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aging as he expends his magickal energies
in his running fight with Sinbad. Note the
influence of the then-fading martial arts
craze on the balletic fight scenes (particularly against the multi-armed Kali) and
the perhaps-unintentionally hilarious
Kung Fu-inspired bits of wisdom scattered through the dialogue. (1977; starring John Phillip Law, Tom Baker).
Ugetsu
Thief of Baghdad
The Hobbit
Saturday:
Metropolis
Fritz Lang pioneered several film
genres-to-be; in Metropolis, he established the pattern for all the dehumanized dystopian "Future Society" films
to follow. Predating modern computer
technology and the crystallization of
mind control through drugs, advertising,
or whatever as a major tool of autocratic forces, Lang's pessimistic extrapolation is based on the advent of automation and the greater industrialization
he saw. The lower classes are slaves to
the machines of their vast factories,
quite literally cogs in the workings of
the system. While the hardware, acting
and script are amusingly outdated (culminating in a silly happy resolution),
Lang's directoral brilliance is at its best.
Looked at on a*metaphoric level, Metropolis remains one of the most effective
films of its sub-genre. The imagery, from
vast city-scapes to the Inferno-like factory to Dr. Rotwang's semi-alchemical
Mad Scientist's lab is unrivaled in later,
more down-to-earth cinema. (1926;
directed by Fritz Lang).
1984
Although this adaptation of George
Orwell's grim vision of the near-future
was not well-loved by the critics, my
memory of it is of a properly realistic
drama of the world as it may soon be
... if not quite as soon as 1984. The film
lacks the book's more spectacular scenes,
but is faitful to its version of an insidious
dystopia. There are supposedly two endings to this film in existence: one, a
heroic-romantic cop-out in which the two
lovers defy the State to the end, dying
hand-in-hand in the blowing leaves;
the other (which I saw, although it's
the supposedly rarer version) is chilling and* cynical, truer to Orwell's pessimism.
Gladiators
The idea of gladiatorial games replacing war as a release for hostilities
once the world-state is established fascinates SF filmmakers. There was Deathrace,
in which it was an extended bad joke, and
Hugo-nominated Rollerball, in which The
Game was grittily realistic, but in which
the worst sort of SF was displayed . . .
the kind where characters say, "As you
know, our current dystopian society was
established in the year 1990, when . . . '
Anyway, Gladiators is far superior to
either of these, but never received half
the bookings. I'm not aware of it ever
having had a general release in the U. S.,
even. The teams in the arena, monitored
for world-wide TV, are soldiers from the
planet's outdated armies. To win, they
must fight each other and the traps of a
deadly obstacle course. One could well
make a case for this film being an extrapolation of the Dungeons and Dragons
craze taken to its Swiftian extreme.
There are two new elements in this tournament: a young radical is independently
making his way to the Game's "nerve
center" (read "Dungeonmaster"), determined to destroy it, and a man and woman, from two opposing teams, are
destined to fall in love. Guess which is
the real threat? There are holes in the
premise, but as a whole the film is very
original and convincing in its presentation.
THX-1138
No matter how much one may
enjoy American Graffiti and Star Wars, it
is hard to deny that each is more conventional than the one before it. This first
feature effort (expanded from a short
made as a film student at USC) is his one
truly innovative film, the most complex
and original work of a mediocrity-bound
career. The future world of THX (the
character played by Robert Duvall) is
an antiseptic, white-on-white consumer-
ist autocracy, probably the most thoroughly dehumanized in the science-
fiction cinema. Were this film non-
fiction, one would call the style semi-
documentary; Lucas' exposition of his
future dystopia is extremely sophisticated and clever, hinting at more than it
explicitly reveals. Star Wars junkies will
be interested in watching the motifs
that reappeared in the later space-opera:
the "pain staffs" of the robot police
emit the same sound as Jedi "light
sabres," the Jawas are foreshadowed by
the diminutive "shell-dwellers" of the
underground world's outer regions. The
editing of the exciting escape-chase (shot
in San Francisco's then-under-construc-
tion BART tunnel) sequence is identical
to that of the attack on the Death Star.
Also, note the prevalence of robots, and
the teaming of the protagonist with a
larger, n on-human ally. (1971; directed
by George Lucas, starring Robert Duvall,
Donald Pleasance, Maggie McOmie).
Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to
Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Hugo winner for "Best Dramatic
Presentation" in 1964 and a classic in its
own right, Stanley Kubrick's epic black
comedy about the end of the world needs
little introduction. Watch for Peter Sellers
in the role(s) of Group Captain Lionel
Mandrake, President Merkin Muffley, and
his properly mad former Nazi advisor, Dr.
Strangelove.
The Bed-Sitting Room
Although not filmed as such, Richard Lester's equally black comedy is the
logical sequel to Dr. Strangelove, picking
up immediately after the grand atomic
holocaust with which the first film ends.
The BBC is now a bedraggled announcer
wandering door-to-door, anchoring the
news from the burnt-out frames of TV
sets. The Queen and the Royal Family are
gone, so the new national anthem, sung
in honor of the closest surviving heir to
the throne is "God Save Mrs. Ethel
Shroke." There are no BEM mutants, but
the rubble-strewn landscape is populated
by equally weird sorts, including Spike
Mulligan, Marty Feldman, and Peter
Cook and Dudley Moore. Richard Lester is known for his direction from
Help, A Hard Day *s Nigh t, The R itz
and The Three and Four Musketeers,
this is unquestionably his most bizarre
and manic farce.
This double feature of Dr. Strangelove and The Bed-Sitting Room is guaranteed to put Armageddon into a whole
new perspective for you.
Die, Monster, Die
Some say this is a decent horror
film bearing no resemblance to its source,
The Colour Out of Space. Others call it
boring, but a reasonable adaptation.
Basically, screenwriter Jerry Sohl has
turned Lovecraft's very mysterious
"colour" from space into garden-variety
radiation, and this is usually taken as one
of the film's worst transgressions. Objectively speaking, Colour Out of Spaa
seems one of Lovecraft's least cinematic
stories -- a strange choice to attempt to
film - and certainly not one that would
lend itself to literal interpretation, to
say nothing of the difficulties inherent
in inventing a new color for motion pictures. As it is, Die, Monster, Die does
follow the original story-line, in a general
sort of way. That is, general enough that,
while recognizable, the best fun in watching the film is catching the similarities to
the story, which seem almost coincidental. There is some effective suspense and
nice weirdness; and Boris Karloff is, as
ever, in excellent form as the tainted patriarch. Appropriately enough for a character in a Loyecraft film, the career of
protagonist Nick Adams degenerated
to playing token Americans in Toho
giant lizard flicks from here and he
ultimately committed suicide.
The Dunwich Horror
Lovecraft's story is here modernized and greatly defantasized into a sort
of Crhulhuian Rosemary's Baby, with
Dean Stockwell's wholly human Wilbur
Whatley seeking to bring about Yog-
Sothoth's child through Sandra Dee. Av-
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