Taking comic book and comic strip characters and transferring them to the big screen has long been a popular trend, but with varying results. Some have been huge hits, like Superman, Batman and Spider-Man. Others have crashed and burned, like The Rocketeer, The Phantom and Tank Girl. Still others have sucked so badly that they were thrown straight to the tender mercies of the direct-to-video market, like The Punisher and Captain America.
Which brings me to the strange case of Vampirella.
Vampirella is a character created by Forrest J. Ackerman (better known as the longtime editor/publisher of Famous Monsters magazine); she appeared in her own black & white magazine from 1969 to 1983. She's a sexy vampire from the planet Drakulon, where the inhabitants drink blood the way we humans drink water. She was unaware of her origins, but fought on the side of good, tackling evil in all its many forms (Satanists, werewolves, demons, etc.) while wearing as little clothing as possible. In the mid-1990s, the character was successfully revived in comic books and thus became a "hot property" for film development.
So how did she wind up in an adaptation so pervasively awful that it not only stayed off the big screen, but was also damn hard to find on video until an "official" release on DVD in 2001? I couldn't tell you. It's something of a mystery. But in the hands of executive producer Roger Corman, who's made his share of fly-by-night (pun intended) productions, and Jim Wynorski, who's probably best known for the Traci Lords version of Not of This Earth (also produced by Corman) and Return of Swamp Thing, but who has spent recent years churning out direct-to-cable cheapies, Vampirella is pretty freaking hard to watch.
Talisa Soto--best known for her appearance as a Bond Girl in License to Kill--plays Vampi, who comes to our lovely little planet from Drakulon in search of the band of bad vamps who killed her dad and split in a spaceship. And Soto's really an excellent choice: She's beautiful, exotic, lithe and, when called upon, capable of acting. My only complaint about her performance is that she can't run very well in high heels. (Then again, neither can I.) At least she can talk with fangs in her mouth: most of the other vampires in the movie apparently suffer from perpetual dry mouth, constantly making weird little smacking sounds as if trying desperately to form saliva just so that they could continue muttering their lousy dialogue. Maybe their fangs were picked up at a garage sale or something.
That wouldn't surprise me. Everything about this movie simply reeks of cheapness. The sets are, at best, minimal. The costumes look strictly off the rack; even Vampi's trademark outfit looks like something they found in the discount bin at The Pleasure Chest. And the interiors of the spaceships would have embarrassed even Ed Wood. (The spaceships themselves are about as impressive-I think I did just as well back in the days when I flew my Cylon Raider around my bedroom with my hand.)
As for the story...as you might expect, it doesn't hold very closely to the comic book. Vampi knows exactly whom she is, exactly where she came from and exactly who she's looking for: Vlad and his intergalactic gang of bloodsuckers. Speaking of sucking, though, Vlad is played by Roger Daltry, longtime lead singer for the Who and occasional fine actor. Unfortunately, Vampirella wasn't one of those occasions. Here, he sings bad vampire rock (as opposed to, um, good vampire rock), leering wide-eyed and running around in a cape like a little kid at a Halloween party who's had WAY too much sugar.
Daltry's overacting almost covers the fact that most of the rest of the cast can't act at all. The other vampires have little-to-no personality, the vampire hunters (who dress exactly like SWAT guys, except they have embroidered crosses on their baseball caps--cute) are even less distinguishable from one another, and even Vampi's main love interest in the movie is so unimpressive that she might as well not bother sucking his blood--he seems pretty dead already.
This movie is a waste of perfectly good videotape. Vampi deserved better. Talisa Soto deserved better. Hell, WE deserved better. Maybe some day, somebody will get around to making a proper Vampirella. Till then, this Vampirella is all we have--and we'd been better off having nothing at all.
(NOTE: Keep an eye out for cameos by Angus Scrimm, the Tall Man from the Phantasm films, as Vampi's father, and director John Landis as an astronaut. Maybe they had nothing better to do.)
Monday, August 18, 2003
Monday, August 11, 2003
Review: War of the Gargantuas (1966)
I'm not ashamed to say it: my love for War of the Gargantuas knows no bounds.
Maybe it's because seeing War of the Gargantuas takes me back to those Friday and Saturday nights spent curled up on the gold-upholstered couch in the family room of the apartment on Ohio Street, watching Creature Features on the tiny black & white TV.
Or maybe it's because this movie is the most action-packed of the '60s giant Japanese monster flicks, with lots of buildings being smashed, stepped on or otherwise abused and little in the way of Stupid Human Story (you know, ehere the human characters have to deal with jewel thieves or greedy entrepreneurs or political assassins or whatever.)
Or maybe it's because this movie features what may be the single worst musical number in the history of cinema.
Whatever the specific reason, War of the Gargantuas makes me happy. It's like comfort food, if comfort food could roar and punch holes through downtown Tokyo.
The movie opens at sea during a violent storm, where a boat is being attacked by a giant octopus. (This must be a problem particular to the coastal waters of Japan, as I can think of at least three other Japanese monster movies where the same thing happens.) The octopus doesn't get much of a meal, though, since it gets attacked by a creature from the deep that looks a lot like the Frankenstein Monster covered in seaweed. This green guy called Gargantua (think Bigfoot with a much, much bigger foot) starts popping up all over the place, hassling fishermen and generally scaring the crap out of the general public.
Concerned military authorities call in scientists, including Dr. Stewart (Russ Tamblyn) and his lovely assistant, Akemi (Kumi Mizuno, who also appeared in Godzilla vs. Monster Zero and Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster), who cared for a baby Gargantua years before. Could that Gargantua, who subsequently escaped, be the same one munching on civilians, like the dudes on the boat (who turn out to be smugglers, so I guess they deserved it) or a poor cleaning woman caught at the airport (Gargantua spits her shredded clothing out--ew!)? Are there two of them?
Gargantua runs back to ocean when the sun comes out--turns out he's sensitive to light, having lived in the depths all his life)--but comes out again at night, especially when the lights go down on the outdoor deck of a downtown Tokyo nightclub for an awful musical number sung by Kipp Hamilton called "The Words Get Stuck in My Throat" (if only they really did, Kipp, if only they really did). Fortunately, Green Gargantua toddles up and tries to eat Kipp, thus ending her song (and sparing our ears from any more hemorraging).
The bright lights of the big city drive off the mean green eating machine again, though, and he runs into the forest, where the military attacks with damn near everything--tanks, rockets, lasers, electrodes, you name it. And you know what? The barrage actually works! Green Gargantua is down and nearly out when an even bigger Brown Gargantua shows up and saves the green one's mossy ass. The scientists analyze the cells of both and find that the brown one was the one Stewart and Akemi had found so kind and gentle years before and that the green one grew from cells torn off the brown one. So they're not really brothers, but more like clones.)
This would probably make slightly more sense if the American distributor hadn't removed footage and dialogue that connected War of the Gargantuas to its predecessor, the even more ridiculous Frankenstein Conquers the World, which had nearly the same plot (two monsters, one of them innocent) and roughly the same conclusion.
Brown Gargantua, who breaks his leg saving his old friend Akemi from falling off a cliff, tries to help hide and heal Green Gargantua until he figures out that his "brother" has been chomping on the tourists, at which point he smacks GG with a tree and the title fight is on. This leads to an all-out kaiju smackdown in Tokyo, with the two monsters body-slamming one another while the military tries to kill both of them. They needn't have wasted the ammo, though, as a conveniently erupting volcano (in Tokyo Bay?!?) destroys both Gargantuas. (Or we assume they were destroyed, since there wasn't a sequel to War of the Gargantuas.)
Unlike a lot of other kaiju classics, War of the Gargantuas never even pretends to take itself seriously. It's blissfully silly, fast-paced and colorful--just what you need to go with your bowl of popcorn on a Saturday night.
Maybe it's because seeing War of the Gargantuas takes me back to those Friday and Saturday nights spent curled up on the gold-upholstered couch in the family room of the apartment on Ohio Street, watching Creature Features on the tiny black & white TV.
Or maybe it's because this movie is the most action-packed of the '60s giant Japanese monster flicks, with lots of buildings being smashed, stepped on or otherwise abused and little in the way of Stupid Human Story (you know, ehere the human characters have to deal with jewel thieves or greedy entrepreneurs or political assassins or whatever.)
Or maybe it's because this movie features what may be the single worst musical number in the history of cinema.
Whatever the specific reason, War of the Gargantuas makes me happy. It's like comfort food, if comfort food could roar and punch holes through downtown Tokyo.
The movie opens at sea during a violent storm, where a boat is being attacked by a giant octopus. (This must be a problem particular to the coastal waters of Japan, as I can think of at least three other Japanese monster movies where the same thing happens.) The octopus doesn't get much of a meal, though, since it gets attacked by a creature from the deep that looks a lot like the Frankenstein Monster covered in seaweed. This green guy called Gargantua (think Bigfoot with a much, much bigger foot) starts popping up all over the place, hassling fishermen and generally scaring the crap out of the general public.
Concerned military authorities call in scientists, including Dr. Stewart (Russ Tamblyn) and his lovely assistant, Akemi (Kumi Mizuno, who also appeared in Godzilla vs. Monster Zero and Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster), who cared for a baby Gargantua years before. Could that Gargantua, who subsequently escaped, be the same one munching on civilians, like the dudes on the boat (who turn out to be smugglers, so I guess they deserved it) or a poor cleaning woman caught at the airport (Gargantua spits her shredded clothing out--ew!)? Are there two of them?
Gargantua runs back to ocean when the sun comes out--turns out he's sensitive to light, having lived in the depths all his life)--but comes out again at night, especially when the lights go down on the outdoor deck of a downtown Tokyo nightclub for an awful musical number sung by Kipp Hamilton called "The Words Get Stuck in My Throat" (if only they really did, Kipp, if only they really did). Fortunately, Green Gargantua toddles up and tries to eat Kipp, thus ending her song (and sparing our ears from any more hemorraging).
The bright lights of the big city drive off the mean green eating machine again, though, and he runs into the forest, where the military attacks with damn near everything--tanks, rockets, lasers, electrodes, you name it. And you know what? The barrage actually works! Green Gargantua is down and nearly out when an even bigger Brown Gargantua shows up and saves the green one's mossy ass. The scientists analyze the cells of both and find that the brown one was the one Stewart and Akemi had found so kind and gentle years before and that the green one grew from cells torn off the brown one. So they're not really brothers, but more like clones.)
This would probably make slightly more sense if the American distributor hadn't removed footage and dialogue that connected War of the Gargantuas to its predecessor, the even more ridiculous Frankenstein Conquers the World, which had nearly the same plot (two monsters, one of them innocent) and roughly the same conclusion.
Brown Gargantua, who breaks his leg saving his old friend Akemi from falling off a cliff, tries to help hide and heal Green Gargantua until he figures out that his "brother" has been chomping on the tourists, at which point he smacks GG with a tree and the title fight is on. This leads to an all-out kaiju smackdown in Tokyo, with the two monsters body-slamming one another while the military tries to kill both of them. They needn't have wasted the ammo, though, as a conveniently erupting volcano (in Tokyo Bay?!?) destroys both Gargantuas. (Or we assume they were destroyed, since there wasn't a sequel to War of the Gargantuas.)
Unlike a lot of other kaiju classics, War of the Gargantuas never even pretends to take itself seriously. It's blissfully silly, fast-paced and colorful--just what you need to go with your bowl of popcorn on a Saturday night.
Review: Gigli (2003)
In the theater where I saw Gigli, there was a couple sitting in the front row. For much of the two hours and six minutes it takes for this movie to lumber, stumble and brey its way from its first reel to its last, they barely paid attention to the images flickering on the screen above them, choosing instead to spend much of the time macking on each other and even straddling one another during some of the more darkly lit scenes. I mention this only because the show they put on for the widely scattered audience (a dozen in all for the Sunday matinee) was decidely more interesting than anything on the screen.
Ben Affleck plays the title character, Larry Gigli ("It's pronounced 'GEE-lee,' sounds like "really"), a low-level thug working for a slightly higher-level thug, Louis (Lenny Venito), who considers Larry a total fuck-up. Does that stop Louis from giving Larry the important assignment of kidnapping the mentally challenged, institutionalized younger brother of a federal prosecutor who's hassling their boss (Al Pacino)? Nope. Wouldn't have had much a movie otherwise. (Not that we have much of a movie anyway.) Larry manages to spirit away Brian (Justin Bartha, in his first and, we can hope, only big-screen appearance) away from the mental hospital and back to his apartment. Along the way, Larry finds that Brian appears to have Tourette's Syndrome (blurting expletives at random) or maybe Down Syndrome (innocent, yet wise) or some magical blend thereof that you never find outside the movies.
So doubtful of Larry's ability to carry out the assignment that he contracts Ricki (Jennifer Lopez), supposedly a killer-for-hire, even though we never see her--or Larry, for that matter--kill or even hurt anyone. Ricki is also supposedly "Gay...a lesbian," which doesn't stop Larry from crushing on her, arguing with her about the superiority of the male appendage, decaring that each relationship has "a cow" and "a bull" (he's right about the "bull," just not the way he meant it)...just generally making an ass out of himself. Not that it's hard to do that: Larry doesn't own any books and has to read the label of a bottle of Tobasco as a bedtime story for Brian. (Wonder if Tobasco had to pay for that product placement--if so, they got ripped off.)
And that's pretty much the movie, aside from some brief detours provided by stars who ought to have known better. Christopher Walken pops in as a cop who hassles Larry and Ricki in a scene so poorly constructed and framed that it looks like Walken and Lopez aren't even in the same room. (Note to Walken or whomever approves scripts for him: after appearing in The Country Bears, Kangaroo Jack and now Gigli, all of which qualify as the celluloid equivalent of used toilet paper, you might want to think about being a bit more selective.) Lanie Kazan shows up long enough to get an injection in her ass and to lavish praise on Lopez's overwhelming beauty. And Pacino's single scene is almost forgivable, since he glides into town to tell all the major characters that they're fucking idiots. (Yea, Al!)
There's plenty of blame to go around here. Neither Affleck nor Lopez should have come within a thousand miles of this film--both have been in recent hit movies and, regardless of what you thought of Daredevil or The Wedding Planner, both qualify as major movie stars. That's probably how this movie got made--through their combined star power. They met for the first time on the set of Gigli and began their overpublicized romance there, yet little of that spark makes it onto the screen--the attempted romance is nearly as lifeless as the look in Affleck's eyes as talks out of the left side of his mouth in some sort of indeterminate tough-guy accent (like he's from New York, even though his character apparently grew up in California). And Lopez seems like she's perpetually on the verge of cracking up at the mind-numbing lines of dialogue she has to deliver (or has to hear coming out of Affleck's mouth).
And there is where much of the blame must rest--with Martin Brest, who not only directed and co-produced this mess, but wrote the screenplay, which will no doubt be the subject of many film school term papers for decades to come. Brest has done good work before, in Midnight Run and Scent of a Woman (for which Pacino won his second Oscar), but here he goes wrong in every way possible. Not one word of dialogue in Gigli sounds like it's being spoken by a real human being; instead, it sounds like low-rent Kevin Smith (whose Chasing Amy also featured Affleck trying to convert a lesbian over to the hetero side) filtered through Tarentino and Runyon. The monologues are the worst, though: Affleck's praise of the design and usage of the cock is only exceeded for sheer pretentiousness and ridiculousness by Lopez's subsequent assertion of the superiority of the pussy (this while pretzeling her lithe, backlit figure through various yoga positions--like that's supposed to distract us from how stupid all of this sounds). Brian, endlessly called "the retard" by other characters, rambles on about wanting to go to "the Baywatch" (like that's a specialty shop downtown instead of a TV show) and winds up at the beach in a dance number (yes, really), just before an ending for Larry and Ricki that feels stapled on.
Brest may have wanted to make a challenging film about sexual identity and politics. A noble goal. If that was his intention, though, he missed the mark by a wide margin, instead producing something stunning--just not in any sort of good way.
As the credits finally rolled and the couple in the front row ceased snogging long enough to make good their escape, a drain in the middle of the aisle began to flood the theater due to a torrential downpour in progress outside.
Sewage bubbling up in a theater showing Gigli--somehow, that seems appropriate.
Ben Affleck plays the title character, Larry Gigli ("It's pronounced 'GEE-lee,' sounds like "really"), a low-level thug working for a slightly higher-level thug, Louis (Lenny Venito), who considers Larry a total fuck-up. Does that stop Louis from giving Larry the important assignment of kidnapping the mentally challenged, institutionalized younger brother of a federal prosecutor who's hassling their boss (Al Pacino)? Nope. Wouldn't have had much a movie otherwise. (Not that we have much of a movie anyway.) Larry manages to spirit away Brian (Justin Bartha, in his first and, we can hope, only big-screen appearance) away from the mental hospital and back to his apartment. Along the way, Larry finds that Brian appears to have Tourette's Syndrome (blurting expletives at random) or maybe Down Syndrome (innocent, yet wise) or some magical blend thereof that you never find outside the movies.
So doubtful of Larry's ability to carry out the assignment that he contracts Ricki (Jennifer Lopez), supposedly a killer-for-hire, even though we never see her--or Larry, for that matter--kill or even hurt anyone. Ricki is also supposedly "Gay...a lesbian," which doesn't stop Larry from crushing on her, arguing with her about the superiority of the male appendage, decaring that each relationship has "a cow" and "a bull" (he's right about the "bull," just not the way he meant it)...just generally making an ass out of himself. Not that it's hard to do that: Larry doesn't own any books and has to read the label of a bottle of Tobasco as a bedtime story for Brian. (Wonder if Tobasco had to pay for that product placement--if so, they got ripped off.)
And that's pretty much the movie, aside from some brief detours provided by stars who ought to have known better. Christopher Walken pops in as a cop who hassles Larry and Ricki in a scene so poorly constructed and framed that it looks like Walken and Lopez aren't even in the same room. (Note to Walken or whomever approves scripts for him: after appearing in The Country Bears, Kangaroo Jack and now Gigli, all of which qualify as the celluloid equivalent of used toilet paper, you might want to think about being a bit more selective.) Lanie Kazan shows up long enough to get an injection in her ass and to lavish praise on Lopez's overwhelming beauty. And Pacino's single scene is almost forgivable, since he glides into town to tell all the major characters that they're fucking idiots. (Yea, Al!)
There's plenty of blame to go around here. Neither Affleck nor Lopez should have come within a thousand miles of this film--both have been in recent hit movies and, regardless of what you thought of Daredevil or The Wedding Planner, both qualify as major movie stars. That's probably how this movie got made--through their combined star power. They met for the first time on the set of Gigli and began their overpublicized romance there, yet little of that spark makes it onto the screen--the attempted romance is nearly as lifeless as the look in Affleck's eyes as talks out of the left side of his mouth in some sort of indeterminate tough-guy accent (like he's from New York, even though his character apparently grew up in California). And Lopez seems like she's perpetually on the verge of cracking up at the mind-numbing lines of dialogue she has to deliver (or has to hear coming out of Affleck's mouth).
And there is where much of the blame must rest--with Martin Brest, who not only directed and co-produced this mess, but wrote the screenplay, which will no doubt be the subject of many film school term papers for decades to come. Brest has done good work before, in Midnight Run and Scent of a Woman (for which Pacino won his second Oscar), but here he goes wrong in every way possible. Not one word of dialogue in Gigli sounds like it's being spoken by a real human being; instead, it sounds like low-rent Kevin Smith (whose Chasing Amy also featured Affleck trying to convert a lesbian over to the hetero side) filtered through Tarentino and Runyon. The monologues are the worst, though: Affleck's praise of the design and usage of the cock is only exceeded for sheer pretentiousness and ridiculousness by Lopez's subsequent assertion of the superiority of the pussy (this while pretzeling her lithe, backlit figure through various yoga positions--like that's supposed to distract us from how stupid all of this sounds). Brian, endlessly called "the retard" by other characters, rambles on about wanting to go to "the Baywatch" (like that's a specialty shop downtown instead of a TV show) and winds up at the beach in a dance number (yes, really), just before an ending for Larry and Ricki that feels stapled on.
Brest may have wanted to make a challenging film about sexual identity and politics. A noble goal. If that was his intention, though, he missed the mark by a wide margin, instead producing something stunning--just not in any sort of good way.
As the credits finally rolled and the couple in the front row ceased snogging long enough to make good their escape, a drain in the middle of the aisle began to flood the theater due to a torrential downpour in progress outside.
Sewage bubbling up in a theater showing Gigli--somehow, that seems appropriate.
Tuesday, July 22, 2003
Review: The Master of Disguise (2002)
You might well wonder why I'd even bother to see The Master of Disguise. It hit theaters a year ago. It left theaters about five minutes later. It's aimed at children. And its stars--Dana Carvey, Brent Spiner, Jennifer Esposito, James Brolin--all found their best successes on TV, not at the multiplex. (Yeah, I know, Carvey had the Wayne's World movies, and Spiner was in the later Star Trek flicks--both of which originated on TV. So stop giving me shit and keep reading, would you?)
So why did I see The Master of Disguise, you ask? Because the price was right.
For the past couple years, the Chicago Park District has sponsored a program called "Movies in the Parks." It's a smaller scale version of the city's "Outdoor Film Festival," which shows classic films--It Happened One Night, Rear Window, A Night at the Opera on a portable movie screen in Grant Park to an increasingly large (approximately 25,000 per film) and cranky crowd. "Movies in the Parks" play to smaller neighborhood crowds and include a mix of classics like The Wizard of Oz (which I saw in my local park last year) and more recent family fare like Spy Kids and Chicken Run. And, yes, The Master of Disguise.
So, on a Friday night with no prospects beyond parking on a couch in La Casa del Terror and watching one of our faltering baseball teams disintegrate a little more, I left La Casa right around dusk and took the short walk to Horner Park.
Horner Park--named for former Illinois givernor Henry Horner--is a fairly large rectangle of green on the western bank of the north branch of the Chicago River between Montrose Avenue and Irving Park Road. The park has the usual amenities, like baseball fields and tennis courts and winding paths for joggers or bicyclists or patrol cars to cruise. It also has, on its northern end, a sizable hill used for sledding in winter, jogging up and over in summer, and wishing upon stars all year round.
This night, the hill was being used as a temporary movie theater. A portable screen was on the south end of the crest, while viewers were scattered before it. Mostly, they were families with several small children, all in various stages of antsiness; the three brothers in front of me took turns pummelling on another, when the youngest one wasn't pretending that his dad was Mount Everest. There were also couples holding hands, an old man bearing a disturbing resemblance to the first zombie to appear onscreen in the original Night of the Living Dead, and a sleeping bag that occasionally moved with a suspiciously familiar up-and-down motion. And, of course, a tall, lanky man in glasses propped against the trunk of a maple tree.
Oh. Right. The movie.
Fabbrizio Disguisey (Brolin) decides to retire from the family business of being a "Master of Disguise"--a defender of the innocent and righter of wrongs (except for the making of this movie, which was very, very wrong) with the ability to disguise himself as anyone else. His last job involved dressing up like Bo Derek (the hell?) and busting rich, evil Devlin Bowman (Spiner). Fabbrizio then opens an Italian restaurant with his wife (Edie McClurg) and their son (Carvey), keeping his son in the dark about his legacy...his destiny...
Flash forward a few years. The son, Pistachio (unfunny "funny" name--always a bad sign), is now a clumsy waiter with an oddly thick Italian accent (given that he was raised in America) in the family restaurant, where he and his little dog, The Cuteness (even the dog has an unfunny "funny" name--yeesh), make friends with a little boy between bouts of uncontrollable customer mocking. When his parents get kidnapped, though, Pistachio learns of his legacy...his destiny...from Grandpa (veteran character actor Harold Gould), who shows up to teach his dim-witted grandson the ropes and help him hire an assistant (Espositio), who just happens to be the little boy's single mom, whose boyfriend is, of course, an abusive ass just waiting to be kicked.
And who has kidnapped Fabbrizio and his wife? Why, it's Devlin Bowman! Surprise! He forces Fabbrizio (Can I call you Fab? Really? Thanks!) to disguise himself as various lower-tier celebrities to steal "the treasures of the world" (which seem to all be American, like the Liberty Bell and the Declaration of Independence). Meanwhile, Pistachio (Can I call you Pist? Really? Thanks!) and assistant Jennifer search for Mama and Papa. Hilarity ensues. Or, in this case, not.
Carvey spends much of the movie hidden under elaborate disguises (an Indian fakir, a turtle, a Tony Montana-esque loudmouth and, most appropriately, a pile of shit) that make little in the way of sense and less in the way of funny. Spiner and Esposito are usually little more than bystanders for Carvey's schtick, but it's nice to see Harold Gould get a meaty supporting role. (Hell, it's nice to see that Harold Gould is still alive.) Gould at least gets to slap Carvey around. Too bad paying customers didn't have that opportunity when the movie first came out--it might have turned a profit.
I can bitch as much as I want about The Master of Disguise, but you know what? It wasn't made for me. It was made for a much younger audience. And a lot of the kids on the hill in Horner Park on a fine July evening giggled at the disguises and silly names and fart jokes. I wouldn't say they were rolling in the grass with laughter, but they seemed pretty entertained. And the movie is amazingly short--just over an hour, not including the lengthy closing credits--so their attention was held well enough.
No, I didn't like The Master of Disguise. (Gee, could you tell?) But I got to spend an evening relaxing in the park, and the movie cost me nothing but time, of which I had plenty anyway. So I really have little to complain about, do I?
So why did I see The Master of Disguise, you ask? Because the price was right.
For the past couple years, the Chicago Park District has sponsored a program called "Movies in the Parks." It's a smaller scale version of the city's "Outdoor Film Festival," which shows classic films--It Happened One Night, Rear Window, A Night at the Opera on a portable movie screen in Grant Park to an increasingly large (approximately 25,000 per film) and cranky crowd. "Movies in the Parks" play to smaller neighborhood crowds and include a mix of classics like The Wizard of Oz (which I saw in my local park last year) and more recent family fare like Spy Kids and Chicken Run. And, yes, The Master of Disguise.
So, on a Friday night with no prospects beyond parking on a couch in La Casa del Terror and watching one of our faltering baseball teams disintegrate a little more, I left La Casa right around dusk and took the short walk to Horner Park.
Horner Park--named for former Illinois givernor Henry Horner--is a fairly large rectangle of green on the western bank of the north branch of the Chicago River between Montrose Avenue and Irving Park Road. The park has the usual amenities, like baseball fields and tennis courts and winding paths for joggers or bicyclists or patrol cars to cruise. It also has, on its northern end, a sizable hill used for sledding in winter, jogging up and over in summer, and wishing upon stars all year round.
This night, the hill was being used as a temporary movie theater. A portable screen was on the south end of the crest, while viewers were scattered before it. Mostly, they were families with several small children, all in various stages of antsiness; the three brothers in front of me took turns pummelling on another, when the youngest one wasn't pretending that his dad was Mount Everest. There were also couples holding hands, an old man bearing a disturbing resemblance to the first zombie to appear onscreen in the original Night of the Living Dead, and a sleeping bag that occasionally moved with a suspiciously familiar up-and-down motion. And, of course, a tall, lanky man in glasses propped against the trunk of a maple tree.
Oh. Right. The movie.
Fabbrizio Disguisey (Brolin) decides to retire from the family business of being a "Master of Disguise"--a defender of the innocent and righter of wrongs (except for the making of this movie, which was very, very wrong) with the ability to disguise himself as anyone else. His last job involved dressing up like Bo Derek (the hell?) and busting rich, evil Devlin Bowman (Spiner). Fabbrizio then opens an Italian restaurant with his wife (Edie McClurg) and their son (Carvey), keeping his son in the dark about his legacy...his destiny...
Flash forward a few years. The son, Pistachio (unfunny "funny" name--always a bad sign), is now a clumsy waiter with an oddly thick Italian accent (given that he was raised in America) in the family restaurant, where he and his little dog, The Cuteness (even the dog has an unfunny "funny" name--yeesh), make friends with a little boy between bouts of uncontrollable customer mocking. When his parents get kidnapped, though, Pistachio learns of his legacy...his destiny...from Grandpa (veteran character actor Harold Gould), who shows up to teach his dim-witted grandson the ropes and help him hire an assistant (Espositio), who just happens to be the little boy's single mom, whose boyfriend is, of course, an abusive ass just waiting to be kicked.
And who has kidnapped Fabbrizio and his wife? Why, it's Devlin Bowman! Surprise! He forces Fabbrizio (Can I call you Fab? Really? Thanks!) to disguise himself as various lower-tier celebrities to steal "the treasures of the world" (which seem to all be American, like the Liberty Bell and the Declaration of Independence). Meanwhile, Pistachio (Can I call you Pist? Really? Thanks!) and assistant Jennifer search for Mama and Papa. Hilarity ensues. Or, in this case, not.
Carvey spends much of the movie hidden under elaborate disguises (an Indian fakir, a turtle, a Tony Montana-esque loudmouth and, most appropriately, a pile of shit) that make little in the way of sense and less in the way of funny. Spiner and Esposito are usually little more than bystanders for Carvey's schtick, but it's nice to see Harold Gould get a meaty supporting role. (Hell, it's nice to see that Harold Gould is still alive.) Gould at least gets to slap Carvey around. Too bad paying customers didn't have that opportunity when the movie first came out--it might have turned a profit.
I can bitch as much as I want about The Master of Disguise, but you know what? It wasn't made for me. It was made for a much younger audience. And a lot of the kids on the hill in Horner Park on a fine July evening giggled at the disguises and silly names and fart jokes. I wouldn't say they were rolling in the grass with laughter, but they seemed pretty entertained. And the movie is amazingly short--just over an hour, not including the lengthy closing credits--so their attention was held well enough.
No, I didn't like The Master of Disguise. (Gee, could you tell?) But I got to spend an evening relaxing in the park, and the movie cost me nothing but time, of which I had plenty anyway. So I really have little to complain about, do I?
Monday, July 21, 2003
My Best Friend's Parents
I only had a couple of occasions to meet either or both of my best friend JB's parents.
The first was after our college graduation ceremony. I barely remember anything about that night. Fragments at best. I had to give a speech before the throng in the Auditorium Theater, so I was stressing about that for half the evening, anxious to get out of Dodge the back half of the evening and on stage the whole time. After the ceremony finally ended after what seemed like 20 hours under searing spotlights, I ran backstage and gave my cap and gown to the first person who'd take them, something my mother has never quite forgiven me for (no picture of her baby boy, the first person in our family to attend college, much less graduate, in his graduation duds).
But I met JB's parents that night. And his sister, VB--the wisest, most at-peace-with-herself person I've ever met--as well. I know I did, because both JB and VB confirm it. But I don't remember it. At all.
Years later, I helped JB move out of the Bucktown apartment he shared with a co-worker to another just a few blocks away. I always offer to help friends move. I'm dumb like that. And JB was my best friend, so of course I'd lift furniture and carry boxes. No problem. (I'd also make him pay by asking him to help me move the following year. I don't think he's forgiven me for that.) Except that I was head over heels for his roommate (not my first romantic miscalculation, and not nearly my last) and their apartment smelled strongly of her scent, Lancome, something JB said he couldn't smell at all. (I was so tuned into this woman's perfume that I once smelled her as she drove past me in her VW Jetta. Really. I can't make up shit that weird.) Neither JB nor I had a driver's license (and we still don't--that would be cute, except it's not), so his dad drove up from the South Side to handle the truck.
So I know I talked to the man. I also know that he asked JB about me. "Is he okay?" Apparently, I looked sick, pale, drained. Probably because I'd been fighting the urge to cry or throw up or both the whole time. Toward the end of the move, the roommate showed up (with her weightlifter boyfriend) and I got out of there as quickly as my feet would carry me. (Trust me--that's damn fast.) So I didn't spend much time talking to JB's dad. Not as much as I should have, anyway. And I don't remember a word of any conversation we had.
I'm ashamed to say that, on both occasions, I was so tightly wrapped in my own dramaramas that I didn't take the opportunity to get to know the people who raised JB, who helped him become the fantastic friend he is, and who dispensed knowledge and wisdom through him from time to time. (My love life, twisted as it could become, needed wiser minds to try to untangle it.) Because I won't get that chance now.
Last week, JB and VB lost both of their parents--Dad to cancer on Saturday, Mom to a heart attack the following Thursday.
I can't wrap my brain around what JB, VB and the rest of the family going through. I can only comprehend a fraction of it. The whole is overwhelming. And saying "I'm there for you however you need me to be" seems woefully inadequate. JB and VB were there for me when my dad passed away. When Gray Cat had to be put to sleep. For every romantic conflagration. (I think that if one, just one, of my situations had worked out in my favor, they'd have been happier for me that I'd have been for myself. And maybe, someday, that can yet happen.)
I know that the family is large and tightly knit, so there is plenty of support at this sad time. And I know they know my heart is with them. I've thought about them constantly this past week. And I wish that I could have seen their mom and dad one last time, if only to tell them how wonderful their children are and how proud they should be for having brought such caring, loving, truly fabulous people into this world--people who've enriched my life more than I can ever properly express.
Somehow, though, I believe they already know.
The first was after our college graduation ceremony. I barely remember anything about that night. Fragments at best. I had to give a speech before the throng in the Auditorium Theater, so I was stressing about that for half the evening, anxious to get out of Dodge the back half of the evening and on stage the whole time. After the ceremony finally ended after what seemed like 20 hours under searing spotlights, I ran backstage and gave my cap and gown to the first person who'd take them, something my mother has never quite forgiven me for (no picture of her baby boy, the first person in our family to attend college, much less graduate, in his graduation duds).
But I met JB's parents that night. And his sister, VB--the wisest, most at-peace-with-herself person I've ever met--as well. I know I did, because both JB and VB confirm it. But I don't remember it. At all.
Years later, I helped JB move out of the Bucktown apartment he shared with a co-worker to another just a few blocks away. I always offer to help friends move. I'm dumb like that. And JB was my best friend, so of course I'd lift furniture and carry boxes. No problem. (I'd also make him pay by asking him to help me move the following year. I don't think he's forgiven me for that.) Except that I was head over heels for his roommate (not my first romantic miscalculation, and not nearly my last) and their apartment smelled strongly of her scent, Lancome, something JB said he couldn't smell at all. (I was so tuned into this woman's perfume that I once smelled her as she drove past me in her VW Jetta. Really. I can't make up shit that weird.) Neither JB nor I had a driver's license (and we still don't--that would be cute, except it's not), so his dad drove up from the South Side to handle the truck.
So I know I talked to the man. I also know that he asked JB about me. "Is he okay?" Apparently, I looked sick, pale, drained. Probably because I'd been fighting the urge to cry or throw up or both the whole time. Toward the end of the move, the roommate showed up (with her weightlifter boyfriend) and I got out of there as quickly as my feet would carry me. (Trust me--that's damn fast.) So I didn't spend much time talking to JB's dad. Not as much as I should have, anyway. And I don't remember a word of any conversation we had.
I'm ashamed to say that, on both occasions, I was so tightly wrapped in my own dramaramas that I didn't take the opportunity to get to know the people who raised JB, who helped him become the fantastic friend he is, and who dispensed knowledge and wisdom through him from time to time. (My love life, twisted as it could become, needed wiser minds to try to untangle it.) Because I won't get that chance now.
Last week, JB and VB lost both of their parents--Dad to cancer on Saturday, Mom to a heart attack the following Thursday.
I can't wrap my brain around what JB, VB and the rest of the family going through. I can only comprehend a fraction of it. The whole is overwhelming. And saying "I'm there for you however you need me to be" seems woefully inadequate. JB and VB were there for me when my dad passed away. When Gray Cat had to be put to sleep. For every romantic conflagration. (I think that if one, just one, of my situations had worked out in my favor, they'd have been happier for me that I'd have been for myself. And maybe, someday, that can yet happen.)
I know that the family is large and tightly knit, so there is plenty of support at this sad time. And I know they know my heart is with them. I've thought about them constantly this past week. And I wish that I could have seen their mom and dad one last time, if only to tell them how wonderful their children are and how proud they should be for having brought such caring, loving, truly fabulous people into this world--people who've enriched my life more than I can ever properly express.
Somehow, though, I believe they already know.
Thursday, July 17, 2003
Saturday Night at the Laundromat
Saturday night. People across this city are doing all sorts of who-knows-what. They're out drinking. Dancing. Loving each other. Killing each other (or themselves). Staring at what passes for network programming. Laughing out loud at a party. Crying softly by themselves. Beating off.
Me? I'm at the laundromat next to the Pallid Poultry, making dirty things clean again.
I wish I could say that this is an optional trip. That I just felt like getting out of La Casa del Terror. Didn't like what was on TV. Wasn't especially hungry. Didn't feel waxing the tadpole. (Which I don't do much these days anyway. What's the point, really? I mean, the real joy of sex for me was in trying to bring my partner off. Haven't had a girlfriend in a bit. A while. Okay. Years. I've even tossed--no pun intended--most of my never-that-extensive-anyhow porn collection. Just wasting space. More room for storing action figures no longer on display.)
Nope. This trip to the laundromat is a necessity. Not just because I'm short on wearable clothing--how picky of society to dictate that we actually look and smell presentable when we leave our homes! The Nerve!--but because, without prior (or even post) announcement, the washers and dryers were removed from my apartment building. I found out the hard way: I was down to my last clean set of wearables--shirt, pants, boxers (or briefs, whichever it was) and mismatched socks--and I lugged an plastic milk crate's worth of clothing down to the basement laundry room, only to find four large, dusty squares where the washers and dryers used to be.
As I trundled back up the stairs, I passed the kids who live downstairs. "Y'know," I said, "It's really hard to do laundry without any washers or dryers."
They all chimed in at once. "Wha?" "They're gone?" "Oh, snap!" "That's messed up."
"That's as good a way to put it as any," I sighed, continuing my trip to the dark at the top of the stairs.
Not that tonight is my first trip to this laundromat. Oh no. I've been here plenty of times over the years, usually when one (or both) of the washers had broken down, or when I had way too much for the standard-sized units in our building to take, like blankets or the coverings for the futon.
Tonight, I load up the shopping cart Mom gave me when I moved with the basic, practical stuff. Shirts. Pants. Boxers and briefs. Socks that occasionally match. Nothing exotic. Just the stuff that gets me through the week. I also load up the canvas shopping bag. Detergent. Journal. Reading material. Coin purse bulging with quarters. Tennis ball (more on that later).
There's a TV at the laundromat--a Panasonic with iffy reception on its best night--and sometimes I pay attention to what's on the screen. Most nights, given that most of the viewers are Hispanic, we're treated to Mexican soap operas--much more explicit in terms of sex and violence than their north-of-the-border cousins--or variety shows--one show featured a busty blonde sitting next to a Fidel Castro impersonator; another had grown men with bushy mustaches dressed as school children. Other nights, American news magazines fill the bill. Tonight, it's one of the local access channels, starting off with Bollywood highlights and finishing with a preacher fumbling his way through the Scriptures ("It's Verse 53...no, 52...okay, it's 51...").
While the wash is going, I write in my journal. I get most of my journal writing done here these days. I feel sorry for any poor bastard who tries to decipher my cursive after I'm gone. Not like anyone's ever going to bother to translate the daily outs and ins. The love poetry never given. The private triumphs. The public flameouts. Life.
When I get tired of that--either my hand cramps or my mind does--I read whatever book I'm working through. Last week, it was If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor. Bruce Campbell's autobiography. (And don't you dare say, "Who?") This week? Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye. The mystery isn't the reason to read Chandler. It never is. He makes the language dance. Sometimes slow and close. Sometimes wild and winging. If you can ignore the racial epithets. And misogyny. And homophobia. Could chalk it up putting words in the characters' mouths. Or the times in which his novels were written. Or sun spots. If you choose to ignore them. I don't. I note them. Grimace. Move on with the dance.
Once the wash finishes, I toss the wet clothes into the dryers across the way and flip in a couple fabric softener sheets after. If I remember to. Which I usually don't. The first load goes in fine. The second is still sopping. The washer is broken. Not draining right. Extra quarters for that dryer. Maybe it'll work. Maybe it won't. Extra time away from home. Not a bad thing.
There are few things more soothing than watching a load of clothing tumbling in a dryer window. Watching Guinness settle in a pint glass, maybe. Or following a plane from one end of the horizon to the other. Or noting the rise and fall of the fur of a cat asleep. Or the swirl of the stars on a clear Michigan night. Or my reflection in the glass as jeans, plaid short sleeves, more-or-less-white socks tumble past.
There's only so much of that I can stand, though, so I return to reading. Or scribble some more in the spiralbound notebook. Or scan The Reader for a better job. Or walk next door to Pallid Poultry for something to drink. Used to be more fun to do that when the cute alternachick was behind the counter. Black hair cut in a bob topping white skin, direct blue eyes and a pierced right nostril. Just the kind of girl I could fall for. Just the kind of girl who could never fall for me. Just as well that she left Pallid Pountry a couple months ago. Shit job anyway. I pick up some Gatorade and return to the laundromat.
(Side note: I was just paying for my haircut at the neighborhood SuperCuts when the young man behind the counter called the next name. The name seemed familiar, so I turned...to find the alternachick in the waiting area, playing with her hair. "Sweaty," she said to the stylist. "I got mine done 'cause it gets curly," I chimed in. It's true--my hair gets what a friend affectionately referred to as "The Captain Von Trapp Wave." The alternachick headed for the hair-cutting chair. "Didn't you used to work at Pallid Poultry?" I asked, pretending to be unsure of where I'd seen her before. She confirmed that she did. "Nice to see you again." "You too." Then she asked to use the bathroom. That was all. That was enough.)
By the time the dryer finishes its work, I'm the last one left in the laundromat. I Usually am on Saturday nights. Everyone else has gone wherever they need to go. I unload the dryers. The load from the washer that didn't drain properly is still damp. Doesn't matter. Can spread the sweaters and undies out on the chest in the kitchen and let them air-dry. The Girlish Girls won't sleep on them. They much prefer sleeping on me.
I load the shopping cart up again, this time with folded, clean clothing, shirts on top (to be hung in the closet as soon as I get home). I cross the busy street quickly, but carefully. Once dropped a pile of clean dress shirts on the dotted line down the middle of the road. Scooped the shirts up and made the sidewalk just as headlights approached fast from the west. They weren't slowing down, either. Would be stupid to get killed over clean laundry. People have died for less. I'd rather not. Not just yet. Not for this.
I turn down my alley and take the tennis ball out of the bag. Cock my pitching arm back. Wait for sounds in the dark from either side. Been rats here lately. Big rats. First time in all the years I've lived in this neighborhood that I've seen rats. Racoons? Sure. Rabbits? Absolutely. Possums? You betcha.
But rats? Never. No movement tonight. Nothing zipping across cracked asphalt. Like the tennis ball would do much good anyway. Just an attention getter. Rats are strange. Sometimes they run away when they see lights or hear human footfalls. Sometimes they run toward the sound. Once, a rat dashed across Dearborn Street near Daley Center Plaza, ran right up to my feet, turned around, ran all the way back, vanished down the sewer. No rhyme. No reason. Just did what it wanted. I could learn a thing or two there.
Back home. Hang the shirts in the closet. Spread out the damp clothes on any open surface. Pet the girls. Settle in for SNL. (Mmmm...Tina Fey.) Not much to laugh about. On the TV or otherwise. But at least for the moment, La Casa is filled with the scent of fresh, clean clothing. There are worse things to smell on a Saturday night. And better, too.
Me? I'm at the laundromat next to the Pallid Poultry, making dirty things clean again.
I wish I could say that this is an optional trip. That I just felt like getting out of La Casa del Terror. Didn't like what was on TV. Wasn't especially hungry. Didn't feel waxing the tadpole. (Which I don't do much these days anyway. What's the point, really? I mean, the real joy of sex for me was in trying to bring my partner off. Haven't had a girlfriend in a bit. A while. Okay. Years. I've even tossed--no pun intended--most of my never-that-extensive-anyhow porn collection. Just wasting space. More room for storing action figures no longer on display.)
Nope. This trip to the laundromat is a necessity. Not just because I'm short on wearable clothing--how picky of society to dictate that we actually look and smell presentable when we leave our homes! The Nerve!--but because, without prior (or even post) announcement, the washers and dryers were removed from my apartment building. I found out the hard way: I was down to my last clean set of wearables--shirt, pants, boxers (or briefs, whichever it was) and mismatched socks--and I lugged an plastic milk crate's worth of clothing down to the basement laundry room, only to find four large, dusty squares where the washers and dryers used to be.
As I trundled back up the stairs, I passed the kids who live downstairs. "Y'know," I said, "It's really hard to do laundry without any washers or dryers."
They all chimed in at once. "Wha?" "They're gone?" "Oh, snap!" "That's messed up."
"That's as good a way to put it as any," I sighed, continuing my trip to the dark at the top of the stairs.
Not that tonight is my first trip to this laundromat. Oh no. I've been here plenty of times over the years, usually when one (or both) of the washers had broken down, or when I had way too much for the standard-sized units in our building to take, like blankets or the coverings for the futon.
Tonight, I load up the shopping cart Mom gave me when I moved with the basic, practical stuff. Shirts. Pants. Boxers and briefs. Socks that occasionally match. Nothing exotic. Just the stuff that gets me through the week. I also load up the canvas shopping bag. Detergent. Journal. Reading material. Coin purse bulging with quarters. Tennis ball (more on that later).
There's a TV at the laundromat--a Panasonic with iffy reception on its best night--and sometimes I pay attention to what's on the screen. Most nights, given that most of the viewers are Hispanic, we're treated to Mexican soap operas--much more explicit in terms of sex and violence than their north-of-the-border cousins--or variety shows--one show featured a busty blonde sitting next to a Fidel Castro impersonator; another had grown men with bushy mustaches dressed as school children. Other nights, American news magazines fill the bill. Tonight, it's one of the local access channels, starting off with Bollywood highlights and finishing with a preacher fumbling his way through the Scriptures ("It's Verse 53...no, 52...okay, it's 51...").
While the wash is going, I write in my journal. I get most of my journal writing done here these days. I feel sorry for any poor bastard who tries to decipher my cursive after I'm gone. Not like anyone's ever going to bother to translate the daily outs and ins. The love poetry never given. The private triumphs. The public flameouts. Life.
When I get tired of that--either my hand cramps or my mind does--I read whatever book I'm working through. Last week, it was If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor. Bruce Campbell's autobiography. (And don't you dare say, "Who?") This week? Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye. The mystery isn't the reason to read Chandler. It never is. He makes the language dance. Sometimes slow and close. Sometimes wild and winging. If you can ignore the racial epithets. And misogyny. And homophobia. Could chalk it up putting words in the characters' mouths. Or the times in which his novels were written. Or sun spots. If you choose to ignore them. I don't. I note them. Grimace. Move on with the dance.
Once the wash finishes, I toss the wet clothes into the dryers across the way and flip in a couple fabric softener sheets after. If I remember to. Which I usually don't. The first load goes in fine. The second is still sopping. The washer is broken. Not draining right. Extra quarters for that dryer. Maybe it'll work. Maybe it won't. Extra time away from home. Not a bad thing.
There are few things more soothing than watching a load of clothing tumbling in a dryer window. Watching Guinness settle in a pint glass, maybe. Or following a plane from one end of the horizon to the other. Or noting the rise and fall of the fur of a cat asleep. Or the swirl of the stars on a clear Michigan night. Or my reflection in the glass as jeans, plaid short sleeves, more-or-less-white socks tumble past.
There's only so much of that I can stand, though, so I return to reading. Or scribble some more in the spiralbound notebook. Or scan The Reader for a better job. Or walk next door to Pallid Poultry for something to drink. Used to be more fun to do that when the cute alternachick was behind the counter. Black hair cut in a bob topping white skin, direct blue eyes and a pierced right nostril. Just the kind of girl I could fall for. Just the kind of girl who could never fall for me. Just as well that she left Pallid Pountry a couple months ago. Shit job anyway. I pick up some Gatorade and return to the laundromat.
(Side note: I was just paying for my haircut at the neighborhood SuperCuts when the young man behind the counter called the next name. The name seemed familiar, so I turned...to find the alternachick in the waiting area, playing with her hair. "Sweaty," she said to the stylist. "I got mine done 'cause it gets curly," I chimed in. It's true--my hair gets what a friend affectionately referred to as "The Captain Von Trapp Wave." The alternachick headed for the hair-cutting chair. "Didn't you used to work at Pallid Poultry?" I asked, pretending to be unsure of where I'd seen her before. She confirmed that she did. "Nice to see you again." "You too." Then she asked to use the bathroom. That was all. That was enough.)
By the time the dryer finishes its work, I'm the last one left in the laundromat. I Usually am on Saturday nights. Everyone else has gone wherever they need to go. I unload the dryers. The load from the washer that didn't drain properly is still damp. Doesn't matter. Can spread the sweaters and undies out on the chest in the kitchen and let them air-dry. The Girlish Girls won't sleep on them. They much prefer sleeping on me.
I load the shopping cart up again, this time with folded, clean clothing, shirts on top (to be hung in the closet as soon as I get home). I cross the busy street quickly, but carefully. Once dropped a pile of clean dress shirts on the dotted line down the middle of the road. Scooped the shirts up and made the sidewalk just as headlights approached fast from the west. They weren't slowing down, either. Would be stupid to get killed over clean laundry. People have died for less. I'd rather not. Not just yet. Not for this.
I turn down my alley and take the tennis ball out of the bag. Cock my pitching arm back. Wait for sounds in the dark from either side. Been rats here lately. Big rats. First time in all the years I've lived in this neighborhood that I've seen rats. Racoons? Sure. Rabbits? Absolutely. Possums? You betcha.
But rats? Never. No movement tonight. Nothing zipping across cracked asphalt. Like the tennis ball would do much good anyway. Just an attention getter. Rats are strange. Sometimes they run away when they see lights or hear human footfalls. Sometimes they run toward the sound. Once, a rat dashed across Dearborn Street near Daley Center Plaza, ran right up to my feet, turned around, ran all the way back, vanished down the sewer. No rhyme. No reason. Just did what it wanted. I could learn a thing or two there.
Back home. Hang the shirts in the closet. Spread out the damp clothes on any open surface. Pet the girls. Settle in for SNL. (Mmmm...Tina Fey.) Not much to laugh about. On the TV or otherwise. But at least for the moment, La Casa is filled with the scent of fresh, clean clothing. There are worse things to smell on a Saturday night. And better, too.
Wednesday, July 16, 2003
Review: 28 Days Later...(2002)
The young man opens his eyes. Where is he? On a bed. Restricted by tubes and tape. A hospital. But where are the nurses? The doctors? No one in sight. He gets up. Pulls out the tubes. Puts on some clothes. Stumbles down the hall. "Hello?" No answer. Not in the hall. Not in the street below. Not in downtown London. Not anywhere.
He doesn't know about what happened at Cambridge. He doesn't know about the monkeys. Or Rage.
Animal-rights activists break into a research lab to set the animals free. A tech begs them not to. Says the chimpanzee is infected with Rage. They don't listen. Open the cage. Set loose the Rage. Doesn't take much. A bite. A drop of blood in the mouth or eye. An activist is infected. Then another. Then another. The infection spreads. The dominoes fall.
28 days later, a young man walks through downtown London and thinks the city deserted. If only it were.
These opening moments of 28 Days Later... are bloody near perfect. The wandering young man--a bicycle messenger named Jim (Cillian Murphy) who had the misfortune of getting sideswiped by a truck and knocked into a coma just before the outbreak--gets to stand in for the audience. With the exception of the information about the breakin at Cambridge, where we get to see the first moments of contagion, we don't know any more than Jim does. We can deduce more--that the infection wiped out London at least, if not all of England--but Jim find this out soon enough anyway when he makes the innocent-enough mistake of walking into a church filled with infected Londoners. Blood-spattered. Red-eyed. Hungry. Jim, weak but sensible, runs for his life. Other survivors arrive. Jim gets to live. For now.
This is hardly fresh territory. George Romero defined the flesh-chomping zombie genre with his trilogy of Living Dead movies, but even he wasn't the first to play on this gore-caked ground. Richard Matheson's novella, I Am Legend, about a plague that turns much of the world's population into vampires, set the framework for much of what was to come and was itself twice filmed (as The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price and The Omega Man with Charlton Heston, with a third film version rumored for years).
Director Danny Boyle (of Trainspotting fame) and screenwriter Alex Garland seem fully aware of the restrictions and expectations of the genre they're working in and attempt to work around them. Their most noticable--and most welcome--change to the plague itself. Victims don't die; they are transformed, and hence aren't really zombies at all (they're referred to regularly as "infecteds"). And the disease itself is specific in origin--a biological weapon experiment that goes about as wrong as it can go--rather than vague (a crashed probe in Night of the Living Dead) or entirely unexplained (Romero's two Dead sequels). The Rage virus also has a demonic logic to it: Turn it loose in a city or country you don't like and watch its citizens tear each other apart.
Boyle and Garland do acknowledge their predecessors, though, especially Romero. When a group of survivors--Jim, Selena (Naomie Harris), Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and Frank's young daughter, Hannah (Megan Burns)--follows the directions on the one remaining radio broadcast and make their way toward a military outpost north of Manchester, they make stops along the way, including a shopping spree in a supermarket and a visit to a presumably deserted gas station, that echo heavily of Dawn of the Dead (which mostly took place in a shopping mall).
Unfortunately, the back third of the movie, which takes place after the survivors reach the outpost, also echoes Romero--but not in a good way. The soldiers, led by the deceptively calm Major West (Christopher Eccleston), prove to be a greater threat than the infecteds, just as the soldiers and scientists in Romero's third and least-effective zombie epic, Day of the Dead, wound up being more monsterous than the monsters could ever be. The shambling, slobbering things that were once like you and me might be out for blood, but only because it's now their nature. To be cruel, hateful, evil...these are conscious decisions. We, the survivors, the "normals," have a choice. The infecteds/zombies don't.
This last act may turn 28 Days Later... from a thoughtful study of characters under the ultimate strain to a more ordinary action/horror flick. But enough good will and interest in the characters' fates has been built (mostly through intense, sensitive performances, especially from Harris and the ever-underestimated Gleeson) that it's easier to stay with the movie until the end, even if that end could have been less cliched, could have been as finely detailed, thought-provoking, sharped-edged as the beginning and middle were.
He doesn't know about what happened at Cambridge. He doesn't know about the monkeys. Or Rage.
Animal-rights activists break into a research lab to set the animals free. A tech begs them not to. Says the chimpanzee is infected with Rage. They don't listen. Open the cage. Set loose the Rage. Doesn't take much. A bite. A drop of blood in the mouth or eye. An activist is infected. Then another. Then another. The infection spreads. The dominoes fall.
28 days later, a young man walks through downtown London and thinks the city deserted. If only it were.
These opening moments of 28 Days Later... are bloody near perfect. The wandering young man--a bicycle messenger named Jim (Cillian Murphy) who had the misfortune of getting sideswiped by a truck and knocked into a coma just before the outbreak--gets to stand in for the audience. With the exception of the information about the breakin at Cambridge, where we get to see the first moments of contagion, we don't know any more than Jim does. We can deduce more--that the infection wiped out London at least, if not all of England--but Jim find this out soon enough anyway when he makes the innocent-enough mistake of walking into a church filled with infected Londoners. Blood-spattered. Red-eyed. Hungry. Jim, weak but sensible, runs for his life. Other survivors arrive. Jim gets to live. For now.
This is hardly fresh territory. George Romero defined the flesh-chomping zombie genre with his trilogy of Living Dead movies, but even he wasn't the first to play on this gore-caked ground. Richard Matheson's novella, I Am Legend, about a plague that turns much of the world's population into vampires, set the framework for much of what was to come and was itself twice filmed (as The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price and The Omega Man with Charlton Heston, with a third film version rumored for years).
Director Danny Boyle (of Trainspotting fame) and screenwriter Alex Garland seem fully aware of the restrictions and expectations of the genre they're working in and attempt to work around them. Their most noticable--and most welcome--change to the plague itself. Victims don't die; they are transformed, and hence aren't really zombies at all (they're referred to regularly as "infecteds"). And the disease itself is specific in origin--a biological weapon experiment that goes about as wrong as it can go--rather than vague (a crashed probe in Night of the Living Dead) or entirely unexplained (Romero's two Dead sequels). The Rage virus also has a demonic logic to it: Turn it loose in a city or country you don't like and watch its citizens tear each other apart.
Boyle and Garland do acknowledge their predecessors, though, especially Romero. When a group of survivors--Jim, Selena (Naomie Harris), Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and Frank's young daughter, Hannah (Megan Burns)--follows the directions on the one remaining radio broadcast and make their way toward a military outpost north of Manchester, they make stops along the way, including a shopping spree in a supermarket and a visit to a presumably deserted gas station, that echo heavily of Dawn of the Dead (which mostly took place in a shopping mall).
Unfortunately, the back third of the movie, which takes place after the survivors reach the outpost, also echoes Romero--but not in a good way. The soldiers, led by the deceptively calm Major West (Christopher Eccleston), prove to be a greater threat than the infecteds, just as the soldiers and scientists in Romero's third and least-effective zombie epic, Day of the Dead, wound up being more monsterous than the monsters could ever be. The shambling, slobbering things that were once like you and me might be out for blood, but only because it's now their nature. To be cruel, hateful, evil...these are conscious decisions. We, the survivors, the "normals," have a choice. The infecteds/zombies don't.
This last act may turn 28 Days Later... from a thoughtful study of characters under the ultimate strain to a more ordinary action/horror flick. But enough good will and interest in the characters' fates has been built (mostly through intense, sensitive performances, especially from Harris and the ever-underestimated Gleeson) that it's easier to stay with the movie until the end, even if that end could have been less cliched, could have been as finely detailed, thought-provoking, sharped-edged as the beginning and middle were.
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