Zardoz
This movie is perhaps better remembered than seen. It’s definitely a stoner movie from the 70s. In a post-apocolyptic 2239, Zed (Sean Connery) is an exterminator who stows away on Zardoz, a giant flying stone head, and penetrates “the vortex” where the immortals live. As it turns out, Zed is the end product of genetic manipulation (or, more properly, husbandry) created by Arthur, the stone head driver, in order that he be able to bring death to the Immortals, something they’ve longed for for quite a long time.
That’s just about as much as can be understood. It’s really sort of instructive to listen to the commentary by director John Boorman (who had just completed Deliverance) talking about the opening scene (a monolog by Arthur), “I added this scene at the beginning to give some explanation of the film because the audience didn’t seem to get it. It didn’t work.”
I understand some of the themes Boorman was trying to explore in the film, like: do Immortal people spend there time being immortally bored? are immortals interested in sex? and even using The Wizard of Oz as his model in creating the mythology for the Brutals and Exteminators, Now, Boorman can be a great storyteller. Excalibur is, IMO, the best Arthurian film ever made, and Deliverance is also good, but this just doesn’t work.
Would watch again (if my state were properly altered)
February 6th, 2006 at 10:41 am
Oooh. I’m a seein’ stars.
Is that PNG supposed to be transparent? None of my browsers show it as such. The gray horizontal lines betray you.
February 6th, 2006 at 10:46 am
No, It’s a white background. I just *could not* get the transparency to work with in a png with Fireworks. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong, but I’ll have to work on it when I have more time.
I’m also trying to think of something more apropos than stars, but I have no imagination.
February 6th, 2006 at 11:08 am
Bicycle wheels?
Gears?
Golden “cycle12.gif”s - like your tattoo?
…
Potholes?
February 6th, 2006 at 11:21 am
Hmmm… I even have the bike already drawn….
February 6th, 2006 at 11:42 am
What happened to the “would/not watch again” bits? I liked that part.
February 6th, 2006 at 11:46 am
Oops… forgot…
February 6th, 2006 at 4:41 pm
Ah! Figured it out. I was making the png correctly with the transparent matte, but WP makes a thumbnail when you upload, and it was using that. The transparency didn’t seem to be correct in the thumbnail, but using the full size one works correctly.
February 7th, 2006 at 7:57 am
Woe. Doesn’t scale well tho, does it? Eeep.
Craziest thing ever. You write this review, and then the same night, they show it on the Fox Movie Channel. Are you suddenly in charge of programming there?
If so, why Predator 2?
February 7th, 2006 at 8:53 am
Heh.
All your movies are belong to us.
So did you watch it? Is that a premium channel? There were lots of naked boobs in the movie, I don’t see how they could show it on the networks.
February 7th, 2006 at 9:41 am
It’s actually a pretty cool channel. They show uncut, uninterrupted films in the proper aspect ratio. (Who woulda thought?) It neighbors Turner Classic Movies in the channel listings, which is also really good (and where I saw Freaks, I believe).
No, I didn’t bother to TiVo it. Sounded too weird for me, and since Eraserhead is closing in on the top of my queue, I need to save strength for that.
February 7th, 2006 at 11:36 pm
Oh, man! Eraserhead! Now that is one bee zah movie. David Lynch at his most extreme.
You know, I saw that, like, 25 years ago or something and it’s still vivid in my memory.