Heavy Metal (1981)

Heavy Metal is an anthology of seven loosely connected stories inspired by the fantasy magazine of the same name. I was too young to see the film at release, but there was a great buzz about it with the older teens. I didn’t give it much thought in the years since until my son heard about it. Damn, there was a lot of nudity.

The stories are connected by a glowing bowling ball of death. The individual stories had very different tones and animation styles because they had different writers and animators. Different enough that the narrative link occasionally seemed a bit forced. SCTV alums Joe Flaherty, John Candy, Eugene Levy, and Harold Ramis lend their vocal talents.

The story that interested my son was “Captain Sternn”, about a Zapp Brannigan type character facing a tribunal. He employs a controversial defense. Having watched it, I found it very familiar. Heavy Metal had some TV airplay early on, so I may have seen parts of it then. Music rights made it difficult to find until very recently.

More culturally influential than high cinema, but Heavy Metal did hold my interest. The opening scene with a car in space definitely influenced Musk’s Tesla in orbit, and do I even need to mention South Park? Damn, there was a lot of nudity. AMRU 3.

Ghost Story (1981)

Four old rich men, friends since college, get together to tell each other ghost stories. When one of their sons dies mysteriously in a horrible green-screen effect, his brother tries to unravel the mystery. Spoiler alert: ghosts are involved.

This film is famous for bringing together four stars of classic Hollywood in what was the final film appearance of three of them. Fred Astaire was a Hollywood legend who revived the musical genre in the 1930’s, Melvyn Douglas has a huge and diverse body of work, John Houseman was famous for being John Houseman, and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr, was famous for being the son of Douglas Fairbanks.

Legend more to my liking Patricia Neal had a supporting role. Old friends will remember her from The Day the Earth Stood Still and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. She didn’t appear in many feature films but I will see her again. Alice Krige, the Borg Queen from First Contact, plays the spoiler alert role. Over the decades she has appeared in a whole pile of stuff that I’m utterly unfamiliar with.

During the climax, with four minutes left on the film, just before the big reveal, the public library DVD failed. Amazon Prime to the rescue. It was free with membership all along.

Ghost Story is a peculiar film. Every scene is a mystery for the viewer to figure out. Awkward dialog, overt sexuality, oppressive score, oddly expressive lighting, and an overall style that had an early-80’s artsy-trippy feel. I found it somewhat reminiscent of the much worse Cat People (1982). Both were films that would make a little more sense on a second viewing, but neither will get that opportunity. AMRU 2.5.

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)

Character from the previous movie needs guzzaline and is alternately trying to be killed by people or enlisted to help others not to be killed. You see, there's these people in a compound that have fuel. These bad guys want in so that they can take the fuel. Max gets involved because, well, he just can't seem to avoid trouble. He don't say much.

I was rather critical of Mad Max and would have been hard pressed to see this one had two things not happened. 1) Fans of the series urged me to see 2 saying it was by far the best of the original three, and 2) I actually saw Fury Road in the theater. Really. An actual theater experience. Go figure. I immediately requested the Blu Ray from the library, as did everyone else in the state. Two months later, it came in. I skipped Thunderdome, for now.

The Road Warrior stands with the best of the 80's action flicks. The action was well paced and creative enough to keep you from visual overload. The story, while not exactly Doctor Zhivago, served the film very well. It stands on it's own perfectly, as it even changes elements from the first. Excellent visual storytelling. AMRU 4. Max 1 was terrible.

"I'm just here for the gasoline."