filmland / By Charlie Myers

McG + Terminator = McTerminator

Plus: Erase the last few weeks of this column from your mind

(May 28, 2009) Note: I’m just back from six weeks in Portland and despite the manifold gastronomic and cultural seductions of the city I managed to see 24 films. Among the standouts are the beautifully realized Tokyo Sonata from director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, about the disintegration of a contemporary Japanese family; Everlasting Moments, a wonderful historical film from Swedish director Jan Troell set at the beginning of the 20th century, wherein a housewife with an abusive husband finds salvation in photography; and Wendy and Lucy, a quietly moving story set in Oregon from director Kelly Reichardt who also adapted author Jonathan Raymond’s “Old Joy” from the same short story collection. Look for the DVDs.

Previews

GALLERY >

Opening Friday, May 29, is the latest computer animated feature from Pixar, Up. The title is literal: a disenchanted elderly man named Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Ed Asner) wants to get away from it all, so he ties a bunch of helium balloons to his house and floats away. Unfortunately, he discovers an unwelcome passenger in Russell (Jordan Nagai), a Wilderness Explorer Scout. Adventure ensues. Rated PG for some peril and action. 96m. At the Broadway, Mill Creek and Fortuna.

Directed by Sam Raini (Spider-Man films), who also co-writes with brother Ivan Raimi, Drag Me to Hell is a horror film featuring Alison Lohman (Things We Lost in the Fire; Beowulf) as a bank loan officer whose life becomes a living hell when she turns down a loan for Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver). Always bite the hand that curses you. Rated PG-13 for sequences of horror violence, terror, disturbing images and language. 99m. At the Broadway, Mill Creek and Fortuna.

Reviews

TERMINATOR SALVATION: The good news about the latest weekly summer blockbuster is that nine years from now there will be lots of scrap metal. The bad news is that there won’t be many people around to utilize it.

The Terminator franchise has a respectable and lasting legacy. When The Terminator was released in 1984, I was pessimistic due to the casting of pre-gov Arnie, who had not exactly distinguished himself as an actor. But it turns out that he was perfect for the role of the Terminator assassin sent from the future, and the casting of the buff Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor was an inspiration. The film also firmly established the very interesting mythology of the Terminator universe, along with the famous line “I’ll be back,” quoted in the present film. It also had Sarah Connor’s satisfying final comment to the Terminator, “You’re … terminated … fucker,” a sentiment the voters (or the 25 percent who bothered to vote) recently sent to about-to-be ex-gov Arnie. (Please don’t write a letter. The line is a direct quote; I would never personally use such language.)

Now, following the very good 1991 sequel, the forgettable 2003 Rise of the Machines, and the recently terminated TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, with its sexy female cyborg played by Summer Glau, we have Terminator Salvation set in 2018 in a landscape even bleaker than that in The Road Warrior.

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