A Movie a Day 2: Movie Harder

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Scott of the Antarctic (1948)

What a pisser. Scott wanted to be the first man to reach the South Pole, but when he got there, he found a tent. One of his rivals, Amundsen, had gotten there first. So he turned back, and he died on the return journey. And you're probably still b*tching about the time you went to Best Buy to get an Xbox on the first day but they were sold out. This horrible screwing over by life reminds me of Cartman's hilarious South Park rant:

Anyway, aside from being a little too long (it's only 111 minutes, but movies made before the 1960s always feel like four hours to me if they're longer than 75 minutes or so), I don't have much to complain about. It does a good job of showing how these explorers just wanted to be the first to reach an unexplored spot on the map and get their names in the history books, but rationalized their ego trips by telling themselves and anyone who would listen that it was serious scientific work. It also does a good job of presenting the hardships of Antarctic exploration: my favorite part is when one of the characters says that he prefers dogs to motor sleds. Why? Because you can't eat a motor sled after it stops working. Good to know.

The dialogue's good, too:

"It'll be tough."

"I know."

"As Hades."

"But not so warm, eh?"

Demon Planet (1965)

You know, I don't really like doing this. Every day I have that moment of realization: "Damnit, I haven't watched a movie." So I have two options: I can pick some old piece of crap I've never heard of that usually ends up being really boring and it pisses me off, or I can watch a good movie I've already seen, which makes me feel like I'm cheating. It's not like I'm watching a movie every day because I'm a huge cinema geek; I'm just giving myself something to do so I don't lapse into insanity or relapse into alcoholism to deal with the boredom and isolation of my daily life. It usually feels more like a job than entertainment, a job I'm not getting paid to do.

But every now and then I get perked up by a pleasant surprise like this. I knew nothing about Demon Planet and basically chose it at random after glancing at a positive review which mentioned that it had some influence on Alien, and it turned out to be the best movie I've seen recently that I had never seen before. The more I watch these cheap b-movies from the 50s and 60s, the more I find that a lot of them are much better than the more popular "classics" that critics love to masturbate over.

The similarities to Alien are easy to see, with astronauts investigating a distress signal on another planet, exploring a huge ship, and finding the remains of the ship's huge alien pilot, though there's also an element of The Thing and Invasion of the Body Snatchers here. But Demon Planet is absolutely filled with cool sh*t that I've never seen in any other movie. It's consistently interesting and never predictable, with something always going on to make me think, "Just where the hell is this going, anyway?"

It's a pretty low-budget movie, but it's a triumph of imagination over resources. Most movies like this fail at presenting alien worlds and creatures that seem genuinely alien, but Demon Planet actually manages to be creepy simply from how weird everything seems. It's visually terrific, from the sets to the costumes. (Whoever designed the uniforms in the X-Men movies must have been a big fan of Demon Planet.) Also, I'm always going on about the importance of sound in horror movies, and like The Mist, this one uses a lack of music to its advantage, and the sounds that you do hear are weird and creepy as hell. The sounds coming from the alien ship should make someone in the next room wonder if you're watching The Exorcist.

This movie is more commonly known as Planet of the Vampires, but what the hell kind of title is that? Sh*t, that's what.

Sounds fascinating ....

It's on YouTube.

I doubt that we're allowed to give out links to copyrighted movies on these forums, but look for "PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES (HQ)."

The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau (1966-1976)
Episode: "Beneath the Frozen World" (1974)

Jacques Cousteau was, according to Wikipedia, a French naval officer, explorer, ecologist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author, researcher, porn star, car salesman, hamster, Lego enthusiast, and chap stick. He had this show where he went places. There's an episode titled "Beavers of the North Country," and another titled "Legend of Lake Titicaca," but I think we can all be adults about this and not make fun of that.

Hey, how do you circumcise a hillbilly? You kick his sister in the jaw.

Jokes are fun. We all like to laugh. It helps us to cope with a horrible world filled with death and poverty and Michael Bay movies. My favorite jokes are the ones about Helen Keller, like the one where she walks into a bar and

Wait a minute.

I just got a cease and desist letter from a feminist organization threatening to sue me for slander if I make one more misogynist joke. Which is bullshit, because I wasn't even going to make fun of the fact that Helen Keller was a woman. I'm sure that she was a very nice person, who knew her place in the kitchen and

I didn't really feel like watching a full movie today, so I watched this 50-minute documentary instead. As I've said before, I'm interested in any documentary about Antarctica that doesn't focus on penguins. This one focuses more on exploring the ice and the ocean underneath it, although one as*hole penguin shows up just to squawk and flap his arms at everyone.



It's narrated by Rod Serling, which makes it feel like an episode of The Twilight Zone. Unfortunately, French people are apparently not completely insane like German people, so there's none of the craziness like in the Werner Herzog documentary Encounters at the End of the World. Although I did spot some of the explorers smoking near fuel drums, which isn't very safe. You could lose all your cigarettes that way. Anyway, it's good, but I doubt that anyone without an interest in Antarctica would want to see it.

An Interview with Joe Johnston, Director of
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
by Adolf Hitler, Entertainment Weekly

Adolf Hitler: Congratulations on the new movie. It's doing great at the box office and critics seem to like it a lot.

Joe Johnston: Thanks, thanks. Feels good.

AH: So, this is the first comic book movie you've made since The Rocketeer. How did it feel to –

JJ: Hey, sorry to interrupt, but aren't you supposed to be dead?

AH: Let's talk about the movie.

JJ: You're dead.

AH: Mind your business, you stupid Jew.

JJ: I'm not Jewish. And I'm really not comfortable with comments like that.

AH: Were you a fan of the comics before Marvel hired you to make the film?

JJ: I'm not really into comics since they're for little girls, but yeah, I knew about them. I mean, Captain America is sort of this iconic figure who represents everything that's good about America, and –

AH: Heh.

JJ: I'm sorry?

AH: Nothing. Go on.

JJ: Everything that's good about America, and, you know, standing up for what's right and I liked that. I wanted to make a movie that could entertain people, and maybe inspire them.

AH: Cool, cool. I caught the movie the other day, and I really liked it. It was a little too long, but all of the actors were good, the action scenes were well-directed and edited, and there was a good balance of humor and seriousness. And it's frankly nice to see real adventure movies like this getting made these days, in a market that's saturated with gritty dramas like The Dark Knight that take themselves too seriously and just end up being depressing instead of entertaining.

JJ: Thanks. Glad you liked it.

AH: But to be honest with you, I was a little disappointed that Sam Jackson wasn't in it more. He my nigga.

JJ: What?

AH: Fo shizzle. I noticed that the film is not entirely historically accurate. Were you worried that audiences would reject this approach and want something more realistic?

JJ: Well, look, I'm making a piece of entertainment here, not a documentary.

AH: Right.

JJ: So if the screenwriters had stuff like laser weapons in the 1940s, I wasn't going to tell them we couldn't do that.

AH: What about the way that the movie portrays the Nazis as murderous psychopaths who want to take over the world? Science fiction technology is one thing, but that's rewriting history, isn't it?

JJ: I don't follow. That's what they were like.

AH. Oh, come on. Don't tell me you believe that liberal media myth.

JJ: What myth? They killed six million people and tried to take over the world.

AH: Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree here. Now I'm glad you're just making a piece of entertainment and not a documentary. Heh heh!

JJ: I'm not really sure what's going on here.

AH: Your publicist is waving at me, so I guess we have to wrap this up. Before we go, do you have anything to say to all the Marvel Comics fans?

JJ: This is the dumbest movie review ever written, I think.

AH: There you have it, folks. See you at the movies!

Reader Comments:

Rob from Portland wrote:
this movie sucked the chick never showed her boobs wtf

insaneclownposse420 from Tampa wrote:
icp 4 life b*****s

Jory from Oklahoma City wrote:
Why wasn't the Asian guy in this more? He was hot. It should have been Captain Asian America, am I right?

Roger Ebert from Chicago wrote:
I'm fat.

Terri Schiavo from Pennsylvania wrote:
...

Jen from Houston wrote:
whens the next twilight trailer coming out

Alien 3 (1992)

I had seen a few bits and pieces of Alien 3 over the years, but I never actually sat down and watched it. I knew that critics hated it, but the older I get, the less I trust critical consensus. After finally seeing it, I'll meet them halfway. Alien 3 is easily the worst of the series, but it's not bad. The biggest problem is the lazy script. It resorts to things like forced romances and attempted gang rape to generate drama, and when the screenwriters need something to happen, it just happens. For example, the characters set a trap to kill the alien, by spilling fuel everywhere so they can torch it. But the plan needs to fail, so an idiot who was smoking near the fuel just happens to drop his cigar. Also, the story is just a rehash of Alien, which is disappointing after getting a real progression with Aliens. There were plenty of problems with Alien Resurrection and Alien vs. Predator, but at least they tried something new.

So why do I say the movie isn't bad? The actors, particularly Sigourney Weaver, Charles S. Dutton, and Charles Dance. They treat this shitty material like it's Nobel Prize winning literature, and they make it all worthwhile. Good actors can save just about anything, and they save Alien 3. It's nothing I'll ever feel a need to see again, but it doesn't fully deserve the horrible reputation it has. Just a little of it.

Another week goes by. This was Week... 6? I think. Who cares. Alien (1979), Aliens (1986), Escape from New York (1981), It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958), Scott of the Antarctic (1948), Demon Planet (1965), The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau: Beneath the Frozen World (1974), Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), Alien 3 (1992).

I think I'm going to put A Movie a Day 2 to rest. It seems that a month and a half is about how long I can do these things before getting sick of them and wanting a break. A Movie a Day 3 may happen, but it won't start four days later like last time. You know the drill, if I watch a movie and have anything to say about it, I'll post in the "what movies have you seen recently?" topic.