A Different World

A Different World (1987–1993) landed on Netflix, and I took this opportunity to watch all the six seasons of it. (144 episodes)

It's a spin-off from The Cosby Show, a family viewing staple in 1980s, and whatever one now might think of Cosby and his supposedly cleared reputation, his mug isn't too often seen here. (When he does, be assured he gets the biggest canned laughter.) He is a series creator though, and I try to look past this to enjoy this nostalgic treat.

In my mental landscape this was more of a 1990s show, and indeed in Finland it was on TV from the beginning of 1989. I tend to associate it with my time in the 7th to 9th grades in school.

8th of January, 1989. Sunday evening after the waning star of McGyver.

The first season premise is that Denise Huxtable is now a student at the Hillman college, the alma mater of her father, mother and grandfather. The college is both a new environment, explaining why the cast of the parent show are not needed, yet enabling the trickle of guest stars as each family member visits Denise at Gilbert hall.

As the series proceeds, time genuinely passes and we have freshmen become seniors, seniors graduate and so on. The regulars do find ways to stick around, though.

I believe I used to watch this diligently, though it probably wasn't the first series I'd have admitted watching to "the guys". In a Sunday early evening slot, I'm doubtful if more than four seasons were ever shown in Finland.

So why watch it? Even if school was a drag, maybe there was some hidden yearning to this paradoxically more intense school life, with its dorms, drama, debates, cafes, art and poetry classes, extra-curricular activities and so on. I know people were inspired by the show, even if it fit poorly to the general apathy and introversion of a Finnish upper elementary school life. Maybe it did secretly provide aspirations, or at least fashion tips, for the recession generation.

Denise Huxtable

Now, much of the charm is observing the limited media sphere the students live in. The thin line to outside world is the dorm payphone, library is still paper-indexed, and in evenings the whole dorm gathers to watch a film or soap on TV.

The old TV series format can be refreshing in this age of continuities and stretched out plot lines. Binge-watching makes it very apparent how the students pick up and drop odd jobs, hobbies and dates with staggering pace, often never to be mentioned again.

As the series progresses it does become more consistent, yet doesn't take itself or the continuity too seriously. The tradition of "very special episodes" often means actors interpret their role in a different way, whereas some episodes explore farce and slapstick.

Time can also be enemy of things, and roles and fashions can become reversed. Here we are at the end of 1980s, when the Rocky Theme or Olivia Newton-John's Physical are considered bad music, and 1970s generally is a shorthand for "poor taste". Anti-apartheid sentiment is present, now reminding of how ubiquitous the topic once was – up until the system was dismantled.

I guess Denise is meant to be relatable and gen-X cool, but she often appears sleepy and disinterested. Whitley Gilbert's beauty and fitness routines are meant to be over the top, but she would actually fit our times rather well. Whitley's caricature and character growth steal the show in any case.

Dwayne Wayne

The first season starts a little rough at the edges, as the characters aren't yet established. Dwayne Wayne (how cool are those glasses) seems a little lost without his sidekick Ron Johnson. Whitley appears a little too nasty when abusing the "spineless" Millie. 

Some of the entourage is introduced mid-season, but the second season brings drastic changes to the cast. One could almost say the show is rebooted. I recalled this happened much later in the series, but that's again what binge watching does.

I felt the first season attempted an all-female cast, with nearly feminist tones, but as the series proceeds it becomes a more straightforward sitcom with more male regulars, such as the "Dr. War" Colonel Taylor, cafeteria chef Vernon and the boys' dorm director Walter.

Despite the important "No means no" episode, the show repeats age-old TV mating rituals where men are presented as being very forward, even to the point of being a little physical about it. Ron's occasionally creepy behavior is underlined as being wrong, but it's for laughs and he keeps doing it anyway.

Whitley, Kim, Dwayne, Freddie share a serious moment

The third and fourth seasons don't bring as huge changes, although the setup is shuffled a little and there's more thought to plot arcs and acknowledging past events. Having characters live off-campus at least changes the scenery.

Dream episodes and more improbable plots begin to rear their head too. Maybe that third season spring break double-episode should have been a dream. The cast becomes more caricature-like in the later seasons: Whitley is inconsiderate and loud, Freddie is a kooky environmentalist hippie, Ron is a perv.

The first seasons explores the confines and rules of the dorm apartments. Towards the end of the series we barely see how the students live, as everything happens in more social environments. Apart from the repeated establishing shots, almost everything's filmed in the safety of the studio. One major exception is the LA-riot themed two-parter.

It's amusing to observe the transition from a 1980s show into a self-consciously "1990s" show, an opportunity to again revisit gender roles but also (sadly) making jokes about how silly it is to protect the environment. There is also self-reflection on how the series' once youthful heroes are no longer cool to the new generation.

The sixth season works more as an epilogue, showing how the series regulars begin to settle, bringing the Cosby format full circle. The college environment increasingly relies on new characters. However, the cast no longer inspires curiosity about their future, and the themes begin to feel too repetitive.

The whole series ends with a suitably sentimental note. It doesn't look like a series continuation was planned after the sixth season. There have been rumors about rebooting the series for a new millennium.

A whole bunch of crowd

Netflix has again chosen to transform a 4:3 series into widescreen format, also using a silly algorithm to upscale the image. The algo is especially visible in pause mode. I watched few episodes happily without realizing the format change and the filter, but when I begun to pay attention these changes can be a little irritating at times. Sometimes even items that are focus of comedy are poorly cropped away.

A small oldmachinery observation. I don't think I saw a single computer in season 1, although I believe I saw a perforated dot matrix print paper already very early on. Computers feature in season 2 more, and eventually become a sort of plot point too. The same IBM serves as a prop in many locations. Nintendo was enough of a household name to make jokes about in 1988. Something resembling a Game Boy was seen in Season 4, and definitely spotted and name-checked in Season 6.

Hirttämättömät/Unhanged (2023)

It's nearly futile to write this in English, but in the tradition of this blog, here goes anyway.

*

After putting so much effort in watching, reading and even writing about Western films, and more recently, about Finnish western films, I could not avoid watching the first new theatrical Finnish western film since 50+ years: Hirttämättömät (The Unhanged)

Given that it's not strictly a film set in the West, one could argue The Last Border from 1993 was a western too. But unlike with the Last Border, here we see all the Western paraphernalia, such as wide-rimmed hats, revolvers, western outfits, horses etc. Together with the western-style music I'm going to say this is the more fully-formed Western of the two.

The new cast

The film in question is a remake of the 1971 "cult classic" Hirttämättömät ("Unhanged"). This was a sequel to the earlier fennowestern Speedy Gonzales - noin 7 veljeksen poika. (Speedy Gonzales: Son of About Seven Brothers). As most western clichés had been explored in the first film, the creators concentrated on a more narrow topic: three guys crossing a desert.

I actually have something of a soft spot for this small film, so perhaps count me in as one of the cult members. Speedy Gonzales fools Lonely Rider and Tonto to imprison him and to take him over to Threepencestad, "alive", so as not to have to take the trip himself. 

They circle around what is obviously a sand pit, and suitably for a pitifully small road movie, small episodes also take place. Mostly about who gets to drink water and who has to pull the cart. And who wins the heart of the women they inexplicably meet during their journey. It is funnier at the start, whereas it gets repetitive and boring at the end.

The 1971 original, with Vesku, Spede and Simo.

The original film was nearly entirely carried by the antics of Pertti "Spede" Pasanen, Vesa-Matti "Vesku" Loiri and Simo "Simo" Salminen. Mostly by Vesku, who had the broadest acting range of the three and the capability to fully embody the farcical character. Spede is his usual taciturn "Spede" character, derived from a more typical Eastwood-like western hero. Simo supplies much of the physical gags, who, as a non-native American, still plays one. (Gasp!)

For the Finnish kids who watched Spede-Show on TV in the 1980s, these three figures have became cemented as an epoch-defining comedic "trio", both by being genuinely amusing (in kid-metrics), but by also featuring in a spate of so-bad-they-are-good "Spede films" adults still enjoy for their campiness. Reviled by critics, loved by the masses, in this film we already see the trio dynamics in action: there are really very few additional characters.

This new version follows the structure of the original with some additions. Aku Hirviniemi tries very hard to out-bullshit Vesa-Matti Loiri's 1971 character but overstays what little welcome he had in the first place. Despite having a few amusing gags he ends up just demonstrating some kind of split personality and his needy and whiny mental collapses cease to be funny after the first time round.

The famous cart

The "Speedy" in this film is a young woman (Ona Huczkowski), who the other protagonists think is a boy. Ha ha. Spede Pasanen had such a screen presence many felt his face was amusing in itself, there's no such advantage to be had for this relatively unknown actor.

Andrei Alén, who also directs the film, plays the "Tonto" character. He might be relatively interesting as the non-Indian "Indian", but as Hirviniemi overflows every scene with his babbling, he and Speedy have very little room to operate.

Some new jokes are pursued from gender relations and environmentalist themes of our times, but perhaps fortunately the gender angle is not explored too far. No Indians are in sight in this film either.

I think the pacing of the film is at least okay, I felt some genuine curiosity about where this all might be headed towards. Not too much time is wasted on a single theme (a problem with the original) but unfortunately the comedy is just not that funny.

As for the additional inventions on display, at places it was hard to understand if a thing shown on screen was supposed to be a plot point in development, or just a (failed) joke in itself. I mean, some of the ideas are never developed further.

The black and white nature of the 1971 version helped it make look like a more authentic western. The new film has colors which brings some challenges for simulating a wild west appearance. All in all the film looks nice in a small way and for example the costumes are rather well made. 

Some digital background additions help the setting look more western-like, but at times they were jarring and I felt the point of the gravel pit aesthetics of the original has become lost.

What we see most of the time

The film has more nods to the Spede-films and Spede's type of humor than any real understanding of the history of Western films, which I would feel is a pre-requisite for a good Western comedy/parody.

The usual suspects are again referred to, Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood films, with some Morricone nods in the music. From more recent films, we perhaps have some Tarantinoesque elements in how the film is occasionally framed as a nostalgic TV show with VHS quality ads.

Now that the native American aspect has been removed, there are very few "western jokes" left, and most of the comedy operates outside the western premise altogether.

Part of the comedy involves literal imitations of the 1971 trio—imitating Spede is practically a national pastime. Together with the cameo of Hannele Lauri (the "fourth" member of the trio), the film is in danger of becoming a meta-film about the emotional hole the trio left in the TV and film landscape for a generation of Finns. Some might say good riddance, but the existence of this film seems to indicate at least some people need to process that loss still yet.

Planet of the Apes

It's roughly 25 years since I've seen the earlier Planet of the Apes film series in full. It was handily available at Disney+ so I took the plunge again.

The creators could pull off five films in as many years, and despite piling on new science fiction ideas for each film, it's a surprisingly coherent trek.

The series famously relies on reveals, no further spoiler alert.

Planet of the Apes, 1968

A spaceship travels in the void, with four deep-sleep passengers. Already prior to the titles, Taylor (Charlton Heston) makes a huge point about how they might end up in the far future.

The ship lands on water, the clock says it's about year 4000, the passengers wake up and evacuate the craft before it sinks. Before this they confirm one of the astronauts is dead, a pretty blonde has turned into a hideous mummified corpse. My new pet theory is the woman died because Taylor smoked in the control room.

After landing, the film does some obfuscation so it wouldn't be blatantly obvious we are on Earth. Weird lightning strikes during daytime, ground is poisonous, there's very little or no vegetation, and they can't find a moon.

This sequence took more time than I remembered, and having the astronauts prancing around in the bleak landscape is visually interesting. Taylor speaks his mind a lot, and his attitude seems the worst of the trio. I wonder who was the psychiatrist who qualified him for the mission.

The astronauts find more livable areas with some primitive and mute humans, but alas, they are all hunted down by armed, clothed, horseback apes. Dodge dies, Taylor loses Landon and Taylor himself catches a throat-wound that renders him unable to speak.

Then it's off to Zira and Cornelius, the benevolent apes and Doctor Zaius of the science council. All speak... English. Taylor eventually reveals he is able to talk, at the most dramatic moment possible, but this doesn't much improve his position. Landon is found lobotomized, whereas Dodge's stuffed body is exhibited at the museum. 

This is both an inversion of human-animal relations in real world, but also a way to discuss civil rights and racial issues. All culminates in the farce of an ape tribunal. Taylor and Nova are exiled, they reach an expedition site together with Cornelius and Zira, with rumored artifacts about the planet's past. 

The film ends famously at the Statue of Liberty scene. But the cave already contains some clues the race preceding apes was human. A human doll says "ma-ma".

What apparently holds the ape society together is the firm belief in the superiority of the apes, something that could be undermined if the human past was revealed. And yes, in real world the discovery of evolution was (still is) a shock for many people.

The science-religious apes have a role in controlling what technologies are available. Zaius is well aware that flying machines would be possible, but presumably such devices would grant too much awareness. Apes have to be kept away from the Forbidden Zone, where the secrets lie.

The apes have fairly modern rifles and photography. ("Smile" is the first word heard from the apes) Otherwise the technology is not that advanced. Considering the pre-requisites for these two items alone, it makes me wonder why they have little else. 

Beneath the Planet of the Apes, 1970

I used to like all 1960s weirdness and camp a lot, so this was my favorite. Together with the nihilist plot, it felt hilarious all around. Now I see it's hardly comparable with the first film.

Another set of astronauts has landed in the future, the ship is wrecked and only one of them properly survives the crash. I'm thinking there's a permanent time-door in space that connects the two times together, rather than relativity and time dilation as such.

It seems the plot was written for Heston's character Taylor, but he was not available so we see only a few moments of him. Conveniently, Brent meets Nova from the first film and via visiting the ape colony and Cornelius and Zira and Doctor Zaius, and a needless escape detour, we go underground. 

Funnily, Zira thinks Brent is Taylor for a moment, because "humans look all the same". This is kind of revealing. After a visit to a New York subway station reveals to Brent it was Earth all along, damn you all to hell they finally did it, and for plot purposes he is now as good as Taylor and the story can continue.

The military-minded apes, led by Ursus the Gorilla, are intent on an expedition of conquest to the Forbidden Zone. For Zaius, this does not bode well but he accompanies the trek.

A small colony of mutated humans lives underground. They are able to discuss and instill pain through telepathy, and cast powerful illusions from afar. They pray for their god, a doomsday-tier atomic bomb from earlier days.

The campy elements are like some of the worse Star Trek episodes. The humans are costumed in a silly way. The sermon for the bomb takes too long. I admit the removal of the masks was and still is a little chilling.

The apes violently attack the human colony, and their mind power is no match for the "primitives". Taylor (Heston) is found from the prison and he gets some screen time. Nova dies, Brent dies, Taylor dies, Ursus dies, Zaius dies, everyone dies. The film ends up with a nuclear explosion that destroys the entire Earth, Taylor pushing the final trigger. Not sure why, he seemed rather anti-nuke in the first film.

This ending, trying to rival the first film, might look it could put a stopper to any potential sequels. But it didn't prevent three more films from appearing.

Beneath the Planet of the Apes was directed by Ted Post, whose better work includes Hang 'em High. It made me appreciate how these films might be a result of having an already existing infrastructure and know-how to make westerns: horse riding action scenes, guns, stunts, fist-fights, established film locations for arid desert scenes. The next film isn't a pseudo-western, though.

Escape from the Planet of the Apes, 1971

Some accounts have placed this film as the best of the series. Best of the sequels, might be more agreeable. It is still a film that only has existence under the armpit of the original.

Zira and Cornelius arrive to 1970s, together with Milo, a previously unseen genius ape, in a spaceship similar to what we've seen in the first two films. The whole scene with the expressions of the military personnel as the apes are revealed, is funny. It's not that incredible—the implication is they might be test pilots.

Milo dies in captivity, Zira spills the beans to the zoo vets: they are talking apes from the future.

It's not super-credible the three apes managed to get Taylor's timeship working. They also pretty much had to launch it just about Earth was about to go Boom, and "somehow" they arrived at the point of origin. 

Traveling forward in time in the first film was actually rather well within science. Going backwards is a bit suspect. With the magic time-door theory it could be conceivable.

The timing of the arrival is curious. Although the first film had some elements that suggested the astronauts did not originate that far from contemporary times (of 1968) it is still little weird the US had these super-ships in early 1970s.

Using contemporary times frees the film to explore comedy and human acting. Cornelius and Zira become public superstars, what ensues is a critique of celebrity-obsessed culture and some amusing scenes. 

Zira inadvertently reveals the Earth's inevitable destruction and that humans will be experimented on by apes. Acting the Herod, the politicians choose that whereas the pair could live sterilized, the offspring must die.

A switcheroo in a circus guarantees that the child-chimp Caesar lives, whereas Cornelius and Zira die in 1970s USA.

It might look like a clever idea: Apes didn't so much evolve during 2000 years, but the evolved apes came from the future and helped alter the genetic stock. In a way this makes things worse: Why would chimp DNA affect gorillas and orangutans? As the later films will show, the time travel did not create any new breed of apes.

Now it is explicitly discussed how the apes of the future came to learn English, an item that was usefully ignored in the first film.


Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, 1972

We begin with Armando (Ricardo Montalban) from the end of the last film, who has kept Caesar the talking ape hidden in his circus for 20 years. 

Yes, it is 1991, and as prophesied, all pets have died and humans took chimps as pets. It just that now they have been turned into slaves. Apes are imported from various countries and trained to work as servants, doing such important duties as cleaning windows, waiting tables, sweeping streets and shining shoes. 

I really enjoy the police state vibes in this small film, showing how the US political system has degraded. The society is apparently become dependent on the apes, yet as they have started to misbehave there is a bunch of black-clad cops and guards controlling them. Loudspeakers continuously announce ape incidents. It might be a little annoying trying enjoy your morning coffee at the streets.

The case of the talking apes must be very well remembered. Touring the city with Armando, Caesar manages to blurt out some words and the cops are fully committed to outing him. (Instead of disregarding it as an impossibility.) I'm wondering why the human society doesn't otherwise see they are fully headed for the Planet of the Apes scenario, which might be preventable by harsh actions.

Caesar has to flee, and in a roundabout way, he mixes with a bunch of newly imported apes and being so damn clever he ends up being the Governor's servant—the one looking for him!

Soon he forms a resistance, where activities and resources are redirected for the benefit of an ape revolution. As Armando is killed in a mind-probe related incident, Caesar becomes genuinely vengeful.

The film neatly interpolates the human world and what eventually becomes the Planet of the Apes. There are also little visual clues and technologies that suggest a path towards the mind control society in Beneath the Planet of the Apes. I'd even go so far as to say I like this better than the last installment, but maybe I am a sucker for theatrics and bleak architecture. It does go slightly downhill, though.

Apart from the friendly MacDonald, the government appears to be fascist: "Torture? But we don't do that to humans?" Having basically "good guys" do these kind of decisions made Escape more nuanced. As Caesar grows more capable, he becomes more ruthless. It looks in the end there are very few heroes to root for.

The fighting in the end takes too long. Yes, it shows the first "netting" of humans by the apes. We get the point already. 

Much as with the previous film, part of me is concerned with the timeline. The Planet of the Apes was 2000 years in the future. It now looks like key events leading to it actually happen in the few decades after Taylor's ship left. In fact, if Taylor had missed his ride he might have seen the rise of the apes first hand, no need to visit the year 4000.

This does make the events more relatable, though. The mistake in Beneath... was to show a human society too far removed from what we know.

We're now shown that apes were made clever through breeding and training, without the Cornelius+Zira genetic contribution. Importantly, we're shown Caesar's example inspires one of the most clever apes to say a single word.

Battle for the Planet of the Apes, 1973

The film begins around about 2600, with a wise old ape recollecting things from the ancient past. Then it's off to early 2000s.

Again, some decades have passed, it's unclear how many. Caesar and his wife are around, and so is Aldo the gorilla. The brother of MacDonald from the last film is around (In absence of MacDonald's actor I suppose) and the events of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes are still in living memory.

But, a lot has happened. The nuclear holocaust, for instance. Much of Earth is now a radioactive wasteland, and although the remaining apes and humans have found a livable oasis, many humans also live under the nuke-melted city of New York.

Strikingly, the society is already quite close to what we saw in the first film, apes have their caste system and although humans still speak it looks they are second-class citizens here. Aldo the gorilla is the most militant of the lot, jealous of the more clever apes and the most clever leader Caesar.

Caesar becomes intrigued by the prospect of finding tapes of his parents in that city and answers to questions. So he, McDonald's-brother, and the wise orangutan Virgil do an excursion. They find the tapes and the fact Earth is destined to be destroyed in around 4000. Virgil muses that the future might not be fixed and that they could choose one "highway" from another. 

The mutant city is a dangerous place, as the society there is developing towards the bomb worshiping mind-controllers of year 4000. Unable to catch the intruders, the mutants nevertheless learn of the existence of an ape colony, and in a weird act of retribution their leader wants to destroy the apetown. 

The most interesting part of this 1973 film is how it precedes the Mad Max series, or perhaps its lesser imitators in the 1980s. The humans wear silly grey-black uniforms, drive crusty motorcycles, cars, jeeps and a school bus through the desert. The drab society in the dark underground city reminds me of the later Escape from New York. These are minor themes here, though.

The gorillas see their moment, Aldo takes control of the colony, breaks into the weapons storage, corrals all the friendly humans and sets out to destroy the opposing force.

The battle is not that impressive. Caesar plots to win the fight as non-violently as possible, but the gorilla force kills the fleeing mutants. The gorilla plot and culpability of Aldo in ape-murder ("Ape shall not kill ape") is revealed, Aldo dies and the humans are set free. But how free, ask the humans. Does the spiral of violence never end?

The bookend closes and the wise ape from 2600s is shown to be teaching a class of both human and ape children. I guess it might indicate the future took another route, and they all learned to live together. But as it's still far from year 4000 and so much could happen in a few decades, it's ambiguous.

As a film, this last installment is quite weak. As an addition to the Planet of the Apes lore, the story is reasonable and fills in an interesting period in the human-ape relations. The time scale becomes even more silly, as the future ape society is now nearly fully formed after 40-50 years from since Taylor left. His ship is probably about 2.5% of completing the distance to the Planet of the Apes. Bon Voyage, Taylor.

Rambo-thon

Finally, I got to watch all Rambo films.

First Blood 1982

We meet John Rambo, a Vietnam veteran whose best buddies died in the war and now he finds out the last one of them has died too.

While still dressed in that reunion garb, trying to get into a town he gets harassed by a local sheriff. He gets PTSD in the cell, kicks everyone's ass, leaves the station, steals a motorbike and drives to the hills and to the realms of legend.

I liked the detail when the sheriff's car turns over, Rambo actually seems concerned if something bad happened. As he sees the sheriff crawl out of the wreck, he leaves.

Rambo tries very hard not to kill anyone and even the sheriff has some sympathy towards him, it just turns out everyone else is a trigger-happy gun-nut. Things escalate and soon the sheriff has a small war in his hands. 

The general consensus is that this is a film with actual merit, and I've tended to agree. Well, I've always thought the Trautman character to be a bit silly.

Rambo lays traps in inhuman speed. All the sheriff's henchmen are clowns eager to join the fight despite having already seen what Rambo can do. Yes, some have worries about this but dutifully they go on.

Rambo II 1985

Rambo has been in the prison labour camp for five years. Trautman makes a deal that if Rambo does this mission he can have his freedom.

As Rambo later explains to a POW, it is 1985. Taken very literally, the events in First Blood would take place at 1980.

Some have ridiculed the lightning fast relationship of Co Bao and Rambo. But what isn't obvious is that the mission takes several days (as it gets botched) so perhaps these warrior souls could relate to each others quickly. 

Of course after they reveal their feelings it doesn't take a minute until something bad happens. I recall MAD Magazine making a joke about that lucky charm pendant perhaps being not so lucky after all.

This film established "Rambo" as a shorthand for American jingoism, but this isn't fully deserved. The film does have critical tones towards the establishment and derives some tensions from the post-Watergate conspiracy and paranoia themes.

The computers at the base seem old-fashioned for a high-end operation in 1985. The strange anti-technology vibe in the film is inexplicable. But it must be remembered, a "computer" picked up Rambo as the person most likely to survive this mission, so Rambo has some resentment towards the bureaucratic "machine" overall and the technology that made him do it. 

Likely the computers were networked so all the data was safe, though!

The film is actually quite coherent and enjoyable, maybe inexplicably a better film than it should be, and a canonic part of 80s nostalgia.

Rambo III 1988

This is a really big money film. Rambo is in Thailand, participating in an (illegal?) martial arts scheme and helping some monks. Later we see him in Afghanistan in an attempt to rescue Trautman.

A lot of effort has been put into presenting and respecting local cultures but this tends to be exoticist and orientalist. Also, the russians are characterized as brutal and inhuman.

One gets the idea this was to take Rambo more in the direction of Bond or Indiana Jones films, suggesting a series of films in the rambo format. And it kind of works, except the latter half of the film simply repeats the kind of action scenes already seen in Rambo II, only made bigger and even less credible.

Trautman's character is taken to strange extremes, suddenly he is quite a "rambo" himself, despite having been tortured by the russians for a while.

The Spetsnatz seems a weirdly mismatched, rag-tag bunch.

Surely the 1990s should have had a Rambo film or two, but the times had changed drastically. Perhaps the Gulf war again made war a reality so a rambo-flick might have been somewhat tasteless. Films like Hot Shots! Part Deux were already making fun of the genre.

Rambo IV 2008

At the time of the release of John Rambo, it felt surprising a Rambo made in 2000s could be as good. It didn't add that much to the Rambo mythos, though. Now that I've viewed it so quickly after the 1980s trilogy, it feels even less necessary.

I like the rawness of the images, and the return to somewhat more "primitive" film-making. The roughness of the environment and the brutal violence is a contrast compared to the more comic-book antics in Rambo III. 

It's a nice idea to start asking what Rambo is and how he could get his redemption, or come "full circle". It's just that this idea does not progress much here.

The bad-ass mercenaries are a nice touch, Rambo can concentrate on being quiet and the gang brings some added color to the film. Their internal dynamics is sometimes cleverly made apparent by visual storytelling, but they don't really have much of a story to tell.

Unfortunately, the poor treatment of women as some kind of story/shock element is annoying and tends to bring this film down. Perhaps this is ultimately what makes this film less appealing to me than Rambo III.

Rambo V 2019

Rambo lives near Mexican border at the farm we saw at the end of the last film. Ten years have passed and Rambo has apparently both helped solve some problems there and found some peace for himself. Ok, so he does dig these weird vietcong-style tunnels under the farm, keeps an unnerving amount of Vietnam memorabilia, and takes meds.

Rambo's sort-of grand-daughter goes to Mexico to see his biological father, despite stern warnings from John. Turns out the dad doesn't truly give a shit. By way of deception the girl is captured by criminals specialising in human trafficking and prostitution.

As Rambo goes there somewhat unprepared, the gangsters are able to, well, gang up on him and beat him to pulp. As he recovers with the aid of a journalist, crucial time has been lost.

Rambo is somewhat too old to be an action-hero, but when the violence really starts some thought has gone into figuring how he could still do it. This is done adequately, although I was hoping more of outdoor environments and perhaps even horseback fighting.

Trump's wall notwithstanding, criminals, drugs and guns move to-and-fro between the Mexican border. Again the henchmen are quite loyal. The fiery explosion that blows up a car should have given the gang a pause. Also, why are they so certain Rambo is alone on the farm in the first place?

I felt the film was tonally off at places. From Rambo II onwards John Rambo specialized in rescue missions and so it is here too. But, "Rambo goes to Mexico to rescue an innocent girl" is perhaps not the best premise. Why, after all of the shit Rambo had to bear, something nasty had to happen once more. Crucially, this time it is completely unrelated to his military life and perhaps this is what makes it feel random to me.

When discussing Rambo IV, I suggested the nasty treatment of women worked as a poor shortcut to showing how "evil" bad guys are. As human trafficking is a very real thing I suppose it is more appropriate here and it is not dwelled on too much or in a wrong way.

Whether Rambo dies here is open to some interpretation. But either way I hoped he could achieve something more than disposing an arm of a Mexican gang.

Altogether

I'd thought there would be more to learn and say about Rambo after watching all the films in relatively short time. But after Rambo III we don't get to know much more about Rambo's past or his persona. Last Blood kind of shows what came of him, but other than that not much is added to his story.

John Rambo ascended towards the film three, each time facing a bigger war. Then the scale of action becomes again smaller in IV and the latest film looks at a skirmish comparable to the first film.

There are Rambo books too, in fact the character made his first appearance in David Morrell's book from 1972. I've only read that one years ago and I am unable to compare it to the film here.

There's also more Rambo material. Such as the animation series. And I've yet to see Syndicate Sadists with Tomas Milian from 1975, technically the first Rambo film. Perhaps some other time!

Johnny Mnemonic and your dad's cyberpunk

Only recently I got to see Johnny Mnemonic (1995), based on the William Gibson short story. Given the bad reputation I found it to be surprisingly nice little film. Surely the acting and directing is not that great, but there's lot of cyber-cheese, inventive sets and visuals. These 1 and 30 minutes pack quite a punch. Thanks to Marq "the Finn" for delivering the goods.

We get to see what Internet is like in 2021:

A lot of man-machine interaction:

Why is the AI always an ethereal female?

Jacking into Cyberspace:

What it amounts to is a glorified Excel? Minority Report, eat your heart out:

Of course, the entities met in Cyberspace are distorted, disembodied heads and generally incomprehensible visuals:

In any Cyberpunk setting, The Rich live classy:

While the poor are left to collect scraps:

Big corporations piss on your humanity. Perhaps a shock to the system is in order:

And that's not nearly all! I wouldn't even think of spoiling some of the best stuff. All in all it's a pretty good visualization of Gibson's universe. It's hardly Blade Runner-quality but an enjoyable treat and possibly the most pure filmatisation of what Cyberpunk meant back in the day.

The Crappificent Seven *)

Years ago I made a list of Top Westerns movies. Well, now here I have some of the less inspiring western films I've seen.

Some words of warning: There are worse films. These are at least watchable in some way. Yet I hasten to say that for the most part these are not "so bad it's funny good". What do I mean with "watchable?" For example, Blazing Stewardesses (1975) is much worse than anything on this list because I could not bring myself to watch it to the end.

Ok, that's enough, here's the list:


Captain Apache (1971)

A singing Lee Van Cleef in a crappy British faux-spaghetti western. Also, tiresomely brutal and corrupt Mexican revolutionaries etc. What is the mystery of "April Morning"? Ooh, aren't you just dying to know! (Hint: In the end it doesn't even matter)


White Comanche (1968)

As Clint Eastwood ascended from a TV career via European westerns, many were undoubtedly seeking to repeat this success. Here, William Shatner plays two roles in this stupid western made in the heels of better productions. I know what you're thinking, but no, although some laughs can be had here, for the most part it is a dull affair.

But WHICH of them died? Eh? Eh?

Consider two identical half-breed twins, one who lived with the white people and the one with the native Americans.  Does a thoughtful essay on nature and nurture ensue? Well, apparently nature does not so much abhor a vacuum, but redundancy, so a duel inevitably ensues between the two forces. This calls for an ancient Apache ritual... A joust on horseback, with revolvers.

(Trivia: Leonard Nimoy played a western villain in a slightly better film Catlow.)


Lucky Luke (1991 / 2009)

Lucky Luke is such a household name that for a certain generation of Europeans the whole idea of a western is tinted with the humor and caricatures of the Morris and Goscinny comic strip. It's a bit sad that the concept did not result in any good live action films. (Except maybe the Terence Hill flick Man from the East, a rip-off of the LL story The Tenderfoot)

The first tries to translate pick'n'mix elements from the comic book too directly to the screen, whereas the 2009 version attempts to cram every possible meta-reference about Lucky Luke and western cinema into one film. Luke is also given a totally unsuitable tragic "origin story" and the makers tried very hard to be post-modern. They succeeded.

I think it's pretty safe to say that Les Daltons from 2004 is not too good either, but I've not seen it (yet). Edit: I have seen it – it's not too good.


Trinity and Sartana (1972)

As a rule of thumb a prolonged "barfight scene" is a good indicator of a poor-mediocre western (as opposed to just some minor violent exchange in the saloon). Well, this film climaxes with a ten minute bar fight scene at the end, and man, isn't it comedic.

Trinity and Sartana were well established names in their own official and unofficial movies, here the names are exploited for something that has nothing to do with either. Trinity is really "Trinidad", while Sartana, who looks more like actual Trinity, does some acrobatic tricks.


Apache Blood (1975)

Frankly I can recollect almost nothing about this borefest with poor editing and disjointed scenes. On second thoughts, I might have been watching Andy Warhol's Lonesome Cowboys. 

Yes, it's bad to the point I was wondering if it was really supposed to be an art film.


Django's Cut Price Corpses (1971)

Aka. A Pistol for Django.

Well, it might be said that as a rule of thumb any unofficial "Django" movie that isn't the original Django, Django Kill! or Django Unchained, could compete for inclusion in a list of bad westerns. I wouldn't go so far, as some "Djangos" are quite reasonable. This one's pretty stupid, though.

There's a guy who does not look or behave like Django at all, the plotline is quite incompatible with anything we know about Django, and overall it doesn't make much sense. The twist ending makes the Django-premise even less credible. (It's of the "he planned it all beforehand" variety)

Left: From the bottom of the barrel, Right: Poetic justice.

There's a group of Mexican brothers and one sister (no great spoiler there, it's very apparent she's a woman) who all seem to be inadequate at accomplishing anything. Notably the film has quite many woman characters for a western, but this simply means a lot of women getting slapped on the face or otherwise mistreated.


Tex and the Lord of the Deep (1985)

The idea of western characters encountering an ancient pre-columbian mystery is not that bad, but nothing good comes out of it here.

I've always considered Tex Willer to be dry reading, but here the filmmakers have really been able to expand on that quality: there's a lot of time-wasting and all the sets are very lackluster. The same lethargic tune seems to play throughout, and any craftsmanship that made Italian westerns interesting seems to have been forgotten.

Only the guy dying from the super-poison is a relatively interesting special effect, and spaghetti-veteran William Berger makes a passable Kit Carson, not that the role involves much more than having a beard.


Dead Men Don't Make Shadows (1970)

Also known as The Stranger that Kneels Beside the Shadow of a Corpse.

Demofilo Fidani is sometimes regarded as the Ed Wood of Spaghetti Westerns, so I'm saying nothing new here. To be fair, there are some nice scenes and the consistently low-budget surroundings even helps lend an aura of originality. Yet with Fidani the general editing and cinematic storytelling is rather abysmal, and instead of having artistic merit they tend to evoke a feeling of "what the hell did I just watch?".

In some mysterious way person grows wiser through watching Fidani westerns, so perhaps they are not all bad.


Hey, it can look interesting occasionally. But the main character there, is almost as expressive as he gets.

Here, the first 10 minutes of initial happenings all look and sound like the title scene: some guy rides in the wilderness, and then arrives at a western town, accompanied with dull background music. Dramatic zooms into Wanted-posters abound.


Django and Sartana are coming... It's the End (1970)

(It's "Django Defies Sartana" in my box set, a whole different film holds that title.)

Another Fidani film. Let's cap this up in some more detail:

Fidani's trademark seems to be long, wandering sequences that clearly explicate how the hero travels through the landscape, riding on horseback. In a striking contrast to this meticulous attention to detail, it's nigh on impossible to get any clarity on who's actually travelling and where to.

A woman gets kidnapped. The ranch hands, almost a full minute into the attack, are still carrying barrels and baskets when they are cruelly shot down.

When the ransom note appears on the door, the voiceover reads it, including the signature followed with a laughter. "...Burt Kelly. Brahahaha!"

Well, moments after, both Sartana and Django seem to be after the kidnapper. After meeting a frog and an old shivering man in a ghost town.

Dramatic zooms into Wanted-posters abound.

The villain is clearly insane, as they tend to be in Italian westerns. (He lives in a kind of a tepee inside his house.) His shtick is playing cards in front of the mirror, and the joke is that the mirror image "cheats".

Also, the villains, although they have no reason at all to spare Django's or Sartana's life, never kill them when they might have the opportunity.

In the shootout at the end, for the most part the villains proactively make enormous leaps just before they are shot, in order to fall spectacularly for no particular reason.

One Damned Day at Dawn... Django meets Sartana from the same director is also a contender.


Terror of Tiny Town (1938)

You'd be forgiven for thinking that a Western film populated entirely with midgets would be hilariously non-PC and camp, but in fact it is endlessly boring. The camera scans the little people on eye-level anyway, and the sets are mostly built to scale, so the impression of their smallness diminishes and what the viewer is left with is - and I must apologize - some malformed cowboys.


White Fang and the Hunter (1975)

This is the sequel n to the White Fang films, which I suppose have some tenuous connection to Jack London books.

Just some Joseph looking for a manger... It's not there

The titular dog gets little screen time in this film. Mostly we are subjected to the antics of a venerated spaghetti sidekick Ignazio Spalla, who plays a drunken old fart. The joke is that he drinks a lot of booze, and that's the joke. He usually responds to everything with a "blaarh", or "arrr..?" with pouted lips and a surprised look on his face. Then he marries an indian old maid and they both get drunk, rolling around in a snowy dirt ditch. Then railroad something-something, forced marriage, fake priest, a bar fight, the end.


The Outlaw (1943)

Some seem to think this is a reasonable movie, so I may be in the wrong here. The film depicts an unlikely meeting between Doc Holliday, Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett. They are so removed from any historical (or legendary) depictions of them, sometimes I feel these are just three guys who happen to have those names by accident.

Some unintentional surrealism and absurd scenes here and there seem to portend more unconventional westerns to come, but I just can't care at all.

I guess the film was considered somewhat daring or even "naughty" in it's time, and echoes of this reputation may have made the film more well-known than it deserves to be. Jane Russell is hardly as "prominent" in the film as in the posters & promo stills.


It Can be Done Amigo (1972)

Somewhere in El Crapo, Texas... A cute idea: Jack Palance tries to force-wed his pregnant sister (or whatever, can't remember) to Bud Spencer, who does not fancy her at all. And when Bud Spencer does not get along with someone, you know what he can be like.

Two actors relying on heavy mannerisms can't quite carry it through. Spencer frowns and head-butts his way through the movie, whereas Palance mostly lies down, seemingly recovering from a hangover or something worse.

The pinnacle of jokes is the end where Spencer apparently finally beats up the woman. Ha, ha.

I have a pretty big soft spot for Bud Spencer movies, may he Rest in Peace, but here, no.


Bonus: Frisco Kid (1979)

It's one thing to point out failures in small productions, and perhaps not too fair either. But when a large cinematic production goes awry, it's a different order altogether. Using this metric, Frisco Kid might be the worst western film ever.

Again, it's not a bad idea, a Jewish Rabbi traveling through the old west. However, two hours are wasted in prolonged sketches and vignettes, possibly aiming at some kind of muted, subtle humor.

Sad to see Gene Wilder (Rest in Peace him too), who did a good job in Young Frankenstein and Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother, plod through this useless material.



*) Yes there are more than seven

Day of Anger

It's not often I have the same film in multiple formats and editions, so I decided to make a little comparison from still images.

Day of Anger (I Giorni dell'ira, 1967) was directed by Tonino Valerii and it stars Giuliano Gemma and Lee Van Cleef. I tend to think it as an above average spaghetti western, but not outstanding. Admittedly it belongs to an earlier stage of Italian westerns and thus perhaps more innovative than it now seems.

Well, anyway, to the picture quality. I have an italian DVD from "Medusa", which does not have english dubbing or subtitles. So I eventually acquired the Blu-Ray/DVD combo, recently released by Arrow media.

(To see the bigger images properly, you have to click on the images and open them in a new browser window.)

DVD/ Medusa (position 1:03:10)

Even without having anything to compare to, the Medusa DVD does not seem so good. However, the image quality is much better than many cheap spaghetti releases.


DVD/ Arrow (position 1:04:37)

Focusing only on the horses, there seems to be not that much more detail, but then I realized the cropping in the Medusa version :) Overall, the image is of course sharper and the colors are clearer.


Blu-Ray Disc / Arrow

Looking at a still image, the difference between the Blu-Ray and the good DVD is almost as big as between the two DVDs. When watching the moving image, the difference is not that heightened. There's some film grain noise that's not visible in the lower resolution DVD. Note how the color red was a bit blurry in the DVD but not so here.

Gimmick guns of the Spaghetti West

For the western film aficionado, It doesn't take too long to notice that Italian "spaghetti" westerns often have pretty colorful characters, scenery and items. Besides copious amounts of dynamite, acrobatics and warzone-levels of gunfire, sometimes what strikes as most unusual are the "signature" weapons, special weapons and hidden gimmick guns.

A gimmick gun is often presented as a reflection of the smarts of the character, a notion which may stupefy the modern viewer or the fan of US westerns. Whereas a gimmick gun would be really unprincipled for a hero in an american western, the "hehe, fooled you with my preparedness!" type of thinking is instead a sign of high sophistication in the Italian west.

Here are some examples. Click on the images to make them bigger!


Django's portable gatling gun (Django, 1966)

The scene where this gun is used pretty much set the standard for all subsequent "hidden gun turns tables on enemies" instances in Italian westerns.

The fact that the gun is carried in a coffin is a particularly Spaghetti touch, a cool idea less successfully varied in numerous films.

The belt appears not to need any feeding. Also, the barrels do not rotate, in fact the barrels are not laid out in a circular pattern at all and thus the front part resembles a Mitrailleuse.

Compare this to the more realistic depiction of the Hotchkiss machine gun in Bullet for the General (1966), oiling the clips and all.


Sabata's trick gun (Sabata, 1969) 

Sabata films are a treasure-trove of stupid guns, acrobatics and dynamite. This is a very James Bond-inspired, comic-book style film and perhaps the best in this sub-genre.

Lee Van Cleef's Sabata is equipped to the brim with tricks. For instance, he has an extra-long barreled rifle and a bag he uses as a shield and for setting gun-traps. Nearly all characters rely on tricks here, but Sabata out-wits them all.

Most inspiring is Sabata's tiny, seemingly four-barreled gun. It is strongly implied that the small size of the gun permits Sabata to draw much faster than his enemies. But the gun holds a secret. Should you be so silly to assume that Sabata can fire only four shots... a small panel flips out from the butt of the gun, revealing additional gun barrels! Sucks to be you!

Banjo's banjo-rifle (Sabata, 1969)

Banjo (William Berger) has a banjo-gun that is semi-realistic in the "hidden gun" category. The banjo simply holds a small rifle. It is less credible that the banjo would function as a good musical instrument, though? Not too sure where the empty shells are supposed to come out from.

The rifle resembles a Mare's Leg (a largely fictitious, "sawed-off Winchester"), but clearly the barrel has not been cut.

Trivia: the tune that Banjo plays is a melody from 3:10 to Yuma (1957). Why? Nobody knows.


Indio Black's harmonica gun (Adios Sabata/Indio Black, 1970)

Yul Brynner stars in this colorful and comic-book style Western. He brandishes a manually worked multi-chambered weapon that I initially thought was a completely made up concept. However harmonica guns were once an alternative to revolvers.

In dimensions it also resembles the Mare's Leg but it's not a cut Winchester. The last chamber usually holds a cigar, which Yul then coolly lights after killing all the enemies.

It's worth mentioning the same film also sports the "Flamenco of Death", where the dancer finishes the dance by launching a deadly stone from a dedicated stone-holder on the toe of his boot.


Doc Holliday's gun (Day of Anger, 1967)

Here the gun is not that gimmicky per se, but the film purports that the legendary gunslinger's gun embodies Holliday's gun skills, inherited through past use.

Also, the film has a great collection of "gun wisdom", for example by shortening a gun barrel a few millimeters it is possible to gain an edge when drawing on your opponent, etc.

There's also a sort of tournament duel on horseback with muskets, loaded on the go...

...one might say the film is about guns somehow...

Yeah, that's pretty safe to say.


7-barreled rifle (Hanging for Django, 1969)

Again we have William Berger, whose character this time holds something that might be a kind of a nock gun, although it doesn't make much sense to carry one around.


Machine gun (Return of Ringo, 1965)

What is that they are wheeling in... Another Maxim-wannabe or a Gatling? It's hard to see from this blurry image.

No, it's another composite of different ideas. At least here they acknowledge that the machine gun is a heavy thing and needs two people to operate it. But the barrel arrangement is more reminiscent of "organ guns", volley guns and other proto-machinegun evolutionary dead end designs.

Well, that's it for now. I'll update the list when I get more screenshots.