Mladen and Del review ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’
Klaatus (Keanu Reeves) arrival on Earth via a giant sphere, triggers a global upheaval.
Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox.
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“The Day the Earth Stood Still,” starring Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly, Kathy Bates, Jaden Smith, and John Cleese. Directed by Scott Derrickson, 103 minutes, rated PG-13.
Mladen’s take
Add the recently released re-make of “The Day the Earth Stood Still” to the ever-growing list of hokey films about redemption.
In fact, if you’re tired of watching Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer and his dwarf friend discover that they’re wonderful beings no matter what anyone else believes, consider “The Day the Earth Stood Still” as alternative holiday viewing fare. Here, the whole of humanity is redeemed.
There are no subtleties in this sci-fi movie.
Klaatu, the alien portrayed by Keanu Reeves, arrives aboard a cloudy, sparkling sphere. He’s an interstellar diplomat without portfolio sent by a god-like cabal of deep-space civilizations.
Klaatu’s mission is to evaluate Earth’s health. The prognosis ain’t good.
It isn’t too long before he tells astrobiologist and unwitting ally Helen Benson, played by Jennifer Connelly, that extra-galactic help would be needed to save the planet.
Benson assumes that means helping humanity but eventually figures out she’s mistaken. Klaatu had concluded that the only way to save Earth is by eradicating mankind.
The universal diplomat, protected by GORT, a very impressive gigantic automaton comprised of nano-sized wasps behaving as a single being, initiates Operation Roach Motel after explaining to Benson that, in essence, humanity is a cosmic error.
Meanwhile, what does the U.S. Defense Department do when it encounters hyper-intelligent, unbelievably technologically sophisticated entities from distant worlds? It tries to kill them, of course.
Throughout the movie, Klaatu or GORT turn military target acquisition devices, laser illuminators and high-performance aircraft against the troops using them. The aliens – masters of the electro-magnetic spectrum, severe traumatic injury repair, pure reason, and unemotive faces – gain control of the weapons systems by wireless hacking.
It takes Benson’s unceasing effort to protect her belligerent young stepson and a brief exchange of mathematical equations and a little conversation with a Nobel Prize-winning scientist for Klaatu to start recognizing that humanity ain’t all bad.
It seems – and this has never, ever, been expressed in other movies, books, poems, pamphlets, hieroglyphics or pre-Sumarian script – that humanity can become its best only after demonstrating its worst. The Nobel laureate argues that mankind has some kind of intrinsic sense that will let it know when there has been enough bloodletting and destruction of the environment, as well as the moral fortitude to correct those mistakes when the time comes.
Klaatu starts seeing the microscopic good among the overwhelming evil around him and reverses his decision to obliterate all traces of humanity. The mechanism for scraping clean the Earth’s surface is the neatest visual part of the movie. GORT dissolves into a swarm of flying nano-bots that consumes everything in its path, organic or inorganic.
The swarm is one of a few transparently biblical references in “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” Hell, at one point Klaatu even walks on water. Hallelujah.
“The Day the Earth Stood Still” is an OK movie, probably worth the price of a matinee ticket. But, I’m worried about Reeves. Come on, man, next time give me something as spectacular and revolutionary as “The Matrix.”
Del’s take
It isn’t the Earth that’s standing still – it’s Hollywood.
Talk about a movie that didn’t need remaking. “The Day the Earth Stood Still” circa 1951 is a Robert Wise classic that to this day presents a quietly dignified message about the follies of war.
“The Day the Earth Stood Still” circa 2008 is a diabetic coma-inducing fried Snickers bar of a mess, covered with sugar-dot cliches and gluey nuggets of contrived melodrama – all of it wrapped in a cloying caramel blanket of unconvincing CGI.
I’m still trying to figure out which cliché most nauseates me – the save-the-environment cliché, the racial-harmony cliché, the empowered woman cliché, the all-government-employees-are-evil cliché, the stupid-military cliché … see what I mean? One more cliche and you’d have a C-bomb big enough to do the aliens’ work for them.
Most of the characters in “The Day the Earth Stood Still” are cardboard cut-outs with Keanu Reeves winning the Oscar for Best Performance by a Stoned-Out Quualude Refugee. The lone exception is Will Smith’s kid, Jaden, who plays the rebellious and disrespectful stepson of Jennifer Connelly’s Helen Benson character (has there ever been a stepchild who liked his new mom or dad?).
Let’s not talk about logic flaws … well heck, let’s do.
Here’s the deal: The aliens have come to Earth because there are few habitable planets in the galaxy and humanity is ruining this one. To fix everything the aliens plan to unleash a biblical horde of tiny robots that will dismantle mankind molecule by molecule, restoring the earth to pristine form … presumably to serve as home base for a future alien megalopolis.
Stop and think about it – if E.T. has that kind of technology, why not unleash it on an uninhabitable world, making it habitable? Science calls the process “terraforming,” a piece of cake for Klaatu and pals.
But then there’d be no movie – albeit a stupid movie, and be $8 to the richer. And I could use that $8 to make the world a better place so we’d never again be afflicted with Keanu Reeves.
Or I could just buy beer to wash away the taste of this nasty movie.
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a journalist and author.
Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
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“Cloverfield” Starring Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas, T. J. Miller, Michael Stahl-David. Directed by Matt Reeves; created by J.J. Abrams. 85 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Mladen’s take
An amphibious monster, stories tall or a couple of blocks long, depending on the way you want to measure the beast, attacks Manhattan and it’s plausible.
That’s what makes “Cloverfield” work — the director takes the movie’s premise seriously.
Though “Cloverfield” sucks as a title, the movie becomes riveting after it finally cuts to explosions, toppled buildings, gunfire and missile and bomb attacks.
“Cloverfield” is realistic because it’s shot from the street-level point of view of a handful of people while the scaleless monster rampages through New York. The frenetic, jittery perspective you see on the big screen is captured by one of the survivors, who’s wielding a camcorder with the longest-lasting battery ever manufactured.
The CGI and the real blend flawlessly in this movie.
At any moment I expected cameraman Hud to focus on a still-functioning TV at an electronics story being looted as mayhem sweeps the island. President Bush comes on, the TV screen flickering.
“My fellow Americans, we are in a long war with monsters,” he would have said. “I don’t know when it will end, maybe never, but we will achieve victory. To protect you, I’m suspending all civil liberties and disbanding Congress. I can do that. It’s in the Constitution. Ask Dick Cheney. There’s no time for silliness like democracy while radical Islamic fundamentalist jihadist terrorists unleash such furry — ah, fury — on the good, holy people of America. God bless me, your savior.”
Like GM and Ford are finally starting to build cars that can compete with Japanese brands, Hollywood has finally released a movie that can compete with Japanese giant monsters such as Godzilla and Gamera.
See “Cloverfield” while it’s in theaters. Go to the bathroom and buy popcorn sometime during the movie’s first 20 minutes, which are spittle, and then prepare for a jolt.
Del’s take
“Scaleless monster”? Mladen. I never thought of you as a dermaphobe.
Still, “Cloverfield” is a romp ’em stomp ’em bad ass monster of a movie, and anybody who disagrees needs to have his aura adjusted by a Marine drill sergeant.
OK, so the first 20 minutes are more “Quarterlife” than “Die Hard.” So what? That’s the part where we learn the viewpoint characters are as insipid and selfish as we. How else could we know that Rob is a metrosexual wussie who believes “commitment” is a dish best served cold?
But once the infrastructure starts rolling down the streets it’s a cinema verite grudge match featuring the icons of order vs. the forces beyond our control in a mighty metaphor for what’s happening in the world around us. If the U.S. could have dropped the “Cloverfield” monster on Fallujah, Barack Obama would be running a distant third.
Yes, we can niggle. How could that monster jump at a helicopter? What happened to Marlena behind the curtain? And in the movie’s final scene, did you really see something fall into the water? Oooh.
I just wish people would stop Blair Bitching about the jiggly camera motion – take a dramamine and call me in the morning. Ever read “The Sound and the Fury”? William Faulkner thought of the idea decades ago. If you can live with it on YouTube you can live with it in “Cloverfield.”
I think J.J. Abrams has kicked some serious Godzilla booty. This is not narrative storytelling. It’s slice-of-death moviemaking for a generation of voyeurs and narcissists who measure their worth in terms of the body count on their Facebook friends list.
In the movie’s penultimate scene we hear two very loud noises. Those were the sounds of a genre cracking under the weight of its own inertia and crashing into a new and limitless ocean of creative expression.
Let’s hope “Cloverfield” sinks a few ships.
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical editor. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and author.
Scene from SUNSHINE
“Sunshine” Starring Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans, Rose Byrne, Michelle Yeoh. Directed by Danny Boyle. 107 minutes. Rated R.
Del’s take
I read the hype for “Sunshine” and was prepared to have my socks blown off. When Kari offered to let me borrow her Netflix rental I jumped at the chance, even splurging on a pizza for what was pitched as the reinvention of the science fiction movie.
I can sum up my opinion of “Sunshine” in five words: Stupid people doing stupid things.
“Sunshine” is like that gorgeous blond you admire from afar until you work up the courage to introduce yourself … only to realize minutes later this is perhaps the dumbest person you’ve ever met in your life.
What a disappointment.
In “Sunshine,” the sun is dying. But humanity has scrounged every bit of its fissionable material to build a bomb that will create a “sun within a sun.” (What a stupid premise – even if a bomb the size of Earth itself were hurled into the sun the effects wouldn’t be significant. But don’t get me started.)
Our crew must fly the spacebomb (like this movie) into low solar orbit, launch the bomb and skedaddle before their butts are fried. They represent the second such attempt; the first ship mysteriously disappeared.
As they approach the planet Mercury they detect strange radio signals – it’s the first spaceship, adrift in that charbroiled region of space. Should they change course and attempt a rescue? (No!, you’re screaming at the screen. The fate of humanity rests on the success of your mission! Don’t sacrifice an entire planet for the eight-member crew of another spaceship who are probably dead anyway!)
But OF COURSE they change course (stupid). Then, one of the engineers forgets to reorient the shields and the spacecraft is threatened with incineration (really stupid). In order to fix it they must go outside and manually lower the shield plates. In the process the captain gets incinerated (beyond stupid) and the greenhouse, which generates their oxygen, is burned up (conveniently stupid). So they’re forced to rendezvous with the other ship … which just happens to be haunted by the insane spirit of its microwaved captain … he manages to find his way to the second ship and wreak havoc. …
I won’t tell you how “Sunshine” ends because (a) you shouldn’t care, (b) you should have switched off the DVD player and tuned in “Extreme Home Makeover,” and (c) it’s stupid.
My advice is stay away from this train wreck of plot holes, logic flaws and non sequitors, and use your time for a more meaningful pursuit … like watching ice melt.
“Sunshine” gets five yawns.
Mladen’s take
The pizza Del ate watching “Sunshine” must have gone down wrong. But, instead of getting heartburn, Del fell victim to brain-burn.
“Sunshine” is a fine movie with very good special effects that don’t overwhelm the plot.
The movie has a purpose.
It’s about sacrifice and conceit. It’s about hope and despair. And it has a couple of cute and brainy ladies as co-stars.
Slowly unfolding mishaps, each more consequential than its predecessor, transform the 90 million mile journey to save Earth from amiable boredom in the beginning to a tense, other-worldly sci-fi thriller toward the end.
Del mocks the scientist that forgot to reset Icarus II’s sunshield, which jeopardized the mission, after changing the vessel’s course to rendezvous with a derelict spaceship.
But Del, a rabid space exploration enthusiast, has conveniently forgotten a real-life incident Sept. 23, 1999.
Hyper-trained scientists working to put NASA’s $125 million probe Climate Orbiter in orbit around Mars confused each other when one team used English measure units — inches, feet — and the other, metric units — centimeters and meters.
The likely result was an expensive machine plummeting through the Red Planet’s atmosphere and burning up.
People do make mistakes — I mean look at what the Supreme Court did when it put Bush into the White House nearly eight years ago — and that’s a fact.
“Sunshine” doesn’t have the majesty or grandeur of, say, Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
But, its ending is intelligible and, ultimately, redeeming.
“Sunshine” is good enough for me to consider adding it to my DVD collection, right there next to “Godzilla vs. Megaguirus.”
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical editor. Del Stone Jr. is a journalist and author.
“Transformers” Starring Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, John Voight, John Turturro. Directed by Michael Bay. 144 minutes. Rated PG.
Mladen’s take
It’s becoming a habit, one I must shed, or, before I know it, it’ll end with me finding something redeeming about the Bush administration.
“Transformers” is another movie — “Bug” falls into the same category — that does one brief thing right: forcing me to temper an otherwise bitter review that’s based on the dozens of things that went wrong.
The film’s nearly saving grace happens toward the end.
Bad-bot Megatron, sprawled on a crushed roadway after falling from a skyscraper during battle with good-bot Optimus Prime, finds itself near a human.
The four-story-tall robot utters, “Disgusting” and, using its index finger, flicks the human dozens of feet into a car.
Hilarious, because that’s the way I feel about humanity.
It’s too bad my index finger isn’t large enough to flick a grown man through the air. Then again, I’d have to use the finger ceaselessly for years to flick everybody that needs flicking.
“Transformers” is visually glorious crap. The movie is a vast advertisement for toys, GM vehicles that never get dirty and the Air Force. See it for no other reason than this: It’s cheaper now that it can be rented on DVD than when it was in theaters.
Del’s take
You’ll have to forgive Mladen. A big walrus of a guy flicked him off and he’s still hanging from a branch by the waistband of his Hanes.
It’s cut off the circulation to his brain.
Of course “Transformers” is crap, Mladen. Were you expecting “Anna Karenina”?
I too was expecting to hate “Transformers,” for the following reasons:
It was directed by Michael Bay, who managed to turn Pearl Harbor into a thrill ride at Universal.
And I could never keep track of who’s who: Is Vomitor a good robot or a bad robot?
Finally, if nature called at 3 in the morning and, on your way to the bathroom, you stepped on one of the approximately 10,000 pieces of Transformer toys left on the floor by your nephews, well, you can forget making it to the toilet.
But I was pleasantly surprised by “Transformers.” It’s a fun story told in a fun way.
The pace is fast, the dialogue snappy, the special effects mind-blowing and it never, ever takes itself seriously.
Casting Shia LaBeouf in the lead role was smart – his Ritalin-deprived approach plays nicely with the movie’s other parts. And Megan Fox is sufficiently sexy to compel LaBeouf’s romantic fantasies – clumsily adolescent fantasies – without posing any serious threat to what I’m assuming is his virginity.
If you accept “Transformers” for what it is – a bit of innocent fun that requires 144 minutes of your life – you won’t be disappointed.
Now, somebody help Mladen down from that tree.
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical editor. Del Stone Jr. is a journalist and author.
Image courtesy of Sony Home Entertainment.
“Ice Spiders” Starring Vanessa Williams, Patrick Muldoon, Thomas Calabro. Directed by Tibor Takacs. Amazon Prime. 90 minutes. Rated R.
Del’s take
Dude, didn’t we just review this movie?
Ski bums, bimbos and crazy old coots trapped at a ski lodge by a band of marauding. …
Wait … wait … it’s coming back to me. …
Sharks! That’s what I was thinking. “Avalanche Sharks.”
Except this isn’t “Avalanche Sharks,” not by a long shot, which is not a criticism of “Avalanche Sharks” though the movie deserves every bit of scorn I can shovel on its wriggling carcass.
This is “Ice Spiders,” an equally wretched presentation that nonetheless comforts me. All those bad feelings about none of my books being picked up by Hollywood? It ain’t because they suck. Maybe they don’t suck enough.
I’m trying to figure out who plagiarized whom because “Ice Spiders” and “Avalanche Sharks” are essentially the same movie. Change a few character names and you’ve got “Avalanche Spiders” or “Ice Sharks.” I actually prefer “Ice Sharks” as a title.
The plot goes something like this: Dan “Dash” Dashiell (Patrick Muldoon) is a ski instructor at a hidden mountain resort watching newbies to the slopes crash into each other on the bunny run. Once, he was an Olympics downhill hopeful, but a dreadful injury dashed those aspirations.
Dr. April Sommers (Vanessa Williams) is a biologist at a hidden military laboratory who is trying to make spiders bigger so they’ll spin more silk, which can be used to make bulletproof vests for the troops. But her boss, Professor Marks (David Millbern), has secretly amped up the growth hormones being fed to the spiders. See what they did there? They de-eviled Dr. Sommers, so that when the spiders escape the lab and start devouring the bunny run bumblers, she can sermonize about the evils of ambition (too bad it wasn’t corporate America – THAT I could believe).
Did I say something about spiders eating people? Oh yes, it’s a bloody arachnabuffet as killer spiders the size of Saint Bernards gallop across the ski runs, munching on those who aren’t aspiring Olympics downhill racers. You can see where this is going.
“Ice Spiders” has another quality in common with “Avalanche Sharks”: It too is a lo-fi cash grab by producers with modest aspirations. The script is dreadful, as is the acting (with the exception of Williams, who struggles gamely through the train wreck of dialogue as if she were trying not to laugh). The special effects are crappy even for CGI. And the plot is thoroughly, reprehensibly predictable.
I spent 90 minutes constantly checking the status bar to see how much time remained of this stupid flick. It was that bad.
Don’t blame me. Mladen chose this clinker. I give it a D-, which if memory serves is what I graded “Avalanche Sharks.”
I get to choose the next movie and if Mladen doesn’t step up his movie review selection game, I will punish him with another “Jane Austen Book Club.”
Mladen’s take
Del, you’re so off the mark with your review of “Ice Spiders” that I’m forced to conclude the following: You must think Trump is intelligent and human.
The difference between “Ice Spiders” (IS) and “Avalanche Sharks” (AS) is akin to the difference between Star Wars Episode 4 and Star Wars Episode 1. AS is a poor script wrapped by horrible acting and zapped in a microwave oven until everything explodes into a big, fat mess. IS is, well, not.
And, the star of IS isn’t Vanessa Williams. Hell, Vanessa Williams isn’t even Vanessa Williams. When the acting credits rolled at the beginning of the movie and Vanessa Williams’s name popped up, I thought, “Woohoo, it’s that Vanessa Williams. Miss USA. Singer. Model.” A 1980s bombshell, she was. Instead, I got a Vanessa Williams, the crappy actor and millennial, or whatever her generation moniker is, with, I must concede, decent cleavage.
IS avoids becoming AS because of the acting by Patrick Muldoon, who portrays Dash the ski instructor. He had, oh, panache. Muldoon converts dialogue that could’ve been utterly banal into something that seems close to plausible. His facial expressions and ever so slightly effete gestures as he delivers his lines adds a lighter mood to the film without turning it into a joke. Well done, Muldoon. You carried the day.
Muldoon’s performance is strong enough to overcome the movie’s weaknesses. But, Del, in one instance, is correct. The CGI spiders in this film are terrible. All six of them. They look like shitty animation added to a live-action film. Plus, the cockroaches in my kitchen are bigger than the spiders in the movie. I was far from terrified by the suspense of people placing themselves unknowingly in position to get attacked and dismembered. I take that risk every time I get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. My cockroaches are as big as helicopters and fly just as well. The practical effects in IS aren’t much better either, but they sure as hell are better than those in AS. At least the fake blood in IS was the color of blood. In AS, the blood was, I don’t know, a subdued fluorescent pink.
Also, you can’t overlook the political message in IS. The mad scientist uses the fascistic argument of national security to justify the spider mutation program, rationalize the deaths of fellow Americans, and openly threaten the lives of the survivors, if they said anything about the dangers they faced. Huh. Sounds like Trump and his justifications for his miserable COVID pandemic response.
“Ice Spiders” gets a B from me because of Muldoon’s acting, the production company’s insight to steal the plot from the very good movie “Deep Blue Sea” – enlarge an animal to get it to produce more of the substance you need to make a lot of money … I mean help humanity – and its R rating. Del gets an F for being Del in his review.
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and author.
“The Host” Starring Kang-ho Song, Hie-bong Byeon and Hae-il Park. Directed by Joon-ho Bong. 119 minutes. Rated R.
Del’s take
I was told to expect a monster movie, a “Godzilla” sans cheesy rubber suit and toy airplanes. I was not told to expect humor, a dysfunctional family and biting political commentary.
Yet that’s what director Bong has delivered with “The Host,” a modern fable that calls upon classic storytelling and genre tropes to deliver its subtextual punch. “The Host” gives us a monster, yes, and it is a monster that gallops through its CGI-energized paces with the crazed recklessness of a 20-ton tweeker.
But worse monstrosities await victims of “The Host,” from the disaffections of life in the 21st century to conspiratorial governments that treat the helpless as cannon fodder for shrouded strategic aims.
In “The Host,” a family broken apart by selfishness is united in a quest to free a young girl who has been taken away by a monster that sprang from the Han River, which flows through Seoul, South Korea.
The family members must confront not only the monster but also resolve their personal differences and deal with a bureaucratic apparatus that has been set up to conceal the truth about the creature.
“The Host” is sure to befuddle the ADD-addled brains of many Americans but it is a fine piece of moviemaking that does what all good stories should do – entertain and provoke.
Mladen’s take
Sure, the people in “The Host” are important.
There’s the fractured family with its only functional constituent a middle-school girl. There’s the meek, bureaucracy-poisoned government of South Korea and there’s the omnipotent U.S. Army illegally polluting the Han River.
But it’s the creature spawned by the toxic Han that steals the show.
A cross between the quad-jaw worms in “Tremors” and the tadpole phase of the smog monster in a classic pro-environment Godzilla epic, the Han beast is ferocity and guile in all its computer-animated glory.
Smart monsters are appealing because they’re alarming. It’s not that they kill you because you’re unluckily at the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s that they’re going to figure out where you live, case the joint, organize an attack plan and then follow it to kill you.
“The Host” is appealing because it makes the absurd premise of a mutated beast rising from shallow river depths near a metropolis believable.
And, it’s believable because of the way Bong portrays humanity’s reaction to the creature.
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical editor. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and author.
Video
Image courtesy of Columbia Pictures.
Starring Craig Berko as Douglas Hall and another, Gretchen Mol as Jane Fuller and another, Vincent D’Onofrio as Jason Whitney, Dennis Haysbert as Larry McBain, Armin Mueller-Stahl as Hannon Fuller, and others. Directed by Josef Rusnak. 1 hour, 40 minutes. Rated R. Streaming on Google Play, Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Vudu.
Plot summary: A computer programmer specializing in full virtual reality immersion tries to solve a murder without losing his grip on reality. As he bounces between the normal physical world and a fake 1930s Los Angeles his company and mentor built, the programmer, Douglas Hall, romances a woman who may not exist.
Are there spoilers in this review: No.
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Mladen’s take
I can’t tell you if I liked “The Thirteenth Floor” because I’m not sure I’m the one who watched it. Who is writing this review? Beats me.
In a way, the preceding sentences summarize the film’s thrust. The longer “The Thirteenth Floor” progressed, the more difficult it became for me to determine if our hero, or anything, is real to begin with.
My inability to stay oriented as “The Thirteenth Floor” characters shift from actual being to existing as computer code that thinks, manipulates, feels, bleeds, and dies added to the film’s mystique. I was asking myself regularly what was going on but didn’t feel irritated by the ambiguity. Sure, the irises of the characters would flash colors as they transitioned from one state of being to another but, at some point, I lost track of which state they existed in before the shift to a different level.
“The Thirteenth Floor” acting is good. D’Onofrio is particularly notable as the film’s good guy or bad guy. Also well executed by the cast is that each actor played a couple of roles. The characters looked the same but they acted differently, a feat sustained throughout the movie.
It’d be an error (with one exception) to compare “The Thirteenth Floor” with “The Matrix,” though both were released in 1999 to make us ponder about “what is real,” if you’ll allow me to quote Morpheus. “The Matrix” is one of the two best films made. It’s slick from top to bottom while addressing heady issues such as sensory perception, fate, conformity, and mind-over-matter. And, I must tell you, Cipher’s justification for turning against humans shortly before he gets zapped and Neo stays alive, makes sense. What is the difference between taking orders from other humans or taking orders from machines? In both cases your autonomy is diminished.
“The Matrix” is about machines enslaving humans. “The Thirteenth Floor” shows people abusing and exploiting other people be they binary – as in 0s and 1s – or real. They’re different movies, though both tack the winds of existentialism.
What does amaze me, however, is the difference in the sophistication of the visual effects. “The Matrix” seamlessly folded hyper-effects such as slo-mo bullets popping supersonic and a Huey crashing into a skyscraper into the story. The “The Thirteenth Floor” FX are reminiscent of the original “Tron,” all laser light and 1980s arcade game graphics.
If you watch “The Thirteenth Floor” because of my review and like it, assume that it was the real me who recommended the film. If you watch the movie because someone called Mladen Rudman recommended it and you dislike it, consider the possibility that you were persuaded by the non-real me or Del.
Del’s take
Oh, that pesky metaverse, digimonde, cyberspace – whatever the hell they’re calling it these days. You never know who is who, what day or time it is, or if any of the crap surrounding you is real – I assume it is because who or what would bother to program things like our current political and economic landscape? A sadist, or somebody who specializes in black humor.
As Mladen said, reality vs. digital simulation is the overlying issue presented by “The Thirteenth Floor,” and let me point out this is one of those rare occasions when Mladen and I are in total agreement, I mean, right down to our letter grade for the movie, which can only mean one thing: The real Mladen is stuck in the Matrix and the Mladen who wrote this review is some kind of glitchy faux re-creation, because he and I never see eye-to-eye on anything.
“The Thirteenth Floor” started with such promise and limped to an ending that was probably generated by audience reaction surveys. It’s as if they grafted two thirds of a decent movie onto a crappy movie, saving the worst for last.
What I enjoyed about “The Thirteenth Floor” was the immersion into 1930s Los Angeles, with its luxuriant art deco architecture, elaborate and stylish clothes people wore to nightclubs and dance halls, and artistic flourishes of automobile design. Compared to the design-impoverished world of 21st century America, the inhabitants of 1930s Los Angeles lived in splendor.
Like Mladen, I was put off by the dated look of the 1990s technology. Special effects were about a decade behind the times, resembling the early days of MTV videos. More obvious was the rapid evolution of technology over the past two or three decades. I got a kick out of seeing a cell phone with one of those pull-out antennas. I owned one of those phones.
As the story progressed and began to answer some of the questions it asked at the beginning, the plot meandered into an area that is not well-supported by everything preceding it. By story’s end I was struggling to keep up with who was who and what was what, but the real struggle lay in whether I cared what happened because the stakes were much lower that what I’d been led to believe.
Do androids dream of electric sheep? In “The Thirteenth Floor” they do, and while Philip K. Dick might have loved this movie in the early 1960s, he’d likely skip it in 2024. Dick, who helped usher in science fiction’s New Wave and who presaged the cyberpunk movement of the ’80s and ’90s, might have related more closely with “The Matrix.”
You’ll notice the movie’s title refers to something that mostly doesn’t exist. Multi-story hotels routinely renumber their 13th floors because superstitious guests don’t like the association with bad luck. Maybe if they’d named this movie “The Floor between Twelve and Fourteen” I would have liked it better.
I’ll settle on a B-. Kudos for the look back in time, but demerits for a hard-to-follow plot, lame ending and clunky tech look.
Mladen’s grade: B-
Del’s grade: B-
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and writer.
Image courtesy of Credo Entertainment Group and USA Pictures.
“Trucks” stars Timothy Busfield as Ray, Brenda Blake as Hope, Brendan Fletcher as Logan, Amy Stewart as Abby, and others. Directed by Chris Thomson. Rated PG-13 with a 95-minute run time. See it on Amazon Prime, Tubi, Apple TV and Vudu.
Mladen’s take
To recuperate my manliness after Del forced me to watch and review “Barbie” and “Wham!,” I made him watch 1997’s “Trucks.” And, what a film it is. From its big rig practical effects to the bonkers scene involving a Tonka-looking radio-controlled toy truck, the movie plows through your disbelief and eye rolling like a convoy of rabid Teamsters through a school zone.
Here, feel free to skip to the next paragraph. Del wants a movie summary in each review, so I’m giving you one, like it or not. “Trucks” is based on a Stephen King short story. In “Trucks,” trucks come alive, herding people into crappy buildings in a dusty town not far from Area 51. The trucks terrorize the huddled humans and, when needed, run over or otherwise murder a few. The self-driving, bloodthirsty machines, who talk to each other by flashing their headlights and switching windshield wipers on and off, are animated by … I’m not sure. The victims talk about mysterious satellite dishes erected at the nearby Air Force base, aliens attracted to Earth by SETI, a stolen election for president, the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop, and, wait, I think I’m confusing one government conspiracy with another.
“Trucks” has flaws that go unremedied. There’s no nudity. The swearing is mild. The violence is not as graphic as it could’ve been, though the fire axe-wielding hazmat suit scene in a disaster response van is pretty damn terrific. And, let’s not forget the toy truck and mailman incident that unfolds about half-way through the film. It’s imaginative. It’s ridiculous. It’s carnage laced. In short, it’s perfect.
“Trucks” also has flaws that get remedied. For example, the killer trucks are autonomous but have no way of refueling themselves. So, through much of the film, I’m like, “Stupid rednecks, sit tight until the monstrous machines run out of gas.” Then comes along our principal scared, bewildered, and desperate protagonist (“Ray” portrayed by Timothy Busfield) who notices that the trucks had chances to kill him but didn’t. Why? Why did he live while some of his fellow captives died? Well, the trucks signal the answer to him. You see, Ray is the town’s gas station owner. The machines spared Ray because they needed him to refuel them. If he didn’t, they’d splatter his son and nascent girlfriend all over the desert sand. Come on, concede that’s a clever way for the trucks (and the movie’s plot) to overcome their lack of hands with opposable thumbs to pump diesel.
Because “Trucks” is based on a King short story and King often sways toward the bleak, the film’s ending is somewhat discombobulating. But, don’t worry, the ending is nothing like the heavily traumatizing conclusion of another movie based on King’s writing, “The Mist.”
Del’s take
I was confused.
Fifteen minutes into “Trucks” and still no Emilio Estevez. What the hell was going on?
A quick dive into the Internet Movie Database disabused me of my mental fog. “Trucks” is not “Maximum Overdrive,” the cheesy ’80s-vintage scifi-horror movie directed by none other than horror author Stephen King. Instead, “Trucks” is a cheesy ’90s-vintage scifi-horror movie based on the same short story, “Trucks,” that inspired “Maximum Overdrive.” And that story was written by none other than horror author Stephen King.
That’s about as clear as my soap-scum infused glass shower doors.
I’d describe “Trucks” as a genre hybrid, falling somewhere between a classic ’50s big bug movie and a Robert Rodriguez grindhouse gorefest, Why anybody thought “Trucks” was worthy of a remake escapes me, especially when King wrote many other memorable stories – the one about the guy who drinks bad beer and turns into a giant escargot comes to mind every time I pop the tab on a can of Natty Light. But then, why are there 27 “Children of the Corn”s or 91 “Lawnmower Man”s? The answer, of course, is that Americans have no bottom when it comes to schlock.
And that’s what “Trucks” is – schlock. It’s one of those movies that’s so bad, it’s good – except “Trucks” isn’t good. It’s terrible, and Mladen owes me big time. At least when I make him watch something out of his comfort zone it’s something decent, and good. “Trucks” is a Baby Ruth bar floating in the swimming pool of moviedom. The acting is awful. The script is laughably inept. No cliché is left behind. And there are plot holes big enough to … ahem … drive a truck through. It’s like watching political aides trying to teach Ron DeSantis how to eat pudding with chopsticks. In other words, it’s a mess.
Here’s an example of the breathtaking dialogue:
Teenage girl: “Why does everybody keep dying?” (Hmmm? Could it possibly have anything to do with the fact that they’re being RUN OVER BY TRUCKS?)
Old man: “I don’t know. I’m just an old hippie.”
??????????????????????
The trucks, we are told, have been brought to life by either Area 51, a toxic gas cloud, the Earth sailing through a comet’s tail, aliens … or maybe “Trucks” is a cautionary tale, warning against the unintended consequences of electing a fascist as president of the United States and then letting him skate when his crimes become public knowledge. Either way, I think everyone involved in the movie sailed through a comet’s tail because if “Maximum Overdrive” proves that horror authors should stick to writing horror stories and not directing horror movies, “Trucks” proves that even dedicated filmmakers can sometimes screw up, and “Trucks” is a Godzilla-sized Phillips-head of a screw(up).
Mladen didn’t assign a letter grade to “Trucks” so I’ll assume he’s giving it an F. I’ll be generous and award a D- seeing as how it’s truer to the short story than “Maximum Overdrive.”
When they come out with a scifi-horror movie titled “Night of the Killer Prius,” I’m there. But “Maximum Overdrive” and “Trucks” is a two-movie convoy of 18-wheeled schlock. For a vastly superior killer truck movie, check out “Duel.” Meantime, I’ll stick to the passing lane.
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and writer.
“Space Truckers” Starring Dennis Hopper, Debi Mazar, Stephen Dorff, Charles Dance, George Wendt and others. Directed by Stuart Gordon. 1 hour, 35 minutes. Rated PG-13. Amazon Prime.
Del’s take
“Space Truckers” is Mladen’s revenge for “A Recipe for Seduction.”
He’s been stewing for months about being forced to watch that dreck, and plotting ways to make me pay. Well, he came up with a doozy. “Space Truckers” has a cult following – of kooks with bad taste. Trust me, it’s boring schlock.
Director Stuart Gordon, who captained some pretty good movies like “Reanimator,” intended this to be a lowbrow sci-fi comedy. He succeeded with lowbrow but the comedy part fails, and it fails miserably. I can’t think of a single funny moment in this movie.
It features some real talent – Dennis Hopper, a young Stephen Dorff, Charles Dance and George Wendt – but the problem with “Space Truckers” is the script. It falls flat and I doubt defibrillator paddles could shock some life into this toe-tag of a screenplay.
The story goes like this: Hopper is the last of the independent “space truckers” driving goods and whatnot from one planet to the next. After a late delivery of square pigs and only partial payment, he takes on a sketchy consignment from a shady group headquartered at the Neptunian moon Triton for rapid delivery to Earth. As you might expect, “rapid delivery” becomes anything but after an encounter with space pirates, and then the load itself becomes problematic when it turns out to be a swarm of Terminator-like robots bent on killing all humans.
In theory this kind of movie should work. Ironically, a day or two after I finished “Space Truckers” another comedy – this one very funny – was playing on cable: “Airplane.” I was struck by the differences in the two movies – “Airplane” has a similarly thin plot but that’s OK – the movie is nothing but one rapid-fire joke delivery after another. In “Airplane” some jokes are visual, some physical, and some are embedded in dialogue. “Space Truckers” exhibited none of those qualities. It was an hour and a half of Dennis Hopper glaring and leering at the camera Quint-style with Debi Mazar almost flashing her boobies and Stephen Dorf showing off a not-bad stack of abs.
Comedy relies to a great extent on timing and “Space Truckers,” like its bumbling space truck-driving Hopper, misses delivery time and time again. He could never get a job with intergalactic Fed-Ex. Couple that with nonsensical special effects – I mean you can see the wirework in the scenes of weightlessness – and you get a movie that’s not quite “Plan 9 from Outer Space” but darned close, maybe “Plan 8.”
I expect some folks love this movie and will sniff at my dismissal as the grumpy curmudgeoning of a foul-tempered old man. Maybe Mladen will be one of them. I’m good with that.
I didn’t like “Space Truckers” and I don’t mind saying so. It rates a solid D on my grade scale.
And that’s a 10-4 good buddy.
Mladen’s take
There is absolutely zero wrong with Debi Mazar almost flashing her boobies in “Space Truckers.” If there is a problem, Del, it’s that the “almost” does not become an actual.
“Space Truckers,” despite the way bona fide critics and Del have characterized the movie, is not a comedy.
Yes, it has elements of farce which, I suppose, can be construed as a form of comedy. The space truck space lane approach to Triton is lined with ugly billboards like a U.S. highway. The message? Leave it to mankind to fuck up even deep and beautiful outer space with its garish drive to sell shit.
Yes, cyborg Macanudo (Charles Dance) trying to start his mechanical penis’ erection by pulling a cord as you would do to start an uncooperative chainsaw is clearly intended to be humor and it works.
But this 1996 film – let me say that again – this 1996 film – that’s three years before “The Matrix” hits the big screen – gives it its all to take advantage of emerging computer-generated visual effects and provide an action-adventure joy ride.
To enjoy “Space Truckers” requires a pinch of mercy, a dollop of appreciation for effort and two tablespoons of understanding. Del lacks all three.
Mercy because “Space Truckers” is imbalanced. Set design and costumes are good, as is most of the acting. The special effects – models and electronic visuals – ain’t bad either. The movie is tainted, as Del noted, by the often-visible suspension wires used to make it look like people are floating or tumbling in low gravity. I have no idea why that significant flaw wasn’t disguised in film post‑production.
Appreciation because other movies of that era, “Escape from LA,” for example, directed by the great John Carpenter had crappier computer-driven animation. You have to appreciate “Space Truckers” for what it is: A movie made as the landscape of moviemaking was changing with the introduction of the microchip and graphic arts software to a director’s pallet.
Understanding because … see Mercy and Appreciation above.
I didn’t know that “Space Truckers” had a cult following until Del mentioned it in his review. And, though I’m not a cultist except as it regards Godzilla movies, I can understand why the movie would draw a particular kind of audience. “Space Truckers” is campy, studded with absurd characters, hampered by not infrequent special effects malfunctions, and, if your tolerant of imperfections, fun.
I give “Space Truckers” a B for effort and the likelihood it’ll appeal to 1 out of 7 viewers despite its flaws.
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and author.
Image courtesy of Concorede Pictures.
“Chopping Mall” stars Kelli Maroney as Alison Parks, Tony O’Dell as Ferdy Meisel, Russell Todd as Rick Stanton, Karrie Emerson as Linda Stanton, Barbara Crampton as Suzie Linn, and Nick Segal as Greg Williams. Directed by Jim Wynorski. Rated R with a 1-hour, 17-minute run time. See it on Amazon Prime and Tubi.
Del’s take
“Chopping Mall” is a product of the incomparable Roger Corman, king of the independent, low-budget exploitation film.
Corman began his career in the mid-1950s making science fiction/horror movies (“The Beast with a Million Eyes”) and Westerns (“Five Guns West”), and became known as the “King of the Drive-In.” He continued in the 1960s with a series of opulent gothic horror movies based on the works of Edgar Allen Poe (“The Pit and the Pendulum”) and worked with stars such as Vincent Price, Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff, Ray Miland and Peter Lorre.
Eventually Corman established his own studio, New World Pictures. He is credited with starting the careers of numerous A-list actors and directors, including Francis Ford Coppola, Jack Nicholson, Martin Scorcese, Peter Bogdanovich, James Cameron and Jonathan Demme, to name a few.
Corman produced “Chopping Mall,” along with his wife, Julie. It was shot mostly at the Sherman Oaks Galleria mall in Los Angeles in 20 days, with two days of studio filming. The film is described as a parable of Reaganesque consumption and has become a bit of a cult hit over the years.
The plot is fairly straightforward: A group of teenagers holds an after-hours drinking and sex party at a furniture store in a shopping mall on the same night a trio of security robots goes online for the first time. Unfortunately for the teenagers, a lightning strike damages the robots’ programming and they embark on a killing spree. Armed with tranquilizing darts, tasers and directed-energy weapons, the robots are more than a match for a group of oversexed teens … or are they?
Originally marketed as “Killbots,” (a superior title in my opinion) “Chopping Mall” was filmed at the same location as “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” But trust me, it bears little resemblance to that classic coming-of-age movie. “Chopping Mall” is mostly a bloody excess of exploding heads, lots of jiggling breasts, tacky ’80s-esque music, some seriously terrible dialogue (which was mostly ad-libbed from what I understand) and crappy special effects – heck, they even poached the ray gun sound effects from the George Pal version of “War of the Worlds.”
But as an artifact of the ’80s, “Chopping Mall” is a fascinating time capsule. As I watched the movie I made a list of some of the uniquely ’80s features: big hair, designer jeans, pay phones, landlines, popped collars, circular glasses frames, pastels, Better Cheddar, CRTs, gun stores in a mall, cigarette machines (a pack of smokes cost $1.25), suspenders, button-down shirts, wooden skateboards, handheld calculators the size of mobile phones, khakis with pleats and shoulder boards.
Wow, those were the days. Not.
Look, “Chopping Mall” isn’t high art. It’s a low-budget exploitation film, squarely within the Roger Corman mode of a moviemaking. As silly entertainment it’s just fine. I can think of worse ways to waste an hour and 17 minutes of my life. Go into it with low expectations and you won’t be disappointed. Just be prepared for some serious gore.
I give “Chopping Mall” a grade of B. Anything higher would dishonor its low-budget aspirations. But I’m guessing Mladen will gush – it’s right up his alley. So expect multiple A’s, maybe even with a bullet. Or an exploding head.
Mladen’s take
Yeah, I was hyped when Del used the phrase “jiggling breasts” in his review. All of a sudden, I was looking forward to watching “Chopping Mall.” But trouble soon arrived. The problem? The bared breasts were front-loaded. So, the remaining four-fifths of the movie was barely tolerable to me. No more nudity, just hokey – even for a Corman film – analog-ish visual effects and blood splatter. Let’s face it, despite years of writing movie reviews with Del as my antagonist, he still has no ability to distinguish between cartoonish depiction of slit throats or exploding heads and realistic, honest-to-goodness, stomach-churning graphic violence.
Where to begin evaluating “Chopping Mall?” How about the old saying, “lightning never strikes twice in the same place?” Why? Because in “Chopping Mall” lightning struck THREE times in the same place to send the trio of Bobcat tractor-like killerbots on a hunting spree. Sheesh. From there, the movie gets better in the sense that it gets worse.
We start with four heterosexual couples and then there were three and then there were two and then one. I concede, the couples countdown was a tidy way to knock off the subadults portrayed in the film. The systematic, one-couple-slaughtered-at-a-time pace of the movie generated anticipation. “Ah,” I’d say to myself, “she bought it because she was unable to use a Molotov cocktail correctly. Burning to death sucks. How will her boyfriend meet the Grim Reaper?” Wait a few minutes and, pow, a killerbot grabs the boyfriend and drops him from the mall’s third floor. Thud, and we’re shown a pool of diluted ketchup pooling around the boyfriend’s cracked skull.
For Christ’s sake, the movie didn’t even have a decent soundtrack and it was made in the decade, 1980s, that generated some of the best songs ever. Yes, Corman’s studio did things on the cheap but, come on, why not drop a bit of change for the right to use Blondie’s “Rapture?”
Why the f— Del thought I’d like this movie, I have no idea. Maybe he thought I’d like it because it has gained somewhat of a cult following over the years. Maybe he just wanted to insult my taste in movies. No matter, “Chopping Mall” deserves no better than a C-. But, I don’t want to discourage filmgoers from watching other “Gore”man flicks. There are a lot of them. Del, here are a few that I watched and enjoyed: “The Wasp Woman,” “Carnosaur,” “Death Race 2000” and its sequel, “Death Race 2050,” and let’s not ignore “Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda.”
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and writer.