Classic Songs: Dust in the Wind

Pressed for time, and feeling like doing something a bit different, today I'm here to talk to you about one of my favorite songs of all time, by one of my favorite bands of all time. The band is Kansas, and the song is "Dust in the Wind". Kansas was, in the 1970s, the heyday of progressive rock, one of the biggest bands in the world, certainly the United States. They have a pretty excellent 70s catalogue all around, but in the mid-70s they put out two chart topping hit albums back to back, 1976s "Leftoverture", and 1977's "Point of Know Return". Both albums together have some of the absolute best songs the band ever put out, in fact some of the absolute best music ever made, in my opinion. But it was on the latter that a last-second edition became one of the most timeless, memorable hits of all time.

One of the single coolest album covers of all time.

Originally written as a finger-picking exercise by guitarist Kerry Livgren, the principle figure behind most of the band's deeper, more esoteric lyrics. His wife had told him he should make a full song out of it, so he wrote the melancholy, philosophical lyrics that are now so well regarded, unsure if his bandmates would accept it. But they accept it they did, and a late, "throw away" addition to the album became the biggest hit the band ever had, even compared to "Carry On Wayward Son". Some bands manage to write that one song that elevates from "hit" to "timeless classic", more of a crossover phenomenon that people not even fans of rock music may hear and recognize. Queen had "We Are the Champions", Led Zeppelin had "Stairway to Heaven", Blue Oyster Cult had "Don't Fear the Reaper", and Kansas had "Dust in the Wind".

Kerry Livgren is on the far left.

The first time I heard this song, it was totally random, at a local bar & grill joint with my great uncle, and I just kind of heard it faintly in the background and it really spoke to me. I'm surprised I hadn't heard it earlier than the age of 15 or so, but this was my first exposure to it. I asked him "Who does this?" and he thought it was "Kansas or somebody", so I later looked them up on the internet, and bam. Instant love. The bittersweet tone of the song is both sad and soothing, the lyrics both simple yet profound. It instantly became one of my absolute favorite songs, and it has remained arguably my favorite song of all time, even though my favorite band of all time is Metallica. It just has the complete package, from the simple guitar melody, to lead singer Steve Walsh's (at the time) perfect vocals, to my favorite band-member Robby Steinhardt's (the majestic looking mountain man in the middle up there) soul-stirring viola solo. The song is short but sweet, and it does all it needs to do in that time. It's just so funny that, much like James Hetfield's "Nothing Else Matters" ballad, this song was something that almost didn't even get recorded, and yet it wound up becoming a timeless, amazing classic.

When I saw Kansas live for the first and only time back in 2006 or so, even though they're all old by now, and my boy Robby was no longer touring with them (for health reasons), when they played this song, it was still an amazing experience, and to borrow an expression from pro wrestling lingo, I totally "marked out". 

I shall leave you with the lyrics, and an awesome video of the song to enjoy. Cheers!




"I close my eyes, only for a moment and the moment's gone.
All my dreams, pass before my eyes, a curiosity.
Dust in the wind.....All they are is dust in the wind.

Same old song, just a drop of water in an endless sea.
All we do, crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see.
Dust in the wind....All we are is dust in the wind.

Now don't hang on, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky.
It slips away, and all your money won't another minute buy. 
Dust in the wind....all we are is dust in the wind.
Dust in the wind....everything is dust in the wind...."

Childhood Memories: 80s Robot Toys

As someone who spent my early childhood in the 80s, I got to experience almost the entire decade (born in late '81). Part of me would consider myself more of a "90s kid", because my late childhood and teens, literally when I "grew up", was the 90s. But I guess I was born at a good time, because I got to be both an 80s AND 90s kid, when you get right down to it. I got the best of both decades. And I don't think it's all that unfair to say that, with few exceptions (faster internet, etc.), those two decades were both light years better than anything that has come post-2000. In fact, the new millenia, so far, has been rather shitty, all things considered. But I digress.

Looking back at the 80s, one thing that really sticks out is that it was, unquestionably, the "Decade of Toys". Sure, many previous or following decades still have plenty of toys. But the 80s went kind of haywire with them. It's the only decade I can think of (having done the homework), that had such an ingrained phenomenon, for example, of cartoon shows either based on products, or cartoons made in tandem with a toy line specifically to sell it to kids. Transformers, Go Bots, GI Joe, He-Man, Care Bears, Glo-Friends, My Pet Monster, Potato Head Kids, Cabbage Patch Kids, MASK, Thundercats, Inhumanoids, Dino-Riders, the list literally goes on and on. And among the most popular of 80s toy trends, so it would seem, were toy robots. If you weren't alive in or don't remember the 1980s, trust me, robots were BIG.

So weird, sometimes so useless, yet still so cool.

 

As much as it was the "Decade of Toys", you could just as easily call the 80s the "Decade of Robots", at least in so far as society's fascination with them. You had R.A.L.F. (Robotic Assistant Labor Facilitator) from the movie "Flight of the Navigator". You had Johnny 5 from the "Short Circuit" movies. You had the adorable little living flying saucer robots from "Batteries Not Included". You had the Transformers and GoBots, and the robotic butler from Rocky 4 (totally out of left field). But what we're here to talk about, of course, are the toys.

Ah, THIS guy.

Pictured above is one robot toy I actually owned (and wish I still had). You can basically figure out what it does from just looking at it, a battery operated little guy who moves around on the floor in certain patterns, and his eyes light up and he makes cool "laser" sounds, or whatever. I also had a white one with blue lights and neat little laser-gun hands that I wasn't able to find a picture of on the internets. Growing up fairly poor, as I've touch upon in the past, I unfortunately wasn't able to own too many of these bad boys, though trust me when I tell you that I certainly wanted them. One of my biggest childhood letdowns, was the fact that at a younger age, before Nintendo and Godzilla took over my life, I had an at least temporary obsession with getting my very own Teddy Ruxpin toy. It was a teddy bear doll, that was a robot (of sorts), with a tape player in it's back. You buy Teddy Ruxpin story tapes, pop 'em in, and the doll itself would move it's mouth and eyes while the voice of Teddy on the tape told you a story. On the commercials, it just looked so awesome I HAD to have one, and they naturally had a (pretty cool) Teddy Ruxpin cartoon that made my yearning even worse. Alas, I never did get to have one. I had Care Bears dolls, I had all three promotional Burger King "Alvin and the Chipmunks" dolls, I had He-Man toys and Legos and M.U.S.C.L.E. figures and a couple of Battle Beasts and I even had a Dino-Riders figure or two. But no Teddy. I was almost as forlorn about this fact as I was at an even YOUNGER age, when I felt that I absolutely had to have a $500 Pow-Pow-Powerwheels car. Ah.....youth.

The one that got away.....

So yeah. There were all kinds of robot toys. There was this guy:

Just look at that smile.

Alphie II, an educational robo-toy. Taught you numbers, letters, colors, memorization skills, etc. Never had one, but it always looked fairly neat.

Then there was this thing:

What a great................toy?

Called the "Armatron", from Tomy, the purveyor of all things ridiculously cool but also fairly useless. It is exactly what it looks like. Again, I never had one, but I remember it. If picking things up with extra effort is your thing, then Armatron is your friend for life!


Then of course there was:

So cool. So useless. But so fucking cool.

Nintendo, in order to market it's NES console as a "toy" in the recently game-aversion North American market, created ROB here, the "Robotic Operating Buddy", and packed him in with the earliest NES models to be shipped to the states. He looks absolutely bad ass, and those red flashing eyes you see were how it kept track of things happening in the game on-screen, the flashes would cue the robot to make certain actions. He was SUPPOSED to be your automated second player, a cool concept to a little kid, but sadly, they only made two games that he worked with (Stack Up and Gyromite), neither of which were all that good, and honestly, the poor guy just didn't work that well, or was all that fun to play with. But hot damn did he still LOOK cool, and that alone helped sell many parents who were weary of all the crap that Atari and Collecovision and Intellivision and Magnavox, etc., had flooded the market with in the early 80s.

AGAIN, sadly, I never had a ROB. Totally useless, to be honest, but to tell you the absolute truth, I wouldn't have cared as a kid. I would have, in all seriousness, just propped him up somewhere in my living room, and still pretended that he was my robotic pal, watching me play games, giving me pointers, watching my back for foul enemy attacks, etc. And it would have been the greatest thing ever. Ah well. One of these days, when I can afford to buy the obnoxiously priced used models online, I'll finally have one. And I'll STILL prop him up and pretend he's hanging out with me.

"I'm WAY cooler than Sonic the Hedgehog. Really."

Believe it or not, even SEGA had gotten into the robot act a bit earlier in Japan, creating what was essentially a public promotional tool, called "Sega Chan". Sega was already fairly rich even in 1982 off of their arcade profits, and they created Chan here, to put in malls and fun centers and other places where families and parents would likely see it. It had voice recognition, could talk and answer a select number of questions, show you promotional videos for Sega games on it's little chest-mounted TV screen, hand out pamphlets, and even shake your hand without crushing it. Looks pretty cool, but much like ROB, it must not have worked out all that well, because he's a forgotten piece of obscurity today.

All in all, toy robots are a pretty sweet idea. Although, I still maintain that, honestly, fuck Furbies. Those things are creepy as hell and look like they're going to learn just enough to kill you in your sleep. But OTHER than Furbies......I'd say, so long as you don't give them adaptive AI so they rise up and kill us all, robot toys (especially of the cheesy 80s variety), are pretty damn neat. I wish I still had the black and white ones from my childhood. And to tell you the truth, if I had the money to blow, I'd probably buy a bunch more I never had on ebay or something, right this minute. So if you have some spare cash lying around, go browse eBay or Amazon, and find yourself a battery operated 80s robot toy. You'll be glad you did, and you'll have a friend for life, or at least till his parts stop working.

Forgotten Gems: Mega Man V

Back again, with  another installment of the Forgotten Gems series, looking at more obscure (but awesome) classic video games from yesteryear! Today, in honor of classic Mega Man being announced as a playable fighter in the new upcoming Smash Bros. game, I decided it was a good time to look back at one of my favorite games, in fact my second favorite, and quite frankly, the second BEST Mega Man game ever made, Mega Man V for Game Boy!

New baddie Terra means business!

Not to be confused with Mega Man 5 for NES, this particular gem was the fifth and last of the Game Boy series of Mega Man games, known in Japan as "Rockman World". And also, while Mega Man 5 on NES was a decent, solid game, Mega Man V on GB is without question a far superior creation. The Mega Man games on the Nintendo Game Boy had, up until now, basically been rehashes of the NES games, using bosses and elements taken directly from those, with only a few things (like the Mega Man Killer robots) actually new. For example, the first game, "Mega Man: Dr. Wiley's Revenge", features four of the six robot masters from the original Mega Man on NES, then after defeating them, in Wily's Castle, you must fight four of the robot masters from Mega Man 2. In Mega Man II (the GB series used Roman numerals), you fought the other four robot masters from MM2 on NES, and then four from Mega Man 3. This continued on through Mega Man III and IV on Game Boy, as a typical formula. But then, lo and behold, the wonderful oddity that is Mega Man V came about, a game possessed of a totally, 100% brand new story, bosses, level elements, etc. And not only was it all new, but it was/is also AWESOME. Allow me to elucidate.

The Super Game Boy at work.

Mega Man V actually released after the also-fairly-good Mega Man 6 on NES, in September 1994. Along with being it's own, all-new game, it also was the only Mega Man game to make use of the Super Game Boy peripheral, which allowed Super Nintendo owners to play Game Boy games on their home console, and even add limited color palettes to them. Some later Game Boy titles, such as MMV, came programmed with some SGB compatibility, so as you can see above, they had their own pre-set palettes, as well as cool little graphic borders at the edge of the screen. Beyond that nifty addition, the game itself was one hell of a package.

I didn't personally get a Game Boy until Christmas 1994, but when I did, I was surprised by a fairly random-yet-awesome assortment of games. Among them, were Kirby's Pinball Land, the awesome 100 level Game Boy remake of Donkey Kong, the first Wario Land, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (still to this day my favorite classic Zelda game), Tetris, and Mega Man V. I'm not 100% sure all these years later that I got ALL those games on Christmas with the GB, or if I got a couple of them later which is totally possible. But there were several, and MMV was among them. Looking back, Mega Man V has to be, hands down, my second favorite Mega Man game ever made, behind only the unbeatable classic Mega Man 2 on NES. MMV really has everything, from the Super GB functionality, to a cool original story, to the fact that it is one rare case in the series where NONE of the weapons you gain from beating the robot masters seem useless. They all are at least somewhat useful, a few of them being arguably the best weapons in the series. The coolest, and most memorable, out of all of these, is Saturn's weapon, the "Black Hole", which allows you to create a small black hole in the air which sucks up all items and enemies on screen, and drops any items neat-as-you-please right into your lap. Easily the coolest Mega Man weapon ever conceived. But even so, some of the other weapons you get are pretty sweet too. Such as the "Salt Water" attack, where you fire a ball of water, which then splits on impact into three smaller balls that bounce all around the room. Or the "Grab Buster", which fires a shot that leeches energy from enemies, refilling two units of your health meter.

The Mega Arm in action, made of pure awesomeness.

Mega Man V is so stuffed full of awesome, that even the standard Mega Buster is pretty much the coolest it's ever been, before or since. In every other Mega Man game (from 4 on NES onward) you could charge the Mega Buster to build up and release one big, powerful blast. Well in MMV for Game Boy, Dr. Light, Mega Man's creator, upgrades the Mega Buster weapon to create the Mega Arm, which instead of charging and firing a huge shot, you fire a huge Mega Man fist at enemies. And if you collect enough bolts (the in-game currency), you can upgrade this even further, to make it charge faster, to grab items from clear across screen, and to lock on to regular enemies and hit them over and over till they explode. If THAT isn't the single coolest regular weapon in just about any video game ever, I don't know what is. Rush, Mega Man's robotic dog pal (introduced in Mega Man 3 on NES), even gets into the act, transforming into "Rush Space" for the space journey form Earth to (SPOILERS) Dr. Wiley's secret space station. In this level you ride in Rush like a spaceship, and the level plays out like a classic side scrolling shoot'em up game, similar to R-Type or Gradius.

The actual plot of the game is pretty unique as well. The Earth has been attacked by mysterious space robots called "Stardroids", and in Mega Man's first encounter with their leader, Terra, his Mega Buster has no effect on their super-hard space metal. Thus Dr. Light upgrades it to the more powerful Mega Arm, and once again he must rush off to save the world. The robot masters themselves are singularly unique in the Mega Man universe as well, because unlike the classic Mega Man series, where every boss is named "____ Man", or the X series where almost all bosses are named/based off of some kind of animal, in MMV on Game Boy, the "Stardroids" are named after the 9 planets of our solar system: Mercury, Venus, Terra (Earth), Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto (which is STILL a planet, fuck the haters). As it later turns out, it was Dr. Wiley who discovered these mysterious space robots in some kind of ancient ruins, and reactivated and reprogrammed them to, what else, take over the world. After defeating them, surviving the hard-as-nails space shooter level including the boss fight with the Skull on the front of Wily's space station, and then making it through the station, fighting the "Mega Man Killer" robots one last time, and once again stomping Wily himself, (SPOILERS), you even have to fight one last super-top-secret space robot that Wily also discovered, a fairly all-powerful guy called "Sunstar". He's one hell of a final boss, let me tell you.

Cooler than Rush? Yes....yes he is.

I can't possibly talk about Mega Man V, however, without telling you about possibly the coolest and most unique asset this game has. Dr. Light also creates a new robot pal to assist Mega Man in his battles. And unlike Flip-Top Eddie, or the robo-bird Beat, etc., who are-yet-aren't useful, THIS little guy is fucking bad ass. It's a little green robo-cat named "Tango", and while he only has one function, it's just about the most awesome function you could hope for. When you summon him, he teleports on-screen, lets out a "meow", and then transforms into what basically looks like a giant buzz-saw, bouncing all over the screen and destroying everything in sight. And like Rush, you can refill his energy, so that you can use him throughout the game. The developers originally added Tango because they wanted a new robot pal that wasn't in the NES games. But sadly, as cool as he is, he more or less got forgotten in the future. He can be bought as an item in the SNES/Game Boy Advance game Mega Man & Bass, and makes a cameo playing in the item shop in the downloadable game Mega Man 10. But outside of that, he never has the prominant role he had in MMV. And to me, that sucks, because he's an awesome, and incredibly useful character.

So, in summary, Mega Man V for Game Boy is awesome on many fronts. It's the only all-new, completely original game in the Game Boy series. It's the only game in the entire Mega Man franchise, to my knowledge, that has totally unique names for the bosses. It's the only game that features the super-useful Mega Arm weapon. It's the only Mega Man game I can honestly thing of, where MOST of the robot master weapons you gain are actually useful. It's got the cool Rush Space shooter level. It's got a great soundtrack. It's fun, even though it's tough as nails to beat. It's got fuckin' TANGO the robo-cat! Basically, the game just has everything you could want in a Mega Man game, or an action/platformer game in general. It truly stands alone, and I would have to say, in my opinion at least, is the second coolest Mega Man game ever created.

So if you've never tried it yet, give it a whirl! Though sadly, as of now, Capcom has yet to release this game for download on the Nintendo 3DS eShop. Hopefully they eventually will, sooner rather than later, because it is one forgotten gem that ABSOLUTELY deserves to be played and recognized by a wider audience. Cheers!

Unnecessary Sequels: The Neverending Story

*In the interest of saving time and spacing things out a bit, this series will continue forward focusing on only one movie and it's crappy sequels per article from here on out. Enjoy!



Well, it's time once again for another look at the myriad of quality or even excellent movies, that should have stood the test of time as stand-alone, self-contained works. But instead due to Hollywood's love of money, received highly unnecessary, and in many cases absolutely horrible sequels. And away we go!

 

Film: The Neverending Story

Year: 1984

Director: Wolfgang Petersen

Unnecessary Sequels: The Neverending Story II: The Next Chapter (1990), The Neverending Story III: Escape From Fantasia (1994)

Today we look at one of the quintessential films of the 1980s, and one of the greatest fantasy films ever produced, Wolfgang Petersen's "The Neverending Story". Based on the novel by the same name, written by author Michael Ende, this film is hands down one of the most esoteric and imaginative ever crafted, certainly that I have ever personally seen. It tells the tale of a lonely boy named Bastion whose mother has recently died, and who has a strained relationship with his father as they both struggle to cope with the loss. On his way to school one day, Bastion is chased by local bullies, who proceed to throw him in the garbage. After exiting said garbage, he is caught by the same bullies and manages to hide from them by slipping into a bookstore, owned by a Mr. Koreander. After talking with Koreander, who discovers much to his surprise that Bastion is most interested in books and fantastical stories, the shop owner leaves the room to take a phone call, which leaves the mysterious book he was reading, called "The Neverending Story", unguarded. Bastion, ever curious and loving stories, decides to snatch the book, leaving a note promising to return it. The shopkeeper sees this and merely chuckles, leading the viewer to realize he probably expected that the boy would do so. And from this we have the framing for our tale.

Quite possibly the coolest looking book in history.

So naturally, Bastion arrives late to school, discovers he's also late for a math test, and proceeds to steal away up to the school's storage attic, where he settles himself into reading this forbidden and mysterious book. What follows is one of the coolest movies ever made, one of the most imaginative worlds ever conceived, and all in all just a damn fun experience for just about anybody who has a soul. While produced on "only" $27 million US dollars, this German-American co-production really spared no expense, as they obviously tried their best to make every facet of the film, and the world within the book, known as "Fantasia", the most exotic, lavish and creative that they could. The entire film just oozes with a special feeling that few ever truly possess. I might be biased because I grew up with this movie, and it was and remains one of my all-time favorites. But it also holds up just as well today, and I think is beyond just being a "cult classic" film. In fact I think it absolutely deserves to be considered simply a classic, period.

"What's a Luckdragon?"

So there you have it, without going TOO in depth into this literally magical film. It's just full of so many memorable creatures, characters, and moments. It was absolutely a stand-alone film that stood the test of time, and served as a great, self-contained story that needed no further elaboration or exploration. It was a nice ending, nice wrap-up, nice everything. But, following the predictable pattern, the film made a lot of money worldwide, and thus movie executives were salivating at the prospects of making MORE money. That didn't wind up happening for several years, but come 1990, they finally released a "Neverending Story II". And as a kid, not yet really grasping such concepts as "This would be better as a stand alone piece and doesn't need any sequels", I was super excited to see it. So when it finally came out on tape, we rented it, and while I'm not sure I can rightly say I was unhappy with the film, I do remember being kind of let down by it, at the very least. Naturally, happening six years later, they recast all of the central roles of Bastion, the warrior Atreyu whose story Bastion followed by reading the book, and the Childlike Empress, ruler and embodiment of Fantasia whom Atreyu had set out to save. And with the sole exception of Atreyu, who they found another appropriately Native American looking kid to portray, the other two casting choices looked pretty much nothing like their predecessors. That alone was something that did bother me a bit, even as a kid. But that wasn't the half of it.

The devastating results of making a warrantless cash-in sequel.

Now before continuing, I suppose I am obligated to point out, that while I have never read the original book (though I certainly should), it's worth noting at the very least that the events of this second film aren't just made up crap by the movie studio. Rather, the events of the first movie actually make up only roughly the first half or so of the book, and thus the producers did actually bother to attempt a correct approach by using the second half of the book as the source material for it's sequel. However, in all honesty that is about where the earnestness ends. The story, in a nutshell, sees Bastion after having (SPOILERS) saved the day in the first movie, now actually adventuring around the land of Fantasia himself, any child's dream come true. During his adventures, he runs into an evil witch named Xayide, who proceeds to butter him up nonstop as the savior of Fantasia, using him for her own ends. Those ends have a little something to do with a new Fantasia-ending phenomenon called "The Emptiness" (replacing the original film's unstoppable force "The Nothing"), which causes things to hollow out and shatter like glass, becoming nonexistent, etc. She also helps turn Bastion into a jerk, which causes him to turn on his friends, kind of making him a bad guy and setting Atreyu up to save the day, and so on and so forth.

"We're having fun."

All of this, as far as I know, is fairly true to the second half of the book, with the exception of the "Emptiness" business, which I guess they felt added a "bigger" threat to the movie. But the real point is, as it has been with the earlier entries, that this film just simply was extremely unnecessary, and the entire thing just FEELS that way, from start to finish. Everything in the film is just "bigger" and flashier and glossier, more "Hollywood", whereas everything in the original film just flowed very naturally and everything seemed and felt very organic. This sequel from beginning to end just kind of quietly screams "FORCED!", and that is already a foundation for disaster. Now I wouldn't quite call this movie a disaster. It's not. It's just not very good. However, it is fantastic when compared to what would come next...........

This poster pretty much says all that needs to be said....

In 1994 a third sequel was released, in Germany only apparently. Almost two years later, it saw limited release in US theaters before going straight to video. That already kind of "smells funny", yes? Well, sufficed to say, I never actually saw this film when it came out, not bothering to actually try and watch it till I was 19 years old, in 2001. And when I DID finally sit down to try and watch it, because why not, I shit you not, I made it through the first ten minutes of the film, got to the part where it's revealed that the bad guys (seriously) refer to themselves as "The Nasties", and it was at that point I promptly turned it off and have never looked back. So no, in some remote sense of fairness, I must point out that I've never watched the entire film. But in fairness to ME, I don't think I really have to. You don't have actually eat a dog turd to guess what it probably tastes like, and thus is the case with this film. Ironically enough, this movie even features an early turn by (now megastar) Jack Black, as the leader of the Nasties "Slip". I'm sure he tries to forget this fact today.

Basically, without even watching the whole thing, just having read about it, added to the feel I got from just those first ten minutes, I can tell you that this movie was nothing more than a cheap cash-in times ten. It was cheaply done, probably hurriedly produced, and just displayed no care whatsoever for the original film or the book. At least the second film, while certainly not all that good, and very much a glossy, whitewashed Hollywood product, displayed some modicum of trying to live up to the first. This movie doesn't even attempt that, and follows some haberdashery about "The Nasties" getting control of the book, and creatures from Fantasia somehow being sent to this world, blah blah blah. I won't even dignify it by trying to get deep into it. If you really care about the plot, either see the film, or read the Wikipedia article. Just know that if the second movie is weak, the third straight up sucks. And that's all you really need to know. Just enjoy the first film, and forget that the "sequels" ever even existed.




But hey, take solace! If you've never seen the first "Neverending Story" film, please do yourself an enormous favor and see it as soon as possible. You'll be glad you did, and your life shall be all the richer for having seen it. Cause it's fuckin' awesome. Cheers!

Silver Screen Stories: Super Mario Bros.

So this week, exactly 20 years ago, a landmark moment occurred in the history of cinema. For the first time ever, a movie was released by Hollywood, based on a video game. There had been a handful of films in the past that heavily FEATURED the concept of video games, such as Tron, The Wizard, etc., but there had never before been a film that was an adaptation of a video game. There had been plenty of games turned into cartoons in the 80s and early 90s: Pac-Man, Dungeons and Dragons, Donkey Kong, Q-Bert, Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Sonic the Hedgehog, etc. But Super Mario Bros. was such a popular franchise (still to this day the single highest selling game franchise in video game history, and that's not even counting all the spinoff titles), that it had the distinct honor of being the impetus for uncharted territory on the "Big Screen". And thus "Super Mario Bros.: The Movie" was born.

"This ain't no game.....but why are we holding Super Scopes?"

Now, this isn't going to be your typical look back at this movie. It is infamous in film history, for both being so damn weird, but also for being a greatly hyped blockbuster film that nosedived and bombed at the box office. Most people tend to look back on this film with scorn and sarcasm, treating it like a punchline. Because to some people, I guess it is. But me, I'm going a different rout. Any of my readers who've stuck around and followed my work for awhile now, probably know that I generally tend to write about things I like, with few exceptions (such as the Shitty Sequels series I have going). I just figure that, honestly, it's both more fun and more interesting for me to write about things that I actually like and am passionate for. But also....it's kind of just played out, people criticizing and hating on things for entertainment value. It's become an internet meme all it's own over the last several years, and while there are some who do it well, the right way, and I find some of that entertaining, I just don't see the need to join the crowd. So for the most part, I'll be sticking with a more positive approach, and this won't be much different.

The first time I saw this movie, was renting it on VHS (remember those?) when it finally came out. I'm sure I might have mentioned this in a previous entry at some point, but being raised by a grandmother whose philosophy was that it was a "Waste of time and money to go see movies in the theater", it basically goes without saying that I missed out on a lot of cool theater experiences that other kids my age enjoyed. I basically missed an entire era of film, between E.T. and Power Rangers: The Movie (which I do believe was the first film I got to see new in the theater, ever). I know that's pretty sad, but sadly I had no control over that, and had to wait till things came on tape so we could rent them, if we rented them at all. AS such, it's not too much of a stretch to say that seeing as Super Mario Bros. was my major obsession in the early '90s, I had a lot of anticipation built up over finally seeing this movie. Even though I had seen pictures in magazines, and likely seen ads on tv for it, and knew it wasn't quite like the games, I was still excited. And honestly, I don't necissarily remember feeling let down or disappointed. I just remember thinking how weird the movie was. And still is.

Two of the best characters in the film, "Iggy and Spike".

I will say, for it's time, I was certainly not as into it after having seen it as I would be a year and a half or so later when "Mortal Kombat: The Movie" came out. I got to see that in theaters, one of the first new films I actually did get to see, after Power Rangers. The MK film still holds up to this day, in my mind, as the best video game adaption movie ever made, and it certainly wins points over Mario or practically anything else in the "staying true to the look and feel (and story) of the game" department. Much more so than it's contemporary films, like Street Fighter, Double Dragon, and Mario. BUT, I think that's the place where people need to draw the line, and realize that "Super Mario Bros.: The Movie" simply is not a good, direct game adaptation. And really, how could it have been, in live action, when such a thing had never been attempted before, and....you know.....Hollywood?

Standing on it's OWN, as it's own entity, and setting aside it's lack of accuracy to the source material, the honest truth is that the SMB movie is a pretty damn good film. Not GREAT, not amazing, not "classic" in most uses of the word. But it IS good. It's weird, it's funny, the main characters (Mario and Luigi) have good chemistry, there's a lot going on, it never lapses or has terribly dull moments, and it's quirky enough that it's actually kind of endearing. That is how I choose to look back on it now, and I think more people need to try and see it for what it is, and less for what it's not, as well.

"Where's my pizza!?"

The plotline, at it's core, is still pretty much Super Mario Bros. There's a girl named Daisy (instead of Peach, which she wasn't called in the U.S. yet), who happens to secretly be a princess of a magical, alternate world. There's a bad guy, called Koopa, who sends his minions to kidnap her. There's two Brooklyn plumbers, named the Mario Bros., who find out about all this, and go after her. Badda-bing, badda-boom. That's about where the hardline similarities stop, sure, but still. Daisy (Princess Toadstool), was raised as an orphan in our "real" world, seemingly safe from King Koopa, who wants a mystical piece of meteorite that he needs to merge the two worlds of "Mushroom Land" and Earth, together. Because as the movie tries to explain it, the same meteor that theoretically wiped out the dinosaurs, also created an alternate pocket dimension where some dinos survived, evolved into basically humans (don't ask),and there you go. Yup. The Marios meet Daisy when she's in trouble, Luigi falls for her (Mario is older and has his own squeeze in the film), and they go on a date. After the date, she shows him around her paleontological dig site, which just so happens to also be the spot where the two dimensions blur a bit, and BAM, she's kidnapped by the two guys pictured with her a couple two pictures up (named Iggy and Spike, two actual characters from SMB3, but not). The Marios follow, get trapped in this weird Dinosaur/Mushroom Kingdom, and set out to try and save the day.

And that's basically it. Except a whole lot of weird in between. But it's not a BAD, or even off-putting kind of weird. It's the kind of weird that made something like "Pee Wee's Playhouse" fun to watch. Two things that explain partly how this film turned out as odd as it did, is the fact that the production designer was the same guy who worked on  the movie "Blade Runner" (city even looks similar), and the co-directors were also the co-creators of weird-as-hell '80s show "Max Headroom". So those two facts alone really explains a lot. The film had it's share of big stars, especially Dennis Hopper as Koopa, and Bob Hoskins as Mario. Those two specifically, have been quoted in the past as saying that it was the worst film either of them ever did, in part because the actual production was a constant mess, and because of the way it wound up bombing and being critically panned upon release. But others, such as John Leguizamo who plays Luigi, look back on it a bit more fondly, and appreciate that the movie has it's "cult" fans such as myself. And for their part, Mr. Hopper and Mr. Hoskins (especially Hoskins) do a really good job in their roles, proving that great actors can make the most out of anything. Up until Super Mario 64 came out in 1996, where he was voiced in a game for the first (real) time, by Charles Martinet with the "It'sa Me!" business, Mario had been portrayed in all sorts of media, from cartoons, to comics, to Choose Your Own Adventure books, to this movie, as more of a Brooklyn tough guy type. And that might have even the tiniest bit more of why I think this film is alright in the end, because I grew up with "that Mario", and am still rather fond of him.

GOOMBA!???

If I had to name off the things that make this movie likeable to me, I guess I'd start with the fact that, as mentioned before, it has a good sense of humor. The Mario Bros. have a great chemistry together, Koopa gets in a slew of cheesy bad guy lines, and the film just has a lot of more subtly funny moments throughout. Another thing I'd say I like, is the fact that while the film doesn't ever at any point try to take itself terribly seriously, it also doesn't seem as if it's making FUN of the source material either. It basically just tried to be it's own thing. And even so, it still manages to squeeze in a lot of names/images/elements from the games, from Goombas (kinda), to Yoshi, to Bob-Ombs, to guns that shoot fireballs instead of bullets, Big Bertha (in the form of a tough black chick instead of a giant fish), Shy Guy/Sniffits, "Toad", etc. etc. But ultimately, it's kind of hard to say why I like the movie. It's not something I could explain to someone else who didn't "get it", as easily as I could tell you why I love Harryhausen's movies, or old Godzilla films, or Mel Brooks' classic "Young Frankenstein". I could tell you exactly why I love those. With this? I just kinda like it.

I think if this movie had come out exactly as is, but removed any name-drop references to the Super Mario Bros. franchise, if it was just called "Plumbers Save the World" or something, I think that A) it would be far more obscure than it is), but B) it would also be looked upon far more kindly by wanna-be critics and film fans. Because really, it has all of the elements of a "cult classic" that make people love other films such as "Buckaroo Banzai" or "Big Trouble in Little China". It's weird, it's funny, it's fun to watch. But it carries a negative stigma because it was held up to a standard which it never could have reached. If they had really wanted to do a "real" Mario movie, it should have just been a cartoon film, similar to the cartoon shows that came before it. That's the only way a REAL Mario movie could be pulled off, because in live action, there's just no way. But having said all of that? I'm still pretty glad they tried and failed anyway, because even in failure, they came up with something that I think is pretty entertaining, and deserves to be remembered for that.

Unnecessary Sequels: Jaws and Gremlins

So after getting sadly sidetracked by the passing of Mr. Ray Harryhausen, and then being randomly inspired to write about "Matinee" after finally seeing it, I am now back to give you another delicious slice of "Why the hell did this get a sequel?" pie! Last time we looked at two seminal and influential classics, in "Psycho" and "Planet of the Apes". Today's selections will be not be the same kind of film-history milestones, but they are still significant in their own way, and regardless, both great, classic movies.

And before I begin, a reminder that the criteria by which I judge a "movie that didn't need sequels", is just what it sounds like: a film that was great, and a stand-alone piece that was self containing and wrapped up nicely on it's own, that needed no sequels whatsoever to dilute it or even in certain cases detract from it's greatness. And away we go!

Film: Jaws
Year: 1975
Director: Steven Spielberg
Unnecessary Sequels: Jaws 2 (1978), Jaws 3-D (1983), Jaws: The Revenge (1987)

A film that, like Psycho, most people are at least generally familiar with, even if they haven't seen it, they know what it is. And similarly to Psycho, Jaws contained an iconic musical strain (in this case by the great John Williams), that would embed itself in popular culture for decades. Jaws was a phenomenon when it released in 1975, one of the first of what would become Hollywood's true "Summer Blockbuster" approach, even though compared to today's fare of that same branch, it stands head-and-shoulders above much that would follow it. Not really the "blockbuster" type of material, while it has it's tense and active moments, Jaws is not an action film, nor even a true "horror" film as most would likely assume or label it. The premise of course being that of a sleepy little coastal town, located on "Amity Island, Massachusetts", a remote location generally as normal as you please, being suddenly terrorized by an enormous, man-eating "Great White" shark. But underneath what could have been a stereotypical "monster on the loose" fare, or even a contemporary of it's mid-70s gore-filled exploitation movies, Jaws was, like much of Spielberg's later work, a quieter, more thoughtful film. In fact most of the film is built on what you don't see, on tense moments, quiet brooding, and human drama.

"The Guys", Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider, and Richard Dreyfuss.

The principle characters in what would be Spielberg's first major motion picture, were an all-star cast just among themselves. Classically trained British actor Robert Shaw played a shark hunter simply called "Quint". Roy Scheider, who had already had an enduring career beforehand, would play perhaps his most iconic role, that of Police Chief Martin Brody. And Richard Dreyfuss, a television actor whose career in motion pictures had just recently started to take off with George Lucas' "American Graffiti",  plays marine biologist Matt Hooper. After considerable hemming and hawing over the prospect of shutting down the popular beach due to shark attacks, the local mayor Larry Vaugn (played by Murray Hamilton), hires the somewhat unstable Quint to rectify the problem, and Brody and Hooper join the expedition to hunt this phantom beast. The story itself is very basic, and as I said, under many other directors it probably would have been played as a straight horror flick. But under Spielberg's watch, the story became more about the three principle characters, as he has had a career-long penchant for focusing on human subplots embedded within his grander concepts. And as such, the film has it's share of quite moments, not only tense, but even a few laughs. Robert Shaw's performance as "Quint", a former navy man who survived a shark attack that killed most of his former crewmen, in particular is a rather good dramatic turn, as he essentially becomes Captain Ahab, hunting his own "Great White", to the point of destructive obsession to the detriment of his boat and his crew. The final product was and is a classic piece of cinema, that launches the career of arguably the greatest director of our modern era. So much so that in 2001 it was included in the National Film Registry.

"You're gonna need a bigger boat."

But, naturally, with colossal box office success also often comes a certain gleam in studio producer's eyes, that whispers one solitary word into their rich little ear: "Franchise". Thus was the case with Jaws, as they decided to make a sequel almost immediately, without Spielberg's involvement. While he was busy making yet another film (that thankfully DIDN'T ever get a sequel) that is now today considered to be a quintessential classic, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", Universal Pictures brought in b-movie director Jeannot Szwarc to make "Jaws 2". A perfect example of a sequel that not only didn't NEED to happen, but SHOULDN'T have happened, J2 went on to be everything it's predecessor wasn't. Where the original went for a thoughtful, tense approach that plays more on human emotion and a fear of a more concealed monster, the sequel does exactly what most bad "creature features" do, especially by the 80s. That is to show too much of the monster, up the gore factor and body count, and otherwise just have a nonsensical sequence of events that leads up to a pointless finale. Poor Roy Scheider agreed to do this sequel, a decision he would regret for the rest of his career, and while he tried his best to salvage his own role, he was sadly set adrift amidst 70s horror movie cliches and honestly just a fairly poor script. Taking everything the first movie had wrapped up with, the giant menace being killed, everything on the quiet island going back to normal, etc., and not only discarding it with the magical appearance of ANOTHER similarly sized and tempered giant, but this time making it even worse, by the Mayor and town's people outright refusing to believe Brody even though they'd already BEEN through all this nonsense and the horror that followed the first time around.

But alas, "Jaws 2" wasn't enough. Like some shitty cash-in sequels tend to do, it made quite a lot of money, enough at least to justify further milking of the property. And in 1983, right at the height of the 80s resurgence of "3D", came "Jaws 3", or more accurately "Jaws 3......D", because that's clever (hey, they're still doing it today, with the CURRENT 3D resurgence). Now, just to key you in on how stupid things would get, the tag-line for this summer blockbuster, I shit you not, was "The Third Dimension is TERROR!" A cheesy tag-line/concept it shared with equally crappy cash-ins of the time, "Friday the 13th III" and "Amityville 3D". As if being in 3D wasn't enough, they decided to go full on ridiculous with the third film, setting it in San Diego, at the SeaWorld park there, and yes, a brand NEW giant monster shark shows up in a timely fashion to terrorize the brand new (and ill advised) underwater tunnels they're debuting. You can imagine how this movie plays out, so I won't get too deep into it. But sufficed to say, as with most drawn-out horror franchises, the installments tend to get crappier and sillier-by-the-sequel, and that remained true here. I will say that as he would continue to intermittently do his entire career, Dennis Quaid made the poor choice of starring in this turd, and he would go on to alternate between great and "why?" roles to this day.

Yes....those are "3D" shark teeth exploding at the screen. Technology aside, things haven't changed much.

Last but certainly not least, even though I'd rather not mention it at all, was the fourth installment. And it absolutely takes the shit cake when it comes to "bad sequels", as 1987's "Jaws: The Revenge" actually makes "Jaws 3-D" look pretty swell by comparison. If you think Jaws terrorizing SeaWorld is bad, just wait. The plot, in a nutshell, is that Martin Brody (thankfully not played by Scheider again), has died of a heart attack. His wife, Ellen (played by Lorraine Gary in Jaws 1, 2, and this thing), believes his heart attack was induced by a shark. She goes to live with her son Sean and his fiance. Her son, a police deputy, after surviving shark attacks in the first two films, magically also dies, this time directly at the hands of the damn shark. So now (oh....SPOILERS), the poor lady is left with only one surviving son, her family killed, she is convinced purposely targeted, by this fuckin' shark. So what does she do? Naturally, what any leading lady in a crappy horror sequel would do, she sets out for revenge. Hence the subtitle of the movie. Right? Not quite. She goes to stay with said surviving son (Lance Guest, Alex from "The Last Starfighter"), and people keep on dying, it would seem, because the shark is actually trying to get HER, so it's the SHARK'S Revenge. Because a totally unrelated shark would totally know about Brody's wife who had zero interaction with the first "Jaws". Regardless, she figures she better offer herself in sacrifice to this cruel movie-sequel god, to stop further killing, because that totally makes perfect sense. And the rest plays out about as nonsensical and silly as you'd likely imagine.

Much like Psycho, the original Jaws is a great, dramatic, and very "against-type" film. A true classic in every sense of the word. And just like Psycho, Jaws' unneeded sequels do everything they can to completely shit all over that, and drag the franchise down to mediocre depths (pun intended). The only cure, also like Psycho, is simply to pay the "sequels" no mind, and only watch the original film. Because unless you just really love silly, nonsensical bullshit, they're basically just chum floating on the waves.

 

Film: Gremlins
Year: 1984
Director: Joe Dante
Unnecessary Sequel: Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)

Another Spielberg related gem, this time with ol' Steve acting as producer, 1984's "Gremlins" may not be considered a classic by some, and certainly not to the level that a movie like "Jaws" is regarded. But honestly, it's one of the best films to come out of the 80s, and it's a steadfast classic that still holds up today. This was the product of some serious talent, produced by Spielberg, written by future big-hit director Chris Columbus, and the film that would really launch the career of former Roger Corman protegee Joe Dante. And as a bonus, it even had a great score done by the great Jerry Goldsmith. Gremlins was a mega-hit of the 80s, and in fact was such a good film that it even made a shit-ton of money despite the fact that it released the same exact week as even-bigger-hit "Ghostbusters". And like that movie, Gremlins was a deft combination of horror and comedy elements.

Just two dudes, hangin' out.

The feature creature of the film, so to speak, was the tiny, cute little dickens pictured above, a creature that the Chinese shop owner where he was found called a "Mogwai". This particular little fella received the name "Gizmo", after his buyer Randall Peltzer's penchant for inventions. But like Peltzer's own gizmos, this seemingly innocuous situation, bringing a strange critter home as a gift for his son, goes awry. Not due to Gizmo, of course, as that critter is one chill dude, with nary a care in the world beyond comic books, television, and humming his own iconic theme tune. His owner, Randall's son William "Billy" Peltzer (played by Zach Galligan), is an aspiring comic artist who works as a bank teller to help support the family while Randall tries to sell his (usually dodgy) invention ideas. Well, "Mr. P" leaves on a business trip to go and try to do just that, leaving Billy and his mother Lynn (Frances Lee McCain), home alone and ripe for some untimely Christmas-season disaster. The Mogwai have three major plot points....ahem, RULES, that must be followed to the letter, or else all hell will break loose. 1. Keep them away from bright light, because it'll kill 'em. 2. Don't get them wet, because who needs water to live, right? And 3. Don't EVER feed the rascals after exactly midnight (regardless of time zone issues), because JUST DON'T THAT'S WHY.

Regular party animals, rocking out to "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves".

The film manages to find a nice balance of outright silly and genuinely creepy, and while it certainly has some more violent/gruesome moments, past a certain age I'd say this still works as a "family film" as much as it does a "horror" movie, something you can't say about Jaws. The idea of Gremlins in the first place, stemmed from World War II, as soldiers would blame tiny critters no one could actually see (whether truly serious or not) for mechanical failures, untimely mishaps, and general pandemonium. And while deadly, that's what the title characters of this film really specialize in. Naturally, the plot points (RULES) are broken, at least the second and third (in order), starting with Billy's teen friend Pete (80s kid/teen star Corey Feldman) accidentally spilling water all over Gizmo while trying to hold him (because he's just so damn cute you HAVE to hold him). A half dozen little Mogwai inexplicably pop out of poor Gizmo's back, and while all equally cute, unlike their "father" they seem to have a natural mean-streak. Most especially the ring leader "Stripe", so named for the funny 80s mohawk he was born with. Well, it isn't long before dad leaves on his trip, and well meaning sad-sap Billy is suckered by those devious Mogwai into feeding them after midnight. Next thing you know, they're cocooned in Xenomorph eggs (if you got that, high five), and about 12 hours later, they all hatch as the not-so-adorable persons you see above. Well, shit goes down, (SPOILERS) Stripe jumps in a YMCA pool, and from there it's off to the races, as Gremlins overrun the fictional quiet little town of Kingston Falls. So it's up to Gizmo, Billy, and Billy's girlfriend Kate (played by the gorgeous Phoebe Cates), to fight these fuckers off and take back Christmas.

This pretty much speaks for itself.

So, all in all, Gremlins was a really awesome movie. Well made, well written, well directed, well acted, well.....everything. It had cool pop-culture references, great music, funny moments, memorable characters....pretty much everything you could ask for in your run of the mill holidays horror/comedy. But again, with success, often comes people at the studio who want more money. Now a couple of things should be pointed out. The first being, that not ALL great successes at the box office automatically churn out cash-in sequels. Great examples of movies that stayed great, stand alone pieces, would be the aforementioned "Close Encounters", or another iconic 80s film, Richard Donner's "The Goonies". Secondly, not ALL sequels are bad, or even unneeded, as proven by many hits like "Back to the Future Part II" or "Aliens". And there are even a few certainly unneeded sequels that STILL turn out pretty great, as would be the case (at least in MY opinion) of "Ghostbusters II".

And to be perfectly fair, the movie I'm not about to discus, "Gremlins II: The New Batch", falls more into that latter category than it does into a genuinely "bad sequel". Because honestly, really looking at it, it's NOT "bad" by any means. It was directed once again by Joe Dante, scored once again by Jerry Goldsmith, produced again by Spielberg, and features at least a few of the original main cast (the others thankfully just being omitted, not replaced). I honestly think that over the years I have gone back and forth on whether or not I like or dislike this movie, and after recently watching them both again, I have to say, that while I can state unequivocally that it is a sequel that REALLY didn't need to be made, and that it doesn't even work as WELL as a sequel as Ghostbusters II did, I do find it ultimately likeable. The plot in a (very quick) nutshell is that Billy and Kate have moved to "The Big Apple", New York City, where they both work in an enormous (and ridiculous) skyscraper office building. Meanwhile Gizmo's owner Mr. Wing (the Chinese Shop owner from the first film) dies of old age, and he is left to be kidnapped and taken to the same building as a lab-rat. Madcap of course ensues, leading ridiculously to more little Mogwai, also bad-tempered (including a NEW ring-leader with a mohawk, this time named.....well..."Mohawk"), they eat after midnight, wham-bam-thank-ya-Sam, and "Here we go again!".

On paper that all sounds like a recipe for something potentially worse than "Jaws: The Revenge", but because to lure Joe Dante back to make this sequel (that he originally didn't want made), Warner Bros. had to give him a large budget and full creative control, while it's not GREAT or by any means a classic like the original, it does honestly turn out alright. The movie even features cameo appearances by quite a few character actors and "cult" film favorites, such as Christopher Lee, Dick Miller (returning as Mr. Fudderman), John Glover, Henry Gibson, John Astin, and even Hulk Hogan. It also brought animator Chuck Jones out of retirement for some "why not" bumper bits featuring the Looney Tunes characters. All in all, Gremlins II is a film that certainly didn't need to be made, as even Dante originally felt that the first film wrapped up nicely and that a sequel might detract from that. But on the other hand, it is entertaining, and manages to have at least a bit of that "get to see what the characters are up to" feel that Ghostbusters II more successfully achieved. So yeah, Gremlins should have stayed solo, but I would also say that Gremlins II is just silly enough in the right ways to merit seeing.



So until next time, stay out of bright lights, don't eat after midnight, and whatever you do, DON'T go swimming off of seemingly innocent beaches! Cheers.

Silver Screen Stories: Matinee

 

 With these entries, I usually look back at movies from the true "classic" period (30s-70s), but there will be exceptions and this is one of them. I've been a Joe Dante fan for years, in fact Gremlins and The 'Burbs (starring Tom Hanks), are two of my favorite films. But up until the other night, I had never seen his 1993 film "Matinee", although now of course I wish I'd seen it years ago. It's a very good film, with a nice little mix of everything (something Dante has always been good at), comedy, drama, satire, teen romance, etc. And considering my avid love of classic horror/sci fi/fantasy films, it makes it that much better for me personally, as that is the basis for the film. In fact you could call it a love letter to that classic era.

"If I could be serious for a minute...."

The film stars John Goodman in another great performance, this time as Lawrence Woolsey, a "B-movie" producer who is an absolute sendup/homage of classic horror director William Castle. He employs the same style of showmanship and movie promotion that Castle (and Alfred Hitchcock before him) did, as well as the same types of "audience involvement" gimmicks used in-theater while the movie is playing, such as electric buzzers under the seat cushions and people dressed as monsters popping out and scaring the audience at the right time. He gives a few great pep-talk type speeches in the movie, talking up the magic of cinema, even making getting people to pay for cheap scares sound like a sacred art. It's great stuff, and for an old film buff like me, it gives you that warm fuzzy feeling for the way cinema used to be. 

That classic movie-going experience.

 The main character of the film is actually a young teen named Gene Loomis, whose family lives on a naval base in their small Florida town of Key West. The film is set smack in the middle of the of the early 1960s "Cuban Missile Crisis", with Gene's father serving on a ship that is part of the Cuban blockade. Gene is, like me, a massive monster movie fan, having several issues of Forrest J. Ackerman's "Famous Monsters of Filmland" scattered around his room, and he loves to take his little brother Dennis to these movies, both to share the experience but also to try and scare him. The basic plot set-up is that Woolsey's new film "MANT" is going to be playing at their local theater, and Woolsey himself is going to be there live and in person to promote it (along with his special gimmicks). The Cuban missile tension is going on through all of this, which Woolsey thinks is great for business because "they're already scared, now we're gonna scare 'em even more". A perfect send-up to the fact that 50s era horror and science fiction films often played on people's fears of nuclear terror. 

MANT! Part Man! Part Ant! All Terror!

The film features two "movies-within-a-movie". One being a lesser scene when Gene's mother asks him to take his brother to "something that isn't scary", so they go to see a family film called "The Shook-Up Shopping Cart", a send-up to Disney movies of that era like "Herbie the Love Bug". The other of course is the featured subject, the atomic horror film "MANT", about a man who, over-radiated by his dentist's x-ray while an ant crawled onto him, transforms through the "horror of science" into first a human ant (similar to the mixed up Fly-Man from 1958's "The Fly"), and later fully into a gigantic ant who terrorizes the city (an homage to "giant insect" films of the day). "MANT" even features an appearance by Kevin McCarthy (the doctor from the original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers") as a stereo-typical army general straight out of those 50s sci-fi schlock films. The film itself also features character actor Dick Miller (Mr. Fudderman from "Gremlins"), who as it turns out was cast in every single one of Joe Dante's films.

Amidst teen angst and budding entangled romance, the town gripped in panic at impending nuclear annihilation, and Lawrence Woolsey trying to impress a theater-chain owner to sell his movie and gain great success, the film's final act plays out. With the town selling out the theater, after having their interest properly aroused by Woolsey's promotional tactics, the packed audience marvel's at the cheesy horror of "MANT", all while being thrilled by seat-buzzers and special gimmick effects set up in the theater. And of course, meanwhile, madness ensues. I won't spoil how it all wraps up, but sufficed to say, it's a great ending to a very good film. 

 A true love letter to a by-gone era, both a satire of how silly people often were during those early "Cold War" days,  as well as a loving homage to a simpler time, of both society and the cinema that entertained them. I would highly recommend this film to anyone, movie buff or casual viewer alike. Joe Dante, when at his best, was a master of his craft, and I'd love to see him make a big theater comeback. So check "Matinee" out, you'll be glad you did!