On The Big Screen :: The Search for the Truth of What Lies Beneath Dan Trachtenberg's 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)

There's this great old movie called 36 Hours (1964) where the Germans capture an injured American officer and, when he wakes up in hospital, they try to convince him it is several months later, the war is over, the Allies won, and so there's no reason for him to keep military secrets any more. And that kind of elaborate ruse and subterfuge is what sets the stage for the latest from J.J. Abrams, Drew Goddard, Matt Reeves and Bad Robot productions, 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016), a piano-wire taut tale of tension and suspense.

Here, a woman has a horrific car accident and wakes up in an underground doomsday bunker under the care and watchful eye of a paranoid older man, who refuses to let her go. As to why, from there, the audience is left to decide if there really is some kind of deadly chemical first-strike invasion going on outside (the source of which ranges from terrorists to Martians) or is this guy some kind of serial-pervert conditioning his latest acquisition that there is no escape to make her more pliant, who may or may not have killed his last female "guest".

Adding another layer of intrigue to this microcosm is a third wheel, a young neighbor who helped build the bunker, claiming he sustained his injuries while trying to get in, not getting out, saying he saw strange lights in the sky and a huge explosion on the horizon and assumed Armageddon was upon them. Clues abound to back up both theories, and once one version seems to be locked-in, another clue pops up, or some dire technical difficulty must be overcome, and then allegiances shift, and another attempt at escape fails, sending everyone back to the blackboard to mark time and rethink things for a while.

The small cast of three does a remarkable job in this locked room mystery, very claustrophobic, with a few blasts of humor to give the audience a breather, over-compensating for a script that was less concerned about character and more concerned about the situation. All we really know about Michelle (Winstead) is that she just broke up with her boyfriend and she wants to be a fashion designer. That’s it. And all we really know about Howard (Goodman) is that he was once in the Navy, used to be married, and a firm believer in conspiracy theories. He also might be a killer. Or he might just be socially awkward. Only Emmet (Gallagher) is allowed some room to breathe in this small space, a well-played out scene that sheds some light on who he really is in a rare intimate moment with Michelle. He also might be in on it with Howard. Or, he might just be trying to get into Michelle’s pants.

Again, it really didn’t matter and we’re given just enough details by scriptwriters Josh Campbell, Matthew Stuecken and Damien Chazelle and just the right amount of heat from director Dan Trachtenberg to bring this all to a slow, frenzied boil. 

And boil-over it eventually does but, alas, the film kinda lost me during the climax where, essentially, every version of the truth was true, making the viewer swallow a ten-car coincidence pile-up as, turns out, --SPOILERS AHOY FROM HERE ON OUT – Michelle's host is a deranged kidnapper, and who knows how many bodies he’s disposed of in a handy barrel of acid. And, the Earth is currently being invaded by extraterrestrial (and highly combustible) squid-monsters, making our protagonist one of the unluckiest people on the face of the planet as she finally escapes one monster, rather deftly, only to face another and engineer another escape, rather ridiculously, with a trusty Molotov cocktail -- always the aliens Achilles’ heel, amIright?

I won’t lie; I was kinda disappointed by the big, ultimate reveal of 10 Cloverfield Lane at first glance, which came off kind of trite after all that intense drama; a letdown. To me, the climax would’ve worked better if the big reveal played out like I had initially thought it would once it is clear hostile aliens had landed. 

See, for a minute there, I thought this thing was gonna go all Don Dohler on me, an early influence on Abrams, with a huge nod to The Alien Factor (1978), where the alien panther-leech in the cornfield was actually the real target of the crop-dusting UFO and not our heroine. All part of some alien menagerie – a cosmic zoo, lost in transport (which could also explain the creature that attacked New York several years prior, connecting the two films), which the UFO / zookeeper is just trying to round back up – collateral damage be damned. I mean, how awesome would that have been if Michelle escapes Howard, is then attacked by the panther-leech, only to be inadvertently rescued by the UFO, which promptly flies off once the monster is in custody? (Or maybe the monster eats Howard during the escape? And is then captured just as it's about to eat Michelle? *shrug*) Instead, we get kind of a weak-sauce mash-up of Signs (2002) and Battle: Los Angeles (2011).

Thus, I can't say I loved it, but 10 Cloverfield Lane had me pretty riveted from the opening car crash through the closing credits. Time and distance also has me softening up on that ending quite a bit. Definitely worth a watch on the big screen, I think. Just don't expect any giant monster attacks like Cloverfield (2008) because there aren't any. Well, sort of. Eh, it's complicated and I’ve already spoiled enough.

 
10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) Bad Robot :: Paramount Pictures / EP: Bryan Burk, Drew Goddard, Matt Reeves / P: J.J. Abrams, Lindsey Weber, Bob Dohrmann, Ben Rosenblatt / LP: Ted Gidlow / D: Dan Trachtenberg / W: Josh Campbell, Matthew Stuecken, Damien Chazelle / C: Jeff Cutter / E: Stefan Grube / M: Bear McCreary / S: John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Gallagher Jr.

Favorite Scenes :: Frank King Spells it Out, Rather Simply, in Jay Roach's Trumbo (2015)

Finally watched Trumbo (2015) last night and, wow. In a movie full of great characters, characterizations and scenes, I think my favorite is when John Goodman (as schlockmeister, Frank King,) loses his shit and takes a bat to some Red-baiting bureaucratic weasel, officially turning the tide against The Blacklist, and it's a thing of pure beauty:

"I don't think you and me are gonna be pals. Wanna keep me from hiring union? I'll go downtown, hire a bunch of winos and hookers. It doesn't matter. I make garbage!"

"You wanna call me a pinko in the papers? Do it! None of the people that go to my f*cking movies can read!"

"I'm in this for the money and the pussy and they're both falling off the trees! Take it away from me. Go ahead. I won't sue you."

"But this will be the last f*cking thing you see before I beat you to death with it."

Also, also, Bryan Cranston isn't getting nearly enough love for his performance as Donald Trumbo. I was pulling for Damon (The Martian) over DeCraprio (The Revenant), but now I'm embracing the true underdog. 

Go, Big Daddy, GO! :: A Beer-Gut Reaction to Tales of the Rat Fink (2006)

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"Ed Roth was a giant as an artist as well as a behemoth of a man. He and his fellow Kar Kustomizers worked in the only uniquely American art medium, the automobile. He never thought of his creations simply as shells of molded sheet metal or fiberglass. He always wanted you to see the engine, too, because the only American Art Form is not an object. It's a kinieticism. Its materials are speed, momentum, excitement, and freedom, which is to say, the American Zeitgeist, except that we don't say Zeitgeist. We say, the spirit of the American Age."

-- Tom Wolfexxxxxxxx

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While he was assigned to a UFO tracking station in the Sahara desert, one has to wonder if perhaps Ed Roth actually saw something not of this earth that permanently blew his mind. For when he got out of the service, where he honed his talents as a painter by stenciling bizarre designs on his fellow airmen's duffle-bags, Roth became a leading trail-blazer in the custom car culture that absolutely exploded in the 1950's. With his outlandish, out of the box designs and pioneering use of fiberglass, Roth was soon a legend among the motorheads with the completion of The Beatnik Bandit and [my favorite] The Orbitron. And when Revell called, looking to miniaturize his creations into molded plastic, "Big Daddy" Roth soon became a household name.

It wasn't just about building or pin-striping the hot-rods, either. A true Renaissance man, Roth's silk-screening and T-Shirt designs, a mash-up of souped-up engines and ghastly critters with a need for speed going hellbent for the horizon, also caught on. Personified by his signature character, the Rat Fink -- basically his middle-finger salute at the homogenizing effect of the House of Mouse, Roth was all about flying your freak flag high and leaving the squares of Squaresville in the dust.

Ron Mann's documentary, Tales of the Rat Fink, like its subject matter, is also slightly off-kilter. Punctuated by some Roth-fueled animated critter bumpers, each segment tracing Roth's rise to prominence is told from the perspective of different car, voiced by the likes of Paul LeMat, Ann-Margaret and Jay Leno, while the big man himself is voiced by John Goodman, who links it all together. It's an amazing and eye-popping journey of one man's influence weeding and winding its way into permanent pop-culture. And as icing on the cake, we get a stellar soundtrack from The Sadies, whose blend of lo-fi reverb and honky-tonk fits the subject matter perfectly:

Seriously. Check this one out, kids. A testament to a true and one of a kind American artist.


Tales of the Rat Fink (2006) Sphinx Productions :: Abramorama :: Shout! Factory / EP: Martin Harbury / P: Bill Imperial, Ron Mann / AP: Michael Boyuk / D: Ron Mann / W: Adam Cawley, Solomon Vesta / C: Arthur E. Cooper / E: Terrance Odette / M: The Sadies / S: John Goodman, Ted Rosnick, Alex Xydias, Paul Le Mat, Ann-Margret, Tom Smothers, Dick Smothers, Robert Williams, Brian Wilson

Trailer Park :: Joe Dante Presents John Goodman as William Castle Who Proudly Presents the End of the World as We('d like to) Know It!

Set against the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis, an independent movie entrepreneur smells an opportunity and opens his new atomic-powered monster movie while the world teeters on the brink of nuclear Armageddon...

A giant love-letter/biographical recollection of his misspent youth, director Joe Dante's film is one big inside joke with his fellow monster-addled brethren on the surface (-- sadly, I was the only one who laughed at the General Ankrum joke in the theater back in '93), but you don't have to dig very deep through the lavishly heaped on dreck to find a rather refreshingly sweet, teenage-fueled romance that would have probably curdled on the target audience back in the 1960's. Oh, well, it works great, here...


John Goodman is an absolute scream as Lawrence Woolsey, an amalgamation of Roger Corman, Bert I. Gordon and William Castle, who were big on the hype but often a little short on the end results. Most of Dante's stock players are also present, including Robert Picardo, Dick Miller, Belinda Balaski -- even his old buddy, John Sayles, who scripted Piranha and The Howling, makes an extended cameo. (And I hold out hope that someday, Dante, Sayles, and producer Jon Davidson get it into their heads to make another monster movie. Namely, THEM! Please-oh-please-oh-please...)


Mant, the film within the film, is also an amalgam and littered with many genre veterans (William Schalert, Robert Cornwaithe and Kevin McCarthy). Inspired by the giant bug-movies of the 1950's and William Castle's cinematic gimmickery -- where he often wired seats to stragegically jolt the audience, or required signed releases before being allowed to see his films -- Woolsey's like-minded Atomo-Vision rings true as these types of film were petering out by 1962, replaced with Gothic Guignol and Beach Parties, and these one-lung producers behind them would try almost anything to get some butts into the seats.


I sincerely doubt that Rumble-Rama, Illusion-O and Percepto were as effective back then as we'd like to believe it was. Still, we can at least pretend that it was, and films like Matinee certainly helps to perpetuate that myth, making it all seem cooler than hell. And like the old saying goes: When the legend is more entertaining than the truth, print the bullshit. And before we go, I think it's high time we get this thing back in circulation on DVD. My old VHS tape is about wore out -- and have you seen what they're charging for used copies on Amazon?


Matinee (1993) Falcon Productions :: Renfield Productions :: Universal Pictures / P: Michael Finnell, Pat Kehoe / D: Joe Dante / W: Charles S. Haas / C: John Hora / E: Marshall Harvey / M: Jerry Goldsmith / S: John Goodman, Cathy Moriarty, Simon Fenton, Omri Katz, Lisa Jakub, Kellie Martin, Robert Picardo, Jesse White, Dick Miller, John Sayles