The Thing From Another Perspective

Peter Watts, marine biologist and brilliant SF author who gives away much of his best work for free [see here], has written the story of John Carpenter's classic monster flick, "The Thing", from the viewpoint of the alien. You can read Watt's story for free at Clarkesworld here. Since the most recent remake of John W. Campbell's original story "Who Goes There?" [read for free here] hits the screens today, you might want to take a look at the original story and its most recent literary offspring.

Another Film I Won't Bother to See

The Mist

Libertas explains why:

The Mist is a film where 11-minutes in a sweet old lady makes a speech scolding America for spending money on corporate handouts and bombs instead of education; a film where 15-minutes in the first reaction a Christian woman has at the sight of fog is to proclaim, “It’s the end of days!” as opposed to, “Could be a cold front;” a film where three uniformed Army troopers are locked in a grocery store under attack but leave it to the pudgy, nebbish bag boy to be the hero; a film that wants to be about man’s inhumanity to man but which results in yet another example of Hollywood’s contempt for its audience.

...

The dialogue is awkward and didactic, and coming out of the mouths of decent actors would be difficult enough, but from this b-level cast I was reminded of those Sci-fi Channel Monster-of-the Week movies I come across and watch just to see how long I can stand it. About ninety-minutes in I wrote a note to myself which simply read, “This movie is ridiculous.” And that was before we got to an ending so bad I wasn’t snickering alone.

Read it here.

Ho hum. I can stand a clunky horror film, but these sort of petty insults directed against mainstream American culture annoy me, and when I go to the movies I'm not interested in being mildly annoyed. There's really no reason to waste time and money on this amateurish product.

I'll give this one a pass.

Nancy Drew

“She Who Must Not Be Named” and I spent an enjoyable couple of hours yesterday watching Nancy Drew. I had seen a couple of the old Thirties films starring Bonita Granville, but hadn’t paid them much attention and don’t remember them well. I completely missed the TV series, and of course I had never read the books produced by the ink-stained wretches at the Stratemeyer Syndicate [although I did avidly read the Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, Frank Armstrong, the Motorboat Boys, and other such nonsense]. So I was familiar with the tropes of the genre and wasn’t expecting much. Not so “She”. As a young girl she had devoured the Drew canon and was primed for the experience, and she wasn’t disappointed. I have seldom seen her enjoy a film so much as this. She wasn’t the only one. Most of the audience was women accompanied by girl children and they gave the film a standing ovation at the end. Talk about a chick flick.

I enjoyed it too, but distanced myself by viewing it as a satire, both on the conventions of syndicated youth stories and on today’s teen and Hollywood culture. There are a number of knowing digs at both – at one point when the plot takes a particularly illogical turn, one of the characters (in best post-modern style) comments, “that was non-linear”. On another occasion Nancy wanders into a film shoot and speaks so sensibly in the midst of chaos that Bruce Willis [in a cameo] asks her to direct the movie, promising to get rid of the current overwrought director “in a second.” There is even a sly reference to the shopping scene in “Pretty Woman”.

The basic dramatic device used is the “fish out of water” scenario, which places old-fashioned Nancy Drew in perplexing situations when she confronts contemporary California culture. Nancy (Emma Roberts – Eric’s daughter, Julia’s niece) comes from a small town that still retains the old thirties-forties cultural styles of dress, speech, and comportment. She is unfailingly polite in dealing with adults, even criminals; she drives a “roadster” and refuses to exceed the speed limit; her relationship with her doting boyfriend, Ned (Max Thieriot) is chaste and respectful. What a relief! In that world everything revolves around Nancy -- even adult authorities defer to her judgment and criminals actually thank her for catching them. Then her father (Tate Donovan) takes a job in Los Angeles, and suddenly Nancy is plunged into the Twenty-First Century. Hilarity ensues.

Nancy’s father had, typically, allowed her to choose where they would live in L.A. and, naturally, she chose a house with a mystery attached. It had once belonged to an old movie star from the 1970’s [Oh, how old that makes me feel!) who had died under mysterious circumstances. The house set is filled with visual references to “Sunset Boulevard” and perhaps to “Rebel Without a Cause” [which was partly filmed on the same location]. Tension is provided by the fact that Nancy has promised her dad to stop “sleuthing.” Of course Nancy is unable to resist investigating the mystery and the plot unfolds cliché after cliché. There is the first day at school with the mean girls, the creepy caretaker, the evil big-shot, the SUV-driving thugs, the damsel in distress. Of course super-competent Nancy easily conquers all. No surprises, lots of coincidences, no character development to speak of, no real sense of danger, a script filled with illogical inconsistencies -- who cares? It is a romp. Miss Roberts as Nancy is a refreshing screen presence – lovely, feminine, polite, smart, and respectful toward others – and there are some really nice performances by Pat Carroll, Barry Bostwick, and especially Josh Flitter who adds a zany thread as a short, fat twelve-year-old would-be lothario.

For all its silliness the whole thing worked, and worked well, as light entertainment. In this age of assaultive media it was really nice to sit through a film that was not designed to offend or shock the audience, that didn’t degenerate into a political rant; a youth-oriented flick that did not make adults look like fools, and a story of female empowerment that did not denigrate men. That is worth something…, a lot.

I understand that there is at least one sequel being planned. I sure hope so, and so does “She”. We’ll pay to see it gladly.

Indy Returns

That's right, Indiana Jones returns for a fourth film, scheduled to open next May. Harrison Ford is back in adventure gear. Jim Broadbent has signed on. I can hardly wait.

Read about it here.

AFI Does It Again

Once again the American Film Institute has issued a list of top something or others. This year it's the all-time greatest [in the opinion of their panel] movies.

There was a lot of stability at the top -- eight of the top ten films from a decade ago retained that status, although there was some shuffling around. Citizen Kane retained its top spot. I don't disagree with any of them except for Vertigo, which wasn't even Hitchcock's best film.

Only four new films from the past decade made the list -- Titanic, Saving Private Ryan, The Sixth Sense, and Fellowship of the Ring. Funny, I wouldn't have named any of them in my top 100.

And nineteen older films were included for the first time while twenty-three were dropped. Here's the list:

[A]dditions to the list: "The General," "Intolerance," "Nashville," "Sullivan's Travels," "Cabaret," "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" "The Shawshank Redemption," "In The Heat of the Night," "All the President's Men," "Spartacus," "Sunrise," "A Night at the Opera," "12 Angry Men," "Swing Time," "Sophie's Choice," "The Last Picture Show," "Do the Right Thing," "Blade Runner" and "Toy Story."

....

Titles that didn't make the cut this time: "Doctor Zhivago," "Birth of a Nation," "From Here to Eternity," "Amadeus," "All Quiet on the Western Front," "The Third Man," "Fantasia," "Rebel Without a Cause," "Stagecoach," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "The Manchurian Candidate," "An American in Paris," "Wuthering Heights," "Dances With Wolves," "Giant," "Fargo," "Mutiny on the Bounty," the 1931 "Frankenstein," "Patton," "The Jazz Singer," "My Fair Lady," "A Place in the Sun" and "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner."

Among the displacements I don't have many major disagreements. Birth of A Nation is a more important film than Intolerance, but racial sensibilities must be served and Griffith is too important to ignore altogether. Shawshank is probably better than Fargo, but it is a close call and the Coens deserve a place somewhere on the list. Blade Runner is better than Close Encounters, by a wide margin, so that's a good choice. It's nice to see Keaton's General be recognized but it was sad to see The Jazz Singer go away -- it's one of the most important films of all time, but it offends racial sensibilities. Is Cabaret really better than My Fair Lady? I think not. The only really outrageous loss was The Third Man, which should be in anyone's top ten.

Well -- that's my opinion, for what it's worth.

Read the Variety article here.