Backyard Movie Night was a 3D triple bill. First was ROBOT MONSTER (1953). Having never seen this, I only know its infamous reputation as one of the Worst Films Ever Made. After watching the 3D Blu-ray, I can say that it is like most films given that title: Not even close to the worst.
Like most films given that distinction, this one is just too much of its own weird thing. I certainly wouldn’t call it “good”, but I was glued to the screen nonetheless. It’s almost like outsider art, the way it presents a guy in a gorilla suit and a diver’s helmet and tells us “This guy right here? He’s an alien who managed to destroy all life on Earth. He’s that good.”
(It’s more impressive than the Psychlos defeating all of Earth’s militaries in nine minutes.)
Turns out there are eight people left, so maybe he’s not *that* good. And so in between hanging out in his cave — communicating to his superior on what appears to be a mirror on top of a chest of drawers, working with machines that make bubbles for some reason — “Ro-man” stalks the “hu-mans”.
Ro-man tells the humans that if they give up, he will give them a painless death. Otherwise, they’re gonna take the scenic route to Oblivion.
There are some surprisingly dark moments in this goofy movie, like when the father of the group casually mentions that the gun he’s carrying is not for defense purposes, it’s for taking him and his loved ones out a la THE MIST when the time comes.
Believe it or not, I found it kind of effective, specifically the doom-laden atmosphere of the whole thing. Whenever our hu-mans are looking to come out on top of things, here comes another transmission from Ro-man, pointing at them not unlike those shitty Grim Reaper tattoos that say “YOUR NEXT!” (sic) on them, telling them how their plans won’t work, with Elmer Bernstein’s portentous score of Death blaring over it.
Director Phil Tucker attempted suicide after this movie, and yeah, that tracks, because it’s one of those movies where you can catch traces of the director’s sickness here and there, in between the bad acting and ridiculous scenarios.
The 3D was pretty snazzy; in addition to the bubbles, there’s a nice effect where separate images on the left and right eye overlap.
Anyway, had there been any angora or crossdressing, you’d have the best Ed Wood film that Ed Wood never made.
Next was AMITYVILLE 3-D (1983), with Tony Roberts as a recently-divorced journalist who gets a great deal on a house, on account of that house being the site of a murder-suicide. Soon, the house starts pulling its haunted shenanigans, before upgrading to putting some serious hurt on Roberts and those around him.
Not particularly scary (or good), but I think there’s enjoyment to be had if seen as a 1950s drive-in scare flick updated to the 80s. In an alternate universe, MST3K would’ve covered this during the Joel era, except it would’ve been one of those Film Ventures International pick-ups with opening/closing credits made on a public access-quality character generator, with an alternate title like “Demon in the House” or something.
The 3D added to the fun, with director Richard Fleischer and d.o.p. Fred Schuler showing no shame in shoving objects directly at the audience.
It doesn’t help that Roberts is such a dunce, I get that he has no time for superstitions, but it gets ridiculous. I found myself liking everybody else over him, especially Tess Harper as Roberts’ ex-wife; she gives the best (and most sympathetic) performance. Candy Clark plays Roberts’ partner who spends the entire movie horrified that something really bad is going to happen to her, and then it does; that’s one of my favorite horror tropes, btw, the scaredy-cat/walking self-fulfilling prophecy.
Also, Lori Loughlin and Meg Ryan show up, and while I’m not a big fan of how girls generally looked in the 80s, I gotta say they looked really nice here. (I hope that reads as pervy-uncle as I intended it.)
Last was GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE (2014), in which Jean-Luc Godard presents two couples going through the same thing; buying books, philosophizing, watching DVDs, philosophizing, driving around, showering, philosophizing, walking around naked, philosophizing, taking watery shits in front of each other, philosophizing, and so on and so forth.
Also, there are occasional cutaways to a dog, who is awesome by virtue of the fact that he’s a dog. The narrator and characters all remark at one point or another how animals are better at taking in the world, because they don’t complicate with the kind of bullshit hu-mans are wont to do.
The film is right. Animals rule, hu-mans drool.
I fear I might have made this sound simpler than it plays out. This is Godard, after all, a filmmaker who in his younger years was known for fucking around and breaking rules in with a form of storytelling that he thought was already getting old. If he was bored then, then it shouldn’t surprise you how bored he must’ve been by the time he made this film, in his 80s.
It’s not enough for him to shoot this in 3D, he has to jack around with the format in any way possible. One can imagine Godard feeling like a kid again, doing things with 3D that either you’re not supposed to do, or never thought to do.
He messes with the perspectives, the lighting, the angles. At one point, Godard (and cinematographer Fabrice Aragno) make this odd move of keeping the left lens on a man sitting down on a bench, while moving the right lens away from him as it follows a woman going to talk to another man a couple yards away. I’d close my left eye to see the woman, and then if I closed my right eye, I’d only see the man.
I’m not sure what kind of use could come out of such a technique, but I’m glad Godard actually bothered to do it, because I’m sure it’s the kind of thing a camera nerd will shame you for even entertaining the thought of pulling off. And so I’d like to imagine those very same camera nerds pulling what’s left of the hair on their know-it-all No You Can’t Do That heads.
I feel less enthused about his wild sound mix, which randomly cues tracks from DJs like Beethoven and Tchaikovsky (they make their own beats!), only to just as randomly cut them off. The sound is also all over the place, sometimes playing from the left speaker before moving to the right, and the volume alternates between too low and too loud.
I’m not going to pretend I understood all of it, and I’m not even sure I was supposed to understand *any* of it. It’s very much Godard expressing himself, and he probably couldn’t give a good god damn if you could make heads, tails, or snails from it.
And I’ll be honest, some of it left me thinking that if this had been made by some rando, instead of one of the legends behind the French New Wave, it’d probably end up being covered on some annoying OMG How Did Dis Bad Movie Get Made WTF?!? channel on YouTube, rather than gather awards and accolades by the cine-literati.
But it sure is *something*, and whatever that something is, I felt a feeling throughout that I can’t classify as Negative. Some of it was even pretty funny — intentionally so, even! For The Silo, E.F. Contentmenthttps://www.facebook.com/efcontentment.