Ray Bradbury Theater – Silent Towns (10/10/92)

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We open on a rocky red landscape but we know this is Mars because there are blue skies and this is Ray Bradbury Theater.  The barren Martian desert gives way to a small frontier town.  It has been deserted, and we know this because a lone newspaper sheet is blowing down the street.

The camera stops at the Mars Irrigation Board.  Employee Walter Grip is calling in to complain that no one has come to relieve him in 2 weeks.  He tells the answering machine he’s coming in to town to rip somebody a new one.  We see him hustling through sewers and treatment plants and up ladders, finally exiting on the side of a red mountain.  Whether this is a real location or a model, it is one of the most impressive things seen in this series.

Image 021In a car that seems to be made from corrugated Quonset hut surplus metal, he tears through some rugged terrain to get to the town.  The art direction on this episode really is a step up.  Along the way, he notices that, like NASA, there is not a single rocket left at the base.

Seeing the town completely empty and with newspapers frequently blowing by, he pulls over to the curb. Getting out, he notices a sign that says MARS EVACUATION DEADLINE SET, and decides he needs a drink.  He has quite a few and begins a conversation with himself like Nicholson in The Shining, about how beautiful his girl Clara is.  Although, to be fair, Nicholson did not have such a conversation about Shelley Duvall.

Image 024After making himself a salami sandwich with meat that has been sitting out for God knows how long, he goes back out into the street, where the newspapers continue to blow by.  Wouldn’t they all eventually be on the other side of town?  They are not a renewable eyesore like tumbleweeds.

Trudging past some Mars tract housing, he hears a phone ringing.  By the time he gets to it, it is dead.  He hears another phone down the street, several houses down.  He breaks a window to get in, but again just misses the connection.  Apparently star-69 is not a thing on Mars; but phones that can be heard a quarter-mile away are huge.  A few more houses down, another call.  It is a recorded message about the last rocket leaving Mars.  I wonder if the politicians would have carved out an exemption for this in the Do Not Call Registry?  Sure, it would save lives, but there’s no real opportunity for graft.

Grip decides to be proactive and goes to some sort of station where he is able to scroll through the names and numbers of all of the rImage 037esidents.  It sounds much more daunting than it really is — the phone numbers on the screen appear to only have 3 digits.

He is desperate to find his beautiful girlfriend Clara, but strangely never seems to call her number.  He gives up before he is out of the A’s and thinks to himself, “Where would Clara go?  Where would she be?” Despite all his big talk about how beautiful she is, his bright idea is to begin calling beauty salons.

He gets several recorded messages — just to let patrons know the shop will be closed. You know, what with the planet being evacuated.  However, he does miraculously reach a live woman, the last one on Mars.

The other big face on Mars.

The woman is thrilled to hear him. He is happy to hear that she is named Genevieve because all Genevieves are hot.  Also Heathers — you could look it up.  Walter immediately forgets Clara and sets out on the 900 mile journey to meet Genevieve.

He leaps from the car and enters the Martian Mystery Beauty Salon.  He calls for Genevieve and . . . well, apparently the hot-Genevieve rule only applies on earth.  It is interesting that they didn’t make her grotesque or morbidly obese, but she would definitely be a disappointment to any blind date.

She leads him to a cafe where she has set up a little dinner for two, although I suspect she was having a dinner for 2 every night before she met him.  She asks him to wait, and she returns a few minutes later wearing a wedding gown.

Gripp, not one to settle, high-tails it back to his Quonset car and speeds back home leaving her standing in the street in her wedding gown.

Post-Post:

  • An unusually cruel story from Bradbury who is usually so naïve and goodhearted that it’s like he was born in another century.  I mean millennium.  I mean . . .aw crap.
  • Kudos for the local newspaper being called The Martian Chronicle.
  • Walter Gripp also gets a mention in short story The Long Years, but oddly, no connection is made to his actions here.

Mission Impossible – Rogue Nation

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missionimpossible501As usual, my lousy memory prevents me from getting too detailed, but a few observations:

My usual routine is to arrive at a movie 10-15 minutes late to avoid the too-loud, spoilery, misleadingly-cut trailers.  Lately they have been running an absurd 17 to 20 minutes. However, at both this movie and and Edge of Tomorrow (also starring Tom Cruise) last year, there have only been 5 to 10 minutes of trailers. Does Tom Cruise have that much power?

I was immediately not crazy about the opening arrangement of the iconic score, however, patriot that I am, something else disturbed me more.  Movies’ interminable production companies and logos are getting very tedious.  In the first few seconds of the film, I was presented with China Movie Channel, Alibaba Pictures Group, and Alec Baldwin — all three names have the connotation of hair-trigger hatred of Americans.  I have never heard of these companies, they might be perfectly fine fellows.  Seriously, Baldwin is a dick, though.

Just one more complaint:  It really is a great scene (that has been spoiled to death in marketing) where Tom Cruise is hanging off the side of the plane.  And make no mistake, it is thrilling not because it is Ethan Hunt, but because it is Tom Cruise — this has nothing to do with acting.  This guy knows how to put on a show.  That’s not the complaint.

No, once Cruise gets into the plane — as you knew he would — he finds himself discovered by a guard.  Defenseless against the armed soldier, he always finds a way — he pulls the parachute deployment handle, pulling him and the canisters of toxic gas out of the back hatch of the airplane.  What really bugged me was that we literally get about one frame of the crate moving toward the back of the plane, then cut to credits.  Blink and you’ll miss it.

No shot of him clinging to the crate as it falls, no shot of him standing triumphantly on top of it after the parachute deploys?   Seemed like some great potential shots wasted there.

Other than that, excellent.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Bull in a China Shop (03/30/58)

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ahpbull03Sweet Jeebus!  I take a few weeks months off and Netflix removes seasons 2 and 3 from streaming.  Hulu did the same thing with Outer Limits last year.  Oh the humanity!  The nooses are tightening, sheeple.  Hulu, as always, sucks.

Mr. O’Finn goes to see his neighbor Miss Hildy-Lou across the court, at her invitation.  She is 75 years old — 30 years older than O’Finn — but can’t stop making googly cataracts at him.  She invites him into the parlor where her similarly old friends are just as enamored of their hunky young neighbor.  There is Miss Bessie (83), Miss Birdie (76), and Miss Samantha (47).

Wait, what?  This is strange — she is only 2 years older than O’Finn but fits right in with the other much older ladies.  I would suspect an error on IMBd or that she lied about her age, but IMDb has her dying at 88 in 1999.  So unless she really lived to be 108, 47 would be about right.  Safe to say Miss Samantha was not aging gracefully.

ahpbull02

The Walkers Dead

The ladies know his morning work-out routine and know that he is a homicide detective.  That is why they invited him over.  Not for some squat-thrusts, but because another of their superannuated friends (Miss Elizabeth, uncredited, but probably about 103) is dead on the sofa.

They are disappointed when he tells them to call a doctor to get a death certificate. They were hoping to be questioned by him, but he says his business is murder.  They try their best to get him to stay, but he wants to get back to investigating more alluring women like gun-molls, hookers, and crack-whores [1].

ahpbull04Back at the station, he tells his partner he “felt like a bull in a china shop in that place,” speaking the title, but lending it no more logic.  He gets a call from the crime lab — Miss Elizabeth was poisoned with arsenic.

The old girls get giddy when O’Finn comes back to, you know, investigate the death.  They explain that the arsenic is kept in a sugar bowl as rat poison.  Once O’Finn determines that the death was an accident, he begins to leave, breaking the hearts of the giddy bitties that they won’t see him again.  But Miss Hildy-Lou has a plan.

When O’Finn sees the ladies spying on him through his window, he pulls the shades. Completely cut off from him, they must come up with a new plan to reel in this handsome devil.  But how . . . oh yeah, kill Miss Samantha.

ahpbull05No dummy, O’Finn — except for not seeing the first death was murder, and not getting that leaving your bathroom window wide open just invites peepers — he announces that Miss Samantha’s death by tea deserves a full investigation.  The olden girls are giddy to have his attention again . . . well, the ones still alive are.

O’Finn cracks the case and comes to arrest Hildy-Lou.  At the announcement, she goes all giddy again.  He asks if she understands what he is saying, since dementia is a strong possibility.  “Oh, yes,” she swoons.  “And I think it was very clever of you to have found out.”  When he tells her he must take her to the station, she runs to her room and comes out dolled up in a fancy new hat like they’re going out on a date.

ahpbull07For the two murders, she’ll probably get life — which in her case would be about 3 weeks.[2]

This is all pretty silly stuff, but there is a nice twist at the end.

Post-Post:

  • [1] OK, there were no crack-whores in 1958, but the word just has a great sound.
  • [2] Actually the actress lived another 26 years, dying at age 101.
  • AHP Deathwatch:  No survivors.  But, Christ, how could there be?
  • Title Analysis:  Hunh?  I guess is O’Finn is the bull, but he isn’t reckless as the cliche suggests, I doubt it was a reference to bullshit, and I can’t imagine what else it would be.
  • Hulu sucks.

The Gift (2015)

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gift01And now the story of a wealthy family who lost everything, and the one son who had no choice but to keep them all together[1].

In Arrested Development, Jason Bateman (Simon) was a master in his reactions to the other actors — always perfectly tailored to the other character and the situation, not lazily falling back on stock responses — the exact opposite of “walking through a part.”

In the 20 years since high school, his character Simon has also been a master at moderating his responses; so well that he has hidden his true face from his wife for their for their entire life together.

Simon has moved with wife Robyn (Rebecca Hall) back to his hometown in California hopefully to get a national sales position with an electronics security firm. Despite his line of work, it never occurs to him to install some security cameras around the house once things start getting a little weird.

While stocking up at a fancy housewares store, he is awkwardly approached by Gordo, an old high school acquaintance.  Since Gordo is ultimately revealed to be something of a loser, his presence in Bed, Bath and Beyond His Price Range is a little odd.  In fact, the meeting does not entirely feel coincidental, but it is presented as such.

Simon never uses the phone number that Gordo gave him at BB&BHPR, but Gordo does leave a house-warming gift on their front steps.  They feel obliged — or mostly Robyn does — to invite him over for dinner to share the wine.  It is expectedly awkward, and not because it was a bad vintage.

After an unannounced visit when Simon is at work one day, Robyn feels obligated to invite him in for tea.  The next day, Robyn sees that Gordo has sneakily left another gift at their doorstep — a bag of fish food.  She looks down and sees that he has also stocked their new koi pond.

Still not getting the message, Gordo invites Simon and Robyn to his house for a dinner party.  Simon is ready to cut Gordo off, but Robyn persuades him to at least attend the dinner.  It begins oddly, first as they are shocked to see Gordo’s residence is of Kennedyesque proportions down to including a steel gate to prevent escapees; then as they are told the other couple supposedly had to cancel at the last minute; and Gordo admits he is divorced — so it is just the three of them again.

After more weirdness, Simon has had enough and orders Robyn to the Batemobile[2] while he tells Gordo that they are not going to be BFFs.

At that point, despite an effective cloak of awkwardness over the whole movie thus far, the plot really starts into motion.  The koi fish are found belly-up and the dog is missing. Simon immediately suspects Gordo (rather than the more obvious canine fishkiller) and calls the police.  It did take me out of the picture when one of the detectives was Detective Bunk Moreland from The Wire.  It was just a dumb casting choice — like if they had cast Peter Falk as police detective, you would think “Why is Columbo here?” Then “Isn’t he dead?”

It becomes a bit of a cat and mouse game between Simon and Gordo, with Gordo losing a bit in each encounter even when he appears to win.  Slowly Robyn learns what a bully Simon had been in high school, what he did to Gordo, and that he really hasn’t changed all that much.  He is still able to manipulate and ruin lives without a second of remorse.

He refuses to take responsibility for the lies about Gordo 20 years ago that nearly led to his death, and he has the Clintonian mind of a sociopath, running background checks on people and keeping them hidden on a secret server in a locked desk drawer to be used at opportune (i.e. blackmail-friendly) moments.

Simon’s deceptions and false face crumble piece by piece so effectively, that you almost feel sorry for him.  Especially given the ultimate gotcha that Gordo springs on Simon.

This was a great small movie that I had heard nothing about, and went in completely blind.  Writer / Director Joel Edgerton performed admirably in all capacities.  But maybe he really is a creepy guy, so I can’t comment on his range.

Some people say that Rebecca Hall was given just another woman’s do-nothing role “as usual” in Hollywood.  This is just the standard whining.  Her role is fine, and the movie is really the tug-of-war between the two men.

Surprisingly good stuff.

Post-Post:

  • [1] Much as I love Arrested Development, I never understood why he “had no choice but to keep them all together.”
  • [2] Ha!  Bateman and Robyn!
  • I’m normally a fan of short hair, but Rebecca Hall really needed to grow it out a bit.

Night Gallery – Doll of Death (05/20/73)

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ngdollofdeath02While Brandon is in his West Indies living room harrumphing with his cronies, his young hot wife Sheila is trying on the wedding gown that he has insisted she wear.  She tells the butler, “If Mr. Brandon wants me to be in white, I could have dazzled them with my naked body and a garland of pale roses,” thus producing the best line of Night Gallery dialogue in 3 years.

The gathering is humming along very Britishly until it is crashed by Sheila’s ex-boyfriend Raphael.  As she is descending the stairs, they lock eyes and she stops.  Raphael insists that Sheila belongs to him and it takes her only seconds to agree.

She tells her husband that somehow she belongs to Raphael and has since her first breath.  Although seconds before, it seemed to have started the night he banged her. Nonsensically, she runs off with Raphael leaving Brandon humiliated at his wedding party.

The only black man (besides the butler) shows up, which by Night Gallery rules, means he must be a voodoo master.  Brandon pays him off for a voodoo doll of Raphael.

The next day while Raphael and Sheila are frolicking on his boat, Raphael experiences an ngdollofdeath07attack that is not quite identifiable.  What is identifiable are the giant hand prints which have left red marks the size of his back.  Rather than use the traditional needles on his voodoo doll, Brandon is throttling it in his hands, attempting to squeeze the doll and Raphael to death.  Lucky this is pre-CSI or he would have left some nice 10-inch fingerprints as evidence.

That night, Sheila calls Brandon to see if his doctor will come.  The doctor says, Raphael’s had some kind of attack.  She’s hysterical, she claims he’s been murdered — and contends Brandon is the culprit.

ngdollofdeath06The doctor goes to Raphael’s boat, but he is still alive.  She tries to convince the doctor that Brandon is at fault.  The night before their wedding, Brandon took her to see a voodoo priest.

Sheila runs to Brandon’s house. She searches for the voodoo doll, but is caught by Brandon.  She claims to have seen the error of her ways, but Brandon sees through that.  He shows her the doll which has a few strands of Raphael’s hair, a few nail clippings, a swatch of his clothing, and a teeeeeny little mustache in order to make the psychic connection.

ngdollofdeath09She takes the doll and begs him not to do anything further, but he grabs the doll and slams it on the edge of the table.  Ah, but the nimble little minx has added Brandon’s ring to the doll, so he falls over dead with a broken neck.  Raphael and Sheila are reunited.

Strangely enough, even though the doll still had Raphael’s hair, mails clothes and mustache, the ring seems to trump all that, so Raphael is unharmed.

 

 ngdollofdeath10 Post-Post:

  • Twilight Zone Legacy:  Barry Atwater was in the classic The Monsters are Due on Maple Street.  Murray Matheson was in the classic Five Characters in Search of an Exit and the mediocre TZ Movie.