Dr. Strangelove or How I learned how to stop worrying and love the bomb

Having recently finished my Master's Degree in Military History, one of the eras we looked at was post World War II military "strategic" thought, if you can call it that. Honest to goodness academics at this time were honestly trying to figure out how to use nuclear weapons tactically, i.e. strategic strikes and the lot. As nuclear weapons got more powerful and the option for them to be stratergically used was shelved (nowadays we are back to the point where this is arguably possible), stategicians (and again I use the term loosely) began to calculate acceptable numbers of casulties in the 10s of millions in order to "win" a nuclear standoff with the Soviet Union. Mutually Assured Destruction, aptly titled MAD was sort of the apex of that school of "thought", admitting to people with a shred of common sense that once the bombs start flying, we are all screwed.

Into this mindset Stanley Kubrick brings "Dr. Strangelove", the story of an ardent patriot named Jack D. Ripper who thrusts his country in nuclear war by attempting to launch bombing runs before anyone has a chance to stop him and thus forcing the United States' hand into annihilating the USSR. The film also focuses on the crew of the bombing run and the going-ons in the War Room of the United States.

Now mind you, this is a comedy, which is none too evident from anything I've just said. I suppose Kubrick's mindset here was to show essentially the futility of even taking this seriously, as if our leaders are serious about the nuclear option, might as well just laugh. The movie in all it's setup comes across more as a drama of sorts, only throwing in infantile name humor like Jack D. Ripper, President Merkin Muffley (pussy), and Col. "Bat" Guano. Other jokes just didn't really resonate like "Gentlemen, there is no fighting in the war room!" Really?

Towards the end of the movie, I began to see this movie as a precursor to movies like "The Naked Gun" however, when the jokes started flying faster and faster. The encounter between Guano and Mandrake where Guano agrees to blow open a Coke machine, so Mandrake will have enough change to call the President but if this doesn't work Mandrake "will have to answer to the people at Coca-Cola" or the end where nuclear war begins, and the Americans start strategizing about how to stay alive in mineshafts, and how they need to act fast less there be a "mineshaft gap" with the Russians.

Those are two of the hits, but there are a lot of misses. The titular character, Dr. Strangelove, is an ex-Nazi who struggles to not do the Nazi salute (what?!). I guess it was seen as funny for George C. Scott to be so animated and wacky. The point one sees here is as the movie draws to it's climax, it seems like it's suddenly racing from drama to comedy, and rapid-firing to get in as many laughs as possible before the conclusion, which will give you a few hits, but a lot of misses.

Basically, one can see this as a precursor to a lot of comedy films, and for it's a time a brilliantly good characterization of an age of madness, but 45 years later, when the Soviets are gone and the biggest nuclear tensions in the world involve North Korea, India and Pakistan or even terrorists, this message isn't so funny anymore. The world may have seemed bleak in 1964, but we've progressed since then and towards a less holocausty kind of world.

I can see why this movie garnered all the kudos it did in 1964, but it just can't stand up to time's difficult test. 3 out of 5.

Psycho

Continuing in my series of movies I have should have seen 100 years ago but failed to, I have recently seen the cinematic classic "Psycho".

My only connection with this movie before finally seeing it now was in a Spanish course once where they summarized the plot en espanol for our learning pleasure. That and of course the famous shower scene and music that permeates pop culture whether you've seen this movie or not.

This movie is incredibly well done, permeating the movie, at least the first two parts with an incredible, palpable sense of guilt that can only be brought on with great acting, cinematography, and music all combining to form the perfect mood. Marion Crane's incredible nervousness, voices in her head furthering her guilty conscience and even the fear with which she drives, cringing from the bright lights of the other cars, and struggling to see in the rainstorm all wash the viewer in her guilt having absconded with money that did not belong to her.

This is what made the shower scene such a impact on American culture: Psycho has been called the first in the slasher genre. I can see it as an inspiration, but the slasher genre didn't begin until the 80's, and was also imbued with a morality of sorts. Have sex=die. Take drugs=die. Be a fun loving teenager=die. Psycho doesn't play by those rules. Yes, Crane was guilty of theft, but she had an epiphany talking with Bates and was going to come clean, so when she's suddenly murdered in the shower, a typical symbol of "coming clean", it's quite a shock. When you combine the fact that this movie does show her boobs (when she grabs the shower curtain their as clear as day), and shows a toilet being flushed (which I thought jokingly when I first saw it, but sure enough, that was risque in 1960) means Hitchcock was creating a suspense/thriller that WAS more graphic and more raw, and definitely serves as an inspiration to the slasher genre that would appear a few decades later.

Act 2, we get to see Norman Bates under the spotlight for a little while, as determined Private investigator Arbogast grills him in the Bates Motel and catches him in a lie time and time again. Of course Bates has the last laugh, but again the guilty motif continues strongly, and great acting between Martin Balsam and Anthony Perkins (whose facial expressions alone are AWESOME in this movie) really sells the viewer on this feeling.

Act 3 becomes the sort of cliche wrap up to a film. No doubt, finding out that Mrs. Bates is long dead and that Norman Bates is truly the titular Psycho is a nice twist, but you know Hitchcock is treading new ground when the psychiatrist basically spoon feeds the audience the entire plot at the end of the movie. To a modern viewer, seeing Bates in his mother's clothing and her long dead, we would immediately assume she's either a) a ghost/zombie or b) this guy is nutso and thinks she's still alive. Of course, we assume that probably BECAUSE of this movie, so the first time it happens, maybe the explanation was necessary... just seems long winded nowadays. Of course, mother talking at the end on how she's going to be just fine, combined with again, Perkins' fabulous facial expressions, present an eerie conclusion to a great movie.

You have to give this movie a lot of props for it's contributions to the horror genre. Sometimes when people talk about movies or music as "highly influential" that means they also might suck, but you have to give them credit. Psycho is not that case, and I think people of all generations can find something to really enjoy in this movie.

4.5 out of 5 stars.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Before I watch most any movie now, I bop on over to it's Wikipedia page to get some background on the movie, fun facts, etc. It's almost like pre-watching the DVD commentary before seeing the movie.

The Star Trek movies have lengthy, lengthy Wikipedia articles, obviously written by a film geek/Trekkie, as they get intensely into production values, shooting etc. Star Trek IV's entry wasn't that long, so I read the whole thing, and immediately became wary when I saw that this was going to be a "humorus film". Star Trek?! Humorous?! Aw crap.

Actually, it didn't work out too badly. The beginning of the movie puts the Earth in mortal danger as an alien probe that is trying to communicate with a certain extinct creature is unwittingly causing massive, fatal damage to not only every ship it passes, but even the Earth itself. Although fugitives, thanks to their actions in Star Trek III, the Enterprise crew can't stand by as the Earth gets annihilated, so they journey back in time to bring the aforementioned extinct crature to the future to call of this probe.

Enter 80's wackiness! They land in the then contemporary world of 1986, and seeing the normally straight-laced Enterprise crew react with the "primitive" 80's does have quite a few laugh out loud moments. The part where this movie falls victim to it's subject (behold the continued power of that decade), is when it becomes an 80's movie in several parts.

1) A Dr. Gillian Taylor encounters Kirk and Spock and kind of helps them on their mission, after one of her co-workers "betrays" her by shipping off the aforementioned species (just watch the movie... I'm really getting sick of this non-spoiler) before she has a chance to say goodbye. She then runs out to her truck in tears replete with 80's drama music. Rrright.

2) In another part Chekov is mortally injured (by 20th century standards) and Bones, Kirk and Taylor all go to the hospital to save him with 23rd century medicine. Well, he was also mortally injured while engaging in what we would call today "terrorist behavior", so he's under tight lock and key from the local police... so to get him out of the hospital, enter the wacky chase scene replete with wacky chase music! Come on this is Star Trek! All the funny stuff was subtle not wacky!

However, only those two parts are really corny. The twist in this movie, while not as cool as the first one is still very cool, and there's actually a very well done tense moment where there is nothing on screen except the creature safely returned to the 23rd century (well, I ruined that so I might as well tell you.... it's a humpback whale) is communicating with the probe. For about 1 minute of screen time, it's just the two communicating until the probe finally withdraws and the Earth is saved. Huzzah!

I've really grown more pleased and fond of these Star Trek movies as I've watched them. The series is rather lengthy, and there is a list of other Netflix movies that I've still got to get to, but I have enjoyed my time with the first four movies more or less. I think if I were to rank them in order of favorite, it would go 4,1,3,2. Yeah, Khan sucks.

So overall this movie is sort of the crowning acheivement of my Star Trek viewing and while not worth owning, is worthy of a high end:

3 out of 5 stars.

1968 Tunnel Rats

Tunnel Rats is a film by infamous director Uwe Boll, infamous for making bad movies of course. The only movie I've ever seen of Boll's was Postal, and I thought that movie a horribly patched together piece of crap. Yeah, yeah, I get it... a lot of directors can hide behind "You just don't understand my vision"... this isn't a vision, this is a piece of crap.

Tunnel Rats on the other hand was not nearly as bad. Maybe because Boll's kryptonite is making movies that are based on video games, and Tunnel Rats is not. The interesting thing about Tunnel Rats is that there was no script, all the lines were ad-libbed. How did this play out? Somewhat like you'd expect.

This movie was made in 2008, so all of these actors have seen Apocalypse Now and Platoon and were essentially spending the first part of the film trying to make their character noticeable by giving them a touching backstory so that the audience would empathize with them whether they lived or died. The problem is, whereas Apocalypse Now had 2 major characters, and Platoon had maybe 3, Tunnel Rats is trying to cram in 10+. By the end of the movie there are two survivors, but I basically had no idea which ones were dying as they were dying because we can't get to know these characters in 10 minutes, especially if we're supposed to empathize with so many.

Boll is obviously trying to get right to the action, and there is action aplenty. The Tunnel Rats scenes are essentially straight out of a horror movie, as only one person in the tunnels dies of bullet wounds... they all die horrific deaths via VietCong traps. The above ground scenes go from nothing to a massive VietCong attack where everyone dies up close and personal ala Saving Private Ryan. Given Boll's reputation and resume, one can't help but be suspicious whether these shots are a "horror of war" montage or a "kick ass blood and gore fest". I suppose depending on your point of view it can work either way.

On the Vietcong side, we follow 3 soldiers who, like the Americans, get precious little backstory, and hence not a lot of sympathy. At the end, an American and a Vietcong woman die together in the tunnels due to their lack of communication, which can be seen as a anti-war message. It works well as that, but as far as a sad ending to these poor characters, again, not really sure who was who for most of the movie, and even when I was, not given a hell of a lot of character development to base my empathy on.

All in all, this movie is a good action war movie, and can double as a horror film of sorts. In a sense it's old school film making, because your going to get a better, more empathic story from Apocalypse Now, Platoon or Saving Private Ryan. Tunnel Rats is out of the "John Wayne" school of war where it's basically just a bunch of guys (and gals) kicking the crap out of each other.

3 out of 5 stars.

Terminator/Terminator 2

I just watched these two movies back to back, so I might as well muse on the direction of the Terminator series through it's two greatest entries.

The Terminator, like Alien, introduced us to a excellent sci-fi idea, which also becomes part action movie, and part horror movie. Terminator, unlike Alien, never really had any slow parts, and only suffered due to some dated visuals.

Ah 1991, when 8-bit was king.

Terminator 2 again mirrors the Alien series, Aliens, by changing up the genre a bit. Terminator already had action elements in it, so it wasn't quite the same with Alien. Whereas Alien was horror, and Aliens was action, Terminator was sci-fi/horror/action and Terminator 2 was sci-fi/comedy/action.

We all know "I'll be back" from the first movie, which was spoken with every bit of seriousness. However, we also all know "Hasta La Vista Baby" from the second one, which was part of the Terminator's new 'tude. So.... comedy? Does that destroy the movie? In a sense. There are parts, like at the end when the T-1000 is dead that Arnold spews lines like "I need a vacation" seemingly dropping out of character for a moment, but these moments are sparse enough that the great action drowns out the noise.

Underneath all this there is a message of hope for the human race, words not often uttered from Sarah Connor's mouth, so mighty praise indeed, which serves as the driving underlying message of this movie. The T-800 basically becomes the closest thing to a father figure that John Connor ever has, so he is raised partially by humans and partially by machines, which is what makes him such a formidable foe to Skynet in the future.

Speaking of which, a major beef I had with this movie that I never noticed before. Did you know John Connor is 10 in this movie? 10! Come on, that's like 4th grade. They should have had him at least be 13. That also makes Sarah Connor 29 in this movie, and only 19 in the original Terminator.... again, come on. She was 24 when she did the role, and that's about the age I think her character should be. Makes a lot more sense than a 19 year old running around doing this stuff. Edward Furlong was 14 when he did T2, so again they should have made it his age. The other reason this hurts stretching into the future is that John Connor meets his dad Kyle at the age of 45. So, in Terminator Salvation, you expect me to believe Christian Bale is a 45 year old man? Again, 35, more believable. So simple people.

Terminator: 4 out of 5 stars.

Terminator 2: 5 out of 5 stars. Simply one of the best movies ever made, period.

S. Darko

Alright, a sequel to Donnie Darko was not going to be good for anyone. Donnie Darko fans probably thought that the original was a masterpiece and that it should not be sullied by a sequel. Non-fans, like myself thought that the original sucked, and unless if the sequel drastically changed the pattern of the first than it would also suck.

Yeah, so I was disappointed. S. Darko, an abbreviation for Samantha Darko, Donnie's little sister in the first movie, sort of picks up where D. Darko left off, with Samantha, who is also able to travel through time having to prevent a world ending catastrophe. Again, just like the original, you can tell pretty early in the movie who's got to die that didn't. This time however, it's a bit more confusing, as the character that needs to die, Iraq Jack, looks a lot like Donnie, so the viewer is left wondering if it's just Samantha seeing things.

Well, this time Iraq Jack's sacrifice doesn't lead to a happy ending for everyone. Someone in the small Southwestern town that Samantha is in has been kidnapping children and abandoning them in a mine to die. Well with Jack's death, those kids are still in that mine and the sicko who did it is never found, so the kids still die horrible deaths. No instead, the happy ending here is that Samantha goes home to Virginia to try to stop running from her pain, while children die and the meteorite that kills Iraq Jack still passes off it's mutating cancer to some poor soul in this small town. Wow, fill me with joy.

S. Darko looks like it's done by an artist. Let's take all the pretty effects from the original, throw in some slow mo to fast motion shots of the sky and the water, have the same confusing, horrible story and call it a film. In other words, this movie meets all of our worst expectations. For Donnie Darko fans it's a cheap knockoff, and for those of us who hated the original, this movie actually tends to be more confusing and with a much less satisfying ending, which I never would have believed possible.

1 out of 5 stars. Utter crap.

Dead Until Dark

The new "hot" show on HBO? Well, there's actually a bunch of them, but the one that piqued my fancy was "True Blood" which now has season 1 out on DVD. Zombies are a bit played out at this point, but vampires more or less are still cool, although they are deviating more and more into essentially romance figures, something that has always been part of their lore, but more recently with Anne Rice, and Twilight have become more female oriented.

Dead Until Dark is no exception. The story can appeal to anyone: a world where vampires are real, and synthetic blood allows them to live a public life. Also in this world, other supernatural creatures exists, like werewolves, shapeshifters, telepaths and maenads. In fact, our heroine, Sookie Stackhouse is a telepath herself.

In some bookstores, you'll find Charlene Harris' work under science fiction, but in some, it's more appropriately filed under mystery, and that's the backdrop for these books: crime committed, characters shown, mystery unraveled, killer revealed. Interestingly enough, in a world full of once thought imaginary creatures, more often than not the heinous crimes are committed to and by ordinary humans.

They're all good stories, but my major beef is that the estrogen seeps through these stories quite often. Sookie and her vampire boyfriend Bill are constantly having sex, no sorry, "making love". Seriously, like every chapter. Sci-Fi is okay, mystery can be entertaining, but I don't want to read romance books! I'm hoping that this is not par for the course when it's a female writer, as, like I said, they seem to delve on the romantic aspects of the vampire lore.

Overall, this is a good book. I've got to imagine that the screen adaptation is better because at points this book becomes essentially pornographic with Sookie and Bill and their constant lovemaking. HBO, while it would show this, would not want to delve on it to the point the book seems to. For all of you guys out there that would rather take a pass on movies like Twilight, I'm not sure that this book is really different enough from that vampire/romance genre to please you and you might be better off skipping it. People who enjoy that genre will like this book.