Flickchart Comment #20: Gay Purr-ee (1962) vs. Cujo (1983)

It's a true Cats vs. Dogs battle here, and come on! If you think that the über-rabid, über-slobbery St. Bernard is not going to come out on top, then you just don't know how frightening, gross and upsetting this Stephen King adaptation can get. While Gay Purr-ee does provide a solid alternate answer to the eternal question once posed by Paul Newman on the infamous Letterman Oscar telecast, "Where the hell are the singing cats?," it has a long way to go to top Cujo's onslaught. This dog goes hellfire crazy, but a lot of the upset comes out of the sympathy you feel for what appears to be the villain from the outset.

It doesn't matter how much singing and dancing these animated cats do (in a charming and clever film co-written and produced by master Chuck Jones, after all), it doesn't matter if Judy Garland provides her only vocals for an animated production, it doesn't matter if Red Buttons rocks as usual... it just doesn't matter! They will all be washed away in a sea of slobber and spit and blood and grue once Cujo is done turning them into some farm-fresh Mighty Dog... and sends them to where the mice are...

Flickchart Comment #19: Back to the Future (1985) over Cars (2006)

Back to the Future (1985) My current Flickchart ranking: 117
Cars (2006) My current Flickchart ranking: 2768

How high a bar has Pixar set that a film as seemingly entertaining and well-produced as Cars is their worst film?

Mind you, I have not said that Cars is a bad film. I laughed quite a lot watching it, and it features perfectly lovely animation, humorous voice work and clever character designs. The measure that counts most for Pixar, that of its youth audience, have largely voted to the extreme positive on this (especially where merchandising is concerned), but by any measure, Cars is a very good film.

So, beyond what I have said already, why no real love from me? One might say, since I do not drive at all, that it might be a mark of my remoteness from the motoring world in general. After all, upon watching it, I was thrown off course so thoroughly that I could never find my way back to the main road. But I knew going into the film that my personal disregard for motor vehicles might cause a negative reaction to it, so I tried (in vain, it turns out) to approach the film with my mind set to my seven-to-twelve-year-old self.

That version of myself loved cars as much as I did dinosaurs. I collected Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars, had miles of Hot Wheel tracks and several of the powered deluxe sets, raced slot cars regularly at my friends' houses, built the occasional car model, and most importantly towards approaching the movie Cars, had my cars talk to each other like they were people. My brothers and I would combine this tendency towards anthropomorphization when playing with the rest of our toys, laying out massive cities with our Lincoln Logs, Tinkertoys, Legos, Fisher-Price buildings and Hot Wheel sets, and treated our action figures, stuffed animals, cars, boats, and anything else to which we decided to attach a human personality as citizens equal in stature within our toy utopia. We acted out improvised scenarios that, to our minds, trumped anything writ by ol' Billy Shakes, even if the actual result was mainly three brothers fighting over who got to be what and who got their way. Still, it was generally a great time.

And it was the memory of these play sessions that I carried with me into Cars. So, why didn't it work? What happened to cause me to actually spurn a film from my beloved Pixar, despite acknowledging its general excellence as a production? I couldn't make the leap. Suspension of disbelief didn't happen, and that is always a killer. I couldn't figure out where the people were. Why did these cars exist, if there weren't people around to create them? Was it even more intelligent design? (If so, where were the alternate energy choices?) Were the cars merely extensions of their human owners, thus making the humans totally invisible to both the cars and the camera? If so, then why did buildings change (such as the hotel) to suit the cars? To me, it all seemed (especially given the desert surroundings) like an eerie, post-apocalyptic future where cars somehow gained sentience (perhaps it exists in the Terminator universe). And that just didn't seem all that fun... plus, that future still seemed to have rednecks in it.

And when Cars has to face off against Back to the Future, a film for which I did not have to make a mental adjustment when seeing and which also stands as one of my favorite comedies and science-fiction films, it makes for no contest at all. Sorry, Pixar. You are the victim of your own success. Cars might seem pretty good, but you can't outrace Marty McFly...

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Flickchart Comment #18: Psycho (1960) over Sunset Blvd. (1950)

Psycho (1960) Dir: Alfred Hitchcock - Currently ranked #9 on my Flickchart list
Sunset Blvd. (1950) Dir: Sunset Blvd. - Currently ranked #33 on my Flickchart list

Both films are ensconced in my Top 50 (at the writing of this comment) and I have watched both too many times to count. My love for both films is boundless. However, Flickchart is all about ranking, and there are no ties to be had. This is when it becomes personal.

In my teens, as I slowly developed a fascination with cinema, I scoured our high school library's arts and entertainment section for any book that was even tangentially film-related. On the shelves I eventually found a series of books edited by Richard Anobile which essentially laid down the foundation of my early film study. They were nothing more than photo books showing each revelatory frame in the film with the dialogue (in the case of the talkies) underneath the frame. In the early days of video, with many of the classic films not yet available to the public, forcing film fans to wait for television viewings or theatrical revivals, these books were cheap but invaluable reference books.

The titles that I pored through lunch after lunch for a couple of years included Frankenstein, Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon, all of which I memorized long before I ever saw these films. But the two most important volumes to me were Keaton's The General and Psycho. Psycho's cachet with me was largely built on the more forbidden aspect of that notorious shower scene, even then a thing of legend amongst youthful horror fans. Through this volume more than any viewing, I became an instant Hitchcock acolyte.

It's an amazingly solid bond that was created in me, and as a result, I will have to choose Psycho.

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Flickchart Comment #17: Stardust (2007) over Carlito's Way (1994)

Spent a fair amount of time in the past doing my Pacino impression from Carlito's Way, which doesn't involve any clumsy attempts at replicating his voice. It required a prop with which to perform it as well -- an escalator, in fact -- and I believe the last time I pretended to be Al Pacino fending off assholes on a falsely, incredibly long Grand Central escalator was on the actually incredibly long escalators at Universal Studios Hollywood in 1994. No dialogue for me, just action. A solidly stupid, action impersonation.

As a film, though, Carlito's Way has pretty much stood for me as the last time I was fully caught up in a Brian De Palma film without irony thoroughly soaking the entire viewing. Stardust, on the other hand, disappointed me from the standpoint that I much preferred the novel (but that is usually going to happen with Gaiman stories), though the film itself is a pretty good time that I have already revisited a couple times since.

Going off of current influence (I haven't seen Carlito's since it debuted), I am going to fly via Stardust.

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Flickchart Comment #16: Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941) over Eat My Dust! (1976)

Sure, I love sloppily made, mind-numbing, redneck car chase films like anyone -- when I am in the right mood -- but the prize for me in this match-up goes to W.C. Fields playing himself in his sweetly vicious and often outright surreal Hollywood satire. Besides, it has a crazy car chase of its own that has always served as one of my favorites.

Fields: "I was in love with a beautiful blonde once, dear. She drove me to drink. That's the one thing I'm indebted to her for."

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Flickchart Comment #15: Ghostbusters (1984) vs. Back to the Future (1985)

Wow. Exactly why Flickchart was created, to decide such weighty matters. For me, both films loomed so largely in my early '20s, and both films have stuck with me through the past two decades. Even so, there is a clear winner for me: Ghostbusters.

Not only do I still quote roughly a dozen or so lines from it quite regularly (compared to about three from Future), but I can still chart how I felt about it then and how I feel now from the replay factor alone. While I saw Future four times in its original run, I saw Ghostbusters SIX freaking times its opening weekend. I also had a lot of the merchandise - posters, stickers, toys, shirts, etc. (still have all that, actually). I've also owned three VHS and two DVD editions of Ghostbusters, and I have yet to make the leap from tape to disc for Back to the Future. (I really should get on that...) 

When, you come down to it, it's pretty clear, McFly, who the winner is for me...

Flickchart Comment #14: Inception (2010) vs. Star Wars (1977)

 The following comment was actually written in response to the first comment posted on Flickchart about this match-up. kingbee63's verdict was "Sorry, Star Wars"  (without a closing period). Because I no longer trust how people tend to write in emails, boards and comment sections (i.e. with some semblance of the English language), even when the response seems clear in a short message, I am always looking for the trap hidden within their words. It was hard to ascertain whether kingbee63 meant "Sorry, Star Wars, but I am going with Inception" or "Sorry, but Star Wars is the only clear choice here."

My comment, based upon the assumption that kingbee63 meant the former, not the latter:

Give it some distance, kingbee63. A year or two from now, once the Inception hype dies down (it actually has already begun to do so), see it again and decide. Especially if you love Star Wars enough to apologize to it. I always find it is best to rate recent movies down the timeline a bit, once you have let them digest for awhile. You have to make sure it goes past the fast food stage. Cheap hamburgers are great straight off the counter, but fifteen minutes after you eat them, there is often that regret stage, where you feel with just a little more forethought, you could have eaten something far better. Don't get me wrong. I adored Inception (and Chris Nolan), but it needs to get past the usual knee-jerk apparatus of current popularity before it really start to be compared to the true classics.

Flickchart Comment #13: Miracle on 34th Street (1994) vs. Critters (1986)

OK, I have no love at all for the countless Gremlins ripoffs that haunted the late '80s-early '90s. That said, I have even less love for terrible child actors.

The original Miracle on 34th Street is my favorite Christmas movie - bar none. Yes, there have been several versions since, but the 1994 remake was the only one on the big screen, and thus, the one most likely to annoy the crap out of me. Which is what they did in this remake with the casting of Mara Wilson as the little girl, Susan Walker. I hadn't minded little Ms. Wilson in other roles (chiefly because I really didn't notice her), but this time, her execrable acting skills were brought too far to the fore to be excused. Yes, she was but a child, but you know how it goes... don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

Add to this that they sapped whatever fun was in the original and then pasted a religious subplot onto the story, and I was kicking the seat in front of me for the full running time. Sure, Critters stunk (I do have friends that love that series), but the Miracle remake was straight from the pits of Hell. (If they existed...)

Flickchart Comment #12: Wizards (1977) vs. Scanners (1981)

Ah! Both staples of my early video-watching life. Watched these films dozens of times back in the '80s, own them both, and have also seen them both in the last year as well.

Scanners holds up best. It's head-explosion scene gets replayed everywhere, but for me, there is still nothing quite so cool as the final scanner battle at the end of the film. Love Robert Silverman in it as well. So friggin' nuts.

Wizards has not aged as well, and I must admit that there things that always bothered me about it, but I was too happy just grooving on it and its slightly anti-Disney edge back in the day to care. Gotta go with Cronenberg, though...

Wake Me Up When September Begins...

Did you blink on January 1st?

If you did, you might be wondering where the last eight months have gone. The last time that I posted here on The Cinema 4 Pylon, on that very same inaugural day of the new year, I had been giving anyone that still cared some pre-climb instructions before I launched into a massive blog series chronicling my assault to the summit of my self-constructed Tower of Film.

But there was trouble almost from the start. I discovered that the department store which occupied the first two floors of the Tower was having a fire sale on various and sundry thingies, but it was almost impossible to deal with the salesmen. Some insisted on pushing only the wares of the previous decade, mired in their plaid-heavy, staid comfort and nuclear winter certainty, while others were more intent on showing me the brilliant, shining promise of a new tomorrow, with its eventual shag carpeting and orange furniture.  However, the sale wasn't a total loss. Since Jen and I were in dire need of kitchenware replenishment, I went hog-wild in the spatula section. (Not so strangely, it turns out none of the lot I purchased were ever actually used on food of any recognizable form).

On the third floor, I was caught in the massive crossfire brought about from the activities of roughly forty spies, most of them working for the same governmental system, but  all completely at odds in methods and tactics. No sooner had I formed a grudging allegiance with the two agents most apt to have spare go-go girls at the ready, the scene abruptly shifted, and the seemingly certain notion that my doom would be spelled out via ballistic penmanship left my mind. Suddenly, a drink was in my hand instead, and the original melee had slipped into a non-stop martini party. The drinks were fine, but far too much smoke and Aquanet and not nearly enough oxygen left me reeling. It threatened to get even worse when the scene slowly shifted once more, and the well-dressed evening crowd with whom I had been lounging was gradually replaced by odious hippies smiling far too broadly, who insisted on a shared experience of their own particular madness. As hippies have always served as a room-clearer for me, that was the definitive sign that it was time to renew my efforts up the tower.

Eventually, I fought and clawed my way up to 1970, and I thought it would be a smooth glide straight through the decade to follow, but as I was approaching an area where I had far more expertise, things went truly wonky. Sure, I had no trouble at all accepting that there was a swingin' cheerleader party on that seventh floor -- assisted by additional cadres of swingin' stewardesses and swingin' nurses -- but then the roving biker gangs showed up to ruin the fun. Raping and pillaging ensued, as things are wont to do where roving movie biker gangs are concerned. The problem was chiefly aesthetic on my part. While I could partially identify with their naive form of "freedom," I couldn't come to grips with their need to sporadically reinforce Nazi imagery. Also, their raping ways had to go. Luckily, roving, raping movie biker gangs are also wont to die off in droves, so my path was cleared in time for...

Now.

In the preceding eight months, I have been around, and I have been writing. I just have not been posting. On my laptop, there is a file folder with exactly 137 text files featuring the lost posts of the last year or so, let alone the past eight months. Some of them are complete; most are not. I could go back and complete them and retro-post them, but my intent behind writing the bulk of them is long vanished from my mind, and where I do recall the intent, I most likely cannot dredge up the same urgency that brought me to create them initially. Better to move forward...

Which is why we are now at this exact point. When reviewing the goals I set for myself early last year when I first conceived the Tower of Film project, and then comparing them to my actual achievements in that time, it is certainly clear that I have dug myself into a massive hole. But, when compared to the goals I set when I first moved here almost 5-1/2 years ago, it is even clearer that said hole has likely reached the earth's core.

Have I gotten over whatever was keeping me all but completely silent for these past months? Probably not, but believe me, I have never been shy about sharing the details. Simply filling in the hole and calling it a fresh start is not an option -- as I said, I've dug myself into it. I spent all my climbing energy on the damn Tower, and right now, I am taking a rest from it. For my own creative sanity (and for other reasons that will become plain as I gradually roll out what I have been up to in this time), the only answer is to start digging my way out the other side.

Welcome back, me. Here's the shovel. Oh, don't forget your scuba gear. The other side of the world comes out in the Indian Ocean...