Don't Forget...Stay Out Of The Adult Bookstore: Blast From The Past (1999)

Here I sit again contextualizing a film from 1999, which is proving to be one of the most profoundly important years in cinema, post-New Hollywood.  I was originally turned onto this year as being key cinematically by the dynamic duo over at Battleship Pretension, and was a bit hesitant to fully embrace their argument, particularly considering that at one point they delved pretty deeply into the genre films of the year, I realized there was likely some legitimacy to the argument.  Especially considering that it was the year that established The Wachowski's, as well as David Fincher as important directors with The Matrix and Fight Club respectively.  However, it was also a year where more cult heavy directors took stabs at new cinematic engagements, with David Lynch offering the Disney produced masterpiece The Straight Story while David Cronenberg reworked the themes of his classic Videodrome to consider game based virtual realities in the criminally under appreciated  Existenz.  With a decided push towards the dark the occurred this year, highlighted by Takishi Miike's Audition, it is a bit surprising that I would consider completely altering my top ten list to include a comedy, particularly one whose critical reputation is far less established than all the previously mentioned films.  Yet, when I watched Blast from the Past earlier today I found myself genuinely laughing and engaging with a satire of such excellent composition as to remind me of my previous love for Clueless.  There is a lot to like about Blast from the Past, so much so that I was initially hesitant to praise the film since it appeared to purely be a result of my loving of minor parts and not the collective whole of the film, but given a few hours to let it sink in I am certain that it is a justifiable feeling one that I am certain would find a consensus were people who initially dismissed the film to revisit it with a decades detachment.  Indeed, it came out in a year of cerebral and mentally challenging films, therefore, it is no surprise that a highly idyllic, bright, yet no less critical film would be pushed to the wayside.  Blast from the Past is both highly nostalgic for a simpler time culturally, while also being incredibly forward looking in thematic issues and considerations of who can occupy cinematic space.  Also, it has Christopher Walken, which means it is elevated by default.

Blast from the Past begins in a kitschy version of the 1960's where the real fears of the Cold War linger over America proving particularly dire for Calvin Weber (Christopher Walken) and his wife Helen (Sissy Spacek) who have, under the paranoid direction of Calvin, built a whole fallout shelter their home, one that essentially doubles as a recreation of their home.  During a party, an announcement of possible threats from Cuba lead Calvin and Helen underground to wait out the night, hoping to avoid an imminent bomb drop, yet when a helicopter crashes within the vicinity of their home, a mechanism locks the couple inside their shelter, programed to remain closed for 35 years, wherein any threat of radiation poisoning would be avoided.  This would not be that large of a problem, were Helen not expecting a child within days.  Trapped underground, Helen gives birth to Adam (Brendan Fraser) who proceeds to spend the next thirty five years of his life living completely detached from the world.  When the seal is finally broken, Calvin ventures forth into an America that is far from what he remembers, riddled with crime, transvestites and an adult book store.  Panicking he returns underground and suggest that the family reseal the shelter, but Helen disagrees noting that they need supplies and that Adam needs to be able to experience a world outside of the fabricated domestic space, one of skies and oceans.  The desire is met indirectly when Calvin falls ill and Adam is sent to the surface for supplies.  Hoping also to find a girlfriend while above ground, Adam moves into mid-nineties California hyper-idealistic and wide-eyed.  Within moments he attempts to dump off a ton of rare baseball cards hoping that the money will afford him the ability to purchase the far more expensive items on his mother's shopping list, which includes alcohol and pipe tobacco amongst other things.  While on his quest he meets Eve (Alicia Silverstone) a young woman whose desultory lifestyle runs counter to Adam's idealism, however, their seemingly impossible bond forms an immediate friendship, one that is navigated by Adam's hopes of finding a partner and her assurance that she is anything but what he is looking for, particularly since she fears he is mentally unstable, not realizing their is validity to his seemingly being stuck in a time capsule.  As things unwind, it is clear that Eve cares for Adam and that his wild stories are all but so, leading to their undertaking of bringing aid to Adam's parents, while also delicately dealing with the fact that the two are not ready to move into a post-Cold War world.

The movie plays up on cultural divisions with such restrain and focus it is a surprise that this did not fair better in the cult comedy circles.  While it does jump through some of the clear racial and gender issues a person from the era would face, it plays more on cultural cues and social etiquette differences, both as a means to suggest that the contemporary American society is far from ideal, while also reminding viewers that the fifties were rife with their own issues, clear nods to "the problem that has no name" occurring with the character of Helen.  Similarly, it paints a future where non-normative bodies are excepted, a reality that is still yet to exist, perhaps director Hugh Wilson using this a a mirror to cause viewers to consider how far their personal views on "otherness" stand from the wildly conservative Calvin.  Indeed, because it realizes that to fall too heavily on a single cultural difference, Blast from the Past approaches many cultural differences within a relatively short film, dealing with the state of religion and self-understanding in regards to the fifties, where Adam's mind frame places unquestioned value on the lord's name with blind faith, while on the surface people are so lost and disillusioned as to believe that the Weber's are some sort of second coming and thus spiritual gurus.  More humorous than this, however, are the suggestions that perhaps many of the issues an individual navigates in the world half a century apart are really not too different.  Both Adam and Eve are attempting to navigate their worlds to find the ideal other, momentarily assuming that this shared bond cannot occur between one another.  Characters like Eve's friend Troy (Dave Foley) exist as cultural commentators who possess on the spot observations of the individuals within the film who lack an understanding of their own feelings and inhibitions, perhaps playing somewhat problematically into the "gay character as magical conscience," but no less so that Sex in the City would have been doing at the time.  The closing moments become heavily idealistic, but given that the film does not possess hefty stakes or high intensity action this is fine and helps to make the closing conversation between Adam and Calvin, paired with the sudden invasion of Eve's voiceover not absurd, but appropriate, because it suggest that while the present is not perfect, it is certainly more productive than living in the past or fearing for the future.

Key Scene:  Brendan Fraiser and Nathan Fillion fight in this movie, it may not be the best scene, but it was certainly my favorite.

This DVD is super cheap, it is worth blindly buying.  I am fairly certain you will not be disappointed.

The Worst Part Of Being Old Is Remembering When You Were Young: The Straight Story (1999)

What if I told you that David Lynch made a film that was distributed and produced by Disney?  You would think I was making it up right?  What if, I went on to suggest, as my friend who recommended this film, that this is perhaps his most surreal film since Eraserhead?  You would probably find yourself wondering either how you came about this blog post, or why you have followed if for this long, because clearly for me to recommend such an absurd thing would cause me to lose all film criticism creditability.  However, I have come to tell you about the incredible experience I undertook watching David Lynch's The Straight Story, which has comfortably found a place in my top three films by the director, a notion that I admittedly did not think would happen just based off the description of the film. However, considering that it is set in the midwest, a place dear to myself, as well as the director himself along with the touches of absurdism and bizarre imagery that have come to signify Lynch as an auteur, I was blown away by this film, more so for its poetic simplicity than some of the grander psychosis attached to the controversial director's other works.  The Straight Story, as the title suggest, does not try to be more than one man's quest to justify his life, both in what he has done right, as well as in what he has done wrong, something of a spirit walk if you will, except in this case with the aid of machinery and two canes.  Of course, the attachment of a G rating to a film would assuredly cause many of the David Lynch fans to be quite skeptical of the latent enjoyment in such a work, as viewers have certainly come to expect some degree of darkness to his works, often manifesting themselves in sexual and violent manners.  That is not to say that the film then does not have the touches of Lynch about, certainly the way character interact, the bleak composition of many of the road shots and the ultimate message of the film culminate into something that is quite Lynchian in its proportions, furthermore, anyone who blindly assumes Lynch's work to be preoccupied with sex and violence is a person who is completely misreading him as a director.  Lynch deals with the unpredictability of humanity and its various means of interfering with a linear momentum, and on a very literal level The Straight Story does  this to a point of perfection.

The Straight Story, is very much centered in a small town, to be specific the town of Laurens, located in Iowa.  It begins with an extremely elderly man named Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth) being unable to attend his local bar meet up with friends as a result of falling on the ground and not having the strength to get back up.  After much criticism by his daughter Rose (Sissy Spacek) and doctor's warnings, Alvin takes up an extra cane as a means to get around.  However, after the news of his brother's recent stroke, Alvin decides that he would rather not see the end of either his or his brother's life with the two of them on bad terms.  Of course, Alvin is in no shape to be driving a car across three states to Mt. Zion, Wisconsin and on a whim decides he will use his riding lawn mower as a means of travel.  Stocking up on plenty of fuel and braunschweiger, het attempts the journey, at first, with his dilapidated old riding lawnmower, only to be stalled a few towns out.  After purchasing a slightly newer John Deere tractor, Alvin reattempts his quest.  Moving at a veritable snail's pace, Alvin seems content to simply drift down the flat and endless roads of the rural midwest, meeting everyone from a young girl who is running away from home and the shame of an unplanned pregnancy to a group of well-to-do and slightly pretentious bikers.  Furthermore, an unfortunate incident with losing breaks while on a hill causes Alvin to become stationed in a town, relying heavily on the kindness of a few strangers to use their cordless phone.  This break also allows him, as he does on a few other occasions to offer prophetic points of wisdom on his life, much of which revolves around the notion of valuing what you have, while it is still valuable.  Eventually, after a great scene of haggling, Alvin makes it to Mt. Zion only to break down moments away from his brothers residence.  It is at this point that he finally breaks down and accepts help on the final leg of his journey, being dropped off right outside his brother's house where the two share in a conversation in the films closing scene.

I mentioned earlier that one of my attachments to this rather unusual offering from David Lynch is its portrayal of the midwest, a world often overlooked and almost always misunderstood in the world of cinema.  While directors like Jim Jarmusch are able to make observations at a passing glance, few truly capture the combination of ignorant bliss and unbridled ennui that exists in this region of The United States.  I will admit that the shot of Alvin leaving Laurens had me doing a double take, because the similarities to the town of Creighton, Nebraska where my grandparents live is quite uncanny, perhaps due to its being under a hundred miles from the border of Iowa, or more likely due the the general listless blasé look of every main road in the small towns that consume this stretch of America.  Perhaps no director can capture this blatant starkness quite like Lynch, it is almost as though this part of society exists solely to be filmed by Lynch.  The surrealist elements of his filmmaking certainly lend to this subject matter as well, because one realizes the inherently inexplicable nature of the midwest while occupying its archaic spaces, things like religion and iniquities often coexist in these small towns, and in a very sneaky way Lynch manages to call upon these problematic juxtapositions with great precision, particularly when Alvin has a deeply moving conversation with a priest, only to turn around and consume a drink at a bar.  Finally, and perhaps most accurate, is the idea of young flight, as it relates to The Straight Story and much of the small town midwest as well.  Many of the towns, like Laurens lack a youth population, as they move to cities for jobs and a more technologically connect life, never returning or even considering the possibilities of revisiting, and instead these towns become filled with persons like Alvin and his friends who simply remember and falsely reconcile with their pasts, only on rare occasions make the necessary trips to fix their often unspoken problems.

Key Scene:  This journey story, as should be expected, is all about the ending and it certainly comes to fruition in this marvelous piece of cinema.

I borrowed this on a recommendation and was so instantly enamored with it that I went out and purchased my own copy, feel free to rent it before buying, but I will save you the step and tell you just to buy it off the bat.