The Screengrab : the terminator

Clippy Strikes Back: The Scariest Technology In Cinema History (Part Four)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:30:00 GMT

THE MATRIX (1999)

Spoiler alert! The Matrix is people! Just kidding...but really, if you haven’t seen it by now, allow me to ruin the surprise for you: according to Laurence Fishburne’s Morpheus, the Matrix is a computer-generated dream world built to keep us under control in order to change human beings into the copper-top batteries fueling our cybernetic overlords. And yet, when Keanu “Whoa!” Reeves’ messianic Neo finally “wakes up” in his real world goo pod prison, the all-knowing cybernetic overlords just...uh...flush him down a drain so he can be enlisted by Morpheus and his band of human rebels in their fight to overthrow the Matrix. Huh? Wha? That logical inconsistency blew a gaping hole in my willing suspension of disbelief the first time I saw the Wachowski Brothers' cyberpunk classic, yet later I realized I’d worried my pretty little head over nothing...NOT because the disappointing sequels kinda sorta explained away the seeming plot contrivance (since Neo was really the sixth integral anomaly and thus was supposed to find his way to the Architect and blah, blah, blah...), but rather because the original Matrix was so fresh and visually exciting, with a paranoid, unified-field conspiracy theory of a plot that captured the unease (and exhilaration) of life in the digital age better than any movie since...well...Tron. (AO)

THE TERMINATOR (1984) & T2: JUDGMENT DAY (1991)

A perfect killing machine sent from the future to slay the mother of mankind’s eventual savior, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator was, from 1984 to 1991, the baddest assassin around. But James Cameron’s wildly popular sequel to The Terminator, T2: Judgment Day, further upped the ante, introducing a shape-shifting liquid-metal version of the techno-phobic series’ cyborg destroyers, the T-1000 (Robert Patrick), that stands as one of action cinema’s most daunting evildoers. If both the original and T-1000 Terminators are preeminent examples of malevolent machinery, however, it’s Skynet – the government-sanctioned computer program that goes sentient, instigates a nuclear holocaust, and manufactures an army of robots – that proves the franchise’s true villain. Shrewdly foreshadowing our increasing global inter-connectivity, and postulating that condition as ripe for tragedy, Cameron’s series offers us an apocalypse created by the very devices we rely on for our protection, and then – as further evidenced by T3, TV’s Sarah Connor Chronicles, and presumably the forthcoming Terminator: Salvation – also posits those machines as our sole means of achieving post-doomsday deliverance. (NS)

PULSE (2001)

Many J-horror imports exploit fears of technology, but none do so as effectively – and as thoughtfully – as Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 2001 masterpiece Pulse. From online computers to cell phones, technology is ubiquitous throughout Kurosawa’s film, and slowly reveals itself to be the cause of a strange, growing phenomenon whereby Tokyo’s citizens begin to mysteriously disappear, often leaving behind only a residual black stain on the wall (shades of the marks found throughout post-atom-bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki). It soon becomes clear that ghosts are attempting to enter the physical world through our gadgets, and Kurosawa’s portrait of a technology-fostered apocalypse is chilling not simply for its raft of indelibly unsettling imagery (a plane hurtling to the ground, shuffling specters spied on a computer monitor), but from its story’s underlying commentary about the alienation and loneliness fostered by our mounting reliance on machines. Modernity’s technological progress leads to communication breakdown, which in turn results in societal disintegration, a set of circumstances Kurosawa chillingly depicts as both unavoidable and irreversible. (NS)

VIDEODROME (1983)

The purifying/corrupting relationship between technology and the human body has long fascinated (and been fetishized by) David Cronenberg, a topic which he superbly addressed in 1983’s Videodrome. In this mind-bending story, the president of a low-rent television station, Max Renn (James Woods), stumbles upon transmissions of the titular S&M horror show – in which rape, torture and mutilation occur in a single orange room – and subsequently begins suffering from horrific hallucinations. From there, the line between real and unreal blurs, though regardless of whether or not the ensuing madness is all in Max’s head, the sight of him inserting organic videotapes into a stomach gash, which in turn produces a gun that melds with his hand, affords a twisted, terrifying view of man’s increasingly fundamental bond with his inanimate creations. “Long Live the New Flesh!” serves as both a rallying cry for the film’s “villains” and the mournful final words of Renn, with Cronenberg ambiguously treating our connection to television as something at once liberating and destructive. (NS)

SECONDS (1966)

John Frankenheimer's nightmare movie, shot by cinematographer James Wong Howe, begins with the chubby, perpetually middle-aged character actor John Randolph (Jack Nicholson's father in Prizzi's Honor) as a married banker who barely recognizes that his life has gone stale until someone is kind enough to point it out. He is recruited as a client by a mysterious, secret organization that arranges for people to be given second chances at life: first their bodies are remade through plastic surgery and an exercise regimen, then they are dropped into a new routine that has been planned for them by a computer program. Of course, they're still the same old dissatisfied dullards they were before they went under the knife, especially if, like Randolph, they're being played by Rock Hudson after the bandages come off. Most techno-phobic sci-fi films are about the dangers of technology that we don't yet have; this one is about what people could have been doing with technology that they already had when the movie came out, if only they were stupid and shameless enough. Which may be why it feels more accurately prophetic now than 2001. (PN)

Click Here For Part One, Two & Three

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Nick Schager, Phil Nugent

Clippy Strikes Back: The Scariest Technology In Cinema History! (Part One)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:00:00 GMT

This week, youngsters (and the young at heart) will be treated to the sight of a giant space robot tearing up San Francisco (in 3-D!) in Monsters vs. Aliens (click here for review).

But last week, something really scary happened: my computer completely shut down thanks to some nasty virus, leaving me completely laptop-less for three long, frightening days (right in the middle of SXSW!), during which time I realized I no longer have the ability to think straight, remember things, communicate or even feed and dress myself without my little cybernetic soul mate in good working order.

Fortunately, the fine people at PC Guru in Austin, TX got me up and running...but it was definitely a scary reminder of how much it’s gonna suck when Facebook finally becomes self-aware and turns all our computers, ATMs, DVRs, MP3s and GPS systems against us.

So, as a public service, your (mostly) human friends here at the Screengrab figured now would be as good a time as any to whip up some post-Y2K panic with our list of THE SCARIEST TECHNOLOGY IN CINEMA HISTORY!

METROPOLIS (1927)

Fritz Lang's titanic silent sci-fi masterpiece uses a look derived from a mix of Art Deco and Amazing Stories cover designs to decorate a political allegory that Lang said was inspired by his first sight of New York City, which seems to have fried some of the wiring in his central cortex. (If the old boy were to come back and see what the place looks like today, we'd have to find him a job biting the heads off chickens.) Society consists of the rich who live above ground in glittering skyscrapers and the poor who labor and live in underground tunnels, sort of like in Titanic. The whole shebang is run by Johan, a capitalist uber-lord; meanwhile, down below, Metropolis has found its answer to Samuel Gompers in the beautiful Maria, a saintly labor activist who is rallying the workers. The plot kicks into high gear when Johan's breathtakingly goofy son, Freder, gets a look at Maria and is instantly radicalized. Instead of taking the usual tack of industrialist tyrants in this situation and buying his kid a motorcycle and a lap dance, Johan turns to his trusty house mad scientist, Rotwang, who creates a trouble-making robot duplicate of Maria, in a scene that anticipates The Bride of Frankenstein and Dr. Strangelove in about equal measure, and turns 'er loose, with results that prove instructional for one and all. (PN)

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968)

Its red eye glowing, its voice calm and soothing, HAL 9000 – on-board computer of the spaceship Discovery – remains, forty-one years after 2001: A Space Odyssey’s debut, cinema’s most iconic piece of evil technology. Or, at least, the sentient HAL is one of the most dangerous pieces of technology to ever be presented on screen, as its homicidal tendencies stem primarily from a desire to fulfill preprogrammed mission directives – aims which are threatened by the plan of astronauts Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Poole (Gary Lockwood) to disconnect it. The fact that self-preservation in service of duty is HAL’s motivation to kill problematizes any attempt to cast it as purely evil, especially since its survival instinct, when viewed alongside its emotive speech (contrasted with the men’s monotonous, monosyllabic utterances), marks the computer as distinctly human-like. Nonetheless, even if HAL isn’t immoral, it most certainly is frighteningly lethal. And rarely have the movies presented a more harrowing, intimidating vision of technology-run-amok than the sight of HAL covertly, calculatingly reading the lips of the scheming astronauts, and soon thereafter sending Poole spinning into the oblivion of space. (NS)

WESTWORLD (1973)

While re-watching Westworld in preparation for this list, I recovered a long-lost childhood memory. I’m on a train with my family when bandits on horseback pull us over, board the train and take our money. This really happened, although I should probably explain that it was supposed to happen – it was no ordinary train ride, but rather a reenactment of the Great Train Robbery. I remember being terrified as the bandits prowled the aisle, brandishing their pistols, bandannas concealing most of their faces – but not so terrified that I actually relinquished the dollar my mother had slipped me so that I could enjoy being robbed along with everyone else. Why am I telling you this? Because, like Westworld, this was a simulation of life in the Old West intended to give us all the thrills without any of the consequences. As far as I know, there were no actual robots involved, but how can I be sure? The other thing it has in common with Westworld is that it scared me as a kid. Now that I’ve seen Westworld as an adult, I realize it’s about as scary as a visit to Six Gun City. The movie serves up some of writer/director Michael Crichton’s patented technophobia with a formula that would be duplicated to better effect in Jurassic Park, as visitors to a high-tech theme park find themselves terrorized by the robots meant to amuse them. It does have one thing going for it: Yul Brynner’s iconic black-hatted Gunslinger, who did the unstoppable killer robot thing more than a decade before The Terminator. (SVD)

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (2004)

In screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's world, human beings don't really need technology to screw up their lives, but in this movie they get some help anyway, courtesy of Lacuna, Inc. and its mind-wipe service, which enables the client to have his memory scrubbed of anything that he feels is holding him back or causing him undue pain. Jim Carrey, at his most subdued, is the loser hero who discovers that Clementine (Kate Winslet), the old flame who shook up his life, has had her memories of their time together erased, possibly as a lark, and who opts to have his own mind scrubbed clean of its memories of her, not realizing how hard he'll fight to hang onto any traces of having had her in his life when the process begins. Kaufman and director Michel Gondry manage to wring romantic comedy out of what may be the most painful of romantic truths: everyone wants to be remembered, but the memories of what was most important to you may be the ones that you'd sometimes most like to be rid of. (PN)

Click Here For Part Two, Three & Four

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Phil Nugent, Nick Schager, Scott Von Doviak

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: May 17-23, 2008

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 23 May 2008 22:05:00 GMT

Here we are on the verge of a three-day weekend – the perfect opportunity to catch up with the week in Screengrabbin’. Take that laptop out to the beach and dig in to one of our finest weeks ever in film-related snarkery:

All the Cannes news you can eat, including review roundups for Steven Soderbergh’s Che and Clint Eastwood's Changeling.

Speaking of Eastwood, Spike Lee has some words for him.

Something you may not know about Prince Caspian: It’s Some Goofy-Ass Shit.

Those guys in the raincoats in the back row of the theater? That’s us taking in The Sweet 16 Jailbait Movies.

Flashbacks to summers past: Yesterday’s Hits looks at Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Summerfest ’08 launches with A Summer Place, and Summer of ’78 kicks off with Thank God It’s Friday.

Our Unwatchable journey through the IMDb Bottom 100 continues with the Aussie werewolves of Howling III, the strangely middle-aged juvenile delinquent of I Accuse My Parents, and the horny bikini babes of Horrors of Spider Island.

Grumpy Old Actresses square off in a 90-year feud.

Which giant ape movie is truly the King of Kong?

That sound you hear isn’t fingernails on a chalkboard – it’s OST: There Will Be Blood.

What’s Three More Terminator Movies between friends?

Whatever happened to Better Off Dead auteur Savage Steve Holland?

And finally, forget Uwe Boll – the worst filmmaker of our time is Albert Pyun.

New "Terminator" Trilogy on Tap: Christian Bale to Play John Connor, Times 3

Phil Nugent — Thu, 22 May 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Christian Bale is turning out to be quite the franchise monkey. (We say it with love.) Having already done well following in the footsteps of Adam West, Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer and George Clooney, he'll be seen next year playing John Connor, savior of mankind in its battle against our mechanized tyrants, a job that calls for him to go where Edward Furlong, Nick Stahl, and (on TV) Thomas Dekker have gone before. Bale and director McG are currently shooting Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins, which is due to arrive in theaters on May 22, 2009. Now the BBC has reported that the producers of the current production, Halcyon, intend to make three Terminator movies, and Bale has agreed to come back for all of them. "He read the script and he loved it," said Derek Anderson, "so he's signed on for all three." His partner, Victor Kubicek, who calls Bale "really an actor's actor," adds that Bale "was our first choice and he's a big fan of The Terminator, so we're very lucky."

The Terminator series sure has come a long way since James Cameron cobbled together a surprise sleeper hit that, sneaking into theaters in the fall of 1984, blew more expensive, long-awaited sci-fi movies such as Dune and 2010 out of the water and, to the industry's slack-jawed amazement, made a bona fide movie star out of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was already fairly famous but regarded as a steroid freak with a funny accent, a useful guy to have around if you had a leading role that needed to be played in a loincloth. O. J. Simpson, famously was rejected for the role by producers who didn't think audiences would accept him as a villain, and by the time the first Terminator sequels rolled around, it was felt that Schwarzenegger wouldn't be accepted as a bad guy anymore either--or, at any rate, that he didn't want to play one--which meant that the scripts and special-effects people on those movies had to perform terrific feats of contortion to make it seem that the reformed Arnold-model robot might be plausibly vulnerable when pitted against the products of superior but skinnier technology. (Terminator 2 and the twelve-minute theme park attraction T2 3-D: Battle Across Time are the only Terminator spin-offs that Cameron has had a hand in besides picking up a check for the use of his characters.) The last Terminator movie, Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines, had made it look as if the franchise was pretty well played out--ready for a TV series, in fact.

Who knows how hard the makers of the still-ongoing TV show The Sarah Connor Chronicles and the upcoming film trilogy will work to make sure their plotlines match up, but the really daunting task for the filmmakers may be proving that there's a big-screen audience for this material without Schwarzenegger. (Terminator 3 proved that there's considerably less of an audience for it with the Schwarzenegger of 2003 than there was for it with the Schwarzenegger of 1984.) The casting of Bale signals that the John Connor character is now the de facto headliner; whereas on the TV show, where his mom gets top billing, the humans are regularly upstaged by the quizzical mechanical hottie played by Summer Glau. The producers of the new franchise are purposefully vague about whether Schwarzenegger, who does have a state to run, will have any participation in the new movies. (His only film appearances since Terminator 3 have been cameos in the Jackie Chan-Steve Coogan bomb Around the World in 80 Days and in The Rundown, where he good-naturedly passed the action-movie sceptre to Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.) Theoretically, there's no reason that the Terminator series can't go on forever and a day, because its time-travel gimmick is built around the idea that the characters who are on the verge of being vanquished can always return to the past and change things. The down side is that there must be a point where even the most stubbonly devoted fans have to get fed up and want to see something stick.