It's October, and as usual, we're behind on reviewing our horror movies! Okay, this time, we're doing Creepshow, a horror-comedy anthology from 1982. Stephen King wrote the script (and acted in one of the segments!) and George Romero directed it, so we're dealing with horror royalty. How did the movie measure up?
Well, there are five segments, and the quality of them vary widely. The framing story is pretty simple--a kid is reading a horror comic instead of doing his chores, and his dad gets mad at him and throws out the comic. As it sits on top of the trash can outside, we see the cover--it's titled "Creepshow" and it looks like the old EC comics of the 1950s--and the pages fly open. It turns out each of the segments in the movie correspond to a story in the comic. So right away we know these will be in the style of those old comics--horrible things will happen, but only to people who deserve it in such a way that their comeuppance will appear ironically appropriate. And indeed, that's how it goes.
I think the my favorite segment was the fourth--"The Crate." At a wine-and-cheese party, we're introduced to nebbish professor Henry Northrup and his harridan wife, Wilma. Wilma is loud, obnoxious, drinks too much, and puts Henry down at every opportunity. Henry has little fantasies about strangling Wilma but doesn't have the guts. Meanwhile, department head Dexter Stanley gets a call from a custodian at the college about an old crate he found under a stairwell, marked "Antarctic Expedition, 1834." Dr. Stanley is excited about this find and leaves the boring wine-and-cheese party to see about the crate.
In a lab, Dr. Stanley and the custodian open the crate, only for something inside to reach out and grab the custodian, pulling him in and eating him as blood drips out and bones crunch. Truly frightened, Dr. Stanley grabs a grad student and they take the crate back down to the dusty stairwell, but the creature inside, which in a brief glimpse looks something like a really monstrous baboon, escapes, pulling the grad student into a dark corner for a snack.
Dr. Stanley flees to the house of his friend, Henry Northrup, who by now is at home. Dr. Stanley is in a panic but as Henry pieces the story together--voracious monstrous ape-thing on the loose and no way to get it back in its crate--he has an idea. He tells Dr. Stanley he'll take care of things and leaves a note for his wife, who has gone out drinking with the girls. The note reads that Dr. Stanley has made sexual passes at a young co-ed who was so frightened she's hiding in a crate at the college, and could Wilma come and help Henry coax her out? Knowing his wife will never be able to resist the gossipy note, Henry meanwhile prepares his trap, setting up the crate in just the right place and cleaning up all the blood.
Of course when Wilma arrives, Henry tricks her into looking into the crate, way back in a dusty corner, where the hidden baboon-thing attacks her, giving Henry a chance to put the lid back on, and nail and chain it up with both Wilma and monster inside. He takes the crate out to the old quarry where he drops it in the water and returns home to tell Dr. Stanley the story over their weekly chess game. Only, in the cold water back at the quarry, the crate is shaking, and finally the top bursts open, letting the creature escape....
This is tough to review, as "The Crate" and another segment titled "They're Creeping Up on You" were great, while some of the other segments held a lot less interest. The one Stephen King acted in--"The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill"--felt especially pointless. Let's see if we can work this out:
Creepshow (1982)
Story/Plot/Characters-- By necessity, stories have two-dimensional characters--there's simply no time to develop them. However, Stephen King does throw in lots of little details to let you know these are real people with quirks. Dialogue is fairly witty, acting is pretty good (umm, except for Stephen King's segment--good thing he had a day job). Still, while a couple segments are really good, with the black humor really effective, others feel like filler or paint-by-numbers. (2.5 points)
Special Effects--Good stuff from horror special effects savant Tom Savini--rotting corpses, monstrous baboon-things, and in one segment, roaches bursting out of a living human. (1.5 points)
Scariness--Not especially. Segments are generally played for laughs. My daughter watched this with zero problems. More disgusting in parts than scary. (.5 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--To an extent. The segment titled "Something to Tide You Over" had the best atmosphere, with its isolated beach house setting, miles from the next property. The final segment, "They're Creeping Up On You," with its thousands of roaches, was genuinely freaky. (1
point)
Total=5.5 points (Okay)
With 5.5 points, Creepshow ends up at the top of the Okay
category. That seems about right. Although if the whole movie had been
up to the standard of the two best segments, it would've scored a lot
higher.
______________________________________________________________________________
Here's the master list of horror movies I've rated so far. (Click the title for a link to a review of the movie.)
Best Horror Movies Ever
Alien (1979)=10 points
Dawn of the Dead (1978)=9.5 points
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)=8.5 points
A Quiet Place (2018)=8.5 points
Frankenstein (1931)=8 points
King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Excellent
Night of the Living Dead (1968)=7.5 points
Carrie (1976)=7.5 points
Poltergeist (1982)=7.5 points
The Haunting (1963)=7.5 points
Freaks (1932)=7 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
Pretty Good
Witch: A New England Folktale (2015)=6.5 points
Aliens (1986)=6.5 points
The Birds (1963)=6.5 points
Carnival of Souls (1962)=6.5 points
Night Creatures (1962)=6.5 points
Phantom of the Opera (1962)=6.5 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
Tales of Terror (1962)=6 points
Day of the Dead (1985)=6 points
Okay
Creepshow (1982)=5.5 points
The Raven (1963)=5.5 points
The House on Haunted Hill (1959)=5 points
Gremlins (1984)=5 points
The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1960)=4.5 points
Alien Resurrection (1997)=4.5 points
Lady Frankenstein (1971)=4.5 points
Man-Thing (2005)=4 points
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)=3.5 points
Avoid
Alien 3 (1992)=3 points
The House of Wax (1953)=3 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points
The Last Man on Earth (1964)=2 points
Saturday, October 26, 2019
Sunday, October 20, 2019
Scary Movies: The Brain That Wouldn't Die
I've actually got two movies to add to the list this time out. Let's start with The Brain That Wouldn't Die, a movie from 1960 that my daughter and I watched on Friday night, though I've seen it before. It's a definite B-movie: sleazy, freaky, and bizarre. It's one of my favorites.
Dr. Bill Cortner and his father are working to save a patient in an operating room. The patient is about to die on the table, and Bill wants to use an unorthodox technique involving exposing his heart and brain to save him. His father objects, but at the last moment is willing to let Bill have his way if it will save the patient's life. Bill performs the rest of the operation his way and the patient is saved.
In a conversation after the operation, Bill's father warns him that he saved the patient this time, but his unnatural experiments will be dangerous in the long run. Bill waves him off, and one of the nurses, Jan, who is also Bill's fiance, wonders when Bill will finally take her out to his secluded country house. He agrees after she begs to come with him that weekend.
On the long drive to the country house, Bill drives too fast and they crash into a tree. Bill is thrown from the car and when he comes to the car is on fire. He tries to rescue Jan but is unable to, yet is able to retrieve something from the car that he wraps in a cloth. He runs to the country house, where he has a laboratory set up in the basement. The thing he wrapped in the cloth turns out to be Jan's head, and with the aid of his assistant, Kurt, they are able to keep the head alive with lots of tubes and blinking lights and the use of a new serum he's developed.
Jan's head has only 48 hours to live, so Bill needs to find a body to transplant the head onto. He heads off to town in search of one. In the lab, we learn Kurt is missing an arm that Bill has replaced with a foot, and we also discover there is a padlocked closet in the laboratory holding some sort of growling, incredibly strong past experiment of Bill's gone awry. Jan's head wakes up and, though Bill's serum keeps her alive, she is in excruciating pain. The serum also gives Jan psychic powers, so she knows what he's doing.
And what is Bill doing? Um...visiting a local go-go club and later a swimsuit contest, trying to find a beautiful replacement body for Jan. At one point, he's actually cruising the town's streets, searching for women with hot bods who might be suitable. An old flame of his in the audience at the swimsuit contest reminds him of Doris, a mutual female acquaintance of theirs who has a great body, and mentions she works now as a model. Bill heads over to Doris's place, where she is in the middle of a modeling session. Bill realizes she does indeed have the body he wants, and once the photographers have left, he convinces her to come out to his country house for dinner.
When they arrive back at the country house, Bill discovers the experiment in the closet has somehow killed Kurt, and Jan is awake and super-pissed because of the never-ending torment her existence has become. Bill covers up Jan's mouth with tape, Kurt's body with a sheet, and grabs a couple sleeping pills for Doris, still waiting upstairs. When he comes back down with Doris's unconscious body, the experiment breaks down the closet door and turns out to be a giant, hideous monstrosity. He fights with Bill, and during the fight they set the laboratory on fire. The creature kills Bill with a vicious bite to the throat, and flees the house with the sleeping Doris. The credits role with Jan's insane laugh on the soundtrack.
Okay, nobody would say this is a good movie in an objective sense, but in contrast to most B-movies, it keeps things moving. No slow parts, and an endless unfolding of weird and ridiculous plot developments, combined with an unembarrassed boldness in using its cheap but effective special effects, give the audience its money's worth. This movie only rates Okay on our rating scale, but it's a highly entertaining okay.
The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1960)
Story/Plot/Characters-- The script is ludicrous but fast-paced and certainly creative, the characters thin but with believable motivations within the story, the acting bad but not terrible. It's not that it's good, it's that it could've been so much worse. (1.5 points)
Special Effects--Special effects are ultra low-budget but surprisingly well deployed for what they are. (1 point)
Scariness--No. (0 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--Oh yes. Some of the weirdest scenes in horror movie history. The secluded country house, the lab with something pounding in the closet in the corner, the insane doctor cruising the streets of the local town to find female bodies for his tasteless experiments. Freaky as can be. (2 points)
Total=4.5 points (Okay)
______________________________________________________________________________
Here's the master list of horror movies I've rated so far. (Click the title for a link to a review of the movie.)
Best Horror Movies Ever
Alien (1979)=10 points
Dawn of the Dead (1978)=9.5 points
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)=8.5 points
A Quiet Place (2018)=8.5 points
Frankenstein (1931)=8 points
King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Excellent
Night of the Living Dead (1968)=7.5 points
Carrie (1976)=7.5 points
Poltergeist (1982)=7.5 points
The Haunting (1963)=7.5 points
Freaks (1932)=7 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
Pretty Good
Witch: A New England Folktale (2015)=6.5 points
Aliens (1986)=6.5 points
The Birds (1963)=6.5 points
Carnival of Souls (1962)=6.5 points
Night Creatures (1962)=6.5 points
Phantom of the Opera (1962)=6.5 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
Tales of Terror (1962)=6 points
Day of the Dead (1985)=6 points
Okay
The Raven (1963)=5.5 points
The House on Haunted Hill (1959)=5 points
Gremlins (1984)=5 points
The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1960)=4.5 points
Alien Resurrection (1997)=4.5 points
Lady Frankenstein (1971)=4.5 points
Man-Thing (2005)=4 points
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)=3.5 points
Avoid
Alien 3 (1992)=3 points
The House of Wax (1953)=3 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points
The Last Man on Earth (1964)=2 points
Dr. Bill Cortner and his father are working to save a patient in an operating room. The patient is about to die on the table, and Bill wants to use an unorthodox technique involving exposing his heart and brain to save him. His father objects, but at the last moment is willing to let Bill have his way if it will save the patient's life. Bill performs the rest of the operation his way and the patient is saved.
In a conversation after the operation, Bill's father warns him that he saved the patient this time, but his unnatural experiments will be dangerous in the long run. Bill waves him off, and one of the nurses, Jan, who is also Bill's fiance, wonders when Bill will finally take her out to his secluded country house. He agrees after she begs to come with him that weekend.
On the long drive to the country house, Bill drives too fast and they crash into a tree. Bill is thrown from the car and when he comes to the car is on fire. He tries to rescue Jan but is unable to, yet is able to retrieve something from the car that he wraps in a cloth. He runs to the country house, where he has a laboratory set up in the basement. The thing he wrapped in the cloth turns out to be Jan's head, and with the aid of his assistant, Kurt, they are able to keep the head alive with lots of tubes and blinking lights and the use of a new serum he's developed.
Jan's head has only 48 hours to live, so Bill needs to find a body to transplant the head onto. He heads off to town in search of one. In the lab, we learn Kurt is missing an arm that Bill has replaced with a foot, and we also discover there is a padlocked closet in the laboratory holding some sort of growling, incredibly strong past experiment of Bill's gone awry. Jan's head wakes up and, though Bill's serum keeps her alive, she is in excruciating pain. The serum also gives Jan psychic powers, so she knows what he's doing.
And what is Bill doing? Um...visiting a local go-go club and later a swimsuit contest, trying to find a beautiful replacement body for Jan. At one point, he's actually cruising the town's streets, searching for women with hot bods who might be suitable. An old flame of his in the audience at the swimsuit contest reminds him of Doris, a mutual female acquaintance of theirs who has a great body, and mentions she works now as a model. Bill heads over to Doris's place, where she is in the middle of a modeling session. Bill realizes she does indeed have the body he wants, and once the photographers have left, he convinces her to come out to his country house for dinner.
When they arrive back at the country house, Bill discovers the experiment in the closet has somehow killed Kurt, and Jan is awake and super-pissed because of the never-ending torment her existence has become. Bill covers up Jan's mouth with tape, Kurt's body with a sheet, and grabs a couple sleeping pills for Doris, still waiting upstairs. When he comes back down with Doris's unconscious body, the experiment breaks down the closet door and turns out to be a giant, hideous monstrosity. He fights with Bill, and during the fight they set the laboratory on fire. The creature kills Bill with a vicious bite to the throat, and flees the house with the sleeping Doris. The credits role with Jan's insane laugh on the soundtrack.
Okay, nobody would say this is a good movie in an objective sense, but in contrast to most B-movies, it keeps things moving. No slow parts, and an endless unfolding of weird and ridiculous plot developments, combined with an unembarrassed boldness in using its cheap but effective special effects, give the audience its money's worth. This movie only rates Okay on our rating scale, but it's a highly entertaining okay.
The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1960)
Story/Plot/Characters-- The script is ludicrous but fast-paced and certainly creative, the characters thin but with believable motivations within the story, the acting bad but not terrible. It's not that it's good, it's that it could've been so much worse. (1.5 points)
Special Effects--Special effects are ultra low-budget but surprisingly well deployed for what they are. (1 point)
Scariness--No. (0 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--Oh yes. Some of the weirdest scenes in horror movie history. The secluded country house, the lab with something pounding in the closet in the corner, the insane doctor cruising the streets of the local town to find female bodies for his tasteless experiments. Freaky as can be. (2 points)
Total=4.5 points (Okay)
______________________________________________________________________________
Here's the master list of horror movies I've rated so far. (Click the title for a link to a review of the movie.)
Best Horror Movies Ever
Alien (1979)=10 points
Dawn of the Dead (1978)=9.5 points
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)=8.5 points
A Quiet Place (2018)=8.5 points
Frankenstein (1931)=8 points
King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Excellent
Night of the Living Dead (1968)=7.5 points
Carrie (1976)=7.5 points
Poltergeist (1982)=7.5 points
The Haunting (1963)=7.5 points
Freaks (1932)=7 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
Pretty Good
Witch: A New England Folktale (2015)=6.5 points
Aliens (1986)=6.5 points
The Birds (1963)=6.5 points
Carnival of Souls (1962)=6.5 points
Night Creatures (1962)=6.5 points
Phantom of the Opera (1962)=6.5 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
Tales of Terror (1962)=6 points
Day of the Dead (1985)=6 points
Okay
The Raven (1963)=5.5 points
The House on Haunted Hill (1959)=5 points
Gremlins (1984)=5 points
The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1960)=4.5 points
Alien Resurrection (1997)=4.5 points
Lady Frankenstein (1971)=4.5 points
Man-Thing (2005)=4 points
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)=3.5 points
Avoid
Alien 3 (1992)=3 points
The House of Wax (1953)=3 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points
The Last Man on Earth (1964)=2 points
Wednesday, October 16, 2019
Scary Movies: Poltergeist
Well, I have a book to review and a movie to review, but since it's October and I don't want to fall behind on the scary movies, let's do that one. The movie this time out is Poltergeist, written and produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Tobe Hooper (of Texas Chainsaw Massacre fame). Apparently there was a lot of controversy at the time over who really directed it, though, as Spielberg was highly involved and on set every day.
Poltergeist was the first horror movie I ever saw, at age 8. A lot of kids at school were talking about this one and I really wanted to see it, so one night when it was on HBO, my parents and I watched it together. Did it scare the daylights out of me? Yes! Did it spark a lifelong interest in scary movies that continues to this day? Yep, that too! And did it hold up for an adult viewer? Let's find out.
Poltergeist is a pretty straightforward haunted house story. The Freelings have three kids and live in an idyllic house and neighborhood in a southern California suburb. Their youngest daughter, Carol Anne (5), has started waking up and talking to the static on the TV when Dad passes out after the late show and the channel signs off. She says the TV people talk to her. Weird things start happening around the house--for example, the dining room chairs will rearrange themselves when no one is looking, and the dog is acting like strangers are around. But at first it's not too worrisome, almost fun.
One night a big storm comes up and the old tree outside the house comes alive, attacking the Freeling boy, Robbie (8) in his room. While the family is outside trying to pull Robbie out from the suddenly hungry tree, Carol Anne disappears. They search everywhere, only to discover they can only hear her through the TV's speakers. The TV people have kidnapped her, and apparently taken up residence in the kids' bedroom, where they conduct a 24-hour ghost party, including flying toys, random screams, and a blinding light in the closet. The Freelings contact a paranormal investigative team at the University of California-Irvine who tell them their house is haunted by one or more poltergeists.
Because poltergeist hauntings tend to be short-lived, they really need to get Carol Anne back from whatever realm the ghosts have spirited her off to in a hurry, or she'll be gone forever. The paranormal researchers bring in Tangina Barrons, an exorcist and little person who knows just what to do. Tangina and her method of reaching into the world beyond are really quite clever (you'll need rope, two tennis balls, and a bathtub of warm water...) and form the heart of the movie. I won't say what happens next except to mention that their attempt to get Carol Anne back really, really pisses off the spirit world.
So did the movie hold up? I think so, mostly! Actually, what I didn't realize as a kid is that Poltergeist is really a black comedy. I think a lot of scenes are somewhat tongue in cheek or played for laughs in a way I didn't get as a kid. It's also something of a satire, in which the modern trappings of prosperity--a big house, a customized kitchen, televisions in every room of the house--are shown to be empty materialism. In a metaphorical way, it isn't the ghosts who've kidnapped Carol Anne, it's the Freeling family's unthinking lives of mindless consumption. In the end, when the haunting is revealed to be the fault of a greedy developer who moved the tombstones of a century-old cemetery but left the coffins in the ground underneath his new subdivision, disturbing the sleep of the dead, it represents an American tendency to advance a materialistic suburban life that has little respect for older, more spiritual traditions.
Poltergeist (1982)
Story/Plot/Characters-- Excellent acting, tight script from Spielberg, humor and great pacing. But, somewhat uneven tone, almost as if a horror-minded director and a highly-involved producer were working somewhat at cross-purposes. Loses all subtlety in the final act. (3 points)
Special Effects--Heavy on the special effects, state-of-the-art at the time, feel a bit dated now but still effective. (1.5 points)
Scariness--Some scary parts, including a scene with a toy clown under the bed that will stay with every kid who ever sees this movie. (1.5 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--A typical American suburb might not seem likely for an atmospheric movie, but scenes such as a parade of spectres slowly descending the house's curving central staircase, or the kids' closet to the spirit world that seems to stretch on and on, or corpse-filled coffins popping up out of the half-drained pool, prove that suburbs can be the freakiest places of all. (1.5 points)
Total=7.5 points (Excellent)
______________________________________________________________________________
Here's the master list of horror movies I've rated so far. (Click the title for a link to a review of the movie.)
Best Horror Movies Ever
Alien (1979)=10 points
Dawn of the Dead (1978)=9.5 points
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)=8.5 points
A Quiet Place (2018)=8.5 points
Frankenstein (1931)=8 points
King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Excellent
Night of the Living Dead (1968)=7.5 points
Carrie (1976)=7.5 points
Poltergeist (1982)=7.5 points
The Haunting (1963)=7.5 points
Freaks (1932)=7 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
Pretty Good
Witch: A New England Folktale (2015)=6.5 points
Aliens (1986)=6.5 points
The Birds (1963)=6.5 points
Carnival of Souls (1962)=6.5 points
Night Creatures (1962)=6.5 points
Phantom of the Opera (1962)=6.5 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
Tales of Terror (1962)=6 points
Day of the Dead (1985)=6 points
Okay
The Raven (1963)=5.5 points
The House on Haunted Hill (1959)=5 points
Gremlins (1984)=5 points
Alien Resurrection (1997)=4.5 points
Lady Frankenstein (1971)=4.5 points
Man-Thing (2005)=4 points
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)=3.5 points
Avoid
Alien 3 (1992)=3 points
The House of Wax (1953)=3 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points
The Last Man on Earth (1964)=2 points
Poltergeist was the first horror movie I ever saw, at age 8. A lot of kids at school were talking about this one and I really wanted to see it, so one night when it was on HBO, my parents and I watched it together. Did it scare the daylights out of me? Yes! Did it spark a lifelong interest in scary movies that continues to this day? Yep, that too! And did it hold up for an adult viewer? Let's find out.
Poltergeist is a pretty straightforward haunted house story. The Freelings have three kids and live in an idyllic house and neighborhood in a southern California suburb. Their youngest daughter, Carol Anne (5), has started waking up and talking to the static on the TV when Dad passes out after the late show and the channel signs off. She says the TV people talk to her. Weird things start happening around the house--for example, the dining room chairs will rearrange themselves when no one is looking, and the dog is acting like strangers are around. But at first it's not too worrisome, almost fun.
One night a big storm comes up and the old tree outside the house comes alive, attacking the Freeling boy, Robbie (8) in his room. While the family is outside trying to pull Robbie out from the suddenly hungry tree, Carol Anne disappears. They search everywhere, only to discover they can only hear her through the TV's speakers. The TV people have kidnapped her, and apparently taken up residence in the kids' bedroom, where they conduct a 24-hour ghost party, including flying toys, random screams, and a blinding light in the closet. The Freelings contact a paranormal investigative team at the University of California-Irvine who tell them their house is haunted by one or more poltergeists.
Because poltergeist hauntings tend to be short-lived, they really need to get Carol Anne back from whatever realm the ghosts have spirited her off to in a hurry, or she'll be gone forever. The paranormal researchers bring in Tangina Barrons, an exorcist and little person who knows just what to do. Tangina and her method of reaching into the world beyond are really quite clever (you'll need rope, two tennis balls, and a bathtub of warm water...) and form the heart of the movie. I won't say what happens next except to mention that their attempt to get Carol Anne back really, really pisses off the spirit world.
So did the movie hold up? I think so, mostly! Actually, what I didn't realize as a kid is that Poltergeist is really a black comedy. I think a lot of scenes are somewhat tongue in cheek or played for laughs in a way I didn't get as a kid. It's also something of a satire, in which the modern trappings of prosperity--a big house, a customized kitchen, televisions in every room of the house--are shown to be empty materialism. In a metaphorical way, it isn't the ghosts who've kidnapped Carol Anne, it's the Freeling family's unthinking lives of mindless consumption. In the end, when the haunting is revealed to be the fault of a greedy developer who moved the tombstones of a century-old cemetery but left the coffins in the ground underneath his new subdivision, disturbing the sleep of the dead, it represents an American tendency to advance a materialistic suburban life that has little respect for older, more spiritual traditions.
Poltergeist (1982)
Story/Plot/Characters-- Excellent acting, tight script from Spielberg, humor and great pacing. But, somewhat uneven tone, almost as if a horror-minded director and a highly-involved producer were working somewhat at cross-purposes. Loses all subtlety in the final act. (3 points)
Special Effects--Heavy on the special effects, state-of-the-art at the time, feel a bit dated now but still effective. (1.5 points)
Scariness--Some scary parts, including a scene with a toy clown under the bed that will stay with every kid who ever sees this movie. (1.5 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--A typical American suburb might not seem likely for an atmospheric movie, but scenes such as a parade of spectres slowly descending the house's curving central staircase, or the kids' closet to the spirit world that seems to stretch on and on, or corpse-filled coffins popping up out of the half-drained pool, prove that suburbs can be the freakiest places of all. (1.5 points)
Total=7.5 points (Excellent)
______________________________________________________________________________
Here's the master list of horror movies I've rated so far. (Click the title for a link to a review of the movie.)
Best Horror Movies Ever
Alien (1979)=10 points
Dawn of the Dead (1978)=9.5 points
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)=8.5 points
A Quiet Place (2018)=8.5 points
Frankenstein (1931)=8 points
King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Excellent
Night of the Living Dead (1968)=7.5 points
Carrie (1976)=7.5 points
Poltergeist (1982)=7.5 points
The Haunting (1963)=7.5 points
Freaks (1932)=7 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
Pretty Good
Witch: A New England Folktale (2015)=6.5 points
Aliens (1986)=6.5 points
The Birds (1963)=6.5 points
Carnival of Souls (1962)=6.5 points
Night Creatures (1962)=6.5 points
Phantom of the Opera (1962)=6.5 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
Tales of Terror (1962)=6 points
Day of the Dead (1985)=6 points
Okay
The Raven (1963)=5.5 points
The House on Haunted Hill (1959)=5 points
Gremlins (1984)=5 points
Alien Resurrection (1997)=4.5 points
Lady Frankenstein (1971)=4.5 points
Man-Thing (2005)=4 points
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)=3.5 points
Avoid
Alien 3 (1992)=3 points
The House of Wax (1953)=3 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points
The Last Man on Earth (1964)=2 points
Tuesday, October 8, 2019
Scary Movies: Freaks
Yay, it's October, and that means it's time for the annual Bruner Halloween movie festival! Our first movie this year was one I've wanted to see for a long time, Freaks, from 1932. Freaks is famous, indeed notorious, for using actual circus sideshow exhibits from the time in its cast--little people, people suffering from microcephaly (called pinheads in the movie), Siamese twins, people born without legs or arms or both, and many others. It's something that could never be repeated today, making this a movie unique in film history.
The plot of Freaks is fairly straightforward. The freaks are part of a traveling circus where, as a circus barker explains, the freaks live as outsiders and by their own code--"Offend one, and you offend them all!" One of the freaks, the little person, Hans, has fallen in love with the beautiful but normal-sized trapeze artist, Cleopatra, much to the chagrin of his fiance, Frieda. Cleopatra realizes Hans has a crush on her and encourages it, perhaps out of vanity, but when she learns Hans is the heir to a great fortune, she decides to make him really fall in love with her so they'll get married. Then she'll poison him and inherit the money. Cleopatra's lover is the circus strongman, Hercules, who's in on the plot and thinks it's a great joke.
Hans and Cleopatra do get married, and at the wedding feast, the freaks have a little ritual to induct Cleopatra into their circle, when they pass around a huge wine goblet for everyone to sip from communally while they sing a chant. (Gooble gabble gooble gabble We accept her! We accept her!) However, Cleopatra is drunk and takes offense at the presumption that the freaks are accepting her, and causes a big scene. She also kisses Hercules and everyone realizes her love for Hans was a sham.
Cleopatra has poisoned Hans's drink and he falls ill after the wedding. Back at the circus, she dotes on Hans in his sickbed and tries to convince him she didn't mean what she said during her outburst at the wedding, even as she's poisoning his medicine. However, Hans is spitting out his medicine when Cleopatra leaves the room. Meanwhile, the freaks, whose code dictates they must take revenge if one of their own is harmed, wait for their moment.
On a rainy night, when the circus wagons are en route to a new city, one of the wagons overturns and the whole train of wagons must stop. During the confusion, the freaks, armed with knives and cudgels, corner Hercules under one of the wagons and kill him, and carve Cleopatra up, making her into a freak like them. She shows up in the final scene with her tongue cut out, her fingers missing, and her legs amputated, and the show's impresario has put feathers on her and billed her as "The Human Duck."
My daughter pointed out afterwards that this isn't really a horror movie. Indeed, I'd call it a melodrama. The only way it works as a horror movie is if you think the freaks themselves are horrifying, but that just doesn't work. The dapper, well-spoken little person Hans, the friendly and outgoing Half Boy (born without legs), the quite pretty Daisy and Violet (Siamese twins), the sad-eyed and gentle Koo Koo the Dancing Bird (microcephaly), the happily married Human Skeleton and Bearded Lady, and many others--these people are simply not horrifying, so long as you overlook their physical deformities. Indeed, the real freaks are Cleopatra and Hercules, who are beautiful on the outside but deformed morally, and who get what they deserve in the end.
In fact, I'm a little worried that this movie won't score very well on my horror movie rubric, despite being an interesting movie in its own right. Let's see how it goes.
Freaks (1932)
Story/Plot/Characters-- A fascinating premise never to be repeated in film, with highly memorable characters and a well-executed plot, if a bit slow-paced at the beginning. Dialogue not too sparkling, the only real flaw. (3 points)
Special Effects--No real special effects, but none needed--the sideshow freaks are the special effects. (2 points)
Scariness--Simply not scary. (0 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--As you'd expect, a movie named Freaks is awfully freaky. The wedding feast with the chant and the final scene with the freaks hiding in the dark under the wagons as it rains all around are pretty atmospheric. (2 points)
Total=7 points (Excellent)
Well, it turned out to score Excellent according to my system, although just barely. Still, I don't think that truly does justice to this movie, which has been on my mind often in the days since we've watched it. What's really interesting is an accompanying video on the same DVD with short biographies of each of the freaks, even those mostly in the background. The variety of deformities and their lives in circus sideshows or on the margins of society make for fascinating if often sad (but not always!) life stories, in particular the little person Harry Earles (Hans in the movie), who had a substantial movie career from the 1920s to 40s, including as a munchkin in the Wizard of Oz.
Just a note: I've added a category (Best Ever) and slightly recalibrated the rankings, below:
______________________________________________________________________________
Here's the master list of horror movies I've rated so far. (Click the title for a link to a review of the movie.)
Best Horror Movies Ever
Alien (1979)=10 points
Dawn of the Dead (1978)=9.5 points
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)=8.5 points
A Quiet Place (2018)=8.5 points
Frankenstein (1931)=8 points
King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Excellent
Night of the Living Dead (1968)=7.5 points
Carrie (1976)=7.5 points
The Haunting (1963)=7.5 points
Freaks (1932)=7 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
Pretty Good
Witch: A New England Folktale (2015)=6.5 points
Aliens (1986)=6.5 points
The Birds (1963)=6.5 points
Carnival of Souls (1962)=6.5 points
Night Creatures (1962)=6.5 points
Phantom of the Opera (1962)=6.5 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
Tales of Terror (1962)=6 points
Day of the Dead (1985)=6 points
Okay
The Raven (1963)=5.5 points
The House on Haunted Hill (1959)=5 points
Gremlins (1984)=5 points
Alien Resurrection (1997)=4.5 points
Lady Frankenstein (1971)=4.5 points
Man-Thing (2005)=4 points
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)=3.5 points
Avoid
Alien 3 (1992)=3 points
The House of Wax (1953)=3 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points
The Last Man on Earth (1964)=2 points
The plot of Freaks is fairly straightforward. The freaks are part of a traveling circus where, as a circus barker explains, the freaks live as outsiders and by their own code--"Offend one, and you offend them all!" One of the freaks, the little person, Hans, has fallen in love with the beautiful but normal-sized trapeze artist, Cleopatra, much to the chagrin of his fiance, Frieda. Cleopatra realizes Hans has a crush on her and encourages it, perhaps out of vanity, but when she learns Hans is the heir to a great fortune, she decides to make him really fall in love with her so they'll get married. Then she'll poison him and inherit the money. Cleopatra's lover is the circus strongman, Hercules, who's in on the plot and thinks it's a great joke.
Hans and Cleopatra do get married, and at the wedding feast, the freaks have a little ritual to induct Cleopatra into their circle, when they pass around a huge wine goblet for everyone to sip from communally while they sing a chant. (Gooble gabble gooble gabble We accept her! We accept her!) However, Cleopatra is drunk and takes offense at the presumption that the freaks are accepting her, and causes a big scene. She also kisses Hercules and everyone realizes her love for Hans was a sham.
Cleopatra has poisoned Hans's drink and he falls ill after the wedding. Back at the circus, she dotes on Hans in his sickbed and tries to convince him she didn't mean what she said during her outburst at the wedding, even as she's poisoning his medicine. However, Hans is spitting out his medicine when Cleopatra leaves the room. Meanwhile, the freaks, whose code dictates they must take revenge if one of their own is harmed, wait for their moment.
On a rainy night, when the circus wagons are en route to a new city, one of the wagons overturns and the whole train of wagons must stop. During the confusion, the freaks, armed with knives and cudgels, corner Hercules under one of the wagons and kill him, and carve Cleopatra up, making her into a freak like them. She shows up in the final scene with her tongue cut out, her fingers missing, and her legs amputated, and the show's impresario has put feathers on her and billed her as "The Human Duck."
My daughter pointed out afterwards that this isn't really a horror movie. Indeed, I'd call it a melodrama. The only way it works as a horror movie is if you think the freaks themselves are horrifying, but that just doesn't work. The dapper, well-spoken little person Hans, the friendly and outgoing Half Boy (born without legs), the quite pretty Daisy and Violet (Siamese twins), the sad-eyed and gentle Koo Koo the Dancing Bird (microcephaly), the happily married Human Skeleton and Bearded Lady, and many others--these people are simply not horrifying, so long as you overlook their physical deformities. Indeed, the real freaks are Cleopatra and Hercules, who are beautiful on the outside but deformed morally, and who get what they deserve in the end.
In fact, I'm a little worried that this movie won't score very well on my horror movie rubric, despite being an interesting movie in its own right. Let's see how it goes.
Freaks (1932)
Story/Plot/Characters-- A fascinating premise never to be repeated in film, with highly memorable characters and a well-executed plot, if a bit slow-paced at the beginning. Dialogue not too sparkling, the only real flaw. (3 points)
Special Effects--No real special effects, but none needed--the sideshow freaks are the special effects. (2 points)
Scariness--Simply not scary. (0 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--As you'd expect, a movie named Freaks is awfully freaky. The wedding feast with the chant and the final scene with the freaks hiding in the dark under the wagons as it rains all around are pretty atmospheric. (2 points)
Total=7 points (Excellent)
Well, it turned out to score Excellent according to my system, although just barely. Still, I don't think that truly does justice to this movie, which has been on my mind often in the days since we've watched it. What's really interesting is an accompanying video on the same DVD with short biographies of each of the freaks, even those mostly in the background. The variety of deformities and their lives in circus sideshows or on the margins of society make for fascinating if often sad (but not always!) life stories, in particular the little person Harry Earles (Hans in the movie), who had a substantial movie career from the 1920s to 40s, including as a munchkin in the Wizard of Oz.
Just a note: I've added a category (Best Ever) and slightly recalibrated the rankings, below:
______________________________________________________________________________
Here's the master list of horror movies I've rated so far. (Click the title for a link to a review of the movie.)
Best Horror Movies Ever
Alien (1979)=10 points
Dawn of the Dead (1978)=9.5 points
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)=8.5 points
A Quiet Place (2018)=8.5 points
Frankenstein (1931)=8 points
King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Excellent
Night of the Living Dead (1968)=7.5 points
Carrie (1976)=7.5 points
The Haunting (1963)=7.5 points
Freaks (1932)=7 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
Pretty Good
Witch: A New England Folktale (2015)=6.5 points
Aliens (1986)=6.5 points
The Birds (1963)=6.5 points
Carnival of Souls (1962)=6.5 points
Night Creatures (1962)=6.5 points
Phantom of the Opera (1962)=6.5 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
Tales of Terror (1962)=6 points
Day of the Dead (1985)=6 points
Okay
The Raven (1963)=5.5 points
The House on Haunted Hill (1959)=5 points
Gremlins (1984)=5 points
Alien Resurrection (1997)=4.5 points
Lady Frankenstein (1971)=4.5 points
Man-Thing (2005)=4 points
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)=3.5 points
Avoid
Alien 3 (1992)=3 points
The House of Wax (1953)=3 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points
The Last Man on Earth (1964)=2 points
Sunday, September 8, 2019
What I'm Reading: Roundup
On Free Comic Book Day back in May, I picked up some of the sale books at my local comic shop. Let's go over a couple of those:
The Building Starting in 1978 with his A Contract With God, Will Eisner, already a legendary comic artist, pioneered what we now call graphic novels. He did about one a year until his death, mostly stories set in New York ethnic neighborhoods.
In The Building, Eisner interweaves four stories of characters attached to a 1920s Bronx highrise that's being torn down to make way for a modern office tower: an anonymous clerk who turns to helping children any way he can after a terrible accident, a former beauty queen who falls in love with a penniless poet, a ruthless real estate developer whose one sentimental attachment leads to a bad business decision, and an amateur violinist who always dreamed of playing music for a career. On the day the new building opens for business, the four have recently died, but their legacies (and possibly ghosts?) combine for one final surprising episode.
The only other of his graphic novels I've read is A Contract With God, which struck me as beautiful and profound. The Building is similar in form, with the interweaving stories and the same ethnic New York setting, but somehow this was thin and fairly predictable compared to that earlier book. I did like the story of the former beauty queen, Gilda Greene, who eventually settles for a conventional marriage to a wealthy man but never falls out of love with her poet. But overall, I didn't think this lived up to Eisner's first graphic novel. I'm not sure if I'll bother with any of his others at this point.
American Splendor: Another Day Harvey Pekar, who kept his day job as a file clerk at a Cleveland Veteran's hospital nearly until the end of his life, was for decades one of the most important underground comics creators. (I wrote about the American Splendor movie based on his comics and life here.) Harvey didn't believe in superheroes, fantasy, or power trips--his stories are all about the everyday problems of him and his friends. Neurotic, chronically short of money and self-confidence, but with a tremendous empathy for others, Harvey makes his way through his comics just trying to do the best he can.
This volume is from a period in the early 2000s I wasn't previously familiar with. After three decades of self-publishing his comics, Harvey did a four issue series with DC's Vertigo imprint. Other than possibly somewhat better production values, it's about the same as everything else of his I've read, though--closely observed stories of the small victories and defeats of his life, beautifully drawn by a variety of top underground comic artists. (Harvey only wrote the comics, but he had a who's who of established and up-and-coming underground pencilers and inkers in his rolodex, including in this volume Richard Corben, Bob Fingerman, Gilbert Hernandez, Chris Samnee, and many others.)
I think my favorite story in Another Day was the episode where he spent an entire Saturday trying to unclog a toilet, constantly on the verge of defeat and ready to call a plumber, but thinking through the problem and trying one new thing after another. Finally, after hours, he succeeds, and as the toilet successfully flushes, he lifts the plunger above his head and cries out, "Today, I am a man!"
I can heartily recommend this to practically anybody from teenagers on up (some profanity might make this unsuitable for younger readers, though, who are also likely to find the subject matter boring.) But if this volume isn't available, that's not too important. Practically anything by Pekar is more or less the same, but all more or less great.
The Building Starting in 1978 with his A Contract With God, Will Eisner, already a legendary comic artist, pioneered what we now call graphic novels. He did about one a year until his death, mostly stories set in New York ethnic neighborhoods.
In The Building, Eisner interweaves four stories of characters attached to a 1920s Bronx highrise that's being torn down to make way for a modern office tower: an anonymous clerk who turns to helping children any way he can after a terrible accident, a former beauty queen who falls in love with a penniless poet, a ruthless real estate developer whose one sentimental attachment leads to a bad business decision, and an amateur violinist who always dreamed of playing music for a career. On the day the new building opens for business, the four have recently died, but their legacies (and possibly ghosts?) combine for one final surprising episode.
The only other of his graphic novels I've read is A Contract With God, which struck me as beautiful and profound. The Building is similar in form, with the interweaving stories and the same ethnic New York setting, but somehow this was thin and fairly predictable compared to that earlier book. I did like the story of the former beauty queen, Gilda Greene, who eventually settles for a conventional marriage to a wealthy man but never falls out of love with her poet. But overall, I didn't think this lived up to Eisner's first graphic novel. I'm not sure if I'll bother with any of his others at this point.
American Splendor: Another Day Harvey Pekar, who kept his day job as a file clerk at a Cleveland Veteran's hospital nearly until the end of his life, was for decades one of the most important underground comics creators. (I wrote about the American Splendor movie based on his comics and life here.) Harvey didn't believe in superheroes, fantasy, or power trips--his stories are all about the everyday problems of him and his friends. Neurotic, chronically short of money and self-confidence, but with a tremendous empathy for others, Harvey makes his way through his comics just trying to do the best he can.
This volume is from a period in the early 2000s I wasn't previously familiar with. After three decades of self-publishing his comics, Harvey did a four issue series with DC's Vertigo imprint. Other than possibly somewhat better production values, it's about the same as everything else of his I've read, though--closely observed stories of the small victories and defeats of his life, beautifully drawn by a variety of top underground comic artists. (Harvey only wrote the comics, but he had a who's who of established and up-and-coming underground pencilers and inkers in his rolodex, including in this volume Richard Corben, Bob Fingerman, Gilbert Hernandez, Chris Samnee, and many others.)
I think my favorite story in Another Day was the episode where he spent an entire Saturday trying to unclog a toilet, constantly on the verge of defeat and ready to call a plumber, but thinking through the problem and trying one new thing after another. Finally, after hours, he succeeds, and as the toilet successfully flushes, he lifts the plunger above his head and cries out, "Today, I am a man!"
I can heartily recommend this to practically anybody from teenagers on up (some profanity might make this unsuitable for younger readers, though, who are also likely to find the subject matter boring.) But if this volume isn't available, that's not too important. Practically anything by Pekar is more or less the same, but all more or less great.
Monday, September 2, 2019
What I'm Reading: 84 Paws: A Life with Old Labs
I've read another book by a fellow Writers of Chantilly author, this one titled 84 Paws: A Life with Old Labs, by Barbara Travis Osgood. This one is a memoir about Barbara's life with mental illness, and her life with a series of rescued Labrador Retrievers (twenty-one in total), and how adopting the dogs over the past twenty years or so has helped her overcome depression and despair to achieve a measure of peace in her life.
Each chapter tells the story of one of the dogs, often with a lesson Barbara learned from the dog about living her own life. One of my favorite chapters was about Hope, a female chocolate lab who had been a backyard breeder until her owners had no use for her anymore. When Barbara adopted her, she expected to find a defeated dog, ground down by the difficulties of bearing litter after litter, like many other abused breeders she had seen. But Hope was not that dog--Hope bore herself upright, with dignity, and instantly became the leader among the four dogs at Barbara's house. The other dogs instinctively knew to let Hope have her way in eating first, hopping up on the best spot on the bed, or any other doggy privilege. Hope never growled or bared her teeth, but when a younger rescue dog came temporarily to the house and tried to go first in the food line, Hope had him flipped on his back before he knew what was happening. In Hope, Barbara saw a model of perseverance for dealing with her own problems.
There are plenty of other dogs too--Raleigh, the ambassador, who made friends with everybody on their walks, including a homeless man who slept on a bench near a local shopping center; playful Buddy, who despite his advanced age and a history of neglect involved everyone in chases and games; curious Molly, another backyard breeder who has to know about everything going on and refuses to let her past burden her present.
This is an easy book to recommend to nearly everybody. In fact, I left the book lying on a table in my house one day, and with no prompting at all, my son and daughter started reading it and trading it back and forth to each other to compare notes on their favorite dogs. (That's one reason I'm only reviewing it now despite having bought it when Barbara published it last spring--it keeps disappearing in my daughter's room so she can read it!) The beautifully simple prose is complemented by one or more pictures of the dog in question in each chapter, with a gallery of dog photos at the end. It can be read beginning to end, or flipped through for a chapter here and there with equal satisfaction. And as much as the dogs have been a salve for Barbara, I think reading her wise stories of them may also prove a salve for a reader in need of healing, or at least a pick-me-up after a bad day.
Each chapter tells the story of one of the dogs, often with a lesson Barbara learned from the dog about living her own life. One of my favorite chapters was about Hope, a female chocolate lab who had been a backyard breeder until her owners had no use for her anymore. When Barbara adopted her, she expected to find a defeated dog, ground down by the difficulties of bearing litter after litter, like many other abused breeders she had seen. But Hope was not that dog--Hope bore herself upright, with dignity, and instantly became the leader among the four dogs at Barbara's house. The other dogs instinctively knew to let Hope have her way in eating first, hopping up on the best spot on the bed, or any other doggy privilege. Hope never growled or bared her teeth, but when a younger rescue dog came temporarily to the house and tried to go first in the food line, Hope had him flipped on his back before he knew what was happening. In Hope, Barbara saw a model of perseverance for dealing with her own problems.
There are plenty of other dogs too--Raleigh, the ambassador, who made friends with everybody on their walks, including a homeless man who slept on a bench near a local shopping center; playful Buddy, who despite his advanced age and a history of neglect involved everyone in chases and games; curious Molly, another backyard breeder who has to know about everything going on and refuses to let her past burden her present.
This is an easy book to recommend to nearly everybody. In fact, I left the book lying on a table in my house one day, and with no prompting at all, my son and daughter started reading it and trading it back and forth to each other to compare notes on their favorite dogs. (That's one reason I'm only reviewing it now despite having bought it when Barbara published it last spring--it keeps disappearing in my daughter's room so she can read it!) The beautifully simple prose is complemented by one or more pictures of the dog in question in each chapter, with a gallery of dog photos at the end. It can be read beginning to end, or flipped through for a chapter here and there with equal satisfaction. And as much as the dogs have been a salve for Barbara, I think reading her wise stories of them may also prove a salve for a reader in need of healing, or at least a pick-me-up after a bad day.
Wednesday, August 28, 2019
What I'm Reading: Timaeus and Critias
I'm behind on logging my reading. Let's start with Plato's Timaeus and Critias, twin works that take place on the same day. Although Socrates is a character, as usual in Plato's dialogues, he does not take a starring role in these two. Rather, his young friends Timaeus, Critias, and Hermocrates, describing how they were inspired by the speech Socrates gave the day before on the ideal city (with Timaeus giving a summary of the speech that sounds an awful lot like The Republic, which I reviewed here), have taken it upon themselves to come up with speeches of their own.
Socrates is delighted at this, and agrees to listen. Timaeus is to give an account of the origin and nature of the universe, and Critias is to describe the ancient lost city of Atlantis and its war against a city much like that in the Republic: an idealized prehistorical version of Athens. However, only Timaeus finishes his speech. Critias's leaves off in the middle. This is not because, as happens far too often with ancient texts, we are missing the last part. No, we know that it was missing in ancient times too--Plato simply never finished it. Nor did he apparently ever get to the speech of Hermocrates, so we don't even know what the topic of the final speech was going to be.
Anyway, back to Timaeus's speech, which of course comprises the dialogue with his name. Timaeus attempts to do no less than describe the creation and fundamental nature of the universe. The Greeks believed there were four elements--earth, air, water, and fire--but in Timaeus's conception, these elements were formless until a creator came along and shaped them into the universe as we know it. Because the creator would have to be perfect, of course he would create a perfect universe, and it's only because he created the gods, and then the gods created humans, that we are less than perfect, as we're pretty far down the chain, and made later, after the best and most perfect of the raw materials had been all used up. But while our bodies are imperfect, we do have one perfect part--our souls, and if we act as close to divine as possible while on earth, meaning rationally, after our death our souls will go and join the divine among the stars.
Well, there's a lot more than that in Timaeus's speech, all about how the universe is made up of triangles (interestingly, this comes off as sort of a primitive atomic theory), and how these fit together to create the four elements, and how the four elements themselves join to create all the different substances and materials we find in nature, and the way in which our senses perceive things. Plato really attempts to sort things out here without resorting to mythology. For a modern reader, though, I'm not sure there's a lot to learn. Plato's other dialogues are more about ethics and living a meaningful life, and provide a lot to think about. His ideas about how the world works in a physical sense, however, have all been superseded by modern science and are little more than a historical curiosity.
Critias's speech is a lot more fun for a modern reader. It is about the lost city of Atlantis, the greatest city ever to exist, and how its people were overtaken by hubris and determined to conquer the world, only to be stopped by a highly virtuous city, the prehistoric Athens. The problem is, we only get ten pages of description, and never even make it to the war. The description is quite interesting though--Atlantis is a highly-engineered city, with a perfectly round island in the middle inhabited by its ruler and his family, surrounded by three perfectly circular rings of water, with perfectly circular rings of land in between them for the city's residents and public buildings. There is a massive covered bridge with a canal underneath so boats can reach each of the rings, and outside of the city the canal leads to the ocean. Everything is on a monumental scale and covered with silver and jewels and so forth, in such abundance that the citizens have no special care for it, except as pretty building materials. We also get interesting discussions of the type of physically and mentally superior people who live there (descendents of the gods) and how fertile the land is, and some of the amazing creatures and crops and orchards that grow there. But just when we're about to get to the action, it stops abruptly.
This was apparently the first mention of Atlantis in history, although it's presented in Critias's dialogue as being a vague legend everybody's heard of, but that his grandfather had learned the truth about on a visit to Egypt. In fact, we believe now that Plato made it up--Atlantis was pure fiction. That hasn't stopped people through the ages from trying to trace historical antecedents, or searching for the location of this mysterious sunken city. Even today, there's still apparently some scholarly debate on whether there might not have been some kind of legend that Plato based this on, and that maybe we've simply lost the sources for? But that's most likely wishful thinking.
I've tried to read some Plato (or last summer, Xenophon) every year for the past several years. When people have seen me reading it, they often say something like, "Isn't that really difficult to read?" And the answer, until now, has been no. They're just dialogues, meaning conversations, among Socrates and his companions. They're not hard to read and they're often kind of humorous. I don't think I can say the same about Timaeus. There's a lot of geometry and long chains of logic in it as Plato tries to explain his somewhat esoteric theories about the universe, and it took some real effort to follow. Nor was it that rewarding, as, like I said, science by now has passed Plato by. Critias, however, was a fun read on a subject that's since driven a lot of speculation, although it was disappointing that it ended in the middle. I don't think I could recommend these two works except to people with a truly endless interest in ancient Greece or ancient philosophy.
Socrates is delighted at this, and agrees to listen. Timaeus is to give an account of the origin and nature of the universe, and Critias is to describe the ancient lost city of Atlantis and its war against a city much like that in the Republic: an idealized prehistorical version of Athens. However, only Timaeus finishes his speech. Critias's leaves off in the middle. This is not because, as happens far too often with ancient texts, we are missing the last part. No, we know that it was missing in ancient times too--Plato simply never finished it. Nor did he apparently ever get to the speech of Hermocrates, so we don't even know what the topic of the final speech was going to be.
Anyway, back to Timaeus's speech, which of course comprises the dialogue with his name. Timaeus attempts to do no less than describe the creation and fundamental nature of the universe. The Greeks believed there were four elements--earth, air, water, and fire--but in Timaeus's conception, these elements were formless until a creator came along and shaped them into the universe as we know it. Because the creator would have to be perfect, of course he would create a perfect universe, and it's only because he created the gods, and then the gods created humans, that we are less than perfect, as we're pretty far down the chain, and made later, after the best and most perfect of the raw materials had been all used up. But while our bodies are imperfect, we do have one perfect part--our souls, and if we act as close to divine as possible while on earth, meaning rationally, after our death our souls will go and join the divine among the stars.
Well, there's a lot more than that in Timaeus's speech, all about how the universe is made up of triangles (interestingly, this comes off as sort of a primitive atomic theory), and how these fit together to create the four elements, and how the four elements themselves join to create all the different substances and materials we find in nature, and the way in which our senses perceive things. Plato really attempts to sort things out here without resorting to mythology. For a modern reader, though, I'm not sure there's a lot to learn. Plato's other dialogues are more about ethics and living a meaningful life, and provide a lot to think about. His ideas about how the world works in a physical sense, however, have all been superseded by modern science and are little more than a historical curiosity.
Critias's speech is a lot more fun for a modern reader. It is about the lost city of Atlantis, the greatest city ever to exist, and how its people were overtaken by hubris and determined to conquer the world, only to be stopped by a highly virtuous city, the prehistoric Athens. The problem is, we only get ten pages of description, and never even make it to the war. The description is quite interesting though--Atlantis is a highly-engineered city, with a perfectly round island in the middle inhabited by its ruler and his family, surrounded by three perfectly circular rings of water, with perfectly circular rings of land in between them for the city's residents and public buildings. There is a massive covered bridge with a canal underneath so boats can reach each of the rings, and outside of the city the canal leads to the ocean. Everything is on a monumental scale and covered with silver and jewels and so forth, in such abundance that the citizens have no special care for it, except as pretty building materials. We also get interesting discussions of the type of physically and mentally superior people who live there (descendents of the gods) and how fertile the land is, and some of the amazing creatures and crops and orchards that grow there. But just when we're about to get to the action, it stops abruptly.
This was apparently the first mention of Atlantis in history, although it's presented in Critias's dialogue as being a vague legend everybody's heard of, but that his grandfather had learned the truth about on a visit to Egypt. In fact, we believe now that Plato made it up--Atlantis was pure fiction. That hasn't stopped people through the ages from trying to trace historical antecedents, or searching for the location of this mysterious sunken city. Even today, there's still apparently some scholarly debate on whether there might not have been some kind of legend that Plato based this on, and that maybe we've simply lost the sources for? But that's most likely wishful thinking.
I've tried to read some Plato (or last summer, Xenophon) every year for the past several years. When people have seen me reading it, they often say something like, "Isn't that really difficult to read?" And the answer, until now, has been no. They're just dialogues, meaning conversations, among Socrates and his companions. They're not hard to read and they're often kind of humorous. I don't think I can say the same about Timaeus. There's a lot of geometry and long chains of logic in it as Plato tries to explain his somewhat esoteric theories about the universe, and it took some real effort to follow. Nor was it that rewarding, as, like I said, science by now has passed Plato by. Critias, however, was a fun read on a subject that's since driven a lot of speculation, although it was disappointing that it ended in the middle. I don't think I could recommend these two works except to people with a truly endless interest in ancient Greece or ancient philosophy.
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