Cinemaphilia

Last week, Entertainment Weekly published their fall movie preview. I moaned a bit about how weak 2007's final quarter film lineup appeared, and then I started highlighting the flicks I want to see -- either because they sound good, or because they're obvious Oscar bait. When I was done, I had 53 films on my list, the vast majority of which I think sound genuinely entertaining. Damn! I'm hoping a few of these will be released to such poor reviews that I can reject them. Otherwise, I'll be out about five hundred bucks in movie tickets. Being a film fan is not a cheap hobby, I've discovered.

I did catch four films this weekend, three on the big screen and all at bargain prices. Friday evening's fare I watched at home as part of the CoFH lineup. The Howling is a werewolf film that has not held up well since its 1981 release; I remember thinking it was much scarier and more intricately plotted when I first saw it in high school. For the few who don't know it, The Howling is the story of a TV reporter (Dee Wallace) who's being stalked by an elusive criminal named Eddie. After he attacks her in a movie booth in a porno shop -- do such things even exist anymore? -- she loses it and is advised by a celebrity psychologist to take a rest at the retreat he runs in northern California. Lo and behold, the retreat is populated by a clan of werewolves! And the mysterious Eddie seems to have ties to the enclave. Some of the makeup effects are quite good (such as above: Robert Picardo as Eddie wants to give Dee Wallace a piece of his mind -- he will momentarily plunge his fingers into one of the wounds on his forehead and extract a bullet), and some, such as Dee Wallace's fluffy, coiffed, whimpering puppy of a werewolf at film's end, are beyond lame. Slim Pickens has a nice little turn as the local sheriff. I was also struck by the weak score, which sounded so like stock music it was a wonder the studio had hung onto it. I probably would have liked The Howling more if I'd had a few drinks in me -- at least that way I could have enjoyed it as a comedy.

On Saturday, I saw Rescue Dawn with Sean and Curtis at the local second-run theatre. This great little film (I say "little" simply because it seems to have escaped everyone's attention; in many ways it borders on epic) tells the true story of Dieter Dengler, an American pilot shot down in Laos during the early days of the Vietnam conflict. Eventually he and his comrades escape the prison where they are being held, only to face horrors of a different sort: impenetrable jungle, starvation, snakes, and murderous Viet Cong. Christian Bale plays Dengler, and the ever-underrated Steve Zahn plays a fellow captive who is terribly damaged by his prison experience. Curtis liked the film quite a bit, but Sean felt it was lacking something; he felt that even though it can be artificial to impose a character arc on a story, particularly when the story is based on truth, Rescue Dawn could have done a better job of showing Dengler's growth. I have to disagree: Dieter Dengler is a rather unpleasant character, arrogant and bossy, and I think his complete faith in himself is what kept him alive. The fact that he was able to maintain his confidence instead of descending into madness or cowering fear represents a sort of character arc that I thought worked well. Rescue Dawn is directed by Werner Herzog and is a fictional retelling of the story he presented in his documentary film, Little Dieter Needs to Fly. If it shows up at a theatre near you, check it out.

Yesterday I went to the New Beverly to see a double feature of the 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers and 1982's remake of The Thing. I like both Donald Sutherland and Brooke Adams, the leads in Body Snatchers, and it was a treat to see Jeff Goldblum and Veronica Cartwright in supporting roles, but I think I would have been confused if I weren't already so familiar with the brilliant original film. The screenplay jumped around a lot, particularly in the beginning, and didn't do a great job of explaining plot points; for instance, it was unclear if Sutherland and Adams were just friendly co-workers or if their relationship went deeper than that. I also didn't like the film completely giving away the whole pods-from-space detail -- I mean, you find out what's going on during the opening credits, which does a great deal to undermine tension later on. I guess by now everyone knows the story of Invasion of the Body Snatchers so the filmmakers felt it was all right to tip their hand early on. The Thing was quite entertaining. I hadn't seen it since it originally came out on video when I was in high school, and all I remembered about it was a dog peeling apart and bloody, ropy tendrils bursting from its body. Carpenter assembled a terrific cast, including Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley, Richard Dysart, and Richard Masur. The whole enterprise was horribly, wonderfully gory -- my favorite moment (besides the dog peel -- that's still excellent!) was when an alien-possessed member of the Antarctic crew was receiving CPR, and his chest caved in and gigantic teeth within his chest cavity clamped shut so hard on the hapless fellow giving compressions that the guy's arms were bitten off. Both Body Snatchers and The Thing have refreshingly downbeat endings that are sadly lacking in most of today's films. I'm hoping to see The Invasion, the latest remake of the former, this week, and we'll see if it dares to bum audiences out.