RECENTLY RATED MOVIES #22

To the "clunky"-minded out there:

Don't forget to add your apostophes to your plurals. Oh, that's right -- you already do.

Oh, yeah... and --- FUCK Y'ALL!


To the rest, beloved and otherwise...

See ya next Wednesday!

The List:
The Eagle Has Landed (1976, FLIX) - 5; In Cold Blood (1967, FLIX) - 9; Mephisto (1981, TCM) - 7; Tintin Et Moi [Tintin and I] (2003, PBS) - 7; Repo Man (1984, DVD) - 7; Mad Monster Party? (1969, DVD) - 6; The Devil Wears Prada (2006) - 6; The Adventures of Don Juan (1949, TCM) - 7; Bumping Into Broadway (1919, TCM) - 7; An Eastern Westerner (1920, TCM) - 6; Yeogo Goedam II [Memento Mori] (1999, Sundance) - 6; The Norseman (1978, FLIX) - 3; Burnt Offerings (1976, FLIX) - 4; The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976, FLIX) - 6; The Clairvoyant (1934, TCM) - 6; Zorro, the Gay Blade (1981, FMC) - 6; Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD (1998, FMC) - 4; Dragon Dynasty (2006, Sci-Fi) - 4; Shopgirl (2005, DVD) - 7; Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2005, DVD) - 8; Ascenseur pour l'échafaud [Frantic/Elevator to the Gallows] (1958, FLIX) - 7; The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005, DVD) - 7.

Recently Rated Movies #21: The Vacation Vacated My Senses...

The experiment has reversed on me. A couple of weeks back, I posted a work stoppage on the Cinema 4: Cel Bloc, my daily animation-related site, due to a combination of the facts that I would be taking some vacation at some point in the next month, that we had visitors coming to town for a few days, that I had a slightly heavier workload at the office and was in need of some downtime in my head, and finally, because I had a couple of other external projects for which I was gearing up.

So, for the first time in almost a year, I stopped writing or journaling daily and reverted back to my Alaskan self: that of a person who needs to write regularly to stay sane who is simultaneously possessed of an almost absurd fear of the keyboard or pen. I had told myself that I would continue to take notes on numerous cartoons so that I could still work on the Cel Bloc, working up a backlog of essays so that I could ease myself anew into the project in August's second week with several posts at the ready. I had told myself that I would still post here in the Pylon every other day or so to keep things fresh. I had told myself that I could rebound easily from the layoff, and that the still-daily writing exercise would continue, albeit in the guise of a slightly more relaxed regimen.

Lies. All fucking lies. While I have worked on one of my pair of outside writing projects here and then, mainly I have wasted the last two-and-a-half weeks sitting on my couch and watching a nonstop array of movies, good and bad. The pace at which I have been watching films will be reflected in the list at the end of this post and at the close of the post on Monday, July 24th. (There was also a huge variety of summer-season pilots, cooking shows and old-school game shows viewed in this span. As I said, I wasted my time on a level quite supreme. It's surprising that I'm not a stoner...) And I have failed myself on all three points: I have only taken notes for three cartoons, so the backlog of essays most likely will not see the light of anything, day or night; I have only put up two posts here in the Pylon since I announced my vacation, this one being the third post within this time; and every time that I sit down at the computer or in front of a pad of paper, I am gripped with loathing of my own voice and have stared for a cumulative total of several hours at the monitor over the last couple weeks. I have also started this particular post on five different occasions (at three points, this was supposed to be a post about my weird disappointment with the new Pirates of the Caribbean flick, each time focusing on a different annoyance), only to erase each and every word and saving the draft as a completely empty document each time in an almost perversely, self-sadistic fashion.

The bright side is that I have been watching so many movies, and have been working on formulating numerous theories and ideas in this time, that when I get back to posting regularly, I should have recharged batteries, which is the ultimate point of any vacation. However, many vacations end with the vacationers being more wiped out on their return than when they left, and I fear that I have stepped in the literary equivalent of this maxim. I'm afraid that I have damaged the writing muscles that I have worked so hard over the past year to build back up. I have been very careful to slowly work myself into an efficient writing machine, both at work and on a personal level, but I fear that a mere couple weeks of falling out of my routine has hurt me immeasurably.

The odd part is that because I had been writing so freely and comfortably for so long, I had grown increasingly impatient with movies, television and music, to the point where the only thing I wanted to do was to write. This is something I had working hard to do for much of my life: to get myself in a zone where I would no longer hit that blocking wall, where I was free to open discourse on any subject, and could rest assured that no matter the material, I could rely on my skills and natural impulse for rampant discourse to get me through the rough spots. The catch here is that since I was writing about movies and cartoons, I was building up a disconnect between that which I professed to love throughout my life and that which had taken over my existence as an even greater obsession: the need to write. I had achieved what I had been craving for so long, but then I no longer wanted to research the material that I had chosen as my preferred subject of dissertation.

So, the trick now is apparently one of balance. I need to learn to write and view in equal amounts, and I need to get myself back into a comfort zone without overdoing either. No more getting up at six on a Saturday morning and writing until one the next morning. (I have done this on more occasions recently than I care to mention.) It has to be more like, writing until eight, watch a movie or read a book while breakfasting, write a little more, etc.

If I were Bush, I would call myself "The Balancer". Unfortunately for the world, I'm not...

The Ratings:
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) - 6; Slayer (2006, Sci-Fi) - 3; The Forsaken (2001, Sci-Fi) - 4; Gin gwai [The Eye] (2002, IFC) - 7; The Invisible Circus (2001, IFC) - 5; Jaws 2 (1978, Sci-Fi) - 5; Blood Surf [Krocodylus] (2000, Sci-Fi) - 3; Kiss Me Deadly (1955, TCM) - 8; A Kiss Before Dying (1956, TCM) - 6, Kagemusha (1980, DVD) - 8; His Kind of Woman (1951, TCM) - 7; Unfaithfully Yours (1948, TCM) - 8; Bananas (1971, TCM) - 7; Shark Hunter (2001, Sci-Fi) - 5; The Cat and the Canary (1927, TCM) - 7; Laws of Attraction (2004, DVD) - 5; Alfie (2005, DVD) - 5.

YEAH, I SAT THROUGH IT AGAIN: THE NORSEMAN (1978)

Lee Majors runs with his sword unsheathed. Lee Majors marches with his sword unsheathed. Lee Majors orders his men around with his sword unsheathed. Lee Majors leaps over the foliage of Vineland with his sword unsheathed. Yes, Lee Majors is the titular Viking in The Norseman, and while he brandishes his unsheathed sword through much of this picture, he only swings it in the manner it was meant about a half dozen times through several badly choreographed battle sequences and raids on the Indian villages of North America. Because he is a mighty warrior of fine fighting stock, by the end of these battles and raids, Majors' Norseman defeats and kills a whopping grand total of three of these Indians, including, and most gratuitously (though mostly unseen and unbloody), the cleaving of the back and skull of a tremendously corpulent Indian who could have been more easily waylaid with the well-aimed tossing of a Big Mac in the opposite direction. And fittingly, because he was still bionic via his television alter-ego in those days, Lee Majors does much of this running, killing, cleaving, leaping and raiding in slow motion. (I believe that the film's 90-minute running time could have been blessedly pared down to about 65 minutes if they just knocked things up to their normal speed.)

We are in the less-than-capable appendages of Mr. Charles B. Pierce here, progenitor of the Boggy Creek series (at least, the first two), and whether he meant it or not, Pierce seems oddly reluctant to let his then-hugely popular star (and executive producer) remain on screen for very long in any scene that isn't slo-mo. As the only Norseman not wearing a helmet with the traditional horns protruding, Majors' character not only wears a different helmet (with a nautical shape and an eagle perched on its top), but he also wears in battle what the other Vikings refer to as "the sacred mask". This mask gives Majors the look of Zorro the Nordic Invader, a look which is aided along even further by a full-on cheesy 70's mustache. The truth is, the mustache does most of the acting for Majors, as neither his dialogue nor his actions impart Majors with very much personality or much to do at all in the film, except for the moving about in slo-mo. This depth-lacking quality extends to the whole cast, too -- though it would seem that the main characters of the piece were the invading Vikings with whom we spend most of the running time hanging around, except for some introductory narration detailing the past of each character, we never really get to know any of them. And poor footballer Deacon Jones, who is probably the swarthiest Viking to ever pull a longoar, never even gets a backstory as to why he is even with the Vikings in the first place, but does get one to explain how he cut out the tongue out of one of his chubby compatriots. That's OK, fellow pigskinner Fred Biletnikoff's character doesn't even get a name; in the credits, he is merely listed as "Norseman". So, I wonder... is the film secretly about Fred's nondescript barely-in-the-frame character, but to get Majors' involved they convinced the big star that he had the title role instead?

Most shocking is the involvement of actual thespians in the production: Mel Ferrer and ex-swashbuckler Cornel Wilde, who give their sorry curse-the-fates roles all that they can, and you can practically see the yearning for freedom in Wilde's searching eyes with his every stilted line. (Ferrer has to search internally for such escape; his character, whom we get to know better than even Majors' Norseman, has been blinded by the Indians, though he is spared the ludicrous makeup job that his fellow captors sport.) Troupers, true troupers... I hope they got paid well. And for a film without a shred of intentional comic relief, thankfully there is a "wizard" aboard the Norse craft in the hooded form of the goggle-eyed Jack Elam, who seems to be playing it as straight as he possibly can, being all shadowy and dark-visioned... but he's Jack Elam. He can't help if he brings a smile to even the most bored viewer. The fact that he has a trained hawk that can rip the eyes out of its victims helps immeasurably, too.

Now for the confession: I was, like much of my generation, a huge Six Million Dollar Man fanatic in the 70's; thus by proxy, I was a Lee Majors fan, too. As a result, not only did I see this film in the theatres (though as the back-end of a double feature), it was also one of the first films that I ever saw on HBO back in the day. Not that I am possessed of any great desire to torture myself, but every once in a while I find it interesting to revisit the films and shows of my youth to see how they hold up against my adult psyche (which is admittedly no more adult than that of Peter Pan himself). When I saw that this film was available for free on Flix On Demand, my instant reaction was to leap upon it and give it a critical measure with more modern eyes, but there was one major problem involved in doing so: I was under no illusion that this film was ever any good. Even back then, I was fully aware of what a piece of shit The Norseman was, and that opinion hasn't changed 25 years down the road. A snooze then still holds up to be a snooze now. Not that I would block anyone's peek at the film for a good night's goofing -- there is much to recommend such a campy viewing. Just don't say I didn't warn you. (As for unsheathing your sword -- it's not that type of film, unless Jack Elam does it for ya...)

FIVE DISCS OF DEATH #8

The President's Analyst (1967)
Director: Theodore J. Flicker
Cinema 4 Rating: 7
Somehow, even after all of the generous souls who have guided me to weird and arcane films since I was a teenager, somehow I managed to miss out on this one until two Christmases ago. That's when a friend at my old job, whom I will refer to as Arch to distinguish him from another co-worker with the same first name (also a good friend), briefly had the prescence of mind to give me one of the best presents that I have ever received. You see, action figures and Lego sets are terrific as gifts, and for those of you so inclined to continue this pattern, don't let me dissuade you in the least. But if you know of a film that I just gotta have in my life, that you are 100 percent sure that my existence is so much lesser for its non-inclusion in my DVD collection, then you had better pop it on me. Even after a couple of other tries to get me interested in every film that he half-remembers from his misspent youth (sadly, many of them being war epics for which I have little or no use), Arch hooked me up with this James Coburn-starring chunk of satirical cinematic brilliance, wherein the lanky Mr. Coburn takes up the titular profession, but nothing or no one that he encounters is really what they seem. It was one of those rare instances where I watched a film and actually remarked out loud, "Where have you been all my life?" The less I say about it, the better for your initial viewing. Just rest assured that you've not seen its like before. Keep your eyes peeled. Remember in its more head-tripping sequences that it is a relic from the psychedelic 60's. And for goodness sake, beware the TPC!

Repo Man (1984)
Director: Alex Cox
Cinema 4 Rating: 7
"Look at 'em... ordinary fucking people. I hate 'em."
- Bud (Harry Dean Stanton)
It seems to me that there is only one ordinary fucking person in Repo Man, and it is Otto, the blank-emotioned deadpan nihilist punk who is presented as the lead in the film. Otto sneers at his Jesus-freak hippie parents and his dorky wannabe-pal Kevin, drinks and sings fuck-the-world Black Flag anthems, and sports an earring and a then-edgy haircut as part of his rebel pose to the world. His stance from the start tells the world to basically take a shit on itself, but within the running time of this film he will get a steady job, a girlfriend, an unexpectedly loyal second family/gang (on their own terms, of course) and a true father figure in the hang-dog form of the brilliant and fiery Harry Dean Stanton. Otto outwardly always remains true to his stance, but you can tell that he relishes the opportunities that are set before him, whether he is aware of it or not. The film starts out weird and just piles more weirdness on top of it; it's no accident that the film nearly falls apart by the final act simply by wearing itself out. And the ordinary fucking people? Treasures, each and every sometimes-despicable one of them. A punk thief who momentarily muses on society's ills with a body full of bullets, while his cronies decide to return to doing "some crimes" like "ordering pizza and not paying"; repo lot sages who have ascertained the true nature of existence from the items found in repossessed cars; an alien-hunting federal agent with a metal hand; even the people getting their cars swiped are far more interesting than the "hero" would want to believe. And all built around two very important components: one of the most perfectly chosen song soundtracks ever and a goofy plot involving a stolen Chevy Malibu with the bodies of four dead aliens stashed in the trunk, which incinerates to their boots the body of any soul unfortunate enough to open that trunk. (Truth be told, re-watching Kiss Me Deadly last weekend, with its body-burning radiation-glowing metal box, reminded me of both this and Pulp Fiction, which each may have been inspired by the Aldrich-Spillane classic.) "I can't believe I used to like these guys," Otto says of the lounge-singing punks The Circle Jerks, who smarm and cheese it up on stage in a nightclub he is attending. Time and perspective sometimes have ways of making you rethink what you used to love so much. Twenty years on, and Repo Man still works for me the same way it did that first time in a theatre: as a hilarious and still-needed tearing of a new asshole for just about every segment of American society.

Kakushi-toride no san-akunin (1958)
[The Hidden Fortress]
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Cinema 4 Rating: 8
A few years ago, in a galaxy unfortunately a lot like ours, a buddy of mine allowed himself to get shanghaied into a viewing of this film and ended up hating it. He went in with an understanding that the film was a samurai epic and that it was a huge inspiration for George Lucas when he was devising Star Wars. Both the shanghaiing and the understanding were my doing, but perhaps I should be more precise with this and declare that "understanding" was the exact opposite of what this friend possessed regarding this film. Because he had been offered the trivial tidbit of the "Lucas inspiration", he actually went in to the film with the belief, wrought purely from his own imagining, that not only would there be samurai in the feature, but that they would somehow be surrounded by wise-blooping robots and laser-sporting spaceships. Not a bad idea as twisted mythologies go, and one taken up by innumerable anime series and films since, but not exactly what Kurosawa had in mind. There is a pair of Greek chorus-acting peasants who might just as well be named C-3PO and R2-D2, a beautiful and fiery-spirited princess on the lam, and a stubborn but heroic general who eventually takes up her cause. There are sword duels galore, an assault on the hidden fortress of the film's title, much battling and bickering, and the ceaseless craving of both fortune and honor. There are also the wipes employed by both Kurosawa and Lucas in major changes of scene, if you want to look past plot and characters and start counting stylistic inspirations, too. Every time I watch the film I discover new parallels, though I sometimes find myself wishing there were even more. But Star Wars is definitely not a remake of this film; it was merely inspired by it, as many other films also served to drop into Lucas' stewpot over his life and finally got served up to humanity as the tasty Jedi confection that has continued to engorge us with lesser meals for the last 30 years. Consider yourself warned: if you think for even fourteen one-hundredths of a second that robots actually co-existed with samurai and that spaceships were going to fire down on Edo from the skies, then you, much like the unnamed friend of whom I speak about in this capsule, are going to be disappointed in this film. But, if you truly understand the meaning of the word "inspiration", then you will get it. Hopefully, this means you will enjoy it, too. Unlike my unnamed friend who could never get past his own mangled interpretation of the word "inspiration".
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Director: Don Siegel
Cinema 4 Rating: 9
In the midst of watching the Twilight Zone marathon on Non-Sci-Fi over the Fourth of July non-weekend, I was able to reacquaint myself with a particular favorite episode of mine called The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street, wherein paranoia and the need for an easy scapegoat yet again reveals mankind to be its own worst enemy, whether the crisis is real or imagined. You don't need to remind me that our species sucks beyond compare, but what if there were something worse out there, waiting to take over our minds and bodies and reduce our individual "freedom" to a blandly soul-crushing conformity? Skipping the too-easy Bush administration stab, I'd ask you to take a gander at this exquisite Cold War and McCarthy era masterpiece from Don Siegel, who would eventually direct several films with Clint Eastwood including the original Dirty Harry flick. The movie has been remade a couple of times directly (extremely well in 1978 and so-so in 1994), ripped off many more, referenced ceaselessly in a multitude of other parodies and science-fiction fare (including numerous cameos by star Kevin McCarthy), and become a touchstone film when speaking about the issues of loss of identity and humanity. All of this tends to overwhelm the fact that it is not just top-notch science-fiction, rising far above its supposed B-movie origins, but is also one of the most purely suspenseful films of its era. Not only was it one of the first films that I bought on DVD, but it is also on the short list of my favorite films of all time. (This could solely be the fault of the yummy Dana Wynter, though. Oy...)

Mad Monster Party? (1969)
Director: Jules Bass
Cinema 4 Rating: 6
Though I like to point to the Universal, Hammer, Toho and Harryhausen flicks that I crammed into my teenage years as the center of my cinematic interest, especially in regards to the horror and science-fiction genres, the truth is that the groundwork was laid down years before by several other smaller influences. Topps' You'll Die Laughing monster trading cards (which I still own), The Addams Family, The Groovie Ghoulies, Scooby-Doo and The Munsters, my 45 of Bobby "Boris" Pickett's simple but highly evocative Monster Mash (backed with the lesser but still fun Monster Mash Party) and tattered copies of Famous Monsters of Filmland set the stage years before I discovered that I could actually watch the original films from which many of these monsters had escaped. But, also before the Harryhausens, there was Rankin-Bass and their series of animated puppet specials, such as the still-glorious Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. While I never saw Mad Monster Party? in its theatrical release, I did catch it on the occasional Saturday afternoon showing on Channel 13 in my youth, and I loved it. Dracula, the Werewolf, the Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll and his hideous counterpart Mr. Hyde, the Monster and his Bride, the Mummy, the Creature, a Peter-Lorre zombie lookalike, a skeleton band, giant octopus tentacles climbing out of a saucepan, giant venus fly-traps, and Boris Karloff himself giving voice and appearance to Baron von Frankenstein himself. If only there was something to interest me... hmmm.... Oh, yeah -- there's also Francesca, the hottest femme fatale puppet to ever hit the big screen. (Don't believe me? Watch when her dress gets ripped off in the catfight with the Phyllis Diller-voice Bride. And yes, they actually use the sounds of yowling cats during the scrap!) Too, too much fun for kids, loaded to the Creature's gills with wrenchingly bad puns both vocal and visual, but viewed today as an adult, I find it more of a curio -- it doesn't quite work as a feature film, but there are enough humorous moments and constant visual surprises (incredible sets throughout) to make it worthwhile still. (The DVD also comes with one of the best book inserts that I have yet seen, but sadly, no commentary.)Mainly for true-blue monster fans...

RECENTLY RATED MOVIES #20

I hate it when people give a zillion excuses for not posting on their sites. "Oh, I should be on here more, but --" or "Yes, yes, I know, I post little enough as it is, but--", etc., etc., etc. I mean this in the nicest possible way (which doesn't happen often, so cherish it), why not just keep your personal junk to yourself and just forge on when you feel that the time is right to do so? Everybody has things in their lives that sometimes interfere with the constant maintaining of a simple blogsite, and understandably, one must place priorities. Relationships, family, and friends should actually come first in these matters. A good party should always outweigh one's need to bash the keyboard all alone into the night (and by this, I mean "typing", you pervs).

Well, that's fine if you have only undertaken a blog as a hobby, or as a sporadic dispersal unit of pictures of your brat or for posting family news. The only rule that I set up for myself with my pair of Cinema 4 blogs was to use them as tools to keep me writing constantly. The only force that keeps me posting on them is my own, and while I try to keep them as fresh as possible, one can only do so much in a day, or a week, or a month. Things come up, schedules shift, and people sometimes drop into your life that cause you to switch priorities around a tad. Plus, I have two of these damn things to maintain, also a rule that I have imposed upon myself, and my Cinema 4: Cel Bloc has had a new post up for every single day this year. So, even if I skip a bit on this site, I have still used the animation site as my main instrument for journalistic calisthenics.

But, I actually do have an excuse for not being on here for the last couple of weeks, after I had gone to such great lengths to ratchet up my posting for the last couple of months. I did my ankle in. Not in any exciting but annoyingly X-TREME way; no, I just stepped off a sidewalk outside of our complex on the way to getting the mail, and I turned my ankle over. And, because I am a dope where doctors are concerned, I decided to treat the injury on my own. The problem is that while at first it seemed like it would just take a little time to get better, as any decent twisted ankle should, it turns out I have probably done far more damage to my foot than I first suspected. Two weeks on, while the bruising that had surfaced immediately on both sides of the ankle and leg and even on my middle toes has finally vanished fully, my ankle still swells up after I have been out and about on it for awhile, and much of the left side of the ankle, from the lower shin down to the toes, is very sensitive to the touch. The other problem, for those that know me, is that I naturally walk faster than the Bush Regime can trash the Constitution (I know, seemingly an impossible feat!), and so by being unwilling to slow my pace down, I may not be allowing the injury time to rest and heal properly. 'Cause I'm a dope.

As a result, I have only been able to sit at my desk for short periods of time before I need to put the leg up and make some small attempt to reverse the damage. Thus, a concentration on posting on the Cel Bloc has led this site to remain unchanged for the last two weeks (just shy of a couple days, and besides, the post on the 25th of June was a cheat of a post -- merely a list of postings on the other site. It doesn't count as a real post). Also, I ended up at the showing of Superman Returns feeling a good deal more mortal than I would have previously, my leg propped up the stadium seating bar for the entire film (not necessarily all that comfortable, but a good deal better than puffing up more resting on the floor). You'd also think that spending a lot of time on the couch with one's leg elevated would grant one more time to watch a load of films. I spun through a few, but the truth of the matter is that I have been unable to really get comfortable enough to really concentrate on anything more substantial than the Food Network (at least for the first week), and as it started to get a bit better, I felt the drive to catch up on things like housework and laundry and, of course, working on the other blog.

I did take the opportunity, though the term "put myself through sheer torture" is more like it, and watch the ex-Sci-Fi Channel's attempt at a "Pirates" tie-in, Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cove, which is basically The Fog if John Carpenter had seen fit to use Michael Myers as the pirate captain. And not the more subtle Michael of the first film, but rather, the later body-cleaving, Jason-like, tool-improviser of the middle films in the Halloween series. I will give the film credit though for having its teenagers, unlike the Kevin Williamson-scripted Scream youth who talk like their egghead creator rather than the real thing, speak like most teenagers speak: dully and blandly. If you think watching the lame attempts at dialogue in the first ten minutes of the picture is hard, try doing it for the entire two hours of commercial-laden blood-spurtiness. And what is wrong with America where we can get endless shots of evisceration and limbs flying and head chopping, but if a hot chick shows her tits, Sci-Fi has to fuzz out the image. They show her torso being cleaved down the middle from behind -- no problem with the censors there, apparently - but actually portray some of the world's natural beauty and splendor? (Which I can only assume - she may have had work done on the puppies, but since it was all fuzzed out, I couldn't proceed with a proper examination.)

It's the sort of thing that makes you want to poke your eyes out instead of just breaking an ankle. Then I'd have a truly decent excuse for not watching movies. Or posting.

The List:
Superman Returns (2006) - 7; Shattered Glass (2003, IFC) - 6; Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cove (2005, Sci-Fi) - 2; I Love You Again (1940, TCM); The Day Mars Invaded the Earth (1963, FMC), Cars (2006) - 6.

Cinema 4 Cel Bloc: Ain't Nature Grand! (1931)

Directors: Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising
Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies, 0:07, b/w
Animators: Friz Freleng and Norm Blackburn
Music: Frank Marsales
Cinema 4 Rating: 5

Ah, wilderness! I moved away from it, at least, away from the largest single measure of it in the United States, when I left Alaska, and to a certain extent, I miss it dearly. Mainly, I miss the possibility that my dad might call me up spontaneously and ask me to go camping the next weekend. I'm sure that once he gets down to Idaho for good that we will get together and hit some of the National Parks together that lie outside of Alaska. But for now, I am a city mouse, and I shall have to live vicariously through outdoors adventures in the movies to get my camping kicks. In the great outdoors, I never seem to sleep more comfortably or seem as relaxed as when I am curled up in a sleeping bag, breathing in the fresh forest breeze, or just hanging about the campfire with friends or relations (or both).

Not that I shall find such happiness with Bosko when he takes to the outdoors in Ain't Nature Grand!, a Merrie Melodies from the Harman-Ising team in 1931. Not only has he taken the woods with only a fishing pole at his side, but he has also left civilization without his girl Honey, and especially without a reasonable plot or interesting situations. Bosko has left with so little, that he seems to have left half of himself behind as well, since he only seems to appear onscreen for about that much of the picture. In fact, the creators seem somewhat bored with the little guy in this picture, and spend much of the time communing with the worms, birds and bees rather than following the exploits of their supposed lead character. Outside of a couple whimsical moments, the film seems so lacking in anything interesting that upon viewing it, the film threatens to dissolve into snow on my television screen, somewhat like a reverse version of a magic picture poster.

After shooing his dog away, Bosko sits down on a lakebank to pursue a little fishing pleasure. For him, that is, not the fishies. Of course, he sits down next to a sign reading "NO FISHING", and while something will come out of this set-up, if you think any conflict with a park ranger or policeman will ensue here, then you have the wrong film, buster. Bosko wishes to bait his hook with the worm that he brought, but the little fellow pleads for mercy and a big-hearted Bosko lets him go. Desperate for something else to use as bait, Bosko has the swell idea of removing the letters N and O from the sign, not only using them as worms for the hook, but also making his actions completely legal (at least, on first appearance).

In an extended sequence, the worm scurries off to his hole, but a bird coyly follows him, but when the worm makes him out, the bird gives rapid chase to the panicking wriggler. The worm dives into a hole but the bird tries to pull him out. Luckily, there are three other holes nearby that form a square with the other hole, and the worm stretches his body so that he laces through all of them and ties himself about a plant stem. He then pulls the bird through all of the hole, subsequently defeathering the naked avian in the process. The bird picks up his feathers and dons them anew like a coat, and after the worm blows a raspberry at him, the bird highhats the wriggler and struts off.

Meanwhile, Bosko is getting no bites at first, but finally a fish grabs on and Bosko pulls him from the water. The little fella slips free of Bosko's grasp, but after a couple of similar swipes, Bosko finally manages to hang on to him. Bosko ask rhetorically, "Ain't that cute?", but the fish spits in Bosko's eye and makes his escape. Not that flibberdigibbit Bosko cares; he is off chasing a beautiful butterfly. (This part has some particularly fun animation, with Bosko and the butterfly moving closer and farther from the screen in turn throughout the chase.) Bosko comes upon a waterfall, where bees dance from rock to rock and a spider plays his web like a harp and rings flowers like percussional bells. Bosko starts to "La-la-la!" along with the music and then prances and skips through the waterfall and over the rocks. On the far side, a pelican spits up four frogs, and the amphibians link arms with Bosko and form a kickline.

A large spider dances along to the music, following by four spider babies (and I don't mean the Jack Hill sort). The spider shimmies up to the top of a flower and spreads its legs out, and the little spiders spin about from the legs as if they were dancing about a maypole. All of these sorry excuses for entertainment can only lead to trouble, and it does, in the form of two mischievous bees and their dragonfly buddy. The bees pluck a daisy, strip it down to two petals, strap it to the dragonfly's bent tail, and then wind up the daisy. The flower works like a propeller and the dragonfly zooms off with the bees on his back like bombadiers on a warplane. (Uh, the dragonfly can fly already, boys - he doesn't need a propeller.) Regardless, the illusion is completed by the fact that the bees have hefted a rock up with them, and when they fly over the still dancing Bosko and his froggy pals, the bees bomb the rock onto Bosko's head. The bombers then head to a tree and grab a beehive, tap it with a section of thin hollow log and then use it to machine gun Bosko with bee after angry little bee. They force Bosko to leap into a fountain, and the bees depart. Bosko pops up to the top of the fountain and poses like a statue. Iris out.

Zzzz... huh?! Wha-?! Oh, I'm sorry. I must have dozed off. Seriously though, what's up with the proportion on these bees? When they pick up the rock, it is barely the size of the pair of them together. But when they drop it on Bosko, it is bigger and wider than his head. When they get near him, it is easy to see that the size of the rock must have changed in mid-drop. Perhaps the bees (or beetles of some variety - they are bigger than all of the other bees and their unused wings are different, but they bear stripes like bees do) have magical abilities that allow them to change the mass of hurled projectiles. Or perhaps they used their mutant X-bee/beetle powers to effect this transformation.

Whatever they can do, if this is the best that Bosko's middling (though well-animated by Mssrs. Freleng and Blackburn) wilderness has to offer, then I need to dream about camping somewhere a little more exciting and not so generic. Someplace where the characters break into some actual scat singing instead of poncy la-la-la-ing. Someplace where the frogs skip the kicklines, and mainline instead with a trumpet valve. Some savage wilderness where a hot chick with a high garter dodges monsters and wolves, even of the human variety, disabling them all with her cool way with a red hot jazz tune. Anyplace but here in Generic Goody-Goody Land.

Mmm-mwyah! Huhmmm... why am I so sleepy? Oh, that's right. I've barely slept in days. Must be the city life and the business walk of the damned. I think it's time we escaped, my son! (Thanks, Ian Dury...) Hit the open road and take a relaxing trip to revisit the beauty and grandeur of nature. And, in the words of the similarly afflicted Mr. Fudd, get some "west and wewaxation at wast!"

Just can't do it in Bosko's neck of the woods. He'll la-la-la me to death...

Cinema 4 Cel Bloc: The Barnyard Brat (1939)

Director: Dave Fleischer //
A Max Fleischer Color Classic, Technicolor
Animators: Myron Waldman and Tony Pabian
Cinema 4 Rating: 4

Who deserves a spanking in The Barnyard Brat? The obnoxious little donkey turd named Spunky, the indecisive mother named Hunky, or the far too anxious to commit child abuse barnyard animals? Well, none of them. (Except that little brat donkey is asking for something horrible to happen to his innards...) No, the Fleischer Brothers deserve the worst beating imaginable for unleashing this weird series of donkey films on mankind. While I am the generally the biggest defender of the Fleischer Brothers in even their most unsuccessful turns (such as their forays into feature films), I have no love to spare for the Hunky and Spunky shorts, even the Oscar-nominated original short from 1938. Released as part of the Color Classic series, which went to great lengths to duplicate the mood and look of Disney's Silly Symphonies, the Hunky and Spunky featured an adult-and-child donkey pair possessed of little or no visual appeal whatsoever. Grotesque and grating at every turn, I'd sooner watch a donkey show than one of these donkey cartoons. At least with the donkey show, disgusting and weird as it might be, you'd at least can guess the sort of hellishness into which you are descending.

In The Barnyard Brat, the title refers to the annoying childish braying of Spunky as he throws an immense tantrum. He won't eat his hay, and just brays and cries. A grandmother duck comes up and motions to Hunky that she must punish Spunky with a good smacking. Spunky raises her hoof, but can't go through with the action. A rooster says something about smacking the brat, but Hunky tries to get her charge to eat a bucket of oats. Spunky butts the bucket into the air, and it sticks on his head. Hunky pulls the bucket off, but takes a spill and falls into the water trough. Spunky runs off and pulls all the wool off an unsuspecting lamb. The mother sheep discovers this and reports it to Hunky. Spunky drinks all the water in a small pond full of ducks, and they are left in the mud. The mother duck reports this to Hunky. Baby chicks, who are enjoying some corn off the cob, are shooed away by the pushy Spunky, who steals the corn and eats it.

The barnyard animals have had enough. After the rooster forms a committee and devises a plan to teach the youngster a lesson, the goat runs the bucket from the well towards Spunky and butts it over the young donkey's rear. The other animals winch Spunky towards the well with the bucket's rope, and then dunk Spunky over and over in the deep water of the well. Hunky, moping off by her lonesome, hears her child's cries of anguish and runs to his rescue. She kicks various items of trash at the barnyard animals to disperse them, and then she pulls Spunky out of the well. She tries to console the screeching Spunky, but he only kicks her in the face several times. Pushed to her limits, but unwilling to punish the kid directly, he does the only thing she can: he takes him back to the well and drowns him.

No, we couldn't be so lucky. Actually, she spanks him by turning the crank for the bucket and letting it swing around and around, swatting him each time. The barnyard animals cheer his comeuppance, and then Hunky brays to him that she wants him "to be a good boy." Spunky seems to do just that, and he attempts to make amends by skipping over to the corn bin and dropping out several ears for the other animals. He invites them over to partake of the kind gift, and they happily run over to do so. As they fill their mouths with the corn, Spunky kicks the bar out of the corn bin and covers the whole lot of them with a heaping pile of corn. He laughs and slides down the mountain of corn, but Hunky is waiting at the bottom. The gloves are off. She takes a swipe at his head with her hoof, and chases him into the corral. Iris out.

I don't know what is less appealing: the creepily large head that rests on Spunky's tiny shoulders or the use of child punishment as the theme for an entire cartoon. My own feelings towards the spanking of children are muddled, but then again, I wouldn't bring them into the world to begin with. Certainly there are children who need to be reminded of their place now and then, but I don't think the solution to this question is going to be found in a Fleischer Brothers cartoon. Especially when the solution to the question involving Spunky is that he should be swiftly and mercilessly eviscerated and then rendered into shellac. It's hard to work up any sympathy for a character when the immediate impulse at even his most appealing moments is to have him disemboweled.

Or, perhaps there is another way to go. How about a new form of donkey show? How about we take Spunky and shove his giant noggin up Hunky's ass? I go to Tijuana to see that. In fact, it's the only reason I'd go there. And the only reason I could possibly wish to allow myself to be in their company again.

Oh, crap... there are several other H&S films with which I must deal. Ohhhhh, crap...

[A word of warning if you are planning to look up images of Hunky and Spunky on the internet. Turn your safe mode ON. My goodness, the things you will see otherwise...]