Matt Freestone, 29 March 1999.
Matt Freestone, November 1995
This is a documentary about the legendary comics-writer/artist Robert Crumb and his family. The film covers the history of Crumb's career from the Sixties to the present day, but also provides fascinating insights into his life and rather warped mind.
Most interesting is the comparison to be drawn between Robert and his elder brother Charles. During their childhood, Charles was the main comics creator, with Robert as his assistant. However, as the brothers get older, Charles' comics acquire a strange 'wrinkling' effect in the artwork, and an increasing prevalence of text over graphics, which culminates in pages of tiny writing and then degenerates into logomania and ultimately deep depression in Charles.
When we meet him in the film, Charles is in late middle age, but his illness has prevented him ever leaving home. Robert, on the other hand, appears to have channelled very similar tendencies toward depression and self-loathing into his work, which is often violently misanthropic, though shot through with black humour. Critics have called Robert Crumb racist and misogynistic, which is true, but misses the point: he hates everyone.
The sense of Charles' almost entirely wasted life (as a footnote to the film we learn that he has since killed himself) and the thought that, however strange his life seems, Robert has been extremely lucky to avoid the same fate, would make this film almost unbearably sad if it weren't for the sense of humour which both brothers display. As it is, it's a fine portrait of a man whose genius is visibly close to madness, and a poignant memorial to a man whose madness was so visibly close to genius.
Phil Delnon, February 1996
If you though that Manga were already beyond parody, watch this. Stuffed fuller than a turkey with the stock effects of Japanese animations, Kekkou Kamen has references to everything from Teenage Mutant Turtles upwards. All-right, then, sideways. So there are the obligatory marching boots, the motorbike headlamps in the night, the open-mouthed and frozen-faced crowds going "Aah" and "Ooh", the lighting-effects and the streaky laser-lines for moments of speed or drama.
The production values (?) are as cheap as anything you glimpse whilst searching for something worth watching on Sunday morning TV. Nearly all of the leading characters wear masks - it saves having to animate their mouths. Not that Go Nagai always bothers, anyway.
The plot... you want a plot? Animé plots are often fairly-transparent pretexts for soft-porn depictions of doe-eyed but full-breasted schoolgirls in bondage, stripped and whipped. Kekkou Kamen doesn't waste time with all this and goes straight for the action, putting in a few punches at aspects of contemporary Japanese society such as the fetish for schoolgirl panties. (Did you know that in 1994 a Japanese business was prosecuted for selling used schoolgirl panties without a licence...?)
The setting is the Sparta College, run by the iron-masked, sex-obsessed Principal, Satan Toecheese, whose main assistant is the Doctor. I did say Turtles, but it could also be He-Man. The heroine who regularly foils their plots is the eponymous Kekkou Kamen herself, who wears a mask and boots and nothing else, except perhaps a scarf. Well, at night I suppose she might feel the cold.
There are some lovely lines: When a Nazi is thrown into a basketball net, the crowd choruses "Nice shot!" (Yes, of course there are Nazis. I did say cheap.) Other gems include: "I know the girl students' panties better than I know my own armpits... Listen very carefully, I will say this only once... I don't think this is gratuitous enough: let's make things a little more interesting..." and when the blond and musclebound gymnastics/punishment teacher, Schwarzenegger lies defeated on the ground: "I'll be back."
There is a generous parodying of heroic conventions: "I am - oh, I hate this bit - the Messenger of Love and Justice." As the credits roll, the obligatory final song includes lines such as: "Kekkou Kamen..."
"Dealing with the loonie, the pervert and the slob
It isn't much to live on, but the lady needs a job..."
Incidentally, for all that it parodies the manga conventions, Kekkou Kamen is itself bound by the same rules of censorship: so when it comes to it, the heroine is totally anatomically sexless, to the extent that she better hadn't drink anything.
Thoroughly recommended, Kekkou Kamen... and does anyone know how to fix a jammed video freeze-frame control?
Matt Freestone, February 1996
A Danish TV mini-series transferred to film (two films in fact, both over two hours long), The Kingdom is to hospital drama what Twin Peaks was to soap opera. It's set in the eponymous Copenhagen hospital, where strange events have been happening lately.
Like Twin Peaks, The Kingdom depends on a cast of eccentrics for much of its effect. The main players include Dr. Helmer, an immensely arrogant and pompous Swede who despises the Danish doctors as fools but who is forced to ingratiate himself with them and join their Secret Society so that they will help him out of a malpractice case.
Mrs. Drusse is a malingering patient, who while admitted for fake neurological symptoms, detects the ghost of a little girl in the hospital. She sets out to discover what became of her, abetted by her son who is a hospital porter.
These two are the archetypes of the film: Dr. Helmer represents a concept of rationality and progress which believes it knows everything; Mrs. Drusse a disruptive force - she is the advocate of the supernatural forces at work in the hospital. This conflict recurs again and again in the film: the hospital itself is slowly being swamped by the marshes over which it was built, and the conclusion of Mrs. Drusse's investigation confirms your worst suspicions about doctors.
Fortunately there is also room for other plot strands, many of them blackly humorous - for instance the insane Dr. Bondo's attempts to obtain a terminal patient's liver for dissection, which eventually leads him to persuade the other doctors to transplant it into his own body.
Overall, The Kingdom is very well done: shot in a kind of twilit pastiche of the ER style, and with enough jokes and gore to sustain it through four hours. Its run at the ICA has now finished, but look out for it if it is released on video.
Matt Freestone, September 1996
Despite being as American as nuclear war, and having a plot through which you could fly an alien war-fleet, I think Independence Day is a very entertaining film.
Of course, the effects are probably the main reason to see it: the scene where the alien mothership appears, star-destroyer-like, over the Earth's moon lets anyone who's seen Star Wars know what to expect, while the verisimilitude of the aerial battles between alien and US fighters seems to ground the larger-scale effects in our experience, making them seem more realistic and hence more impressive.
The film also makes a virtue of its B-movie characteristics by refusing to be embarrassed by them; schmaltz and corn are played up, and funny-hat characters abound: a good example is the slimy security aide who, when asked why Area 51 had been kept secret for so long, replies, "Two words, Mr. President: plausible deniability."
Plot holes are ridden-over roughshod, of course, and credibility is frequently more overdrawn than the USA: how can Jeff Goldblum log into the mothership's computers more easily than I can get into Demon? I'm sure TCP/IP isn't that widespread yet. Why doesn't the impact of many billion-ton saucers on the Earth lay waste to the landscape and block out the Sun with dust? (A back-of-the-envelope estimate puts one saucer-impact equal to the combined arsenal of all Britain's Trident subs.)
Frankly, it's best just to turn off your brain and not worry about it. Have a nice day, now.
Phil Delnon, June 1998
Spielberg's The Lost World was disappointing. In some respects that's the inevitable consequences of being a sequel: when the intrepid adventurers encounter a stegosaurus herd, the actors (apart from Jeff Goldblum) are acting a jaw-dropping effect, but the audience suffers from déjà-vu. You can't help thinking That's nothing: wait 'till you see your first Brontosaurus.
The biggest disappointment is the plot, or what passes for it. To be fair, there were creaks in the structure of Jurassic Park: but The Lost World is little more than a string of clichés and schlocky effects from start (innocent little girl meets tiny raptors, cue screams and quick cut-away) to finish (ocean-going vessel crashes into harbour and releases angry T-rex for short and well-deserved demolition job on San Diego, cue lots of smash-em-ups à la Godzilla).
Along the way there is of course the rapacious Business Corporation, the crazed White Hunter, the feisty girlfriend, the sassy kid, the hero with the troubled home life… just about every worn-out cinematic convention since the 1950's - including the motorised yahoos who hark back to all the Movie Bikers who ever strutted their thuggish way to their obligatory come-uppance. And of course the villain of the piece receives his Just Desserts from the avenging raptor).Yawn.
Matt Freestone, March 1997
Mars Attacks! is Tim Burton’s pastiche of 50’s Hollywood alien invasion movies. It also functions as a parody of a recent blockbusting SF movie. I’m not sure if this is intentional, or if it is mainly because Burton has lovingly parodied the conventions of the same set of films that Independence Day was content merely to exaggerate.
After a slightly slow start which serves mainly to satirise the US media and government (about as hard as shooting fish in a barrel) the aliens land and rapidly reveal their dastardly nature (though they disintegrate Michael J Fox, so they can’t be all bad). From this point on the film just plays several variations on the theme of ‘All-American types get zapped’: anyone who is hypocritically moralistic, greedy, xenophobic, or who lives in a trailer park is shortly going to be a smoking skeleton. Conversely, alienated teens, hard-working African-Americans, and slightly loopy third-agers have a greatly enhanced chance of survival.
Another way of seeing the film is as the clash between a (stereotyped) 90’s USA and a (stereotyped) 50’s alien invasion. The US does not realise that it is up against a creatures that cannot be negotiated with, not because they are ruthless and intransigent (it’s never explained what Mars hopes to gain), but because they have no other purpose than to attack the Earth. They are existential Martians, determined to play the part to the full. We repeatedly see them privately laughing at the Earth’s peace overtures, then playing along until they can zap the greatest number of humans - just to see if we’ve got the idea yet. Only a parody of a 50’s B-movie solution can prevail against them.
Overall I thought this was a very entertaining and amusing film, which pays homage to the sources it quotes even as it parodies them.
Tony Chester, December 1995
If you think you've seen it all before... you'd be right. Here is a film which uneasily rips off Alien, Split Second, Terminator and just about anything else you can think of. The basic plot: ETs send transmission to Earth in response to SETI signal, containing human/alien DNA mix. Humans grow alien (who looks human). For generally unspecified reason - i.e. fear - humans decide to kill alien.
Alien escapes with mission to reproduce. Mayhem ensues, usually when the bimbo playing the alien gets her tits out (about every 15 minutes on average)...
...and very nice they are, too: but so what? Cue graphic-animation style special effects barely above Babylon 5 level. Chuck in a few shootings, helicopters, explosions, generally-above-average one-liners, some character stupidity and an ending straight out of Aliens/Terminator 2, and then it's all over.
Worth it? No. Wait for the video/TV release.
Matt Freestone, November 1995
I thought this was an excellent film in the genre which I suppose we'll have to start calling Tarantino-esque. Five criminals brought in for a line-up find they've become part of the machinations of a master criminal, the almost supernatural figure called Kaiser Sozay. (Several scenes in the film seem to have been shot using horror-film techniques in order to heighten this effect.) Sozay's influence permeates the plot, which is narrated to us in flashback by the only surviving member of the gang, as he confesses to the police in return for immunity after a disastrous drugs heist on a cargo ship.
There's plenty of snappy hoodlum banter, a fair bit of carnage, and a very neat twist which owes something to one of G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown stories (deliberately, one suspects, as Chesterton is quoted during the film). Great stuff if you like this sort of thing.
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