Disco Stu
11-06-2003, 08:58 PM
There are many who believe that the ending of Once Upon a Time in America (spoilers coming) implies that the entire film has been an opium induced fever dream that is being had by Robert De Niro's Noodles character. Whether you buy into this is obviously open to your own interpretation. To me, the movie is sort of an unfocused 4 hour film, where the hierarchy of the mob is never really worked out, so we don't know exactly who the characters are constantly fearing their life from. Women are treated appallingly throughout, and Elizabeth Mcgovern seems to forgive De Niro for an absolutely brutal rape, just because a significant amount of time has passed. The sequences that involve the children are much better than the adult scenes, but don't effectively set up anything for later, they're put in there so the movie can be labeled an "epic."
Last night, I watched Phantasm IV: Oblivion, which is oddly similar in many ways, mostly because it resembles a fever dream. The movie is clearly a cash in, comprised about half with flashbacks from previous Phantasm movies, and its reason for being was the use of deleted scenes from the first film which weren't good enough to be included on the massive LD and DVD set. Rarely will you see a movie that is more padded with scenes that go absolutely nowhere, Reggie Bannister is another movie altogether for quite some time, he picks up a woman whose car flips over when he's driving alongside her. Within 10 minutes of screen time, she's dead, with the mysterious silver balls of The Tall Man coming out of her breasts. There is a pretense of explaining the origin of The Tall Man, but the movie never gets farther than showing Angus Scrimm as a gentle old man and scientist before he turned evil. Scenes are assembled randomly and most of the time we are in the mind of Mike, who The Tall Man wants for some reason. Mike was implanted with one of the silver balls at the end of Phantasm III, and has been suffering from constant daydreams and nightmares (which is how writer/director Don Coscarelli finds a way to work in all of those flashbacks), and he keeps seeing his dead brother who is either evil or not so, the purpose of his presence is never made clear. Most of the dialogue is ADR'd in, rarely do you see anyone visibly speaking their dialogue. Anything that is said is either really vague or a cliche, or both. So it allows you to focus on Mike's dreams, as he goes in and out of consciousness, and the randomness of the powers of The Tall Man, and the psuedo creepy imagery it attempts to scare us with and a constant use of slow motion shots of The Tall Man walking in Death Valley or in an unnamed vacated city. The Phantasm series is not about coherency, the previous 3 movies had a weird energy that eschewed the fact that at no point did it make any sense nor follow its own rules (or really bother to establish them either). Criticizing the fourth movie for being absolutely awful seems pointless, but it is ineffective at replicating the dreamy unreality that flows through the other three films. However, as an idea, where a character's actions have no effect what happens to them, and they are constantly hallucinating (might The Tall Man not even really exist?), it has sort of a strange power. It reminded me of the highly superior Brain Damage in that way, perhaps Mike is using the ball in his head as a drug of sorts, much like Alymer.
My question is, which kind of movie do you prefer? A movie that plays straight forward for 98% of its (long, in the case of OUATIA) running time and then throws in a twist at the end which may or may not make you rethink what has gone on before it? Does that make you feel a little cheated, as if you've wated your time? Or do you prefer a nonsensical hallucination for the entire 90 minute running time, with constant bizarre imagery, but with little in the way of consistency in characters or the willingness to follow its own rules? Other movies like this include Eraserhead and In the Mouth of Madness.
I am not asking which is better between Phantasm IV or OUATIA, because isn't the answer quite clear? It's obviously Phantasm IV.
Last night, I watched Phantasm IV: Oblivion, which is oddly similar in many ways, mostly because it resembles a fever dream. The movie is clearly a cash in, comprised about half with flashbacks from previous Phantasm movies, and its reason for being was the use of deleted scenes from the first film which weren't good enough to be included on the massive LD and DVD set. Rarely will you see a movie that is more padded with scenes that go absolutely nowhere, Reggie Bannister is another movie altogether for quite some time, he picks up a woman whose car flips over when he's driving alongside her. Within 10 minutes of screen time, she's dead, with the mysterious silver balls of The Tall Man coming out of her breasts. There is a pretense of explaining the origin of The Tall Man, but the movie never gets farther than showing Angus Scrimm as a gentle old man and scientist before he turned evil. Scenes are assembled randomly and most of the time we are in the mind of Mike, who The Tall Man wants for some reason. Mike was implanted with one of the silver balls at the end of Phantasm III, and has been suffering from constant daydreams and nightmares (which is how writer/director Don Coscarelli finds a way to work in all of those flashbacks), and he keeps seeing his dead brother who is either evil or not so, the purpose of his presence is never made clear. Most of the dialogue is ADR'd in, rarely do you see anyone visibly speaking their dialogue. Anything that is said is either really vague or a cliche, or both. So it allows you to focus on Mike's dreams, as he goes in and out of consciousness, and the randomness of the powers of The Tall Man, and the psuedo creepy imagery it attempts to scare us with and a constant use of slow motion shots of The Tall Man walking in Death Valley or in an unnamed vacated city. The Phantasm series is not about coherency, the previous 3 movies had a weird energy that eschewed the fact that at no point did it make any sense nor follow its own rules (or really bother to establish them either). Criticizing the fourth movie for being absolutely awful seems pointless, but it is ineffective at replicating the dreamy unreality that flows through the other three films. However, as an idea, where a character's actions have no effect what happens to them, and they are constantly hallucinating (might The Tall Man not even really exist?), it has sort of a strange power. It reminded me of the highly superior Brain Damage in that way, perhaps Mike is using the ball in his head as a drug of sorts, much like Alymer.
My question is, which kind of movie do you prefer? A movie that plays straight forward for 98% of its (long, in the case of OUATIA) running time and then throws in a twist at the end which may or may not make you rethink what has gone on before it? Does that make you feel a little cheated, as if you've wated your time? Or do you prefer a nonsensical hallucination for the entire 90 minute running time, with constant bizarre imagery, but with little in the way of consistency in characters or the willingness to follow its own rules? Other movies like this include Eraserhead and In the Mouth of Madness.
I am not asking which is better between Phantasm IV or OUATIA, because isn't the answer quite clear? It's obviously Phantasm IV.