Back to School Blogathon Part II

Well, the first one was so much fun and I've gotten a bit impatient to see more entries in Wendell Ottley's Back to School Blogathon. I've only seen one other entry besides my own so far, so I thought it might be fun to try making a second class. This one was a bit trickier, since I didn't want to fall too much on movies I've already covered. I've also had to resort to using two from the same movie, mainly just because I couldn't decide which to put in, and I've got a total of three from David Lynch films and two that have been used in other people's lists. Still, here we go;

Faculty

Albus Dumbledore (Harry Potter)- Headmaster

If you want somebody capable of running the school, than you need a wise old man like Dumbledore. This here is a man who knows what has to be done but also knows how to handle his power responsibly. He cares about his students and will do everything possible to support them, and he is never afraid to stand up for what he thinks is right.

Marko Ramius (The Hunt For Red October, 1990)- Teacher

He was established to have prior experience training men to serve in the Soviet navy. If he can handle a group of rough men and turn them into a loyal and capable crew, he should be able to handle organizing kids in an elementary school. He may be strict, but he knows what he is doing. Also he would be very effective at running gym class.

Students

Bobby Briggs (Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, 1992)- Class Clown

Bobby Briggs is certainly a troublemaker if there ever was one, though not necessarily an all-out bully. Aside from getting mixed up in drug trafficking, he does have a tendency to get into various forms of trouble, including a few seemingly foolproof schemes at making money, and having affairs with women that are much older than him. However, underneath all that he does mean well, even if he doesn't always make the best choices.

Carrie White (Carrie, 1976)- Invisible Girl

Here we have a girl who has a lot of problems and could really do with a few good friends. Unfortunately, thanks to her psychotic mother she has a lot of trouble making friends and instead tends to come off more like a freak. She is a nice girl under all that, and one who doesn't want to harm anybody if she can help it, but just do yourself a favor and try not to dump pig's blood onto her during the prom night.

Dennis Guilder (Christine, 1983)- Jock

This guy may be a football player and certainly look like the sort of person who would cause trouble, but don't let his image fool you. Beneath that sports jacket and his slick hairstyle is a really nice guy who even manages to show a bit of kindness towards the sort of people any other jock would be expected to despise (i.e. nerds). He might be a bit tough and even a bit of a womanizer but deep down he cares for his friends.

Sandy Williams (Blue Velvet, 1986)- Popular Girl

This is arguably the model for what any popular girl should be like. Sandy is a bit different from your usual fashion-obsessed popular girl. She is kind, smart, and loyal to her friends. That's not to say she doesn't have any sort of darker side, but she knows how to control it. If there is anyone that the class should be looked up to, it's her.

Laura Palmer (Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, 1992)- Troubled Youth

Well, if being molested by your own father, caught up in drugs, and persistently haunted by an otherworldly spirit doesn't count as "troubled" I don't know what does. Laura Palmer is certainly a strange and enigmatic figure, one whose troubles can't even begin to be understood due to their strange and surreal nature. Let's just hope she doesn't mysteriously turn up dead and wrapped in plastic this year. Even if she does, you can still find her at the Black Lodge.

Kate Lloyd (The Thing, 2011)- Troubled Youth/Star Student

Let's just say that Kate has been through a lot of... less than pleasant experiences. She is certainly an intelligent young woman, and knows a thing or two about paleontology. Unfortunately thanks to a certain incident she has a few troubles of her own. She doesn't like being around groups of people, and when she is, she tends to get a little bit paranoid. It might seem strange to her classmates, but given when she has endured she has every right to feel that way.

Skyfall: What a Bond Film Should Be

Well, this had to happen eventually. Having discussed both Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, everybody seemed really excited to hear what I had to say about Daniel Craig's most recent James Bond movie Skyfall. So many people recommended this one to me, telling me it was really good and possibly the best of the series. Casino Royale was really good, and after the disappointment of Quantum of Solace this one certainly managed to get Craig's Bond back on his feat and into action.

Unlike Quantum of Solace, Skyfall is more or less a self-contained movie that can be understood without seeing the previous installments. This one also takes a few different approaches, bringing up more of the gadgets and downplaying the beautiful women and romantic sub-plots (although that isn't to say they aren't there). Instead of the sort of relationships we got in Casino Royale between Bond and Vesper or Quantum of Solace between Bond and Camille, the focus becomes primarily on the interaction between Bond and M (played marvelously by Judy Dench).

At first, this change may seem a bit jarring, especially to anyone used to the much younger female leads of other Bond films, but it does work remarkably well once it sinks in. This means we do get to see M taking a bit of action and actually having a role in the plot as opposed just showing up at the beginning to say "X plans to blow up the world using a weird nuclear device that was stolen from a top secret laboratory. Go stop him."

I am going to have to go out and include a spoiler here, but I feel it necessary to comment on this aspect of the movie. One of the supporting characters is a female agent named Eve, and it actually came as a real surprise to find out at the end they were secretly re-introducing an element of classic Bond. Right at the end it is revealed her last name is Moneypenny, which of course was a recurring character in the classic Bond films. However, while I'm still not sure about the name (it always seemed a bit weird to me) I was pleasantly surprised by the way they treated her character.

First off, it is interesting they decided to cast a black actress for the role, but up to that point she had played a role in the action. We did get to see her handling a few weapons and at one point saving Bond's life, something the Moneypenny of the Connery era would never have had the chance to do. From what I've gathered in this film, Miss Moneypenny for once actually gets to have a role beyond showing up at the beginning so Bond can flirt with her for a few minutes only to be forgotten until the beginning of the next film.

Unlike Quantum of Solace, Skyfall turned out to actually have a coherent script, seeing as I was actually able to follow it this time. There is of course plenty of action at every turn and a few clever chase scenes and various little twists. Javier Bardem makes a pretty strange but interesting antagonist (probably channeling a bit of his experience from No Country For Old Men) and Albert Finney has a scene stealing role in the final act of the film.

Ultimately, if I were to rank Craig's Bond films so far, I'm actually finding myself leaning towards Casino Royale as the best of the three and Quantum of Solace was definitely the weakest. That leaves Skyfall currently as the second best in the series, which to be fair is not bad. It is a well-executed movie with some good action and a compelling story. Some of the "alpha male" personality of Bond does begin to re-surface at times in this one, but fortunately those moments are brief and spaced out in an installment that otherwise manages to avoid the problems of the Connery films.

At the moment, Daniel Craig is currently signed on to do at least two more films (labelled as "Bond 24" and "Bond 25" on IMDB), and if that all works out I would be willing to see them and where they would go with the character. I still refuse to watch any Bond movies before Craig at least as long as I can help it (I'll have to watch From Russia With Love for one of my courses), but I would be open to any future Bonds.

I remember there was talk about Idris Elba taking up the role, which could work. Alternatively there have been rumors of a female James Bond which would be even more interesting. Perhaps they could even go one step further by making her a lesbian and in the process take care of some of the homophobia associated with the Connery era. Whatever happens, even when Craig is through I think I might be willing to give future Bonds a shot.

Trains, Trains, and Automobiles

School has started up again, and among the many different courses I have, I managed to get into one dedicated to studying the history of action movies. Our course materials make the case that action movies as we know them today really only started to come about in the 1970's, it is derived from a variety of different genres. This first week alone, we looked at the silent era, and something that I would never have even considered a sub-genre, but one which is has played a crucial role in the history of action cinema.

That is the "train chase" movie. In the silent era, trains were (and still are) hugely popular subjects for filmmakers. One of the earliest film recordings, and arguably the most famous of the moving photographs created by the Lumiere Brothers, depicted a train pulling into a station. 1903 Edwin S. Porter directed The Great Train Robbery, which was arguably also the first western film, and it does not stop there.

Action and suspense at its finest.

The "train chase" is a sub-genre that became strangely popular as the silent area progressed. As we have seen in class, it comes in a wide variety of forms, but generally the way it works is that it, as the name implies, there is a train and it is in some way chased or chasing something. A variation on this was the 1911 film The Lonedale Operator by D.W. Griffith, where instead of a direct chase, it was a group of outlaws trying to break into a train station while the engineers try to reach it on time.

This particular film is notable for the fact that it might just have the first real action heroine. While she still has to rely somewhat on the men, the female protagonist is amazingly resourceful and has to rely on herself until the guys (who are trying to reach the station in a locomotive) can get to her. She initially tries to lock herself in the station while persistently trying to send out a call for help. Even when the two bandits finally break in, she manages to keep them pinned down when she apparently pulls a gun on them, forcing them to surrender just before the male leads arrive and take them away.

Even when the silent era really took off, trains remained popular. One of the most famous examples is arguably Buster Keaton's The General where he spends the first half of the movie chasing after the Union Soldiers that stole his both girlfriend and his locomotive, before finally rescuing both and having to spend the second half running away. Though not in itself an action movie, The General contains a lot of the stunt work that could easily have inspired more action-oriented films.

The funny thing about these train chase movies is that, while perhaps not as popular today, they may just have unwittingly set the stage for something we all should be very familiar with in present-day Hollywood. You might not often see one train chasing another quite like in The General, but you do often see vehicle-based chase sequences. One of the best-known action movie conventions is of course the car chase.

We've all seen the classic car chase at some point or another. It can come in all forms, but the simplest case is that you have two cars: one with the hero and one with the bad guy. One of them ends up getting the other's attention and tries to make a run for it by hopping into their car and driving off. The pursuer does not give up without a fight, and the result is an extended sequence in which both drivers have to navigate their urban environment at high speeds. Sometimes obstacles might present themselves along the way or the participants might try to find ways to slow each other down either by shooting at each other or improvisation.

The car chase is something so popular it's practically synonymous with action, and with good reason. Done right it can lend itself to a lot of creative situations. The overall outcome of the chase will vary depending on the various factors such as whether it is the villain chasing the hero or vice versa, the environment they are in, the types of cars that are being used, how late into the movie the chase is happening. The thing is that it can lend itself to a wide variety of environments and by extension plenty of great stunts.

Now it is often known as a "car chase", but technically the same effect can be achieved with other vehicles. The Tourist had plenty of great boat chases that made use of its Venice setting. Sometimes you can mix and match different types of vehicles (Terminator 2: Judgement Day sees the heroes in a car being chased by the T-1000 in a truck). Planes can be used to create some impressive aerial stunts, and yes, even trains are not out of the question.

Even in the present day, trains continue to be popular sources of action. Tony Scott's 2010 film Unstoppable was basically a modern take on the train chase sub-genre of the silent era. This time around instead of a single locomotive or a small train, the film deals with the danger posed by a mile-long freight train (something a bit more common now) barreling down the track at increasing speed because some idiot failed to do his job correctly. The "chase" part comes from the fact that pretty much everyone is chasing the train and trying to find some way to stop it, but the climax sees Chris Pine and Denzel Washington in hot pursuit using their own locomotive and figuring out a plan to use it to stop the train.

So what is it with trains in these movies? why is it that even today trains continue to be a great source of tension? Well, in the early 20th century, they were still a fairly new piece of equipment (it's not too far-fetched that some viewers of The Great Train Robbery still had memories of the first railroads coming through their hometowns). Even today, there is still a certain amount of risk to be found around railroads under normal circumstances.

In addition to that, let's face it, steam locomotives are pretty impressive-looking machines, so having one alone is great for visual spectacle, but the way they are designed also lends itself to a variety of stunts. In The General, Buster Keaton does a whole bunch of crazy things on his engine, probably getting at least one scene on each part (he even rides on the valve gear in one early scene). Steam locomotives are practically built to be climbed over, why do you think they're such a common choice for playgrounds?

Part of it could also have to do with the general speed of trains. After all, you don't normally see a lot of action happening on static trains. They are usually moving when things are going down (Thomas and the Magic Railroad doesn't count) and often the situations require people to climb around on the outside. While climbing around on a static train might not be the greatest experience, imagine being on one that's moving at full speed. If the action is on the outside of the train (which often it is), then there are a variety of ways you could fall off.

Let's say for the sake of argument that you have to climb along the roof of the train (which happens in Unstoppable and the 1979 The Great Train Robbery, among other films). On a static train, it might not be so bad, but while its moving, and you are balancing on a roof that wasn't designed to be stood on, it is going to be very hard to stay on. You do not want to fall off of a moving train (even if you're not hurt by the fall, you won't exactly be able to get back onto the train).

Whatever the reasons, cinema seems to have a strange fascination for the railroad. Trains have been a part of film history right from the beginning, and they still continue to play into today's action films. There seems to be something about the tension that comes from running into problems aboard a moving train that draws the attention of filmmakers from the silent era to the present. Train robberies, train chases, or just about any other problem that could possibly warrant the presence of a train are subjects that have always been popular and which will likely continue to be so as long as there is a railroad industry.

Guns and Goddesses: Women in Marvel

Action movies are known to be very male-dominated. Once in a while we get action movies that have strong female leads (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Salt) but it is still a pretty masculine genre, and it has something of a history in being such. Still, while it is often associated with men, and action heroines existed longer than you might think (D.W. Griffith's The Lonedale Operator had a woman who, while needing to be rescued, managed to use her own ingenuity to buy her rescuers time to get to her).

Still, a lot of the big action franchises are predominantly male-driven: Rambo, Indiana Jones, Star Wars (seriously, six movies and only two significant female characters who only appeared together for a few minutes?), James Bond (although there have been rumors of a female James Bond). There are a few exceptions, the biggest one arguably being The Terminator, or at least the first two installments (before anyone brings up Aliens, it's not really an action franchise, given that the first and third are both straight up horror films).

Let's shift gears a bit and look at something of a rarity, that while not perfect, may be one of the best representations of women in action we can get right now. Considering how popular it is at the moment, it stands to reason that this could make an impact on the future too. That is of course the Marvel Cinematic universe. By this point it has become hard to count how many films there are in the full franchise, considering we have multiple film series individually along with crossovers and new characters being introduced in each.

Now to be fair, one could still make a case that a lot of these films are predominantly male, some more justifiably so than others. We don't normally see more than two or three major female characters in a single movie. However, if you tall it all up, across all the movies currently released we have Pepper Potts, Black Widow, Jane Foster, Peggy Carter, Maria Hill, and that is just  the human characters in the movies. If you include Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. you get three more (Melinda May, Jemma Simmons, and Skye) in the regular cast plus guest stars and recurring roles (Victoria Hand), and if you include the non-human characters you also get Sif, Gamora, and Nebula. On top of all that they are adding in yet another female superhero, Scarlet Witch, to the upcoming Avengers: Age of Ultron.

That brings us to a total of 13 women (and there are others besides those), out of whom seven (Black Widow, Peggy Carter, Maria Hill, Melinda May, Sif, Gamora, Nebula, and presumably Scarlet Witch) are women of action who even get a few fight scenes to themselves. However, even the more passive characters like Jane Foster or Pepper Potts are hardly weak either. After all, Pepper may not have gotten her own suit (something I will admit disappointed me about the third Iron Man film) but she is a business woman who is half the time the only thing keeping Stark industries in order while Tony is busy upgrading all his suits and creating fancy gadgets.

If anything, the Marvel Cinematic Universe might have some of the best female characters we could hope for in an action movie at this point, considering how many great women it has over the whole franchise, but that does not mean there isn't room for improvement. While there are plenty of great female characters in total, there aren't usually more than two or three at a time in any individual movie. This is at the very least justified in Captain America: The First Avenger due to it being set during World War II, but many of the films made since then have been set in the present.

The one exception is of course Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which seems to have actively gone out of its way to balance out the gender distribution of the cast, as well as their skills. They might not all be action girls but each has their strengths and weaknesses, much like the men. Simmons isn't exactly a person of action, but neither is her male colleague Fitz, while there are both male and female members of the team who can hold their own in a fight.

There was even an episode when the three girls had to all rely on each other (along with Sif, who was guest starring) because all of the men (except Coulson) had been brainwashed by a psycho Asgadian seductress. The ratio is not perfect (four men and three women), but considering what happened to Ward and Fitz, it could be balanced out in the next season. It helps that Joss Whedon (who likes to put lots and lots of strong female characters in his TV shows) was behind this one.

The one other area where there could still be improvement would be the simple fact that we have yet to get a female protagonist in any of these films. While there are plenty of great female characters they have usually been supporting roles, love interests, or co-stars. There has never been any who have actually taken the lead and become the central focus themselves. Fortunately, such an occurrence is not out of the question, as there have been rumors persisting for ages about the possibility of Black Widow getting her own film. Maybe this one could finally break the curse that seems to notoriously plague female superhero movies.

Already Marvel is doing a great job of getting ahead so far as its treatment of women is concerned, and perhaps in a few years it could get even better. On top of that, the franchise is already making a huge pile of money, so perhaps it will finally convince studios that strong female characters do in fact sell and could help make way for improvements in other actions movies or franchises.

The Pressure of Criticism

My recent experience with Sunset Boulevard may have had a slightly more positive effect than I thought. After discussing what happened with my counselor, I started to realize this feeling, something that I think has been affecting me for a long time. You see, much as I love a lot of classic movies, there are a lot that I have put off watching, and many of them are ones that make me extremely nervous when I face the prospect of watching them. Truth be told I was really nervous before I finally saw Casablanca (which turned out to be a great film), but there are many others.

When I first started assembling my blinspot list and considered Touch of Evil, I took it off the list shortly after it was posted mainly because it seemed as though it might have been harder to obtain than I initially anticipated, but there was another reason. It was because I was actually a bit scared to see it. I was hoping it would be good but I was worried about what would happen if it wasn't. I was worried I might get lost in the plot as I sometimes do with extremely complicated movies (the main reason I couldn't enjoy The Godfather, even if I could respect it on a technical level).

What happened with Sunset Boulevard wasn't the first time I experienced those feelings. The first time I had to shut off Tarkovsky's Solaris and opted to put on the Clooney version instead, I felt like I had committed a horrible, unspeakable crime. I had fantasies in my head where I would be essentially held by an inquisition of science fiction fans charging me with the crime of favoring Clooney's version over the one everyone else seemed to universally agree was better. Before that, there was also the shocking experience I had when I found that the one film of John Carpenter's I hated was the one that everyone else said was his absolute best.

A conversation with my therapist has allowed me to finally realize what the problem is, and it's a depressing fact, but it is true nonetheless. Criticism can be a great thing. Without movie critics we might have a harder time deciding what new movies are worth seeing and which aren't. In this blogging community there are films I only learned about because of someone else's review (I had never heard of Walker before J.D. Lafrance did a piece on it). There is, however, a downside to the whole thing, and it largely comes with the big movies, the classics that everyone remembers.

There are a few films that seem to be almost universally agreed to be the greatest of all time, and also some that are agreed to be the worst. You don't see very many people going out and making a case that Gone With the Wind is a piece of crap or that Battlefield Earth is an under-appreciated work of genius. It almost seems like its something people just don't do. There is this pressure of sorts that comes from the reputations these movies have.

When I find myself watching certain classic movies, I sometimes get this feeling that I'm in some way obligated to like it. When I fail to see what so many have before me I feel like there is something wrong. It all has to do with this strange pressure, as though the critics are saying "if you don't like Touch of Evil, there is something wrong with you." I think I may have even had incidents where I find myself calling a film a masterpiece even though I'm not entirely sure about it just because of the reputation it holds.

I might not even be the only one who has been in this position. When I posted my article Why Jean-Luc Godard is the Worst Director in the Galaxy I was surprised by how well-received it was. Judging by the responses, I got the impression that I was not the only one around her who disliked Godard so much as I was the only one who had the guts to voice how I really felt about him. Even he took a bit of time before I fully worked up the nerve to voice my disdain for him (though it seems I can't go through a year of cinema studies without facing his wrath at least once).

I think this is what has been affecting me with some of these movies, and it is rather depressing really. It seems that watching a movie with a reputation creates this sort of pressure where it feels like you have to like it. I think part of what has caused me to keep putting off a lot of older movies is this constant fear that I won't like it, that I won't be able to follow it, or something else will happen. I wanted to like Sunset Boulevard because I knew David Lynch was a big fan of it and it was considered a classic, not because I had any interest in its story.

There is something going on here, and it is rather depressing really. It sometimes seems as though once a movie becomes a classic you have to like it or else the other critics will shun you and you will be branded insane. It's a bit ironic really, given that we wouldn't have a lot of classics today if nobody dared to challenge the dominant opinion.

The Thing was widely regarded as a disaster when it came out and everybody hated it, and yet now it is considered one of the greatest horror films of all time. Citizen Kane might have been forgotten had it not been for some unknown individual who managed to hide a print when William Randolph Hearst tried to have them all destroyed. 2001: A Space Odyssey was structured in such a radical way that nobody knew what to make of it at first, and it was not until younger audiences began to warm up to it that it became a hit.

I guess the lesson to be learned here is that it is okay to challenge popular opinion. When watching a classic movie, no matter how many people hail it as a masterpiece, you are not obliged to like it. That there is the truth, but it is so easy to forget that under what essentially amounts to mass peer pressure. I am not really sure what the best way is to deal with this pressure, beyond just doing my best to voice my opinion as clearly as I can. Has anybody else had this problem? I think it is worth addressing.

Thursday Movie Picks Meme: Sport Movies

The subject this week for Wanderer's Thursday Movie Picks Meme is something a little bit out of my usual comfort zone. I've never been a particularly athletic person so naturally I'm not normally attracted to movies that prominently feature sports. I remember once in early high school an assignment required us to watch the movie Coach Carter, and while everyone else was super-excited I kept complaining simply because it was about basketball and I didn't like sports movies (with hindsight, I think I might have been a bit harsh on it, and it might be worth giving another chance if the opportunity presents itself).

Of course even with the genres that I am not normally interested in I can still find a few good ones. I'm not a big fan of musicals but that didn't stop me enjoying Singin' in the Rain, and I did enjoy both Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies even though I usually prefer science fiction over fantasy. Same goes with sport movies, even if it's not a genre that usually gets me excited, I do know a few good ones. Here are some of them.

Horse Feathers

This early Marx Brothers film is a lot of fun, and it's all about football. Basically, Groucho is appointed headmaster of Huxley College and decides to try and improve the school's football team by hiring two of the greatest football players who hang out at a local speakeasy. Unfortunately a misunderstanding leads to him just missing rival institution Darwin College hiring those players while Groucho ends up mistakenly recruiting deliverymen Chico and Harpo, leading to inevitable craziness and quite possibly the strangest football game ever put on film.

The Big Lebowski

Okay, technically this isn't about a sport but bowling does play a pretty big part in the whole thing. You could probably make a drinking game out of every scene set in the bowling alley, letalone every major bowling motif throughout the film. The three main characters are even preparing for an upcoming tournament (though we never actually see it). It is a really fun movie that sheds light on a great sport. (fun fact: the only sports team I ever played on willingly was my High School bowling team).

Million Dollar Baby

It was a toss-up between this and Invictus, but that movie seemed a bit too obvious. Million Dollar Baby is a rather touching story about the relationship between a troubled young woman who finally finds herself through boxing, and her trainer who is also trying to redeem himself for something he did in the past. It is an emotional story with plenty of great fight scenes that inevitably come with a film about boxing, but it isn't afraid to show the darker side either, something that helps build up to a real tear-jerker of a finale.

What Is My Problem, Man?

This is the second time it's happened now, first what happened with Fellini last year and now this. Why is it that I am such a big fan of David Lynch and yet it seems every time I watch something that obviously inspired him I can't stand it. This time my Cinema Studies class got kicked off with the movie Sunset Boulevard, a film which I understood to be a favorite of Lynch's. I also knew Billy Wilder was a good director, considering how much I enjoyed Some Like it Hot.

I wanted to like this movie, but in the end it ultimately proved to be really hard to sit through and I spent most of it just waiting for the darn thing to end. I probably would have gotten completely lost if I hadn't had the foresight to look at Wikipedia's summary of what happens. There was also a major plot hole that bothered me: it is made clear that Joe is dead when the movie begins (as opposed to simply being wounded), so how exactly is he narrating the story? The only thing that really seemed to make the film worthwhile was to spot the little things that Lynch managed to pick up in his much better movies.

In particular, it quickly became clear that Sunset Boulevard had to be a major inspiration behind David Lynch's masterpiece Mulholland Drive, something that becomes clear right from the opening credits. The two of them are structured very similarly, right down to the idea of using a street sign in place of a title card. They even both have similar titles, with the two films being named after actual roads found in Hollywood.

There are other little parallels as well. I personally could not help noticing that both films had a major female character named Betty, and she was even involved in a tricky love affair. On this front, Lynch was able to be a bit more daring due to the timing of Mulholland Drive. These relationships involved betrayal and deception (although Lynch's betty was referred to as "Diane" during the scenes showing that relationship). Sunset Boulevard's is the more straight forward of the two, where the romance between Betty and Joe is complicated by her engagement and his... questionable relationship to Norma Desmond.

David Lynch was able to be a bit more daring with Mulholland Drive, touching on a more controversial issue by making Betty a lesbian. In her case, as we see at the very end, Betty/Diane had been in a relationship with Rita/Camilla Rhodes, and was crushed when she was invited to a party and watched her friend kiss another woman while a man announced his engagement to her (with hints that Camilla had been using sex as a way to move up the ranks). Betty/Diane goes on to hire a hitman to kill Rita/Camilla. Fittingly enough, Sunset Boulevard also ends with a frustrated and unstable Norma shooting Joe dead.

Hollywood and, by extension, the filmmaking scene are also both major elements for both. Mulholland Drive was arguably Lynch's first movie to really explore the world of movie-making (a theme he would later revisit in Inland Empire), but even though it is not the central focus, the whole thing provides a strong background to the main action. One of the main characters is an aspiring actress trying to make her first big break into the business, while by interesting contrast, Sunset Boulevard's Norma Desmond is a washed-up actress trying to get back into the business. In both films there is also a sub-plot that comes from a supporting character trying to make a film with some difficulty (Betty in Sunset Boulevard and Adam in Mulholland Drive).

I can't quite figure out why this is happening to me. First Fellini and now a respected Hollywood Classic from a director I know is talented. Why is it that whenever I see something that clearly inspired Lynch I can't seem to stand it and yet I still enjoy his movies. Mulholland Drive obviously draws from Sunset Boulevard on so many levels, so why is it I still enjoy the former but not the latter?

The parallels I have traced are probably just the tip of the iceberg, so what is it that makes him work so much better than the guy who inspired him? Because I am such a big fan of Lynch, and I know Sunset Boulevard was a favorite of his, I really wanted to like it, but I couldn't. What is my problem, man? What's wrong with me?

David Lynch on Sunset Boulevard, with a cow.

How Reliable is the Bechdel Test?

The Bechdel Test is a tool designed by cartoonist Alison Bechdel, which is often used to gauge the representation of women in a specific film. The basic concept is straight forward enough, and the fact that it is hard to find movies that pass a test made up of three simple questions helps to draw attention to inequalities in how gender is represented. The test itself contains three simple questions:

1. Are there at least two women?
2. Do they Speak to each other?
3. About something other than a man?

It is surprising how rare it is to find a movie that actually passes the test. I will confess that I have proudly boasted in the past that I may have written the first war film to do so, but I am curious, just how reliable is the test ultimately? While it certainly can draw attention to issues that need rectifying I am not entirely sure it is a perfect way to gauge inequalities. Failing the Bechdel test does not automatically mean a film is sexist.

To provide a straight forward case, there are plenty of films that would automatically fail the test on the simple grounds that they have no significant female characters, let alone two who speak to each other about something besides a man. Just because a movie has an all-male cast does not mean it is sexist, in some cases it may be perfectly justifiable. 

The Shawshank Redemption still holds the first spot on the IMDB Top 250 and the only female character of significance is offed in the first few minutes. The main reason there aren't any other women of significance is because the whole thing takes place in a men's prison. The all-male cast in The Thing worked because it allowed Carpenter to subvert his own conventions and thus add further suspense. The main reason you don't see very many women in war films is because most of the big ones are set in periods of history when only men were allowed to enlist.

By default, all the above movies should fail the Bechdel test, and yet all of them have a legit, non-sexist reason for lacking significant female characters. Now this is not always justified. After all, would it really have killed the writers of Backdraft to write just one of the firefighters as a woman? Alternatively, a film that passes the Bechdel test could still be offensive. After all, Pussy Galore may have technically spoken to the other (overly sexualized) women in her squadron about something besides James Bond and that doesn't make Goldfinger any less sexist.

There is a slight problem with the wording here that adds a layer of confusion as well. According to the rules, there must be at least two women who speak to each other about something besides men. Does that just mean there has to be some variety in their conversations or that they cannot talk about men at all? If there are two women who have 10 different conversations over the course of a film and only one is about a man than does that automatically mean the movie has failed the test, or does it pass because of the other nine discussions? 

It gets a bit confusing in that way. Supposing a woman talks about a man while addressing a man? Also, if it is not okay for two women to talk to each other about a man, than why is it okay for two men to talk to each other about a woman? Also, in theory, there are contexts where it logically makes sense for two women to talk about a man. For instance, if the movie features a wedding, and we see the bride talking to her friends before it starts, it stands to reason she might bring up her groom. That would not automatically mean she is not a strong character.

Ultimately, when you get down to it, the Bechdel Test may not be as reliable a tool as one would expect. While it can be a valuable way to show inequalities in specific contexts, a movie passing the test does not automatically mean that it has strong female characters, and failing the test does not automatically mean sexism is at play. After all, some movies would technically fail the test by default, and others might have perfectly logical reasons for even two strong women to talk to each other about a man. I cannot deny that there are areas in Hollywood in which gender representation needs to be improved, I can just say that this particular test may not be the most effective way of finding those areas.

Quantum of Solace: Great Action, Confusing Plot

So after I finally decided to try watching Casino Royale finding Daniel Craig's James Bond to be alright, it naturally seemed to make sense to watch the other films he did, of which there are currently two others: Quantum of Solace and Skyfall. Since it was the next installment in the series it seemed the next logical step, so I opted to ignore the warnings that it was the weakest of Craig's films. I really wanted to like this one, but the best I can say is that it was okay.

This is not really the fault of any of the cast or crew. Craig still makes a great Bond and the rest of the cast do a reasonable job. It was nice that they had some continuity, with the events of Casino Royale affecting how Bond behaves here. Judi Dench is still a good choice for M. I even enjoyed the new love interest Camille (Olga Kurylenko). Everyone seems to give it their all, it's just I was not so sure about the script.

To me, the story seemed much too needlessly convoluted and confusing. From what I could understand, M is the victim of an attempted assassination and Bond has been trying to get information on the people responsible but keeps having to kill every man he captures with some connection. Camille is some sort of intelligence person who also wants to get vengeance because these people did some horrible things to her in the past and there is a bad buy named Dominic Greene who is in league with the CIA and Bond wants to get revenge because his girlfriend got killed. It was a mess.

The one redeeming feature is that there are some great action scenes. There are plenty of creative sequences with lots of gripping and tense action. That one early scene with the boat chase I'd swear drew straight from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The only trouble is that some of them are edited really quickly which makes it hard to tell what is happening. Also, a few good action scenes do not save a problematic script.

Quantum of Solace is definitely not as good as Casino Royale, though to be fair I should have seen it coming given that was what I was always told. It is a reasonable effort, and it looks like people are trying their best, but ultimately the script is just too needlessly convoluted to keep you going. I do, however, still plan to check out Skyfall. I have been told that one was really good, even better than Casino Royale, so hopefully it will deliver.

Halloween Horror: The Descent

Claustrophobia can be a very effective tool for creating good horror. Ridley Scott's Alien and John Carpenter's The Thing both made great use of a confined environment, but if you thought being trapped in a tiny Antarctic outpost while your partners were being gradually assimilated by an alien life form was bad, that's going to seem a picnic compared to what you'll be in for with The Descent. Right here is a movie that takes claustrophobia to its logical horrifying extreme, and uses it to full effect.

Speaking of The Thing, part of what made that movie interesting was the choice to use an all-male cast, subverting a few horror clichés by taking them out entirely. It is not too hard to find movies that have an all-male cast. A lot of my all-time favorite movies have exactly that, but what about the other logical extreme? Finding movies with an all-female cast is something of a rarity, and even more rare is finding an all-female cast in a genre that isn't stereotypically feminine to begin with (i.e. melodrama). The Descent is one of those rarities. It has a grand total of one male character of significance who doesn't make it through the first ten minutes.

Sarah (Shauna MacDonald) is something of an adventurer. She and her friends like to embark on all kinds of exciting thrill-seeking experiences. It all goes great until a tragic accident happens ironically after one such adventure has ended. While driving to her hotel, there is an accident on the road. Sarah's husband and daughter are both killed, and she herself is severely traumatized.

A year later, Sarah's friends get back together, along with a reckless skydiver named Holly (Nora-Jane Noone), and try to distract her by inviting her on a cave-diving expedition. Everything goes fine at first until it turns out that her friend Juno (Natalie Mendoza) had slightly more complicated plans than a simple cave exploration trip. They eventually find themselves trapped, claustrophobia sets in, the girls become panicked and tension mounts between them as they search for a way out.. and that's not even getting into what starts happening about halfway in.

This is a film that will leave you uncomfortable even before anything actually terrifying happens. If you have ever been in a cave, you will probably know how claustrophobic and environment it can be. We get a number of scenes involving the characters moving through spaces that are just large enough for them to crawl through, but also long enough that one can't help but fear what might happen if it gets to narrow.

There is also the anxiety that comes from not knowing for sure the way out, and the disorientation that comes from the fact that much of the movie happens in the dark. For most of the film, it becomes hard to see what is going on. Everything that can be seen is shown through whatever light the women are able to produce and occasionally the infrared setting on their video camera. This in turn helps to create the feeling of being trapped in a cave, with limited resources.

As far as character development goes, this movie is not the strongest, though that is not to say it is handled poorly. You do get connected to the characters and subsequently want to see them get out in one piece, but it is easy to lose track of who is who, especially once they enter the caves. However, this does help to add a layer to the disorienting atmosphere. Once they are in the caves and the lighting is limited to whatever the main characters can produce, it becomes harder to tell who is where, who is in front and who is behind. In that sense, the fact that it becomes hard to tell people apart actually works to the film's advantage.

Modern horror films have a tendency to fall into various traps. Often times they will have some really good idea that ends up being turned into a generic slasher film, or it will be an idea that was just silly to begin with. It is rare to see a well-executed horror film, but The Descent is definitely one of those exceptions. It is a compelling but never comforting piece that will make any claustrophobic cringe in their seat.

Halloween Horror: The Whisperer in Darkness

It is once again time to revisit the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society and their group of independent filmmakers. In 2005 they did a surprisingly impressive take on the classic horror story The Call of Cthulhu, presenting it in the form of a silent movie from the 1920's. Naturally when they got back into action during they opted to take their next project up a few notches with something more ambitious.

The story they settled on was The Whisperer in Darkness. Like The Call of Cthulhu, this one was filmed in "Genuine Mythoscope" meaning they used a mix of contemporary and old-fashioned filmmaking techniques. This time, however, they instead opted to make a talkie that would resemble something closer to the horror films of the 1930's. If you have not read the original Lovecraft novella, I would recommend you take a look at it. Like most of Lovecraft's writing it is public domain so you can find it for free (here is a website with the complete text).

This particular one would introduce a monster known as the Mi-Go. Now the Mi-Go are one of Lovecraft's slightly less disturbing creatures. They do not make you go crazy if you look at them, but they have a very peculiar biology. The look something like insects but are described as being more like fungi or crustaceans, and apparently are somehow composed in such a way that they do not show up on film. The only thing is that they have a strange way of seeing the world, and are more than happy to place your brain in a jar and carry you around outer space.

The basic story is told by Albert Wilmarth, a professor of folklore at Miskatonic University (a fictional institution which was frequently referred to in Lovecraft's stories). It begins with a massive flood in the hills of Vermont, during which people reportedly find a bunch of strange-looking bodies in the water. Wilmarth, being familiar with the old legends towards which the reports have been connected, remains skeptical. However, he begins corresponding with an old farmer named Henry Akeley who claims to have found evidence that there are in fact strange and seemingly malevolent beings in the area.

The movie had to take a few liberties with its source material. After all, it would have been a bit dull if the majority of it was just two men sending letters back and forth. Much of the actual correspondence from the book happens off-camera, and instead the focus is more on how Wilmarth and his colleagues react to the evidence. There is now a sub-plot about Wilmarth entering a debate with real-life writer and anomalistic researcher Charles Fort, as well as interactions between the two when presented with photographs of the Mi-Go. It involves a few new characters but the story is still about Wilmarth and Akeley.

The really daring move was to go past the ending of the book and add in a "third act" of sorts. This was a big risk that could have easily gone wrong. It has a bit more action than what Lovecraft originally wrote, but it does still manage to keep true to the themes of his writing. Aside from translating better to screen, some of the changes also have the advantage that they can even surprise people who read the original book (similar to what has frequently been done on The Walking Dead).

As with The Call of Cthulhu, the cast is made up more or less entirely of unknown b-list actors, all of whom do a reasonable job. Barry Lynch is suitably unsettling as Akeley when he finally meets Wilmarth (I won't spoil the reveal by saying why you should be unsettled during his scenes). Many of the new characters fit right into the narrative and help to flesh out the world Lovecraft envisioned, especially Wilmarth's colleague Nathaniel Ward. Anyone who knows Lovecraft's writings will know that Ward is a man you really should listen to.

The Whisperer in Darkness is a well-done treatment of H.P. Lovecraft's classic novella, and proof that his work is not, as many claim, "unfilmable". It does leave me to wonder if the HPLHS are open to the possibility of any more film projects. I personally think The Shadow Over Innsmouth might be a good one for them to tackle in the future, or perhaps The Thing On the Doorstep. This one will be harder to find, but if you can, it will have some good scares and a great story.

Halloween Horror: In The Mouth of Madness

The 90's is often remembered as a dark time in John Carpenter's career. A lot of fans believe that was when the quality of his work started to decline. A lot of his less respected movies, like Ghosts of Mars and Escape From L.A. came out during this decade, but Carpenter still had talent. It was at this point he found himself interested in doing a movie drawing from Lovecraft, but there was one problem: how do you depict something that is indescribable, as was often the case in his writings?

The solution Carpenter reached was to do a tribute to Lovecraft rather than a direct adaptation of any of his stories, and the result was his sadly underrated horror film In The Mouth of Madness. This movie is based more on Lovecraft's ideals (specifically the bleak notion that humanity is doomed by its own insignificance) than anything else, although you probably could make a good drinking game just out of spotting all the references to different stories. Even the title itself combines At the Mountains of Madness and The Shadow Over Innsmouth. However, you do not have to be a die hard Lovecraft fan to appreciate this as a good horror story.

Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow) is a hugely successful horror writer whose books outsell Stephen King. His stories are known to have strange effects on his readers, who are becoming extremely restless over anticipation for his latest novel titled In the Mouth of Madness. This is a book that will apparently drive anyone who reads it insane, and outbreaks of violence are occurring among his fans.

Enter John Trent (Sam Neil), an freelance insurance investigator who is hired to get information about a claim by Cane's publisher Jackson Harglow (Charlton Heston). He finds out that Cane has supposedly disappeared and Harglow doesn't even know for sure if he is still alive. Tent quickly suspects a scam is in progress and tries to figure out precisely how.

He finds a potential lead in the strangest of places, which leads him and editor Lynda Styles (Julie Carmen) into a fictional town from Cane's stories. As Trent desperately tries to find some form of rational explanation, lines begin to blur. It becomes harder to tell fiction from reality and sanity from insanity. Basically, this is a film that really messes with your head.

In The Mouth of Madness is a very different sort of horror film compared to what John Carpenter is usually known for. There is less of the gore that one might normally see or the claustrophobic environments. Instead, the fear largely comes from the way it warps your mind, gradually distorting your perception of reality and leaving it in serious question by the end. Just what is madness, or sanity? What happens when what we call the insane becomes the majority? These are questions raised by this strange horror film.

A lot of the fear to be found in this movie comes from the general atmosphere of the whole thing, but really they have all kinds of horror. There are some big scary monsters produced with some amazing practical effects, but we also have a bit of body horror, psychological horror, cosmic horror, and fear of the unknown. Jürgen Prochnow easily steals the show in the role of Sutter Cane whenever he is on screen, and he can be pretty unnerving.

In The Mouth of Madness is a remarkable horror movie of a very unusual sort, and an underrated little gem from the so-called "Master of Horror" responsible for popularizing the slasher film. This is definitely not a film of the sort Carpenter popularized. It is a clever and eerie tale that will warp your mind and leave you to question just what is reality and what is true madness.

Halloween Horror: The Haunting

In his essay Supernatural Horror in Literature, writer H.P. Lovecraft opened with one of his most famous quotes: "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown". You don't have to be reading one of his cosmic horror stories for that saying to be relevant. It is practically human nature to be afraid of things we do not understand. Such is the theme of Robert Wise's 1963 horror film The Haunting.

As it's name implies, The Haunting in its simplest form, is really just a very well-executed ghost story about the experiences of a small group of characters in a house that is apparently haunted. What separates The Haunting from other ghost stories is the reliance on fear of the unknown. We feel the presence of something, but we never really find out who or what it is or even if the characters are actually facing ghosts in the strictest sense.

Also interesting is the approach taken towards its material. The whole movie plays out as a scientific investigation of the supernatural, conducted by the character of Dr. Markway (Richard Johnson). He goes into the house because it is said to be haunted and he wants to observe the things that go on there. As he himself notes, the only real reason we are afraid of the supernatural is because we do not understand it. 

Along for the ride is Eleanor "Nell" Lance, a troubled woman who may or may not be mentally ill; Theo, an apparent psychic who may or may not be a lesbian with a crush on Nell; and Luke, a skeptic convinced that the supernatural occurrences can be explained rationally. These four characters spend time living in this haunted house, finding strange things occurring.

The thing is while it seems that there is something here, we can't really tell to what extent. It becomes hard to determine for sure what is really supernatural and what can be explained. Doors seem to open or close on their own, statues seemingly move when nobody is looking, and Eleanor gradually becomes increasingly obsessed with the house. Is she really the victim of a malevolent presence or are her beliefs merely delusions brought about by mental illness. It is this uncertainty that makes the movie so unsettling.

The house in itself is especially interesting, given the way it essentially becomes a character in its own right. The whole place has this strange vibe in every area the characters visit, even when there isn't any creepy stuff going on. Markway himself notes that the house was built by an eccentric in a very non-conventional way that makes it seem very much like a maze. At times it even feels as though the house itself is alive and malevolent, although given the nature of the movie it is hard to be completely sure.

A lot of horror movies have a tendency to have a lesser impact with age. Often given enough time as technology advances, the effects start to look fake and the movie itself may seem weaker as a result. The Haunting is a horror film that still holds up astonishingly well today, something probably helped by the strong absence of visual effects. Unlike many horror stories, it is not seeing the monster that makes it scary, but in fact quite the opposite. 

I would strongly recommend The Haunting to any horror fan. It is especially fitting for Halloween seeing as the holiday is often associated with ghosts and haunted houses anyway (Markway even remarks that they should be prepared for every night to seem like Halloween). Even if you are not normally interested in ghost stories I guarantee that this particular movie will not disappoint. 

Just do yourself a favor and make sure you see the 1963 Robert Wise version, and not the 1999 remake. That one will disappoint. If you want to know why you can take a look at The Nostalgia Critic's review and it will give you a pretty good idea. Avoid that one if you can, but do check out the 1963 film for a simplistic but clever little ghost story that will leave you on the edge of your seat.

The Thing That Came From Another World

John Carpenter's 1982 masterpiece The Thing, based on the short story Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell Jr., was a huge flop upon release. When it first came out, the film was able to make enough money to reclaim its budget, but was for the most part a flop that was heavily criticized. In his movie guides, respected film critic Leonard Maltin would go on to describe Carpenter's film as "More faithful to the original story, but a nonstop parade of slimy, repulsive special effects turns it into a freakshow and drowns out most of the effects." Evidently he didn't see the same movie I did, because I what I saw was a suspenseful claustrophobic piece about a group of men who are easily turned against each other by paranoia.

There are many reasons posed as to why. One of the most commonly cited is the fact that E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial came out just before. That was a family movie about a friendly alien accidentally being stranded on Earth and engaging in light-hearted shenanigans as he tries to find a way home. Maybe people just preferred going to see the humorous and friendly alien over the terrifying shape-shifting monstrosity that featured in Carpenter's film, especially ironic given that when you really examine them The Thing is by far the better movie. Fittingly, the 2011 prequel, also titled The Thing, would have similar results at the box office (although with a slightly warmer reception).

Since then, like many of Carpenter's films, The Thing would obtain a cult following after playing on late-night television. Over time, people would begin to warm up to it, and now it is often recognized as a masterpiece of suspense and tension. What is easy to forget is that The Thing is a remake. Admittedly, it is a very good remake that might be better than the original, but what of the original? What was the original film like?

The 1951 horror film The Thing From Another World by Christian Nyby and Howard Hawks might not seem so scary now, but it was chilling when it first came out. John Carpenter himself first saw the movie in 1952 when he was about four or five, and according to him it was a movie so terrifying his popcorn flew out of his hands. To be fair, the idea of a "super carrot" (that description is literally used in the movie) is actually handled better than one would expect. 

The Thing is obviously a man in a suit, but the filmmakers made the smart choice to show it as little as possible. We really only get a good look at it right at the end, and up to that point it is only partially seen, kept in shadow, shown very quickly, viewed from a distance, etc. Instead most of the movie is about the characters trying to deal with the problem once it gets out. In keeping with Howard Hawks' usual style, most of the plot becomes one of character interaction complete with his usual rapid-fire dialogue.

In many ways it's not hard to see the influence this had on a lot of later science fiction films. Its basic concept is remarkably similar to the plot of Alien. Aliens even led up to a really big fight scene with one of the marines watching and constantly reporting movement on his tracker very much like how the men in The Thing From Another World use a Geiger counter to tell when the Thing is approaching.

Carpenter evidently took a lot of inspiration from this 1951 horror classic. According to him, part of what led to him making The Thing was when he read the original short story in high school and realized how different it was. The Thing From Another World has very little to do with its source material. The Thing here is a vegetable (literally referred to as such by the characters) that is capable of reproducing various plant life, hardly the shape-shifting alien of Campbell's short story and Carpenter's version. 

However, there are elements of Campbell's story that make it into The Thing From Another World. Among other things, the discovery of the Thing plays like in the story (an interesting contrast to the Carpenter film, which has a Norwegian expedition discover the Thing before it encounters the American protagonists). It is also the sled dogs who are the first ones attacked when the Thing gets loose, the Thing's severed arm suddenly coming to life is reminiscent of a plot point in both the book and the Carpenter film, and it is electricity that is finally used to destroy the Thing (in the book, this was the most reliable method, while Carpenter's version preferred flame). 

In most respects, however, Carpenter's version is probably the closest to the original short story and goes in quite a few different directions although Carpenter clearly drew from The Thing From Another World. Probably the most obvious similarity is the effect used for the title card (in which "The Thing" appears to burn into the screen) that would in turn be copied for the 2011 prequel film.

Carpenter takes a very different approach in his work, going back to the original story instead of directly remaking Hawks' film. Like Campbell's story, Carpenter opted to create the movie with an all-male cast (both The Thing From Another World and the 2011 prequel introduced female characters). This actually lends a new dimension to the story and an additional layer of suspense.

It was only a few years earlier that John Carpenter accidentally created the slasher formula with Halloween. Subsequently, one usually gets an idea of who lives and who dies. The virgin girl is usually likely to live while her sex-obsessed friends get killed off in overly-gory ways. By switching things up and making an all-male cast, especially one where none of them are teenagers, it becomes much harder to anticipate who will live and who will die.

The big element that really fascinated Carpenter when making The Thing was the claustrophobia and paranoia. In The Thing From Another World the characters are simply unsure when the Thing will make its next appearance. Carpenter's film has the added element where the Thing could be... well.. anything. Imagine you are stuck inside this camp, and this creature is present and imitating some of your partners so perfectly that you never notice when it happened. You know that someone isn't human, but you don't know who, and how do you figure it out?

The Thing also relies on a small degree of subjectivity, since the fact that several plot threads are left unresolved. We never find out for certain who got to the blood or when certain members of the team were infected. Fuchs disappears for a while and later his body is found burned outside and we only get a few guesses as to why. Nauls disappears entirely in the film's climax (although there were practical reasons for this, he was originally supposed to be ambushed by the Thing like Garry but they couldn't get the effects right). Special mention goes to Blair, whose actions throughout the movie can take on whole new meanings depending on when you believe he was infected by the Thing.

The 2011 prequel, also titled The Thing would try and recreate that same sense of paranoia and claustrophobia and while not as successful it is a worthy effort. As unnecessary as a prequel was I can't fault the director for taking on the project (it was originally supposed to be a remake of Carpenter's film, which in turn was already a remake of The Thing From Another World, it's not hard to see where a prequel would have been preferable). Looking at that film, I get the sense that it was a group of fans of Carpenter's work who went in knowing they'd never top it and just did their best with the studio restrictions.

While I would still be interested in seeing a directors cut of some sort, given that the studio interfered a lot with the final product (they did originally use animatronics before the CGI was forced in against the will of the filmmakers), I can appreciate the effort that went in. The attention to detail at times is amazing and you can really tell the production crew wanted to be faithful to Carpenter's movie.

Ultimately, I'm not sure one could ever truly capture the sense of dread that came with the Norwegian Camp sequence of the 1982 film. In Carpenter's film, nothing particularly scary actually happens when Mac and Copper arrive at the Norwegian camp. What makes the scene so dreadful is just the knowledge that something really frightening happened here. The damage to the camp, the dark lighting, and even the frozen corpse of a man that cut his own throat open with a razor blade make that much clear. However, the 2011 prequel might be the closest anyone could get to achieving that aim.


Bringing the whole trilogy full circle, it is apparent that the 2011 prequel may actually have drawn from, in addition to Carpenter's The Thing, Hawks and Nyby's The Thing From Another World. This becomes most apparent when we look at a particular character from each. In the 2011 prequel, there is a character named Sander who comes into conflict with the other characters. He is fascinated by the Thing and even after it escapes and proves itself to be a threat he becomes determined to study it and understand it.

Another element that made Carpenter's film work so well was that all of the men tried to be professional. They made (sometimes fatal) mistakes but they seemed like real, rational people going up against something the likes of which they have no idea how to deal with. As the scientist whose pursuit of knowledge endangers everyone around him, he likely did not draw from The Thing, but The Thing From Another World had the very similar character of Dr. Carrington. Like Sander, Carrington was a scientist who was so obsessed with studying the Thing he is willing to put everybody's life at risk, even going out of his way to sabotage efforts to destroy it. It's not too hard to see where the connection comes in.

Ultimately out of all three "Thing" movies, Carpenter's is undoubtedly the best. That is the one that really has the fear and suspense, with effects that still hold up today and a sense of paranoia that allows it to continue to be effective on multiple viewings. That said, both the others are still decent and enjoyable movies in their own right, even if they're not as impressive.