Superhero Trilogy

I tend not to like most movies that I see. I keep watching them, hoping for a good one. Because now and again I will watch a movie that pleases me. Yes, I do admit that I am sometimes very critical of the form, but there's nothing wrong with that. When I do see a decent film I celebrate it.

One filmmaker whose work I generally despise is M. Night Shyamalan. His movies are--to put it mildly--mostly stupid. I was first talked into going to see his movie "The Sixth Sense". I concluded that it was insipid and predictable. It wasn't without a good performance from Bruce Willis, and that was the only thing that kept me from walking out on it.

In addition, I have seen (or tried to watch) a host of his other films. Either out of boredom or at the request of friends who actually do enjoy his movies. They were pretty much all complete failures for me, except for one movie.

"Unbreakable". That was the only movie from Shyamalan that I have seen which I quite enjoyed. Yes, it is a silly superhero movie. But he plucked out most of the goofy ideas of the superhero theme and--as much as was possible--turned it all into something almost realistic. For the first time in my life I watched a filmmaker actually create a superhuman project that really was (to quote the silly meme from the 1980s) "not just for children anymore".

He removed the idea of spandex costumes. He dispensed with secret identities, headquarters, allies, and other such fantasies. One of the things I rather did like about the film is that the superhero in the movie doesn't even realize that he is such until someone tweaks it out of him. And then it becomes an inner conflict of whether the protagonist is, in fact, superhuman, or just mentally disturbed. In addition, the powers that the hero has are almost believable. Not quite, but just enough for me to be able to enjoy the movie as something approaching logic--tremendous strength, a high level of immunity from physical damage, and a measure of telepathy that is so vague it even confuses the hero. Yeah, I could dig it.

Also, it didn't hurt that it starred Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson, two actors whose work I sometimes enjoy. Both of them tend to deliver questionable performances from time to time, but now and again they will also surprise me with particularly convincing portrayals.

It was because of "Unbreakable" that I relented and tried to watch a string of his other movies which were absolutely awful and made me wonder if the writer/director is a moron (and also how anyone would continue to give him the vast amounts of cash it requires to make a major film these days). These later movies were so awful that the very mention of his name ended up filling me with a sense of disgust.

I never did see "Split", his movie about a man who is besieged by multiple personalities. Because I had already seen or tried to watch "Signs", "The Village", "The Happening", and "After Earth". I turned all of those off because they were so horrid in every way I could mention. The man was, I had to admit, a manufacturer of shit.

Except for that one movie, "Unbreakable".

Later I read that he is doing a sequel to "Unbreakable", and that his previous movie "Split" is actually part of his superhero trilogy. Therefore, I will go to see "Glass", his new movie, the final film in his trilogy. I'll also rent "Split" to see if it's his usual awful material. Maybe he'll surprise me.

Or maybe I'll have been suckered again. I'll let you know.

Bruce Willis as the unbreakable superhero, here trying to use his confusing ability of extra-sensory powers.

James McAvoy as the monstrous "Beast". (I wonder what kind of a deal they had to work with Marvel Comics/Disney for the use of that hame.)

Samuel L. Jackson as the dapper evil genius, Mr. Glass.

The Shape of Manipulation

After I first encountered the work of director Guillermo del Toro I was both hypnotized and impressed. Even his commercial efforts such as the second BLADE movie, and HELLBOY were fun to watch and full of playful material. I liked his work so much that I sought out interviews with him and pretty soon decided that he was likely the most intelligent guy making fantasy films.

My favorite of his work is probably PAN'S LABYRINTH which was sparked by the experiences of his politically leftist family during the Spanish Civil War. CRONOS is also another of his movies that I admire. It didn't hurt that in addition to his obvious intelligence, he also just projected a very likable, childlike persona when interviewed. I found myself looking forward to news of any upcoming projects from him.

However, with the second HELLBOY feature film he directed I lost much of my admiration for his style and his efforts. It was the first time that one of his movies lost the blush of imagination for me. That film was all effects and noise and offered pretty much nothing else. That was okay, I figured, assuming that it was a glitch in the program and that he'd get right back to work as usual. (It did, however, completely derail the HELLBOY movie franchise.)

Then came the execrable THE STRAIN television series that he created and produced (but, apparently did not direct). Perhaps one of the single worst genre shows I have ever seen on television. Even comic book physics have to contain some kind of logic; and weird movies about things such as vampiric worms should contain realistic characterizations and decent acting, none of which were evident in this piece of shit. His TV effort lacked anything whatsoever of value and I quickly lost interest in it. His name on a project was beginning to repel rather than attract me.

After that came PACIFIC RIM (about giant robots fighting giant monsters) which managed to make Idris Elba look like a first class ham; and CRIMSON PEAK (supposedly a kind of ghost-imbued romance) with a forgettable cast. Both of these failed to inspire me at any level whatsoever, with the former actually making me rather sick. He'd gone over to trying to impress his audience with CGI and, frankly...that got old some time back.

What the hell was going on with the guy?

So. I kept hearing about his homage to THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON and that it was headed for the big screen. I had not yet lost all hope for del Toro's work, so I was going to see this movie and give him one more chance. The film appeared, apparently to tepid fan response, and I kept missing opportunities to see it. Truthfully, after a number of crappy efforts, I wasn't in a hurry to view his latest movie.

Finally, though, it won the Academy Award for Best Picture so my wife actually found herself wanting to see it. As I'd heard, it was a kind of romance so I figured she might enjoy it. We drove to a nearby theater two days after the stupid Academy Awards ceremony and bought our tickets and had our seats in a mostly empty theater.

For her part, my wife adored the movie. She loathes genre films, but this one she loved. As the end credits were rolling she was actually crying at the sweetness of it all. I didn't say anything to break the moment for her.

As for me--that was it. No more Guillermo del Toro films for me. I was pretty much sickened by the spectacle. It was slick--I'll give him that. The monster was cool. Weird enough looking to be a creature from another environment, but not so disgusting that some people couldn't imagine that fucking it would be a hideous rape-y kind of experience.

Yeah, del Toro did his 'Beauty and the Beast' schtick without making any liberals feel creepy about it. In this case the heroine was with the monster by choice and not through force.

And therein lay my disgust with the movie: del Toro went out of his way, pulled out all of the stops, and rigged up every bit of neo-liberal gibberish that he could cram into a movie. How could the Academy not give him the Oscar for it? Well, apparently they couldn't resist. He played them like a fine instrument and won the popularity contest among his little clique of special people.

Here's what he did:

The heroine of the yarn was a woman. Points for that. And what they call, these days, a strong woman. Kudos. She was also not completely normal, not pretty, and had struggled to overcome not just adversity, but a major handicap. Touchdown!

The monster--also a hero--was strong and silent, sensitive and understanding, and loving. All things that, apparently, real heterosexual men are not.

And that's where we get to the true meat of the tale. What were the men like? You know...the men who are human beings and not fishmen from the depths.

They were almost all villains. First of all we had Strickland--played by the very talented character actor Michael Shannon. Boy, did del Toro deliver the liberal goods on this guy. He is everything that the groupthink informs us is horrible about males. First of all, he's white. Ding! Then he's aggressive. Dong! He's also a racist. (Aren't all non-liberals?!) He's self-centered, sadistic, cruel. Check. Check. Check. And then...so as not to leave any doubt regarding his villainy, he's a sexual harasser! Boing!!

At least in movies like PAN'S LABYRINTH the bad guy was courageous and dedicated. No admirable traits with this one. Such Liberal fun!

All of the other guys in the movie (but one) are also evil. Next we have THE RUSSIANS!  (Oooo! The scary Russians!) As you all know, every Russian is evil! Every Russian deserves to be killed. We need to go to war with Russia according to the liberals and boy do the liberals get to have their hate-on with Russia with this one!  Guillermo del Toro gives them this, in spades! Woo HOO! Warmongering liberal wet dream! All the Russians must, die! And they do!

Hell...del Toro even makes the one black man in the entire movie into a villainous, cowardly douchebag. Heavens to Alice Walker! SCORE! Right through the uprights!

In fact, the only decent human male in the movie is Giles, the heroine's next-door-neighbor who is a closeted gay. Yeah, you have to be a gay man to be worthy in this movie. All of the heterosexual males are pernicious. Jackpot, del Toro! You win the lottery! Enjoy yer dildo-shaped statues!

So, I found that this was easily far and away the most calculated bit of propaganda that I have seen in a major motion picture in decades. And it's not as if I can't enjoy a propaganda piece (such as PATTON), but this one was just so obvious in its pungent prostitution that the whole experience sickened me.

And then--that ending. The final scene of glorious transition. Give. Me. A. Break. Ya lost me, Guillermo. The trans bandwagon?! Lost probably forever. I'm pretty sure I've sworn off Guillermo del Toro as a filmmaker. Definitely as an honest creator, at any rate. He can whore off his mind for other people. I think I'm done with him.

Bestiality is fun!

THE BLACKCOAT'S DAUGHTER

I am not a fan of pop culture. Seriously. I tend to hate that shit. Every day people mention pop music stars and the latest young actors, top-grossing movies, fad novels and such...and I have no idea what they're talking about. I just do not follow current trends in modern media. Basically, except for a brief period of my youth, I never have eaten at that trough.

To make it plain, I ignore the latest in hit films and, since the media is packed with ads and promotions for movies that I consider garbage, I tend to avoid the advertising for all modern movies. This means that I often miss hearing about films that I might enjoy because of the fact that I remain ignorant of them due to intentionally avoiding the constant bombardment from vast corporations promoting their vile shit.

Thus, I missed hearing about a 2016 movie called THE BLACKCOAT'S DAUGHTER. The movie was written and directed by "Oz" Perkins (Osgood Perkins, son of the later actor Tony Perkins and Berry Berenson). Set at a private all-girls Catholic school, the story reveals itself as a particularly creepy tale of madness, obsession, and (possibly) demonic possession. Told partially in a series of flashbacks, the story unfolds slowly and effortlessly, although with a kind of cool tension.

And cold is the key word for this film. Everything about it is chilling and sterile. The setting of the film at the Catholic girls prep school is the ultimate of alienation and abandonment. Amid this frozen landscape (both within and without) we are introduced to a pair of students who find themselves trapped at the location because each set of parents failed to show up to gather the girls at winter break. (Yes, the school director attempts to locate and communicate with the two sets of parents, to no effect.) So the girls must wait to be collected by their parents for another day, during which everything changes for them both.

Kat (played by Kiernan Shipka from MAD MEN--yes, I have seen some pop culture TV now and again) is convinced via a nightmare that her parents have been killed in an auto accident and will never arrive.  Rose, (performed by Lucy Boynton, an actress I had never seen before) has intentionally misled her parents to think that she is to be picked up later because she wanted to see a boyfriend before she left for home. So the two girls (one older than the other by a couple of years) are left in the silent halls with only a couple of nuns for company--the girls staying in their structured dorm, the nuns in a brownstone on the campus.

And there is the appearance of a third youthful woman (played by Emma Roberts) inserted into the plot whose story seems disconnected from the others, told in a setting that occurs several years after the initial storyline. Alone at a bus station, she's offered a ride by a married couple played effectively and coldly by Lauren Holly and James Remar (who normally delivers villainous roles, but not here).

I found both Perkins' script and direction to be exceptionally good. The feelings of sterility and alienation that he communicates via images and dialog are effective. The story he tells is also deceptively simple, which adds to the power of it as it unfolds.

If I had any criticism of it after this recent viewing, it would be that the theme of the movie could be considered routine in some ways. But again, I am a hard viewer to please, so I often find fault in most movies.

I do think the movie is engaging in most ways. Keep in mind that it is a horror movie, and an effective one. It's not a romance, and it's not a feel-good yarn. It's a horror movie, with accent on the slowly unfolding, implacable monstrosity. 

Lucy Boynton as Rose.

Kiernan Shipka as the creepy Kat.

The New Karloff

On another occasion my pals and I were discussing the old movie stars. We quickly began to talk about the various actors who had staked their careers on being monsters of various stripes, or playing second fiddle to monsters in films when they weren’t actually being the monsters.

Of course the king of all of these actors was Boris Karloff. He was the best of them, and the greatest.

Then we began to wonder who the “new” Boris Karloff was. Surely there must be an actor among the modern crop who filled the same niche as the old master, Karloff. One reason the list is short is because some actors, fearing themselves being typecast, will run from genre offers in hopes that something “better” will come along. Anyone remember Jonathan Frid? So, knowing there weren’t a lot of actors to choose from, we began to run through the very short list.

Brad Dourif?

Nope. One-off guy. Good actor and all that, but voicing a murderous doll in a series of movies doesn’t quite count.

Robert Englund? Nah. None of us figure he’s much of an actor, and all he ever did was play Freddie. A neat character and all that, but a one-note actor.

Christopher Lee? Well…maybe he would have fit the bill twenty-five years ago, but he’s rather long in the tooth (haha). He might count, as he’s quite the actor and has played quite a lot of monsters, including Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster. But we struck him off the list since he’s all but a contemporary of Karloff’s.

And then…for the longest time, we were just stuck. Finally, though, it occurred to me. Who was the actor I’ve seen the most who’s almost always covered in prosthetic makeup whenever he’s appeared in a feature film?

Ron Perlman.

He’s quite good, as actors go. Maybe not at the top of the heap of actors, and he could never really be a straight leading man (not with that mug!). But he’s quite effective in every role I’ve seen. And, of course, he’s almost always a monster or creature or in some altered state in just about every film.

The first time I saw him (Quest for Fire) he was a Neanderthal man, or some kind of archaic human. With that simian face of his, they didn’t need to add a lot of makeup. He played a retarded hunchback in The Name of the Rose. In the TV series, Beauty and the Beast…well, he was a human lion. In Enemy at the Gates, he was a steel-toothed sniper (really! Steel teeth!). In Blade II, he was a blood-sucking vampire. Perlman was The Sayer of the Law in The Island of Doctor Moreau. The muscle-bound strongman in The City of Lost Children. The man was a scar-faced mercenary in Alien: Resurrection. He was an extra-terrestrial humanoid in Star Trek: Nemesis. And in my favorite of his performances, he was the all-too human demon, Hellboy in the film of that name (a role which he is about to reprise in a sequel).

As a voice actor, he has appeared as any number of monsters and villains and super-heroes in a range of cartoons, both theatrical and for TV.

So, there you have it, folks. There is a modern-day Boris Karloff. His name is Ron Perlman.