Falling Down: D-Fens Quixote

An image from the incredible opening shot. The camera starts on
Michael Douglas' lips, flies out of his car, allaround it, and settles on
him again. This was before computer graphics made this easy.

A recent re-watching of the 1993 Joel Schumacher film Falling Down (it was a homework assignment) turned up a number of fascinating elements— some of them unadulterated 1990s values, some modern re-evaluations, and at least one new definition. Falling Down, it turns out,  is a lot of different things.

Synopsis. William Foster, recently fired from his aerospace job, walks away from his car in a Los Angeles traffic jam. He embarks on a city-spanning adventure: he is trying to get to Venice for his daughter’s birthday party, despite the fact his ex-wife has a restraining order against him. What follows is a series of obstacles to his goal, all challenges to his worldview, one that is fading away. While he is being pursued by Detective Prendergast (Robert Duvall) the protagonist’s quest becomes a path of increasing violence and destruction across the city.

Parable of White Victimization. Time has not been kind to many of this film’s themes. The most obvious one, the one pursued in the press at the time: D-Fens was a “latter-day prophet, denouncing the hypocrisy of our times.” White men were losing ground in an ever-more-diverse America. At the time, when Hollywood and popular culture was basically white men as well, this crisis was internalized.

The staff of Whammyburger, being told they make a lousy product
by a man waving a TEC-9 around. Dede Pfeiffer (center) is the
completely unflappable counter girl. She's a hoot.

D-Fens establishes his “everyman” credentials by constantly questioning things many people at the time questioned as well. Those questions start out picayune: Why does a can of Coke cost 85 cents? Why doesn’t Whammyburger serve breakfast past 11:30? Why can’t I just sit here and catch my breath?

Vignettes are sprinkled throughout the film that reinforce his “angry white man” perspective. Urban decay. Police harassment. A homeless white guy holding a begging sign, next to industrious Latino men selling goods on the street.

Beth (Barbara Hershey) realizing she may have had a hand
in the victimization of a 1990s American white male--
the least victimized sort of person there is.

Later, his questioning veers into more sweeping social criticism. While cutting across a golf course, D-Fens wonders why the vast green space isn’t open to the public. He later hides in the pool house of an immense mansion, and finds out (via a family of poor tenants) that it is owned by a plastic surgeon. At the time, these observations struck close to home: Was D-Fens a victim?

The film went a bit further than that to indemnify William Foster as a victim of his times. When the police interview his ex-wife Beth (Barbara Hershey) she admits her reasons for placing restraining order on him were spurious. He had a temper, but he didn’t drink and never struck her or her daughter, and the judge who set the order “wanted to make an example of him.” As the interview progresses she looks increasingly distressed and embarrassed.

Joel Shumacher and screenwriter Ebbe Roe Smith crafted Falling Down to channel “White Male Paranoia.” The reason the image of Michael Douglas — buzz cut, broken horn rims— made the cover of Newsweek is this film successfully captured a moment in history. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the Soviet Union, George Bush scaled back defense spending on a massive scale. Military installations were closed. Aerospace companies like Grumman and Lockheed closed down facilities all over the United States: Southern California was hit hard. William Foster’s job is obviously part of this loss, part of the USA’s military-industrial contraction as the cold-war era was coming to an end. To the people who ran the show back then— middle-class white men— they saw it as something that was happening to them, and they were the victims.

(As an aside, my mom worked for Lockheed for 30+ years, and I was an eyewitness to the post-cold-war wave of defense industry layoffs. It was as bad as it came off in the film, and it didn't just affect white men.)

D-Fens as Anti-Antihero. This is not just wordplay for a villain: it’s the best way to describe him. A character can be categorized by two criteria: deeds and thoughts.

A HERO is a character who does heroic deeds and embodies heroic qualities. Captain America, Indiana Jones, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Joan of Arc, Robin Hood: all embodiments of positive values and behaviors.

An ANTIHERO is a character who does heroic deeds but does not embody heroic qualities. Tom Jones, Tristam Shandy, Deadpool, “Mad” Max Rocketanski, Rick Blaine and the nameless protagonists of Sergio Leone’s and Akira Kurosawa’s films fit this description. They do not obey any rules of lawful conduct, are often transgressive or violent, but in the end their acts resolve into a greater good.


A VILLAIN is a character without redeeming qualities, who actively oppose the efforts of heroes and the greater good. Darth Vader, Sauron, Noah Cross, Norman Bates, The Wicked Witch: all are engaged in selfish ends that will cause great harm if they succeed.

But William “D-Fens” Foster is something else. He is a regular man, down on his luck and emotionally unstable, but not extraordinary in any way. Throughout the film he voices reasonable opinions, social commentary about the crumbling world around him. His goals are not intrinsically villainous: he merely wants to go home, and is forced by all manner of extraordinary obstacles to adapt ever more violent methods to achieve his goal.

D-Fens does not aspire to heroic status. He merely wants simple, basic needs filled: change for the phone, breakfast, a moment to rest in a vacant lot. These simple goals are always thwarted— so as the film progresses he cares less and less about behaving in a lawful manner. In his eyes, all he sees are forms of injustice, large and small: overpriced soda, gang territoriality, pointless road closures, obnoxious golfers. In his eyes it’s all injustice against him and the world he comes from.

But in the end, when Prendergast pulls a gun on him on Venice Pier, D-Fens looks at all he has wrought— family running, police clearing the area— and finally comes to the realization that according to the rules of the world he now lives in, he is the bad guy.

"I'm the bad guy?"

He is an ANTI-ANTIHERO: A character who understands morality and justice, but is incapable of any form of heroic action, and in the end acts against the greater good. The anti-antihero is distinct from the antihero by their mindset: they believe their goals are for good and believe are working toward the good, but are blind to the destructive nature of their actions and in the end do no good at all.

Michael Corleone was a decent example of an anti-antihero: he wanted to do good, become legitimate, but in the end (of Godfather 2, at least) was incapable of saving his family or himself.  Perhaps the all-time greatest anti-antihero ever created was Walter White. Every move he made was designed to get himself out of a bad situation (poverty, disease, anonymity, humiliation). By the end he ends up destroying everything he loves. Viewers of “Breaking Bad” rooted for him every week, because he was a likable, normal guy with relatable problems. Every week he slipped further and further away, to a place where there was nothing left but violence and revenge.

The Episodic Journey. Jim Bisso pegged Falling Down precisely: it’s Don Quixote, Western literature first modern novel, and it pulls two elements from Miguel de Cervantes’s 17th-century work. In form, both center on a wandering protagonist in a series of disconnected encounters. Don Quixote also shares an important trait with D-Fens: both are delusional. Quixote overdosed on tales of chivalry from the past and has come to believe they are quite real. D-Fens is also obsessed with a past where he was the hero of the American narrative.

The difference is in the final details: Don Quixote’s quest takes years and in the end he recovers from his delusions. D-Fens's wanderings take place over the span of one day, his violence and delusions only get worse, and in the end is killed via “suicide-by-cop.*”

1993 vs. 2020. D-Fens is not some sort of MAGA prototype: He was a product of mid-century values who is finally being forced to deal head-on with the reality of the post-Cold War world. He looks like the sort of gun-toting bigot we see on the news in 2020, but he isn't.

In one episode D-Fens stops to buy his daughter a gift— and watches black man picketing a bank across the street. His sign says “Not Economically Viable.” The man is shouting that he was denied a loan due to the color of his skin. He is then arrested and taken away. D-Fens sympathizes with him, even going as far as repeating the sign’s slogan.

Later D-Fens is sheltered from the police by Nick (Frederick Forrest), the deeply bigoted, racial-slur-slinging military surplus store owner. Nick admires D-Fens's violent spree and exclaims “I’m with you! we’re the same!” Nick shows D-Fens some Nazi artifacts and gives him a LAW rocket launcher (talk about Chekov’s gun!). But D-Fens is repelled by Nick’s white supremacy. D-Fens ends up stabbing Nick to death to prevent his likely rape— which informs the trope that virulent homophobes are latent homosexuals.

It may be a 1993 cultural assumption at play here, but William Foster is not a white supremacist, He is not comfortable in multicultural America, and is clearly nostalgic for the days of unquestioned white hegemony before the 1990s, but racism is never his core motive.

We can look at Falling Down in 2020 and see D-Fens as the unsprouted seed of the MAGA mindset. It would take 20 years of union-busting, opioid addiction, corporate offshoring, a drastic loss of economic status and constant watering by conservative news for this seed to bear the fruit we see sprouting everywhere today.

* Japanese literature and cinema feature a “Ronin Character.” This is an antihero protagonist who, when freed of the considerable restraints of society, openly criticizes and challenges the status quo. But the cost for such freedom is always the same: they die by the end. Falling Down fits into this concept well.

(h/t to John for the title.)

Showgirls: A Non-Perverted Re-Examination

Showgirls was a bomb in theatrical release. When it was
released on home video it made a $100 million profit. I
suppose the audience was more, um, "comfortable"
watching it the the privacy of their own homes.

It may be some form of social-distancing madness setting in, but when Showgirls (1995) appeared on cable last night in lurid HD I watched it all the way through. I realized it was only the second time I have watched this film (excepting the bits and pieces I would run across while channel-surfing). Showgirls was first released when I was in Los Angeles, if I recall at a decent venue, like the Chinese Theater: I was unable to persuade anybody to go see it with me.

Anyway, as this loud, garish anti-bildungsroman played out, I realized I may have a few things to say about it. I’m not actually recommending you to see Showgirls (I did that for you) but if you run across it and decide to take the challenge, I’m offering tools for a fresh re-evaluation.

This re-evaluation starts with an overview of Paul Verhoeven, a very successful director in the 1980s and 1990s, possessed of a very unusual auteur vision. The concepts and values he explores are so strange and unique they energize his films to this day. His major themes:

• 

Commodification - Paul Verhoeven’s films often explore the idea that human relationships are purely transactional, and human life can be converted into various forms of marketable property. RoboCop (1987) is about a person who is transformed into the property of Omni Consumer Products. Total Recall (1990) is about a company that creates pre-packaged memories— the core of human experience— and offer them up for a price, with optional add-ons.



• Corruption - Good government and sound corporate management are not things that exist in Verhoeven films. His films are populated with cutthroat and immoral executives, weak mayors, sociopathic governors and degenerate police detectives. America is shown as a country in deep moral decline. Democratic norms have been replaced by corporate rule and transactional graft.

The only time he shows a functioning governmental organization is in Starship Troopers (1997), which depicts the Mobile Infantry as a force capable of sound leadership, correcting it’s mistakes and achieving victory— however, this depiction is clearly marked as completely unreliable.

• Sexual Fear - I don’t know what happened to Paul Verhoeven when he was a kid (maybe it was some trauma from his childhood in occupied Holland living near a German V-2 rocket base) but something messed him up a little. Sexuality—especially female sexuality— is often depicted as destructive and menacing (Basic Instinct, Fourth Man) or, in the case of Showgirls, omnipotent. Attraction is always balanced with fear and, as mentioned above, weighed as a transaction.

On to Showgirls, which channels every aspect of Verhoeven’s auteur vision in an open, lurid, unsubtle way.

Nomi as we first meet her.

• A Brief Synopsis:  Nomi Malone (Elizabeth Berkeley), a beautiful young woman with a mysterious past, hitchhikes into Las Vegas. She manages to get a roommate and a job at Cheetahs, a nude club, where she gets the attention of a casino entertainment manager (Kyle MacLachlan) and the star of the casino’s topless show (Gina Gershon). They pull strings to get her a place in the show’s chorus, which begins a story of intense backstage rivalry as Nomi begins her ascent to star status.

And yes, Showgirls is NC-17 and all about titillation, filled end-to-end with nudity and sex acts. But take my word for it: after about 15 minutes or so, the visual spectacle becomes numbing. Women show up nude because that’s their job, nothing more.

Verhoeven protagonists are often new-born characters— ones that really didn’t exist before the start of the film. Nomi Malone enters the film from places unknown, with an unknown past, under an assumed name (“No Me, Alone”), no money, possessions stolen. RoboCop was a synthetic creation that in Act I only existed as an OCP boardroom proposal. Douglas Quade, the nice guy played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in Total Recall, may be an artificial personality implant. Verhoeven is not afraid to question the bedrock reality of his protagonists— and it’s always a neat way to kick off a movie.

• Las Vegas World - Showgirls is mostly about Las Vegas and what a deeply insane place it is. Founded as a city where any and all vices are accommodated, it is in Verhoeven’s vision the  capital of America, the final embodiment of the values of a corrupted, amoral country.

The system of Las Vegas— money is all-important, ends always justify means— is contrasted against, of all things, culture. Dance, theater, and music are all represented in Showgirls in one form or another— all crushed flat under the weight of the Vegas version of show business. Dance is stripping. Theater is a hugely overproduced topless show. Music is represented by a pop star who is nothing less than a sadistic rapist.

And Nomi fits right in: she is the trash princess of a trash city. She has no values outside of purely transactional ones. The value-free system that rules Vegas rewards her, over and over. Nomi Malone is a rags-to-riches success story, a Horatio Alger story with G-strings.

• Nomi the Verhoeven Protagonist - Nomi Malone is extremely unlikeable. She shares this unlikely protagonist quality with Michael Douglas in Basic Instinct (1992) and Kevin Bacon in Hollow Man (2000).

Nomi is selfish, vain, deeply ignorant (“I love Ver-sayse”) and has a hair-trigger temper. About half the one-on-one scenes Nomi has in the film end with an angry physical outburst. Part of the fun of Showgirls is how it reproduces the queasy feeling of being around someone with mental issues: you don’t know moment to moment what will trigger them, which keeps you on your toes.

Reviewer Mick LaSalle described Showgirls as a film that,
like most of the characters, puts on lipstick well past
the natural borders of the lips.

• The Narrative Synthesis. Here’s the part that makes this a truly weird, very telling Verhoeven film: Every other character loves Nomi Malone. Her roommate adores her, James the dancer is in love with her, and she manages to charm the entire staff of the Stardust Hotel and Casino. The star of the topless casino review she is in and the casino’s entertainment director compete for her affections.

This is the insane, coked-up, glitter-coated heart of Showgirls: one messy scene after another, all mismatched emotions and screaming and throwing things and storming out of rooms. The other characters watch her go, eyes wide in love and lust, eternally forgiving.

This isn’t some example of bad writing—though overall, it's not very good. Joe Eszterhas got $2 million for the script, and it ended his superstar career. It is not poor direction either. Paul Verhoeven is… hanging a lantern on it. For all his quirks he is a very capable director, and he would not have crafted such jarring interactions without a purpose. He WANTS you to notice how weird and off-putting it is to have every character in Showgirls sucking up to a horrible, vindictive person like Nomi Malone, who would just as soon spit in your face than thank you for a lovely dinner.* Why?



Why do people put up with Nomi’s shit? Because Nomi is America. She is the embodiment of Late Capitalist American values. Everyone else is simply trying to appeal to her to get ahead, much as Americans have to buy into the system, deal with corrupt corporations and no unions and no health coverage, to get ahead. We are all prepared to be screamed at, spat on, be thrown down the stairs.

Nomi succeeds because in Las Vegas sexuality is a commodity. She proves to everyone she is the most skilled at leveraging her sexuality to ascend the ladder of success. Everyone is constantly trying to figure out how to attach themselves to her success so they can succeed as well. It may look like love or lust but it's pure, heartless transaction.

Nail polish is another major thematic detail; it serves
as a metaphorical battleground between Nomi and
Cristal (Gina Gershon). Weird but effective.

One of the most telling details I noticed in this screening is one that only a director could add: Nomi’s eating habits. Burgers and fries, burgers and fries, burgers and fries. When confronted with a menu at a respectable restaurant (respectable for Vegas: it’s still laminated) she confesses “I don’t know what all this is,” and admits to, in the past, have been content eating dog food. This is a huge character tell. Nomi is Verhoeven’s perfect American: uncultured, selfish, amoral and ignorant— but also self-possessed, confident, and recklessly aggressive.

That’s the realization. Showgirls wasn’t just 131 minutes of tits and screaming in a hideous neon Las Vegas hell-scape: There’s a message in the middle of it, a sharp indictment, and in recent years it has only become more apparent it was a prescient message. In the 25 years since the premiere of Showgirls all the emotionally unstable trash people, the ones that swim in the muck of vice as if it was the River Jordan, moved out of the trash capitals and into our real one.

*There was as similar complaint voiced about the dramaturgy of Starship Troopers, that it was filled with incompetent, flat acting and childish relationship dynamics. It was called “Archie, Betty and Veronica in Outer Space.” Again, this style was chosen very much on purpose. We are supposed to notice how silly and clichéd the narrative elements were, because it’s a propaganda film from the future. The movie we’re seeing is not a movie: it’s a government-engineered work of fiction, designed to increase enlistments and validate a fascist military government. None of it was supposed to be “real.”

The Rise of Skywalker: The Fall of In Media Res

The Rise of Skywalker is a perfectly fine entry into the canon. It’s tightly scripted and beautifully rendered, full of consequential situations and lots of action. It tells the story of the ragtag Resistance movement— still very reduced in size since the end of The Last Jedi— trying to find a hidden area of the galaxy where the “Final Order”— the successor to the First Order— is amassing a new fleet, lead by none other than Emperor Palpatine himself, back from the dead. It’s a complex goal, and it sets our heroes Finn, Poe and Rey on a literally non-stop quest. Meanwhile, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver, just an amazing actor) is on a singular collision course with Rey, who he wants to come over to the Dark Side. The film is full of neat cameos, some genuine surprises— and if you have been onboard with this franchise you’ll get a little weepy at the end. A fitting end to a truly spectacular franchise.

In broad strokes, Daniel is correct: The Rise of Skywalker is basically The Return of the Jedi after the application of Daniel's Remake Formula. The major story beats are pretty much the same. But without George Lucas mucking the thing up with Ewok kiddie pandering and a static mentor-father-son conflict at the center, it has been improved quite a bit.

Satisfying endings aside, one dissonant element shines through The Rise of Skywalker: the undeniable feeling of compromise, that the owners of this intellectual property are running scared. They’re scared of their own fans. They went out of their way to placate the vocal critics of the last entry, the controversial The Last Jedi, manifested as annoying notes throughout the new film. Rose, Finn’s plucky teammate, is completely sidelined. Kylo’s helmet, smashed to pieces in the previous film (and for good reason) is fixed as good as new. And there is one, huge, ridiculous erasure so egregious it made me say, “What?” out loud in a darkened theater.

The Mandolorian and "The Child." This show was also
influenced by the manga and film series "Lone Wolf and Cub"

Disney’s timid, full fan service approach to the IP is also evident in “The Mandalorian,” currently streaming on Disney+. In the details, the show is as rich as any canon entry, full of robots and aliens and great visual effects. But the story it tells is not nearly as rich. The premise is simple and episodic: The title character enters a situation, gets into a bit of a scrape, then gets out, ready for the next situation. It’s very 1970s-TV-like: It reminded me of the Bixby/Ferrigno “The Incredible Hulk” or (as John pointed out) “Kung Fu.” I’m not caught up and I’ve already seen story lifts from Shane, Seven Samurai and The Unforgiven. “Baby Yoda” is drawing all the attention now as only a beloved character redesigned as a tiny, high-eye-to-face-ratio character can, but it’s now depressingly clear this show is going out of its way not to stray from rote recitations from canon.

Werner Herzog as "The Client," making his own German
Chocolate Existential Ripple ice cream.

This need for fan service is why the most hilarious goof that ever appeared in any Star Wars film had to be ruined. Near the end of The Empire Strikes Back, when Lando Calrissian announces the evacuation of Bespin, we see in a crowd panic scene a guy carrying a plastic ice cream maker. It’s a bucket with a bar on the top to carry the inner container. They were common: I ate a lot of ice cream that came out of those things in the 1970s. It was very obviously thrown in so an extra could have something to do with his hands.

In episode 3 of “The Mandalorian” we see the title character get rewarded for a successful bounty job with stacks of special steel carried in a round bucket with a base on top. It even has a name: a "camtono." In this universe an ice cream maker is actually a safe, apparently. Goof erased.

What happened? As much as I’d like to blame Disney, I think 42 years of fandom has loved this franchise to death.

This isn't the beginning of a movie: it's the middle
of a complex sequence.

Consider the first film-- from a 1977 viewpoint. For kids and grownups who liked genre sci-fi films, Star Wars was an utter shock. The film BEGAN in the middle of a great space battle, and we were quickly introduced to a cast of androids and robots and a masked villain and a princess. As the story unfolded George Lucas refused to explain a single thing. Laser swords? Superluminal travel? A giant monkey dog thing? Nope, we were left as clueless as if we were randomly dropped into an exotic foreign city without a guidebook. The only explanations we were given about anything were plot points, usually one-on-one efforts to convince people to do things: to get Luke to leave his home, Leia to give up the rebel base, to get Han to rescue Leia, etc. But the super-weird stuff? Just a given. Pre-“Episode IV” Star Wars was perfect expression of in media res ("in the middle of things"): An entire self-contained universe we got to run around in for 135 minutes, which was a big part of the thrill. It hooked a lot of people, me included.

Ten years prior “Star Trek” had done something similar in science fiction, but that universe was our universe, just in the future. But know one thing about the humans in the Star Wars universe: they look like us, are similar to us in most ways… but they aren’t us at all. The opening title card “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” has never been explained.

Star Wars was a huge success, and it spawned a dedicated fanbase: a sequel HAD to be made, even though the first episode had a tight ending and only one open end (Darth Vader survived). This sequel— The Empire Strikes Back (1980) was remarkably good. Written by Lawrence Kasdan and Leigh Brackett, It matured the space-opera story of the first movie, introduced romance and mysticism and had a plot with genuine consequences. It also had the best final reveal in any popular film, maybe ever. It was a triumph, not only because it was not the “Star Wars Goes Hawaiian” sequel everyone expected, but it rewarded every fan, deepening their relationship to the franchise AND raising their expectations.

Like I said, Empire was good. Maybe too good: It raised fan expectations so high the franchise had nowhere go but down. This may well have been the place where fandom began to fray, leading to the awful state it is in today.

The ecstasy of fandom is how it creates personal meaning and forges communities. But the tragedy of fandom is this emotional satisfaction comes with a relentless need to identify, classify and explain. Humans are pattern-seeking, storytelling creatures: it's our nature. To draw deeper meaning from a hermetic work like the original Star Wars, we needed all those mysterious little details explained so we could feel more at home there.

When the second set of trilogies came around, George Lucas adamantly refused to bow to fan service. His ideas concerning his own creation had changed and matured between 1983 and 1999, and he had whole host of things to say, some of them quite bizarre. He wanted to explain things, but he did it with complex political discourses and the added existence of a symbiotic organism which “gave” people The Force. He also added more of the feeble kiddie pandering he hinted at in Return of the Jedi, but to his credit he corrected it by Episode II. Lucas clearly didn’t quite understand what the franchise’s fanbase had evolved into-- and, delightfully, he really didn’t have to care.

The throne room from The Rise of Skywalker

But he eventually sold off his franchise, and the new owners— Disney— were aimed like a laser beam at giving fans what they want. The overarching theme of the entire third trilogy of Star Wars films is how their new IP has been guided by the expectations of the fan base. Every fan has a strong opinion about what Star Wars is and should be: some foolish, some nuanced. They started out strong with The Force Awakens and successfully deepened their commitment to original storytelling with Rogue One: a Star Wars Story.

But The Last Jedi was the tearing point. Rian Johnson’s film got a lot done in its exceeding length: it deconstructed George Lucas’s galaxy as a place of irredeemable corruption, where noble causes were not worth much more than the sinister ones. It pulled away from the Holy Skywalker family, establishing that Rey was a Jedi from nowhere, just as Annikin Skywalker came from nowhere. As for Luke Skywalker himself, he was disgusted with the Jedi and saw it as a pointless cult that needed to die.

There were a lot of Star Wars fans who were okay with this redefinition, mostly because it represented a fresh viewpoint, a way to appreciate this universe with added complexity and nuance.

Rian Johnson directing Daisy Ridley on the Throne Room
set in The Last Jedi. Rian's use of red in this film was
incredible. Apparently the curtains on this set were made
from real red velvet.

But there were an equal number of Star Wars fans who HATED what Rian Johnson was doing, and wanted it stopped. For them, they needed the comfort of a black-and-white universe. They needed the saga to be about powerful families: the galaxy far, far away was to be administered by the Kennedys and the Windsors and the Rockefellers. They spoke loud and long, loud enough to spook the IP’s new masters at Disney. Revealing new things is anathema: they wanted stories that explained things. In media res, the style that animated the first film, was extinct by the last one.

When it came time to make Episode IX, guess who Disney listened to?

Still, I am putting in a very strong recommendation to go see The Rise of Skywalker. It is still an immensely entertaining film, especially If you have been a fan of the series. You will leave very satisfied— even if part of you will always wonder what might have been if we hadn’t screwed it up.

In a strange, roundabout way the evolution of Star Wars fandom from awestruck enthusiasm to toxic, second-guessing complaining is a tonic: it makes it easier to say goodbye to the franchise.

Suicide Squad: Why So Serious?

Maybe reviewers saw the subtitle "Worst. Heroes. Ever."
and took it at face value.

After a week of reading many delicious, angry, mean reviews for Suicide Squad, the latest entry into the DC Extended Universe, I did something somewhat contrary to my usual instincts after feasting so well on such a banquet of snark: I went out and saw it.

I left the screening wondering if the film’s many critical detractors and I saw the same movie. I thought it was pretty enjoyable.

Let me clarify.

We’re living deep in the Comic Book Movie Era. Superhero movies rule box offices worldwide. They are now nothing less than a fully formed cinematic genre, with major and minor characters, multi—year story arcs, and very solid and reliable generic characteristics. So, as an new entry into this well-defined genre, Suicide Squad fulfills most of its expectations: it’s filled with action and cross-franchise references and juvenile humor and even more juvenile depictions of adult relationships. It’s PG-13, so they are holding back quite a bit on the gore on this one, but the body count is also near the normal level for this genre.

I kept getting the feeling that critics were slagging on Suicide Squad as a bad film— compared to the totality of Hollywood movies. Maybe that’s true: it isn’t as good as Chariots of Fire or Michael Clayton or L’Avventura or Dodgeball: a True Underdog Story. But as a comic-book movie, it’s truly right in the middle of the pack. If you approach Suicide Squad as an entry in a superhero universe franchise— but if you are NOT a comic book fan or even that familiar with comic books— than the film works perfectly well. We are introduced to a group of new characters via backstory, given the signposts and guides to these new characters inside the universe, and the plot is set into motion. Sure, it was dumbed-down and expository scene’ed to death, but without exposition most audiences would be totally out to sea because this films stars some decidely minor DC characters.*

Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) in a rare publicity still
with another character.

I agree with most the of reviews that in Suicide Squad there are things that work and things that don’t work. In the minus column, much has been made in the reviews of what a misfire the villain was: The Enchantress (Cara Delevigne). She was, according to some, a cookie-cutter villain whose ultimate goals were poorly defined. Funny, but to me that sounds a lot like MOST comic-book movie villains of late: Thanos (Guardians of the Galaxy) or Apocalypse (X-Men: Apocalypse) or General Zod (Man of Steel) or Ultron (Avengers: Age of Ultron) are not much more than an interchangeable bunch of power-seeking super beings.

The main story— a group of rag-tag villains is banded together to fight an evil superpower— is another misfire, poorly motivated from conception, really. The main characters are so unwilling to be heroic that at one point they all check out of the story and go get a drink in a bar. From a screenwriting perspective, this is hilariously telling. There is an uncanny and spooky effect in the writing process where characters who are stuck in bad plots will try to get out. They will talk to the writer: “This is stupid: I shouldn’t even be here!” There’s a scene in Avengers: Age of Ultron where Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) hangs a lantern on this effect: “The city is flying and we're fighting an army of robots. And I have a bow and arrow. Nothing makes sense.” But poorly motivated final battles are a hallmark of comic-book movies, so again: I don’t see what all the fuss is about.

What does work in Suicide Squad are the characters you see in every publicity still: Harley Quinn and The Joker. the sheer amount insane energy Margot Robbie and Jared Leto put into their interpretations is evident on-screen, and both are so vivid they make every other character fade into the background— even Deadshot (Will Smith). People have been looking forward to Harley Quinn’s big-screen debut with as much anticipation as Wonder Woman’s— and she does not disappoint. Funny, sexy, wisecracking and fearless— she’s a character who will go into battle with a super-powered villain armed with a baseball bat-- and think nothing of it. Very much looking forward to her inevitable solo movie.

The Joker, breaking the fourth wall to make you pee a little.
Bad teeth and no eyebrows are menacing enough.

Her relationship with The Joker is as weird and creepy as it is in the comics. He is an abuser who both loves Harley and has zero value for her life and well-being. Some have said Leto’s interpretation of The Joker is too creepy and off-putting. Well, not to sound like a fanboy, but: he’s supposed to be creepy. He’s a villain, a murderer. Even at his charismatic best he should still make you pee a little. I’d take Leto over Heath Ledger, who I thought was a bit too fussy and borderline silly. The Joker should make you uncomfortable. And what he has done to Harley Quinn should make you uncomfortable too.

Strangely, what this film reminded me of most was not another DC or even a Marvel movie: It looked and felt a lot like Mystery Men (1999) a high water mark of the heyday of the Dark Horse Cinematic Universe. It has the same colorful design, outlandish, hand-made-looking costumes and grungy detail. it also featured a rather large roster of fairly unknown comic-book characters, juvenile humor and a somewhat limp main story. Much better villain: tho: I’ll take Casanova Frankenstein over The Enchantress any day.

* Both Marvel and DC superhero movies bury easter eggs in the credits. True fans always advise to stick around for these. But the coda at the end of Suicide Squad— no spoiler— I swear is nothing but Viola Davis and Ben Affleck spewing dense comic-book implications at each other for three minutes. I didn’t understand any of it.

Quentin would have been PISSED

With nothing compelling on TV and a movie pass burning in my wallet, I decided to attend a roadshow screening of The Hateful Eight.

I've sort of fallen out with Tarantino lately, what with his ardent passion for turning junk movies from the past into faux-junk cinema and utter devotion to pointless nihilistic gore and over-the-top vengeance stories. It's all part of his huge movie-geek thing-- but something of substance DID come out of it. The man cares about old-school widescreen cinema: so do I. That's where our Venn diagrams intersect.

He went through an extraordinary amount of trouble to create a roadshow release of The Hateful Eight. The last film I remember seeing in a proper roadshow release was Apocalyse Now, a credits-free 70mm screening with a program provided. The Hateful Eight goes a few steps better, with a musical overture, intermission and a three-hour program length.

At least, that's what I understand is supposed to happen.

The fun part: going out with a big ol' 65mm
camera and shooting cool lens flares.

December 28th's  last screening was supposed to start at eleven at the Daly City 20. I got there early, paid the $3 up-charge and staked out a seat near the screen, pleased they had curtained it for crazy wide 2.76:1 Ultra Panavision. Two young women-- practically the only female-only party in a half-full show-- stopped on the way in and noted the smell. Sure enough-- this was the fourth screening of the day and Quentin's core audience demographic had filled the auditorium with a heavy, funky, manly fragrance.

11:00 became 11:10, then 11:20. No movie. The floor manager appeared, handed out rain checks and promised we'd be up and running in about ten minutes. At 11:40, he came back and cancelled the show. So, in the end I did NOT see The Hateful Eight-- but I got two movie passes and three roadshow programs out of the experience, so not a total loss.

The floor manager and I chatted just before he called the screening off. Apparently the theater got all the hardware for a 70mm screening just before it was supposed to start. The projector was refurbished, and at the end of the roadshow screening they will haul it away and 2K digital shows would take it's place. The problem was the projector was just plain broken: it simply would not pass the wide film, some sort of mechanical failure. This cancelled screening was not the first one they had to axe either. Roadshow screenings have gone dark all across the US and Canada in regular intervals.

Hey: Quentin Tarantino and The Weinstein Company are trying very hard to give the audience a taste of the widescreen glories of the past, and more power to them for it.  The thing is: they're giving audience a taste of not just that, but the entirety of photomechanical projection technology.

For each of The Hateful Eight roadshow venues they had to ship in a 70mm projector, set it up and align it, and station a projectionist exclusively to handle the thing. (I'm sure they had to bring in flatbed film platters in some places as well, but not Daly City: they still had one Christie system left). These projectors are likely vintage Century or Todd-AO machines they bought used and had mechanically refurbished. But without the infrastructure and expertise to maintain these machines, they break. They didn't break as much in the past because they were so common.

DP70 35/70mm projector.

Back in my movie theater management days a surprising number of theaters I managed had 70mm capability. In the 80s United Artists had the presence of mind to buy up and install a lot of DP-70 Todd-AO projectors made by Phillips/Norelco in the Netherlands in 1955 or so. The reasons for buying up these machines was twofold: they were very solidly made and reliable for regular 35mm screenings, and even the dopiest non-union assistant manager could switch them over to 70mm. Even with dopey non-union assistant managers running the shows, there were technicians available for overhaul and spare parts were in abundance in every projection booth (sometimes even spare projectors). This all made the average screening in the film era a reliable thing.

Nonetheless, there were a lot of moving parts and flying film and things went off the rails all the time. I am personally responsible for destroying a $3000 reel of 70mm: I started a screening of Bonfire of the Vanities in 70mm blow-up (why? WHY?) forgetting to engage the feed platter motor. Reel One wrapped around the hub and was torn to shreds. Fortunately we could switch to 35mm until a replacement reel arrived (and Larry Levin finished yelling at me).

Digital projection has as we all know, transformed the moviegoing experience. For the audience the changes have been subtle: the picture is more steady, screenings more reliable, and unfortunately trailers nearly endless. the films still "break," though, but they do it digitally: It was reported that an opening night screening of Star Wars: The Force Awakens glitched a few minutes in and skipped to the very end of the film. Digital Cinema's most profound change happened in the booth: no moving parts. Films are loaded via hard drive. The roar of the average film projector (which was terrifyingly loud when running 70mm) has been replaced by the hum of cooling fans.

Like I said, big praise for Tarantino for bringing back Ultra Panavision, but it's a kind of stunt, like wiring theater seats to shock people. My cancelled show was part of this whole retro-technical stunt rather than the continuum of modern Digital Cinema technology, and as such none of the backups were available. There was no 35mm print backup or a spare digital projector. He's giving people a taste of the old film days, but it's so late after the passing of this technology it's definitely a double-edged sword. Part of this is sheer hubris: it's easy and cool on the front end to go out and shoot a film with 65mm Panavision cameras and hand-restored 1.25X anamorphic lenses. On the back end it's not so easy: conforming 100 theaters to a nearly dead film format is a tall order indeed, a stunt not as easily pulled off.

So I'm gonna try again soon to see another roadshow screening, but this time I'm going to a theater that isn't in the sticks (Daly City: I'll bet they installed the less reliable refurbished projectors in the outliers). Sheer law of averages means next time the projector will light up.

HBO: Rich Weird Men Behaving Badly

Michael Douglas IS Liberace. It was the first time
Douglas ever portrayed a non-fictional character
in a movie-- and he nailed it.

I need to share an insight. Mind you, I'm not the first person to have this insight: it builds on an article by Brian Lowery in Variety.

There is something very unusual going in at HBO. The mysterious Powers That Be seem to have a fixation-- one that pokes right through the films and shows they approve, fund and broadcast like broken glass in a paper bag. I'm going to paint the idée fixe these executives seem to be obsessed with a sweeping, and ridiculously simple, comparison of two of their most recent cable films:

• Behind the Candelabra: A Steven Soderbergh HBO film about a wealthy, powerful white man (Liberace) who made life sheer hell for everyone around him.

• Phil Spector: A David Mamet HBO film about a wealthy, powerful white man (Phil Spector) who makes life sheer hell for everyone around him.

Lowry's article expands on this weird parallelism of these films-- wealthy decadent jaded men who channel their desires onto the lesser people in their orbit and force them, again through their power, to suffer for them as well. (BTW: Candelabra was an amazing movie; Phil Spector is talky and dull.) He concludes that HBO execs actually understand and sympathize with the moral universe these men inhabit. Phil Spector may or may not have shot Lana Clarkson; Liberace may or may not have screwed over Scott Thorson in the palimony settlement. It's not much of a stretch to believe cable execs live in the same world as the troubled men portrayed in these movies, a sympathy that may have tweaked the characterizations a bit.

Enoch "Nucky" Thompson
(Steve Buscemi). What he lacks in
brawn he makes up for in menace.

This is a decent read on these films-- but then there's THIS: What I believe is this theme's long, long tail:

• "Game of Thrones:" An HBO series about wealthy, powerful white men (Joffrey Baratheon, Jaime Lannister, Tywin Lannister, etc.) who make life sheer hell for everyone around them.

• "True Blood:" An HBO series about wealthy, powerful white men (Bill Compton, Eric Northman, various vampire royalty) who make life sheer hell for everyone around them.

• "Boardwalk Empire:" An HBO series about a wealthy, powerful white man (Nucky Thompson) who makes life sheer hell for everyone around him.

• "Deadwood:" An HBO series about a wealthy, powerful white man (Al Swearengen) who makes life sheer hell for everyone around him.

• "Curb Your Enthusiasm:" An HBO series about a wealthy, (sort of) powerful white man (Larry David) who makes life sheer hell for everyone around him.

• Game Change: An HBO film about a wealthy, powerful white man (John McCain) who makes life sheer hell for everyone around him--by selecting Sarah Palin as his running mate. I'm not being partisan here: Much of the film focuses on the very real suffering of the staffers charged with getting Palin ready to campaign.

• The Girl: An HBO movie about a wealthy, powerful white man (Alfred Hitchcock) who makes life sheer hell for Tippi Hedren.

All of these shows are the puzzling evidence that points to a simpler explanation of HBO's thing about powerful white guys screwing over their financial and social inferiors. I believe it all started here:

Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) in his natural
environment: checkered tablecloth, Pellegrini water.

• "The Sopranos:" An HBO series about a wealthy, powerful white man (Anthony Soprano Jr.) who makes life sheer hell for everyone around him.

It is difficult even now to fully illustrate what a profound effect David Chase's epic mob series had on American broadcasting. It redefined HBO from a movie channel to a prestigious destination, appointment television in the days before DVRs and binge-watching. It launched the style of hyper-serial series storytelling that is now the norm on cable and broadcast. "The Sopranos" was also soaked in gore-- bloodletting became an expected dramatic feature, spreading from premium to basic cable and now even to broadcast ("Hannibal" is as bloody a show as I've ever seen, and it's on NBC). It was The Show That Changed Everything.

Most importantly: "The Sopranos" dispensed entirely with a central character viewers could comfortably identify with. Tony Soprano was a cold-blooded mob boss, a man who was defined by his shrink Dr. Melfi as a sociopath. He killed without remorse. He was also affable and he loved those in his circle-- but his actions invariable led to the suffering of those in that circle. It was an absolutely fascinating push-pull with the audience, something David Chase admitted he struggled with: He wanted the audience to love Tony, so he made him charming-- but he made sure this charm was countered by frequent glimpses into his repugnant, immoral soul. Tony Soprano was lovable, chummy, loyal, repellent, unknowable and sick. This push and pull made for irresistible television.

Found this online. Makes my case perfectly.

In short: which executive would NOT want to emulate such success? So as a result we still see David Chase's story and character dynamics all over the airwaves. Tony Soprano's basic character traits can be found in all of the above-outlined shows-- in Dexter Morgan and Walter White and Don Draper as well. Weathy, famous television executives may very well feel sympatico with the wealthy and famous, but their primary concern is attracting eyeballs-- and thus keeping the jobs that made them that way.

Of course HBO does offer a counterbalance to this hegemony of Caucasian Male One Percenters. Most of their miniseries-- from Band of Brothers to John Adams to Mildred Pierce-- do not share these values at all. No, there's not much of a counterbalance to all that privilege, and it may or may not be the right or even fair sort of answer to this trend. It can be embodied thus:

• "Girls:" An HBO series about penniless, struggling white women who make life sheer hell mostly for themselves.

The Trek-O-Meter is back!

Hey-- I found a bunch of Podcast episodes backed up on the Internet Archive! Now I can repost some of the better articles-- like this one! --Skot

Jack B. Sowards died on July 8th 2007. His obit mentions he is most notable for having written Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, still considered the finest ST movie made. This brought something back into full recollection, something in need of a fitting send-off as well.

About a dozen years ago, some friends and I cobbled together a handy system for measuring the intensity of a person’s Star Trek fandom with a simple-to-use linear meter. This system of measurement served us very well (”Eddie– Check out the eight in line over there!”) during the incredible glut of franchise content available from the early 90s to just a few years ago. Here it is– and please, feel free to grade yourself:

10.0 - The perfect score was defined in a TV Guide Star Trek Commemorative magazine in 1995. In an article about serious fandom (Klingon language camp, costumed convention-goers, etc.) was a piece about a young man who built a replica of the Enterprise bridge set in his mother’s basement– and would act out his own Star Trek adventures in it. Think about that for a moment. Ponder the sheer force of will behind doing such a thing. Consider the circumstances. This pegs the meter: It cannot be surpassed. Even the people who designed and built the ACTUAL sets for Star Trek cannot meet this score– They were PAID to do their work.

9.0 - People who owned Trek costumes and attended conventions regularly. Fluent in Klingon. Have met Walter Koenig. Bjo Trimble was a 9.

8.0 - People who have seriously followed the shows, did not have any strong criticisms of “Star Trek: Enterprise” and first-nighted the movies. People who knew who Bjo Trimble was.

7.0 - Attended a few conventions, saw all the movies, but could not cite chapter and verse from any series but their favorite. Would not like being called a “Trekkie,” preferring “Trekfan.”

6.0 -Wouldn’t be particularly put out to be called a “Trekkie.”



5.0 - The great median. Knew and appreciated the franchise as a whole, but generally followed the herd.

4.0 - Thought Seven of Nine was hot, but found “Voyager” boring; Thought T’Pol was hot, but found “Enterprise” boring. Liked the effects in the movies. Thought “Live Long and Prosper” was the slogan of a medical group.

3.0 - Thought a “Gorn” was a sort of melon. Often confused “Babylon 5″ with “Deep Space 9.”

2.0 - Watched “Next Generation” as a kid. Saw First Contact on cable a few years back, liked it.

1.0 - Liked Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, but that’s just about it.

0.0 - The bottom peg of the meter was defined by my dear departed dad, who was vaguely aware there was a show on TV called “Star Track” and it had something to do with Dr. Spock.

A few notes: Most normal people would not stick to one point on the meter for any length of time: Some 3s would shoot up into 7 or 8 territory during a ST movie premiere or series season finale. And most significantly, this is a linear scale– it measures x, intensity of fandom. The unmeasured y dimension is sanity. The scale assumes full sanity: Nutcases (Shatner-stalkers and that juror who wore a Starfleet uniform to the Whitewater grand jury in ‘96) can theoretically exceed 10, but they tend to take right turns and fall off the chart entirely. (Special props: Chris, for helping with the chart definitions)

The Star Trek franchise has run its course: the props and costumes are being auctioned off, and there are no serious plans for new content. It still feels a bit strange to live in a world without it. It’s been around in one form or another since 1966, about as long as I have: It was not difficult to assume the portal to the Star Trek universe would remain open forever.

Even the kid with the bridge set in his mom’s basement has probably dismantled it long ago and moved on. I wouldn’t put money on it, mind you, but probably.

And then there's THIS article from 2008! --s

The ol’ Trek-o-Meter, that linear scale used to track the intensity of one’s Star Trek fandom essayed in these pages last July, apparently isn’t quite ready to be retired yet. For one thing, there is finally a new original-series-characters Star Trek movie in production, with Chris Pine (Smokin’ Aces) as Kirk and Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead) as Scotty. this film was set to be released in December 2008: the WGA strike bumped it to early Summer 2009.

I’m bringing this up because there are a few new distinctions to add to the Trek-o-Meter, based on some recent real-life encounters that have been reported indirectly to, and later confirmed by, Box Office Weekly.

1. A fellow of tertiary acquaintance was found to have not one, but several Star Trek tattoos on his body. Fandom-based body modification needs to be quantified for the Meter (and remember: zero is ‘completely unaware’ and 10 is ‘Enterprise set in mom’s basement’):

Anyone with one Star Trek tattoo: automatic 7.5.

Anyone with several Star Trek tattoos: automatic 8.5.

Anyone with tattooed inscriptions in Klingon script which needs to be translated for curious witnesses: automatic 9.5.

Subtraction: I once met a drummer with a punk band who had the Star Trek emblem tattooed on his chest. His nickname was “Trek,” and he performed shirtless. He gets a point taken off for the irony and coolness factors.

2. A good friend of mine (who is fairly indifferent to Star Trek: I’d call her a 3.0) once had a date (a real date, a dinner-and-a-movie type date) with a young man who wore a “Star Trek: The Next Generation” uniform shirt for the occasion. Complete with communicator badge. And he would, once in awhile, talk into the communicator badge.

That’s right: he wore a Starfleet uniform on a first date. Needless to say, there wasn’t a second date. (My friend said he “had a lot of other issues… Weird issues.”)

This is a good example of someone hitting that hard-to-attain perfect 10.0, but the “other issues” mentioned are telling. He was obviously right in the middle of making that hard right turn, departing from the quantifiable plain of intrinsic reality.

Live Long and Prosper.

I recall seeing Total Recall, totally

Colin Farrell, getting his
vacation on.

Got a chance to see the new Total Recall at a late screening. Positive I was the only paying attendee: the few other patrons wandered in after start time, a sure indicator they crept in from other auditoriums.

The reboot of Total Recall made $26M opening weekend, less than the third weekend of The Dark Knight Rises. Considering the film's $125M budget, that's bad news. Many interesting theories as to why this happened, the best being the idea that few moviegoers can be convinced to pay for a film they have already seen. Personally, I see the dark, tentacled hand of The Martian Curse at play. The original is one of the few films set on the Red Planet to see huge success: The remake, scrupulous to avoid this pitfall, is entirely set on earth. Now it seems obvious the Martian Curse was not avoided in 1990: It was merely delayed 22 years.

A wonderfully badass John Cho (Harold and Kumar)
is the Rekall operator in the remake. His part was played by
Ray Baker (one of my favorite character actors)
in the original.

What struck me watching this new version was how absolutely strange both these films are from a moral and political level. The premise (and I'm ••• spoiling ••• here for the 45 people out there who have never seen the original) is this: in a vaguely totalitarian future a man, dissatisfied with his mundane life, purchases a virtual vacation that is indistinguishable from reality. In this fantasy, his loving wife becomes a deadly enemy: his goal, the destruction of the government. Imagine taking a Sandals-style immersion vacation where the big draw is shooting your spouse and killing the President of the United States.

I thought it would be fun to compare the original and the remake point-to-point:

DIRECTORIAL STYLE
1990 – Paul Verhoeven had skills which made TR 1990 memorable: clean, obvious (maybe too obvious) storytelling skills; a delight in weird, gory effects; strong colors and and a sense of ironic fun. Verhoeven played with ideas of what was true and what was fictional in all his previous American films (especially Starship Troopers, a propaganda film from a fascist future, an ironic twist which flew over the heads of most).

2012 – Fremont's own Len Wiseman must have been Columbia's perfect choice for this property: He knows how to work with effects, has a dark, fast-action, dynamic style, and showed he can helm a tentpole picture with Live Free or Die Hard (2007). But the underwhelming box office for this film indicates Mr. Wiseman was probably not the sole author of that film's success: Live Free had a tight story (it took nearly a decade to write) and a star (Bruce Willis) with three to four times the charisma than Colin Farrell.

(I am going to ding Mr. Wiseman for a very annoying tic he uses in Total Recall, one he blatantly stole from J. J. Abrams: At every opportunity he shines light into the lens, smearing lens flares like 4th of July fireworks. Making audiences squint until teary-eyed is not good cinematography, Len.)

PLOT DETAILS
1990 – Verhoeven had a superior script by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett (Alien) to work with. Action and exposition were well-balanced throughout.

2012 – It's mostly indicative of how films are scripted these days: at about midpoint the action and effects-filled chase goes nonstop. It gets a bit deadening after a while.

Sharon Stone in the 1990 version, offering to help
her husband forget his Rekall-induced delusion
with some light bondage.

LEAD ACTOR
1990 – Arnold Schwarzenegger was a marvelous fit for a Paul Verhoeven film: he was big, obvious, faintly silly, and had a knack for delivering great punchlines (“Consider this a divorce!”). Hell, he WAS a punchline: He played a normal schmoe who dreamed of a life of an action hero. The audience was definitely in on that joke.

2012 – Colin Farrell does a much better job than Arnold was capable of in conveying the subtleties of Doug Quade: the confusion and lost and recovered memories, the terror of being hunted. But there's that low charisma thing: He starred in Fright Night, another 80s revival film last year that failed to capture big audiences. Let's just call Colin Farrell the Irish Matthew McConaughey, another actor they keep shoving into lead roles, hoping he'll spark.

LEAD WOMEN
1990 – Rachel Tocotin was Melina, Quade's object of desire. Nice idea, but she never ignited. Sharon Stone, however, was amazing as Lori, Quade's wife/minder assassin: she slinked and hissed and gave the world a preview of what she was capable of in Basic Instinct (1992).

Jessica Biel, in a typical pose, showing a large expanse
of bare wrist and a hint of forearm.

2012 – Len Wiseman's wife Kate Beckinsale is Lori, switching from nice wife to dead-eyed murder machine. In other words, she's Selena from the Underworld series minus the kinky wardrobe. Jessica Biel (and her killer cheekbones) is Melina. What's odd is the two are indistinct at a distance: two willowy brunettes. When they fight it almost looks like a special effect. Also (and this is a guy-film complaint) the 2012 version is about a hundredth as sexy as the 1990 version, despite the extremely attractive leads. Jessica Biel in particular is buttoned up to the chin in bulky clothing the entire film, which is almost a crime.

(Paul Verhoeven, in contrast, had no problem bringing on the sexy-- which was ultimately his downfall (Showgirls).)

Cohaagen, the villain of both films, was well-realized in both film: Ronny Cox played him in the original, oozing contempt and corporate privilege. Bryan Cranston plays him in the new film: It's perhaps another indication of how TV is surpassing film in depth these days to say that Walter White, Cranston's character from AMC's “Breaking Bad,” is a hundred times scarier.