The Iron Giant (1999)

RARELY DOES A FILM COME ALONG like The Iron Giant that ignites a passion in people.

Part of that passion comes from the fact that it’s a terrific film on all levels – a fantastic story featuring rollicking action, touching relationships, and the last gasp of top-notch 2D animation (only the Iron Giant himself is computer-animated).

Another part of that passion is even more fascinating: Watch the reaction of someone who’s seen The Iron Giant when another person tells them, “I’ve never seen it.” The first person will start to stammer, eyes widened, falling over themselves to tell the other person how great it is, and that they must see it immediately. That reaction is justified by the person, and earned by the film.

Set in Maine at the height of paranoia surrounding the Cold War, The Iron Giant follows nine-year-old Hogarth Hughes (Eli Marienthal), an avid reader of comic books and watcher of the many B-movie sci-fi flicks of the era. When a giant metal alien (voiced by Vin Diesel) lands in Hogarth’s town, he hides him as best he can from prying eyes, primarily those of sneaky government agent Kent Mansley (Christopher McDonald). While it feels like a childhood dream come true for Hogarth (“My very own robot!”) and the two start forming a bond, he seeks help from a local beatnik (the perfectly cast Harry Connick, Jr.) whose scrapyard provides a safe haven from the paranoid townfolk and the US Army…but for how long?

Director Brad Bird (The Incredibles, Ratatouille) does a masterful job of developing the relationship of Hogarth and the Giant (via Tim McCanlies’ terrific script) as Hogarth explains the ways of Earth as he sees them – from the awesomeness of Superman, to the joys of doing a cannonball into a lake, to the violence and sadness of guns.


Cynics may dismiss The Iron Giant as nothing more than E.T. with a robot, but they’d be wrong on several levels, the biggest one being that the source material for The Iron Giant – the 1968 novel The Iron Man by Ted Hughes – predates E.T. by nearly 15 years. However, there is one similarity: If you cried at the ending of E.T., you’ll probably blink back tears during The Iron Giant’s finale.

Warner Brothers’ mishandling of The Iron Giant’s theatrical release in 1999 is one of the more colossal blunders in the history of the business. The studio barely promoted or advertised the film, so it vanished from theatres in weeks. Luckily, it found a second life through home video and word of mouth, and is now considered a classic.

The Iron Giant is a tremendous, powerful story featuring lessons on life, death, friendship, love, and sacrifice. Simply writing this review makes me want to watch it again. If that’s not a ringing endorsement, I don’t know what is.

Rating:

What did FilmBoy think?

He and I share the rating. He couldn’t put his finger on any favorite part, but he thoroughly enjoyed The Iron Giant – laughing at several scenes of Hogarth and the Giant bonding and playing, and getting caught up in the finale when the Giant must evade and ultimately face off against the US Army, who are determined to destroy him.

Is it suitable for your kids?

The Iron Giant is rated PG for “fantasy action and mild language.”
Violence/Scariness: Hogarth gets a nosebleed after running into a tree branch; a deer is shot and killed (we hear the gunshot then see the lifeless body); Mansley knocks Hogarth unconscious with a chloroform rag; two boys are in peril of falling off the top of a building; the army shoots a mass amounts of weapons at the Giant, including guns, tanks, and missiles; the Giant responds with his own catalog of weapons that destroys several tanks and army trucks (no soldiers are killed). The finale, involving Hogarth’s town, the Giant, and a nuclear missile, may be emotionally intense for very young children.
Drugs/Alcohol/Tobacco: There are passing mentions of alcohol that will probably go over young kids’ heads. Mansley smokes a pipe on occasion. Hogarth gets comically wired after drinking an espresso.
Language: There are mild profanities: “hell” (2x), “damn it” (2x), and in the finale, Mansley declares, “Screw our country!”

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

Yes. And if she’s not sure, make her. It’s a great film she shouldn’t miss.

 

That's either the Giant, or the squirrels are

throwing an all-nighter in their penthouse suite.

The Iron Giant
* Director: Brad Bird
* Screenwriter: Tim McCanlies
* Stars: Eli Marienthal, Vin Diesel, Harry Connick Jr., Jennifer Aniston, Christopher McDonald, John Mahoney
* MPAA Rating: PG


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The Incredible Melting Man (1977)

HIS NAME WAS DENNIS, and he was my best friend in 3rd grade.

One Monday morning, Dennis couldn’t wait to tell me about a movie he saw over the weekend: a horror flick called The Incredible Melting Man, about an astronaut named Steve West (Alex Rebar) who comes back from space after flying through the rings of Saturn, causing his body and mind to disintegrate, making him kill.

I had seen ads for The Incredible Melting Man in the paper, and the shot of the man’s decomposing face terrified me. But Dennis proceeded to tell me all the details about the film, from the melting man’s goriest kills to his ooey, gooey demise.

It sounded like the greatest film ever made.

Over the years, I began to hear just how wrong I was. The Incredible Melting Man is panned in virtually every review you read. It even got the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment in 1996. But it still gnawed at me that I hadn’t seen this film for myself. So recently I decided to try and watch it through the eyes of a third grader, and see if it would have been cool to my inner 9-year-old.


Dennis better pray I never see him at a high school reunion.

The Incredible Melting Man is excruciatingly bad. Less than ten minutes in, the cheesiness envelops you, much like the gelatinous goo swallowing up West, our tragic hero turned mindless monster. When he’s not busy ripping people apart, West spends a lot of time wandering across hillsides, sometimes with a beautiful sunset behind him.

The acting in The Incredible Melting Man alternates between wooden and melodramatic. As Dr. Ted Nelson, the man trying to track down West, Burr DeBenning is dreadful. He looks clammy and emaciated, and delivers every line like he was told his dog died just before writer/director William Sachs yelled “Action!”

Sachs’ script doesn’t help matters. Here are a few doozies from the dialogue:

“Steve escaped.”
“He what?”
“Did you get some crackers?”

“You mean he’s radioactive?”
“Just a little bit.”

“Don’t call me baby.”
“Ok, sorry, honey.”

The Incredible Melting Man’s score by Arlon Ober sounds like something from a ‘70s cop drama – right down to the dramatic “DUM-dum-dummm” when something “shocking” happens. The only reason, if any, to sit through the film is to witness the early work of Oscar-winning special effects legend Rick Baker (An American Werewolf in London).


Contrary to what I thought of Dennis’ word-of-mouth review, The Incredible Melting Man is not great. It’s not good. It’s just bad. It’s not even “so bad it’s good.” There are no scares. No suspense. Like the melting man himself, the film aimlessly lumbers from one scene to the next until it mercifully ends.

Rating:

Is it suitable for your kids?

The Incredible Melting Man is rated R, and for good reason:
Violence/Scariness: A nurse’s mutilated face is shown. The melting man tears off a victim’s head off-screen, then we see it tossed into a river, where it cracks open on a rock like a melon (the victim’s bloody, headless corpse appears in a later shot). The melting man rips apart and dines on an elderly couple. There are several scenes of the melting man, well, melting – all gooey with random body parts falling off. A potential victim chops off the melting man’s arm with a meat cleaver. A sheriff repeatedly shoots the melting man, who shows his appreciation by tossing the sheriff onto high voltage power lines, frying him. A major character is shot in the head. The melting man’s final demise is a gooey, crunchy mess.
Sex/Nudity: A model gets topless at a photo shoot in the woods.
Smoking: Three kids share a cigarette behind a house.

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

Unless she’s got a soft spot for low-budget horror cheese, highly unlikely. The Incredible Melting Man is a bloody, gooey affair with little redeeming value.

But wait – there’s more!

Act now and get your very own Incredible Melting Mandle, made by Stexe of Futurechimp:

The Incredible Melting Man
* Director: William Sachs
* Screenwriter: William Sachs
* Stars: Alex Rebar, Burr DeBenning, Myron Healey, Michael Alldredge
* MPAA Rating: R


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Westworld (1973)

MENTION THE NAME “MICHAEL CRICHTON,” and most people think of the best-selling author of thrillers such as The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Disclosure, and Rising Sun.

But in the early 1970s – after witnessing the animatronic people at Disneyland’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” ride – Crichton wrote and directed his feature-film debut, Westworld.

In the near-future of Westworld, people can spend $1,000 a day to visit Delos, an adult-themed amusement park where guests live out their wildest fantasies. Comprised of three worlds (Medieval World, Roman World, and Westworld), Delos is inhabited by robots who look, act, sound, and even bleed just like the human guests. Like Disney World, Delos is supported by an elaborate underground control center, where a staff of technicians controls the robots and the scenarios, and provides repair to robots damaged in the action taking place.

It’s Westworld where our leading men are headed: manly man John (James Brolin) and nebbish Peter (Richard Benjamin). Once they arrive, the two have lots of fun with saloon whiskey, loose women, bar fights, and jailbreaks. They even engage in shootouts, often with a steely-eyed troublemaker dressed in black (Yul Brynner). Everything’s good-time, rootin’-tootin’ fun – until the robots start malfunctioning and killing the guests.

Throughout Westworld, Crichton teases at the potential breakdown of the Delos parks: the supervisor (Alan Oppenheimer) voices his concern, a malfunctioning robo-rattlesnake bites John, and a Medieval World wench (Anne Randall) refuses a guest’s seduction. These minor glitches soon develop into to deadly attacks on the guests, with a fatal swordfight in Medieval World, a violent riot in Roman World, and Brynner’s gunslinger coldly gunning down a Westworld guest.

While Brynner is in Westworld for less than half its running time, his robotic gunslinger steals the film. In an homage to his character from The Magnificent Seven (he even wears the same outfit), Brynner portrays the perfect blend of ice-cold killer and calculating humanoid, with a piercing stare made extra chilling by Brynner sporting light-reflecting contact lenses.


After shooting one of our leading men dead, Westworld’s gunslinger methodically pursues the survivor through all three Delos parks – thumbs hooked in his gun belt, eyes fixed on his target, and using thermal vision (shown in POV) more than a decade before Predator.

Yes, Westworld has its plot holes, it dips into camp on occasion, and a lot of the dialogue (especially between Brolin and Benjamin) is disposable. But it’s still a very entertaining film that’s essentially the blueprint for Crichton’s more ambitious themepark-run-amok story: his 1990 novel Jurassic Park.

Rating:

Is it suitable for your kids?

Westworld is rated PG, though if it was released today it may have been PG-13.
Violence/Scariness: Several people and robots are shot or stabbed, with blood pouring from the wounds; a robot is set on fire and fully engulfed in flames; John and Peter shoot a robotic rattlesnake; the Delos technicians suffocate after the park’s breakdown cuts off their air supply.
Sex/Nudity: John and Peter sleep with robot hookers at the saloon; one of the hookers is shown topless from the back.
Profanity/Language: Two occurrences of “God damn it.”

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

Westworld feels like a film you’d enjoy by yourself, with friends, or possibly with your tween or teen son. Unless your FilmMother is a sci-fi fan, or a Crichton fan who wants to see his filmmaking debut, I’m guessing she’ll pass.

Boy, have we got a vacation for YOU!

 Westworld
* Director: Michael Crichton
* Screenwriter: Michael Crichton
* Stars: Richard Benjamin, James Brolin, Yul Brynner, Dick Van Patten, Alan Oppenheimer
* MPAA Rating: PG


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Starcrash (1979)

IT’S NO SECRET that after the blockbuster success of Star Wars in 1977, a glut of quickie, low-budget space sagas flooded the market over the next few years, all looking to cash in on the phenomenon.

And probably no one in the history of motion pictures has successfully mastered the art of “quick” and “low-budget” like the legendary Roger Corman. So it’s a no-brainer that he entered this stampede of sci-fi schlock by producing the 1979 turkey Starcrash.


Marjoe Gortner (Bobbie Jo & The Outlaw) and Caroline Munro play a pair of interplanetary smugglers recruited by an emperor (Christopher Plummer) of a nearby planet to help defeat the evil Count Zarth Arn (Joe Spinell) of the League of the Dark Worlds (DUN-DUN dunnn…), who’s planning to use The Doom Machine (DUN-DUN dunnn…) to destroy the emperor and his planet (dun, dun, DUNNN!!!).

Picking the best worst element of Starcrash is like trying to pick a favorite color of the rainbow. There are so many to savor: unconvincing miniature spaceship models, jarring editing, poor matting, the dated use of wipes and lap dissolves, melodramatic dialogue with expired phrases like “we’ve studied all the videotapes,” and cheesy stop-motion animation that immediately makes you yearn for anything by Ray Harryhausen. (Irony alert: Munro faced off against Harryhausen’s classic stop-motion creatures in 1973’s The Golden Voyage of Sinbad.)

The cast’s ham-fisted performances make it obvious they’re in on the joke. Gortner plays leading man Akton as part hero, part guide: Much of his dialogue consists of explaining oddities or advancing the threadbare plot. As space vixen Stella Star, Munro’s sexy British voice is removed and dubbed by American actress Candy Clark (Gortner’s then-wife). To compensate, Munro is scantily clad for much of the film – which is an additional blessing since her acting consists mostly of a raised eyebrow, scowling, smoldering stares, or a head-shake-and-grin combo.


As the Emperor, a slumming Christopher Plummer (who shot all his scenes in one day) gives as much regality and class as possible to his role, while Spinell (Rocky, Maniac) does such a good job hiding his Noo Yawk accent that is sounds like someone else dubbed his lines. And since everything can use a little Hoff, the Emperor’s son Simon (David Hasselhoff) shows up around the one-hour mark to help with the cause. However, it’s soon after Hasselhoff’s appearance that Starcrash starts to lose its playfulness – lumbering into a mundane, anemic third act despite lots of stuff getting blowed up real good.

Directed by Italian schlockmeister Luigi Cozzi (under the name Lewis Coates) and originally released in Italy as “Scontri Stellari Oltre la Terza Dimensione (Stellar Clashes Beyond the Third Dimension),” Starcrash wasn’t Corman’s only entry in the post-Star Wars sci-fi boom: He also produced the far superior Magnificent-Seven-in-space epic Battle Beyond The Stars.

In the finale of Starcrash, the Emperor orders his imperial battleship, “Halt the flow of time!” At many points during this clunker, it does indeed feel like time is standing still.

Rating:

Is it suitable for your kids?

Starcrash is rated PG: Several people are shot dead by laser guns; victims of a spaceship crash are shown frozen in the snow; Stella, Akton, and Simon engage in hand-to-hand combat with enemies at various points; and there is one utterance of “damn.” Basically, if your kids have seen Star Wars, there’s no reason they can’t watch Starcrash.

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

The two of you could have some fun with Starcrash by goofing on it MST3K-style, but the novelty may wear off before the end credits roll. You’re probably better off exploring it alone as a morbid curiosity to see what makes it such a talked-about train wreck.

Yes, that’s a light saber. No, nothing is sacred.

Starcrash
* Director: Luigi Cozzi
* Screenwriters: Luigi Cozzi, Nat Wachsberger
* Stars: Marjoe Gortner, Caroline Munro, Joe Spinell, Christopher Plummer, David Hasselhoff, Robert Tessier, Judd Hamilton
* MPAA Rating: PG


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Turkey Shoot (1982)

AFTER WATCHING FILMMAKER Mark Hartley’s fantastic documentary Not Quite Hollywood (about Australian exploitation films of the ‘70s and ‘80s), I came to one conclusion: I had to see Turkey Shoot.

In a near-future (“1995”) prison camp where inmates are set loose and hunted for sport, Turkey Shoot stars Olivia Hussey (Romeo & Juliet, Black Christmas) and Steve Railsback (Helter Skelter, The Stunt Man) as accused radicals who are sentenced to the camp and rely on each other to survive the conditions – and ultimately, survive the hunt as they become the “game” the camp’s leaders plan to track down and kill like wild animals.

Based on the scenes in Not Quite Hollywood, Turkey Shoot looked to be a ridiculously over-the-top flick filled with action, cartoonishly graphic violence, and ample amounts of gratuitous nudity. If only it were that awesome. The titular “turkey shoot” (hunting the prisoners for sport) doesn’t happen until 40 minutes in, and things are slow until then. Even during the shocking act of man hunting man, the action is lacking and the pursuits far from exciting.

 
Hussey doesn’t get to do much besides act like a damsel in distress (save for a few acts of savagery in the film’s climax) and Railsback is passable as the smirking antihero. But the most memorable character is Ritter – the bald, towering, sadistic guard played by Roger Ward. From the first time we meet Ritter, as he beats a woman prisoner half his size to death, we know he’ll show no mercy to anyone who doesn’t follow the rules of the camp.

Not Quite Hollywood made Turkey Shoot look like a balls-out, gratuitous, violent free-for-all worthy of Trashterpiece Theatre. But the frustrating reality is that it isn’t until the final minutes that Turkey Shoot brings the crazy, with people run over, cut in two by a bulldozer blade, getting their hands chopped off, and more – all in graphic, hanging close-ups that helped get the film cut by 10 minutes before it could be released in US theaters.

Turkey Shoot may have been shocking in 1982, but 30 years later it’s no more than a time capsule of its era…and a poorly stitched-together hybrid of prison camp exploitation and grindhouse violence.

Fun facts:

• Based on cast interviews from Not Quite Hollywood and its own DVD commentary, Turkey Shoot was a nightmare production. There were major cuts in both the budget and the shooting schedule, and the cast was put at risk many times (allegedly, some were shot at using real bullets for authenticity).

• Composer Brian May (not the Queen guitarist) created Turkey Shoot’s synth-heavy soundtrack. He also created a soundtrack a year earlier for another brutal, futuristic Aussie export: The Road Warrior.)

aka Escape 2000, Blood Camp Thatcher.

Rating:

Is it suitable for your kids?

No. Way. People are beaten to death, burned alive, dismembered, shot, run over and, in one deliciously cheesy scene, a head is splattered via an explosive arrowhead. There are also copious amounts of male and female nudity, and continuous profanities.

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

Unless she’s fan of grindhouse, exploitation, or cult films, I’d say no.

Hey! That was my last JujyFruit– give it back!

Turkey Shoot

* Director: Brian Trenchard-Smith

* Screenwriter: Jon George, Neill Hicks

* Stars: Steve Railsback, Olivia Hussey, Michael Craig, Lynda Stoner, Roger Ward

* MPAA Rating: R

 

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Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001)

I VAGUELY REMEMBER the kids cartoon The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius airing on Nickelodeon during its 2002-2006 run. But since my boys were born in ’03 and ’06, any TV time offered to them would have been in the more appropriate worlds of PBS Kids or Disney Junior (nee Playhouse Disney).

However, my wife came home recently from our local Once Upon a Child with a near-mint copy of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, the movie that begat the TV series. It follows the antics of Jimmy (Debi Derryberry), an inventive and occasionally mischievous young boy in the town of Retroville, where he lives with his doofus dad (Mark DeCarlo), strict mom (Megan Cavanagh), and trusty robot dog Goddard. All day, every day, Jimmy comes up with outlandish inventions and contraptions, including a communications device that lets him talk with unknown life forms in outer space.

Unfortunately, one of Jimmy’s conversations launches an alien invasion of Retroville, with the parents of the town being kidnapped as part of a ritual sacrifice. Initially, Jimmy and the kids of Retroville are thrilled that that are no more parents to tell them what to do. But when they soon realize that they really do need their parents in their lives, the kids – led by Jimmy and his friends – head to the alien planet to rescue their moms and dads and bring them home.

There’s rarely a dull moment in Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius – whether it’s Jimmy causing chaos with his inventions, or the kids of Retroville arriving on the aliens’ home planet to do battle and bring back their parents. (There’s an especially exciting sequence as Jimmy and the kids turn the rides of their town carnival into spaceships to go battle the aliens.) Yet director and co-writer Jon A. Davis keeps the action from getting too overwhelming, while offering just enough character depth to make you care for everyone involved, even Jimmy’s classmate and nemesis, Cindy (Carolyn Lawrence). Also, the underlying message of not chatting with unseen strangers – which is what Jimmy does, causing the aliens to invade – definitely has a parallel to the Internet safety we preach to our children.

The film also features a pretty rockin’ soundtrack, with covers of classic songs by Thomas Dolby, Kim Wilde, and The Ramones, plus original songs by Aaron Carter and N*SYNC (hey, it was 2001; those guys were popular at the time).

If your kids like the Disney Channel show Phineas & Ferb (also featuring overachieving kids making wacky inventions), they’ll probably enjoy Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. It has continuous action, peppy dialogue…oh, let’s be real: It’s about a smart kid who makes cool inventions, owns a robot dog, and travels to outer space to battle aliens. What kid wouldn’t be intrigued by a combo like that?

Rating:

What did Dash and
Jack-Jack think?

Both boys really got a kick out of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. They were caught up in the action sequences, and – like any young boy – laughed at many of the jokes involving bodily functions (see some examples below).

Is it suitable for your kids?

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius is rated G, but there’s content that some parents may find objectionable…

• Language: The following are said by different children: “barf,” “dweeb,” “nerd,” “got their butts kicked,” and “kick some alien buttocks.” There are also passing mentions of constipation, puberty, and a bachelor party.
• Humor: The film has its share of scatological humor: Goddard, Jimmy’s robotic dog, poops out nuts and bolts in one scene; an abducted father is sitting on the toilet when the aliens beam him up to their spaceship; one kid declares, “I’m peeing in the shower!” as he is shown from the waist up; the word “POOP” is shown as graffiti on a school statue; and several characters, including Jimmy’s parents, go into belching fits after drinking some of Jimmy’s specially created soda. Dad even says, “At least it’s coming out of the attic and not the basement!”
• Behavior: Bad-boy Nick (Candi Milo) encourages Jimmy to sneak out of his parents’ house after bedtime to go to the carnival. Jimmy does in fact sneak out, disobeying his parents’ orders.
• Scariness: The idea of aliens kidnapping and eating kids’ parents may be a bit much for very young children (though five-year-old Jack-Jack didn’t seem fazed by it). Also, one of the aliens declares to the children, “Now, you all must die!”

Will your FilmMother want to watch it?

If she has no objection to the content described above, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius is a film for the whole family to enjoy, FilmMother included.

'Neutron?' Sorry, not on the list.

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius
* Director: John A. Davis
* Screenwriters: John A. Davis, David N. Weiss, J. David Stem, Steve Oedekerk
* Stars: Debi Derryberry, Megan Cavanagh, Mark DeCarlo, Jeffrey Garcia, Carolyn Lawrence, Andrea Martin, Candi Milo, Martin Short, Patrick Stewart
* MPAA Rating: G


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