Hullabaloo: Saturday Night at the Movies by Dennis Hartley: "Pandora's Promise" and "Sightseers"

"Dogs flew spaceships! The Aztecs invented the vacation! Men and women are the same sex! Our forefathers took drugs! Your brain is not the boss! Yes! That's right! Everything you know is wrong!" -From the Firesign Theatre album Everything You Know is Wrong.

Wow. My world's been turned upside down. My mind is blown. For most of my adult life, I've apparently been walking around in a spoon-fed daze: Everything I thought I knew about nuclear energy is wrong! I'm shocked. Shocked no one previously took the time to grab me by the lapel to sit me down and set me straight about this whole "nuclear energy is inherently unsafe" meme that my environmentalist bruthuhs and sistahs have been shoving down my throat ever since I was knee-high to a recycled glass hopper. That is, until I saw Robert Stone's new documentary, Pandora's Promise. Now, I'm free! Free to ride...without getting hassled by the Man! Alright, I suppose I’m being a tad sarcastic.

Stone, a self-described "passionate environmentalist for as long as [he] could remember" goes on to write in his Director's Statement that in recent years, he sensed "...a deep pessimism that has infused today's environmental movement, and to recognize the depth of its failure to address climate change." Ouch. Then, "...through getting to know (Whole Earth Catalog founder) Stewart Brand", he was "introduced to a new and more optimistic view of our environmental challenges that was pro-development and pro-technology" (I should note at this juncture that Paul Allen and Richard Branson are a couple of the, shall we call them, "pro-development and pro-technology tycoons" with possible vested interest listed amongst the producers). Stone has enlisted members of the "small but growing cadre of people" willing to challenge "the rigid orthodoxy of modern environmentalism" as talking heads for his decidedly rah-rah pro-nuclear energy eco-doc.

I'll admit that I hadn't read the synopsis very carefully, and was anticipating yet one more film along the lines of last year's cautionary eco-doc The Atomic States of America (my review), preaching to the choir and telling me what I already knew (or thought I knew?) about the health effects on populations living in proximity of nuclear plant mishaps like Chernobyl and Fukushima. Initially, as it began to dawn on me that Stone's film was taking an unabashed debunker's stance toward what has become the accepted "green think” on such matters, I must say I found it quite compelling, if for no other reason than the fact that it was breaking the mold of your typical eco-doc. Besides, his interviewees take great pains to identify themselves as environmentally-conscious, politically progressive folks who at one time were stridently anti-nuke (yet have come to see the light). But haven't hundreds of thousands of Russians died of health issues related to Chernobyl? Pshaw! According to the film, the "official” number is...56? They cite a World Health Organization report that appears to support that number. France is held up as a prime example of one country that has happily embraced nuclear energy. And so on.

Still, by the time it ended, I couldn't help but feel that what I’d just been handed was a one-sided debate, and the more I thought about it, the more it played like a 90-minute infomercial for the nuclear energy lobby. I began to wonder about the purported "green cred" of the interviewees. And what exactly is this "Breakthrough Institute", the nebulous benefactor thanked in the end credits (sounds like one of those secret labs that get blown up at the end of a Bond movie)? Don't get me wrong...I'm all for weighing both sides of an issue, but apparently, I'm not the only movie-going rube with such an inquiring mind regarding a possible hidden agenda; it took all of 10 seconds on Mr. Google to find a 9-page investigative probe about the film's cast and backers, posted by the activist group Beyond Nuclear. That said, I'll grant Stone his chutzpah, and he gives food for thought. Should you see it? Hmm. Approach it as you would a reactor room...Enter with Caution.

I think we can all agree that there is nothing inherently amusing about mass/serial/spree killers; especially in the midst of these troubled times when they have become a daily occurrence. Nonetheless, filmmakers have been playing the subject for laughs for many a moon, going at least as far back as Frank Capra's 1944 film adaptation of Joseph Kesselring's early 40's Broadway hit, Arsenic and Old Lace, Charlie Chaplin's 1947 black comedy Monsieur Verdoux or the 1949 Ealing Studios classic, Kind Hearts And Coronets. Of course, those films could almost be considered "kind and gentle" next to contemporary genre fare like Bob Goldthwait's God Bless America (my review) or the insanely popular Showtime series Dexter, which begins its 8th (and final) season June 30.

Sightseers, a dark comedy from the UK directed by Ben Wheatley, falls somewhere in between. Sort of a cross between The Trip (my review) and, erm, Natural Born Killers, it's the story of a slovenly gent named Chris (Steve Oram) who drops in on his agoraphobic girlfriend Tina (Alice Lowe, who co-wrote with Oram and Amy Jump) to spirit her away from her over-protective Mum for a road trip to the north of England. Chris is eager to open Tina's eyes to wonders like the Ribblehead Viaduct and the Keswick Pencil Museum, planning to camp out in their caravan along the way. Besides, this will give the fledging couple a chance to get to know each other (as Chris assures the wary Tina.) The journey begins well enough, until Chris sees a man littering on a bus. Chris gets unusually bent out of shape when the man dismisses his admonishment with a middle fingered salute. Tina is concerned, but Chris' anger passes. She's relieved. That is, until Chris "accidently" runs over the litterbug with the caravan when he happens to spot him later that day. Oh, dear! Just when you think you're really getting to know somebody.

So do the laughs pile up in tandem with the escalating body count? I don’t know; maybe I’m already witnessing more than enough mayhem on the nightly news, but I couldn’t squeeze guffaws out of seeing someone run over by an RV, or having their skull pulverized into ground chuck by repeated blows with a blunt object. Call me madcap. Despite being infused with wry British wit and oddly endearing performances from Oram and Lowe, Wheatley’s film may have made me chuckle a bit, but it didn’t really slay me.