The FilmNerds Blog

The Movie: The Transformers: The Movie (1986)

Spoiler Level: Moderate to High

The Setup: After a deadly attack on the Autobots’ base on Earth and a fateful showdown with Optimus Prime, the mortally wounded Deception leader Megatron drifts through empty abyss of deep space to die along with his fallen minions. Soon, Megatron floats into the path of the colossal and all-powerful planet-eating Unicron (voiced by Orson Welles in his final film role; yes, THAT Orson Welles!), who tells the Transformer he’s been summoned for “a purpose.” Unicron offers him and his cronies new bodies and weapons and commands them to help him destroy the Autobot Matrix of Leadership, the one thing that can stand in the planet-gorger’s way. After some resistance, the ego-maniacal Megatron accepts Unicron’s proposition and undergoes his final transformation into the Autobot nemesis Galvatron.

Why It’s Great: My fellow Film Nerds understand, and in some cases share, my deep affinity for Nelson Shin’s TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE, the 1986 film adaptation of the beloved television series (ahem, and toy line), which I personally feel has stood the test of time and remained a masterpiece.

My film nerd compadres should also know I’m a basketball nut, and I recently noticed the oddest parallel while reflecting on the 2010-11 NBA season. As many know, two-time MVP LeBron James opted for free agency last summer and joined his buddy Dwyane Wade at the Miami Heat, who subsequently reached the finals and lost to the Dallas Mavericks (go Mavs).

Looking back, the pairing got me thinking about this scene from Transformers, and I’ll tell you why. The basketball world was curious about James’ decision to join the Heat, forming what many considered a “super-team” with the likes of Wade and all-star free agent Chris Bosh. Most thought James might stay in Cleveland or join squads that just made more sense from a basketball and financial standpoint, like Chicago or New York.

But it turns out the guy wanted to take his talents to South Beach and play with his buddies.

Lurking in the shadows in all this is Wade, the former finals MVP turned recruiter. Somehow, Wade managed to convince one all-star and arguably the best player alive to join him to win not five, not six, not even…you get the point. The critics tore into LeBron, calling him a quitter, a guy who couldn’t lead a team to glory on his own. He had to take the easy way out and join a cold-blooded killer on the court like Wade to get it done.

So that got me thinking about the conversation that took place between Wade and James and whatever methods the Miami superstar used to sway the “king.” All I could think about was Unicron and Megatron’s first meeting. LeBron, the self-proclaimed “chosen one,” was the new savior of the NBA, a Michael Jordan/Magic Johnson hybrid that would dominate for years to come. Nobody ever doubted LeBron’s talent and sheer physical domination of his opponents. But he lacked a key ingredient that makes champions of these men: the killer instinct. Jordan had it. Magic had it. Larry Bird had it. Kobe Bryant has it. And Wade has it.

From my perspective, Wade played the best psychological game in this free agency free-for-all period and recruited LeBron like no one else could. He convinced LeBron the Heat would be his team and that he would the credit as the player who led them to the promise land. But Wade is an evil genius. Already an NBA champ, he new the media would perceive whatever success LeBron and the Heat achieved as a result of pairing with a winner like Wade who could take over when LeBron couldn’t. What kind of sway, or control, does Wade have over LeBron? Should we believe this idea that these guys are really good friends and wanted to win together? Why didn’t LeBron want to win it on his own?

Either way, that got me thinking about this scene and how that meeting might have gone down. Below is a little dialogue that I think might have prefaced Wade’s final pitch/command to LeBron, which finally convinced him to take his talents to South Beach.

Unicron/Wade: I have summoned you here for a purpose…

Megatron/LeBron: Nobody summons Megatron!

Unicron/Wade: Then it pleases me to be the first.

Megatron/LeBron: State your business…

Unicron/Wade: This is my command…

…And lo, the Miami Heat as we know it were born.

Beyond whatever went down in the NBA, let us praise Shin, writer Ron Friedman and composer Vince DiCola for creating an unforgettably ominous mood that has stuck with me since early childhood.

The moments between Megatron and Unicron are appropriately menacing, these quips between dueling cybertronic archvillains. But what sells this whole sequence is the actual transformation from Megatron into Galvatron, this birth of a new Autobot enemy. DiCola absolutely murders it, along with the animators, as we see a villain we’ve grown so familiar with find a way to unfairly extend his life after our hero has lost his and become even younger and more powerful.

Call me crazy (and I know plenty of you will for this), but this scene brings rich and sophisticated dialogue complete with high stakes that I feel like Orson Welles was proud to deliver, albeit in a kitschy way. The man never really sat out on a performance, not even this one. And I’m sure he’s as pleased as I am that he book-ended his career with Citizen Kane and Transformers: The Movie.

The bloodless battle between DC and Marvel has raged since the breakout of the Silver Age of comic books in the 1960’s. Along with DC re-establishing The Flash and Green Lantern, Marvel helped bring superhero comics back to popularity with characters like The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and the X-Men. The battle has now extended, in earnest, to cinema, after some false starts in the 80’s and 90’s. While the war still trades victories in the comic book world, DC has all but won the animation battleground with the brilliant self-contained continuity and stylistic integrity of their Batman, Superman, and the Justice League shows (not to mention some fine animated features).

In cinema, however, Marvel seems to be winning with a quantitative approach. After establishing enough capital to strike out on their own as an essentially self-sustaining company, Marvel has pounded out a strong series of popcorn movies, focusing on continuity and thrift over auteur-minded cinematic voice (admittedly after the failure of the very auteur-driven Hulk). Their approach resembles the classic Hollywood filmmaking engine of the 1930′s and 40′s, cranking out a consistent, slick, committee-driven catalogue made up of the Iron Man films, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger. None of these films falls under a B-, and none of them rise above an A- in my estimation… all very stable and safe ventures.

DC, on the other hand, has struggled to crank out consistent studio crowd-pleasers. Many of their films become stuck in development hell for years. It seems DC fails at the type of committee-driven consistency that Marvel has attained, most likely because of their strong tie to parent company Warner Brothers. DC movies are made like any other studio movie, and that process can be murder on source material with deep-running roots and broad possibilities. Although I’ve not seen it, the proof seems to be in Green Lantern, a movie that aimed to establish a cinematic DC continuity, but faultered amidst heavy studio meddling and grossly unfair market expectations.

 

When DC films do succeed, however, they’re more akin to the auteur-driven films of the 1970’s; guided by a clear directorial voice that, despite straying from source material, still manages to result in singular, unique “films”: Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Superman Returns, and Watchmen. Like them or not, each of these is driven by an unmistakable directorial vision. They function almost in the way a graphic novel is driven by an artist/writer collaboration, rather than a monthly serial.

 

Clearly, an auteur mentality is DC’s best chance at giving audiences a flipside to Marvel’s candy-coated coin.  Let’s ditch the attempts at crossover continuity and tonal consistency amongst franchises. Go let some name-brand directors explore these characters and create true genre cinema, outside of the superhero sub-category.

 

Here are some other DC characters that deserve feature films, paired with the perfect and most interesting directors to get the job done. Comic book nerds beware… These guys would value subversion over mythology.

 

The Coen Brothers’ SHAZAM!

The Characters: Billy Batson is a homeless orphan that has been granted magical powers by the wizard Shazam, which give him the ability to transform into an alternate entity: The all-powerful, hulking Captain Marvel. With roots deep in the Golden Age of comics, Batson and Marvel give us an interesting flip-side look at what childhood and masculinity were perceived to be in the 1940’s.

The Auteurs: I’ll make the strong argument that there are no filmmakers alive than can depict an expressionist ideal of post-World War II America better than Joel & Ethan Coen (The Man Who Wasn’t There, The Hudsucker Proxy). Combine that with their youthful energy (Raising Arizona) and respect for childhood (A Serious Man, True Grit), and you’ve got yourself a perfect combination.

The Movie: The Coens cast Josh Brolin as a juiced-up Captain Marvel in a 40’s adventure film with the suspense of No Country for Old Men and the twisting reality of Barton Fink.

 

Steven Soderbergh’s Green Arrow

The Character: Green Arrow is the superhero alter-ego of Star City’s playboy tycoon, Oliver Queen. The billionaire makes like a medieval archer in his spare time, on a mission to quell injustice. The Robin Hood connection was enhanced during the Adams/O’Neill run of the 1970’s, and since then, Green Arrow has only become more socially conscious, a more sardonic vigilante than his colleague in Gotham City, always looking out for the plight of the underpriveledged.

The Auteur: When I think of Soderburgh, two things come to mind: Style and Social Justice. The man can make anyone look cool (Ocean’s Eleven, Out of Sight), and seems to be able to approach any social topic with a measure of balance (Traffic, The Girlfriend Experience).

The Movie: Imagine a Green Arrow movie where Oliver Queen’s self-righteous mission is tempered by the snazziest, snobbiest threads along with the LSU alumnus’ wry brand of sarcasm, grounded action, and visual flare.

 

Alfonso Cuaron’s Legion of Superheroes

The Characters: The Legion is a unique team that was introduced to DC readers in a late 50′s Superboy story (Adventure Comics #247). They hail from the 30^th century, when superheroes, all inspired by Superboy, are commonplace and organized in communities. The catch is that all of the Legionairres are teenagers, essentially X-Men from the future.

The Auteur: Alfonso Cuaron is at his best when examining childhood. His Y tu mama tambien and Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban are angsty and, in the case of Y tu mama tambien, provocative examinations of our developmental years. Even his greatest film, Children of Men, examines the impact of children by way of complete omission. Combining Cuaron’s youth-oriented instincts with the technical wizardry he pulls off in A Little Princess, Azkaban, and Children of Men would be a startling direction for the Legion, possibly the most “Silver Age” of all the surviving DC properties from the late 50s and early 60s.

The Movie: Expensive, challenging, and emotionally volatile, but still a roller coaster ride, this is probably the imaginary movie on this list I’d like to see most.

 

Gus Van Sant’s Sandman Mystery Theatre

The Characters: The most popular iteration of a character called Sandman is currently the character known as Dream, from Neil Gaiman’s ethereal Vertigo series from the 1990’s. His world of “Sandman’ is not at all related to the golden age vigilante known as Sandman, who solved mysteries in grimy urban settings behind a World War I gas mask, putting criminals to sleep with knock-out gas. Imagine The Shadow, minus the hocus pocus. Sandman Mystery Theatre, specifically, is a Vertigo series from the 1990s in which writers Matt Wagner and Steven Seagle resurrected the long-dormant character.

The Auteur: I’ll be honest. I have never seen a Gus Van Sant movie other than Milk. I’ll proceed whilst dodging tomatoes.

The Movie: Now that that’s out of the way, just imagine this: A stripped-down, low tech mystery story in the (reportedly) lyrical and barren style of Elephant or Paranoid Park, focusing on an obsessed masked man. Do I really need to say more?

Quentin Tarantino’s Spectre

The Character: A revenge-driven ghost that acts as the Wrath of God incarnate.

The Auteur: Not many people play the revenge game better these days than the man who brought us Kill Bill and Inglourious Basterds.

The Movie: DC Animation recently released a grindhouse-styled Spectre short that showed off some real flair. Yes, it was overwrought and apparent, even more so than a Tarantino movie, but the director of Pulp Fiction has always brushed with Old Testament vengeance. This would be the most literal interpretation of that idea.

 

Terrence Malick’s Starman

The Characters: Starman is a tricky character, having gone through many iterations and identities over the years. His power is simple: he has a cosmic wand that allows him to bend reality with “stellar radiation”. In recent years, James Robinson has written the character in a critically acclaimed way by portraying a cluttered, gutter punk descendant of the original Starman, struggling with his family’s legacy.

The Auteur: Hot off the heels of his most challenging film, Tree of Life, Malick has once again proven that he is a cinematic voice like no other. His name, evoking poetic elliptical editing and dreamy camerawork, is probably the most prestigiously regarded name in movies today. In fact, I feel like suggesting Malick should spend his temporal currency on a superhero film will probably get me into more hot water than admitting I’ve seen little of Van Sant’s oeuvre.

The Movie: That said, if I was a studio exec, I would write Malick a check for $300 million and an unlimited schedule to allow him to ruminate about the implications of a loser gaining the ability to warp the universe around him.

Then I’d get fired.

But my grandkids would thank me when they got to college.

 

Pedro Almodovar’s Hawkman & Hawkgirl

The Characters: With origins  more varied and convoluted than Starman’s, the Hawks have the most widely publicized, cluttered backstory- so much so that its confusing elements have been written into numerous origin reboots! At this moment (I think), the story has diverged greatly from Gardner Fox’s original mythology. Hawkman is a reincarnated Egyptian prince, living in the body of archaeologist Carter Hall. Using armor made of an other-wordly element called Nth metal, Hawkman fights crime with super strength and the the ability fly. The hitch is that in ancient Egypt, he was married to a princess, who has also been reincarnated into the body of Hawkgirl (Shiera Sanders), who does not remember this formerly requited love. You get my point about the confusion. Just thank me that I left out Hawkworld.

The Auteur: Almodovar is at his best when he’s juggling strange romantic trajectories (Talk to Her), and dealing with the tension that’s generated out of these internal struggles (Volver). He also injects his films with a tenuous sense of reality, often allowing for art to conquer logic.

The Movie: Would it be sacrilege or possibly ethnically ignorant for me to suggest Almodovar re-locate the Hawks’ ancient royalty to the Mayan civilization? How about casting Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz as the leads, struggling to come to terms with their cosmic responsibility to fight tyranny and Carter’s determination to convince Shiera is his eternal soulmate?

 

So there you have it. Seven directors that deserve a giant playground, and seven DC characters that deserve a serious cinematic treatment. So, I’ve done my part saving DC comic book movies by quickly writing a little-seen, easily digestible blog post from the comfort of my living room. The ball is in Warner Brothers’ court.

The Movie: Back to the Future (1985)

Spoiler Level: VERY High

The Setup: Marty McFly’s (Michael J. Fox) carefully laid plans to stage a romantic meet cute for his future parents, thereby assuring his own existence, have gone awry thanks to über-bully Biff (Thomas F. Wilson). Now instead of finding a play-acting Marty in the car with Lorraine (Lea Thompson), George McFly (Crispin Glover) swings open the door to find his much-larger and very hostile archnemesis waiting for him.

Why It’s Great: As the scene begins, George is already dealing with frayed nerves and isn’t sure if he’s going to be able to pull off his mock-heroics. But something happens on George’s face right around the 30 second mark of the clip. His fear washes away and the genuine courage that’s always been hiding within him starts to come out, as such things always do in moments of crisis. George’s original destiny was to fall into Lorraine’s lap, winning her over with sympathy and pity. But Marty’s tampering with the space-time continuum has opened up an opportunity for things to emerge in George that may never have otherwise.

Alan Sylvestri’s horror-esque cue at :51 highlights the incredible danger George has thrust himself into. He is meddling in territory that perhaps destiny never intended for him. But the ideas of destiny and predetermined futures are questioned and challenged throughout Back to the Future and here George takes the ultimate stand not just against Biff but against the cosmic forces of fate that seemed to be conspiring against him his whole life. George’s defiantly clenched fist at 1:25 marks the first time that a character in the film stops intentionally trying to re-create the way things have always been and instead take destiny into their own hands.

Everyone is stunned, Biff, Marty, Lorraine, even George. Everything we’ve been told by Doc Brown, Principle Strickland and our experience in the original 1985 has just been thrown out the window. We know from Doc Brown’s expository speeches that with that punch, George has not just changed the course of his life. He has changed, in some small way, the entirety of the space-time continuum. Sylvestri’s musical cue at 1:58 reflects that this moment is both a crucial personal moment for the two characters but also a seismic, cosmically relevant event. Similar themes were explored recently by no less than Terrence Malick in the sometimes impenetrable Tree of Life, but here Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale’s beautiful, economical screenplay are able to convey that theme in an action entertainment film. The idea that everyone and everything we do matters at least in a tiny way on a grand scale is a comforting thought. It reassures us that we are more than dots on a rock floating through the universe. We each have a purpose in life and what Back to the Future suggests is that while our destiny may appear set in stone, we have it within us all to determine our own purpose.

The Movie: Notorious

Spoiler Level: VERY High

The Setup: Devlin (Cary Grant) has recruited Alicia (Ingrid Bergman) as a subversive seductress in a plot to find weapons hidden by a gang of escaped Nazis, led by Alex Sebastian (Claude Raines). Suspecting her true allegiance, Sebastian and his mother (Leopoldine Konstantin) begin to quietly poison Alicia. In the final scene of the film, Devlin overcomes his distaste for Alicia’s past and the obligations of his job to save her from the den of vipers… all during a meeting with Sebastian’s associates. Please, please, PLEASE do not watch this scene if you haven’t seen Notorious. Go watch the movie TONIGHT if you haven’t seen it. I’m even okay with you watching the YouTube bootleg, if you promise to pick up the eventual blu-ray.

Why It’s Great: Like all great suspense directors, Alfred Hitchcock seems to have a single goal with his entire visual approach to this story: Get us to the final shot. The final shot of Notorious is one of the most loaded in all of cinema – it starts close on Alex, hearing the Nazis call him back to the house. He turns, the camera remains still, looking at the silhouetted monsters in the mansion door. As Alex schleps to his ultimate fate, the camera slowly starts pushing in, not resting until Alex is in the house, and the door closes. The score seals the deal, rushing to a climax on the fade to black after the door closes. What a lingering image!

Imagine if the movie had closed with Hitchcock cutting to Devlin and Alicia in the car. Yes, it would have kept our perspective with the heroes, and would have assured us that Alicia would be okay, but it would completely undermine the cyclical drama necessary to bring Alex’s story to a close. All that’s important is that Alicia is safe, and Alex is about to be dealt with. End of story.

While this shot is an absolute work-horse, I don’t want to short-change the shot selection in the rest of the scene, which starts with a dreamy, long dolly move mimicking Grant’s return to the fevered Bergman. That shot continues until we leave the bedroom, all in a close single or a close two-shot, on a long lens. I wring my hands with empathy for the production’s worn-out focus puller. In fact, the long close-up is a staple of Notorious, which is famous for one of cinema’s most extended kisses, all shot in an intimate CU. Once the characters leave the bedroom, we get what is one of the most marvelous series of moving close-ups I can recall. How the camera glides down those steps, always effortlessly cutting between the characters, is beyond me. Despite the technical proficiency of his shot series, Hitchcock never once loses grip on the scene itself. He sticks to strict perspective, setting up a new perspective only when absolutely necessary, and with a strong cut-in (for example, the close-up on the apparent lead Nazi).

A lot of my affection for the scene is for its technical merits, but I really shouldn’t forget about the performances. Grant is steely as always, but the real stars here are Bergman and Rains. Bergman spends much of the film as a proud, aggressive wild child, flaunting her party girl past and locking up her feelings. Here she is to be pitied, but also admired, allowing her salvation to happen gracefully. It’s hard not to fall in love with Ingrid Bergman in general, but this one of her most dynamic mainstream performances. Rains, from the moment his Alex sees Devlin extracting Alicia, clearly communicates his motivation – “Get me the flip away from all those Nazis.” The aforementioned look on his face at the start of the film’s final shot is the linchpin of the scene, and therefore, the movie.

Again, I would be remiss not to repeatedly point out that the entire movie drives toward this scene, in which all the wistful character trajectories intersect and resolve. Rarely do we get that kind of efficiency in movies anymore, least of all spy thrillers. The final scene (and shot) of any suspense movie should be the spire of the palace, its absence completely invalidating the foundation set beneath it.

Cinematrimony returns with a look at the final installment in the Harry Potter franchise. Listen as die-hard bookworm Francesca debates the differences between the novel and the film while Matt debates whether a change is necessarily a bad thing.

 

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD: Cinematrimony – Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows, Part 2