10 for 10: telehell

[10 for 10... that's 10 consumables which we give ourselves 10 minutes apiece to write about.  Part of our problem is we don't often have the spare hour or two to give to writing a big long review for every movie or TV show we watch.  How about a 10-minute non-review full of half-remembered scattershot thoughts? Surely that's doable?   ]
 
In this edition:

Mindhunter Season 2 - Netflix
The Boys Season 1 - Amazon Prime
The Wire Season 1 - HBO/Crave
Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus- Netflix
Swamp Thing Season 1 - Showcase
A Black Lady Sketch Show Season 1 - HBO
rewatching Cougar Town - ABC Spark
Arrow Season 7 - Crave
Legends of Tomorrow Season 4 - Crave
Black Lightning Season 2 - Netflix

 aaaand....go go gadget blog

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Mindhunter Season 2 was great.  But also problematic.  And weird.  Though touted as a "season" this really felt like the middle of a season.  If Mindhunter were an old school detective show on network television it would be cranking out 22-26 episodes a year, and this "season 2" would be the middle chunk of it.

And that's just what it feels like...a middle chunk.  It doesn't have a proper start, really, nor does it have anything close to approximating a conclusion.  That's the "weird" part.  It doesn't feel whole.  It's incredibly captivating watching, but I think it will perform much better if watched immediately following season 1 and immediately followed by season 3.

It took me a while to remember some of the dynamics of Season 1, some of the internal hardship at the FBI Holden and Bill faced at the FBI, some of the personality politics at play.  Season 2 finds a new director in play (the awesome Michael Serveris joining the cast), one much more supportive of the psychology division...almost too supportive if that's a thing.

Holden and Bill get involved in the Atlanta Child Murders and it's the center focus of the season.  It's not presented as such but organically becomes it...and it's this simmering on-again/off-again nature that's both scintillation and frustrating about the season.  It's too true to life, that Holden and Bill would keep jumping back and forth to Atlanta without real consistency and often without real support.  It's a gut punch examination of how the system fails its people, and a reminder that not much has gotten better today.

Bill meanwhile is dealing with some family issues, which turns his wife Nancy into that horrible trope of the nagging wife.  I think the show angles for a more sympathetic view of her, but it doesn't quite get there.  The most unfortunate part is with such a keen focus on Atlanta and Bill, Anna Torv's Wendy takes a bit of a side-seat.  She gets some personal drama and a bit of something to do, but she disappears for whole episodes and her storyline is tacked on with an abrupt conclusion in an equally abrupt episode 9.

[11:50]

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I like the recreation of the classic cover image..."classic"? Really?  I guess

I wasn't too fond of the comic The Boys.  Created by writer Garth Ennis and illustrator Darick Robertson, The Boys allowed Ennis to get his cynical frustration with superheroes out onto the page.  It was his critique that superheroes steal the limelight of comics culture, that there's an egocentricity around them, and that they need to be spanked into submission by more hard-edged, down-to-earth characters.  It was edgy and biting for many, but for my liking, tedious and sour.

So I had planned to avoid The Boys adaptation on Amazon.  The distaste of the comics wasn't even close to fresh in my mouth but the bitter sense memory remained.  After a few podcast and a bit of positive reinforcement from Toast, I gave it a shot.

I was astonished at not just how much I liked it, but how feverishly I wanted to consume it.  The characters in Amazon's The Boys are complex in a way that's very intriguing.  The titular Boys led by Karl Urban all have their own baggage, some of it paints them in a bad light, and some shines a better light on them.  But even the supers, like The Deep, Queen Maeve, and A-Train, all have their own baggage too.  These are somewhat despicable people, but then we see that they maybe don't want to be.  The corrupting power of having powers is certainly what's at play. But also there's a searing commentary on capitalism and structures which seek to exploit and taint what's good for greed.  It's this look at how corporate superheroes and the structures put in place to control them (and their image) that's most fascinating. 

At 8 episodes, it's actually perfect length to be satisfying without being overwhelming.  Hopefully Season 2 is as thoughtful and measured.

[21:30]

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more like "pay attention", this show moves quick

Hahaha, how many years have I been telling people that I've never seen The Wire and people saying "What do you mean you haven't seen The Wire yet?  Get on it!"

Well, this summer we finally got on it.

And, well, this is a show that looks every bit like it's from 2003.

Imagine if that's all I had to say about The Wire?

But no, it's great.  The first episode we found to be extremely overwhelming.  That pilot (if it was even a pilot) is so dense, navigating the structures of the police, the political hierarchy of the criminal justice system, and the street level drug operations.  I likened it to the nuts-and-bolts of it all as seen in The Sandbaggers (a classic British espionage series from the late 1970's that is a frame of reference to, like, a half dozen people in the world).

Subsequent episodes get less nuts-and-boltsy.  It's still pretty nitty gritty but it follows the path via the personalities involved.  The characters of the wire are what make it so great.  The way things shake down aren't just standard operating procedure, they shake down the way they do because of the way the people in the procedure operate.  And the show does a great job of distinguishing how they operate.  This isn't Law & Order, there's no formula at play.  The characters dictate how things go down.

This leads to a lot of unexpected situations, and a genuinely exciting series.  It is, however, kind of alarming seeing a very young Michael B. Jordan as a drug runner in the yard.  He's a significant player in this story (filled with almost a Game of Thrones density of cast) and a tremendous actor even as a young pup.  Also, Micheal K. Williams Omar is one of the best characters on TV ever, and Andre Royo's Bubbles is so loveable, the guy you root for the most. Sonja Sonns' Greggs is such a badass, and now I know what the hell a McNulty is.

[31:46]

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you can tell there's a lot of yelling just
from the poster

It's kind of hard to believe that the last time we saw an original episode of Invader Zim was 2006.

I came into Invader Zim as a fan of its creator, Jhonen Vasquez.  He made some very darkly comedic and absurd comics called Johnny, The Homicidal Maniac and Squee, and was certainly excited to see what he would do for, effectively, children's television.  Invader Zim wasn't nearly as dark as Johnny  or Squee but then again, being a show for children (well, let's face it, it was made for college kids), Zim in some ways is so much darker.

But as much as I loved Zim and had friends who equally loved it, and we would shout Gir quotes at each other all the time (I still do!) I didn't watch Zim all that often.  I don't know Zim inside and out like, say, the early years of The Simpsons.  As such, I can pop in almost any episode of Zim and watch it with only a little familiarity (and in some cases, no recollection at all).  So in some ways, Zim always feels fresh to me.

An so, 13 years later, we have a new Zim movie.  The animation is a little more refined, and we're talking one big 70-minute episode (where most Zim stories were 11 minutes), and it all still works, and works damn well.  It's Zim but just EPIC-sized, and it's just as great as it ever was.  Vasquez hasn't missed a beat, and the voice cast is in prime yell-y form.  Those Gir lines are just as great as ever "I shot that pug into space."  Yes Gir, yes you did.

I don't want a full Zim revival, I have too much else to watch (and too much rewatching of original Zim to do].  But more of these movie-length specials, even once a year, would be so, so great.

[40:56]

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the show looks good, but never this good

Cancelled before it even really got a chance to prove itself, deciding to invest in watching Swamp Thing was a definite decision on my part.  I mean, the details that first the show was cut from 13-episodes to 10 in mid-production, and then cancelled outright after the first episode aired on the fledgling DC Universe streaming app, how satisfying could this be.  It seemed like the executives certainly didn't have much faith in the show, so knowing that it could all end in huge disappointment, why should I even bother.

Truth was, I wasn't going to.  I heard that it wasn't really connecting with any other DC TV properties (like Titans or the Arrowverse), and Swamp Thing isn't really a character I connect with in the comics.  But then I heard there was more DC connectivity within the show... Madame Xanadu, the Phantom Stranger... Blue Devil!?!  My nerd brain was severely teased.

The opening episode introduces the world of Marais, a small town deep in the Louisiana bayou.  The local industry magnate, Avery Sutherland, who supports the town is trying some revitalization efforts to his slumping business.  This includes basically sticking steroids in the swamp in hope of finding (or creating) some sort of industrial, military or pharmaceutical byproduct.

Instead it creates a contagion which brings CDC agent Abby Arcane back to her home town and back to some serious drama.  She meets Alec Holland - a scientist brought in to help Sutherland in his discoveries, then fired for getting too close to uncovering Sutherland's dirty deeds - and the two have  a connection, a brief flirtation before Alec is killed for finally discovering the dirty secret.

Of course, Alec becomes Swamp Thing, and you would think that Alec's transformation would be the focal of the show, but no, it's really Abby's navigation of the world of Marais that takes center, and the unraveling of Avery Sutherland's dirty deed which is the over-arching narrative glue.  The whole Swamp Thing of Swamp Thing is kind of a side product.

So it's actually a testament to how finely crafted the show is that it's immensely engaging even when it's only dealing with the supernatural and metaphysical about 15% of the time.  It keeps the budget down, I know, and it is disappointing that Swamp Thing doesn't just morph up out of the ground or keep changing shape.  It's also kind of sad that the grand romance between Swamp Thing and Abby isn't really put in focus either (which was always the main centerpiece of the comics, their relationship).

The show wants to be a suspense-horror first and foremost and does a pretty decent job for what's effectively mainstream TV.  Lots of cool little effects, creepy and disgusting references to John Carpenter's The Thing.

I find all the night boating in the swamp to be excessively tedious, and a little absurd, but hey, maybe real bayou folk do so much night boating, I'm not in the know.

It has some real problems, repetitiveness and spinning wheels, mostly, but it's well made and gets fairly comfortable in its own skin fairly quickly.  Oh, and Madame X, Blue Devil and the Phantom Stranger are all very disappointing representations of their comic book counterparts, and yet, they work for the show (though Ian Ziering's Blue Devil's larger purpose is never truly fulfilled).

[57:50]

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I've said before that reviewing sketch comedy is a difficult task, since the tendency is to want to review every sketch.  That would take forever, certainly longer than 10 minutes.

A Black Lady Sketch Show is named as such because it's never existed before, at least not in North America.  There haven't been many all-female sketch shows, nevermind one whose cast consists entirely of black women.  It's pioneering, and it would be easy for something pioneering to be lazy and pandering.  But this is HBO, it's got to be another level of quality.  And it is.

Robin Thede, Quinta Brunsun, Gabrielle Dennis and Ashley Nicole Black are the show's primary performers, but behind the scenes Issa Rae, Amber Ruffin and more have their hands in the pie.  And they also pull in some great names in black lady celebrity, like Angela Bassett, Jackée, Marla Gibbs, Lena Waithe, Gina Torres, Yvette Nicole Brown, Nicole Byer and one glorious sketch about a break-up featuring Patti LaBelle.

I love the show's opening credits, which feature the quartet as muppets, I watch it every time when I could easily fast forward.  There's a recurring interstitial sketch throughout each of the 6 episodes of the first season which find the quartet dealing with life after the apocalypse as the only survivors.  Mainly it's drinking and talking shit, but little aspects of the outside reality do seep in.   There's a great sketch in the church where people use the open mic for asking for prayers to hawk their wares, perform stand up and try to arrange a date for their lonely daughter.

The great thing about A Black Lady Sketch Show is obviously perspective, seeing things from a point of view that isn't very prominently represented in comedy or on television.  But that perspective is backed up by actually being funny, and with production values that heighten the entertainment.

It's not legendary comedy at this stage, but there are definitely a few classics in the offering.  The production by episode six seems to have gelled and the cast certainly has chemistry to keep this thing going.

[1:15:39]
(that took a long time because I had to look too much stuff up)

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bad poster, good show

I don't know how I came to watch Cougar Town the first time around.  It's hard to remember a time when we weren't so inundated with content, and with new about content that we already had our viewing time planned out.   I'm assuming that when Cougar Town came out back in 2009 that I was looking for things to watch.  For many years I would investigate all the new offerings television had to offer in the fall, and pick out the ones which seemed intriguing.  In 2009, the big highlights were obviously Community and I would have to say Cougar Town as well.

While Community would be an immediate favourite, Cougar Town was something I stuck with.  It was just funny enough to start.  I wasn't a huge Friends fan so Courtney Cox wasn't the biggest draw, and Bill Lawrence's Scrubs was a series I enjoyed quite a bit...for a time... so I did think there was something possible here.

But the coneciet for Cougar Town was Cox, newly divorced, would be prowling around her small-town oceanside Florida community preying upon men 20 years younger than her.  By the half way point of the first season, it was obvious that the writers, performers, and creators weren't really feeling that.  The cast dynamic (Brian Van Holt, Busy Phillips, Christa Miller, Dan Byrd and Ian Gomez) was pretty phenomenal pretty immediately, so the show wisely started twisting more into that friendship.  By the end of the first season the show was starting to regret its title (and in subsequent seasons there would be some joke made over the opening title card at the title's expense).

The phrase "Cul-de-sac Crew" is coined in Season 2 and is basically the center of the show.  It's a group of goofballs who are more family than friends that love to sit around drinking and doing a lot of goofy shit for their own (and our) amusement.  As much as any show, Cougartown grew to be one of those things my wife and I would quote in our daily life.

So it was always disappointing that the show only ever emerged on DVD for Season 1, the weakest season.  But finding out that Showcase  ABC Spark(?) in Canada was airing 2 episodes daily, we set the PVR and have dived right back in, remembering things we had forgotten and discovering the origin of in-jokes that we hadn't remembered. 

We love this show.  It's comfort food.  We started our rewatch at episode 11, which is the halfway point of Season 1.  We weren't too sad to miss the floundering first dozen episodes.  By this entry point, the show is on its way to becoming its silly self.


[1:28:49]

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It starts out very strong in jail, but once he's out, moof

Season 7 was a pretty wild ride for Oliver Queen, but for the most part made for pretty lousy viewing.  Arrow has been a wildly uneven show throughout its run and Season 7 typifies both the good and bad of the show.  It opens with Oliver Queen in jail, which made for some very entertaining stories.  But then he got out of jail, and he retired from being Green Arrow... again.  But then he had to come out of retirement because someone was impersonating him, and not doing the most stand-up job.  Then Team Arrow got deputized.  But that deputization was a tenuous relationship.  And then it turns out the new Green Arrow was Oliver's half sister he didn't know exist and she still has daddy issues and wanted to take it out on Oliver and his city.

There's so much cycling nonsense in Arrow, overpowered characters with silly motivations that are doing big damage to Olver and everything he loves.  Oliver has wrestled with fighting his family and friends so much that at this point it's exhausting to see him go through it again and again and again.  Especially when he's come to a resolution on an issue, like his no killing policy, only to wrestle with whether he should kill again, and again, and again.  So many dramatic moments are revisited that 7 seasons in its tired and lagging.  At least Oliver in prison had stakes, had some of that magic of revisiting his past and dealing his present sensibility.

Consistency of chracterization was never Arrow's strong suit, but it's at its worst in Season 7... just a thoroughly frustrating ride with moments of inspiration.  The "flash forward" this season takes place about 20 years in the future, and follows Oliver and Felicity's adult daughter Mia in a dystopian Star City.  It brings Roy Harper back into the fold and is generally filled with some fun ideas.  Its story is actually far more fulfilling than the rest of the season (even though it mainly takes up about 7 minutes of any given episode...if it appears at all).

The biggest problem with Arrow is its episode lenght.  Sustaining things for 20+ episodes a season is too big an order.  It survives not on story (which, as noted, can vary wildly) nor character (they do wrong by these characters just as often as they do right) but by sheer charisma of the performers.  Stephen Amell primarily went from being the weak link of season 1 to the show's MVP pretty much the rest of the series.  He's a very captivating, charming, likeable performer.

Season 8, with the Crisis on Infinite Earths looming, is only 10 episodes and I thing should be a much tighter, better executed, more entertaining story that is Oliver Queen's swan song ending with someting spectacularly epic.  I'm actually super excited for it, and hopefully will not be too let down (as I always want something more out of these Arrowverse shows and crossovers that I never seem to get, but Crisis seems determined to deliver)

[1:42:14]
(I should be done by now but ...superheroes)
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this poster is sadly more exciting than the show

I'm not sure what to say about Legends of Tomorrow at this point.  Season 3 took a big turn for the weird and I embraced it for it.  It got very silly at times but it understood how to use that silliness to provide maximum entertainment.  I mean, the giant Beebo fight was one hell of a payoff.

But season 4 continues on a path I wasn't really thrilled about for the show.  What should have been a huge showcase for bringing live-action versions of DC's B- and C-list pantheon to the big screen has instead become about goofball magical creatures and can't-take-it-seriously demonic bullshit.

The draw of having Matt Ryan's John Constantine seems to be the impetus for the show's direction the past two season.  But where as last season had the cast having to adjust and deal with their new magical reality, this season they seem way too comfortable within it.  And it get's corny, very very corny.  Like, 90's syndicated TV corny.  With effects to match.

The show doesn't want to be a superhero show anymore.  Things that would be logical for a superhero with superpowers to do seem to never cross the characters' minds in this show, and it's utterly frustrating.

The cast now consists of over half original Arrowverse or Legends creations, like Ava, Gary, Nora Darhk, Mona, Charlie... who are these people infecting my "DC's Legends of Tomorrow" series?  There's fewer and fewer references to the DC universe and when they do they tend to botch it (this season's take on Neron was duuuulllll).

The time travel element has become a cheap and easy mechanism for the show and it doesn't really have logical purpose anymore.  And it's not that I don't sometimes enjoy the show (the cast is very, very fun) and characters like Gary and Ava are actually my favourites on the show, the whole thing just seems aimless, and not really what I'm looking for.  It does a lot for representation, which I love, but I wish it represented in a less chintzy package.  If not for the looming Crisis, I would be out for Season 5.

[1:54:33]
(...I like talking about superheroes...)
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Thunder...the best superhero character on TV

Because I pretty much took the year off from reviewing in 2018, I don't have a write-up of Season 1 of Black Lightning.  It's a superhero show on the CW, but it's built outside of -- or at least to the side of -- the Arrowverse proper.  If we're talking multiverse theory, it's an alternate Earth in the Arrowverse and therefore unlikely to interact with or be interfered with by the events of Arrow or Flash or whatever.

That's probably for the best as Black Lightning builds its own reality in the city of Freeland.  If Metropolis is Chicago, and Gotham is New York, Freeland is Atlanta (where they shoot the show).  It's a city divided by race and having a black superhero has some real meaning.

Season One established the city, it established its struggles with violence, it established its politics, its police, its crime.  It established Black Lightning as a retired superhero who must come out of retirement, it established his family dynamic as Jefferson "Black Lightning" Pierce successfully reconnects with his estranged wife and his daughter.  It establishes his daughters discovering they have superpowers, with Anyssa becoming like her dad, a superhero, while Jennifer's powers are beyond her control.  It established Tobias Whale, a ruthless gangster with super strength who never ages who has been running the town for 30 years.  It establishes Jefferson's role in the community, as a leader and principal of a high school.  It established a lot, even more than all that.  But by the end of it, the show has turned so much of what it established on its head, and season 2 has to deal with that.

Season 2 deals with the ASA (some secretive government thing) that was responsible for giving Jefferson his lightning powers, and the discovery that there's more like him, some out on the loose in society, some still contained in pods after 30 years.  Tobias has a keen interest in obtaining these "pod kids" and using their powers for his profit, but as always Black Lightning is a thorn in his side.  Lynn Pierce starts working for the ASA to protect and help the pod kids, which is its own world of trouble.  Anyssa, starts moonlighting as another Robin Hood type hero, Black Bird, stealing from the mob and giving to those in need, while also dealing with the disappearance of her girlfriend, Grace.  Jennifer has an encounter with her childhood crush Kaleel who has since become the mob enforcer Painkiller, only for him to about face and the two go on the run, but not before Jennifer learns to control her powers...somewhat.  Gamby (Jefferson's foster father) fakes his death as he becomes the target of a mysterious organization.  Meanwhile Jefferson has lost his Principal job, and the new principle is...difficult.  Oh, and Markovians, a rogue nation with a lot of black book metahuman projects, is starting a war in freeland.

A lot happens this season, and it's actually pretty great.  The show structures itself in "books" with multiple chapters, so it makes binging a contained effort, with starting and stopping points.  It's generally well constructed and doesn't tread familiar ground too often, which is a real problem for these CW shows.

The acting is hit or miss, with the Pierce family, thankfully all being incredible with a fantastic dynamic that feels like real family, with them supporting and fighting with each other with knowing familiarity.  Some of the other cast though, like James Remar as Gamby or Marvin "Krondon" Jones III as Tobias Whale being a little iffy, if not sometimes really really bad in their roles.  Jones I can understand, as he's not a very experienced actor who has to hold most of the scenes he's in on his own, so it's a lot.  But Remar, man, has been around forever, and with Gamby it's never close to believable that he's a bad-ass superspy, nor someone who is intimately connected with the Pierce family.  The Pierce's sell it on their end at least.

Season 1 was good, but season 2 was exciting.  The show negotiates the drama of superheros and family and relationships exceptionally well.  It deals with the community of Freeland also very well, with the Church playing an important part of guaging the impact of crime and superheroes on the community.  If there is a weak spot in the story, it's in believing that Tobias Whale is a really good mobster.  He's to impetuous and prone to some stupid ideas that should have found him in jail a very long time ago.

By the end of the season the show has gotten deeper into its superhero mythology without taking its boots off the ground. It's introduced a lot of familiar concepts from the Outsiders comic book but in its own way, and it does so with a clear focus on representing the African-American experience in so many of its facets.

It's a very good show, close to being great.  It's still genre television, but it's smart and cool.  Looking forward to season 3, and to Cress Williams showing up in Crisis.

[2:19:37]

(...so much for 10 minutes per...but you got me talking about superhero shows,man...)

10 for 10: Rewatching Tarantino [and then a ranking]

[10 for 10... that's 10 movies which we give ourselves 10 minutes apiece to write about.  Part of our problem is we don't often have the spare hour or two to give to writing a big long review for every movie --or TV show-- we watch.  How about a 10-minute non-review full of half-remembered scattershot thoughts? Surely that's doable?   ]

In This Edition:

Reservoir Dogs (1992) - d. Quentin Tarantino
True Romance  (1993) - d. Tony Scott
Pulp Fiction (1994) - d. Quentin Tarantino
From Dusk 'til Dawn (1996) - d. Robert Rodriguez
Jackie Brown (1997) - d. Quentin Tarantino
Kill Bill Volume 1 (2003) & 2 (2004) - d. Quentin Tarantino
Death Proof (2007) - d. Quentin Tarantino
Inglorious Basterds (2009) - d. Quentin Tarantino
Django Unchained (2012) - d. Quentin Tarantino
The Hateful Eight (2015) - d. Quentin Tarantino

Aaaaand go-go (twist contest!)
---

Reservoir Dogs features many of the Tarantino hallmarks, but not all of them (no fetishistic foot shots).  You've the climactic shootout, tension-raising extended dialogue sequences, killer soundtrack, prolific use of ethnic and racial slurs, pop-culture references, dark comedy, non-linear timelines and so much more of what we've come to expect from the writer/director/actor*   27 years later, Reservoir Dogs is the minimum viable product for a QT picture, the template for everything that would come later.  It's a heist picture that pretty much ignores the heist.  It's about sitting around the fringes of the heist, the downtime and the aftereffects.  It's exploring how terrible people deal with things gone wrong, and how there's something still relateable even in those terrible people.  The gut punch of violence - the infamous ear cutting sequence - was notorious back in the early 1990s, and kept a lot of people away from the film, but that kind of grimness is commonplace on television these days.  You see worse on the average episode of CSI or NCIS or whatever acronymed procedural is popular these days.  I don't love this movie, but I like it a lot.  It's got a brisk pace (one of few QT movies to clock in under 2 hours) and a captivating framework.  The budgetary limitations show in the design aesthetic, the movie looks a lot different than every other QT production since, but the dialogue and performance is the show here, and it's pretty good in that regard.

[10:29]

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True Romance is the least memorable of all the Tarantino-scripted movies (though one wishes they could forget Natural Born Killers), because it's not a Tarantino movie, it's a Tony Scott movie with Scott trying to cram a Tarantino movie into a conventional Hollywood narrative.


 Christian Slater is miscast (there's no belief or conviction in what he's saying - a Sonny Chiba fan, works at a comics shop, Elvis obsessed - I don't buy it, bub) and you don't get any sense of where this character has obtained such brazenness and confidence. This guy is a geek, but Slater doesn't do geek.
The rest of the cast is on point for a Tarantino joint, though: Patricia Arquette is great as Alabama, (even if she is a manic pixie dream girl prototype), Val Kilmer as Elvis (err..."the Mentor"), Gary Oldman as the lead singer of Korn, Christopher Walken and Dennis hopper being racist.  Brad Pitt and James Gandolfini sharing a scene years before The Mexican, Sam Jackson, Bronson Pinchot, Tom Seizmore, Chris Penn.

The direction is all wrong, the edits are all wrong, the musical queues are all wrong... even the usual orgy of violence in the end of nearly every Tarantino movie is sensationalist cheekiness, here Scott tries to play it straight and doesn't understand the absurdity of it all.

This movie has a terribly juvenile sense of love and romance, and it doesn't care to explore the greater emotional depths of the characters or their relationship. The second half of the film gets so sidetracked with its drug deal it forgets about the relationship.  But listening to Tarantino's commentary, and hearing about the original structure for the film (which was his usual non-linear construction), it IS more about the drugs and how these lovers got embroiled in with these mobsters and their cocaine.  QT says that he loves this film as is and by the time he had name enough to get it made he was beyond it. But I can't help but want his full vision for this. To see Slater pick up Big Kahuna Burgers and for Hopper to ask for a Red Apple instead of a Chesterfield.

There's definitely a theme of rebel lovers in QT's early work...here, the duo in Natural Born Killers and Pumpkin and Honey Bunny in Pulp Fiction.

[written while watching the film, so not timed]
---

Ahhh, Pulp Fiction.  This was my awakening as a wanna be cinephile (it turns out I'm too interested in things like comics, music, comedy, games, and such to really commit to the cinephilic lifestyle) when I was 18 years old.  This was a slap in the face, a sudden shock that there's more to the world of film then just what Hollywood dishes out.  QT's approach to Pulp Fiction seemed to be assembling a collage of cinematic homages and putting those on top of a twisty, non-linear, multi-story framework.  Taking inspiration also from 30's and 40's pulp magazines, where there are multiple tales of gangland crime, detective noir, and all sorts of debauchery, the film doles out a half dozen stories, all interconnected but placed out of order.  It's a dense layer cake, but utterly delicious every bite.  I watched this thing 6 times in the theatre when it came out and multiple times since.  I haven't watched it in a while  but most of the script is still committed to memory, as is most of the soundtrack.  The entire package remains thrilling to me 25 years later.  I'm never bored watching it and when it ends I just kind of want to watch it straight away again.  It's kind of a feel-good movie for me.  For all its dark themes, and heavyweight aspects (violence, drugs, gangs, rape, racism) it's a hilarious movie, and it's shot so brightly, it's almost like it's without shadows.  I love it tremendously.  It's a masterpiece.

[20:14]

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From Dusk 'til Dawn was a favourite of mine 20-ish years ago.  I was into both QT and Robert Rodriguez quite heavily at the time so seeing the two of them married together like this was a big thrill.  It also exposed ER's Dr. Hunky George Clooney as a capable action star and badass.  The thing is, if I'm being perfectly honest, is I liked the criminals on the run aspect of the film's first half a lot more than the second half of vampire monster killing at the titty bar.  The first half has an internal logic at least, one which pokes a little fun at the media's obsession with real-world violence with a news clip of the crime the Gecko brothers commited and a reporter way too enthusiastic about covering the story. 

Of course, this is a very, absurdly violent movie, and I have no problem with that, but the inner consistency of the second half, of how the vampires turn their victims, or how they die, or what can kill them, it all falls apart very quickly.  Nothing is consistent in the second half and it's just balls to the wall ridiculousness.  There's no hint of scares here, it's meant as pure Grindhouse goofiness.  I wish it had stuck with the more grounded tone of the first half. 

QT gives his best (and perhaps only good) performance here as Richie Gecko, a demented sex offender with violent intentions, barely kept in line by Clooney's Seth Gecko, definitely dangerous, but certainly more level-headed.  Richie's interactions with the Fuller family, particularly Juliette Lewis' Katherine is full on ick-inducing, particularly when the film goes into Richie's demented POV that most certainly isn't reality. 

There are aspects I like about the second half, Fred Williamson primarily.  He's hilarious in the role, particularly when he's telling his absurd 'Nam story.  Rodriguez's fast-and-loose doesn't clash with Tarantino's meticulousness all that much, but he certainly seems more at home in the realm of exploding vampires and bloody neck bites than he does with long conversations.  Oh and the foot fetishiness is at its apex here. Bleh.

[1:29:10]


(written after Django)

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I didn't like Jackie Brown when it came out.  I was extremely excited for it, hotly anticipating it.  In the few years since Pulp Fiction I had become a Tarantino devotee (I even watched Destiny Turns On The Radio because he was acting in it).  I was reading his screenplays, listening to soundtracks over and over, attempted to following his recommendations via Blockbuster and other video stores in a vain attempt at catching onto his cinematic influences (it's pretty much everything, it's futile), and of course, watching Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction over and over.  I thought I knew what I was going to get with Jackie Brown.  I was wrong.  And I was so disappointed.  I didn't think it was a bad movie, but I didn't get it.  It didn't have so many of Tarantino's usual flairs that I didn't know how to feel about it. I always meant to get back to it, to try it again, but I never did, so great was my disappointment.  I didn't even buy it on DVD when it came out.  Me, this Tarantino devotee.  That was my first experience with understandings that our idols aren't flawless and that at some point they'll let you down (so many more of these lessons were still to be learned).

Two decades later though, and Jackie Brown makes sense to me now.  It's a surprisingly adept portrayal of the disappointments of middle-age.  Sure much of that comes from Elmore Leonard's book, Rum Punch, which Tarantino adapted, but QT sure seems to get it.  And he holds himself back.  I think this is a love letter to his mom and her friends, these strong middle aged women he knew who are constantly pushed down by the world but they won't be beaten and they know how to shrewdly navigate it without letting on that they're in control.  Or maybe it's just a fantasy, but it's really, really damn great.

At the time of its release, I was expecting more of a Blacksploitation vibe because of Pam Grier's presence, (probably thinking it would be more like Black Dynamite, something really tongue-in-cheek) but the earnestness is what makes it so great.  It really is a fantastic movie, and Grier, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Carlyle, Bridgette Fonda all hit it out of the park.  Hell, you've got both Michael Keaton and Robert DeNiro in relatively small support roles (DeNiro barely speaks at all until the third act).  It's brilliant casting.  There's no big eruption of violence, and QT tempers his grindhouse instincts almost completely, finding a completely different gear that we never see this exact way again, but it certainly influences how he approaches dramatic moments in the future.  It's his most mature movie, in more ways than one.

[33:32]

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QT has always said Kill Bill was intended to be one movie, and it was a greedy Weinstein decision to split them up into two pictures.  I've been waiting a decade and a half for a complete Kill Bill, to see it the way its creator intended, and though it keeps getting teased, it never gets released.  So, for the purpose of this recap, I just watched them back to back, literally skipping the credits on volume 1 and jumping direct into Volume 2.  The only thing that seems out of place in doing so is the brief recap at the start of Volume 2 that seems out of sync with the rest of the film.  Otherwise, I don't know that there's much else missing or added to the proceedings.

The wife (that would be my wife, not The Bride) had said that she didn't think the films held up, but I was rapt watching these two again.  More than any other film that QT had done before, or has done since, Kill Bill smashes together so many of his cinematic loves.  There should be tonal whiplash, but the chaptering of the film helps contain each segment to its own genre.  There's obviously different inferences of kung-fu and martial arts films.  There's an anime sequence.  There's so many hard boiled asian action tropes.  Hell, it opens with a Shaw Brothers title card.  The first half really steeps itself in Chinese cinema of the 70's and 80's, while thoroughly digging its heels (so many feet shots) in its 70's exploitation revenge drama. The second half toys around with noir and western revenge cinema (it really is laced with all different genres of revenge), while still keeping its toes (so many feet shots) in Chinese cinema.

The action in the film is ridiculous.  Master fight choreographer Yeun Woo-Ping outdoes himself with so much of what QT asks for here.  What we see in the big Crazy 88s fight is often relegated to animated form because it'd be so difficult to pull off in reality, but here it is.  It's visceral and scintillating.  The climax of Vol. 1, the showdown with O-Ren Ishii is stunning, a majestic and magical sequence that comes more from Samurai cinema than Chinese wuxia.  The opening kitchen fight combines John Woo with wuxia, while the later fight in the trailer is incredible for acknowledging the obstacles and challenge of fighting in close quarters.

What I disliked originally in the theatre was the slow burn of the finale, but watch as a whole, there's total resonance, with The Bride finding out her daughter lives, and is beautiful.  How she handles Bill in this sequence comes back to the maturity QT found in Jackie Brown, and it's beautiful, well-acted, and heartfelt.

As a whole, Kill Bill is a lot, but it shouldn't really be anything less than what it is.  Not totally perfect, not without its flaws (or controvercies) but thoroughly enjoyable nonetheless.

[51:34]

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I saw Death Proof originally as part of the Grindhouse presentation, a lenghty double-feature viewing experience that kicked off with Robert Rodgriguez's Planet Terror.  A gross, yet giddy dive off the deep end of exploitation tropes.  Where a true grindhouse movie has to pace out its shocks and gags, with his budget Rodriguez could dole out multiples per minute.  In comparison, QT's Death Proof was meandering and leisurely, with a very extensive amount of time given to following a quartet of liberated women as they have an evening out at a dive bar.  The promised murder machine driven by Kurt Russell's Stuntman Mike only appears for a few minutes in the entire film, and the menace of Stuntman Mike's presence in the bar actually waffles between creepy and charming.  When the kill(s) actually happen, well, it's almost over before it began, but really you didn't want it to overstay its welcome to begin with.  And then there's a whole other half, where the tone shifts from ominous, slasher film to stunt spectacular.  It's almost two different projects altogether. So tonally it's a bit all over the place, and yet, QT seems to have everything right where he wants it.  If he's going to do straight up grindhouse, he's going to do it true to straight up grindhouse...complete with the meandering dialogue, the titillation, the drinking and drugs, the menace, the kills, the janky editing and extreme camera angles.  And he's not going to do just one straight up grindhouse, but two.  So you get in a 2 hour span both a relatively uninspired horror with a big spectacular kill, and then a stunt show with a dash of revenge thrown in.

Back in the day, watching all of Grindhouse, I wasn't in the mood for QT's slow amble after Rodriguez's amped-up visceral experience (not to mention those hilarious, gross and densely packed mock grindhouse trailers from the likes of Eli Roth and Edgar Wright).  But as its own production, as an experiment to make authentically styled grindhouse, but on a bigger budget, I think QT nailed it.  He has such an appreciation for the style of low budget exploitation cinema that it influences all his work, but in replicating it he know exactly what's going on.  At the same time, he makes it his own, as one would expect, and the dialogue and soundtrack are on point for QT.  The first half is good, the second half is delightful (Rosario Dawson, Zoe Bell, Tracie Thoms and Mary Elizabeth Winstead make a wonderful quartet).  QT giving Bell a real spotlight to show off her formidable stunt skills is pretty much the entire point of Death Proof in my mind.  But then there's also the great turnaround where Stuntman Mike becomes a wimpering, simpering fool as he's not used to women fighting back.

This is not a great movie, and there's not much here to think about past what it is, but it is pretty fun.

[1:08:25]
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Whoops, I forgot to write about Inglorious Basterds.  There are some flat out incredible scenes in this film.  The opening sequence is breathtaking in both its beautiful cinematography and its intensity.  QT has always liked tension building but this is almost exclusively built around tension building.  People trying to hide who they are from other people, the stakes always so high, yeah, it's best avoided by anyone with anxiety issues.

The titular Basterds of the film are kind of the least appealing aspect of it, however.  Their ruthless, revenge-tinged scalphunting is uneasy and speaks too much to "rah-rah 'merica" in its revisionist retelling of how World War II went down.  I can't tell whether it's QT playing to his grindhouse fanaticism or if it's satire of "We're No. 1, U.S.A! U.S.A!" WWII movies that make it seem like there was no war without America's involvement.  There's just uncomfortable problems here.

That said, it's a pretty exciting feature overall, with an absolutely epic, now infamous climax which was a very bold choice on QTs part.  In any other director's hands it would feel like an unearned twist, in QT's hands, it feels like logical extension of the storytelling, and the director.  I like this one...just a little less than I did before.

[1:45:49]

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With Django Unchained we enter the realm of QT films I've already written about on this site.  But the purpose here isn't to reiterate what I've said before, but to measure my impressions now, in a quick 10 minute writing session.  And so, to be perfectly honest, I was a bit disappointed with this rewatch.  Django as a character has an almost legendary status now... the film ends with him triumphant in killing all the southern degens and rescuing his true love, and he feels epic at the end, but the rest of the film is only marginally about him.  It's three acts of exploits, first with Christoph Waltz's King rescuing Django and taking him under his tutelage in the craft of bounty hunting, then venturing out to mess with Don Johnson's southern fried estate, and finally winding up at Candy Land where Django and King square off against Leonardo DiCaprio's vile Candy.  In these exploits you can see the legend of Django building, but it's still not his show.  It's not until the fourth act where Django frees himself and gets his revenge that the real legend of a true badass mofo is born.  It's an origin story.   QT has said he will never do a superhero movie but here, he's basically done it already.  I mean, QT has already plotted a Django/Zorro team-up comic which may come to fruition as a film soon enough, but we really need a Django movie that immortalizes the character into grand status.  This underbakes the legend, leaving it a little soft in the middle.  It's also really self-indulgent, as I think we've gathered QT's movies all are.

[1:17:26]

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And back to The Hateful Eight.  Honestly, I didn't particularly like this movie the first time around, and of all of QT's movies this is the one I had the least desire to revisit.  Upon revisiting most of my initial apprehentions about the film still hold -- it's too long, it squanders its panavision, it's use of narrator is annoyingly inconsistent -- but at the same time, watching it at home made it a more inviting experience.  It may not be the way QT originally intended but I liked it more.

Cutting out the overture and the intermission trims the experience down quite a bit, which makes it feel less padded.  In fact, taking out those elements (as great as Ennio Morricone is) leads the film back to being more character focused.  The first time we hear the narrator (QT himself) is after the intermission, an intermission which the narrator references, so on home release, if you weren't familiar with the theatrical experience, would seem a bit odd.

I was actually hoping to watch this as part of the multi-part "Extended Edition" that QT recut for Netflix.  I was curious to see how the experience of the film worked broken down into episodes (the film is already carved out into chapters) with material added in.  There are parts within the current cut which seem like they were abruptly edited, so I could see at least some of the points where more would go.  It's not that the film needs more, but operating as a TV series, I could see this working even better.  There's a mystery at play and the way it executes and unfurls that mystery is quite well done, but I think would be even better in episodic form.  Alas, with the release of Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood I think the extended edition got pulled from netflix, at least for now.  That said, I'm in for another rewatch of that version, or even just the film again at some point in the future.  It's kind of fun. Also, no gratuitous fee shots.

[1:38:14]
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And that's the QT recap.  Nope, no Natural Born Killers and no Four Rooms (neither are available on streaming at the moment) but let's be fair, both of those are bottom-of-the-list dwelling features anyway.

As for ranking...I had done one before it turns out, after viewing The Hateful Eight  but at that time I hadn't seen most of QT's films for years.  So this one is more true, since everything is fresh (to be fair I should probably see Once Upon A Time... again before ranking it but fuck it...)

So here it is, hot, fresh, and rank...er, rankings (with movement from my last rankings in brackets):

1. Pulp Fiction - of course [-]
2. Kill Bill - I think I liked both "volumes" even more on rewatch [-]
3. Jackie Brown - what a difference two decades make. A new favourite [+3]
4. Inglorious Basterds - holding strong [-]
5. The Hateful Eight - something works better watching it at home [+2]
6. Death Proof -  in some ways, it's the most fun QT [+2]
7. Reservoir Dogs - still a pretty taut movie, but feels prototypical [-2]
8. Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood - I'm not sure about this one yet [new]
9. Django Unchained - I also can't believe it's fallen all the way down here, but there you go.  It misses the mark in some ways. [-6]
10. True Romance - bleh [-2.5]
11. From Dusk 'Til Dawn - I've moved past it [-4.5]
12. Four Rooms - why? [n/a]

 

ReWatch: Conan the Barbarian

1982, John Milius (Red Dawn) -- Netflix

I was introduced to Conan (barbarian, not talk show host -- i ain't that young) when I was a kid, by family friend / cousin by marriage. He and his brother knew I was into The Lord of the Rings and presented something more primordially sword & sorcery to me. I engulfed them hungrily. These pulp fantasy stories, that I already knew existed as comic books, were so raw & meaty, I loved them. And then a movie was coming out, one that needed adult accompaniment. Oh shit, mom & dad hated anything fantasy and would never indulge me. So I went through the list of Cool Uncles and Ray said yes. He didn't seem to mind he knew nothing about the subject matter, but was happy to be dragged to the cinema by a bunch of adolescent boys.

Boy was I embarrassed when there were boobs.

In these days, any movie with swords was fodder for our D&D games. Not long after seeing this, the swords of epitome in any D&D game became the one forged by his father and the one found with the King under the hill. Everyone loved the helmets and multiple attempts at Snakes to Arrows were made; even officially, if I do recall. Everyone had to fight a giant snake.

It's not a very good movie, but it spoke to a generation, not only of Conan fans but of pulp adventure fans of eras past. And adolescent D&D players. The acting is terrible, the script rather pedestrian and some of the props look plastic. But it connected with people, not just adolescents. It spawned a sequel and even a TV series.

These days I can only look upon it with nostalgic fondness. Arnie has long since been tainted by all his other iconic roles, but in this one he got to punch a camel. He had the size and muscles of a Conan but I was always disappointed by his lack of coal black hair. Arnie also had a certain lack of melancholy and none of the rapier intelligence the character had. Still, he was better than Ralf Möller in the 90s TV show adaptation of the movies.

I Saw This!! - Reject pile

I Saw This (double exclamation point) is our feature wherein Graig or David attempt to write about a bunch of movies they watched some time ago and meant to write about but just never got around to doing so.  Now they they have to strain to say anything meaningful lest they just not say anything at all.  And they can't do that, can they?

Gymkata - 1985, d. Robert Clouse (youtube)
Knights of Badassdom - 2013ish, d. Joe Lynch (DVD)
The Dictator - 2012, d. Larry Charles (Netflix)
Flash Gordon - 1980, d. Mike Hodges (Netflix)

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Oh Gymkata, you have been sitting on my to-write-about list for what seems like forever.  I first caught wind of this film back in 2006 when it was released on DVD and was on display at my local Sunrise Records, with it's stark red painted poster cover of a semi-super-heroic athlete/action star taking out some ninjas.  I was just at the tail end of my "ironic enjoyment of bad cinema" phase (replete with attending Kung-Fu Fridays at the local Revue), so I wanted it, but I was also tight on funds so I let it go.  Still, I never really forgot about "the gymnastic action movie", and when it cropped up on the "How Did This Get Made" podcast and I learned the entire film was easily available on YouTube, how could I not watch it (especially since the HDTGM crew seemed to recommend it)?

To be honest, it's not that bad.  I mean as far as bad films go.  It's entertaining, using a Running Man/Most Dangerous Game type plot where a number of special operatives from different countries compete in this small nation's bloodsport tournament for a chance to appeal to its ruler and secure ....well, whatever the hell it was they were trying to secure.  The basic formula has been done dozens of times, but it's just as entertaining and nonsensical here as it ever is.  These type of bloodsport competitions always fall into fantasy no matter how horrific or puerile they are.  And when gymnast-turned-action star finds uneven bar and a pummel horse-like objects in the middle of crazy town (where all the crazies are kept) you can bet a deliriously dumb, but entertaining action sequence will ensue.  Stupid but great in that 1980's direct-to-video way.  Truly.

---

David covered Knights of Badassdom's messed up release history already, so I won't retread it here.  This is a slight film, one that feels like it should have been longer, more epic, and hewing closer to the genres its attempting to emulate.  The short story finds a gang of LARPers (live action role players) unwittingly unleashing a real demon into their weekend tournament, and having little but foam swords and padded axes to defend themselves with.  Madness ensues.

The cast is extra impressive, a geek's delight of True Blood's Ryan Kwitney Kwanten, the immaculate Peter Dinklage, perennial nerd fawn Summer Glau, and Steve Zahn, with support from Mad Men's Michael Gladis and Community's Danny Pudi, with the film centering around Kwitney's recent relationship break-up and depression, and his roommates attempts to bring him into their world of role playing.  The through line of dealing with one's relationship demons, a metaphor literally coming to life here, is quaint and 1980's-inspired, but the execution, the technical limitations (and subsequent interference from studios and distributors) make for a choppy and unfulfilling experience.  Were the film to have a budget, it would play into the LARP fantasy and bring it to life (punctuating the exaggerated with the comedic reality), because when we the real LARP action happen before us, it's just rather dull.  When the film shifts into horror mode, it becomes quite evident the director Lynch doesn't have the experience (or possibly just the budget) to truly execute it as a horror film.  It's cheesy, low-budget, light-comedy horror and it's always in want of intensity.

It makes due with what it has and it provides a modicum of entertainment without sacrificing the LARPing community to punchline after punchline (redneck paintballers instead get that distinction), but it never hits the comedic highs it should and it just doesn't push itself hard enough.  It's a film that kind of screams "good enough".

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I'm trying to gauge my feelings on Sacha Baron Cohen at this stage.  Borat, quite rightfully, entered our popular consciousness because it was goddamn funny by being so very wrong.  But it was wrong with a sweet, ignorant core, and also an element of cultural satire underpinning it all.  Borat was one of three major characters that Cohen developed on his British television series Da Ali G Show alongside  Ali G and Bruno, both receiving the cinematic treatment, but not nearly to the same cultural penetration as Borat.  The foundation for these characters however was all based in the awkwardness of taping the interview segments between dim-witted, self-involved and unapologetically racist put-on characters and real people who are, in most cases not in on the joke.  This type of improv creates an unease that in gifted hands develops into riotous comedy.  But it's also exhausting and hard to revisit, hence my avoidance of most of Baron Cohen's work in recent years.

The Dictator eschews this type of improv, removing the interactions with the public of Borat in place of a scripted (though profusely ad-libbed) comedy that feels at once more comfortable, but less satisfying.  The Dictator is, in some ways, a rehash of the 1980's Eddie Murphy vehicle Coming To America, where a wealthy, out-of-touch individual must struggle for survival as a layman.  In this case it's the globally reviled dictator of a non-descript Middle Eastern country, Aladeen, who narrowly escapes his own assassination and schemes to retake his position, now held by his Uncle and a dimwit puppet double.  Along the way, he meets an old subject (the ever-amazing Jason Mantzoukas) whom he thought he had assassinated (turns out everyone he hed assassinated was actually relocated to New York) who wishes to help him for a price, and he falls in love with the crunchy granola whole-foods proprietor who gives him a job when he appears to be just another disheveled refugee named Paula Burgers (Aladeen has a terrible time coming up with fake names, a running joke in the film).

There are some solid comedic moments in this film, some aces running gags, but also a lot of duds that just come far too easy.  I imagine there's a pile of lengthy ad-lib takes on the cutting room floor that would be utterly hilarious but there's no sustained improv here, and the scene cuts and transitions are pained.  If this film has a fatal flaw, it's that Aladeen never becomes a likeable character.  He's always wrong-headed with such zeal that it's always on the cusp of being amusing (occasionally spilling over) but without ever being likeable, you never want to root for him.  I'll give him one thing though, his speech to the United Nations comparing living in a dicatorship to living in the US was potently funny, if only it really mattered that it was said.

My conclusion on Baron Cohen is that he certainly has a type he likes to play and how he likes to play it, and I'm not opposed to it, but I'm not always receptive to it either.  I think perhaps a dosed watching of Ali G may make my mind up for me.

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What amazes me about watching Flash Gordon is how terrible it looks at first, especially upon realizing that it was made after Star Wars.  It's clunky and awful, and its flaws further exacerbated by a cornball opening sequence of a video screen showing natural disasters as the bejeweled glove of Ming the Merciless presses buttons activating these events (including one labeled "Hot Hail".  This leads to the introduction of our protagonists, Flash Gordon, football hero, and Dale Arden, travel agent, on a chartered plane caught in the Hot Hailstorm.  The pair lack both chemistry and acting chops, playing the roles straight out of a community college production.  Sam Jones looks the part perfectly, but he just isn't a strong enough actor to pull it off. 

Things get a fair sight better with the introduction of Dr. Zarkon, played by the always lively Topol, and he kidnaps the duo, straight out of their crashed plane into his rocket ship that takes them on a psychedelic trip to a wormhole and Ming the Merciless' home planet.  From here the set design and costuming take over for the lackluster story and pitiable leads, with vibrant and elaborate stage sets that are wonderful to behold, and a parade of costumes that today still look fantastic (sorry lizard men, not you though).

At a certain point, Max Von Sidow, Topol, Brian Blessed, Timothy Dalton and the fetching Ornella Muti start to take over, elevating the quality of the presence on screen, delivering enjoyable performances in a somewhat dreadful and misguided production.

The conceit of the 1980's Flash Gordon is that it's a then-modern retelling of the 1930's pulp serials, and it does an all-too-good job of recapturing that aesthetic.  But capturing and directly relaying that nostalgia to a post-Star Wars, post-Alien, post-2001 crowd was a fatal flaw and has largely driven a nail in the character since.  Looking at the poster gallery for the film, there's a tremendous amount of wonderful pulpy and 50's sci-fi inspired images.  It's a terrible movie with a certain amount of pleasantness that ultimately sucks you in to admiring it, but still has problems you can't get past...like a curious-looking girl made more beautiful with her charm but disarming everyone with her braying horse laugh. 

Flash! Ah AAAH!