Dream House Not Included

Film: Barbie
Format: Phoenix Theaters, Dubuque, Iowa

I finally got a chance to go to the theater and see Barbie, the first half of the Barbenheimer double feature that was popular a number of weeks ago. Of course, I went into this knowing some things about the film, but I was surprisingly cold on the actual plot and many of the people involved. I was surprised, for instance, at the presence of Will Ferrell in the film, as I didn’t know he was attached to the project. Barbie became a cultural phenomenon, one that also got a lot of blowback from the political right because, as a film written by and directed by a clearly pro-feminist filmmaker, it’s going to ruffle a lot of conservative feathers.

We start with a 2001: A Space Odyssey parody that was the first point of anger I heard from the right—the little girls playing the parts of the pre-humans destroy their dolls much like the pre-humans smash bones in Kubrick’s film. From here we jump to Barbieland where, with a few exceptions, everyone is named either Barbie or Ken. That makes identifying some people here difficult, as different characters named Barbie are played by dozens of actors, and ditto for Ken.

Bales of Cocaine

Film: Cocaine Bear
Format: Streaming video from Amazon Prime on Fire!

Sometimes, you know exactly what you’re going to get from a film simply because of the name. Cocaine Bear is that sort of movie. This is very loosely based on a story of a cocaine smuggler dropping a few bales of cocaine out of his plane and then jumping…and dying from a faulty chute. The cocaine was, the story goes, eaten by a bear, that quickly expired from eating enough cocaine to fuel an army and all of its logistics officers. Naturally, we’re going to take that real world “bear ate cocaine” idea and do a lot more interesting things with the bear.

Essentially, the start of the film is exactly that. Andrew Thornton (Matthew Rhys) tosses some bags of coke out of a low-flying plane and, as he is preparing to jump out of the plane after the coke, slips, bangs his head on the door, and slips out of the plane, unconscious and falling to his doom. The cocaine ends up spread across the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest while Thornton’s body splats onto someone’s driveway in Knoxville. Since Thornton was a known smuggler, he is quickly identified by local detective Bob (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), who determines that the cocaine found around the body belongs to St. Louis drug dealer Syd White (Ray Liotta, in his final film).

What I've Caught Up With, August 2023

It would be nice for my life to calm down for a week, and I'm hoping (as usual) this will happen in a couple of weeks when I get a break from work. Family issues--my father's slow descent into dementia and my wife's long COVID have not eased up, and naturally I've been given extra duties at work in the form of an extra class, meaning extra grading and extra lectures. Not a lot of movie watching this month, but things are actually looking up. Things change dramatically for me at the end of the year when I give up a significant time sink. At least fall is on its way.

Day of the Tentacle(s)

Film: It Came from Beneath the Sea
Format: Streaming video from Tubi TV on Fire!

If you watch a science fiction movie from the 1950s, horror or not, you’re going find something very interesting about the way that the plot works. Regardless of what the threat is to mankind and society in general, there’s going to be a love story attached to it, and possibly a love triangle. This is the case for movies as diverse as The Deadly Mantis and Revenge of the Creature, and it’s true of It Came from Beneath the Sea. In fact, in this movie, the love story is so forward that we deal with almost none of the fun stop-motion giant octopus until the second half of the film.

True to its era, It Came from Beneath the Sea is going to also be forward about the advances of Science! when it comes to telling this story. In this case, we’ll be learning all about the new American atomic submarine that is purported to be the new ultimate weapon in keeping the U.S. safe from the dirty, dirty commies. As the film starts, it’s going through its shakedown cruise. During its travels, the ship encounters something unknown and is briefly captured. When it returns to Pearl Harbor, something biological is discovered wedged in the sub’s dive planes.

Operators are Standing By

Film: 976-EVIL
Format: Streaming video from Tubi TV on Fire!

As someone who came of age in the 80s, there are some elements of culture that don’t really translate to younger generations. Older Millennials will remember some of these specific sensory and cultural touchstones, but for anyone mid-30s and younger, experiences like the smell of purple mimeograph ink, pulling off the strips of tractor feed printer paper are not anything that can be specifically described or understood. They had to be experienced. Part of that was our relationship with phones. Calling collect was its own thing and 976 numbers were the scourge of late-night television. 976-EVIL is a film that is very reflective of that time and because of that, doesn’t really translate to a modern audience.

For those not old enough to remember, 976 numbers were reserved for pay services, most famously used by the Psychic Friends network shilled by Dionne Warwick. These numbers were used for novelty services like kids calling Santa Claus, but also stranger and more prurient services as well. That’s the conceit here—there’s a 976 line that is essentially being operated Satan himself to lure in lost souls. Essentially, people call the number (which is naturally 976-EVIL), get their “horrorscope,” and find that the predictions they get come true. Eventually, though, they have to pay for their sudden good fortune with their lives (insert ominous thundercrack).

Coming to You Live

Film: Ghostwatch
Format: Streaming video from Tubi TV on Fire!

The made-for-the-BBC film Ghostwatch puts me in mind of a number of things I have seen in the last couple of years. This film is from 1992, but it very much has a found footage feel to it; this feels in a way like a precursor to a film like The Blair Witch Project. It also has some things in common with a film like Deadstream or Host (which specifically cites this movie as an influence) from the last couple of years. There is a sense of what is happening going on live while a huge audience is watching. There are also shades of a series like Dead Set, again, with something happening life. It also has shades of The Stone Tape, another BBC production. The important thing to remember about Ghostwatch, though, is that it predates all of these except for The Stone Tape.

The conceit of the film is, more or less, akin to the Orson Welles broadcast of The War of the Worlds. Some folks at the BBC spin a tale about a house whose residents have had experiences with what they claim to be a poltergeist. The BBC has sent a crew to the house to investigate the phenomenon in a live broadcast, hosted back in the studio by long-time presenter Michael Parkinson as himself. In studio with him is Dr. Lin Pascoe (Gillian Bevan), who is put forth as an expert in the paranormal.

What I've Caught Up With, July 2023

It's been a month. My father, who is 88, has been diagnosed with some cognitive impairment. It affects his short-term memory more than anything else, but it's also made him very aware of his mortality, and that's being expressed by him wanting all of his kids to come visit him...or him coming here. We're working out a plan, but it's exhausting. I also spent more than a week in St. Louis in July, which just threw me off my game. I don't know what it is--everyone I know seems to be "going through it" right now, and everyone I know needs about a week of sleep, a massage, and a bottle of booze. I hope August is better.