jürgen fauth’s muckworld

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: the Alien is my favorite movie monster of all time, and I’ll go see the insectoid, double-jawed acid-for-blood chestbursting spawn of H.R. Giger in any incarnation — even this budget-bin junk, which wasn’t screened for critics and cost me $11 at the Queens midnight screening. I thought I was ready for anything, but you know you’re in trouble if you find yourself holding up the “original” AvP as any kind of standard.

AvP:R picks up at the exact moment the previous film ended: a “predalien,” product of gooey space miscegenation, causes a Predator UFO to crash in the Colorado woods, and a few exploding rib cages later, all of Gunnison is under Alien attack. What should have been a fanboy’s wet fantasy — Aliens on Main Street! — turns into a piss-poor attempt at the kind of 50s horror we’ve seen plundered, satirized, and bowdlerized a million times, from The Blob to Slither.

Instead of showing us the creatures battling it out in bright sunlight (which would have required a few fresh ideas), the entire movie takes place over the course of one rainy, moonless night, which means that you can’t see the monsters you came for. Instead, the “talent” behind this film (”the Brothers Strause”) cranked up the gore: victims usually considered taboo all become Alien fodder, including children, pregnant women (”I think my water just broke. Ahhhhhh!”), and the hot high school chick (Kristen Hager) who takes the pizza boy skinny dipping. The ostensible heroine — a poor man’s Ripley indeed — is a returning Iraq vet (Reiko Aylesworth) who brings her daughter — get this — a pair of infra red goggles as a homecoming present. Gee, I wonder if those will come in handy!

On a downward spiral ever since Fincher’s failed Alien 3, the series has now hit rock bottom. This is the Return of the Son of Dracula meets Jesse James vs. Frankenstein’s Daughter Unbound of Alien films, or whatever the classic equivalent would be. It’s been a long way down from the polished horror by Ridley Scott and James Cameron. Bad as it was, AvP was savvy enough to slyly quote from the original movies, but AvP:R doesn’t even bother with genre conventions like the pithy catchphrase. (The wittiest thing these people can think to say after killing an Alien is “Fuck you.”)

Too underlit to qualify as splatter, too bloodless to qualify as fun, too unaware of its own idiocy to be enjoyed Grindhouse-style, AvP:R is a real education in the finer stratifications of badness. A straight-out parody may be the only move left for the franchise, and then, perhaps, in another few years, the Gods governing the cycles of genre may just smile upon us again with another high-minded attempt at returning the monster to its former glories. Where there are sequels, there is hope.

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem. Colin Strause and Greg Strause, 2007. *

• Rotten Tomatoes: 16%
• Official Site
• The trailer
• Alien vs. Predator

Bill Campbell as all-American hero rocking an art-deco jet-pack, Jennifer Connelly in 30s evening gowns, Timothy Dalton as scenery-chewing Errol-Flynn stand-in onboard burning Nazi zeppelins — The Rocketeer is good old-fashioned serial-style action-adventure full of pulpy twists tempered by a wholesome gee-whiz attitude. Based on the comic book by Dave Stevens, the character also inspired a Cinemaware video game I used to play on my Amiga (screenshots). Not to be confused with Raketenmensch Tyrone Slothrop.

The Rocketeer. Joe Johnston, 1991. ***

Here’s a climactic scene at the Griffith Observatory:

You never know what you’re going to find at Jim Hanley’s Universe, the comic book store on 33th street with one of the best selections of European graphic novels in the city. Yesterday, I picked up a book by a Belgian artist who simply goes by Jason. The Left Bank Gang reimagines Paris in the 20s as a haven for expat comic book writers in the shape of animals. Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, Getrude Stein, James Joyce, Ezra Pound et al. get drunk, make plans for Pamplona, struggle with poverty and obnoxious tourists and discuss the finer points of narrative captions and where do all the erasers go? It’s very funny and endearing, and then the story spins into a fragmented noir. I’ll be looking for more of Jason’s deceptively simple work the next time I’m midtown. You can browse a few pages here.

Jason. The Left Bank Gang. Fantagraphics, 2006. ****

• Jason at Fantagraphics
• Bookslut Review
• Believer Review
• ComicCritique

The hype machine is in high gear, but for once there’s truth in advertising. As far as megabudget superhero adaptations go, Spider-Man 3 delivers exactly what it promises: more of the same. If you liked the first two installments, this is great news. Unlike the self-important Batman Begins, the Spider-Man movies know exactly what they are and what they want to be.

Again, Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, and James Franco engage in cheeseball humor and soapy storylines illustrating bromides like “everybody needs help sometimes.” As before, Sam Raimi’s crisp direction makes elaborate three-dimensional action set pieces as transparent as a few well-chosen comics panels would. Again, the bright color scheme, the iconic NYC locations, the funny bit players (J.K. Simmons and Mageina Tovah as Ursula), the swooping score, and the gee-whiz wholesomeness that leaves no doubt that this poppy entertainment is squarely aimed at kids.

There are three new villains: Franco turns into the hoverboard-surfing New Goblin, Sideways‘ Thomas Hayden Church becomes the Sandman (who, by film’s end, looks like the Trash Heap from Fraggle Rock), and Topher Grace as Eddie Brock, who is covered with alien goo as Venom, the most wicked of the Spidey villains. Their tag-team battles are the most exciting of the series so far.

Peter Parker also undergoes some transformations. As a deft metaphor externalizing his anger and aggression, the alien symbiote colors Spidey’s costume black, and he ends up with a hipper haircut and a mean new attitude: the dweeb struts to a James Brown tune and turns into a sexual predator (or at least a dweeb’s idea of a sexual predator.) In mythic terms, the symbiote represents the Devil of the Tarot deck, but by the end of the movie, the Sun of forgiveness comes up over Manhattan. There’s room for plenty of sequels.

Spider-Man 3. Sam Raimi, 2007. ***

• Spider-Man 3 on Rotten Tomatoes
• In case you managed to miss it, the trailer:

I don’t know why I thought rewatching this was a good idea, but at least the second time around, I gotta hand it to Jordan: dull was just exactly the right word. I stand by what I said about the first Spider-Man movie and the comic transitions, but man this thing felt really lame the second time around. Kind of like King Kong without the tragedy, actually.