Voyage of Time: Life's Journey

Ever since those glamorous space shots set against hypnotic opera music in The Tree of Life I’ve been impatiently waiting for this one.  That was seven and a half goddamn years ago.  But that’s nothing compared to what Terrence Malick’s been through.  Since the 70’s he’s been compiling nature footage, filming narrative parts with actors, constantly rewriting the script, crafting CGI creatures and developing methods to film chemical liquids at high speed.  And after all that painstaking work globetrotting, reworking story and narration, editing forty years worth of material, not to mention making other movies, the final result is…pretty not that great.

To be clear I saw the 90 min Life’s Journey version with the Cate Blanchett (The Lord of the Ringses) voice over.  I couldn’t get my hands on the shorter 40 min Brad Pitt (Allied) narrated version to compare which is too bad because I would’ve liked to have seen the differences.  Oh well.

Anyway, the documentary bits like a volcano erupting, weird ass sea life going about its weird ass business and all of that is stunning to behold.  Not only are the events fascinating to witness and give you a glimpse of the world beyond your TV but they’re also beautifully photographed.  At times everything can be so vibrant and awe-inspiring but at others subdued and even off-putting.  The varied mixture of images gives off an equally varied mixture of feelings.

Along with nature there are scenes of modern people from around the world except it’s very different from everything else.  It’s more like a home movie because it’s in standard definition, the camera is jittery and the people appear to be real and not actors.  They’re doing all sorts of stuff like celebrating in the street, holding a wedding, wandering, performing rituals, etc.  I’m not sure what Malick was going for with these sections which are sprinkled throughout.  I would understand more if it came at the end, like now humans are on earth and everything is still chaotic and strange but in a totally different way than before.  But inserting these vignettes every so often is puzzling.  It’s not nice to look at and seems to paint humans in not the most flattering light.

The space parts are fine but I think most of it is fake and some of it isn’t that attractive.  I’ll lump the couple of primeval animals in here too with that remark.  It’s silly looking shit that the movie didn’t necessarily need.

The score?  It’s kinda forgettable but that’s fitting because it’s there to support the visuals and not fight for your attention.

For me the best scenes are the ones with prehistoric man.  Supposedly this was filmed back in the 70’s but I don’t buy that.  It matches too well with the rest of the footage and is in the same style Malick has been using since The Tree of Life (everything before that, including The New World which immediately preceded it, had relatively more focused and restrained cinematography).  But this is the closest we get to any sort of story where we hang out with aboriginals hunting, gathering, traveling, laughing, fighting and marveling at the world around them.  It’s incredibly touching and I wish the entire film was about this.  It feels like real cavemen and not people in ape suits like in 2001 (as much as I adore that picture) or an action adventure expedition like Quest for Fire or some god awful trash like 10,000 BC.  It’s gorgeously elemental and really perfect for Malick because he’s big on pure emotion and down on dialogue anyway.  I wanted to see what our ancient ancestors were gonna do next but it’s such a small part of the movie and that’s extremely unfortunate.

I don’t think I can recommend this based on the early man parts alone.  Sure the nature stuff is cool too but the movie doesn’t know what it wants to be.  All life on earth isn’t portrayed in some manner either.  It’s mostly marine life so that’s off kilter as well.  Plus it’s impossible to get past the pretentious obnoxious Cate Blanchett narration where she cries out shit like “mother, what do I love when I love you?”  I guess it’s more of a free form film.

It’s tough.  I enjoyed parts of it and that makes me wonder if I might like the shorter version better.  Even though this is sort of an amorphous blob of a picture I’d still take it over Song to Song.

Mish Mash Horror Edition (Queen of the Damned, Drag Me to Hell, The Brood, Thirst)

Queen of the Damned

A vampire as the lead singer of a world renowned nu metal band you say?  I’m in!  Or at least I was until I actually saw the picture.  It’s fucking terrible.  The awful special effects and gothic sullen angsty music date the movie into an early grave.

I have to admit the set and costume design is kinda awesome though.  So at least parts of the image are nice to look at.  But the real star here has to be the powerhouse soundtrack with tunes by Korn, Disturbed, Papa Roach, Static-X, Linkin Park, Marilyn Manson and Orgy.  Not really my type of music but holy shit, what an impressive collection of bands from that very specific genre.  I think the only nu metal darling they left out was Limp Bizkit.  And this is all so ironic considering R&B sensation Aaliyah plays the titular role whose music I like a million times more (and which isn’t feature  here whatsoever).

But seriously guys, please don’t watch this movie.  It’s an affront to any creature with eyes and ears, dead or undead.

Drag Me to Hell

Great idea about a cursed woman (Alison Lohman (Matchstick Men)) who must battle a demon that wants her in hell very badly, like yesterday.  Sam Raimi (Darkman) knew how to start and end his movie but didn’t quite know what fill the middle portion with.  There’s an unfortunate stagnation and aimlessness that sets in.

The comedy is hysterical and spot on but the horror stuff is just alright.  There are flashes of that old Raimi magic like the knock down drag out fight in the parking garage, but they’re few and far between.  Overall it’s decent.

The Brood

This one woman’s (Samantha Eggar (The Phantom)) wrath is so powerful that she has the ability to manifest it as physical beings.  She literally gives birth to little deformed five year old girls that go around murdering anyone their mother despises.  And when I say “gives birth” it’s not in the traditional way.  She sorta grows this sack on her abdomen and then tears it open to get the rage babe out.  It’s a pretty fuckin’ weird ass concept but I wouldn’t expect anything less from David Cronenberg (who was going through a divorce and child custody battle at the time…a touch bitter are we?).

Oliver Reed (The Adventures of Baron Munchausen) is fantastic as Dr. Hal Raglan (the opening scene with him in particular is amazing), the intense score by Howard Shore is incredible with echoes of Bernard Herrmann’s Psycho and the visuals get all gross goopy fleshy in classic Cronenberg fashion.  I liked it.

Thirst

A priest volunteers his body for scientific research by agreeing to contract a deadly disease so a cure can be found.  All the test subjects die except for him.  Looks like he dodged a major bullet there.  Well the only teeny tiny snag is that now he’s a vampire.  Not only does he have an insatiable thirst for blood but if he doesn’t feed regularly then grotesque lesions form all over his body.

That plot synopsis may sound relatively straight forward but this is a big story with a lot going on.  It’s too much for me to really get into plus it’s better if you don’t know very much going in.  There’s tons of drama, tons of nasty blood splattering kills and tons of off kilter sexuality.  This is another pip from Chan-wook Park, the writer/director of Oldboy and The Handmaiden.

Halloween (2018)

This is par for the course for a Halloween sequel and that’s a pretty sad statement.  I was hoping for something smarter and possibly a little different than what we’ve seen in the past.  Instead the filmmakers went straight up the middle and threw in just about every slasher movie trope in existence. 

Plus there’s so much goddamn fan service.  At almost every turn there’s a reference to one of the previous installments and it’s really distracting.  “You’re the new Dr. Loomis”, a model of the Myers house in Laurie’s house, “the shape”, the falling off of a balcony from part I, the taking of a chef’s knife after a woman uses it to make a ham sandwich from part II, the Silver Shamrock masks from part III, transporting Michael from one sanitarium to another and escaping en route from part 4, the two goofy cops from part 5, bathroom stalking from part 6 and H20, Laurie’s borderline alcoholism from H20, someone else putting on Michael’s mask from Rob Zombie’s Halloween II and a zillion others.  (I didn’t pick out any obvious lifts from Resurrection or Zombie’s Halloween I)

The comedy is very silly and some of it is funny but then the movie is also extremely violent.  I don’t think those two elements fit well together here.  These drastic tone shifts are gonna wear you down after a while and they bring into question how seriously you should take the film.

There are two scenes that are very well done however.  The one where Michael is finally decked out in full garb and goes on a killing spree through several neighborhood houses has impressive camera work that’s done in a few long tracking shots.  The other is when a babysitter is trying to close a closet door after searching her kid’s room for the boogie man.  They intercut that with her douchbag boyfriend smoking a joint and revving a motorcycle outside so there’s good subversion of expectations in not knowing who’s gonna get slayed.

The sensor light gag is a good idea but the timing of when the light goes on and off seems to be convenient for whenever Michael needs to do his thang and doesn’t follow any sort of normal pattern.  I know that’s nitpicky but I couldn’t help but notice.

They did get Michael right which is nice.  He looks and moves appropriately, not too stiff and not too agile.  The only moment that’s out of character is when he dumps a fist full of teeth into a bathroom stall to intimidate a lady that’s in there.  Michael kills and moves on.  He doesn’t torture or play with his victims.  He may be slow to pounce due to him being mentally deranged and maybe mulling over how he’s going to dispatch his prey, but he doesn’t do shit to fuck with them on purpose.

So besides a few good scenes, giving us a good Michael performance and the kick ass John & Cody Carpenter soundtrack (you better believe he (they) still got it in the music department) this comes off like bad fan fiction.  The dead giveaway is all the callbacks to the other Halloweens and how that almost seems like the driving force.  It’s disappointing more than anything and all the hype around it about this being a true love letter to the series, especially John Carpenter’s original, certainly doesn’t help.  We don’t need a love letter.  We need a script that doesn’t make you wonder how it passed inspection and filmmaking decisions that don’t make you roll your eyes in frustration.  Look, it’s not the worst movie (actually, it could be the second or third best installment) and I know I’m being harsh but damn, it sure is a whole lot dumber than I was expecting.  Like, all the other Halloween sequels kinda dumb.

Harefooted Halloween: Phantasm II

What I Liked: Turning almost any series into a road movie is a great idea.  The Devil’s Rejects, Logan and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly all worked well when put into perpetual motion.  Ok, Leatherface was crap, but you can add Phantasm II to the mix now.

Mike (James Le Gros (Point Break)) and Reggie (Reggie Bannister (Survival Quest)) become truly badass as armed to the teeth Tall Man hunting possessed maniacs on a mission.  This is a fantastic evolution for these characters.  It’s another proven route like Sarah Connor in T2 or Ash in Evil Dead II.

The practical effects are nice like the weird Tall Man slime baby that’s growing out of someone’s back or when a priest gets hanged by his own rosary in mid air.

What I Didn’t Like: The plot is almost nonexistent.  It seems like writer/director Don Coscarelli (The Beastmaster, John Dies at the End) had ideas for scenes but there’s not much connecting them.  And this is more of a problem than you might think.  I’ve seen this picture before and couldn’t remember what in the hell happened, but I just watched the fuckin’ thing now and still can’t really remember a whole lot.  The lack of a narrative and significant events is devastating to my memory.

Overall Impressions: Besides not being able to retain very much of the story it’s fun in the moment.  The Sam Raimi-ish attitude of just fucking around (which must’ve been intentional because Coscarelli and he are buds and there’s a reference to the guy on a bag full of cremated human remains) makes for an easy going experience that doesn’t take itself too seriously but still delivers on the creeps.  While the incredible original remains king it’s still a good one night stand.  Just don’t expect to remember anything in the morning.