Boo to You!

I know many of you are going to be busy this Halloween dressing-up the kids for their annual sugarpocalypse, or creating your own slutty ________ costume for a party or creepy bar crawl.

But sadly, I'm an old poop. I prefer to stay home in a smoking jacket with a friend or two and curl up with a scary classic movie and a couple cocktails. Is that so wrong? Doesn't that sound more fun than dragging a cranky child on a sugar high around the neighborhood trying to avoid the houses that give out toothbrushes and celery? Or slipping in the yack that the drunk Harley Quinn over there just unloaded on the floor of some east side brah-bar? Of course it does.

So for those of you who prefer your scares in the comfort of your own home, here are my picks for Top 5 Scary Classic Movies:

Them! (1954)

This is one of the first scary movies I remember seeing on KSHB TV's Creature Feature with Crematia Mortem. Released the same year as Godzilla, Them! joined a growing movement of giant monster movies that used the Atomic Age's effect on nature as a basis for cinematic destruction. In Godzilla and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) the monsters were giant, singular monsters that looked like creatures from another era. With Them! the terror comes not from fantastical animals from our past- but from simple creatures that live in our backyards.

Police Sgt. Ben Peterson (the venerable Brooks in Shawshank Redemption (1994)- actor and Tender Chunks spokesman James Whitmore) has been getting some strange emergency calls lately: A young girl wandering in the desert in a trance, clutching her cracked-up doll. A family's vacation trailer ripped to shreds, but the occupants missing. A general store demolished for what appears to be a sugar heist. Something terrible is happening in the New Mexican desert and only Peterson, FBI special agent Robert Graham (Gunsmoke's James Arness), Dr. Harold Medford (Santa himself, Edmund Gwenn),  and his daughter Pat (also a doctor- but probably earns less) can solve the riddle and save the world.

The great fun in this movie is the length of time we wait until the monsters are finally revealed. The high-whining sounds they make and the terror on the faces of their victims are the only cues our imaginations need to run wild. Once the giant ants reveal themselves they are fascinating in that the choice was to use physical creations for the monsters instead of superimposing enlarged footage of someone's ant farm. These ants (while not very fast-moving) are real, and have heft. The actors are reacting to being trapped in mandibles, not just pointing and yelling at a blank screen.

Them! in some ways looks hokey with its early special effects, but the story has a great arc, and there are real emotional consequences which is rare for these films. I will never forget the terror this film inspired when I was a child, and so I step on ants anytime I come across them.

Alien (1979)

In space, no one can hear you scream. But that does not hold true for the movie theater... or my living room. Ridley Scott's sci-fi horror masterpiece Alien spawned sequels, videogames, and prequels, but for my money nothing beats the first one. A mining crew is awoken out of cryogenic slumber to answer an SOS from an abandoned ship on a desolate planet. They discover a strange egg patch shrouded in mist in the belly of the giant ship. It's a case of curiosity bursts out of the cat's stomach when unlucky crew-member Kane (John Hurt) becomes a host to an alien and the rest is movie history.

I love this film so much because woven into the crew vs. alien survival story is the deeper social/psychological theme of female empowerment in an era of corporatization. Ripley (the perfectly cast Sigourney Weaver) is not only pursued by a deadly alien, she is also betrayed (and attacked) by the corporation that she works for. The Female Gothic films of the '40's often featured women endangered in their homes and marriages. But Alien moves that terror from the traditional home into the workplace. In a '70's post-Women's Lib twist, Ripley eschews traditional femininity, puts on her space pants and kicks ass like the best of the boys.

These gender themes are mirrored in the Oscar-winning design of H.R. Geiger. The cavernous alien ship is rounded and organic- like a space womb with entryways that look like things that Trump would like to grab. The alien itself is a walking phallic symbol with a second pair of teeth that shoot out of its mouth like a little eager weiner. It's impossible to avoid the sexual implications of Geiger's work. He spent a lifetime melding human and mechanical forms and with Alien found a vehicle to explore that cringe-worthy imagery.

The complexity and the devotion to style and the look of the film elevates what could have just been another space monster flick into an unforgettable classic. Scott will return again to the Alien mythology next August with Alien: Covenant. Don't ask me if I think it will be better than Alien. It won't be.

The Shining (1980)

The Shining gives me nightmares every time I see it. All someone has to say is "Come and play with us, Danny," and I am guaranteed a toss-and-turn evening... and not in the good way. But amazingly enough the author of the book that the film is based on, horror maestro Stephen King, doesn't like it. Whut???!!!

King once said that he had a problem with Stanley Kubrick's casting of Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance, the father of a small family who decides to take a job as caretaker of a snowed-in hotel during the long, cold winter. King felt that Nicholson naturally gave off a crazy vibe, so that when he stopped being a "dull boy" it felt less like he'd been possessed by the spirits of the Overlook Hotel, and more that he just had a screw loose from the beginning. Point well-made, Mr. King.

But after reading the book and rolling my eyes at the animal-shaped topiary that came alive and went after little Danny, I decided that Kubrick's idea is scarier. While the supernatural aspects of the Overlook and its grim past haunt the picture- to me, the descent into madness of an outwardly normal father (even if he is a writer) is more terrifying than a story where "the ghosts made me do it."

For Kubrick the space itself- its isolation, its emptiness, its never-ending hallways and mazes force Jack to look at himself- and the regret and anger he sees drives him insane. Of course Jack is a little off at the beginning- he agreed to take this crazy job in an empty hotel. It's the new level of crazy that his wife and child see in the wild eyes of the man that they thought they knew that terrifies. Now that's scary. That and those fucking twins.

Return of the Living Dead (1985)

Okay, this movie is less scary and more funny. Dan O'Bannon's (who coincidentally wrote Alien) take on George Romero's classic cult zombie flick Night of the Living Dead (1968) does not take itself very seriously. Even the poster proclaims, "They're back from the grave and ready to party!" When Frank (Pathmark pitchman James Karen) and Freddy (Thom Matthews) start putzing around with the old army canisters in the basement, they accidentally unleash a toxic gas that brings the dead back to life. Soon the graveyard next door is full of brain-hungry zombies who chase a group of young people from location to location hoping to get some cranial action all to a punk soundtrack.

Where Romero's film had underlying themes of race and social upheaval, Return just wants to have a gory good time with ridiculous characters and throwaway lines like, "Like this job?" The special effects by father-son team Kevin and Robert McCarthy are actually very good- with one slimy zombie in particular providing plenty of ick. If you are pissed at this season's premiere of The Walking Dead, try watching Return for some undead with a sense of humor.

The Others (2001)

Nothing is as creepy as a good ol' Gothic ghost story, and this one is a doozy! Grace (Nicole Kidman looking ethereal) and her two children live in a remote English country house at  the end of WWII. Grace has her hands full with a husband missing in the war and two children who have a rare disease that makes them photosensitive. The sprawling home with mazelike hallways and rooms is made even more eerie with shades and drapes constantly drawn so the kiddies won't be exposed to pesky sunlight.

After the arrival of some elderly servants to help out (including the Irish spitfire, Fionnula Flanagan), Grace begins to hear and see other people in the house and fears that something- or someone is threatening her family. In the tradition of the Gothic female film, the heroine doubts her own sanity- struggling with whether or not what she is experiencing is real.

Director Alejandro Amenabar is a master of mood in this film, and the encroaching dread is almost a physical sensation. The Others doesn't need zombies, axe-murderers, or giant ants to make you jump out of your seat. It makes the hair on your neck stand-up with a simple oil lamp and a closed door.

So curl up with one of these fright flicks... if you dare...

Are You Cruise-ing Me?

Sometimes Facebook surprises me. Every once in awhile among the political diatribes, baby pictures, personality quizzes, and more baby pictures I find a post that makes me stop and say, "Oh- I should turn that into an LWM post." So leave it to James Corden and his Late Late Show writing staff to make me consider a post about Tom Cruise.

I'm not the hugest fan of Tom Cruise as a person. He has made a career of pontificating about his sci-fi cult and messing up Oprah's couch cushions. But as this creative Cruise retrospective attests, Cruise is a genuine movie star who has been making hit (and sometimes shit) movies for 35 years.

So before I think better of it, here are my Top 5 Tom Cruise Films:

Legend (1985)

Director Ridley Scott followed up his hits Alien (1979) and Blade Runner (1982) with this visually stunning fairy tale. The Lord of Darkness (Tim Curry with facial prosthetic makeup out the wazoo) is tired of living in the shadows so he hatches a plan to escape by stealing unicorn horns. But the protector of the woods, Jack (young Cruise in short-shorts) and Princess Lily (Mia Sara) with the aid of various elves and fairies fight to get the horns back and return the world to proper good-evil balance. It's your standard "hero saves the princess from the giant red-hooved British actor" story.

There were a lot of fairy tale-inspired films in the '80's: Dragonslayer (1981), The Dark Crystal (1982), Krull (1983), Labyrinth (1986), and Willow (1988) so it was clearly a trend. Maybe it was escapism from the Reagan Era Cold War. Or maybe it was all that Dungeons & Dragons in the air. 

But Legend is the most visually stunning of the lot. Scott's grasp of scope and design capture the joy and wonder of fantasy, as well as the terror and darkness inherent within the things that exist just beyond the light. With Scott, the divisions between safety and danger while clearly delineated, are always fragile, and easily overwhelmed.

Cruise is young and like a latter-day Mickey Rooney, full of overwhelming energy and focus. His Jack is a puck-ish innocent yearning to fall-in love- and cross the sexual threshold from boy to man. It is an instance where the actor's natural energy serves the part well.
Which is not always the case with  Mr. Cruise...

Top Gun (1986)

I can't help but look back upon this testosterone-fueled jet-fest fondly. It was EVERYWHERE when I was a sexually budding 14-yr. old. The radio blared "You've Lost That Loving Feeling", and the airplane graveyard-set MTV video for Berlin's Oscar-winning "Take My Breath Away"- well it took my breath away.

The raw masculinity in this flick is like a Brut ad gone wild. The locker room scenes. The volleyball. The chest-thumping rivalry between Maverick (Cruise) and Iceman (the once slim Val Kilmer). The male bonding- not totally able to mask the tenderness felt between men- but not exposing it either.

Something felt exciting about this all-male world. Sure Maverick boned Charlie (ironically a male character name for the female lead played by Kelly McGillis) but his heart belonged to his cockpit buddy, Goose (Anthony Edwards before his hair died). I'm not saying Top Gun made me gay- but it probably finished what Victor Victoria (1982) started. 

A Few Good Men (1992)

Cruise is back in uniform, but this time he is Lt. Daniel Kaffee, a young Navy lawyer defending  a couple of Marines at Guantanamo who are accused of murdering a fellow soldier. But Kaffee and co-defender Lt. Cdr. Galloway (Demi Moore in her prime) suspect the two soldiers were carrying out a "code red"- the military's version of extreme hazing and go after who they think issued the order, cigar-chomping Col. Jessup (Oscar-nominated Jack Nicholson at his scenery-chewing best).

The film is based on the play of the same name and director Rob Reiner does a proficient job of moving the action out of the courtroom and into the larger world outside. Distilled in the oft-repeated/parodied "You can't handle the truth!" scene, this film is about the disparate worlds of the military, and the citizens it is meant to protect.

Can we protect freedoms by violating them? Who gets to make that call? Most movies explore this moral question on the battlefield, but Men does it in the bloodless arena of a courtroom. The film was nominated for four Oscars including Best Picture and Best Actor for Nicholson- but nothing for the fist-pounding, teeth-gritting stylings of Cruise. 

Magnolia (1999)

How do you follow-up a hit dram-com about the porn industry? Well, if you're director Paul Thomas Anderson after Boogie Nights (1997), you make a strange multi-plot dark drama that makes critics and audience alike scratch their heads. Magnolia starts with a murder and ends with a storm of frogs- but in-between there are some amazing performances from an indie star-studded cast.

Julianne Moore is a stand-out as Linda, a trophy wife whose husband Earl (Jason Robards in his final film) is dying of cancer. Linda's a hopped-up mess, and realizes that while she might have married for money, she has fallen in love with her dying husband, and her scene where she is trying to get his lawyer to take her out of the will is emotionally riveting.

Also making a splash is Cruise as Earl's estranged son Frank, who is an Anthony Robbins wannabe whose manic, smarmy mental medicine show turns into a curse and tantrum-filled course in misogyny. Watching his "How to Fake Like You Are Nice and Caring" scene almost feels like a confession. A sly moment where the actor bares his soul under the guise of a crazed character- winking at us as he blurs the line between Frank and Tom. It would earn Cruise his last Oscar nom (to date). 

Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

The first time I saw Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut it was for a Cinematic Space class with my college film mentor Professor Joseph McElhaney. And I'm really glad I had his expert guidance in watching the film because it is so much more than it appears- which is Kubrick's point.

Adapted from a 1926 novella called Dream Story, Eyes is about a couple who are struggling with infidelity in their marriage. A strange sense of film fantasy mirroring reality takes hold immediately as the couple (Bill and Alice) is played by real-life husband and wife (at that time) Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. After Alice confesses to a fantasy about a sailor they met on vacation, Bill leaves and embarks on what turns out to be a night of temptation.

From a grieving family member kissing him, to hanging out with a callgirl, to a full-on orgy, Bill does the town- but never does a woman.  The next day Bill re-traces his steps from the night before and discovers that not everything was as it appeared and perhaps a murder was involved.

It's a complicated story. But for me, this film isn't about plot points- it's about the use of film to create and disturb fantasy and reality. Kubrick's goal is to ingeniously weave location shots in with studio set shots to confuse real and dream worlds to mirror the characters' tenuous grip on what they think they know.

Pictures on walls mirror events and styles that happen later. Music and dance lead us in what seem to be never-ending circles- much like Kubrick's sinuous steadi-cam filming. Strings of colored lights and neon tubes create a sense of living inside a dream. Masks and costumes appear throughout. The film ends in F.A.O. Schwartz- arguably a real-world fantasy-land.

Kubrick's gift was to use the cinematic image- itself a fantasy- to further explore the space between what is real and what isn't. Not giving us clear-cut answers- but then real life doesn't do that very often either. 

This post started with Legend and ended with Eyes- because both are rooted in fantasy. It's apt for Cruise because he is an illustrative example of the Hollywood star whose film and personal personae are not always distinguishable from one another.