Throwback Thursday: "Omega Man"

I don't know what it is with Charlton Heston flicks lately, but this Thursday's throwback is Omega Man, inspired by my enjoyment of I Am Legend - the book and the movie.

Omega follows Richard Matheson's novel about as much as Will Smith's I Am Legend, which means there are various interpretative liberties - some of which are good, some maybe not. For those who have seen or read Legend: in Omega, the "vampires" are more like albino Amish, with about as much of a fear factor.

The enemy of self-assured "last man on earth" Heston, the albinos refuse to use the machines of war to out Heston's character, Dr. Robert Neville. To me - this would have been a welcome handicap to accelerating their extinction, but Heston's Neville - much like Matheson's - mostly gets drunk and talks to himself.

Omega also does a good job of portraying the book Neville's, ahem...yearnings, shall we say, that would be pretty substantial after a few years of no Internet porn.

The film is from 1971, and for the time period, they do a fine job of showing empty streets, isolation, mass death, and broad shots using clever camera tricks that we take for granted now that there's so much technology to facilitate it. Heston is a believable Neville if not a little creepy when he smiles.

This may be a childhood riddled with Planet of the Apes movies talking, but this felt eerily similar. While the albinos are a little off simian, I'd venture to guess that if you like Apes then you'll like Omega.

I strongly doubt there were any Oscars won for acting, but the period special effects are good, the story is pretty solid, and it's got some decent action sequences.

So, if you’re looking for another take on what World War Z author Max Brooks calls LMOEs (Last Man on Earth) type stories, which I favor, admittedly) then give Omega Man a go.

Throwback Thursday: "Soylent Green"

Okay, so this movie tirade isn't exactly timely. In fact Soylent Green came out before I was born. But the name's catchy, kinda like Watership Down, so when I saw an old movie poster of it online, I found the movie and gave it a look. This will be the start of "Throwback Thursday" where - each Thursday - I'll review an old movie, for better or worse.
It's always interesting to see how the past would portray the future, like how Kubrick envisioned 2001 (soporific as his vision might have been). Green is set in 2022, where New York City holds 20 million people - a population density portrayed in the form of extras littering stairwells. How that's comfortable, I'm not sure, but I'll go with it.
With no desire to spoil the movie's plot, let's just say it's kind of like The Stuff meets 1984. If you can accept that - in '70s film - blood was orange-red, fight scenes looked like a tribute to John Wayne movies, and the women seemed to put out for no reason (I didn't see Charlton Heston complaining), then you'll appreciate that the story, acting, and camera work are all well done. It looked believable, and without many special effects.
What struck me the most is something I'm sure that's far more common in older films - not saying '70s is "old" - is that the climatic scenes - the shootouts, the fights, and chases - were almost entirely without background music. While I have fond memories of the powerful emotions that ran through me during the movies where background music seemed perfectly orchestrated (Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, and even the baseball bat beat down from Corky Romano to the tune of Twisted Sister's "We're not gonna take it"), it was nice to experience the emotions that came with seeing the climactic events unfold without music telling me how I should feel about it.
I've long despised the jump scares punctuated by sharp violin notes in cheesy horror flicks like I know what you did last summer that have no lasting effect, but merely tap into our baser fight or flight instincts and extol that some movie theater's sound systems are ridiculously loud.
Sound aside, Green is well worth watching for those who haven't seen it. Finding out it was a novel first, however, did make me wish I'd read the book beforehand, but it's not like there aren't a thousand equally-intriguing stories out there still.