Pulping in the 90s: The Shadow and The Phantom!

Article theme: Original Sin - Taylor Dayne

When Alex Baldwin isn't fatally shooting crewmembers on set, he sometimes acts in movies.

Alec nooo

The Shadow

One such movie was the 1994 Shadow, in which Baldwin plays another asshole who shoots people, except, unlike in real life, a Tibetan monk known as the Tulku bullies him out of his asshole ways and into a life of 1930s proto-superheroism. Baldwin, hitherto an evil opium kingpin based somewhere around the Hindu Kush, insists he doesn't want redemption, but the Tulku tells him tough shit, and that's that, apparently.

Evil Baldwin's creepy Fu Manchu nails crack me up. It's like if he became an African warlord and wore a giant plate through his lip.

The Tulku has a magic flying dagger that makes faces at you in between trying to stab you. IDK if CGI this vintage is nostalgic yet, but look at it. It's so silly.

Though I'll spend much of the remaining runtime missing Evil Baldwin, Good Baldwin is a passable substitute, especially when they let him improv:

I kinda want to splice this into his Glengarry Glen Ross scene but I'm far too lazy, so just...picture it.

Now based in New York City at its art deco height, Good Baldwin has mastered the nebulous powers of the Shadow (1994), which is just as well, because an evil villain (John Lone) is about to wake up from an ornate sarcophagus, claiming to be the last descendent of Genghis Khan. This is an odd claim because it's widely believed ol' Genghis crushed so much puss that .5% of the entire Earth is descended from him, but maybe Lil' Khan believed his ancestor's claim that he was just playing naked Twister with four hundred ladies when he walked into the old man's yurt aged four wanting a glass of airag and a bedtime story.

Lil' Khan knows how to make an entrance.

Rather than make NYC the seat of his Lil'khanate, Lil' Khan plans to blow it to high Tengri with a magic-meets-science Frankenstein nuke. I have no idea what he intended to do next, but did the Mongols ever really think that far ahead? I'd love to crack wise about the lack of foresight that leads a world-spanning empire to fragment and be absorbed into Islam but, well, I'm British, so, uh...nevermind. Fortunately Lil' Khan is as entertaining a villain as he isn't practical, amusing himself doing things like mind-controlling the guy from the diner in Mulholland Drive to do a header off a skyscraper for bagging on his steppe chic ensemble.

Bet that homeless bum behind the Winkies doesn't seem so bad now, huh Winkies guy?

Sadly our hero puts a stop to his malarkey in flamboyant fashion. For some reason the Shadow wears a mask that only covers his mouth, but grows a longer nose so that his Baldwin form can't be identified by nose size. IDK how many trvely dedicated hardcore Shadow fans were frequenting the cinema in 1994, but I think they'd have gotten away with giving him a proper mask instead, because it's weird watching a movie wondering how the protagonist's Pinocchio powers work. Does he read CNN headlines every time he transforms?

Wearing my mask like this daily from 2020-22 to troll Fauci goblins. Not all heroes wear capes (but I do).

The Phantom

But The Shadow wasn't the only 1930s pulpkino to drop in the 90s, and NO, The Rocketeer isn't the other one. The Rocketeer is based on a pretender comic strip from the 80s and is boomer truth regime bootlicking ASS. The other one is 1996's purple-bodysuitkino The Phantom (1996).

Sadly, he doesn't yell "slam evil!" when he punches people. Missed opportunity, honestly.

Billy Zane (Twin Peaks) plays the titular hero who, despite his ominous-sounding name, is an entirely amiable bro void of the mandatory angst that makes most heroes such a bore. He lives in the jungles of Madeupistan but gets caught up in Treat Williams' (Deep Rising) evil scheme to unite three magical skulls that, when placed together, unlock the incredible power of welding:

"What a treat!" - Treat.

Even when trained on a person, this hilariously underwhelming superweapon is only about as useful as a handgun, maybe moreso if it doesn't require ammunition, but Treat Williams is so pleased with himself when he gets it, he reminds me of Béla Lugosi at the end of Chandu the Magician. Other villains include Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Showdown in Little Tokyo) as a pirate, Ritchie from The Sopranos as a gangster, and Catherine Zeta-Jones as the ambiguously gay nympho leader of an all-chick squad of pilots who turns face in the end, which sounds suspiciously like Pussy Galore from Goldfinger, but apparently she was a real character in the OG comic strips so IDK who ripped off whom. Kristy Swanson (The Chase) rounds out the cast as Zane's love interest, who is apparently unable to see through his proto-Clark-Kentian disguise:

"Hmmm...nope, could be anyone" - Kristy Swanson.

Just like The Shadow, The Phantom is a good-natured time-killer with fun setpieces and period detail, but apparently most of the scenes developing the Swanson/Zane romance were cut, and you can feel their absence. Swanson's bonding scenes with Charlie Sheen in The Chase were a charm showcase that would elevate the characters' dynamic here. Hilariously, more definition is lavished upon the dynamic between Swanson and Zeta-Jones:

The great debate!!!

So, which is better? The Shadow, but I prefer The Phantom. But whichever you prefer, it's nice to know there were such sovlful tributes to the old-school pulp heroes released within at least my lifetime. Have a great week and don't forget to lock the door before you slam your evil.

Hey now.

Great moments in Glengarry Glen Ross

As you know, Glengarry Glen Ross is the greatest movie ever made. Everything about it, from the cast to the set design to the cinematography, is God tier filmmaking. Scarcely a minute goes by without a quotable line, and it's in the rare category of movies I can watch over and over, along with The Shining, Starship Troopers, and Event Horizon.

Today, however, I draw your attention to some of the small things that make this the greatest movie ever. I will spoil the ending of the movie and I advise you not to read this unless you have watched it several times.

"Have you made your decision for Christ?"

Alec Baldwin's speech is the most famous part of the movie, and this is the best part of it. The ever circling camera comes in to a low angle closeup and he gets a manic gleam in his eye as he delivers this line that comes out of nowhere and has nothing to do with the rest of the film. It casts the rest of the speech in the terms of a revival preacher or some shit, making the whole thing even better than it ever was.

Some people think the line was supposed to be "for Christ's sake" or something like that, but it's so much better this way, like at any moment he's going to reach into the case he keeps his brass balls in and whip out a fucking snake.

Alec Baldwin holds the new leads with his fingertips

I love how Baldwin holds the leads like they're so precious he doesn't want to smudge them or something. He's holding them so daintily here while he bitches everyone out for their alleged incompetence, and then he hands them over his shoulder to Williamson, who doesn't even give a shit. This is something a lot of people don't appreciate about the film: Alec Baldwin is fucking insane, and is therefore perfectly cast in the role of Fuck You.

Levene's shoulder mount thing for his phone

While everyone else tends to lean forward on the phone, Levene likes to sit back and play with his glasses with both hands, letting this shoulder mounted clip hang onto the phone for him. This is the kind of attention to detail you don't get in most films, least of all mine. I have no idea if this was a common thing back in the golden era of the 1990s, when men were men and cellphones were the size of midgets, but it is awesome and I want to be a down-on-my-luck salesman in the early 90s just so I can have one.

The good cop

The main cop character is obviously the bad cop - he tries to boss everyone in the office around, and his partner (who has no lines) sits on the side of the office with Moss, who disregards him entirely. If there were only one cop it wouldn't be nearly as funny, but the fact that our main guy is the bad cop and is so totally ineffectual is brilliant.

"Anybody talks to this asshole is a fuckin' asshole"

In a movie so full of eloquent one-liners that make Shakespeare sound like a /b/tard, this is a hilarious little moment of reality where Moss can't think of another word for "asshole", so he says it twice. Hey, coming up with Mamet-esque dialogue all day is tiring work.

Roma sticks his gum under the desk like a kid

This is another endearing little moment when Roma sees Lingk coming and quickly makes up a story to throw him off. He realises he's been chewing gum and quickly sticks it under his desk. I like to think this sort of situation comes up every other day and the underside of his desk is covered in gum. I like the association with school days that this image conjures up, because, as we know, Roma is the John Bender of this movie.

"You saw my book!"

In the scene where Roma is bullshitting Lingk to get his dubious sale to stick, this little detail adds a lot to the improvisatory nature of his spiel. He's trying to tell Lingk he's too busy to speak to him right now, so he flashes a diary, which on closer inspection is near empty. It only has two lines written in it. If Lingk weren't such a pussy he could totally call Roma out on this, but he's the Jeb Bush of this film, so he doesn't.

Williamson chews gum

I like how Williamson chews gum at the end of the movie. Roma famously tells Moss "let me buy you a pack of gum, I'll show you how to chew it". I like to think Williamson chews gum because Roma already bullied him to tears over it. Williamson clearly pounces on the opportunity to fuck Levene at the end because every minute of every day of his life is spent being someone else's bitch.

I want to see a sequel where the two remaining salesmen on the team, Roma and Aaronow, give Williamson shit for two hours. Maybe Levene was right when he said Williamson would miss him. Or maybe I'm reading too much into the gum. Then again, people said that about Twin Peaks.