Chapter 8:

The Last Charade

 

        Indeed, the dread allegorical Zone Wars continued in 1985.  Without the poor ol’ Gardevil, however, as the films of 1984-especially DUNE, GREMLINS and INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM-were so disappointing and/or infuriatingly and insultingly stupid, that I gave up on film art and abandoned the Temple Theatre when I graduated from high school that year.  A bittersweet graduation, given the fury over the TZ disaster and the dread Zone Wars and the lack of jobs, fittingly summed up by the allegorical Hoodoo Gurus tune “Bittersweet” (1985) from their March ’85 recording MARS NEEDS GUITARS (1985).  How fitting that Allen kicked off the film year that Spring on April 19, 1985 with the twilit and allegorical indie docufeature film THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (1985), for the sight and sound of Mia Farrow’s sweet, lonely and film loving Cecilia was left as shocked and broken hearted as most young filmgoers after being betrayed and dumped by her film star lover, Gil Shepherd-played by Jeff Daniels-in the end.

 

        And so THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO was one of the last films I watched in the Temple Theatre as a high school student, and so after graduating at last I forgot about twilit and duplicitous and heart breaking and infuriating film art and film artists and went off into an angry and frustrated young adulthood and struggled to do my best but got nowhere like most members of my generation, causing rye and barley made us sing out our despondent and elusive dreams.  It looked that was it for film art, but for some reason I returned to the Temple Theatre in 1997 to watch the CGI enhanced Special Editions of the Classic Trilogy, judging them to be safe because all of their screenplays had been written, and all of their principal photography had been done, prior to the TZ disaster.  They impressed and intrigued me enough that I returned to the Temple Theatre in 1999 and 2002 for STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE and STAR WARS EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES. 

 

Alas, noticing to my surprise that both allegorical films continued the same dread Zone War struggle that I had left furiously behind in 1985, and that both films despondently and angrily blasted Palpaberg and bitterly lamented the decision to work with Kennedy, Marshall and the Emperor on INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, I decided to return to the Temple Theatre to watch such allegorical Palpaberg films as A.I. (2001) and MINORITY REPORT.  Realizing to my equally surprised and furious dismay that both films also continued the Zone War struggle and that MINORITY REPORT was filled with all sorts of infuriatingly and disturbingly guilty implications of foreknowledge of and wrongdoing in the TZ disaster, I decided to track down all of the twilit and allegorical films I had not seen since 1985-with particular attention to anything directed or produced by Kennedy, Lord Stinkious, Marshall and Palpaberg-to try to figure out what had happened since 1985.  Ominously, Landis kicked off the twilit festivities on February 22th of 1985 when he returned with Akroyd, Allingham, Campbell, Folsey jr., Nadoolman, Paynter and Bruce McGill-who played D-Day in ANIMAL HOUSE-and the twilit, allegorical, Ozian themed and Allingham executive produced docufeature film INTO THE NIGHT (1985).

 

A strange and surreal film, INTO THE NIGHT saw Goldblum’s insomnia suffering and implicitly Lynch and Tin Man linked Ed Okin-his surname spelling Niko backwards, linking him to Nikko and Toto, and also an anagram of kino, the German word for cinema, linking him to film art-leaving behind his sleepless bed and his unfaithful wife-played by Stacey Pickren-and wandering off into the tempestuous darkness of a hot summer’s night in L.A.  Significantly, Okin soon met his beautiful and implicitly Dorothy linked blonde dream queen Diana-played by Michelle Pfeiffer-when he rescued her from an evil Ozian quartet of bumbling but murderous Iranian “Savak” assassins who rampaged throughout the film like four flying monkey linked and tragicomic Terminators.  Curiously, these four Iranian Stooges were trying to capture Diana to recover six priceless Persian emeralds for their implicitly Wicked Witch of the West linked boss Shaheen Parvizi-played by Irene Papas-a curious femme fatale whose name and influence evoked Kathleen Kennedy, but whose face and hair evoked Stanley Kubrick. 

 

Significantly, the four bumbling assassins evoked New Hollywood directors.  Indeed, the one played by Beruce Gramian evoked Coppola, the one played by Michael Zand evoked Lord Stinkious, the one played by Hadi Sadjadi evoked Scorsese, and the one insanely played by Landis evoked himself.  Thus, by having Okin triumph over the Savak terminators and Parvizi and rescue Diana and the emeralds, in the end, Landis implied his prescient hope that Lynch would strike back at his detractors with a good and financially successful film after the failure of DUNE.  Of course, this allegorical implication was destroyed by the insane and infuriating sight of Landis killing throughout the film with carefree and psychotic abandon in his role as one of the Iranian assassins.  For this bizarre and over the top murderous mayhem convinced audiences that he was indeed a directo, harming his reputation even further.  As for Siedelman, she returned with Hell to the Temple Theatre soon after with the twilit and allegorical docufeature film DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN (1985), released on March 29, 1985.

 

“Gary,

 do you remember your dreams?”

 

Curiously, the sight and sound of bored young wife Roberta Glass-played by Rosanna Arquette-suffering a bout of amnesia for much of the film before coming back to her senses, in the end, implied the hope of Seidelman that outraged audiences and film artists would also come back to their film loving senses in time after going through an angry bout of TZ disaster blues.  However, given that Roberta also abandoned her dull, square, money obsessed and implicitly Stinkious linked husband Gary Glass-played by Mark Blum-for the handsome, sexy, Pare resembling and film art for film art’s sake lovin’ Dez-played by Aidan Quinn-by the end of the film and headed off in a new direction, Seidelman also implied her hope that film artists would not go back to being obsessed with fortune and glory as they were before the TZ disaster and would also head off into a better film art and human life affirming direction. 

 

Indeed, the sight and sound of the implicitly Lynch linked Richard Nolan-played by Will Patton-being outed as the Nefertiti Earrings thief and arrested, in the end, evoked the spanking Lynch received from audiences due to the lack of the success of DUNE, reaffirming that Seidelman hoped that film artists would stop lusting after fortune and glory.  Seidelman also implied her hope that indie film artists in general and indie female film artists in particular would have a larger role in the new post-TZ disaster cinematic order, given that Susan-played by Madonna-the implicit embodiment of indie female artists in general and indie female film-and music-artists in particular, and her lover Jim-perhaps linked to Cameron, and played by Robert Joy-were also united and watching the allegorical John Ainsworth film PATTERN FOR PLUNDER AKA THE BAY OF ST. MICHEL (1963) in Dez’s indie cinema on Bleeker Street, in the end.  Indeed, the sight and sound of Carlisle back in a cameo as Dez’s ex-girlfriend Victoria, with a tall blonde boyfriend-played by Timothy Carhart-who resembled Cameron even more than Jim, openly linked the film to indomitably indie film art like LIQUID SKY.

 

For his part, George P. Cosmatos implicitly linked Landis to Stallone’s haunted Vietnam War vet John Rambo and allowed him to confront and exorcise his twilit demons by returning to Vietnam, surviving an explosive attack on a heavily guarded village hiding American POWs, piloting the helicopter that brought this group of POWs to safety, and triumphing over Charles Napier’s implicitly Morrow linked Marshall Murdock and Martin Kove’s implicitly Palpaberg linked Ericson at the triumphant and liberating end of the twilit and allegorical indie docufeature film RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART TWO (1985), released on May 22, 1985.  Not surprisingly, given his fondness for Ozian themed films and his current untouchable status, Lord Stinkious acted as an anonymous producer and adviser on the twilit, allegorical and implicitly Cameron bashing Murch docufeature film RETURN TO OZ (1985), which arrived in theatres on June 21, 1985 and which was based on the original illustrations created by W.W. Denslow for The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz rather than on the look of THE WIZARD OF OZ. 

 

Curiously, the film saw the young Dorothy Gale-played by Fairuza Balk-return to Oz and triumph over the Evil and Cameron resembling and implicitly linked Nome King-played by Williamson-and his sometimes accomplice, the Wicked and headhunting Mombi-played by Jean Marsh-who resembled and was implicitly linked to Gale A. Hurd, producer and co-writer of T1.  Fittingly, Dorothy was helped in her quest to defeat the Nome King and Mombi by the Tim Burton anticipating Jack Pumpkinhead-played by Brian Henson and Stewart Larange-very fitting, indeed, given that Burton arrived in theatres later that summer with his first feature film.  Just as curiously, the same day that saw the release of RETURN TO OZ saw the release of the twilit, allegorical and E.T., THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL evoking Howard docufeature film COCOON (1985). 

 

Significantly, the film saw the implicitly Stinkious, Coppola and Palpaberg linked retired seniors Art Selwyn, Ben Luckett and Joe Finley-played by Ameche, Wilford Brimley and Hume Cronyn, respectively-leave Earth with their CGI enhanced extraterrestrial friends, in the end, after accidentally draining the aliens’ cocoons of their life rejuvenating energy, implying that Howard was urging Emperor Palpaberg and Lord Stinkious in particular to leave behind their sly fi films and head off in new directions-or that Howard was implying that the Coppola, Palpaberg and Stinkious era was just plain over and that they should all stop creating film art.  Alas, not long after the release of COCOON, Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg returned to the Temple Theatre on July 3, 1985 as executive producers of the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and implicitly THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI ACROSS THE EIGHTH DIMENSION addressing Zemeckis filmmercial BACK TO THE FUTURE (1985), a dismal effort filled with product placement that celebrated the power of the love of money so much it was clear that the TZ disaster had not woken up Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg to reality and returned them to the right path. 

 

Significantly, Kennedy, Marshall and Spielberg also used the film to implicitly affirm that they were committed to developing CGI so as to prevent future fatal film set disasters, for this infuriating filmmercial that was as bad as the equally Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg produced GREMLINS ended with a CGI sequence straight out of THE LAST STARFIGHTER.  At any rate, an implicit interest in Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg returned on July 10, seven days after the release of BACK TO THE FUTURE, when Miller teamed up again with Gibson, Spence and co-writer Terry Hayes, costume designer Norma Moriceau, director of photography Dean Semler and art director Graham “Grace” Walker-all from THE ROAD WARRIOR-to implicit roast and toast Kennedy, Marshall, Palpaberg and Stinkious, do their best to bring the hard driving Mad Max Trilogy to a fitting trimax, take on the dread allegorical Zone Wars and reply to SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE in the twilit, allegorical and George Olgivie co-directed indie docufeature film MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME (1985). 

 

“Fighting leads to killing,

and killing gets to warring.”

 

Curiously, the future neo-Western began at sunrise a short time ahead in the deep desert Outback far far away from the hellish highways of MAD MAX and THE ROAD WARRIOR, implying the hopes of Miller and Ogilvie that the film would help lead to the dawning of a daylit new era of film art free of the TZ disaster.  Indeed, the sight and sound of the implicitly Cronenberg and Scarecrow linked “Mad” Max Rockatansky-played again by Gibson-triumphing over the implicitly Kathleen Kennedy and Wicked Witch of the neo-Western linked Auntie Entity-played by Tina Turner-her implicitly Marshall linked head bodyguard Ironbar-played by Angry Anderson-and her two other towering and implicitly Palpaberg and Stinkious linked Castle Soldier bodyguards and her post-apocalyptic and Hollywood cadenced Bartertown with its obsessions with pigshit and the violent and deadly Thunderdome with its implicitly Morrow linked host Doctor Dealgood-his two young game show-style female assistants evoking the two daughters of Morrow, and played by Edwin Hodgeman-and its porcine Underworld ruled over by the television cadenced MasterBlaster-played by Angelo Rossitto and Paul Larsson, respectively-implicitly symbolized the hope of Miller and Ogilvie that Cronenberg would return to the theatres with a film that would triumph over Kennedy, Marshall, Palpaberg and Stinkious and their hypocritical bullshit and the equally violent TZ disaster and bring happiness and harmony back to audiences, film art, film artists and the Temple Theatre.  Indeed, allusions to the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy and to all four episodes of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM implicitly affirmed that the film was coming to grips with Folsey jr., Kennedy, Landis, Marshall, Palpaberg, Stinky and the TZ disaster. 

 

Curiously, Rockatansky also led a group of Lost Boys and Girls out of the Outback and to freedom from the insidious clutches of Auntie Entity and the rest of the denizens of Bartertown, all of which worked to the favour of the film’s twilit backing studio, Warner Brothers, who were desperately trying to reconnect with younger audiences at this time.  Just as curiously, three of these Lost Kids-Savannah Nix, Scrooloose and Mister Skyfish, played by Helen Buday, Rod Zuanic and Mark Spain, respectively-also resembled and were implicitly linked to Kennedy, Palpaberg and Stinkious.  Thus, given that the implicitly younger versions of Kennedy, Palpaberg and Stinkious-and, presumably, somewhere amidst the rest of the Lost Kids, an implicitly younger version of Marshall-successfully escaped from the insidious clutches of the implicitly older versions of Kennedy, Marshall, Palpaberg and Stinkious, Miller and Ogilvie also implied their hope that Kennedy, Marshall, Palpaberg and Stinkious would successfully escape the insidious clutches of their Dark Sides and the TZ disaster and successfully restart their film art careers.  Last but not least, Miller no doubt also used MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME to come to grips with the eerie death of his longtime friend and producer Kennedy in a helicopter crash less than a month after the release of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE.  Significantly, CGI enhancement soon figured prominently when Dante returned to the Temple Theatres on July 12, 1985 with Bottin, Finnell, Goldsmith, Miller and Robert Picardo-who played Eddie the werewolf in THE HUNGER-with the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and TRON evoking docufeature film EXPLORERS (1985). 

 

Fittingly, EXPLORERS began with the implicitly Lord Stinkious linked Ben-played by Ethan Hawke-waking up from a CGI filled and TRON evoking dream that he then worked to turn into reality with the help of the implicitly Dante and Palpaberg linked Wolfgang and Darren-played by River Phoenix and Jason Presson, respectively.  Their quest was helped by the fact that over the course of the film, Darren and Wolfgang slowly began to enter and share Ben’s CGI enhanced dreams at night, allowing the twilit trio to be of one mind about the quest to create CGI enhanced film art.  Of course, this quest to make CGI enhanced dreams a reality openly symbolized the quest of Dante, Palpaberg and Stinkious to make CGI enhanced film art a reality so as to prevent any more TZ disasters happening on film sets. 

 

Indeed, the home made spaceship with its CGI filled computer monitors the trio made and blasted off into space with openly symbolized the hope of all three men that they would take a commanding and leading role in the new era of CGI enhanced film art.  Indeed, this new twilit trio survived the TZ disaster evoking aquatic crash landing of their CGI linked spaceship on its return to Earth, implicitly affirming the hope of Dante that CGI would help Palpaberg, Stinkious and himself survive the fallout over the TZ disaster once film artists had learned to master CGI enhanced film art.  Indeed, while EXPLORERS was not executive produced by Kennedy, Marshall, Palpaberg and Stinkious, the fact that ILM created the CGI for the film implicitly affirmed that Dante and Stinky were equally committed to creating and daylit and TZ disaster free new era of CGI enhanced film art.  And tragicomically predicting the future in more ways than one in another memory of the future, for Picardo’s goofy alien Wak Wak all too presciently presaged a Jar Jar to come in the allegorical film art of Lord Stinkious.

 

For his part, Lord Stinkious was implicitly roasted in the form of the Lord of Darkness-played by Curry-in the sweet and well meant but rejected and twilit and allegorical Sir Scott indie docufeature artbuster LEGEND (1985), released on August 28, 1985.  As for Paul Verhoeven, he allowed Leigh’s Agnes to avenge her father and triumph over the twilit and disastrous year of 1982 with the help of the courageous and determined tenacity of the young, Cameron resembling and implicitly linked, and ironically named, Prince Steven-played by Tom Burlinson-in the end of the twilit and allegorical docufeature film FLESH + BLOOD (1985)-a title that evoked a chilling phrase spoken by Jones while in the zombie trance of Kali just before he readied Scott for human sacrifice in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM-released on August 30, 1985.  A literal triumph over the twilit and disastrous events of 1982, as the film’s leading baddies, Martin and Karsthaus, were played by Hauer and Brion James, linked to the summer of 1982 forever via their roles as Batty and Leon in BLADE RUNNER.  In addition, their associate Summer was played by John D. Johnston, who played the co-pilot in the Miller episode of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE. As for audiences, they were no doubt grimly amused by the sarcastically and bitterly twilit and allegorical Hodges indie docufeature film MORONS FROM OUTER SPACE (1985), when it arrived in the Temple Theatre on September 20, 1985. 

 

For the film was a raucous and riotous implicit roast of Coppola, Landis, Palpaberg and Stinkious in the implicit form of three implicitly Coppola, Palpaberg and Stinkious linked humanoid aliens-played by Mel Smith, Jimmy Nail and Paul Bown, respectively-and their film art in the form of their fittingly blonde, and, hence, implicitly Hollywood linked female humanoid alien companion-played by Joanne Pearce-who crash landed on Earth and were befriended by the befuddled and implicitly Landis linked human Graham-played by Griff Rhys-Jones-a grimly amusing roast that reaffirmed that the Skyrocking Lord Stinkious error was over.  Indeed, the film’s allusions to ALIEN, the Classic Trilogy, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS and TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE affirmed that the film was roasting and bringing to a merciful end the 1977-83 era.  Significantly, the release on the same day, and the subsequent failure of, the twilit, allegorical and Coppola and Stinkious executive produced Paul Schrader indie docufeature film MISHIMA: A LIFE IN FOUR CHAPTERS (1985), perhaps due to its ambiguous allegorical intent, also signalled that the Lord Stinkious era was over. 

 

“Can art and action still be united?”

 

For at times the four chapter film appeared to link Japanese writer Mishima Yukio-played by Yuki Nagahara as a young boy, Masato Aizawa as an older boy, Go Riju as a teen and Ken Ogata as an adult, respectively-and his madcap and doomed plot to lead a coup that would re-establish the high minded Emperor as the head of Japan to an allegorical roast of Kubrick and his dedication to the equally high minded artbuster, complete with allusions to A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, DR. STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB, LOLITA, PATHS TO GLORY and THE RIGHT STUFF to support that allegorical intent.  However, Mishima’s devotion to the Emperor and the allusions to THX 1138 in Chapter One: beauty, AMERICAN GRAFFITI in Chapter Two: art and STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE in Chapter Three: action also linked Mishima to Lord Stinkious.  This implied that Lord Stinkious was bitterly roasting himself and linking Mishima’s failure to inspire the Japanese military to rise up and join him in his attempt to re-instate the Emperor in a coup d’etat and his subsequent seppuko, in the end, to the failure of Lord Stinkious to also ignite the masses with STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI and his subsequent fall from grace. 

 

Indeed, Mishima committed ritual samurai suicide on November 25, 1970, a date which evoked November 19, 1970, the Black Thursday when Warners cancelled their five picture deal with American Zoetrope and demanded their development money back after seeing THX 1138, affirming the implicit link of Lord Stinkious to Mishima.  This ambiguity no doubt explained why MISHIMA: A LIFE IN FOUR CHAPTERS did not find an audience.  For while a Lord Stinkious bashing film was in tune with the tenor of the times, a Kubrick bashing film was not, given that Kubrick was not linked to the TZ disaster or its main progenitors in any way and was in a position to return with another astounding artbuster film that would cleanse the universe and bring harmony back to the Temple Theatre. 

 

Curiously, and either to restore the reputation of the TWILIGHT ZONE or to take advantage of the publicity caused by the disaster or both, a second TWILIGHT ZONE telefilm series debuted at 8 pm on September 27, 1985 with the twilit and allegorical Wes Craven telefilm “Shatterday” (1985) inspired by the allegorical Harlan Ellison short story “Shatterday” (1975), a revamped series as sad, limp, lost, confused and forgettable as most of the films that year.  However, despite having little impact, the new TWILIGHT ZONE series did make it doubly fitting that Bradbury returned to bookstores and libraries in October of ’85 to implicitly address the fall of the Skyrocker in his twilit and allegorical novel Death Is A Lonely Business (1985), given that he was a lifelong and exuberant denizen of October Country and that he wrote “I Sing The Body Electric” for the third season of the original TWILIGHT ZONE telefilm series. 

 

“Stay away from films. 

They’ll screw you.”

 

Indeed, the novel’s sincere and sad novel length lament for the twilit fall of film art, its setting in Venice and Los Angeles, the sight and sound of the implicitly Bradbury linked young writer trying to track down a serial killer like a young Sherlock Holmes, and the implicit link of Stinkious to the Evil and ILM cadenced A.L. Shrank, the serial killer who stank like a Lord Stinkious should, affirmed that Bradbury implicitly addressed Stinkious in the novel and all that had gone wrong since he decided to support Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg after the TZ disaster.  And implicitly tried to exorcise the Stinkious era with the novel, given that Shrank died, in the end, affirming that death was a lonely business, indeed.  With its allusions to AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, CREEPSHOW and the Landis episode of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, Wallace Shawn also implied that he was addressing Landis and the TZ disaster in his twilit and allegorical indie play AUNT DAN AND LEMON (1985), making it implicitly clear that the world of live theatre would also be a part of the dread allegorical Zone Wars. 

 

As for Sandy Wilson, she implied that she agreed with Hodges that the Skyrocking Lord Stinkious era was indeed over when she appeared in the Temple Theatre on November 1, 1985 and had initially naïve and impressed Canadian teen Sandy Wilcox-played by Margaret Langrick-come to her senses and dismissively release her shallow, superficial, Luke Skywalker resembling and implicitly Stinkious linked teenaged American punk cousin Butch Walker-played by John Wildman-at the end of the allegorical and implicitly Stinkious bashing Sandy Wilson film MY AMERICAN COUSIN (1985).  Indeed, the film alluded so often to AMERICAN GRAFFITI-even including lines of dialogue from that film-that MY AMERICAN COUSIN came across as a Canadian remake of AMERICAN GRAFFITI set in the sunny Okanagan of British Columbia-OKANAGAN GRAFFITI-affirming the implicit Stinkious roasting intent of this fine film and a fine film that reaffirmed that the cinematic world was turning and that female film artists were right there with it.  As for Lord Stinkious, he returned to the small screen as executive producer with Davis, Miller and Walker with another telefilm on November 24, 1985 that desperately tried to soothe audiences-particularly young audiences-enraged by the insulting stupidity, poor quality and guilty implications of wrongdoing in CARAVAN OF COURAGE and INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM. 

 

Unfortunately for audiences, this twilit, allegorical, implicitly Lynch and DUNE roasting and Jim and Ken Wheat indie docufeature telefilm THE BATTLE OF ENDOR (1985), was even worse than CARAVAN OF COURAGE, GREMLINS, INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM and STAR WARS VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI.  Indeed, the telefilm was so bad, it was readily apparent why Walker only returned on the condition that his character, Mace, was killed off in an outlaw ambush at the very beginning of the show-wugbug kaka poodoo!  Other than its wretchedness, perhaps its only noteworthy quality was that it was openly linked to Landis by way of Paul Gleason, who played the nefarious Clarence Beeks in TRADING PLACES and now showed up as Mace’s father.  As for Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg, they showed up again as executive producers and teamed up with Catmull on another desperate attempt at twilit cinematic exorcism with the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, implicitly Lynch addressing and Ozian themed Barry Levinson indie docufeature film YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES (1985), a mysterious and murderous allegorical film which arrived in theatres on December 4, 1985 and which fittingly featured a sound effects editor named Gary Wright, presaging the arrival of the Gardevil in another eerie and prescient memory of the future.

 

        Curiously, the film ostensibly followed the adventures of the implicitly Lynch linked Sherlock Holmes-played by Nicholas Rowe-and John Watson-implicitly linked to Dino De Laurentiis, the Italian indie producer who persuaded Lynch to create DUNE, and played by Alan Cox-when they met in their mischievous youth at an all boys boarding school in England.  Here the unusually tall Holmes not only towered over his schoolmate, the dastardly and implicitly Cameron linked Dudley-played by Earl Rhodes-but strove determinedly with Watson and the teen love of Holmes, the implicitly Dorothy linked Elizabeth-implicitly linked to Dino’s daughter, Raffaella De Laurentiis, producer of DUNE, and played by Sophie Ward-to solve the mystery of the murders of a twilit trio of older men who were implicitly linked to British film artists. 

 

Indeed, Patrick Newett’s Mr. Bentley Bobster was implicitly linked to Jones, Reverend Nesbitt-played by Donald Eccles-was implicitly linked to Lean, and Nigel Stock’s exuberantly eccentric inventor and retired teacher Rupert T. Waxflatter was implicitly linked to Sir Attenborough.  Intriguingly, solving the mystery of the three murders led Holmes and Watson to deduce that the three men were murdered by their school’s implicitly Cronenberg and Great Oz linked fencing instructor Mr. Rathe-played by Anthony Higgins-leader of a secret, sinister and subterranean Egyptian cult located underneath the boys school-in another Temple Theatre of Doom that evoked Mola Ram, the Thugees and the Temple Theatre of Doom of INDIANA  JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM-and his implicitly Carol Spier and Wicked Witch of the West linked sister Mrs. Dribb-played by Susan Fleetwood.  Thus, the fact that Holmes and Watson triumphed over Rathe, in the end, implied that Kennedy, Levinson, Marshall and Palpaberg were allowing Lynch to triumph over Cronenberg and THE DEAD ZONE.  Last but not least, the fact that Elizabeth was killed by Rathe before he died, and that Holmes determinedly carried on with his life despite losing her, implied the prescient hope of Kennedy, Levinson, Marshall and Palpaberg that Lynch would continue on despite the failure of DUNE.  Indeed, the presence of Freddie Jones as Chester Cragwitch affirmed the film’s implicit interest in Lynch, reminding us that he played loyal House Atreides Mentat, Thufir Hawat, in DUNE, and the nasty and loot lusting Bytes in the allegorical and implicitly Cronenberg and Sir Scott addressing Lynch indie moving painting THE ELEPHANT MAN (1980).

 

Significantly, a fearsome CGI knight composed of frames from a stained glass window that Reverend Nesbitt saw in an hallucinogenic vision that led to his death reaffirmed that Kennedy, Levinson, Marshall and Palpaberg were just as committed to developing and using CGI to solve the TZ disaster as Lucas.  In fact, the CGI knight was provided by the nascent Pixar Computer division of ILM commanded by the canny Catmull, underlining that Kennedy, Levinson, Marshall, Palpaberg and Stinkious were all in agreement about using CGI to enhance film art and exorcise Landis and the TZ disaster.  Making it grimly fitting that two days after the release of YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES, Landis returned to theatres on December 6, 1985 with Akroyd, Allingham, Bernstein, Campbell, Folsey jr., Nadoolman, Oz, Paynter, James Daughton-who played Omega House prick Greg Marmalard in ANIMAL HOUSE-and B.B. King-who contributed to the soundtrack for INTO THE NIGHT-and implicitly reached out to Marshall and Palpaberg in the twilit and allegorical docufeature film SPIES LIKE US (1985), which was kind of a light hearted fusion of DR. STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB and WAR GAMES.

 

Indeed, Landis implicitly linked Palpaberg and Marshall to Austin Millbarge and Emmett Fitz-Hume-played by Akroyd and Chevy Chase, respectively-two bumbling but lovable American spies who initially seemed doomed to failure and death in their top secret mission to find and disable a doomsday missile in the Soviet Union, but struck back in the end to save the day-and the world.  The implication was that Landis was pleased with the support Marshall and Palpaberg had given him in GREMLINS and INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, and was reaching out to give them some allegorical support in turn in SPIES LIKE US.   Indeed, Landis alluded to INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM and THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING in SPIES LIKE US to affirm that implication. 

 

Curiously, Landis also implicitly roasted Cameron and his mentor Corman, for Fitz-Hume and Millbarge were sent on their doomed mission by two senior intelligence operatives back in Washington, the implicitly Cameron linked Mr. Ruby and the implicitly Corman linked Mr. Keyes-played by Bruce Davison and William Prince, respectively.  Not surprisingly, these two duplicitous and callous senior intelligence operatives and their military allies were defeated in the end when Fitz-Hume and Millbarge turned the tables on them and saved the world, evoking Valentine and Winthorpe III’s victory over the equally callous and duplicitous Duke Brothers at the end of TRADING PLACES.  Just as curiously, Folsey jr. and Landis returned to theatres that year on December 13, 1985 for more macabre and murderous mystery as two of the four executive producers of the twilit and allegorical Jonathan Lynn docufeature film CLUE (1985), which was inspired by the murder mystery board game from Parker Brothers, evoked the allegorical William Castle indie docufeature film HOUSE ON THE HAUNTED HILL (1959), had a title that linked the film to the twilit and disastrous year of 1982 via Bridges’ character Clu in TRON and implicitly roasted THE BIG CHILL. 

 

Indeed, the characters in the film resembled and were implicitly linked to the characters in THE BIG CHILL and also gathered in a large, many roomed mansion to discuss first one body-the all too aptly named, Marshall evoking and implicitly Landis linked Mr. Boddy, played by Lee Ving-then a number of bodies as murderous mayhem broke out in the house, implicitly affirming that the Kasdan film was being roasted in CLUE.  Not surprisingly, one of the film’s three endings had the Meg evoking and implicitly Brian Linehan linked Mrs. Peacock-played by Eileen Brennan-outed as the murderer by the intrepid, Harold evoking and implicitly Marshall linked buttling butler Wadsworth-played by Tim Curry.  Significantly, one of the film’s other alternate endings saw each one of the characters-including Mrs. Peacock and the Michael evoking but implicitly Stinkious linked Professor Plum, the Nick evoking Mr. Green, the Sam evoking Colonel Mustard, the Karen evoking and implicitly Kennedy linked Miss Scarlet, and the Chloe evoking Mrs. White-played by Lloyd, Michael McKean, Martin Mull, Lesley Ann Warren and Madeline Kahn, respectively-manipulated by Wadsworth into murdering someone else in the mansion they had been blackmailed into visiting, implying that Folsey jr., Landis and Lynn believed that Folsey jr. and Landis were not the only two guilty parties in the TZ disaster.  As for Emperor Palpaberg, CGI enhancement was noticeably absent when he teamed up again with Kahn, Kennedy and Marshall and returned to theatres just in time for Christmas on December 18, 1985 with the second film in the three film deal that he had with Warners, the twilit, allegorical and Ozian themed docufeature film THE COLOR PURPLE (1985), which was inspired by the twilit and allegorical Alice Walker novel The Color Purple (1982), and, which, not surprisingly, was implicitly used by Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg to frantically reach out to and soothe audiences outraged by BACK TO THE FUTURE, GREMLINS and INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM on top of the TZ disaster. 

 

Curiously, Palpaberg also used the film mostly set in rural Georgia in the early twentieth century to implicitly reach out to Landis, as the sight and sound of the implicitly Landis and Scarecrow linked Mister Albert Johnson-played by Danny Glover-slowly releasing his amourous obsession with the implicitly Wicked Witch of the West linked “jook joint” singer Shug Avery-played by Margaret Avery-and finally appreciating, loving and helping his long suffering and implicitly Dorothy linked wife Celie-played as a girl by Desreta Jackson, and as an adult by Whoopie Goldberg-and reuniting her with her lost Munchkin children Adam and Olivia-played as babies by Jadili Johnson and Daphaine Oliver, respectively, and then as young adults by Peto Kinsaka and Lelo Masamba, respectively-her first children fathered by her father-played by Leonard Jackson-in the end, implied the hope of Emperor Palpaberg that the TZ disaster had woke up Landis and caused him to lose his obsession with fortune and glory and that he would redeem the deaths of Chen and Le and himself with sincere and high quality allegorical film art.  Indeed, the fact that the film’s musical interludes evoked those in THE BLUES BROTHERS, that the southern location evoked the KKK parts of the Landis episode of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE and that the film alluded to TRADING PLACES affirmed the implicit Landis addressing intent of the film-how bleakly fitting that the film was inspired by a novel published in 1982.

 

A grimly ironic implication, indeed, given that the implicitly and shamelessly back to the beastly and blockbuster filmmercial profits spirit of BACK TO THE FUTURE earlier that year had implicitly affirmed that the TZ disaster had not woke Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg up to bigger things or caused them to give up on their madcap lust for fortune and glory or inspired the twisted trio to redeem Chen, Le, Morrow and themselves with sincere and high quality allegorical film art.  In addition, the sight and sound of Adam and Olivia returning from the Twilight Zone of Africa at the end of the film implicitly affirmed that Emperor Palpaberg was using THE COLOR PURPLE to again frantically redirect reality and have another symbolic Chen and Le pair return from the dead and alive as with the liberated slave boys and girls at the end of INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM.  Unfortunately, and strangely, despite the fact that only a year had passed since the outrage over GREMLINS and INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, which, combined with the TZ, should have caused outraged audiences to drop Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg, puzzlingly foolish and fickle audiences actually accepted this equally infuriating offering, implying that they were in fact welcoming Palpaberg back to their resigned embrace.

 

        Significantly, Petersen closed off the year on December 20, 1985 by affirming that CGI enhancement of film art to prevent fatal film set disasters was indeed on track and even anticipated where that CGI enhancement would lead in the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced docufeature film ENEMY MINE (1985), for the CGI space battles and Bilateral Terran Alliance space fighters returned in the Naboo space fighters and the climatic space battle in STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE.  As for Pollack, he implicitly agreed with Wilson, for on December 20, 1985 he closed out the film year by implying that the rise and fall of wealthy and philandering Danish coffee plantation owner Baron Bror Blixen-played by Klaus M. Brandauer-and indie elephant hunter and tusk trader Denys Finch Hatton-played by Redford-and the independent and free thinking Danish woman they both loved, Karen Dinesen aka Baroness Blixen-played by Meryl Streep-in British Empire dominated Great War era Kenya symbolized the rise and fall of Coppola and Lucas and the indie film art they both loved to create from 1972 to 1984 in the twilit and allegorical docufeature film OUT OF AFRICA (1985), inspired by the allegorical Isak Dinesen memoir Out Of Africa (1937).  Indeed, the sight and sound of Finch Hatton flying around in a bi-plane and dying, in the end, in a fiery bi-plane crash affirmed his implicit link to the Skyrocking Lucas and his own fiery demise.  Curiously, the same day that saw the release of OUT OF AFRICA also saw the arrival in the Temple Theatre of the twilit and allegorical Kurosawa indie docufeature artbuster RAN (1985).

 

“I am lost…”

 

 

Significantly, Kurosawa implicitly warned the furiously battling film artists of the dread Zone Wars that if they did not watch out and come to their senses, they could all die in the brutal struggle.  All die like the three bitterly quarrelling Ichimonji brothers Saburo, Jiro and Taro-played by Rya Daisake, Jinpachi Nezu and Akira Terao, respectively-a twilit trio of royal sons implicitly linked to Cameron, Palpaberg and Lord Stinkious who died in the brutal battles they waged against each other to become head of the Ichimonji family after their implicitly Morrow linked father Hidetora-played by Tatsuya Nakadai-stepped down and appointed Taro the new Lord.  RAN also allowed Kurosawa to complete his Marksman Trilogy, which began with Dersu Uzala, the Kurosawa linked indigenous sharpshooter with his trusty hunting rifle, peaked with the lone and baby faced military sniper of KAGEMUSHA who mortally wounded Lord Shingen, and ended with the anonymous military snipers who killed Saburo and Taro on the bloody Zone War battlefields of RAN. 

 

And so one of the most dismal years for film art finally, and mercifully, ended.  Curiously, 1986 initially seemed like it was going to be a much better year for film art.  For it was kicked off with a bang on February 21, 1986 with one of the finest suspense thrillers ever made in the form of the twilit and allegorical Robert Harmon docufeature film THE HITCHER (1986), which implied the conviction of Harmon that Lord Stinkious had not just embraced his Dark Side by working with Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg after the TZ disaster but killed himself and his film art, like the implicitly Stinkious and his film art linked Jim Halsey and Nash-played by Howell and Leigh, respectively-were killed spiritually in Halsey’s case and physically in Nash’s case after Halsey made the mistake of giving a ride to psycho hitchhiker John Ryder-implicitly linked to the Dark Side of Stinkious and, thus, fittingly played by Hauer, given that Hauer had been implicitly linked on one level to the Dark Side of Stinkious in BLADE RUNNER.  Indeed, the film’s allusions to AMERICAN GRAFFITI, DUEL and STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE affirmed the implicit Lord Stinkious addressing intent of THE HITCHER.

 

Alas, after that great beginning, 1986 went on to be an even worse year for film art than 1985.  Indeed, only the fact that Cameron succeeded in ingratiating himself with righteously furious young audiences when he reappeared in the Temple Theatre with the equally righteously furious, twilit, allegorical and implicitly Dante and GREMLINS roasting indie docufeature Zonebuster ALIENS (1986); the fact that Cronenberg reaffirmed his successful rapport with audiences with the twilit and implicitly Palpaberg roasting indie docufeature film THE FLY (1986); the fact that Lynch succeeded in reassuring audiences that he was back on track with the twilit, allegorical and implicitly Burton roasting indie moving painting BLUE VELVET (1986); the fact that the storied crew of the Enterprise returned to reply to BACK TO THE FUTURE and THE TERMINATOR with their own time travelling triumph of the natural world over the callous and CGI enhanced blockbuster machine in the form of two Chen and Le evoking and endangered humpback whales saved from callous whalers in ’86 and whisked into the future to save Earth in turn from CGI enhanced alien invaders at the end of the twilit, allegorical and ironically CGI enhanced Nimoy docufeature film STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME (1986); and the fact that Coppola implied that he had given up on taking over Old Hollywood or running his own studio and had decided to stick to his own indie docufeature film art path like Rush had implicitly urged him to do in GETTING STRAIGHT when returned with Sofia, Cage, Nalbandian and Tavoularis to implicitly and principally respond to MY AMERICAN COUSIN and T1 and implicitly roast and toast Cameron in the implicit form of the implicitly Scarecrow linked Charles “Charlie” Bodell-played by Cage-and Lucas in the implicit form of the implicitly Tin Man linked Richard Norvik-played by Barry Miller-and continue to reassure audiences that he was still a master of film art in the twilit, allegorical, CGI free and Ozian themed indie docufeature film PEGGY SUE GET MARRIED (1986); and the fact that newcomer Peter Faiman implicitly toasted Cameron in the form of Mick “Crocodile” Dundee-played by Paul Hogan-and implicitly roasted Dante, Landis and Spielberg in the forms of condescending New Yorker Richard Mason, kangaroo poacher Burt, and an irritating pimp-played by Mark Blum, David Bracks, and John Snyder, respectively-in the twilit and allegorical indie docufeature film CROCODILE DUNDEE [1986], made the year cinematically noteworthy. 

 

All too infuriatingly fittingly, and as if to affirm his agreement with the implicit message of THE HITCHER, the two “films” on which Lord Stinkious acted as executive producer-teaming up again with Oz and Scott on the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed and implicitly Jordan and THE COMPANY OF WOLVES roasting Henson indie film LABYRINTH (1986), an ironic collaboration given that Henson implicitly roasted Stinkious in the implicit form of the life Force sucking Emperor Skeksis in THE DARK CRYSTAL, and teaming up again with AMERICAN GRAFFITI co-screenwriters Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz on the twilit and allegorical Huyck indie docufeature film HOWARD THE DUCK (1986), which was based on an implicitly Robert Crumb linked character created by Stalwart Steve Gerber and Genial Gene Colan for Marvel Comics and which implicitly roasted Cameron in the implicit form of the Evil extraterrestrial Overlord inhabited Doctor Walter Jenning (played by Jeffrey Jones) and Landis in the implicit form of the fowlorn and acerbic extraterrestrial Howard the Duck (variously played by Peter Baird, Ed Gale, Jordan Prentice, Tim Rose, Steve Sleap, Lisa Sturz, Mary Wells and Chip Zien, respectively)-did too much to ensure that 1986 was a horrific year for film art, as both “films” were indeed a nightmare beyond imagination.  A nightmare continued by King that year, for he implicitly addressed the TZ disaster and his own demons in the twilit and allegorical indie docufiction novel It (September 1986).

 

Significantly, while mostly a dismal year for film art, 1986 did bring an unexpected reaffirmation that the brave new world of allegorical and CGI enhanced film art would one day reach fruition with a feature film when Lasseter donned the writer/production designer/animator/co-producer/writer hats and teamed up again with Blanc on the twilit and allegorical all CGI indie short film LUXO JR. (1986), a Pixar film released on August 17, 1986 that saw a bigger and implicitly older desk lamp play with a rubber ball rolled toward it by a smaller and implicitly younger desk lamp and then watch with dismay as the exuberant younger desk lamp leapt on top of the ball and flattened it, and then bounced on top of the desk in pursuit of another and larger ball all to a jazzy instrumental tune, perhaps Lasseter’s tragicomic way of saying that the equally young and exuberant new world of all CGI film art led by Pixar would do its thing regardless of what the older world of hand animated film art led by Disney thought of anything.

 

 

At any rate, Landis returned with Allingham, Bernstein, Campbell, Chase, Folsey jr., Nadoolman and Kai Wulff-who played a German officer in the Landis episode of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE-to theatres on December 12, 1986 with the twilit, allegorical and implicitly Stinkious roasting docufeature film THREE AMIGOS (1986), almost ending the year on a truly bleak and horrific note.  Indeed, most audiences no doubt hoped that Landis would disappear like the tormented and implicitly Landis linked Phantom-played by Michael Crawford-at the end of Andrew L. Webber’s twilit and allegorical pop opera THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1986), which fittingly staged its first show in London on October 9, 1986, only weeks before creepy Hallowe’en.  However, luckily for film art lovers, a week after the release of THREE AMIGOS, Oliver Stone and a fine and mostly young company redeemed and ended the film year on December 19, 1986 with the same bang with which it began with the twilit and allegorical indie docufeature film PLATOON (1986). 

 

“She’s a fucking human being, man!

!Fuck you!”

 

Significantly, the fine and moving film saw the Vietnam War vet implicitly link the battling Zone War film artists of New Hollywood to a group of American soldiers of Bravo Company of the 25^th Infantry battling their way through a tour of duty in Vietnam in September of ‘67.  As most of these implicitly New Hollywood linked soldiers were killed over the course of PLATOON-particularly in the final battle with the implicitly X gang linked Vietcong-Stone implied that the TZ disaster had not just killed the reputation of Folsey jr., Kennedy, Landis and Marshall, but had also effectively ended the New Hollywood era.  As the implicitly Palpaberg linked Captain Harris-played by Dale Dye-oversaw the deadly fiasco that killed most of Bravo Company, Stone also implied that it was Emperor Palpaberg, as head of the production of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, who ultimately had full responsibility for the creation of the film, the TZ disaster and the end of the New Hollywood era, not Landis.  At any rate, as Charlie Sheen’s greenhorn Private Chris Taylor put it, in some of the most memorable lines of the entire dread allegorical Zone Wars “…I think that, looking back, we did not fight the enemy, we fought ourselves.  And the enemy was in us…those of us who did make it, have an obligation to build again, to teach to others what we know and to try with what’s left of our lives to find a goodness and meaning to this life.”  Clearly, audiences and the august Academy agreed, given the popularity of PLATOON and the four Oscars won by the film. 

 

Alas, 1987 was not only just as bad as 1986, it was even worse for film art.  For the long awaited TZ trial that had finally begun on September 3rd of ’86 had quickly gone south.  Indeed, Schuman, the production secretary of the Landis episode of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE and the first witness of chief prosecutor and deputy District Attorney Lea P. D’Agostino and chief LAPD investigator Sergeant Tom Budds provided well meant but unknowingly false testimony concerning incriminating statements that she thought she had heard Folsey and Landis make in the days before the TZ disaster on the witness stand on the first day of the trial.  This unknowingly false testimony threw the TZ trial into confusion, baffled the jury, had D’Agostino on the witness stand the third day to defend herself against charges of perjury, and sunk the case for the prosecution by the end of the first week-if not on the very first day-as jurors were uncertain if witnesses were telling the truth (Labrecque, 135-55). 

 

Thus, it was not too surprising that Landis and his four co-defendants were eventually found not guilty of manslaughter at the end of the tragicomic TZ trial on May 29, 1987.  Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, this infuriating and disappointing verdict sent a message to the blockbuster loot lusting studios and the most crassly commercial and loot lusting film artists that it was now time to return to the big budget, special and visual effects and product placement filled filmmercials and their movie tie-in merchandise campaigns that had been mostly put on hold since 1983 and the furious rejection of STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI and its avalanche of movie tie-in merchandise-despite the fact that a helicopter crash on the Phillipines set of the twilit and allegorical Aaron Norris docufeature film BRADDOCK: MISSING IN ACTION III (1987) killed four and injured five cast and crew members that year in a grim and deadly reminder that film sets were as dangerous as ever.  Significantly, Kubrick implicitly anticipated both the not guilty verdict in the TZ trial and the madcap back to the profit mania that swept Hollywood after the trial was over when he returned to the Temple Theatre on June 26, 1987 with the twilit and allegorical indie docufeature artbuster FULL METAL JACKET (1987). 

 

For after implicitly blasting Kurosawa for implicitly roasting him in KAGEMUSHA in the first half of the film, it was noticeable that most of the film’s implicitly New Hollywood film artist linked American soldiers-including Matthew Modine’s implicitly Landis linked Joker-not only survived their tour of duty in Vietnam in the second half of FULL METAL JACKET, but were last seen singing the Mickey Mouse Club theme as they marched through the darkness after symbolically breaking free from the TZ disaster by killing a Vietnamese girl sniper-played by Ngoc Le.  It was a macabre sight and sound that implied that Kubrick thought that the TZ trial would come to nothing, and then the film artists of New Hollywood would simply return to big beastly blockbuster filmmercials advertising movie tie-in merchandise without a guilty look backwards. 

 

Like lambs to the slaughter Cox implicitly jeered, for with Farben Oil moving in to take over an implicitly Hollywood linked Western town after its implicitly Zone War film artist linked outlaws killed each other in the closing shootout that ended all bloody good Westerns-particularly Spaghetti ones-Cox implicitly warned film artists at the end of his mordant twilit and allegorical indie docufeature film STRAIGHT TO HELL (1987), released on the same day as FULL METAL JACKET, that if they did not watch out, they would destroy themselves fighting the Zone Wars and the only ones who would benefit would be the energy companies that owned the studios, who would continue making money with a fresh batch of eager beaver film artists straight out of film school eager to make the latest version of Hollywood in an echo of the all too knowing and bitter assessment Pollack implicitly made about Hollywood film art in THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON’T THEY?

 

As for Dante, he teamed up again with Finnell, Goldsmith, Kennedy, Marshall, McCarthy, Miller, Palpaberg, Picardo and Tobey to support CGI enhanced film art again and implicitly hope that Landis and Palapberg would overcome their differences and work together again given that the implicitly Palpaberg and Landis linked Tuck Pendelton and Jack Putter-played by Quaid and Martin Short, respectively-put aside their differences to triumph over the Evil Victor Scrimshaw and the Cowboy-played by McCarthy and Picardo, respectively-at the end of the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced docufeature film INNER SPACE (1987), released on July 1, 1987.  Not surprisingly, however, as 1987 was the tenth anniversary year of the release of STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE, some film artists chose to roast Lord Stinkious that year. 

 

Indeed, on August 7, 1987, Gary Goddard implied his hope that the Lord Stinkious era was over and that the success of ALIENS affirmed that Cameron was the new healing and haromonizing power of the cinematic universe by having the implicitly Cameron linked and Dar evoking He-Man-played by Dolph Lundgren-triumph over the implicitly Stinkious linked Wicked Skeletor-played by Frank Langella-at the end of the exuberantly awful twilit, allegorical and Ozian themed filmmercial MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE (1987).  Thus, it was fitting that He-Man received helpful support to achieve the Power! from the Margaret Atwood resembling and implicitly linked Glinda the Good figure of the piece, the Sorceress-played by Christina Pickles-for she affirmed the implicit link of He-Man to an Ontario born and bred film artist.  How also fitting that August of ’87 saw and heard the release of the twilit, allegorical and Paul Kamanski written Beat Farmers tune “Hollywood Hills” (1987) from the equally allegorical recording THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS, for the tune was, along with “Veteran Of The Psychic Wars”, one of the greatest theme songs of the dread allegorical Zone Wars.

 

Significantly, Bertolucci also implicitly agreed with Goddard that year that the Skyrocking Lord Stinkious era was over by implicitly linking Stinky to the deposed last Emperor of China Pu Yi-played by Richard Vuu as a babe, Tijger Tsou as a boy, Wu Tao as a teen and John Lone as a man, respectively-in his twilit and allegorical indie docufeature film THE LAST EMPEROR (1987), released on November 18, 1987.  Indeed, the presence of Ric Young as the relentless interrogator who questioned Pu Yi after the Communists took over China affirmed the implicit Lord Stinkious addressing intent of the film, for Young had a small role as Kao Kan, one of the sons of Lao Che, in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM.  For his part, Cox also implicitly agreed with Bertolucci and Goddard that the Lucas era was over by implicitly linking the rise and fall of Lord Stinkious to the rise and fall of the earnest but naïve, foolish and implicitly Stinkious linked Colonel William Walker-played by Ed Harris-and his failure to establish and maintain a Skywalker Ranch evoking puppet American Republic in mid-nineteenth century Nicaragua in his second twilit and allegorical indie docufeature film that year WALKER (1987), released on December 4, 1987. 

 

However, not all film artists implicitly roasted Lord Stinkious that year, for Coppola implicitly toasted Lucas and reaffirmed that he was now committed solely to an indie docufeature film art path when he teamed up with Carmine, Caan, Fishburne, Malkin, McKee, Roos and Tavoularis on the twilit and allegorical indie docufeature film GARDENS OF STONE (1987), released on May 8, 1987 and inspired by the allegorical Nicholas Proffitt novel Gardens Of Stone (1983).

 

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

 

For the two bitter and cynical U.S. Army veterans Sergeant Clell Hazard and Sergeant-Major “Goody” Nelson-played by Caan and Jones, respectively-who evoked the equally cynical and seasoned Madden and his partner Frenchy DeMange-played by Fred Gwynne-in THE COTTON CLUB and who sadly watched the futile Vietnam War kill and bury one idealistic soldier after another like 2^nd Lieutenant Jack “Dildo” Willow-played by D.B. Sweeney-in their capacity as members of the 3^rd U.S. Infantry Old Guard burial detail at Arlington National Cemetery implicitly symbolized old guard New Hollywood film artist veterans Stinkious and Coppola watching the dread allegorical Zone War destroy idealistic younger film artists like Lynch.  Indeed, the film’s allusions to BLUE VELVET, DUNE and PEE WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE, and the presence of Dean Stockwell as the implicitly De Laurentiis linked Captain Homer Thomas affirmed the film’s implicit interest in Lynch as Stockwell played the infamous traitor Doctor Wellington Yueh in DUNE and the implicitly Godard linked, drug dealin’ and lip synchin’ Ben in BLUE VELVET.

 

For his part, in the triumph of the revived and implicitly Stinkious linked and Vader evoking Detroit Police Officer Alex J. “Robocop” Murphy-played by Weller-over the implicitly Palpaberg linked violent gang leader Clarence Boddiker-played by Kurtwood Smith-and his equally violent gang and their Evil corporate overseer, Omni Consumer Products (OCP) executive Richard “Dick” Jones-played by Cox-Verhoeven implicitly hoped that Stinky would revive his career and restore his reputation with a cinematic triumph over Palpy and his corporate overseer, Warner Brothers CEO Steve Ross, in the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced film ROBOCOP (1987), a film released on July 17^th, 1987 whose implicit allegorical intent was affirmed by the film’s allusions to BLUE THUNDER, the STAR WARS Classic Trilogy and THX 1138.  The return of Allen from CARRIE and BLOW OUT as Murphy/Robocop’s partner Officer Anne Lewis; the return of Mario Machado, who played a tv news anchor under his own name in BLUE THUNDER, as tv news anchor Casey Wong; and the return of Daniel O’ Herlihy, who played Rogan’s co-pilot Grig in THE LAST STARFIGHTER, as the OCP CEO known only as the Old Man, a fitting appellation given that ROBOCOP was a Western tinged sly fi experience like the Classic Trilogy, also affirmed the implicit Lucas toasting intent of the film.

 

However, the most important film of the summer of ’87 reaffrimed that the brave new world of allegorical and all CGI film art would one day be a reality when Lasseter donned the writer/co-production designer/animator/director hats and teamed up again with Blanc, and editor Craig Good and sound designer Gary Rydstrom-both from LUXO JR.-on the twilit and allegorical all CGI indie short film RED’S DREAM (1987), a film released on July 6, 1987 with a noir atmosphere and wistful saxophone score that saw a unicycle languishing all alone in a dusty clearance corner of Eben’s Bikes shoppe dream wistfully of besting Lumpy the clown-played by Blanc-in a juggling routine to achieve circus glory, perhaps Lasseter’s way of wistfully hoping that all CGI animated film art would best hand animated film art to achieve glory in the Temple Theatre.

 

As for Bigelow, on September 12^th, 1987 she fearlessly allowed the naïve and implicitly Stinkious linked farm boy Caleb Colton-played by Adrian Pasdar-and his sweetie Mae-played by the ironically surnamed Jenny Wright-to escape from a twilit quartet of violent vampires implicitly linked to Dante, Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg and so avoid being trapped in the twilit near dark…forever at the end of the twilit and allegorical indie docufeature film NEAR DARK (1987) in the implicit hope that Lord Stinkious would do the same and, once free of his Dark Side, perhaps return to making healing, harmonizing and CGI enhanced allegorical indie docufeature film art.  Last but not least, just before Christmas on December 16, 1987, Garry Marshall also implicitly toasted Stinky and tragicomically signalled his new hope that it was indeed back to the filmmercial future now that the TZ trial was over in the twilit and allegorical docufeature film OVERBOARD (1987).

 

For the tragicomic sight and sound of Goldie Hawn’s plutocratic Joanna returning to a blissful life of wealth and shopping after briefly turning away from the good consumerist path when an unexpected fall led to a brief spell of insomnia implied the hope of Marshall that audiences would return to buying up lots of movie tie-in merchandise.  A return to openly and shamelessly blockbuster loot lusting daze that Marshall implicitly hoped would include a profitable Lord Stinkious, for Russell’s mischievous Dean Proffitt-the Crocodile Dundee evoking rascal who had taken gleeful advantage of Joanna’s amnesia to convince her that she was his poor wife and not a married plutocrat-was implicitly linked to Lord Stinkious throughout the film.  Indeed, even after her memory returned, Joanna still preferred the proffittable Dean, making it implicitly clear how hopeful Marshall was that Stinkious would also stop stinking up cinemas and return to making and releasing profitable allegorical film art.  Making it somehow grimly fitting that Emperor Palpaberg, one of the most beastly blockbuster loot lusting film artists of all time, also returned on December 25^th to end the film year and implicitly address Cameron with the help of Kahn, Kennedy, Marshall-now also second unit director as well as a co-producer-Reynolds and Williams in his last film in the three film deal with Warners, the twilit, allegorical and 1941 evoking docufeature film EMPIRE OF THE SUN (1987), inspired by the twilit, allegorical and autobiographical J.G. Ballard novel Empire Of The Sun (1984).

 

Indeed, Cameron was implicitly linked to the naïve, innocent, excitable, technology obsessed and pampered English school boy James “Jamie” Graham, throughout the film, implying that Palpaberg was warning Cameron to not only be prepared to be rudely awakened by the realities of the film art business as Graham was rudely awakened by the Japanese invasion of Shanghai in 1941 but also to be prepared to plummet from the heights of popularity to the depths of dismissed despair when a film was rejected by fickle audiences like Graham fell from the heights of his pampered life as the son of a wealthy British couple-played by Rupert Frazer and Emily Richard, respectively-to the depths of frantically scrabbling to keep alive in the chaos of Japanese held Shanghai and during years of imprisonment in Soochow civilian prisoner of war (POW) camp.  In addition, Palpaberg also implicitly and gently roasted Kurosawa in the form of an equally naïve and innocent Japanese teen-played by Takatoro Kataoka-who lived on the airfield next to the POW camp and who longed to be a kamikaze pilot perhaps for the implicit roasting Kurosawa gave Cameron, Palpaberg and Stinkious in RAN.

 

Ominously, and last but not least, Emperor Palpaberg also implicitly roasted either Dante and Marshall or his insidious self and Marshall in the implicit form of Basie and Frank-played by John Malkovich and Joe Pantoliano, respectively-two callous and Machiavellian American civilian hustlers and wheeler dealers Graham met in Shanghai after being separated from his parents during the Japanese invasion and who ended up in the same civilian POW camp as Graham.  An ominous acquaintance, indeed, for at one point at the Soochow POW camp, Basie had Graham set a number of home-made pheasant traps in a small marsh on one side of the camp to see if the marsh had been mined like their Japanese captors said, or if the Japanese were simply pulling their legs to keep them from fleeing from the camp by way of the marsh.  This led to the infuriating and disturbing sight of Graham making his way through the marsh, which evoked the even more infuriating and disturbing use of Chen, Le and Morrow on the Landis set of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE again.  Indeed, the sight and sound of Basie, Frank and other mostly military American POWs gathered at the window of their dorm watching, betting and cheering on Graham reminded us of the crowd of friends had gathered across the Santa Clarita River on the night of the TZ disaster to watch, cheer on and celebrate the last night of shooting on the Landis set of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, openly linking the potentially fatal use of Graham to the fatal use of Chen, Le and Morrow. 

 

As there was a possibility that Marshall and Palpaberg were implicitly linked to Frank and Basie, there was a possibility that Graham’s infuriatingly dangerous crawl through the marsh under the callous gaze of Basie and Frank implied that Palpaberg as well as Marshall had been amongst the crowd that watched the TZ disaster unfold.  This ominous implication was increased by the fact that Frank was not standing by Basie watching Graham make his fateful crawl through the marsh in Empire Of The Sun, as he was killed by Japanese officers soon after he had been introduced to readers early in the novel.  Only in the film did Frank stand by Basie watching Graham crawl through the marsh, implying that in life Frank stood by Palpaberg on the Landis set of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE on the night of the TZ disaster.  Thus, this infuriating sequence implied that Emperor Palpaberg was confessing to having been on the Landis set of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, to having done nothing to stop Landis and Marshall from using Chen and Le, and to having watched the disaster happen before him…something he had always denied in reality. 

 

Indeed, the fact that the film’s setting in an Asian war also recalled the disastrous Vietnam War village set of the Landis episode of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE implicitly affirmed the possibility that a guilty symbolic confession was being made in EMPIRE OF THE SUN.  The film’s portrayal of life in a Japanese Army run civilian POW camp near Shanghai after the wealthy European Imperialists were rounded up and sent there after the invasion reiterated the link to the Landis episode of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, for it reminded us that Morrow’s Connor was sent to a concentration camp at the end of that episode.  The Soochow Internment Camp and its imprisoned children also evoked the child slave labour camp of the implicitly film crew linked Thugees in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, linking the child prisoners to Chen and Le and implicitly linking the Japanese commandant Sergeant Nagata-played by Masato Ibu-to Landis, and the guards to the twilit and disastrous Landis film crew again.  Three young Japanese kamikaze pilots seen leaving on their last mission on an airfield next door to the camp also affirmed the film’s implicit interest in the TZ disaster, for they evoked Chen, Le and Morrow.  Last but not least, Graham, the film’s poor little English rich lost boy protagonist, recalled not just Cameron but the implicitly Clayton linked lost boy Agee in the Palpaberg episode of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE and the implicitly Landis linked and English accented boy Maharajah Dalim Zingh in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, reaffirming the implicit links of EMPIRE OF THE SUN to Landis and the TZ disaster. 

 

And so Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg dominated the Temple Theatre with EMPIRE OF THE SUN in the first months of 1988, making it a frustratingly and infuriatingly twilit year right from the outset.  An infuriating and frustrating twilight enhanced by the return of Landis who celebrated his victory in the TZ trial and his freedom from incarceration by teaming up again with Ameche, Baker, Bellamy, Campbell, Folsey jr., Murphy, Noodles and Jake Steinfeld-who played Larry in INTO THE NIGHT-with a sweet, gentle and implicit roast of newcomer Spike Lee-who had arrived on the scene two years earlier with his twilit and allegorical indie docufeature film SHE’S GOTTA HAVE IT (1986)-in the symbolic form of Murphy’s naïve, innocent and implicitly Lee linked immigrant waif Prince Akeem of Zamunda-whose name evoked Spike Lee but spelled Meeka backwards, also evoking Myca Le-in the twilit and allegorical docufeature film COMING TO AMERICA (1988), released on June 29, 1988.   

 

Indeed, the fact that while in Queens, New York, Prince Akeem fell in love with and eventually married Lisa-played by Shari Headley-in the end affirmed the implicit Lee addressing intent of the film.  For the happy marriage and the fact that the name of Lisa began with an “L” and ended with an “a” linked her to L.A. in a positive way that implied the belief of Landis that Lee would one day create mainstream, and perhaps even beastly blockbuster, Hollywood film art one day, in contrast to Lee’s implied insistence in SHE’S GOTTA HAVE IT that his film art would be as uncompromisingly indie and free of L.A. as Nola-played by Tracy C. Johns-the “no L.A.” female lead of the first Spike Lee joint.  Significantly, given that COMING TO AMERICA was a popular and critical success, the implication was that audiences wanted to forgive Allingham, Folsey jr., Landis, Stewart and Wingo and leave the TZ disaster behind, an implication that implicitly met with the approval of Besson.  For with a climatic and Fourceful 400 metre dive that led to the triumph of the superhuman and implicitly Landis linked free diver Jacques Mayol-played by Jean-Marc Barr-over his main rival, the implicitly Kubrick linked free diver Enzo Molinaro-played by Reno-in the end, Besson implied his hope that the twilit years were over with the end of the TZ trial in his twilit, allegorical and Ozian themed film THE BIG BLUE (1988), released on August 19, 1988. 

 

Curiously, audiences initially implied that they wanted to forgive Lord Stinkious as well, given the success of the twilit, allegorical, Ozian themed and Stinkious executive produced Howard animaction film WILLOW (1988), released on May 20, 1988, which implicitly roasted the determined but madcap attempts of Cameron, Cox, Gilliam and Robbins to use their film art to save film art from the slathering blockbuster beast with big teeth-and equally slathering and beastly film critics!-to the equally determined and madcap attempt of the brave and implicitly Cameron linked warrior Airk of Bairk-played by Gavin O’Herlihy-the implicitly Cox linked sorceress Raziel-played by Patricia Hayes-the mischievous, female impersonating and implicitly Gilliam linked swordsman Madmartigan-played by Val Kilmer-and the implicitly Robbins linked Nelwyn sorcerer’s apprentice Willow Ufgood-played by Warwick Davis-to rescue the baby princess Elora Danan-played by Kate and Ruth Greenfield, respectively-from the Wicked Queen Bavmorda-played by Marsh-her Evil minions, led by General Kael-played by Roach, who played Hephaestus in CLASH OF THE TITANS-and the slathering two-headed stop-motion blockbuster beast, the Siskebert, an implicit Cameron, Cox, Gilliam and Robbins roasting intent affirmed by the film’s allusions to AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT, DRAGONSLAYER, JABBERWOCKY, KRULL, MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, THE BEASTMASTER and TIME BANDITS. 

 

However, this implication that Stinky was being embraced again by audiences was thrown in doubt by the failure of the other film executive produced by Lord Stinkious that year and released on August 12, 1988, which saw Lucas reward Coppola for the implicit support he showed Stinky in THE OUTSIDERS, THE COTTON CLUB, PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED and GARDENS OF STONE-and the implicit wistful longing for another collaboration with Stinkious expressed in the reunion of the tapdancing Williams brothers in THE COTTON CLUB-by teaming up with Coppola again and with Carmine, Sofia, Beggs, Forrest, Nalbandian, Roos, Storaro, Tavoularis, Milena Canonero-costume designer for THE COTTON CLUB-to implicitly roast Lynch yet again in the twilit and allegorical indie docufeature film TUCKER (1988).

 

“It’s the idea that counts, Abe

…and the dream.”

 

Indeed, Lynch’s failure to succeed with his big budget indie art film moving painting of DUNE, to end the dread allegorical Zone Wars and to kick off a daylit new era of film art was implicitly linked to the equally failed attempt by the charismatic, exuberant, and indomitable DIY indie car maker Preston Thomas Tucker-played by Bridges-to take on the Big Three automakers and kick off an innovative new era of automobiles with the Tucker Torpedo.  Alas for Tucker, the dream was struck down by his association with the perhaps John Waters linked Abe Karatz-a convicted embezzler played by Martin Landau-and prevented from building and selling his dream car of the future-the Tucker Torpedo-by a fraud and Security and Exchange Commission violation case launched by the duplicitous machinations of the Big Three automakers and the US Government.  Indeed, the return of Stockwell as the troubled Howard Hughes and the Vera Cicero evoking Vera Fuqua-played by Joan Allen-who went on to become Mrs. Vera Tucker affirmed the implicit Lynch addressing intent of TUCKER.

 

Significantly, Tucker’s failure to beat the Big Three with the Tucker Torpedo reminded us that the equally charismatic, exuberant, inspirational and irrepressible Mahoney led the implicitly New Hollywood linked young men and women of Rainbow Valley to a triumph over the implicitly Old Hollywood linked southern establishment led by Sen. Rawkins, ruefully affirming that their trying and tumultuous years as film artists had made Coppola and Lucas all too aware how difficult it was to beat the Hollywood studios.  However, despite failing to sell the Tucker Torpedo and the powers arrayed against him at the trial, Tucker won his embezzlement case, and some of his innovations-like disc brakes, padded dashes and seat belts-were adopted after his death and are used to this day.  This implied the hope of Coppola and Stinkious that they would also be triumphant and vindicated in the end, and that some of their cinematic innovations-like CGI, multi-narrative films, pop music soundtracks and THX sound-would also continue after they were gone.  Indeed, the exuberant and full throttle energy of the film and of the irrepressible and indomitable Tucker also combined to imply that despite how audiences were treating him and his film art, Lord Stinkious was equally upbeat about his chances for success with the conclusion of the TZ trial. 

 

In fact, Tucker’s obsessive interest in vintage cars and tinkering with them to make them faster and flashier-and jumpin’ Joe Jackson’s jivin’ soundtrack-also evoked the boss cars of AMERICAN GRAFFITI and the rocket car of THX 1138, implicitly affirming that on one level TUCKER continued the themes of Lord Stinkious.  In addition, Tucker’s closing rant against corporatism in his sham financial misappropriation trial evoked Mishima’s anti-corporate rant at the end of MISHIMA, openly linking Mishima to Tucker and TUCKER to the last Coppola-Stinkious collaboration, reaffirming the implication that Mishima symbolized Lord Stinkious on one level.  Unlike Mishima’s rant, however, Tucker’s rant was successful, implying that Coppola and Stinkious were hopeful that they would leave behind the twilit difficulties of the Eighties and succeed again in the Nineties. 

 

Indeed, Tucker’s rant also evoked a speech in PATTON that saw Patton apologize for slapping a wounded soldier in a hospital and accusing him of cowardice, underlining that Coppola and Lord Stinkious were now eager to get back into the battle together again.  In fact, Coppola and Stinkious reiterated their strengthened ties by supervising the release that year of Godfrey Reggio’s surreal and allegorical cinematic meditation on a world at work, worship and play in the twilit and allegorical indie documentary film POWAQQATSI: LIFE IN TRANSFORMATION (1988).  That same year, a hopeful commitment to struggling through a difficult time and starting over was on display when Kennedy, Marshall, Palpaberg and Stinkious teamed up again to celebrate the end of the TZ trial as executive producers of the twilit and allegorical Don Bluth indie animated film THE LAND BEFORE TIME (1988), released on November 18, 1988. 

 

Significantly, as with WILLOW, this outrageously and ridiculously light and innocent children’s film from two of the people most responsible for the deaths of two children in the TZ disaster tried to win over younger families to the cause of Kennedy, Marshall, Palpaberg and Stinkious.  The four film artists also used THE LAND BEFORE TIME to come to grips with their troubled lives since 1982.  Indeed, the successful efforts of lost boy and girl dinosaurs Littlefoot and Cera-voiced by Gabriel Damon and Candice Houston, respectively-to escape unexpected tyrannosaurus rex attacks and continental cataclysms and reach the safety of the lush and peaceful Great Valley implicitly symbolized the battle the four had fought since 1982 to escape the unexpected TZ disaster and the fury of audiences and critics, to come to grips with seismic shifts in the film art hierarchy with the arrival and success of Besson and Cameron, and to finally reach a safe and peaceful new haven free from the Twilight Zone-as well as pointed the way to CGI enhanced live action dinosaur films from Palpaberg to come. 

 

        Making it fitting that more surprising and unexpectedly pleasing confirmation that the brave new world of allegorical and all CGI feature film art would one day be a reality arrived that year when Lasseter donned the writer/animator/production designer/director hats and teamed up again with Catmull, Good and Rydstrom on the twilit and allegorical all CGI indie short film TIN TOY (1988), a film released on August 2, 1988 that saw an one man toy band frantically try to escape the clueless clutches of an amazingly life-like and hilariously nightmarish blockbuster baby beast that toddled in its diapers after the toy across a living room floor, implying the hope of Lasseter that all CGI film art would ultimately triumph over not just hand animated film art but also live action film art, in the end, an implication conveyed so surprisingly and tragicomically well that TIN TOY received an Oscar for Best Short Film, Animated from the august Academy.

 

Future CGI enhanced films that Kennedy, Marshall and Spielberg implicitly hoped that year would not end hand animated film art, for the triumph of the possibly Coppola linked Edward “Eddie” Valiant-played by Bob Hoskins-over the Evil and implicitly Steve Jobs linked Judge Doom-played by Lloyd-prevented Doom from terminating hand animated Toon Town and all of its familiar hand animated characters like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse at the end of the twilit, allegorical and Kennedy, Marshall and Spielberg produced Zemeckis indie animaction film WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT? (1988), released on June 22, 1988.

 

Intriguingly, the fictional side of the dread Zone Wars also implicitly continued in March of ‘89.  For McCammon implicitly responded in outraged fury to the non-guilty verdict in the TZ trial by sending a Welsh lycanthrope/secret agent to hunt down and kill evil characters in Nazi occupied Western Europe implicitly linked to Landis, Palpaberg and Stinkious when he returned in March with his righteously furious, avenging and epic twilit and allegorical WWII werewolf novel The Wolf’s Hour (1989).  Indeed, McCammon underlined the implicit intent of his novel with allusions to AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, THX 1138 and TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE.  As for Gilliam, he again championed indie film art and implicitly and satirically toasted the triumphant arrival of Cameron in the implicit form of the equally triumphant Baron Munchausen-played by John Neville-implicitly roasted Palpaberg and Landis in the implicit forms of the Right Ordinary Horatio Jackson and the gleefully decapitating Sultan-played by Pryce and Peter Jeffrey, respectively-and welcomed future film artist Sarah Polley, who played the fittingly feisty girl feminist, sweet Sally Salt, in the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and madcap indie animaction film THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN (1989), which arrived in the Temple Theatre on March 10, 1989.

 

Alas, the triumph of Cameron and Gilliam could not stop another helicopter crash on another Phillipines film set, this time of the twilit and allegorical Chuck Norris docufeature film STRANGLEHOLD: DELTA FORCE II (1989), which killed five and injured three cast and crew members on May 16, 1989.  Another fatal helicopter crash on a film set that cast another twilit pall over the world of film art when Armstrong, Burtt, Elliot, Lord Stinkious, Kahn, Kennedy, Marshall, Rhys-Davies, Sheard, Slocombe, Williams and Julian Glover-who played General Veers in STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK-Elliot Scott-production designer of INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM-and Robert Watts-associate producer of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK-returned to the Temple Theatre on May 24, 1989 with the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and Ozian themed Palpaberg indie docufeature film INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989).

 

“Eternal life, Dr. Jones!’

 

Significantly, the film began with the image of a desert mountain that evoked the mountain that kicked off RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and implied the raised spirits of Kennedy, Marshall, Palpaberg and Stinkious since the end of the TZ trial and the success of EMPIRE OF THE SUN and THE COLOR PURPLE.  Then INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE began with another prologue adventure, and one that evoked FINIAN’S RAINBOW like the prologue adventure that kicked off RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.  In a significant departure from tradition, however, this one was set in the childhood of Ford’s Jones, immediately linking the film to EMPIRE OF THE SUN and implying that Palpaberg would revisit and continue themes developed in that film.  This childhood prologue also reiterated that Kennedy, Lord Stinkious, Marshall and Palpaberg were still starting over in the post-TZ disaster years and reaching out to younger families and their children in order to win them over to their cause as in CARAVAN OF COURAGE, EMPIRE OF THE SUN, HOWARD THE DUCK, LABYRINTH, THE BATTLE OF ENDOR, THE LAND BEFORE TIME and WILLOW, as well as pointed the way to the Young Indy telefilm series. 

 

This prologue also explained how Jones received his trademark chin scar, fedora and whip.  For while on a Boy Scout expedition on horseback to classic Ford country in Utah’s Monument Valley in 1912, young Indy-played by Phoenix-discovered an evil Ozian quartet of illicit treasure hunters-led by a Great Oz linked leader in a fedora who looked like Palpaberg and was played by Richard Young-digging away in an underground-and, curiously, Sarlaac Pit evoking-INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM-style mine in a desert cliff cave.  Significantly, the young Jones soon fled the cave with their find, the fabled Cross of Coronado, a gold cross that evoked the gold maternity idol of the South American subterranean Temple Theatre in the prologue adventure of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.  The gold cross also reminded us that THE STUNTMAN was filmed on Coronado Island located in the bay off San Diego, linking this prologue to the last idyllic and successful years prior to the TZ disaster. 

 

After fleeing with the cross, Jones was chased by the feisty treasure hunting quartet onto a Dunn and Duffy pandemonium circus train, linking the quartet and the film to INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM again by way of the mine car chase at the end of that film, while also evoking a similar sequence on Octopussy’s International Circus train at the end of OCTOPUSSY as Palpaberg and Stinkious yet again tried to out-Bond Bond and evoking Mr. Dark’s Pandemonium carnival train in SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES.  This allusion to the Palpaberg linked Mr. Dark and his black top hat reinforced the implication that the fedora leader of the evil Ozian quartet chasing Indy was linked to Palpaberg.  Here a pitched battle between Jones and the Evil Ozian quartet erupted.  Fleeing into one car containing the House of Reptiles, Jones crawled along a gangway over a tank of crocodiles that recalled the crocodiles in the chasm at the end of INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM.  Soon after, Jones fell into a water filled tank in this car.  Suddenly, a huge snake rose between his legs, linking his phallic fear of snakes and women to a fear of film set disasters, critical attacks and financial setbacks.  An escape into another car led to a close encounter with a not too Cowardly circus Lion, another reminder that this was an Ozian themed film. 

 

Luckily, this MGM logo evoking lion was held back from attacking Indy by a whip whose first snap cut his chin, leading to his scary trademark Scarecrow scar.  This scary scar re-established him as the film’s symbolic Scarecrow, and reminded us that INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM was a bloody disaster for Palpaberg and Stinkious.  Escaping into another car, Jones found himself in Dr. Fantasy’s Magic Caboose.  The Professor Marvel-like name of this caboose reminded us that Marshall usually performed magic shows under the name of Dr. Fantasy at the party that concluded each of his films, missing only the one that was not held after the completion of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE.  This reminded us of Dr. Fantasy’s comic shop and Sheriff Frank in GREMLINS and Frank in EMPIRE OF THE SUN, reiterating that Marshall had the support of Palpaberg.  Indeed, the continued supportive allusions to Marshall underlined that Emperor Palpaberg was appreciative of his underling’s refusal to talk about the TZ disaster, and prepared us for a Palpaberg produced and neo-gremilin filled allegorical Marshall film to come.

 

Escaping from the circus train, Jones fled back to the house of his father, Dr. Henry Jones sr., the stern Scotsman with the Welsh surname played by Connery.  This led to a symbolic male rape scene, for the Cross of Coronado was taken from Jones by the local sheriff-played by Marc Miles-and given to the treasure hunting quartet.  Intriguingly, they passed it on to a wealthy American gentleman in a white suit-played by Tim Hiser-who evoked Colby’s Buzz Collins in FINIAN’S RAINBOW and also looked like Rush, reaffirming the implicit link of this prologue adventure to THE STUNTMAN and 1980 and the last good years of film.  It was a significant scene, and one that returned sexual disease to the films of Lord Stinkious and underlined that the Ozian Force had not been with Kennedy, Marshall, Palpaberg and Stinkious since the TZ disaster.  Indeed, the sheriff looked like Baum, confirming that the treasure hunting foursome was an Evil elemental Ozian quartet.  This elemental status also implied that taking away the four armed Cross of Coronado from Jones equated with taking away the Ozian themed and elemental crown of harmony and success from Lord Stinkous after the TZ disaster and the resounding failure of INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM and STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI, implying that Jones symbolized Lucas again as in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM. 

 

Indeed, giving up the cross to the evil Great Oz and Palpaberg lookalike in the fedora reminded us that the career of Lord Stinkious had tanked since he had agreed to work with Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg on INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM after the TZ disaster, while the careers of Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg had inexplicably rebounded after the success of EMPIRE OF THE SUN.  Palpaberg clearly sympathised with Stinkious, for the Palpaberg lookalike gave his fedora to Indy, evoking Basie’s cynical manipulation of Jim in EMPIRE OF THE SUN.  However, as Palpaberg had implicitly admitted to being on the Landis set and watching the TZ disaster unfold at the end of EMPIRE OF THE SUN, it was clearly a twilit and tainted directo fedora, indeed.

 

Curiously, despite all of the good reasons not to get too close to Emperor Palpaberg or to accept any hats from his symbolic personifications, Indiana Stinkious accepted the directo fedora.  Clearly, at this point in his life, Lord Stinkious was so desperate for success he did not care how tainted that success was.  And clearly Lord Stinkious hoped that success on film would occur in reality, for as the twilit fedora was pressed down on Indy’s head by the symbolic Palpaberg, the scene dissolved into a triumphant adult conclusion to the defeated childhood prologue that saw Ford’s Jones defeat the older White Suit-now played by Paul Maxwell-and his henchmen and recover the Cross of Coronado, his virility and his elemental Ozian harmony after a brawl aboard the SS Coronado on a dark and stormy night at sea. 

 

This elemental triumph led to an explosion that sunk the SS Coronado, an explosive sinking that did away with White Suit and his henchmen but left Jones ironically swimming away with the healing and harmonizing Cross of Coronado, implying the hope of Lord Stinkious that the diseased and disharmonious years since 1982 were being sunk and left behind and that health, harmony, fame and fortune were returning with this latest Indy film.  Indeed, the rest of the film was devoted to a symbolic quest for Oscar glory, implicitly affirming that Lord Stinkious was hoping to reboot his film art career with a little help from Emperor Palpaberg and this Indy trimax.  This reversed the situation at the time of the release of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, when the skyrocking Lord Stinkious had curiously come to the aid of Emperor Palpaberg, and also reaffirmed that Indy was linked to Stinkious in this film as in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM.

 

Indeed, no sooner did the adult Indy return to teaching at that eastern college and another meeting with Brody-played again by Elliot-as at the end of the prologue adventure that began RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK in another confirmation that Lord Stinkious wanted to rescale the heights of fame and fortune he had achieved in 1981, then Jones was whisked away by a sinister and twilit trio of men to a meeting with the less sinister but still suspicious, wealthy and Lean resembling and implicitly linked socialite Walter Donovan-implicitly linked either to Lean, perhaps for implicitly coming to the support of Landis in A PASSAGE TO INDIA, or Bradbury for the implicit roasting he gave Lord Stinkious in Death Is A Lonely Business, and played by Glover, who played the head and perhaps Kotcheff linked baddie Aristotle Kristatos in the allegorical Glen docufeature film FOR YOUR EYES ONLY (1981) in an open link to Bond. 

 

Significantly, Donovan persuaded Jones to head off on a quest for the Holy Grail, a quest that evoked the difficult quest for the equally elusive Oscar and allegorical films like EXCALIBUR and MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL that addressed that Oscar quest as well as the equally intrepid Jedi Knights of the Classic Trilogy, affirming that Lord Stinkious was indeed using the film to reboot his career and return to the glory of 1981.  Intriguingly, and unlike RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, this time Brody joined the quest, perhaps a nod to Marshall and his willingness to help out Stinkious again as co-executive producer and second unit director.  Significantly, this Jones and Brody duo and their quest to solve the mystery of the location of the Holy Grail and the disappearance of Indy’s father Dr. Henry Jones sr.-whose portrayal by Connery reaffirmed the implicit interest in recapturing the glory of 1981 by way of his character Agemmenon in TIME BANDITS-also evoked the pair of Holmes and Watson in YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES.

 

An apt allusion, as Jones and Brody were soon following the clues to Venice, a sojourn in Venice that evoked the allegorical and Venice set Lean docufeature film SUMMERTIME (1955)-which was an implicit reply to Federico Fellini for the roasting Lean implicitly received in the form of Franco Fabrizi‘s Fausto Franceso in the allegorical Fellini docufeature film I VITELLONI (1953)-to implicitly affirm the possibility that Lean was being addressed in the film, and the Venice, California setting of much of Death Is A Lonely Business to implicitly affirm the possibility that Bradbury was being addressed in the film or that both were, as well as evoking the brief stop in Venice in MOONRAKER.   As Doctors Brody and Jones were met on arrival by a new colleague Dr. Elsa Schneider-played by Allison Doody-who resembled the young, beautiful, blonde and implicitly Hollywood film art linked Miss Foley-played by Sharan Lea, who noticeably had an anagram of “Elsa” hidden amongst the letters of her name-that the old and crotchety schoolteacher Miss Foley was transformed into by the magic carnival mirrors of Dark’s Pandemonium Carnival in SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES, a film scripted by and based on a novel by Bradbury, the implication was that Schneider at least symbolized Bradbury and that the film was roasting him on one level in retaliation for the implicit roast he gave Lord Stinkious in Death Is A Lonely Business and roasting Lean in the implicit form of Donovan on another level.

 

Here the two old colleagues and new “friend” explored an old church converted into a library for clues to the location of the Grail and the whereabouts of Jones sr., a holy library that reaffirmed the implication that Schneider was linked to Bradbury.  Fittingly, intrepid knights on stained glass windows evoked the CGI knight that leapt from a stained glass window in a church and terrified the Reverend Nesbitt to death in YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES, openly affirming the implicit link of Jones and Brody to Holmes and Watson.  While luckily for Brody, Jones and Schneider, no blockbuster CGI enhanced beasts attacked them, the twilit trio were almost killed by all too human attackers.  Curiously, these human attackers, a mysterious and red fez wearing group of Middle Eastern men known as the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword, evoked not just all of the audiences, critics and film artists that had been ambushing Emperor Palpaberg and Lord Stinkious since 1982 and destroying their film careers, but the equally mysterious, persistent, deadly and Landis linked Savak of INTO THE NIGHT.  Indeed, their leader Kazim-played by Kevork Malikyan-resembled and was implicitly linked to Landis, albeit a kinder and gentler one. 

 

Thus, the implicit link of Kazim to Landis implied that the film was also being used to repair the damage Landis had done to his reputation by insanely linking himself to the head of the Savak in INTO THE NIGHT, evoking the damage control done for Landis with Dalim Zingh in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM.  Luckily for the neo-twilit trio of Brody, Jones and Schneider, however, they managed to fight off the hostile and nasty Brotherhood in a way that Lord Stinkious clearly hoped to do with his many critics in reality with this film.  They also discovered the tomb of the Sir Attenborough linked Grail Knight, Sir Richard-a dead Grail Knight who evoked the Grail Knights of EXCALIBUR, reminding us that EXCALIBUR did not just address Lord Stinkious, but was released in the Last Good Year of film before the TZ disaster-hidden in the sewer catacombs beneath the converted church, and vital insights into the locations of the Holy Grail and Jones sr.

 

 Significantly, Kazim’s tip that Jones sr. was being held hostage by the Nazis in Austria at a Wicked Witch of the West evoking Castle Brunwald-literally, as Elsa and Donovan were both revealed to be in cahoots with the Nazis there-turned out to be true.  Curiously, and to our surprise, Jones sr. turned out to look like Maestro Williams, reaffirming that Lord Stinkious was hopeful indeed that the personnel that had made RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK a success would strike gold again here in INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE.  But not without a battle, for after rescuing Jones sr., the two Jones boys got into all sorts of jackanapes with the pursuing Nazis that evoked the tragicomic misadventures of Fitz-Hume and Millbarge in SPIES LIKE US, including a road chase sequence that evoked a similar, Western film-style horse and wagon chase sequence in WILLOW. 

 

After this road chase, Jones travelled alone to Berlin to take the Holy Grail diary of Jones sr. from the Wicked clutches of Elsa, soon after a chilling sequence involving crowds burning books as in Death Is A Lonely Business that reaffirmed the implicit link of Schneider to Bradbury.  Then the healing Ozian quartet of Scarecrow Jones jr., Tin Brody, Cowardly Sallah-played again by Rhyss-Davies-and Great Jones sr. teamed up in the Middle East to give tanks to the villainous Vogel-played by Michael Byrne-and his nasty Nutzis in an exuberantly gratuitous blockbuster battle, before racing on horseback to the Temple Theatre in the hidden Canyon of the Crescent Moon-a hidden canyon that evoked the equally hidden Canon del Oro aka Gold Canyon at the end of MACKENNA'S GOLD, and a crescent moon that reminded us that a waxing crescent moon was hanging in a cloud scattered sky the early morning of the TZ disaster-located not far from the Indian Dunes and Los Angeles cadenced city of Iskenderun in the fictional Middle Eastern Republic of Hatay, a desert location that evoked the allegorical Lean docufeature film LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962) to reaffirm that on one level the film was implicitly addressing Lean.  Here Kennedy, Marshall, Palpaberg and Stinkious openly affirmed the Ozian themed allegorical intent of the film by having Indy pass an Ozian and elemental quartet of tests in the inner hidden Temple Theatre before he could claim the Holy Grail, an Ozian quartet of tests that recalled the difficulties Cera and Littlefoot had to pass before finally reaching the lush and peaceful Great Valley at the end of THE LAND BEFORE TIME.

 

Significantly, the first twilit trio of Grail tests implicitly symbolised the trials that Kennedy, Marshall, Palpaberg and Stinkious had undergone since the TZ disaster in 1982.  Indeed, the sight and sound of Jones managing to evade being struck down by the two huge, decapitating and dismembering blades of the first test-called the Breath of God-implicitly symbolised the success Kennedy, Marshall, Palpaberg and Stinkious had had in managing to evade being struck down by the TZ disaster and the righteous fury it had created in audiences, linking the blades to Fire.  The sight and sound of Jones carefully spelling out the Latin version of the Jewish name of God by stepping one by one on the letters that composed that name on a lonely cobblestone path above a chasm of a kazim was the second test, a test called the Word of God, a lonely path clearly linked to Earth.  The slightest mispelled misstep on this path led to a deadly fall down the chasm, implicitly evoking the lonely and rocky path trodden by Kennedy, Marshall, Palpaberg and Stinkious after the TZ disaster, a path whose slightest unwary and incautious utterance about the TZ disaster could have led to the end of their careers in film art, a lonely and careful path that evoked the equally lonely and careful path had to walk in order to avoid being picked off by a poison dart and reach the dais with the golden maternity idol in the underground Temple Theatre of Doom in the prologue adventure that kicked off RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, bringing the trilogy full Indy circle. 

 

Successfully walking that lonely and rocky road, Jones walked out of a doorway and found himself on the edge of a precipice.  This precipice reminded us of the precipice that Jones, Round and Scott found themselves perched on after they escaped from the underground labyrinth and the wall of water rushing from the Temple Theatre of Doom at the end of INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM.  This link underlined that Kennedy, Marshall, Palpaberg and Stinkious hoped that with the success of INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE, they would all finally be able to leave behind the Temple Theatre of Doom forever and again reach the Temple Theatre of Light.  The link to the end of INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM also evoked the rope bridge across the crocodile filled chasm that awaited Jones, Round and Scott after they found themselves on the precipice.  A timely evocation, preparing us for the leap of faith and the fearless step into thin Air over another chasm of a kazim that Jones had to make in order to pass the third twilit and Ozian Grail test, the Path of God.  This faithful step into thin air led the foot of Jones onto the True Path of an invisible stone bridge that led out of the Temple Theatre of Doom and across the kazim to the sacred inner chamber of a brazier and gold cup filled Temple Theatre of Light.  Thus, this faithful step implicitly symbolised the hope that the Kennedy, Marshall, Palpaberg and Stinkious were now free from the Twilight Zone and free to regain the faith of audiences and transform the Temple Theatre of Doom back into a Temple Theatre of Light. 

 

Literally, for the entrance on the other side of the stone bridge led to a symbolic Temple Theatre of Light containing the Holy Grail which was guarded by an immortal survivor of a twilit trio of English Grail Knights-played by Robert Eddison.  Here Jones passed the fourth and final Ozian elemental test by choosing the right Grail cup amongst dozens of false and dazzling fortune and glory pretenders and drank deep from the sacred waters of life, health and art, linking the final Grail test to Water, making it implicitly clear that Kennedy, Marshall, Palpaberg and Stinkious hoped that they had regained the Temple Theatre of Light and their healthy and successful Ozian elemental harmony and were back on track for Oscar glory, for the sacred cup of Christ was the colour and the shape of an Oscar statuette.  Significantly, the Holy Grail also evoked the gold maternity idol in the hidden Temple Theatre in the prologue adventure that kicked off RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, reaffirming the implicit hope of Kennedy, Marshall, Palpaberg and Stinkious that INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE would return them to the heady heights of success they had achieved in 1981 as well as bringing the Indy Trilogy full healing and harmonious circle.

 

A healthy and successful harmony that the trailing Donovan failed to achieve after he followed Jones into the Temple Theatre of Light and rashly and brashly insisted on choosing the wrong bright and flashy chalice before Jones got a chance to reach for the Grail.  For his eager drink of water from the deadly cup of fortune and glory at any twilit and disastrous cost quickly aged him with the help of CGI and turned him into dust in front of the horrified eyes of Jones and Schneider as Kennedy, Marshall, Palpaberg and Stinkious implicitly repaid Lean for A PASSAGE TO INDIA.

 

Not surprisingly, the correct choice of the Holy Grail by Jones satisfied and appeased its lone and lonely guardian.  A guardian Knight who evoked the Grail Knights of EXCALIBUR, reiterating the hope of Kennedy, Marshall, Palpaberg and Stinkious that the film would recapture the magic of the Last Good Year, and anticipated a Cameron linked Jedi Knight in the Tragic Trilogy to come.  Passing the Grail tests also allowed the elemental harmony of Jones to heal his father with the holy water of the Grail, preventing him from dying of a gunshot wound inflicted by Donovan-an ironic sight indeed, given that Jones was again implicitly linked to Friedkin.  This miraculous healing underlined the hope that healing Ozian Force was now flowing again for Kennedy, Marshall, Palpaberg and Stinkious, and that they could heal audiences again with truly fantastic films in the new decade.  And that the Temple Theatres of Doom had once more become Temple Theatres of Light. 

 

Soon after, Schneider fell to her doom down a new kazim created by the collapsing outer Temple Theatre after reaching greedily to seize the Grail lying tantalizingly lower down on a ledge, implicitly repaying Bradbury for Death Is A Lonely Business, and evoking the collapsing Gold Canyon at the end of MACKENNA'S GOLD.  A precipitous mistake not made by Indy, when he listened to wise counselling from his father and abandoned the Holy Grail and fled the collapsing outer Temple Theatre with Brody, Jones sr. and Sallah.  And so the healed, harmonized, Ozian and elemental foursome rode off on horseback into the Western sunset looking for a new Dorothy to heal, in the end, evoking the sight and sound of Colorado and MacKenna riding off into the sunset at the end of MACKENNA'S GOLD.  And so Kennedy, Marshall, Palpaberg and Stinkious implied their hope that their difficult and twilit journey through the twilit and Angry Eighties was over and they too would also finally ride away from Landis and the TZ disaster and succeed again in the new Nineties.  And so they appeared to get their wish, for INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE was their biggest hit since RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, implying that audiences had not understood the implicit allegorical intent of the four Grail tests that Jones had to pass in order to raise that Oscar gold chalice of fortune and glory or had understood but had forgiven the feckless four and wanted to move on to a new decade of Zone free and daylit CGI enhanced cinema, as well. 

 

Significantly, on June 1^st of that year, Moorcock implicitly tried to free Hollywood, in the symbolic form of the city of Quarzhasaat, from the Twilight Zone and restore the reputation of Lucas in the implicit form of the once famous but now scorned, solitary and despondent hero, Chamog Borm, the last legendary knight of the age of Empire, with his Luke and Leia evoking twin grey horses, Taron and Tadia, in time for the Nineties by sending Elric, the last of the Dragon Kings of Melnibone, and his sentient and duplicitous Chaos sword Stormbringer into the Dream Realms to rescue the legendary Pearl of daylit imagination and Varadia, the implicitly Sofia Carmina (SCC) Coppola linked Holy Girl and daughter of the implicitly Coppola sr. linked Raik Na Seem from the Seventh Realm in the allegorical and Zonebusting novel The Fortress Of The Pearl (1989).  Indeed, the fact that Quarzhasaat, head of a southern California evoking inland empire, was misruled by the feuding Council of Seven, a governing council that saw six of its councillors ruled by the seventh, the Sexocrat, affirmed that Moorcock was addressing and roasting twilit Hollywood in The Fortress Of The Pearl, for the fact that the Sexocrat ruled the Six reminded us that sex ruled the six studios associated with Hollywood to this day.  But it was to no avail for the last of the Dragon Kings of Melnibone, as everything was still broken, so continue did the dread Zone Wars in the Nasty Nineties. 

 

Curiously, but not surprisingly, CGI enhanced film art was implicitly rejected by Kirk and the rest of the resourceful and courageous crew of the storied Enterprise on June 9, 1989 when they embraced humanity yet again after a legendary and Eden-like CGI world prophesized by Laurence Luckinbill’s Hyams and Kubrick evoking rogue Vulcan, Sybok, turned out to actually be Hell at the end of the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced Shatner docufeature film STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER (1989), continuing the anti-CGI and pro-human Trekkie crusade that began in 1983 in STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK.  For their part, DC and Warner Brothers begged to differ, for on June 23, 1989, the twilit studio echoed the overboard implicit commercial sentiments of OVERBOARD by implying their shameless conviction that with the TZ trial over it was back to the CGI enhanced beastly and blockbuster loot lusting filmmercial and its avalanche of movie tie-in merchandise and implicitly responded to WALKER by having Michael Keaton’s brooding, Vader evoking and, hence, implicitly Lord Stinkious linked bachelor Bruce “Batman” Wayne triumph over Jack Nicholson’s insanely product tampering, shopping preventing and implicitly Cox linked Jack “the Joker” Napier in order to make Gotham City safe for shopping again in the twilit, allegorical and tragicomically dumb Burton super satirical filmmercial BATMAN (1989), a crassly and crazily commercial direction that had not been followed since the TZ disaster and the resounding failure and rejection of STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI and one affirmed by the fact that the film was accompanied by the largest movie tie-in merchandise campaign in film history.

 

Significantly, not long after the release of BATMAN, yet more confirmation that the brave new world of allegorical and all CGI feature film art would be a reality arrived Lasseter donned the writer/animator/director hats and teamed up again with Catmull, Good and Rydstrom on the twilit and allegorical all CGI indie short film KNICK KNACK (1989), a film released on September 1, 1989 that saw a snowman desperately try but fail to escape his lonely frozen snow globe in order to chill out with a buxom bikinied beauty in a Miami tourist kitsch collection located achingly close by on the same mantlepiece, perhaps Lasseter’s way of reminding the Pixar people to not let success go to their heads.  Or, given that the Miami theme reminded us that Canadian "Snowbirds" luved wintering in Florida, was the horny snowman implicitly linked to Cameron, implying that Lasseter and company were gleefully roating the womanizing in KNICK KNACK.  Certainly, the fact that KNICK KNACK ended with the amorous snowman pushing his snow globe off the shelf, causing it to fall into a fish bowl on a table below, supported that implication.  For the tragicomic sight and sound of the snowman now trapped underwater in his snowglobe with a buxom mermaid achingly close but out of reach reminded us of Cameron's luv of underwater exploration, a luv on open display that year in the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced and implicitly Spielberg addressing indie docufeature artbuster THE ABYSS (1989), released not long before on August 8, 1989.

 

For his part, in October ’89 King implied that the victory of literary artist Thad Beaumont over his remorseless and deadly Twilight Side, Alexis Machine, symbolically equated with facing down and terminating the twilit and violent side of fiction and film artists and liberating the world from the Twilight Zone in time for the Nineties in his twilit, allegorical and Zonebusting docufiction novel The Dark Half (1989).  Indeed, the name of Thad Beaumont affirmed the implicit intent of the novel, for it evoked that of Charles Beaumont, the third most prolific and famous writer for the original TWILIGHT ZONE telefilm series.  Curiously, Barnes and Niven also tried to free the world from the Twilight Zone and get the daylit dream flowing in time for the Nineties at the end of their twilit and allegorical sequel The Barsoom Project (1989), having Griffin hunt down and defeat the implicitly George Folsey linked Kareem Fekesh, a nefarious baddie behind a twilit trio of murders of one woman and two men that were designed to turn patrons and investors away from supporting Dream Park, and, hence, film art. 

 

As for Mark Goldblatt, Marvel and New World Pictures, they fittingly replied to Burton, DC and Warners that year and implicitly disagreed with them by linking Landis to troubled Vietnam War vet Frank “the Punisher” Castle-played by Lundgren-and his gangster antagonists to vengeful film artists like Palpaberg and Stinkious in the twilit and allegorical super satirical  indie docufeature film THE PUNISHER (1989), which arrived in theatres on October 5, 1989.  Just as fittingly, given that they would one day own Marvel, Disney also implicitly toasted Landis that year, for they implied with the triumph of the implicitly Landis linked Eric-played by Christopher D. Barnes-over the implicitly Morrow linked Ursula-played by Pat Carroll-that they were welcoming Landis and his film art back to the fold of film artists in time for the Nineties at the end of the twilit, allegorical and CGI enhanced Ron Clements and John Musker film THE LITTLE MERMAID (1989), a popular Disney creation that was one of the first CGI enhanced animated films when it was released on November 13, 1989. 

 

Curiously, after Lord Stinkious helped out Emperor Palpaberg again with INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE, the Emperor returned the favour by implicitly coming to the rescue of the Lord when he teamed up again with Burtt, Dreyfuss, Kahn, Kennedy, Marshall and Williams and ended the year on December 22, 1989 with the twilit, allegorical, CGI enhanced, Ozian themed, sweet and haunting docufeature film ALWAYS (1989). 

 

“…You still have to learn

that to gain your freedom,

you have to give it.”

 

Indeed, clearly moved by his friend’s glum spirits, Palpaberg implicitly urged his friend to let go of Marcia and her lover Tom and the disappointing past and love again in the film.  For after being killed in a CGI enhanced and TZ disaster evoking explosion while fighting fires at the beginning of the film, the ghost of the hotshot, Skyrocking and implicitly Stinkious linked forest fire pilot Pete Sandich-played by Dreyfuss-returned to the land of the living to guide Brad Johnson’s shy, awkward, implicitly Scarecrow linked and Clark “Superman” Kent evoking and resembling new pilot Ted Baker in his own forest fire flying and in his equally fiery wooing of Sandich’s perhaps Dorothy linked, Lois Lane evoking and Debbie Dunham-like lady love and fellow forest fire fighter pilot Dorinda Durston-played by Holly Hunter.  As Sandich succeeded in both goals and then let go of the two young lovers like a proud father giving his daughter away to a good husband, allowing Dreyfuss to ascend to the heavens again as he did at the end of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, Emperor Palpaberg implicitly entreated Lord Stinkious to let go of Marcia and Tom as well, and return to the land of the loving, in the end.  For to truly succeed in art and life, love as well as the Force must be with you…always.

 

This heartfelt message was underlined by the return of Dreyfuss as Pete Sandich, the Skyrocking pilot with the George Lucas cadenced name, making it fitting that Dreyfuss was last seen in a Lord Stinkious film as Henderson on a Magic Carpet Airlines flight to that mysterious Eastern college at the end of AMERICAN GRAFFITI.  Indeed, Dreyfuss emphasized the link to AMERICAN GRAFFITI by acting, talking, walking and even laughing like an older Henderson throughout the film.  This link was reaffirmed by the allegorical and Otto Harbach written Platters tune “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” (1958), for the love theme of ALWAYS was heard during the Munchkinland homecoming sockhop in AMERICAN GRAFFITI while Steve and Laurie slowdanced and discussed their impending breakup.  This love theme also reminded us that while the mechanical problems and dangerous situations the forest fire pilots fought through in the air in the film evoked GREMLINS, the horrific plane trip in the Miller episode of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, and the explosive and fiery TZ disaster crash itself.  In addition, the many allusions in ALWAYS to 1941, AMERICAN GRAFFITI, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, DUEL, E.T. THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL, SUPERMAN, and  THE STUNTMAN also evoked the good years between Marcia, Palpaberg and Stinkious before the TZ disaster and the Great Divorce.

 

A sweet and sympathetic film indeed, and the first of many post-TZ disaster Palpaberg films to acknowledge the reality of death, and the haunting and clinging ghosts of the past.  And a film that underlined that Palpaberg was flying more confidently now that the TZ trial was over, a confidence seen in the slow mastery of fire flight by Baker, with spectral help from Sandich.  Indeed, while implicitly linking forest fire fighting to equally fiery, passionate and tempestuous relationships, the film also always implicitly linked the dangerous flying the forest fire pilots courageously and resolutely performed to dangerous stunts on film sets in general, and on the Landis set of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE in particular.  This was implicitly seen in the person of Sandich, whose overconfidence in his ability to pull off the dangerous flying rescue that led to his explosive death evoked Landis and his overconfidence in his crew’s ability to pull off the dangerous mechanical effects that led to the TZ disaster. 

 

An explosive disaster that Palpaberg was careful to make clear to audiences could already be prevented from happening again with CGI.  For when out of control flames trapped forest fire fighters on a burning mountain at the end of the film, a blazing inferno that stood in dramatic contrast to the difficult but far less dangerous and hellish climb up Devil’s Tower at the end of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, Sandich used his unseen and unheard influence to give Dorinda the strength to fly her plane through a fiery lane of burning trees at dangerously low heights to drop a lifesaving load of water on the fires threatening the trapped fire fighters like a real life Glinda the Good.  Of course, this CGI enhanced low level but successful flight evoked Wingo’s unsuccessful low level helicopter flight through special effects explosions on the Landis set shortly before the fateful and fatal crash, making it clear that the new digital effects wizardry had already conquered the TZ disaster by 1989 just in time for a new era of CGI enhanced film art in the Nineties. 

 

Alas, a school bus driver named Frank-played by Doug McGrath-was allowed to save a bus load of children at one point in the film by pulling over to the side of the road before he collapsed of a heart attack, curiously linking ALWAYS to a busload of children in DUEL.  Frank was saved by a cool and calm Baker passing by in a car with Dorinda, again evoking Kent.  This resuscitation implicitly reaffirmed that with the TZ trial over, Spielberg was now re-directing reality to show Marshall in a good light.  Indeed, this bizarre and blatant re-direction of reality evoked the sympathetic nods to Marshall in GREMLINS, and again prepared viewers for the arrival of Marshall’s first directorial effort the following year.  Unfortunately for Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg, choosing McGrath to play Frank was not a good idea, as he had sat opposite Morrow’s Connor playing Larry in the Landis episode of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE.  As a result, McGrath’s reappearance not only did not persuade viewers to have a change of heart and embrace Frank, it reopened raw and furious twilit wounds and caused audiences to reject Frank in outraged horror-yet again! 

 

Actually, it was probably just a few hardcore embittered and furious fans that noticed the link of McGrath’s Frank to the Landis episode of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, as the success of ALWAYS and INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM implied that, against all odds, most audience members had forgiven and re-embraced Kennedy, Marshall, Palpaberg and Stinkious by 1989.  But not for long, as audiences and film artists would soon implicitly turn against Kennedy, Marshall and Palpaberg again while continuing to embrace Stinkious with hopeful and gathering Force in the Nasty Nineties.