Like Tears in Rain: Meditations on Science Fiction Cinema (12 page)

Django Unchained

A Brief Word

I thought 
Django Unchained
 was one of the ballsiest, most badass flicks I’ve seen in ages—significantly more mature, artful, and honest than Tarantino’s own 
Inglorious Basterds
, I’d argue. Its unflinching portrayal of the abysmal acts committed against an entire race of people for centuries is beyond commendable in its pursuit of exposing the ugliness beneath America’s blood-soaked rug.

Christoph Waltz is dazzling, sure, and Samuel L. Jackson is rightfully one of America’s most beloved performers . . . but in my mind, it’s Foxx who steals the show, hands down.

His delivery of every line, every avenging gunshot, every angry glance marks him as a criminally underappreciated actor whose career includes roles like Max in 
Collateral
, one of my all-time favorites by the incomparable Michael Mann, and a host of others, including his Academy Award-winning portrayal of Ray Charles in the aptly-titled 
Ray
.

Don’t let me get carried away with my naive, young, white-privilege-havin’ self; I’m not gonna pretend to know what this film means to an African-American in the twenty-first century. If it angers people of color, so be it. Slavery was this country’s greatest sin.

But I have to say, I think Quentin Tarantino is a master storyteller with guts, craft, and a filmgoer’s eye like nobody’s business.

Let them call the film historically inaccurate; let them call it overblown. Maybe there’s a touch of
 misogyny at play? Maybe. But nobody can rightfully call it a half-assed film without passion behind its angry message. Sure, maybe gunfights aren’t what this country needs to get to the answers, but if it catches people’s attention at the movie-theater doors, let Tarantino have his fun with the great American mythos at the heart of the Spaghetti Western. I think the real takeaway is clear: We’re all loving, passionate human beings with complicated pasts and aspirations for the future, and slavery was the antithesis of human existence.

It was a war against the unarmed. A coward’s mad scheme played out across history like a scar on the face of the world.

So, let’s never forget it. If we’re gonna deal with vengeance, murder, and casual violence in our art until the end of time, as seems certain, we might as well couple that ugliness—the ugliness of the bloodthirsty present—with the crimes of our past.

Ain’t no harm in education. If this film angers people, then Tarantino’s probably just pointing us in the right direction.

The Lost Vamps

Bloodthirsty Flicks that Actually Don’t Suck

Vampire flicks have been all the rage since
 
Twilight
 flooded the box office with sticky, coppery crimson in ’08, and have proven a solid moneymaking strategy ever since, with each of the saga’s four sequels averaging about three hundred million dollars per film, according to IMDb’s Box Office Mojo.

But for some of us—and I don’t mean to suck a dead horse dry, here—the vampire genre represents so much more than just antiquated notions of traditional marriage and sparkling demon lovers. For the horror junkie, it’s hard to enjoy a vampire film without anything
 
scary
 going on in it.

So, based on the assumption that I’m not alone in feeling that a vampire movie ought to be frightening, subversive, and a tad allegorical, here are my top ten favorites from the last half-century or so.

In no particular order:

10.
 
Bordello of Blood
 (1996)

This edgy, less than perfect exploitation flick is at turns scary, hilarious, sexy, and downright absurd—but it’s never boring. Not even for a moment. Some young men looking for love in all the wrong places find themselves at the mercy of prostitutes who turn out to be vampires. Erika Eleniak and Dennis Miller lend their talents to a mostly unremarkable cast. The ending’s a letdown, but don’t let that keep you from enjoying the rest of this campy classic. Oh, yeah—and Corey Feldman’s bad-boy performance is a nice nod to his role in another, far more brilliant vampire film. . . .

9. 
The Lost Boys
 (1987)

Saw this one when I was a kid, maybe six or seven years old. Cable television in the ’90s was a gateway to all kinds of terrifying concepts my half-formed imagination wasn’t quite ready for. Seeing it again in my early twenties, far more interested in Jamie Gertz, the film’s true emotional center for reasons that may be too spoilerific to give away, this time around; parsing the film’s homoerotic (and maybe slightly homophobic?) subtext for the first time; and coming to grasp the significance of drinking another man’s blood in an eighties film, at the height of the AIDS epidemic . . . it’s an experience worth treasuring. You’re sure to love it. And I’ll undoubtedly remember the line, “How’re those maggots?” for the rest of my life. (“Maggots, Michael. You’re eating maggots. How do they
 
taste
?”)

8.
 
Let Me In
 (2010)

This chilling treatise on both the problem of bullying and budding adolescent sexuality is a profoundly disturbing piece of filmmaking, and for that I’d call it an achievement. Like all great works of horror, it examines real-world problems through the lens of nightmarish fantasy; specifically, an inhuman monstrosity in the context of an already bleak worldview. For young Owen, a kind young girl appears the best possible sanctuary from th
e harshness of middle school—even if she subsists on human blood alone.

7.
 
The Night Flier
 (1997)

While not the best St
ephen King horror adaptation out there—I’d say 
The Shining
 (’80), 
Carrie
(’76), and 
The Mist
 (’07) have that title under contention—this HBO movie scores high enough on the scare factor, considering its low budget. Miguel Ferrer is truly mesmerizing as a tabloid reporter on the hunt for an airport serial killer whose reflection can’t be found in the mirror. If you’re looking to have a good, heart-thumping nightmare, this made-for-TV film’ll do the trick.

6.
 
Once Bitten
 (1985)

This vampire comedy finds a young Jim Carrey showing up at his high school’s Halloween dance looking pale and gaunt, having been seduced and transubstantiated at the hands of a lusty, immortal cougar. A bit campy, as comes with the territory, but as entertaining a film as you’re likely to stumble upon on cable television these days. Included more for its fun factor than its literary brilliance, admittedly.

5. 
Dark Shadows
 (2012)

Johnny Depp breaks out his penchant for tongue-in-cheek humor in this very Burtonesque flick by Tim Burton. While the film puts much of its energy into a messy romantic subplot or two, not to mention its heavy-handed reliance on nostalgia, its best moments are when it whips out the occasional horror element: the casual slaughter of innocents, the transformation of a young werewolf, the shattered porcelain visage of a spurned, dying witch
. . . .

4.
 
Interview with the Vampire
 (1994)

While Brad Pitt’s incomparable voiceover drives the narrative of this modern classic, I think it’s Tom Cruise and a young Kirsten Dunst who give the film its eerie atmosphere and pervasive sense of despair. Even as Louis (Pitt) bemoans the torment that comes with an unending life in a world of mortals, it is Cruise’s performance as Lestat that drives the point home. We see a madman in agony, burned to the ground by Louis and Claudia (Dunst)
and then risen from the ashes—a beautiful monster made ugly. An imperfect film, sure, but an epic one worth your time.

3.
 
I Am Legend
 (2007)

Will Smith delivers what is arguably the best performance of his career in this dismal look at a post-apocalyptic urban America stalked by mindless, nocturnal vampires. It’s the kind of film that gets better with age, probably because of its “downer” ending, but serves as a celebration of human courage and triumph despite its depressing juxtaposition of happy memories from the protagonist’s past with a dark, hopeless present. Like Darabont’s
 
The Mist
 (’07), I’d argue that its power and resonance comes from its ending, despite common consensus.

2.
 
’Salem’s Lot
 (1979)

While the paperback’s been on my shelf for some time, this is one of the few early K
ing novels I haven’t read yet—but the made-for-TV flick it spawned takes the ingenious premise of its source material and provides some of the most authentic scares I’ve ever experienced from a conventional vampire film. Don’t miss it.

1.
 
From Dusk Till Dawn
 (1996)

Anybody who enjoyed Robert Rodriguez’s jaw-dropping
 
Planet Terror
 (’07) or 
Once Upon a Time in Mexico
 (’03) will discover that this film is the one they’ve been looking for their whole lives. Boasting an early script by Quentin Tarantino and set in a desert roadhouse called The Titty Twister, the story follows George Clooney and Tarantino as a pair of criminal brothers, who kidnap a family on their journey into Mexico, hoping to escape the law. The ruthless pair soon find themselves in the maw of a vampire stronghold built atop . . . well, I’ll let you see that one for yourself. From the opening credits to its stunning final frame, this is as fine a vampire film as horror aficionados are likely to encounter in this lifetime.

David Fincher’s
Alien 3

A Contemporary Classic that Most People Hate, but from Which We May Well Learn Much About the Fragile Art of Storytelling

According to my extensive academic research over at Wikipedia this afternoon, the third installment in Fox’s
 
Alien Quadrilogy
 (’Cause why use the word 
tetralogy
, right? What a lousy word!) went through development hell for several years, and despite the criticism it’s received since from longtime fans and critics alike, it should’ve ended up a much 
worse
 film than we actually ended up with. It ain’t as good as Scott’s original classic, granted, or Cameron’s ’86 sequel 
Aliens
—nor as good as 
Prometheus
, which I happened to enjoy a great deal—but it’s sure as hell better than that money-grab atrocity dubbed 
Alien Resurrection
.

But I’m building up a modest library of Blu-ray films, including
 
Alien
 and its first two sequels, and I couldn’t resist the chance to finally revisit David Fincher’s directorial debut, over ten years later.

Now, for some reason, I’d gotten it into my young head long ago that
 
Alien 3
 wasn’t worth my time; that it was dismal and offensive and, well, 
trash
. Like that friggin’ stinker 
Resurrection
, I guess. But that really isn’t the case—it’s actually quite a decent film, when you overlook its status as a lackluster sequel to two of the most beloved science-fiction movies of the twentieth century.

(Sidebar: This is a phenomenon I usually refer to as
 
Raiders
 Syndrome: Even if 
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
 had been a masterpiece of cinema, far superior to the original, it still would’ve had its detractors, swearing up and down that it wasn’t as good as 
Raiders
. There’s always somethin’ special about firsts.)

It lacks the “science” element that you’d prefer to find in a film with a title like
 
Alien 3
, granted, but when viewed as a standalone horror film, it’s not all that bad. Really. It’s got most of the trademark Fincher-isms that we recognize from such great pictures as 
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
, 
Se7en
, 
Zodiac
, and 
Fight Club
: moral ambiguity, (incredibly) flawed characters, visceral grit, existential atmosphere, and an unflinching gaze at the hostility that exists in our world (universe?), like it or not. Excellent cinematography, too, if one can forgive the lack of screen time allocated to the creature itself and the primitive CGI employed in bringing it to life.

(
Additional sidebar: Over ten years ago, the first time I saw the film, I watched the 1992 theatrical release on VHS. This time around, I opted for the studio’s 2003 special-edition “Assembly Cut” of the film, in stellar Blu-ray high definition. The extended cut does more than toss in additional footage to flesh out the inmate characters; it also harms certain key plot points from the original, such as the origin of the quadrupedal alien variant, and the chest-bursting scene that made the ending so dramatic the first go-round. Watch ’em both, when you can, but go with Fincher’s 1992 cut the first time you watch the film.)

Despite it being not-that-terrible, however,
 
Alien 3
 catches a lot of flak for being, well, 
less than great
. In the scope of the first three installments of the franchise, yes, it’s a disappointment . . . but for anyone who’s seen 
Alien vs. Predator
, 
AvP: Requiem
, or 
Alien Resurrection
, 
Alien 3
 really ought to seem like a goddamn 
masterpiece
. . . .

So what exactly can we learn from it?

Quite a bit, I’d argue. To wit:

When you’ve got a successful series going over the course of decades, it’s tough to maintain relevance and originality after early, major successes. Oftentimes an idea is examined to the point that it ceases to be interesting, and eventually you start repeating yourself.

Perhaps, as with the example of Scott’s 
Prometheus
, it’s best to pack up your toolbox and go build something new, something 
bigger
, rather than continuing to tinker with past successes. Audiences are hard to please as it is, let alone when they come into an experience with overly high expectations.

Tone, mood, and intensity should waver slightly over the course of a single film, but not within the scope of a four-installment series—movies, films, games, comics, whatever—unless there’s good reason to do so. You’ve gotta give us a glimmer of hope somewhere in all that unrelenting despair.

Having every character but your protagonist be a rapist-murderer, with whom the audience is supposed to sympathize, is risky as hell. Fincher can pull it off, I think . . . but after a film like 
Aliens
, where Cameron established a clear divide between who and what is good and who the bad guys are—corporate slime-balls and aliens on one side, marines and civilians on the other—it’s hard to pull off a spectrum of gray, gray, 
gray
.

Also, I can’t understate the importance of keeping primary characters—good, heroic characters as well as innocent children—alive unless the story absolutely demands that they be killed. I’m not spouting dogma here, but as novelist Alan Dean Foster opined of the film, the deaths of Corporal Hicks and Newt are obscene. Neither character deserved to die; both fought valiantly to survive the preceding film; and audiences loved them.

In Fincher’s world, as with 
our
 world, even the innocent are occasionally made to suffer. But in art, it’s also necessary to be aware from a creative standpoint what kind of reaction a character’s death will elicit from the audience.

In other words: Don’t kill everybody’s favorite character, unless you
 
want
 to piss off your audience—or to try and make a profound point through martyrdom, which is rarely done well on the big screen. And please, for the love of all things sacred and Giger-esque, don’t have an on-screen autopsy performed on a ten-year-old girl in your film, bloody bone saws, exposed chest cavity, and all. Jeezus, that’s just gross.