review: THE BACK TO THE FUTURE TRILOGY

amazing poster by the great Drew Struzan

As anyone who follows my twitter (@TheRocketRobot) knows, on Friday night I and a couple of mates attended a marathon viewing of the complete Back to the Future trilogy at the Embassy theatre here in Wellington. This was, to be absolutely literal, a dream come true.

If you've read this blog, or my twitter, or even just talked casually to me in person then you'll know that I am a passionate defender of the cinema. Despite the multifarious options available, the cinema is still the undisputed best place to see a movie. We can argue the merits of 35mm vs DCP, but that's beside this particular point. And that was proved with the screening of the first Back to the Future. It was a packed audience - some 500 or 600 people - and there were fans and first-timers alike. But everyone, everyone, loved it. And this is why the cinema experience trumps anything else. When you're in the middle of an appreciative audience, all wrapped up in the unfolding cinematic magic on screen... well, you just don't understand why people would download and watch on a tiny screen.

And that's the other thing - the cinema screen. These three films happened to be DCPs, as Universal is apparently releasing a number of their classic films to celebrate their anniversary. But for someone like me, who has only ever seen these films on DVD, it was like watching an entirely new film. I never noticed how wildly animated Christopher Lloyd's face is, or how truly beguiling and enchanting Lea Thompson is. Not to mention the pleasure of a larger-than-life Crispin Glover, who's George McFly is so wonderfully weird, with that slight whisper of a voice and his limbs flailing about. And that's not even mentioning the secret hero of the cast: Thomas F. Wilson. His various Tannen's (whether they be young Biff, middle-aged Biff, old Biff, Griff or Mad Dog) are sneer-worthy villains, all of them without redeeming characteristics and just this side of moustache twirling. He's a big lug and the audience can't help but cheer as he is covered in manure again and again and again.

The first Back to the Future is still my favourite and, to my mind, the best of the trilogy. The emotional story is so strong and the script is unquestionable perfection. It's simply a tight adventure script, with great characters and humour that Hollywood just doesn't seem able to do any more. Anchored by all-time great performances from character actors, new comers and a TV star the first Back to the Future is the big-budget studio system at it's very best. And this showing of it was the greatest viewing I've ever had of it. I had the greatest time and loved the enthusiasm from the crowd: the DeLorean got a cheer on it's first appearance.

Part II is still a good film but it doesn't have the same emotional connection as the first one. To me, it works more on an intellectual level than the emotional as we unwind the tangle of time that Doc Brown's DeLorean has created. To some extent the second film is just further set-up for the third and you can all but see Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis attempting to live up to the promise of the end of the first film. It's still strange to me that Jennifer is picked up by the Doc to be taken to the future, only to be dumped for most of the rest of the film. Which is not to rag on the film entirely. The way Gale and Zemeckis tie Part II into the first film, going back into it and having Marty desperately run around trying to ensure everything happens as it did but also running into even more obstacles is a lot of great fun. And the extent of the set-ups for Part III are staggering. It just lacks that sweetness that was so inherent to the first. But hey, it did also give us a flying DeLorean, hoverboards and automatically lacing shoes.

Part III would be my second favourite of the trilogy and is just a whole lotta fun. I read a quote from Gale or Zemeckis somewhere that they set Part III in the Old West simply because they'd always wanted to make a Western. So they did. It's a blast of pure, unbridled fun to wrap up the trilogy as Doc and Marty play at cowboys in Hill Valley, 1885. Along the way Marty invents the frisbee, runs into his great-great-grandparents and the Doc falls in love. And there's that emotional story that helps tie in the film together and lets the audience in. If Part III is anyone's film, it's the Docs; he truly takes centre-stage as the sweet but badass blacksmith/inventor. To top everything off Part III was doing steampunk before steampunk was even a thing. So, I guess that's one "future" thing the trilogy was bang on the money with. Watching all three films on that big screen, back-to-back-to-Back you really pick up how tight all of the scripts are, how they have numerous set-ups and pay-offs (sometimes taking an entire film or more to pay-off) and how they have numerous echoes throughout each one. They hardly ever call attention to themselves but allow neat little moments for people paying attention.

Honestly, I never, ever thought I would get to see the first Back to the Future in a cinema, let alone a marathon of the entire trilogy. Absolutely a life dream fulfilled on Friday night and now I can only look forward to whatever comes next. The Indiana Jones trilogy? A Hitchcock marathon? Predator? RoboCop? Cinemas: you play 'em and I'll be there with a giant grin on my face and as many friends as I can get together in tow. 

IN APPRECIATION OF... ROBOCOP

"Come quietly or there will be... trouble."

I love RoboCop. No, that's not quite right. I unashamedly and unreservedly fuckin' love everything about the film RoboCop. I love the violence, the humour, Peter Weller, the 80's futurism, its subversiveness, RoboCop's MASSIVE gun, Miguel Ferrer, ED-209, ED-209 squealing, exploding Emil, Kurtwood Smith, Paul Verhoeven's balls, RoboCOP POV, "I'd buy that for a dollar!" and just damned everything.

The first time I ever watched Paul Verhoeven's muscular vision of a dystopian future, RoboCop, was on VHS, recorded off the telly. It was a, somewhat random, double-feature with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and those two films were my introduction to cinematic violence. While I was perhaps too young for RoboCop (the memory of my exact age has become dimmed with increasing age) I thrilled to it. The violence, while not disturbing me as much as the heart extraction in Temple of Doom, was certainly extreme. And I was far too young and immature to fully grasp the larger themes that Verhoeven was interested in. But something of them trickled through; something of the twisted humour, the rather anti-authoritarian and anti-corporate stance.

In the years since I have become a fan of Paul Verhoeven. The man has had his fair share of Hollywood stinkers - Hollow Man, Showgirls - but his standout films - Total Recall, Starship Troopers, Black Book - have been works of demented, uncompromising genius. 1987's RoboCop was the director's first major Hollywood work and is typical of his style and carries many of his cinematic quirks and obsessions; a propensity for gruesome violence, distrustful of corporate/government institutions and greed, science-fiction and a frank openness to sex and sexuality. Don't forget, this is a man who grew up in the Netherlands during the time of Nazi occupation and was surrounded by destruction and death for some of his most formative years.

But he melds, combines, synthesis these ideas and themes with a thrilling cinematic action-film. It has been stated that Verhoeven saw the character of RoboCop as a Christ-like figure; the shotgun blasts to officer Murphy's hands and arms representing the stigmata, while the shot to the head represents the Crown of Thorns. Murphy is then, of course, reborn. I love that a Verhoeven vision of Christ is a cyborg law enforcer carrying a massive Beretta in his leg. Or, more specifically, Verhoeven's vision of an American Christ - when words and turning the other cheek fails... BLAM! BLAM! BOOM!

Let's not forget that RoboCop is not solely a creation of Paul Verhoeven. In point of fact he initially rejected the script by Ed Neumeier and Michael Miner. Neither of them have written anything particularly decent since (Neumeier also wrote Verhoeven's hilarious and splattery Starship Troopers) but with RoboCop they managed to capture something of the zeitgeist.

In fact, I very much doubt if a film like RoboCop as it currently exists would be able to be made in today's Hollywood system. Past the surface details of the explosions and production design, RoboCop is a film brimming with ideas, subtext and thematic explorations. It's the kind of intelligent, yet still thrilling popcorn-entertainment, science-fiction that Hollywood doesn't really do anymore. That ground seems to be covered by lower budget films like Primer, District 9 and Monsters. 2010's Inception probably came the closest to a big-budget but still intelligent science-fiction film in recent years. But compare Nolan's dry, well-constructed intelligence and entertainment to Verhoeven's gory, funny, pop-infused, slyly subversive ride. To me, there's no contest. I know which film I'd prefer to watch over and over again.

From RoboCop, there have been any number of other works spinning out from the original film; a couple of sequels, a TV series, cartoons, video-games and  comic-books. He's faced off against Aliens, the Terminator and probably Rocky Balbooa. I'm quite happy to say I've not seen, read or played any of these. RoboCop remains, to me, a singular experience. Even if RoboCop 3 promised a RoboCop with a jetpack. The design of RoboCop, for all the arguments and near-fisticuffs that went into it, is iconic. The man behind the creation of that suit, the Rick Baker trained Rob Bottin, and Verhoeven by all reports clashed constantly, at one point almost coming to blows. Of course, none of that really matters; the proof of their work is up there on screen: RoboCop. A character so iconic, there was a movement to erect a statue to him in Detroit and who, bestride a unicorn with a very strong back, became a popular internet meme in 2008.

There is, as there always is, talk of a remake floating around. It's talk that has been in the ether for a number of years now. At one point it looked increasingly likely that Darren Arronofsky was going to be the one to bring it on home. And he would have been one of the few directors I actually would have trusted to do something interesting with the material. Like him or not, Aronofsky always has something to say in his films. However, he walked and it seemed as if RoboCop 2.0 would either fall by the wayside or be picked up by some hacky hack with nothing interesting to say like McG, Scott Derrickson or Len Wiseman. Instead, the current man attached is Brazilian director Jose Padilha. After seeing his Elite Squad II: The Enemy Within I'm a little happier about the remake. Elite Squad II was a solidly entertaining genre film, with a lot to say and an effective way of saying it. Could RoboCop be Padilha's RoboCop? Padilha has stated his film will explore more of what it means to be a man turned into a machine; Padilha is aiming for something more philosophical and less political it seems.

Approaching RoboCop as an overtly political film and statement is an interesting exercise and the comparisons to Neumeier and Verhoeven's Starship Troopers are readily apparent. Both men are on the political left; both liberals, yet both of these films can be seen as fascist and right-leaning. I instead see them as poking fun at these sorts of ideas, approaching them in a tongue-and-cheek manner. It's a delicate balancing act and Neumeier and Verhoeven just manage it. The use of fake news broadcasts, commercials (the 6000 SUX and Nuke 'Em boardgame) serve to set-up the wider world in amongst some truly absurd humour. Essentially, they're setting up an incorporated, fascist world and undercutting it at the same time.

But let's not forget: RoboCop is fun. A hell of a lot of fun in fact. When I watch it nowadays, I'm more aware of the ideas and themes going on in the film - RoboCop as a Christ-like figure or as a man struggling to regain his humanity; the send up of the "greed is good" mentality; the film even serves as a template for the modern superhero origin story. But there's a part of me that will always be that boy thrilling to the imperfect, B-movie, iconic, violent, funny, low-brow and deliriously glorious RoboCop. I hope to experience it on the big screen one day.

Part man. Part machine. All cop. Yer damn right.

Further watching:

RoboKid - the cutest little cyborg-crimefighter around. With a signed photo from RoboCop himself, Peter Weller.

Total Recall - Verhoeven's adaptation of the Philip K. Dick short-story We Can Remeber it For You Wholesale starring Arnie, Sharon Stone and a chick with three tits. Another insane & pulpy sci-fi ride with some larger questions lurking just below the surface. "Get your ass to Mars!"

Starship Troopers - the first Verhoeven film I saw in a cinema and one that is hilarious, explosive and fantastically bone-headed at times. Casper van Dien and Denise Richards are no great thespians but Neil Patrick Harris and Michael Ironside are a lot fun. "D'you wanna live forever?!"

Black Book - Verhoeven's first film back in his native Netherlands since his move to Hollywood. An epic, moving and just downright stunning film about one Jewish woman's attempts to survive during the Nazi occupation.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension - the Peter Weller starring cult classic that really is quite mad. Description doesn't really quite do it justice. "I've been ionized, but I'm okay now."

Elite Squad and Elite Squad II: The Enemy Within - RoboCop remake director Jose Padilha's first two feature films; excellent action films with a political message of their own. 

In Appreciation of... GHOSTBUSTERS

The other night I was privileged enough (along with 700-odd others) to see Ghostbusters back on the big screen, some 26 years afer it was first released.Ghostbusters is one of those films, one of those formative films that every film-lover has. For a lot of people of my generation it’s Star Wars. And, sure, Star Wars was a big influence on me, but it wasn’t formative. No those formative films, for me, are: RoboCop, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (both on one awesome VHS taped off the TV!), The Transformers Movie, The Blues Brothers, Monty Python’s Life of Brian and Ghostbusters.

When I first saw Ghostbusters (no doubt on TV), I couldn’t have been older than 6 or 7; I remember it being the first film to really scare me (and there is some truly frightening stuff going on). I even hid behind the couch during the Dana levitation scene! To this day, it is the only time I’ve done this and I really couldn’t tell you why it scared me so much. Just something about the whole sleeping “…four feet above her covers!” really freaked me out. This, of course, didn’t stop me running around school with my jersey tucked in my backpack with one arm hanging out as my No. 8 wire version of the proton pack.

Of course, at the age I was, I had no idea how damned hilarious Ghostbusters was. I didn’t know Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd and Harold Ramis were comedians, and Saturday Night Live alumni at that. Heck, I didn’t even know who they (or SNL) were. I knew there was humour in it (one of the greatest lines of all time: “Yes, it’s true. This man has no dick.”) but, with all the special effects and spookiness going on, the comedy totally missed me. Of course, I now realise it’s one of the greatest comedies of all time; not only is it a great supernatural blockbuster, it’s downright hilarious. One-liners are let fly with such regularity they trip over one another and just become part of the conversational dynamic.

And that dynamic, that wonderful relationship between the three leads, is what really drives the film. Harold Ramis’ Egon Spengler could almost be a Mad Scientist run amok, collecting “…spores moulds and fungus” and creating backpacks powered by unlicensed nuclear generators. But he’s held in check by the wide-eyed Ray Stantz, running around the old Fire Dept. building with his childlike enthusiasm, asking “Does this pole still work?” And Bill Murray is the wise-cracking parapsychologist, at once having a ball and also having a quiet snicker at the whole idea; he doesn’t act like a scientist but is instead “more like a game show host”. And sure, Murray does snaffle up all the best lines, and becomes the team’s de facto leader (he even comes out of the Stay Puft explosion relatively unscathed) but it never feels like they’re not all working as a team. Each of them has a part to play; even the (at first glance) perfunctory Winston Zeddemore – he’s the blue collar regular working stiff brought on to help the overworked ‘busters and he provides a brief average Joe glimpse on the proceedings.

And then of course there is the support – Sigourney Weaver as the haunted, and then possessed, Dana Barrett; Rick Moranis as the wonderfully nerdy accountant Louis Tully and the brilliantly dickheaded Walter Peck, played by veteran dickhead William Atherton (see Die Hard). The film wouldn’t be the same without any of them – it’s jarring to think of John Candy in the role of Louis Tully (the original actor cast, but he departed as his ideas – his Tully had a German accent and two dogs – weren’t being listened to. Thank goodness).

What really impresses with Ghostbusters is that it is absolutely fun science-fiction. More so even than Star Wars which, with its wise wizards, cocky fighters and noble knights carries itself far more seriously and po-faced. I love science-fiction, and I love sci-fi that explores ideas about who we are, where we're going and what it may look like when we get there. But there can't really be said to be a whole heck of a lot of fun sci-fi. Whereas, with Ghostbusters being run by comedians, they seem to be having a lot more fun with the whole conceit. And despite that fun, those laughs that so many little moments bring, it doesn’t shy away from the dark and scary. I’ve already mentioned the levitating Dana, but then there are also the demon arms in the sofa and the demon dogs (occasionally looking a little hokey in the stop-motion, but the puppets still look amazing) with their hellishly glowing eyes. Which is fantastic and totally works. It’s all a bit of a scare and a laugh, innit?

I, for one, hope the constantly talked about Ghostbusters 3 never happens. Ghostbusters 2 wasn’t all that great and just take a look at other belated sequels to 80’s classics: Blues Brothers 2000 and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. If it ain’t broke, don’t do a sequel 20-odd years down the track.

Ghostbusters is funny, smart, fantastical and a little scary. It has a top-notch cast working for a great script, and the more than occasional ad-lib. Ivan Reitman’s direction is spot on, balancing everything so the whole is more than the sum of its parts. It’s one of my all-time desert island favourite films and was a huge influence on me; not only in my taste in cinema and pop culture but in how I see the world. Watching the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man lumbering through downtown Manhattan is one of the greatest scenes in movies, and it was an absolute joy to see it on the big screen. Sure, some of the special effects don’t seem so special now (although a lot of the low-tech stuff is the stuff that works best. See the opening scene in the library) and the print we watched wasn’t in the best of nick. But absolutely none of that distracted from having a helluva blast at the cinema. Especially when there was 700 of us answering the question, “Who ya gonna call?”

“GHOSTBUSTERS!”


What else have they done?

Bill Murray (Venkman): a slew of things from Groundhog Day, Ed Wood, Hamlet, Garfield, Lost in Translation and a slew of films with Wes Anderson. Also, a lot of golfing.

Dan Ackroyd (Stantz, co-writer): Blues Brothers, Coneheads, My Girl, Grosse Point Blank. He also apparantly wrote some episodes of The Real Ghostbusters cartoon show and (I didn't even know this existed): The Blus Brothers Animated Series. Reserve Commander for the Police Dept. in Harahan, Louisiana and noted Spiritualist and UFOlogist.

Harold Ramis (Spengler, co-writer): writer on Groundhog Day, Analyze This and (sadly) Year One.

Sigourney Weaver (Dana Barrett): Aliens, Gorillas in the Mist, Galaxy Quest, The Ice Storm, Avatar. Basically, one of the biggest female stars of her generation.

Rick Moranis (Louis Tully): Honey I Shrunk the Kids (and sequels), Parenthood, The Flintstones and Spaceballs. Retired from acting in 1997 to raise his kids after the death of his wife in 1991.

Ernie Hudson (Winston Zeddemore): Congo, Mr. Magoo, Miss Congeniality and a bunch of TV.

Ivan Reitman (director): Twins, Dave, Junior, My Super Ex-Girlfriend and Jason Reitman.