Category: Oh Good Lord More Highlander

Last time: Kastagir brought us sunshine and rainbows and booze and fun. Connor smiled (1980s) and got stabbed a lot (1780s).

26. Oh, right. This movie’s about immortal people whacking each other (part 1).

Meanwhile, the Kurgan is checking out of the flophouse (I seem to be running out of cartoon-wolf reaction shots for this). On the way, he stops to menace the clerk for saying the following:

“How’d you like Candy? She said you were kind of kinky, huh?”

Setting aside the fact that saying that is obviously suicidal… If you thought I was really digging in with the religious analogies last time, let me say that I have pondered those words above quite a bit since the first time I watched Highlander. And as wishing for a competent fanfic writer to do the same has not panned out, I’ll just point out that, reluctant as I am to admit it, the Kurgan hasn’t actually done much for a guy who is posited as humanity’s greatest threat. Other than his attacks on immortals,  he has so far:

• Killed a bunch of MacLeods in exchange for access to Connor—possibly also because he enjoyed it, but it’s explicitly stated that it’s part of an “agreement”;
• Left Heather alive and in a condition that gives Connor no inkling of what happened;
• Left Candy the prostitute alive and mildly complaining (assuming that was in fact a complaint);
• Given the flophouse clerk a really stern talking-to.

By the standards of movies set in gritty New York, that’s pitiful. Jeff Goldblum’s nameless thug in Death Wish did worse. Still,  it’s an interesting contrast to what we see later in the movie, and I still can’t figure out if it’s a deliberate one. All I can say is that it took me years to notice.

We then have one of my favorite scenes in the movie. I’ve mentioned how good all the minor characters are, and this wackjob is no exception: a survival nut drives the dark streets of New York in what I’m pretty sure is a Trans Am, music blaring, machine guns rattling around in the car. The guy is one Rambo headband (and one bad decision) away from having his own movie, in other words.

Wackjob passes an alley and sees two guys fighting with swords: it’s the Kurgan and Kastagir, who will henceforth be known as The Fellow Who Should Have Stayed In And Ordered Room Service. Wackjob grabs one of his guns, thrilled to have some actual crime to fight, and tries to break things up. The immortals sensibly ignore him; less sensibly, Kastagir is not wearing a thick metal collar. Soon he’s not wearing a head anymore either.

And just as the Kurgan is about to have a totally-not-a-sexual-analogue experience, Wackjob shoots him full of bullets. How rude.

 

Next time: Hitchcock for Found-Again Friday.

Next time on TCBOM!: Explosions! I know I promised you explosions this week, but the farther into the movie you get, the harder it is to, er, slice things up properly.

 

 

 

Last time: I put my fingers in my ears and said, “La la la I can’t hear any really sappy songs, how about you?” until it was over.

25. Maybe I do have something in common with the Highlander other than chronic ennui. Too bad it’s at the end of the next paragraph…

On a picturesque bridge, Connor encounters a cheerful immortal man dressed like popular interpretations of Jesus. This would be Sunda Kastagir, an old friend. Why do I feel like Connor is the dullest person in all his relationships?

They reach as if for their swords. Connor comes out empty-handed; Kastagir has a flask. Then they hug. If this whole there-can-be-only-one thing were democratically decided by the ruled (us), I suspect Kastagir would win, because a guy who can look at the Gathering and say “I think we should have a party” is the guy you want ruling the world.

It can be hard to pick out amid the swinging swords, but I’ve often thought Highlander is in part an exploration of the nature of God—the premise sort of demands it—and Connor is the deity we’re familiar with from traditional Christianity: not particularly interested in being visible, occasionally capricious, basically well-intentioned, but with no real plan to interfere in the lives of humanity for good or ill. This would make Kastagir more of a water-into-wine Jesus figure (or any of the many analogues available in mythology), and the Kurgan would probably be related to the Gnostic version of the Demiurge—he wants to rule, but something critical is missing.

Hey, not all of my referents are popular songs, or even my idea of popular songs.

But back to Kastagir, who is with us for all too short a time and who should probably buy a thick metal collar tout de suite. (That cannot possibly be a spoiler.) (Perhaps Connor has an antique diver’s helmet he could borrow?)

Connor sniffs at the flask. Kastagir says, “Maybe you think I’m tying to poison you.” If you’re starting to daydream about all the sneaky things immortals could do to disable each other and gain the upper hand, so am I, but the movie doesn’t want to follow us there—and with the Kurgan running around, can you blame it? That could get bad in a hurry.

Their reminiscences lead to another flashback, this one to the 18th century, when Connor is trying to fight a duel of honor while completely stinking drunk. He’s run through several times, bouncing right back every time, and eventually apologizes for the insult that started the whole thing and wanders away. It’s hilarious, but it’s more grist for my wounds-and-recovery-of-immortals mill, because I repeat: he’s run through several times. I just watched the 1940 Mark of Zorro movie, and granted that nobody in the Zorro film is supernatural, nonetheless Basil Rathbone’s character is killed stone dead by about three-quarters of anything that happens to the Highlander in this flashback.

So there you have it: from the sublime Kastagir to “Do Immortals Have Spleens?”. This movie is like that sometimes.

Next time: Speaking of the sublime to the ridiculous, it’s likely I’ll be looking at either Hitchcock or Bruce Campbell for Friday.

Next time on TCBOM!: One Kurgan, one explosion, one good time.

 

 

 

Last time: Connor blew up the whole enterprise and made us listen to Ramirez again. Connor sucks.

24. Who indeed?

Welcome to my least favorite part of Highlander. I whine like it’s Ramirez, true, but it’s actually this sequence here, which I’ll summarize in a few words and then talk about poor old Heather.

In short: In flashback, we see that Connor stays with Heather while she grows old and dies, living in the shadow of the ruined tower with “Who Wants To Live Forever?” playing in the background. He also comforts her in her last moments (movie’s interpretation)/bores her right into the grave with a twee speech (my interpretation), leaving behind his MacLeod sword and taking Ramirez’s as his personal weapon.

Let me wade in at the shallow end here: I despise “Who Wants To Live Forever?” and have ever since it played on the Highlander series and my mother actually asked me, “Is that Clannad? It sounds like that Robin Hood music.” I was a 20-year-old music snob at that point, so the tone in which I replied, “NO, MY GOD NO IT IS NOT THAT ROBIN HOOD MUSIC,” was probably over the top. Still, the ghost of that exchange haunts me every time I hear this, and my only explanation for the song’s existence is that Freddie Mercury accidentally opened a message from the universe intended for Michael Crawford.

Instead, let us spare a moment for Heather [maiden name unknown] MacLeod, the most screwed-over person in the entire Highlander film. I always find myself assuming that it is, in some way, her tower, which would suggest that something terrible happened with her family; the fact that she would consider marrying a guy who was exiled by his own clan backs this up, I think. Then her happy marriage is interrupted by a blowhard Spaniard, her house is knocked down in a supernatural contest of might, she’s molested by a madman, and even here, at the end, it’s still up in the air whether Connor told her he’s infertile or she just figured it out over the decades. (I imagine when the Kurgan grabbed her, she probably thought, “At least I’ll probably end up pregnant, like the ballads all say.” Poor Heather.)

And through it all, we see in this montage that she just kept on happily running her little farm. It never occurred to Connor to, say, suggest that she run down to the village and see the cute [insert ye olde profession here] sometime during her childbearing years so they could have a putative kid? It’s a solution that’s been used from time immemorial by mere mortals all over the world in cases like this—and yes, I suppose this means I’m citing Heart’s “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You” as further evidence that Connor sucks. This guy is the hero of the movie: I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want something a little more solid than “doesn’t intend to hurt people” to hang my hat on here.

Did I mention this part of the movie has some of the worst makeup effects I’ve ever seen anywhere, including the section on theatrical makeup in my family’s old 1953 encyclopedia? I should have. Literally any way you look at it, Heather gets the shaft.

Next time: Unknown.

Next time on TCBOM!: Now we can start an entirely different kind of party!

 

 

 

 

Last time: The beginning of this time. Seriously, I had no idea this was going to be a two-parter.

23. Like pulling teeth, these are the dates of our lives (Part 2—le geek, c’est chic)

Just when it looks like this might turn into a real date, Brenda notices the other wrapped present Connor brought—a copy of her book on metallurgy, with a bio stating she works for the police. Busted!

“I have an extensive library,” Connor says by way of explanation (one of my favorite lines in this movie). He tells Brenda about the cop outside as she frantically tries to salvage her plan.

“What are you going to do?” she asks.

“The question is,” Connor retorts,  “what are you going to do? Are you going to turn off the tape, or are you going to shoot me with the .45?” Busted x3!

So far, so exactly like every other conversation these two have had—cagey to the point of ridiculousness. On the upside, can you imagine what this pair would have been like on a dinner date? Five-minute acrimonious hinting about the wine list, secret agendas involving tiramisu, and if we were lucky, Connor cutting a cake with a sword. “There can be only one! … but two forks, please!”

Now desperate, Brenda empties the bullets from the gun—that’ll kinda-sorta come back to haunt her—and makes a last-ditch plea to see the sword. In a way, it’s like a rundown of the movie from Brenda’s point of view: finding the metal fragments, searching the crime scene, realizing she was on to something amazing. “If I could verify the existence of such a weapon, it would be like discovering a 747 a thousand years before the Wright brothers ever flew!” she finishes with such an awesome, goofy smile that I really love Brenda in that moment. People in movies aren’t always allowed to just geek out about things that way unless they’re villains—and even then, Brenda’s interest in the sword  isn’t quite an obsession, the way it would be if she was a movie villain. She just has information she’s excited about and can tell she’s being buffaloed.

Connor is having none of this, and even goes so far as to say, “Don’t you ever think about anything except what you want?” before he leaves. If everyone did that on first dates when he was younger, no wonder the Highlands used to be full of stabby people.

As he storms off, Connor hears the voice of Ramirez again, telling him not to get involved. Here’s a hint: if you do, maybe save the accusations of selfishness till the fourth date. Fifth would be better.

 

Next time: Chance of Disney, or weirdness.

Next time on TCBOM!: You only thought you knew which part of this movie I hated.

Last time: Doesn’t anybody in this movie know how to flirt properly? The closest we’ve come is the Kurgan and Candy the prostitute. (And Connor and Heather, I suppose, but I really hate it when she says he’s “all muck and muscle.” Ew.)

22. Like pulling teeth, these are the dates of our lives. (Part 1—who knew?)

I find myself in a bit of a quandary here, as I sat down to do the usual recap-sprinkled-with-speculation thing I do and realized that I have no idea what Connor is hoping to get out of this date.

 As a viewer I know, of course—he’s trying to figure out what Brenda knows, he doesn’t want mortals getting hurt in the course of his business, and he’s fighting an attraction to her. But one of my guiding principles, the reason I even bother suggesting things like Kurgan vs. Loch Ness Monster or spend hours trying to figure out who won the 1536 battle, is that I like the things that happen in movies/TV/books to have an in-world explanation. It doesn’t have to be a good one, mind you, but I assume it’s there. So what is Connor consciously trying to do?

Connor’s already aware that Brenda doesn’t know much about either immortals or the sword, and that the only way she’d learn more is if he told her. I doubt he can intimidate her into leaving him alone: if the Kurgan turning up didn’t put her off the scent, Connor can’t do it. And if he’s going to tell her a bunch of lies, setting up a confrontation the way he does seems like a bad way to open.

All of which may well leave us with “He didn’t want to drink alone,” with associated subconscious subtext.  Okay, then. Let’s go with that.

Brenda is preparing for her date with a loaded gun and a tape recorder, which is the thing to do if you think your date may have beheaded someone. Her apartment is amazing: it’s just possible the NYPD has no money for a camera because she’s been embezzling it all to buy scimitars and Persian rugs.

Connor shows up and hangs around the doorway like Dracula until she specifically invites him in. He even says “Good evening.” While Brenda goes off to put on her enormous ’80s earrings, Connor spots a painting of a kilted highlander on the wall and waggles his eyebrows. It’s really cute.

Showing more forethought than we’ve seen out of him…ever, he immediately catches on about the gun and the tape recorder, and spots something even Brenda didn’t know about: the cops are watching her apartment. When asked, she lies about her job, claiming she’s in museum work. I wouldn’t admit to Moran as a colleague either.

Connor pours drinks from the bottle he brought, and they stand together. “Brandy,” he says, “bottled in 1783…” and goes on to mention a few broad historical facts. Which is understandable, since he doesn’t want to blow his cover, but you kind of want him to say “…bottled in 1783, the year I—I mean, my ancestor— lost all that money at poker and had to wash dishes in a castle in Luxembourg for a summer.” For the sake of the movie, something more obscure than “England recognized the independence of the United States” would have been nice, but it seems to be hitting home with Brenda, who for the first time looks as if she may really be interested in more than Connor’s weapon.

Next time: A small chance of Hitchcock—the big guy, not Robyn.

Next time on TCBOM!: It’s all downhill from here, except for the big geek-out.

 

More bonus goofery: I found some music that goes well with the Kurgan/Ramirez duel, and the official video is even a little Highlanderesque! Enjoy.

 

 

 

Last time: Did I mention Ramirez died? Out here in what passes for the real world, I may also have purchased one of these.

Back in the 20th century, Connor emerges from his Fortress of Mope-itude to find Brenda in his antique shop, arguing with the well-dressed woman at the front desk.

This would be Rachel, Connor’s former ward and current friend and employee—and my favorite mortal character in the movie. Rachel is beautiful, seems quite smart and levelheaded, and clearly adores Connor, which helps with those stretches of movie where it’s easy to forget he’s the protagonist. If you do not like Rachel, you should seek medical help, because your heart has probably been replaced with days-old Kraft Singles.

Brenda and Connor spar in their hamfisted fashion: she asks about the Kurgan, then about the sword she’s looking for, and he plays very dumb, steering her toward a display case of silver. (For some reason, antique silver bores the ever-loving…you know… out of me, the art-history geek, so this part seems more aggressive to me than it’s meant to be.)

“Do you cook?” he asks Brenda. “I thought we might have dinner.” Ladies and gentlemen, a man who has had four hundred years to learn how to chat up women! Rachel overhears all this and smiles encouragingly. Brenda will make the date, of course: she’s after a sword.

You know what I mean.

Meanwhile, the cops are talking, and one of them saw Brenda at the antique shop. Uh-oh.

Back to Connor and to Rachel, who is straightening Connor’s tie and trying to do damage control, asking what she should say when people ask about him. “Tell them I’m immortal,” he deadpans, and we segue into a WWII flashback in which Connor saves little Rachel from the Nazis. I’ve heard this part might not have been in the theatrical release, and if so it’s a shame: it’s got lots of action, the outfit and hair are a great look for Christopher Lambert—no Columbo cosplay, no filthy kilt—and Connor gets to save a kid and shoot a Nazi!

This is great! But it’s so good I find myself wondering if modern-day Connor has a vitamin deficiency or something. There’s so much more energy.

Back in the present, Rachel tries to get Connor to admit he has feelings for Brenda, and Connor acts like a cross between a world-weary soul and a kid getting interrogated about his first crush.

“You’re such a romantic, Rachel,” he tells her, then kisses her on the cheek and takes off for his date. He should’ve gone back to his 1940s hairdo first.

 

Next time: Another thing that scared me as a child for Found-Again Friday.

Next time on TCBOM!: The date goes about as well as can be expected, and OH GOD RAMIREZ VOICEOVER.

Last time: I wish Yelp had existed in 16th-century Scotland, because I’d love to see Connor and Heather’s review of their contractor. (Maybe they are DIYers? Using a paste of moss and Connor’s exile tears as mortar seems like something he’d do.)

20. Finally! Part 3: The Quickening, Which Follows The Shut-Uppening

Oh, dear: I get so caught up in this fight I’ve backed myself into writing an entire blog post about maybe two minutes of movie. Ah, well, I am nothing if not dedicated.

The fight continues on up the staircase toward the Epic Finish™, but not before more wall falls down—so much so, in fact, that the Kurgan is distracted and gets run right through the breastplate.You’d think that would take a few seconds of recovery, but he just pulls the blade out and uses it to leverage Ramirez down.

This scene is an excellent illustration of why I will never understand how injuries and recovery periods work on immortals. Does being “the strongest” mean it’s okay to get your throat cut, run through, and have a fall through a beam from an enormous height, all with approximate 15-second recoveries? Right after this, the Kurgan gives Ramirez what looks like a pretty shallow slice across the chest, and it seems to completely demoralize the guy. Why?

By now, of course, they’ve reach the top of the tower, which is still crumbling around everybody. For a moment, the bit they’re standing on looks like the neck and head of a dragon, which is great since that’s the Kurgan’s symbol. When they cut back to it, however, bits have fallen off and it’s just more cheap Freud sticking up in the air…which is everybody’s symbol in this movie (cf. that lovely shot of Ramirez’s codpiece when the Kurgan was slicing on him. I can’t imagine why I keep thinking of Lord Flashheart). The Kurgan runs Ramirez through and taunts him: eldritch lightning flashes!

Then the Kurgan spots poor Heather. What the heck did he think was doing all that screaming, Ye Olde ADT? Ramirez tries to protect her by saying she’s with him, but since he’s about to die, that doesn’t go so well.

“Tonight you sleep in hell,” the Kurgan tells Ramirez, looming menacingly over him. Why don’t I ever get to say things like that at my job? Three guesses as to whether he also gets to say the film’s tagline before Ramirez, blessedly, is silenced.

Then… well. I’ve already talked about the stupid tower remnant: do I have to tell you how the Kurgan holds his sword as the Quickening happens? I bet I don’t. In fact, so great is the force of this completely-not-a-sexual-analog thing that he plummets from one of the few high surfaces left on the damn tower, yet five seconds later is completely ready to grab poor Heather and drag her off.

Heather is by far the character I feel sorriest for in the entire movie, and this isn’t even the chief reason.

So that’s that. While the very end of the scene was definitely bad, every time I watch Ramirez get beheaded I have the same reaction:

And then I remember that the movie frames all this as Connor’s flashback… of events he wasn’t around for, and about which the movie later shows he has limited knowledge. For a second there, I was really getting excited.

Next time: Don’t say it five times, okay?

Next time on TCBOM!: We meet my favorite mortal character, and Connor makes a da-aaate…

Last time: Did somebody call a one-sleeved exterminator? Also, I forgot to mention that they play something very like the string music from Psycho when the Kurgan beats the door in. Nice touch.

19. Finally! Part 2: Slash! Stab! Demolish?

Ramirez starts out strong, slashing the Kurgan’s throat but not fully beheading him. Blood pours down the poor guy’s  Kurgan’s beautiful face and—

You know what? Just assume I’m doing this through the whole damn scene. I’m not proud of it, but it is a fact.

Now then.

The Kurgan manages to defend himself long enough to regenerate his neck a bit, then goes on the offensive. Understandably, Heather screams. By now I’ve watched this enough that every time she does, I automatically add the words “My homeowner’s insurance!”

Meanwhile, Ramirez delivers the kind of wisecracks (“My cut has improved your voice!”) that should prove to doubters once and for all that there are things Roger Moore could pull off that Connery can’t.* They fight up the staircase, and the Kurgan is knocked to the ground through a beam that, in retrospect, seems to be pretty important to the tower’s construction. It’s one of my favorite parts of this fight scene, since the moment he regains consciousness, he is immediately groping for his sword. That’s the kind of focus I like to see in a villain.

The Kurgan regains his feet before Ramirez can descend the stairs, and he laughs evilly—something else I like to see in a villain. This time, the staircase battle causes the tower to actually begin falling down, so to “Why is it there?” and “Why are a couple of young random lovers living in it?,” we can add “What the heck did these people use for mortar?”

More fighting. All the woodwork in the tower collapses. More “My homeowner’s insurance!” More of me acting like the wolf in the Tex Avery cartoon, because not only is the Kurgan punching Ramirez, he’s really enjoying it. As am I.

*Not necessarily worthy things. Just things.

 

Next time: If I knew, I’d tell you.

Next time on TCBOM!: Ramirez! Stops! Talking!

 

 

Last time: The saddest anyone has ever been at the farmers’ market.

18. Finally! Part 1

Connor is gone—though I can’t figure out where. Do blacksmiths go on business trips?

Ramirez is having supper with Heather in the tower of Why Is There A Tower. He tells some sort of swashbuckling anecdote about an assignation gone wrong (also known as the part of the movie where I start muttering about who is and is not Errol @#!&ing Flynn). Heather laughs and pours more wine from what looks a lot like a present-day pinot noir bottle.

Ramirez’s immortal sense suddenly goes off, a few seconds before the birds notice a disturbance in the air and fly up: remember that when Connor can’t seem to notice anything more than 20 feet away. He tells Heather to escape, but it’s too late: the Kurgan bursts through the door—literally—and his eyes light up with unholy glee when he sees Ramirez.

As you might imagine, this is one of my favorite parts of the movie. Someone is going to make Ramirez stop talking!

Er, also, the Kurgan continues to look good. He’s down one sleeve (and, sadly, one magnificent skull helmet), though, and I can’t help wondering why. In fact, I wondered it on the phone for about two hours last summer, which inspired me to write There Can Be Only Monday! in the first place.

It frees up his sword arm, but you’d think someone as old as the Kurgan would’ve figured out details like that before now. That, coupled with the fact that it took him five years to find Connor’s house when the Highlander never left Scotland, raises the question of what he’s been doing all this time.

My top 5 explanations:

• It took that long to find a bookie who would take payment in armor, and dude has no idea how to handicap Shetland ponies beyond the literally and cruelly obvious.
• He melted the sleeve down to make action figures so he could relax Dark-Helmet style. Yes, for 5 years. Being the strongest of the immortals is totally exhausting.
• Looking for/fighting/learning to ride the Loch Ness monster. (Note: not only would I watch this movie, I would invest in it.)
• Sold it for bagpipe-making supplies so he can also terrify people outside Scotland.
• Weather was so awful he got his tongue stuck to his own sleeve for 5 years. (What? it’s not like he has to eat.)

At any rate.

“The Highlander! Where is he?” barks the Kurgan, presumably thinking That’s weird: do blacksmiths go on business trips?

Ramirez says, “It’s too late; I’ve prepared him for you!” in full High Drama mode, so naturally the Kurgan has no choice but to chop a table in half with his sword. The fight is on…which is more than we can say for the wine bottle.

 

Next time: Good question!

Next time on TCBOM!: Sweet mother of mercy, I think I’ll be stretching this scene out over three blog posts. Is this where the whippersnappers put “#sorrynotsorry”?

 

 

 

 

 

Last time: Eye of the tiger, or whatever similar carnivore is to be found in Scotland.

17. To market, to market, for some heartfelt bad news. And no doughnuts.

Connor, his wife Heather, and Ramirez go to market, and I am full of questions. Where is this market? It must serve a big area: we see a lot of different clan tartans. How far do Connor and Heather live from a village generally? From this village in particular? Is it possible someone from the old village might see Connor there, and what would happen if they did, given that they think he is a demon? And wouldn’t a crowd like this be likely to make fun of a guy in a red velvet suit?

These questions (other than an apparent “no” to the last one) go unanswered. As they walk past the vendors and other buyers, we see what looks like doughnuts. I don’t know if kettle doughnuts would be historically accurate, but having tasted a fresh-glazed one at a farmer’s market, I don’t care. If I were making Highlander, they’d be the focus of the scene: Connor and Ramirez would be eating them while all the emotionally heavy talk happens.

“But what I  want is a family!” Connor tells Ramirez. Had there been vampire novels in the sixteenth century, he might already have been aware that immortality occasionally comes at a reproductive price—although the, er, rise of supernatural romance has sort of put paid to that idea in the last 15 years.

Ramirez, to his credit, doesn’t do what my father would have done (i.e., say something about people in hell wanting ice water). He just breaks the bad news that immortals can’t have children. Connor points out that that will disappoint his wife—who at the moment seems to be buying the only live chicken at the poultry stand. As she shops, Ramirez lays down the immortal version of the Sex Talk, telling Connor he should leave his wife and sharing that over his 2,437 years, he’s had his heart broken repeatedly by marrying mortal women.

“I would save you that pain,” Ramirez says, and you don’t have to be 2 millennia old to know this advice is going to go totally unheeded. It does make Connor mopey(-er than usual), though. He should go get a doughnut.

Later, Ramirez asks Connor about his death on the battlefield and gives him a brief rundown on the Kurgan, which can be summarized as: ancient, powerful, really really dangerous. (As a side note, since I saw the movie late, I first encountered Kurgans in this book, which I heartily recommend.) Connor asks how one fights something like that, and is rewarded with the scoutmasterly speech at the end of the video I included last week. But hey, it gives Connery what I assume is a contractually promised opportunity to say “There can be only one.”

Next time: It’s a different sort of musical interlude as I look at my Valentine’s Day tradition.

Next time on TCBOM!: And now we can start the party.