Into The Vault: The Devil's Backbone

Before there was Pan's Labyrinth, before Hellboy I or II... before any talk of the Hobbit movies, there was simply a Mexican director who had made a cool Hollywood movie and one independent film called Cronos.

The movie is about an orphaned boy who is left at an underfunded orphanage during the Spanish Civil War. The life there is pretty brutal, between the teasing, the violent handyman, the many secrets hidden by the other people, an unexploded bomb in the courtyard, and a creepy ghostly figure that shows up from time to time. We know from the beginning of the movie that a kid died in the orphanage, and that this is who the specter is of. The question is why is he haunting the place.

Yet the movie is not just about ghosts as a literal interpretation. A ghost, as the narrator eludes, is simply a secret. This movie is full of secrets too. Every single character seems to have one, and all the plots are brought together in the end. This was done to the same effect in Pan's Labyrinth, which was the spiritual sequel to this movie.

The movie does not have a set genre. It's not a horror movie, as the American DVD distributors like to make you think it is. At least it's not in the usual way. Horrible things happen in this movie. Yet the movie is also a western, a war movie, and a boy's adventure story. Del Toro even mentions in one of the commentaries that it's his "Mario Bava western." Mario Bava was an Italian director known for his stylish horror and giallo films, and Del Toro is a big fan. I love that this movie isn't set to a specific genre. It keeps you guessing, and sets up for some amazing left turns.

I think my favorite aspect of the movie is how there's a sense of somberness throughout the whole movie. No one is happy in this thing. The orphanage is in the middle of nowhere and is falling apart. It's a very creepy place, even in the daytime. The owner of the orphanage is despondent and is sleeping with the handyman out of self-pity. The handyman is sleeping with her to find where she keeps some gold, so he can steal it. At the same time, he also has a girlfriend who knows nothing of the affair. I'm still trying to get my head around how Guillermo Del Toro fit all of this stuff into one movie and ended up with it being fantastic!

It's a shame people don't know more about this film. It's a true work of art and just as good as Pan's Labyrinth. If you take out the fantasy elements of that movie, and replace it with gothic horror, you'd have a good idea of what to expect. It's ruthless, sad and very romantic (stylistically, not lovey-dovey) yet is not altogether a downer. There's some hope in there too. It's really a shame that this movie didn't get a surge of popularity with the release of the popular Pan's Labyrinth and Hellboy II. It truly is Del Toro's best film so far.

Into the Vault: Godzilla Final Wars

In his 55 year history, Godzilla has appeared in no less than 28 feature films (not counting the Roland Emmerich film).  Out of those 28 films, the general consensus is that the original, Gojira, is still the best of the bunch.  So why wouldn't I nominate that film for inclusion?  The simple answer is that it doesn't fit the spirit of The Vault.  Gojira is more at home on a list of the most influential or popular films of all time.  The Vault is more about great films that, for whatever reason, are underappreciated.  Who doesn't know/love/appreciate the first Godzilla film?

Thus, I present to you Godzilla: Final Wars.

The most recent in Toho's Godzilla canon can best be described as a loving tribute to all things science fiction.  On top of being a kaiju monster flick, Final Wars features aliens, mutant soldiers, spaceships, airships, lasers, zombie mutant soldiers (not flesh eaters), asteroids, explosions, wire-fu, CGI, rubber monster suits, UFC champion Don Frye, and more!

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  So what's the story here?  To put it simply, monster attacks have broken out all over the planet, and a race of aliens arrives on Earth to vanquish the monsters.  Soon thereafter, humans and aliens have created an alliance between the two worlds.  Soon thereafter, the aliens proceed to re-release the monsters, newly brainwashed, to wreak havoc the world over.  It's up to an elite force of mutant soldiers (specifically engineered to battle monsters) and the most badass of American generals to stop the monsters and the aliens at all costs.  Their plan: release Godzilla from hibernation to...well...destroy all monsters..

Yes, it is silly.  Yes, it is ridiculous.  And yes, it borders on incoherent.  But I posit that Godzilla: Final Wars is a love letter to the last fifty years of action cinema, and director Ryuhei Kitamura set out to make the zaniest, most entertaining action film he possibly could.  There's wire-fu fistfights that directly pay homage to The Matrix.  Fighter jets fly into alien motherships a la Return of the Jedi.  Hell, the aliens are referred to as X-Men.  This is all on purpose, and it's not being done as parody.  As much as this is film is an homage to Godzilla's legacy, it's also the kind of over-the-top action flick that they just don't seem to make anymore.

Of course, this is first and foremost a creature feature.  No less than fifteen monsters make appearances in Final Wars, and several others are shown during the closing credits.  Some of Toho's most famous creations, as well as a few that haven't been seen in decades, turn up for one more battle.  Even the American Godzilla (referred to here as simply 'Zilla') makes an appearance, and it's easily one of the best scenes in the entire film.  These monster battles are as goofy and charming as they've ever been, but true to Toho's Millennium series of films, the battles in this film feature some pretty stellar effects work.

In the end, you may prefer other Godzilla films to Final Wars, but you can't deny this film's go-for-broke attitude.  It's so infectiously entertaining that I say it's a shame more people don't know about and absolutely adore Godzilla: Final Wars.  If this truly is to be the last Godzilla film (though probably not), I can't think of a better way to go out than on top of a pile of defeated monsters.

Into the Vault: Dune

Although David Lynch's Dune (1984) was maligned in many a review, I actually quite enjoy it, albeit in its own way and for what does work in it. A lot of people deride this film for its flaws, and while I can definitely agree with at least some of them (the pacing is definitely screwed up), I try to appreciate what Lynch was able to make work under the terrible production requirements of the De Laurentiis clan. In other words, I find the film by the director to be quite enjoyable, but the film by the producers is quite flawed.

One of the first things a person might notice working for this film before even watching it is just how phenomenal the casting choices were, and they hold up past the credits. The young Kyle MacLachlan gives a subtlety to his transformation from "simple" Paul Atreides to the leader Muad'dib so his progress never seems jarring, even with the fast-paced editing Lynch was forced into so he could meet the requirement of delivering a two-and-a- half hour max film. We first meet Paul bright-faced and eager to learn about the universe he is about to travel into, but as he undergoes more and more hardships he smiles and beams less, adopting a stern glare that is yet not brutal, and a hard line to his mouth. One delectable performance of note is Sting as Feyd-Rautha, who barely talks but never needs to very much, his mad eyes taking in everything around him as if it is only a matter of time before he consumes it all. The only real complaint I have about the characters and acting in the film is the fact that not everyone is given as much screen time as they should have, such as Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck and Linda Hunt as Shadout Mapes, but this is most likely due to the fact that these characters were meant to be given more screen time but were forced into underdevelopment due to time constraints. And Lynch fans will be delighted to see many of his regulars pop up, such as Jack Nance as a Harkonnen captain, Dean Stockwell as Dr. Yueh, and Everett McGill as Stilgar.

As I've mentioned before, perhaps the greatest flaw in the film is the editing, which is constantly on the move, the plot rolling by at the pace of a trip down the open highway. We never get to sit back and really just take in the characters for who they are instead of for what they are doing. I highly doubt this is David Lynch's fault, though; if he needs to slow down and let shots and plot digest for a while in the viewer, even if it pushes the running time to three hours plus, he is a filmmaker who understands that this must be done. As such, I feel that the pacing problem in this film is simply because Lynch was forced to tell this story in under two and a half hours by the De Laurentiis'. The assembly cut he first delivered was four and a half hours long, and while this was longer than his final product was going to be, you can tell this movie is still much shorter than it was meant to be. Considering how the rest of Lynch's repertoire shows his capable skills for taking as much time as needed, from his first film, Eraserhead, to his latest, Inland Empire, I find it more than likely he is not to blame. Granted, David Lynch is one of my favorite filmmakers and I'm sure I am biased on this, but the fact that I really feel this film would have worked so much better if it weren't for the money behind the film, I find it quite easy to take the rushed editing in stride and enjoy the film. Plus, for the amount of story that Lynch had to cram into two and a half hours, the plot is amazingly coherent and still flows logically.

The other major point for which this film should be watched is the brilliant set designs, props, and costumes. The artistic direction of the film shows that Lynch is trained as a fine artist and knows how to make things simply look engaging. The homeworld and fleet of the Emperor are brilliantly barogue in design, covered in lavish gold and mirrors, evocative of Varseilles, but of course in space; this is science fiction, after all. The palace and accoutrement of the Atreides seem more indebted to 19th century European sensibilities, which reflects well the more pragmatic qualities of that house. Arrakis, the planet also known as Dune, didn't leave much to artistic design since it is simply desert, but the filming location in Chihuahua (yes, it's a place in Mexico, not just a dog) worked perfectly well in evoking the sense of what it should look like. My personal favorite for overall design, though, is the lodgings and clothing of the Harkonnen's, the brilliantly mad, technologically obssessed antagonists of the tale. With bright greens and steel blues everything about them seethes industry gone mad, where men have been lost to money and the progress of power through machines. Even the servants of the house are dehumanized, all outfitted with "heart plugs," designed for the film by Lynch, which act exactly how they sound in name: if one is pulled out, the heart is unplugged and leaks everywhere.

Of course, a review of Dune wouldn't be complete without mentioning the giant sandworms that live in the sands of Dune, and boy do they look good. I'm not exactly sure how they were created, but they definitely show that you don't need CGI to make a giant, awesome monster. These things have teeth like a lamprey but honestly look like they could crush you, interacting logically with their environments, never as if they'd been tossed in as a background layer.

Oh, and yes, other than the "Prophecy Theme" by Brian Eno, which is simply a great melody, the music is by Toto, but you wouldn't really notice other than the fact that there is electric guitar in the instrumentation. So don't let this fact distract you from the film or make you think that you're in for some post-'90's film featuring actual rock music throughout. The score is instrumental and more rooted in traditional film scores than many other '80's soundtracks, and therein lies the great distinction: this film has a score by Toto, not a soundtrack.
Another part of the film that is highly discussed is the manner in which the "weirding way" has been interpreted. In the original novel it involves intense, precise psychological control of one's musculature and nervous system, which would understandably be difficult to portray in film as opposed to literature, so it makes sense that it would be changed. And changed it is: the weirding way has become weirding modules, which are essentially guns that focus the energy found in certain sounds (which the wielder must make with his or her own voice) for different effects, but usually the end result is essentially a laser blast. By creating these weirding modules as a mode of combat based around sound, Lynch is able to literally turn Paul Atreides' adopted name Muad'dib into a "killing sound," as his name will trigger a lethal bolt from a weirding module. Although the weirding modules can definitely seem a little silly, watching these great warriors shouting odd noises to kill people, it's an engaging manner in which to present an idea or a sound representing an idea as directly lethal. Moreover, the sound of an army wielding these modules ends up evoking the battlecries many armies from around the world would use to intimidate their enemies; this time the battlecries just happen to be lethal themselves.

One part of the film on which I definitely am left ambivalent are the voiceovers. I understand why they're there in a film that has to cram so much plot and character development in such a short time; it really does help further the narrative in a logical way. But at the same time I really enjoy seeing plot and character development rather than essentially being told what plot and character development is occurring. Again, though, the time constraint put on the film definitely makes it impossible to properly develop these things through visuals and dialogue, and I did get used to the voiceovers as the film progressed.

In the end, Dune is definitely a flawed film, and by far David Lynch's weakest effort (even he doesn't like discussing this film, as he sees it as the one time in his career he truly sold out), but there is still so much to enjoy in the film that it shouldn't be overlooked based on its demerits. Instead, go in and appreciate the film for everything good that is there, because it honestly would be a better than good film if David Lynch had been allowed to do an actual three hour cut of it.

N.B. There is an extended cut of the film, but this was done without Lynch's consultation. Although there are a lot of things that do work nicely within the longer running time, the cut was made without Lynch's consultation, and as such he had his name removed from that version of the film. So if you want to see Lynch's Dune, the theatrical cut is the only way to go, as it is the only cut he has given approval to.