|  Dustin: And again, we have successfully managed to watch a movie and live to tell the tale!
DJ: How do we do it? We love the adventure and thrill of the watch!
Dustin: Yes, because it's so... umm... dangerous?
DJ: There's nothing like testing your limits, you know? The adrenaline rush of WATCHING a movie on television...
Dustin: So, to test our mettle this time, I declared -- no, DEMANDED -- that we watch Westworld, a product of Michael Crichton c. 1973. I mostly picked it because I read somewhere recently that it's going to be remade. I wanted to see it before it was ruined for all time.
DJ: This was remade -- with dinosaurs! Crichton has a thing with amusement parks run amok...
Dustin: Damn, you beat me to my crack about Crichton obviously having some kind of horrible theme park accident as a child. Or maybe, like me, he's never been to Disney World.
DJ: Shit. That's just sad. We should go. Have a footnote staff get away or something... Damn. Why don't you tell the young 'uns who might not of heard of novelist Michael Crichton's little directorial effort what it's all about...
Dustin: The premise of Westworld is a simple one: two businessmen go on vacation to an incredible, futuristic theme park designed to look like the old west, except that it's populated by robots (mostly pronounced "row-BUT" in this gem) who look and act just like humans. So basically, you get to live for a week in this park, immersed in the frontier west, complete with guns to “kill” the robots. Good times! Oh, but hang on a sec -- you're fucked because the robots go berserk and try to kill everyone. Did I mention that's part of the deal?
DJ: So... yeah. That's the plot. Very little to no back story or character "personalities" just... play pretend for $1,000 a day with life like robots in West World, Roman World, or Medieval World. Have fun.
Dustin: Oh, I probably should have mentioned that the robot that wants you dead the MOST is Yul Brynner. Yeah. The King from The King and I is hunting you down to shoot you to pieces, etc. etc. etc.
DJ: And he's hunting you down in his damn outfit from The Magnificant Seven, beeyatch!
Dustin: Which really worked better than his outfit from King… The rest of the cast is notable for the time as well -- Richard Benjamin and James "I will marry Barbara Streisand" Brolin.
DJ: And you best not forget Mr. Eight is Enough Dad himself -- DICK VAN PATTON!!! The damn sheriff.
Dustin: My major comment about James Brolin in this is that he seems to walk and talk and look like the secret love child of Henry Winkler's "Fonzie" and Michael Landon’s character from Bonanza.
DJ: Indeed. Actually, I found it interesting to learn from this movie that Bonanza and other western shows of the time were apparently completely authentic. Because that's what the totally realistic West World looked like to me.
Dustin: Oh, agreed... and I wonder if they actually just hauled some old Bonanza sets out of storage.
DJ: There's some lil' fake old west town out here in LA... I can't remember what it's called. You can drive up to it, and it's just a bunch of Old West facades. That's what this looked like -- so gloriously cheap. This movie must've cost $5. I loved the lack of real "style." Just really barebones and stark art direction.
 Dustin: Well, it was directed on the whole by Crichton as well... maybe that had something to do with it. I actually though the production values of what was there was pretty good for 1973. Same with the effects.
DJ: Really? I dunno. This looked like a fairly low budget affair to me, though the robot effects were creative and amusing.
Dustin: This movie raised a couple of philosophical questions for me, though: first of all, in regards to the special effects of Yul Brynner getting shot (repeatedly early on in the film) -- do you think the blood and whatnot looked fake because it was cheap, or because since it was a robot "getting shot and dying" it was supposed to look fake?
DJ: I find that old flicks have REALLY bright red blood. I think it was supposed to look realistic.
Dustin: Ah, well... if I had directed I would have claimed the latter and seemed amazingly insightful. My second question is also about realism: are robot whores programmed to act dispassionate about screwing, or is that simply a by-product of being a robot? Because the robot whore in this... boy. She really seemed like she was someplace else. She was supposed to be French, too!
DJ: What I want to know is: Are the ho-bots (I'm clever) cleaned thoroughly after every guest is, er… finished with them? Because that's just a damn health hazard. They didn't have rubbers in the old west, after all.
Dustin: Another good question! And furthermore, I really think that since this was a campy Sci-Fi film, it really needed one good set of robot-boobies. And we, as an eager audience, are denied this although there is ample opportunity.
DJ: Well, it's a family film, see. Family films can have violence and death, but boobies are bad. At least, that's how I was raised, motherfucker! (Issues ensue.)
Dustin: I still view the whole Richard and James visit the fancy whorehouse scene as being an important point in the story. I say this only because -- and this might just be a sign of our Brokeback Mountain times -- things were feeling a little gay in the first act.
DJ: There's something feminine about the mustachioed Richard Benjamin, which is weird, because he has a mustache. And James Brolin is so ‘70s manly he seems like there's some definite homosexual tendencies brewing just beneath the surface. Now he's gone and married Babs in real life, just proving how obviously in denial of his homosexuality he is. What the hell were we talking about?
Dustin: Sexual tension, as underscored by lingering looks and knowing smiles. Or we could go back to talking about Yul Brynner, who actually comes across as a pretty scary guy in this movie.
DJ: Yul Brenner don't give a hoot.
Dustin: I swear, he's pretty high on my list of people I would NOT want to have calmly tracking me in order to kill me -- him and Carrot Top.
DJ: He's so calm with the killing. I love how the robots start malfunctioning because of, well, some sort of disease... for computers! I love how they didn't say "computer virus." So quaint.
Dustin: Overall, what were your feelings on this one?
DJ: I'll tell you what, I watched a shitty VHS copy -- which was free to me, so I dug that -- and I think the poor picture quality and "pan and scan" look added to the fun for me. This is really early ‘70s Sci-Fi, where the future looks mysteriously like... the 1970s, which is awesome. I enjoyed the cheesiness, but I couldn't take it seriously, as it obviously wants to be taken. Is this a generational thing? Maybe.
Dustin: I was pretty delighted with the whole thing -- like you, though, I kind of took it with a grain of salt. I was able to overlook the camp factor because I knew up front what it was. And with that out of the way, it's actually really enjoyable. Fun and lighthearted in places, and provides something like dramatic tension when required. I'd not go out of my way to buy this, but I'd gladly have it in my DVD collection.
DJ: One of the most interesting things to me, was, aside from Benjamin (who's character's name I can't recall) mentioning his ex-wife, and the fact that Brolin had been to West World before, and they'd had some sexual encounter in college they weren't comfortable enough to acknowledge with anything more than the occasional wistful glance, there is NO back story to any of these characters.
Dustin: I didn't really end up needing one for the movie to work. Could've used more of Dick Van Patton... oh! And we forgot to mention that Majel Barrett (Mrs. Gene Roddenberry) is in this as well, she played the Madam who runs the whorehouse.
 DJ: I knew she looked familiar!
Dustin: That was another of those "Who is that...? Oh wow." moments for me.
DJ: Anyway, yeah, the lack of "emotion" and oddly sterile feel to it all is so fucking ‘70s Sci-Fi, isn't it? Lots of looooong, still shots, no dialogue, and the like… Just very deliberate and slow but not really boring if you can get into the spirit of things. I just love how this is described as being so action packed! Slow-mo shots of Yul Brenner getting shot and falling out of windows must've been HARDCORE action back then. So cute, lil' ‘70s folk. I had some quibbles I wanted to get your take on...
Dustin: You may fire when ready!
DJ: Okay, well, now, the whole thing is Delos (the park with West World and the others) is completely safe. In West World the guns won't fire at a person, only robots, right?
Dustin: Correct, as they have a heat-sensing device.
DJ: But what about big ol' bar fights? Getting knocked around and shit! And the swords in Medieval World and the hardly-seen Roman world -- do they have heat-sensing devices, too?
Dustin: I'd thought of that, and I made myself stop questioning it, because yes, it's a huge flaw in the writing.
DJ: I'm just saying -- robots going on a killing spree for no reason aside -- this damn place is clearly not safe! And there are other guests around, too... what if you think you're with a Ho-bot then accidentally knock up some soccer mom??? My mind reels at these plot holes.
Dustin: Well, that one's easier. The non ho-bots actually show some emotion when they're taking you in. You know, by... talking.
DJ: That's debatable. And the whole, "They haven't perfected the hands" thing... with subtly creepy palms on the robots -- you mean to tell me they have all the other parts down pat, but can't make realistic hands?? COME ON!
Dustin: Again, I can forgive that because it's the most subtle, yet obvious, place to make them look "non-human." Otherwise, you've suddenly got this whole big Blade Runner issue, and you can't tell who's real and who's not, so what are you going to do when the robots revolt and try to kill you?
DJ: Sigh. I guess.
Dustin: Okay, you're dead either way unless you're Harrison Ford.
DJ: There's a lesson there: Robots will ALWAYS rise up to kill their masters. ALWAYS.
Dustin: That's elementary chaos theory, a concept that that Sci-Fi writers will continue to exploit for generations to come, until the robots rise up and kill them.
DJ: An iPod Shuffle's gonna strangle someone's ass one of these days. Okay, just had to get that shit off my chest because I took notes while watching the flick for the first time ever so I could go all Ebert on your Roeper ass, dropping knowledge.
Dustin: Well I'm glad that you went to that effort to prove very little. I feel it enhanced our time here. You ready to rate the thing now?
DJ: Yeah, yeah. (Teaches me what a waste of time "trying" is...) Bring on your lil' numbers.
Dustin: Initial Impact: 4 with an asterisk. If you embrace the 70s Sci-Fi thing, it's enjoyable. Rewatchability... probably a 3. If you see it on TV on a boring Saturday afternoon, you'll stop to watch it. Acting/Casting... again, probably a 4. Solid for what it is.
DJ: Okay, me: Pimpact: 4. Yeah, it's not a "great" 5, but it's so goofy, that I'll bump it up from the 3 it deserves to a 4. I'd probably not rewatch it, so that gets a 2 from me (though I'm glad I finally saw it), and Acting/casting? Well, the acting is overall weak and Richard Benjamin's always creeped me out in a bad way, so I'd go with a 2, but fucking Yul Brenner does so very, very little, and yet still clearly rules, so that gives the casting a 5 just for his bald ass... so, hrm... do some math... I guess that makes a 3.5 on the casting front for me. How's that for complicating shit???
Dustin: Pretty effective! Alrighty then, until next time... I'll be at the ho-bot house.
DJ: Me? I'll be... AN EVIL ROBOT WITH SHITTY DIGITIZED EYESIGHT LOOKING FOR NOTHING MORE THAN KILLING YOUR FLESHY HUMAN ASS!
Dustin: Oh, is that what's wrong with your hands? I just thought you spanked it a lot.
DJ: Does not... compute... DOUCHEBAG!!! (This will all end in fakey blood, I just know it.) |
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