Close Encounters of the Third Kind. E.T., The Extra-Terrestrial. The Green Mile. Escape to Witch Mountain. Watcher in the Woods. Maggie. Super 8. The Omen. D.A.R.Y.L. A Perfect World. Starman. Michael. Tomorrowland. The Day the Earth Stood Still. The Blues Brothers. The Twilight Zone Movie. What could these all possibly have in common? Somehow they are all conjured up together into this year’s release, Midnight Special.
Let’s get the only problem with Midnight Special out of the way first. It had an inexplicable limited release this past March. And its theatrical and television trailer was creepy cool, but too cryptic to draw in the masses. If you don’t tell people what your movie is about, they won’t always take the time to learn more and decide to see it. And what a loss! Midnight Special is not only one of the year’s best films, it’s one of the best films of the decade.
You will think about The Twilight Zone episode “It’s a Good Life,” but it’s nothing like it. You will think about Haven and Grimm, but it’s not like that either. And you may even accuse Stranger Things of being a knockoff of this film. But it’s very, very different.
A father and his old friend kidnap his son from a religious cult, with the government in hot pursuit for very different reasons, drawn in by the son’s mysterious abilities. Is some messianic end looming ahead? Why is the government justified in tracking the father down for treason? Replace the enchantment and wonder you’d find in Spielberg’s Close Encounters and E.T. with a combination of mystery, curiosity, and heart-pounding dread. Gripping, personal, riveting–Midnight Special will keep you guessing until the end. What happened to this kid? Why does he have these powers? What ends will his father and his friend go to protect him from what seems like the entire world crashing down on them?
It’s flat-out one of our favorite sci-fi sub-genres. The alien invasion flick.
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), The Thing from Another World (1951), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), E.T, the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Predator (1987), Alien Nation (1988), They Live (1988), Independence Day (1996), Star Trek: First Contact (1996), Men in Black (1997), Starship Troopers (1997), Signs (2002), War of the Worlds (2005), Cloverfield (2008), District 9 (2009), Cowboys & Aliens (2011), Edge of Tomorrow (2014). These are some of the most exciting and fun sci-fi movies to watch and re-watch.
Kick-Ass and The Equalizer’s Chloë Grace Moretz stars in a new Sony/Columbia Pictures release, The 5th Wave, which looks like it’s mixing the alien invasion film with the disaster movie, the epidemic movie, and the body snatcher movie. The only thing missing is zombies. But body snatchers are close enough.
The 5th Wave co-stars Office Space star Ron Livingston, X-Men Origins and The Sum of All Fears’ Liev Shreiber, and Prime Suspect and Assault on Precinct 13’s Maria Bello. Is Moretz a normal Earthling or one of us taken over by the aliens?
Led by guest conductor Jack Everly, the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra performed to a sold out theater Friday night in the new 1,600 Helzberg Hall of the inaugural season of Kansas City’s Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. The concert featured actor George Takei, known for portraying Mr. Sulu in the original Star Trek, greeting the crowd and reciting the opening lines to the original Star Trek theme, as well as Klaatu’s speech from The Day the Earth Stood Still. The concert featured the musical scores of numerous science fiction movies and TV shows, with on ongoing light show across the top of the giant theater.
Nationally known soprano from numerous opera companies Kristin Plumley sang beautiful renditions of the original Star Trek theme as well as When You Wish Upon a Star and she appeared dressed as both a science officer from the original Star Trek and Princess Leia.
Both Everly and Takei praised the futuristic design and state of the art acoustics at the Kauffman Center, now one of the leading performing arts facilities in the nation, and Takei said he wouldn’t be surprised to see such a cutting-edge facility in the 23rd century predicted from Star Trek’s future.
Highlights of Friday’s concert, which will be performed again Saturday night at a second performance at the Kauffman Center, included selections from John Williams’ scores to Superman, main themes from Star Wars: A New Hope, and Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial, and the theme from Lost in Space as part of a TV theme song medley. Other highlights included a stunning trio of excerpts from Bernard Herrmann’s The Day the Earth Stood Still, 2001: A Space Odyssey, the theme to Somewhere in Time, the themes from Star Trek series Voyager, The Next Generation, and Deep Space Nine and the selections from the score to Star Trek (2009). The medley of TV tunes included the theme to the X-Files, the Jetsons, and Twilight Zone, among others.
Maestro Jack Everly has served as Principal Pops Conductor of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Principal Pops Conductor with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Canada, and Pops Conductor of the Naples Philharmonic Orchestra. Originally appointed by Mikhail Baryshnikov, he was the Music Director of the American Ballet Theatre for 14 years. On Broadway, he teamed with Marvin Hamlisch to conduct The Goodbye Girl and A Chorus Line and he has conducted concerts for the 2010 National Memorial Day Concert and A Capitol Fourth, two of PBS’ highest-rated programs.
In addition to the original Star Trek series and six Star Trek movies, George Takei’s past work includes guest star roles in episodes of series such as Psych, Perry Mason, I Spy, Twilight Zone, Mission: Impossible, The Six Million Dollar Man, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Miami Vice, and Hawaii Five-O as well as film credits including Ice Palace with Richard Burton and The Green Berets with John Wayne.
Soprano Kristin Plumley’s credits include work with New York City Opera, Chautauqua Opera, Virginia Opera and L’Opéra Francais de New York, and she has starred in productions of West Side Story, Carousel,Brigadoon, and Oklahoma! as well as performing at Carnegie Hall.
Back in June, Super 8 was in theaters and Jason McClain discussed it here and noted the split in the film between the focus on the kids’ story vs. the focus on the adults. I didn’t see this one in the theater and after viewing on video I wish I had, but only for the spectacular train crash. Other than that, the film makes a great rental. For me, this film was a cross between Goonies,Cloverfield,E.T., the Extraterrestrial, and Close Encounter of the Third Kind. I found myself viewing this and questioning whether this was more of a J.J. Abrams movie or more of a Steven Spielberg movie. And I found it to be a lot of fun.
I agree with Jason’s review, that this could have been a film focusing totally on the kids’ story—kids trying to make a zombie film. Joel Courtney in the lead role, in his first film appearance, was cast perfectly as Joe Lamb—as every little kid who doesn’t get into trouble, tries to do the right thing, tries to be friends to everyone. The film inside the film didn’t need to be a zombie film, but zombies was as good a subject as any, and something the director could use because of the humor zombie make-up adds to the picture. And maybe because the film also wants to be a monster movie of the alien variety.
I also agree with Jason that you could cut all the adult themes and probably end up with a better picture. I find it puzzling that every film about differing genres that includes kids must have a one-parent family at the core. It used to be that all movies had two parents and two kids, and I understand over time why the change to more diverse families makes sense. But I can’t remember the last time a two adult, couple of kids family was pictured on film. They exist in real life so I’m not sure what the draw is for the barrage of broken families. You’d think Hollywood would mix it up a little. I expect filmmakers think it gives the film some weight. I usually find dwelling on family in this kind of film unnecessary and irrelevant to the plot–the father-son and father-daughter reunion pieces of the film here included.
But back to the good parts. The themes of young teens mimic the superb, classic kid film Goonies so much you could draw parallels through the whole movie. Young boys’ crushes on the older girl. Rescuing a friend. The desire for adventure and the decision to go off and “just do it.” The same themes were also addressed more seriously in Stephen King’s Stand By Me and less so in E.T., the Extraterrestrial. If Goonies was better at being a kids’ film it was probably because the adults only played the enemies and barely served another purpose in the plot. After all, in the context of a fictional adventure film, why not play into that natural tension between parents and kids? In E.T., the adults were primarily the enemies, too. In Stand By Me, again, no parents, just kids being kids. The change-up is Close Encounters—where the little boy in the film is kidnapped by the aliens. But even there the little kid parallels the real little kid story in the film–the little boy trying to get out, trapped inside the lead character played by Richard Dreyfuss. Close Encounters is the ultimate kids film about grown-ups. Dreyfuss wants to believe in aliens every bit as much as Elliott and Gerty in E.T. The kids in Super 8 aren’t longing for this kind of connection, they just want to be the kids they are.
As a “horror-light” film, viewers will see similarities to the alien/monster pursuit in Cloverfield, and the alien/monster images from Cowboys & Aliens. I thought this was a fun genre-bending exercise and it worked better here than Cowboys & Aliens but not as well as in Cloverfield. I include Cloverfield in the discussion here because of the similar vibe throughout the last half of the movie, undoubtedly based on Abrams participation in both productions.
Super 8 should be looked back on later as a big film for Abrams. Where Star Trek 2009 was J.J. Abrams’ big-budget sci-fi feature, Cloverfield was his Blair Witch-type horror film, and Mission Impossible III was his post-Alias spy movie, Super 8 is Abrams’ take on Spielberg–it’s his Spielberg homage of sorts. I expect to see a boxed DVD set coming—Close Encounters (directed by Spielberg), then E.T. (directed by Spielberg), Goonies (written by Spielberg), War of the Worlds (directed by Spielberg) and then Super 8 (produced by Spielberg). Not so much a set of coming-of-age films as a set of solid kids-being-kids films. Although written and directed by Abrams, anyone would believe it was a Spielberg creation, were it written and directed by Spielberg. Looking back on Abrams’ short list of films, it’s as if Abrams is a director mimicking the style of others. As style goes, he certainly doesn’t have an established niche yet. The only exception is those lousy lens flares he can’t seem to avoid. You have to wonder if he sees something in those glares we don’t see, as we are blinded multiple times mid-film. But it seems to be his signature. A lens flare is even in his poster for the film shown above. Bizarre.
If you pulled Goonies out of our fictitious boxed set, you have a nice series of alien films—Close Encounters, about meeting aliens, E.T. about befriending aliens, Super 8, about fearing aliens, although you have to empathize with the alien in Super 8, as with past Spielberg aliens, and then War of the Worlds at the other end of the spectrum opposite E.T., where the aliens are entirely and unquestionably our enemy.
Team Fanning also follows through again with a gaggle of teen actresses who only seem to get better with each new sibling to take the stage. Here, Elle Fanning plays the tough teen with a chip on her shoulder, a role done before several times in films, but usually by male characters played by the likes of like Heath Ledger or Matt Dillon. In one scene she switches from playing a kid character to playing an actress practicing for a scene to be filmed on the Super 8 camera, and the switch is as well done as you could hope for with any performer. Ryan Lee in a small role as Joe’s friend Cary was a notable stand-out, playing the future pyromaniac who looks like a mini-Tom Petty. The rest of the characters are a motley mix of typical honest, good, nerdy kids.
Reflecting back on the films about kids mentioned above, I have a note for the current onslaught of child actors, especially those playing lanky, skinny, fat, odd, etc. kids: Just check out what happened to the child actors in the above films. Drew Barrymore who was Gerty in E.T. is now a Cover Girl model and was a Charlie’s Angel. The chubby kid, Jerry O’ Connell, in Stand By Me ended up as the leading man-looking guy who starred in Sliders and several later series. Jeff Cohen who played Chunk in Goonies became an L.A. lawyer. Sean Astin who played the lead in Goonies ended up as the beloved Samwise Gamgee in Lord of the Rings. And the oldest teen in Goonies played by Josh Brolin, was nominated for an Academy Award. My point? Awkward teens take note: Life gets better. The old child actor’s curse doesn’t exist anymore.
As science fiction goes, Super 8 stands up as a good film, as a horror film it’s a little light, as an adventure film it’s better than good, but as a film about kids, Super 8 is a solid, entertaining picture that will keep the attention of viewers of any age.
While we wait for the opening night of Cowboys and Aliens on July 29, two days ago we walked through the top western movies to get psyched for Jon Favreau’s big budget clash of Old West and classic sci-fi story. Today we run down the best alien movies Hollywood has created. We’re not thinking so much about aliens in their native environment, or Star Wars and Star Trek films would top the list, but unexpected human encounters with otherworldly, friendly and not-so-friendly brethren.
1. THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (1951). It should be no surprise that a movie from the director of West Side Story, The Sound of Music, The Sand Pebbles, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture (and the editor of Citizen Kane and The Hunchback of Notre Dame) makes the top spot of this list. Robert Wise’s classic story would fit solidly alongside the best Twilight Zone episodes. And story is the point–no modern glitz and special effects necessary. Michael Rennie appears to be just a man. But he is not. He is Klaatu, a visitor who has come to observe us in his flying saucer with the giant robot Gort. How would we react to an alien visitor? The first look at ourselves revealed paranoia and fear–it is the original self-reflection story that would later inspire V and Alien Nation.
2. PREDATOR (1987). He’s a hunter. A collector. And he’s on vacation. That doesn’t sound like a high calibre story description. Substitute the alien visitor and Predator is a western not unlike High Noon. Our creature is a visitor with a secret past like any of a number of Clint Eastwood gunslingers. And he is just as cool, a hunter that would stand firm alongside Boba Fett, Bossk, Dengar and Zuckus. His make-up is unreal–truly alien to us–and he looks like a Nausicaan–that race that shoved a pool cue though Captain Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Let’s see, who has an unusual skull that would look good on his trophy mantle? How about that melon on Arnold Schwarzenegger? There’s a cool vibe throughout the film and a great cast–and what other genre film features two future state governors? And one of those gauntlets looks like Daniel Craig’s from the Cowboys and Aliens trailers.
3. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977). But for Star Wars this picture would have gone off the charts the year it was released. Because of multiple Star Wars viewings by me in 1977 and 1978 (I saw it ten times with my brother and sister instead of going to see anything else), I didn’t get to see this movie until years later when it was released on video. But once I saw it, I realized how grand in scope it was. Mix all the episodes of Leonard Nimoy’s old TV series In Search Of… and you’ll end up here. A ship in the middle of the desert, a 1940s squadron appears out of nowhere, and we keep seeing this shape, painting it, making models of it. Near the place where the Sundance Kid grew up is a destination for sci-fi fans now, at Devil’s Tower, Wyoming. And those five musical tones. And an alien kidnapping scene, revealing nothing about the aliens, toys that seem to come alive, shocking and scary. Invaders or friends? Richard Dreyfuss’s second best movie. One of Spielberg’s best.
4. E.T.,THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982). Not only did Close Encounters and The Day the Earth Stood Still teach us that aliens can be our friends, with E.T. a lot of us would never think to put up a fight when the invasion arrives. Ugly but lovable, E.T. was funny, thrilling, and made us all cheer. Ignore the recent edited, updated version–the original was just fine, thank you very much. A classic pop culture film that gave us several catch phrases: “Home,” “I’ll be right here,” “Be good,” “Phone home.” And I am still addicted to Reese’s Pieces. Another great Spielberg picture in his long list of blockbusters.
5. ALIENS (1986). Bill Paxton’s Private Hudson had it right when he said, “Game over, man, game over!” The polar opposite of the aliens-as-friends films, these exoskeletal aliens have nothing in common with humans. As villains, there is nothing for us to sympathize with. They will just exterminate us. This was a wake-up call for everyone who wants to meet our galactic neighbors. Stay home and draw your curtains instead. It was destiny that someone would pit them against Predator years later and it was no contest that we’d cheer the Predator. And I don’t care what anyone says about the first movie with these monsters, Alien–Aliens, the sequel, was tons better with less unnecessary gross-outs. You’ve seen one stomach burst, you’ve seen them all. Skip the sequels but check out Aliens vs Predator for even more fun.
6. THE LAST STARFIGHTER (1984). When Robert Preston, the original salesman from River City in The Music Man, comes to your planet looking to sell you something, like being a Starfighter, you know you have a different kind of film. Here we expand the alien movie archetype from either good or bad–aliens are shades of gray, like people, some are good, some are evil. Directed by Nick Castle, John Carpenter’s colleague, a simple, quiet movie that has a lot of heart and makes everyone wish they’d get Alex Rogan’s calling. And Grig’s make-up was the greatest thing until Enemy Mine. With a great ending for the bad guys, with an all-time classic exchange: “We’re locked into the moon’s gravitational pull! What do we do?” Answer? “We die.” Back in the days of arcades, this movie rivaled Tron as to coolness factor. “Greetings, Starfighter. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan armada.” Where can I sign up?
7. THEY LIVE (1988). This is a John Carpenter classic reviewed in an earlier post and puts Carpenter’s storytelling up there with Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Here, the story goes that Earth has already been invaded and They have been living amongst us. We could just ignore them. After all they aren’t hurting anyone. But once we see them they are sooo ugly. And we were here first. Some of us will play along to get the “good life”. But for one guy trying to keep to himself, this is something he can’t ignore. The truth must get out. Roddy Piper is here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and he’s all out of bubblegum. But no happily ever after will be had here. They are here to stay. On the one hand, some movie watchers and critics dismiss They Live as just another action flick. But if you pay attention, like with all Carpenter movies, you can see Carpenter’s masterwork is much more complex and dips into our own world’s politics and those who do, and those who don’t, sell-out.
8. ALIEN NATION (1988). Much more than just a morality play and allegory to our own prejudices, Alien Nation digs into the struggles all lifeforms surely must face in a multi-species environment. What motivates us, how do we get along with others? James Caan (The Godfather, Elf) and Mandy Patinkin (Princess Bride) were perfectly cast as human and Tenctonese cops. The film’s themes prompted an immediate successful TV series starring Gary Graham and Eric Pierpont. Beyond the deeper themes, it’s a great police story and an odd, but fun, buddy movie of the Odd Couple variety.
9. WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005). I almost didn’t see this remake in the theater. But Tom Cruise movies are exciting and enjoyable 95% of the time. So I saw it and just re-watched it a few weeks ago. Here we see the futility of combating an invasion of even slightly more technology and might than us. The situation really is hopeless. All one can do is run. As in They Live, with War of the Worlds the aliens have been here for a long time, only here they parked their vehicles here and are just now coming back to rev ’em up. This movie has great special effects, truly creepy unsympathetic villains, and a lot of dread. You really feel the pain of the result of alien visitors who don’t want to be our friends. Yet another Spielberg blockbuster.
10. DISTRICT 9 (2009). A great film of political complexity. A variant on Alien Nation, yet the same basic story. An extraterrestrial race is forced to live in slum-like conditions on Earth. Their vessel runs out of resources and parks itself over South Africa. It’s a blunt morality tale about the brutality of prejudice. This one will strangely make you cheer against the humans. Luckily for the visitors, they find a kindred spirit in a government agent who is accidentally exposed to their biotechnology. You’ll find yourself asking: What are your values? How do you treat others who are different? Where would you draw the line between life worthy of mutual respect and not? Its documentary-style filming and non-American cast is refreshing and new. And half the time you have to cringe at the protagonist’s actions. Are we with him or not?
Honorable Mention: Starship Troopers (giant bugs destroy Rio de Janeiro, Johnny Rico is a classic western hero type), Enemy Mine (like Stagecoach, a human is stuck with an alien and even without a common language they come to realize how alike even different species can be and how valuable relationships can be formed by just trying to get along).
Cross-promotional marketing is nothing new, whether it’s a tie-in of Coca-Cola and Sony, Pepsi and Michael Jackson’s tour, or a national baseball team and the city’s grocery store chain, we are bombarded everywhere we go with not only that special product we didn’t know we needed, but also that seemingly unrelated product that some marketing whiz decided we also need.
Back in the late 1970s and 1980s it seemed like there was a constant battle for the best tie-in promotion between McDonald’s and Burger King. For a while, the Star Wars franchise was tied into Burger King, introducing a giant size sticker folder, numerous trading cards (you’d need to cut out yourself), and probably the best drinking glasses anyone ever stamped a movie image on, for Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.
And they were made from actual glass no less. They even brought the glass concept back in 2009 with the new Star Trek movie.
E.T. the Extraterrestrial (which also had glasses as giveaways at Pizza Hut) made waves by altering its own original story and tying Reese’s Pieces into the actual storyline instead of M&Ms. At the opening night of the movie I remember everyone was given a free pack, totally taking you along with Elliot on his garage encounter with our new alien friend. I don’t recall hearing of Reese’s Pieces before E.T. The M&M guys blew an opportunity there no doubt.
Every year it seems products become more invasive in actual movies and TV shows. Once upon a time product names were rearranged on TV shows so a Tide laundry detergent box, for example, had the same logo and design but carried a nondescript word. Morley brand cigarettes, back to not just the X-Files, but as early as 1961 on The Dick Van Dyke Show, became the TV generic cigarette pack of choice, just as 555 became the area code of everyone in movie land. Morley was Spike’s brand on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, has been seen on Burn Notice, Heroes, Medium, and even William Shatner’s brand in the classic Twilight Zone episode “Nightmare at Twenty Thousand Feet.” But cigarette marketing bans aside, why use a fake brand when you can sell some ad space on your show?
Movie tie-ins are the subject of Hugo- and Nebula Award-winning author Connie Willis’s novel Remake. The past is “in” and all the women dress in copies of famous Marilyn Monroe dresses and as other stars of classic Hollywood. But in Remake, the future has arrived and censorship also is “in” and movie studios must edit ads and vices out of old films, essentially undoing all the marketing found in classics of the past.
In its unabashed, in your face, greatness, no TV show today better uses cross promotional advertising than Subway on the TV series Chuck. A typical episode has Morgan not just gulping down not just a sub, but a Subway sub and not only a Subway sub but this week’s selected menu sub of the week. This doesn’t work on the serious drama, but on an off-the-wall genre show like Chuck, it just adds to the shows good-natured fun. Points go to Chief Brenda Lee Johnson on The Closer. Her temptation to dig into her drawer for the next Hostess Ding Dong really makes me want to grab the keys and head to the store.
What I find more annoying is cars on TV shows that focus on a car brand, from Claire’s Nissan Rogue in Heroes to the Oldsmobile Silhouette as the “Cadillac of minivans” in Get Shorty to the Ford Taurus conversations (“check out that Ford navigation system”) in White Collar. That said, I don’t seem to have any issue with all the slick, high-end cars used by James Bond. Probably because it actually serves to define the character’s wealthy lifestyle.
Subway and Green Lantern teamed up this movie season in a pretty standard ad campaign, with its own website, another current staple of cross-marketing (and even Doritos brand chips get to carry the Green Lantern campaign). But there’s something not quite right with this campaign. I don’t know a bigger guacamole fan than me, but spreading the avocado across all things Subway as part of its promotions this season seems a little stranger than usual. Green is the color for ads this season and all products are apparently welcome. Bring on the guacamole!
But the Green Lantern avocado is not the strangest thing appearing right now in cross promotions. Most campaigns, including the Subway campaign, have some reasonable link between the products. But the X-Men: First Class TV commercial with… Farmers Insurance (?) offers no explanation. X-Men‘s audience would not seem to be a natural tie to trying to hook a family to a new casualty policy. So what’s behind this campaign? Here is one where I have no answer. Check out the ad for yourself and let me know if you figure this one out: Farmers X-Men TV commercial.
