Cinema Sunday
As you will recall, last week we discussed how post-apocalyptic movies can help to prepare us for life after the holidays, and we shared with you a portion of the Subliminal Cinema chapter entitled "It's the End of the World As We Know It, and I Feel Fine, But You're All Dead." The selection from last time featured the Kevin Costner movie The Postman, and taught you how to cope with the lack of mail delivery that will probably occur after the fall of civilization. But we warned you that there might be even worse fates than failing to get your copy of Highlights for Children ...
Yes, Panther Will and Bill S., we're talking about Waterworld! While it might be considered insensitive to discuss this movie under the current circumstances, we will redeem ourselves by suggesting that you donate another $5 to relief efforts (there's always the Red Cross via www.Amazon.com if you have no charities you like better) if this movie summary causes you to dislike Kevin Costner more than you did before.
Anyway, on with our tips on surving in a world where Kevin Costners are our messiahs, and it costs more than ten times as much to make a disastrous movie about a watery disaster than what President Bush first pledged in relief for the real watery disaster.
*****
What if Armageddon throws you a curve? Suppose global warming melts the polar icecaps, and all five continents are submerged beneath the turbid sea? Suppose man must find a way to survive while adrift in this most hostile of all earthly environments? And suppose he must put up with Dennis Hopper overacting, and Kevin Costner not acting at all? In that case, public sector employment opportunities are not going to be sufficient to save the world, despite their generally attractive benefits packages.
Our next film will divulge the secrets for surviving a global deluge, so take the hand of the person sitting next to you, and let's proceed two-by-two...
Waterworld (1995)
Directed by Kevin Reynolds and Kevin Costner (uncredited)
Written by Peter Rader and David Twohy
In its day, Waterworld was the most expensive movie ever made, reportedly costing about $200 million. While it’s nice to know that they cared enough to spend the very most, you are probably wondering if nearly a quarter-billion dollars is a reasonable sum to pay for a routine action yarn about an irritable post-apocalyptic yachtsman who drinks his own pee. But hey, what do you know; you’re no moviemaker! But then, neither are we. However, we do have a copy of The Making of Waterworld, so as we proceed with our summary, we’ll point out how each dollar is being spent.
Our movie begins with the Universal logo melting ($100,000). Then God ($150) announces that it’s the future and the Earth is covered with water. And then we catch our first glimpse of our hero, Kevin Costner ($25 million), as he pees into a cup. While you might suppose this is a studio-ordered urinalysis to make sure their money didn’t go for drugs, this isn’t actually the case, since Kevin runs the pee through a primitive cappuccino machine and drinks it. And to show that his urine has an especially piquant bouquet, he swirls it around his mouth, gargles it, and then spits a few drops onto a papier-mâché lime tree ($2), so it can also taste his goodness.
Kevin is an indomitable but crabby loner, much like Rambo or the Unabomber, and like them, he also goes by only one name: Mariner. (I don’t dispute the hero’s right to assume the name of a major league ball club, although personally I would have picked one with a better bullpen.) Kevin lives aboard his boat made from scavenged eggbeaters, ice cube trays, and other crap, and ingeniously kept afloat by a large, inflated ego. He ekes out a living from the harsh and unforgiving sea, diving into its inky depths, where no ordinary man dare go, to recover leather mugs from the Renaissance Faire.
But before he has the chance to bring up a soggy pair of pantaloons, who should appear but evil incarnate: the Smokers! Yes, in the future, really strict clean-air legislation has divided the world into two groups: the Smokers and the Non-smokers. The Smokers are a gang of Jet Ski-riding Hell’s Angels who kill, rape, plunder, burn fossil fuels, and eat Spam. They are led by a gratuitously villainous Dennis Hopper, who was apparently asked to reprise his performance in Speed, but make it a little less restrained.
In contrast to the depraved Smokers, the noble Non-smokers inhabit a man-made atoll composed of entirely of recyclables ($50 million). They eat only free-range fish, drink only Evian distilled-urine, and only watch PBS. But one thing both groups share is a fondness for leather clothing, an odd choice for Post-Apocalyptic beachwear because it is hot and becomes really smelly, which you’d think would be a disadvantage in a society lacking Arid Extra Dry. And hey, since there are no animals in this world, one is forced to conclude that Soylent Clothes are made from people!
Anyway, before the Smokers can give him emphysema, Kevin heads over to the Non-Smoking section, but they won’t let him in until he displays what’s in the leather mug: dirt! He takes it to the assay office, where the county agent tastes it and pronounces it pure. It seems that in the future a 5-pound bag of peat moss makes you Donald Trump. This could also explain why the people of this particular future are so dirty—they wear their alluvium as a status symbol, with only the wealthy being able to afford not to bathe.
As Kevin is leaving with his dirty lucre, the Non-Smokers accost him and attempt to shake him down--not for his money, but for his seed, just like in The Postman. The reoccurrence of this motif suggests that Kevin is a thoughtful futurist with a brave vision of things to come: specifically, a time in which the current model of transnational capitalism has evolved into an entirely jism-based economy. While time alone will tell, it’s worth noting that Kevin has far surpassed the timid imaginings of thinkers like Alvin Toffler and Alan Greenspan. For these savants have (so far, at least) failed to predict the impending sperm standard--let alone that in the new economy, Kevin Costner will be looked upon as the principal wealth-producer.
However, Kevin is apparently a skinflint (or, more appropriately perhaps, a skinfluteflint) and denies them his essence. The Non-Smoking leader promptly accuses Kevin of hiding something. And he is! But contrary to your suspicions, it’s not his sexual orientation, but gills and webbed toes. Kevin is arrested for being a mutant, and sentenced to languish in a dangling cage as a warning to Dan Ackroyd.
Meanwhile, let’s check in on Ebola, a little girl with a strange tattoo on her back. Ebola’s skin art doesn’t signify that she is romantically linked with Tom Green or Roseanne Barr, but is instead a design rumored to be a map to Dry World (where the Wet Head is Dead). Ebola spends her days drawing pictures of horses, trees, and soap: things no one in her society has ever seen! She is cared for by foster-mother Jeanne Triplehorne (apparently the poorest person in town, judging by her cleanliness) and foster-uncle Coot (an amalgamation of Leon Russell and the Wizard of Oz). They all want to escape to the legendary Dryland, but they can’t figure out what the tattoo means (Mr. Roark often had the same problem).
Suddenly, the atoll is attacked by the Smokers, who are seeking the fabled Girl With a Map To Dryland Tattooed On Her Back (apparently the demise of AAA has left a real cartographic void).
Coot’s balloon ($2 million) is inadvertently launched, and he has to leave Jeanne and Ebola behind. See, he can’t come back, he doesn’t know how it works! So, Jeanne releases Kevin from his birdcage on the condition he takes her and Ebola with him on his boat. He does. But as soon as they are at sea, Kevin threatens to dump his passengers because there’s not enough urine for three. Jeanne disrobes and offers to have sex with Kevin if he’ll spare them. He stares at her naked form for some time, waiting for her to lay her eggs so he can fertilize them. When she doesn’t follow through with her part of the bargain, he clubs her on the head. He hates a tease.
The fish, woman, and child begin to bond during their time at sea. Ebola uses Kevin’s crayons without asking, so he throws her overboard. Jeanne breaks a mast fighting off Smokers, so Kevin chops off her hair. In exchange for an old National Geographic, Kevin pimps Jeanne to an Irish Robin Williams-impersonator. So, they are becoming a family.
But this idyllic life comes to an end when the Smokers find them again and grab Ebola. Kevin and Jeanne jump overboard to escape death from secondhand smoke. When Jeanne complains that she can’t breathe underwater, Kevin says he’ll breathe for both of them; he then proceeds to blow carbon dioxide into her mouth while sneakily frenching her. When they surface, Kevin’s boat has been burned and the Smokers are nowhere in sight. So, there’s nothing they can do but have sex ($3.2 million), as Jeanne learns the origins of the term "cold fish."
Kevin is saved from cuddling by the reappearance of Coot and his balloon. Coot indicates that the survivors of the Non-Smoking Section have started a new atoll made from old egg cartons and beer cans, and invites Jeanne and Kevin to join them. But Kevin declares that he must rescue Ebola, even if it means certain death. Not because he’s after her map, but because she’s his friend. And because she still has one of his crayons.
Over in Smoking Section Headquarters, the ancient oil tanker Exxon Valdez ($70 million for rental, plus a $5 million surcharge for Irony), Dennis Hopper tries to get Ebola to tell him what her map means. She doesn’t know, since she can’t see her own back, but she does know that her Wesley . . .er, Mariner will come for her. And THEN they’ll be sorry--because he’ll make them watch Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves.
Just then, a lone, dark figure walks across the deck. Yes, it’s Mad Mackerel, the Roe Warrior! He’s a post-apocalyptic laconic hero who’s come to eat fish food and kick butt, and he’s all out of fish food! Deacon Dennis best sums up the situation: "He’s like a turd that won’t flush." And since this was before The Postman, Message in a Bottle, 3000 Miles to Graceland, and Many More, Dennis is starting to look like Miss Cleo.
Kevin throws a torch into the tanker’s fuel hold and rescues Ebola. Just as the ship explodes (presumably causing the worst ecological disaster in the history of the world), Uncle Coot arrives in the balloon, saving Kevin’s butt yet again (and if you want to see that butt, check out For Love of the Game, now on DVD!)
Coot looks carefully at Ebola’s tattoo and suddenly realizes how to read the map (although he still has trouble refolding it). Armed with this convenient plot twist, he leads the other survivors to a lush, verdant land with pure, clean water—but alas, still no soap. The group spots a grass hut ($3 million), and inside, two skeletons lying next to tattoo needles and a copy of the graphic on Ebola’s back. And now it all makes sense! Ebola is actually the child of Gilligan and Mary Ann, the last of the castaways. They sent her to the mainland for help, but the stupid kid spent all her time coloring and forgot to tell the authorities about her parents, leaving them to die of coconut cream pie-poisoning.
But everyone is so thrilled to have enough dirt to live like kings that there are no recriminations. However, the gilled-and-webbed Kevin isn’t at home on the land, and he must tell the tearful Ebola that she’s a fine girl, and what a good wife she would be, but his life, his love, and his lady is the sea. Then he steals director Kevin Reynolds boat and sails off, taking the remaining $100 million of the studio’s money with him. Because even a mutant can see that his back-end participation points are going to be worthless. The End.
***************
Of all the films reviewed for this book, Waterworld presents by far the darkest vision of the future: a time in which Man's natural habitat has vanished, leaving him crammed onto rusty, floating hulks, where he is preyed upon by violent locals, forced to inhale noxious fumes, and reduced to eating Spam washed down with pee. In other words, it's a Carnival Cruise, so the people best equipped to survive this harsh new environment are probably elderly Jewish women from Coral Gables.
But how can we use the wisdom imparted by this film to better prepare ourselves for the apocalypse? Well, to begin with, if you finally do get that tattoo you've been thinking about (oh, don't deny it) you should forget the rose on your breast, the butterfly on your ankle, or the ying-yang sign on your ass, and instead have Buzz at Inka-Dinka-Do on Hollywood Boulevard inscribe the entire Rand McNally World Atlas on your back. (Oh sure, it'll hurt, but at least when the apocalypse comes you'll get to have middle-aged potheads and faded matinee idols listlessly tussle over you.) Other than that, there are lots of little things you can do to prepare for the Deluge: load up on leather pants and Sea ' n Ski, Dramamine, Underwood Deviled Ham, and sphagnum moss. Take swimming lessons at the Y. Get your semen appraised. Cancel the newspaper. Oh, and you'll want to start mutating. But don't go crazy with it, or you could wind up like John Travolta in Battlefield Earth (alternate title: When Sweathogs Ruled the Earth), whose alien digestive tract required him to continually chew, swallow, and regurgitate scenery like cud.
*****
Yes, Panther Will and Bill S., next week's movie will be Battlefield Earth. And if our foreshadowing last week of our upcoming coverage of Waterworld caused the tsunamis, expect this week to bring about the enslavement of Earth by ugly, evil guys who want to strip our planet of its natural resources. Unless that's already happened, of course . . .
3:54:36 AM 
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