Village of the Giants

 

I was in the mood for an anti-establishment movie, and I didn't feel like sitting through an endless movie like Billy Jack (though it holds a dear place in my B-movie heart).  So I decided to try a movie I'd never seen before. Let's just say that the image of a tiny man clinging to a woman's bikini top really tells you everything you need to know about this film's sophistication and grooviness.

Plot Summary

Genius (Ron Howard), a science wunderkind, accidentally invents “goo,” which turns anything that eats it into a giant. Fred (Beau Bridges) and his Groovy Crew of teenagers hear of the goo. They steal it and eat it, turn into giants, and proceed to take over tiny Hainesville. The Groovy Crew punishes the adults for their establishment, anti-hip ways. In the end, Genius discovers the antidote, the Groovy Crew flees, and Hainesville is happy and establishment once again.

Vitamin B-Acting: 70%

The actors don’t take this movie seriously--like that would even be possible. Even the little Ron Howard is in on the joke. This adds a nice easy feeling to the movie. I’ll freely admit that Genius was my favorite character—nerdy redheads with glasses rule! If only I could spout random chemical formulas as easily as Genius does...

"Aw, it was nothing! You just need some H2ONaClAuHeNAlCW."

The other highlight of the movie is watching a 24-year-old Beau Bridges strut around in a bright red toga and diaper. That alone makes the movie totally worth an hour and 20 minutes of anybody’s time. 

 

Of course they had giant sewing kits on hand. (Beau Bridges is at the left)

Vitamin B-SFX: 100%

A giant orange cat.

Giant ducks grooving to the Beau Brummels' "Woman."

Need I say any more?

Okay, okay, there is more. It goes without saying that nowadays the SFX in this movie is extremely dated--the movie came out in 1965. The moviemakers obviously superimposed “giant” beings onto the movie, and the effect is hilarious every single time.

The “capture” of Fred by the townspeople epitomizes the cheesiness of the special effects. The townspeople lure Fred out onto the streets. Then they zip around him in hot rods and muscle cars—my favorite was a neon yellow banana-shaped car with a surfboard. Meanwhile, someone offset feebly lobs ropes at Fred, who obliges by wrapping a few ropes around his body. The camera switches back and forth between a shot of Fred’s upper body and the cars zipping around, probably so they could avoid trying to edit the giant Fred into the overall scene. The best of all is that Fred could easily just stomp on the cars and people, but he doesn’t—he literally lies down and lets them “rope” him.

Vitamin Fun: 90%

It’s SO GROOVY, man! Between the far-out SFX and the corny 60s music, you’ll have a ball. (Though I could have done without listening to all of “Woman” two times.)

Groovy Near Eastern-type statues included.

Sugar: 0%

There is no sugar—only GOO, magnificent GOO!

Plot Fiber: 0%

There are so many ways to rip apart the plot holes in this movie, but I’m not going to bother this time. The movie doesn’t give a fig about science or logic. It just wants to make a “statement” about how dictatorial The Man is…in theory. I’m positive, though, that its primary reasons for existence were to provide a cheap vehicle (or hot rod, as the case may be) for sexual entendres, and to give teens a chance to make out at the drive-in.

"The Lord of the Rings"

Relax, it's the 1978 Ralph Bakshi version, not the Peter Jackson trilogy. (And in case you're wondering, the DVD cover for the Bakshi version really did put quotation marks around the title. I think it's quite fitting, personally.) 

Overcompensating much, Gandalf?

Since the last Harry Potter movie is coming out next weekend (well, the first part anyway), I thought I'd mark the occasion by reviewing an "epic" movie for this post.   

Since this is an animated film, I've substituted the "Vitamin B-SFX" category with "Strangimation."

Plot Summary

Have you really not heard of Lord of the Rings by now? 

Okay, here's the plot: Frodo the Hobbit comes into possession of an all-powerful, evil Ring. The Dark Lord Sauron wants the Ring back so he can take over Middle Earth. Frodo must travel to Sauron's land, Mordor, and destroy the Ring by throwing it into the fires of Mount Doom. Frodo has only a small company of Hobbits, Elves and Men to help him through the journey. 

Nutrition Facts

Strangimation: 100%

Bakshi relied on Rotoscoping, a method of drawing animation over live-action film. The combination of light and heavy Rotoscoping was an intriguing premise, but it did not serve Lord of the Rings well. It’s not just that the animation method LOOKS strange, but Bakshi made a lot of stylistic decisions that were just plain odd.

For instance, the animation of the main characters switches back and forth between light and heavy Rotoscoping. There’s no good reason for the switcheroos. It’s also more confusing, because when the characters are in heavy Rotoscope form, it’s much harder to tell them apart and they melt into the background. 

Gandalf--light Rotoscoping on left, heavy Rotoscoping on the right

 

Another example of heavy Rotoscoping--from left to right: Gimli, Legolas, and one of the Hobbits

The Rotoscoped characters in this film often don’t look like they’re part of the environment. There are several moments when lightly Rotoscoped characters appear to be floating in midair, as though someone just Photoshopped them onto the background.

The Ringwraiths caught in a Photoshop moment

Enough of generalities—let’s look at specific instances of heavy Rotoscoping problems.

The Orcs always appear in heavy Rotoscoped form, and always with hilarious effect. They usually have bright red eyes and fake fangs drawn on top of the Rotoscoping: 

Because the heavy Rotoscoping is so faithful to the live-action contours, you can clearly see that the actors are wearing pig and gorilla masks.

But the most priceless heavy Rotoscoping moment of all is the Balrog. It consists of a half-naked man wearing a lion’s head, flimsy Halloween bat wings, and bedroom slippers:

"WHO TOOK MY BUNNY SLIPPERS?!?" (Whip cracks)

The heavy Rotoscoping is not to blame for all the bizarre aspects of the animation in this movie, though. The light Rotoscoping characters give us plenty to mock, as well.

Give me Viggo Mortensen any day.

In general, the characters are always moving, and their contours seem to shift constantly. I found their eyes particularly distracting--in the beginning of the film, their pupils seem to shrink and grow. The constant movement makes it feel as if you're watching a quivering mass of Jell-O blobs at times.

The Ringwraiths look like Jawas, with their brown robes and glowing red eyes. Interestingly, they also appear to be wearing slacks and leather shoes under their robes, as if they took off five minutes from work to film.

A really, really lost Jawa.

My personal favorite: Boromir the Viking, in a MINISKIRT!

"But I NEED the Ring to complete my look!"

Finally, we get treated to several light shows from the wizards and elves, including one that was apparently created by a disco ball. The wizards and elves also enjoy shooting lame sparks of colorful lightning from their hands for no reason.   

Drugs had to be involved somehow.

Vitamin Fun: 80%

Plenty of WTF to keep snarkers occupied! Good thing, too, since this movie goes on for almost 2 ½ hours.

Sugar: 0%

Plot Fiber: 20%

Bakshi tried to do the impossible—cram in material from two long, dense books (Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers). As a result, this version has a very choppy, episodic feel, especially during the last half. Character development is nonexistent. If you’ve never read the books or watched the Peter Jackson movies, you’re likely to have trouble figuring out why certain things happen or characters behave the way they do. 

I only know the story from the Peter Jackson movies--I never got beyond Fellowship of the Ring in the book series. For extensive details on the adaptation problems and the soundtrack issues, check out this review.

A Ringwraith in one of the more LSD-inspired scenes.

Omen Series Recap

Hello readers! 

The reviews will be back to normal next weekend. My work blew up this weekend (yes, I have a job--I don't just sit around watching B-movies 24/7, though I sometimes wish I could), and the Syfy movie I was thinking of reviewing turned out to be a little too competent to qualify for the blog. 

On the bright side, Syfy is having a Shark Movie Day today, including Sharktopus! If you have some time this afternoon, check it out!

Without further ado, here's a recap of the gloriously stinky Omen series...

MOST UNINTENTIONALLY HILARIOUS INSTALLMENT

5. The Omen (1976)

4. The Omen (2006)

3. The Omen III: The Final Conflict

2. Damien: Omen II

And the winner is...

The clowns and New Age put this one on top.

WORST DAMIEN

4-5. Sam Neill/Asia Vieira (tie)

3. Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick

2. Harvey Stephens

And the winner is....

Jonathan Scott-Taylor, AKA "Desolate One, Jr."

STUPIDEST SATANIC KILLING METHOD

The Omen (1976): Beheaded by glass plate truck

Damien: Omen II: Sliced in half by Elevator of Doom

Omen III: The Final Conflict: The super-elaborate gun suicide setup, dreamed up by a Rottweiler

Omen IV: The Awakening: Beaned by Hell's Wrecking Ball

The Omen (2006): Death by excessive symbolism

The stupidest of all: Elevator of Doom

MOST OVERUSED SYMBOL

The Omen (1976): Rottweilers

Damien: Omen II: Raven

Omen III: The Final Conflict: Nothing in particular

Omen IV: The Awakening: Upside-down crosses

The Omen (2006): The color red

The most overused of all: Omen IV, for the upside-down crosses

"Thank you for tuning into the Omen series on Vitamin B-Movies!"

The Omen (2006 Remake)

 

Finally, FINALLY I’m done with the Omen series!!!

This remake closely follows the original Omen’s script, which means it still has the same gaping plot holes. (To refresh your memory on my thoughts about the original Omen, click here.) That said, out of all five movies in the series, this is the one I would most willingly watch. The remake is chock full of good actors, even if their hearts are not really in their roles. The moviemakers succeeded in making the Rottweilers scarier, though the dogs still wait for the script’s command before attacking. As you can see, I’m tacking on a lot of qualifiers because even the good bits are overshadowed by problems.

Plot Summary

Same as the original--Robert Thorn (Liev Schreiber) secretly adopts a baby boy after his son dies during childbirth. Thorn and his wife Kate (Julia Stiles) live happily in England with their son, Damien (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick), until people they know start dying mysteriously. Rottweilers magically materialize. Thorn does some research on Damien's origins, and what he discovers horrifies him.

Nutrition Facts

Vitamin B-Acting: 20%

Let’s take a look at our new Damien, Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick. I will concede that the kid is a better actor than Harvey Stephens. I particularly liked the more intimate scenes between Davey-Fitzpatrick and Julia Stiles. He pulled off the awkward creepiness pretty well in those scenes. However, his character still comes across as a homicidal jerk. Look, if you are going to insist that the Antichrist will rise out of politics, you’d better make it possible for your audience to imagine the kid going into politics rather than straight to jail or a mental hospital. 

"Don't mind us. We're just trying to inject some life into this series."

Julia Stiles and Liev Schreiber put in decent performances, though they don’t seem deeply engaged in their roles. This is true for most of the cast, which gives the movie a flat feel overall. Anyway, the only other remark I have is that Schreiber often bears a weird resemblance to an older Shia LaBeouf or Forrest Gump throughout the movie, thanks to his haircut and the lighting.

Well, we can be glad Schreiber didn't look this dorky instead.

Then we have what I call “the Harry Potter contingent”:

Michael Gambon as Bugenhagen, AKA Albus Dumbledore

David Thewlis as photographer Keith Jennings, AKA Remus Lupin

The last two notables are Pete Postlethwaite, as the doomed Father Brennan, and Mia Farrow as Mrs. Baylock. Postlethwaite gives an understated performance, and thus is more believable than his predecessor in the original movie. Still, there wasn’t much he could do to improve the material he had to work with.

Mia Farrow’s Mrs. Baylock passes for normal better than her Omen 1976 version. However, Farrow’s appearance in this movie does invite unfortunate comparisons with Rosemary’s Baby, a far superior Antichrist movie. Rosemary’s Baby understood the importance of subtlety and plot logic, unlike the makers of the Omen. Mia, you should have just stuck with Rosemary’s Baby.

Vitamin B-SFX: 70%

Although the cinematography is more sophisticated than in the original Omen, the remake suffers from overdone “artistic” touches. Some of the touches could have enhanced the movie’s atmosphere quite well, had they been a thousand times more understated.

"Pardon, signore--symbolism? What symbolism?"

I’ll use the movie’s treatment of Julia Stiles as an example of overdone symbolism. If you watch the movie, you’ll quickly notice the prevalence of red around Stiles. It appears again and again…and again, even in ways that don’t add any suspense or creepiness to the scene.

Let’s take a closer look at one particular scene—the one in which Damien knocks his mother off a third-floor landing. First it starts with Mrs. Baylock feeding Damien strawberries, so Damien has a blood red stain around his mouth. Then he gets on his scooter, which has blood red wheels. The camera kindly gives us several close-ups of these unholy wheels. The unsuspecting Julia Stiles is watering some hanging planters that house blood red flowers. Her water sprayer is blood red. Surprisingly, her high heels aren’t blood red. Damien rams his scooter into her, she falls over the banister, and as she clings to the wooden paneling for dear life, blood red petals poetically drift over her.

Death by excessive symbolism--what a way to go.

Ah, but the movie doesn’t let Julia Stiles off the hook there. She has a number of nightmare sequences in which various demons from Hell drift in and out of an ethereal bathroom.

"Hey, baby, wanna see my pitchfork?"

We only get secondary flashes of these images. This is a perfect example of a touch that could have been quite effective if the filmmakers hadn’t blown it. They piled on the images one after the other, thus resulting in a corny “haunted house” feel to the sequences.

One last gripe—purple captioning. Remember how the sound effect captioning from Wraiths of Roanoke always included the word “ominous”? There’s a similar problem with the captioning for the Omen remake’s theme music. I quickly grew irritated with the following captions, which appeared ad nauseam:

“Deep eerie growl”

“Quiet foreboding theme plays”

“Low ominous tones playing”

“Eerie screeching in distance”

“Quiet suspenseful theme”

My personal favorite: “Eerie tones and rhythms playing”

Besides the fact that it’s kind of insulting to be told how we should interpret a particular sound, there are just too many adjectives in those captions. Imagine if the “Latin choir singing” caption from the original Omen had constantly appeared as “Evil satanic choir sings hellishly.” Please, captioners, just one adjective per sound effect, if you must have any! 

Vitamin Fun: 60% 

Decent acting and a better handling of certain scenes makes this one of the more bearable Omen films to watch. The goofier elements I’ve discussed also make this movie good for mockery as well. 

Sugar: 0%

Plot Fiber: 0% 

Due to the remake’s slavish copying of the original, it’s only fair to give it the same plot fiber rating that I gave to the original. 

Coming Soon... 

Well, that concludes the blog's first special feature series! Never fear, I have other series planned for the future! But first, here's what to look for in the immediate future: 

1) A Syfy movie review in a few days
2) An Omen series recap at the end of the week

Maneater

The wild ‘n’ crazy Gary Busey. A killer tiger. A little boy who insists the tiger is “misunderstood.” Sounds like a promising Syfy movie, no? If only it hadn’t been so lifeless…the possibilities were endless!

Plot Summary

A truck overturns on a rural road in “Taruga County.” (The movie was filmed in Winnipeg, but I got the distinct sense that it was supposed to be a rural Southern town, like in North Carolina.) A tiger escapes, and starts snacking on the unsuspecting townspeople. Can Sheriff Grady Barnes (Busey) stop the “misunderstood” tiger?

Nutrition Facts

Vitamin B-Acting: 80%

Gary Busey turns in a most intriguing performance. His “Saawthun” accent is a hoot, as are his ill-fitting tweed jackets. He swings back and forth between "bemused hamminess" and "zoned out." As long as you don’t blink, you’ll catch the moments when his acting talent comes out.

As for the rest of the cast, you can expect static, dull acting. Except for the mayor, who’s a total caricature of the Jaws mayor. 

Vitamin B-SFX: 10%

A few dismembered limbs and an explosion or two, but really nothing of note in B-movie terms.

The closest the movie comes to “cinematic art” occurs in the dream sequences involving the boy, Roy, and the tiger. You guessed it—they’re shot in soft, gauzy light with distorted camera angles. Sadly, we don’t witness the tiger actually talking to the boy, but it is tempting to envision them as Calvin and Hobbes.

"I haven't seen Susie Derkins lately..."

Vitamin Fun: 40%

The movie starts out strong—I mean, strong in the B-movie way, with lots of cheesiness. Then it turns into the most boring movie in the second half, with a flabby ending. Darn it, little Roy doesn’t even have a serious face-off with Hobbes in which he bellows to the heavens, “How could you betray me, Hobbes? I loved you! I defended you when everybody said you were a mindless killer!”

Seriously, though, the movie’s second half gets too concerned with exploring the characters’ tragic backstories and philosophizing about man’s relationship with nature. Oh, Hobbes kills a few people, but he’s hardly the main concern of the script. This script is heavy on sugar, which brings us to the next category…

Sugar: 50%

This one piles on the tragic backstories with a big red shovel:

1) Roy lives with a super-religious mother who homeschools him using the Bible. As a result, he’s lonely (except for Hobbes).

2) Grady and his wife can’t have children. Guess who they end up adopting when Hobbes eats the super-religious mother?

YUMMEE

3) We also meet Colonel James Livingston Graham, a British hunter who walked straight off a Masterpiece Theater production set in colonial Africa. Or India, as the case is with Graham. Anyway, once upon a time, while hunting a maneating tiger in India, Graham was sleeping in a hut with his family. The tiger crept inside and made off with his 12-year-old son. Graham was accused of messing up the hunt, and his reputation sullied. Will hunting Hobbes heal Graham’s inner wounds?

Plot Fiber: 70%

From what I’ve read of maneating tigers, it’s not at all implausible that Hobbes could evade his hunters and manage to kill a lot of people.  Of course, as per the laws of Syfy, the characters do dumb stuff like split themselves up while hunting for Hobbes. But still, Hobbes doesn’t possess any special powers—he’s not a genetically altered creature or the hideous result of a nuclear bomb. He does what tigers do best: hunt.

The movie also did a pretty good job of depicting the media and public frenzy that would go with the discovery of a maneater on the loose. (Though the websites that appear are very quaint by today’s standards.)

Graham, on the other hand…I want to know how his time travel from 1890s Africa worked. Did he have a DeLorean? Or did he arrive via a Jumanji board?