WE, THE GUARDIANS OF THE GENRE, DO VOW TO ABSTAIN FROM ALL THAT IS MUNDANE AND REVEL IN AND GLORIFY ALL OF THE MANY WONDERS THAT COME WITH THE
ACCEPTANCE OF THE GREAT AND GOOD GENRES!
SCIENCE FICTION! FANTASY! HORROR!
When the original Total Recall debuted in June of 1990, it
was generally well-received by critics and made a sizable profit. Directed by
Paul Verhoeven, with a script originally penned by Dan O'Bannon, Total Recall
was a big budget sci-fi film with a satirical edge. Total Recall was Arnold Schwarzenegger’s
return to science fiction after dabbling in comedy with Red Heat and Twins and
it demonstrated that he could still carry a big science fiction action-drama.
Being a fan of Schwarzenegger’s (and in the 80’s and 90's who wasn’t?) I enjoyed Total
Recall for what it was, but felt that as a science fiction film it fell short of
its premise’s potential. The ending of the film always bothered me in its
unrealistic portrayal of a body exposed to a near-vacuum and the speed at which Mars’ atmosphere is replenished.
Twenty-two years later, a “remake” of Total Recall is being
released. This film is scripted by Kurt Wimmer , Mark Bomback and James
Vanderbilt did a "polish" on the script.This version is directed by Len Wiseman, who
is best known for writing and directing Underworld (2003) and Underworld:
Evolution (2006), as well as directing Live Free or Die Hard (2007). Colin Farrell stars
as Douglas Quaid; with Jessica Biel playing Melina a Resistance member and Kate
Beckinsale playing Lori, Quaid's "wife". With a reported budget of
$200 million, this film looks like a big-budget sci-fi film, but I’m also
hoping that it has a bit more science fictional ideas in it as well. Being a
fan of Wiseman’s previous films, I have no doubt I’ll enjoy the look and style
of this new Total Recall. I’m not a huge fan of Colin Farrell’s total body of
work, but I did enjoy his turn as the vampire in the recent remake of Fright
Night (2011), so hopefully some of the energy that he brought to that role will
translate well to his portrayal of the put-upon factory worker Douglas Quaid. The
bigger of the two female roles falls to Jessica Biel, who’s work I’ve admired
in such diverse films as Blade: Trinity (2004), The Illusionist (2006) and Next
(2007). Also, any film with Kate Beckinsale in it is always worth watching!
If the film is as good as this trailer looks, than I’m more
than ready for this remake! Total Recall opens August 3, 2012.
“For those of us who prefer entertaining or at least
enlightening science fiction films, than avoid The Divide like the radioactive
cloud that hangs over the doomed characters in this darkly depressing
film.”
Science Fiction, Post-apocalyptic, Drama
Staring - Lauren German/Eva, , Milo Ventimiglia/Josh,
Courtney B. Vance/Devlin, Ashton Holmes/Adrien, Rosanna Arquette/Marilyn, Iván
González/Sam, Michael Eklund/Bobby andAbbey Thickson/Wendi
Director - Xavier Gens
Writer(s) - Karl Mueller and Eron Sheean
Rated R - Disturbing strong violence, sexuality, and
pervasive language
1 hr., 52 min.
I watch every genre film that comes out in any given
year, with very few exceptions. I probably skip horror films more than any of
my three favorite genres, because of my dislike for these sub-genres: slasher,
torture-porn and found-footage. Fantasy films seldom contain elements that I
find distasteful, so I seldom miss any of these films, except for the extremely
cheap ones or films aimed at young children. Science fiction is my favorite type of
film, so a film has to contain elements that I find very distasteful or just
plain dull for me to pass over. Even so, I occasionally go out of my comfort
zone and watch a science fiction film that I am fairly certain I will find
difficult to watch. Sometimes I am rewarded with a film that surprises me (like
Phase 7 did last year), but more often than not, I am sorry that I spent the
time and effort to watch a film I could not appreciate even on a purely
intellectual level (The Road – 2009 –immediately springs to mind). I have put
off watching The Divide for some time, but I finally bolstered my courage and
watched this post-apocalyptic drama.
The film opens with Eva and her boyfriend Sam looking out
their apartment window and seeing missiles streaking across the New York
skyline. When the first explosion hits, they immediately rush out of the
apartment and down the emergency stairwell. Most of the residents of the building
are already running down the stairs and there is much pushing and shoving as
people begin to panic. They finally get to the ground floor and the exit, when
another closer explosion rocks the building and forces them back into the
apartment building. Desperate for shelter, they see an open door leading to the basement
of the building, but a man is trying to close it. Eva, Sam and a few others
push against the door and manage to force their way in.
Once inside the basement, Mickey, who is the building
superintendent, tells the small group that he is in charge until it is safe to
leave. Marilyn’s young daughter Wendi begins to complain and keeps repeating
her need to go home. Mickey informs her and everyone that the radiation dust
from the fallout of the nuclear explosion will kill everyone, so no one can
leave until he says so. The rest of the group is made up of a yuppie gay man
Josh, his younger artist brother Adrien, Josh’s friend Bobby and an African-American
man Devlin, who no one seems to know. As the days pass into weeks, the group
grows increasingly aware that Mickey is hiding something and they suspect that
is the reason he will not allow them to enter his private room.
A loud banging is heard outside the steel door that
separates them from the contaminated air and Mickey grabs an axe to hold off
potential intruders. The invaders use a blow torch to cut the locked door and
enter. What happens next is a complete right-turn in the film’s plot and when
this portion of the film concludes, The Divide goes right back to where its
plot was headed originally.
The Divide is the type of Post-apocalyptic story that
shows humanity at its worst. As the film wears on and on, the characters in the
film all begin to gradually decline both mentally and physically. One reason
for the physical deterioration, which is only implied in the film, is that
because the door was breached, they are all gradually dying of radiation contamination.
Once this becomes obvious, not only do the characters begin to act more and
more selfish and sadistic, but as a viewer I lost interest in their survival because
I knew they were not going to do so. The only thing that could have made The
Divide a compelling drama for me was seeing these characters struggle for survival.
Once this hope was taken away, there was little to keep me interested; other
than the perverse voyeuristic pleasure in watching these characters deteriorate
to the point of near savagery. I do not find these type of scenes interesting,
so the film lost me before it was even halfway over.
One thing that stood out to me – and not in a good way –
was the soundtrack. There are many sequences in the film where the camera pans slowly
across all the characters in various stages of depression to show passage of
time and every single time this long repetitive piano music plays incessantly
over these shots. It was maddening to the point where I finally had to fast
forward through these merciless montages!
The only highlight of the film is Michael Biehn as Mickey,
who starts out being an unlikeable totalitarian bastard, but grows into a
stronger and more compassionate character, whose hidden motives are cleverly and
expertly revealed by Biehn’s subtle acting. The rest of the cast are written so
poorly that you have to feel sorry for the actors and actresses playing the
roles; particularly Rosanna Arquette who’s character suffers the worst
indignities in the film.
I honestly don’t understand how a film like The Divide
gets made. The three million dollar budget was spent I’m assuming on the mostly
talented cast. How anyone reading the screenplay would consider this worth
investing in is beyond me, as even if the story made sense – which because of
the previously mentioned “right turn” in the plot – it doesn’t, it portrays
such a negative view on humanity that only someone who has a similar pessimistic
viewpoint would find this story worth filming. If you are of a similar mental
bent, than by all means “enjoy” The Divide. For those of us who prefer entertaining
or at least enlightening science fiction films, than avoid The Divide like the
radioactive cloud that hangs over the doomed characters in this darkly depressing
film.
In the third part of Zombzany and the Missing Maniac --
which I've titled "Casting Call of the Undead” -- Zombzany gives a brief
introduction to the next zombie movie in the marathon.
For the second time, Zombzany shares another rare video tape
from his Archives Vault. This video is a comedic sketch, the origins of which I
can’t even begin to guess at. The segment is titled “Casting Call of the Undead”
and it presents Zombzany as a casting director. Zombzany is apparently using
his necromantic skills to bring back famous dead actors as zombie slaves, so
they can act in films or plays which director Zombzany is producing. In this
segment, Zombzany uses his necromancy to not only bring his actor back to
undead life, but to also enhance his acting abilities – which unfortunately dose
not turn out quite as well as Zombzany might have liked.
Enjoy Part Three of Zombzany and the Missing Maniac -- Casting
Call of the Undead!
For the films of 2010, I posted a best and worst list for
all the films I had seen at that time [see: THE BEST AND WORST GENRE MOVIES OF2010]. This year I decided to wait until I had a chance to see almost all the
Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror films from 2011, which meant waiting to
watch the films I missed seeing at the theater and watching them on Blu-ray
video disc at home.I have finally
watched all the genre films I had planned on watching and have only not watched
those that I never intended to watch at all. I counted sixty genre films
released to theaters or direct to video/on demand last year. Of those, I
watched forty-three of them; eleven at the theater and thirty-two on Blu-ray video
disc at home. The remaining seventeen genre films that I did not see were for a
variety of reasons, but mostly because I knew I would not like them or just had
no interest in the subject matter.
I will not be breaking them down into sub-genre categories
as I did for the films of 2010, but instead I will just divide them up into
three separate categories based on quality: THE PARAMOUNT (films that I rated
from 100 to 85), THE PEDESTRIAN (films that I rated from 84 to 70) and THE
PUTRID (films that I rated from 69 to 50). By my grading system, which I incorporated
this year, a film can do no worse than a 50 – which I regard as a complete
failure. Whereas a film can do no better than a 100, which would be a perfect
film – something I doubt I will ever see. My grading system is dived into ten categories,
which I then assign a grade of 5 (poorest) to 10 (best) for each. The categories
are divided into two sub headings: Technical – which I use to intellectualize a
film purely on its merits based on technique and Visceral – which are my
emotional responses to a film based on its artistic merits. I break down the
Technical heading into five subheadings: Acting, Directing, Cinematography, Script
and Special Effects. I break down the Visceral heading into five subheadings:
Visual, Auditory, Intellectual, Emotional and Involvement. I’ve been using this
system for some time for my own purposes, because I find it keeps me from
reacting to a film too viscerally on initial viewings of films I really like,
and over-intellectualizing films on initial viewings that I don’t enjoy. I will
list the overall grade for each film and give a brief explanation of the films
that I have not reviewed previously on this blog.
A beautiful looking, well-acted take on the
first X-Men, but ultimately it stills feels a little too familiar.
Hugo – 86
An
amazing visual achievement that is somewhat hampered by a convoluted and sentimental
story.
Scream 4 – 85
I still think Wes Craven is one of the best
horror directors alive and this is his best film franchise. Scream still
works as a satire of the slasher and horror genre in general.
A fun film overall, but just lacking in any
real depth of character or emotion.
The Ward- 80
I love John Carpenter’s style of filmmaking,
but the story of this one just isn’t complex enough to carry a feature film;
plus the horror element felt forced at best.
Trollhunter – 79 Fantastic special effects, wonderfully added
to the handheld-footage cannot make up for a lack of interesting characters or
story; it also could have benefited from some more humor.
Whoever gave Seth Rogan the money to write and
star in this dumb-comedic twist on a classic pulp/radio character should have
their miniscule brains removed!
The following genre films from 2011 are ones that I may
eventually watch, but will most likely not enjoy anyway, but I’ll list them
here for completion sake: Suing the Devil, Paul, Final Destination 5, Detective
Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark and Creature.
These films I will not be watching under any circumstance: The Rite, Red Riding
Hood, Beastly, Your Highness, The Tree of Life, Another Earth, Dream House, The
Human Centipede II: Full Sequence, Contagion, Paranormal Activity 3 and The
Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1. If anyone can make a convincing argument
as to why I should see any of these films, leave your comments as to why and I’ll
at least listen.
Overall I think 2011 was a better year for entertaining
genre films, if not quality films. The quantity was also bigger, so that no
doubt helped push up the averages of quality. Let me know what you think of my
list – I’m sure many will shake their heads in disbelief at some of my marks
for some films – and I’ll be glad to discuss with you in a civil manner why you
think I’m right or wrong in my choices.
In the second part
of Zombzany and the Missing Maniac -- which I've titled "Zombzany
Introduces the Zombie-thon" -- Zombzany returns to his throne to find Bill
E. Bones sitting of it. Zombzany swats Bill off the throne and then introduces the
coming marathon.
In a rare instance
of magnanimousness, Zombzany shares a rare video tape from his Archives Vault.
The first video is from a pilot to an unsuccessful detective series from the
1960’s called Zombdumbo – the Dead Beat Detective. This initial story, entitled
“Finial Round, Sudden Death”, finds Zombdumbo at the golf course, where of
course he finds a dead body.
Enjoy Part Two of Zombzany and the Missing Maniac – Zombzany
Introduces the Zombie-thon!
