Cyborg (1989)

This is an early-career Jean-Claude Van Damme action flick. I've seen several JCVD movies of this era, and usually enjoyed them, so it's surprising how dull this one is, and occasionally how gruesome. It has the only crucifixion scenes (yes, plural) I can recall from any non-Biblical movies.

Cyborg is set after the apocalypse, when there's not much left but cockroaches, savages, victims, and pretty young white women. Apparently, females who aren't pretty, young, and white don't survive into the future. They're all very pretty, though, so there's that, and that's probably the reason I didn't click it off.

Surprisingly, the titular cyborg isn't JCVD, but one of the pretty women, rescued by Mr VD in the first few minutes. Another surprise, and an improvement over the genre norm, is that some of the pretty women are allowed to fight back against the bad guys, not merely scream and hope to be rescued.

Still, the bad guy here has all the depth and characterization of a 6-year-old kid playing monsters in the back yard. Growl! Argh! Growl again! Probably I'm wrong, but the only non-grunting dialogue I remember from the main bad guy is that once, toward the end, he shouted, "Fucker!"

The story is relentlessly uninteresting, and a few of the pretty young white women looked so much like each other that I had difficulty telling them apart. Mr VD is as good as possible under the circumstances, but there's not much of a movie around him.

Verdict: NO.

♦ ♦ ♦

The Johnstown Flood (1926)

More than 2,200 people were killed in a capitalist mass murder in 1889, when an unregulated, millionaire-owned dam — already well-known as dangerous –- collapsed and flooded the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

This movie builds a soap opera around the town, about one woman loved by two men. And it works. It's a good movie.

The capitalist aspect isn't totally ignored, and Janet Gaynor steals the flood in a supporting role that made her a star (and very nearly the hero).

There's a bit of mild antisemitism, and a future all-star cast appearing as unbilled extras, including Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, and Carole Lombard. The special effects rendering of the titular flood is remarkable. You'll wish you were wearing a life jacket.

It's a pity that this movie seems to be available only in a shitty, soundless print. I enjoyed The Johnstown Flood, but suspect that with the imagery restored and a musical score it would've been far better.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦

The Stunt Man (1980)

The inimitable Peter O'Toole plays Eli Cross, a completely daft film director who's lost his stunt man. Steve Railsback plays Cameron, a skittish and nervous young man on the run. Though he has no experience in stuntwork, Cameron is shanghaied into impersonating the movie's missing stunt man, solving a problem for both Cameron and Cross.

"And besides," says Cross, "I've fallen madly in love with the dark side of your nature."

From there the movie literally floats, swirls, and spins into a behind-the-scenes battle of unspoken words, switching at random from reality to surreality to 'movie reality'. Cross keeps asking for more and more impossible stuntwork from Cameron, and Cameron spars back but has to do what he's told, because what choice does he have? If he's not "the stunt man," he'll be arrested.

Barbara Hershey is the leading lady, in both the film and the film within the film. In keeping with the rest of the flick, she's delightfully indecipherable as a woman who's mysterious and contradictory.

The Stunt Man is based on a novel by noted sci-fi writer Paul Brodeur. It's joyously absurd, and a grand time for anyone who likes or loves the movies. Whenever I rewatch it, I wish I could see it on a double bill with the movie they're making in the movie.

"If there's anything to say, it's best to slip it in while they're all laughing and crying and jerking off at all the sex and violence."

There's an interesting story behind The Stunt Man, too. This was the first instance I knew of (though now I know that it's always been fairly common in Hollywood) where a studio finished making a film — and a fairly big-budget film at that — and then shelved it.

Why? Everyone agreed that it was a fine film, but it's weird, elusive to categorization. It's almost a comedy, but also definitely not, and nobody could figure out how to market it, so 20th Century Fox simply gave up, wrote it off, and moved on to the next movie.

Seattle cinema-owner Randy Finley heard about it, arranged a screening, and loved it. He booked it in his beautiful Guild 45th Theater, where with discreet ads and then thunderous word of mouth, the movie became a local hit. After that, it was nationally distributed with some success, though not as much as it deserved.

I saw it at the Guild in 1980, and fell in love with the movie and maybe the girl I saw it with, so yeah, thumbs up for The Stunt Man.

It's not a perfect movie, though. To my aluminum ear, the musical score is slapsticky and repetitive. And every time I've seen it, Railsback has seemed a little stilted, not like a man being forced to do stuntwork, but like an actor in a role that's a few inches beyond his reach.

That's OK, though, because the story is delirious, the script is perfect, and O'Toole is so fabulously right as the madman director. It's one of his greatest performances.

"Once the action starts, no matter what happens, keep film rolling. We must have this shot. I therefore order that no camera shall jam, and no cloud pass before the sun."

Verdict: BIG YES.

♦ ♦ ♦

The Swarm (1978)

The buzz on this movie is not good. Bees have ruined a family's picnic, downed a helicopter, and killed everyone at a US Air Force base.

Michael Caine and Richard Widmark scream conversations instead of talking, for no real reason. Also present for roll call: Richard Chamberlain, Olivia de Havilland, Patty Duke, Henry Fonda, Lee Grant, Ben Johnson, Fred MacMurray, Slim Pickens, Katherine Ross, and eternally unsmiling Bradford Dillman.

It's an uninteresting mess, it lasts more than two and a half hours, and nobody's having any fun, and that —not the bees — is the problem. If you're telling a preposterous story, there needs to be a sense of humor somewhere in the mix, but the only laugh is accidental, and more stupid than funny. It's this, in the closing credits:

"The African killer bee portrayed in this film bears absolutely no relationship to the industrious, hard-working American honey bee to which we are all indebted for pollinating vital crops that feed our nation."

Guess they had to placate the honey-bees in the ticket-buying audience.

Verdict: BIG NO.

♦ ♦ ♦

The UFO Incident (1975)

This is not really about a UFO incident, but about hypnotherapy sessions, wherein the practitioner (Bernard Hughes) listens to the repressed, stolen, or imagined memories of a married couple, Barney and Betty Hill (James Earl Jones, Estelle Parsons). Famous for their claims to have been abducted by aliens, they're trying to remember the details of their purported 1961 close encounter with extraterrestrials.

I am certain there's intelligent life on other planets, but far less certain that Barney and Betty Hill were abducted. The evidence here is not convincing, at least not to me. Seems more likely that they were a couple of lovable nuts.

This is supposed to be a movie review, though, so is the movie worth watching? Depends on what you're looking for.

It's a very strange movie, made for TV, with both Jones and Parsons given great leeway to swing for the bleachers and overact their hearts out. That's kinda fun to watch, but as a movie it's meh.

Verdict: MAYBE.

♦ ♦ ♦

Vanishing Point (1971)

The title was familiar to me, and quite often that's all it takes to get me to watch an old movie. If I've heard of it, that means the movie's reputation has held up for years and years, so it's gotta have something worthwhile, right?

Uh, not this time. Vanishing Point is about a man (Barry Newman) who's made a bet that he can drive his super-souped-up car to San Francisco in a very short time. That's the plot.

I don't like cars, and despise fast, loud cars, and the people who drive them. A movie about a guy driving a loud car fast is simply of no interest to me.

There are many scenes of Newman driving his car fast, sometimes being pursued by cops, always accompanied by rock'n'roll on the soundtrack. And yeah, there's more going on than that, but not much. Driving a car fast is the essence of Vanishing Point. It's The Cannonball Run, with more boobs but without any comedy.

There's also a subplot with Cleavon Little as a very blackspeaking radio DJ, but I've never heard such heavy blackspeak on the radio and very rarely in real life, so it plays like an offensive stereotype.

Verdict: BIG NO.

♦ ♦ ♦

The Wobblies (1979)

This is a documentary about the early days of the Industrial Workers of the World, wherein I finally learned why its members are called "Wobblies." Says here, the IWW had lots of Chinese immigrant members, who had trouble pronouncing the W's, and said "I wobbly wobbly" instead.

Founded in 1905 by Big Bill Haywood, Eugene Debs, and Mother Jones, the IWW was the first union to welcome black, Asian, and white workers as equals. The Wobblies were always radical, and were sneered at by big business, small business, and other unions, and of course persecuted by police. Too damned radical, was the official line.

"The cops tried to hit us, and then we hit 'em back."

The film is very informative, interviewing lots of old-timers, the members who were there when the billy clubs were swung and union members were beaten and jailed.

What these people lived through is amazing, what they accomplished and what they tried to accomplish. That so much has been lost since then — the IWW almost entirely gone, other unions with such little power, the corporations almost completely in control, with no meaningful oversight or opposition — is a tragedy.

Now I'm gonna say this, and you'll call me a spoilsport, but: There's way, way too much singing in this movie. I've heard these union songs before, and they're swell, but a little goes a long way. Hearing another union/solidarity hymn every few minutes for an hour and a half? I would rather hear more interviews, less singing.

Halfway through the documentary, I started fast-forwarding whenever they started singing.

I do love the Wobblies, though. Used to be one, and might still be — I was a member when I lived in Frisco, and seem to recall paying for a lifetime membership, but I've moved around a lot and haven't heard from the IWW in decades. If we're ever in touch again, I do hope they don't sing.

Verdict: YES.

9/4/2022
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Top illustration by Jeff Meyer. No talking once the lights dim. Real butter, not that fake crap, on the popcorn. I try to make these reviews spoiler-free, but sometimes screw up, sorry. Piracy is not a victimless crime. Click any image to enlarge. [Comments & conversations invited.](mailto:[email protected]?subject=Comments for Mostly Words)