The Descent The Fine, Fearless And Feisty

I saw The Descent in a theater in Pittsburgh while I was doing some training for my job.  The theater that I saw it in had one of the most annoying seating patterns I have ever encountered.  The seat all faced slightly east while the screen faced slightly west, so to see the screen straight on, you had to twist in your chair to look off to your left.  If the film hadn’t captured my attention, I don’t think I could have stood to sit through the entire film.  Fortunately The Descent was a very well made horror movie and I was captivated.  The movie managed to give the audience the sence of being in a closed in dark space with these mysterious creatures roaming around.  I loved it, and when the DVD came out, I went to Circuit City and bought a copy so that I could see the original, much darker ending that everyone was talking about.  I bought it at Circuit City for two reasons.  One it was on sale, and two there was an exclusive bonus disc packaged in the box with the movie.  The next day I was in Wal-Mart and found out that they too had a bonus disc with The Descent and their edition was on sale as well.  I really didn’t want to buy the same movie again, just to get the other bonus disc.  I wasn’t even particularly keen to buy the R rated edition to supplement my unrated edition from Circuit City.  I just wanted the other exclusive bonus disc.  A long time later, I was prowling the DVD stacks at Wills and lo and behold I found the elusive Wal-Mart bonus disc.  It was still shrink wrapped.  I paid for it and took it back to add to the collection.

On Tuesday night my daughter’s boyfriend was visiting.  I was called upon to pick up dinner and to drive said boyfriend back home.  I had no problems with this as I am a good daddy, but it did make for a late start watching my movie.  I was scouring titles trying to find something short when I noticed The Descent Wal=Mart exclusive.  I decided to break the wrapping and pop it into the DVD player.

The Wal-Mart bonus disc is a mini-documentary/featurette called The Fine, Fearless And Feisty.  It features an interview with writer/director Neil Marshall as well as the female leads.  It includes some footage of the actors going through their training to be able to climb rock walls and starting to bond with each other as a group.  I didn’t really find any breath-taking information on the disc, but it was interesting listening to Marshall describe the different way that men and women in the audience react to the scene where Sarah stabs Juno in the leg, effectively serving her up to the underground dwellers.  The rest of the disc is pretty basic stereotypical commenting on the film.  The girls got bruised up doing some of their own stunts.  Wow, imagine that.  I’m glad I got the DVD, and I still love the movie (a definite 3 1/2 horror movie), but there really wasn’t much content here.  In the interest of giving Wal-Mart an exclusive DVD to promote with their copies of the movie, it seems the DVD makers simply pulled off one of the bonus features and stuck it on a disc by itself.  It’s nothing special and I give it only a 2 1/2 on the Night Flight scale.

Greetings

When I think of Robert DeNiro, I tend to think Martin Scorcese.  When I think of Brian De Palma, I think of his Hitchcock period and suspense films.  I don’t normally think of DeNiro and De Palma together, but early in their careers the two men made two offbeat comedies together; Greetings and Hi, Mom.  The fact that the films had similar casts, had titles that were both forms of greetings, and had DVD covers that featured nearly identical art (a head shot of a young DeNiro) caused me to get the two films confused.  It also made it difficult to remember which one I had on DVD and which one I needed.  Last fall I picked up a DVD on the 50 worst movies ever made and was surprised to find Greetings included in the list.  I was also surprised to find that the film was the first film to ever receive an X rating.  I checked my collection and found that the movie I owned was Hi, Mom.  I did not have Greetings. 

Friday I was looking through the DVDs at KV Fine Jewelry and Loan in St. Albans and I found a copy of Greetings.  I quickly added it to my collection and once I got it home, popped it in the DVD player and began to watch.  As it turns out Greetings had been re-rated and was now an R.  I’m not sure how much was cut (if anything) to get the lesser rating.  Back in the late 1960s several mainstream films got the X rating before it became synonymous with pornography.  Greetings is fairly tame in most respects although there is some non pc language, some cursing and some  nudity.

Greetings concerns three young men trying to avoid the draft.  They each have their own plans for how to accomplish that.  They also each have their own obsessions. Paul (Johnathan Warden) is into computer dating.  Jon (Robert DeNiro) is a peeping tom.  Lloyd (Gerrit Graham) is a zealot about the Kennedy assassination.  In one scene Paul goes on a computer date with a woman who has dressed up for a fancy night out while he is looking for a less costly evening.  When he asks if her apartment has any other rooms, she tells him that the room they are in is the only room.  When he then asks where she sleeps, the woman tears into him about how all he is interested in is getting her into bed.  She goes through the list and cost of the various items she is wearing and how he is completely oblivious to them because he wants to get her naked and have sex.  She then storms off and into her bedroom (guess she lied about there only being one room).  Paul sits silently for a few moments and then stands and peeks through the door only to see her lying naked on the bed.  He leaves and calls Lloyd, telling him that she’s not ready for Paul and he’s not ready for her, but maybe Lloyd would be ready for her instead.  The next scene shows Lloyd in bed with the naked woman.  A magazine on the Kennedy assassination covers her crotch and as Lloyd consults various texts he has brought along, he uses a black sharpie to map out and trace the bullet’s trajectory on her naked body in an effort to disprove the Warren commission.

Greetings is not a great film by any stretch, but it is a fascinating film from a different time.  The underground feel of the film is real as they had no permits for any of the shots they filmed.  The anti-draft feel is real also as this was filmed while the Viet Nam war was raging.

It’s odd to think of De Palma directing a comedy, but this is where he got his feet wet in filmmaking.  It is also his first film with Gerrit Graham who would play Beef in De Palma’s cult favorite Phantom of the Paradise.  I’m glad I got to see the film and now I have to watch Hi, Mom as it is a sequel of sorts with DeNiro’s Jon Rubin returning home from Viet Nam.  (Oops, spoiler alert, Jon’s plan to avoid the draft fails.)

Greetings gets 2 1/2 stars, but it is a piece of cinema history that should be experienced.