paramount pictures | Remy's Ramblings

Paint Your Wagon

Based on the 1951 Lerner and Loewe American Western musical of the same name, the 1969 adaptation of Paint Your Wagon stars Lee Marvin as a prospector, Clint Eastwood as an amnesiac whom he recruits as his business partner, and Jean Seberg as one of a Mormon’s wives that he decides to sell to the highest bidder. I first saw this film as a rental in my town’s Blockbuster Video when that chain was still a thing, the title alone piquing my curiosity, the fact Clint Eastwood was in it being one of the sole things I knew about it. The following knowledge I would get about the film came from a brief spoof in The Simpsons episode “All Singing, All Dancing.”

Despite the title, the musical has nothing at all to do with literally painting wagons, with “paint your wagon” being a (very) dated expression meaning “to get things done.” Marvin’s character, Ben Rumson, dubs Eastwood’s “Pardner” as he recuperates, with a new tent town, “No Name City,” emerging when they discover gold. The male inhabitants become lonely from no female companionship until the mentioned Mormon husband comes and sells his wife Elizabeth to a drunken Rumson. A love triangle quickly emerges when Ben leaves his fiancé under Pardner’s care.

The latter portion of the movie involves Rumson and his men scheming to tunnel beneath No Name City to collect gold dust precipitating through the floorboards of saloons from paying customers, the only notable plot detail of which I had heard, courtesy my high school economics class, before I streamed this film. A zealous parson also comes to town in futile attempts to get its residents to abandon their sinful ways. Of course, many musical numbers abound, and while Marvin and Eastwood have never been known for their singing abilities, they did decently, with the former’s “Wand’rin’ Star” probably being the high point of the film’s songs.

While I know this film gets its share of criticism, much justified, I found it an entertaining watch, with some initial themes like Rumson putting his business partners first and his apathy towards humanity resounding well with me. Mature content like references to venereal disease and prostitution also get some spotlight. Religious themes are front and center as well, given Rumson’s indifference towards God, the references to Mormonism and polygamy, and the ultrareligious preacher. Much of the film likely didn’t fly well with 1969 moviegoers (though modern audiences would probably find it less offensive than, say, Blazing Saddles). However, I think that time has vindicated it somewhat, and don’t regret seeing it.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Posted on October 1 by Remy G.

The first movie based on Star Trek, originally intended to be the pilot episode of a sequel series to The Original Series, focuses on a mysterious entity known as V’Ger engulfing everything in its path and threatening Earth, with Admiral Kirk gathering his old Enterprise crew to counter it. Director Robert Wise took heavy inspiration from 2001: A Space Odyssey, with plenty of drawn-out sequences showing off the film’s special effects at the time. Jerry Goldsmith composed the soundtrack, its cornerstone being “Life Is a Dream,” which would be later used as the central theme to The Next Generation. The film does show its age in many respects but did well to carry on the plot of the TOS cast.

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

Posted on August 28 by Remy G.

I watched this last Saturday but didn’t have the time to post my review, although I don’t feel really passionate about it or other films in the series. It’s a sequel to Bumblebee and a prequel to Michael Bay’s Transformer films, and it has good effects and action, which are the high point of the film, though the human subplot is run-of-the-mill.

Also, another reason to use this image:

Bumblebee

Posted on August 19 by Remy G.

I’m starting to rewatch these films since Rise of the Beasts came out recently, and I want to experience them chronologically. The eponymous Transformer arrives on Earth after he and the Autobots lose a war against the Decepticons on their home planet Cybertron to set up a base there, with a girl named Charlie finding him disguised as a Volkswagen Beetle, and two Decepticons are sent to Earth as well to ensure he doesn’t set up resistance against their order. Has a good 1980s setting with some of the good music of the era, and I enjoyed the movie overall.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Posted on August 12 by Remy G.

A significant improvement over previous DnD films in that it’s canon to the Forgotten Realms and is a good mixture of action, comedy, and fantasy, more enjoyable than playing the tabletop game and whatever DnD video games I’ve played (with my experience limited to Baldur’s Gate, but it was the original PC version that hasn’t aged well). A shame it underperformed at the box office, so there probably won’t be any more films, and I’m not sure if the planned television series will go through, either.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Posted on June 24 by Remy G.

The fourth Indiana Jones film, which had fallen into more significant protracted development than its predecessor, opens a little under a score after its precursor in 1957 Nevada, with an (almost) immediate dive into its main plot where Soviet forces led by Colonel Dr. Irina Spalko (and I’m pretty sure her being Ukrainian won’t resound well with audiences today), having captured Indy and his friend George “Mac” McHale, visit the government warehouse where the Ark of the Covenant is in search of the eponymous crystal skull that can allegedly give great psychic power to those who return it to Akator. Like how the first three films took their inspiration from adventure serials of the 1930s-40s, the fourth movie takes its from science-fiction films of the 1950s, and for the most part it does a nice job in that respect.

Indy escapes from the Soviets and attempts to get help and at first seems to find it in a desert town, but as it turns out, it’s fake and was built to demonstrate a nuclear bomb, and he finds a hiding place in the form of a refrigerator, which alongside other lines and callbacks to the previous films gives it a significant lighter tone. Back at the college he teaches at, Jones encounters a greaser named Mutt Williams, who helps him continue eluding the Russians, the two going to Peru to seek the crystal skull, the Soviet forces continuing to give chase. In South America, Indy reunites with his old fling Marion Ravenwood, she and Mutt helping him continue their race for the skull, which brings with it some major twists and a conclusion that’s in some respects like Raiders of the Lost Ark’s.

For the most part, the fourth film did an excellent job mimicking the style of its precursors, John Williams’s musical score very much helping, with several riddles Indy and his companions follow, and Shia LaBeouf is in my mind one of the better sidekicks of the series. It’s certainly not perfect, but I think those who dislike it do so for the wrong reasons, the biggest of which is “the original films are untouchable,” and it is in respects like Raiders in that Indy could have just stayed home and nothing would be different, but there is the auxiliary effect of Indy reuniting with Marion, which is somewhat critical. I do hope they explain Karen Allen and Shia’s absences from the forthcoming Dial of Destiny, but I’m sure I’ll enjoy it regardless since I’m not blinded by nostalgia like many critics and audiences hypocritically seem to be.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Posted on June 10 by Remy G.

The first Indiana Jones film sequel, actually occurring chronologically before the first, opens with American songstress Willie Scott performing a Chinese rendition of the titular theme from the old Broadway show Anything Goes in 1935 Shanghai, where the eponymous college professor, archaeologist, and adventurer negotiates with Chinese mobsters in an exchange of treasured artifacts, which culminates in a shootout that leads to Indy escaping with the woman who semi-serves as a love interest, along with his trusty sidekick Short Round, portrayed by Vietnamese child actor Ke Huy Quan (who would ultimately append Jonathan to his name upon becoming a United States citizen, his other notable role being Data in The Goonies).

The party of three escapes on a cargo plane whose pilots eventually bail out, and after a lucky escape, they find themselves in colonial India, where the first village they encounter has lost a precious stone along with its children used by an evil shaman as child labor, and Indy decides to help them, traveling to a Maharaja’s palace for a hearty “meal”, and that night, after an assassination attempt, he finds a passageway into the eponymous temple, Short Round coming along and Willie following suit to rescue them from a trapped room that nearly kills them, although she needed to overcome her fear of bugs (which I very much share, so it would be hard for me in such a situation).

The remainder of the film involves the three dealing with the cult that stole the sacred stones and kidnapped the children and concludes satisfactorily. It’s very much a good film, but it’s probably my least favorite of the series due to being way too dark and gross at times, and when it originally came out showed the flaws of America’s film rating system (it was instrumental in adding PG-13 to it, although I more think it should have been rated R). Apparently in the eyes of the MPAA’s film raters, saying the f-word is a lot worse than ripping someone’s heart out or otherwise attempting to murder someone, which says a lot of the sorry state of how Americans perceive certain “offensive” content.

The film’s overall xenophobic attitude is another reason I don’t hold Temple of Doom to the in the same regard as other Indiana Jones films (and Short Round is a memorable sidekick, but not in a good way), given the portrayals of the Chinese and Indian people and society, and that I think is another factor to consider when giving movies content ratings. Even so, John Williams’s score is also notable, given the mentioned Chinese rendition of one of the older Broadway showtunes, along with several pieces fitting the Asian locales throughout the movie, along with “The Raiders March” and its various remixes, the ending theme worth sitting through the opening credits to hear. Not a bucket-list film like Raiders but has nonetheless aged well.

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Posted on June 3 by Remy G.

The inaugural Indiana Jones film starring Harrison Ford as the iconic adventurer / college professor opens with Dr. Jones on an expedition to South America to filch an idol from a temple so that it can be displayed in a museum, with backstabbing aplenty as there would be throughout the main plots of future installments. This subplot doesn’t really have much bearing on the main narrative, like its first two sequels, and when Indy gets home, he hears that the Nazis are seeking the eponymous Ark of the Covenant due to a combination of Hitler’s interest in mystical artifacts and that the Ark itself allegedly makes armies that hold it invincible.

Sure enough, Indy agrees to get ahold of the Ark first, traveling first to Nepal where his old love interest, Marion Ravenwood, daughter of Indy’s old mentor Abner, has the headpiece of the Staff of Ra necessary to reveal the Ark’s location, where others who wish to find the artifact before him get into a tussle, and everyone moves on to its current resting place in Egypt, with several more conflicts in Cairo leading to the desert, where the Nazis waste their resources digging in the wrong location. Luckily, Indy and his trusty sidekick Sallah manage to find the Ark, resulting in a game of keep-away between them and the Nazis.

Given the ending scenes in the film, said game of keep-away seems incredibly unnecessary; Indy could have very easily just stayed home, and it would have ended largely the same way (save maybe for positive historical circumstances given the Nazis’ involvement), though he wouldn’t have hooked up with Marion, critical later in the franchise. It’s certainly an amazing movie and “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant,” but as I’ve said before, critics and audiences confuse that with “infallible,” and I think it’s sad I found out about the film’s glaring issues through Cracked and not any “professional” critics, which says a lot about the sorry state of any kind of entertainment journalism, really.

Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank

Posted on September 3, 2022 by Remy G.

For the most part, I’m typically in the mood for a film studded with animal characters, I found out about this animated film earlier this year, and decided to give it a watch when it appeared on Paramount+. The subtitular protagonist is a dog who finds himself a prisoner in a country where cats rule and canines are forbidden and he’s appointed as samurai by a warmongering official of a town to offend its people in hopes of driving them out in order to expand his palace. Hank ultimately becomes the pupil of an ex-samurai who ruined a shogun’s birthday party years ago.

The film is basically Blazing Saddles with animals and an oriental setting (with Mel Brooks voicing the feline shogun and having some involvement with the story, along with plenty of allusion to Brooks’ early American Western parody), and Samuel L. Jackson nicely voices the ex-samurai Jimbo. The script does at times feel immature, and I don’t particularly care for toilet humor (except for the main villain’s oversized emerald latrine dubbed the “super bowl”), but it’s far from Nickelodeon’s worst movie and has a few good laughs and decent opening/ending songs.

High Noon

Posted on August 27, 2022 by Remy G.