The mystery monoliths are back! And I cannot tell a lie! I'm behind them!!

 Psych!

Okay, I’m just kidding here. I’m only behind the mystery granite globes that appeared around the world in my first novel, CONFIRMATION: INVESTIGATIONS OF THE UNEXPLAINED. You can click on the link on the right and a buy a copy of the book.

 

In the book, I examine the way people react to an unexplainable phenomenon by seeing it strictly through their own filters, through their preconceived biases and dogma. Once all the different interpretations of the origin of the globes start to clash, very bad things also start to happen around the world. What those bad thing are...you’ll need to read the book!

 

In real life, I’m fascinated, of course, by these monoliths and I wonder when we’ll find out who erected them. This is a link to one of the latest articles about the reappearance of the strange objects. I don’t believe they’re from any sort of an otherworldly source. But, then again, we can never be sure… 

Listen to our discussion of "Chinatown" on the private eye classic's anniversary!

This year is the 50^th anniversary of the neo noir classic, Chinatown, so we discussed it it in a recent episode of Cineverse. As host Erik Martin describes, “’Forget it Jake—it’s Chinatown,’ we famously hear an associate of private eye Jake Gittes say to his boss. But while Gittes may be able to put it behind him, Chinatown can’t be so easily forgotten by its audience—even five decades years later.”

“Set in 1937 Los Angeles, Chinatown explores themes of corruption, power, and moral ambiguity. The story follows Gittes, played by Jack Nicholson, who is hired by a woman claiming to be Evelyn Mulwray to investigate her husband, Hollis Mulwray, the chief engineer for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, whom she suspects of infidelity. As Gittes delves deeper, he uncovers a complex web of deceit, corruption, and murder related to the city's water supply. The real Evelyn Mulwray, played by Faye Dunaway, reveals herself, and Gittes becomes entangled in a larger conspiracy involving land and water rights in Los Angeles, leading to a tragic and shocking conclusion.

To listen to a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of Chinatown, conducted last week, click here. To hear the June episode of the Cineversary podcast, which celebrates Chinatown’s 50th anniversary, click here.

 

That was then, this is noir

“After watching Roman Polanski’s brooding psychological mystery, originally released 50 years ago this month, one cannot overlook the overt resemblance it bears in both style and structure to classic film noir—a term invented by French critics to classify a particular genre of post-war American cinema. Noir represents a pessimistic, highly stylized brand of films that incorporate themes such as inescapable fates and femme fatales, and employs shadowy compositions and urbanized settings to frame its often bleak narratives. It personified the hard-boiled detective story, the murder mystery, the psychological crime drama, and the thriller. The era began, arguably, in 1941 with The Maltese Falcon and continued with a plethora of similar fare, including Double Indemnity, To Have and Have Not, Out of the Past, and The Big Heat, and supposedly reached its golden age denouement in 1958 with Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil.

“Over a decade passed before Hollywood seemed to return to the thematic and formalistic characteristics quintessential of the discarded noir tradition, at least evident in a few prominent films. “Neo-noir” pictures like Klute, Dirty Harry, (both 1971), and The Godfather (1972) brought back the look and feel of old-school noir. Neo-noir movies like these adopt the themes, archetypes, and visual template of classic noir but often occur in modern settings and employ contemporary situations and/or sensibilities as well as present more graphic and adult content.

“Among all the neo-noirs released over the past 60-plus years, Chinatown may be the greatest. It certainly mimics, for the most part, the look, vibe, and attitude of classic noir in its set design, costumes, cars, urban environment, duplicitous characters, and crime. “However, this film deviates in that it’s shot in color and often in the bright light of day, there are no canted angles or expressionistic visual traits, a shadowy black chiaroscuro lighting scheme isn’t predominant, and Evelyn Mulwray isn’t an archetypal spider woman—she leads men into danger and is deceitful, but she doesn’t have evil intentions.” 

 

Be sure and check it out!

What is "The Ninth Configuration?"

Working on finishing a novel while moving from a spring semester of classes to summer classes had me swamped enough to neglect updating the blog. I will start disciplining myself again to update content, including links to some excellent recent episodes of the CineVerse podcast. 

 

One of our recent shows was a discussion of “The Ninth Configuration,” a sadly forgotten film from Willam Peter Blatty, author of “The Exorcist” novel, in his directorial debut. This film caught my eye when I heard that Blatty considered it the true sequel to “The Exorcist.” 

 

As Erik Martin writes on the CineVerse overview, Forty-plus-year-old films don’t come much weirder or strangely stimulating than The Ninth Configuration, a 1980 American psychological drama written, produced, and directed by William Peter Blatty. Adapted from Blatty's 1978 novel Twinkle, Twinkle, 'Killer' Kane, the film is distinguished by its exploration of faith, insanity, and redemption. It is frequently classified as a psychological thriller and horror film, although it could also be regarded as a campy comedy by its detractors.

The narrative unfolds in a remote castle in the Pacific Northwest, repurposed as a mental asylum for U.S. military officers who have experienced psychological breakdowns. The protagonist, Colonel Vincent Kane (played by Stacy Keach), is a Marine psychiatrist assigned to oversee the patients' treatment. Through his interactions with the patients, especially Captain Billy Cutshaw (played by Scott Wilson), a former astronaut who abandoned a space mission due to an existential crisis, Kane grapples with his troubled past and wrestles with profound questions of faith and human suffering.

Click here to listen to a recording of our CineVerse discussion of The Ninth Configuration, conducted last week.

Blatty, renowned for writing The Exorcist, created The Ninth Configuration to delve into his own philosophical and religious inquiries. Although it bombed upon its release, the film has since garnered a cult following and is valued by many for its distinctive approach to its profound themes.

The Ninth Configuration’s central question posed to the viewer is an obvious one: Is there a God and an afterlife? If so, what proof do we have? The key scenes of the film are when Cutshaw and Kane debate the existence of a higher power. Cutshaw, when asked why he wouldn’t fly to the moon, says: “Because I’m afraid…See the stars…So cold. So far. And so very lonely. Oh, so lonely. All that space. Just, empty space. And so far from home. I’ve circled around and around this house. Orbit after orbit. And sometimes I’d wonder what it would be like never to stop. And circle alone up there forever. And what if I got there, got to the moon…and couldn’t get back? Sure, everyone dies. But I’m afraid to die alone so far from home. And if there’s no God, then that’s really, really alone.”

Kane argues that a higher power is far more plausible than humanity arising by random chance, and claims that acts of pure self-sacrifice demonstrate human goodness, which he believes can only be explained by a divine purpose. Cutshaw challenges him to cite a specific instance of pure self-sacrifice from his own life, but Kane cannot. Kane agrees to try sending Cutshaw a sign of the afterlife if he dies first. Kane apparently fulfills this promise in the form of a religious medallion that Cutshaw—now cured—suddenly discovers after the death of Kane, to whom Cutshaw earlier gave the medallion.

Blatty’s film also thematically explores illusion versus reality, making a selfless sacrifice for the greater good, and how war is hell, with some battle wounds unable to be cured. Looking closer, it’s easy to deduce how The Ninth Configuration is subtextually commenting on the horrors and fallout of the Vietnam War and the PTSD suffered by its soldiers. Critic Richard Scheib wrote: “The Ninth Configuration is a film about finding delivery from the mass insanity the Vietnam War induced on every level of American society and William Peter Blatty’s belief that the solution to the sense of social loss can be found in faith.”

Full disclosure: The Ninth Configuration left many of us at CineVerse baffled with gaping plot holes and inexplicable directorial choices. Among the questions our group pondered were (spoilers ahead):

1. Besides Cutshaw, were the other patients at the asylum legitimate psychotic patients, or were they faking it as part of the charade to make Kane believe he was the head of the asylum?
2. This film has been described by some critics as humorous, comical, and “uproariously funny,” especially the first half. Did any of the scenes involving the psychotic patients and their peculiarities actually make you laugh?
3. If Fell is actually in charge, although secretly, why does he let the “inmates run the asylum” and act violently by damaging the castle and throwing things around?
4. Why is Cutshaw, an ex-astronaut, mixed in with military patients?
5. Why would the military and Kane’s brother Fell allow this charade to go on? Wouldn’t it be dangerous and result in legal liabilities if Kane’s actions led to the harm or death of any of the other patients? How is this charade supposed to benefit Kane?
6. If Fell is actually in charge, although secretly, why does he let the “inmates run the asylum” and act violently by damaging the castle and throwing things around?
7. What’s the significance of Kane taking Cutshaw to a Catholic mass, where Cutshaw rudely interrupts the service and Kane briefly hallucinates?
8. Isn’t it kind of abrupt that Cutshaw suddenly escapes from the asylum? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to suggest earlier and consistently throughout the film that he wanted to escape? It seems as though the only reason for the odd scene at the biker bar is to provide a means for Kane to sacrifice himself for Cutshaw’s benefit, but why write and direct a non-sequitur scene like this one to accomplish that goal?
9. The suggestion at the end is that Cutshaw learns that Kane has sacrificed his own life to offer a concrete example of human goodness that Cutshaw asked for. How would Kane sacrificing his own life, or for that matter, Kane killing most of the biker gang, help Cutshaw—isn’t it a stretch to believe that Kane would commit suicide or let himself die just to cure Cutshaw? And what if the sacrifice didn’t accomplish its mission?
10. Did Kane commit suicide? If not, why is he holding a bloody knife? If it is suicide, and he’s killed himself to instill spiritual faith in Cutshaw, wouldn’t suicide be frowned upon in the Christian theology Kane seems to be espousing?
11. Are we to believe that the reappearance of the St. Christopher’s medal on Cutshaw’s person at the conclusion is a religious miracle? Doesn’t that seem a bit too on the nose and over the top as proof of God or an afterlife?
12. What’s with the freeze-frame ending?
13. For that matter, what’s with the early scene where we observe the bikers who’ve kidnapped a tied-up old man? Foreshadowing?
14. The film’s title echoes what one of the characters says: “In order for life to have appeared spontaneously on earth, there first had to be hundreds of millions of protein molecules of the ninth configuration.” Isn’t this a pretty obscure reference to base your title on? Couldn’t they have titled it something else?
15. This film can quickly oscillate tonally between funny/silly to super serious to horrific to feel-good morality play. Were you okay with these dramatic shifts in tone, or is this a film where the vibe is hard to navigate?