NAZI B-Movie Double Feature: IRON SKY and NAZIS AT THE CENTER OF THE EARTH

Iron Sky (2012) – Directed by Timo Vuorensola – Starring Julia Dietze, Christopher Kirby, Götz Otto, Peta Sergeant, Stephanie Paul, and Udo Kier.

Nazis at the Center of the Earth (2012) – Directed by Joseph Lawson – Starring Dominique Swain, Jake Busey, Josh Allen, and Christopher Karl Johnson.

I have not yet seen Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, but I am very aware of the conversation that the film has generated. That’s a good thing. It’s good to have people talking about the issues raised in a movie because the question of art and responsibility is a conversation that needs to be had. I’m almost always going to side with giving the artist as much creative freedom as possible in these situations, but that does not mean that all art should be seen by all people, or that artists bear no responsibility for what they create. Plenty of films are racist, homophobic, and vile. Plenty of filmmakers are the same.

Whatever one thinks of Tarantino or Django, there is no doubting that it’s a major Hollywood production, full of Oscar-nominated actors and around a $100 million budget. With that budget, with the wide release, with the director, with the stars, and with the subject of slavery, Django Unchained is not a film that’s going to slip under the radar of very many people.

Major Hollywood production that it is, however, Django is also (from all accounts), a genre film. Tarantino told the Daily Telegraph that he wanted to make a “southern” movie, that he wanted “to do movies that deal with America’s horrible past with slavery and stuff but do them like spaghetti westerns, not like big issue movies. I want to do them like they’re genre films, but they deal with everything that America has never dealt with because it’s ashamed of it, and other countries don’t really deal with because they don’t feel they have the right to.”

When I finally see Django I’ll delve into that idea (and Spike Lee’s reasons for not going to see the film), but I want to get at that last idea here, the idea that “other countries … don’t feel they have the right to” makes movies that confront slavery head on. Implicit in Tarantino’s larger comment is the idea that slavery can (and perhaps should) be used in genre films, in films that are not “big issue movies.” What Tarantino doesn’t acknowledge, of course, is that if you’re Quentin Tarantino and you get a $100 million to make a movie with Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson, and Christoph Waltz, you can claim you’re just making a genre movie and not a big issue movie, it’s still going to be a big issue movie.

It would be interesting to see what the reaction would be if someone like, say, The Asylum made a mockbuster of Django Unchained. Would the public even care? As of the writing of this review, I haven’t found any evidence that Asylum has a Django mockbuster on the docket. They’ve released mock versions of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Prometheus, Battleship, and they have a Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters mock coming up next year.

All of which brings me to IRON SKY and NAZIS AT THE CENTER OF THE EARTH, two films that have no problem using Nazis in a genre film. To be clear, these aren’t films that just toss a few swastikas around to help create an easy back story, but fully embrace varying aspects of Nazism and place it at the center of their movies.

Both films are curiously serious, at times, in that they present legitimate moral quadaries. There’s certainly a bit of comic relief going on in both films (mostly through absurdity), but neither of these films are the equivalent of something like 2-Headed Shark Attack or Transmorphers. They are decidedly B movies, but there’s also a bit of … I want to say there’s a bit of reverence going on here, too, but I do not want to give the impression that these are pro-Nazi propaganda films. I mean reverence in the sense that both films treat the Nazis like a real threat and not just as cannon fodder. Both films involve the Nazis attempting to take over the world, but they do so in different ways.

In IRON SKY, Nazis escaped the Earth at the end of World War II and relocated to the dark side of the moon. What’s fascinating about IRON SKY is that they’ve put actual thought into what it would be like if the Nazis had spent the last 65 years developing a whole new society, free of the rest of the Earth. The film makes a conscious effort to show that the hierarchy of the party is different from the average citizens. Our pseudo-heroine turned heroine Renate Richter (Julia Dietze) is engaged to Klaus Adler (Götz Otto), who wants to lead the conquest of Earth and insert himself as the new Fuhrer.

What sets his plan in serious motion is the arrival of two United States astronauts. One of them gets shot, the other gets captured and he turns out to James Washington (Christopher Kirby), a black guy who’s part of the President’s re-election strategy: “Black to the Moon.” (The President is a Sarah Palin parody and a lot of humor is generated through her.) The Nazis haven’t been keeping up on day-to-day operations on Earth and the arrival of a black guy fascinates them.

So they turn him white.

Yup.

White.

Renata doesn’t understand why Washington is upset at this, thinking they’ve done him a favor by making him “one of us.”

Adler goes to Earth where he intends to have Washington introduce him to the President, and he’s upset when he finds out Renata has secretly come along. Adler gets to meet the President and her campaign manager Vivian (Peta Sergeant) ends up using Adler’s words to spruce up the President’s campaign. They lose Washington, who becomes a street preacher that no one listens to, and then Renata runs into him and they fall in love with each other while saving the world.

What’s impressive about IRON SKY is just how much plot they stuff into this film. It moves really fast and in really big ways. When the Nazis launch their interstellar assault, all of the nations of the world reveals that all of their space satellites are armed and we get a big space battle, complete with Vivian being named the Allied commander and showing up on the bridge like she just walked off the Buck Rogers set.

My favorite part of the movie is when the bleached Washington takes Renata to a showing of Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator. On the moon, Renata shows a highly-edited version of the film. She’s not aware of this and genuinely thinks the film is praising Hitler. When she sees the entire film, she’s crushed.

Renata is a fascinating character because she’s both clearly a Nazi and yet clearly a decent person. The film acknowledges her Nazism in her relationship with Washington, but makes her decent by making Adler so completely indecent.

I’m not sure if I genuinely like IRON SKY or if I was just so fascinated with it that it kept me engaged for a single viewing. It is definitely a film that should be seen, however.

NAZIS AT THE CENTER OF THE EARTH, on the other hand, doesn’t portray the Nazis as anything but evil. The premise is that at the end of World War II, a group of Nazis led by Joseph Mengele ended up in the center of the Earth, where they survive to this day by taking the skin of living people and incorporating it onto their own flesh. They get help from Jake Busey, an American scientist working in Antarctica who was kidnapped by the Nazis a decade ago. He’s been helping them ever since by funneling new people to them for their experiments and skin grafting and whatnot.

Think about what’s going on here – the filmmakers are using Joseph Mengele as the primary antagonist. This isn’t some evil guy with a swastika on his arm – this is Joseph Mengele. He convinces people to help him by offering to spare their life, and the characters in the film have a few arguments about whether it’s a good idea to help the Nazis in exchange for staying alive. It’s easy to say, No, it’s better to die than help them, but if you don’t help them, they take your skin and organs and transplant it into actual Nazis to help prolong their life.

CENTER OF THE EARTH is not a deep movie (aren’t I clever?) but it is, for what it is, a serious, grim, horror movie.

At least until robot Hitler shows up. Yeah, Hitler – the real Hitler, complete with a bullet hole in the side of his head – shows up as a head in a jar on top of a robot.

Is this acceptable?

No one cares about his appearance here because CENTER OF THE EARTH is just a silly B-movie, but should they care? CENTER OF THE EARTH doesn’t show the Holocaust (so there’s no direct equivalent to Django depicting slavery), but they do directly reference the concentration camps.

I believe films have to ultimately be judged on their own and not because of how they fit into a predetermined mindset of what’s acceptable and what isn’t. For me, I think IRON SKY offers an interesting take on a Nazi society, while I would have preferred to not see Mengele and Hilter show up in CENTER OF THE EARTH.

Hitler probably shouldn’t be used as the equivalent of Boss Hogg, should he?

Or is it acceptable to use the specific characters of history if you don’t use the specific evils of history?

FROM DUSK TILL DAWN: I’m a Mean Motherf*ckin’ Servant of God

From Dusk till Dawn (1996) – Directed by Robert Rodriguez – Starring George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino, Harvey Keitel, Juliette Lewis, Ernest Liu, Salma Hayek, Cheech Marin, Danny Trejo, Tom Savini, Fred Williamson, Michael Parks, John Saxon, Kelly Preston, and John Hawkes.

FROM DUSK TILL DAWN is a collaboration between Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez; Tarantino wrote the script, Rodriguez directs the script, and Tarantino acts in the script. DUSK is really two movies mashed together, the Tarantino opening setting up the Rodriguez closing, and it’s a clear first run for their Grindhouse project a decade later.

In the first half of the film, we focus on Seth (George Clooney) and Richie (Tarantino) Gecko’s run from the law. Seth is the cool bad-ass and Richie is the disturbed psychotic; the former kills only when necessary and the latter kills whenever he can. Both Clooney and Tarantino are fantastic as the brothers; while his status as an international movie star is now a given, DUSK was the film that proved Clooney could transition off the ER set and become a movie star. He’s electric as Seth, playing the cool customer who’s got the simmering anger waiting to explode beneath the surface.

We first see the brothers in action in a crummy roadside liquor store, operated by John Hawkes and visited by Texas Ranger Earl McGraw (Michael Parks, who also appears in Kill Bill and Planet Terror as the Ranger). The brothers are hiding in the back, keeping hostages close and mouths shut, but Richie kills McGraw with a bullet in the back of his head. Seth is furious, but Richie insists that he saw the cashier mouthing help to the Ranger. We know this is false, and Seth has to know this is false, but this is the lot he’s drawn so he ends up blowing up the liquor store before heading to Mexico.

They entered the store to get a map, and ended up in a bloodbath, which is the S.O.P. they follow for the rest of the film. They get a hotel room in order to contact their handler that guarantees a place for them in Mexico, and Richie ends up raping and killing their hostage. They kidnap Jacob and his two kids, Scott and Kate (Harvey Keitel, Ernest Liu, and Juliette Lewis) because they’ve got an RV that Seth is convinced can help get them across the border, and then when they stop at the Titty Twister bar to wait for their contact, a vampire massacre breaks out.

It’s the second half of the movie that most people remember, of course (I was a bit surprised when I watched DUSK again the other night that the Tarantino half of the movie takes an entire 45 minutes to work through), because this is where all the blood and killing and dancing Salma Hayek happens, but it’s the first-half of the movie that’s more enjoyable for me to watch. If Tarantino is remembered for only one thing when he’s done making movies, it will be his dialogue. While there’s nothing as memorable here as Pulp Fiction, or as cool as Kill Bill, or as intense as Inglorious Basterds, Tarantino knows how to play characters off of one another. When the Gecko brothers first encounter Jacob’s family, Seth wants to know what relationship Jacob and Scott have, asking, “What’s the story with you two, you a couple of fags?”

Jacob answers, “He’s my son.”

“How’s that happen? You don’t look Japanese.”

“Neither does he. He looks Chinese.”

“Well, excuse me all to hell.”

There’s a real unbalanced relationship between the five traveling companions that’s driven by Clooney and Keitel; Seth comes off as a likable guy, but one that’s never far from violence. He wants everyone to get along because he’s in a good mood, but Jacob stakes out his own ground in order to protect his kids. Seth is protective of the kids, too, knowing that Richie’s interest in Kate isn’t one of captor and hostage, but while he keeps Richie in check, he also lets Jacob know that he can unleash Richie if Jacob doesn’t do what he wants.

Juliette Lewis and Ernest Liu are good as Kate and Scott as two kids who obviously love their father but are also intrigued by Seth’s lawlessness. When Seth demands that everyone drinks with him, Scott and Kate are hesitant at first but willing to knock a few back. The scene works because Seth and Jacob, seated next to each other, are clearly battling for control. “Are you so much of a f*cking loser that you can’t tell when you’ve won,” Jacob asks. Seth flips, but Jacob is right and Seth knows it.

At the Titty Twister, the tone shifts from Tarantino’s slow burn to Rodriguez’s splatter revelry. A bunch of Rodriguez regulars make an appearance (Danny Trejo, Cheech Marin, Hayek), Tom Savini and Fred Williamson are tossed into the mix, and after a non-strip table dance from Satánico Pandemonium (Hayek), it’s all vampire killing until the end. All of the vamp splatter is good fun, as each of the participants falls in turn, until we’re left with Seth, Jacob, Kate, and Scott.

Jacob is bit and he forces his kids to promise him they’ll kill him once he starts to turn. They don’t want to do it, of course, but he insists that he won’t be their father any more, but rather, “I’ll be a lap dog of Satan.” The final run through the vamps is a good shootout that sees Jacob turn lapdog, Scott get devoured, and only Kate and Seth survive. Kate lets Seth know that she’s available to go with him, but Seth tells her no, that El Ray is too rough a town for her. “I may be a bastard, Kate,” he insists, “but I’m not a f*cking bastard. Go home.”

As Seth and Kate drive away in separate directions, the camera pulls back to reveal that the Titty Twister was located atop an old Aztec temple, hidden and buried but still very much active.

There’s nothing legendary about FROM DUSK TIL DAWN and I can see why people would get frustrated with a film like this; Tarantino and Rodriguez are so talented that it could seem a bit odd that they’d combine their talents for a splatterfest, but it’s movies like DUSK that provide such an insightful key to their more respected and beloved works. Tarantino and Rodriguez love the entertainment aspect of movies more than the literariness of movies; they’re no more right, of course, than those who favor the other side of the coin, but neither of these men are ever all that interested in the deeper questions of life, the universe, and everything. They’re more interested in people trying to get through the day and past the obstacle in front of them.

Tucked between Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown, between Desperado and The Faculty, (forgetting the forgotten Four Rooms, in which each directed one of the four sequences) DUSK doesn’t hold a candle to the films that come around it, but it’s still an enjoyable romp.

DESPERADO: Bless Me, Father, For I Have Just Killed Quite a Few Men

Desperado (1995) – Directed by Robert Rodriguez – Starring Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Joaquim de Almeida, Steve Buscemi, Cheech Marin, Carlos Gallardo, and Quentin Tarantino.

DESPERADO is one of the coolest movies of the 1990s. I just reviewed Walter Hill’s Wild Bill, which spends a lot of time trying to be cool through style and editing, but DESPERADO simply is cool through the power of Banderas’ performance, Rodriguez’s energetic (but not headache-inducing) camera work, a fantastic score and soundtrack (thanks, Los Lobos!), and great performances that all blend together to create a very believable, hyper world of drugs, sex, and violence.

It’s telling that both films are released in 1995, where the old hand is trying new tricks and the new hand is reaffirming the old ones. I applaud Hill for trying something different with Wild Bill, but I’d be lying if I said it worked. DESPERADO, on the other hand, proves that Rodriguez can do with $7 million what he did with $7,000 in El Mariachi without getting lost amidst all his new toys and possibilities.

DESPERADO is a sequel to El Mariachi, with Antonio Banderas stepping into the role Carlos Gallardo originated. (Gallardo has a smaller role as Campa, one of Mariachi’s allies.) Banderas and Gallardo bring different qualities to the role of Mariachi. Where Gallardo infused the character with a boyish charm, Banderas gives him a much more traditionally cool, masculine edge. At the start of the film, Mariachi’s unnamed, storytelling ally (Steve Buscemi), enters Cheech Marin’s bar to spread the word that Mariachi is in town and to look for the local reaction when he mentions Bucho, the target of Mariachi’s quest this time around. Buscemi (I’m not going to keep calling him “unnamed storytelling ally”) gets the crowd’s attention by saying he just came from a bar where he saw “the biggest Mexican I’ve ever seen in my life,” signalling to us that Mariachi has grown quite a bit since he picked up Domino’s dog, hopped on her bike, and almost ran over a turtle.

Mariachi is now killer first, music being relegated into the stuff of dreams. He tries to play a couple times, but his damaged left hand (shot through by Moco at the end of El Mariachi) keeps him from being able to hold the neck, so first a little kid and then later Carolina (Salma Hayek) try their hand at accompanying him.

As with El Mariachi, it’s the non-action scenes that make DESPERADO something better than a solid action flick. Mariachi’s relationship with the young boy who walks around town with a guitar both humanizes him (when he’s teaching the boy) and then propels him towards greater anger (when he discovers the boy carries drugs in his guitar for Bucho), and finally shows us compassion (when the boy is accidentally shot during a showdown with Bucho’s men).

Where DESPERADO exceeds its preceding part is in not only Rodriguez’s growing abilities as a filmmaker, but in the extended cast of high-quality actors who are put to excellent use. There’s great chemistry between Cheech Marin as the bartender and Buscemi: “Hey, the bartender always survives!” “No, man, the bartender got it worst of all.” Danny Trejo shows up as a killer sent by the Columbians to watch over Bucho’s operation and take care of Mariachi. Forget Machete, this is Trejo at his bad-ass best as a silent, stalking, dangerous killer who uses throwing knives instead of guns. And Joaquim de Almeida steps into the role intended for Raul Julia and delivers a rather complex villain role. Alternatively, he’s mean, charming, scared, violent, conniving, generous … but his best moment comes when he’s trying to call the phone in his brand new car from his compound but he can’t because no one knows the car’s phone number. “Does anyone f*cking know the phone number to my car?!?” he yells to a compound full of henchmen that clearly don’t.

Rodriguez also shows he knows how to put together a great sex scene; instead of simply feeling perfunctory, Rodriguez puts as much attention to this scene as any of his shoot-’em-up sequences. Banderas is one half of the coupling and Salma Hayek is the other. DESPERADO is the film that launched Hayek into the Hollywood consciousness, and she’s rather good at being the gorgeous, semi-naive coffee shop/bookstore owner who ends up as Mariachi’s ally, nurse, and then lover. When Mariachi finds out she’s been allowing Bucho to use her store as a drop for drugs, Mariachi is furious with her, and it’s in these moments of desperate rage that Banderas really wins me over.

If there’s a weakness with DESPERADO it’s the ending twist of having Mariachi and Bucho be brothers. It’s not really needed but I suppose Rodriguez didn’t want to go down the same road as El Mariachi, with a bad guy who’s courting the woman who falls for the hero. That’s here, too, of course, but the thrust of these final scenes is between Bucho and his little brother.

DESPERADO is fantastic from start to finish, a slick, totally cool action flick that’s as good a contemporary western as anyone could want, and a fitting end to Western Month.