Melts In Your Mouth, Not On Mars

Sometimes it’s hard to decide if a film is worth writing about here on this blog. Sometimes I’ll rent a Very Long Wait, seemingly Doll’s House-ready DVD from Netflix with my notepad ready and waiting only to realize I have nothing to say and even less to remember about it ten minutes after the credits roll. On other days, I’ll queue up an action adventure movie with no pretense of blogging only to discover that includes Tim Curry hamming up a bizarre Eastern European accent, copious lasers, gorillas drinking martinis, and pretty much everything else that someone like me treasures in cinema.

I decided long ago that horror is a subjective term on these fronts (I didn’t do a month of Animals Doing Human Stuff for nothing you know) and don’t always require that genre classification for coverage. This leads us to today’s hard-to-finger flick, 2000’s Mission to Mars. Knowing it was directed (quite oddly) by Brian De Palma gave me some inkling that I might get some mileage. Realizing it was a Disney release put that into doubt. Seeing, within 20 minutes, a character caught in a windstorm, twisted like a rung out dishcloth and de-limbed and decapitated in the process made me think, “Oh! It’s dark stuff!”

Then discovering it got a PG rating made me question almost everything.

Quick Plot: In the near future of 2020, a bunch of astronauts have a barbecue to celebrate the imminent launch of the first manned mission to mars. More importantly, Jim McConnell (Gary Sinise) is sad to NOT go to Mars because his wife, who was named Maggie, got sick and died before Jim and his wife, who was named Maggie, could go to Mars, a place Maggie, Jim’s dead wife, really wanted to go to (her space helmet would have read “Maggie”).

Note that I tell you about Jim and his wife (named Maggie) because the movie makes a point of doing so about 9 times within the first 9 minutes of its running time.

Anyway, sad Maggie-less Jim stays behind while Luke (Don Cheadle) heads up with a bunch of Russians. Just as the team discovers a trace of water, a brutal Tatooine-ish sandstorm hits, knocking out a few crew members and brutally DE-LIMBING another one.

Just your standard Act I ending for any PG-rated family flick.

After sending out a muddled transmission, Luke loses communication with earth, prompting a rescue mission manned by Jim (but not his dead wife Maggie), Woody (Tim Robbins, with the ominous “...And Tim Robbins credit), Woody’s wife Terri (Connie Nielsen), and Phil (Jerry “I’ll Always Be Vern” O’Connell). A rupture almost kills the crew, but some fast thinking by Jim (widower of Maggie) and a packet of prominently labeled Dr Pepper saves the day. Later, more mechanical trouble leads to a heavy Gravity-esque conclusion. Clearly, this ship didn’t pack enough soft drinks.

They did, thankfully, pack a whole lot of M&Ms. M&Ms are almost as important in this movie as Jim’s dead wife Maggie and her presumed favorite cola, Dr Pepper. 

I’m being rather hard on Mission To Mars and its rather odd product placement, but the fact that these items drew so much attention to themselves was simply too much not to note. One must wonder if the people at the M&Ms headquarters felt like this was their big chance to right the wrong of E.T.’s infamous Reese’s Pieces glory.

Anyway, back to the film at hand, I...have no real idea what to say. The script’s multiple writing credits is hardly surprising, since Mission To Mars jumps from tone to tone like an energetic kid who’s had too much soda and candy (well, specifically, Dr Pepper and original M&Ms). We go from earnest astronaut drama to heady sci-fi to body-ripping horror to Close Encounters whimsy. It’s rather dizzying.

Mission To Mars is not a cheap film. While some of its CGI heavy effects have aged tragically, the basic landscape of Mars looks fantastic. The cast is littered with Oscar nominated talent. The score is (maybe over-)composed by the legendary Ennio Morricone. And yet I have no idea what it adds up to.

I mentioned Close Encounters of the Third Kind earlier because that’s easily the closest companion piece I can think of. Both films have to balance the dark possibilities of the expanded universe with a more gentle perspective of embracing other life forms. Mission To Mars, unfortunately, just doesn’t feel like it earns its ending because the path to it has gone in so many directions. It’s an odd one. 

High Points

Well, there are a lot of GOOD things about this film. Great cast who can sell the occasionally terrible dialog (DID I MENTION THAT MY WIFE MAGGIE IS DEAD AND SHE WAS AN ASTRONAUT AND HER NAME WAS MAGGIE BUT SHE’S DEAD NOW?). Beautiful art direction. Believable sounding science...

Low Points

But, well, aside from not knowing who should be watching it, the film is also occasionally quite dull

Lessons Learned

In the future, young lotharios will dress like Danny Zuko

Some couples dance, but the cooler ones go to Mars

Evolution began with alligators, which turned into dinosaurs, which turned into wooly mammoths, which turned into buffalo

Nothing is impossible when you're millions of miles from earth in a giant face

Rent/Bury/Buy

I was curious to see how someone with Brian De Palma’s sensibilities would handle the bigger material of Mission To Mars. The answer is ultimately kind of blah. There are definitely sparks of intrigue in the film, but it’s ultimately more interesting to see what doesn’t work than what does. De Palma fans will enjoy spotting a few trademarks (including a long opening tracking shot) and space-centric sci-fi fans will appreciate a lot of the film’s touches, but the final product is a rather messy thing.

I'm Watching You...

And I look GOOOOOOOOOOD

What, the mesh 'n drill look doesn't get your gears grinding? We'll see about that. Come have a listen to The Feminine Critique's second episode, where Christine and I tackle two tales of obsession. First up is William Wyler's incredibly underrated 1965 adaptation of John Fowles haunting novel, The Collector, starring a wonderful Samantha Eggar and an inappropriately dashing Terence Stamp.

We follow it up with Brian DePalma's sleazetastic 1984 Hitchock homage Body Double. You know you're watching a classic when it's got mesh t-shirts AND mullets, and they're not even worn by the same person.

Head to iTunes or refresh your podcast ap (or podcast CRAP, as I like to call it) for a listen, or stream through our Tumblr page. Or do none of these things and know that you're hurting my feelings. 

Monday March Musical Madness: Carrie

When Carrie: The Musical debuted on Broadway in 1988, it lasted just six performances before its financial backers pulled the plug. It was an $8 million investment, the Ishtar of the theatre world that despite sold-out early runs, would not even try to survive amid the venomous reviews that would make everything written about Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark feel like a soft fluffy blanket.

There was no cast recording ever released for the original production, although star Betty Buckley (who also appeared earlier in the Brian DePalma film) would go on to use one of its songs in her concert performances and discuss the show’s missed potential on an extra for the special edition film DVD release. Some grainy 1980s bootlegs have occasionally surfaced on YouTube, but save for a popular coffee table book about Broadway flops, the musical seemed destined to remain an urban legend to 21st century audiences.

When I learned that Carrie was being revived by the MCC Theater for the Off-Broadway Lucille Lortel Theatre, there was no chance in Castle Rock that I would miss it. With my cell phone turned off and fella bravely at my side, I ventured.

If you know the story of Carrie, then you know the story of the musical: Religious Teen’s telekinetic abilities blossom with her first period, while the Mean Girls tampon-bomb her and Nice Mean Girl feels bad about it. Nice Mean Girl enlists her Nice Boyfriend to take Religious Teen to the prom. Meanest Mean Girl dumps pig’s blood on Religious Teen just as she’s crowned prom queen. Mayhem ensues. Crazy Mom goes crazier. One survives.

A lot of theater audiences mock the very idea of turning a ‘70s horror novel into a musical. I think the potential is actually quite strong, since Carrie is a fairly operatic premise, with plenty of high drama character arcs that easily lend themselves to song. The risk, of course, is that if the material is taken seriously and DOESN’T work, it’s such a grand miscalculation that will immediately damn it as a more obvious flop than say, a musical retelling of Jane Eyre.

Following the colossal failure of Carrie’s first run, why revive it? I think the answer lies in the extreme curiosity of people like myself or Patrick over at the Scream Queenz podcast (check out his ultimate Carrie episode here). The same people who forked over a few bucks to see Hannibal Lector pirouette in Silence: The Musical might be eager to watch Mrs. White raise a knife over her blood-stained daughter’s middle.

We’re even more eager to laugh at it.

But see, just like its namesake, Carrie doesn’t want to be laughed at. It wants to move you, moisten your eyes, teach you about bullying and send chills down your spine without the help of air conditioning. This isn’t Silence or Evil Dead damnit! This is SERIOUS!

Which would be fine if the show was close to being great.

It’s not. It’s just...not.

By no means is Carrie the worst musical ever made. Come on folks, I’ve seen the woefully misguided Women On the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, something even Patti LuFUCKINGPone couldn’t save. I was one of the very, very very very very few free ticket holders to get a peek at Jackie Mason’s painful Laughing Room Only, a show that ended its first act with a ten minute song about how Starbucks is confusing to old Jewish men. Carrie, you got nothing on that.

On the other hand, I’ve also been lucky enough to cry my eyes out at Ragtime and get the urge to kill a president seeing the incredible Assassins. Carrie won’t inspire me to commit a felony, nor did it crank up my tear ducts or ignite my glee on a ‘is this REALLY happening’ Love Never Dies level. Nope, it will do nothing because it’s a perfectly mediocre and forgettable show.

C’mon! It’s CARRIE! The MUSICAL! Mediocre is a dirtier word than dirty pillows.

The music is...okay. Most of the high points happen during Carrie and her mother’s tense duets, and while the melodies are haunting, the intensity isn’t as powerful as it should be, especially when Dean Pitchford’s lyrics might as well ask the audience to just fill in the rhyme with whatever is the easiest matching word. Molly Ranson has an incredible voice and likable presence as the awkward Carrie, but she never quite registers as the stomped upon wallflower abused from every side. Broadway veteran Marin Mazzie (a Ragtime star herself) gets some of the best musical moments as Mrs. White, but there’s no real sense of the horror she’s capable of, making her big final moment more laughable than scary. I can appreciate the idea of toning down Piper Laurie’s iconic crazy to find some more humanity in the character, but ultimately, the stakes just never get high enough.

The rest of the cast does little with little. While the ensemble hits their mark and pop admirably, Christy Altomare’s Sue Snell has little spark. It doesn’t help that the musical incorporates an awkward interrogation style for Sue to speak directly to the audience, telling us everything that did and will happen and what it all might mean. This element is obviously taken from the novel (and to worse extent, the 2002 television remake) and while one could see how it’s supposed to lend commentary on the story, it’s used so poorly that it ends up feeling like a theater game the writers forgot to cut after the workshop.

So what DOES work? David Zinn’s set design primarily. The simple look focuses on a pair of gymnasium doors, an ominous and surprisingly powerful foundation that does more to foreshadow the impending horror than all of Sue’s “We didn’t know what would happen!” pleas clumsily planted in the first act. Similarly, Kevin Adams’ lighting design does the job of covering the prom queen in pig’s blood in an effective way. Unfortunately, the story itself rushes through the climax as if trying to get its audience on the next train. Neither Carrie’s joyful crowning nor her rage fueled massacre is given any proper stage time, meaning we never feel the highs of her glory or real motivation for her crime. The attack ends in less than a minute, wiping all the characters out without prejudice. While I wouldn’t expect a small-scale musical to expand Carrie’s hunt outside of school grounds, the decision to give head mean girl Chris the same end as her lackeys and randomly southern gym teacher feels lazily anticlimactic.

I don’t regret seeing Carrie because, well, I’m me and would have felt my life unlived if I’d missed it. That being said, the audience behind me debated leaving at intermission, while a couple sitting to my left right openly guffawed at Mrs. White’s final gesture. It’s not a good show, nor is it so bad it’s Love Never Dies good. For me, that’s a far bigger crime than bloody school pranks or electrocuting the student body.

NERD ALERT! Shock Value

If you're even a ticket stub-size as movie nerdy as I am, then you're most likely always on the lookout for a good physical BOOK (remember those?) about genre film. There are the personal library shelf standards--Carol Clover’s Men Women & Chainsaws, Kim Newman's Nightmare Movies or the Joe Bob Briggs canon, to name a few--along with less impressive works, generally those that aim for unworthy self-importance or offer nothing more than tidbits gleamed from a director commentary track.

TLC Book Tours sent me, and many of my favorite fellow film bloggers Jason Zinoman’s new book, Shock Value, now available from Penguin Press. Focusing on a handful of auteurs who helped shape horror as we know it today, Zinoman explores how American horror of the late 1960s and 1970s evolved past its playful, mostly innocent roots into something realer, bleaker, and deeper.

Wes Craven, John Carpenter, Dan O'Bannon, George Romero, Roman Polanski, William Friedken and Brian De Palma get the most attention as Zinoman’s writing shapes just how they came to make their flagship films. Yes, some of the anecdotes have been heard before in interviews and DVD extras, but Zinoman lays it out in a manner that's both comprehensive and interesting, lending insight into how everything from Craven’s strained relationship with his Christian mother to Hooper’s experience documenting a shooting victim’s death in an ER led to such creations as Last House On the Left and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Virtually every horror fan with a DVD player knows about William Shatner's connection to Michael Meyers, but most have never learned the decades-long saga of John Carpenter’s frenemy-like relationship with his one-time collaborator and pal, the late Dan O’Bannon. O’Bannon, the superbrain behind Alien and creator of Return of the Living Dead, might very well be one of horror and science fiction’s most important figures of all time, yet it’s rare that the writer/director gets his due. Unlike most of the other directors on profile, Zinoman follows a large chunk of O’Bannon’s career, including everything from his work on Dark Star to how his Crohn’s disease birthed (pun sorta intended) one of cinema’s scariest scenes of all time. It’s refreshing to get a fair and multi-faceted portrait of a criminally underrated talent, even if it means making Carpenter, long-time hero of genre fans, come off as, well, a bit of a jerk.

For the other filmmakers, Zinoman narrows his focus to their earlier work, using the common misconception of Hitchock’s grandfatherly status in the new wave of horror as a starting point. "As influential as he was, the notion that Hitchcock is the inventor of the modern horror genre is overstated," Zinoman claims, citing the explanatory nature of Psycho’s coda as the exact opposite of what the Shock Value subjects did with their own nihilistic spins. The Exorcist is commonly referenced as the key representative of this brand of horror, but I’d never quite heard how Friedken’s interest in the work of minimalist playwright Harold Pinter lent so much to general structure and ambiguity of the film (something author William Blatty fought against and lost until the special edition released 20 years later). 

Some territory has been well-tread, including a few morally dubious tricks Polanski used on Mia Farrow during Rosemary’s Baby and how Gunnar Hanson was so miserable while playing Leatherface that he actually found himself wanting to hurt Marilyn Burns’ Sally. What Zinoman does well with some commonly-known facts is put them in context. To explain the evolution of how Rosemary’s Baby went from a gimmick-ready William Castle film to the Oscar winning classic it became while following it up with an examination of Peter Bogdanovich’s controversial yet rarely discussed Boris Karloff vehicle Targets helps to create a dynamic timeline of the new horror cinema.

A writer for the New York Times, Jason Zinoman clearly knows and cares for genre films, and it’s refreshing to hear a balanced but passionate voice on the subject. Though  his closing chapters feel a tad too dismissive of modern horror, Zinoman does make a strong case for just why these titans of blood and guts will probably never quite be matched. It’s not that their films are perfect (in fact, even the author seems to objectively point out one issue or another with virtually all of the touchstones on display here) but the mere combination of U.S. culture and the newfound independent market simply gave way to a type of filmmaking that tapped into something deeper than ever before or, so far, since. “These are movies that want to confuse you, in part because getting lost focuses the attention on the terror of uncertainty,” writes Zinoman. “They endure, like great art does.”

Shock Value isn’t the end-all for genre studies, but those on the lookout for a good read on the subject will most certainly find some new nuggets worthy of exploration. While there's plenty of ground around and within the films that could still use some attention, the book provides an interesting thesis on the development of modern horror while also offering a few new perspectives on classic and underlooked films.  It may also give you plenty to argue with, so pack some post-its in your beach bag and enjoy some summer reading the right way.