Color Out of Space

An outdoor screening at the Luna in Leederville was the perfect venue for a right oddity, Color Out of Space. This is a blackly comic, horror sci-fi from the near-forgotten director, Richard Stanley. He made a couple of 'small' films back in the early 90s (Hardware, Dust Devil) and was then fired from his highest-profile film to date, The Island of Dr. Moreau in 1995. So, this would be Stanley's feature return. And who better to take the lead in your comeback film than Nicolas Cage?

Color Out of Space is based on a 1927 short story by long-dead dickhead, H.P. Lovecraft. It deals with the aftermath of a meteorite landing near a remote farmhouse and how it affects the people, and life in general, surrounding it. The story has been adapted several times and has influenced many other productions, notably Alex Garland's Annihilation (a film I didn't love, but have had cause to reference a few times since seeing it.)

Color begins with a voice over by narrator and audience surrogate, Ward, the Hydrologist, that goes on about the occult creepiness of Arkham, the area where the Gardners live. This feels like it should be important but might just be a massive red herring - that's how it felt for me by the end. I promise I won't go on like this but the very next scene is of the Gardner daughter, Lavinia, performing some sort of ritual, which we learn will hopefully rid her mother of cancer. Stonking great metaphor alert here, as this seems to be the theme of the film, the invasiveness, the trauma, the pestilence of the thing.

Let's check off the genres on show here. Sci-fi. Quite impressive effects on a reasonably small budget, I'm guessing, and nicely downplayed cosmic interloper. Horror. Scary enough, especially at the start before the Grand Guignol/Body Horror took over. Comedy. The winner here, mainly thanks to Cage. He plays late-period him superbly well and some of his delivery is right on the mark. Offering Ward a drink of warm alpaca milk was perfectly weird, but taking bites out of hugely deformed tomatoes while going berserk and throwing them in the bin cranked up the madness. His snap back to normality immediately following this scene tickled me no end. Most of his stuff is on point, even upbraiding his daughter by shouting "La-vin-i-errrrr!" in that strange accent he sometimes pulls out - is it Californian stoner or faux-English fop via Canada? Or just © Cage™? The Color script is primarily a vehicle for Cage to reach into his bag of tricks, like a bloody, manic Felix the Cat. Joely Richardson even gets in on the act, as her ludicrous "Dinner's ready" marks the beginning of the surreal descent.

This isn't a brilliant film by a long chalk but there's enough in here to like. It plays a little long but time, as well as matter, was also a victim in the film. Perhaps this extended to the actual run-time. But any film that has Cage repeatedly punch the interior roof of a car, like John Goodman in Raising Arizona, AND has transmogrifying alpacas, is alright in my book.

As an addendum, here's a query - when did Cage start to go....odd? Aside from this one, I don't think he's made a good role/film choice since The Weatherman in 2005 (maybe Kick-Ass in 2010 but he'd already started going off the rails by then). Admittedly, there are a lot I haven't seen, but these days he appears to take any old dross and he has basically transcended good or bad performances. He's now simply Cage.

UPDATE: Roly has an explanation as to why Cage has made so many, ahhhm, eclectic choices in the last decade or so. Listen to the podcast below for details...

See also:

As we're on the subject, here are two of Cage's very best - the Coen Brothers' Raising Arizona (1987) and Spike Jonze's Adaptation (2002). Both show Cage as he can be, not how he usually is.

SPOILERS IN POD!!!

Listen to "Color Out of Space" on Spreaker.

Dolittle

So, Dolittle has taken a bit of a kicking. It's not doing so well at the box office and the majority of critics are mauling it like Downey Jr with a Welsh accent. Is it as bad as all that, though? Yes and no. While watching it, I found it mildly distracting and the kids seemed to be going along with it. It's pretty harmless with some nice CGI animals and quirky, often slapstick situations. That said, it doesn't do anything different to any other film of this ilk. The jokes don't land (the only time I giggled was when Ralph Fiennes - as a fearsome tiger called Barry - chased a patch of reflected light.) There are probably too many animals, a giraffe and fox turn up for no other reason than to (under)use Selena Gomez and Marion Cotillard. There's a squirrel, voiced so annoyingly by someone called Craig Robinson, that I wished Finchy from The Office had cut its throat as originally planned. This little shit gives an occasional spoken Capatin's Log, which serves no purpose, not even basic exposition. His sub-plot of revenge against Stubbins, the boy who accidentally shot him, disappears up its own fluffy tail.

The dialogue (mostly from the animals) is superfluous shite, that tries too hard to be 'with-it' and witty. Someone even utters one of my most hated cliches in film - "It's show time!" Unless their idea of a 'show' is sticking your arm up a dragon's arse, then fuck right off with your 'show time' bollocks. Dishonourable mention must also go to the duck, voiced by Octavia Spencer and the super-irritating dragonfly, voiced by apparent D-lister, Jason Mantzoukas. When a character is described as 'wise-cracking', it's basically all over. On the plus side, some of the voices match the characters well enough. Rami Malek, as the cowardly gorilla, Chee-Chee and Emma Thompson, as Dolittle's parrot off-sider and conscience, Poly, are both fine.

The story begins somewhat morosely for a kids film, in that it sets up Dolittle's retreat from public life as being a reaction to his wife's death at sea (a chance for resurrection, perhaps?). The whole film is really just a journey of getting back to the norm. Dolittle is sad, so he buggers off humans. A kid and a sense of duty (plus a huge slice of self-interest) motivate him to return to the world that needs him. Sure, Dolittle is quite the ego massage for Downey Jr, but I can't help wondering if all the bad press for this film is a bit of the old tall poppy syndrome. Sure he mangles the accent a bit but not as awful as some I've heard. It's more theatrical than abysmal and just not very natural. His overall performance is shuffling and mannered but not as over the top as it could have been in other hands (Jim Carrey or Johnny Depp, for example). The ham market here is cornered by Michael Sheen, playing a rival doctor by the name of Blair Mudfly. The name was surely a nod to Sheen having played Tony Blair three times on film. Jim Broadbent plays it by ear and Antonio Banderas seems like he's in another film, which actually adds something to this one. Incidentally, the Turner painting that slyly foreshadows the fate of the expedition is (probably) 'Fort Vimieux' from 1831. Always a plus to get a Turner in any film.

So, as far as Dolittle is aimed at kids, almost job done. For the rest of us compelled to watch it with said little folk, well, at least it wasn't a musical. Because, you know, if people ask me "Can you speak rhinoceros?" I'd say "Of courseros! Can't you?"

See also:

If you've got nothing better to do, you could watch the weird original, Doctor Dolittle (1967),  directed by Richard Fleischer, where Rex Harrison must find a rare giant pink sea snail. And you thought this new one had balderdash sewn up. Also, for no reason except that Michael Sheen is in it, Tom Hooper's The Damned United (2009).

1917

I only saw this in January but there'd need to be some proper ball-tearers on the horizon to outstrip 1917 for film of the year. I really should go to the adjective farm to sufficiently describe this belter from Sam Mendes. Ostensibly, it's a 'journey' story, wherein two young soldiers are given orders to take a message to the new Allied front line in France. This message will likely save 1600 or so lives. High stakes - quite similar to the final third of Gallipoli. But the plot is kind of secondary in 1917. It's all about the spectacle and the delivery (of the film and the message, I guess). There's been a fair bit of chatter about the way it was filmed to look like one complete take, from opening scene to closing. The filmmakers themselves talk about making it in 'one shot' and 'real time'. This is handled supremely by cinematographer, Roger Deakins (below), but trying to watch it with the aim of working out how they did it is a fruitless task. I gave up after a few minutes and just focussed on the mission.

It can't really be stressed enough how sublime the visuals are in this film. There's one sequence, lasting roughly 20 minutes where a character leaves a building at night and is chased through the bombed out streets of a small town, finally ending up in a raging river. This is hands down, one of the best looking, most beautifully filmed sequences I've ever seen. Another scene of an overhead dogfight becomes very knuckle-chewing (think North by Northwest but with more fire). And I reckon it was a nice touch to give us a breather by introducing a civilian woman and baby for a few minutes. It slowed the pace just enough and also fleshed out one of the lead characters. The set design is phenomenal, painstakingly recreating the trenches, corpses, weapons, clothing, food, even rats. The blocking of the journey must have seemed eternal. Everyone involved needs about a year off.

Dean-Charles Chapman (Tommen in Game of Thrones) and George McKay play the two grunts chosen to deliver the message, and the camera never leaves them. They've a lot to carry and they do so extremely well. On their trek they come across some of the cognoscenti of British acting - Colin Firth, Andrew Scott, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch and Richard Madden. None of these geezers have more than a minute or two on screen but they nail it, especially Strong and Madden.

1917 is a brilliant film, lifted above the great by outstanding preparation, planning and design. Getting it right must have been nigh on impossible but they've done it.

See also:

Peter Weir's Gallipoli (1981) for a similar WW1 feel and Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk (2017) for a different war and a different style of film making.

VERY EARLY SPOILER IN POD!!!

Listen to "1917" on Spreaker.