David Vining's Blog, page 179

Battle for the Planet of the Apes

What a sad situation to watch a movie stretch its budget as far as it can only to end coming off looking cheap. By all reports, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes was made more cheaply than Battle for the Planet of the Apes, but it looked good using existing architecture to provide the kind of production value they couldn’t get from any sets they built. The fifth and final entry in the original run of Planet of the Apes movies looks unconvincing with a barebones forest village set where most of...

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes

This is the return to form worthy of a sequel of the original Planet of the Apes. The unrated version (the version originally screened for test audiences before those reactions forced some changes that softened the film) is the same kind of damning of humanity that was Taylor’s prostration in front of the Statue of Liberty. It’s not perfect, sharing some of the same flaws as the first two sequels in the franchise, but once it gets past a certain point, it’s laser focused on what it wants to do ...

Escape from the Planet of the Apes

This has a similar structural quirk to its predecessor, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, in that the movie doesn’t really seem to start until the halfway point. Everything up through the first forty-five minutes of both movies are almost entirely about justifying the movies’ mere existence in light of what came before. That was less of a problem in the previous film as it is in Escape from the Planet of the Apes where the two halves end up with vastly different tones and focuses that it hobbles ...

Beneath the Planet of the Apes

In terms of follow ups to surprisingly great films that should never have had a sequel, Beneath the Planet of the Apes is almost the exact kind of movie that it should have been to come after Planet of the Apes. It expands the world of the film in a new and interesting direction, continues the feeling of weirdness that helped the original, and even moves the thematic ideas of the original into even darker directions. However, to even get to that the movie repeats the original, almost beat for b...

Planet of the Apes (1968)

In retrospect, the great twist at the end of the very first Planet of the Apes movie feels incredibly telegraphed. There are clues everywhere about the nature of the world that George Taylor, astronaut, finds himself on, but the biggest key is the thematic focus of the entire movie up until that moment. If the ending wasn’t what it was, then the journey that the man at the center of the tale finds himself on would have little to nothing to do with the man himself as he’s portrayed in the openin...

Hobson’s Choice

It wasn’t one of David Lean’s epic masterpieces that has convinced me he was one of the greatest directors to ever work in film. No, it was this little comedy based on a little known stage play from the second decade of the twentieth century that convinced me. It’s a minor film in a filmography that includes Lawrence of Arabia and The Bridge on the River Kwai, but it demonstrates a near effortless command of the craft, turning a stage play into a wonderfully cinematic treat anchored by a trio o...

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

It’s still kind of shocking to me how well made this is almost sixty years after its release. John Frankenheimer really found ways to push his camera into odd angles film scenes in disconcerting ways to increase tension and anxiety all while translating a story that’s compelling and populating it with great characters. It’s rightfully held up as one of the great American political thrillers.

One of the things I find most interesting about how the story is built is how we know within fifteen min...

District 9

District 9 tries to do a few interesting things, and it largely succeeds. However, I think it also demonstrates the director’s, Neill Blomkamp’s, flaws that would come out more fully in his next two films, Elysium and Chappie.

In an alternate reality where a huge alien ship floats derelict over Johannesburg, South Africa, the country has been trying to deal with the over one million, essentially, refugees that have suddenly arrived. Initial hope led to conflict led to strife led to separation, ...

Come and See

There is a very specific historical moment that this film is evoking explicitly, the Nazi rape of Belorussia in the Second World War. The director, Elem Klimov, obviously internalized the violence visited upon the common people of the Soviet Union. Knowing that Soviet filmmakers often used Nazis as stand ins for their contemporary Soviet rulers, there may be an effort to attack them at the same time. However, it’s obvious that the actual events in Belorussia are the central point of anger.

In s...

Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation

Let me just start by saying that the first Starship Troopers sequel is bad. It is not good, and it’s not really questionable. However, I wouldn’t be writing about a little known movie, a direct to video sequel to a large science fiction movie that gained a cult following over the years, if it were just bad. There’s nothing particularly special about that pedigree to merit this kind of attention, however there’s something about the movie that does deserve some attention.

I actually remember when...