Top 5 (bad guy) movie sidekicks

This article looks at bad guys who were memorable even though they answered to someone else.

Last time, I looked at heroic sidekicks from movies. Now, I’m going to take a look at 5 movie sidekicks that were anything but heroic.

1. Oddjob
Granted, the James Bond series was already on its third movie (Goldfinger) when audiences were introduced to Oddjob (Harold Sakata). It’s also true that the previous two Bond pictures, Dr. No and From Russia with Love, had characters such as Anthony Dawson’s Professor Dent and Robert Shaw’s Grant who were subordinates of the main baddies. But Sakata’s Oddjob basically set in stone how the evil henchman should be not just for the Bond series, but for action thrillers in general.

Oddjob is not only very strong (gold bars bounce off him like rubber), doesn’t speak much (we only hear grunts whenever he opens his mouth), and he’s unquestionably loyal to his boss (such as when he kills one of Goldfinger’s men for attempting the defuse the A-bomb, even though Oddjob himself is trapped with the ticking time bomb). Of course, I can’t forget to mention Oddjob’s classic hat which slices through marble statues like butter, and which Bond himself ends up using to his advantage during their climatic fight inside Fort Knox. Pretty much every Bond film since Goldfinger has had a villainous character that shares at least one of these traits with Oddjob. Sakata, who was a celebrated wrestler before being cast to fight 007, would parody his Oddjob image in commercials and TV specials.

2. Fiona Volpe
Interestingly enough Thunderball, the follow-up Bond film to Goldfinger, also gave us a memorable, much-imitated villainous sidekick. No, this woman wasn’t the first Bond bedded despite working for the bad guys. She also wasn’t even the first great female Bond villain (that honor went to Lotte Lenya’s Rosa Klebb in From Russia With Love). But Fiona Volpe, played by Luciana Paluzzi, was certainly the most memorable. Fiona makes no secret about her desire to not only sleep with Bond but basically make him submit to her will. In addition, Fiona has only one scene with Thunderball‘s main baddie Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi). The rest of the time we see her, she’s basically calling her own shots, which adds to her character’s appeal. Like Famke Janssen’s Xenia Onatopp in Goldeneye thirty years later, Fiona uses her sexuality as a weapon. She’s first seen aiding in the murder of the pilot who is her lover as part of SPECTRE’s plot to hijack a NATO jet carrying two atomic bombs.

The character was (sort of) redone almost 20 years later in the Thunderball remake Never Say Never Again, as Barbara Carrera’s Fatima Blush. Like Fiona, Fatima was entertaining, and as many have stated, was really the only reason Never Say Never Again isn’t a total waste of time.

3. Darth VaderStar Wars villains. The character’s impact became so great that as the years went by, even George Lucas would state that the Star Wars saga was always meant to be about Darth Vader and his fall from grace. This is despite the fact that Vader’s revelation of his family link to Luke Skywalker didn’t even enter the narrative until Lucas was working on the second draft of the Empire Strikes Back script.

But the impact of the character himself was immediate. From his first scene in the original Star Wars, with his great strength, ominous breathing, and (the finishing touch) the great voice of James Earl Jones, it was clear from the start that this was a villain for the ages.

While Vader’s master, the Emperor, isn’t seen in the original film, Vader does seem to stand on equal footing (of sorts) with Grand Moff Tarkin (Peter Cushing). This makes the audience curious as to who is actually the main bad guy. At one point, Tarkin orders Vader to release his hold on an insubordinate officer, even though Vader could easily do something similar to him if he wanted to.

Both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi would add further layers to Vader as he attempts to bring Luke to his side, even if it means destroying the Emperor in the process. This leads to what is for me a hell of a death scene for the character at the climax of Jedi. I think it’s safe to say that anyone who thinks of villains in science fiction movies can’t help but think of Vader.

4. Joachim

Perhaps one reason Ricardo Montalban’s Khan is regarded as the greatest of all the Star Trek villains is how his character changes from his first appearance, in the first season original Trek episode “Space Seed”, to his return in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

The episode certainly painted Khan as a tyrant who was ready to conquer a new world with his followers upon his awakening. But when Kirk defeats him and informs Khan of the plan to exile him to Ceti Alpha V, Khan ends up looking at this exile as a chance to build the empire he’s always dreamed of. The last looks he and Kirk exchange in the episode are ones of respect.

Hence, when we learn in Wrath of Khan that Khan’s plans for his own empire were basically shot to hell when Ceti Alpha V’s orbit shifted, causing never-ending sandstorms and the loss of his wife and some of his followers, we can understand (if not agree with) the obsessive anger which has now replaced the great control Khan possessed in “Space Seed”.

As anyone who’s seen the film knows, Khan quotes several passages from Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby Dick. Serving as Starbuck to Khan’s Ahab is Joachim, played by Judson Scott (some press releases for Wrath of Khan actually state the character is Khan’s son, although the film itself gives no hint of that). Joachim is certainly loyal to Khan and is the first to commend him regarding the escape from their exile. But like Starbuck, he’s not above questioning Khan’s directives. He respectfully states that, as they are now free, they can simply settle on a new world rather than expend considerable time and effort into tracking down Kirk. When Kirk manages to fire back on Khan during their first encounter, Joachim is able to convince his leader that, because of the damage to their ship, the wisest course of action is to momentarily withdraw. Even after Khan obtains the powerful Genesis device, he’s still willing to take their commandeered ship, the U.S.S. Reliant, into a nebula that could cause damage to the ship, so he can get his revenge on Kirk. Khan even violently tosses Joachim aside when the latter strongly objects to this plan.

Despite this, the character still has Khan’s respect. This is proven when Joachim is killed toward the end of the movie and Khan tenderly holds him, quietly vowing to avenge him. The dynamic between these two characters is one of many reasons Wrath of Khan is still regarded as the best Trek movie.

5. Saruman
One reason I disliked the Star Wars prequels was because of how they wasted Sir Christopher Lee by having him play second banana to the Emperor (Ian McDiarmid), only to have his character be pointlessly dispatched in the first 15 minutes of Revenge of the Sith. I always thought it would’ve been better if Lee had played the Emperor’s master, and the films could have shown how the Emperor himself managed to overthrow him.

But the prequels (basically) ran in theaters simultaneously with Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy. These films have Lee playing a bad guy sidekick but in a much better way. As the evil wizard Saruman, Lee has great scenes building his great armies, addressing his followers, and even knocking around the heroic wizard Gandalf (Sir Ian McKellen). We learn that Saruman and Gandalf were once friends, but the re-emergence of the Ring of Power and the return of the evil Sauron tempted Saurman into using his powers for conquest.

Interestingly, this wasn’t the first time Lee had a nice role as an evil sidekick. In The Three Musketeers and its sequel The Four Musketeers, Lee played Comte de Rochefort, the merciless right hand of Cardinal Richelieu (Charlton Heston). These films gave Lee great sword fighting sequences with the musketeers (played by Oliver Reed, Michael York, Frank Finlay, and Richard Chamberlain).


Other bad guy sidekicks that are worth mentioning include Lin Tang, the merciless daughter of Fu Manchu. She was initially played in the 1930s by Mryna Loy, opposite Boris Karloff’s Fu Manchu. But my favorite version of the character is the one played by Tsai Chin, who played the role in five movies in the 1960s, all opposite Lee’s Fu Manchu. The films themselves may not be classics (I believe one of them was even broadcast on Mystery Science Theater 3000), but Lee and Chin are clearly having fun with their roles. These films also came out at the same time Chin was making a memorable impression as the first Asian Bond girl in You Only Live Twice.

Another memorable bad guy sidekick is Karl, the right hand man to Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), played in the classic film Die Hard by the late, great Alexander Godunov. Karl ends up with a reason to want Bruce Willis’s John McClane dead when our hero dispatches Karl’s brother early in the film. The fight scene between Karl and McClane is one of many reasons that film is great, and the villainy both Godunov and Rickman bring to their characters is something the Die Hard sequels certainly could have used.

Trekkies vs. The People vs. George Lucas

This article looks at documentaries that focus on the followings to science fiction's two biggest franchises.

It goes without saying that Star Trek and Star Wars are the two biggest science fiction franchises ever. Even non-science fiction fans can recognize elements from either franchise, such as “beaming” or “the Force”. So it’s not surprising that numerous books and essays have cropped up over the decades which attempt to explain why these two franchises have such passionate followings.

Trekkies (1997)

While there are several books about the topic, perhaps the first such documentary on Star Trek fandom was the 1997 film Trekkies. This film was produced and hosted by Denise Crosby, who played Tasha Yar on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The film largely consists of Trek fans from all walks of life discussing their love for the franchise. We see fans dressed as Klingons ordering food at restaurants. The cashier even tells Crosby that he often serves Klingons. Other fans discuss the technology seen in the Trek shows and how it may not be too far from reality. One such fan even attempts to build a chair similar to the one the crippled Captain Pike occupies in the original Star Trek two-parter “The Menagerie”.

It also has appearances from several of the actors and actresses from the various Trek shows, save Enterprise (the debut of which was still four years away). The actors relate stories of their encounters with Trekkies. For instance, Kate Mulgrew, who played Captain Janeway on Voyager, states that people have come to her asking her to marry them.

Yes, the film also addresses the famous “Kirk vs. Picard” debate. Chase Masterson, who played Leeta on Deep Space Nine, chimes in to say that both Kirk and Janeway are studs.

There’s one touching moment where James Doohan, who played Scotty on the original series, talks about a female fan who wrote to him expressing her suicidal thoughts. But he asked her to come to upcoming conventions where he would make appearances. She did so, and some years later, she contacted Doohan again thanking him for his support and gave him the news that she was getting her master’s degree.

One famous Trekkie the film looks at is Barbara Adams, the woman who famously dressed in Starfleet garb during her time as a grand juror in the Whitewater investigation. Adams was later dismissed from the jury, not for her attire, but for disobeying the judge’s order to not give interviews.

Crosby herself takes time to address her own thoughts on the franchise. At one point, she produces fan-made drawings of various Trek characters, including Yar and her half-Romulan daughter Sela (also played by Crosby). Of all the TV actors who have quit their shows, Crosby is the only one I know of who managed to get her best roles on her show after her character was killed off. Crosby even addresses this wonderful irony in the film.

A life-long Trekkie herself, Crosby suggested the idea of the film to director Roger Nygard, who had just directed her in the 1991 TV movie High Strung. He agreed, and filming began at a convention at a Hilton in Los Angeles that was organized by William Campbell, who played Trelane in the original show’s “The Squire of Gothos” and Koloth in “The Trouble With Tribbles” and Deep Space Nine‘s “Blood Oath”.

Trekkies received positive reviews and even spawned a sequel, Trekkies 2, which was released in 2004. The sequel mainly looks at Trek fans outside the United States and even profiles fans from the first film, including Adams. Trekkies itself was given a theatrical release in May 1999. Ironically, the film was released the same weekend as Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. And speaking of which…


The People vs. George Lucas (2010)

Like Trekkies, this film looks at Star Wars fans and their extreme devotion to the franchise. There’s no specific host in the film, but there are discussions with numerous people linked with the films, including Gary Kurtz, who produced the original Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, as well as David Prowse, who wore the awesome Darth Vader suit in the original trilogy.

This film also goes into great depth about Star Wars creator George Lucas. Specifically, it goes into how he first inspired the love of millions of people before many of those people became disenchanted with him decades later because of his decisions in how to handle the franchise.

Indeed, a great deal of this documentary centers on how Star Wars is a creation of Lucas’s, but—some argue—also a pop culture juggernaut that belongs to the world.

The film even takes a brief look at Lucas’s other cash cow, the Indiana Jones series. Specifically, it goes into how fans became just as dissatisfied with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and its “nuke the fridge” scene as they had been with the Star Wars prequels (yes, there is a clip of that insufferable South Park episode to drive the point home even more). At one point, film critic Rafik Djoumi talks about how fan dissatisfaction with that film was directed even more at Lucas than its actual director, Steven Spielberg.

Another factor adding fuel to that fire is Lucas’s refusal to allow the original cuts of the first three Star Wars films to be released on Blu-ray. We see fans reacting to his insistence that the revised versions are the only ones in existence by reproducing the original versions on their own.

But the film’s director, Star Wars fan Alexandre Philippe, insisted that the movie isn’t meant to be an anti-Lucas diatribe (although one gets that impression from the title). To his credit, the film does showcase fans who actually love the prequels and even Jar Jar Binks. Philippe also goes into a fair amount of detail about how Lucas began his filmmaking career with his unique works THX-1138 and American Graffiti, and how those two films culminated into the great achievement that was the original Star Wars.

One of the fans interviewed is Jason Nicholl, creator of the blog nukethefridge.com. The film is dedicated to him, as he died prior to its release. A sequel is reportedly in the works, and will focus on the franchise since Lucas sold it to Disney in 2012.

Both Trekkies and The People vs. George Lucas are definitely worth a look for fans of these franchises. They both take a nice hard look at how people can be taken with something to the point of obsession. However, one could say that each film was made for different reasons. Trekkies was meant simply as a look at Trek fans, while The People vs. George Lucas was made because of how the fans’ relationship with the creator of their franchise has changed over the decades.

It must be noted that Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry received some criticism from fans, specifically for how he insisted the Star Trek animated series that ran from 1973-1974 be ignored (and it’s still only occasionally mentioned in the annals of Trek lore), as well as the direction he took both Star Trek: The Motion Picture and the first season of The Next Generation. However, Trekkies doesn’t throw much actual criticism in Roddenberry’s direction as People does with Lucas. Perhaps this is because Roddenberry died in 1991, and some say that TNG truly took flight after that (not to mention the debut of all the subsequent Trek shows).

Since these two films were released, their respective franchises have gone in somewhat different directions. The fifth Trek series Enterprise debuted in 2001 but plummeting ratings kept it from enjoying the same seven-season run as its three predecessors, and it was canceled in 2005. At the same time, the 2002 film Star Trek: Nemesis deservedly flopped, thus bringing the big screen adventures of Picard and his crew to an end.

Seven years after that, Trek got the same reboot treatment as Batman and James Bond. The 2009 Star Trek had the original crew now played by different actors. That film was successful enough to get two sequels, Star Trek Into Darkness and Star Trek Beyond. But the passing of Anton Yelchin, who played Chekov in the reboot series, has left future reboot entries in doubt.

But a new Trek TV series Star Trek: Discovery is set to air on CBS in November. It was co-created by Alex Kurtzman, who co-wrote the first two entries in the Trek reboot series. Like Enterprise, this show takes place before the original Trek series. Here’s hoping that’s all it has in common with Enterprise.

As for Star Wars, Disney has given us a mixed bag so far. While The Force Awakens had more appealing main characters than the prequels, that didn’t change the fact that the film itself just repeated things we saw in the original film while simultaneously going the Alien 3 route of pissing all over the feeling of satisfaction the original movies left us with.

Rogue One, on the other hand, proved overall a better Star Wars prequel than the prequel trilogy. It was also a treat to see the late, great Peter Cushing (well, as close as we could get to him anyway) on the big screen again.

But Carrie Fisher’s passing soon after that film’s release has left a feeling of uncertainty about where to take the franchise next. Her scenes for the upcoming The Last Jedi were reportedly already shot before her death. But time will tell how the following entry in the sequel trilogy will go without her.

Time will also tell if Discovery or any of the many Star Wars films Disney doubtlessly has on the drawing board will do their respective franchises justice. I don’t doubt that Disney will keep squeezing cash out of Star Wars like it has with Marvel. But even if any future films are not embraced as classics, and even if Discovery doesn’t last a single season, they will, at least, remind us of the greatness of their respective original entries.

How influential are film critics?

This article focuses on something I've wondered about often.

Recently, director Brett Ratner claimed that the relative failure of Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, which his company RatPac Entertainment co-financed, can be solely blamed on the website Rotten Tomatoes.

For those not in the know, Rotten Tomatoes collects all possible reviews of any given movie. A film is then classified as “fresh” if 60% or more of the reviews are positive. Likewise, films with 59% or lower positive reviews are classified as “rotten”. Batman v. Superman holds a 27% rating on the website.

This little tiff got me thinking about something I’ve sometimes wondered about: just how influential are film critics when it comes to a film being a success or a failure?

Rotten Tomatoes rep Jeff Voris responded to Ratner’s criticisms, saying that the “Tomatometer score, which is the percentage of positive reviews published by professional critics, has become a useful decision-making tool for fans, but we believe it’s just a starting point for them to begin discussing, debating and sharing their own opinions.”

Ratner is not the first Hollywood player to blame a film’s failure on critics. When The Lone Ranger (which holds a 31% rating on Rotten Tomatoes) bombed in 2013, Johnny Depp, who played Tonto in the film, pointed the finger for its failure not at the screenwriter, or the producers of the film, but those who pointed out how stupid it was.

“I think the reviews were written when they heard Gore [Verbinski] and Jerry [Bruckheimer] and me were going to do The Lone Ranger,” Depp said at the time. “They had expectations that it must be a blockbuster. I didn’t have any expectations of that. I never do.”

I find Depp’s lack of expectations hard to believe, since the film was made by the same people who made the Pirates of the Caribbean series. Hence I, like many others, was expecting The Lone Ranger to actually be as successful as those films. Hell, I’d say the main reason it bombed was because it was too much like the Pirates series.

Lone Ranger producer Jerry Bruckheimer chimed in, basically agreeing with Depp. “I think they were reviewing the budget, not reviewing the movie,” Bruckheimer said. “The audience doesn’t care what the budget is — they pay the same amount if it costs a dollar or 20 million dollars.” He added that the film is “one of those movies that whatever critics missed in it this time, they’ll review it in a few years and see that they made a mistake.”

While I think the only thing funny about the film was the stupid bird Depp had on his head, both Depp and Bruckheimer, like Ratner, are wasting their breath. I’ve certainly heard a number of people over the years say they don’t listen to critics. I’ve even felt the need to check out some movies despite every review saying that the movies are awful. But there are a number of films that make huge amounts of money regardless of what the reviews may say.

One example of this is 1991’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, which was savaged by critics for not being as fun as the 1938 classic The Adventures of Robin Hood, in which Errol Flynn played the title role. (For the record, Thieves holds a 50% score on Rotten Tomatoes.) Most of the criticism was reserved for Kevin Costner, who played Robin Hood. Many said that he was too American for this very British role. Costner, who at the time was riding high off the Oscar-winning success of his directorial debut Dances With Wolves, would later be given a Razzie Award for his performance.

However, none of this kept Prince of Thieves from becoming the second biggest hit of 1991, trailing only Terminator 2: Judgment Day. I’ve always felt that this was because while, acting-wise, Costner certainly didn’t hold a candle to past Robins, the movie itself was exciting, with great action and wonderful supporting turns from Morgan Freeman as Robin’s Moorish friend Azeem, and the late, great Alan Rickman as the Sheriff of Nottingham. Another nice touch was Sean Connery’s cameo as Richard the Lionheart, which was meaningful because Connery memorably played Robin Hood in 1976’s Robin and Marian. In addition, the film’s song, “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”, sung by Bryan Adams, became a chart-topping hit and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song. (It lost to the title song from Beauty and the Beast.)

Other movies which have become massively successful in spite of bad reviews include the 1978 Clint Eastwood comedy Every Which Way But Loose, and its 1980 sequel Any Which Way You Can. Both of these movies involve Clint doing the tough guy routine he does so well, only this time with an orangutan named Clyde.

Clint was already known and loved for his tough guy roles by this point. So pairing him with an orangutan for laughs certainly raised many eyebrows. Many critics were quick to express their disgust with such a move, but Clint’s charisma and some genuine laughs helped make these two movies among Eastwood’s most successful.

I once noted that some summer blockbusters can thrive in spite of negative reviews, if they’re exciting. One thing both Batman v. Superman and The Lone Ranger have in common are that they are not exciting. In fact, I found parts of them quite boring.

There’s also the fact that, in the age of the Internet, film critics themselves are increasing in number. One of my colleagues once wrote that the internet has destroyed the influence of film critics. I can certainly understand that stance. Before anyone knew what the hell the internet was, people such as Siskel and Ebert were, for all intents and purposes, the biggest reference points when it came to how good a movie was. In this day and age, however, pretty much anyone who can type can go online and critique a movie. Perhaps the key difference here is that some critiques are not as thorough as Siskel and Ebert’s or others who may have been inspired by them.

This may be a reason for Ratner and Depp’s criticisms. They see certain criticisms that may not be well thought out, and deduced that all such criticisms of Batman v. Superman and The Lone Ranger must be just as unfairly harsh. But film critics can be instrumental in determining if a movie is truly worthwhile. For me, they give me an idea of what to expect from a film, even if I don’t entirely end up agreeing with their final assessments.

For instance, the film CHiPs, based on the beloved 1977 – 1983 TV series, was recently released. Based on the reviews that make up its 18% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, as well as its low box office take, I can pretty much deduce that the movie pisses on that show by resorting to stupid, unfunny gags. The fact that it was written and directed by its star Dax Shepard confirms my thoughts that he’s become just a poor man’s Adam Sandler (yeah, just let that depressing thought sink in).

But hearing Ratner and Depp complain, they seem to be comparing their respective movies to films that weren’t meant to be blockbuster hits. During his tenure on the TV series ER, George Clooney starred in the terrific movie Out of Sight. This film got glowing reviews from critics but didn’t do much in terms of making money at the box office. However, the movie was a nice rebound for Clooney after starring in Batman & Robin, and from there, he would go on to win an Oscar for Syriana. But Out of Sight wasn’t intended to be a franchise like Batman v. Superman or The Lone Ranger. So does this means critics are to blame for Out of Sight not making as much money as that same year’s Saving Private Ryan? By the logic Ratner and Depp are presenting, this is certainly the case.

In short, there is and always will be a place for movie critics. By blaming them for essentially doing their jobs and pointing out how bad a certain work is represents, for me, the height of laziness. This is because people such as Ratner and Depp think that bad things that are said about their work are the reason their work isn’t successful, rather than attempting to see if there’s any validity in such criticisms.

I’m not saying that people shouldn’t disagree with critics. Lord knows I’ve certainly done my share of that. What I’m saying is that pointing fingers in this manner is counterproductive. Disagreeing with critics is one thing, but actually saying they’re the ones to blame for a movie’s failure doesn’t do much to turn things around for filmmakers. Maybe examining the work being criticized to see exactly why it didn’t generate enthusiasm among audiences would be a more productive approach.

Movie criticism should be viewed for what it is, which is simply a tool to indicate how a work has turned out. It should not be the end-all-be-all of how a person responds to criticism of their work. Viewing criticism in this manner ends up doing more damage to said person’s credibility rather than any work they may put out.

Double Features

My latest Agony Booth article goes into nice ideas for double features.

Double features are almost as old as cinema itself. Before TV came around, a movie would be preceded by an animated short, a live-action short, a newsreel, and then the main feature. During the Great Depression, cinemas began to give customers two movies for the price of one in order to attract more ticket buyers. These presentations initially began with a low-budget film (the B-movie) before an interlude and then the main feature. This allowed studios that specialized in making B-movies, such as Republic, to become successful.

The revenue this generated soon led to major studios making their own B-movie features. This practice continues to thrive today, only nowadays these movies usually go straight to video (or streaming). Thanks to the advent of home video and later the internet, people can now have double features of all kinds in their own homes. Here now (in no particular order) are 10 great double features you can have at home and why I find them ideal.

Star Wars (1977)/Halloween (1978): These two films respectively rewrote the books on science fiction and horror (for good and bad, according to some) as it didn’t take long for imitators of both movies to flood cinemas in the wake of their successes. As it turns out, the villains in these movies (Darth Vader and Michael Myers) also wear what would become awesome Halloween costumes. Even the musical scores for both movies have become iconic, and rightly so. In addition, the first sequels for each film (The Empire Strikes Back and Halloween II) can make an ideal double feature since they each brought family connections into the narrative, influencing the directions of their respective franchises (again, for good and bad, according to some fans).

Hang ‘Em High (1968)/Night of the Living Dead (1968): By the end of the 1960s, Italian studios were basically churning out westerns and zombie pictures like they were pizzas. While neither of these films were Italian productions, both capitalized on that craze. Hang ‘Em High, Clint Eastwood’s first American-made western after the three he did with Sergio Leone made him a film star, involves a rancher (Eastwood) who survives a lynching and becomes deputized before hunting down the men who tried to kill him. Night of the Living Dead, an inexpensive production made in Pittsburgh, centers on a group of people who become trapped in a deserted house as reanimated corpses begin engulfing the countryside. Both movies have a gritty, harsh tone, and the fact that both premiered just after the shocking murders of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy may have made both films cathartic, if you will, for viewers.

Jaws (1975)/Taxi Driver (1976): I actually plan to go into more detail about these two movies at a later time. Needless to say, however, Jaws, Steven Spielberg’s classic film of a shark terrorizing an island community, set the bar when it came to blockbusters, while Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese’s classic picture about a loner (Robert De Niro) who ends up committing terrifying acts, did the same for independent films. One could also say they ended up coloring the public’s perceptions of their respective directors.

High Noon (1952)/Rio Bravo (1959): Two classic westerns released during the genre’s heyday. The former, in which Gary Cooper ends up facing bad guys alone when nobody is willing to assist him, was viewed as a critique of McCarthyism for the manner in which Cooper does the honorable thing. The latter, in which John Wayne fights bad guys with loyal men at his side, was viewed as a counterpoint to that argument, as Wayne’s character doesn’t spend much of the movie asking for assistance. Wayne even called High Noon “un-American”, which is what led to him and director Howard Hawks making Bravo. Regardless of political views, today both movies are rightfully embraced as masterpieces.

The NeverEnding Story (1984)/Labyrinth (1986): Both of these films involve young people who must enter a world they know from a book in order to save lives. NeverEnding Story centers on a lonely boy (Barret Oliver) reading a fantasy book, and as he reaches the end, he realizes that he’s the only one who can save a not-so-fictional land from destruction. Labyrinth stars then-unknown Jennifer Connelly as a fantasy-loving teenager who just wants to live in her own fantasy world and regrets her wish that her infant brother be taken away by the Goblin King (the late, great David Bowie), a character from the play she’s reading. She must then enter that fantasy world to save her brother, dealing with the Goblin King and his minions (created by the late, great Jim Henson). One could also say that both movies make a great argument for why reading is good.

Ghostbusters (1984)/Beetlejuice (1988): Two comedy classics involving ghosts. Ghostbusters centers on four men (Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, and the late Harold Ramis) who manage to make a lucrative business out of capturing ghosts. In lesser hands, Beetlejuice could have been just a Ghostbusters knock-off, but Tim Burton stirs things up with his film by making ghosts the main characters. In that film, a couple (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) have recently died and soon enlist the aid of the title character (Michael Keaton) to rid their home of its new owners, an act that they come to regret, as he has a reputation for wrecking havoc among both the living and the dead. Add the fact that both of these movies are hilarious and you have a great double feature.

The Terminator (1984)/Back to the Future (1985): Two time travel stories released in consecutive years. The first, which involves a murderous cyborg (Arnold Schwarzenegger) sent back through time to change history by killing a woman (Linda Hamilton) before she can give birth to the man who will save humanity, was a nerve-jolting thriller, while the second, in which a teenager (Michael J. Fox) accidentally goes back in time thanks to a DeLorean his scientist friend (Christopher Lloyd) has modified, was a comedy. Both films also end up giving nice messages about the importance of believing in yourself and creating your own destiny.

Escape from New York (1981)/Blade Runner (1982): Both of these are science fiction films which show a near future with a dark, apocalyptic outlook that continues to influence the science fiction genre to this day. Escape from New York, which takes place in 1997, involves a criminal (Kurt Russell) being drafted into rescuing the President of the United States (Donald Pleasence) by going into the title city (which is now a maximum security prison), where Air Force One crashed and the president was kidnapped by the dangerous criminals who now inhabit the city. Blade Runner involves a police detective (Harrison Ford) who must go through 2019 Los Angeles to terminate dangerous androids (Rutger Hauer, Daryl Hannah, Joanna Cassidy, and Brion James) who have arrived on Earth (where androids are banned) after violently escaping from an outer space colony (three more years to go as of this writing—let’s see if those colonies come about by then). Another interesting contrast is that Escape contains criticism of police and police actions (one of the characters in the film refers to the U.S. as a fascist state), while Ford’s character in Blade Runner spends much of the movie questioning himself and his actions, especially when he realizes his opponents aren’t as evil as society and his superiors have made them out to be.

Ray (2004)/Walk the Line (2005): Two biopics about music legends. Ray depicts the rise of Ray Charles (a brilliant, Oscar-winning Jamie Foxx) while Walk the Line does the same with music duo Johnny and June Carter Cash (Joaquin Phoenix and a brilliant, Oscar-winning Reese Witherspoon). Both movies do a fine job illustrating the trials and tribulations these artists went through (some of which were of their own making) as they fulfilled their dreams of making music, and thus, ensuring their places in history. Interestingly, both Charles and the Cashes passed away shortly before these films premiered, although both movies received their blessing.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)/Clue (1985): Rocky Horror (which, I must confess, I never really liked, but can understand why many do) is a musical-science fiction-comedy with not-so-subtle nods to Frankenstein, while Clue is a mystery-comedy based on the Parker Brothers board game of the same name. However, both films not only take place in mansions on dark and stormy nights, but both also feature memorable roles for Tim Curry. In Rocky Horror, he plays the doctor who was once described by Us magazine as “a bi-sexual Beetlejuice”, while in Clue, he plays a butler who ends up setting an evening of murder into motion after he invites several people over for dinner. In addition, both movies didn’t get much initial notice when they were released, but today have huge followings as well as midnight showings with audience members performing the action as it plays on screen.

HONORABLE MENTION: It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966)/Garfield’s Halloween Adventure (1985): As it’s Halloween, it seems appropriate to mention these two animated specials, which may be the most famous of all Halloween cartoons. In the first, Linus waits for the arrival of the Santa Claus-esque Great Pumpkin, while Charlie Brown ends up getting only rocks while trick-or-treating and Snoopy hunts for the Red Baron. In the second, Garfield enlists his dog sidekick Odie to go trick-or-treating with him (both dress up as pirates) in order to get more candy for himself, only for both to get caught up in a genuine ghost story (involving—what else?—pirates, which today reminds me a little of the setting of John Carpenter’s The Fog). The Garfield special actually bests Great Pumpkin in terms of having moments that make you jump, but both specials have a great deal of heart, making them the perfect Halloween treats for all ages.

November film predictions

This is another collaboration with some of my Agony Booth colleagues. This one looks at predictions for films coming out this November.

It’s time again for more movie predictions! November is almost upon us, when the studios take advantage of the big Thanksgiving holiday to roll out their more family-oriented blockbusters, while also beginning to trickle out the big contenders for year-end awards. Join us as we predict which of these movies will be HITs and which will BOMB based solely on watching the trailers!

(Read our October movie predictions!)

Our gurus this time around are Rick Lewis, Michael “Mendo” Novelli, Thomas Ricard, Rob Kirchgassner, Thomas Stockel, Joel Schlosberg, and Dr. Winston O’Boogie!

Doctor Strange (Nov 4)

After neurosurgeon Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is injured in a car accident that destroys his career, he learns the mystic arts under the tutelage of the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton). After setting up shop in Greenwich Village, NYC, he uses his supernatural abilities to become an intermediary between the real world and higher dimensions.

Predictions:

Rick: November is when Cumberbatch and Swinton usually go trawling for Oscars in quaint little indie films, not saving the world in capes and tights. But far be it from me to doubt Marvel. HIT.

Mendo: A HIT, obviously, though probably more along the lines of Ant-Man than Captain America. To me, at least, Doctor Strange works better as a supporting character rather than a star; I’ve always thought of him as the guy who pals around with Howard the Duck and helps She-Hulk with her legal cases. I doubt this will be as weird or wonderful as that, though.

Thomas R: As is often the case with Marvel, I see a lot of potential in the ideas on display but there’s no escaping a sense of déjà vu; in this case, it looks like they’re combining Inception’s urban dreamscapes with the portals from Thor: The Dark World, complete with obligatory nondescript villain. But it’s got the Marvel brand, so of course it’ll be a HIT.

Rob: Considering that other Marvel Comics characters have made a fortune on the big screen in recent years, there’s little reason to doubt that this will do any differently. Cumberbatch’s superstar status shouldn’t hurt its chances, either. HIT!

Thomas S: The only question here is, will it be a moderate success like Ant-Man, or a major hit like Civil War? To be honest, I’m thinking it’s going to fall somewhere in between, with Benedict Cumberbatch’s (spelled it right the first time, yes!) strong Sherlock Holmes fanbase drawing in bigger numbers. So, yeah, HIT.

Joel: It’s not outside of the realm of possibility that Marvel may get too far-out and incomprehensible for general audiences, but it’ll take more than one movie. They could even make a Howard the Duck movie a HIT at this point, and this is not a Howard the Duck movie.

Winston: I’ve been off the Marvel train since I went to see one of those movies (I think it was either Dark World or Age of Ultron) on the basis of gushing reviews, only to find out it was the same mediocre, cookie-cutter entertainment as the rest of them. And despite the allegedly “new and different” supernatural elements in this one, I expect Doctor Strange to be more of the same, and that, sadly, means it’ll be a HIT.

Hacksaw Ridge (Nov 4)

Mel Gibson’s first directorial effort in 10 years is the true story of US Army medic Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield), who fought on the front lines of WWII but refused to kill or use a weapon due to his Seventh-day Adventist beliefs. Historical spoiler alert: Doss saves 75 men in the Battle of Okinawa and becomes the first conscientious objector to win the Medal of Honor.

Predictions:

Rick: Mel Gibson, WWII, true story… 15 years ago, it’d be a Best Picture lock. Now it’s nothing but red flags. BOMB.

Mendo: Will probably do very well among older audiences. My guess is that it’ll hang around for several weeks, never quite turning a profit in theaters, but do well enough on DVD and gain a permanent slot on the weekend TV circuit. BOMB.

Thomas R: Martyrized hero? Simple, folksy characterization? Graphic slow-mo violence designed to valorize suffering? This looks like a Mel Gibson movie, alright. Easy kidding aside, it’ll be interesting to see Gibson defend Christian pacifism and glorify war at the same time. I don’t know if it’ll be as big as American Sniper, but it’s bound to find similar audiences. HIT.

Rob: This movie certainly sounds like it could do well. The question is whether director Mel Gibson’s previous bad karma will affect it, especially since the trailer only refers to Gibson as “the Academy Award winning director of Braveheart.” Possible HIT!

Thomas S: And hey, it’s another trailer telling me exactly how the movie is going to end. Thanks, Hollywood! Another Oscar whoring movie I have no interest in seeing, but it’s probably going to be a HIT anyway.

Joel: Mel Gibson keeping himself off-screen and letting up-and-coming faces star in a Sergeant York for the war-weary that taps into patriotism and religiosity? And did I mention that Mel Gibson keeps himself off-screen? If anything he could possibly make can find an audience, it’s this. HIT.

Winston: It’s been long enough since Gibson’s last blowup that people are ready to give him a chance at redemption, plus the film is sure to draw in the same sizable Christian audience that turned out for The Passion of the Christ. HIT, provided no new tapes leak over the next week or so.

Trolls (Nov 4)

The biggest toy fad of the 1970s/1990s becomes a major DreamWorks animated release. Two trolls named Poppy (Anna Kendrick) and Branch (Justin Timberlake) embark on a quest to save their village from being destroyed by Bergens, creatures who eat trolls. Also, the Timberlake-produced soundtrack has already spawned the #1 hit “Can’t Stop the Feeling!”

Predictions:

Rick: You ever order a Coke and the waiter says, “Is Pepsi okay?” Eh, no, not really. DreamWorks Animation movies always feel the exact same way to me. Rise of the Guardians, The Croods, Turbo, Mr. Peabody and Sherman, Home… you can’t serve this stuff up to an audience that guzzles down Disney/Pixar and expect them not to notice the difference. Forgotten fads will do nothing to overcome that feeling. BOMB.

Mendo: Under any other circumstances, this would crush its opposition on opening weekend, because animated family movies always take the #1 spot. I predict it will place higher than Hacksaw Ridge, maybe even take the top spot from Strange if it lasts that long, but it’ll probably drop down the charts almost immediately thereafter. Unless it pulls a LEGO Movie and has a really good script. HIT.

Thomas R: Even the trailer can’t bother disguising the lack of plot; it just gives up halfway through in favor of a montage of typical DreamWorks gags and dance parties. Looks like manufactured cuteness at its most annoying, but young kids will probably love it. HIT.

Rob: This animated film is sure to please kids. HIT!

Thomas S: My God, is it time to be nostalgic for the ’90s already? I hate trolls, so I’m calling this one a BOMB.

Joel: “From the creators of Shrek” says it all: this trailer feels like it sat on a shelf since the mid-’00s. DreamWorks has moved on to better things, and so has its audience. BOMB.


Arrival (Nov 11)

Not to be confused with the 1996 Charlie Sheen film, Arrival depicts the sudden appearance of giant alien spacecraft across the globe. A team led by expert linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is called upon to translate their language, and as humanity rushes toward the brink of global war, Banks discovers there’s much more to the alien language than simple communication.

Predictions:

Rick: Amy Adams’s track record with alien saviors is spotty at best, but I’m digging the visuals here, so my fingers are crossed on this one. But what do I know; I’m one of the few who genuinely enjoyed Contact. HIT.

Mendo: I just don’t see Arrival being a huge hit. The trailer is so boring. Maybe if it wasn’t up against Doctor Strange it could carve out a nice run for itself, but this is a DVD movie all the way. BOMB!

Thomas R: Judging by the critical and commercial success of Interstellar and The Martian, Hollywood is experiencing something of a boom in smart, thoughtful sci-fi. Arrival gives every sign of following in those footsteps, with a hugely promising premise and a trailer that gives away just enough to whet our appetites without spelling too much out. HIT.

Rob: This one seems to be a cross between Contact and Independence Day. Still, Adams, along with co-stars Forest Whitaker and Jeremy Renner, could make this interesting. HIT!

Thomas S: First of all, congrats to Winston for remembering a time when Charlie Sheen was actually a decent actor and not a walking joke (and yes, I’m sorry he has HIV, but is anyone surprised?). As for Arrival, from the visuals to the cast to the premise, this movie looks awesome and I am soooooo hoping it’s going to be a hit. But the bitter old man in me sees that without a rockstar director like Christopher Nolan being attached to it, Arrival is going to BOMB.

Joel: There’s a lot more of a following for this sort of low-key sci-fi in the 2010s than there was in 1996. And less than a third of a budget of Independence Day: Resurgence is going towards subtler but better-looking effects. HIT.

Winston: Sure, the trailers are intriguing, but the buzz is that the film starts off straightforward but eventually turns into a complex, non-linear final act that will frustrate and confound most viewers. It apparently is less Interstellar and more Under the Skin. I’m so there, but I think word of mouth from those who go in expecting a special effects extravaganza is not going to help this one. BOMB.


Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (Nov 11)

From director Ang Lee comes the story of a young soldier named Billy Lynn (newcomer Joe Alwyn) who’s sent on a victory tour after a traumatic and well-publicized battle in Iraq. As he prepares for an appearance in the halftime show at a Thanksgiving day football game, flashbacks reveal the tragic reality of what actually happened during the battle. Also of note: this is the first major release shot in the hyper-real high frame rate of 120fps.

Predictions:

Rick: Ang Lee and football go together about as well as Ang Lee and the Hulk. BOMB.

Mendo: Being an Ang Lee film, the Oscar bait crowd will turn out for this one in full force. My Criswell prediction for this one is that it will debut at #3, just behind Strange and Trolls. HIT or BOMB, could go either way. It will be nice to see Steve Martin on screen again, though!

Thomas R: Is America finally ready for a serious examination of modern-day war heroism and how the military-industrial-media complex affects our perceptions of what that means? Perhaps, but that’s assuming Ang Lee doesn’t sacrifice his ideas on the altar of visual prowess, which Life of Pi occasionally did. It may garner some interest, but somehow I doubt it’ll live up to its ambitions. BOMB.

Rob: This film, based on the book by Ben Fountain, sounds like an intriguing tale. The supporting cast, which includes Kristen Stewart and Steve Martin, shouldn’t hurt either. HIT!

Thomas S: Ah, I feel all kinds of terrible calling this one “Oscar whoring” like I did with Hacksaw Ridge (mainly, I think, because that’s World War II, and there is the detachment of time), but I can’t help but feel cynical about the placement of its release date. It does seem to have a more interesting feel, what with the way a hero is paraded out to a celebration in front of an audience that probably doesn’t understand what he’s done or why, but I’m thinking it’s going to be a BOMB regardless.

Joel: When actors as sometimes-popular as Chris Tucker, Vin Diesel, and Steve Martin are top-billed in the credits but nowhere to be seen in the trailer, something’s amiss. BOMB.

Winston: I suppose the director of Brokeback Mountain, Life of Pi, and Lust, Caution deserves the benefit of the doubt, but Lee seems all wrong for this material. The source novel reportedly has a Catch-22-like satirical tone, whereas this trailer looks way too self-serious. And while I’ll probably see it just to experience what 120 frames per second is like, I can’t imagine that being much of a selling point after Peter Jackson’s failed attempt at popularizing high frame rates. BOMB.


Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Nov 18)

In this Harry Potter prequel (the first of five, all based on a 128 page book), it’s 1926 and Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) arrives in New York after a trip around the world to document (and in some cases, rescue) magical creatures. Alas, a “No-Maj” (the American word for Muggle) inadvertently releases some of the creatures, and it’s up to Newt and friends to recover the beasts and stop dark forces from provoking a war between the Wizards and the No-Maj-es.

Predictions:

Rick: G#DD@%N M#@!$RF#%$!NG PREQUELS. I HATE THEM SO MUCH. But I’ll be there opening night. HIT.

Mendo: Oh, this is going to be such a HIT, it’ll be, like, DISCOUNT HIT WAREHOUSE all up in this piece! Okay, so it’s not quite a Harry Potter movie, but dammit, it’ll have the same spirit! It’ll be interesting to see if it takes the top spot from Strange, but if this debuts any lower than #2, all bets are off for the rest of the year.

Thomas S: Have we outgrown the Potterverse? My inner child just clubbed my bitter old man at the very thought. HIT. Moving on.

Rob: I doubt this’ll do anything the Potter series didn’t already do. BOMB!

Thomas R: I grew up loving the Harry Potter books and films, but this unsolicited prequel looks bloated and unwieldy enough to make the Hobbit trilogy look restrained. Nostalgic Potter fans and their kids will likely make it a HIT, but I wouldn’t count on all four [!] sequels to materialize.

Joel: Five movies is a stretch, but as with The Phantom Menace and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the fanbase will at least show up for the first one. HIT.



The Edge of Seventeen (Nov 18)

Nadine (Hailee Steinfeld) is having an awkward time getting through high school, which is made even worse when she learns her brother has been secretly dating her best friend. But she might be able to survive with the help of her history teacher (Woody Harrelson) and a friendship with a boy who’s just as awkward as she is.


Predictions:

Rick: Partly because modern TV writing is so rich and complex these days, poignant character studies like this just don’t bring people to the multiplex anymore. Still, the bar is going to be low enough for this to be considered a HIT.

Mendo: Believe it or not, this is the one I’m most looking forward to. Oh, it will BOMB in theaters (spectacularly, I should imagine), but the Netflix crowd will eat this one up. Future cult classic in the making!

Thomas R: Are they really still making these? I thought we’d passed the “whiny indie teenage comedy” fad roughly seven years ago. It’s apparently gotten rave reviews, but I don’t expect it to make much more than its original budget. BOMB.

Rob: Coming of age dramas are known to be hit and miss. But this one could be a HIT!

Thomas S: I legit laughed a lot at this trailer. Woody Harrelson looks awesome in this role and Hailee Steinfeld might come across as whiny but also sympathetic. I’m going with HIT here, as I think it’ll resonate with a young audience.

Joel: The target audience may have to ask their grandparents to explain the Beatles and Twins. BOMB.

Winston: The trailer didn’t wow me and I can’t really buy someone who looks like Hailee Steinfeld playing a misfit outcast, but looking at its competition, it doesn’t seem like there’s much else in theaters this month to appeal to the teenage girl demographic. Probably a low key HIT.



Life on the Line (Nov 18)

John Travolta stars as Texas power line worker Beau, who’s raising his orphaned niece (Kate Bosworth) and blaming himself for her father’s electrocution death. When a deadly storm hits, it’s up to Beau and his crew of hardworking family men to work “on the line” and keep the electrical grid running for the sake of their community.

Predictions:

Rick: This whole thing seems as unintentionally corny as its title. BOMB.

Mendo: Total dad movie. BOMB in theaters, followed by a semi-weekly airing on TNT from now until the day you die.

Thomas R: This looks like the kind of simple, working-man stories John Wayne might have done in the ’70s between two westerns. Except instead of the Duke, you get John Travolta with a beard and a Texan accent competing for which is fakest. I’m surprised this didn’t go straight to VOD. BOMB.

Rob: This movie is probably as clichéd as it sounds. Travolta’s recent track record doesn’t inspire much confidence either. BOMB!

Thomas S: Now that Nicolas Cage is making movies like Left Behind, can he and Travolta team back up to give us some more of that Face/Off-like magic? God knows both guys need a hit to reinvigorate their careers. BOMB.

Joel: If this were John Travolta’s latest periodic return to form, it wouldn’t have taken a year to reach theaters. BOMB.

Winston: Obviously, this thing is going to BOMB, I mean, who’s even heard of it before now? The truth is, I threw it on this list because it looks hilarious. A movie about heroic power line workers? Deepwater Horizon, this is not. A large number of Travolta’s films have been going direct-to-video in recent years (did you know he made a movie with De Niro?), so how this one escaped the same fate is anyone’s guess.



Moana (Nov 23)

In Disney’s latest animated outing, a Polynesian teenager (Auli’i Cravalho) goes on a quest to save her people and meets the demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson). Together they travel across the ocean encountering treacherous monsters and other dangers on their way to a mythical island. Also, it’s a musical, featuring songs from Hamilton’s Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Predictions:

Rick: Not coming anywhere close to Frozen doesn’t mean it’s not still a HIT.

Mendo: A HIT without question, but what strikes me as interesting is that people are making a huge deal out of this being a Disney movie without a love story in it (so, like Brave, basically?). Dunno why people dislike love stories so much, but like Brave, I’m in no hurry to see this one. I do love me some Dwayne Johnson, though.

Thomas S: Hey, remember that time when the Rock was making shit movies like Tooth Fairy and we thought he’d go the way of Hulk Hogan? Whodathunk years later everything he touched would seem to turn to gold. Oh, and newcomer Auli’i Cravalho sounds like she’ll hold her own. HIT.

Rob: This Disney film sounds like Kung Fu Panda set in Hawaii. BOMB!

Thomas R: I was on board until Dwayne Johnson hogged all the attention with his self-conscious jokes. Hopefully, this is another case of misleading marketing à la Frozen and this version of Maui won’t be too obnoxious. Regardless, it’s great to see Disney pay attention to Polynesian culture and it’ll likely do fine, though the Clements/Musker duo’s track record is a little spotty. HIT.

Joel: Given the roll they’re on with original animated features, any new one from Disney will be a HIT.



Allied (Nov 23)

In 1942 Casablanca, intelligence officer Max (Brad Pitt) meets French resistance fighter Marianne (Marion Cotillard). The two fall in love, but soon the government comes to believe that Marianne is really a Nazi spy, and Max may be called upon to kill her.

Predictions:

Rick: I’ve lost faith in director Robert Zemeckis, and writer Steven Knight’s last two movies (Burnt, Seventh Son) are notorious bombs. This one screams melodrama. BOMB.

Mendo: I want the WWII genre to die just as much as anyone else, but this trailer is ten kinds of sexy! A HIT with lovers of trashy romance.

Thomas S: Brad Pitt is kind of hit or miss for me, but he looks like he might be solid in this. And Marion Cotillard is a great actress. So I’m calling this one a HIT, but maybe that’s more of a hope than a prediction.

Rob: This is one of those stories that was basically old before it was new. The fact that this story is set in 1942 Casablanca only adds to the déjà vu. BOMB!

Thomas R: On paper, it sounds like the kind of story Hitchcock could have told in his sleep. Sadly, it looks like the entire cast and crew have gone and done exactly that. The Brangelina divorce might spark additional interest in the film, given the timing and circumstances, but it probably won’t be enough to save it from being a BOMB.

Joel: With Casablanca, Inglourious Basterds, and A Night in Casablanca readily available on video, why bother? BOMB.



Bad Santa 2 (Nov 23)

Willie (Billy Bob Thornton) is back to his alcoholic, con-man ways as he teams up again with sidekick Marcus (Tony Cox) to rip off a Chicago charity on Christmas Eve. They’re helped out by Willie’s equally foul-mouthed mother Sunny (Kathy Bates), but things get complicated when Willie finds himself falling for the charity director (Christina Hendricks).


Predictions:

Rick: It’s been way too long since the original, and way too many other “shockingly” raunchy comedies have come out in the meantime. BOMB.

Mendo: I like Bad Santa. I like the “Bad” sub-genre in general. I don’t even consider it to be that much of a red flag when a comedy gets a sequel, or if a sequel comes more than a decade after the original. (Admit it, you liked Blues Brothers 2000 the first time you saw it! It’s okay, Mendo won’t judge.) But they had to bring the kid back! Bringing everyone else back has the risk to become sad already, but now the gang truly is all here. Well, if the Zoolander series is any indicator, the first one being a bomb in theaters means this one will probably BOMB too.

Thomas S: I confess I never saw Bad Santa 1, but I’m guessing this is probably going to BOMB because it’s been too many years since the first one, and this just has the stink of desperation around it.

Rob: Sequels to comedy classics are almost never good (usually because they just aren’t as funny), so this one is on rather thin ice. BOMB!

Joel: Looks like it’s the same one joke as the first Bad Santa, but hey, that joke worked for an entire movie that time. Coming after an additional decade of terrible Christmas movies taking themselves too seriously, and PG-13 neutering all year round should make this a HIT.


Rules Don’t Apply (Nov 23)

Warren Beatty directs for the first time since 1998’s Bulworth. A project that began decades ago as a biopic of billionaire filmmaker and aviator Howard Hughes has since morphed into the tale of a 1950s actress (Lily Collins) who falls in love with her driver (Alden Ehrenreich), but finds their relationship hindered by Hughes (Beatty) and his strict rules against romantic relationships between his employees.

Predictions:

Rick: Beatty is too in love with himself to let anyone else shine, even if he’s moved the focus off Hughes himself. BOMB.

Mendo: I like Alden Ehrenreich. He was my favorite character in Hail, Caesar! (Incidentally, if you haven’t seen Hail, Caesar!, drop whatever you’re doing and watch it now.) There are a bunch of my favorite actors in this movie, to be honest, and I love that so many people want to make movies about the forgotten stories of the Golden Age of Hollywood, but was anybody asking for this story to be told? BOMB, though I’ll probably see it.

Thomas R: This is one of the worst-edited trailers I’ve ever seen for a film with so many big names attached to it. I like Warren Beatty and I love a good comeback as much as the next guy, but this doesn’t seem to be it: Sappy music, dimestore-novel romance, flat cinematography, poorly-stitched voiceover lines… This has all the makings of a BOMB.

Rob: Considering Beatty has top billing, the film doesn’t seem to know whether it’s about him or the two lovebirds. BOMB!

Thomas S: Warren Beatty’s still alive? Huh. BOMB.

Joel: He’s not playing Dick Tracy again, anything Howard Hughes-related is cinematic, and Suck.com is no longer around to make fun of him. Beatty should have a hard time messing this one up. HIT.

Winston: As with Ang Lee, I suppose the director of Reds and Heaven Can Wait deserves the benefit of the doubt, but I think this is a movie that’s been kicking around for way too long. Case in point: Beatty is now a decade older than the real Howard Hughes when he died. If there were something truly great and worthwhile here, Beatty would have already made this movie a long time ago. BOMB.

Agony Booth review: The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

My first review for the Agony Booth has just been published. This is of the less-than-satisfying blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow. Thanks to everyone at the site for their support and I look forward to writing more for the site in the future.

It’s not exactly controversial to say that many action blockbusters are dumb films. The trick is for them to still be entertaining. This is why some blockbusters like The Lone Ranger bomb big time, while others such as Independence Day score. Independence Day, or ID4 as it’s known, was directed by Roland Emmerich, who previously had a big hit with Stargate. Unfortunately, a lot of his subsequent work has been less than stellar, including our current subject The Day After Tomorrow.

The film is actually based on a book, The Coming Global Superstorm by fringe science legends Art Bell and Whitley Strieber. It describes how global warming could cause a massive storm that plunges the planet into a new ice age in a matter of weeks. Given the two authors, there’s enough reason to be skeptical of the book’s claims, but going by this movie, Emmerich took all of it at face value.

And whereas ID4 had decent enough pacing to make the audience forget about the many plot holes and lapses in logic, Tomorrow’s script and characters are so laughable and predictable that, by the end of the film, you realize it’s ID4, just in a different, weather-related package.

The movie begins with the camera panning over broken chunks of glaciers, and text on the screen tells us that we’re in Antarctica. We see men, led by paleoclimatologist Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) drilling into the ice for samples, as ominous music warns the audience that something horrible is about to happen. Sure enough, the ice breaks apart, and their drilling machine gets swallowed up by the crevasse that just formed. Jack and his friend Frank (Jay O. Sanders) manage to grab the operator Jason (Dash Mihok), preventing him from falling to his death. Jack then performs a Batman leap over the huge gap in the ice to save some of their samples.

He then repeats his superhero leap and barely makes it. In stereotypical blockbuster movie fashion, we get a moment where Jack slips and has only a pick axe to keep him from falling into oblivion.

After Frank and Jason pull him up, they ask the same question I’m sure Quaid’s been asking himself since he agreed to do Jaws 3: “What were you thinking?”

We next see Jack at a UN conference in New Delhi, where he attempts to convince the gathered audience that the world is heading for another ice age. Not surprisingly, the US delegation, led by Vice President (and Dick Cheney-lookalike) Raymond Becker (Kenneth Welsh) doesn’t believe Jack when he presents his findings.

And for anyone who thinks the resemblance to Cheney was purely coincidental, the VP’s black, money-grubbing soul leaks out when he listens to Jack’s dire warnings that something must be done about the impending disaster and responds with, “It will cost the world’s economy hundreds of millions of dollars!”

Fortunately, the one person in the audience who doesn’t brush off Jack is Terry Rapson (Ian Holm), who introduces himself to Jack outside the conference hall. Here, we also learn that New Dehli is experiencing a record snowfall.

The next scene is at a research center in Scotland, where a guy is watching a soccer game. He then acts like a hypocrite when he wakes up his sleeping coworker before returning to the game. Hey, I’m not one to endorse sleeping on the job, but I’d say watching TV on the job is just as bad.

Fortunately, the guy who was sleeping proves the more competent of the two when, en route to the coffee pot, he notices a reading on the computer that our soccer fan was too absorbed in his game to notice. This turns out to be the beginnings of the deep freeze that Jack warned about, and soon other locations are experiencing turbulent weather, including Tokyo getting super deadly-sized hail.

As if Jack doesn’t already have enough on his plate, he’s also having problems with his son Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal), who’s (I guess) estranged from his dad because of trouble in school. Jack calls his wife Lucy (Sela Ward) to talk about how Sam is failing calculus. But she’s more concerned that Jack is never home, and Sam needs a ride to the airport the next morning for a trip to New York City for an academic competition. Lucy’s duties as a doctor (which, I would think, keep her away from home just as much as Jack) are keeping her from taking Sam herself.

Jack is drafted to drive Sam to the airport to force some “quality time” together, and also so he can yell at Sam about his lousy grades. Jack reluctantly agrees, since having to deal with a Dick Cheney-esque VP probably makes everything else feel like a cakewalk.

Naturally, Jack totally forgets to pick up Sam until the last minute, and gets there just as a cab is pulling up. Jack pays the cabbie for his trouble, and while on the way to the airport, Sam explains that his calculus professor failed him because he didn’t write out the solutions to the problems, and thus assumed he must have cheated. Rather than simply tell Sam to swallow his pride and write out the solutions next time to make everyone happy, Jack says he’ll have a word with the teacher. But Sam brushes him off and simply darts out of the car without saying goodbye. Yeah, don’t even thank your dad for paying the cabbie you called, asshole!

We then get a quick scene of astronauts on the International Space Station observing the weather patterns that are preventing them from returning home. Cut to Sam on an airplane with his classmates Laura (Emmy Rossum) and Steve Urkel-lookalike Brian (Arjay Smith). Sam is afraid to fly, so Laura tells him there’s nothing to worry about. Despite her reassurances, weather-related turbulence causes the plane to rock so violently I think I might have put in Final Destination by mistake. This also gives Sam a reason to hold Laura’s hand.

They make it to New York, and traffic is at a dead stop. Sam, Laura, and Brian are in a cab heading to the public library, and they decide to walk since they’re only two blocks away. I have to wonder how long they were sitting there before they figured that out. As they get out, a huge flock of birds flies over the city, an obvious portent of doom. And in the nearby Central Park Zoo, we get shots of other animals, such as seals and wolves, getting agitated as well.

Next, the trio is at the competition itself, where Laura catches the eye of J.D. (Austin Nichols), a student from a rival school. He introduces himself at the after party, where Laura is the only one who’s changed clothes, and put on a slinky cocktail dress because she’s a girl and this is a Roland Emmerich film. J.D. offers Laura a tour of the place, and Brian notices that Sam is getting jealous. Thanks, movie, for making your predictable plot points as obvious as possible.

In the next scene, Rapson calls Jack and says that his theories are coming true, and Jack is shocked, because he didn’t think it would happen in his own lifetime. He then goes to a weather station, where he’s introduced to hurricane specialist Janet Tokada (Tamlyn Tomita). But their attention is soon drawn to news of multiple tornadoes in Los Angeles, which the reporter in the chopper notes have taken out the Hollywood sign (no need to remind us you made Independence Day, Roland). Unsurprisingly, there are people on the ground risking their lives just to get a few stupid pictures of the damn twisters, and serve as the ubiquitous victims of the natural disaster.

Over in Washington D.C., VP Becker informs the President (Perry King) that L.A. is in ruins. Although the President here doesn’t resemble George W. Bush, it’s pretty obvious he was the inspiration, because he immediately asks his VP what to do.

At the weather center, Jacks says that the storms are only going to get worse. His boss gives him 48 hours to prove it and Janet offers her assistance in building a new forecast model. This also gives Jason the chance to hit on her, mainly by answering all the questions she directs at Frank (yeah, you’re sure to get a date with her now, pal). Eventually, they determine that the world has mere weeks before everything goes from bad to worse.

Cut to Sam, Laura, and Brian stuck in the library, due to all air traffic being grounded. Jack calls Sam to tell him to get home ASAP, but this falls on deaf ears, because Sam is far more interested in staying wherever Laura is.

Jack heads to D.C., where he tells VP Becker that they have to act quickly and evacuate the northern states. This, as you can probably guess, leads to Becker once again telling Jack to piss off.

Meanwhile, over in Scotland, some army chopper pilots encounter a massive storm that causes them all to crash. And then one pilot opens the door to his chopper and instantly freezes to death.

We go back to our three young leads, who are trying to get out of New York, which is now completely flooded. And that’s when a massive tsunami hits the city (why not?).

Sam sees a huge wall of water coming at them, so all the students make a run for the library. They all get inside in the nick of time and are completely safe, because apparently the library’s revolving door is watertight.

They’re all trapped inside, but Sam manages to make a call to his parents (who have met up somewhere along the way) via the library’s payphones. This gives Jack a chance to warn him that things are about to become so cold that simply going outside could cause instant death. And the phones in the library are also getting flooded, but Sam stays on the line long enough to hear that his dad will come for him, before the rising water almost drowns him.

This leads to Laura warming Sam up with her body, which she explains as something she learned in health class, and which may be the closest thing this film has to a gratuitous sex scene. To help stay warm, the students proceed to burn the library’s books in a fireplace, much to one of the librarians’ horror.

At the same time, Jack meets with the President, and suggests evacuating everyone in the southern United States into Mexico, adding that everyone to the north is screwed. But that doesn’t stop him from taking Frank and Jason to go find Sam who, last I heard, was in the northern US.

The intrepid group gets as far as Philadelphia when their truck crashes, prompting Jack to say, “Break out the snow shoes! We walk from here!” This line makes me chuckle, because Quaid says it like it’s just another inconvenience, rather than something that requires walking nearly 100 miles in potentially lethal weather. During their super long hike across the snow, Frank dies when he falls through the glass roof of a mall. I wonder if he died from smelling the place’s Auntie Anne’s.

Back in NYC, Sam and Laura kiss after he confesses that he only joined the team so he could be near her. See? There’s nothing like a new ice age to break the proverbial ice in a relationship.

At the same time, the President gets killed by a storm while heading to Mexico. So it would appear VP Becker just got a promotion. Damn, first half the world gets frozen over, then Cheney gets to be President. It really is the apocalypse!

Laura begins to feel ill, and somehow Sam, a teenager with no medical experience, correctly determines that her wound has led to blood poisoning. But as it so happens, a (miraculously intact) Russian cargo ship has floated into the middle of a freezing metropolitan area and is right outside the library. So Sam and Brian decide to go aboard the conveniently abandoned vessel, where, yep, they happen to find the exact medicine they need.

This leads to the funniest part of the film, where wolves (who earlier escaped from the Central Park Zoo) sneak onto the boat, and proceed to attack our heroes. It’s a good thing for Sam that no polar bears or any other animals accustomed to freezing climates escaped from the zoo, otherwise he and everyone else in the library may have already been dinner.

They make it back to the library in one piece, and it seems the snow has become solid enough to walk on. Everyone takes this as their cue to make their escape, completely ignoring Sam’s warnings about the coming deadly weather. Predictably, they tell Sam to piss off, and just as predictably, they end up dead.

Then comes what might be the dumbest scene in the film, where the deadly cold finally arrives. And I do mean “arrives”, because we actually see ice forming on skyscrapers one by one, as the coldness “moves” through the city and heads for the library. Our characters are literally able to run from the cold into the room with the fireplace, and we even get a “coldness POV” shot as if they’re running from an axe murderer or something.

Eventually, Jack and Jason reach the library and reunite with Sam, Laura, Brian and everyone else who listened to Sam earlier. I guess that super-deadly cold air must be taking a coffee break right now, because helicopters are able to move in and rescue all the survivors.

Becker addresses the nation as the new President, and all but admits that he screwed up, saying that he and the rest of his government don’t deserve another term in office.

The movie ends with the astronauts still aboard the ISS (remember them?) commenting on how the air looks so clear from where they are. I guess they’re not too bummed out about their homes most likely being buried in snow. The final shot is of the Earth, with the northern hemisphere all frozen over.

To summarize, this film is basically Blockbuster 101. You have the characters who you know will die because they either a) don’t listen to the main characters or b) are especially chummy with the main characters. You have the obligatory big SFX set pieces, as well as the arbitrary romance subplot.

Sadly, the characters are basically all useless clichés. I’ve always thought that Dennis Quaid was one of our most underrated actors, so it’s quite disheartening to see him spending this movie spewing the same pseudoscientific gibberish over and over again.

Ian Holm, Sela Ward, and Jay O. Sanders are all clearly here for a paycheck, while Emmy Rossum and Tamlyn Tomita are just here as eye candy. In fairness though, Sela Ward has several nice scenes with a sick child, but it’s kind of odd to focus on one sick kid when millions of people are dying elsewhere. (Emmerich did a similar thing in ID4, showing a dog being miraculously saved while thousands were bring incinerated by a massive fireball.)

Likewise, Gyllenhaal and Rossum play characters straight out of a romantic comedy, where Boy holds back feelings for Girl (even while Rival Boy poses a challenge for her affections) until late in the film, and then confesses and they live happily ever after. At least they respectively had Brokeback Mountain and Shameless in their futures.

I guess the ending was also meant to be some sort of comment on immigration issues, showing the reverse of the current situation, with many Americans seeking refuge in Mexico. Though, I wonder where all the people freezing in Europe and Russia went to.

Like the previous year’s The Core, this film rightfully came under attack upon release by professionals who actually had some scientific knowledge. Specifically, while rising sea levels and changing weather patterns are certainly potential effects of global warming, the rapid pace at which those things occur in this film is just plain implausible.

Just as understandable were criticisms from those who thought depicting major death and destruction in New York just three years after 9/11 was insensitive. At least War of the Worlds had the decency to leave NYC alone.

Despite all this, there are actually worse SFX-laden blockbusters out there, as After Earth recently proved. This is because, for all its flaws, Tomorrow is never boring and you’re sure to get at least some enjoyment out of it (if you didn’t vote for Bush). But it doesn’t stick out from the many dumb blockbusters that came before or since, and it doesn’t seem to even aspire to be all that memorable.

If it’s a scathing commentary of the Bush administration you’re looking for, watch Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 instead, which was released the same year. Whether you agree with Moore’s politics or not, the only bad acting you’ll get in that film is from Bush himself (who, amusingly, was awarded a Razzie Award as Worst Actor for his “performance”).

Likewise, if you’re looking for a good film about the effects of climate change, watch Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. Like Tomorrow, it has a dark message, but, unlike Tomorrow, it tells us how we can make things better without the use of any eye-rolling clichés.