Swamp Thing (1982)

Somethings age well, Swamp Thing is not one of them.

It's not easy being green

Before tackling Swamp Thing Wes Craven built a reputation for extremely terrifying films like The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes. These nasty, gritty stories of lives disrupted by crazed sociopaths have two thing in common with Swamp Thing and that is a sense of isolation created by nature and a primeval strain of violence that is born out of this uncivilized setting . In Last House on the Left the family’s innocent domicile is tucked back into the woods. In The Hills Have Eyes a family’s car breaks down desert wasteland. For Swamp Thing the setting is the deep bayou. Lurking in each of these natural settings is an unconscionable, uncontrolled element, a force of evil personified by thrill-killers, mutants, and an unscrupulous scientist. These wicked characters push peaceful characters to be violent for the sake of survival. However, most of these innocent individuals go so far that they lose their humanity.

In the case of Swamp Thing, the titular character loses his human form before be loses his humanity. If this were the only difference between Swamp Thing and Craven’s earlier films there might be ample reason to revisit or even champion this film. However, Swamp Thing is a poorly translated, dreadfully unimpressive, and painfully blasé comic book adaptation. Swamp Thing was never a house-hold name in comic heroes. If anything he’s a lower-tier character in the D.C. Comics universe.

Craven chose to bring the half-man, half-plant hero to the big-screen before Alan Moore re-invented the character in the mid-80′s when comics were transforming into graphic novels with more mature themes. Craven is working with rather simplistic, adolescent story material and he’s not doing much to enrich the material or even twist it towards the darker tones found in his earlier films. I am sure Craven cannot be entirely faulted for not turning Swamp Thing into a more visceral meditation on the loss of humanity. D.C. Comics might never agree to such pervasive tweaking, especially considering that this film was produced on the heels of Superman, a break-through blockbuster for the comic book film genre. Sadly, the risks that could have and should have been taken with this lesser known comic book character, who defies many of our traditional expectation of what a superhero looks like, were not explored.  What further cripples this picture are the horrendous creature costumes that lack the campy qualities of Japanese monster movies or the well executed make-up of horror films made during the same time period. Everything just feels cheap.

Cheap is an aesthetic that Craven made work in his earlier films. The low-quality, almost home-movie quality of The Last House on the Left helps that film’s brutally realistic images of horror. However, in Swamp Thing the cheapness comes more in the film’s lack of imagination and its careless execution. Corny visual wipes hint to the transitions between comic book panels and the flat characters feel too literally connected to the pages they were pulled from. Overall, the transition from page to screen possess a level of predictability I find beneath Craven. It is as if he handicapped himself by tying his creative voice to a project designed to appeal to a larger, younger audience and one that did not give him the freedom to push boundaries or buttons.

Perhaps, for a young viewer, unaware of Craven’s earlier work and accepting of non-digital monster this movie may have strange, innocent appeal. Most likely, modern audience who did not grow up with this film will find it even more painful and less comical than I did this time around. They may just wan to wait for a re-make as Craven’s other two films mentioned here have already been put through that process and comic book characters have been all the rage at the theaters.
For now, people can watch Swamp Thing for free online.

http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi1517066777/

Caution: This film says it is the full version, but it’s missing a few seconds. Those would be the seconds when the film’s female star (and the director’s ex-wife), Adrienne Barbeau bare her breasts. These few seconds are a big deal only because MGM originally put those seconds back in when they released this film on DVD. Then they pulled all the DVDs. It caused a run on the title. My version of Swamp Thing is from the UK. It’s uncut. Call me a purist. Then again, no amount of skin can make up for the simple fact that perms like the one Barbeau is sporting in this film are anything but sexy.

I’d Rather Be Watching – Hardcore – on Hulu

Watching George C. Scott search for his missing teenage daughter and squirming uncomfortably when Peter Boyle shows him what’s become of daddy’s little girl is just painful. However, it is far more entertaining then the tedious things I have to attend to today. That’s why I’d rather be watching Hardcore.

Hulu – Hardcore – Watch the full movie now..

White Lightnin’ (2009)

They took reality and made it into an astoundingly lousy movie. This often happens when people are not content with what they see right before their eyes. It is the product of bored souls continually disappointed with the fact that life itself  is not cool enough.  Thankfully, for them, but unfortunately for the rest of us cinema provides the tools to pimp reality. In the case of White Lightnin’ the filmmakers have taken an already eccentric character and turned him into a hillbilly messiah.

Jesco White was first introduced to the larger world in Jacob Young’s 1991 documentary Dancing Outlaw. For years, tapes of this broadcast circulated through various tape trading circles. At one point, a copy of Dancing Outlaw fell into the hands of Tom Arnold. At the time Arnold was married to Rosanne Barr and a producer on his show. The two of them invited Jesco out to Los Angeles to appear on the hit-sitcom Rosanne. Jesco only appears over the end credits of the show, but his adventure to the west coast spawned a sequel to Dancin’ Outlaw. Soon after the sequel, Jesco returned to Boone County, West Virginia and the Last of the Dancing Outlaws waited for his next moment in the spotlight.

While neither of the documentaries about Jesco are amazing fetes of documentary filmmaking they do not try to over-power their subject with a style of their own. The same cannot be said about White Lightnin’. This abomination of a bio-pic is more about the filmmakers’ voices than the story of Jesco White. Yes, they show his rough up-bringing, his addiction to huffing, his obessisson over his dead daddy, and his undying love of his darlin’ Norma ‘Cilla’ Jean, but they do it with all the edgy, visceral aesthetic of a hard rock video. Sadly, they have about as much grace and restraint as a rock video.

Young’s documentaries are humble depictions of a rather mundane existence, occassionaly peppered with rowdy outbursts, fueled by boredom and excessive intoxication, White Lightnin’ is a visceral nightmare set to the tune of Hasil Adkins “No More Hot Dogs”. That’s a song I used to love, but it shall now forever remind me of this film. Even worse is the patently false, bastard-kin-to-Terrence Malick narration they wrote for Jesco White.

I might be able to over look the dramatized nature of this film and the extreme liberties they have taken with Jesco’s story, if it were not for the lack of imagination brought to this story. What is supposed to be the Jesco White story becomes a cliched, dark fantasy of Appalachia by individuals who have little to know understanding or compassion for the characters and culture they have co-opted. Frankly put, White Lightnin‘ is a haunted house version of Applachia based more from movies like Deliverance than from observational understanding of the regions culture. However, do those things really matter, especially for the audience I am sure this film is trying to attract? Probably not. Why just look at all those fake scratches on the poster! Aren’t they cool? Don’t they scream nasty, gritty film ahead? I mean, should I expect anything else from this film? In a culture that wants everything to have the same verisimilitude of a theme park, why should I not be surprised that this energy-drink version of his life-story be necessary?

The Adding Machine (1969)

It is always disappointing when a film you’ve longed to see turns out to be neither exceptional or awful. Were it the other case, in either direction, a reaction is achieved. This particular film simply left me.

The Adding Machine was high on my must-see list. It’s story of Mr. Zero, a life long accountant, replaced by an adding machine and driven to violence through frustration is a pertinent today as it was in 1932 when Elmer Rice wrote the play upon which this film is based. The stories weightier concepts begin when its main character is sentenced to death and awakes in a utopia known as The Elysian Fields. If this is heaven it is not what Mr. Zero expected. Told his soul is as useless here as his physical body was on Earth Mr. Zero continues to wonder just what life (and after-life) is all about.  These introspective concepts set against a dreamlike backdrop all make for an interesting premise ripe with potential. So why is this film not amazing? Why is it simply droll?

Perhaps, I put this film too high on my list. Perhaps hype overshadowed the small beauty of this film. However, on first viewing, Elmer Rice’s 1932 play does not transition well to the big screen. The visual possibilities of cinema seem hardly explored and most of the film feels shackled to the small scope settings of a theatrical production. Even if this play is more about big ideas and little care is spent on setting, the ideas, as presented by this cast do not spring to life. Even in a play that toys with ideas of banality and meaninglessness there needs to be more than a mere pulse.

And yet, having written all of this I don’t feel I’ve given the film as fare a shake as it deserves. Scenes and concepts from this film linger in my mind. While I’m well past enjoying the film, I’m not quite done thinking about it. Like Mr. Zero’s confusion over what he find in The Elysian Fields, I too may simply have found something I did not expect to find. Surely, I will have to revisit The Adding Machine another day.

I’d Rather Be Watching – Bad Boys on Hulu

 

These days it seems I am just to busy to watch movies.It seems rather odd to me that when I was younger I spent almost as much time tracking down films as I did watching them. Today, films I spent years looking for and hidden gems I stumbled upon are only a few keystrokes away. The Internet has put an immense, almost intimidating amount of media right at our finger tips. What isn’t on demand these day?

I just wish I could indulge in all this instant access. So, rather than internally pine for less hectic days and the ability to lose myself in streaming video I’ve decided to simply share what I’d be watching with those who do have the time.

 

 

This Bad Boys is not the Michael Bay film Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. That film needs to be locked up and forgotten. This Bad Boys is the gritty juvenile detention film with a young Sean Penn. I remember watching this at a very young age and thinking, here’s a film with some good advice on how to stay alive behind bars. All you really need is a pillow case and some soda cans. So, I guess that makes it an educational film.

Hulu – Bad Boys – Watch the full movie now..