real.  Obviously, wires are used to ensure Cruise’s safety, but considering how high up they are, it’s still vertigo-inducing.

Jackie Chan’s Police Story – Pole Stunt

Come on, you didn’t think I’d leave Jackie Chan off this list, did you?  I mean, when it comes to doing their own stunts, nobody did it better than Jackie Chan.  He obviously took a lot of his physical humor and stunt ideas from the legendary Buster Keaton, but added his own martial arts flair to the action.  This stunt involving a pole is perhaps the most infamous of Chan’s stunts.  He ended up with second-degree burns on his hands because the pole was unintentionally electrified.  Chan has always put his body on the line for our entertainment, even almost at the cost of his own life.  I’m honestly amazed he managed to live through some of the things he’s done.

Ben-Hur(1959) – Chariot Race

They really don’t make them like this anymore.  Ben-Hur is one of the all-time classic epics from the 50s.  It’s a great story, but this chariot race is one of the greatest moments in cinema history.  It’s all done for real.  An entire track was built specifically for this race.  Early on in this clip we see that Charlton Heston’s character’s chariot accidentally hits a fallen rider’s chariot and sends the character over the top and nearly get trampled.  This wasn’t actually supposed to happen.  It was a “happy” accident that managed to stay in the movie.  The whole race is intense and exciting.  There was a remake of this film(ironic, because this movie IS a remake) released in 2016, but the chariot race was heavily CGI’d.  It didn’t feel right.  But this is what most people think of when they hear the word “epic.”  It is indeed.

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior – Stunt Accident

Stunt work is an incredibly dangerous line of work.  People have been seriously injured, maimed, and even killed performing stunts.  Sometimes, though, like Ben-Hur, some of those accidents manage to make the final cut.  With The Road Warrior, stuntman Guy Norris played a biker that got sent flying after colliding with another vehicle.  He flew head over heels as planned, but his legs made contact with the buggy, breaking Norris’ femur on impact.  He also didn’t land properly, because of that.  Best part about this? George Miller ended up patching Guy Norris up, because Miller used to be an ER doctor.  Guy Norris has continued to work in the stunt world since then and has teamed up with Miller on multiple projects including Fury Road and Furiosa.

Buster Keaton

There was absolutely no way I was going to do a post about stunts and leave Buster Keaton off of it.  No way.  Born Joseph Frank Keaton, he was known for his silent movies during the 20s, in which he performed stunts that people still consider to be insane.  But it was also his physical comedy that really elevated his performances.  I can’t point to a single one that’s better than the other.  This man has been the inspiration for so many stuntmen and women including Jackie Chan and Zoe Bell.

Stunts are just a part of the film-making machine, but they help get the audience involved when the know that a character is in danger.  As I mentioned earlier, stunt work involves a lot of planning and a lot of risks.  Many stuntmen have walked away without a scratch, some have died, and some have been injured to the point of forced retirement.  It’s incredibly dangerous, even when you slip on a banana peel, you could land in a way that paralyze you.  But even with all the risks involved, stunts help make movies a more immersive and emotional experience.  People have wanted the Academy to start rewarding stuntpeople for their contributions.  While I think that would be cool, there’s already an awards event that recognizes such work.  It’s called the Taurus World Stunt Awards.  It is a celebration of the entire stunt industry, both in America and around the world.  Check it out.

Released: March 2024

Director: Adam Wingard

Rated PG-13

Run Time: 115 Minutes

Distributor: Warner Bros.

Genre: Action/Science Fiction

Cast:
Rebecca Hall: Ilene Andrews
Bryan Tyree Henry: Bernie Hayes
Dan Stevens: Trapper
Kaylee Hottle: Jia

This year, on October 27, it will be the 70th anniversary of the legendary Japanese monster Gojira, or Godzilla.  There have been few movie characters that have been around as long as Godzilla and James Bond, not that I’m equating the two, obviously.  The point is, is that even if you haven’t seen any of the movies, you automatically know who and what James and Godzilla are.  The famed Japanese kaiju(monster) first appeared in 1954, 9 years after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  The movie was quite serious and warned people about the dangers of then-burgeoning nuclear power.  It was a movie that really captured the imaginations of film-goers and film-makers the world over.  It wasn’t the FIRST giant monster movie, however.  There were several including The Lost World in 1925, but it was King Kong in 1933 that took the world by storm.  Eventually the two would collide in 1962’s Kong vs. Godzilla.  That was…an interesting little movie.  The pair wouldn’t show up together again until 2021’s Godzilla Vs. Kong.  To say that was a better movie than the 1962 movie is nothing short of an understatement.  The bar was so low that the 2021 film could’ve stumbled over it.  This year, the two pair up again in Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire.

Several years have passed since MechaGodzilla was destroyed by Godzilla and Kong.  Kong would take to wandering Hollow Earth, the mythical underground realm where the titans originated.  Godzilla would take to the surface of the Earth taking on the various other giant monsters that roam the planet.  Meanwhile, scientist Ilene Andrews continues to work for Monarch, the mysterious organization that was formed to monitor titan activity.  Ilene’s adopted daughter Jia, the last known surviving member of a native tribe of Skull Island, is having issues adapting to modern civilization.  She continues to have bizarre visions, while an outpost in Hollow Earth detects what appears to be some kind of signal from an uncharted area of Hollow Earth.  A new threat to the world appears and it seems that Kong can’t fight it alone.  Nobody goes to these kinds of movies for the story.  If someone tells you that they do, don’t trust them.  They’re lying.  With Godzilla Vs. Kong and now this film, it’s all about the monster mayhem.  On that level, these movies work.  However, after seeing Japan’s recent Godzilla: Minus One, The New Empire rings pretty hollow.  Minus One gave us a grounded human narrative that struck a chord with audiences around the world.  There really is no comparing the two movies, yet I can tell you which one is the better film.  If all you’re looking for is glorious monster mayhem, then The New Empire is for you, because it definitely delivers on that front.  One of the best parts about The New Empire?  It has no secondary human villain.  The main bad guy is Skar King, essentially an evil and demented version of Kong.  No one else is required.  It keeps things fairly simple and that works in the movie’s favor.  However, if you want something that’s got more meat on the bones, Minus One is the one you’re looking for.

In the recent American version of Godzilla, the visual effects have been nothing short of outstanding.  For the most part, that remains the same here.  However, Godzilla X Kong has a problem that really hasn’t affected the Western franchise thus far:  The scale.  What do I mean by scale?  When you go back to the 2014 Godzilla movie starring Bryan Cranston, Godzilla’s introduction was EPIC.  The size of the beast was unlike anything that we had seen in a Godzilla movie before.  You could absolutely feel and understand the colossal size of these creatures.  Even in King of the Monsters and Godzilla Vs. Kong, the scale of the monsters just felt enormous.  In The New Empire?  Not so much.  I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that a huge chunk of the movie takes place in Hollow Earth, which is completely computer-generated.  As a result, it has no real depth or verisimilitude that makes me believe that it’s real.  When the monsters show up on the surface, that’s when the scale of what we are dealing with comes into focus.  But half the time in the movie, we don’t feel the enormity of these creatures because everybody knows it’s all fake.  Suspension of disbelief only works when you can believe in what you are seeing.  Let’s go back to Godzilla: Minus One for a minute.  The way the film was shot and the way the camera is used, the size of Godzilla feels enormous because the camera takes the perspective of the people on the ground.  When you put that perspective up against something gigantic, a monster like Godzilla has more of an impact.  The CG in Minus One is mostly excellent and totally conveys the true scale of a kaiju.  That said, despite my issues with the scale of the monsters in the movie, it’s incredibly well-shot.  It’s a stunning movie, and while Hollow Earth is clearly CG, it’s beautiful to look at.  The creatures are wonderfully designed and the environments are creative.

Let’s be truthful with ourselves, shall we?  Godzilla X Kong ain’t gonna win any awards with its acting.  That said, it’s fairly serviceable.  The standouts in the film are Brian Tyree Henry, Dan Stevens, and young Kaylee Hottle as Jia.  Henry plays Bernie, a conspiracy theorist who showed up in the last movie, and he clearly likes playing this character.  Dan Stevens almost steals the show as Trapper, a self-appointed Titan veterinarian.  I think Dan was having the time of his life in this movie, because his performance was just wild.  I’m okay with that.  The real surprise of Godzilla Vs. Kong and this movie, however, lies with Kaylee Hottle, who plays Jia, the last known member of an ancient tribe from Skull Island.  The character doesn’t speak, but uses sign language, which is great because the actress herself is deaf and uses sign language.  So, her performance has to be more emotive than vocal, and you can only really get that through the eyes and the face, but she’s great.  Jia is the emotional core of the film, and when the group discovers that Jia is not alone, that actually adds a bit more emotional weight to her performance.  Not bad for a kid whose only appearances include two Godzilla/Kong movies and an episode of a recently cancelled TV series.  She’s one to watch out for.

Perhaps it’s not fair to compare Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire to Godzilla: Minus One.  I mean, the two came out literally within 4 months of each other.  However, the approach that Japan took with the character is vastly different than the direction that Warner Bros took.  The 2014 Gareth Edwards movie proved you could Godzilla seriously even as a Western adaptation of a known Japanese property.  But the subsequent movies clearly veered off into Showa-era silliness.  While I don’t necessarily have an issue with that, the fact is that Toho managed to craft a recent movie that really had something to say about people and the world around them.  The New Empire is all about the mayhem, and I’m also all for that.  But if we’re talking about quality of movies here, then Minus One is the superior film.  I think that the two movies needed more space in between releases.  If it sounds like I’m coming down hard on The New Empire, I’m actually not.  There’s a lot to like here, but it’s a very different kind of movie than what Minus One is.  Ultimately, there’s plenty of room for both kinds of Godzilla movies.  The fact that we did get two Godzilla movies within months of each other speaks to the continuing and enduring popularity of the greatest giant movie monsters in history.  We’re still going to be getting more Godzilla movies from both Japan AND the west.  You know what?  Bring ’em on.