Invasion Of The Podcast!

Sunday, January 24, 2021

The Year of the Sequel: Grizzly II: The Revenge or The Predator or The Concert Or This Should Have Stayed Forgotten (1983/1987/2020)

George Clooney had a falling out with the bear a while ago, don't ask him about it.

When Steven and I took our trip through the Year of the Knockoff a couple of years ago, we had a lot of fun discovering what popular trends studios were trying to chase and capitalize off of. A lot of it didn't work as just making a copy with no heart is easily sniffed out and forgotten. Sometimes it did though, and there was a few legitimate surprises that we quite enjoyed.

Abby, a Blaxploitation take on the Exorcist was a lot of fun and introduced us to the work of William Girdler, a director that showed a lot of potential and was able to stretch a low budget just far enough to make entertaining genre knock off affairs. Abby had me interested in seeing what else Girdler had done and that lead me to 1976's Grizzly.

Grizzly, which I covered previously on the blog, is a knock off of Jaws as it involved an usually large predator being forced out of its normal habitat and into a higher populated tourist location. The local leadership want to keep the parks open for the money and those that understand that A LARGE BEAR IS EATING PEOPLE want to keep people away from the large bear. It is a template a lot of other films would use to varying degrees of success, but Grizzly gets a lot more right than it does wrong. Even though you know Grizzly came after Jaws and exists because of Jaws, it stands on its own two overly large bear feet as a fun nature run amok film. I enjoy Grizzly. It's fun and does what it sets out to do.

It should have had a dance competition in it though.

When doing my research for that original blog post, I had read about an abandoned sequel that collapsed spectacularly due to the sudden loss of budget and how it never got to post production as a lot of the film was not shot.

The premise of this second film was to involve another giant Grizzly going on a rampage at a very large rock concert in a national park. That sounds like a pretty kick ass sequel, right? It definitely ups the ante by having a very large group of people all crowded together with loud music playing so when panic sets in, along with a large murderous bear, the chaos would be magnificent. Man, that would have been a great film to see.

It was announced in September of 2020 that producer Suzanne C. Nagy had spent the last few years completing the film and it was set to be released this month. For a film that died mid production, I thought this was great news. We get to see what Grizzly II attempted to be. We even got a teaser trailer for it, with some pretty big names in it.

I was excited to see what this film was all about. I wasn't expecting greatness or even the fun of the first Grizzly. I understood that this was a troubled production and that it was going to be a bit of a rough go. The option to rent it on Amazon was $5.00 or to own for $8.00. Hell why not buy it for $8.00? I am sure I will want to watch this again based upon the simple goodwill that the first film had with me.

Grizzly II is a shameless cash grab and a straight up bait and switch. It runs 72 minutes long, never a good starting sign, and its big names of George Clooney, Laura Dern, and Charlie Sheen are in the first 5 minutes of it and are then killed off. When your teaser trailer is the three of them in pretty much their only scene, that's a large shovelful of bullshit being chucked your way. I wasn't expecting them to be big integral parts of the film and was sure they all would be eaten by a bear at some point during the run time, but the promise of the trailer and what we got is a slap in the face of anyone who was honestly looking forward to this film.

Paying $8.00 to own Grizzly II should

have been the first red flag.

That isn't the biggest sin that Grizzly II commits. It's the editing and the addition of 'new' footage that really just sets this trash heap ablaze in a way I didn't think was possible for a film being finished in 2019/2020 would be able to do anymore.

Let's get to the editing first. It is obvious from what is being presented that a lot of surrounding plot leading up to the concert was not shot or properly covered and that the bulk of the concert footage was a lot of B roll that was intended to be inserted when appropriate. It is like the producer Nagy just handed over a jigsaw puzzle missing 40% of it's pieces and asked the editor to make it resemble the picture on the box, which she did not show them. Someone got paid to string this thing together and I sure they were never happy with any of single moment of it. A lot of it is nonsensical and is an exercise in madness to make your brain fit it together.

Editing is an art form that gets overlooked so often because if it is done well, you will never notice. I don't pretend to be master at it or even a novice. I will say when I was college we had an assignment to take a scene from Gunsmoke and edit together a fight sequence. We were given multiple shots of both actors involved, different angles of their interactions and of the fight, and a series of cutaway reaction shots from the towns folk watching it all. We weren't told how long or how short we can make the sequence, just that we had to tell a story from point A to point B in that scene. Some students chose not to include any townsfolk and make it a much faster scene. Others trimmed the fight down and made it more of a piece about the town reacting. Everyone had the power of how they wanted to make this scene. I haven't forgotten the two big lessons from that assignment: match action is very important (meaning when cowboy A takes a swing at cowboy B, the punch needs to move in the same direct from cut to cut and it should be seamless) and that for an editor to be successful, they need multiple takes and sources to pull from to tell the best story possible. It's clear in Grizzly II that they didn't have this additional footage to pull from as it was never shot and it shows.

This leads to the second big sin, the new footage shot. I knew something was amiss when during the intro title sequence, the wilderness looked clean. Like HD quality clean you see from all the drone camera videos out there now. I was going to try and forgive it until what came next: stock HD footage of two bear cubs playing with each other and other shots of nature like a fucking documentary. Then a hunter, who's face we never see, loads a rifle in 2019 and 'shoots' one of the cubs. The effect is one of those shitty digital gunshot effects you expect to see in Birdemic. It would have just been better to have the screen go black and hear a shot fired. At this point, I knew that $8.00 was too much for this film.

What was shot in 1983 was shot on actual film stock. It's a physical medium that results in the look of the movie having actual film grain. It is absolutely jarring to be watching what was done almost forty years ago cut to something that was shot in the last few years with no grain whatsoever. I mean, I understand that if you don't have usable footage, go shoot some more. That isn't the end of the process. To show that you gave a single shit about completing this project, you could take it one small step further and add film grain to the new footage to make it make more seamlessly. Its not a difficult process in this far off year of 2018:

It would have gone a long way to make Grizzly II feel better as train wreck had they just taken this minimal step.

Grizzly II doesn't care about me liking it. Grizzly II drank in my rage as I shouted 'Fuck You' at the screen for what new additions they added to the concert portion.

Pictured: Me.

During the concert sequence in the last third of the film, which appears to have plenty of actually footage to pull from (more on that below), the film makes the unfathomable mistake of putting HD inserts of people at newer concerts and festivals, with no attempt to hide contemporary clothing or, you know, adding film grain. Oh, then a brief image* from a Color Run shows up:

*Not the actual footage from the film. These people at least
seem proud of themselves for finishing something.

WHAT THE FUCK?! WHY. Okay, Paul, calm down, you need to finish this and try to forget that Suzanne C. Nagy now has your $8.00. But then I remember that they also included what appears to be a friend's SKA/College Radio garage band (as in they just play in garage because they can't go in public because they agreed to be in Grizzly II) with a brand new song that is so not 1983. It is pure insanity.

But Paul, there has to be some sweet Grizzly kills in a film with that word in its title? Nope. Evidently the bear rig they built didn't work, no surprise) and a lot of the kills are from the POV of the bear. Oh, and when the bear dies at the end, you see it for brief second and the credits. YOU HAD ONE JOB GRIZZLY II. YOU NEEDED TO DO THE BEAR MINIUM AND COULDN'T EVEN DO THAT.

*breathes into a paper bag*

Sometimes unfinished films should stay unfinished. Sometimes dead is better.

I am not saying that some partial finished projects should stay abandoned. In fact, there are a few that have come to surface the last few years that were given proper care and have been well received. Here is one example of some previous lost Doctor Who episodes being recreated and restored.

Grizzly II could have been given a similar treatment. Don't have the needed footage to tell the complete story? You could have done some animated bits, make it look like a pulp comic and at least give the story the ability to finish. Or, even better, just take some of the more salvageable scenes and shine them up and make a great mini documentary about the film that was never meant to be. I would have enjoyed the hell out of the film about how this film never got made a lot more than what we actually got.

Are they are positives to this piece bear shit? Yeah, there are two. One is John Rhys-Davies playing a French Canadian tracker named Bouchard. He knew what kind of film he was in and he was fun to watch. I would have preferred just a film of him doing his own thing. The second is the construction of the stage and the footage of the concert itself. The stage is massive and the crowd is huge. You see what they were aiming for and how that setup could have been horrific but it just never came together.

I am a champion of bad movies that were made with the best of intentions. Even in failure there is respect for people trying to bring their vision to life. This is why I adore Miami Connection and Dangerous Men. They came from passion and drive. They just happen to be bad but you can feel the heart.

Grizzly II was probably never going to be good even if it got finished, but this is a fucking slap in the face of people who paid for the promise of something actually worth their time. Avoid giving this film any more money. It has my $8.00. You can come over to my place and watch it and I won't charge you, but I am sure it will still cost you.

"Ah, I see you wanted to watch an actual sequel to Grizzly..."

Star Wars: The last Jedi Revisited

As I write this we're less than a week away until Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker finds its way to a theater near you. The film claims to be the end of the nine part Skywalker saga and is sure to simultaneously please and enrage fans equally. In preparation for the film I, like I'm sure many Star Wars fans, embarked on rewatching the entire series. Today I am revisiting The Last Jedi. As I watch i thought I would jot down my thoughts because I'm on the internet so of course my opinion is super important. Seriously though, I have friends who hate this film. My wife hasn't wanted to watch it since we saw it in the theater. Despite the many jokes and comments I make on Inavsion about The Last Jedi there are a great many things I like about the film. Obviously there are also things in the film I'm not crazy about. But much like the prequels I think the film is a mixed bag (as is The Force Awakens). With that in mind please know that my intention is not to tear the film down. There are enough people who are happy to do that. I'm just interested in giving my honest reactions as I watch the film. You'll get both the good and the bad. I'm not looking looking to change anyone's mind except maybe my own. Let's hit play and see what happens.

1. The bomber attack - I'm starting with something that I'm not sure counts as something I dislike but it's unclear to me if the bomber plan had been approved by Leia and she's calling it off or if Poe was executing it all on his own. If the bombers received Leia's message calling it off they would have stopped cold. So either Leia never communicated to the bombers to retreat, they were working under Poe's orders all along, or they also disobeyed a direct order from Leia. Nevertheless, those bombers might be the most ineffective attack ships ever designed. I'm not sure why anyone would want to pilot one of those deathtraps.

2. Luke throws the lightsaber away - I admit this doesn't bother me as much as it did on my first watch. Still, I don't care for the execution. I have no problem with the intent of Luke's action. I just wish it had been handled dramatically as opposed to comically.

What I wouldn't give for that lightsaber to turn on during this scene.

3. Mark Hamill's performance - Something I love about this film is Mark Hamill's performance. I think he's great in this movie. Some of that adoration goes towards Rian Johnson as well because he got a performance out of Hamill that is not only his best in the series in my opinion but he got a fantastic performance out of an actor that found himself at odds with where his character should go.

4. Nostalgia - Another thing I love is that while much of The Force Awakens is predicated on nostalgia, the only time Rian Johnson uses it is when Luke boards the Falcon and reunites with R2-D2. His one use of nostalgia is completely character driven, creating a wonderful scene between the two characters. It's also one of the brief moments Luke has of joy in the film so it works even more for me.

5. Rose Tico - I like Rose. I don't understand the hate for her. I know it stems from the ugly side of fandom but it still makes me scratch my head.

6. Flying Leia - This is just one of those things that doesn't work for me. Don't get me wrong I love seeing Leia finally get to use the force and show how powerful she is. Her flight through space felt off to me for some reason. Maybe it's because it felt like something I'd find in an EU book. Maybe it's because we'd seen something similar with characters in space in Guardians of the Galaxy. Or maybe its because I can't help but think that there were just cooler ways to show how powerful she was with the force.

I believe I can fly. I believe I can touch the sky..walker.

7. Rey's training - These are some of my favorite scenes of the film. I think Ridley and Hamill work well together and I wanted more of them together. I have a feeling that Luke will probably only get one scene in The Rise of Skywalker and hopefully it's with Rey.

8. Long distance force calls - I enjoy these scenes. I loved the way Johnson explores's Rey and Kylo Ren's relationship to each other in the film.

9. Canto Bight - If I were going to cut anything from this movie I would cut all of Canto Bight out. I said earlier that I like Rose Tico and I do. It's just unfortunate that her and Finn are stuck in this subplot. Some people really like these scenes. Some people also love the trade disputes and senate scenes in the prequels. I find both of them boring. Canto Bight also gives me my least favorite character of this film but we'll get there momentarily.

10. Luke contemplates murdering Ben Solo in his sleep - This is the one story point I can't get behind. It ignores the character Luke arc has at the end of Return of the Jedi. I have had many interesting discussions with friends on this scene. For some people, maybe even most people, it works. Johnson even writes some pretty compelling dialogue as Luke explains what happened, "And for the briefest moment of pure instinct I thought I could stop it. It passed like a fleeting shadow and I was left with shame." I admit it's a strong argument. I think as a character however Luke's pain would have him so hard that he would have recoiled. Or even fallen to the ground as many people do when confronted with real life pain of loss. More importantly I think he would have tried to save Ben first. He didn't even try. He saw good in his father who was for all intents and purposes "space Hitler". But one look into Ben's soul and he considers murdering a sleeping teenager. Even if it is brief it still feels out of character to me. I think the only way this scene would have worked for me was had Ben woken up and interpreted Luke standing over him as Luke coming to kill him. Luke would then strike his lightsaber in reaction. Ben attacking him and Luke reacting to what he had just seen in Ben makes more sense to me for the character.

Luke is seen here trying to take after his father by murdering children.

11. Yoda returns - I wasn't big on this scene initially. I think it's because I don't think the Yoda puppet has looked the same since 1983. That aside I quite like Yoda's lesson to Luke that failure is the greatest teacher. Luke does kind of look like a dumbass in this scene though.

12. Benecio Del Toro - What was he doing in this movie? He's an actor I really like but I don't get what his character was doing in this movie. I hated the tick which apparently comes from him being constantly electrocuted? I guess his purpose was to show us that there's a lot of gray in the morality of the galaxy. For me he unfortunately drags the already long runtime of the movie out.

13. The iron - It's small but I really don't like the ironing gag. I think Rian Johnson has a little of George Lucas less desirable tendencies when it comes to his humor.

14. General Holdo's plan - Why doesn't Holdo just tell Poe there's a plan? She's clearly in charge. I'm not saying she has to answer to him. Or even give him all the details. I just think any leader would at least tell their crew that there is a plan. Also, her sacrifice later lacks dramatic weight because we barely get to know her. I still think had Leia made that sacrifice it would have been heartbreaking.

15. Captain Phasma - Captain Phasma seemed like a wasted character in The Force Awakens. I thought it was odd that she even survived Starkiller Base. Here though she's just brought back to die... again. She only has a few minutes of screen time. The purpose I realize is to give Finn a fight scene but she's now a character with less competency than Boba Fett.

16. Snoke dies- I actually wasn't one of those fans angry over the death of Snoke. It was a surprise for sure and felt like something you'd save to end the trilogy. I do know for a lot of fans it was one of their biggest problems with the movie. Personally I would have liked to have gotten some sort of back story since he's so important to Ben becoming Kylo or an explanation of how he rose to power. Honestly, it could have come from Luke when he was explaining what happened with Ben becoming Kylo. It's something I think Abrams will have to address in The Rise of Skywalker.

I've felt the same way after eating Taco Bell.

17. Rey's parents - I also wasn't bothered by Rey's parentage. We may see this get retconned next week though.

18. The destruction of the Skywalker lightsaber - This one makes my head hurt a little. I thought it was an odd choice to bring a lightsaber we thought was gone for 30 years back in The Force Awakens. I thought if Luke was missing, it would have made more sense for it to be Luke's green lightsaber from Return of the Jedi that called to Rey. The previous movie however makes that original lightsaber such a big part of its story that it felt odd for it to be destroyed here. I don't understand why it's being brought back in the next one. Couldn't Rey just build a new one? She has a bunch of Jedi texts at her disposal. One of those has to tell her how to build a lightsaber.

19. Luke and Leia's reunion - Even if he's not really there I absolutely love Luke and Leia's reunion. I'd be lying if I said a tear wasn't desperately trying to escape my eye right now. That wink to C3PO gets me every time.

I'm not crying, you are.

20. Favorite moment of the film - Luke wipes off his shoulders after seemingly surviving all of the AT-AT's firing on him. It's not only a highlight of the film but the series overall.

21. We will be the spark that lights the fire that does something and kickstarts something else - Okay, I'm poking fun at this but I really think it's a bit of clunky writing from a really good writer.

22. Luke becomes one with the force - Honestly, I expected Luke to die in this movie. However, I'm not sure I understand why he does. He apparently "forced" too hard?

23. Where are the droids - This was also an issue in The Force Awakens but why are R2-D2 and C-3PO relegated to bit parts in this movie? We love these characters and want to see them more. Also, while it's cool to see all these new alien designs can we throw some classic aliens in too?

24. The broom boy ending - I know ending the film on the legend of Luke Skywalker was supposed to be inspirational but it felt a little too meta for me. I think ending with the previous scene of Leia and Rey in the Falcon would have been a better ending. Leia saying "We have everything we need" was powerful enough to end the film on. Also someone sweeping is just a boring image to end your fantasy film on.

This wasn't what I thought I was going to get when they said "sweeping action scenes!"

Okay, so there you have it. I know after reading all of this it may be hard to discern where I landed on this film. Truthfully, I've gone back and forth on this a lot, and made many a joke about this film, but overall I like The Last Jedi. Are there things I dislike? Yes. But it doesn't even come close to being my least favorite film in the series. I'm looking at you Attack of the Clones. I can also say the more I watch the film the more I like it. I can't say the same for a lot of the movies I watch. So, as I get ready to enter the theater for the last entry in the saga I can safely say I am in a good place with wherever we go in that galaxy far, far away.

The Year of Cannon: Going Bananas! (1988)

This is actually translates to 'You've Been Warned.'

I hope all are having a good Thanksgiving holiday weekend. May you be full of stuffing, pie, and awkward conversations about politics with distant family members. I figured to celebrate the season, I would do two things: Share with you a video of a Macy's Day Parade float fail, and carve into the turkey that is Cannon's Going Bananas.

First, the day Barney died.

Oh the purple humanity!

Second, the day I died a little while watching Going Bananas.

Oh my sanity!

The story of Going Bananas is that Ben (David Mendenhall, who we just talked about in our episode about Overthe Top) is the son of a US senator and has been sent on a vacation without the rest of his family to Africa. Accompanying him is 'Bad Bad' Joe (Dom DeLuise), who is Ben's guardian and is always anxious about every single thing... so pretty much why you hire Dom DeLuise to be in your film. As soon as they hit the mainland, they are met by Mozambo (Jimmie Walker) their guide. David, who is the shot caller on the trip no matter how many times Joe tries to course correct, wants to go to see the wilds of Africa and Mozambo is more than happy to take this young child out into harm's way without any hesitation.

The first 1/3 of the film plays out like an attempt at a Disney-esque travelogue with David commenting on all the wild life they see and a cut away to every piece of stock footage that Cannon can find showing African animals. It becomes a loop of David asking Mozambo to stop the vehicle, Joe saying they shouldn't but they do, David and Mozambo walk off camera and talk over stock footage of giraffes or something, and Joe trying to nap or have lunch and being interrupted by an elephant or a lion. Joe freaks out, Mozambo and David laugh, and no one questions the reality that Dom DeLuise was inches away from a live lion and could have been eaten at any time. Hilarity!

This is the first time they actually learn what the movie is supposed to be about.

Soon, David sees a bunch of chimpanzees and wants to go see them. Mozambo and David get close enough to startle all of them and cause them to flee, except for one that gets stuck in some branches. David feels bad for this animal and frees it. Mozambo says they need to go, and David leaves the recently freed chimp to go do whatever chimps do (fun fact: chimpanzees are actually really into accounting and book keeping. This is why the rest of the animal kingdom shuns them). The chimp decides that he is going to follow them back to their vehicle and hitches a ride, as he has taken a shine to David. One thing leads to another, and the chimp causes a ruckus that leads to them crashing into a tree and Joe losing a tooth. He insists that they find a dentist. Mozambo has a uncle that can do it. I won't go into many details here, but they end up at village that is not handled with any sense of cultural sensitivity. Hilarity!

Later, they leave the wilds and head back to the town they had first made landfall in, at first not realizing that the chimp had stowed away again. Joe is aware that taking a wild animal, even if they weren't aware of it, is a crime and they could get in big trouble. David doesn't care and names the chimp... Bonzo.

Kids just love 37 year old (at that time) Ronald Reagan film references.

Let's stop and talk about 'Bonzo' for a moment. There is a bit in the wonderful documentary Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films in which the story is told about Menaham Golan meeting Clyde the Orangutan (real name Manis), star of Every Which Way but Loose. The story goes that Menaham was pitching a film project involving Manis to Manis, not his handler. People in the room really believe Menaham was trying to sell Manis on the idea of doing a family film for Cannon. The story goes that film was green lit and rushed into production and they tried to use an actual primate to play the role of Bonzo, but that it bit actor David Mendenhall, so they had come up with another solution:

You know that guy in the suit wants to bite him too.

They put an actor in a primate costume and thus the stuff of nightmares was born. The photo doesn't really do it justice but when Bonzo is in motion it is just terrible. Once I learned that it was Deep Roy in the suit, I felt really bad for him for being saddled with a such a thankless job of trying to make this train wreck of a film entertaining, but it didn't make me hate Bozno the character any less. His antics were made worse when they would add cartoon sound effects to everything. We understand this film is supposed to be a romp, we don't need Yoink! and Bonk! noises every three seconds. We also don't need every cast member to say the name Bonzo every other word. Hilarity!

Meanwhile, there is another plot thread involving Captain Mackintosh (Herbet Lom, from Steve's favoriteCannon film so far this year, King Solomon's Mines), who appears to be in charge of the territory. It isn't made clear but it appears the last vestiges of European colonialism is still in effect here and it doesn't sit well with me how he orders around all of the African locals to do his policing. This is played for laughs and it tries to go for a Keystone Cops or Three Stooges vibe but it falls flat, surprising no one. Mackintosh is crooked and is looking to get paid off to deliver unique animals to a circus that is setup just outside of town. The circus owner is looking for the next big thing that will revitalize his circus. We never know why a circus that is in dire financial straits would be in a what appears to be a third world African nation, but Going Bananas can't be bothered to ask that legitimate question. It has bigger things on its mind, like what if Bonzo can understand English and speak it?! Hilarity!

After a very slapsticky scene in a restaurant in which Joe decides that the best way to hide Bonzo is to dress him in drag and have him sit with them while they dine that soon devolves into a brawl and cakes in faces, Mackintosh realizes that Bonzo really is a special kind of chimp and would pull big money from the broke ass circus...

...And wigs.

*YOINK! SCREAM! SLIDE WHISTLE!*

We learn that Bonzo not only understands English but can speak it as well! And what is his favorite two words? Banana and David. He says them almost as much as everyone else says his name. David, believing correctly that Mackintosh wants to capture Bonzo, escape back to the wild where Bonzo lived. Joe and Mozambo freak out and go looking for David. The movie then teaches us the important lesson: young teenage boys won't survive long with a talking primate in the wild. This is valuable information we all need to know. David, while swinging on vines with Bonzo, wants to 'touch hands' and falls down into a crevice that happens to be full of scorpions. Bonzo eventually saves David by beating the every loving shit out of the scorpions (honestly, I don't think those were fake props that Deep Roy was smashing... maybe he was getting his frustrations over the life decisions that lead him to this moment out) but can't seem to rouse David from his lethargic state. David would have likely died had he not have been found by Joe and Mozambo. Goddamit. The film could have been over right then.

David is taken to a hospital. Bonzo follows unbeknownst to David and the others. Mackintosh finds David and by default Bonzo and captures him. Bonzo is then handed off to the circus and is branded the 8^th wonder of the world as he can talk. David and company aren't aware of Bonzo's capture and have a deadline to get back to the ship to go home.... but wait! There is a parade going through the town advertising the circus. David, Joe, and Mozambo decide they have time to go to the circus before the boat leaves. Once there, they realize to their horror, that Bonzo is the main attraction. They decide that they need to bust the chimp out and come up with the smartest plan in order to do so: they beat up some clowns and dress up like them so that they can get close enough to Bonzo to unshackle him. Hilarity ensues as that does go quite to plan and you end up with an extended sequence involving trapeze artists and someone made up to look like Dom DeLuise flipping and flying through the air. Again, a small credit to this film, the circus work was done by actual professionals and that looked good.

They all escape and run out to a prop driven bi-plane, Bonso gets in the pilot's seat because now that he has mastered the English language, he understands the complexities of manned flight, and they escape with Bonzo buzzing the circus in chaos and the bad guys like he is Tom Cruise in Top Gun. Airtime for Bonzo!

David has to say goodbye to Bonzo because the reality of bringing a large wild animal on a prolonged boat ride back to the United States is not a good one, but that changes when Mackintosh makes one last ditch effort to capture Bonzo. He makes a leap of safety to the boat and then its okay for him to go with David. Hooray? Let's ignore Mozambo is still on the dock and will likely be arrested for the whole circus thing and for running away from the police. But hey, the white people and the sassy talking primate are safe and that's all that matters.

Going Bananas is not a good film and I don't think it was striving to be. It was aiming very low at what is supposed to pass for family entertainment and it doesn't even clear that bar. What was I expecting? That's a fair question and I probably already had a chi(m)p on my shoulder for this thing before I even started watching it. I knew I wasn't going to like it but I was hoping for something that became pure insanity like Mac and Me. It never quite... goes bananas. I will see myself out.

So instead of beating the super dead horse that is this film any further, let's take a look at five moments in film/TV that involve an actor in an animal suit that are more fun than Bonzo:

5.) Left Shark from Super Bowl XLIX

If there was a ever a thing I wanted in my life, it would to be dressed in a large shark costume on one of the world's largest stages and just... do whatever I wanted to. You do you, Left Shark.

4.) Sudden Death Mascot Fight

Sudden Death is great bad Jean Claude Van-Damme film and this is the greatest moment of it. He fights a bad guy dressed up as the Pittsburgh Penguin's mascot, Iceberg. Stop reading and watch this right now.

3.) Ace Ventura Rhino Birth

I haven't revisited Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls in a very long while, but this moment has been forever burned into my brain and I laugh every time I watch it.

2. ) Nic Cage Bear Punch

The remake of The Wicker Man is not good, but it is batshit crazy. I want to believe that Nic Cage had a clause in his contract that he got to do this. I would watch a whole film of him dressed up as various animals punching people. Hollywood, there is your license to print money.

1.) Bobcat Goldthwait as Godzilla

One Crazy Summer is a very fun and silly movie and underrated. If you haven't seen it, you must seek it out. One of my favorite moments is when Bobcat Goldthwait tries on a Godzilla suit and can't get it off. The escalating problems resulting from this gets funnier, and his response to them, as it goes along.

Parting Cannon Shots

Is this better or worse than The Apple?

Worse. The Apple was bad but fun and tried to do something. This was bad and tired. I feel bad for Dom DeLuise, Jimmie Walker, and Deep Roy. They all deserved better than this.

The Menaham Index:

100%. This is a collision of all his worst tendencies: Not a thought out plot, a gimmick that will attract the kids that is nightmare fuel, comedy that misses all the marks, getting some known Hollywood B level people in order to slap their name on the poster, and a lot of inadvertent (to him anyway) racism. All you needed was terrorist plot with rocket launchers and a tossed off underwritten female love interest and it would have been almost the perfect Cannon film.

Would I recommend this film to anyone?

No.

And here you thought there wouldn't be any gifs in this post.

If you want to watch Going Bananas after my staunch anti-recommendation, you can find it here:

The Year of Cannon: Death Wish V: The Face of Death! (1994)

No Budget. No Enthusiasm. No Grenade Launchers. No Fun.

This post is a bit of cheat. Death Wish V: The Face of Death came out in 1994 and was after the collapse of Cannon as we have come to understand it during our yearlong deep dive into it on Invasion of the Podcast. The film was actually distributed by Trimark Pictures (which had its own dubious line up of releases) and now rests with MGM. Technically this isn't a 'true' Cannon film and would not normally be considered when reviewing their weird library, however, I decided to cover it for two reasons: 1.) Cannon didn't actually produce the first Death Wish film, so I feel like there is a bit of symmetry to this. And, 2.) I have already watched the first four films, and I figured I was this close to the end, I might as well run out the series.

Does Death Wish V return to its original vision of a man forced to find justice on his own(or so he convinces himself) or does it continue down the cartoonish path of distasteful and tone deaf violence?

Does Charles Bronson, in his last theatrically released film, summon more than professional boredom to get through til the end of film without actually yawning while delivering his lines? I think we can all assume the answers to those questions, so let's ride this thing out to the sunset and hope to enjoy it as we go.

Did you see that they used a shot of the opening credits in the trailer?

It's like that no one was paying attention to any portion of the production process.

Death Wish V: Deathface picks up 7 years after the last film and with Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson, if it isn't obvious by now) walking away scott-free from the cops after GRENADE LAUNCHING A PERSON TO DEATH (for the second time, mind you). He has moved from the west coast back to New York because evidently there is like a 10 year statute of limitations to being a murder crazy vigilante the must have passed. He is yet again in a relationship with a younger woman. To be fair, the actress playing her is 40... Bronson is 73, though. Old habits die hard, right?

Let's talk about Old Man Bronson for a bit here. I don't think he has ever looked young. Here he is at age 40, in a 1961 episode of the Twilight Zone:

Seen here all fancied up in his Formal Flintsone attire.

He looks like how Josh Brolin looks at age 50 when he is Cable.

Okay, I get it. I will keep my mouth shut. I will never look as good as either of you no matter what age I am.

Bronson was just born old, and that is perfectly okay. He always had a great look about him and he is forever burned into cinema history as a badass. There does come a point where old is too old for the lead in what is supposed to be an action film, at least the kind that Bronson was known for:

Face Death.

I will be honest, I felt a little sad seeing him look this old in what would be his last theatrically released film. I still would be scared to be alone with him if he felt that I slighted him, but maybe it was time to hang it up. No one should be 73 doing the 5^th film in a bloody action franchise that started with one message and is now a distorted shadow of its former self...

Look it up, it's true.

Well, shit. Never mind. Back to Death Wish 5: Wishing 4 Death.

Kersey's new lady, Olivia (Lesley-Anne Down) is a fancy high end fashion designer in NYC and has a private runaway to show off her most recent creations and a sweat shop style factory just below it make the merchandise. It doesn't make any sense and it is very easy to see that seats around the runway are folding chairs and that the sheet metal interior looks like an early Chipotle.

I will have a burrito bowl and a sexy bald mannequin for dine-in, thanks.

Kersey is there to support the launch of her new line and we learn that she has a young daughter, Chelsea (Erica Fairfield) and that she loves Paul. We eventually find out that Paul has been placed into witness protection by the government for... reasons?... and that he is now a professor of architecture and has the government assigned fake identity of... Paul. Pretty good life, nothing can possibly go wrong here.

In steps Olivia's ex-husband and father of Chelsea, Tommy O'Shea, played by the usually wonderful Michael Parks. I think the only notes that were given to him here were 'we don't have the budget to give you any true depth, just turn 'being a racist abusive organized crime guy' up to 11, no up to 12, no up to a bajillion.

He looks like if someone was making a knock of Breaking Bad. 'Oh, and his name will be Gregory Gray!'

Turns out, Tommy, wasn't too keen on Olivia leaving him and taking their daughter, so he has slowly but surely worked his way into her garment designing business. He is going to force Olivia back to him one way or another. How do we know that Tommy is truly a piece of shit? Blah, blah, blah, attack some floor manager guy with a industrial cutting tool after threatening him with a vat of industrial acid, burn an African American guy's hands with a steam press and make racist comments the entire time, you get it. Tommy and his three thugs are the worst of the worst. We know where this is going to go. Tommy has to light the Kersey's fuse somehow or there wouldn't be a movie. So how does that happen?

Just as Kersey is going to finally commit to Olivia and propose to her while they are out at a nice dinner, she goes to the rest room and is assaulted by one of Tommy's men while they are dressed in drag. It really makes no sense as to why the need for him to be in drag. I think it was to try and make it all seem more perverse and weird but it just felt flat and tone deaf, a feeling that would permeate the entirety of this film. It leaves Olivia's face disfigured and sets Kersey on an all too familiar path.

Meanwhile, Tommy gets his men to take care of the garment factory manager that went to the cops. I don't think physics work this way.

Who ordered the turnover?

Kersey tries to get law enforcement to help, a handful knows of his vigilante past, and they convince Olivia to testify against Tommy. Turns out Tommy has an inside man and knows this is going to happen, so they break into Olivia's place and kill her. As Tommy has an airtight alibi, he isn't charged and he can take legal custody of Chelsea, who just wants to live with Paul.

Tommy has a Death Wish.... Part V. Fuse F*cking lit.

Let's take quick stock of what happens to the women that are around Paul Kersey before we move on.

Death Wish: Kersey's wife is beaten to death in their apartment while their daughter is raped.
Death Wish 2: Kersey's housekeeper is beaten and raped. His daughter, who is pretty much catatonic after the events of the first film, is raped again and then jumps out of the second story window of a warehouse and dies by getting impaled on a iron fence stake. His new girlfriend eventually learns about his vigilante doings and breaks off their engagement.
Death Wish 3: Kersey's new new girlfriend is knocked out in her car and pushed downhill into oncoming traffic and causes the car to explode.
Death Wish 4: The Crackdown: Kersey's new new new girlfriend's daughter dies to a crack cocaine overdose and later the new new new girlfriend is shot in the back while running to Paul.

Moral of the story: Paul Kersey has a worse track record with families and girlfriends than Terry O'Quinnin in the Stepfather series. Who knew that it was the women around him that had the actual death wish?

So do you think that maybe, just maybe, we might get that moment of self reflection from Paul Kersey in which he ponders the circumstances in his life that always brings him back to the loss of loved ones around him and the need to meter out justice on his own, one bullet at a time? If you believed that, then you have not been paying attention to the arc of the series to this point, which really isn't so much an arc as as it is a sharp and steady descent into meanness and meaninglessness. Oh, Death Wish V: I'm Dreaming of a Death Wishmas tries to convince you that it is a more meditative piece with not one, but two, segments in which we have Charles Bronson drive around aimlessly or unlock his wall safe to access his gun while clips of audio from the previous scenes play over top. It is trying to apply depth to a film incapable of having any at all. Or maybe the film knew people were bored and weren't paying attention and had to remind them of what just had happened.

I was one of those people. I honestly had to go take a nap in the middle of watching this film. The nap was glorious, btw.

Dr. Steve Brule always knows what you need. For your health!

Once awake and refreshed, I had to give the film a smidge of credit, though in a backhanded way. It initially limited Kersey to just his own handgun. That felt like a callback to the original film before everything went off the rails. He didn't have a full Chuck Norris level arsenal at his disposal and that felt more appropriate. This is likely due to the low budget and maybe I am reading too much into it. Besides. He had other weapons at his disposal.

He figured out one of Tommy's goon's schedules and waited for him to show up to a family owned Italian restaurant. Once the goon was there, Kersey sprinkled arsenic on his canoli. That sequence is boring and stupid, so it is not gif worthy. The newspaper headline right after is pretty great though:

'Death by Dessert' would have been more thematically appropriate for the franchise though.

Word gets around to Tommy that someone is attacking his men. How this is delivered to him is... interesting.

Church is no place for a child!

Kersey then stakes out the goon that assaulted Olivia and cut her face up. He figures out the guy is paranoid and has security all over his gated home. Kersey then comes up with the obvious solution:

Want to play soccer but not be bothered with kicking it and stuff? I got your covered.

Well all know what to do with a remote controlled soccer ball, right?

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tommy knows that Kersey is coming for him and decides to use Chelsea as bait to draw him out to the garment factory/fashion runway/Chipotle. Tommy has approximately 3 hired guns left and Kersey makes short work of two of them. He keeps the third alive for information. The way he accomplishes this is probably the best part of this film.

Well that just about wraps it up.

Soon Kersey and Tommy have a showdown and Tommy surprisingly doesn't get grenade launched to death. He ends up backing into the vat of industrial acid that was teased at that beginning of the film. The good cop that knows that Kersey is the vigilante let's him walk free again. With no regard to Chelsea and her safety, or the trauma that must exist in his own head afeter losing people close to him over and over again, Kersey turns his back on the cop and says 'Hey Lieutenant, if you need any help, give me a call.' Freeze fame, credits.

I honestly didn't know what to expect out of Death Wish V: Death Harder, but it ended up not being much of anything at all, which is somehow worse than the sins the series committed with 3 and 4 in raising the violence to cartoonish levels with no true consequences to Paul Kersey. At least that was something you could sit around with friends and have a laugh at while understanding that the films completely lost any semblance of credibility or reason and to just have fun with them. This was just dull, mean, and meandering. For a film series with death in its name, the last portion felt dead on arrival.

So that's it for the Death Wish series, I guess? Well aside from the unofficial remake, and the officialremake, and the other unofficial unofficial remake. If you want a film about an everyday guy that has been pushed into seeking out justice on his own and how messy and personally complicated it can be, may I recommend Jeremy Saulnier's 2013 film, Blue Ruin. It shows what the cost of revenge is and it has real consequences.

I am glad that I did run the series of Death Wish films because I do love Charles Bronson, and I had not seen any of them until this year. There are some fun moments to be had in them, for sure. I just wish, pun intended I guess, that there had been more substance to the man behind the gun.