Closing Credits Theatre: Dune

Random Movie Report: Highlander 2: Renegade Version

It was always going to be difficult to make a Highlander sequel. Highlander has always been a really great idea for an action movie franchise, but the film's very premise works against it- if it's about immortals battling each other through the ages until only one is left, what do you do when there is, in fact, only one? How do you start up the conflict again without invalidating everything that happened already, and worse, just repeating what's already taken place?

The makers of Highlander 2 were entrusted to find the answers to these questions, and the search drove them mad. Highlander 2: The Quickening is the product of their insanity, a work both stylish and inept, audacious and cliché-ridden, so intensely stupid it wraps around to a kind of brilliance, but the brilliance of a character in a Lovecraft story after witnessing the nuclear chaos at the center of reality.  This review is based on the so-called "Renegade Version", a Director's Cut that tried to restore some semblance of sanity (the original cut was essentially finished by the film's insurance company), mainly by undoing a controversial plot point, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't help much.

Frasierquest 5.11: Ain't Nobody's Business if "I Do"

 

Niles: An engagement ring?  Dad must be about to ask Sherry to marry him.  Do you know what that means?

Frasier: Yes, we're going to hear what Mendelssohn's "Wedding March" sounds like on the banjo!

And it's the end of the road, for one character anyway. When "Ain't Nobody's Business if 'I Do'" aired, I don't think anyone really expected that Sherry would be a permanent fixture on the cast, but her departure is laced with more poignancy than expected. Sometimes sitcom relationships end on funny notes, and sometimes it's a little harder than that. This episode isn't short on comedy, but it treats the end of a long relationship as something worth mourning.

Daphne discovers an engagement ring in Martin's underwear drawer, and comes to the logical conclusion that he's about to pop the question to his longtime girlfriend. She shares her discovery with the Crane boys, and they're naturally less than thrilled at the prospect of Sherry becoming their new mom. Niles takes it a little far and hires a private detective (Tucker Smallwood) to look into Sherry's past to see if there's anything really worth worrying about, and while Frasier is apprehensive, the fact that Sherry has been married five times before is something he feels Dad should know. This of course leads to the inevitable Crane family argument.

The story retreads the familiar ground of Martin's sons having problems with his girlfriend, which may be one of the reasons this is the last Sherry episode. The writers may have figured that after all this time they had done all that could be done with the character, though of course Marsha Mason's availability is just as likely to have been an issue. In any case, it's an end that comes organically; Martin wants to find someone to marry again, and Sherry just doesn't want to go through that. It's the sort of final meeting that nobody wants but which seems inevitable.

Since none of this is funny, the humor has to revolve around Frasier and Niles being their usual selves. They don't really dictate the direction of the plot at all; Martin already knows about Sherry's prior marriages, so all they're doing is pissing him off. But they serve a narrative purpose, bringing up the subject of Sherry's past husbands so that the audience knows about that in advance of it being the reason she and Marty have to call it quits. It's a nice bit of plot legerdemain, steering us towards an unexpected conclusion without seeming obvious or contrived. And of course there's the whole business with Frasier embarrassing himself by still thinking Dad is about to propose to her as they're breaking up, but since the episode's not about him the sting fades quickly, and he ends up commiserating and watching basketball with his dad. (The fact that Jordan was still playing when this aired makes me feel very old indeed.)

What's interesting is just how focused this episode is on this storyline. Rare for this far in the series, there are no real subplots, and Daphne and Roz both only get about a scene apiece. It's not an entirely serious episode, with a lot of screentime spent on the "detective" plot which succeeds in making the Crane brothers look like nosy idiots. But knowing in retrospect what happens puts a pall over things, and so this episode isn't the most fun to revisit. (It's worth noting it also carries the show's weirdest end bumper, a sight gag based on a prop- a fish-shaped hors d'oeuvre display stand for a party Martin is hosting- that you'll barely notice in the episode proper.)

Still, it's a good send-off for Sherry, which she deserved; it's possible her presence would have gotten old as a regular, but Mason does an excellent job in the part, and at the end we get a strong picture of what Martin Crane wants out of his autumn years. It's a bittersweet goodbye which, in a way, foreshadows a much bigger change about to happen.

Written by Jay Kogen
Directed by David Lee
Aired January 13, 1998

Daphne: Sherry's never exactly liked me.  You don't think she'll try to make your father get rid of me, do you?

Frasier: Oh, Daphne, of course not.  He'd be lost without you.

 Niles: Yes, and even if by some chance that were to happen, Daphne, I could always use you. I, I would know of a position you could take ...services that you could perform. I would know of an opening...  [takes up the check] This is on me.

Academy of the Underrated: Giorgio Moroder's Metropolis (1984 release)

Now you may think that I've gone a little crazy. Everyone loves Metropolis, and what's more, I've already reviewed it! But this one needs some context. Composer and producer Giorgio Moroder released a partial restoration of this beloved silent film in 1984, at a time when the only other version was the bastardized US cut. To attract people to theaters, especially the kids who would normally have no interest in silent movies, he released it with a modern electronic rock score similar to the work he did for Scarface, Flashdance, etc., and featuring a number of familiar stars like Freddie Mercury, Pat Benatar, and Bonnie Tyler. Critics welcomed the new footage but scorned the music, and it's long been lambasted as an unnecessary modernizing touch on a timeless classic.

So I'm going to bat for it. I may be incredibly biased, since this was the way I first saw the film, but even then I knew the rock score was a sore point. But it works, and the reason it works is because the film itself is so timeless. It goes just as well with an electronic rock score as it does with its original orchestral accompaniment, and though it's been rendered a curiosity by the discovery of the complete version, it has its own aesthetic appeal.

Random Movie Report: Godzilla vs. Megalon

Every series has its nadir, and after a few years of falling budgets and a lack of interest, something had to give for Godzilla and company. Godzilla vs. Megalon is doubly an embarrassment for Toho, being not only its worst entry in the Godzilla series, but also one of its most widely seen abroad. It's arguable that this junky, cheaply made drag is responsible for most of the English-speaking world's perception of Godzilla films as campy trash. The poor thing never really had a chance, and while its ubiquity gives it a certain nostalgic charm for those of us (un)fortunate enough to have seen it as children, said charm wears off pretty quickly.

Random Movie Report: Godzilla vs. Gigan

Following the heady surrealism of Godzilla vs. Hedorah, Toho decided they needed to get back to tradition and make a movie that was just about giant monsters destroying cities and beating each other up. So seasoned kaiju director Jun Fukuda took the helm for Godzilla vs. Gigan, a big sci-fi brawl in which Godzilla and a friend face down space monsters like they did in the Sixties. But the Japanese film industry was a darker and less friendly place for such things, and Godzilla vs. Gigan suffers some of the worst effects of Toho's austerity. Cheapness leads to shortcuts, which blend with a few significant story problems to make a film that really is only for the fans. It has a few neat and quirky ideas, though, and introduces one of the franchise's most memorable villains.

Random Movie Report: Cosmopolis

You can count on David Cronenberg to deliver a very pleasant kind of discomfort. There's a frission underlying just about every film he's made, a sense of things that are not right and will probably never be right, but it's as alluring as it is disturbing- it's tempting to see what happens. Cosmopolis has its flaws but it manages a wonderful feeling that everything is about to spin out of control, and in its deliberate pacing and stubborn lack of realism it ranks with the filmmaker's adaptations of Naked Lunch and Crash (the good version).