Apr
8
Will “Star Wars” Ever Go Away?
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Last weekend, I watched Red Letter Media’s 90-minute takedown of “Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones” and enjoyed it immensely. As far as I’m concerned, the epic fail that is the prequel trilogy — and let’s once and for all acknowledge the fact that those three movies are artistic failures — finally justifies its existence by being fodder for critics to assail in lengthy video blogs.
That being said, I’d be pleased as punch if the “Star Wars” saga bowed out of the cultural landscape altogether, like for the rest of my natural life. I’m tired of it. Two out of the six movies are good. That’s only one-third of the theatrically-released live-action films. I haven’t seen any of the myriad cartoon series (“Droids,” “Ewoks,” “Clone Wars,” etc.), I don’t remember the made-for-TV “Ewok Adventure” movies that came out when I was kid, and I can’t muster any enthusiasm for that bullshitty “Holiday Special” that fans seem to have an unhealthy fascination with. And now there’s news of a “Star Wars” sitcom in the works. Jesus H. Christ.
When, if ever, will “Star Wars” reach its saturation point? When will people come to the conclusion that there’s no more story to tell, the characters are all ciphers and clock-wipes are crummy transitions? When will the apologists be carted off to lunatic asylums?
Full disclosure: I was once a fanboy and am now in recovery. It was a difficult process, but not impossible. I gave away all my “Star Wars” action figures, I sold the prequel trilogy back to Amoeba Music for a few dollars in cash, and I made a vow never to revisit any of the original trilogy films until I’d seen every other movie ever made at least once. I simply live one day at a time and take things as they come.
It was easy for me because “Star Wars” wasn’t something that was woven into the fabric of my childhood. I was two years away from being born when the first film came out and only vaguely remember seeing “Return of the Jedi” in the theater during its initial release. No, I got into the movies during my late-teens. However, many of the hardcore fans grew up on the movies, and their nostalgia for the franchise prevents them realizing what an absolute dung heap it is for the most part.
And so, I’ve sat through countless film school classes that have been hijacked by “Star Wars” fanboys, pontificating about how the characters, the structure and so on and so forth apply their favorite movies. It’s as though no other movie comes close. Everything’s so boring and insular when you view it through the lens of a single film or franchise. It’s even more irritating when you realize the last good “Star Wars” movie is thirty friggin’ years old. I’m astonished that people still support and defend a film series that has spent the past three decades insulting its target audience’s intelligence. Even so, they lap it up.
Seriously, I think of “Star Wars” fans the same way I do Twi-Hards, those tasteless bimbos who gush over “Twilight.” There’s so little reason to like something as aggressively stupid as either franchise. These goofballs apply meaning to properties that have none, see depth where there isn’t any, and invest so much of themselves in something that ain’t worth it. Why can’t these weirdos become drug addicts like most socially inept young people with no creativity or ambition?
It’s depressing for me to think that “Star Wars” will never go away. It will always be there, stinking up the place. Oh, well, at least Red Letter Media will go after “Revenge of the Sith” sooner or later.
-Brad Lohan
Apr
6
Horror movies, by and large, are known for their monsters. What’s unique about the “Final Destination” series is that there isn’t a physical, visible adversary who stalks and kills our heroes. Rather, the specter of Death is an invisible force. It’s the an interesting approach, one that bucks the cheap scares and torture porn gimmickry that average folks find distasteful about horror pictures. That isn’t to say the comeuppances are quick and painless in the “Final Destination” films. But the viewing experience is more satisfying than your traditional dead teenager movies because the tension is built so expertly.
The first “Final Destination” film is based on a script that was originally pitched as an “X-Files” episode. It stars Devon Sawa as Alex Browning, a high school student about to take an international flight to France on what promises to be a rowdy senior trip. But when Alex has a terrifying premonition that the plane will explode upon takeoff, he and a handful of his classmates are removed from the aircraft. Then flight 180 actually does go ka-boom, and the survivors have to cope with survivor’s guilt as well as the creeping fear that maybe they’ve only prolonged the inevitable. Shortly after the disaster, members of the group begin meeting with untimely demises one right after the other. Death isn’t about to let them off so easily.
What director James Wong gets so right with the original “Final Destination” is the suspense. All the buildup and misdirection that precedes each kill is simply agonizing. As audience members, we’re not dreading some unearned cheap scare in the form of a loud noise. Instead, we’re watching helplessly while these poor schmucks inadvertently engineer their own bitter ends. Many of the kills have a Rube Goldberg-esque quality to them, but I have to admit that some of the better ones in the series are quick and dirty. My favorite is when the girl walks into the path of a bus that’s apparently moving a sub-light speed.
“Final Destination 2″ kicks up the grue another couple of notches. Though he survives the first film (barely), Alex is written out of the sequel, and we learn from a newspaper article that he’s since been killed by a falling brick (read: his agent asked for a salary hike). However, Ali Larter, the Final Girl from the original, brings her pre-”Heroes” star wattage to the proceedings, returning as the oddly-named Clear Rivers. In the second film, Kimberly Corman (AJ Cook) has a premonition about a pileup on the highway and saves the lives of several commuters. But, wouldn’t you know it, their bodies start stacking up in a variety of grisly ways. The best of the lot is the kid who gets pancaked by a plummeting pane of glass.
The first sequel builds upon the original, as the characters discover each has a connection to the dearly departed in movie one. They also find out how they can put the kibosh on Death’s design, or at least they think they can. “Final Destination 2″ is a worthy follow-up, and some might say it’s the best of the series. This chapter wasn’t directed by Wong, but “Butterfly Effect” auteur, David R. Ellis. The two filmmakers alternate installments. Wong returned to the director’s chair for movie three, and the Ellis was back at it again with the fourth. The first efforts for both directors are their best showings. After “Final Destination 2,” there’s a dip in quality as the concept loses steam.
“Final Destination 3″ sees a handful of teens avoiding a rollercoaster disaster after Wendy Christensen (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) has a disturbing premonition that their Senior Night is seriously about the come off the rails. My chief complaint about the catastrophe that kicks off the film is that it’s not quite on par with the first two films’ epic fails. It’s a little on the small side when compared to the horrific events that kick off movies one and two.
Another problem “Final Destination 3″ suffers is being the second sequel. The freshness isn’t there, and no new twists are thrown in this time around. Movie two introduces the idea of tearing up Death’s to-do list by creating a “new life.” The third film just retreads familiar territory. It also feels incredibly episodic as we move from one kill to the next.
The fourth film, “The Final Destination,” is clearly embarrassed to have a number in the title. I’m also not sure if you’re supposed to add emphasis to any of the words in the title. Is it “The Final Destination” or “The Final Destination?” Considering that there have been four movies in a row with the word “final” in their titles, a sense of finality is pretty much out the window. But all of that’s beside the point.
This one’s in 3-D!
In movie four, Nick O’Bannon (Bobby Campo) saves his friends from a wreck at a racing event — something I like to call “NASCARnage” — but it isn’t long before the kids begin finding new ways to die horribly. “The Final Destination” gets all metatexual at the climax when Nick’s girlfriend goes to a 3-D film in a multiplex that’s full of more explosive materials that the movie house in “Inglourious Basterds.” The 3-D presentation in this film is the poke-in-the-eyes variety, and yet “My Bloody Valentine 3-D” is a better eye-gouging 3-D experience.
Story-wise, there’s nothing new. Like the third film, “The Final Destination” is essentially a remake of the original. There isn’t really wrong with that. Horror movies are generally cynical cash grabs. But revisiting the films back-to-back as I did, I became bored with how the series becomes content with just spinning its wheels with the latter two films.
All in, the “Final Destination” movies are nonetheless a stronger four-part saga than some of the previous quadrilogies I’ve dissected. There isn’t a single chapter I out-and-out hate, something of a miracle in and of itself. Word is a fifth film is in the works. If so, my hope is that they find a creative team that can breath new life into the series.
-Brad Lohan
Apr
5
“You’re so ripe, Joey. And it’s harvest time.”
-Pinhead, “Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth”
At the end of “Hellbound: Hellraiser II,” Pinhead and the Cenobites become trapped in a block of wood. It can happen. Movie three in the series picks up some time after the events of the second film. The block of wood has somehow evolved into a marble statue. It can happen. And the statue’s now up for sale at an art auction house, where the only employee looks like a homeless person. It can happen.
In “Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth,” a nightclub owner named JP Monroe — who looks like that one guy in New Kids on the Block, the one that most closely resembles Bizarro — buys the creepy Cenobite statue, puts it in his loft and inadvertently feeds his one night stand to it. This reawakens Pinhead. Pinhead’s still trapped within the statue for the most part. He only has freedom of movement from the neck up. Pinhead must feed on another poor soul to fully regain his strength and get out of his strange predicament. And so it falls on JP to find another girl that he can offer up as lunch to the demon.
Terry Farrell, perhaps most famous for her turn as the freckled transgender space alien Dax on “Deep Space 9,” plays a news reporter named Joey Summerskill in the film. After doing a puff piece at a local hospital, she watches as a patient is wheeled into the ER with all these meathooks and chains sticking out of him. Then his head explodes. Joey thinks there might be a story here. So she tracks down a club girl named Terri (Paula Marshall), who not only has the Lament Configuration, but recently broke up with mean ol’ JP! Then JP calls Terri out of the blue and says he wants to patch things up with her. Egad!
“Hellraiser III” is a more action-oriented installment than the previous two. This is the first “Hellraiser” flick with Vietnam flashbacks, believe it or not. Pinhead’s given much more prominence in this entry as well. Once he breaks out of the statue, he wreaks all sorts of havok in a nightclub, turning a half-dozen people into Cenobites with funky, character-appropriate gimmicks. Joey’s cameraman becomes a Cenobite with a camera lens for an eye, the DJ becomes a Cenobite who slings razor-sharp CDs, the bartender becomes a Cenobite with a cocktail shaker filled with gasoline and the ability to breathe fire. It’s all very comic book-y and therefore awesome.
I ended up liking “Hellraiser III” more than I remembered. It’s not a great movie by any measure, but it’s saved by its z-grade charms, like the chase through the virtually unpopulated backlot that doubles for Manhattan with its exploding fire hydrants and manhole covers zinging through the air. It’s a radical departure from the first two chapters to be sure, but the next film goes even farther by launching Pinhead into outer space. It can happen.
-Brad Lohan
Apr
1
I had lunch with James (I call him “Jim”) Cameron at Baja Fresh today. I was buying, so we kept it low-key. At any rate, between bites of our Diablo Burritos, he offered me the job of scripting a follow-up to the most successful blue movie of all time. I peed in my pants a little bit and told him I’d have to think it over. I didn’t want to seem overeager. Then I choked on my burrito, lost consciousness and awoke to find that Jim had performed a tracheotomy on me with the straw from my refillable beverage cup. I took that as a sign. We made a handshake deal right there on the floor of Baja Fresh.
Now I have no idea what to write. How do you top the movie that topped them all? Obviously, the film will have to be in 3D, which has become the standard for big-ticket movies of late. But what sort of game-changing gimmick can I bring to the table? Smell-O-Vision? Hey, that’s not a bad one.
Throughout “Avatar,” I kept wondering what Pandora smelled like. We’re told the planet’s atmosphere is noxious to humans. So does it smell like somebody farted? Smell-O-Vision would make the theatrical experience even more game-changingly immersive by filling our nostrils with aroma of Pandora.
Now that the added gimmickry has been taken care of, we must address the story. What will “Avatar 2″ be about? Well, I think rather than a sequel, we should follow the current trend and simply do a reboot. Lots of people complained about the straightforward and predictable plot of the original film. So, let’s give it another shot, shall we? Maybe this time we can really wow people and double that paltry $2.5 billion gross.
Here’s my pitch for “Avatar 2: Avatar 1 Redo:” paralyzed ex-Marine Jake Sully volunteers for the Avatar program on Pandora and becomes a Na’vi. He ingratiates himself with a Na’vi tribe who are living right on top of a rich deposit of a mineral called Adamantium. They’re leery of him at first, but he proves himself by learning their language, taming a dragon-like beast, and bumping uglies with one of their females. Then he tells them they have to move because the humans want the Adamantium beneath their treehouse. They tell him to get stuffed. So he and the Space Marines kill all of them and take the Adamantium anyway. Then Jake goes back to Earth, and they cure his paralysis with Scientology. The End!
I forgot to mention that I’ll punch up the dialogue with of-the-moment references to things like Twitter, “Jersey Shore” and Tiger Woods’ marital woes — things that will still be socially relevant in the year 2154.
I’ll get Jim on the phone right away and tell him I’ve cracked the story. What a productive day this April 1st has been!
-Brad Lohan