Atlantis: The Lost Continent (George Pal, 1961)

 

Atlantis: The Lost Continent (George Pal, 1961)

Cast: Sal Ponti (as Anthony Hall), Joyce Taylor, John Dall, William Smith, Edward Platt, Frank DeKova, Barry Kroeger, Edgar Stehli, Wolfe Barzell, Jay Novello, Paul Frees (voice). Screenplay: Daniel Mainwaring, based on a play by Gerald Hargreaves. Cinematography: Harold E. Wellman. Art direction: George W. Davis, William Ferrari. Film editing:  Ben Lewis. Music: Russell Garcia. 

Before there were computers to mess around with, before motion capture and CGI, George Pal was known as a master of practical special effects: using models and miniatures, stop motion and camera tricks in the films he produced in the 1950s – classics like Destination Moon (Irving Pichel, 1950), When Worlds Collide (Rudolph Maté, 1951), and The War of the Worlds (Byron Haskin, 1953) – and the ones he directed, including Tom Thumb (1958) and The Time Machine (1960). But by the time he got to Atlantis: The Lost Continent, the crumbling studio system no longer was willing to foot the bill for his brand of sci-fi and fantasy. Pal was reduced to borrowing footage from older films like Quo Vadis (Mervyn LeRoy, 1951) and The Naked Jungle (Byron Haskin, 1954), and even his own The Time Machine to piece out the scenes of the destruction of Atlantis. Keen-eyed watchers of the movie have recognized some of the props and set decor from older films, such as the giant pagan idol that dominates one scene; it had been warehoused after use in The Prodigal (Richard Thorpe, 1955). Tom Thumb had featured stars like Russ Tamblyn, Peter Sellers, and Terry-Thomas, and The Time Machine starred the up-and-coming Rod Taylor, but the cast of Atlantis: The Lost Continent is decidedly second- and even third-tier. It would be the last theatrical film for John Dall, who had never quite made it to major stardom, and the male lead in the film was a Philadelphia songwriter named Sal Ponti trying to break into acting as Anthony Hall. He wound up in small roles on TV series, as did the female lead, Joyce Taylor. So all in all, Atlantis is a decidedly second-hand affair, with some narrative gaps and a lot of sword-and-sandal clichés. Still, Pal was no slouch at making do with what he had on hand, and while the movie is no sleeper hit or even cult classic, it has some entertaining moments. 

Performance (Donald Cammell, Nicolas Roeg, 1970)

 

Performance (Donald Cammell, Nicolas Roeg, 1970)

Cast: James Fox, Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg, Michèle Breton, Johnny Shannon, Anthony Valentine, Ann Sidney, John Bindon, Stanley Meadows, Allan Cuthbertson, Anthony Morton. Screenplay: Donald Cammell. Cinematography: Nicolas Roeg. Art direction: John Clark. Film editing: Anthony Gibbs, John Smedley-Aston. Music: Jack Nitzsche. 

I’m so used to seeing James Fox as a proper upperclass Brit in films like A Passage to India (David Lean, 1984) and The Remains of the Day (James Ivory, 1993) that it took me a while to identify him with the kinky gangster Chas he plays in Performance. In fact, it’s a role that writer and co-director Donald Cammell intended for Marlon Brando. But Fox, with his veneer of handsome self-assuredness, fits the film perfectly as the foil for MIck Jagger’s sybaritic rock star, Turner. It’s a film about outlaws from two worlds, the criminal Chas and the artist Turner coming together on the artist’s turf. It’s also a kind of Götterdämmerung for the swinging ‘60s, made during the ‘60s but held from release until the selfish ‘70s by a squeamish studio, its sex and nudity edited out but restored, at least partially, later. It’s visually and narratively challenging, with time- and place-switching editing to the point that it still provokes exegesis. It launched co-director and cinematographer Nicolas Roeg’s career, and it may have doomed Cammell’s. In short, it’s some kind of important film, but no one has ever been able to pin down exactly why. The very definition of a cult film.

Event Horizon (Paul W.S. Anderson, 1997)

 

Event Horizon (Paul W.S. Anderson, 1997)

Cast: Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, Kathleen Quinlan, Joely Richardson, Richard T. Jones, Jason Isaacs, Jack Noseworthy, Sean Pertwee. Screenplay: Philip Eisner. Cinematography: Adrian Biddle. Production design: Joseph Bennett. Film editing: Martin Hunter. Music: Michael Kamen, Orbital. 

The makers of Event Horizon made the same mistake as the makers of the classics 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968) and Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982), that of assuming the exploration of space would continue unabated, so they set their movies in the early 21st century. In Event Horizon, for example, we’re told that the first moon base was established in 2017, and the rescue of a ship in the orbit of Neptune is occurring just 30 years later. (One reason I admire the TV series For All Mankind is that it intentionally plays out as alternate history, in which the space race with the Soviet Union got a boost when the commies landed on the moon before the Americans.) But that’s only a quibble, because mainly Event Horizon is a mess. A scary mess, to be sure, one to be watched for thrills, not for consistency or even plausible sci-fi. Some of the mess is the result of interference from Paramount, the releasing company, which was afraid that James Cameron wouldn’t finish Titanic in time for its scheduled release, so it put pressure on the producers of Event Horizon to get it done quick and dirty. The movie has since developed cult status, and there have been rumors that Paul W.S. Anderson has a director’s cut that would smooth out all the roughness of what was released. Those have remained rumors. I don’t think any cut is going to solve the fundamental problems of Event Horizon, that it doesn’t give fine actors like Laurence Fishburne and Sam Neill solid enough characters to play, and that the central menace – something that happened to the titular ship when it was thrust into another dimension – is so vague. The crew of the Lewis and Clark, the rescue ship, is terrified by hallucinations drawn from the darkest moments of their lives. Something is causing these nightmare visions, but it’s never made clear exactly what. Moreover, they keep telling each other that “it’s all in your head,“ which is the kind of non-reassurance that I thought most of us had outgrown. Still, as I said, Event Horizon is scary if you don’t think too much about it, which may be enough for some.

August 32nd on Earth (Denis Villeneuve, 1998)

 August 32nd on Earth (Denis Villeneuve, 1998)

Cast: Pascale Bussières, Alexis Martin, Evelyne Rompré, Emmanuel Bilodeau, Richard S. Hamilton, Serge Thériault, Ivan Smith, Joanne Côté, R. Craig Costin. Screenplay: Denis Villeneuve. Cinematography: André Turpin. Art direction: Jean Babin. Film editing: Sophie Leblond. Music: Natalie Boileau, Robert Charlebois, Pierre Desrochers, Jean Leloup.

August 32nd on Earth begins with one of its protagonists in an automobile accident and ends with the other in a coma. In between, it’s some kind of romantic comedy. This confusion of tones is obviously intentional, clearly indicated by the title of the film, which sets your expectations askew the way the reference to clocks striking 13 in the first sentence of George Orwell’s 1984 does. Simone (Pascale Bussières) and Philippe (Alexis Martin) are in the throes of a midlife crisis (a premature one considering that she’s 26 and he’s 30). She’s fed up with her job as a model, and he’s thinking of dropping out of medical school. So after her automobile accident leaves her hanging upside down in the wrecked car and suffering from a concussion, she decides that it’s time to have a baby. She’s not particularly choosy about who the father will be, but she settles on her old friend Philippe. They’re not lovers, and in fact he’s presently involved with another woman. But eventually he agrees, with the stipulation that they perform the act of conception in the desert. So they fly from Montreal to Salt Lake City and hire a taxi to take them out to the salt flats. Lots of other curious stuff occurs, including the discovery of a dead body and a night spent getting drunk on mescal in a Japanese capsule hotel. Meanwhile, on-screen dates tell us it’s August 33, 34, and so on until they return to Montreal and the dates switch to September. Reality begins to set in.  All of this could have been intolerably whimsical – there are those who think it is – but it was the first feature from writer-director Denis Villeneuve, who would go on to direct such brain-teasers as Enemy (2013) and Arrival (2016), and major films like Sicario (2015), Blade Runner 2049 (2017), and the blockbuster Dune (2021). Like his better-known films, August 32nd on Earth has striking visuals and solid performances. It’s the kind of movie designed to provoke arguments about what it all means, and if that’s the sort of thing you like, or if you’re just interested in the early days of an important filmmaker, it’s definitely worth checking out.

Raymond & Ray (Rodrigo García, 2022)

 

Raymond & Ray (Rodrigo García, 2022)

Cast: Ewan McGregor, Ethan Hawke, Maribel Verdú, Sophie Okenedo, Todd Louiso, Oscar Nuñez, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Maxim Swinton, Chris Silcox, Chris Grabner, Tom Bower. Screenplay: Rodrigo García. Cinematography: Igor Jadue-Lillo. Production design: David Crank. Film editing: Michael Ruscio. Music: Jeff Beal. 

Ethan Hawke seems to be everywhere these days: playing John Brown on the TV series The Good Lord Bird (2020) and King Aurvandil in The Northman (Robert Eggers, 2022), hiding behind a mask as the Grabber in The Black Phone (Scott Derrickson, 2022), making the double lives of Oscar Isaac’s Marc Spector difficult as Arthur Harrow in Moon Knight (2022), and narrating and directing the well-received documentary series The Last Movie Stars (2022), about Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. Not that I’m complaining: Hawke has become one of our finest actors, able to more than hold his own in the company of a wizardly performer like Isaac, and it’s good to see his energy hasn’t flagged in the least. It’s worth going back to watch some of his earlier films to see how he has grown as a performer, deepening his voice and gaining confidence. In Gattaca (Andrew Niccol, 1997), for example, there is still something callow and lightweight about him in comparison with his co-star Jude Law. I think he makes Ray a more credible character than Ewan McGregor, no slouch as an actor, does of the half-brother Raymond. The problem with Raymond & Ray is that it’s not a movie that gives either actor much to play. It’s a trifle, a would-be black comedy that isn’t black enough or funny enough, depending mainly on the improbable discoveries that the mismatched half-brothers make as they uncover the secrets of their late father’s life. Hawke and McGregor get good support from Maribel Verdú as the father’s landlady/lover and Sophie Okenedo as the nurse who tended him as he lay dying, women privy to some of the surprise truths about his life. And the movie makes some nice hits at the insincerity behind the pieties of the funeral business. But Raymond & Ray is the kind of throwaway feature that used to be made when there was a demand to fill theater seats. The equivalent today is the film that gets a perfunctory theatrical release before swiftly heading to a streaming service, which is exactly what happened to this amusing but forgettable movie.

The Keep (Michael Mann, 1983)

The Keep (Michael Mann, 1983)

Cast: Scott Glenn, Alberta Watson, Jürgen Prochnow, Robert Prosky, Gabriel Byrne, Ian McKellen, William Morgan Sheppard, Royston Tickner, Michael Carter. Screenplay: Michael Mann, based on a novel by F. Paul Wilson. Cinematography: Alex Thomson. Production design: John Box. Film editing: Dov Hoenig. Music: Tangerine Dream.

Could the 210-minute cut of The Keep that Michael Mann originally submitted to Paramount really have been a better film – or even a good one? Because the 96-minute version now available on the Criterion Channel is a hopeless mess, incoherent and only mildly provocative in what ideas it seems to contain about good and evil. The story of its muddled production, the result of studio interference and the death of a key member of the crew, visual effects supervisor Wally Veever, has been widely told. Even its fine cast, which includes Scott Glenn, Jürgen Prochnow, Gabriel Byrne, and Ian McKellen, can’t save it. Glenn, who is one of those actors who make almost any film they’re in better, is oddly cast as some kind of superhero named Glaeken Trismegistus, who instead of setting to work immediately dealing with the monster called Radu Molasar (Michael Carter), spends time bedding Eva Cuza (Alberta Watson), the daughter of the professor (McKellen) brought in to solve the mystery of the keep, the fortress constructed to contain Molasar. Moreover, the professor and his daughter are Jewish, but the SS commandant (Byrne) who has taken charge of the keep doesn’t mind pulling them out of the crowd waiting to be sent to a concentration camp: He’s losing too many Nazi soldiers to the monster. Yes, there’s the makings of a good horror thriller in the film, and there are those who claim to find it in what exists, by filling in its many blanks. But I can only dismiss this as a rare failure by the director who gave us such exceptional films as The Last of the Mohicans (1992), Heat (1995), The Insider (1999), Collateral (2004), and the first movie (and one of the best) to feature Hannibal Lecter, Manhunter (1986). Talk about bouncing back!