The Motorcycle Boy Reigns

For the most part, critics panned Rumble Fish. The primary criticism of the film was that it focused too much on style, leaving the story obfuscated by liberal amounts of smoke and painted shadows. For example, Janet Maslin, writing in the New York Times, said: “…the film is so furiously overloaded, so crammed with extravagant touches, that any hint of a central thread is obscured.”

The film later gained more admirers, not the least of which was the director himself, based on his commentary for the DVD release. Coppola envisioned Rumble Fish as an art film for teenagers to set it apart stylistically from The Outsiders, which he had completed filming just prior to Rumble Fish. Both were filmed on location in Tulsa, Oklahoma, featured many of the same actors, and were based on books by S.E. Hinton. At the time, Coppola was suffering from the failure of his own studio after the complete disaster of One from the Heart.

[Rumble Fish] is a deeply poetic and personal essay on adolescence and a sure sign that Coppola is seldom the man you want to hire for a mainstream, moneymaking project. (Thomson, p. 743)

Matt Dillon as Rusty James

Stephen Burum’s black-and-white cinematography is beautiful. Dean Tavoularis, his set design sprinkled with touches of expressionism that contrasted well with Coppola’s astute visual sense of realism, created a rich atmosphere that remains timeless. The moments when the design seems overbearing is where it too obviously reveals itself, such as a day scene when Rusty James visits his girlfriend Patty and the painted shadows on the front of the house from a prior night scene are still visible.

The story of Rumble Fish is simple. It’s about a man returning to his poverty-stricken neighborhood to rescue his younger brother from a life of gang fighting, but he gets killed in the process. It’s a story that resonates throughout history. The film evokes a reaction that might be less about the style than it is about the utter negation of meaning that the anti-hero portrays throughout the film, about which I’ll discuss more later.

The underlying theme, which is a bit overbearing, is the passing of time. While the time-lapse photography of clouds and night falling on the city make for excellent transition shots, the inclusion of clocks at every turn becomes almost ridiculous when Rusty James and the Motorcycle Boy walk over to a truck loaded with a huge clock face and stand against it. And, just so you don’t miss the point, Benny (Tom Waits) muses about time while wiping the counter at his cafe, which is the local hangout.

Tom Waits as Benny

Time is a funny thing. Time is a very peculiar item. When you’re young, you’re a kid, you got time. Throw away a couple of years here, a couple of years there. It doesn’t matter. You know? The older you get you say, “Jesus, how much I got?” I got thirty-five summers left. Think about it. Thirty-five summers.

But these minor annoyances do not detract from an exquisite black-and-white film with an original, driving soundtrack composed by Stewart Copeland. It’s a well-balanced blend of differing, and even risky, elements at a time when the teen film was about to become a formulaic rehash of suburban kids suffering through embarrassing moments in their lives. The urban, gritty nature of Rumble Fish stands out among the teen films of the time.

“Furthermore, film historians acknowledge in retrospect Coppola’s artistic courage in making an unrelentingly pessimistic picture about modern youth, which transcends the simplistic presentation of youngsters in more innocuous, safe teen flicks.” (Phillips, p. 225)

Although the story is told from the point of view of Rusty James, the beginning of the film makes clear that the main character is the Motorcycle Boy (Mickey Rourke). Two images in the opening seconds of the film show graffiti which declares, “The Motorcycle Boys Reigns.” It’s important to note that the signs say “reigns” instead of a more colloquial “rules,” which would be the language that Rusty James would use. The Motorcycle Boy, as the anti-hero, is a Socratic figure who has returned to the place where he has been charged with corrupting the youth by the one figure of authority in the film, Officer Patterson (William Smith).

Rusty James, Steve, Officer Patterson, and the Motorcycle Boy

Although the Motorcycle Boy holds a near mythic status among his admirers in the lower-class neighborhood where he grew up, he tells Rusty James that he’d prefer to remain a neighborhood novelty. He makes it clear that he did not return to bring back gangs and rumbles. When Rusty James pushes his brother about how he could lead people anywhere, the Motorcycle Boy says, “If you’re going to lead people, you need to have somewhere to go.”

Why, then, did the Motorcycle Boy return? The Motorcycle Boy, as a Socratic character and a corrupter of youth, returns to face his destiny: death. Perhaps he knows he is dying and chooses his own way out. Regardless of how or why he dies, it allows his younger brother a chance to escape and to get a better shot at life. This is where the creeping sensation of nihilism enters the film. While there are plenty of suggestions that the Motorcycle Boy might be crazy, others who are closest to him suggest that he sees the world differently, both in a literal sense (being color blind) and figuratively (a prince in exile, being born in the wrong era). Even his former girlfriend (Dianna Scarwid) says about him, “I thought he was gone for good. I was wrong. But I was right.”

Nowhere to go

The Motorcycle Boy tells Rusty James that he stopped being a kid when he was five years old. He grew up in a broken world in which he had to fight for survival and meaning. Once he gets outside that world, he realizes all the meaning and esteem he held from his leadership in the gangs amounts to nothing. He couldn’t escape it, so he had to come back to make sure all traces of his former glory were erased.

While in California during his two month absence, the Motorcycle Boy experienced a profound change. Seeing the mother who had abandoned them fifteen years earlier may have been the moment he knew there was only one way to save his brother. When he finally tells Rusty James about seeing their mother, Rusty James is angry at him for waiting so long. The Motorcycle Boy finishes the story of how their mother left and took him with her, causing their father to get drunk and leave Rusty James alone for three days (which is the basis for his fear of being alone). When Rusty James asks why he didn’t tell him that before, the Motorcycle Boy says that he didn’t think it would do him any good. He knows Rusty James doesn’t learn through stories.

Rusty James steers the conversation back to California, asking his brother what it was like. He replies, “California’s like a beautiful, wild girl on heroin … who’s high as a kite, thinking she’s on top of the world, not knowing she’s dying even if you show her the marks.”

I didn't think it would do you any good.

The Motorcycle Boy knows that at the rate Rusty James is getting into fights, he will end up like the girl on heroin. He fears that Rusty James still identifies with his former self. While Rusty James wants them to get the gangs going again so they can rule their side of the river, the Motorcycle Boy has no such plans. Whatever is happening in the Motorcycle Boy’s head, his younger brother has no clue. As Steve says about the Motorcycle Boy, “I never know what he’s thinking, but you, Rusty James, I always know what you’re thinking.”

Near the end of the film, their father (Dennis Hopper) says of the Motorcycle Boy: “He was born in the wrong era, on the wrong side of the river, with the ability to be able to do anything he wants and finding nothing that he wants to do. I mean nothing.” Similarly, in a scene at a pool hall, Steve wonders aloud if there is anything the Motorcycle Boy can’t do. He seems to be gifted at everything he does but finds no pleasure in doing anything.

Waiting for the pet store to close

“One of the two core symptoms of human depression is anhedonia, the loss of interest or pleasure in daily activities. Daily stressful life events are recognized as predisposing factors in the etiology of depression.” [Source: http://biopsychiatry.com/anhedonia.html]

While explaining his past to a bruised and beaten Rusty James and a frustrated Steve, the Motorcycle Boy says that he eventually found rumbles to be a big bore. In addition to the Motorcycle Boy’s hardness of hearing and color blindness, he might equally suffer from anhedonia. This lack of ability to experience pleasure is referenced obliquely when Rusty James asks his brother how the ocean was. The Motorcycle Boy tells him that he never made it to the ocean because California got in the way. Likewise, he can’t find pleasure in life because it, too, gets in the way.

Later, right before the Motorcycle Boy and Rusty James take a ride on a motorcycle that the Motorcycle Boy steals (one of his bad habits), Rusty James says, “I feel like I’m wasting my life, waiting for something. I wish I had a reason to leave.” Throughout the film, his older brother has been subtly trying to give him reasons. For example, in a scene when the Motorcycle Boy, Rusty James, and Steve are walking across a bridge, they stop to look at the river. Rusty James comments on how his brother likes the river but then turns his back to it while drinking from a bottle. The Motorcycle Boys says the river goes all the way to the ocean. Rusty James then makes Steve take a drink from his bottle. Steve doesn’t like it but Rusty James tells him it will get you where you need to go.

"You should pray to God not."

Rusty James spends a good portion of the film talking about how he thinks he will be just like his older brother. Even their own father, upon hearing Rusty James declare that he thinks he will be just like the Motorcycle Boy, says, “You should pray to God not.” The Motorcycle Boy knows that the only way for him to break the spell he has over his younger brother is through death. Rusty James sees himself as a reflection of his brother. At the pet store, the Motorcycle Boy shows Rusty James how rumble fish will try to fight their own reflection. Later, when they return to the pet store to steal the fish, the Motorcycle Boy finally says to Rusty James, “I wish I were the big brother you always wanted. But I can’t be what I want any more than you can.” He finally breaks the reflection that Rusty James has been seeing.

The Motorcycle Boy is convinced that the fish wouldn’t fight if they were free to swim in the river. He feels the same about his brother, that he wouldn’t fight if he were free of his confining environment. At the same time, he also knows that Rusty James needs to be free from himself, the idolized Motorcycle Boy, the reflection that he fights to maintain.

In an excerpt from one of the deleted scenes on the DVD, Steve tells Rusty James that if he hangs out with the Motorcycle Boy for too long, he won’t believe in anything. The Motorcycle Boy spends the entirety of the film destroying all meaning he had previously created and his life ends up no more valued than the life of the fish he tried to take to the river. Mickey Rourke approached the character of the Motorcycle Boy as “an actor who no longer finds his work interesting.” (Goodwin, p. 347)

No longer finding his work interesting

At the end, when Rusty James sees his own reflection in the police car window, he smashes it, finally breaking himself free. It’s a painful and sad moment of release. Now that he no longer has his brother to look up to, he must find his own way. It ties back to the beginning of the film when Midget (Laurence Fishburne) tells Rusty James that Biff Wilcox is looking for him. Rusty James says he’s not hiding. He then tells him that Biff wants to kill him. Rusty James replies, “Saying ain’t doing.” Rusty James had been hiding behind his brother’s reputation the whole time, saying that it didn’t matter. Now he must face the reality of it.

The final song that plays over the end credits further reinforces the notion of breaking free from confinement. The song is titled “Don’t Box Me In.” In the case of the Motorcycle Boy, Rumble Fish explores what happens when we reject all the boxes we have previously been in. Will it free us from having to accept predicted ways of behavior or will it lead to our untimely demise? What happens when we feel we have nowhere to go? Even in the end of the film, everyone inadvertently follows the Motorcycle Boy down to the river, leaving them all with nowhere else to go.

Rumble Fish is the strongest evidence yet that Coppola is a challenge to the system. (…) The system produces films that do not require abstract or symbolic thinking. Rumble Fish is a demanding film for people with expectations conditioned by standard Hollywood product. (Chown, p. 168)

References:

• “Have You Seen . . . ?”: A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films, David Thomson, Knopf, 2010
• Hollywood Auteur: Francis Coppola, Jeffrey Chown, Praeger Publishers, 1988
• On the Edge: The Life and Times of Francis Coppola, Michael Goodwin and Naomi Wise, William Morrow & Co, 1989
• Godfather: The Intimate Francis Ford Coppola, Gene D. Phillips, The University Press of Kentucky, 2004

Mickey Rourke as The Motorcycle Boy

Lidia outside the hospital

La Notte‘s story centers around Marcello Mastroianni’s character of Giovanni, a successful writer who has recently published a new book. His wife, Lidia (Jeanne Moreau), provides mere window dressing for Giovanni in the beginning of the film. When they visit a dying friend named Tommaso in the hospital, Lidia remains aloof in the hospital room, refusing to sit and join her husband and Tommaso in a celebratory drink of champagne. Lidia’s distance in the hospital room seems to indicate that Giovanni was the closer friend to Tommaso, but when Lidia leaves the room on short notice and is outside the hospital, her feelings overcome her. This shifts the film toward her as the main character.

Lidia breaking free becomes the central action of the film, just as Anna disappearing in L’Avventura became the turning point in that film. In the case of La Notte, Lidia struggles to find herself instead of someone else, which is made more difficult because she is defined by her husband and his success as a writer. Lidia has no identity of her own.

Lidia’s story … is the story of a woman’s realization of how totally irrelevant her role is in her man’s life and of her dilemma as to what to do.” Cottino-Jones, p. 122

Lidia trapped in the car

When Giovanni tries to leave the hospital, his salacious encounter with a female patient occupies him until their embrace is broken up by nurses. The young woman in the hospital is physically caged because of her overt sexual desire, which enticed Giovanni into following her. When caught, however, the nurses restrain and strike the woman while Giovanni rushes safely out of the room. Giovanni joins his wife outside the hospital but fails to attend to, or even acknowledge, her emotional needs. This contrast of Giovanni’s character serves to further highlight Lidia’s situation.

While in the car, Lidia remains silent, not addressing the looks Giovanni gives her. When they encounter a traffic jam, Giovanni finally addresses her but Lidia’s answers are terse. Giovanni confesses to his encounter with the woman in the hospital, but Lidia shows no surprise. That Lidia guessed he went into her room on his own volition suggests Lidia is no stranger to his behavior. She tells Giovanni, “Perhaps she’s the lucky one.” Giovanni, perplexed, asks why. Lidia replies, “She’s uncontrollable.” This is the first outright statement from Lidia about her predicament.

Lidia is the background for Giovanni

The car scene physically reinforces Lidia’s feeling of being trapped. Giovanni, in control of the car as it careens down the road, seems stunned by her reaction to his encounter with the woman, but Lidia is already plotting her escape from the cages that contain her. When they finally arrive at the book party for Giovanni, Lidia leaves her husband’s side and walks among the guests. She quickly ditches the party, however, and heads out into the open streets of Milan, on her own terms.

Lidia escaping from a cage

Once Lidia escapes into the city, her walk and mood seem lighter as she lets herself meander.  When she takes a cab to a different section of the city, however, her lightness begins to recede. She encounters some young men fighting. She intervenes, telling them to stop. They do and turn their attention to her. As she runs away, one runs after her but stops at a fence, a man trapped within his own cage of meaningless violence.

At this point in the film, while Lidia explores her independence, the male characters are displayed trapped in their own cages, such as the young man who pursued Lidia. This idea of the male cage is best summed up in the book Antonioni, the Poet of Images: “Present, too, in La Notte is the imagery of enclosure that is so prominent in Il Grido, but here already evolving into the imagery of imprisonment—caged feelings and suppressed realities—that will dominate Eclipse, hinting in that film of the violence lurking and looming under the deceptively placid surface of the world, with its solid appearances and stolid certainties.” (Arrowsmith, p. 52) [Emphasis mine]

Young man in his own cage

While Lidia roams, Giovanni is trapped in his domestic cage as he waits for her to return, first in his book-lined study and later on his balcony where bars separate his space from his neighbor’s. During his conversation with the woman next door, a bird tweets and flutters in a cage on the woman’s balcony, reinforcing the similar condition of the humans nearby. Giovanni holds onto the bars, as if a prisoner in his own home. The balcony’s darkness is split only by a thin sliver of the fading light of day, faint hope for a grim situation.

Giovanni in his own cage

Lidia finally calls Giovanni to pick her up in a section of town where they lived earlier in their relationship. Once he arrives, she tries to invoke some interest from him but he remains aloof. They discuss the possibility of going to a party in the evening. When Lidia says she wants to go, Giovanni seems surprised, but when push comes to shove, neither are excited by the prospect. Back in their apartment as they prepare for their night out, Lidia gets out of the tub to ask Giovanni for a towel. As she stands naked, Giovanni remains unmoved by her nakedness, handing her towel as if it were just another duty.

The couple decides to hit a nightclub first, in part to hedge against their decision to go to the party and to attempt to loosen up. At the nightclub, a black woman dances and performs acrobatic feats with a filled wine glass. This performance only seems to deepen Lidia’s understanding of her own situation, providing her with a breakthrough moment, causing her to smile. Giovanni asks what she is thinking, but Lidia refuses to tell him. It’s a lucid moment for Lidia that could be mistaken as her getting over the feelings she has been experiencing thus far.

Lidia and Valentina

After driving through open gates, they walk toward the house where the party is being held. Once at the open front door, no one is around. Giovanni wonders aloud if they are all dead, to which Lidia says, “Let’s hope so.” They find the party in the back of the house, gathered around a race horse and rider. Once the group breaks apart, Lidia and Giovanni begin mingling, each on their own terms. Lidia consciously avoids people who would cage her, settling for her own company if that of others tends toward entrapment. She briefly joins Giovanni with the rich couple who are hosting the party. Lidia boldly inserts several comments about Giovanni into the discussion that reveal her new outlook on life. Giovanni, however, does not welcome this change.

As Lidia wanders around, she spots Valentina (Monica Vitti) at the bottom of the stairs. The two exchange glances: Lidia from up high, Valentina from down low. This arrangement sets up their uneven interaction, which eventually finds middle ground even as it gets more complicated, thanks to Giovanni. When he first spots Valentina, she is behind glass and alone, what appears to be the ideal situation for Giovanni: a caged, single woman. But unlike his encounter in the hospital, Valentina does not throw herself at him.

Giovanni spots Valentina

Valentina’s father, the rich businessman hosting the party, does, however, throw himself at Giovanni, offering him a well-paid position at his company. Giovanni is reluctant to take the position because it represents a potential cage for Giovanni. The scene physically feels like a cage as the businessman’s office is covered in photos of his factories, lots of pipes that feel like bars in a cage. The businessman stresses how the position would provide stability, which is not what Giovanni is looking for. The only thing that prevents him from an outright refusal of the offer is the possibility of becoming closer to Valentina.

Another cage: Valentina is walking by it

While Giovanni plays cat and mouse with Valentina, Lidia calls the hospital and finds out that Tommaso has died. She retreats into herself for a while, deeply saddened. When she sees Giovanni kissing Valentina, she is reminded of her cage and looks for an escape. A sudden downpour provides a release for Lidia, and as she is about to dive into the swimming pool, a man who has been eyeing her the whole night whisks her away in his car. Compared to the earlier scene in which Lidia was trapped in the car with Giovanni, the silent scene of Lidia and her captor driving slowly in the rain reveals a different side of Lidia. The lack of audible dialogue reinforces the idea of Lidia’s freedom in the moment. When they finally stop and get out of the car, Lidia tells the man she is not interested. She knows it would only be swapping one cage for another. She remains true to her self, not to Giovanni.

This forces Lidia back into her cage

When the power goes out back at the party, Giovanni searches for Valentina, the darkness providing cover for a tryst. Just as they are about to kiss, the lights come back. Soon after, Lidia returns, soaked. Valentina, still with Giovanni, offers to help her dry off. Lidia is unsure of Valentina’s intentions and asks her directly. Valentina jokingly assures Lidia that she only wants to help Lidia get herself dry. With the air cleared, the women bond and Lidia opens up to Valentina, leading to the following dialogue right as Giovanni enters the room.

Lidia: “You don’t know what it is to feel the weight of years, in vain… I just feel like dying. An end to this agony, something new…”
Valentina: “It may be nothing.”
Lidia: “Yes, it may be nothing.”

Jeanne Moreau, Marcello Mastroianni, and Monica Vitti

Upon hearing Lidia’s despair, Giovanni, knowing that his night is over, tells her that they are leaving. Each says their bit to Valentina, while she admits to not understanding them at all. Dawn breaks outside, seemingly providing a new day for everyone.

As Giovanni and Lidia walk along the golf course at dawn, Lidia decides to reveal her true feelings to Giovanni. She realizes that Tommaso loved her for who she was and wanted to help her grow, but she was attracted to Giovanni and followed her biological instincts instead of her reasoning.

Leaving Valentina

At this point, she knows she has nothing to lose. As they sit on the edge of a sand trap, she reads aloud a love letter Giovanni wrote to her many years ago, one that Giovanni doesn’t remember or recognize. His inability to recall these intimate feelings he wrote to Lidia sums up her case against him. But Giovanni doesn’t want to admit defeat. He needs to have someone inside his cage, and since he has failed with other women throughout the film, Lidia is the only one who remains. Giovanni envelopes Lidia, against her protestations. Lidia remains trapped in Giovanni’s cage.

In La Notte, Lidia represents the purposeless. When she breaks free in the film, she wanders without a goal or end in sight, letting life take her where it may. When it only takes her to her own past, it reinforces her present situation. What was it that led to this state for Lidia? She passed up Tommaso to be with Giovanni. Her choice, based on following her feelings, ended with her being all alone, just like Tommaso dying in his hospital bed. He is able to die, aided through his suffering with morphine. Lidia must bear her suffering. For Lidia, life has lost all meaning now that she clearly sees her relationship with Giovanni is merely a convenience.

La Notte gets at the heart of human purpose. Lidia has let someone else define her purpose and when that vanishes, she loses the will to continue living. In the first half, the film shows the cages people create for themselves, at times quite literally. When Lidia realizes that she doesn’t love Giovanni anymore, it destroys her reason for living, but she must remain in the cage created by and for her.

Caught in a sand trap, forever

Tarkovsky on the embrace between Lidia and Giovanni at the end of the film: “like the embrace of two people who are drowning.” Brunette, p. 72

La Notte, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni

• Marcello Mastroianni as Giovanni
• Jeanne Moreau as Lidia
• Monica Vitti as Valentina
• Bernhard Wicki as Tommaso

References:
Women, Desire, and Power in Italian Cinema, Marga Cottino-Jones, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010
Antonioni: The Poet of Images, William Arrowsmith, Oxford University Press, 1995
The Films of Michelangelo Antonioni, Peter Brunette, Cambridge University Press, 1998

Nihilism in Film and Television: A Critical Overview from Citizen Kane to the Sopranos

Through the rise of Christianity, the European Enlightenment, and the nation-state, the modern age became more and more defined by a collectivist slave-morality. As Nietzsche points out, there are indeed only two escape routes for those individuals who will not conform blindly to some abstract “common good” that levels everything that was formerly unique and inspiring to mere averageness. These individuals can either rise above the crowd as creators of their own values (active nihilists) or else sink into the dark and life-negating abyss of passive nihilism.

David Thewlis as Johnny

In Mike Leigh’s Naked (1993), Johnny (David Thewlis) walks the line between the active and the passive nihilist. Johnny is a character so despicably likeable that it becomes too easy to dismiss him, and the rest of the film, with a simple, sweeping negation. Naked certainly unveils a misogyny that runs through modern urban life, but the film itself does not deserve the misogynistic label, which is more apt for those Hollywood rom-coms that portray a female character who must find a man to fulfill her needs or desires. Depiction and intent are not the same thing. The film makes this clear from the opening scene, leaving enough ambiguity about the action taking place without telling the viewer if it is right or wrong.

The two primary male characters, Johnny and Sebastian (also called Jeremy), do not treat women well. The brutality, however difficult it is to watch, is true to their opposing positions in the world. Sebastian occupies a position of power, depicted by wealth and status. Sebastian maintains his position through domination and humiliation. Johnny, on the other hand, is powerless, and while he shares in humiliation of his fellow human beings, it comes from a need to connect rather than dominate.

Johnny functions as a mirror, showing people how they are victims of a world that has no compassion for their plights. This plays out through Johnny physically and verbally. Even when Johnny himself becomes a victim, he knows it’s just part of the cycle. As Johnny himself says in the film, he fled Manchester to avoid a beating and got one in London instead. As much as he can’t avoid what’s coming to him, he gets it anyway. This, viewer, is what you have coming to you.

Don't let him in.

The film unfolds through Johnny’s encounters with other people. He arrives in London at the flat of an old girlfriend but meets her unemployed roommate Sophie (Katrin Cartlidge) instead. Sophie falls for the quick-witted Johnny instantly, and they engage in (consensual) sexual intercourse after Johnny lambasts his old flame Louise (Lesley Sharp) when she comes home from work. Johnny’s disdain for Louise’s new life hints at his own hurt over their former relationship. It’s a familiar tactic used by men to mask their feelings.

Sophie becomes a bit too attached to Johnny, forcing him to flee their flat for the cold world outside. Out on the street, he encounters a Scottish man looking for his girlfriend. The entire sequence between the three outsiders on the street is one of the best of the film. It not only reveals Johnny’s more compassionate and playful side but also his understanding of the meaninglessness of his act of helping the Scottish runaways find each other.

Johnny moves on again

After Johnny’s efforts to do good are ruined by the ignorance and selfishness of those he helped, he is left without any acknowledgement of his kindness. This scene exemplifies the underpinnings of Johnny’s caustic nature, which unfortunately plays itself out with those closest to him. How often are we kinder to strangers than to those closest to us? Johnny represents this notion in the extreme.

It is only when the tables get turned on Johnny that a sense of compassion toward his character is able to form. Yet just as that compassion gets warmed up, his brutality shines through again. After a long scene where he trades theories of life with a night watchman, Johnny visits the watchman’s object of interest: an older woman across the street who dances alone in front of her apartment window. Johnny pays her a visit while the night watchman looks on from his darkened office building. Johnny’s actions leave them both feeling violated.

Johnny meets his match.

The watchman, like the viewer, is not amused by Johnny’s behavior. When the watchman ends their brief relationship over breakfast, Johnny quickly finds someone else to engage in his game. The quiet and sultry waitress at the cafe is initially intrigued by Johnny, silently allowing him to follow her home. Johnny provides her with an invitation to let him come in, which she takes.

Once inside, however, Johnny tones down his attitude, almost reaching out to this quiet, dark woman. He uses his wit to get her to open up, but she only opens up a can of beans. For the first time in the film, Johnny meets someone who is able to disarm him through her own silence. Her face seems to hide something that Johnny can’t unearth. And just as he is settled and cozy, Johnny gets a taste of what it is like to be on the other side of falling for a person who can only push you away.

Are you with me, love?

Johnny’s London getaway continues its decline, but he doesn’t let that stop him from taking a piss with the recently returned third roommate back at the flat where his adventure started. There is even a brief moment that seems to break the fourth wall, almost a wink at the viewer who is watching closely enough. Johnny, perhaps, has been playing with all of us.

Mr. Thewlis read extensively in order to bring Johnny to life but, unfortunately, made him a bit too much of a religious kook rather than a philosophical kook. While I appreciate the excellent work that David Thewlis put in to improvising Johnny’s dialogue, I would have made some changes to his reading list. If he had read Nietzsche instead of Nostradamus, the result would have been more powerful and more in line with the character’s actions.

Johnny’s nihilism comes off as a cruel joke, but on nobody in particular. Johnny provoked the other characters by tearing apart their ideals, yet his prophetic rantings could also be easily torn apart. Unfortunately, Johnny did not sink to the depths of a nihilist who has devalued all values. Instead he chooses to hang on to a few cherished notions and myths, which is perhaps why he found himself in so much trouble.

The crash site

While the opening of Fearless hooks the viewer instantly, the rest of the film relies on the performances of its two main characters, played by Jeff Bridges and Rosie Perez. The remainder of the supporting cast, which includes Isabella Rosselini, John Turterro, and Bennicio Del Toro, provide one-dimensional filler for the lead actors. Regardless of its shortcomings, Fearless leaves an impression that is difficult to shake off. Don’t see this film prior to flying.

Max, after being located by investigators and encouraged to return home to his wife and kid, finds that his normal life holds no interest for him. He also avoids the attention heaped upon him by the media for being a hero who saved many people during the crash. Carla (Rosie Perez), on the other hand, lost her baby boy during the crash and has not been able to move on since. A therapist, played too over-the-top by John Tuturro, brings Carla and Max together in an attempt to heal each other. Carla holds all her meaning in her dead child, while Max realizes there never was meaning to begin with.

Carla and Max

Max accompanies Carla to her church where she lights a candle and prays. Max, surveying the scenery, laughs out loud at the setting, which does not sit well with Carla. He then delivers the best line of the film: “People don’t believe in god so much as they choose not to believe in nothing.” Max’s nihilism-by-accident is further tested by a lawyer who is trying to win a huge settlement for Max and the family of Max’s dead architect partner. Max is unwilling to lie about what he saw during the crash. He finds their reasons for seeking financial gain trivial compared to the new view of life he is experiencing.

Max and Carla continue to grow closer to each other, much to the dismay of their respective spouses. But just as Max and Carla’s relationship seems to be bringing them both back to normal, Carla breaks down again, blaming herself for the loss of her baby. Max goes to an extreme to prove to Carla that the death of her child wasn’t her fault. The build-up to this climatic scene suffers from a bad choice of music, unfortunately, which weakens the scene’s impact.

After the dusts settles and the last twang of guitar fades, Carla is healed but Max remains scarred, emotionally speaking. By saving Carla, he loses her relationship, forcing him to go back to his normal life. He realizes he can no longer maintain his position outside his own life. Fortunately, the filmmakers set up a gimmick that will get Max where he wants to go. They beat it into the ground worse than the landing gear of the plane that crashed. And while anyone can see the gimmick coming from a mile away, the strength of the film’s ending comes from the flashbacks that Max experiences because of the gimmick.

The whisper of nihilism

Experiencing the actual crash provides the first-person perspective that allows the viewer a glimpse into Max’s loss of meaning. It’s a strong demonstration of how fragile our lives are. When Max realized the plane was going to crash, he whispered to himself: “This is it. This is the moment of your death.” That scene reminded me of a quote from a rabbi who discovered he had cancer: “What have I left undone? That marching song of purpose is quickly undermined by the whisper of nihilism: so what if you’ve left something undone?” Once Max realized his situation and accepted it, he was able to take action and help calm the other passengers, many of whom he saved.

Max’s nihilism may not represent a permanent fixture in his life but was something he had to experience in order to regain his perspective. When faced with death, the meaning he had assigned to life suddenly seemed trivial. The only way to move forward was to take active control of his nihilism. Once the meaning dissolved away, he decided what he wanted to do.

The primary theme of Universal Soldier – The Return (1999) is one that has been neglected for far too long in Hollywood: Can zombies reproduce and become productive members of society?

Based on flashbacks in the The Return and information gleaned elsewhere, the U.S. Army, in conjunction with a private company called Ryan-Lathrop, took some frozen dead soldiers from the Vietnam War and reconstituted them into Universal Soldiers (their slogan is UniSols 2500: Dying to Serve), who are stronger and whose only requirement for R&R is time in a walk-in freezer. For The Return, they improved somewhat on the (beta) zombie soldiers with new 2.0 releases, but still encountered a few bugs to work out.

Our hero Luc, played by Jean-Claude Van Damme, is himself one of the original beta versions of the UniSol. And he has an eleven-year-old daughter. So, yes, zombies, apparently, can reproduce with humans. Which is gross and should be outlawed. But, wait, there are more questions that need to be answered.

A great opening

The film opens with a fascinating look at a winged, horse-like creature. Oh, that’s the TriStar logo. When the film does begin, a pervasive sense of danger looms, thanks, in part, to the camera moving through a building that has more warning signs than the Surgeon General’s supply closet. After the opening titles, a montage of swamp shots is interrupted by a loud motorboat/jet ski chase, in which our hero and his sexy female Asian sidekick are pursued by muscular guys in black. Shots are fired. Fortunately, no one is hit.

Turns out this whole scene was a military exercise with the 2.0 version of the UniSols. But not for long. Due to budget constraints, the military is cutting the UniSol program, which they were never comfortable with in the first place, since it was run by a private company. Also, zombies creep them out. Luc reminds the Army general that zombies are better than real young American soldiers dying. I think that was a message.

Back at the company’s headquarters in Dallas (naturally), the human-voiced all-knowing computer named Seth, which resembles a Rubik’s cube in a large, round lava lamp, senses that something is not right in Texas and decides to take control of the situation, but not before helping Luc’s daughter with her homework. There are no other movies with which to compare this idea of a computer taking control. We’re in new territory here.

An angry Seth computer, not Hal

Once Seth seizes control of the UniSols and kills the smartest guy in the room, the Army is forced to move outside and set up a tent. The Army general is not happy. Five UniSols come out to play, and the general orders them shot. The UniSols fall down amid a blaze of gunfire. But not for long. Cue heavy metal music and lots of explosions. Many white soldiers are killed so the Army calls in a black guy. Yes, one black guy.

Amid all this chaos and death, a female reporter from a local news station has followed Luc demanding to know what is going on. Luc, however, is concerned for his daughter, who he entrusted in the care of his sexy Asian sidekick. She, however, allowed the daughter to suffer a head injury while fighting off the biggest UniSol of the bunch, who is so mean he always sneers and says things like, “I don’t like that guy.”

To top it all off, Luc and the previously mentioned smartest guy in the room (now deceased) are the only people in the world who have the secret code that Seth the computer needs in order to keep himself running. If Seth does not get the code, he’ll suffer the blue screen of death in a matter of hours. In order to improve his chances of getting the code from Luc, Seth has inserted a mobile version of himself into the brain of a large, muscular black zombie soldier. Since the previously mentioned good black soldier was killed, the story can now proceed with the traditional Western version of good versus bad.

The situation looks dire. Two truckloads of UniSols have escaped, headed toward Fort Worth perhaps. Luc and the female reporter need to check their email, but they don’t have an internet connection. Power is out all over Dallas. Who in the world would still have an internet connection?

Three boobies

Enter strip club. If the core audience has become uncomfortable with all the hunky half-clothed guys, they can now get some wood on thanks to multitudes of fake boobies at the strip club, before moving to the next heavy-metal laced scene of violence and destruction. Don’t think for a moment that all the fake boobies are gratuitous. They are a metaphor of society’s desire to make things bigger and better, much like the military did with the UniSols. But the pressure for bigger boobies (or zombie soldiers and smart-ass computers) will eventually work against us, threatening our existence. This film sends a strong message about using technology and reconstructive surgery to make everything, boobies or soldiers, bigger and better.

The embodied Seth chokes Luc

Our hero Luc says the only way to kill a UniSol is “to blow them up and hope the pieces don’t keep fighting us.” Again, I’ve searched far and wide to find any other films that may have delved into similar scenarios but have to conclude that USTR is entirely original is this respect. As it is, I’m having a difficult time completing my review because I want to smash my computer into little bits, for the sake of humanity.

And so the battle of centralized techno-plastic surgery versus former zombie turned caring father comes to a head. Luc has a choice, offered to him by the embodied Seth. Give him the code to save his life so he can take over the world and kill all humanity, and Luc’s daughter lives. Or don’t give Seth the code and Luc’s daughter dies from her head injury, which does seem to bother Seth a little since he has spent so much time helping her with her homework.

Actually, strike that choice. Seth has been multitasking and cracked the code himself. Game over.

Game over for Seth (don't ask)

Not yet. Luc didn’t die, come back as a zombie, and father a child for nothing. Plus the Army has wired the building with explosives, which should be going off any moment. Luc, after taking out Seth through a tedious battle with lots of broken glass, tries to make his escape but the big UniSol zombie who has been after him all movie prevents it. To make matters worse, sexy Asian sidekick, who was killed earlier by the UniSols, turned into a zombie soldier herself, and then shot again by Luc, has returned to finish Luc off.

Game over for sure. No! Sexy Asian former sidekick zombie sticks true to her man and shoots the big UniSol bully instead of Luc. Zombies can make right after all. I think this is good news for fake boobies, too. But what about the future of Luc and his daughter?

Thanks to my secret sources, there is another chapter of Universal Soldier in the works and the synopsis goes something like this: Luc takes his daughter (half zombie herself) to a small town where they start over. Luc marries a nice woman and opens a coffee shop on Main Street. Daughter gets bullied at school. Luc encounters bad men at coffee shop and kills them. Daughter goes off on bullies at school. Bad men come after Luc, revealing his secret zombie past to his family. Will they stick by him?

Again, sounds like Universal Soldier is charting new territory. If you want fresh ideas, Universal Soldier films should be in your future.

This review is part of the the Third Annual White Elephant Film Blogathon.

The script was well researched, providing a powerful punch in the opening half, culminating with the riots in Watts in 1965. But it is also here where the film spends too much time on a point that is made well but repeatedly. Police repression had reached a point where the residents of South Central had no option but to fight back with everything at their disposal.

The complexity of Crips and Bloods: Made in America is handled straightforwardly, and the film allows the gang members to speak for themselves. This was one part of the film I was left wanting more of, the human portraits of the people who must deal with this condition on an hour-by-hour basis.

Some of the interviews were too staged, even when using a room with walls covered in graffiti. The filmmaker tried to overcome this in post-production by layering on his trademark style. It resulted in a film where too many formalist methods competed for my attention when I was wanting to focus on the story at hand.

The extraneous camera movement was like having someone point to where they wanted me to focus at every turn, instead of me being able to let my gaze find its own way. I tend toward the realist camp but appreciate formalist styles that speak to the story. I felt there were too many different stylistic treatments competing for my interests. I’d prefer letting some of the raw images speak for themselves.

While I initially applauded the use of current mapping technology to help me wrap my head around the geographical elements of the story, it felt like a Dateline segment after repeated uses of flashpoints on the maps. The cliched use of white flashes along with gunfire to pump up still images of gangsters with guns also fell into that TV news-show style.

Toward the end of the film, the message came across too hard and heavy and went over the edge when crying mothers whose sons had been murdered were presented one after another, staged in the graffiti room and with subtitles telling the names and ages of those who had been killed. This whole bit came across like a UNICEF commercial, and it was at that point when I was wondering when the film was going to wrap up. There were several moments where the end seemed to be there, but wasn’t. The ending became a montage of all the good quotations and segments that either didn’t fit in elsewhere or were deemed too valuable to cut.

As much as I didn’t care for the film’s style, it presented a thoughtful attack on government policies and social prejudices that have created the worst imaginable scenario for people who are supposed to be living in an equal society but who experience anything but equality and freedom. In particular, it showed how and why the typical hard-handed response from authorities does not work.

12 Angry Men had already been a TV movie prior to Henry Fonda taking it on as producer and star. The original story and script by Reginald Rose was expanded upon by the same, and Lumet, a director with TV experience, was chosen to direct. To his own credit, Lumet said he was naive enough to not know what would be problematic about directing a film that takes place almost entirely in one small room. The tension he was able to elicit from the cast, almost all from a TV background as well, provided a memorable start to what has been a long and interesting career.

The story is about one man on a jury for a murder trial who has doubts, although his fellow jurors are all ready to find a guilty verdict and be done.

The Ten Minute Mark

It’s fitting that juror #8, played by Henry Fonda, is not in this frame. Although ten minutes have elapsed, nothing has really happened, other than the jurors filing into the room to begin their deliberations. They’re trying to get started and are fetching the old man (juror #9) from the restroom. Several jurors have chatted with each other but #8 remained aloof, nay, even standoffish, when approached by others. It’s as if he were trying not be a part of the group, as if he were better than them. Did I mention juror #8 is an architect?

The Forty Minute Mark

Now juror #8 is front and center and facing his chief nemesis, juror #3, played wonderfully by Lee Cobb. It is from his point of view that the camera begins pushing into juror #8 as he tries to persuade the others that the evidence presented in court might not be as sound as they think. The camera forces juror #8 into the corner (or perhaps into the women’s restroom). The jurors sitting next to him don’t want to look at him. He’s making this difficult, and he’s a bit passive-aggressive about it.

The Seventy Minute Mark

The rain has helped cool the room and the tensions down, as well as darkening the mood. And juror #8 begins moving in for the kill. He has convinced five others to go along with him at this point in the film and is now working on the ones who seem the most difficult to convince, including juror #4 shown here, played by E.G. Marshall. In addition to the rain pouring on juror #4 in the window behind him, the camera has also begun closing in on him, using juror #8′s arm and leg to help frame his capture. It’s hard to argue against brilliant cinematography. Give it up, jurors, this is #8′s film.

Those three frames of the film capture the essence of progression of the story well. Juror #8 is almost invisible at the beginning, becomes center stage, and then turns the table on the others.

Refried Flicks thinks so and has found a niche reviving bad movies (one so far) through the addition of new dialogue. They took a B movie from the public domain (an expired copyright speaks to how bad it was), recorded new dialogue and added a few scenes, and released it as their own. In this case, Killers From Space (1954) was reborn as Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (2002).

If someone had sent me a YouTube link featuring a few select scenes from this film, I may have found it brilliant, especially if it were under ten minutes. But Refried Flicks made their re-creation longer than the original film’s already lengthy 71 minute running time. And while I do appreciate a good act of subversive art, I want it to rise above fart jokes and stereotypes about gay people for over an hour.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) did make me laugh out loud a couple times, but the original movie may have had the same effect in a “it’s so bad it’s almost good” way. DADT, however, had potential to be much more than a sophomoric retelling of the original. While the premise works as a commentary on the military’s idiotic policy toward homosexuals in the armed forces, their addition of tired jokes about the current administration did not flow with the original footage. They could have taken a few lessons from Todd Haynes’s Far From Heaven and kept the focus on the period of the original movie, letting their message about today’s policies speak on their own, while still maintaining the humor. DADT was released early in Act I of the current administration, before most of us started suffering outrage fatigue, so maybe the Bush-Cheney jokes were fresher then.

The main character, Doug Fartin (Martin in the original) who is played by Peter Graves, is abducted by aliens and transformed into a gay man as part of a plot by the aliens to turn everyone into a homosexual. The primary gay-determining factor is that he uses the word fabulous all the time. There is one scene in the original film that has strong gay overtones, but it is overshadowed by the flimsy use of cheeky dialogue and accents.

DADT’s added scenes also detract from the film’s potential. Aside from being way over the top and poorly acted, the new scenes don’t hold up on their own and are not matched well with the original. It also doesn’t help that one person plays almost all the characters in the added scenes, and he’s no Eddie Murphy. The film does include some added gratuitous nudity here and there, which signals a last-minute move by the filmmakers to keep some people interested.

The filmmakers surely didn’t intend this piece as a reel for their sound work. On top of the poor sound, the music was annoying. Sometimes, good sound or a few decent tunes can fill in gaps in the acting or story. They only dug themselves a deeper hole.

Having said all that, any serious film geek needs to watch this movie. The filmmakers broke new ground with their use of blueberry pancakes. It is one of the few added scenes worth keeping, and, while poorly shot, it is a scene that you need to be able to reference in your film history and theory repertoire. Imagine being at a party with a bunch of film buffs and one says, “I’m so hungry I could eat blueberry pancakes off your butt.” As they’re laughing, you’re trying to figure out what film they’re referencing. Actually, now that I’ve told you, you needn’t watch the film.

Refried Flicks had a good idea but not enough time nor money to spend on the execution. If you want a better idea of what the movie is like without adding it to your Netflix queue, download Killers From Space from archive.org, invite some friends over, and watch it with the sound off. Every time you see Peter Graves and any other character on screen, use a funny voice to say, “Hey, Mr. Fartin” and then use a regular voice to say, “It’s pronounced far-tayn!” From there, make up your own dialogue. Turn it into a drinking game. Whatever you end up with, it can’t be much worse than Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

This review is part of the Second Annual White Elephant Film Blogathon.