Month: October 2020

Normally, I would try to leave politics off this blog and keep my vote to myself as far as elections go, but what happens in the next week and a half is far too important to stay on the sidelines.  The United States is at a crossroads, ladies and gentlemen.  In a week and half, on November 3rd, a choice will be made for the President of the United States of America.  We all have to decide what path this great nation of ours will follow.  Over the past 4 years, the United States has been run by an unhinged and self-deluded man who has done nothing but erode our standing in the world.  By rolling back many of President Obama’s policies, Donald Trump has made things a lot worse for the American people, especially those that are not as well-off as others.  Trump has attempted time and time again to eliminate the Affordable Care Act which has allowed more than 20 million people to gain access to health care that they wouldn’t have been able to otherwise.  He has promised to replace Obamacare with something greater.  He’s been saying that for 4 years and has never delivered.  He and his “people” have illegally cracked down on immigrants by separating the children from their parents who came here in search of a better life.  Those children were and are still being kept in cages while the parents were deported.  Currently, lawmakers are unable to find the parents of 545 children who separated, which means that most of these children may never see their parents again.  It is a clear and blatant violation of human rights and international law.

This year, the world got hit with the worst pandemic since the Spanish Flu of 1918.  While many countries around the world including New Zealand have done their part to lockdown and maintain social distancing to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the government and President of the United States has constantly downplayed the seriousness of this virus and have even threatened and bullied the CDC into doing and saying what they want.  Because of Trump’s arrogance and denial of science and proper safety protocols, over 200,000 American lives have been lost and millions more infected.  This pandemic has also caused many people to become unemployed.  Trump is continuously annoyed that news sources and social media are focusing on the pandemic.  His constant argument that CNN, MSNBC, and other news sources are “fake news,” has only added to the chaos that has afflicted this country of ours.  While people are continuing to suffer, Trump and his cronies are still trying to dismantle Obamacare and the Senate is pushing to fill Supreme Court seat with Amy Coney Barrett, a highly conservative judge with a record of being anti-Obamacare.  This administration has shown time and time again that it thinks that it is above the law and Trump is continuously trying to profit from his position.  Trump himself contracted the COVID-19 virus, but he hasn’t learned one thing from it.  In fact, he’s doubled-down on his lies that he’s immune and continuously insults the experts who know better.

Trump is also on record calling members of our armed services “suckers and losers.”  How many of us have had members of our families serving in the armed forces?  How does that statement resonate with you?  It’s not just COVID-19 that’s adding to the chaos.  Trump and his friends have put in people to try and suppress people’s right to vote, by attacking our postal service and attempting to intimidate voters by appealing to terrorist organizations like the Proud Boys or the Oath Keepers.  However, there is hope.   Over the past couple of weeks we’ve seen a massive turnout in terms of early voting.  Over 50 million Americans have voted early resulting in one of the largest voting turnouts in American history.  While voting suppression is real in many states across the country and we see long lines that last hours on end, it’s not deterring people from voting.  Not even the threat of white supremacist and terrorist organizations are keeping people from exercising their right.  The polls across the country show that Joe Biden is in the lead in key states.  However: We must remain ever vigilant.  We’ve seen numbers that looked like that Trump wouldn’t win the election in 2016 and yet, we ended up with the worst and most corrupt president in the history of this nation, a nation that our fathers and grandfathers have fought and died for.

We ARE at a crossroads, ladies and gentlemen.  What we do in the next week and a half will determine the path that this country will follow for decades.  Will we choose a path that will lead our country further into chaos, corruption, hate and fear?  Or will we work together to choose a path that leads us to a future filled with hope, determination, truth, and justice?  These are the virtues and values that every person of every faith can embrace.  Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have outlined plans to deal with the cornavirus, enhance Obamacare, raise the minimum wage, fix the economy, and restore our standing among our allies across the globe.  America has helped lead our allies to victory in two world wars and become a beacon of hope for millions around the world.  “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”  These words by Emma Lazarus are inscribed on the tablet on the Statue of Liberty in the great state of New York.  These words were a promise that this country has always struggled to fulfill.  We can fulfill that promise.  Together, we can become that beacon once again.  Because of the actions or inactions of our current administration, I have no choice but to endorse Joseph R. Biden, Jr for President of the United States and Kamala Harris for Vice President.  The Senate and the House are also a part of this system and we must vote accordingly.  The Senate, under the willfully weak leadership of Mitch McConnell has led this country further into ruin with his deliberate refusal to pass legislation that would benefit ALL Americans, not just Democrats.  By taking the Senate, the House AND the White House, we, as a people can usher in a brighter future for everyone.  Everyone.  Not just Americans, but for the people of the entire world.

November 3rd is judgment day for Donald Trump and his administration.  You don’t have to be a Democrat.  You don’t have to like Joe Biden or his policies.  This election is not about right or left.  It’s about right and wrong, and Trump has led us down the wrong path for 4 years.  We have to correct that course, so if you’ve never voted for a Democrat before, do it just this once.  This election is about justice and the rule of law.  It’s about responsibility and what it means to be an American.  Get out there and vote.  Do whatever it takes: In person or absentee/mail-in ballot.  Vote.  Make a difference and be proud of it.  Convince your friends and family members to vote if you can.  The future of our democracy depends on it.  Our future and the future of the free world depends on it.  Show the world that the United States of America can lead again.  The world will be watching.  Make them proud.  Make your families proud.  Make your country proud.  Make yourself proud.

Released: January 1989

Director: Sean S. Cunningham

Rated R

Run Time: 99 Minutes

Distributor: StudioCanal/TriStar Pictures/Paramount/Kino Lorber Studio Classics(Blu-Ray)

Genre: Science Fiction/Horror

Cast:
Taurean Blacque: Laidlaw
Nancy Everhard: Joyce Collins
Greg Evigan: McBride
Miguel Ferrer: Snyder
Nia Peeples: Scarpelli
Matt McCoy: Richardson
Cindy Pickett: Diane Norris
Marius Weyers: Van Gelder
Elya Baskin: Burciaga
Thom Bray: Hodges
Ronn Carroll: Osborne

If someone were to ask me what the best decade in film was, I would argue that it would the 80s.  Don’t get me wrong, the 70s gave us some of the greatest films of all time and one of those films changed the industry forever: Star Wars.  But when it comes to science fiction, horror, fantasy, and action movies:  The 8th decade of the 20th century runs away with it.  Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Terminator, Predator, Nightmare on Elm Street, Willow, Police Story, The Road Warrior.  I could go on and on about the number of outstanding movies that came out during that decade.  Why?  Newer techniques were being developed, and new up-and-coming film-makers like Peter Jackson and James Cameron were really beginning to make their mark.  Not only that, CGI had just barely begun to exist, so everything had to be done in front of the camera: Stunts, miniatures, and other visual effects.  This was the decade in which things were truly beginning to change.  Budgets for films began to explode and gave us bigger movies, and more risks were being taken.  Towards the end of the decade, there were a number of “underwater” movies that were in production: The Abyss, Leviathan, and Deep Star Six.  The big one was obviously The Abyss because it was being directed by James Cameron, and it was more of an underwater-adventure film.  However, Leviathan and Deep Star Six were strictly on the horror side of science fiction.  Earlier this week, Kino Lorber Studio Classics released Deep Star Six for the first on Blu-Ray, and it is this film that I am reviewing for you ladies and gents this fine evening.

In the future, the United States has established a top-secret base at the bottom of the ocean.  Populated by a handful of scientists and engineers, the base is a staging ground from which they have to secure a number of nuclear missiles to prove to the US Navy that a permanent colony can exist at that depth.  During the last week of their deployment, the good folks led by Captain Laidlaw have run into a bit of a snag.  The area where they plan to put the missile sled has a massive cavern underneath it.  Against the protests of the young Scarpelli, the head scientist, Van Gelder orders that the cavern be collapsed to place the missiles.  When they do, they unwittingly unleash something large that begins to wreak havoc on the crew of Deep Star Six.  I’m going to say it:  The story is silly as hell.  The story is very similar to the ones in Leviathan and other similar films:  People exploring parts of the planet/galaxy that were not meant to be explored by humans end up encountering something that sees them as a midnight snack.  The recently released Underwater is exactly the same kind of movie.  How well the story works, depends on who is at the helm and how well it’s done.  Deep Star Six was directed by Sean S. Cunningham of Friday The 13th fame and written by Lewis Abernathy and Geof Miller.  For the kind of movie that it is, Deep Star Six still manages to work over 30 years after it’s initial release.

In terms of acting, everybody here does a great job, despite the fact that most of the characters are fairly two-dimensional.  Greg Evigan is the every-man blue-collar worker McBride while Nancy Everhard is the trying-not-to-be-the-damsel-in-distress Collins, who also happens to be McBride’s love interest.  Matt McCoy plays Richardson, the resident jokester.  Marius Weyers plays Van Gelder, the guy that designed the station while Taurean Blacque plays the tough-but-fair-and-likable Laidlaw.  Everyone is really good, but the real stand-out is Snyder, played by the late, great Miguel Ferrer.  Miguel was such a fantastic actor that he gives Snyder a depth and range that the character doesn’t really deserve.  Yet, when the character is put in a very stressful situation, he’s almost already at the breaking point, and a lot of people could relate to that.  Ferrer plays the character like he’s wound up to the point he’s going to snap, which he eventually does, constantly making the wrong decisions.  He actually comes across like a real human being, and I have to give Miguel Ferrer credit for making a weasel like Snyder seem relatable.  Yeah, the characters make some dumb decisions, but what would you do in the event you come across a giant undersea scorpion?

Let’s talk about that monster and some of the effects here.  For visual effects, there’s a lot of miniature work here.  It’s even more evident when you watch the film in high-definition.  This was the late 80s, so CGI really wasn’t an option, and considering that Deep Star Six was a low-budget movie at the time, they could only do so much.  What really sells some of that was how they shot dry-for-wet for certain exterior shots.  They kind of had to, so people could see what was going on, but they added particles and other elements to make it look like it was underwater.  It’s basic stuff, but it’s effective.  Some of the matte paintings are incredible, like the exterior of the main base.  It’s pretty cool.  The creature itself doesn’t show up until about an hour into the movie when everything else is going wrong for the crew.  When it shows up, it makes an impression.  The creature is based on an extinct arthropod called the eurypterid.  Basically, it’s an ancient sea scorpion.  Having one of those suckers show up suddenly would be pretty terrifying.  It was done practically and on set.  It’s remarkable how cool this thing is.  But it does bring up an issue that I have with the sets and overall design of the film.  I’ll get to that in a moment.  The make-up effects and gore were handled by Robert Kurtzman and Greg Nicotero who would go on to form their own effects company called the KNB Effects Group.  This was one of their earlier efforts, and it’s pretty good.

I was watching the special features on the Blu-Ray for this film and they brought up a lot of interesting things.  There’s a lot of inconsistencies here and most of it has to do with the size of the creature and how it moves through the base.  For a creature that size, hiding in a bay that is small as Deep Star Six is damn near impossible, especially given the amount of water that was in the bay.  Not only that, the creature managed to not only get out of that bay but it also managed to find its way through the command center and fit through the med bay door.  I’m willing to suspend my disbelief for a bit, but there are some things that just aren’t physically possible.  Not only that, the monster survives a nuclear explosion.  How do you figure that one out?  Obviously some film-trickery was used to try and convince the audience that it’s possible.  This is where the writing kind of takes a nose-dive.  There’s a lot of gaps in logic in how the characters behave and in how certain situations just happen.  Snyder constantly screwing up?  Once, maybe twice, I would be okay with, but almost every single time?  To be fair, the writing for this movie occurred during a writer’s strike during the late 80s.  As a result the script wasn’t complete when they started shooting.  Lewis Abernathy and Geof Miller pretty much tear this thing apart in their commentary that they did for the film.  While it was highly amusing, it definitely revealed a lot of issues that this film had in getting made, especially when it came to the script and the writing.  The fact that the film still manages to be tense and entertaining is a testament to Sean S. Cunningham’s talents as a director and the performances of the cast.  The visual effects and creature designs were also really good, considering the various problems.  Ultimately, I think the film still holds up despite its issues and remains one of the more entertaining creature features from the 80s.

I’ve had Deep Star Six on DVD for years.  I bought it used at GameStop when they sold used movies.  Sadly, the visual quality of the film was god-awful in a cheap-looking 4:3 format.  It looked like they had just ripped it from the VHS tape and added a menu to it.  No special features or anything.  Thankfully, Kino Lorber Studio Classics released the Blu-Ray edition of this film earlier this week.  Say what you will about the film itself, Kino Lorber has gone above and beyond with their special features.  The film comes in a 2.35:1 widescreen format, which is about normal for widescreen.  For special features, we have two audio commentaries, one with Sean S. Cunningham and Visual Effects Supervisor James Isaac.  The second and the best commentary is with screenwriters Lewis Abernathy and Geof Miller who pull no punches with the film.  There is also an isolated score selection and audio interview with Harry Manfredini, the film’s composer. From The Deep has interviews with Creature Effects and Special Make-up Designer Mark Shostrom, Creature Supervisor Greg Nicotero and Creature Artist Robert Kurtzman.  The Survivors includes all-new interviews with Nancy Everhard and Greg Evigan.  Water Damage is an interview with the film’s stunt co-ordinator Kane Hodder.  The disc also includes vintage interview clips with the cast and crew as well as the original EPK(electronic press kit), behind-the-scenes footage, an image gallery and the film’s original teaser and theatrical trailers.  As a bonus, the disc also includes a trailer for Deep Rising, also released by Kino Lorber.  It’s a really solid offering for a movie that wasn’t the biggest or most-liked when it was released.  Thankfully, I think that time has treated the film a bit more fairly.  If you’re a fan of Deep Star Six, you need to pick this up.  It’s worth going in your collection.  I honestly would still recommend the film as pretty good way to spend 99 minutes of your time.

My Final Recommendation: Stop trying to explore/exploit the bottom of the ocean!  It never ends well.
Movie: 8/10
Blu-Ray: 9.5/10

This is not going to be one of my typical posts that has pictures and reviews and stuff like that.  No, this is a far more serious post that I’m used to making, but things need to be said.  Let’s call a spade a spade: 2020 sucks.  There’s no getting around it.  This has been a very bad year for everyone around the world.  The COVID-19 virus has swept the entire planet in a pandemic that continues to wreak havoc on people’s lives and the global economy.  Here, in the United States, it’s even managed to infect the White House and the Presidency.  This is the only time I will get political here.  This administration could’ve avoided this situation if they took the threat of COVID-19 seriously.  Instead, they decided to downplay it, costing the lives of over 200,000 Americans, and leaving millions more infected and unemployed.  The situation here in the United States is the result of bad leadership.  With that said, how has the pandemic affected the film and movie theater industries?  To put it bluntly: Catastrophic.  Most people haven’t been able to go to theaters since March when movie theaters start shutting down.  Back in August, theaters started opening back up with older movies to entice people back with films like Empire Strikes Back, Independence Day, and Avengers: Endgame.  You know, the movies that theater-goers love to see on the big screen.  Unfortunately, over the course of the year, movies been constantly pushed back for months and even up to a year, which doesn’t leave a lot for theaters to deal with.  Just  recently, according to Variety and other sources, the latest James Bond film, No Time To Die got pushed back to April of 2021.  Even worse, is that as of this writing, Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Dune just got kicked back almost a full year to October of 2021.  That basically leaves Disney’s Soul and Warner Bros.’ Wonder Woman ’84 for December.  That’s it.  That’s all we’ve got right now, and there’s a very strong possibility that Wonder Woman will get moved.

Last month, I managed to get back to theaters for the first time in months to see Christopher Nolan’s Tenet.  Fantastic movie, and I loved the theater experience, however, there weren’t a lot of people in the theater with me.  The film has made a little over 300 million dollars world-wide.  Considering the circumstances, that’s not actually awful, but there’s a problem:  The movie cost upwards of 200 million to make, so it’s not likely to break even over the course of the film’s life.  It also didn’t have the impact that Warner Bros. and movie theaters were hoping for.  They were hoping for the film to draw audiences back into theaters, so they could really start to release more of their bigger budget blockbusters like No Time To Die.  It didn’t happen.  It didn’t happen, because in some of the bigger markets in the United States, like New York and Los Angeles, theaters are still closed, so people can’t get there.  They would have to drive for hours just to find an open theater.  Most people aren’t willing to do that, especially now.  Because Tenet didn’t have the momentum that studios and theaters were hoping for, other studios have begun pushing back their films to next year, in the hopes that this pandemic will subside or be better handled by then.  As a result, theater chains like Regal, which is owned by Cineworld, who runs theaters in both the United States AND the U.K., have just announced that they will be closing their doors at the end of business on Thursday.  This doesn’t mean that theaters are going out of business, at least not yet.  As John Campea said on his YouTube channel, they’re entering survival mode.  They can’t keep their business running if they don’t have new movies to play.  It’s not financially feasible.  I expect AMC’s theaters to do the same as well as Cinemark and MegaPlex here in Utah.

That’s not to say that movies aren’t coming out, but  the movies that are currently being released are generally indie movies and films that have been moved to online streaming services.  The film industry is in uncharted territory now.  There is no rule book or blueprint for how things should proceed.  Decisions are being made based on the current information that studios and theaters have, and that changes from day to day.  Can movie theaters survive until April?  I think they can, and I think they will, IF people start taking this pandemic far more seriously than they have been all year, and start being responsible by wearing their masks and maintaining social distancing.  But it is incumbent for people to be responsible and do what they are being asked/told to do.  If we can be responsible and help get this pandemic under some control, then I believe that 2021 could be an epic year for movies.  At this point, 2020 is a lost cause.  There’s no getting around it, but I really do hope that things will turn around for next year.  They have to.  Until then, stay safe, be responsible, and we’ll all get through this together.