Battle Beyond The Stars

Battle Beyond the Stars(1980)

Runtime: 104 minutes

Directed by: Jimmy T. Murakami

Starring: Richard Thomas, Robert Vaughn, John Saxon (RIP), George Peppard, Sybil Danning

From: New World Pictures

It seemed fitting to tip my cap to the late John Saxon by seeing a low budget B-movie he had a big role in. After all, that was the bread and butter of his career; it was always a pleasant sight seeing him in something, no matter the movie's overall quality. Thankfully, most of the movies I've seen him in have been at the very least enjoyable trash. The poliziotteschi and giallo had entertainment value, although they were not something like A Nightmare on Elm Street or Enter the Dragon. Nevertheless, I was saddened to hear of him passing away last weekend.

This movie was also chosen because it “borrowed” the story both from Seven Samurai and its American remake The Magnificent Seven for a space adventure that was in vogue at the time. For a Roger Corman movie it had a big budget... although a lot of that went to hire the likes of Robert Vaughn and George Peppard. The cast has other familiar faces-Sybil Danning, Darlanne Fluegel, Earl Boen, Julia Duffy and even as an “alien extra” the divisive Kathy Griffin. Behind the camera were some names that would soon become pretty big: this was where James Cameron would start his career and as various people quit the production he did more and more. Thus, that was why he did the miniatures, was an additional director of photography, and was an art director. He took the last one without even knowing what it entailed. His hours were so long that he often slept at the studio. But this was where he met quite a few people... Gale Ann Hurd, Boen, and James Horner (this was the first big score he did) were the most notable ones. Cameron already knew Bill Paxton, who he got hired to work on the sets as he did not have a job at the time. To think that all those people would work together on some 80's and 90's classics because they all met together on a random Roger Corman movie.

As for Battle Beyond the Stars, it's a cheesy good time. Saxon played the bad guy, a real A-hole who wants to conquer the peaceful planet of Akir, where its residents are known as Akira... a nice nod there. One guy is charged with finding mercenaries and what a motely crue he found. There is Danning as a “Valkyri” warrior, a clone race in all white (including white makeup) and a third eye painted on their foreheads where the main clone is Boen, an alien wanting revenge, a cowboy known as Space Cowboy, Vaughn as a great gun for hire... I'll give credit to the movie for having all those different species and all possessing different beliefs and having different spaceships. Also, you guys haven't lived until you've seen Boen in that getup eat a hot dog wiener without a bun.

The script is from John Sayles so naturally it is light in tone and there are humorous moments sprinkled throughout. For all the effects being done in-house (and they are plentiful) they mostly look real good. I'll give Cameron and everyone else credit for bringing these alien worlds to life. It is a fun space opera where you have action scenes-both on the ground and in space-a bit of romance, drama, revenge, pathos... it was a good time. The fact that sometimes there were Kurosawa-style screen wipes was appreciated by me. In addition, I dug James Horner's score-although as others have noted, it at times sounded quite a bit like what he would do later for Krull and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

I was pleasantly surprised at how enjoyable this turned out to be. It also ripped off Star Wars and Alien (the hero's ship has a sassy AI named NELL instead of a serious one named MUTHR) yet it all combined together to form B-movie goodness. During the Halloween season I'll view at least one movie featuring Saxon but for now this did the job.

Twilight Zone: The Movie

Twilight Zone: The Movie(1983)

Runtime: 101 minutes

Directed by: John Landis/Steven Spielberg/Joe Dante/George Miller

Starring: A cast full of famous faces

From: Warner Bros.

Where do I even begin with this?

It's a comment that had to be made; a novel worth of words could be written by me about the movie and why it is still infamous today. From the past I know that not everyone is familiar with what I am referring to, but that elephant in the room will be addressed later. Until last night the movie hadn't been seen in many years, and it's also been a long time for the original television series. The subsequent reboots-including the new Jordan Peele one-have not been seen by me at all. In other words, the movie will be judged on its own merits rather than be compared to the Rod Serling classic series... those comparisons are invited as three of the segments are remakes of old episodes.

The prologue and the first segment Time Out are original works from John Landis. The prologue manages to work because it stars Dan Aykroyd and Albert Brooks & demonstrated how people throughout the years have talked about their favorite Twilight Zone episodes. Also, they sing along to the Creedence version of The Midnight Special, which is great.

Time Out: The segment that is the source of controversy-unfortunately it is still relevant in 2020. Vic Morrow plays a bigot businessman who is pissed he is passed up for a promotion and he says some vile things about Blacks, Asian-Americans and Jewish people, none of which I will repeat here. He also brags about “being an American”... insert your own political comments if you wish. He then is in a nightmare where he is in the bodies of those minorities. This could have been more if not for real life-yet it does have a nice message & demonstrates how horrible life can be for minorities. Apparently this was going to cut more between the different time periods but as is... content-wise not the worst segment. That goes to...

Kick the Can: In more than one horror anthology I have seen before, there has been a segment which is not really horror and instead is mainly in another genre. However, here there is nothing scary at all and is sweet saccharine crap. While old people shouldn't sit around being all miserable waiting to die, this was just lame and does not even have the bitter ending the episode this was inspired by had. Not even Scatman Crothers could save this; the fact that he plays a stereotype is unfortunate. It was like the worst instincts of Spielberg were all present here.

It's a Good Life: This is where business picks up. Joe Dante transforms this into a living cartoon. As it is Joe Dante, he must have had the time of his life creating such a world with such colorful production design and bizarre moments. The tone overall is unsettling-there are also frightening moments. Another director trademark is the appearances of Dick Miller and Kevin McCarthy. Also, what a fate for the Ethel character because she was played by Nancy Cartwright.

Terror at 20,000 Feet: This is one of the most famous episodes of the show; George Miller does an admirable job of amping things up and creating some great-and terrifying-moments from the lead character-petrified of air travel-on an airplane and only he sees a gremlin on the wing. No one is quite like Shatner when it comes to acting performances but John Lithgow delivered arguably the best performance in the entire film... constantly nerve-wracked and sweaty.

For those unaware, what may turn you off from this despite its highlights... late July of 1982, Vic Morrow and child actors Myca Dinh Le & Renee Shin-Yi Chin were killed on set during a scene set in late 60's Vietnam. The whole story is on sites like Wikipedia but Landis violated numerous laws by filming a dangerous scene involving a helicopter and lots of explosions. All three died in a horrific manner; Landis and four others were tried for manslaughter; while acquitted they lost a civil suit and people can get mad that soon after the trial, he was allowed to direct a big hit in Coming to America. I can still enjoy some Landis movies (like The Blues Brothers and An American Werewolf in London) but Max is not the only one in the family that people can loathe for his actions. Despite some subsequent bad accidents and deaths that have happened on sets, the fallout from this created more regulations that have allowed for safer sets and lessen situations where directors act tyrannical & put everyone's safety at risk for the sake of “a big moment.”

The rating only reflects what was shown on screen and not the tragedy surrounding the movie. To think that Spielberg and Landis produced this-they were friends, although needless to say that friendship ended in 1982-yet it was Joe Dante and George Miller that delivered the best segments. There is a nice score from Jerry Goldsmith which is fitting for all the different segments. Plus, there are famous faces throughout and it is fitting that Burgess Meredith was the narrator-after all he starred in another legendary episode of Rod Serling's show. That show is overall better than the movie and should be watched by everyone... me included.

I'll close this out by noting: despite recent events that happened to me, I was fine with Kick the Can's premise of old people living in a rest home. At least it was not a hospice... perhaps more prescient for me is Terror at 20,000 Feet as a week from today I will have flown out of state and I haven't been on an airplane since December of 2009. Luckily, flying has never been an issue with me.

The Last Shark

The Last Shark (L'ultimo Squalo) (1981)

Runtime: 88 minutes

Directed by: Enzo G. Castellari

Starring: James Franciscus, Vic Morrow, and some random Italian actors

From: Several Italian and American companies

Even in the realm of Italian genre films, this was a blatant rip-off.

In fact, when this was released in the United States, Universal sued because it was too similar to Jaws (and as I discovered once I saw the movie, Jaws 2 was also lifted); after a few weeks, they found a judge who agreed so it did not have a full theatrical run. If it wasn't for that footnote, many likely would have forgotten about this random cashgrab based on something popular from Hollywood... Italian film loved doing that for decades, and God bless them for that as some of those were tremendously entertaining.

This, it only gets an OK rating from me but there are some hilarious moments, especially in the final act as it gets real stupid. An author named Peter Benchley... er I mean Peter Benton and a sea captain named Ron Hamer (instead of Quint) are after the titular creature. It is said to be 35 feet long, although the critter often changes appearance and size throughout as none of the stock footage matches each other, let alone is matched to the model they created. To be fair it does not look bad for the low budget and if you want to see some gruesome moments, the creature does do that. Still, there are some effects that have aged rather poorly-at least those made me chuckle. A positive is a groovy score from personal favorites of mine, Guido and Maurizio De Angelis; they are great at catchy soundtracks... not to mention tunes that are earworms.

Of course there is the town's mayor (Wells) that does the wrong thing; here, he is running for the governorship of Georgia (one scene makes it clear they filmed part of this in Savannah, even if that was never explicitly said in the film) and instead of the 4th of July, it is... a regatta event highlighted by a windsurfing competition. At least Wells tries to take precautions that include a giant net around the cove which proves to not be enough. Honestly, this could be an even better pandemic parable than Jaws itself.

Anyhow, that event is where the dumb teenagers come in, and of course one of them is the kid of our lead (James Franciscus) and another is the mayor's son. That's why I brought up Jaws 2. This was dopey yet was alright overall and IMO are overall better than Jaws 3-D and Jaws: The Revenge. Not that those are high bars to jump over...

Vic Morrow played Ron Hamer; whether it was by accident or by design, he reminded me a lot of Edward G. Robinson's lead turn in 1932's Tiger Shark; there he played a Portuguese sea captain of a tuna fishing vessel who spoke with an accent that like with Hamer can be best described as “vaguely foreign.” As someone else noted here, the movie has the misfortune of featuring helicopters in several scenes... I know not everyone knows that tragic tale; sometime soon Twilight Zone: The Movie will be reviewed so that can be discussed. As for The Last Shark (sometimes referred to as Great White) it is an acceptable slice of B-movie cheese.

Sensation Of The Century

This was an interesting curio I saw last night: 

Even among film fans, how many knew that the organizing committee for the 1964 Summer Olympics were so displeased with Tokyo Olympiad that they commissioned a pair of directors (Hiroshi Maeda, Tatsuji Yamagishi) to use the same pool of footage to create a more matter of fact chronicle of the games... and of course add in a healthy dose of nationalism, as most of the early Olympic films did. The score-when present-is also more traditional-It does seem superfluous, especially considering that some-though not all-of the new footage here also appears as a special feature (over 80 minutes long) that is both on the disc version and is a bonus on the Criterion Channel page for Tokyo Olympiad.

All that said, this is still fine. While the Olympic Torch relay and opening ceremonies are even longer (over 35 minutes) there are more sports covered, more winners are shown and identified, & the highlights are still covered; this is fine and was an easy watch despite being almost as long as Olympiad. It's just that in comparison most film fans won't give a damn about this as they will much prefer the more artistic usage of the footage. For example, the marathon is presented as is and the clips which demonstrate how grueling a marathon is... that was excised. The last sporting event presented was women's volleyball as that was a surprise victory for the host nation.

Judging by Letterboxd and IMDb, not too many have viewed Sensation of the Century; I am thankful Criterion included it in their box set release of the Olympic films. If nothing else, it was a rare opportunity in the movie world to compare and contrast two different versions of the same story or subject.

Aladdin (Don't Worry, Not Last Year's Remake)

Aladdin (1992)

Runtime: 90 minutes

Directed by: Ron Clements/John Musker

Starring: The voices of Scott Weinger, Linda Larkin, Jonathan Freeman, Frank Welker, Robin Williams

From: Disney

This was viewed on Friday night but circumstances dictated that I talk about it today. This was only seen once before, and that was probably sometime in '93 on VHS; the only part of the movie that was retained in my memory: the over the top vocals & matching animation from Robin Williams. As an adult, he was even more over the top than I recalled and the movie was sillier than expected, yet it still works for what it is.

While a Disneyfied version of a story from the series of Arabian folktales known as One Thousand and One Nights. It's a traditional tale where a “street rat” and a princess fall in love, only to deal with an evil royal vizier named Jafar. Nice life lessons are taught to the kids, such as “be true to yourself instead of lying to impress someone.” Both the hero and the villain have a comedy pet sidekick.

Big assets are the lovely animation-aside from the appearance of the Sultan; as others have noted, his skin color is not the same throughout-great music and songs that people still remember today, and a story that does not become too silly or overbearing. It takes awhile for the Genie to show up and that's for the best as you don't want too much of such a wild character. Even Gilbert Gottfried as Jafar's parrot buddy was not an aggravation in the worst ways. It was a fun story with nice action beats and a wild finale.

All the same, it was Williams and his manic performance which was the highlight; on the 21st of this month many people talked about him as that would have been his 69th birthday and many do miss him... including me. I even remember being real little and seeing reruns of Mork & Mindy on TV. Of course, his success here gave us the trend of big celebrities voicing cartoons whether they are right for the role or not-heck, even those Walmart bargain bin specials of cheap CG animation-which usually rip off something that just came out theatrically-from Korea or Russia or China that sometimes have surprisingly big names lending their voices.

Also, I am glad this wasn't problematic; at the time they had to change a line in the opening song as people got mad over the stereotype of “violent Arabs” cutting someone's ear off. That was for the best as if they hadn't... some would be real angry about it in 2020. Overall, thank heavens this was not a gigantic hit from the early 90's that has not aged poorly. As I've seen comparisons, one day I'll get to The Thief and the Cobbler; of course that would be The Recobbled Cut easily found on YouTube. As I would have to also see one of the officially released versions for comparison's sake and a LOT can be written over its 29 year production, I would need an entire evening free to tackle that. No matter what my opinion is once that time arrives, it will be a better use of my time than a pointless live-action remake which will never be watched by me.

I Share Horrible News While Briefly Mentioning A 1912 Silent

The silent is Alice Guy-Blache's Falling Leaves, concerning a mother ill with TB and her child's reaction to it. The full explanation is below: 

The most difficult review I'll ever write here.

Not that long ago I went down the rabbit hole and discovered this short from Alice Guy-Blache, generally regarded as the first-ever female director. I will not say much about this short except that it is a touching look at someone who is hoping for a cure for TB and how a young child wants to collect all the leaves due to a conversation she heard where a doctor said that this person would be deceased “as soon as the leaves stop falling.” Right now I figuratively wish I could do the same thing. You see, a few hours my mother passed away at the age of 71.

I know what everyone will think or ask so it will be addressed now: it was NOT because of COVID-19. Rather, she was sick since January due to a medical issue I won't address, at least not now. She was in and out of hospitals because of other issues besides the thing that killed her; hospice was where she had been since May 19 as on that day she was given 2 to 5 days... yet somehow hung on until today. This was why in late May I referenced her in more than one review and said at the time that I would be gone in June for about a week... at the time I thought that's when her services would be. 2020 has been pretty awful for everyone because of the pandemic, the riots and all those other horrible moment; imagine the ordeal me and my family have gone through since January. This is also why occasionally during 2020 I have viewed a comedy for the sake of improving my mood.

I've seen others discuss real life issues-including death-so it seemed like something I could address here. At least I had her until the age of 39. As distractions are needed now, movies will continue to be viewed, hopefully on a daily basis. She is the reason why as a kid I saw such things as the Indiana Jones and Star Wars films, and plenty of other motion pictures that were either seen theatrically or rented from the videostore.

While I wish I could have stopped the leaves from falling, eventually the grieving process will end, although she will always be missed. Sometime in August, there won't be any reviews for about a week as her services will be out of state. Otherwise, expect reviews practically every day.

Tokyo Olympiad

Tokyo Olympiad (Tokyo Orinpikku) (1965)

Runtime: 170 minutes

Directed by: Kon Ichikawa

From: The people that organized the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo... and Toho

As the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo would have just started now if not for the world going to hell and The Black Plague ruining everyone's lives, there was no better movie to view last night and discuss today. To clarify, several different cuts of this exists; the movie is on the official YouTube channel of the Olympics... only it's not under its official title and despite saying it is “complete”, the length is 125 minutes. I saw this on the Criterion Channel website and thus it was the official 170 minute cut.

The end product wasn't quite what the Tokyo Olympic Committee was expecting. They wanted something more traditional which in a staid manner showed the events and noted who won. Instead, this presented the events in a cinematic manner and while not every winner was noted, there's always Wikipedia to get the full results. The documentary was influential in presenting so many close-ups, no shortage of crowd shots, a quality musical score (from Toshiro Mayazumi) and acknowledgment given people that worked the games... from the guy that fired the starter's pistol at the track & field events to the cooks, coaches, and all the rest.

Each discipline was covered in a different manner and most seemed fitting: the power of someone tossing a shot put, the grace of gymnastics & fencing, the struggle of amateur wrestling, etc. It does poke fun at those in the 50 kilometres walk but that is understandable. Due to the rules they have to stroll in a certain manner and aside from it appearing kind of daffy, their anguished faces said a lot also. Also important is that they showed the competitors before and after in intimate settings... whether it be the runners hammering in the starting blocks themselves or Smokin' Joe Frazier walking backstage after one of his fights.

Aside from the visuals, the sound was much more than the score. Certain things were obviously sweetened... to great effect. The way sound was used-very important. The cheers, silence, isolated voices... all implemented at the right moments. Two athletes were spotlighted in particular: Ahmad Issa from Chad (the 800 meters) and Abebe Bikala of Ethiopia, a great marathon runner trying to win a gold medal for the second games in a row. The former is intriguing because Chad had become a country just a few years prior and the latter helps make the marathon interesting; that event has always been the last of the games before the closing ceremonies and to be honest, for me and plenty others a marathon is not always an captivating watch. As a sidenote, in a corner of the Internet there were plenty that dunked on some random dude on Reddit for just discovering and being flabbergasted there was a country named Chad. Chad is a funny word in 2020 but the country being one of the poorest and most corrupt in the world isn't a laughing manner.

Anyway, it's a shame the producers did not like this and wished for something more nationalistic; some of their successes were highlighted, the 20 year journey from the end of World War II to its transformation as a rising global power was noted, and there were lovely shots such as the Olympic flame passing by Mt. Fuji. Kon Ichikawa did a great job here and while I wonder how Kurosawa would have done-he was the first choice but as he also wanted to direct the entire opening and closing ceremonies, they balked-there's no guarantee he would have been a master at covering sports. To think that directors now are in charge of opening ceremonies... that's why there was the amazing moment of 007 and Queen Elizabeth II doing a bit back in '12. Imagine Mifune and Emperor Hirohito acting together in a sketch!

Who knows if there will be an Olympics in Tokyo next summer-that has recently been questioned. At least this was the perfect way for me to have a good time last night.