Buddy Cop Movies and Why they are So Popular

This is a genre that has been around for a long time. I can't even begin to go into its full history, but the basic formula is one that has endured at least since the 1980's: A police officer is assigned to his (it's almost always a guy) latest case, during which time he is also given a new partner (often but not always another cop or other law enforcement). Said partner is completely the opposite to him in terms of personality; usually one is more uptight and by the book while the other is more reckless and wild. Naturally the two can't stand each other but they're forced to work together anyway and by the time they've solved the case they are best friends.

It is a simple enough formula, and one that can be taken in plenty of directions storywise (exactly what the case is for example, varies widely between films). There are still patterns that are typically common. For instance, the two "buddy cops" are almost always men. Aside from a one or two exceptions, any female characters present in the story are usually a supporting role such as a love interest for one of them. I have yet to find a buddy cop film where the pairing is between a man and a woman.

That said, the combinations vary widely. Usually you have the dynamic of the uptight professional cop and the reckless wild one, but for a while it became popular with films such as Lethal Weapon to pair up a white guy and a black guy. With Hot Fuzz you have the cop who is so good at his job that he embarrasses everyone around him and the cop who at first has no idea what he's doing. The Canadian film Bon Cop, Bad Cop takes the basic formula but instead pairs together an English-speaking cop from Toronto with a French-speaking Quebecois officer. In a subversion of my earlier comment about how the "buddy cops" are usually men, we recently got The Heat, where the same formula is replicated but this time with both partners being women.

Then we get into weirder combinations. The infamous movie Cop and ½ sees poor Burt Reynolds forced to team up with a kid to track down the bad guys. Osmosis Jones does this kind of story but instead uses the setting of the human body, with a the "buddy cops" being a white blood cell and a cold pill who team up to track down a lethal virus. What I said earlier about having yet to find a pairing between a man and a woman might not be entirely true if you count Theodore Rex, which has the odd pairing of Whoopi Goldberg and a talking dinosaur. Yes, that actually happened.

So what is it that makes this genre so popular? Part of it might be just the creative combinations that different writers can come up (even if at times they get really weird or outright stupid), but a major part of the buddy cop film is in how the two main characters play off of each other. Naturally there's usually lots of action but it may just be that there is something emotional to be found about two conflicting characters who otherwise might have had nothing to do with each other bonding together over a crime, to the point where they often end with both partners getting together to solve another crime.  

In this case, unlike perhaps a regular police-based narrative, such as the old TV series Columbo, the conflict and tension becomes more in how the two "buddy cops" have to figure out how to put aside their differences and work together to solve the crime moreso than the crime itself (although the crooks involved certainly don't help matters). After ;all while the investigation plays a major role in the story, the plots of both Hot Fuzz and The Heat were driven largely by the relationship between the two leads and how they gradually warm up to each other so they can finally take on the bad guys during the climax. The genre is a bit of a cliché now, but really the key to making a good "Buddy Cop" film is simply to have two leads who can really play off of each other.

How to Start A Movie 101

I tried to watch The Towering Inferno and was promised an exciting and tense thriller with lots of suspense as a group of characters fight to survive a massive fire in an office building. Instead I ended up turning it off almost an hour in, having gotten a few shots of flame but mostly just men in suits talking about the building with no inferno, firefighters, or action to be seen.

I don't know, maybe once it actually gets somewhere things get more interesting, but I seemed to have the same problem with it as I did the 1972 version of Solaris: did they really need three hours for this film? Did they really have to spend a full hour just on exposition and setting things up. I personally felt like it took far too long and really could have been shorter, perhaps more around 10-20 minutes would have sufficed.

It led me to start wondering: just what is the best way to start a movie. The opening scene alone is a crucial part of any film, as you really need to be able to set the tone for everything that follows. You have to establish the atmosphere, set up the actual sequence of events, and introduce us to the characters and the circumstances that drive the story. There are many different ways to do this, and sometimes some methods do take longer than others.

Once Upon a Time in the West has an opening scene that takes a full ten minutes, during which time nothing happens. What makes this scene work is it sets the standard for the rest of the movie. It shows us that what we're about to see is not a conventional western, and the rest of the movie is certainly like this. However, while we only get introduced to one major character during this scene (two if you include them referencing Frank, who first appears in the scene immediately after this) it does build up the appropriate atmosphere, drawing us in through the use of sound in particular to bring the world to life so that when the action gets started we're ready for it.

Now I have often said that one of the most crucial elements to making a good horror film is never to start with the horror itself. Never open by bringing out the blood, the guts, or the knives. The important thing is to draw the viewer in. You have to get them acquainted with the characters, the environment, and build up the right sort of atmosphere.

That way, by the time the actual horror shows up, whether it's ghosts, goblins, zombies, aliens, demons, vampires, invincible knife-wielding psychos, or Cthulhu; the audience will have developed enough of a connection to the characters and the world they inhabit that the terrifying aspects of the story will leave a stronger impact than if you just occasionally startle them with a terrible effect and a bit of music.

This is the kind of area where you really ought to take your time developing things. One example I can cite where this is done really well is Alan Parker's Angel Heart. With this film, there is an eerie atmosphere right from the opening scene (which shows an unidentified body lying in an alleyway, with the heavy implication that the victim was murdered) and it gets darker as the film goes on. The plot also gets kicked off fairly quickly, but as eerie as the film is the actual horror does not reveal itself until the final moments. The fact that such care went into building up the atmosphere makes the brief amount of time we see truly terrifying part of the story all the more frightening.

Now, Angel Heart works this way because while it is a horror film it is structured as a classical film noir. With other horror stories you may want to bring in the horror sooner, but even then you should be careful. In The Thing, you have to wait about 30 minutes before you can actually see the titular monster in action, but we still get plenty of great buildup that prepares us for that moment. The whole scene at the Norwegian camp quickly gives us a sense of dread and more or less establishes precisely the bleak atmosphere we can expect from the rest of the film, since even though nothing actually happens while they are at the camp, we are left to imagine just what happened before Mac and Copper arrived.

Now this is all well and good for horror, but what about in other genres? Some of them can work very differently, yes, but in principle it's still the same deal. You need an opening that draws the viewer in, that compels them to know more, and you shouldn't rush your beginning or draw it out too much. What you need is just enough time to get the audience acquainted with the characters and environment but not too much so that the viewer doesn't get impatient for when you actually get to the plot.

To bring up Tarkovsky's Solaris once again, that was a film that definitely took much longer than it needed to in order to actually get going. That film took a full hour just to get Kelvin into space, and yet in the Clooney version, everything that happened in that hour was taken care of in the first five minutes.

The Towering Inferno, I would also say did not need to take a full hour just to set things up; when I go to see an action movie I usually expect to see... well... action. With this genre it is of course important to set up your characters but you also don't want to bore the viewer too soon. In other words you should give them a fair bit of action early on so they know what to expect.  It doesn't have to be much but it should be something. The opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark, for instance, manages to set up the character of Indiana Jones as an adventurer and an archaeologist while still giving us an exciting and tense sequence which, while not directly connected to the rest of the movie's narrative, sets the tone for everything to come as well as introducing us to one of the main villains.

So, if you want to make a good movie, you're going to have to draw the audience in, make them want to see more. You shouldn't rush your exposition but you also have to make sure you don't drag it out longer than necessary, and at the very least you should take the time to establish something for what is to come during that exposition, even if it's only at an atmospheric level.

Favorite Movie Scenes Blogathon

I've never done this before, but after seeing some of my colleagues start their own I'e decided to take a shot at writing a Blogathon. I've previously posted two articles: My Favorite Move Scenes and MORE Of My Favorite Movie Scenes, and in both articles I ended by asking you, the reader, to bring up some of your own personal favorites. Now is your chance to do exactly that.

So I'm not fully sure what I'm doing here, but here's what I'd like you to do. Using my articles as a guide, I'd like you to put together your own lists of your favorite scenes from movies. I am curious to see what different scenes people come up with.

So I've decided to set up a series of rules for this blogathon to keep things reasonably orderly:

1. Each choice must be a specific moment from a film, not the film itself, even if it's a movie like My Dinner With Andre or Twelve Angry Men.
2. Since picking out scenes is hard, you can write about as many different moments from as many different films as you like. There are no specific restrictions in what types of films you can draw from, even if it's one of Godard's movies or Tarkovsky's Solaris or any other film I have criticized in this blog. I'll even try to control myself is you pick a scene from one of Connery's James Bond films (emphasis on the try).
3. I'd encourage you to try and diversify your range of choices as much as you can. In both my lists I cover movies in the science fiction, war, western, comedy, surrealist, and adventure genres with periods ranging from the 1950's to the present day. 
4. For each film you refer to you can only discuss one scene. For instance if you decide on writing about 2001: A Space Odyssey, you can't do both the shuttle docking sequence and the scene where Dave disconnects HAL, you'd have to make a choice between one or the other.
5. For each scene, you should provide a reasonably clear description. I would advise some context regarding what is happening in the scene (though you are not required to do so depending on the circumstances, i.e. if you want to avoid spoiling a crucial twist that happens here), but the focus should be on what you like about that particular moment.
6. I would also recommend making sure your descriptions are not too long. I'm not going to give a precise maximum length but try to keep your explanations from being longer than necessary.

Once you've put together your article, how you submit it is up to you. I would recommend posting a link in the comments. That way other readers can also find it, but alternatively you can tweet it to me or drop me an e-mail. I'll try and read as many as I can but I do have a life so if I get a lot of submissions I might not get to yours right away.

I'm going to set the deadline for June 30. I think that should be enough time for everyone to submit their choices, though if you stumble across this after that date and want to try it out I might still be willing to read your articles.

I look forward to seeing everyone's choices. Hopefully this will all work out alright and if so maybe I'll consider doing it again in the future. 

Here are the entries I have currently received:

• Rambling Film
• The Cinematic Spectacle
• A Fistful of Films
• Conman At the Movies
• The Oscars Project
• Dell on Movies
• Girl Meets Cinema
• Flick Chicks

I've been getting a few submissions consisting of only one scene, and judging by the wording (I get a lot that begin with 'There's a lot of scenes I love but one that stands out is...) I get the impression that some of my readers misunderstood and thought they can only discuss one scene. You are actually allowed to discuss as many different scenes as you like as long as they are all from different films,

So if you end up being torn between say... the bolder scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Heineken scene in Blue Velvet, the bank robbery from the beginning of The Dark Knight, the Omaha Beach sequence from Saving Private Ryan, and Charlie Chaplin eating a boiled boot in The Gold Rush; you could just explain all of them as opposed to selecting one particular moment to discuss at length.

This blogathon is now closed. Thank you to all the people who participated.

Favorite Movie Title Blogathon

I recently stumbled across this blogathon thanks to my friend Katy Rochelle from Girl Meets Cinema, who in turn learned from its organizer Brittani at Rambling Film. The idea itself seemed like an interesting exercise and I thought I'd give it a go. Admittedly this one was a bit harder than it seemed in theory. I mainly tried to go with films that I knew but there were instances where I got torn or where I really had to reach out (especially for Q and X, the latter choice for which I know almost nothing about, just that it had a cool title), mainly because it is hard to find films beginning with those letters.

If you're interested in joining, here are the rules (as copied from Brittani's post):

1) Going through the alphabet, list your favorite movie title beginning with each letter.
2) You don't have to necessarily like the movie to use it's title.
3) Use the banner at the top of this post in yours.
4) Please have submissions in by Friday, May 23rd. (But I'll be honest, if you send them to me after that date, I'll still add them to my post.)

Here is the list I have come up with:

A- Angel Heart

B- Bringing Up Baby 

C- Conquest of Space

D- Duck, You Sucker!
E- Eyes Wide Shut
F- Fargo
G- Gravity
H- Hot Fuzz
I- In the Mouth of Madness
J- Jaws
K- K-19: The Widowmaker 
L- Lost Highway
M- Million Dollar Baby

N- Naked Lunch
O- October Sky
P- Paths of Glory
Q- Queen of the Amazons
R- Red River
S- Solaris
T- To Kill a Mockingbird
U- Unforgiven
V- Videodrome
W- When Worlds Collide
X- Xanadu
Y- Yellow Submarine
Z- Zulu

Why is Frank Booth Such a Great Character?

In my popular article Why Do People Like James Bond?, I discussed how James Bond is not the awesome superspy everyone makes him out to be but a sexist pervert who can't get within ten feet of a woman without thinking about having sex with her. Hang on, this is reminding me of someone else. A sexist pervert obsessed with sex and violence? Yes, I am going there.

Let's look at a similar character, although this time one whose perverted characteristics are fully played for all their disturbing qualities rather than attempting to pass off sexual assault and harassment as charming, in the form of Frank Booth, as played by the late Dennis Hopper in David Lynch's 1986 masterpiece Blue Velvet, known for such classic lines such as "DON'T YOU LOOK AT ME!" or "HEINEKEN!? @#$)!$ THAT &%!$#! PABST BLUE RIBBON!"

For those of you not familiar with this character, he's sort of like a grown-up version of Alex DeLarge from A Clockwork Orange, right down to having a gang of "droogs" (he doesn't use that word, but they are a group of psycho perverts who follow him around). He is a bit nastier though, as while Alex simply liked to run around raping women and beating up men, Frank enjoys committing murder and forcing a woman into becoming his personal sex slave by kidnapping her child and mutilating her husband. He is also a bit more... open minded in his sexual activities to the point where he openly declares "I'LL #$%& ANYTHING THAT MOVES!"

Also, a discussion of this character would not be complete without bringing up his habit of inhaling some sort of gas out of a tank. In the original script this was supposed to be helium, but Hopper himself had just overcome a drug addiction, and suggested a separate gas (though he later regretted it, thinking that Frank might be more intimidating if his voice became high-pitched). It's not identified in the movie itself, but whatever it is it seems to dull his senses and get him sexually aroused.

I once made a poll on IMDB in which I asked the question of who was the creepiest character in David Lynch's body of work, and I was surprised to see that Frank Booth was the most popular choice (followed closely by BOB from Twin Peaks in second with the Mystery Man from Lost Highway and Bobby Peru from Wild at Heart competing for third). I would have said that Frank was one of Lynch's less terrifying characters, but evidently a lot of people disagree with me.

So what makes Frank such an interesting character? Well, what makes a character like the Mystery Man in Lost Highway so frightening is that we know nothing about him. He seems to be otherworldly, perhaps even inhuman, but we never find out for sure just where he comes from, who he is, or what his connection is to Fred Madision and Pete Dayton. We can only speculate on just what the deal is with this character, but whoever he is, he seems to have control over everything.

With Frank, it's sort of the opposite. He is a human being firmly grounded in reality. He isn't perfect, but what makes him frightening is that someone like him could theoretically exist. Like the Mystery Man, we never get a full explanation for who Frank is, where he comes from, or how he became the way he is, just that he is a messed-up psycho. Also to add to the terrifying aspects of his character is the environment in which he lives.

At first glance the town of Lumberton seems very pleasant, but much like the titular setting of Twin Peaks or Hollywood in Mulholland Dr., there are darker components. We see Jeffrey living in what seems to be a decent enough neighborhood where everyone knows each other and the people generally seem nice. The fact that Frank Booth is able to abuse a young woman and remain unnoticed as long as he has (its implied he has been up to this for some time) is pretty disturbing, not to mention how close all this was to Jeffrey's own house.

We can also bring up the infantile aspects of his character. There is something rather disturbing about seeing a middle-aged man acting very immaturely while sexually abusing a woman, especially when addressing her as "Mommy" as though there are some incestual implications to his actions.

Seeing a man cursing persistently (to the point where he is the only character to swear in the whole movie, with the exception of a single line from Dean Stockwell) combined with the constant inhaling of whatever that gas is and his tendency to act very immaturely while having sex all combine together to create a very disturbing image.

Frank Booth may well be one of Lynch's most disturbing creations if only because of just how different he is from sort of "antagonists" we would usually get in Lynch's films. With many of Lynch's films we get mysterious characters such as the Lady in the Radiator and the Man in the Planet from Eraserhead, and the Mystery Man in Lost Highway who seem to have some otherworldly vibe and potentially control everything. Frank Booth is simply a psycho, not a whole lot else.

We never learn what made him this way, but his character is firmly grounded in reality, and the sort of man who in theory could exist. Who's to say that somewhere in your hometown there isn't a psycho like this lurking about, someone who does all kinds of terrible things and goes entirely unnoticed?

Paycheck: An Insult to A Great Writer

Last summer I began collecting and reading short stories by two well-known science fiction authors: Ray Bradbury and Phillip K. Dick. I had already heard of Dick before, having seen Blade Runner, but while reading through a collection of his stories I happened upon Paycheck. When I realized it had been made into a movie, I was curious to see it. I did not have high expectations but I hoped to be pleasantly surprised. I was not.

For those of you who are not familiar with the film or the short story that inspired it, the plot centers around a character named Jennings (given the first name Michael in the film). Jennings is living in a futuristic society where he has just completed a job for a shady corporation run by a man named Rethrick, but the nature of thew work has required his memory be wiped upon completion. When he goes to collect his paycheck, he finds that before his mind was wiped, he forfeited his salary in favor of a collection of seemingly worthless trinkets. Understandably he is confused but no sooner has he left than he ends up getting pulled over by the cops, which proves to be the first in a series of problems that are each solved by one of the trinkets in his paycheck.

To the film's credit, it does keep true to the idea at first. As it is an adaptation, I could forgive some of the changes, such as adding in a bit more action and somewhat modernizing it (at least as far as dealing with technological advancements Phillip K. Dick didn't anticipate when he wrote it in 1952). I was a bit surprised in the change of the love interest (a secretary named Kelly in the short story, a biologist named Rachel in the film) but with more recent social changes I think I can see why they made that choice. The items in Jennings' paycheck are also somewhat different from the short stories, likely also due to technological advancements not anticipated by Dick.

The part where this movie really got me angry was the ending. In both the film and the short story, we find out that Jennings was working on an advanced machine that could see into the future (and in the story actually be used to collect items from the future as well). The reason Jennings forfeited his money in favor of this collection of items is because he saw everything that was going to happen after his mind was wiped, and so he left himself a series of trinkets that he could use to get out of each problem he would face as a result. It's a neat idea and the movie seemed to run with it okay at first, but while the story goes in interesting directions, the movie messes it up.

You see, in the short story, Jennings has carefully crafted a plan for himself. He is in trouble with the law because of the illegal machine he was working on, and he has no way to prove he does not know anything, meaning the only thing he can do is try to get back to Rethrick. Each of the items helps him sneak into the business, photograph the illegal device, and then blackmail his way back into the corporation but working as a partner this time rather than just a hired worker with hints that he may even go on to take over running the company.

So how does the movie mess this up? Well, for starters Rethrick is turned into the bad guy now who for some reason wants Jennings dead. When Jennings finally figures out what the machine is, he concludes that it is dangerous and has to be destroyed, and along with his girlfriend proceed to sneak into the company's headquarters to sabotage it in the most unsubtle way possible (whereas in the short story he suck around alone and just photographed the illegal device, his girlfriend just held on to the evidence afterwards). The result is that it takes an intelligent, complicated climax and turns it into a generic action scene where everything explodes. Now, in the short story Jennings becomes a partner to Rethrick and is hinted to be a successor, in the movie, he ends up with his girlfriend running a flower shop.

So yeah, Paycheck is not a very good movie. As an action movie you might be able to enjoy the first half or so, but everything after is just a bunch of unnecessary explosions. As an adaptation of one of Phillip K. Dick's stories it fails even worse, sort of running with some elements but completely missing the point of others. If you want an intelligent and well-executed treatment of one of his stories you'd be better off just sticking to Blade Runner or maybe Total Recall. Don't bother with this one.

Fears of Exploration and Discovery

In 1950, American producer George Pal, in collaboration with director Irving Pichel, released the blockbuster film Destination Moon, in which four brave men have to face various challenges in the pursuit of being the first to land on the surface of the moon. This film marked the beginning of science fiction's popularity on film starting in the 1950's. Before that, science fiction had established itself as a literary genre but aside from exceptions such as Metropolis was very rarely seen on film.

With Destination Moon, George Pal sought to capture the imaginations of viewers with a surprising degree of scientific realism (to the point where a lot of the science referred to, at least in theory, still holds up alright today). A few years later Pal would attempt a similar, though perhaps more ambitious project with the 1955 science fiction film Conquest of Space, which was ultimately a box office disaster. In that film, Pal took the idea of a space expedition to the next level, envisioning the first manned mission to Mars.

With both these films there is a clear message to be gained. They provided an optimistic view of scientific progress and suggested that the moon, the planets, and everything beyond could be ours for the taking. It is therefore strange that, despite playing a major role in launching the science fiction genre, very few of the subsequent films seemed to follow the idea of Destination Moon. I have previously discussed the surprising popularity of the "Space Disaster' movie (of which both Destination Moon and Conquest of Space could be considered examples) , and in some ways that concept overlaps here.

So we see with these two films this vision of men (this was still the 1950's) going out and claiming other worlds for humanity. However, many other films seemed to have the opposite view. Also popular in the 1950's was the "alien invasion" concept, where instead of us going out to other worlds, other worlds came to us. 

Movies like The Thing From Another World or Invasion of the Body Snatchers seemed to develop this alternative view that the stars and other planets were something to be afraid of. To be fair, it's not hard to see why. In my old essay Alienation of the Individual in Films About Aliens I discussed how the depictions of extraterrestrial encounters in film reflected major social developments. In this case, the aliens were often allegories for the prevailing fear of communism and the perceived inevitability of nuclear war. Many of these films subsequently involve America being attacked and the government being the ones who have to save the day.

On the flip side of things, we have the Polish/East German collaboration Der Schweigende Stern, also known as The Silent Star or First Spaceship to Venus. Much like the American science fiction films of the period this one presented a somewhat idealized vision of the Soviet Union, and in a surprisingly progressive move involves a crew of mixed nationality, race, and gender (a lot of American films of the time would usually have had the crew portrayed as mostly if not entirely white American men).

With this film, we also have a brave crew of astronauts bravely making the first trip to Venus (this was 1960, they didn't know about the carbon atmosphere or the extreme pressures or the temperatures high enough to melt lead back then), much like the cast of Destination Moon or Conquest of Space, but once they get there they do not claim the planet the same way the cast of Pal's films did. 

Instead, they find traces of intelligent life (again, the filmmakers did not have the information on Venus we do now, just try and go with it) and it becomes more a story about humanity, with the reveal that the aliens destroyed themselves in nuclear war. This then sends the astronauts back home to warn humanity in the hopes that we can avert the same fate. Like Destination Moon and Conquest of Space, the story becomes about exploring new worlds but in the end they're not for us to take.

This can be seen more in American cinema as well. Forbidden Planet begins with a large militaristic space expedition investigating a colony on the fourth planet from the star Altair which they have reason to believe is in trouble. When they arrive, only one of the original colonists, Dr. Morbius, remains, along with his daughter who was presumably born on the planet. 

We eventually find out that what happened to the colony had to do with the remains of an ancient civilization that lived there once before. We never actually see any of the aliens known as the "Krell" (the most we get is a vague hint that on average their heads were bigger than those of a human) but we know that there is something dangerous here. 

This planet is not one humanity was meant to find, as the crew discover the hard way; the colonists who tried to take this world for themselves met their end by way of a "monster from the id" unwittingly created by Morbius by way of Krell technology. In the end, the only way to defeat the monster is to destroy the entire planet and said technology along with it, thus ensuring it is lost forever.

Indeed, we don't seem to see many films that present a positive view of humanity's exploration beyond Earth. More recently we had the film Prometheus, where a search for answers to humanity's origins cost the lives of all but two of the cast and almost caused an angry alien to dump a dangerous goo all over the Earth and most likely destroy humanity. 

We also still get plenty of alien invasion films suggesting the stars are something to be feared. Prometheus provides a bit of both us going out and finding horrifying things and those things coming to us, but we also still have plenty of more modern films suggesting the stars are something to be feared. 

John Carepnter's The Thing is a good example of such a film, wherein a group of scientists stationed at an Antarctic research camp encounter a an alien that landed on the Earth roughly 100,000 years ago. We never find out precisely where it came from; just that it was from some other planet, but once it is on Earth and it is found, the Thing becomes unstoppable. One by one the men stationed at the camp are systematically assimilated and it is very well possible the Thing is still at large at the end (there is an alternate ending in some televised versions that confirms this possibility).

2001: A Space Odyssey is the closest I'm aware of to a movie returning to the themes of Pal's films. In this film we see once again see the idea of mankind journeying out to explore other worlds. There are colonies on the moon that seem to be doing really well with hints that there are aliens subtly guiding us through our evolution, but it seems to have a fairly positive view of settling on other worlds. 

It should be noted that the disaster that later occurs aboard Discovery, specifically the malfunction of the HAL 9000 computer, was entirely due to human error (as were the problems found in Destination Moon and Conquest of Space). When he arrives, Dave Bowman encounters the monolith but there is no reason given to be afraid of travelling to Jupiter or to for that matter begin settling on its moons or any of the other planets. 

However, the sequel, 2010: The Year We Make Contact has a slightly different story. That film involves the investigation into what happened during the events of 2001, but it also delves into the possibility of life on Europa. At the very end, Jupiter is literally transformed into a star, allowing Europa's icy surface to melt and life to develop. We get this final message at the end:

So contrary to George Pal's vision in Destination Moon, not all the worlds we see are ours for the taking. Many of them are, so long as we leave Europa alone and allow the newly-developed life to begin evolving. 

Speaking of Europa, we also have a more recent effort to explore it with the 2013 movie Europa Report.Here we also have a similar deal of men and women journeying out into space to explore one of Jupiter's moons, this time in the hopes of discovering life. When they arrive, the crew end up facing one problem after another, and they do in fact find life, but ultimately they all die in the process. Once again, this world was not meant for us to explore.

So why is this? We see so many science fiction movies about exploration and yet so few that seem to cast it in a positive light. We frequently see worlds humanity was never mean to visit, or indications that contrary to the visions of Stanely Kubrick and George Pal, the stars are not in fact something we should reach out towards, but in fact something to be feared. 

I cannot say for sure why this is the case, or why we don't see more science fiction films that provide an optimistic view of exploration and colonization of other worlds. Even George Pal hinted at the dangers of the cosmos in The War of the Worlds and When Worlds Collide (both of which concern a desperate struggle to keep humanity from being wiped out by a danger originating from elsewhere). 

What I can say is that it is curious that such a tend exists. Even in the 1950's it would have been known that the universe can be a very terrifying place, and humanity is only a tiny part of a vast cosmos, most of which we can't even see (a large portion of the universe is believed to be made of an invisible substance called "dark matter"), so in that sense it is correct to assume that the universe does not belong to us and therefore that there are worlds we could benefit from exploring and others that we would do best to stay away from.

Before Sunset: Fine Romance

Well, after being won over by Before Sunrise, I decided to check out the rest of Richard Linklater's "Before" Trilogy. The first one was so simple and yet so emotional, and now I finally had a chance to see the second installment, also quite enjoyable. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy both reprise their roles from the first film as Jesse and Celine, the two lovers who once spent a memorable night together in Vienna, Austria before being separated shortly after sunrise.

The story jumps ahead ten years, in keeping with the aging of the actors since then. Jesse is now a successful writer with a wife and son and Celine is an aspiring musician who can play the guitar (but refuses to sing if she doesn't have a guitar with her). Jesse just happens to be in Paris on a book tour when Celine shows up at one of his signings. Even though Jesse has a plane to catch, the two of them decide to get back together and wander around Paris, rekindling their old love for each other and facing the uncertainty of their future.

The narrative itself slows down a bit compared to the first film, but in some ways that works, as it reflects the aging of the characters. Though we don't travel through as many different locations within Paris as Before Sunrise did in Vienna, the scenery we do get to experience is just as impressive.

The chemistry between the two leads is excellent, just as in the first film. Both are complex characters and play off of each other well enough to keep the story going, which is good because there aren't really any other characters of significance who appear on screen. At the same time, however, there is something new brought in rather than just re-hashing the original. The characters have aged ten years, and it shows in their performance. We see how both were affected by their previous meeting and we start to delve a lot more into their personal lives.

Before Sunset is definitely a worthy follow-up to Before Sunrise. It manages to keep true to the spirit of its predecessor while also trying to find something new to bring into the interactions between its leads. If I were to make any serious complaint, I thought the ending may have been a bit of an odd choice, but I think that's more because the movie wasn't made with the expectation that people seeing it at the time would know that another sequel exists.

MORE Of My Favorite Movie Scenes

I think it is an interesting exercise to find and explain my favorite scenes from movies. The thing is I have so many I don't know that I could possibly list them all, so I thought it might be good to revisit this topic with some more great scenes I missed the first time round.

The Omaha Beach Sequence From Saving Private Ryan

I know I said a few critical things about E.T. in my last article, but even if that movie was flawed there's no question Steven Spielberg has talent, and Saving Private Ryan is a great example of a film where he shows it. The whole movie is brilliant in itself but before you can actually get to... well... saving Private Ryan, you have to sit through twenty minutes depicting in graphic detail the bloody chaos of Omaha Beach. Those twenty minutes may well be the best part of the movie.

This scene works because it does such a good job in setting the tone for the rest of the movie. It all seems so real, with men being killed left, right, and center from the moment the boarding ramps on their boats are lowered. Once the shooting starts, it never lets up, and you have to follow these guys right up the beach as they are killed on mass, almost as if you're one of them. You're never allowed to be comfortable, just relieved when it's finally over.

The Final Scene of Dark Star

This was a great film for a low-budget comedy, and in my previous list I brought up the philosophical discussion with the bomb, but also really great is the final scene. I'm not sure if there could have been a better way to ending this film.

It's a bit of a tear-jerker but at the same time there's still some of the humor. On the one hand, everybody dies and it's hard not to sympathize with them, but earlier in the film there is a discussion between Doolittle and Talby regarding their personal desires. Doolittle admits that he misses surfing back home, while Talby talks about wanting to see the "Phoenix Asteroids" (a rarely-seen group of asteroids that glow brightly for reasons unknown). In a way, both wishes are granted in this final scene, with Doolittle being able to literally surf into a planet's atmosphere and Talby not only getting to see the Phoenix Asteroids but being taken along with them to circle the galaxy.

The Black Knight From Monty Python and the Holy Grail

This one, of course, is a classic with so many awesomely quotable lines, but one moment that I often remember well is the famous duel with the Black Knight. The over-the-top gore, the dialogue, and of course just the way these two play off each other.

Part of what makes this scene so hilarious is probably in just how the Black Knight becomes increasingly harder to take seriously as the scene goes on. He's pretty intimidating at first, when we see him locked in a difficult fight with a green knight, eventually killing him in a particularly gruesome manner (throwing his sword and hitting the Green Knight right between the eyes). The Black Knight stands proud, and there is the added quality that to make him seem less human we never see his face. This of course makes it a perfect moment to show Arthur's skill when he easily overpowers the Black Knight, who becomes far less scary when we see him stubbornly trying to keep fighting even as his limbs are cut off one by one ("Just a flesh wound").

It also leads to an hilarious conclusion, when the Black Knight loses all his limbs, and still refuses to admit defeat, continuing to taunt Arthur as he leaves.

Ellie's Flight from Contact

This sequence may only be the very end of the movie, but it's also quite possibly one of the most memorable parts. It's everything the film has been building up to and it delivers. The influence from 2001 (specifically the famed "Star gate" sequence) is unmistakable, but Jodie Foster's performance and the excellent visual effects take the viewer on an incredible ride across the galaxy. Technically, there are two parts to this scene, the first being when Eleanor Arroway is strapped down in her seat, watching as the small pod she is in is mysteriously catapulted across lightyears towards Vega. This alone is interesting, the tension that she experiences and the sudden transition from her constant shaking to her more comfortable experience of floating freely as soon as she releases herself.

The second, more surreal part is also a great climactic moment for the film, a scene forshadowed from the very beginning, when she arrives on a beach based on a drawing she made as a kid, on which an alien confronts her using the image of her dead father. We never see the aliens or Vega itself, but the whole environment has a very distinct sense of wonder and curiosity, fueling the desire to know more and making the alien's confrontation all the more interesting.

So these are some more of my favorite moments from the movies. Now I leave it up to you. What are some of your favorite scenes from films? I would like to see you post your answer in some form. You can share it in the comments, or you can go full out and write an article of your own if you have the means to do so and then post a link. You can choose as many as you want, since it can be very hard to decide, just as long as you can explain what you like about that scene.

The Three Science Fiction Classics of 1982

In 1982 Steven Spielberg won over thousands of viewers with the release of his iconic science fiction movie E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. This family film about the friendship between a young boy and an alien accidentally stranded on Earth made a huge impact on the science fiction genre, with a balance of comedy and drama, solid relationships, and some impressive special effects. At the time, Spielberg was at the top of his game, but his success was not without a price.

What many people forget is that Spielberg wasn't the only one making a science fiction film at the time. Two other newly-established directors were also creating their own. One was Ridley Scott, who had established himself with 1979's Alien and was now working on an adaptation of the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep which would be released under the title of Blade Runner. At the same time, John Carpenter, riding the success of Halloween was working on his latest project, an adaptation of John W. Campbell's novella Who Goes There? which would become arguably one of his best horror films: The Thing.

Both these films were huge flops at the box office. They were critically panned and it was not until years later that they finally started to get the recognition they deserve. Why? There's plenty of reasons but one that frequently comes up is the success of E.T.: The Extraterrestrial. Audiences were so in awe of the family fun of E.T. that they didn't seem to care much for the much bleaker atmosphere of the other two movies.

I do find this interesting because having finally watched E.T. for the first time in years, I would say that Blade Runner and The Thing may have actually been better films. E.T. is an enjoyable movie but when you get down to it there are a lot of story problems and plot holes. For one thing, as solid as the relationship between the kids and E.T. was, I personally felt a lot of the cast was underdeveloped. There were those three characters who liked to bully Elliot and then suddenly they decide to help him during the climax with no clear motivation. They also don't really do a whole lot to help outside of following Elliot on bicycles.

There was also that strange man with the keys. Throughout the first three quarters of the film we never see his face. He is kept mysterious and the only indication of his identity is a distinct set of keys on his belt that tend to make a jingly noise whenever he walks. There is this certain intimidating vibe to the character, but we have no idea who he is, almost as if they're building up to a twist. So then we come to the big reveal and the man with the keys turns out to be... some guy who wears keys on his belt. Seriously, he doesn't even get a name, and suddenly he's treated as being somewhat sympathetic despite being played as frightening for most of the film.

The mother could also have been a more interesting character if she had found out about the alien sooner. Elliot had no problem introducing E.T. to his siblings, why not also his mother? Sure, it would have been a shock but her gradual warming up to his presence could have been an emotional touch instead of getting cheap laughs out of her failing to notice when they're both in the same room.

The stories of the other two movies are far more complex and I'd say far more interesting. The alien is hostile in The Thing, but what makes that film so interesting is how it affects the characters themselves. They have to deal with the paranoia that comes from relying entirely on themselves since the alien could be anyone. With E.T. you have a relationship forming between the kid and the alien, but with The Thing you have the alien tearing apart the already strenuous relationships between the protagonists.

Meanwhile, Blade Runner has a bit more depth and an intriguing atmosphere. With E.T. you don't get a whole lot of depth to the characters outside of a basic dynamic between each. Blade Runner lets you dive into the minds of Rick, Rachel, and the other characters. It raises philosophical questions about the nature of humanity, none of which have a solid answer. The character of Roy Batty himself is a very psychologically-driven villain, and we get to see into his mind as to why he acts the way he does, certainly a more complex character than the guy with the keys.

The relationship between Rick and Rachel may well be stronger than the bond between Elliot and E.T. ever will be. With Elliot and E.T. you just have two friends from unlikely sources, whereas Blade Runner deals more with the social and ethical consequences of the relationship. Rick is a man trained to kill replicants, and yet he falls in love with one who doesn't even know her true identity.

So why did E.T.: The Extraterrestrial become such a hit while two better films were left in its wake and only gained their deserved recognition later on? Well, at the time the concept was revolutionary. Spielberg had previously explore the themes of benevolent alien visitors in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (parallels to which are pretty clear in E.T.), but the idea of a children's movie, and in particular a child's friendship with an alien was pretty unusual. We do see that sort of dynamic in The Day the Earth Stood Still but there the alien had a goal. It was treated as a superior being intentionally visiting Earth with a plan, as opposed to an innocent alien who gets left behind by accident.

It is interesting to compare these three movies. All three of them came out in the same year of 1982, and yet they are all so different. E.T. became a huge box office success and won four Oscars, while leaving The Thing and Blade Runner, both far superior films in terms of atmosphere and story, to fail horrendously.

Kathryn Bigelow: One of the Guys, Just a Different Sex

Back when I wrote about my favorite directors, I tried to pick the four that I thought to have had the biggest impact on me. As I noted there it wasn't the most diverse selection, given that all four choices were white men and only one (Sergio Leone) was non-American. I think it makes sense then to write something on a female director that I admire. More specifically, the fascinating character of Kathryn Bigelow. She has already made history as the first woman to win the Oscar for Best Picture, which is admirable in itself, but there is a lot more to her work than that alone.

She is hardly the first woman to gain recognition as a director. Before her we had the experimental filmmaker Maya Deren with advant-garde shorts such as Meshes of the Afternoon (which I strongly suspect may have been an influence on David Lynch, one of my favorite directors). One thing I do find interesting about Kathryn Bigelow, at least from what I have seen of her so far, is the fact that her films are very masculine. In fact, there actually aren't a whole lot of female characters across her body of work. She's even done a few moves that for the most part have an almost entirely-male cast as with The Hurt Locker or K-19: The Widowmaker.

In The Hurt Locker you have Evangeline Lilly appearing as the ex-wife of the protagonist, but she doesn't have a lot of screentime. K-19: The Widowmaker has no female characters outside of a few extras near the beginning, largely because it centers on the crew of a Russian submarine during the Cold War. Some of her other films have female supporting roles but it was not until her most recent film Zero Dark Thirty that we get a strong female protagonist in the form of the C.I.A. operative Maya.

The subject matter itself is also stuff that may seem "manly" and may be more commonly expected to be handled by a male director. The war genre in general is very masculine, given how hard it is to find a war movie with any major female characters at all, let alone a strong female lead. Naturally, this is the sort of genre you'd typically imagine to be directed by a man, and indeed a lot of the best-known war films were (Paths of Glory, Zulu, Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, and Saving Private Ryan to name a few), and yet The Hurt Locker may well be, at least at the moment, the most iconic depiction of the war in Iraq on film.

One reason could be that she may not be attempting to enforce a feminist agenda, or at least not one as obvious as other women in the film industry. You could say she is sort of like a real-life version of the "Hawksian woman" (minus the usual romantic sub-plot, unless you include her brief marriage to James Cameron) in so far as she is the intelligent, atractive, sharp-witted woman who also happens to just be "one of the guys". She may be a woman in a predominantly male field but she does the kinds of projects that interest her, as opposed to simply doing ones that help promote woman's rights or draw attention to the fact that they were made by a woman.

Compare her work to the likes of Sally Potter's Orlando, which is a great film but not exactly subtle in its messages about gender inequality. Whereas Potter's films seem to focus on emphasizing the role in society, Bigelow's films tend to focus on more masculine subject matter. In that sense you could call Bigelow a feminist, but in a different sense, as rather than looking to convince the viewer of society's issues with gender relations Bigelow proves her worth and capability as a director by just making great films.

It is for this reason that Kathryn Bigelow is an admirable director. While other women in the business may try to emphasize promote equality in their films, Bigelow opts for something different by proving herself every bit as competent at making the same kinds of movies as the guys. Over the course of her career, Bigelow had made action films, war movies, thrillers, and historical films. Her significance to modern cinematic history is undeniable as a result.