Jacob's ladder effect

There is a movie I have never seen, but I know the twist. Think of it as a really grim Wizard of Oz tale where Dorothy clicks her heals and then the audience realizes she was killed by the tornado.

That got me thinking about how much of the story telling in my beloved b-movies would be first rate if you just latched onto this premise. If you assume the inciting incident in act 1 almost killed the main character, and everything from there forward is a fever dream or the last brain synapses firing before the main character crosses over. With that lens the story telling just got a whole lot better.

Imagine if instead of the script and editing being shite and the directing + acting being inconsistent, unbalanced and paper thin ... instead the cast & crew were students of Descartes' *Meditations on First Philosophy* or Plato's *Theaetetus*. They were purposefully challenging the distinction between waking and dreaming states. As they are soliciting backers, they have a copy of Zhuangzi's "Butterfly Dream" paradox under their arms, or maybe Aristotle's *Metaphysics*. They are setting out to imbue the audience with a profound skepticism about the nature of reality.

Yeah; that jives.

Then, when you watch "Big Trouble in Little China" - just assume that Jack Burton is stabbed to death at the 5-minute mark over his winnings at pai gow, and the rest of the movie shows his final thoughts before they dump his body in the bay. Plato & John Carpenter could have been bros.

Comments

Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958) - it is a good deal better than the remakes

I got around to watching the original 1958 comedy caper film - the one that "Welcome to Collinwood" was pantomiming. "Big Deal on Madonna Street" is hilarious. It is 25 minutes longer than the remake and never once did I feel the need to check my watch. I even paused to go refill my water glass. There will be no problem telling who is who or how the story goes - it is well shot and characters are unique. The story is a simple and fun. Comparing the "BDoMS" and "WtC" - they are identical in terms of characters and scenes. "Big Deal on Madonna Street" street is terrific, and "WtC" is a slog. The biggest difference is seen in the dialog. In "Big Deal" the people just talk, like you might expect people to talk. They are funny, but not odd. The colloquialisms happen, but they aren't hard to see through. In "WtC", they are using a vernacular to make sure you are immersed deep in an Eastern European ethnic nei...

Alien: Covenant (2017) - Jason X in a toga

A film that raises big questions—about gods, monsters, and the cost of creation—and then answers them with pseudo-intellectual hooha and a bunch of splatters. It’s poetry for meatballs. A creation myth written by someone who forgot the difference between being mysterious and confounding. There’s a premise here. But it never shows up on screen. The director described the film as having [layers of metaphor]. By minute 20, my response to him would be: “Uh nah bruh … you ain’t that deep.” The characters are emotionally unbalanced idiots. This crew is supposedly trained for deep interstellar colonization. No backup plan. No safety protocols. No sense of hierarchy or mission discipline. They panic, scream, and grieve like they’ve just lost soulmates—they are too young to have known each other or been through anything more severe than a power point presentation. They lack agency. They don’t make decisions—they react, flail, and sometimes avoid shooting themselves or blowing themselves up...

"Cocaine Shark" (2023) - Not since "Suburban Sasquatch" ...

Mark Polonia has made almost 80 films since 1985. That is 2+ per year. There was a 3 year pause in his proliferation after his twin brother & production partner John died in 2008. If you consider that he (they) didn’t really start cranking out this entertainment until 2000 - it is more like 3 per year. If he keeps at it as long as they did, he will pass Richard Thorpe and William Beaudine (credited as directing ~180 each). Wowzers. His particular craft is low-low budget. Lower than Roger Corman or Lloyd Kaufman even. Polonia’s production values are limited. You get 2 or 3 sets with plenty of establishing shots to fill the transition. You get special effects and creatures which look like they were assembled by a junior high art class. You will see the same actor playing multiple parts, married couples acting together, and a lot of the same names showing up in multiple different releases. You will see the same people + sets in 2 or 4 of these movies in a room; I assume many of them a...

Robs takes on Media and Entertainment

Search This Blog