Blue Velvet (1986)

Title: Blue Velvet (1986)

Director: David Lynch

Cast: Isabella Rossellini, Dennis Hopper, Laura Dern, Kyle MacLachlan, Dean Stockwell, Brad Dourif, Jack Nance

Blue Velvet came around the time when Lynch was trying to bounce back from the financial disaster that was Dune (1984). Now if you ask me, I’m one of the ones that loves Lynch’s Dune, always have and always will, but more about that on my review for Dune! So for whatever the reason, audiences just didn’t engulf Lynch’s vision of Frank Herbert’s Dune universe. Did this mean Lynch was a bad director? Hell no, he’d already proven himself to be a force to be reckoned with Eraserhead (1977) and the incredibly moving The Elephant Man (1980), both mind blowing in their own ways. Dune was just a hiccup along the road. Dune tanking at the box office was not going to stop Lynch from making more movies. So, thanks to the benevolent help of producer extraordinaire Dino DeLaurentis, Blue Velvet got the green light. The trick to getting this film made was making it for very little. Blue Velvet was a risky picture to commit to because it dealt with both sex and violence and it was a very dark picture. Some sacrifices were going to have to be made if Blue Velvet was ever going to see the light of day, and so, with everyone getting a pay cut, Blue Velvet was made with a mere six million dollars.

On this film we meet Jeffrey Beaumont, a college kid who’s coming back home to see his father who’s suffered from a devastating stroke. While wandering through his old neighborhood, Jeffrey stumbles upon a human ear decaying on the grass. Jeffrey is a good natured kid; he has a very positive, generally happy outlook on life, you get the feeling that he hasn’t seen enough of the world to become bitter and angry. Jeffrey is also a naturally curious young man, so he picks up the ear and takes it to the police, who decide to investigate further. Problem is that Jeffrey thinks he can investigate faster on his own, so he takes it upon himself to go deeper down the rabbit hole. Where will his investigations take him, especially considering the strange world we live in?

Blue Velvet is all about sex and violence, and how sometimes both of these worlds can get entangled to the point where they are difficult to differentiate. At which point are you "roughing it up a little" during sex and at which point does sex become sadomasochistic? Jeffrey Beaumont is a character who is exploring his boundaries, he wants to see that dark side of life that he’s never seen, he wants to see what’s hidden underneath, the taboos, the things no one wants to talk about. This is one of the defining themes of this film; that maybe the picture perfect world we see in front of our eyes isn’t as picture perfect as we’d like to think. I loved how Lynch mixes snap shots of a suburban neighborhood, picket fences, flowers and shinny new cars, with the horrors that are hidden underneath it all. Here, Lynch shows society living a façade. On the surface we see beauty, but if we look just a bit deeper, we see there are some pretty nasty things going on in this world. An example of this is Jeffrey, walking about this grassy knoll only to find a dead, decaying human ear when he decides to look where he’s walking. There are many references to darkness beneath the light in the film, for example, we see the picture perfect neighborhood, while inside of the houses, people are watching violent mystery stories on television, alluding to humanities allure with violence.

On the sexual side of things is where Blue Velvet really takes off though. We are presented with Jeffrey Beaumont and his new girlfriend Sandy Williams (18 year old Laura Dern) both of whom represent innocence and purity. They are so pure that they can’t stop giggling all the time; they can’t help being excited by the mystery that’s unfolding before them, like two little kids. They learn the hard way that some things are better left alone. On Blue Velvet, Jeffrey’s “innocence” is corrupted when he meets Dorothy Vallens, played by Isabella Rossellini, a battered character that’s emotionally and psychologically broken. Rossellini conveys all these emotions wonderfully through her performance which comes off as a woman who can’t escape the darkness she’s in, she’s gone in too deep; to top things off, she’s grown into a masochist. This desire to get pleasure from pain comes as a shock to Jeffrey, who’s only about caring for others. While Jeffrey asks “are you okay?” to Dorothy, she asks him to hit her. So we have to diametrically opposed characters, attracting each other because of their differences. Jeffrey is attracted by Dorothy’s intensely erotic nature while Jeffrey’s tenderness is something new to her. He’s a good natured kid getting mixed up with a damaged soul.  So these two worlds are clashing with each other, there’s no way that Jeffrey is going to come out unharmed from all of this. Yet there’s nobility to Jeffrey. He doesn’t have to get mixed up in this, but he does, because he feels sympathy for Dorothy. By the way, this is a very vulnerable performance from Rossellini, she bares all in a character that’s worth exploring.

Enter Frank Booth, one of the most evil, dark, twisted characters you will ever meet on any film. He’s the kind of character that comes off as truly scary, Frank will make you scared of the idea that there are people like him roaming the world. Dennis Hopper delivers an amazingly demented performance, very intense. He represents the worst thing that a man can become and that’s abusive of women. And this is one of the most important questions the film asks: “Why are there people like Frank in the world?” There's a scene where we are in the backseat of a car as Frank Booth is driving, Dennis Hopper plays it so evil that you get this feeling that you do not want to be there! Why are their people so messed up that they have to abuse women? That they get pleasure out of inflicting pain? Men who have to show that they are the alpha males, that they are the ones with physical power and that they can abuse it. With Blue Velvet Lynch once again addresses the theme of psychologically and physically abused women. He also played with these themes in Inland Empire (2006) albeit in a slightly more surreal fashion, but it’s in Blue Velvet that he explores them most deeply. Isabella Rossellini is the poster child for abused women as Frank Booth is the poster child for abusive men. I did like how not all men are portrayed as abusive, because while Frank is all that can be evil about a man, Jeffrey is the complete opposite. He cares for women and wants to show them tenderness and care.  

Women have always made up a huge part of Lynch’s body of work. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) is yet another film about abused girls. Mulholland Dr. (2001) also centers on women. Same as Federico Fellini, women are a favorite topic of Lynch’s and same as many Fellini films, an admiration, an adoration of the female is felt. There are many other elements to Blue Velvet that will remind you that it’s a David Lynch film; the art direction, the colors in a room, the mellow lighting, the peculiar looking lamps; that droning sound and same as in many Lynch films, somebody singing a sad song from a stage will always figure into the story, in this case its Isabella Rosellini herself who will hypnotize you while singing ‘Blue Velvet’. Lynch’s love for a good mystery is also at the heart of Blue Velvet. We discover this intricate mystery as we follow Jeffrey, deeper and deeper into this dark, dark world. Also, there are wonderfully weird moments that will let you know you’re in Lynch territory, like this scene in which Dean Stockwell sings Roy Orbison's 'In Dreams', wow, now that's weird! These scenes will stir emotions in you that you didn’t know you could feel, and that’s what is so great about Lynch. He creates premises so strange, so surreal that they’ll trigger an emotional reaction out of you, even if you don’t fully comprehend what you are seeing. But speaking of coherence, Blue Velvet is actually one of Lynch’s most linear films; it just goes into really strange, dark places. But, like any good mystery, you’ll end up loving it and wanting to see it all the way through, like Jeffrey,  Lynch will turn you into a voyeur who can’t stop watching.  

Rating: 5 out of 5     

My Science Project (1985)

Title: My Science Project (1985)

Director: Jonathan R. Betuel

Cast: John Stockwell, Danielle Von Zerneck, Fisher Stevens, Dennis Hopper

Review:

My Science Project came about around the time when teenage sci-fi comedies like Back to the Future (1985), The Last Star Fighter (1984), Weird Science (1985) and Real Genius (1985) where huge box office hits. Some of these teen sci-fi comedies made a lot of money, others didn’t fare so well. My Science Project was one of the ones that didn’t fare so well at the box office. There are various reasons that we can attribute to its failure, one of them being that it didn’t have any “it” teenagers or big time producer/directors involved in its production. For example, Back to the Future starred Michael J. Fox and had Steven Spielberg producing, Weird Science had super hot model Kelly LeBrock, Real Genius had  Val Kilmer, but My Science Project counted with no name actors or producers. I mean, Fisher Stevens isn’t exactly a huge box office draw and neither was anyone else on the film, basically, this was one of those movies in which everyone was just getting started in the industry. Dennis Hoppers role is basically a glorified cameo, so it doesn’t really count.  Sometimes in a film, it’s the special effects that are the star of the show, this was the case with The Last Star Fighter which employed computer effects heavily, which was a novelty at the time. My Science Project also had a huge emphasis on visual effects, question is:  were they worth a damn?

The story for My Science Project goes something like this: Michael is the local grease monkey/high school student who is flunking science class. In order to pass the class, his science project has to be “Dy-no-mite”, unfortunately, nothing has popped into his head. It seems Michael is only good at one thing: fixing cars. Not to worry though, Michael has decided to visit a military junk yard in hopes to find something that might wow his science teacher. Low and behold, he finds this weird looking machine that glows with purple light. He doesn’t know exactly what it is, but It looks like he’s found exactly what he needs to pass his class! Too bad for him this isn’t just any old gizmo! This is an alien machine that creates “time warp wormholes” that bring things from other times into our own. Will they find a way to shut the damn thing off?

The thing about the film is that it starts out fun enough, with these teenagers, each doing their thing, one is a geek, the other a grease monkey, the other a television/comics freak and I was personally digging the movies first half in which we get to meet the protagonists. The girl of the group is ‘Ellie’ and she’s writing an article for the school newspaper while at the same time trying to go out with the grease monkey ‘Michael’. She’s all head strong about it asking him out. Problem is that Michael is confronted by his hippy science teacher played by Dennis Hopper. By then the film was reminding me of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989), which has a similar premise, two best friends have to travel through time to recover real life historical figures in order to pass their history exams. Unfortunately once Michael turns the machine on the film turns into a dull visual effects show that never seems to end. The effects are cool to look and I have to admit, I loved the sound effects they used for it, but after a while it turns redundant. You simply get more of the same thing over and over again. You see, the time warp thing brings all sorts of creatures and characters from other times into the local high school, so it isn’t long before we’re seeing mutants, cavemen and dinosaurs roaming the halls of the school. I will say that there’s this cool moment where a T-Rex pops into the school’s gym that I loved. But then we go back to the overdose of blue lights.

The concept is a good one; the whole thing with having creatures come in and out of time also reminded me a whole lot of Weird Science, a film where they also fooled around with the same idea. The only difference is that Weird Science was actually funny; this one loses the funny by focusing on the visual effects. At the time, these types of effects were very popular, I remember that Lifeforce (1985) was another film that had a lot of these flashy blue lights on the screen, the problem for me with My Science Project is that too much time is spent on the visual effects and the characters and their motivations get lost in the shuffle. The romance between Michael and Ellie kind of loses steam; in my opinion they needed to focus a bit more on it so things would matter more. There’s this whole subplot about Michaels father getting married with a bimbo that has absolutely nothing to do with the plot, it seems to have been included in there for no reason but to stretch the films running time. There’s a moment where the film drags, but then we go back to the whole thing with the monsters in the school and things get a bit more exciting. Then it's all about turning off the machine and fighting whatever monsters come out of the worm hole. 

"Who you gonna call?"

In terms of performances, this movie's saving grace is of course, Dennis Hopper who plays the stoned out of his mind science teacher. He isn’t in the film all that much, but when he is he lights up the screen and steals the show. Basically, Hopper plays the whole thing as if he was still ‘Billy’ from Easy Rider (1969), he says “yeah man” and “far out” a lot and wears a peace symbol on his neck. He has one of the craziest moments in the film. Then we have Fisher Stevens, whom some of you might remember as the guy who invented ‘Johnny Five’ in Short Circuit (1986). He’s easily the funniest thing in the movie, always referencing some 80’s movie or television show. There’s this moment where he talks about John Carpenter’s Christine (1983). That’s one of the things I like about this movie, the kids are all talking about very 80’s things. For example, there’s this one moment when somebody asks “How many times have you seen Jedi?” At another moment in the film some hoodlums are wearing storm trooper helmets! All these 80’s references made the whole thing very nostalgic for me, I used to watch this one a lot back in the day. How 80's is this movie? Well, wait till the end credits and hear the theme song for the film, thats how 80's!. 

I watched this one with a friend of mine and she kept pointing out how hot John Stockwell looked, unfortunately, his good looks didn’t take him too far, he never turned into an 80’s “it boy”, what he did do was become a filmmaker. He’s gone on to make films like Crazy/Beautiful (2001), Blue Crush (2002), Into the Blue (2005) and Turistas (2006), his career as a filmmaker is actually alive and kicking. Fisher Stevens also turned into a director making films like Stand Up Guys (2012) and Just a Kiss (2002). Danielle Von Zerneck ‘s career isn’t filled with that many great films, but to me she will always be Ritchie Valens’s  girlfriend “Donna” in La Bamba (1987). So maybe starring in My Science Project didn’t send them to stardom, but hey, these protagonists have found a way to thrive in the film industry in other ways. The only one whose career in the film industry fizzled was the films director, Jonathan Betuel. He wrote and directed the film, which was kind of cool because he also happens to be the guy who wrote The Last Star Fighter (1984), one of my favorite films from the 80’s. The success of The Last Star Figther is probably what got him this gig. After being involved in the making of these two films, he never directed any feature films of note, unless you count the Whoopi Goldberg vehicle Theodore Rex (1995) which cost 33 million dollars yet went straight to video, which probably explains why Betuel never worked again in the film industry, that’s what I call one expensive flop! I haven’t seen Theodore Rex, but it is heralded as one of the worst films ever made. They say it’s kind of like a remake of Blade Runner, but with Harrison Ford as a Dinosaur? Damn, now that I think about it, I’m going to have to see that! I'll have me one of those 'bad movie nights'.  Bottom line with My Science Project is, it’s not a ‘top tier’ 80’s film, but it’s not completely forgettable rubbish either. If you’re feeling nostalgic about the 80’s, it’s at least worth a watch.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Waterworld (1995)

Title: Waterworld (1995)

Director: Kevin Reynolds, Kevin Costner

Cast: Kevin Costner, Dennis Hopper, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Tina Majorino, Michael Jeter                       

Review:

So I couldn’t end my ‘post apocalyptic blog-a-thon’ without reviewing Waterworld; the most expensive post apocalyptic movie EVER made. It’s right up there with other huge budget post apocalyptic films like I Am Legend (2007) and Costner’s own The Postman (1997), so in essence, Waterworld is actually king of all post apocalyptic movies, at least in terms of how much it cost to make. This was to be ‘Mad Max on Water’, in my book that’s a pretty exciting concept, best of all they perfectly achieved it! This was The Road Warrior at Sea!  In scale, Waterworld is bigger than any other post apocalyptic film out there to date. This was a film that cost 175 million dollars to make and it was the most expensive film that had ever been made at the time; period! Sadly, even though so much time, man power, money and efforts went into making this particular picture, it didn’t make as much money as expected, and so it was deemed a box office flop. It made its money back (255 million when all was said and done) but not enough to call it a winner. Kind of the same thing that happened to The Golden Compass (2007), huge budget, made its money back, but not enough; not what the studio was expecting. Waterworld was considered a failure upon release. But why? Was the film as bad as some of the press it was getting? Why was it getting so much bad press?

My professional opinion on Waterworld is that it in fact does not suck. In fact, I salute Kevin Reynolds for having shot this film, making this film was one hell of a task! I was re-watching it last night with some of my friends and we were having a blast with it. We all agreed, the millions spent on the film where up there on the screen, I mean you could see the nearly 200 million dollars it cost to make. There’s this extended action sequence where the villains known as The Smokers, attack the main atoll that is one exquisitly well orchestrated action sequence! It includes hundreds of extras, jet skis jumping in the air, explosions, boats, machine guns, they even had planes flying all over the place! They certainly pulled out all stops on that one. Normally, we as an audience just think “wow, cool stuff!” but sometimes we don’t even think about all the hard work and logistics that go into organizing a scene like that one. To complicate matters, everything was literally shot in the ocean; a mile off the coast of Hawaii. So we’re not talking about a fake CGI ocean in the background, this was the real ocean! Director Kevin Reynolds was to have an experience with nature while making this film, a la german director Werner Herzog, who also films most of his films in real locations under the most strenuos circumstances. Reynolds was going to make a tough movie, out in the wild, but it was going to be an experience! Making a movie out in the open sea was one of the main factors that made making this film such an arduous task.

When the time came to make this movie, Reynolds asked Steven Spielberg who’d shot most of Jaws (1975) in the open sea, about the pitfalls one might expect when shooting a film on open water. Spielberg’s answer? “I would never shoot another picture on water” But Reynolds went and did his picture in the ocean anyway, this wouldn’t be the first time Reynolds’s confronted problems while  making a film, but then again, making a good film is never an easy task. Problems are someting you simply have to overcome when making a movie. For example: catastrophe started from day one, when the two main actresses in the film (Jeanne Tripplehorn and Tina Majorino) almost drowned when a boat sank and dragged them down into the ocean with them! A major set actually sank into the ocean! They had to stop production on three occasions because of Hurricane warnings. There was also some on set hostility because crew members didn’t have comfortable accommodations. Rumors where running around that two stunt men had died while shooting an action scene, which was never true! In other words, this production was a genuine, true blue, cluster fuck of a production. The result? Kevin Reynolds abandoned the picture and Kevin Costner himself ended up directing part of it. The final cut of the film was not overseen by Kevin Reynolds, creative differences frustrated the director so much he left it in other peoples hands to finish the picture. Reportedly, Reynolds and Costner had differences on the way things should be done. According to IMDB, Reynolds felt that Kevin Costner “should only star in films he directs, that way he can work with his favorite actor and director” Since then, Costner and Reynolds have put all that animosity behind them, but during and after Waterworld things got ugly between them. 

But in spite of all these production woes, I’d say they got away with making an excellent post apocalyptic action adventure, one of the best ones out there when we come down to it. I need to go on right here and speak about this films production values, which are amazing. Great steps where taking to build the sets, the post apocalyptic vehicles and make all that post apocalyptic wardrobe for all those actors, I mean this was a huge production! They even had an army of jet skies! Everything on this film was made especially for it, this alone represents a gargantuan task. But aside from this films amazing production values, we also get a great cast and interesting (albeit not always likable) characters. Same as in Dances With Wolves (1990), Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) and The Postman (1997), on Waterworld Kevin Costner plays a rebellious leader, only on this one he is a hero against his will, an anti-hero of sorts. I saw this character as representing the loner, surviving in this cruel world, trying the best he can to look out for no one but himself. Can’t say I blame him considering the kind of world he lives in: one completely engulfed by water! No dry land to be seen! This guy is so tough that he doesn’t even have a name; through out the film he is simply called ‘The Mariner’. He hates kids, and doesn’t want the responsibility of having one. Basically, he comes off as a major butthole through the whole film, but of course, as any true hero would, he soon learns to show his tender side. Deep down inside, in spite of his apparent selfishness, he cares. So we get the true definition of the anti-hero. Like Jack Burton in Big Trouble in Little China (1986), The Mariner is a loner, and remains one through out the entire picture. He loves ‘em and leaves ‘em; he’s true love is really the ocean.  

Speaking of the ocean, the waters are dominated by a group of villains called the smokers, lead by a dictator called ‘The Deacon’ a man who believes that everything should be run on oil, that humanities problems are solved through war and devastation.;  he believes in ruling over the masses as if they were cattle. His modus operandi is lies and manipulation. All he cares about is finding the mythical dry land, so he can exploit it! He tells the people he receives visions so great, that when he sees them he cries, which is all bullcrap of course. So we get a great villain with The Deacon, as played by the always amusing Dennis Hopper. On this one Hopper is in crazy mode, being evil even to little girls! This is something that’s kind of amusing about this movie, the little girl in the film called Enola (Alone backwards), has a map tattooed to her back, and she’s kind of like the prophesized child or whatever, but everyone treats her like crap! Especially The Deacon who tells her things like “He’ll see what’s left of you in a goddamn jar!” and “How about a cigarette? Nothing like a good smoke when you miss your mom, it’s never too late to start” So we get an amusing villain, one that represents the worst in government. And yeah, this is a film that hits on dictatorships and the dirty nature of politics. The Deacon is a leader who puts on a show, as if he was the peoples savior, but deep down inside all he cares about is using the people to achieve his twisted purposes. He sees dry land as something to be exploited to the max, so at the end of the day, Waterworld is a very environmentalist picture. The villains on this film sail around on an oil tanker called ‘The Exxon Valdez’, an allusion to the Exxon Valdez environmental catastrophe. It seemed to me that the filmmakers behind Waterworld see these oil hungry companies as villains; enemies to the environment who should sink to the darkest levels of hell. The villains in the picture represent a society (much like ours) that’s completely reliant on the black blood of the earth. So Waterworld can be added to this batch of films that begs the powers that be to find and develop a new, cleaner form of energy; one that doesn’t place so much stress on our planet.

So what we got here ladies and gentlemen is a film that got a lot of bad press before it even got out. Not sure exactly why this happened, could it be that both films speak about environmental issues and bash on the way the governments of the world are running things? Could it be that fictional bad press is created to bring these types of movies down? This kind of situation kind of reminds me of what happened to John Carter (2012), another environmentally friendly film, that spoke about a new form of cleaner energy, and that also criticized governments and society. It also got bad press even before release and it wasnt even a bad film. Maybe the powers that be want films of this nature to flop so the create bad press around them? Things to think about, it wouldnt be the first time that the publics opinion is manipulated by the powers that be. Ultimately, sometimes people like to see the big guy go down, in fact, they love seeing it happen. Just look at Britney Spears, she was big for a while, then she was shot down by the very same people who made her. People love bad news more than good news. Reynolds himself said in an interview he did for Den of Geek.com: “People were so hungry for bad news, because it was so much more exciting. They just said it, and it hurt us” Reynolds own take on Waterworld? “I don’t think it’s any better or worse than most summer blockbusters, it’s somewhere in the middle. I think yeah, it’s certainly got its faults, but I think, you know, on another level it works quite well compared to some of the other big films. By the end, people, they wanted it to be a disaster. And in fact, Lou Wasserman, who was head of MCA at the time, he said that he thought the bad press on the picture cost us 50 million at the box office.” So folks, after all is said and done, the evidence tells us that Waterworld was unfortunately a film that for some reason the press chose to kill, same as many celebrities they zero in on and whose careers and lives they destroy. I say this film needs to be given a second chance and seen for what it was never seen as upon its original release: an enjoyable action adventure flick, and one of the most impressive post apocalyptic films ever made. By the way, I recommend checking out the director's cut, it makes for a more epic and complete viewing experience. 

Rating: 4 out of 5