The Weekly Gravy #143

TekWar (1994) – **

I’ve been listening to a lot of 372 Pages We’ll Never Get Back lately, and while I’d known of TekWar for years, it wasn’t until I started listening to their episodes on the first novel (in a series of nine!) that I became seriously interested in reading it and/or seeing this adaptation of the first book, the first of four made-for-TV movies based on the books which aired in early 1994, followed later that year by a single-season series. That’s an awful lot of Tek, and between the quality of this film and what Mike and Conor have said about the first novel, I’m not sure just how much deeper I want to go.

During the production of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, William Shatner apparently got the idea for a novel about the future, but not the optimistic future of Trek; here is a world all too similar to the present day, where a drug called Tek allows people to live out their fantasies in incredible detail – at the risk of burning out their brains – and the ruthless TekLords occupy the role in future society drug kingpins occupy in our own. (Apparently, Shatner was drawing as much from his work on the police series T.J. Hooker as on his science-fiction career.)

But Shatner needed a skilled writer to turn his concepts into a viable novel, and ghostwriter Ron Goulart came aboard. Goulart had a lengthy career in his own right, including a series I’m mighty curious about: a series of detective novels starring Groucho Marx, the first of which was published over 20 years after Groucho’s death! (It would’ve made more sense as a licensed tie-in during his lifetime; a quick buck for Groucho and an easy sale for the author.) From what I hear, Goulart’s prose left something to be desired, but the books sold well enough to start a franchise which also included comic books (called TekWorld) trading cards, and a computer game.

It all dried up eventually, but for a few years, Tek was a big deal, and now, like the ruins of Ozymandias’ statue, we mighty may look upon it and despair.

In 2044 (about a century earlier than in the book), ex-cop Jake Cardigan (Greg Evigan) is released from prison. He had been sentenced to 15 years suspended animation for murdering his partners and dealing Tek, charges he fiercely denies but which led his wife to divorce him and his son to disown during his time in “the freezer.” But he’s only served four years, and it’s revealed that he was released with the help of Walter Bascom (Shatner), a security tycoon for whom Jake’s ex-partner Sid Gomez (Eugene Clark) now works.

Bascom wants Jake to track down one Professor Kittridge, who was developing a device which could fry all the Tek chips on Earth – but it seems that Kittridge is in the pocket of TekLord Sonny Hokori (Von Flores), who helped to frame Jake. As Jake investigates, he meets an android double of Kittridge’s daughter Beth (Torri Higginson) who helps him investigate the disappearance of the Kittridge’s, which leads Jake to Warbride (Sheena Easton), an old girlfriend who now leads an anti-capitalist movement.

After a showdown in which Sonny is arrested, Jake confronts the person who actually killed his partners – an android police officer, Lt. Winger (Maurice Dean Wint) – but doesn’t learn who programmed Winger to be capable of committing such a crime. That revelation presumably comes in the sequel, TekLords, but as I said, I’m not sure I’ll bother.

There’s certainly fun to be had with TekWar. Its view of the future, made on a mid-90s TV budget, is often hilariously dated, feeling more like the deliberately over-the-top fantasy of The Fifth Element, or a much tamer Blade Runner, than what 2044 is likely to offer. And it should come as no surprise that the CGI is laughably clunky, even if the fuzzy resolution of the version I watched (presumably taken from a videotape) kept it from becoming too glaring.

Special mention is due both to the hacking scene, which treats the process like some kind of video game (banking, I’d imagine, on the audience not knowing too much about computers), and the action scenes, which feel like nothing so much as rehearsal footage that got used in the finished product. Shatner also directed (he also directed the first and last episodes of the series), and he shows no more flair behind the camera here than he did in The Final Frontier.

The acting isn’t too bad, but it’s not that good either. Evigan is solid enough at playing a smartass but is never really convincing as a seasoned cop; Clark is rather better as his sardonic partner. Higginson is okay, but Easton totally lacks the necessary grit as Warbride (who sounds like a Mad Max character); Flores chews the scenery, Shatner is Shatner (not at his best but not hamming it up either), and Wint is solid in a relatively fleeting role as the scowling Winger.

The real problem is the muddled story, which lacks any satisfying flow or any of the intrigue a good mystery should offer. It’s clearly the first part of a longer story, and just as clearly shaped to fit a two-hour time slot, but it does little to draw in those not already invested in the Tek franchise. It now simply reminds one of the far better films which came after it – Strange Days, Fifth Element, Dark City, The Matrix, Minority Report, and so on. Stick with those.

Score: 40

Rocktober: Gridiron Gang (2006) – ***

“You know you’re an idiot, right?”

“Well, I’m making progress. Because I used to be an asshole.”

So says Sean Porter (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) after convincing Willie Weathers (Jade Yorker), a teenage inmate at the Kilpatrick Detention Center, to knock him on his back during football practice. See, Sean is trying to help the young men at Kilpatrick, many of whom have committed violent crimes and/or are gang members, but the frequent conflicts among them, and their high rate of recidivism, convinces him that something more is needed, something to teach them discipline, something to bring them together despite the old loyalties which tear them apart, something to give them purpose…

And that something is football.

Naturally, a lot of what we see in the film actually happened; in fact, the film is based on a 1993 documentary of the same name, and we see clips of it during the end credits, where the real Sean Porter gives the same speeches Johnson delivers, and in much the same tone: hard-assed, but with a sincere regard for the young men he’s trying to save from a life of violence and despair.

Naturally, a lot of what we see in the film didn’t happen, at least not quite the way it plays out; it’s a romanticized, sentimental, inspirational take on the story, not bad at showing the conflicts of personality among the characters we get to know, but less convincing when it depicts life on the streets (it’s very much a Hollywood view of life in South Central). The story plays out quite predictably, with highs and lows, montages, redemptive moments, conflicts with authority, and even a bit of a villain; there’s a star member of an opposing who drops the hard R during the climactic game, a moment which kind of sucks the air out of the room.

But it does work, at least to a degree. I’m not a sports fan and I have serious qualms about the dangers of football (which, to be fair, the film doesn’t gloss over; injuries are a part of the story and the in-game collisions are quite viscerally depicted), but I’m not immune to an underdog story and I’m especially in favor of a story which advocates rehabilitation over simple punishment – one of the key problems facing our criminal-justice system, in my view.

I am fairly immune to Trevor Rabin’s swelling, string-heavy score, and I won’t pretend that there’s anything special about Phil Joanou’s direction or the filmmaking as a whole; it’s a solid studio effort, smoothly made but undistinguished.

The acting isn’t distinguished either, but it carries us through. Johnson is all right in the dramatic scenes, and he puts the proper fire into his speeches, but he’s best when he’s able to draw on his charm and sense of humor, as in the quote above, or in his scenes with his dying mother Bobbi (L. Scott Caldwell). Rapper Xzibit is also solid as his colleague and assistant coach Malcolm Moore; he’s got an especially good scene where he convinces the coach of a Christian high school to play the Kilpatrick team with an impromptu reference to the Book of Luke.

The young actors playing the team members are decent as well; Yorker gets the most screentime as the troubled Willie, caught between his gang affiliations, his love for Danyelle (Jurnee Smollett), and his own sensitive humanity, which first becomes apparent when he cannot kill an innocent man whose brother killed his cousin, but can kill his mother’s abusive boyfriend in self-defense, and then leads him to protect teammate Kelvin Owens (David Thomas), member of a rival gang, from the retaliation of his old allies. It’s not a seamless performance – and the scenes where he and Thomas glower at one another are unintentionally funny – but he sticks the landing.

Also solid are Setu Taase as the trouble-prone but ultimately good-hearted Junior, Brandon Mychal Smith as the boisterous waterboy Bug, and Mo McRae as Leon, the brashly confident quarterback whose own vulnerability must be confronted – and mastered. It’s a decent ensemble of young talent, some of whom went on to bigger things.

For a film that got middling reviews and wasn’t a particular hit, Gridiron Gang isn’t bad. It’s too corny and tame to rise above the low end of ***, but it works well enough as an inspirational true story, anchored by Johnson’s impassioned presence, to earn that much. I’m sure the documentary is better, but this is an adequate introduction to the story.

Score: 65

Rock Score:

Party Girl (1995) – ***½

My first experience with Daisy von Scherler Mayer’s filmography came as a child, when I watched her film of Madeline, which was probably also the first time I saw Frances McDormand in anything (she plays Miss Clavel). It was a change of pace for both of them, Mayer having established herself with two contemporary films for adults (this and Woo) and McDormand having established herself as an actress in distinctly adult fare, including Fargo, which she’d recently won an Oscar for.

I don’t know if I’d still find Madeline especially worthwhile, but I know if I’d seen Party Girl back then, it would’ve mostly sailed over my head – except, perhaps, for the magnetism Parker Posey displays in the lead role as the free-spirited Mary. But if I would’ve appreciated her energy and colorful style, I would’ve overlooked how her carefree attitude comes back to haunt her once the party’s over, how she has no actual direction or prospects, and how she alienates the very people she entrances.

One of them is Mustafa (Omar Townsend), a Lebanese immigrant who runs a falafel cart but longs to resume his teaching career, and becomes Mary’s love interest…but his thoughtful, grounded nature clashes with her giddy abandon. Another is Judy’s godmother Judy (Sasha von Scherler – Daisy’s mother), a librarian who reluctantly takes Mary on as a clerk but frequently has cause to compare her to her mother – “a woman with no common sense.”

There’s also Leo (Guillermo Diaz), an aspiring DJ who crashes at Mary’s apartment and gets a job at Rene’s (Donna Mitchell) nightclub, a favorite haunt of Mary’s. And there’s Nigel (Liev Schreiber), an Englishman who works at Rene’s club and has something going on with Mary – though it might just be a means of staying in America. And there’s Mary’s friend Derrick (Anthony DeSando), who’s mostly concerned with tracking down Karl, the German hunk he “connected” with one night, “from the essence, from the ancient center of our beings.”

But the focus is almost entirely on Mary and how, in fits and starts, she works her way towards maturity. Her arc isn’t handled with quite enough depth or cohesion to justify the 94-minute running time, but Posey’s performance more than compensates. Wearing the awesomely gaudy 90s fashions like she was born in them, getting high in the library and learning the Dewey Decimal System while strutting and cartwheeling about, moving between highs of snarky defiance and lows of pleading desperation, she gives a true star turn. The rest of the cast hold their own (von Scherler is especially endearing), but it’s Posey’s show, and she scores.

The film also serves as a nice portrait of the New York club scene at the time, contrasting the hedonism of the clubs and parties with the sober, regulated world of the library without wagging its finger at us. The extensive soundtrack, full of mid-90s dance music, is as much a part of the film’s nostalgic charm as Mary’s wardrobe, and at least once it even serves as a commentary on the action; early on, Mary is arrested for a party she threw, and a cover of “Mama Told Me Not to Come” plays, the words “That ain’t the way to have fun, son” resonating with us as Mary pouts behind bars.

But even without the nostalgia factor, it’s a film full of good vibes (for the most part). It captures the energy and humor of young adulthood in the big city, but with a wistful edge that acknowledges how ephemeral a lifestyle it really is, and how a sense of purpose and responsibility, as unsexy as it may seem, can lead us to a more lasting happiness. It’s also quite funny, especially when Mary rearranges Leo’s records by the Dewey system, or when he interviews with Rene and makes a fool of himself (“Imitate a Cat Puking”).

It’s far from a perfect film, what with the shaggy storytelling and a few glaring miscalculations (a cringe-inducing party Mary throws towards the end, a scene with Nigel which turns much darker than the otherwise light-hearted film can support); the problematic sound recording, at least on the version I saw, is another hurdle, at least if subtitles aren’t available. But it’s a good and charming film, and as good a case as any for Posey’s status as “Queen of the Indies.”

Score: 78

Gate of Hell/Jigokumon/地獄門 (1953) – ****

For a film made 70 years ago and set in the 12th century, Gate of Hell remains painfully relevant, being on one hand the story of a man who believes himself entitled to a woman, all appeals to reason and empathy be damned, and on the other hand the story of a woman who, finding herself the focus of his obsession, can neither reason with him, nor count on those around her to take the threat he poses seriously. The result is a tragedy bitterly—but fruitlessly—lamented.

Kyoto, 1160. Morito (Kazuo Hasegawa) is a warrior loyal to the ruling Taira clan. During an uprising, he takes part in a diversion meant to protect the Taira nobility, in which lady-in-waiting Kesa (Machiko Kyō) poses as her mistress. After reaching safety, Morito gets a good look at Kesa and becomes infatuated with her. After the uprising is suppressed, Kiyomori (Koreya Senda) offers to reward Morito for his loyalty, and Morito asks him to facilitate his marriage to Kesa. There’s just one problem: Kesa is married to Wataru (Isao Yamagata).

That fails to dissuade Morito, who continues to pursue his claim, making him the target of rumor and derision. Kesa, however, is more distressed than amused, and while a loving husband, Wataru is not much ruffled by Morito’s behavior, even after Morito challenges him, first in a horse race and then at an ostensibly friendly banquet afterwards. When he finally threatens violence if Kesa will not yield to him, she takes matters into her own hands.

How she does so may frustrate some viewers; in some ways it anticipates the ending of Promising Young Woman, but with a very different comeuppance for the man in question. It does represent the choice of a penitent life over a vengeful (or worse, redemptive) death, but is that letting Morito off the hook too easily? Yes, he sacrifices his top-knot – no small loss in medieval Japanese society – but a modern viewer may prefer to focus on the grief-stricken Wataru, who points out that taking revenge will do very little to ease his pain.

How much guilt does he feel over what has happened? He wonders why Kesa didn’t trust him more, but we have already seen how took a passive attitude towards Morito’s behavior (“Force is the warrior’s usual method;” “Retain your composure, no matter who says what”) Morito, of course, beats himself up for letting his obsession destroy him, but that’s too little, too late.

While it’s established early on that Morito is a fierce warrior, and loyal to his clan to the point of siding with them over his own brother, what should we make of him spewing water on the unconscious Kesa’s face to wake her? Was this common in medieval Japan, or is it an early indication of a transgressive streak which later comes fully to the fore?

And what should we make of Wataru’s circle dismissing Morito as a vulgar interloper, a rural bumpkin out of place in Kyoto society – at once downplaying the increasing danger he poses and the valor he displayed during the uprising? And how distressed should we be when Kiyomori actually arranges for Morito and Kesa to meet? One of Kiyomori’s men even suggests he’s gone too far, but if Kiyomori regrets allowing Morito to press his claim, he never says so.

Despite some lapses in the script by director Teinosuke Kinugasa (based on the play Kesa’s Husband by Kan Kikuchi), namely a first act which serves little lasting purpose beyond showing how Kesa and Morito met (and, at least in the subtitles on the Criterion DVD, some clunky exposition), there’s a lot to chew on here. But whatever its dramatic strengths, it’s the technical splendor on display that really helped the film make a splash on its initial release.

It was the first Japanese color film to receive international release, and besides winning the Honorary Oscar for Foreign Language Film (the permanent category wouldn’t be established for another couple of years), it won the Oscar for Color Costume Design, which was richly deserved; the vividly colored and richly embroidered robes are dazzling to look at, yet wholly convincing. But it also deserved nominations for its striking sets and gorgeous cinematography; the first act may be somewhat superfluous, but it provides some of the film’s most stunning images, from the opening palace siege to a pursuit along a beach, the sea and sky the same shade of pinkish gold.

All of this is a testament to Kinugasa’s excellent direction (the score is also fantastic, the variations on the main theme being especially haunting), but the performances are just as deserving of priase. Hasegawa, who’d give a fascinating performance a decade later in An Actor’s Revenge, here gives an unnerving depiction of lust and arrogance taken to a destructive extreme. Morito is at once pathetic and frightening, and Hasegawa doesn’t hold back for the sake of his dignity. Kyō has less screentime than I remembered, but she’s deeply affecting in showing how Kesa tries to maintain emotional decorum in the face of an intolerable situation. Yamagata is also very solid as the well-meaning Wataru.

Despite its Oscar wins, and despite winning the top prize at Cannes (then the Grand Prix, now the Palme d’Or), Gate of Hell hasn’t maintained that high of a profile over the decades; it was long hard to find, and later critics tended to dismiss it in favor of the masterworks of Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Ozu, and so forth (in The Emperor and the Wolf, Stuart Galbraith IV calls it “rather undistinguished). But if it’s not on the level of Rashomon (a damned high level) or Kinugasa’s brilliant silent A Page of Madness, it’s still an excellent film, using magnificent filmmaking to tell a tragically resonant story. It’s well worth seeing.

Score: 88

The Blackening (2022) – ***

Horror-comedy is a hard genre to get right. Too much horror and you overpower the comedy; too much comedy and you risk defanging the horror. And comedy itself is notoriously tricky; “Dying is easy, comedy is hard” goes the old saying, and while the creators of The Blackening make a valiant effort throughout – and the results can be genuinely funny – they don’t quite pull off the balancing act necessary to truly stuck the landing.

Ten years after college, a group of Black friends get together for a Juneteenth weekend at a cabin in the woods, but the two members of the group who got there first are nowhere to be seen – and an unpopular classmate shows up, claiming to have been invited. After a power outage, the group, looking for the fuse box, finds a game room, in which a game called The Blackening is prominently displayed.

The game suddenly speaks to them, demanding they play if they want to save the life of their friend – who’s shown on a closed-circuit TV being menaced by a masked figure. They decide to play, answering increasingly complex questions based on Black culture, but the final question is the kicker: they must sacrifice one of their number. And once they have, they realize their troubles have only begun…

Right off the bat, the film’s self-aware, satirical tone brings Scream to mind (there’s a prologue establishing what happens to the missing friends), while there are overt references to Get Out and others, subtle references to The Shining and others, the very premise is archetypal, and for my money, the combination of old friends grappling with old tensions while facing a mysterious threat with highly topical discourse brings Bodies Bodies Bodies to mind.

Part of the problem with The Blackening is that it doesn’t settle on a tone. At times it’s highly referential and self-aware, and at others it’s broad and frantic; at times the horror is deliberately over-the-top and meant to be amusing, and at others it’s disturbing and upsetting.

This wouldn’t be an issue if the film was better at balancing its tonal shifts, but that leads us to another problem, which is the film’s messy plotting. Apparently, the film was heavily improvised, and while that allows for some great moments when the characters are just bouncing off one another, it doesn’t work so well at creating tension or telling a story.

So when this film, late in the game, tries to tie its story together and make its overarching point – essentially that Blackness isn’t a competition – it falls rather flat, using a device which, in a tighter film, might have provided a real sting, but here feels like an ass-pull. I haven’t seen the 2018 short the film is based on, but I could imagine it works better by virtue of conciseness. (At 97 minutes, The Blackening isn’t overlong per se, but it does feel a bit shaggy in the second half.)

The cast, however, do well enough individually and as an ensemble to keep the film afloat. For me, the standouts were Dewayne Perkins (who co-wrote the script) as the snarky but sensitive Dewayne and Jermaine Fowler as Clifton, who’s such a dweeb Steve Urkel would stuff him in a locker. But that’s not to slight Grace Byers as the daffily deadpan Allison (especially when she pops a few Adderall), Melvin Gregg as the good-natured King (his undrinkable cocktail is an amusing touch), X Mayo as the gregarious Shanika, Antoinette Robinson as the graceful Lisa (until it’s time not to be graceful), Sinqua Walls as the smooth Nnamdi (until circumstances derail his smoothness), and Diedrich Bader in a fun small role as a self-aware park ranger.

As a film, it’s not badly made – the cabin itself is a fine piece of production design – but Tim Story’s direction lacks the deft touch necessary to pull off the most elaborate set pieces, and the results are full of screaming and rushing about but are light on scares or laughs. But as he’s never really made a horror film – his two Fantastic Four movies in the Aughts are the closest he’s come – he was arguably the wrong director for the job.

Others have liked The Blackening rather more than I have; Black viewers and more devoted fans of horror and self-referential comedy will probably appreciate it more than I did. But aside from appreciating the talented cast, I find it hard to strongly recommend, at least on the big screen.

Score: 68