Calli-2
A rejoint août 2000
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Évaluation de Calli-2
This movie is grossly underrated, but I think that's because people went into it expecting something entirely different from what they got. They went in expecting one of the following: a) Die Hard in space, b) Star Wars, or c) Independence Day.
The first group saw the movie as cluttered -- they were expecting a simple action thriller where the hero is one person, *maybe* with a sidekick, and plenty of villanous cannon-fodder. What they got was a conflict between multiple heroes with individual agendas who all basically wanted the same thing but kept getting in each others' way. The fast editing, wild visuals, and bizarre costuming just made it look sillier.
The second group saw it as small-minded -- they were expecting a well-thought-out SF epic where an ancient evil must be defeated by an ancient and nicely arcane good. What they got was a farce where the mystical rituals were nothing more than plot devices and ultimately the fate of the universe rested on a bunch of self-centered idiots. They were disappointed when nobody explored the ancient Mondoshewan race, when the hero only visited one other planet and then came straight back to Earth, when the "ancient evil" had only a corporate executive as its lackey.
The third group were expecting a repeat of the previous year's hugely successful "Independence Day." They were expecting a massive invasion from hideous creatures that would ultimately be repelled by an unlikely but very plucky patriotic hero (or group of heroes) who boldly went out and saved the world in its hour of need. With a bit of wisecracking thrown in for comic relief. What they got was a hero who had to be *pestered* into saving the world, a general disrespect for authority, incompetant villains, incompetant heroes, and a general impression that the entire human race is a laughingstock. Worth saving, but still a laughingstock.
What all these groups didn't realize going in was that this movie is French. And this is *exactly* what French farce is all about. It's comedy, it's silly, it's surreal, it's not meant to be taken too seriously, and it is a way to accept that life is priceless, although those who live life tend to be quite ridiculous. How do the French have a low crime rate *and* a complete disrespect for authority? This is how. They don't really disrespect authority. They just find humor in it.
And that's what this is about. The world is about to end. And it's *funny*. Really. Not in the sense of your typical American situational comedies, but rather in the sense of French farce. That is to say, it's not the situation that's funny -- the situation is the direst of all imaginable tragedies. What's funny is the fact that everybody acts like an idiot in the face of it, from the military trying to take over despite having just proven they have no idea what they're doing, to the permanently baffled priest, to the government posturing uselessly away. It's a good movie, but you've got to understand that it's also a very silly movie. Go into it with a light heart and you'll enjoy. Don't expect adrenalin or epics or patriotism. This is about the human condition, and how fundamentally ridiculous it is.
Plus, it's got a very good soprano. I hated opera until I saw the scene where Plaga Laguna, the alien Diva, sings her aria. It's beautiful.
The first group saw the movie as cluttered -- they were expecting a simple action thriller where the hero is one person, *maybe* with a sidekick, and plenty of villanous cannon-fodder. What they got was a conflict between multiple heroes with individual agendas who all basically wanted the same thing but kept getting in each others' way. The fast editing, wild visuals, and bizarre costuming just made it look sillier.
The second group saw it as small-minded -- they were expecting a well-thought-out SF epic where an ancient evil must be defeated by an ancient and nicely arcane good. What they got was a farce where the mystical rituals were nothing more than plot devices and ultimately the fate of the universe rested on a bunch of self-centered idiots. They were disappointed when nobody explored the ancient Mondoshewan race, when the hero only visited one other planet and then came straight back to Earth, when the "ancient evil" had only a corporate executive as its lackey.
The third group were expecting a repeat of the previous year's hugely successful "Independence Day." They were expecting a massive invasion from hideous creatures that would ultimately be repelled by an unlikely but very plucky patriotic hero (or group of heroes) who boldly went out and saved the world in its hour of need. With a bit of wisecracking thrown in for comic relief. What they got was a hero who had to be *pestered* into saving the world, a general disrespect for authority, incompetant villains, incompetant heroes, and a general impression that the entire human race is a laughingstock. Worth saving, but still a laughingstock.
What all these groups didn't realize going in was that this movie is French. And this is *exactly* what French farce is all about. It's comedy, it's silly, it's surreal, it's not meant to be taken too seriously, and it is a way to accept that life is priceless, although those who live life tend to be quite ridiculous. How do the French have a low crime rate *and* a complete disrespect for authority? This is how. They don't really disrespect authority. They just find humor in it.
And that's what this is about. The world is about to end. And it's *funny*. Really. Not in the sense of your typical American situational comedies, but rather in the sense of French farce. That is to say, it's not the situation that's funny -- the situation is the direst of all imaginable tragedies. What's funny is the fact that everybody acts like an idiot in the face of it, from the military trying to take over despite having just proven they have no idea what they're doing, to the permanently baffled priest, to the government posturing uselessly away. It's a good movie, but you've got to understand that it's also a very silly movie. Go into it with a light heart and you'll enjoy. Don't expect adrenalin or epics or patriotism. This is about the human condition, and how fundamentally ridiculous it is.
Plus, it's got a very good soprano. I hated opera until I saw the scene where Plaga Laguna, the alien Diva, sings her aria. It's beautiful.
I realize this is a bad movie. But I like it. It's incomprehensible, features some rather insulting Casablanca references (as the MST3K cast said, never put a good movie in your bad movie), and frankly it's astonishing that it contained so many good actors. (Really! Raul Julia stars, and there are also a lot of very talented character actors who basically sleepwalk through their parts in this movie. Goodness knows how they were talked into doing it.)
The direction is practically nonexistent. I'm convinced the actors are making up the blocking on their own. The cinematography is terrible, except in the stock footage of African wildlife used for Fingel's dopple. And the whole thing reeks of the kind of "social commentary" fiction I used to write when I was in ninth grade. (Wretched stuff, really.) MST3K really is the best venue for this film, even if the fat jokes got a bit old.
Nevertheless, I have a soft spot in my heart for this movie. When I was little, this movie was shown on the local PBS station. I must've been nine or ten, and for years I only remembered tiny snippets -- a glowing cube, somebody going into a computer and making it snow indoors, and, of course, my first introduction to "Casablanca." My brother, who couldn't have been more than 7, was my only corroboration for having seen this movie because he remembered it too, twelve years later when I mentioned it over dinner after watching "Casablanca."
And so began my crusade to find this movie. All I knew was that it had a floating cube, a shootout in a restaurant resembling Rick's "Cafe Americain," indoor snow, and a scene where a schoolchild almost spilled mustard on a man's exposed brain.
It wasn't until my junior year of college that I found it, in the sci-fi section of the Northfield Video Update. I watched it, and was astonished at how amateurish the movie was. It was fun to see Raul Julia, who had recently passed on, and I decided that the movie was intensely cheezy, probably disliked by most (and with good reason), but that it had it's own particular charms. I do have a soft spot for cheeze, after all.
So it was with great joy that I discovered MST3K was doing the movie. Sadly, I kept missing that episode. This year, I finally managed to catch it via timed record. And it was worth the wait. It's a pretty typical MST3K episode, but for me nothing can dim the charm of this crazy film. It's a bad movie, make no mistake there. The actors mostly seem embarrassed to be in it and are working without the benefit of direction. The script is putrid. The music is hilariously bad. The general effect is only slightly less comprehensible than the "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite" segment at the end of "2001." But I still like it, for some inexplicable reason.
As a footnote, I saw "Total Recall" a few years before I finally rediscovered this movie. Although I could not remember much of "Overdrawn" at the time, "Total Recall" still brought back memories and left me with the nagging feeling that I had seem the same thing done better sometime previously. Strange how the memory cheats. Maybe I've become overdrawn at the memory bank myself!
The direction is practically nonexistent. I'm convinced the actors are making up the blocking on their own. The cinematography is terrible, except in the stock footage of African wildlife used for Fingel's dopple. And the whole thing reeks of the kind of "social commentary" fiction I used to write when I was in ninth grade. (Wretched stuff, really.) MST3K really is the best venue for this film, even if the fat jokes got a bit old.
Nevertheless, I have a soft spot in my heart for this movie. When I was little, this movie was shown on the local PBS station. I must've been nine or ten, and for years I only remembered tiny snippets -- a glowing cube, somebody going into a computer and making it snow indoors, and, of course, my first introduction to "Casablanca." My brother, who couldn't have been more than 7, was my only corroboration for having seen this movie because he remembered it too, twelve years later when I mentioned it over dinner after watching "Casablanca."
And so began my crusade to find this movie. All I knew was that it had a floating cube, a shootout in a restaurant resembling Rick's "Cafe Americain," indoor snow, and a scene where a schoolchild almost spilled mustard on a man's exposed brain.
It wasn't until my junior year of college that I found it, in the sci-fi section of the Northfield Video Update. I watched it, and was astonished at how amateurish the movie was. It was fun to see Raul Julia, who had recently passed on, and I decided that the movie was intensely cheezy, probably disliked by most (and with good reason), but that it had it's own particular charms. I do have a soft spot for cheeze, after all.
So it was with great joy that I discovered MST3K was doing the movie. Sadly, I kept missing that episode. This year, I finally managed to catch it via timed record. And it was worth the wait. It's a pretty typical MST3K episode, but for me nothing can dim the charm of this crazy film. It's a bad movie, make no mistake there. The actors mostly seem embarrassed to be in it and are working without the benefit of direction. The script is putrid. The music is hilariously bad. The general effect is only slightly less comprehensible than the "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite" segment at the end of "2001." But I still like it, for some inexplicable reason.
As a footnote, I saw "Total Recall" a few years before I finally rediscovered this movie. Although I could not remember much of "Overdrawn" at the time, "Total Recall" still brought back memories and left me with the nagging feeling that I had seem the same thing done better sometime previously. Strange how the memory cheats. Maybe I've become overdrawn at the memory bank myself!
This movie represents, to me, the best in a short list of great films using true puppetry to achieve cinema magic. There are no humans in this movie, and yet not a single shot was achieved through stop-motion photography or pre-programmed animatronics. Obviously, it also uses no CGI. I do wish more filmmakers would realize the inherent strengths of puppetry over CGI; it's really no more expensive when you consider that you won't have to spend time worrying about lighting your virtual actor and your real actors the same way, nor will you have the lengthy post-production a CGI character requires.
"The Dark Crystal" is a story about a gelfling (a small, elfin humanoid) named Jen. He has been raised by the large, ponderous Mystics who adopted him when his clan was destroyed by the Garthim (giant beetles who work for the cruel Skeksis). He believes that he is the only gelfling left alive, although he later meets a female named Kira who also believed she was the last, having been adopted and raised by Podlings (fun-loving potato-like people). The two embark on a quest to save their world from the cruel Skeksis, who will become all powerful if they are allowed to take the power of the Great Conjunction (this world has three suns) as focused through the Dark Crystal.
You see, a thousand years ago, this world was "green and good," until the wise and powerful urSkeks who ruled the world decided to use the coming Great Conjunction (whose power would be focused through the Crystal) to burn all the evil out of themselves. It worked better than they had expected, and split them into two selves: the gentle Mystics and the cruel Skeksis. The Skeksis immediately threw the Mystics out of their castle, then, in a rage, one of them took a swing at the Crystal, hitting it so hard a shard flew out of it, darkening the Crystal. A gelfling prophet then had a vision which said that the next time a Great Conjunction came around, a gelfling would return the shard to the Dark Crystal, healing it and preventing the Skeksis from getting the power needed to make themselves immortal, which would presumably destroy the Mystics as well. (They're long-lived, but definitely not immortal.) To prevent this, the Skeksis embarked on a campaign to eradicate all the gelflings. They missed two: Jen and Kira. It is their job now to make sure the Prophecy comes true -- at any cost.
There are no humans in this movie, although occasionally midgets and dwarves wore gelfling or Aughra costumes to portray the characters doing things a puppet could not do (like jumping through a window or falling down a hill). By far the most expressive of all the characters is the Chamberlain (Skek Sil) played by the one-and-only Frank Oz. He sneers, he smiles, he simpers, he whimpers, his eyes go wild with terror, he hisses, he shrieks...and it's all completely believeable. The Mystics, portrayed by dancers and mimes, do their parts in incredibly difficult postures (squatting with one arm outstretched to operate the head) and yet manage to move with a ponderous grace that clearly communicates great age and great wisdom. Fizgig is perfect -- a little doglike furball with a truly enormous mouth for his size. Frank Oz once described one of his characters, Aughra, as "spectacularily ugly," and such she is -- and it's beautiful. She's a unique character, and seems to be the only one of her species on this planet. She also provides a nice counterpoint to the Scientist (a Skeksis) -- he represents the dark, exploitative side of science, while she represents the pure thirst for knowledge. Interestingly, she ends up imprisioned by the Scientist at one point, which I see as symbolic of how the quest for knowledge becomes so often imprisoned to favor the quick return of producing a nice commercial product (in the Scientist's case, he turns the Podlings into mindless slave workers and also produces Essence, a liquid which is extracted from living creatures and which is a powerful -- if temporary -- restorative).
All these creatures are beautiful. There are the occasional bluescreen problems, but for the most part the characters were clearly meant to live without the aid of additional special effects. Thousands of unique creatures flit about the dense forest where Kira lives. Rat-like creatures eat the table scraps tossed by the Skeksis. Strange organisms cross the line between plant and animal, with moving plants and stationary animals. And above all this are the rich cultural worlds of the Mystics, the Skeksis, the Podlings, Aughra, and even the virtually extinct Gelflings, who have left behind extensive ruins near the Podling village. This is a world that sucks you in, living and breathing all around you. And now that it's available on DVD, I have seen it on widescreen for the first time -- and it's even more spectacular than I ever knew. It's not mere special effects. To borrow a line from another film, it's a kind of magic. Really. As Jim Henson once said of puppetry, "it's as close to real magic as you ever get."
"The Dark Crystal" is a story about a gelfling (a small, elfin humanoid) named Jen. He has been raised by the large, ponderous Mystics who adopted him when his clan was destroyed by the Garthim (giant beetles who work for the cruel Skeksis). He believes that he is the only gelfling left alive, although he later meets a female named Kira who also believed she was the last, having been adopted and raised by Podlings (fun-loving potato-like people). The two embark on a quest to save their world from the cruel Skeksis, who will become all powerful if they are allowed to take the power of the Great Conjunction (this world has three suns) as focused through the Dark Crystal.
You see, a thousand years ago, this world was "green and good," until the wise and powerful urSkeks who ruled the world decided to use the coming Great Conjunction (whose power would be focused through the Crystal) to burn all the evil out of themselves. It worked better than they had expected, and split them into two selves: the gentle Mystics and the cruel Skeksis. The Skeksis immediately threw the Mystics out of their castle, then, in a rage, one of them took a swing at the Crystal, hitting it so hard a shard flew out of it, darkening the Crystal. A gelfling prophet then had a vision which said that the next time a Great Conjunction came around, a gelfling would return the shard to the Dark Crystal, healing it and preventing the Skeksis from getting the power needed to make themselves immortal, which would presumably destroy the Mystics as well. (They're long-lived, but definitely not immortal.) To prevent this, the Skeksis embarked on a campaign to eradicate all the gelflings. They missed two: Jen and Kira. It is their job now to make sure the Prophecy comes true -- at any cost.
There are no humans in this movie, although occasionally midgets and dwarves wore gelfling or Aughra costumes to portray the characters doing things a puppet could not do (like jumping through a window or falling down a hill). By far the most expressive of all the characters is the Chamberlain (Skek Sil) played by the one-and-only Frank Oz. He sneers, he smiles, he simpers, he whimpers, his eyes go wild with terror, he hisses, he shrieks...and it's all completely believeable. The Mystics, portrayed by dancers and mimes, do their parts in incredibly difficult postures (squatting with one arm outstretched to operate the head) and yet manage to move with a ponderous grace that clearly communicates great age and great wisdom. Fizgig is perfect -- a little doglike furball with a truly enormous mouth for his size. Frank Oz once described one of his characters, Aughra, as "spectacularily ugly," and such she is -- and it's beautiful. She's a unique character, and seems to be the only one of her species on this planet. She also provides a nice counterpoint to the Scientist (a Skeksis) -- he represents the dark, exploitative side of science, while she represents the pure thirst for knowledge. Interestingly, she ends up imprisioned by the Scientist at one point, which I see as symbolic of how the quest for knowledge becomes so often imprisoned to favor the quick return of producing a nice commercial product (in the Scientist's case, he turns the Podlings into mindless slave workers and also produces Essence, a liquid which is extracted from living creatures and which is a powerful -- if temporary -- restorative).
All these creatures are beautiful. There are the occasional bluescreen problems, but for the most part the characters were clearly meant to live without the aid of additional special effects. Thousands of unique creatures flit about the dense forest where Kira lives. Rat-like creatures eat the table scraps tossed by the Skeksis. Strange organisms cross the line between plant and animal, with moving plants and stationary animals. And above all this are the rich cultural worlds of the Mystics, the Skeksis, the Podlings, Aughra, and even the virtually extinct Gelflings, who have left behind extensive ruins near the Podling village. This is a world that sucks you in, living and breathing all around you. And now that it's available on DVD, I have seen it on widescreen for the first time -- and it's even more spectacular than I ever knew. It's not mere special effects. To borrow a line from another film, it's a kind of magic. Really. As Jim Henson once said of puppetry, "it's as close to real magic as you ever get."