In the peaceful town of Snowfield, Colorado something evil has wiped out the community. And now, its up to a group of people to stop it, or at least get out of Snowfield alive.
09 Feb Phantoms (1998)
Primeval Roles
Whatever confluence of forces that were at work, when I saw ‘Lawrence of Arabia‘ I was dumbstruck. The sweep of the desert and its lonely complexities mapped thoroughly with the internal landscape this man revealed. Lonely, sexually obsessed but incompetent, determined to press through what seems certain oblivion. Later, when we learned he is a severe drunk — and unable to get parts as a result — it fit into the iconography of the Arabian desert.
So, all the man has to do for me is show up and reveal his broken self. One of the endearing elements of this is that he can’t and doesn’t want to hide it, and as a performer he cannot avoid showing up, even if the only opportunity is trash like this film. This film is a mess in many ways. He plays a iconoclast scholar reduced to writing trashy articles for supermarket magazines. Turns out he is the only expert in the world who understands this ancient being that periodically decimates areas.
Oh gosh, but the thing is so bad, you don’t have to pay any sort of attention to the story itself and can reflect on the man and what he is asked to do, which roughly speaking is to play himself. (‘My Favorite Year‘ is this idea taken seriously, as is ‘Club Paradise.‘)
It is sort of circular. In 1962, he merged with the desert and Islam. Here, he fights the beast made of oil that rises from under the ground to destroy a city while the army is befuddled.
Posted in 2011
Ted’s Evaluation — 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.
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