Today I watched Escape from the Planet of the Apes on DVD, a movie that has always been a big favorite of mine. It's the closest that the POTA series ever got to sci-fi comedy (at least in the first half) and the stylistic diversion from the rest of the movies shines very prettily. Instead of a couple of humans stranded on a planet full of talking apes, this time we only get three chimps (one of which gets killed by a gorilla early in the film) stranded on a planet full of talking humans. Talking humans, imagine that! Kim Hunter and Roddy McDowall do a spectacular job at playing Zira and Cornelius, especially Hunter, whose grace and skill at performing behind an ape mask bring the part to unimaginable levels. Victor from TYATR is pretty creepy as the evil government science guy who wants to get rid of the apes and their cute little baby chimp. To be honest, I don't know if I would've acted any differently in his position. If I came across a couple of talking apes who came here from overseas to take jobs away from honest working homosepians and have their hairy little kids run around in my back yard and later on maybe take over the planet or something, I would probably want to turn them into chimpburgers too. That is, if I actually gave a crap about the future of humanity. Which I totally don't. Humans stink big sweaty balls. If you can read this, that means you too. And Ricardo Montalban (aka Khaaaaaaaaaaan) plays a circus dude! I just read that he died earlier this year at the age of 88. He was so cool. IMDB says that his last role in the industry was that of a talking cow on Family Guy who makes a Holocaust joke (Da-cow) and then helps Peter expose a fast food company for being a big bunch of assholes. Jerry Goldsmith, who composed the soundtrack for the original Planet of the Apes (and for countless other sci-fi movies), did the music here too, and I just adore it. It totally made me feel like I'm in the not too distant future that is 1973. Zira and Cornelius' makeup is as great as in the previous films, but the one thing that bothered me was the 'primitive' apes costumes (a guy in a gorilla suit near the beginning of the movie and a guy in a chimp suit near the end). Those were just pathetic. I guess it couldn't be helped, as it's a known fact that each Apes sequel had a lower budget than its predecessor.
Kim Hunter says the hairy look is back this season
And here's what I've learned today: if a chick drinks lots of booze while she's pregnant, her baby is going to be real smart (for its species) and start talking at a very early age. That is very good to know.
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