I love a 1950's homage.......

                                    

So the trend in my movie watching lately has been 1950's or 1960’s homage films, probably because most of my friends are sci-fi fanatics. For those of you who don’t know, a sci-fi film during those twenty years have a lot to do with the fear of the unknown which in the reality of that time was Communism plus Russia. In cinema, the unknown was portrayed through aliens, weird creatures  like The Blob, and  again Russians. There was also some disdain towards  technology. Think about the constant offenders in Mystery Science Theater: The Dead Talk Back, The Atomic Brain and Monster A-Go-Go.

Anywho, let’s start with the delightfully campy 1950’s spoof “Alien Trespass.” The inhabitants of a desert town witness a “meteor” crashing into earth.  Scientist Dr. Ted Lewis (Eric McCormack) and Lana (Jody Thompson) are finishing up an anniversary barbecue, Tammy (Jenni Baird) is peering out the window after painting, and teenage couple Penny and Dick are taking a respite from making out when the “meteor,” also known as alien Urp’s  spaceship, crashes into their small town.

            The next day, Dick and Penny go back to the scene of the crash and run into a Cycloptic monster with a myriad of tentacles that occasionally turns invisible. They hurry back and report their findings to the  soon to be retired  head policeman . He scolds them for their farfetched tales and kicks them out of the station. But then weird things start to happen. There are scream filled phone calls. And allegations that someone was just turned into a puddle.

            Furthermore, Dr. Ted Lewis is running around with a weapon device and stealing a car. It might be because alien Urp has inhabited his body. Tammy, a diner waitress, becomes involved with Urp, on a rural outing to pick up more eggs for the diner. Mistaking Urp for Ted Lewis, she offers him a ride and becomes involved in his plight to stop the one eyed monster. 

Above: Tammy tries to help Urp/ Ted get back to his home planet, by protecting him from fellow suburbanites.

The best part of Alien Trespass is the archetypal characters. You have the 1950’s homemaker Lana Lewis, the disgruntled cop, the young new policeman, the scientist genius Ted Lewis, the pretty single girl Tammy, the nosy townspeople, and the gang of teenagers, the couple Penny and Dick and their cocky bad boy pal. Each line is said with such dramatic emphasis, that you can't help but laugh and enjoy the references to 1950's life. The costumes and scenery are emphasized as much as the dialogue to a campy and cartoonic degree.This film is not for the serious film goer at all.  It is for those who find enjoyment in films like Barbarella, Batman with Adam West and the Rocky Horror Picture Show. 

Here is some interesting trivia about Alien Trespass. Make sure to watch the prologue of the movie with a short discussion with Eric McCormack and the director. Both of them have a historical connection to the film: their ancestors created the film and it was shelved until they recently found it. It is interesting that they wanted to make the movie to highlight the sci-fi age, but also make fun of it at the same time.

I also watched Moon, which was  made in 2009 as well.  Moon is a more darker look at technology, really similar to WALL-E. Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is an astronaut who has been up in space for a long time. He misses his wife and hasn’t seen his newborn daughter yet. He doesn’t really interact with any other people. So it is a very lonely life. The only source of interaction is GERTY, a machine that controls the ship and keeps Sam healthy. GERTY is  voiced by Kevin Spacey. One day, Sam  leaves his base and explores the moon. He crashes his space vehicle and next thing he knows, he is waking up in the base infirmary and GERTY is taking care of him and not responding to the questions he has about his accident. After being cooped up in the station for awhile, Sam goes out to explore even though his sponsor and GERTY forbids him to. Then he finds his crashed vehicle with a man inside…..so is he really as isolated from others as he believes?

 This film is hard to sit through even though it is only ninety minutes, because of the silence and large open set design. But Moon covers many psychological issues concerning the self and Sam Rockwell’s acting is always quirky and enjoyable to watch. Moon effectively pulls you into the isolated setting with its repeated scenes and simple set design. It causes you to question how technology isolates people, a problem not thought about today with the latest technology causing decreasing our human interactions and our thinking processes.

Naksha: meaning map I think, and Indiana Jones adventure for the Hindi movie goer

So I'm going to try and keep this blog to movies before 2002, but sometimes I find some homage films that are just too culturally important for America to forget. I also think it is important to talk about films made today about previous eras because of the lost, recycled mentality I'm noticing in our culture. For example, hit songs, films and newest fashion trends are all taken from previous American styles and made to form a hipper version that loses the original ideas. Like Rihanna's use of the song "Tainted Love" to recreate a vapid dance number.

For foreign films, I will be more relaxed about the varying release dates since I've noticed foreign perspectives bring new elements to film that are different from American cinema.

Speaking of which, let's go onto Naksha. On the Netflix summary, it is described as the Bollywood answer to Indiana Jones. And it is sort of (notice the hat).


Potential for making comical suggestions a la mystery science theater? Yes, is what I thought when it arrived. Especially when I saw that Vivek Oberoi, somewhat goofy or melodramatic B actor was in it. He was silly in Deewane Huye Paagal, and way too weepy in Saathiya and Yuva. Here comes my shift from my preconceptions: Good acting and the film had entertainment value. Vicky (Vivek Oberoi) and Veer (the talented Sunny Deol) follow in their father's footsteps to protect an ancient map with a Hindu background. Veer first tries to get Vicky to give up his quest as per Vicky's mother's request, but then helps protect his little brother and complete the intentions of their murdered father. Along the way, ancillary Riya (newcomer Sameera Reddy) gets washed upstream along their journey. And they better be careful because the obsessive and blood thirsty Baali (Jackie Schroff) is after them.

The film does a wonderful job evoking the same spirit as Indiana Jones, with dusty landscapes and mystical obstacles. There is a lot of empty space where nothing happens except Veer and Vicky banter and bicker through the wildnerness trail, but it is pretty charming to watch. There is some backstory missing, but the plot is definitely more important than the characters. The songs, the reason why I expected a reason to make fun of this, totally delivered corniness.

Take a listen to "Shake it" or "Let's do Balle Balle": Naksha

There are all kinds of English words that are out of context, which of course is to be expected. But the quality of these musical numbers are really unimportant and not even long enough to contribute anything to the film.

BOTTOM LINE: Delightfully mystical and short Bollywood (only about 2 hours). Really well made film save for the fluff. Good for a rainy day

Welcome

Hello! Namaste! Bonjour! Dag! And all that jazz. Basically welcome to the movie blog by me, the Mnemonic Film Contessa.

I spend my weeks watching between 3-6 movies, because A.) I've been obsessed with movies since I was a kid carrying VHS tape boxes around, B.) I am always up for try something new and different, especially striking films that reach deep emotion, C.) I like to be surprised and finally, D.) I have a lot of time on my hands :)

I have to warn you, what you're going to read in here might be out of the ordinary, or downright weird, because I like to watch a variety of films that can sometimes be really jaw dropping and will stretch your imagination to places you never thought, whether a crazy B- movie art house flick, a Bollywood extravaganza, a timeless classic that set the standards for cinema, or a foreign picture that brings new storylines to American audiences. But it will be much fun, I promise.