After Earth (2013) Review

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Director: M. Night Shyamalan Stars: Jaden Smith, Will Smith Genre: Science Fiction, Post-Apocalyptic, Adventure It's really not as bad as so many might lead you to believe. Yes, the science is completely ridiculous and unbelievable, the story and universe are riddled with plot holes and inconsistencies, it's completely predictable, the special effects are at times lacking visually (they do look nice at other times though), the action could have been more exciting, the film comes off as a bit too serious at times to the point where certain scenes are sort of cheesy, and the whole thing with the birds is the goddamn silliest thing I've ever seen in my life. I never said this was a good film. It's just not an awful one. Mediocre, really. I did like the premise, though. It's essentially a plane crash survival flick set on a post-apocalyptic Earth. But this was a very ideal set-up to display what the story is really about: a father and his son. The son, Kitai, lives under the scrutiny of his hero-father, Cypher Raige (it's assumed that in the future we will all have names equivalent to Xbox LIVE gamertags). Not only does Kitai have high expectations to live up to, he also senses that his father blames him for letting his sister get killed by an alien creature called an Ursa many years before. So when the ship that Kitai and his father are on crash lands on an abandoned Earth, Kitai must go and retrieve a rescue beacon from the other half of the ship which landed some ways away (his father, the badass war hero, can't do it because his legs were conveniently broken). Kitai does however have his father to guide and support him via a control room from the ship, from which his father can communicate with him and watch him through various cameras (the scrutinizing eye of dad is always watching!). During his adventure, Kitai stumbles upon some prehistoric cave drawings which would usually take an archaeologist a lifetime to find, and he meets a very kind and caring bird who also happens to be a deus ex machina. But it isn't until Kitai's cameras break and he loses contact with his father (he was already dozing off in the control room anyway) that he really gets to prove himself. Kitai must prove that he can do the right thing without being ordered to do it and in a final showdown he alone faces the inner demon of his past that was haunting him: an Ursa, like the one that killed his sister, which he must overcome. Yeah, it's cheesy and predictable but I sort of liked the premise and thought parts of it were executed pretty well. A nice little father-son drama / inner discovery story. I also liked the whole fear aspect as well, especially how it functioned in relation to the aliens: they can smell your fear, ergo if you overcome your fear you become invisible to them (yeah, I know it's biologically implausible). Where I think a lot of people are wrong is in their criticism of Will Smith's performance as the father. He plays the role perfectly in my opinion. Claims that Smith was disinterested are absurd (he produced the film and wrote the story, plus his own son is in it! He was most certainly involved! There's even rumors that he secretly directed the film). He's playing a father who was hardened by war and can't quite find the right way to connect with his son. A character so obsessed with eliminating fear that he often forgets how to express his other emotions as well. Will Smith fucking nailed the character. He's very strict, uptight, and stern but also knows how to sprinkle little hints of emotion and feeling in there at just the right times. The problem is that Will Smith is only in a supporting role. His son, Jaden Smith, really plays the lead. He does an okay job (sometimes a little hammy) but I think he may not yet be a strong enough actor to carry a film on his own. After Earth is not a great film but it's competent in a lot of areas. At times awful, at times decent, but mostly mediocre.

TV: Spaced (1999-2001) Review

Purchase from Amazon: DVD Films by Edgar Wright: Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, The World's End Similar shows: The Office (UK), Black Books, The IT Crowd

Director: Edgar Wright Stars: Simon Pegg, Jessica Stevenson, Nick Frost, Mike Heap Genre: Sitcom Spaced is a British sitcom consisting of 14 episodes split into 2 seasons that originally aired in the late 90s and early 2000s. The show follows pseudo-couple Tim (Pegg) and Daisy (Stevenson), who lied about being a couple in order to rent a "Couples Only" apartment, and their neighbors Marsha the alcoholic landlady (Deakin), Brian the slightly crazy painter (Heap), Mike the military nut (Frost), and Twist the self-obsessed bitch (Carmichael). The heart of Spaced is its characters. The characters are all fairly common stereotypes, but the show brings these stereotypes to life. It shows that stereotypes are not just seen on TV, but in real life also, and it somehow does that through a TV show. They're not the type of characters that make you think they're "just another television archetype" but rather the type that make you think "I know someone just like that, it's so spot on." Spaced, like its characters, is the sort of show that will grow on you. You may not be that into it after only an episode or so, but well before the first season is over you'll likely feel as much a part of the world as the characters, who'll surely feel like your best friends. The stars of the show, Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson, also write each episode, with Edgar Wright directing. Fans of Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, or The World's End will surely be familiar with the Wright-Pegg-Frost trio and much of their signature humor. The show, to be frank, is hilarious. But not hilarious in a way you're probably used to. No, this is a completely unique brand of humor. Wright's creative, involving, never pretentious directing combined with some wonderfully unconventional editing blend with the actual jokes so well that everything seems, and indeed is, well executed. The jokes themselves are a mix of vocal, visual, and stylistic references to things from Scooby-Doo to The Shining to Pulp Fiction, a sort of absurdist surreal humor, unpredictability, juxtaposition, and of course the characters and situations themselves are more often than not jokes. The show never at any point becomes dull or formulaic. The punchline to a joke may be in a line of dialogue, or it may be visual--in a camera movement, a character action, or a cut to another scene altogether. For example, in one scene where Tim and Daisy are talking, Daisy tells Tim to not talk so loudly as "you never know who's listening." Tim replies confidently "no one's listening," and then there's a cut away from the scene and we see a brief clip of a man sitting in a room with a tape recorder, listening to the conversation that just happened. There's plenty of scenes done in this nature, and plenty done in different ways as well. One of my favorite scenes has the video game Tekken mirroring an argument between Tim and Daisy, only to end in the reflection seeping into one with reality. Or another episode where nearly the whole episode revolves around Tim playing Resident Evil 2. Spaced will transport you to a world of slackers with big dreams, a world of Playstation and The Phantom Menace and absurd occurrences. A world that, as it shows the surreal that hides under the mundane, will likely turn out to be very similar to your own life. With tons of references to films, television, comic books, and video games, it is a world created by its influences and references but also one that uses just that to craft something entirely new. Originally pitched as "a cross between The Simpsons, The X-Files, and Northern Exposure," Spaced certainly lives up to the task and as a result is one of the greatest sitcoms ever made. With only 14 episodes adding up to less than 6 hours, the show can be watched in a single day and it's good enough that you'll probably want to watch it in a single day, and rewatch it again the next. A must-see for fans of Pegg, Frost, and Wright, and for anyone who may consider themselves a geek, whether it be a fan of sci-fi films, comic books, or video games, or even just for people who can relate to the slacker lifestyle of early twenty year olds.

Frankenstein's Army (2013) Review

Purchase from Amazon: DVD - Blu-Ray - Stream Pros: +Awesome monster design +Good special effects Cons: -Poor writing -Underwhelming execution Similar films: Dead Snow

Director: Richard Raaphorst Stars: Karel Roden, Joshua Sasse Genre: Science Fiction, Horror, War The rough concept of Frankenstein's Army is that essentially it's the Frankenstein story set in WWII instead of the 19th century. Keep in mind it's a very loose Frankenstein story; that is, it really only shares a few basic themes, i.e. a scientist who assembles monsters. But I like the concept of a group of Russian soldiers going on a mysterious mission and having to fight off weird Nazi creatures while descending into a hellish laboratory. Horror movie + War movie? Awesome. I just wish the execution of this concept was a bit better. The writing isn't all that great. The writers felt the need to add some internal conflict within the group of Russian soldiers, which was honestly unnecessary. If it had been done well maybe I'd think differently, but it's not. The dramatic parts (and luckily there's not many of them) are pretty pointless and cliched. The characters are also pretty dull and almost all their action/reactions are completely unbelievable. It doesn't help that the acting is only ever decent at best. It's shot from a loose found footage first person perspective. I say loose because it's not very strict about it. There's plenty of cuts and stuff that defy the form. And while the shooting style does have a slight narrative purpose, it's really just there so that no actual quality cinematography had to be done. Which, ya know, for a low-budget horror movie it's understandable. It's not that scary either. Usually POV found footage films don't take much effort to be made scary, but this one is relatively action orientated. It basically plays out like an on-rails shooter. This could have easily been a spin-off of the House of the Dead video game series. Seriously; there's the first-person perspective, there's a a variety of monsters that just pop out randomly from behind doors, the monsters often just stand in front of the camera and attack the air, and much of the camera movement is nearly identical to something you'd see in an on-rails shooter (quick turn arounds, looking left and right around a room, peaking around corners, etc.). Monsters come out and the soldiers shoot at them for awhile while we observe from a soldier's point-of-view and then the monsters die and the soldiers continue on through some more corridors. This is a video game. Actually, I think this film would be more enjoyable if you get a light-gun (preferably a NES Zapper) and pretend to shoot at the monsters while you watch the movie. I think it'll actually work out pretty well and you may even trick yourself into thinking you're playing a video game. The best thing about this movie is easily the monsters. The creature design is pretty awesome (Mosquito Man!) and the special effects are done very well, even if they do sometimes look silly or unbelievable. They're over-the-top (monsters like these would be completely ineffective in actual warfare) but they look great. The main problem is that they don't really do much. The monsters pop out and dance around a while for the camera and then just die. If this movie is essentially a non-interactive on-rails shooter, then it's severely lacking a cool boss battle. Watch for the interesting monster design. That's about all that's worthwhile here. It's not bad, it's certainly watchable and mostly enjoyable, it's just nothing really special or impressive.

Movie 43 (2013) Review

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Director: Various Stars: Anna Faris, Kate Winslet, Kristen Bell, Gerard Butler, Emma Stone, Uma Thruman, Elizabeth Banks, Hugh Jackman, Johnny Knoxville, Halle Berry Genre: Sketch Comedy Along perhaps with A Haunted House this is the easy film of 2013 to hate. But I still tried to give it a chance when I watched in on Netflix. Unfortunately, it really is just that bad. It's awful. I like Absurdist Sketch Comedies. I foolishly had a slimmer of hope that this may be a sort of throwback to great films like And Now for Something Completely Different, The Meaning of Life, or The Kentucky Fried Movie, with the hilarious humor of something like Airplane!, The Naked Gun, or Top Secret!. Not the case. The Absurdist Parody truly died with things like Scary Movie and Epic Movie. Gone are the days of Monty Python and Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker, and all we are left with is Seltzer-Friedberg, the Wayans Bros., and of course the Farrelly Bros. Movie 43 is merely a continuation of this unfunny trend. And unfunny is really all it is. I have a dark, arguably twisted humor; I often laugh at things that most would consider to be in bad taste or even sick. If something is tasteless and funny then I'll laugh at it. But when something like Movie 43 comes along, which is tasteless but unfunny, then what's the point? The sketches in this film just aren't funny. They're unfinished jokes. They set up a scenario and go nowhere with it. The situation never works with the humor, like, say, a Flying Circus sketch would. 94 minutes later and I'm still waiting for the punchline. But there is none. And the humor itself seemingly attempts to shock, but it does so in the worst possible way. Films like Airplane! or Naked Gun constantly shocked the audience, but they didn't do so with vulgarities and period blood, they did it with the unexpected, the surreal. Wikipedia describes Surreal Humor as "arising from a subversion of audience's expectations, so that amusement is founded on unpredictability, separate from a logical analysis of the situation. The humor derived gets its appeal from the fact that the situation described is so ridiculous or unlikely." It takes wit to craft comedic literalisms and illogical yet clever punchlines. Movie 43 may be absurd, with things like leprechauns and neck balls, but it never utilizes those things to form a joke; those things are the jokes. A good Absurdist Comedy will make the audience laugh by playing with their expectations. Shocking, surprising, and amusing the viewer when they bring the nonsensical out of something completely ordinary. A situation that people are used to seeing play out in other films or in their own lives will be used to show the viewer something in a different way, and make them laugh while doing it. This is where Movie 43 fails. It tries to shock with mere vulgarities and taboos, but in that it becomes so very predictable. It never shows you anything from a new perspective, it never turns the ordinary into the extraordinary, it never surprises you with an actual joke. In one sketch a girl wants her boyfriend to poop on her; that's the shocking part, but I know where it's going to end before it even gets there: with a bunch of poop everywhere. Movie 43 starts with the surprises, and thus its punchlines never surprise. A movie like Airplane! will start with the regular and explore the irregular through that, always ending on a hilarious and unpredictable punchline, that isn't so much a lack of logic as it is a twisting of logic; unexpected but never random. A bit from Airplane!: "You got a letter from headquarters this morning."  "What is it?"  "It's a big building where generals meet, but that's not important."  It's a simple joke and hardly one of Airplane!'s funniest, but it's a good example of a play on casual reasoning; the shock comes from the defiance of expectations. When he asks what is it we naturally understand that he's talking about the letter, not about headquarters. But the film shows you a different way of looking at it. Movie 43 says: hey wouldn't it be funny if a guy had balls on his neck, or if a girlfriend wanted her boyfriend to poop on her, or if some guy actually caught a leprechaun; but it never does anything with those ideas. It never forms an actual joke. Those things are unexpected, sure, and yes they may be ridiculous and unlikely, but they're also random and directionless. It starts with the punchline instead of building up to it. The amount of wasted talent in this film exceeds perhaps any other movie ever made. There's some great actors in here, but the film never demands any worthwhile acting from them anyway. It's embarrassingly unfunny, tasteless without wit, and justifies itself by pretending to be satirical (it's not). It's not "a Kentucky Fried Movie for the modern age," as the producer described it. It's just a shitty modern age comedy. There's not many movies worse than this one. Reportedly, Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and the Zucker Bros. were initially involved with the film but eventually all backed out. It's not hard to imagine why. While I'm sure we would have gotten a slightly better film if they had stayed on board, I'm also glad they didn't waste their talents and soil their names on something so pointless.

An Analysis of Escape From Tomorrow (2013)

When people talk about Escape From Tomorrow, a movie filmed in Disney World without Disney's permission, all they ever seem to focus on is the development side of it. While it is an impressive accomplishment in guerrilla filmmaking, I feel that the film itself deserves more attention. The what, to me, is just as impressive and fascinating as the how. 

This will be less of a review and more of an analysis and interpretation of Escape From Tomorrow. Of course this is only my personal interpretation and doesn't necessarily mean it's correct. It's just how I viewed it. This is intended for people who have already seen the film and assumes that you are at least somewhat familiar with the plot and production of the film. Naturally spoilers will follow. 

The film's title tells us a lot. The film's main character, Jim, is a husband and father who is severely displeased with his life and wants to escape this life he's created for himself, he wants to alter his life to lead to a more agreeable future. The film's title also suggests a kind of child-like mentality: the idea of living completely in the present, embracing the moment and not worrying at all about the future or any consequences it might bring. A puer aeternus complex, or peter pan syndrome, if you will. 

The films starts with a scene shot on a roller coaster. As the plot unfolds it will prove to be one big roller coaster ride, but for now it seems like a perfectly normal, happy, fun environment. That is, of course, until a passenger on the coaster is startlingly decapitated by a low-hanging archway. This opening establishes a number of things right away: (1) not everything is sunshine and roses, (2) be prepared for the worst, and (3) Disney World is a place where someone can easily lose their head, both figuratively and literally. In the case of our main character Jim, it's the former. 

Jim, along with his wife, son, and daughter, is on the last day of his vacation at Disney World when he receives a phone call from his boss informing him that he's lost his job. This is important because it gives the push Jim needed to really examine, and even attempt to change, his life. Jim seemingly loves his children, but him and his wife, Emily, are constantly at odds with each other and seem to be not only always arguing and bickering, but to be severely depressed and unhappy as well. Jim, faced with an existential midlife crisis analogous to perhaps David Byrne in the song Once in a Lifetime ("You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?"), comes to realize that he's not happy with his lifestyle and that his family isn't quite the dream family he may have imagined when he got married. In a fusion of sadness, confusion, helplessness, and the vibrant overwhelming happiness that is Disney World, Jim's mind starts to not just wander but delude as well. He doesn't just want to let the days go by and let things continue the same as they ever were. He wants change. 

The film takes place almost completely from Jim's perspective. The world we see is the world of Jim's delusion. The first chance Jim sees for escape is in two young, beautiful French girls, who he imagines are flirting with him and leading him on. He spends much of the film following these two French girls around through the park and on rides, often imagining himself riding with them. All the meanwhile, any time spent with his wife only makes him retreat further into delusion. He can't even seem to kiss or dance with his wife. On one ride he hallucinates and imagines his wife turning to him and saying that she hates him and that their son isn't really his. This does two things: (1) it supports Jim's suspicions that his wife doesn't love him and (2) it makes it easier for him to breakaway from his family; it's a convenient excuse: he convinces himself that his wife doesn't even love him and that his child isn't even really his; so why worry about them?

Jim continues to chase these French girls around, at one point almost even confronting them in a pool, only to be stopped by his wife and left to depressingly float face down in the water ("let the water hold me down"). He also encounters a nurse, whom he goes to because his daughter scraped her knee, who he imagines is flirting with him. When he leaves the nurse's office the nurse begins to weep. Again, this is all from Jim's perspective. He imagines that the nurse was so disappointed that she couldn't have him that she began to cry. Later in the film Jim imagines that the employees dressed up as Disney Princesses are part of a prostitution ring. This all just supports his delusion that the world is his to take; that he can have any and every woman he wants if he so chooses. His delusion began because he was unhappy with his current lifestyle; to escape this lifestyle he creates a delusion that is welcoming. A fantasy that offers an ideal and convenient alternative to his unhappy marriage. 

Later he meets an older woman. A succubus. She wears a gemstone amulet around her neck that entrances Jim. She tells him that the turkey leg he's eating is actually Emu meat. "Why don't they just call it that?" Jim asks, still enjoying the meat. "Would you really buy it if they did?" she replies. Here we see at work the theme of getting something you didn't ask for. Jim wanted a perfect marriage but what he got was an unhappy one. He would have never got married if he knew it'd be unhappy beforehand, just as he'd of never bought Emu meat. Next thing you know Jim blacks out and wakes up in the middle of having sex with this temptress, his hands tied to the bed posts. After she climaxes he takes his daughter and quickly leaves the temptress's hotel room, feeling slightly ashamed. It's sort of an awakening for Jim; it doesn't take him out of his delusion but it does make him slightly aware of it and its consequences. 

In a confusion and semi-self-awareness, Jim starts drinking and gets more drunk than he should, as he and his wife only continue to argue. For a brief moment Emily sees into Jim's delusion. But of course she doesn't see the playful French girls that Jim sees. When she looks at one of the French girls she sees nothing but a twisted and evil face, the real evil and destruction that they really are. She begins piecing things together: him telling their son that she's beautiful in an "Emily Dickinson type of way," him staring at the French girls in the pool and nearly approaching them, him reading a book about learning French, the mysterious phone call he received at the beginning of the film. She sees that Jim is deluded. 

Jim once again retreats into his delusions, riding on the Epcot ride called Soarin', his head high in the clouds, he imagines a beautiful woman before him. "Soon you'll be mine, Jim." She is the antithesis to Emily. She's beautiful and embracing. She is his dream wife. 

The first act of the film was Jim's journey into temptation and delusion. The second act was Jim drinking himself away in confusion and denial. The third act, as we'll see, is Jim's struggle to save his reality. 

Right before the third act begins Jim imagines one of the two French girls walking up to him and kissing his daughter on the cheek, and then the three of them joining hands and cheerfully walking off onto a spaceship (the spaceship represented by the ride Spaceship Earth). This is a very revealing scene. It isn't merely sexual desire Jim wants. It isn't just polygamy or lashing out at his wife that drives him. It's the desire for the perfect family. But something brings him back down to reality for a moment: the spaceship doesn't launch him into his dreams, it explodes with him and his daughter inside it. This is Jim's revelation. He finally realizes his naivete and that his desires are unrealistic and can only lead to his and his family's destruction. 

Back in reality, which Jim finally inhabits, one of the French girls walks up to him and asks him to come with her. "You speak English?" Jim says, surprised. We're back down on Earth now. Jim always imagined that the girls spoke only French because he saw them as being something exotic and new. A foreign, escapist desire. The reality is that they're just two French girls, very possibly even from America, who of course speak English. "I can't," Jim says, no longer delusional, "I'm afraid that if I come with you something bad is going to happen." He confronts his inner demons and resists them. But messing with the devil has its consequences. "But if you don't, something will," she responds, and spits in his face, giving Jim a "cat flu" (a clever antipode to Mickey Mouse) that was reportedly going around the park. 

Perhaps Jim is still partly delusional, or perhaps he's experiencing immediate symptoms of cat flu, or perhaps reality is revealing its own surreal nature, but either way Jim soon finds himself captured by what seems to be a German robot scientist who has a secret base under Spaceship Earth. The scientist delves into Jim's imagination and we see all of his previous delusions flash before us. "You've got quite an imagination," the scientist remarks, "just like old W[alt Disney]. He died, while all this [Disney World] was still in its early stages." The comparison between Jim and Walt Disney is an odd one but perhaps a relevant one. Just like Walt Disney had never lived long enough to see Disney World completed, Jim will not live long enough to see his own kingdom, his family fully built. But Jim doesn't want that. If he is still in his delusion he's aware of it and is fighting to escape it. He breaks free and goes to find his daughter, who he's lost in the confusion. He somehow finds himself pulled towards the temptress's room from earlier, which he enters using the key card he accidentally took from her. Inside he finds his daughter dressed as Snow White lying in a bed of flowers. He runs to her and awakens her with a loving kiss. He tries to take his daughter and leave but the temptress's amulet is preventing him and threatening to bring him back into delusion. He is tempted by this witch but at the same time she is taking his family (directly represented here by his daughter) away from him. It is only once his own daughter grabs the amulet and shatters it that the spell is broken. 

Jim gets back to his hotel room, where his wife and son are already sleeping, and puts his daughter to bed, singing her "There's a Long Trail A-Winding" ("There's a long, long trail a-winding/Into the land of my dreams/Where the nightingales are singing/And the white moon beams/There's a long, long night of waiting/Until my dreams all come true/Till the day when I'll be going down/That long, long trail with you). He himself goes into the bathroom and suffers his cat flu full on. It ends up killing him. His wife finds him dead in the morning with cat eyes, a big smile on his face, and a bloodied bathroom. Hilarious looking nazi-like Disney employees arrive and clean up the bathroom and haul away Jim's corpse in a body bag. Now, whether or not Jim really had cat flu is arguable. It could have been just a delusion of its own. We could still be seeing the world from Jim's perspective even after he's dead; or seeing it from how Jim imagined it would happen. As if he sort of constructed his own death. There's a few things to support this: all the things that happen when he dies had been planted in the film beforehand: (1) it was the nurse who told Jim about cat flu, (2) Jim mentioned to the nurse that he takes Vitamin C pills, which is what he tried to remedy his cat flu with while he was dying, (3) earlier in the film, from his balcony, he saw a van arrive and a Disney employee get out of it; the same type of employee that would later carry his body away and the same type of van that his corpse would be loaded into. His subconscious could have fabricated his death based on various memories from the last day. Cat flu could very easily be part of his delusion. He could have died any number of ways, perhaps he killed himself, overdosing on his own pills. Either way isn't really important, but I found it worth noting. 

In the last moments of the film we see the van holding Jim's corpse drive away from Disney World, back to reality, and at the same time we see an SUV pull up and Jim gets out, dressed in fancier clothes (the same clothes he wore in his imagination when the German scientist looked into his mind), with his dream wife (the same one from the Soarin' ride) and two different children, and checks into Disney World. He failed to make his dream a reality and he died in his fantasy. He died in Disney World. His fantasy can never exist in reality, but Disney World is separated from reality. It is the land of fake smiles and impossible happiness. ("Time isn't holding us, time isn't after us.") Eventually the cat catches up with the mouse. 

Disney World/Disneyland really was the perfect setting for a film of this kind. Having a family crumble and seeing a man who never got the perfect family he wanted break down in the Magic Kingdom, "The Happiest Place on Earth," seems only suiting. "You can't be happy all the time," the temptress remarked at one point in the film. But yet Disney World sort of has that perfect family aesthetic. That Sears catalog neatness. Even to this day Disney gives off that 1950s American nuclear family ideal (Disneyland was built in the 1950s, Disney World in the 60s). But this film takes us on a black-and-white journey to the most colorful place on Earth. Happiness like that, perfection like that, just isn't realistic. Jim found that out. 

Escape From Tomorrow is almost like a dysfunctional 1950s film. It's shot in black-and-white like many films of the 50s, but it lacks the precise and calculated lighting that so defined those Hollywood movies. It deals with a nuclear family but it lacks the perfection and happy ending. It has a score reminiscent of 50s Hollywood movies, almost of Disney movies, yet the score isn't orchestrating melodrama, it's orchestrating the surreal destruction of a man. It's based around fantasies but it's no fairy tale. It can somewhat be seen as a comment on 1950s ideals, and of the non-stop-happiness that Disney tries to maintain. 

The title of the film really is perfect. The film is about a man not liking where his life is headed but who also hasn't really grown up yet. He wants to live in his fantasy forever. But, unlike Peter Pan, and unlike the temptress witch that threatens him, he must grow up and face the harsh reality in order to save his daughter and family. Because of Jim's delusions of a perfect life, represented by Disney World, his family is constantly punished with the consequences. Only he can stop their suffering. 

One element I failed to talk about, mostly because I couldn't really figure out how to fit it in, was Jim's son, Elliot. If Jim is puer aeternus then Elliot is certainly Oedipus. Throughout the film it constantly seems as if Elliot is slowly taking Jim's place; is this one of Jim's fears that lead to his delusion or is it a part of his delusion? Towards the beginning of the film Elliot intentionally locks his father out of the hotel room, and then cuddles up in the same bed with his mother/Jim's wife. In fact, it seems Elliot is always sleeping in the same bed as his mother, and indeed the mother seems to more enjoy spending time with her son than with her husband. She also treats Jim like a child and Elliot like an adult. And to be fair, Elliot is more mature than Jim is. At one point, when Jim is throwing up on a ride, Elliot laughs at him. At another point, when we first see the French girls on the train, Jim seems to imagine them being flirty toward shim, but from the viewer's perspective it looks like they're looking at Elliot. Again, at the end of the film, we see Jim in the bathroom dying and he pleads for help from his son but what does Elliot do? He shuts the bathroom door on him and goes back to sleep, leaving him to die. Another interesting part is when after Jim has died and the Disney employees are cleaning up, one of the employees puts his hand on Elliot's head in a sort of Vulcan mind-meld fashion and gives Elliot the memories of riding the Buzz Lightyear ride and then gives him a Buzz Lightyear pin (because no one can be sad in Disney World, even if their dad dies!). Elliot had been begging his father to take him on the Buzz Lightyear ride all day but his father never did. Jim had rather of been in the spinning tea pots with the Frecnh girls than waiting in line for the Buzz Lightyear ride with his son and when the ride was shut down it was, as we find out later from the German robot, indirectly Jim's fault. Elliot couldn't get what he wanted until his father died. Quite sinister. But, if you subscribe to the idea that I offered before, that even after Jim's death we are seeing things from his perspective, that he imagined what his death and post-death would be like, then it could be viewed that Jim finally did end up giving his son what he wanted, at least in his mind. 

The Oedipal nature of Elliot could also bring up another alternative interpretation: that we aren't seeing the world from Jim's perspective, but rather from Elliot's. Elliot holds a sort of resentment for his father and he imagines his father to be the despicable and adulterous man we see him as. Could Elliot be the delusional one? Creating fantasies to support his own hatred of his father? Not only that, but Elliot also seems to set his father up to make him look bad in the eyes of his mother. After all, he did tell her that he said she looked like Emily Dickinson. Maybe Elliot even told his father that it was the Dumbo necklace she wanted instead of the Minnie Mouse one. Or maybe he told her about the French girls he was following. Innocent child or evil mastermind? Curious. I still subscribe to the idea that the film is through Jim's eyes, but it's an interesting thought nonetheless. 

Escape From Tomorrow can be viewed many ways. In fact, that's what I like about it. It never felt incoherent or convoluted, it just felt challenging. It leaves the figuring out up to you and it's designed in such a way that can support varying interpretations. It's an interesting film that, I feel, goes further than a simple Disney satire. It's a film that I'd imagine will leave me with different interpretations as time goes on.

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Creature with the Atom Brain (1955) Review

Purchase from Amazon: DVD Other films by Edward L. Cahn: Zombies of Mora Tau, Invasion of the Saucer Men, It! The Terror from Beyond Space, Invisible Invaders Similar films: Night of the Living Dead

Director: Edward L. Cahn Stars: Richard Denning, Angela Stevens, Tristram Coffin Genre: Science Fiction, Zombie An American gangster teams up with a German scientist to get revenge on his enemies by controlling corpses reanimated with atomic energy. The monster movies of the 30s used electricity, the ones of the 50s used atomic energy. Both themes were certainly products of their times. The story of Creature with the Atom Brain was written by legendary sci-fi/horror screenwriter Curt Siodmak. You've almost certainly watched one of his stories; he's written some real classics: The Invisible Man Returns, Invisible Agent, Black Friday, The Ape, The Wolf Man, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, I Walked With a Zombie, Son of Dracula, House of Frankenstein, The Beast With Five Fingers, Bride of the Gorilla, The Magnetic Monster, Riders to the Stars, and the list goes on. He's certainly left a large impact on the world of sci-fi and horror films, and largely carried the genres through the 1940s.  Creature with the Atom Brain is one of Siodmak's lesser-known scripts, and it's definitely not his best work, but it remains enjoyable nonetheless.  The story involves remote controlled reanimated corpses doing the evil bidding of a gangster. This film is a fine example of a pre-Romero non-voodoo zombie movie. Most pre-Romero zombie movies (including Siodmak's own I Walked With a Zombie) had mindless, enslaved zombies that were controlled by voodoo magic and followed the desire of their master, not the desire to eat brains. Creature with the Atom Brain represents a bit of a half-way point between voodoo zombies and flesh-eating zombies. In other words, it's a modernized evolution of the voodoo zombie. The role of the zombies here are very similar to voodoo zombies: they are created by a scientist rather than a necromancer and controlled with science rather than brainwashed with magic, but nonetheless function like a voodoo zombie. They still lack the animality of Romero zombies. That being said, they do strongly resemble Romero zombies and this film helped to move the zombie away from voodoo and more towards science--more towards the type of zombie we're familiar with today.  The film was directed by Edward L. Cahn, who is a bit of a legend in his own right as well. This marks his first science-fiction film, having previously done mostly crime films, most of which have since been forgotten. This shift to science-fiction surely worked out well for him; after this film he went on to direct minor classic like Zombies of Mora Tau (another good pre-Romero zombie film), Invasion of the Saucer Men, It! The Terror from Beyond Space, Invisible Invaders, and plenty of other 50s b-movies. Cahn was a surprisingly competent director. In this film we see some very interesting scenes and camerawork, from the beautifully shot opening to the mostly well shot driving scenes.  Rounding out the trio is Sam Katzman, who produced the film. Katzman produced a lot of films throughout his career, many of them fitting into the b-movie horror category, like The Corpse Vanishes and The Giant Claw.  There wasn't much make-up involved in Creature with the Atom Brain. The "creatures" at the very most may have had some make-up that made them look a bit paler, but most likely not. All they had was a strip across their foreheads representing that their brains were operated on. One effect, though, was actually quite ahead of its time. This film is notable for being one of the very first films to utilize what are known as squibs, a miniature explosive device used to simulate gunshot wounds. We're used to seeing this effect nowadays, being that countless films since have utilized it, but I'm sure it seemed very realistic and impressive (and indeed unnerving) to movie-goers of the time.  Richard Denning, who you may recognize from Creature from the Black Lagoon or Target Earth or Day the World Ended or The Black Scorpion, plays the main character in here. He does a good job. In fact, all the actors in here do a very solid job; somewhat of a rarity for these sort of movies.  Like so many 50s b-movies of the sci-fi or horror persuasion, Creature with the Atom Brain lacks the budget for exciting effects or impressive action or amazing performances or interesting concepts. Because of this there's nothing really noteworthy about it. It's not exactly boring--it's enjoyable enough--but it's not exactly memorable or interesting either.  It'd be wrong to call Creature with the Atom Brain a good movie. It's not. Is it bad? Not quite. There's certainly better films out there, though, even among the 50s b-movie crowd. If you like these types of movies like I do, then you'll have some fun with it though I can guarantee you've seen better. If you're interested in exploring the history of zombie films, then this is a worthwhile footnote to explore. Otherwise, it's not a necessary watch.

World Without End (1956) Review

Purchase from Amazon: DVD - VHS Other films by Edward Bernds: Return of the Fly, Queen of Outer Space Similar films: The Time Machine, Planet of the Apes

Director: Edward Bernds Stars: Hugh Marlowe, Rod Taylor, Nancy Gates Genre: Science Fiction, Post-Apocalyptic A spaceship's crew is returning from a trip to Mars when something goes wrong and they find themselves transported to a post-apocalyptic future where mankind has been forced underground to survive. World Without End undoubtedly took inspiration from H.G. Well's classic novel The Time Machine (coincidentally, Rod Taylor who plays Herbert in this film later went on to star in the 1960 film adaptation of The Time Machine). Obviously it was Wells that pretty much invented the modern concept of the time-travel story, but the similarities go even further. In The Time Machine we see an advanced human race living on the surface of Earth and a savage mutated species living underground. World Without End sort of reverses this, but it's the same idea nonetheless: advanced humans live safely underground while savage beasts roam the surface. Also like in The Time Machine, the advanced humans in World Without End have lost their confidence and will to fight. World Without End perhaps lacks some of the powerful commentary and originality that the H.G. Wells novel had, but as far as time-travel tales go it gets the job done. When we look back on the science-fiction films of the 1950s most of us first think of the campy b-movies with low budgets and cheap effects. It's true that many sci-fi films of the 50s had very low budgets and because of the low budgets had almost always been in black-and-white and lacked a wide-screen format. Don't let the Technicolor in World Without End fool you: it's most certainly a low-budget b-movie. The film's poster proudly states that it's "CinemaScope's first Science-Fiction Thriller," but don't let this fool you either. While most 50s sci-fi was in black-and-white, plenty of larger-budgeted sci-fi movies like Destination Moon, When Worlds Collide, The War of the Worlds, This Island Earth, Forbidden Planet, et al were shot in color. So When Worlds Collide is far from being the first Technicolor sci-fi film. Nor is it the first sci-fi film shot in wide-screen, with that credit going to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea from 1954. It's also not really a "thriller" like it claims to be. It's exaggerated and misleading poster only fits the film more neatly into the many sci-fi b-movies of its time. (Oh yeah, and that awesome looking crystal-like giant holding that giant clock on the poster? Not in the actual movie.) The reason World Without End was shot in Technicolor and CinemaScope despite having a low-budget and coming out in a time when most b-movies were in black-and-white is because Allied Artists, who produced the film, had a bad "poverty row" reputation that they wanted to shake. To do this they gave a little extra money to this film, allowing it to be shot in color and wide-screen and to exceed the 60-70 minutes runtime that many of the studio's other films had. Too bad there still wasn't enough budget for anything besides the technical aspects. Some of the special effects look very good. The spaceship scenes are visually engaging. The design and costume work of the one-eyed mutated beasts is also impressive; they look both grotesque and unique. Some of the other effects aren't quite as good. The giant mechanical spiders that the main characters encounter in a cave look terribly lifeless and rubbery. The sets and costumes of the underground society, though charming, have that very cheesy retro-futuristic look. They still look pretty good at times anyway. Edward Bernds directed this feature. He directed tons of b-movies throughout the 40s all the way to the 60s. Perhaps his most remembered work, along with a handful of Three Stooges movies, is Return of the Fly starring Vincent Price, which was a sequel to classic monster movie The Fly. If anyone has watched Queen of Outer Space or Valley of the Dragons, both directed by Bernds, then they may recognize the same mechanical spiders that were used in this film. (Again: not a big budget director.) Hugh Marlowe stars in here, who also starred in 1951's The Day the Earth Stood Still and later in Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. His performance isn't exactly good (according to the director Marlowe only got the role because he was willing to work for a very low salary, and he was often lazy and unprepared) but it's passable. The real star here is pre-fame Rod Taylor. This was his first major role and he does a great job. He'd later go on to star in films like The Time Machine, The Birds, and he even made an appearance in Inglorious Basterds. Another possibly recognizable face is that of the beautiful Nancy Gates. She does a good job as the ultra-mini-skirt wearing babe (it's no surprise that all the girls in here are not only beautiful but also dressed in very revealing clothing; Alberto Vargas, one of the most notable pin-up girl artists of all-time, worked on the costume and set sketches for the film). World Without End is an enjoyable film throughout. For a low-budget film it's extremely watchable. It features some interesting themes (even if most of them are ripped straight from Wells) and some cool special effects and set/costume design (even if most of the time it looks cheesy and dated). Its low budget certainly shows but at the same time its use of color and wide screen format help separate it from the countless other b-movies of the 50s. That doesn't necessarily mean it's the best 50s sci-fi has to offer--far from it. But solid nonetheless. Not terribly impressive compared to other works; merely enjoyable.