You have to hand it to Hollywood. At a time when the country is tied up in knots over war, the economy, and terrorism, they manage to make it All About Them. Oh, sure, you can get disgusted. Still, you also have to look on with a weary sort of admiration. Like the demented heroine of Sunset Boulevard, they spin controversy out of thin air and beat their chests in worry and regret, all the while making sure the camera catches their good side. Ignoring the embarrassing hyperbole ("brave souls" anyone?) and the publicity seeking—Yo, Will Smith, no one gives a dizzamn—it was a pretty boring tame show. Let’s look at the highlights.

While not reaching Whoopi levels of the stultifyingly unfunny, Steve Martin flirted with flop sweat on numerous occasions. Moreover, he flirted with a good deal of the females in attendance, skirting between delightful codger and creepy chicken hawk with an alarming ease. I understand the pressures of avoiding The War ("Whatever you do, don’t mention the War!") and concerns about propriety. Still, Martin was just the man to disintegrate all the pompous hoopla with one well placed remark. Instead we got jokes about Mickey Rooney’s age. What? The Hoover Administration too topical? A tip: If you’re going to bother hiring a host who is actually funny, let him be funny.

An apparent victim of pretending to care strikes back. It was requested that clothes be toned down, but thankfully the pastels didn’t completely disappear. Halle Berry had remarked that she wanted to wear something to encourage the troops. Visions of a camouflage ball-gown dancing in my head. I was relived to find she opted for a lovely gold number.

"Low key" was interpreted by many actresses to mean no make up and a simple up do. It worked for some. (Although for ol’ Pucker Face Renee Zellweger, it looked like she just had time to put on her dress and dash for the limo.) Marcia Gay Harden worked a gorgeous turquoise number, and pregnancy suited Mrs. Jones to a T. First time nomination Queen Latifah looked stunning in a blue brocade gown.

Then there was the debit side of the sartorial card. Denzel, you’re incredibly good looking, so why hide it behind that scraggily beard? Sally Kirkland was the expected disaster. Meryl Streep’s dress had a nice bodice and skirt, but someone hastily, and sloppily, attached sleeves made out of a doily.

J-Lo, it was rumored, would finish cataloging her anatomy to the public by wearing a sheer backed dress. Ben Affleck put the kibosh on this. (Lest you mistakenly think well of him, the peace pin he considering wearing was dropped after being declared a fashion no-no by his stylist.) Lopez instead took the stage in a dowdy toga number stolen from a Star Trek extra.

The dress code made for a tame night. Cher was sorely missed.

Let me get this out of my system: CHRIS COOPER WHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! Thank you.

My favorite character actor took home best supporting actor and wished for peace, a nice if toothless sentiment that set the tone for remarks to come.

Adrien Brody, what to say? Out of the films nominated I’ve just seen Chicago A dark horse win always pleases me, and I can understand being swept up in the moment. But dude, they’re called personal boundaries. Look into it. Somewhere Tom Cruise is weeping into his copy of Dianetics.

And then there was Michael Moore. I’ll just say that in a tepid night his balls out comments, good or bad, were a welcome change. [Editor Ken: Of course, many thought the welcome change occurred when Moore’s remarks got him booed off the stage. Further amusement was gleaned from his subsequent and increasingly desperate attempts to spin said catcalls to the press.]

An absent Roman Polanski won for Best Director and received a standing ovation, one of many given indulgently through the night.

The best speech is always given by the Lifetime Achievement winner, and Peter O’Toole did not disappoint. After a montage showing how he was once the hottest thing on the planet, he thanked the Academy for bestowing this honor upon him as he "totters off into antiquity."

An amazingly restrained Barbara Streisand announced Best Song. A moment of post-modern nirvana was created when she proclaimed, "The Academy Award for Best Original Song Goes To Eminem." Strangely that was the only song that wasn’t performed. I guess our boy’s trying to keep it street, yo. Though it can’t be denied a Streisand/Eminem duet would make a tantalizing mix. Look for a remix of "Evergreen," entitled "Soft as a F------ Easy Chair B---" to hit stores this fall.

Susan Sarandon shocked everyone by flashing the peace sign and then proceeding to simply read her lines and not give a lecture.

Debbie Allen may have been replaced but her spirit lives on. In a tacky number, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Queen Latifah sang "I Move On" from Chicago. Unfortunately, they were buried in a set from the 1983 Grammies and a dozen dancers doing their best to demonstrate how too much Fosse can be a dangerous thing.

ABC disgraced itself with an ugly, blurry CGI Mickey Mouse used to announce the Best Animated Short award. What’s worse than an awful comedic bit that won’t end? An awful comedic bit done by a cartoon character.

The best reaction shot was during Moore’s last hurrah the occasionally beautiful Adrien Brody looking supremely uncomfortable.

And won’t somebody say it? Hold your applause during the "in memoriam" segment. It’s inconsiderate to turn it into a popularity contest.

***

Taste and The Oscars made for an uneasy alliance. Cutting away to Peter Jennings during the broadcast only added to the absurdity of the event. The need for respect is admirable but misguided. The Academy Awards is a gilded orgy of self-congratulation, and no somber black gown or lack of E! coverage will change that.

And why should it? The movies are built on extremes, to make us laugh, to make us cry, scream, fall in love. The egos of the stars are part and parcel of the package. We allow them this petty indulgence because we love them or love to hate them. It’s foolish to attempt anything else or pretend the ceremony has any deeper meaning. So cheers to the stars who brought the glamour and a thank you to those who pushed politics for giving us fodder to toss around the water cooler. Here’s to next year. Let it bring even better movies, tackier gowns and Cher. Please, let there be Cher.

[NOTE:  The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Jabootu or his high priest.  Especially the Cher thing.]

As our veteran readers know, I had my share of problems with Lost World: Jurassic Park II. To the extent that JP3 answered some of those concerns, it’s a better picture. For instance, I had expressed my fervent desire that Steven Spielberg not direct films he wasn’t interested in. And, thankfully, he forwent helming this. (Although there were a lot of problems with the films Spielberg went on to direct, including the masterful but ultimately gutless Minority Report.) The reins were instead handed over to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids’ Joe Johnston.

What’s the best thing about this flick? It’s that rather than trying to make the hugest Jurassic Park yet, they actually stripped this chapter down to a comparatively lean 92 minutes. And that includes seven or eight minutes of end credits. LW: JPII, in contrast, clocked in at an entirely too lengthy two hours and ten minutes.

This time the original Jurassic Park actor who refuses to return to Dinosaur Land but does is Sam Neill, not Jeff Goldblum. In a nice bit for the series’ fans—assuming they actually care about the thinly etched characters inhabiting this universe—we initially see Neill with fellow JP co-star Laura Dern. At first it’s assumed they’re married, as was suggested by their earlier relationship. We instead learn that she has wed someone else and become a mom. This provides a fairly bittersweet moment, which is almost entirely to the credit of the pair’s acting abilities.

We actually open on a man and a boy parasailing near the supposedly off-limits Island B, as introduced in the second film. Something Mysterious occurs to the boat pulling them and the two are cast adrift, landing on the island.

We catch up with Neill at an academic conference. He’s rededicated himself to traditional paleontology following the events of the first movie. Unfortunately, now that ‘real’ dinosaurs are known to exist, funding has dried up for digs and such. There’s something to this idea, although needless to say it isn’t explored all that deeply.

His current dig desperately requiring funds, a reluctant Neill agrees to guide adventurous power-couple William H. Macy (!) and Tea Leoni on their flyover of the island. Neill brings along his eager young assistant, Billy. To his dismay, however, he learns that his employers and their crew intend to actually land on the island, which is strictly illegal. Macy and Leoni, it’s revealed, are the divorced parents of Erik, the lad who crashed on this island at the beginning of the movie.

Being a Jurassic Park film, the crew’s two weapons experts are quickly dispatched after achieving nothing at all. One of these was carrying what amounts to an anti-tank rifle. He’s heard firing the weapon, but we don’t see why it didn’t save him. Presumably he just missed—I don’t care how big the dino he was shooting at was, the gun he was carrying would take out a blue whale—which reeks of being a script contrivance. As I noted in my Lost World piece, there’s a clear anti-gun bias in this series.

The reason the weapons guys die right away is that they are dolts. The guy with the anti-tank gun immediately heads into the woods, supposedly to "establish a perimeter." Er, one or two guys can’t ‘establish a perimeter’ around an entire airstrip. You’d set the weapon up in the clearing where the plane landed, rather than heading into the brush. This would establish at least a clearly defined firing zone. Of course, then we wouldn’t have learned yet again how useless guns are.

The remaining characters, naturally enough, go from one adventure to another. Since the film is at least short, there isn’t time to get as epically dumb as the second picture was. However, the does have it’s share of goofball moments. For instance, you can still tell who will live and who will die based on politics. The three (sort of) mercenaries? Dead. Leoni’s boyfriend, who crashed with Erik? Dead. Otherwise he’d stand in the way of the family’s inevitable rapprochement.

Billy, after stealing dino eggs, is castigated by Neill as being "as bad" as the InGen scientists who made the dinosaurs in the first place. So Billy falls to a swarm of pteranodons. Later Neill regrets his judgment. At that point I assumed Billy would turn up alive. Which *gasp* is what happened. Sheesh.

Of course, Erik pops up alive too, because in the JP movies kids are always the smartest and ablest characters. He also uses the only weapons effectively employed here. Of course, these are gas grenades, and thus defensive and not offensive—no pun intended—weapons. I loved the scene where Neill sits with Erik in the lad’s hidey-hole. Erik has lived on supplies left in the abandoned InGen plant these last couple of months. "Any weapons?" Neill asks. Of course, the answer is no. The InGen guys left just about everything but those icky guns behind. In fact, they probably never had them in the first place. Not even a machete or anything.

Other problematic bits:

• One biggie throughout is that Island B is supposedly way off-limits and restricted to everyone. Despite this, neither the Costa Rican government nor the UN or whoever has placed any security personnel around the island or anywhere on it. Given this, the place would be crawling with adventurers, poachers, reporters, etc.
• Also, the island is ‘restricted,’ but you can legally drive a pleasure boat rather less than a mile from shore?
• The guys in the boat—it’s OK, they ran a tour company, and as capitalists deserve their fate—emerge from a fog bank horribly slain. (By which I mean, the boat is deserted and covered with blood.) So there are monstrous predators in the island’s outlying waters? Wouldn’t these migrate out? That would seems to present a number of problems.
• I’ll give the film this: When the boat crashes onto a reef it doesn’t explode.
• The plane lands on InGen’s abandoned airstrip. Surrounded by verdant jungle, this should have long ago been reclaimed by the jungle. Yet it’s still mostly pristine. And again, shouldn’t the authorities have posted somebody here?
• The big money scene, a battle between the T-Rex and the new super-thingie dinosaur, is cool and all. Still, the CGI origins of the beasties are a tad too evident, especially when blood is spilled. In the long run, it’s certainly no rival to the Kong/T-Rex battle in King Kong, which I’m pretty sure is what they were going for.
• Macy eventually reveals that he is not, in fact, a wealthy man. Of course not. If he were, he’d have to be killed. Wealth is a sign of eee-vilness in these films. Even the jolly John Hammond character from the first film keeps getting slammed, although they allowed him to merely become horribly ill rather than actually dying. (As seen in the second movie).
• Considering how big the island is, it’s sure lucky they so quickly came across the parachute Erik left behind. By the way, why is the airstrip so friggin’ far from the abandoned InGen compound?
• You know, you can create buildings that are practically proof against nuclear attack. Yet InGen kept constructing compounds that don’t seem designed to keep out predator dinos, either big or small. Shouldn’t there at least be secure underground bunkers in these?
• Things I Learned: Raptors can climb chain-link fencing, but not trees.
• These films are actually fairly creepy in the lack of sympathy they show to the characters the filmmakers don’t like. Not to mention the way the characters they do like are constantly let off the hook for the results of their actions.
• Things I Learned: If you’re in a tree surrounded by voracious and super-intelligent Raptors, they’ll eventually get tired and leave you alone.
• Despite what we see here, I suspect the ringing of a cell phone would not be clearly audible when said instrument is inside the gullet of a fifty-ton animal, or buried under several hundred pounds of wet dino dung.
• The series falters in trying to make the dinos more ‘awesome’ in each film. First of all, this ruins any sense of continuity. Here, for example, the ‘Raptors are suddenly able to talk to one another, and Neill posits early on that they are potentially as smart as humans. This behavior goes well beyond what was established in the first two films. Also, the movie introduces a super-dinosaur that’s even more powerful than the T-Rex. That’s fine, but if the dinos keep getting more and more formidable, then the heroes’ ability to interact with them over and over again and constantly survive grows increasingly silly.
• The last film established (sorta) that the dangerous carnivore dinosaurs were to be found on the island’s interior. Here, however, it’s at least twice implied that the more dangerous creatures are located closer to the coast.
• The films never can get their various Messages correct. For instance, we again get a "Majestic Awe Upon Seeing The Dinosaurs" scene, with John Williams’ theme played at full throttle. Yet one thread running consistently throughout the series is that InGen’s experiments in cloning the dinos were an appalling breach of the Laws of Nature and a gross example of Man’s Hubris. (When films talked of God, it was Things Man Was Not Meant to Know. Now movies speak instead of Nature, and it’s Things Man Just Shouldn’t Do.) So which is it? If InGen’s work was that evil, shouldn’t it taint the experience of seeing the dinos?
• I never thought I’d say this, but the movie has a genuinely funny gag involving Barney the Dinosaur. One that doesn’t, moreover, involve killing Barney the Dinosaur.
• The movie reaches its climax when, after Neill has gotten a cryptic phone call off to Dern, the characters hit the beaches and see a whole bunch of U.S. soldiers arriving to secure their rescue. It’s a funny gag, but makes no sense. For instance, the island is territory of Costa Rica, so the soldiers are technically invading a friendly foreign country. Admittedly, they (barely) established that Dern’s young husband works in the State Department, doing "International Relations" and "treaty law." Even so, would he really have the pull to get permission for all this, and under such short notice especially?
• By the way, none of the characters seem to be under arrest for having illegally been on the island.
• The movie ends as we watch pteranodons—freed by the carelessness of Our Heroes, which, as usual, is completely shrugged off—migrating from the island. Neill and the others smile and look upon this as benign, despite the fact that the same beasts had nearly killed all of them. Nor do any of the military pilots bother to report this presumably worrisome development.

When I reviewed Python, I gave it a qualified thumbs up. It was a typically crappy DTV killer animal film, but hey, it was better than King Cobra or Boa. Of course, that leaves a lot of room for sucking. So the question was, would the sequel improve on its predecessor’s extremely modest charms, or instead further screw the pooch?

We open in Russia. Many of these flicks are filmed in Eastern Europe, currently about the cheapest place to make movies. They apparently decided it was easier to set the film over there than try to make it look like it was taking place in the States. Anyhoo, our exact locale is some sort of top-secret military base.

A group of Russian soldiers is meeting with a U. S. Army Col. Evans. The base, we learn, is a joint Russian/American one. Haven’t seen that one before, I have to admit. Evans is leading a team to capture an "eighty-five foot, twelve ton python." This has been found lurking in the Urals, and is apparently naturally occurring rather than being an escaped bio-weapons project. [Future Ken: Actually, this is contradicted—sorta—later in the movie.]

The Russian soldiers will flush the snake towards the American team, who will use big-ass stun guns on it. Then the Americans will take the critter back to the U.S. Where, I’m assuming, it will be part of a…bio-weapons program. The Russian government is getting money for the snake, in case you’re wondering.

For what it’s worth, I should note that the guy playing Col. Evans, the amusingly monikered Marcus Aurelius, does a nice job. I fear he’s not long for the movie, though. Also, the CGI shots of the military helicopter flying through the Urals are pretty decent. Of course, mechanical devices are generally easier to animate. We’ll see about the snake effects.

Not wasting any time, the Russians engage the snake as soon as they land. The beastie is kept almost entirely offscreen, however, as they conserve their effects budget. The snake proves predictably immune to small arms fire, which I didn’t really buy, but anyway. Oh, there we go. The snake appears and they stun it with guns firing electrical current. (??) Verdict: I’ve seen worse, but the snake effects aren’t going to win any awards.

Hilariously, the film reuses some CGI plane shots that introduced the first movie. That film opened with a similar snake being flown by a cargo plane through a storm. The snake got out and the plane crashed. Here the plane carrying the snake is hit by lightning. This forces it to divert into Chechnya, where rebels manage to down the craft with rockets. Somebody at UFO (Unified Film Organization) must have a thing about Chechnya, because it was also part of the plot in Boa. The Chechens check out the crash site, but are soon killed by a patrol of Russian soldiers. The Russians, in turn, find the cargo container holding the snake.

Next we meet American expatriate Dwight Stoddart and his hot Russian wife Nalia. Owners of a small transport company, they’re delivering some illicit goods to Russian mobsters. Dwight’s jealous streak gets the better of him, though, when the head guy makes crass remarks about the Mrs. Their asses are saved when an American, Greg Larson, shows up. (Larson was a character from the first movie. More on this in a sec.) The mobsters obviously view him as a fearsome character.

Larson wants to hire the Stoddarts and their cargo truck for a job. The situation is obviously shady, but he’s offering a good buck. What we know and they don’t is that the box they’re to transport is the snake container. Which is currently being studied at an advanced Russian military facility. For some reason, they don’t know what’s in it. Which I found strange, given that the Russian government helped capture the beast, and that the American government is presumably bitching about its lost plane and cargo. Of course, Russia is a big country.

The scientists are nervous about opening the box. Wow! Common sense! Naturally, though, the base’s Commanding Officer overrides them. Luckily -- well, actually not -- the container doesn’t have a key code lock or anything. They pop it open and the snake comes out, spraying sundry folks with the acidic venom introduced in the first film. (What does it eat if it melts its prey into a puddle?) The snake makes its way through the base, killing the personnel as it goes.

After talking the situation over, the Stoddarts agree to take the job. There’s also some stuff about a Dark Secret in Stoddart’s past, one that has kept him from returning to America. Which is, after all, why they’re in the movie. Oh, and he’s an ex-baseball player. So watch for a scene where he has to throw something the size of a baseball.

Larson meets them with a team of men and provides a map of where they’re going. I found it funny that this small team is supposedly planning to take over the Russian base we saw earlier and retrieve the container, but there you go. Larson, for what it’s worth, was the one who negotiated the purchase of the errant snake. Now he intends to secure it.

Once they reach the base they find it deserted. Of course, the idea that everyone would have died, even the topside personnel assigned to this underground base, before sending out a distress call seems dubious at best. (Also, wouldn’t a military base have to check in with someone on a regular basis? You’d think so.) Nevertheless, that’s how things are presented. Now, at this point alarm bells should be going off for Larson at least. You’d think he’d conclude the snake was loose, yet this possibility isn’t even mentioned by him.

Moreover, when his team unlimbers their weapons, they’re standard military small arms. Well, and a couple of flamethrowers. Larson himself packs only a pistol. (!!) I’d have expected at least some grenade launchers or LAWS rockets. Also, you’d think he’d bring along some of the electrical stun cannons used in the beginning of the film, if only as a contingency. They mentioned the ones we saw earlier were Russian, but what, they have them and we don’t? By the way, what the hell were they designed for? In case the Russian army ever needed to stun a twenty-ton reptile?

Two of Larson’s men are whacked when the snake attacks them in a bunker. One of them has a flamethrower. During the melee this ignites some nearby fuel drums and Boom! Again, though, the ability of the snake to survive a huge explosion and fireball, much less in a contained area, seems a tad unlikely. Yet they don’t even bother to make it look scorched later.

After another guy buys it, Larson wants to scrub the mission. Common Sense Alert! However, his Sinister SpOOk Boss informs him via phone that he must at least procure a sample of the snake’s DNA. Why bother? Didn’t they have literally tons of snake DNA left after the monster in the first movie was killed? Also, wouldn’t tissue samples of the snake be pretty much all over the place? Hard to believe it took out an entire military base without leaving blood and scales all over the place. The biggest problem with this series so far is that they keep thinking ‘big’ equals ‘invulnerable.’ It doesn’t.

Larson tells the Stoddarts and their assistant to take off. Unfortunately, all the vehicles have been disabled by the snake. Because, you see, that’s the sort of thing giant snakes do. (Did it also dispatch every vehicle in the base motor pool? Guess so.) So they’re stuck there.

Larson eventually explains that he works for the CIA. (Why the hell would they want a giant snake?!) For those who saw the first movie, Larson was the small town sheriff who wanted to be an FBI agent. He supposedly got his wish at the end of the picture. How’d he end up a SpOOk, then? FBI…CIA…same difference, I guess. Moreover, this allows them to eat up a minute or two of running time with some ‘flashbacks’ from the other film. Including the plane footage that they already re-used earlier in this movie!!

They do have him mention that the snake was a military experiment. "Acid-spitting, intelligent and damn near bulletproof. A perfect weapon." Actually, I think that last point is a tad debatable. I don’t remember the experiment angle, although it’s not like I’ve watched the first film over and over again. Still, I’m a little confused about the origins of this second snake then. If it has the same unnatural qualities as the first one, they presumably it too was an experiment subject. Which raises the question of how it ended up in the friggin’ Ural mountains.

Anyway, bringing Larson back actually lends the movie a nice sense of continuity, making the film more than a sequel in name only. Moreover, they actually keep him the basically nice guy he was in the first film. Which probably makes him the only Gov’ment SpOOk I’ve seen in a movie lately that isn’t a complete and utter psychopath.

At this point we basically have half an hour of film left. It goes about as you’d expect. The snake pops up at regular intervals to kill somebody. Larson’s bosses turn out to be treacherous, because, you know, they’re SpOOks. And so on. Eventually we reach the climax and the snake gets blowed up real good.

Python II, as mentioned, was made by UFO. They make a lot of this stuff, and they could really use a veteran house actor, a Tony Todd or Lance Henriksen. This might slightly drive up the cost of their films, but it would be well worth it. The B-movie world desperately needs a new bunch of Donald Pleasance-types. Python did feature Robert Englund and Casper Van Dien, the latter of whom turned in a memorably awful performance, but there’s no one of even that stature here.

Instead we get people like Dana Ashbrook, who is a house actor, having appeared in Boa amongst others, and the returning William Zabka. It’s not that these guys don’t do a decent job, especially Zabka, who really is a pretty good actor. Ashbrook is OK here as well, noticeably better than he was in Boa. Even so, a veteran ham always brings a movie like this up another level or two.

• Nice opening credits scene, and the score’s pretty good, if a little Jaws-esque.
• Things I Learned: Big-ass snakes are not only bulletproof, but immune to plane crashes and huge explosions and fireballs.
• Watch the scene where the Chechen rebels get shot down after downing the plane. There’s one ‘soldier’ who wasn’t given any blanks and just shakes his gun as he pretends to fire it.
• Didn’t anyone notice that the prop cargo container they supposedly were transporting the snake in is at least five times too small to hold so huge a beast?
• RANDOM GRATUITOUS BUTT SHOT! (Hey, there, Andrew. Just seeing if you were paying attention.)
• Man, I am so sick and tired of seeing a bunch of purported tough guys walking towards the screen in slo-mo, ala Reservoir Dogs. Enough already!
• Things I Learned: The CIA has no qualms about hijacking a military base housed within a non-hostile foreign country. Even if, as I assume here, the plan to do so involves killing some or all of the personnel.
• Things I Learned: No matter how elite your paramilitary team is, their communications equipment will fail at the worst possible moment.
• As usual, the snake seems to be employing the Voorhees Unreality Engine, allowing it to jump around all over the place up in a non-linier fashion and yet ending up wherever the most vulnerable potential victim is to be found.
• Things I Learned: Acidic venom doesn’t melt truck tires, it causes them to burst into flames.
• Things I Learned: Giant snakes can be quite quixotic in deciding when and where they’ll kill people.
• Things I Learned: Flamethrowers aren’t necessarily the giant snake deterrent you might assume.
• Things I Learned: Underground Russian military facilities don’t have secure hatchways.
• Things I Learned: If something happens to the entire assigned personnel of a Russian military facility, no one will notice for a good long while.
• Things I Learned: Empty concrete hallways burn for a very long time.
• It’s a measure of how poorly written most of these movies are that I was surprised when a character paused to mourn the death of his friend from earlier in the picture.
• I won’t go into why, but the inadequate size of the snake container turns out to be even more ludicrous than I originally thought. In fact, much more ludicrous.
• The geopolitical stuff is definitely the worst aspect of the movie. In the end, to cover up the whole snake incident, the CIA somehow manages to order stealth bombers (!) in to eradicate the Russian base. In other words, we cross into the sovereign territory of a more or less friendly foreign nation and commit an act of war. And how can this possibly cover up the U.S. government’s involvement with the snake when it was the Russians who helped us capture it in the first place?
• Man, that Hero’s Death Battle Exemption sure comes in handy.
• Wait, can those snakes fly, or what? And why would the base have a excavation that goes down what must be fifty stories or more?
• Gee, who would have thought survival would ultimately depend upon Stoddart’s baseball skills? Oh, wait. I did.
• OK, I don’t think that particular barrage would have destroyed all the snake evidence.
• Foreign nationals arrested outside a decimated Russian military base where everyone’s been killed? Setting up another sequel, I guess.

I guess if you live long enough, you’ll end up seeing some strange things. In this case, it’s a decent Big Foot movie. That might not sound like much, but few subjects have so reliably provided fodder for a more miserable slate of movies. Bigfoot, The Curse of Bigfoot, the various Boggy Creek movies, Snowbeast, Man Beast, Shriek of the Mutilated. Nor is that list even remotely exhaustive.

Of the numerous movies based on the Yeti/Big Foot creature, only 1957’s The Abominable Snowman holds up as an actually good movie. While not a classic, it’s a solid, thoughtful sci-fi flick, helped by a typically intelligent performance by Peter Cushing. Sasquatch isn’t nearly that good, but compared to the other Yeti movies made over the last forty-odd years, it bestrides its sub-genre like a furry titan.

The daughter of entrepreneur Harlan Knowles (Lance Henriksen!) disappears in a plane crash in Canada. When the authorities abandon the search, her estranged father organizes and joins a search party hoping to locate her. Entering the verdant, remote forestland are adventure writer Winston Burg, guide Clayton Tyne, computer geek and part-time cryptozoologist Plazz, Knowles’ assistant Nikki Simmons and a representative of Knowles’ insurance company, Marla Lawson.

Rather than pursuing the normal slasher movie model you might expect—and thank you to the filmmakers for not doing so—much of the drama revolves around tensions amidst the party members. Also notable is that everyone in the movie is, well, an adult. Moreover, nobody’s stupid. (Although one member proves to be a dangerous drunkard.) This alone raises the movie above most made these days.

Once in the woods, things progress pretty much as you’d suspect. The party eventually finds the wreckage of the plane, although it seems to have been transported from the actual crash site. On the fringes of the action, meanwhile, lurks the title beastie. A found video journal from Harlan’s daughter establishes the fate of the folks in the plane. Soon after, the creature makes its presence known, and the party finds itself hunted as it races back to civilization.

Good points include some solid, if not exactly original, characterization. Nobody in this movie is going to join the ranks of great movie characters, but you can actually tell everybody apart. Having one person be a cryptozoologist is a bit obvious, but on the other hand, it’s not an unreasonable hobby for a computer geek. As noted, the characters are all fairly intelligent, with only a few actions that have the viewer raising their eyebrows in disbelief. And while the film does sport the seemingly obligatory ‘Dr. Smith’ character—i.e., a person amongst the group whose actions add to the danger—this isn’t nearly as overplayed as it most other films of this ilk.

The acting also is generally professional. Henriksen unsurprisingly provides a very solid, albeit typically low-key, performance. Knowles is the film’s meatiest role, and proves a not entirely sympathetic character. Despite his conflicted motives in forming the search party, however, it’s clear that he’s haunted by the possibility that he’s lost a daughter he’s spent years pushing away.

Another thing that I liked, although tastes may vary, is that the film is quite old fashioned. By which I mean, the violence remains pretty much off camera. There’s little swearing, only one semi-nude shot (see info on this below), etc. I’m sure this aspect will disappoint some, but I think maybe they tried to make the film stronger in more traditional areas because they weren’t relying on gore and sex to carry the picture.

Low points? Well, as noted, the various elements are generally solid or decent, rather than genuinely inspired. (What’s sad is how rare that level of achievement is.) The film is radically over-directed—it seems, see notes below—with many distracting ‘artistic’ visual effects used throughout the film. In one particularly goofy moment, we watch Lawson undress, as the camera rolls a full 360º. In other words, the image of the character tilts until it’s upside down and then continues until it’s back where it started.

Some elements just seem overused. The creature inevitably has a "monster vision" effect in its POV shots, here a variation of the standard infra red stuff. Also, the video journal can only draw comparisons to The Blair Witch Project. I can’t remember another film that so indelibly created a visual style as to render it practically unusable in any subsequent movie. Even so, the daughter’s terrified yet resigned message to her father remains affecting, despite the undoubted echoes of Blair Witch.

I also found the abilities of the Yetis to be a bit much. Its apparent level of super-strength seems farfetched. Then there’s its demonstrated ability to dodge bullets. This, while an attempt to explain why none of these creatures has ever been shot by hunters, is entirely goofy. Finally, I found the symbolism of the picture’s climatic standoff to be a bit on the nose.

Even so, the good outweighs the bad. And as an added bonus, the DVD offers a commentary track with director Jonas Quastel, producer Rob Clark and the actors who played Burg and Plazz. The guys have a good sense of humor, and obviously are proud of their work, if not insufferably so. As well, the commentary ended up providing entirely fresh insight into the making of low-budget films.

The primary thing we learn is that the people making a film don’t necessarily have much to do with what it ends up being. Quastel notes right off that none of them have seen the completed cut of the film as it now exists. This becomes increasingly evident as the commentary advances. Moreover, they apparently provided the commentary while watching the picture on a screen that compressed the image. Occasionally they’ll grouse or joke about the distorted picture they’re viewing.

Quastel often sighed over some of the overdone optical tricks I mentioned before, including the 360º shot. This made me feel a little sheepish, as I’d laid responsibility at his door for that stuff, under the theory that they appeared to be directorial decisions. Here, though, it’s obvious the production company took what he turned in and noodled with it to their heart’s desire.

This realization first hits about three minutes in. That’s when the film’s title appears onscreen, at which all four men spontaneously issue bewildered cries. See, the movie was shot as "The Untold." (Which title actually still appears on the last card of the closing credits.) Apparently the distributor changed the title to the presumably more marketable Sasquatch, only nobody who actually made the film was informed. Every once in a while one of the men will blurt out like, "Is it really called Sasquatch now?" Their dismay is also indicated when one participant sardonically notes the new title "tips the hat a little early." I just found this tremendously funny.

Another such moment takes place during the film’s sole instance of partial nudity, when the Lawson character takes a bath in a hot spring. The B-movie vet will immediately ken that we’re viewing a body double, since we don’t see the face of the actress playing Lawson during this. However, what we might not have guessed is that this footage was again inserted by the distributors in post-production. "There’s a new shot," Quastel laughs when the nude shot appears. Then there’s a closing card, pushing the idea that this was based on a true story. "I haven’t seen this end before," the actor playing Plazz laughs. "So apparently I go nuts."

By the way, confirmation of the fact that the participants are all Canadian is provided when, as they discuss the name change for the fifth time in ten minutes, Quastel replies, "Yeah, I don’t know what the heck happened there." I don’t think I’ve heard an American director of the last forty years use the word "heck." The guy who plays Plazz, meanwhile, frets what his Mom will say about his character checking out Lawson’s tightly-clad ass in one shot.

"Ken," the faithful reader may be asking, "since the most excellent Jessica Ritchey has already reviewed this film for your site, why are you bigfooting her piece by doing another? Are you just a jerk?"

Long answer – no, short answer – yes.

I could honestly explain that I’ve been getting mail for years suggesting I review this title. In fact, it’s quite possibly our most requested movie. (Not that that’s saying much.) I could point out that, as an older fellow who was in high school when Xanadu came out, I might have a different enough perspective from that young whippersnapper Jessica to make a separate piece worthwhile.

Finally, though, it’s because I rented the movie, which I’d never seen, to do screencaps for Jessica’s article. I ended up watching the movie, and now want to strike back at it for what it did to me. Plus, yeah, it’s my site and I can just be arbitrary if I wish. (Jessica’s starting her own review site, so soon she’ll be in the same position.)

On the other hand, Jess has provided what is probably the definitive long review, so this will basically amount to a collection of general observations. If you haven’t yet read her full critique, you should do so now and return:

• First, what the hell was up with Michael Beck? Who ever thought this guy was destined to be a movie star? Only Michael Parè beats him as the Inexplicable Up’n’Coming Actor of the ‘80s. Yes, yes, Beck’s long, feathered, ur-‘80s Farrah hairdo is quite impressive. (Although his high forehead already portends a retreating hairline.) Yet if I thought he was bad in MegaForce—and I most certainly did—he’s worse here. In Xanadu he’s the romantic lead, yet remains a total stiff throughout the picture. Nor is appearing opposite the ever-charming Gene Kelly, owner of the world’s most twinkling eyes ever, helping any.
• Uh, when did the Muses get to be so multi-ethnic? There’s a black one, and an Asian one, and an…Australian one? Hey, it’s our female lead, Olivia Newton-John!
• Now, Ms. John certainly comes off better than Mr. Beck. She’s undeniably quite pretty, has a soupcon of charm and can sing. (And at this point was years past the nadir of her recording career, "Have You Never Been Mellow?") Of course, you’d then suspect the film would employ her singing talents to great advantage, since her acting and especially dancing chops are rather more suspect. And, after all, she was presumably hired due to her starring in Grease, by far the most successful musical of the late ‘70s. Yet this assumption proves incorrect. More on this later.
• By the way, which Muse is ‘Kira,’ for so Our Heroine identifies herself, supposed to be? The film pretty much ignores the established mythology regarding the Nine Muses, which seems kind of queer for a picture built around them.
• For instance, Kira inspires Beck in his painting during the present. Yet she also, we’ll eventually learn, helped Kelly become a successful musician back in the ‘40s. The problem being that each Muse had an area of expertise, as it were. There were Muses of History (Clio), Love Poetry (Erato), Comedy (Thalia—who perhaps worked with Jabootu on this film), Instrumental Music (Euterpe), Astronomy (Urania), Epic Poetry (Calliope), Tragedy (Melpomene—see note on Thalia), Song and Dance (Terpsichore) and Mime/Sacred Poetry (Polyhymnia).
• Admittedly, the above categories are open to some degree of interpretation, but they are in the ballpark. In regards to clarinetist Kelly, then, Kira presumably must be Euterpe, the Muse of Instrumental Music. Or perhaps Terpsichore, the Muse of Song and Dance. However, there was no Muse for the visual arts, as we think of them. Therefore, none of the Nine would traditionally act as a Muse to Beck, a painter.
• So, OK, let’s say that in the Modern World, the Muses branched out from what the Greeks considered to be the Arts. Fair enough. Even so, the Nine have always jealously divied up their territories. (Jealously being a primary trait amongst Greek demigods.) So the fact remains that Kira would not be a Muse for both a painter and dancer.
• Also, staying on the Muse thing, they don’t really grasp the concept in other ways. Beck spends the movie bitching because he can’t make money with his Real Art. Well, Muses inspired a fever in the mortals they chose to inspire, allowing them to create their greatest works. What they didn’t do was necessarily bring financial gain to their students. (Or whatever.) It’s an oddly Hollywoodian concept that Art must bring worldly fame and fortune to the Artist if all is to be right with the world.
• This also ignores the fact that most brilliant artists didn’t really live ‘happy’ lives.
• Also, mortals who directly interact with Immortals usually end up paying a price as well, and usually a severe one. Of course, no such undertones of tragedy, no matter how appropriate, will intrude themselves here.
• Oh, and like most movie heroes, Beck has a laughably expensive car. (They apparently are issued with the gigantic apartments these guys always have.) Usually it’s a Mustang or other ‘60s muscle car. Here, to tie in with the film’s nods to the ‘40s, it’s a cherry Woody station wagon.
• I remembered Xanadu as being a big movie, but if the IMDB is correct, it bombed. What I probably am thinking of was the huge impact the soundtrack album made, with "Xanadu" and especially "Magic" being then omnipresent on the radio.
• Boy, the animation stuff here is truly lame. And there’s a lot of it.
• Watch for Muse #1, who is played by Sandahl Bergman. She’s the tall blond who does most of the more strenuous dancing.
• Back to the scene that introduces the Muses, as they materialize from a mural and do a dance number outlined in animation effects. This is a truly excruciating sequence.
• What’s great here is that Newton-John clearly is the only one who can’t dance. The others move around her in a fashion that recalls the huge cast wheeling about the moribund Mae West in the "Hooray for Hollywood!" number in Sextette.
• First song, by ELO, who provides the majority of the score. "I’m Alive!" Boring. Song about a ‘5’ out of 10, the dance choreography maybe a ‘3.’
• Back to Newton-John. Likable? Yes. Pretty? Sure. Can sing? Yep. Capable of suggesting an awesome, magical being thousands of years old, one whose sheer presence inspires True Art from Man? No.
• Hey, it’s the Muse of Speed & Time!
• Who knew Muses liked to roller skate so much?
• Things I Learned: No one in California notices people trailing Doppler color waves. (Must be all the drugs they do out there.)
• Hey, Beck and that woman have the exact same hairdo!
• That popcorn girl, the one who got the evident ass shot, that’s somebody’s girlfriend, right?
• And so Beck meets Gene Kelly, and a highly dubious instant bond is formed between them. Oh, Gene, what could you have done to deserve this? On the other hand, imagine how much worse the movie would be without him.
• Things I Learned: In California, you can just run up to cute girls and grab their moped and drive it off and they will smile and say "OK."
• In a nod to Catalina Caper, Beck drives his moped off the pier and into the water. Wah, wah, wah. We never see him paying the girls for it, either. Quite a guy, our Leading Man.
• Things I Learned: In California, no one notices people turning into bright beams of primary-colored light and flying off into the sky. (Must be all the drugs they do out there.)
• That’s quite a moped, by the way. Beck uses it to chase a girl slowly moving on skates, fails to catch up with her, and after crashing it is immediately joined by Kelly, a sixty year-old man who followed him on foot.
• In a very lazy segue, Beck just happens upon a place where he’ll find Kira. (Again, see Jessica’s review.) This introduces what should be the movie’s showstopper tune, "[You Have to Believe We Are] Magic". This was easily the biggest hit from the movie’s soundtrack, and definitely drove the album sales. Yet here it’s used purely as background music, fading in and out as Newton-John skates around an empty theater building. (Again with the skating.) The song was so poorly used, in fact, that I expected a reprise of it later, but that never happened.
• This gets back to the poor use of Ms. Newton-John. She sings just a few songs in the movie, the (faintly) heard "Magic" here, the duet "Suddenly" and the main "Xanadu" theme, which is used in a big number later and followed by N-J’s solo version played over the end credits. Other than that, ELO provides all the songs and vocals. I found this very strange, as Newton-John’s singing is at least arguably what made Grease such a huge success.
• Doesn’t Beck notice that Kira keeps fading in and out of view as he watches her? I don’t know, that just seems like something you’d comment on.
• ‘Kira’ is mostly shown skating in long shots and through shadows, if you know what I mean.
• By the way, the scenes of Beck bantering with his workmates make you want to root around in your ears with an ice pick.
• I know we’re supposed to admire Beck’s Artistic Integrity when he stands up to his Boss, but really, he just comes across like a pouting jerk. Where did people get this idea that it’s ‘mean’ for a guy to give you a paycheck and then expect you to do when he wants? (Of course, his Boss is given the sort of stiff, eee-vil Capitalist "You must abandon your humanity!" dialog you’d expect from a Bertolt Brecht play.)
• Ewww, now they’re dragging Glenn Miller into this!! Blecch!! Listen, I realize there might have been a real impulse here to pay homage to the great music of the ‘40s, but…cripes, buddy, this is Xanadu!!
• Things I Learned: Clarinet players in the Glenn Miller Orchestra made lots of money, enough to buy mansions to live in.
• Yeah, what a coincidence, there’s a picture of Kira in Kelly’s old scrapbook. Now it’s all coming together. (Note: Prior remark may have been sarcastic.) See, Kira was Kelly’s Muse back in the old days. When she left, he gave up music.
• Oh, I get it. Kelly’s rich because he abandoned music after Kira left. See, just like Beck could get rich by following his boss’s advice and giving up Art. Yeah, yawn, it’s all very meaningful.
• This all displays the typical Hollywood hypocrisy about money. On the surface, the message is "Money doesn’t bring you happiness – follow your dream!" However, if you think about it, Beck will be able to follow his dream because Kelly abandoned music and made a lot of money. Maybe I’m missing something, but that seems to undercut the ‘moral’ a wee bit.
• Dance number for Kelly! He still had it. Thanks for everything, Gene. By the way, N-J’s a better ‘light’ dancer than a classical one, apparently. Not that appearing opposite Kelly hurts any.
• EWWW!!! EWWW!!! They’re ripping off a scene from Singin’ in the Rain!! I’ll get you for making me watch this, Jessica.
• The song for this dancing-on-skates love dance number (!!) is the Olivia N-J/Cliff Richard duet "Suddenly," probably the second biggest song from this movie. OK song, but I can’t get past the whole skating thing, much less the Singin’ in the Rain aspect.
• Meanwhile, Beck is supposed to be looking for a place where Kelly can open a new club. Kira keeps drawing his attention to an old abandoned auditorium. Then she literally comes out and says, "Hey, what about this place?" And he still doesn’t get it. What a maroon.
• Eventually he changes his ‘mind’ and brings Kelly to the location. He also doesn’t see it at first. They keep talking about what a wreck the place is, although it’s clearly in pretty good shape.
• As Kelly gets into the mood, though, he starts imaging where things might go. "Over there!" he enthuses. "A big band!" Cue a big band to materialize in that corner. Beck is more ‘hip,’ though. (Like Michael Beck was ever hipper than Gene Kelly!) "No, no," he replies, "Over there! A great rock ‘n’ roll band!" I found it odd that, despite the fact that these visions are presumably in the characters’ heads, Beck could only dream up a really, really bad rock ‘n’ roll band. Why not the Rolling Stones or something? (Oh, right, because the movie couldn’t get the Rolling Stones.)
• We go back and forth between the two visions, so I try one. "Over there!" I cry. "A blank TV screen!" Sadly, my fantasy fails to materialize. Instead, I’m still watching Xanadu.
• Back and forth and back and forth. This goes on for a while. There’s a whole manqué-Andrews Sisters number that really isn’t very good. Although it’s better than the subsequent ‘glam rock’ stuff, that’s for sure. Funny how material from sixty years ago is so less dated than that from twenty years ago.
• Then, inevitably, Kelly and Beck’s visions mix. It’s sort of like Taco’s version of "Puttin’ on the Ritz," only not nearly that good. "You’ve got your big band in my rock ‘n roll," Beck might say, although he doesn’t. Of course, the idea is moronic. Yet the film is now premised on the idea that this concept is show biz dynamite.
• In a bit of raw, stark realism, Kelly decides to give Beck ownership of half the business. Just like real life!
• Kelly ponders what to name the place. Kira materializes, quoting the opening couplet of the Coleridge poem. Cripes, can these guys even do tie their shoes without her help?
• In an act of inspired rebellion, Beck goes into work and tells off his boss. How brave! What an inspiration to all of us with boring jobs and potty old millionaires who’ve given us half a major business!
• The best part is when Beck complains that he’s "been working like a dog" to conform to The Man’s soul-devouring demands. Uh, no you haven’t. You’ve skipped out of work and/or sat around and bitched because at one point you were actually expected to earn yourself a living. So shut up, you useless, long-haired hippie.
• I thought Beck would at least free his friends from working for his old boss, too, but he doesn’t. He just offers them a free night at the club. Can you spare it, sporty?
• Kira and Beck end up at the otherwise empty Hollywood Bowl. They kiss and turn into generally unrecognizable cartoon versions of themselves (!) for the next bad song. Egads, this sucks. It’s like the crappiest Disney musical number ever. In fact, that’s exactly how it plays.
• The kids decide that Kelly needs a ‘glitzy’ suit for opening night. You can only imagine the horrors that follow. Unless you saw that scene in Tough Guys where Kirk Douglas tries on a variety of mod outfits. If so, it’s just like that, only reconfigured as a horrifyingly bad production number from Earth Girls Are Easy. Except much, much worse. Oh, Gene, Gene. Thou were never meant for such as this.
• Man, this movie just never ends.
• Oh, groan. Of course, for the first time ever, Kira is *gasp* falling in love with a mortal. Gee, will the gods be angered, yet she’ll choose love over immortality in the end? Will she?!
• By the way, I could buy this had she fallen in love with Kelly. But with Beck?!
• Despite the fact that they obviously ignored all the muse mythology, Kira here starts talking about how she’s Zeus’ daughter and stuff. She even comes close to identifying herself as Terpsichore. Given how off the film’s versions of the muses are, they’d have been better off ignoring the classical ones entirely.
• OK, they just stole a gag from Harvey. Someone – must – die!!
• They have the gall to talk about all the folks the muses have inspired. Beethoven. Shakespeare. Michelangelo. Sonny Malone?! (That’s the name of Beck’s character.) Like hell.
• Hmm, Sonny might be the most peevish, whining git that’s ever been the protagonist of a movie.
• Beck sits on his ass moping after Kira returns to…wherever. Why is he the male lead of this movie again? Kelly shows up and gets him motivated to fight for Kira. Who, lest I haven’t made this clear yet, would be much better off with Kelly.
• Lame musical number #57 or something. Beck is looking for a way to get to Kira. Luckily, this provides the opportunity for more roller skating.
• He finds the mural the muses emerged from earlier. He skates into the wall, and to my vast regret, enters it instead of being killed.
• The gods live in a big Tron cartoon. Just so you know.
• Beck invokes Zeus. (The voice of Wilfrid Hyde-White! Apparently Zeus is British.) Anyone conversant with Greek mythology would be chortling right now, given what should be happening. Which is Beck suffering some horrible, immortal fate, like transforming into a cow with a thousand eyes. Hey, maybe then he’d be forced to watch Xanadu! With a thousand eyes! It’d be five hundred times worse! And you could give him 1,000 ears, too!
• A voice obviously meant to represent Hera appears and argues for True Love. Nobody with the slightest awareness of Greek Mythos would buy this for a minute. Hera was a stone cold bitch.
• Zeus still evicts Beck, although not to Hades, which is what I was hoping. Cue a lame ‘achy-breaky heart’ number from N-J.
• Seriously, this movie just goes on and on.
• Finally as sick of N-J’s number as I am—although they don’t actually come out and state this—Zeus and Hera send Kira back to Earth. Gee, thanks.
• The opening of the Xanadu club features Kelly leading a gigantic chorus line on roller skates and two lines of mimes juggling bowling pins. I kid you not. A bunch of the costumers (inmates?) are in zoot suits. I can’t even describe how awful this production number is. Let’s put it this way: It’s as bad as anything in Can’t Stop the Music.
• I should mention that Beck doesn’t seem very broken up about losing Kira. (As far as he knows.) Then she appears, to sing…Xanadu. This he also takes with great nonchalance. At least I’m assuming the movie must finally be nearing its long overdue end.
• Of course, ‘nearing’ is a comparative term.
• Oh, no! Yet another bad music number! In this one, N-J keeps changing outfits as we move through the decades. That’s right, it’s the inspiration for that stupid fifteen-minute Pepsi Superbowl ad starring Britney Spears.
• One final gag – from me, not the movie – and it’s over. And yes, I now envy the dead.