ATLRetro

LADY TERMINATOR (1988); Dir: H. Tjut Djalil (aka Jalil Jackson); Starring: Barbara Anne Constable, Christopher J. Hart and Claudia Angelique Rademaker; Thurs. Nov 29, 9 p.m.; Cinefest Film Theatre; $5 (free for GSU faculty, students and staff with Panther ID); Trailer here.

By Aleck Bennett
Contributing Writer

The last Thursday of every month brings something almost unexplainable to Cinefest Film Theare…something that approaches that fine line between “good” and “bad” and blows it to kingdom come.

Science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon once postulated something that has since become commonly known as “Sturgeon’s Law”: 90 percent of everything is crap. Few take this law to its logical conclusion, though: if 10 percent of everything is great, it stands to reason that 10 percent of the crap left over is really great crap.

Ladies and gentlemen, the 1988 Indonesian epic LADY TERMINATOR is some really great crap.

It’s hard to go wrong with any movie that opens with death by hoo-hah. I mean, that’s just science fact. By presenting you with this event right up front, LADY TERMINATOR is letting you know that anything can—and likely will—happen at any time. Before the opening credits hit, we not only see what happens to those who attempt to bed the woman known as the “South Sea Queen” and not satisfy her, we find out that the one man who does succeed at the task pulls an eel out of the mysterious woman’s…area…and turns said eel into a knife. This angers the temptress, which seems reasonable. She says that she will return in 100 years to seek revenge on his great-granddaughter, and then flees into the oceans’ depths to join with the forces of evil.

Like you do.

Fast forward 100 years, and a feisty young scientist named Tania (key quote: “I’m not a lady, I’m an anthropologist!”) comes to town to research the legend of the South Sea Queen. She takes a boat out to where the Queen’s castle supposedly collapsed into the ocean (it’s nowhere near shore, but why let this story be bound by little things like geography?), dives down to see if she can find the ruins, is magically transported to a bed in the middle of nowhere and tied down by sentient scarves, and the mysterious eel from earlier takes up new residence in a new…area. She emerges from the ocean possessed by the spirit of the South Sea Queen yet acting like Arnold Schwarzenegger in THE TERMINATOR, boinks a few random jerks, and proceeds to get on with the job of seeking vengeance by pursuing that previously mentioned granddaughter (who, naturally, happens to be a pop star).

Barbara Anne Constable is LADY TERMINATOR. Studio Entertainment, 1989.

From that point onward, the film is a non-stop barrage of gunfire, vehicles exploding, sex, blood, nudity, bad pop music, sub-John Carpenter synthesizer score, atrocious dubbing, ridiculous dialogue, popped-collar Polo shirts, inexplicable decision-making, goofy romance, jewelry mix-ups, uncalled-for hotel room eye surgery…and I think that the narrator from the TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE television series shows up. We’re never exactly told why the titular Lady Terminator acts like a cyborg, nor why she can’t be killed, nor why she can shoot laser beams out of her eyes and create electrical energy with her hands. Possession is a mysterious thing. Maybe it’s got something to do with those eels. Maybe they’re electric eels.

It’s hard to give this film any kind of critical analysis or review. It escapes logical exploration. It exists in a place beyond human reasoning. It stubbornly dares you to justify itself. And while it’s true that few movies have so little reason to exist, fewer deliver on the goods the way that LADY TERMINATOR does in its own remarkably wrongheaded way. It manages to effortlessly accomplish what any number of Troma Entertainment productions go out of their way to attempt, and without any of the “hey, we’re trying to make a bad movie here!” winking that you get from Troma’s output. It may not be accomplished on any level, objectively speaking, but it’s never boring in the least. It’s fun. It’s insanely entertaining. And, really, shouldn’t that be the standard by which it’s judged?

LADY TERMINATOR is crap. But it’s really great crap.

Aleck Bennett is a writer, blogger, pug warden, pop culture enthusiast, raconteur and bon vivant from the greater Atlanta area. Visit his blog at doctorsardonicus.wordpress.com

THE ROAD WARRIOR (1981); Dir: George Miller; Starring Mel Gibson, Bruce Spence, Kjell Nilsson; Wed. Nov. 21 9:30 p.m.; Plaza Theatre; Presented by Astrodog; trailer here.

By Andrew Kemp
Contributing Writer

George Miller’s THE ROAD WARRIOR is the STAR WARS of the post-apocalypse. The film didn’t invent the genre, but it seemed to perfect it and codify it for an entire generation of fans while simultaneously transforming Mel Gibson into a household name, and it’s returning to the big screen for one night only at the Plaza Theatre on November 21 at 9:30 p.m., presented by Astrodog.

One man alone in a wasteland. A growling convoy of modified trucks driven by thieves and thugs. A shantytown built from spare parts and spare people. We’ve seen these elements before, clichés of the post-apocalypse. Whenever we imagine a world-killing event, we tend to assume that society will give it about a week before we all start eating each other. It’s one of the oldest “what ifs” we have. What if tomorrow there was nothing left of the world but ruins, need and violent men?

But THE ROAD WARRIOR uses these familiar elements to create an action movie that transcends the grim parameters of its subject matter, making the end of the world thrilling, exciting, and even… fun. It’s the apocalypse-as-theme-park, but it completely, totally works, and although the film falls squarely in the middle of a larger franchise—the MAD MAX series—it’s easily the best of the bunch.

Gibson stars as Max, a lone warrior simply trying to survive in the aftermath of an unnamed apocalypse. Max’s world has been reduced to a barren desert (and one that looks awfully similar to the Australian outback), and vehicles have become as essential to survival as food and water. That means, naturally, gasoline (a suddenly non-renewable resource) is more precious than gold. In search of gas, Max enters an uneasy alliance with a rusty settlement of survivors, but he faces a tough choice when the town is besieged by brutal bandits led by the Lord Humongous (Nilsson). Will he abandon the town or put his life on the line to defend them? Hint: running away wouldn’t make for much of a movie.

It’s tough to look at Gibson today without getting tangled up in the headlines and scandals that have effectively ended his Hollywood career. It’s pretty clear at this point that Gibson has morphed into a fairly despicable person behind the camera, but his presence in front of the camera is impossible to deny. THE ROAD WARRIOR leaves no room for Max’s backstory, no tender moments to open up to the people around him. He’s nearly silent, a wandering ronin in the wrong place and time, but Gibson’s haunted eyes tell all the story you need. You can feel Max’s loneliness and pain even during the moments where he’s flint-hard. THE ROAD WARRIOR is a movie that doesn’t need its predecessor, but if you know that Max was once a cop and that he lost his family to thugs like Humongous, the extra layers start popping.

Mel Gibson as Mad Max in THE ROAD WARRIOR. Warner Brothers, 1981.

THE ROAD WARRIOR is also one of the crown jewels of raging car movies, a cinematic soulmate to films like DEATH RACE 2000 (1975) or VANISHING POINT (1971). George Miller arrived on the scene during the peak of “Ozploitation,” a golden age of Australian trash cinema that ran throughout the 1970s and ’80s and produced a slew of genre classics, from WAKE IN FRIGHT (1971), to LONG WEEKEND (1978) and DEAD END DRIVE-IN (1986). Miller was playing to an Aussie audience that knew their way around a car chase, and so he doesn’t skimp on the action, stuffing the film full of crunching metal, roaring engines, and cackling villains. The result is entertaining and often mythic. Stripped of its setting, THE ROAD WARRIOR is still a film about one man struggling against unbeatable odds for no other reason than it’s the right thing to do. The timelessness of the story has helped the movie age very well, and, if anything, it’s even more relevant today. Produced in the wake of the gas shortages and transportation nightmares of the 1970s, the film feels especially timely in a world of $4 a gallon gas and feasible projections that say we’ve either neared or reached (and passed) the peak of our oil production. The world of the future may belong to the likes of Humongous.

THE ROAD WARRIOR improved on its less-polished, more visceral predecessor MAD MAX (1979), but the series took a nose dive in the third film, MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME (1985). After that, Miller’s career went off into a variety of directions. Most recently, he’s been crafting thoughtful (if not entirely successful) fantasy films for children, producing Oscar-nominee BABE (1995) and directing its culty sequel, BABE: PIG IN THE CITY (1998) and both HAPPY FEET (2006) and HAPPY FEET TWO (2011). But that engine you’re hearing is the sound of that changing. Miller has been deep in production on the fourth film in his series, MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, for the last couple of years, replacing Gibson with the younger and suddenly very marketable Tom Hardy. Although the new film isn’t considered a remake or a reboot, it will still serve to introduce the franchise to a new generation of fans. For those who can’t wait that long, THE ROAD WARRIOR was born for the big screen.

VERTIGO (1958); Dir: Alfred Hitchcock; Starring James Stewart, Kim Novak and Barbara Bel Geddes; Fri. Nov. 23 – Sun. Nov. 25; Plaza Theatre (visit Plaza Theatre Website for showtimes and ticket prices); Trailer here.

If the film noir is defined by its most typical set-up—that of a doomed man swept up in events outside his control, often by a manipulative female figure—then Alfred Hitchcock’s towering VERTIGO is that most rare of films noir. It trades the genre’s high-contrast black-and-white for rich Technicolor. It places its characters not in the dimly-lit nightshade world of seedy bars, backrooms and private dicks’ offices; but in art museums, redwoods forests and the sunny streets of San Francisco. In the world of VERTIGO, the shadows of night may still hold mysterious threats, but the stark light of day reveals their constant presence all too clearly. There is, truly, no escape.

In this film, James Stewart paired with Hitchcock for their final collaboration. Stewart had long been one of Hitch’s archetypal actors. Whereas Cary Grant represented the Idealized Man in his cinematic world, Stewart was the Everyman. Grant was the go-to guy when Hitch needed a lead that viewers would either want to be or want to bed. Stewart was the guy next door, bringing a down-to-earth sensibility to his roles, and much of the attraction of him as a lead in Hitch’s films was in seeing this average Joe rise above his limitations to triumph at the end.

In VERTIGO, however, Stewart’s average Joe is taken far away from next door; his obsessions and fears exposed as he is broken beyond repair.

Stewart stars as former police detective John “Scottie” Ferguson, whose vertigo and fear of heights manifest in a rooftop police chase and result in the death of a fellow officer. Stricken by depression, he has retired from the force and struggles to overcome his fears. He is enlisted by an old college acquaintance, Gavin Elster, to trail his wife Madeleine (Kim Novak), whom he claims has been possessed by the spirit of the long-dead suicide victim Carlotta Valdes. Scottie witnesses Madeleine attempt to kill herself by jumping into San Francisco Bay and rescues her. They then become ensnared in an obsessive and doomed romance that can only result in death, a break with sanity, or both…

James Stewart and Kim Novak in VERTIGO. Paramount Pictures, 1958.

Kim Novak perfectly essays the role of a most unusual femme fatale: manipulative without being forceful, cool and reserved yet with a barely-concealed sexuality, strong yet fragile. However, Barbara Bel Geddes (whom viewers would later come to know as “Miss Ellie” Ewing on the TV series DALLAS) is perhaps the most overlooked character in the film: Scottie’s long-suffering ex-girlfriend Midge, a bohemian clothing designer, who represents the polar opposite of Madeleine. Where Madeleine is cool, Midge is warm. Where Madeleine is perfectly poised and elegant, Midge is natural and almost frumpily grounded. And where Madeleine represents everything that will tear down Scottie, Midge represents that lost potential for true happiness. Madeleine may be an impossible ideal, but Midge is real, there, now. And her love and devotion to Scottie may be the only path for his salvation, but how can he see that path with the dream that is Madeleine beckoning him from just beyond his reach?

The film was a critical and commercial failure upon release. Some felt it was too long and too complicated for a simple psychological mystery. Hitchcock believed that James Stewart’s age was a factor in the film’s failure, and replaced him with Cary Grant in the following year’s NORTH BY NORTHWEST (four years older than Stewart, true, but eternally youthful). Many, however, were disappointed that this movie was not another romantic mystery along the lines of 1956’s THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH. In fact, the mystery is practically subservient to the film’s depiction of obsession—it’s solved two thirds of the way through the movie. Hitchcock often referenced the term “MacGuffin”: the mechanical element that sets a story into motion, yet which is ultimately unimportant to the plot’s progression. In John Huston’s 1941 film THE MALTESE FALCON, for instance, it’s the titular sculpture. In NORTH BY NORTHWEST, it’s a cache of microfilm. In the case of VERTIGO, it’s the mystery itself. The whys and wherefores of how Scottie has become obsessed with Madeleine are not important; his fears and obsessions are, instead, the focal point, and how they emerge and re-emerge during the course of the story are what carries us along the inevitable path to the film’s particularly noir conclusion.

However it was dismissed in the past, in more recent years VERTIGO has been reevaluated. Beginning with Robin Wood’s seminal 1965 work HITCHCOCK’S FILMS, critics have paid closer attention to the film and what it attempts to accomplish. Many have come to regard the film in retrospect as Hitch’s most personal work: a fully-realized exploration of his own obsession with a particular “type” of woman, embodied in Grace Kelly, and his need to craft the images of his actresses to fit this particular model. This was an obsession, as depicted in Donald Spoto’s THE DARK SIDE OF GENIUS and the HBO original film THE GIRL, which would be ultimately destructive to his professional relationships with women. But despite the speculative personal aspect of VERTIGO, most have come to realize that as a film on its own merits, that it stands as a masterpiece. Indeed, it has topped the British Film Institute’s 2012 Sight & Sound critic’s poll as the greatest film ever made.

VERTIGO’s relative failure at the time meant that preservation wasn’t as much of an issue. Thankfully, the film was meticulously restored by film historian Robert A. Harris and his team, using materials ranging from the original camera negatives (which Harris notes “looked hideous”), to damaged black-and-white color separation masters, to fuzzy film prints as many as eight generations removed from the original negatives. Using all of the materials at their disposal (including a preserved green paint sample from a model of car featured in the film which was utilized for color timing), Harris and company worked miracles, producing an almost immaculate presentation of what many consider Hitchcock’s true masterpiece.

To see such an important film, preserved and restored so well, presented on the big screen is a treat to be savored by any film fan, whether casual or hardcore. And this treat is available at the Plaza Theatre for one weekend only. Some things simply should not be missed. Don’t let this one pass you by.

Aleck Bennett is a writer, blogger, pug warden, pop culture enthusiast, raconteur and bon vivant from the greater Atlanta area. Visit his blog at doctorsardonicus.wordpress.com