| Submitted by: Mark R. Leeper United States |
| Submission Date: 15 February 2005 |
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Capsule: Guillermo del Toro needed a better story, but his visual style and his offbeat direction make this a horror film that gets the viewer where he lives. This is certainly the scariest giant insect film I remember ever seeing. Mutated six-foot (and six-footed) insects live in the depths of the New York Subway System. Rating: low +2 (-4 to +4) 7 (0 to 10) There is a small spoiler following the review as I discuss a premise point.
New York Critics: 7 positive, 4 negative, 8 mixed
Guillermo del Toro was an unknown new director in 1994 when his Cronos played the arthouse circuit. It turned out to be a fresh and arresting take on the vampire film. Mexican horror film to that point had a reputation for shoddy production values. Del Toro brought a fascinating no-holds-barred morbidity to his work that made the film rich and memorable. He is back with his second film and he proves to be just about the only filmmaker in the world who could have pulled off a giant insects in the subway plot and turn it into a film worth watching.
Three years ago a deadly disease carried by cockroaches was killing and crippling children. The approach to kill all the cockroaches was to create a sterile cross between a praying mantis, a termite, and a cockroach that would kill off cockroaches and then die off itself. Dr. Susan Kyle (Mira Sorvino) was the entomologist who created the new insect. The approach seemed to work perfectly, but now Kyle is seeing signs of a new insect in the subway tunnels that could be more dangerous than the original disease. But there is something else going on. Strangers seem to be running around the city furthering the ends of the insects. They are shady characters who seem to inhabit the dark corners of the city. And they have a special interest in Dr. Kyle.
This is an odd role for Academy Award-winning Sorvino. At base this is an overly familiar story. Science has created a monster and now a few people have to fight it. Sorvino could certainly have chosen a film with a more original and less cable-fare-like plot had she wanted. But in this second film del Toro shows us exactly what his strengths and weaknesses as a filmmaker will be. He does not have really original plot ideas. Here he takes a short story by classic science fiction writer Donald A. Wollheim, but still turns it into a familiar plot. But the only film with a comparable style is his Cronos. He has a marvelous way of keeping secret that this will be a story that has been done before. His telling is atmospheric and not quite linear. He creates perhaps too many characters, certainly at the beginning, but the major characters are fairly unique. Most interesting is a small boy who may be a genius and who may be retarded, but we are never sure which. del Toro has carefully distorted color to heighten the ominous atmosphere. He plays with light and darkness preferring the latter. If the obvious is inevitable, at least del Toro keeps it at bay for a good long time.
If del Toro's work is to be compared to any other filmmaker, I would choose film producer Val Lewton. He makes terrific atmospheric B-pictures that are better than most of the A-pictures around. Both take the familiar and imbue it with a sense of real dread. I would give this second effort a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
SPOILER WARNING:
The whole premise behind the title sounds like one that would come from Donald A. Wollheim, but it is faulty. It is true that insects and other creatures with a short generation time mimic their predators. But this is only with frequent contact with the predators. It is not a mystical process, but natural selection, a form of evolution. We would have had to been killing off a lot of six-foot insects in the subways before by chance some would look like humans and that would render them some protection. There is a lake in Japan where the crabs have backs that look like masks of humans. After a great battle was fought on the lake fishermen who pulled crabs from the lake would throw back the ones whose back look vaguely like human faces, thinking them to contain the souls of those killed in the battle. Over hundreds of years the only crabs that were safe were those that had really good renderings of masks. A species whose predator did not constantly select for resembling itself would not come to resemble its predator.
Back in the room I worked on my review.
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08/25/97--Austin, Johnson City, and San Antonio, Texas:
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We had eaten twice at Grandy's so went instead to House of Pancakes. Service was slow, things were overpriced, the toast came dry and we had to ask for butter, and there was some guy in the kitchen repeatedly sneezing not so much on the decibel scale as on the Richter scale.
There are billboards up advertising churches like House of Faith. Another popular billboard says 'Who's the father? 1-800-DNA-TEST'
The local radio station is having a discussion of a petition to the Pope to declare Mary as a co-Redeemer with Jesus. It sounds like having the kindergarten class vote on whether the class hamster is a male or a female. Part of the argument seems to center around the claim that Mary was an advocate of female equality. That's what they say. I would claim that even that clouds her real message that the Statue of Liberty should belong to New Jersey.
When we no longer can get a good radio station we put a Max Brand story on the cassette player. There were billboards for Natural Bridge Caverns that shows a dinosaur head sticking over the billboard. Now dinosaurs don't have a lot to do with caverns, but this interest in dinosaurs borders on mania. Anything old wants to tie itself in. It is the only science that attracts kids. I am surprised at how many caverns we see in this part of the country. Also a lot of pawn shops. We don't see many pawn shops on major highways back at home. Here they seem to be in chains. I am not sure how you make a chain of pawnshops pay. You have to have a good way of disposing of all the merchandise. But they seem to have a way of doing it.
Well, we are in Austin, Texas (which I pronounce 'ostentatious'). The Lyndon Baines Johnson Library is our stop. I have to admit having wondered what a Presidential Library was. My brother-in-law (Evelyn's brother) apparently is trying to visit all of them. I wondered if you go in and look through the shelves. If this one is typical, you are only in the same building as the library. Really what we saw was essentially a museum of Lyndon and to a lesser extent Lady Bird Johnson. Completed in 1971, this building is one of nine Presidential libraries. And it is the only free-admission Presidential library. LBJ used the building the last two years of his life. He would helicopter onto the roof and go to work in a replica of the Oval Office built on the top of eight floors. That office is supposed to be open to the public but due to current construction it is closed.
The first floor is a museum on the life and times of Johnson. He was born in a tiny house and he was delivered by a midwife. He ran to school before the adults thought he was ready and had to be sent home. When he did it a second time they acquiesced. In spite of this, he was not all that successful a student. He became a roadworker and eventually a teacher, teaching Mexican immigrants. From there he got involved in state politics and then went to Washington and was involved in Federal politics. They take his through his Presidency. They talk about his civil rights record. During his Presidency was the Gulf of Tonkin non-incident, which they still present as an incident that really occurred. Of course, then he got involved in the Vietnam escalations which took a tremendous toll on him. If he withdrew people would be killed, if he escalated people would be killed. The real engineer of Vietnam was assassinated without letting his successor know his plan. My personal opinion was that by sanctioning the Bay of Pigs
Invasion and by putting nuclear missiles in Turkey near the Soviet border, Kennedy came really near to sparking a nuclear war. Nikita Krushchev was a lousy leader who in this one incident was frightened into being a world-class diplomat. Kennedy was also responsible for the Vietnam War. Nobody seems to blame him.
LBJ was the last President to have a balanced budget. Lady Bird wanted a highway beautification act. He didn't say anything about it; he just one day brought together his cabinet and told them to do it... today. And they did.
At the end of the exhibit was a tape of news images from the 1960s, particularly those relevant to Johnson. They ended with Johnson leaving office in January, 1969.
The second floor had a collection of campaign materials through the years. Some were quite funny. For some election there were cards proclaiming someone to be the next President, spin the card around and it claims his opponent is the next President. There is a variation in a famous Sam Lloyd puzzle. It has a certain number of lions and a certain number of black men. Turn the disk and there is one less black man and one more lion. This was part of an ad for Teddy Roosevelt's campaign. Also on this floor is a collection of gifts to LBJ from citizens and a collection of gifts from foreign dignitaries. Finally there is an exhibit of Johnson's sense of humor. This is a seven-minute tape of Johnson telling jokes.
On the way out we hit the souvenir and gift shop.
When we were first married and were poor, Evelyn and I each had budgets. If Evelyn bought a tool or I bought groceries we settled up accounts later. Eventually we decided that this was foolish and neither of us was going to loosely spend. However, people who are with us in bookstores could be fooled into thinking we still have separate budgets. I had some interest in a book on Presidential anecdotes. The book cost $14. I will ask Evelyn if she has $5 worth of interest, I don't have $14 worth but I do have $9 worth. yes, $5 worth she has. Okay, then we should get the book. It is just a measure of interest to see if our total interest sums to the price of the book. I don't know why, but I was raised to be thrifty. I have a hard time justifying spending money on myself. I have no children to pass what I have on to. I should learn to spend on myself so my money does not end up in an estate for nobody, but the first question I ask myself is it worth the price and then can I get along without it and am I sure I will use it. 'Do I want it?' is a low-priority question.
It is a longer drive than I had realized to Johnson City. My guess is that it is not named for Johnson himself. I think it was called Johnson City even when Johnson was a young man, so it was not named for LBJ.
Even here they have an adopt-a-mile-of-highway program. Ever notice that adopted highway is no cleaner than any other highway?
We got to Johnson City and found that the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park is in two pieces. Part is in Johnson City and part out at the LBJ Ranch. We drive to the ranch and buy places on the 4 PM tour. The guy sitting behind me on the bus is wearing a T-shirt showing a French stamp honoring a mathematician. The wearer is a mathematician also. I bore him with my research. He works at the University of Cork, Ireland. His name is Finnbar Holland.
On the tour we see the Junction School where he learned his first lessons and where many different grades were taught in the same room at the same time. We see the reconstruction of the house he was born in. It is a very tiny and Spartan affair. We see the Family Cemetery where he is buried. Further down the road is the Johnson Ranch House (a.k.a. the Texas White House). As the Ranch is still operating we drive out to see the Show Barn. On the way we see bison, gazelle as well as some more prosaic animals. The tour goes surprisingly quickly. |
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