Movie Club reminder: Enemy Mine is coming soon!

Just a friendly reminder that the current selection for Great Caesar’s Movie Club is Enemy Mine, a sci-fi classic of 1985 featuring a hairy Dennis Quaid and Louis Gossett, Jr.’s interpretation of an alien speech impediment. Join in the fun, won’t you?

Due date: Tuesday, February 1

The deal: Write a review of this months’ selection, link it back to me and I’ll link back to you. Send me an e-mail or drop it in the comments so I know it’s there. Eazy-E!

Make contact: maxoromero [at] gmail [com]

Movie Club: Like Oscar and Felix, but with meteorites

Way back in 1985, cinema gave a hungry public a celluloid feast it didn’t even know it wanted, a movie that served up a buddy movie on a platter of sci-fi warfare and, inexplicably, threw in a dash of Odd Couple-style romantic comedy.

And you know what that tortured string of metaphor means:

Enemy Mine

Starring Dennis Quaid as a human fighter pilot and Louis Gossett, Jr., as his lizardly Drac counterpart, Enemy Mine tells the story of two combatants in an interstellar war who end up stranded on a hostile world together. Will they kill each other, or learn to survive by depending on one another? And does someone really end up getting knocked up before it’s over?

I ain’t telling, but as the original tagline teased: “Enemies because they were taught to be. Allies because they had to be. Brothers because they dared to be.”

Awwwwww, yeah! Enemy Mine is available on Netflix DVD and streaming, so put on your alien bug-shell hat and let’s do this.

Now showing: Enemy Mine (1985)

Due date: Tuesday, February 1

The deal: Write a review of this months’ selection, link it back to me and I’ll link back to you. Send me an e-mail or drop it in the comments so I know it’s there. Eazy-E!

Make contact: maxoromero [at] gmail [com]

Great Caesar’s Movie Club review: “A Boy and His Dog”

Let’s get something out of the way right from the start: A Boy and His Dog – a 1975 film featuring the unlikely combination of Don Johnson, Jason Robards and a shaggy dog at the end of the world – is not a good movie. It is, however, an entirely AWESOME movie.

The scene is what used to be the American Southwest after both World War III and World War IV, the second being a nuclear war that lasted five days and covered the entire globe. As you might suspect, the place is a shambles.

As part of the war efforts, the various governments got into some kooky stuff including ESP and animal intelligence, which apparently gave the world Blood, a telepathic mutt who gives Johnson’s Vic tireless history lessons when he’s not bird-dogging chicks for him in exchange for food. Thanks to an unfortunate side effect of the genetic tinkering that gave him his powers, Blood has a complete inability to forage for himself.

Like most of the people who are left, Vic spends most of his time just trying to survive, stealing or scavenging food when he can and trying to hide from the many dangers lurking around the wasteland. Women are a rare treat for Vic, and through a combination of mind powers and a sensitive sniffer – and after first extorting a bowl of popcorn outta the 18-year-old horndog – Blood manages to pinpoint one at a local movie screening (good news, both popcorn and porn will survive the apocalypse).

Side note: Vic’s attitude toward women is, let’s say, fucked up. Early on in the movie he’s angry because a woman he finds in a bunker is too mutilated to have sex with; oh, and also she’s dead. However, it’s implied that the “dead” part isn’t necessarily what puts the brakes on Vic. Also, he’s a rape ’em and leave ’em kinda guy, so y’know, ick. Also also, Blood calls Vic “Albert” for some reason. Just thought I’d throw that in as a palate cleanser.

Back to the story: The girl at the screening turns out to be Quilla (Susanne Benton), and after following her into some sort of underground vault and finding out she’s Into It, the pair fight off some raiders before spending the night in a giant boiler hiding from something called Screamers.

The audience never see the Screamers, and it is one of the greatest things in the movie. From the dialogue you get the idea that Screamers used to be human, people who have been mutated by the radiation and, like the Man-Thing, make people burn at their touch. In the tradition of old B-movies with rudimentary special effects and limited budgets, the Screamers are never anything more than a vague green glow and an unholy moaning that relentlessly gets closer, and closer, and …

It’s surprisingly effective, and an imaginative way to give the audience a brief and sidelong glance at the larger world in which the movie’s set.

Back in the boiler, Blood (dryly voiced by Tim McIntire) is badly injured and takes an instant dislike to Quilla. Turns out it’s for good reason, as after spending a night of sharing bodily fluids and tales of her life in the underground town of Topeka, Quilla knocks Vic out and runs home.

Luckily, she leaves her access card behind (hmmm …) and Vic and Blood track her to the entrance to Topeka. Lured by curiosity and the promise of booty, Vic decides to follow her down, telling Blood he’ll be back with food and help. Blood thinks this a pretty bad idea, but Vic – as usual – doesn’t listen. It’s the same sort of hard-headedness that’s going to get him in trouble back in Miami.

Once in Topeka Vic finds out that – surprise – it’s all a trap. Quilla was sent as bait to bring Vic to the village because … well, Topeka needs men. Healthy, fertile men, which sounds great to Vic until he finds out inseminating 35 women is going to mean being hooked up to a sinister-looking machine and a lotta screaming. And not the good kind.

If Vic had been paying attention in the first place, he might’ve noticed Topeka is a menacing police-state (natch’). And if that didn’t give him pause, he really should’ve thought twice about the way the town looks as if it’s straight out of the 50s, with everyone wearing dungarees and face-paint that would make a mime shudder.

Topeka is so aggressively weird that it’s creepy, and nearly throws the movie off the rails by being a complete left turn from what came before. But somehow it manages to fit, and I have to give credit to Don Johnson.

(And there is a sentence I never thought I’d type.)

Johnson is bratty, crude and vibrates with an adolescent energy that borders on dangerous, and he carries it throughout and does his job – he carries the movie. It’s not an easy task, considering, but he pulls it off.

Running the show in Topeka is Jason Robards, who as Lou Craddock is kinda phoning it in but, hey, he’s Jason Robards so he’s still pretty excellent. Robards is the one who planned Vic’s abduction and is also Quilla’s father (dun DUN duuun!). When he’s not hooking kids up to insemination machines he seems to spend his day sending people to “the farm,” an unseen place that nobody ever comes back from. He does this with the help of The Committee and an unstoppable hillbilly killing machine named Michael.

Soon enough, Quilla has second thoughts and helps free Vic, who promptly goes about being a dumb-ass and wrecking the place instead of just making his get-away. Luckily, the two make it back to the surface, where they find Blood on the verge of dying. Because of his injury and non-existent foraging skills, Blood is starving to death. Quilla urges Vic to leave Blood, telling him how he’s practically dead anyway and that Vic needs to get crackin’ on being a provider for her. Blood’s voice is slowing fading from Vic’s mind.  He’s being pulled back and forth between the two and …

And then you get the craziest, wrongest ending ever. I’m not going to spoil it here, but Ho. Lee. Crap.  It’s a finale that will have you laughing and groaning at the same time, and it’s perfect. If for nothing else than the ending, A Boy and His Dog is worth watching and then inflicting on your friends – it’s that kind of movie.

…

Movie Clubbin’!

The United Provinces of Ivanladia

…

Note: A Boy and His Dog is based on a Harlan Ellison short story of the same name, and it’s definitely worth a read.

Keep an eye out for the next Movie Club selection – to be announced soon!

And then there was the time I remembered I have a blog

Yeah, I know.

But look, all I can tell you is that things have been pretty crazy around these parts, and unfortunately that has meant the ol’ Post here had to fall to the wayside. I’m hoping that won’t continue to be the case, but things might take a while to ramp back up to full speed – thanks in advance for your patience (and cookies – I love cookies).

Now then – old business!

OK, there isn’t actually a whole lot of old business, but just before falling off the map I had announced the latest pick for the Great Caesar’s Movie Club and that still stands. If you didn’t get around to it the first time, we’ll still be watching and reviewing A Boy and His Dog, starring a young Don Johnson and his psychic dog Blood. It promises to be big fun, so get to it! (And if you already did when I first announced it, I hope you’ll send it along). Let’s call the deadline … ooooh, let me consult my Mayan calendar here … huh, 2012, eh? … OK, let’s say Deadline: Sept. 27!

New Business!

Sigh. You caught me – there isn’t much new business, either. I haven’t even been able to read many comics lately, so I have a lot of catching up to do. I did manage to pick up a copy of Phonogram Vol. 1 for three bucks, so that was exciting.

I also saw Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World and loved it so much that I went out and saw it again. And I’ll probably see it again this weekend. Obviously I dig the movie, in spite of my serious misgivings about Michael Cera in the lead. Luckily, I found Scott Pilgrim to be pitch-perfect, and if you didn’t like it you have no soul.

Now that we’ve gotten THAT out of the way, thanks again for your patience and I hope you’ll stick around. Really.

And never forget:

Movie Club: At the end of the world there will be Don Johnson

Y’know, I was going to write something up about the next selection for Great Caesar’s Movie Club but the first line of the Netflix synopsis tells you all you need to know. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you:

A Boy and His Dog

“A young Don Johnson stars as Vic, who roams a postapocalyptic wasteland accompanied by his telepathic, ever-grumbling dog and eventually winds up in the clutches of a female-dominated underground society that wants his sperm.”

Let’s watch the hell out of this! (And it even looks like it’s available on YouTube, so no excuses!)

Now showing: A Boy and His Dog (1975)

Due date: Tuesday, Aug. 17

The deal: Write a review of this months’ selection, link it back to me and I’ll link back to you. Send me an e-mail or drop it in the comments so I know it’s there. Easy like Sunday mornin’.

Make contact: maxoromero [at] gmail [com]

Remember, remember, the … 19th of July?

Man, that doesn’t work at all.

But! It does serve as a handy reminder that this Monday (July 19th) is the deadline to get in your reviews of Superman III, our first selection for the Great Caesar’s Movie Club.

I’m excited! Aren’t you excited? Even Lana’s excited:

Get those reviews in and we’ll answer the age-old question – Lois or Lana?

News from the front

As you might have noticed (since I’ve been mentioningit at every opportunity), I’m in the middle of moving. Specifically I’m moving from Austin, Texas to just outside Wilmington, Delaware in just under a week.

If you’re picturing rooms filled with boxes, stacks of furniture and piles of random stuff, you’re not far off.  And if you think this has kept me from posting lately – actually, from doing anything much beyond cramming things into cardboard boxes – you’d be right on the money. In the meantime, I hope you’ll hang in there.

See you in Delaware!

…

Speaking of comics, I picked up Superman #700 this week and was left … underwhelmed. I don’t have it on hand for reference (things in boxes, remember?), but the impression I was left with was feeling a little lost in the story. I wasn’t keeping up with the War of the Supermen-slash-Fall of Krypton stories, and the chapters definitely felt like continuations of plots that were a mystery to me. The J. Michael Straczynski storyline begins here, and having Superman walk across America is fun in a Hard Travelin’ Heroes kind of way, but the clunky heavy-handedness of the introduction in this issue makes me a little leery. Also, can Superman get a strong, distinctive artist? Please.

Pleeeeze?!

…

Don’t forget, the Great Caesar’s Movie Club due date is July 19! Superman III! Do it!

Announcing – Great Caesar’s Movie Club!

Here’s something the average person might not realize about comic book geeks: We’re usually geeks about a lot of other things, too.

For instance, I’ve noticed that a lot of my fellow comic bloggers are also big movie fans, with passions ranging from genre films to black-and-white classics and including everything in between. I’m no different – I love movies, and just like with comics, I love to talk about them and hear other people’s opinions. So, with that in mind I give you a new feature here at GCP:

GREAT CAESAR’S MOVIE CLUB!

Here’s how it works:

Once a month I’ll announce the current movie club selection, along with a due date. If you’d like to participate, write a review and post it to your own website on that date (with a link to Great Caesar’s Post), drop me an e-mail telling me about it, and I’ll link back to it here. It’s so easy an actor playing a caveman could do it!

Of course, there’s no obligation to play – if you do a review one month, you don’t have to review the next month’s selection if you don’t feel like it (jerk).

What kind of movies can you expect? Well, I’m a fan of the Swedish school of postmodernism as much as the next guy, but in this case I’m going to try to keep selections in the sci-fi/cult/Weird category. Superhero movies probably won’t show up too much, just because those are a well-covered subject already, but in honor of this blog’s inspiration the first movie club pick is:

SUPERMAN III

Oh, yeah – the one with drunk Superman.

It’s also the one featuring a weirdly cast Richard Pryor, a fight between Superman and Clark Kent, and Annette O’Toole as the One True Lana. Superman III is available on the Netflix, so get to it!

Here are the details:

Great Caesar’s Movie Club!

Now showing: Superman III (1983)

Due date: Monday, July 19

Clothing: Optional

By the way, if you get around to the horror movie part of Blogger Town you might notice that this is very similar (some might say identical) to the format used by Stacie Ponder over at the excellent, you-should-be-reading-it Final Girl. Stacie has given me the very generous thumbs-up (seriously, you should see the size of her thumbs) to crib the format, because she’s cool like that. Thanks again, Stacie!