Film Review: OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN (1983, George P. Cosmatos)

Stars: 3 of 5.
Running Time: 88 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Peter Weller (ROBOCOP, NAKED LUNCH, THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI), Kenneth Welsh (SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD, TWIN PEAKS, PERFECT), Maury Chaykin (TWINS, THE ADJUSTER, DANCES WITH WOLVES), Jennifer Dale (THE ADJUSTER, SUZANNE), Shannon Tweed (HOT DOG THE MOVIE, STEEL JUSTICE, ex-Playboy Playmate, and ex of Gene Simmons), Lawrence Dane (SCANNERS, BRIDE OF CHUCKY), Louis Del Grande (SCANNERS, ATLANTIC CITY). Produced by Pierre David and Claude Héroux (VIDEODROME, SCANNERS, THE BROOD, VISITING HOURS).
Tag-line: "Two forces have claimed the house. Only one will survive."
Best one-liner: "You never said anything about rubber gloves, you boneheaded fart."

It's like MOBY DICK, except instead of Captain Ahab, we have Peter Weller. And instead of a great white whale, we have a giant brown rat. And instead of the high seas, we have a New York apartment building (actually filmed in Montreal). It's a familiar tale. You know- He had it all. The perfect wife. The perfect job. The perfect kid. The perfect home.

Until... a mere rodent made his life into a living hell... a succession of grotesque blightings... an obsession beyond human comprehension...
I suppose, the main lesson here being, 'Don't fuck with a man's brownstone.' And so it's war. Peter Weller is taking this infestation personally.

Needless to say, only one of our two combatants will be left standing. But who? And at what cost?

Helmed by creature-feature conoisseur and ghost-director extraordinaire George Pan Cosmatos (RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II, COBRA, LEVIATHAN, and TOMBSTONE), OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN possesses that strangely sterile, alienating 'Canadian horror' vibe that Cronenberg has used to such great effect in films such as THE FLY, CRASH, and DEAD RINGERS.

Of course, this may have something to do with the producers, Pierre David and Claude Héroux, who produced most of Cronenberg's 70's and 80's output. The atmosphere certainly works: we have man, existing in the carefully constructed steel, glass, and concrete compartments he has created for himself. Tubes and vents ensure proper ventilation and waste disposal. Everything fits within the lines and the walls and the gridlike streets and life is good and– SCHLERP SCHLERP SCHLERP–

Next thing you know, the rat is leaving its creepy little footprints on your coffee table. You know, those terrifying, pink, viscous, semi-translucent, soggy fuckin' paws. It's eating your cereal, knockin' your phone off the hook, leavin' its hairs in your sandwich, playin' your piano, and tryin' to chomp your nuts as you're sittin' on the toilet.

My thoughts exactly, Peter Weller.

Filmed with PHASE IV-style macroscopic photography and hideous attention to detail, OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN dashes headlong into the claustrophic, nasty little world of vermin.

Sewer rat POV.

Peter Weller slowly descends into madness– the rat is one tough customer. Can't trap it. Can't poison it. Can't shoot it. Can't even sic the cat on it. Next thing you know, Pete's talking to the stuffed animals. He's reading MOBY DICK. His day job suffers. It's awesomely clichéd: oh, now he's hitting the bottle.

Next he's sifting through microfiche. He's researching the rat. He's discovering there's 24,000 reported rat bites a year. It's becoming an obsession. He loses touch with co-workers. At a company dinner, he just rattles off facts about rats, much to everyone's chagrin.

Including the chagrin of genius character actor, Kenneth Welsh.

He witnesses the miracle of rat birth. He watches Spencer Tracy in THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA. It's man versus nature versus man versus nature. "This isn't some ordinary rat I'm dealing with. It killed my cat." He screams "You want a war, I'll give you a war!" Weller is great. He's always great. He appears to be wearing the same nerdy glasses he later wears in NAKED LUNCH, and he's unraveling at the seams. There are other characters, I suppose, but this is a one man show.

Before you can say, "It's clobberin' time," Weller has devised a rat-smashing implement that can be best described as an 'atomic bear-trap war-club.'

He's gotten to the point where he just sits in his home. In the dark. Wearing a woolen cap. Clutching his atomic bear-trap war-club. Waiting. Like a coiled spring. Waiting. Ready to snap.
There's a final showdown, of course. It's pretty satisfying. Only one of the two rivals will survive. Who will it be? Our hang-dog urban commando? Our twitchy, disease-spreading, four-legged fiend? Will it be "watch and weep, you furry fucker!" or will it be curtains for the man who thinks of his home as his castle? Well, watch the movie and find out.

Three stars. A fine, crittery, jittery time. Not a classic, but it's one of the best 'man versus rat' movies out there.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: TOMBSTONE (1993, "George Cosmatos")

Stars: 5 of 5.
Running Time: 134 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Kurt Russell, Terry O'Quinn, Val Kilmer, John Fasano, Powers Boothe, Michael Biehn, Jon Tenney (HOMECOMING), Charlton Heston, Sam Elliott, Dana Delaney, Thomas Haden Church, Michael Rooker (HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER), Harry Carey, Jr., Wyatt Earp (real relative), Robert John Burke (Hal Hartley alum, DUST DEVIL, and ROBOCOP mantle-taker-upper after Peter Weller left), John Corbett, Billy Zane, Billy Bob Thorton, Frank Stallone (Sly's brother and fabulous musician- STAYING ALIVE soundtrack), Robert Mitchum (just did the narration unfortunately), Stephen Lang (MANHUNTER), Christopher Mitchum (Robert's son).
Tag-line: "Every town has a story. Tombstone has a legend."
Best one-liner: "I'm you're huckleberry."

Five reasons why 1993's TOMBSTONE is the best telling of the Wyatt Earp legend (a tale that's been told by everyone from John Ford to a STAR TREK episode to Anthony Mann to a Kenny Rogers TV Movie to Lawrence Kasdan).

#1. 'Staches, 'staches, 'staches.

Every 'stache in this film is authentic, from Sam Elliott's dignified silvery behemoth to Kurt Russell's angry, in-command, lip carpet to Jon Tenney's slimy, roguish dandy.

#2. "I'm your huckleberry!"

Val Kilmer's gleeful, sickly, girlish, fey performance as Doc Holliday. Hands down, the oddest performance in a Western since Marlon Brando in THE MISSOURI BREAKS, and it's completely spot-on. "You're a daisy if you do!"

#3. The redunkulous cast of supporting players. From Powers Boothe to Michael Biehn to Bill Paxton to Michael Rooker to Terry O'Quinn to Billy Zane to Charlton Heston to Billy Bob Thornton to a Robert Mitchum narration, they're all here. And they're all brilliant.

#4. Co-written by John Fasano, director of the infamous ROCK N' ROLL NIGHTMARE (reviewed here). Damn! That's gotta get points for something!

#5. The fact that it's the only film Kurt Russell ever directed. (Everyone says that he usurped control from the ghost-directing George Cosmatos (who "directed" COBRA and RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II for Stallone) and refashioned the script, flow, and structure, even at the expense of his own screentime).

And the film's got all the energy, humility, dignity, sincerity, and intensity that one would expect from Russell, along with one of his best performances since THE THING (and this was his follow-up to CAPTAIN RON). "You tell 'em I'M coming... and hell's coming with me, you hear?... Hell's coming with me!"

-Sean Gill

Film Review: RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II (1985, George P. Cosmatos)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 97 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Sylvester Stallone, Richard Crenna, James Cameron (he wrote the first draft of the script- our man Stallone finished it), Jerry Goldsmith (he did the music on everything from STAR TREK to GREMLINS), Jack Cardiff (he shot everything from Powell & Pressburger's THE RED SHOES to CAT'S EYE), Mark Goldblatt (co-editor here, editor of PREDATOR 2, and director of DEAD HEAT).
Tag-line: "What most people call hell, he calls home."
Best one-liner(s): "Mission... accomplished." [thrusts knife into table]
Best Exchange: "How will you live, John?" "... Day by day."
Element that would have made this the best movie ever: According to the documentary WE GET TO WIN THIS TIME, the producers considered teaming up Stallone with his STAYING ALIVE protégé John Travolta as Rambo's young partner in rescuing the American POWs. Stallone nixed this idea when he decided it would be better to make the film a solo project, thus robbing the camp gods of what could have been a true jewel in the crown.

Imagine if CASABLANCA had a sequel that started right where the first one left off. Rick and Renault go straight from the airport to the armory. They grab machine guns, proceed to the front lines and kill like 5,000 Nazis and end World War II right. The comparison is warranted. FIRST BLOOD is survivalist, psychological, morally ambiguous, practically an art film. RAMBO is a balls to the wall action film. And it's a damned good one. The first shot of the movie is an EXPLOSION. Right off the bat!

BOOM! The only other instance I can think of something like this happening is Lucio Fulci's ZOMBIE, which opens immediately with someone getting shot in the head. No set up, no establishing shot, just BOOM! We later get the main title. The word RAMBO is enormous and in FLAMES.

Quite a turnaround from FIRST BLOOD appearing over the muted, misty landscape of the Pacific Northwest. Rambo is offered a chance to do Vietnam Part II, his only caveat being: "Do we get to win this time?" Yeah, Rambo, we do. Cause we're taking the muzzle off John Rambo. We're not going to stay true to the bureaucratic spirit of those damned pencil necks in Washington-screw the paperwork, damn the torpedoes, and send in Rambo. There are two shots in particular that really sum up the film.



One is a loving, leisurely pan from Rambo's glistening bicep, slowly down his forearm to his serrated steel blade as he sharpens it. The other sees Rambo in the jungle as he senses a threat. He whirls around, a snake's neck in his hand. He pauses a moment, considers everything, and lets the snake live. Hey, he's just trying to survive, too. Not like these Communist hordes trying to cling to the last vestiges a war that they wanted, started, loved, and STILL love. Guess they shouldn't have made their villages so flammable. (Also of note: the brief local love interest, Co Bao, speaks lines like "Expendable? What mean expendable?" with perfect enunciation and diction.)

But in the end, it's all worth it just to see the Luddite Rambo destroy an enormous computer with machine gun fire for about two minutes. And don't worry, there's a little bit of context. It's about frustration and revenge and "The Man," which should be easily discernible from the expression on Stallone's emotive face.


Four stars of Jingoist fun. Hey, I'm just along for the ride.

-Sean Gill