Terminator: Dark Fate

I think we can all agree that the Terminator saga concluded with T2.  Of course it was the sequel we didn’t know we wanted so that was surprising enough.  T3, while completely unnecessary, was a nice bonus though.  No one else seems to have come around on that yet but I’ll sing its praises until my dying day.  It’s the only non-Cameron installment to come remotely close to capturing the spirit of the first two.  Salvation went in the right direction story-wise where if we’re gonna continue to explore this universe then let’s finally take a deeper dive into the infamous war that this entire thing is supposed to be about.  Unfortunately they fucked that up real hard by making John Connor a secondary character and giving off some unpleasant Transformers type vibes.  Then Genisys was a total disaster misguided in just about every way.  I mean they turned John Connor into the villain terminator which was spoiled on the goddamn poster!

Finally we’ve come to Dark Fate and I’ll say from the top that it’s pretty much almost as dumb as Genisys.  I’m not sure if it’s actually a speck better but it’s at least a speck more watchable.  High praise, I know.

Sure it’s easy to dismiss Fate as simply the same ol’ shit yet again with a terminator going back in time to kill a human who will be a threat to the machines in the future but is protected by a good guy also sent back in time.  But that’s not an automatic disqualifier in my book.  It’s the other decisions made within that framework that are bad.

I would classify the dull repetitive narrative as a smaller problem.  There are many others in the same category like that they made the evil terminator Rev-9 (Gabriel Luna (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)), the new half machine/half human hero Grace (Mackenzie Davis (Blade Runner 2049)) and even the standard T-800 way too powerful.  They’re all like Superman level indestructible now which really doesn’t make sense particularly with Grace since she’s still partly human.  These machines used to get some damage after a battle and would need repairs.  That’s out the window in favor of extravagant more cartoonish action.

Speaking of the action I don’t think I care for any of the sequences they came up with.  They’re either worse versions of ones we’ve seen before like a car vs helicopter chase or shit that’s so goofy looking I can’t wrap my head around it like a zero gravity fight in the cargo bay of a humungous military plane falling out of the sky and an encounter with the Rev-9 while our leads are trapped inside a Humvee underwater with ferocious currents because it’s stuck at the bottom of a dam.  And all of it is overly CGI-ed.  Having the machines flip and jump all over the fuckin’ place at lightning speed and use excessively complicated fighting moves makes my eyes glaze over.

With all of that said the film has larger issues and the two I’ll discuss here are related.  Spoilers for the rest of this piece.  The first is replacing Skynet with Legion.  According to the timeline of this particular movie Skynet never becomes a thing so instead it’s this other program called Legion that tries to eradicate human life.  This change is pointless considering Legion does the same exact shit and in the same exact way as Skynet.  The filmmakers are trying to weave an alternate universe because they didn’t want to keep going back to John Connor.  They wanted a fresh face who was as important to the human race but just not John Connor.  And I guess they felt the only way they could do that was to erase almost all events from T1 and T2 (this is somewhat ironic seeing as Fate is a direct sequel to those skipping everything else).

Legion wouldn’t be such a dilemma if we had an all new cast of characters in this other world split off from the original.  It’s still technically part of the Terminators but we’re essentially hitting the reset button.  Again, that would be fine but that’s not what we got.  This leads me to my next big issue.

The conventional wisdom is that you can’t have a Terminator joint without Arnie and once again the T-800 shows up to help save the day.  Not only that but Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton (Dante’s Peak)) is back in action.  Having the two of them co-headlining this feature thirty five years after the first outing is well, if I’m gonna be really honest here, sad.  They’re just too old.  I can’t get on board with either of them running around at their age getting banged the fuck up and doing more physical work than they ever have before.  It’s not even funny.  It comes off as pathetic.

If these characters were used in smaller supporting roles where they aid our protagonists here and there in a much, much, much less guns blazing, fist pounding kind of way that would’ve been more acceptable.  They should’ve catered to the strengths that come with growing older like wisdom, expertise, poise and perspective.

Besides the age thing it’s more that I don’t want to see these characters anymore.  They had their arcs and I’ve been ready since 2003 to move on to others.  And with the new timeline angle it makes even less sense that Sarah Connor and the T-800 are here at all.  Sarah succeeded in preventing her world’s future from happening and the T-800 was theoretically never created.

In order to get the T-800 in this story though they had to shoehorn in a plot point revealing that several T-800s were sent back in time all at once to different time periods and one of them successfully kills John Connor not too long after the events of T2.  I will say the movie has some balls ripping a hole through John Connor’s chest so I’ll give them credit on that one.  It’s a tragic epilogue because the Connors blew up Cyberdyne and everything averting the Skynet future but John ends up dying right after anyway at the hands of a fucking terminator.  Ok, I’ll admit that’s kind of interesting even if it is some major retcon bullshit.

But I don’t understand why this T-800 who accomplished his mission didn’t self-terminate.  I thought that’s what they did when they were done.  Nope, instead he decides to not be a terminator anymore because…he feels like it and settles down and has a family and starts a drape hanging business.  I’m not kidding.  That shit’s actually in the movie.  His name’s Carl by the way.

So the filmmakers wanted it both ways.  They attempted a soft reboot without Skynet or John Connor but at the same time they couldn’t give up Sarah Connor or the T-800.  The end result is this new generation and old generation mix that doesn’t come together.  In fact they clash horribly.  You gotta go all in on one or the other.

One last item, the fate messaging is confusing.  They’re telling you that we can make our own fate but at the same time the drive of the plot is to ensure this one person (Natalia Reyes (Birds of Passage)) survives so she can eventually become the leader of the human resistance.  So it’s all fate but it can be a good fate?  Not such a dark fate but a lighter fate? 

Or perhaps a battle between humans and machines is inevitable which is an idea that T3 initially floated.  You can postpone judgment day and you can split off into a million different alternate realities but the end result will always be the same.  Maybe that’s our dark fate?  I dunno.

The bottom line is the franchise is fated to poop out pure crap until it decides to say “fuck fate” and go in a totally new direction.  I still think it’s possible to do a cool Terminator war movie but that ship may have sailed.  Whatever, this last one’s a mess.

Forrest Gump

This film shouldn’t work.  It’s pure cheese, American of course.  The thing should crush under the weight of schmaltzy romance, nostalgia for landmark events in the second half of twentieth century America and Forrest Gump’s serendipitous coincidence riddled life.  But masterful filmmaking and the utmost sincerity of all involved somehow overcome what is a fucking insufferable exercise on paper.

How did Bob Zemeckis (Romancing the Stone, Flight) and co know they had something good on their hands?  I ask because the story of a low IQ southern man who bumbles his way through life and becomes involved in some of the most significant touchstones in American history and becomes world famous and a millionaire and winds up with the love of his life and transforms the lives he comes in contact with for the better is one of the dumbest sounding plots I’ve ever heard.  Maybe in an animation setting you could get away with this but live action?  Really?

And if that wasn’t enough of a challenge the filmmakers decided to play with the tone.  About half the time it’s fairly whimsical with Forrest (Tom Hanks (That Thing You Do!, Tales from the Crypt)) having silly encounters with various Presidents of the US where he embarrasses himself or he becomes a world class ping pong player.  You know, fun for the whole family type shit.

But there are really serious moments too like an all out war sequence where Forrest’s platoon gets massacred around him in Vietnam and his best friend dies in his arms.  Three or four assassinations are referenced, racism, domestic abuse, incestual pedophilia and drug abuse all show up.  It’s such a bizarre mix.

Keeping one foot firmly in reality has to be one of the main reasons for the film’s success.  This decision cuts the fairy tale angle enough to make the entire story more palatable.  Otherwise it would be much too saccharine.  Striking that balance is a tight rope walk and a half though.

Of course Tom Hanks is another huge reason the picture works.  He sells the character one hundred percent with the ultra thick Alabama accent and constant far off look in his eyes.  The key might be that Hanks pulls off this performance without a hint that you should feel sorry for him.  Forrest may not be too bright but he’s got the biggest heat of gold in the whole goddamn world.  He also excels at every endeavor in his life.  He’s never surprised at this success but it’s not something he expects either.  This attitude combined with the fact that he’s a hard worker intensely focused on whatever the task is at hand makes his accomplishments feel earned which is incredibly important.

Forrest had a rough upbringing with only his mother raising him, he was bullied by other kids, he almost died in Vietnam, his soulmate Jenny (Robin Wright (Toys, Moneyball)) keeps pushing him away and his mother died sorta young.  So these victories of becoming a college football star and suddenly owning a wildly successful shrimping company where he’s set for life money-wise seem valid.

On a technical level the film is a marvel as well.  There are many beautiful shots of the Gump residence and the surrounding property, some of the slick camerawork like the long floaty opening shot are neat and the effects shots where they insert Forrest into old historical footage are seamless.  I mean it’s startling how good that shit looks.  The only issue is the overdubbing of the famous people in the footage is absolutely terrible.  I don’t know how they got one aspect so perfect and completely dropped the ball on another.  Weird.

So I guess it’s no surprise that Forrest Gump is still good.  I think we were all fully aware of the massive corniness when it came out so there’s no revelation there either.  It was embraced back then for its genuineness and I’m doing the same here today.  Despite the odds the moments that should be inane are touching.  It’s kinda like being served a grilled cheese sandwich with a side of peas and carrots at a very fancy restaurant.  That sounds like a strange and less than stellar idea but dammit it’s pretty tasty.  And that’s all I have to say about that.

Happy 9th Anniversary!

Happy 9^th guys!  I know the posts have been very sporadic but life stuff, you know.  My living situation especially is in flux right now and will remain that way for the next few months.  Sorry, I know it’s not your problem.  Hopefully I’ll be able to get back on track more in the spring.

Anyway, thanks to all and to all a cool nine years.  See you soon!

Mish Mash 20 (When the Leading Man Goes from Hero to Assho')

The Way You Look in Swing Time

You know in Swing Time when Fred Astaire sings “The Way You Look Tonight” to Ginger Rogers while she’s in the other room shampooing her hair but then she’s so taken by his affection that she walks over, puts her hand on his shoulder and he turns to gaze lovingly into her eyes, only when he goes for it his smile turns into shock and bewilderment at the sight of a scalp full of suds?  Why the fuck did Astaire do that?  He’s in love with the woman yet almost vomits when he catches her mid-shampoo.  What a shallow dick.

I get that they were going for a comedic moment with the juxtaposition of the song lyrics about how gorgeous this person looks while trying to make Rogers appear unglamorous during it.  But of course Rogers doesn’t look bad at all.  She just has some foamy white hair.  No big deal.  Rogers eventually catches herself in the mirror and scurries away embarrassed which certainly would’ve been enough.  But to have Astaire shoot her a disgusted look is well, disgusting.  Who the fuck thought that was good cinema?

This is a really weird and awful moment in an otherwise great film.  Although Astaire also cheats on his fiancé here so that’s not so cool.  Oh wait and there’s that blackface number he does.  Dammit Fred!  Even though the dancing and the songs are off the charts there are some questionable moments.

Professor Jeff Bridges

Jeff Bridges plays a professor teaching a class on domestic terrorism in Arlington Road and boy is he bad at his job.  He clearly foists his personal point of view on his students that no terrorist operates alone and the authorities sweep horrific incidents under the rug as quickly as possible to make everyone in the country feel safe.  He’s also condescending, obnoxious and unsatisfied with America’s approach to domestic terrorism.  In one scene he impatiently asks one of his students how she felt after a major attack involving a bomb explosion in St. Louis a few years earlier (made up for the film but this obviously references the Oklahoma City bombing) with “When you first heard the news of a terrorist attack in your own country how did that make you feel?  Come on.  Well, how did you feel?!”  This prompts the student to finally give the answer he was fishing for of being scared and angry.

One of the worst things Bridges does though is take his class on a field trip to the remote cabin where his wife died during an FBI raid.  She and other agents were there to scope out a suspicious family but a firefight ensued and she was killed.  It turns out the family weren’t really terrorists and it was all a terrible misunderstanding.  Bridges tells the story in dramatic fashion with big hand gestures and yelling all while fighting back tears.  I’m sure there were similar examples he could’ve used that didn’t involve the death of his wife but I guess the filmmakers thought this was a good way to get that backstory in there.

This douche’s behavior is entirely unprofessional.  You don’t drag your personal shit into the classroom and preach your own beliefs without having any real discussion or debate.  This aspect along with other missteps make the movie way worse than I remember from twenty years ago.

The Big Clock’s George Dowd is a Big Cock

Mighty publisher Janoth (Charles Laughton (Island of Lost Souls)) treats everyone like dogshit including his mistress, Pauline (Rita Johnson (The Naughty Nineties)), and his editor for a crime solving magazine, George Dowd (Ray Milland (Dial M for Murder)).  These two decide to team up to blackmail Janoth as retribution but when they meet to discuss the idea they get plastered and go from bar to bar all night.  George just quit his job because he refused to give up his honeymoon for work so he doesn’t give a fuck.  The problem is he misses the train his wife was on due to the booze binge.  He doesn’t have sex with Pauline but it’s still an incredibly shitty thing to carouse around for hours with another woman who you just met.  Our protagonist folks.

This is only the setup to a genius but incredibly complicated plot involving Janoth recruiting George to find a murderer.  What Janoth doesn’t know is he’s actually looking for George and George isn’t aware he’s actually looking for Janoth.  It’s very difficult to explain in writing so I know that sounds confusing and probably impossible but it miraculously works if you see the movie.

While the picture overall is alright I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that the remake done in the 80’s with Kevin Costner (Waterworld) and Gene Hackman (Extreme Measures) called No Way Out is kinda better.  Sure it doesn’t have the ultra cool film noir look and vibe but the way they setup the characters and their positions of power just makes more sense.  It’s still all about a guy who’s tasked to search for himself while trying to stay a step ahead of his own team of investigators at every turn and hunt for the real killer at the same time.  Plus Costner is single and doesn’t pull the butthole move of galivanting with some broad while his wife waits for him at the train station so they can finally go on their honeymoon.

Both titles are pretty bad though.  The Big Clock sounds as dumb as it turns out to be, which is an actual giant clock that doesn’t really play a role (apparently in the book it was more of a metaphor), and No Way Out while fitting is astoundingly generic.

One Cut of the Dead

Here’s the basic setup, a small film crew is shooting a zombie movie at a remote abandoned Japanese WWII location but then suddenly real zombies show up and wreak havoc.  Other weird shit keeps occurring too, you know besides the dead coming back for a meal, so you’re never comfortable.  Eventually these perplexing oddities are explained though.

This is a real brief piece because you shouldn’t know anything going into this movie.  It’ll only work half as well otherwise.  And if you think you’ve figured out the twist there’s a ninety nine percent chance you’re wrong.

The only other bit of info I’ll reveal is it’s done in one take and for real apparently.  Hence the title.

This film is just fantastic and immensely satisfying.  It’s so clever and charming and unique.  And with the approach to the material you don’t necessarily have to be a horror fan to enjoy it either.  The appeal is broader than that.  I really loved it and definitely recommend it.  Sorry, that’s all I can say right now.

End of Days

If you look at Schwarzenegger’s career leading up to End of Days he had battled various types of enemies like robots, aliens, plain ol’ humans and even cinema itself.  But he hadn’t done ghosts or anything spiritual so to go up against Satan was new territory for him.  And curiously this didn’t take some fantasy/sword and sorcery kinda path which Arnie had tackled with the Conans or a more exaggerated/cartoonish reality like Batman & Robin.  Instead they went for the gritty boiler plate cop action movie angle.  Think about how crazy that approach is.  How is the devil supposed to fit in to a setup like that?

Well sorry to burst your bubble right off the bat but unfortunately the concept doesn’t play out nearly as ludicrous as what you’re imagining.  This is largely due to the movie treating Lucifer (Gabriel Byrne (Cool World, Hereditary)) like any run of the mill villain.  His goal is to procreate with human woman Christine (Robin Tunney (Vertical Limit, The Craft)) on the eve of the year 2000 (eastern standard time of course) which will bring about the end of the world.  But instead of having a laser beam focus like the T-1000 he takes his time visiting his worshipers and killing skateboarders.  He just bullshits around like many action movie bad guys.

This behavior makes Satan kind of incompetent here.  I mean when you look at the guy’s extensive powers you realize there’s no excuse why he can’t get the job done in a few hours at most.  He can cause explosions, hallucinations, murder people instantly, has superhuman strength, can resurrect the dead and make them his foot soldiers, weaken people’s minds to do his bidding and his piss is as flammable as gasoline.  That last one is by far the strangest attribute.  In any case no one stands a chance against this dude.  And with all these powers it somehow still takes him a day or two to find Christine making him look extra clumsy.

On top of that Satan has a whole lot of trouble fighting Schwarzenegger.  These two go toe to toe twice and it’s no question Schwarzenegger kicks the devil’s ass both times.  Arnie definitely works for it though and takes a beating in the process.  He should’ve died during one scene when a group of worshipers overwhelm him in sheer numbers but amazingly even the all powerful Satan pulls one of the biggest cliché moves of all time by letting the hero live so he can witness the villain’s grand scheme play out.

There are a few positives I wanna bring up though.  Schwarzenegger plays suicidal alcoholic cop Jericho Cane (damn, that’s ballsy to go for the double bible reference in a single name) whose wife and daughter were murdered in some sort of retaliation plot.  This is probably the darkest most grim character he had played up to that point.  Since then he’s done this type a few times like in Collateral Damage and Aftermath but back in the 90’s it was a little depressing to see him like this.  However, I think he pulls it off.  He carries the grief with him throughout the piece.  You can see it in his face and he doesn’t joke around quite as much as usual.  He’s also understandably dumbstruck when he finds out the devil actually exists.  I like Arnie as Jericho.  It stands out in his repertoire because he takes it a little more seriously.

Everyone else is fine.  Byrne is serviceable as Beelzebub who goes a somewhat sophisticated quiet rage route.  I wonder if it was a conscious choice to make this character an affluent white man in NYC.  It’s doubtful the filmmakers were going for any sort of message but I thought I’d ask that out loud.

Robin Tunney does as good a job as you can with a character like Christine.  This is supposed to be the most important person on the planet yet she’s simply a damsel in distress.  She doesn’t do a thing to help defeat Satan or aid Schwarzenegger.  That’s shitty.

The strongest aspect of the film is the cinematography (my man Peter fuckin’ Hyams (Sudden Death, The Relic) also directs).  Everything looks pretty great.  The lighting is especially moody with almost every scene being a bit underlit.  There’s also a bunch of smoke billowing up from beneath surfaces and a griminess to everything as if to say “is this world really worth saving anyway?”  And it’s cool when they’re stringing up Schwarzenegger on a makeshift cross while it’s raining but Satan is the only one who magically isn’t getting wet.

Overall this one has a strange vibe.  The script is too generic for the wacky baseline idea and the execution is a good deal better than it should be with some nice photography and quick cuts in an effort to make the story more exciting.

One thing’s for sure, this isn’t as bad as its reputation.  I remember when it came out and everyone shat on it hard.  There are some neat sequences like when Schwarzenegger is pursuing a mad gunman on a high rise roof while dangling from a helicopter and the subway train scene where you never know which part of the car Satan is gonna pop out from next.  Also, the scene where the devil tries to convince Schwarzenegger to join him is well done and enjoyable.  There’s certainly some good stuff to be had.

This is what you think the entire movie will be but
it's only a few seconds out of two hours

But it’s still a tough recommendation.  Maybe the biggest strike against it is it comes off a bit too much like a Se7en knock off.  There was this awkward trend in the second half of the 90’s where some folks tried to cash in on the huge success of that picture and before you knew it an entire slew of unbearably gloomy vaguely religious crime thrillers popped up.  You had The Glimmer Man, Kiss the Girls, The Bone Collector, Fallen and etc.  That was weird man.

Anyway, if the stars align this new year’s for Satan to come to NYC and start a merciless reign of doom let’s all hope Schwarzenegger will be there to stop the sonuvabitch cold.  Have a happy and a healthy and I’ll see you next decade!  Byeee!

Fatal Attraction

Spoilers in this piece, please check out the film if you haven’t yet.  You won’t regret it.

Yes, this is one of the best thrillers of all time but a really weird thing that sticks out is Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas (Black Rain)) doesn’t appear to have any motivation to cheat on his wife (Anne Archer (Clear and Present Danger)).  He gets along with her, he loves their kid, things are going well at his job and he has fun hanging out with his friends.  As far as we know he doesn’t have a history of affairs either.  So what gives?  Is it because his six year old daughter cock blocked him after the book release party?

At one point Alex Forrest (Glenn Close (Jagged Edge)) asks Dan point blank what he’s doing with her when he’s got a wife at home but Dan deflects and the subject is dropped.  Maybe this guy is so sex crazed and/or deprived that he can’t help himself.  Maybe he has a serious problem.  He’s clearly not in love with Alex otherwise he would want to continue seeing her.  Instead he’s adamant about the encounter being a two day fling.

If you step back for a moment Dan should be the bad guy here.  His dick brained impulsiveness crippled his marriage, scarred his daughter emotionally and put his family’s safety at risk.  But because Alex is such a deranged, mentally disturbed, seriously dangerous person our priorities shift.  Suddenly having an affair doesn’t seem so bad compared to kidnapping and attempted murder.  Ironically Dan commits some crimes of his own with breaking and entering and several counts (!!) of attempted murder.  Yet we’re still on his side.

Apart from the frenzied choking and stuff Dan can be cruel in other ways.  For instance he fakes a heart attack in front of Alex as a GOTCHA! hahaha moment.  Alex immediately returns the favor by pretending she witnessed her father die of heart attack when she was little.  I’m not saying tit for tat is really a good idea in most situations but I have to admit Dan sorta had that coming.

Fatal Attraction is a complicated movie because the characters are complicated.  I mean Dan’s wife didn’t do anything to deserve the heartbreak or knife attack that Dan is one hundred percent responsible for laying at her feet however she sticks with him in the end.  See what I’m talking about?

I wonder how the original ending would’ve changed my feelings.  It was completely different where Alex kills herself and gets Dan’s fingerprints on the knife framing him for the deed.  The film concludes with his arrest.  While it’s tempting to say Dan would’ve gotten his comeuppance I think going to prison, or being executed, for being an adulterous bastard is a punishment that’s too extreme.  Not only that but Alex would’ve won in this scenario.  She utterly destroyed the man’s life (and the lives of those closest to him) who rejected her and she doesn’t have to ever feel guilty about that because she’s not breathing anymore.  On paper this seems like an unsatisfying conclusion but then again refusing to give Dan a motive for cheating seems like it wouldn’t work either.

This lack of explanation and fundamental foundation for the story should kind of ruin the movie.  How come it doesn’t then?  I guess the other components are so gripping it can’t be denied.  The casting and performances are excellent, the story is like a car crash you can’t look away from with Dan’s nightmare getting worse and worse and the cinematography is very measured with fancier angles and smart cutting shining through during the passionate intense scenes.

A particular highlight is the creepy tape Alex leaves for Dan where she rambles about how much she hates him in a cool and collected tone.  And the twists and turns of the finale are just fantastic as well.

But I don’t know what set decorator George DeTitta (Death Wish, Saturday Night Fever) was thinking with so many pictures on the walls in the Gallagher’s homes.  They have a lot of shit around the house in general (which may not be as bad as the Harfords from Eyes Wide Shut) but damn, they sure like to nail those photos to the wall.  Even the bathroom at their upstate house is littered with them.  With all those eyes staring at you it’s like there’s no privacy at all in that room.

Alright, this was an unusual type of write up but most of you out there already know how good this picture is so I wanted to bring up something that maybe you hadn’t thought about before.  A little change from the usual format.  But that’s it.  This is a one time deal.  Two ships passing in the night and all that.  You understand.

Before I go I’ll leave you with two things.  First is a picture I took at a wax museum I visited when I went to Niagara Falls in 2013.  They had a Fatal Attraction display and it’s hilariously awful, especially the Michael Douglas figure who looks emaciated and twenty years older than he’s supposed to.

The other item is a track some friends and I did many years ago where we sampled some audio from this film.  I think the song is funny bad but I don’t blame you if you think it’s just bad bad.