More adventures in 80s limbo with my wife and her brother. They returned form the video store with The Dark Crystal. While I'll admit, I had a fondness for this film when I was younger, time has not been kind to Henson's film. As much as I might want to recapture my former feelings, I can't ignore the drawbacks and shortcomings of the film. First, the hero is of the Luke Skywalker, whiny, wimpy, and not all that bright school of heroism. I don't like it in Star Wars (anymore) and I don't like it here. I can't stand films where the main character, the person supposedly chosen for greatness by some ancient prophecy, stands around, looking at the walls while his opportunity to get the job done slowly slips away. Case on point: at the end of the film,Jen (who named this guy?) is alone in the crystal room with the shard of crytsal in his hand. all he has to do is insert the piece and his job's done. Does he? Of course not. he stands around, gawking while all the bad guys come in. Pathetic. When he finally does spring into action, he drops the shard on the ground. Loser!!!
When I'm alone, I've been watching Henri-George Clouzot's Wages of Fear, an amazingly tense 50s film. Two trucks, loaded with nitro-glyciren, have to travel the rough roads of South America without blowing up. Clouzot might be the only serious contender to Hitchcock's title, Master of Suspense. With his amazing les Diabolques (which Hitch tried to purchase the rights to) and this film, you can see the same marks of genius. Like Hitch, Clouzot lets his story build to suspense. It starts slowly, unemployed foreigners in a small South American town. After yet another accident at the oil drilling site, an American foreman hires four of these unemployed men to drive explosives from one destination to another. Once the two trucks are underway, the tension really begins.