Earthquake (1974)

Earthquake (1974)

Dir. Mark Robson

A collective of Los Angeles residents have their personal dramas thrown into perspective when a huge quake hits the city, causing chaos on the streets and prompting office workers to fall out of skyscraper windows. Among the affected are hydroelectric dam technicians, a successful businessman, a cop, a stunt bike driver, and a part-time actress with a young son.

It tries hard to make its mini-dramas relatable to its audience, but the highlight of the whole affair is the execution and inventiveness of the destruction within and around the sets and models. The matte paintings are great, too.

Of the ensemble cast, Charlton Heston was probably the bigger star at the time, but it's George Kennedy as the aforementioned cop that I'll remember most. (Coincidently, both men were in the movie that I watched the night before, made and released in the same year: Airport 1975. It wasn't very good, though.)

Earthquake was hugely successful at the box office, but it didn't stay on top for long. Just one month later The Towering Inferno (1974) hit screens and took the Disaster genre's crown.

Eastern Promises (2007)

Eastern Promises (2007)

Dir. David Cronenberg

Ordinarily, I prefer it when an actor is of the same nationality as the character they're playing onscreen; e.g., if a protagonist is supposed to be Scottish, then hire an actual Scot. It's especially beneficial in biopics, or when the character isn't a native English speaker in an English language setting.

Casting someone who understands on a fundamental level the culture that they're portraying allows an actor to tap into the unconscious influence that thinking in one's native language brings. If successful, it can permeate the performance and even accentuate or enrich any traits, nuances, etc, that can be consciously observed in specific nationalities. It's basic common sense.

But sometimes an actor can be so good in a role that such concerns are almost forgotten about when viewing. Viggo as a fictional Russian mobster in Cronenberg's Eastern Promises is on that list. It's his second collaboration with the director and it tops their first in every way.

The Earth Dies Screaming (1964)

The Earth Dies Screaming (1964)

Dir. Terence Fisher

Some sci-fi B-Movies from the 50s and 60s are like a subgenre unto themselves: one in which the title is the best thing about the entire production. The Earth Dies Screaming is a hell of good title — no doubt inspired by The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) — but it's overwhelmingly misleading because the Earth itself is fine. Its inhabitants, on the other hand, aren't fine, but there's very little 'screaming' involved, which I'm grateful for. In fact, the movie opens with a prolonged eerie silence, reminiscent of a John Wyndham story.

It's a bold move to have no dialogue for so long, considering the entire movie lasts only 62 minutes, but it works and is arguably as good as it gets. Everything that follows is paradoxically less interesting by comparison.

The characters are basic, recognisable types, but function well enough, either as vehicles for social commentary and/or internal conflicts.

Rebuild of Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 (2021)

Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time (2021)

Dirs. Hideaki Anno / Kazuya Tsurumaki / Katsuichi Nakayama / Mahiro Maeda

Given my feelings about part three — and that in the lengthy interim between it and part four Anno had helped make what I consider to be the worst live action Japanese-language Godzilla movie since the Showa Era lost its way — I didn't feel the pang of the nine-year wait that happened, but I sympathise with anyone that did.

Evangelion: 4.0 You Can (Not) be Fucking Serious, as it'll forever be known to me hereafter, has some stunning animation, but is less successful in other ways. It has the dubious honour of being the least engaging anime movie that I watched in 2022.

The frantic aerial battle that fills a large chunk of the opening was off-putting to me, but I can see how it could be considered impressive by others, in how it resembled some kind of futuristic fighter plane conflict. In retrospect, when paired with what follows, it plays a successful part in conveying how important the role of contrast is to the whole.

Rebuild of Evangelion: 3.33 (2012)

Evangelion: 3.33 You Can (Not) Redo (2012)

Dirs. Hideaki Anno / Mahiro Maeda / Kazuya Tsurumaki

Parts 1.11 and 2.22 stayed recognisably close to the original NGE TV Series plot, but part 3.33 spirals off to places new. There are big changes and most of them aren't good.

Firstly, none of what's teased in 2.22's post-credit preview is actually in the third film. Instead, it's set a significant number of years after, which could be as jarring for the viewer as it is for one of the characters.

In retrospect, it's helpful to accept that what was teased did actually happen, albeit offscreen. Mercifully, the implied level of 'fan service' is largely absent, besides some cheap low angle female pudenda shots.

A dramatic space-set action scene opens proceedings, and is quickly followed by some tedious Anno dialogue; as someone who prefers to watch anime subbed, it felt more pronounced than it might otherwise have seemed.

Rebuild of Evangelion: 2.22 (2009)

Evangelion: 2.22 You Can (Not) Advance (2009)

Dirs. Hideaki Anno / Masayuki / Kazuya Tsurumaki

I said previously that the film is faithful to Dir. Hideaki Anno's original vision 'at least for now'. To expand upon that, it's more than just a retelling, it's a 'rebuild' of the story - like its English language title states. The original series fell in on itself before its ultimate completion, so a redesign isn't necessarily a bad thing, if done correctly.

The foundation upon which the 'rebuild' is constructed is largely the same as before - but as more tiers are added, the resultant structure takes on a wholly different appearance. That change becomes more apparent in 2.22 than it was in 1.11. [1]

It covers episodes 7-19, which is quite a task in such a short amount of time.

Rebuild of Evangelion: 1.11 (2007)

Evangelion: 1.11 You Are (Not) Alone (2007)

Dirs. Hideaki Anno / Masayuki / Kazuya Tsurumaki

A cinematic 'Rebuild' of the 'classic' Neon Genesis Evangelion TV Series. The first film (of four) covers episodes 1-6. It's overseen by the same director as the series, Hideaki Anno, so is faithful to his original vision - at least for now, but that's for a future post.

Newcomers to the world of NGE may find it difficult to assimilate everything on first viewing, but in truth even the series didn't make complete sense to a large percentage of its audience until the second sitting, so in a way being perplexed is par for the course.

Nevertheless, for the benefit of anyone that's wholly unfamiliar with the basics, a quick intro: fourteen-year-old Shinji Ikari arrives in Tokyo-III, having been summoned there by a father he's not seen in three years.

eXistenZ (1999)

eXistenZ (1999)

Dir. David Cronenberg

I hope it isn't but it's possible that the film is Cronenberg's final full-on venture into the 'body-horror' genre that he excelled in. It contains within it many elements that fans of his earlier works will be familiar with, including the weird character names and sharp angled Canadian architecture, as if to say this is where the past ends, I'm moving onto genres new afterwards.

It has a lot in common with Videodrome (1983), not just thematically, but in other ways, and as such I'd definitely recommend a thorough viewing of Videodrome before sitting down to eXistenZ.

It stars Jennifer Jason Leigh as a VR video game designer named Allegra Geller. A player of Allegra's games experiences a different reality, literally. They become a character in the game.
Players of eXistenZ aren't sat in front of a screen or fed imagery through a lens in a headset, through biotechnology they're inserted into a functioning three-dimensional world that's as real to them as the one we collectively call reality.

Escape Into Night (1972)

Escape Into Night (1972)

Dir. Richard Bramall | 6 episodes, approx 25 mins each.

Adapted from British novelist Catherine Storr's Marianne Dreams (1958), Escape is the story of what happens when a young girl's dreams become a kind of second reality for the incapacitated youth.

Marianne (Vikki Chambers) is confined to bed by the family doctor, on account of a cracked leg bone obtained in a riding accident. She's told it may take up to six weeks to heal. The news displeases Marianne, who's normally a very physically active child, so to pass the time she picks up a drawing pad and an old pencil and exercises her imagination.

When she dreams her drawings are brought to life in a peculiar way. She's able to walk around inside and around them. But when the young girl's thoughts become troubled in real life her dream place takes on a similarly dark tone, shaped by her adolescent frustrations and troubled, emotional outpourings.

The Evil Dead Trilogy (1981-92)

The Evil Dead (1981)

Dir. Sam Raimi

I'll never tire of watching The Evil Dead. It wasn't the first film to use the isolated cabin in the woods scenario, but it remains one of the most successful in the horror genre.

Raimi doesn't waste time with a traditional slow build-up. He goes straight to horror town with the use of low, rushing camera movements. The way it interacts with the environment, even knocking parts of it over, places us as viewers directly into the action.

The point of view shots showing the same scene from different angles, pursuer and pursued, accompanied by subjective audio was a genius idea. It shows that both subjects (or objects) are in the same location but suggests they’re slightly out of sync, like the real and reflected or the breaking of a different kind of fourth wall from the wrong side.

HAMMER: Frankenstein Films (1957-74)

The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)

Dir. Terence Fisher

TCoF was a trio of firsts for HAMMER Studios: their first horror in colour, their first Frankenstein film and the first of their productions to feature Christopher Lee.

The story is a confessional flashback, meaning the Baron's evolution from cultivating an infectious curiosity to succumbing to an isolating obsession is paced by his own telling, working inexorably toward the creature's reveal. Universal forbade the use of their existing iconic image, so HAMMER had to make their own more gruesome version, sans neck-bolts.

It's privilege that enables the Baron to carry out his work. Meddling in pure science at the level he does is the exclusive preserve of the rich. If he'd been impecunious the creature would probably never have been born.

Eraserhead (1977)

Eraserhead (1977)

Dir. David Lynch

Lynch is renowned for being weird and making complicated, non-linear narratives appear to work effortlessly in his favour. Eraserhead is possibly his most unhinged and surreal feature.

It sets the tone early on with a slow zoom into what appears to be some kind of landscape, but why is it terrifying? Is it because it also manages to make us feel like we're travelling through a diseased artery? Or is that just me? Whatever the case may be, it's pure nightmare fuel.

A constant industrial murmur fills the empty spaces. It plays a vital role in both making and keeping us uncomfortable, not unlike the dwarfing effect that the concrete world has on the film's main character, Henry Spencer.

Escape from New York: Volume 1 (2015)

Escape from Florida (2015)

Author: Christopher Sebela  |  Illustrator: Diego Barreto  |  Page Count: 112

Comics publisher BOOM! Studios are doing good work carving a niche in the market for people who enjoy seeing cult movies from yesteryear get more love.

They have at least half a dozen collected editions currently available that I'm interested in, but the money-tree the pikey sold me failed to grow and the golden goose turned out to be male, so I need to be selective with purchases. However, Escape from New York was one that I definitely couldn't pass up.

Like the continuation of their other Carpenter and Russell pairing, Big Trouble in Little China (2015), it picks up the story just after the film ends. It's not as good as Big Trouble, but it's still better than Carpenter's own sequel to his cult classic, namely the Escape from L.A. (1996) movie, and for that I'm at least thankful.

Elvira: Films (1988-2001)

Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988)

Dir. James Signorelli

Late night TV host Elvira (Cassandra Peterson) quits her crummy job and travels to a sexually-repressed town in Massachusetts that's like a late 1960s sitcom. Whist there the leggy host offends ninety-percent of the locals with her outspoken views and her outstanding cleavage. But while the anti-fun brigade (i.e. the town council) is fuming, the youth of the backwards town are on her side.

It's a cult film with a whopping amount of tame innuendo (mostly tit-jokes) and intentionally bad wisecracks that'll either make sense to your inner teenager or have you scratching yourself while periodically checking your wristwatch (or phone).

It may even struggle to hold the attention of anyone born after the mid 80s, but that isn't me.

The B+W science fiction film featured at the beginning is an AIP release called It Conquered the World (1956), directed by Roger Corman. I remember seeing it as a kid for the first time, at home on a school day. I was off sick, but not too sick that I couldn't watch daytime TV.