Only now does it occur to me... BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS (1980)

Only now does it occur to me... that James Cameron first encountered the "TERMINATOR font" while working for Roger Corman.

What we have here is a John Sayles (!) scripted, low-ish budget sci-fi remake of Akira Kurosawa's THE SEVEN SAMURAI, starring a hodgepodge of affordable actors, from Richard Thomas (THE WALTONS) to Robert Vaughn (THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN) to John Saxon (A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET) to Sybil Danning (REFORM SCHOOL GIRLS) to George Peppard (THE A-TEAM). It's more enjoyable than you might expect––slightly better than STARCRASH (1978) or KRULL (1983), but pretty much playing in the same "poor man's STAR WAR" sandbox. I rate it lower than FLASH GORDON (1980), if that says anything.

According to James Cameron (credited as co-art director), he was responsible for most of the film's special effects, which are quite impressive for the budget. For comparison, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK had a $30.5 million budget, BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS had a $2 million budget, and there are several spaceships which easily look good enough to be in STAR WARS. (The same cannot be said for the sets, costumes, and makeup effects.)

Anyway, it's notable that this early Cameron effort uses the same font that Cameron would make famous in THE TERMINATOR (I cannot find any interview where this is mentioned––since he had such an outsize role in the art direction, production design, and special effects, it's possible he helped pick out the font.)

It's also where Cameron met composer James Horner,

and the two would go on to collaborate many times before Horner's death––from ALIENS to TITANIC to two AVATAR films. In all, quite a formative experience for the 25-year-old Cameron.

Only now does it occur to me... THE BODYGUARD (1992)

Only now does it occur to me... that Kevin Costner's character in THE BODYGUARD hates boats because he's experiencing psychic reverberations of the trials he will endure in the future of... WATERWORLD.







Speaking of "psychic reverberations of the future," he's talking to Whitney Houston's onscreen son there, played by DeVaughn Nixon. Throughout this film, he must live in fear of an unstoppable killer who wants to murder his mom. Not unlike his performance in TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY, when a practically unstoppable killer (Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor) wants to assassinate his dad (Joe Morton's Miles Dyson).

I must also give a shout-out to two major nods to arthouse cinema: first, during Whitney's "Queen of the Night," she is done up like Brigitte Helm in the notorious "Whore of Babylon" dance sequence from Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS:

as scenes from the film are projected behind her:

 Secondly, Costner takes Whitney on a date to see Akira Kurosawa's YOJIMBO,

which translates to, in English, "THE BODYGUARD." They review the film as follows:

I wish this would happen more often. What if, in Paul Haggis' CRASH, Thandie Newton and Terrence Howard had gone to the movies and seen David Cronenberg's CRASH? What if, in Cormac McCarthy's THE ROAD, Viggo Mortensen had arranged a post-apocalyptic screening of Fellini's LA STRADA? Some good possibilities there. Anyway.

Film Review: RUNAWAY TRAIN (1985, Andrei Konchalovsky)

Stars: 4.7 of 5.
Running Time: 111 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Jon Voight, Eric Roberts, Danny Trejo, Eddie Bunker, John P. Ryan (IT'S ALIVE, DELTA FORCE 2, CLASS OF 1999), T.K. Carter (Nauls in THE THING), Rebecca de Mornay, Hank Worden (THE SEARCHERS, STAGECOACH, the odd, milk-delivering waiter from TWIN PEAKS Season 2), Tommy 'Tiny' Lister (EXTREME PREJUDICE). Music by Trevor Jones. Produced by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus.
Best one-liner: [makes flatulent noise] "That's your mother's farthole, Rankin. The bitch is LOUD."

"Existential." "Poetic." "Award-winning." These are not words I would expect to use while describing a Golan-Globus film. To put it in perspective, they produced DEATH WISH 3, RAPPIN', INVASION U.S.A, and MISSING IN ACTION 2 the same year (1985).

Now, the forces which collaborated to make RUNAWAY TRAIN a reality are simply mind-blowing: it began its life as a shelved Akira Kurosawa script, picked up by Cannon and adapted by Paul Zindel (Pulitzer Prize winner for EFFECT OF GAMMA RAYS ON MAN-IN-THE-MOON MARIGOLDS), Djordje Milicevic (Serbian writer of John Huston's VICTORY), and Eddie Bunker (former inmate turned writer/actor). Bunker (who plays a memorable role here), is likely the most fascinating of the bunch- he stabbed a boy in the eye with a fork at 15, he was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List, he shivved a prison guard and befriended Danny Trejo (who makes his debut here), became buddies with Michael Mann after his release, wrote STRAIGHT TIME and ANIMAL FACTORY, and appeared in RESERVOIR DOGS (as Mr. Blue) and THE RUNNING MAN, among others.

Annnyway, Golan and Globus handed the directorial reins to Russian art house director Andrei Konchalovsky, and cast it with Hollywood powerhouses and Cannon heavies alike. Holy shit, what a combination! Our plot is this:

Two inmates- Jon Voight (a charismatic, raging grizzly of a man- "I'm at war with the world and everybody in it!") and Eric Roberts (who possesses a sleazy, oddly snakelike naivete)- escape the clutches of their steely, gum-chewing, mustachioed warden John P. Ryan

(who prays "God, don't kill them- let me do it!"), only to find themselves on a...RUNAWAY TRAIN. It develops into a brutal meld of TAKING OF PELHAM 1,2,3 and BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI that feels like a shiv to the palm.

It all ends with a Shakespeare quote, and your gut reaction is not "Damn, that's pretentious," but rather to catch your breath, wipe your brow, and make sure your guts are still there. Now, THAT says a lot.

-Sean Gill