Cracken Blue Balls

As a compulsive pre-adolescent, I spent many late nights flipping channels with a T.V. Guide on hand and a blank VHS at the ready. I was desperate to own a copy of what I then considered to be the greatest movie of all time. Because it was never actually in the listings, I apparently thought that the fervent power of my hope could override the cold hard fact of t.v. programming. What illusive celluloid creature was I hunting well into the wee hours of the night? 

The Cracken.


Today, the 1981 B-movie monstrosity (with monsters) rests in an Instant-Netflix-proximity, but I couldn't have less interest in viewing it. I re-watched parts during my teens, and that was enough for me to grasp it anew, in all its dull, wooden clumsiness. If for anything, Clash of the Titans gets noted as the swan song of special effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen. Bringing the stop-motion wizardry of Jason and the Argonauts (1963) to Clash's action sequences were what kept the childhood me awake and hunting during those late nights. And, of course, there's the winner of the 1982 Whoa-Goin'-Slummin'-Paycheck Award: Sir Lawrence Olivier, who sails through his duties playing the King of Olympus without breaking a sweat. (I was recently re-watching the Royal Shakespeare Company's 1984 instructional mini-series, Playing Shakespeare, featuring young-looking pre-knighthood thesps such as Ian McKellen, Ben Kingsley, and Patrick Stewart, among others. Anyways, I wonder if they saw Clash of the Titans around that time, and then if their tears got mixed together with their barf.) The movie also has Dame Maggie Smith as a scorned and spiteful goddess (is she Hera?) and the main antagonist to our hero Perseus. She puppeteers obstacles for him throughout the movie. And then there's Perseus, a curly-lock'd 80's stud played by ... Harry Hamlin... ? In my memory, its totally Chris Sarandon. Or if Mel Brooks had made a 1985 parody-spoof called Clash of the TitanBalls, Chris Sarandon would have definitely played Perseus ... And the lead romantic chick in this flick, whoever she is, she's terrible...   

So while the human characters are so imminently forgettable, the creatures that were brought to life in Clash of the Titans were what drummed on my childhood psyche. In my family household at the time, to say "stygian witches" was a common parlance for any creeping kind of evil. Summer swimming in our pool was often where my brothers and I "played Cracken" (just a king-of-the-heap-style wresting match, except I - I was a Cracken). I vividly recall one summer camp "time out" that I was given after I clobbered my playground friend, Mike. But all the fuck I was doing was putting the from-behind choke-hold on him exactly the way Calibos does to Perseus in that swamp. If Mike had been more with it, he would have known to chop my hand off with the magic sword and then take the limb with him back to Argos. Jeez. So the movie, a swan song for Ray Harryhausen, a late sad low-point for Lawrence Olivier, also works as a swan song for my pre-adolescent years. 

Furthermore, in addition to the indelible creatures effects, little Briggs took to the 1981 movie because it's a classic herculean adventure story. Classic, and classical. It's probably not unrelated that I took up Latin in high school, with its pervasive use of Greek myth. It's all coalesced kinda' nicely when the turn of the century brought the sword-and-sandal 'cast of thousands' pics back into vogue. I ate up Gladiator (2001)'s grandiosity and Troy (2004)'s campy-shit particularly because my nerdy Junior Classical League years were in purview. ((In the latter movie's case, having once (poorly) translated Virgil's Aeneid, I was delighted to see that movie suck, and swing for the rafters, and suck some more.)) Moving along this loose lineage, and if you factor in the success of 300 (2006)'s comic-book-world visual bullshit, and ultimately a 3D remake of Clash makes overwhelming sense. For me, and for the world. (Or, I should simply say "big budget" remake, as the "3D" thing is last minute icing in Avatar's wake.)

So the Cracken will be released (or re-released) this Friday. All this reminiscence and specious analysis is my way of saying: I am more squarely at the center of this film's marketing demographic than you are. Or, I'm squarely at the center of this movie's second target demo, males 24-32, who've actually seen the 1981 version, but also have a healthy fear of special effects. The main target demo, males 14-22, hugged Ed Norton's Incredible Hulk, flock to anything that looks Frank Miller-y, and don't know what The Hurt Locker is. 


I should mention that I haven't researched the new film. Other than watching the two trailers online, I've put media blinders on as part of my effort to enter the 3D theater next week with limited preconceptions. I've also never seen a movie by this French director, but he's not my kind of fun. I wish Alphonso Cuaron had directed it. Or Paul Greengrass. Or twenty other directors I could name. 

Because the adventure structure of the original movie is solid, my main hope is that the remake adheres to the plot of the first movie, just with better dialogue, better pacing, better directing, acting and editing. Before the second trailer debuted, I was concerned that I didn't see the Cracken anywhere, or Medusa. But, fears assuaged. Now I'm wondering what Ralph Fiennes's Hades has to do with anything? (Ralph's really cornered the market on 'pure evil' characters, by the way.) Has Hades replaced Maggie Smith's Hera as the puppeteer-antagonist to Perseus? Is Calibos that pig-orc-looking thing? 

We've got the pegasus, and we've got some deity-statues crumbling in Argos. So that's all good. Exciting/annoying as this trailer's editing is, a lot of the visuals in it look to be nicely derived from the earlier story. But: I ask you: Will the 21st Century rendering of this story have need for a bumbling bird side-kick by the name of ...  




... Bu-Bo? This adorable fuck-up makes Jar-Jar Binks look like a masterstroke of nuance. I can't imagine how they'd make him fit now. 

For the sake of next week, when I walk into a multiplex in Los Angeles, I don't even know how to manage my expectations anymore. The one, brief removal of my media-blinders will come Friday morning, when I check the movie review aggregate sites, but then hopefully resist the urge to actually read anyone's review. I just hope the movie doesn't get an average of 52% to 62%. I pray that it's met with anything but lukewarm, middle-of-the-road indifference. Which, I bet it will be 

As the swan of my childhood is reincarnated for one last gasp, as the cracken is finally re-released, I need to hug it unabashedly, or hug it ironically. With Clash of the Titans, I haven't learned how to do both.