The Bees. Alfredo Zacarías, 1978.
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Edition screened: Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray #104, released 2016. English language. Runtime approximately 92 minutes.
Summary: Implicit bee smashing.
Details: As though Dick Dastardly were watching and laughing from behind a boulder, a “bee slick” on the highway causes a van carrying a counter-bee chemical to crash and burn, 1:18:30-1:18:50, implicitly but not visually smashing quite a few bees. This happens soon after we are told that the bees have mutated again, dang it, and now have developed creative, problem-solving intelligence. So really this group of bees intentionally sacrificed themselves for the good of the larger colony. Speaking of Communists . . .
A surprise treat in this movie is generous documentary footage from the 1978 Tournament of Roses Parade with Gerald Ford as Grand Marshal. While I enjoyed seeing the vintage floats, nostalgic marching band uniforms and spectators in disco shirts, it was depressing to be reminded that Once Upon a Time such parades, festivals, concerts and other events were not smothered by corporate advertising. It was still the Tournament of Roses, not the Tourniquet of Comcast.
This is specifically interesting because the plot in The Bees is driven by American corporations interfering with nature in order to increase profits despite their knowledge that these mutant bees are dangerous wild cards.
Smug, condescending Amazon reviews of The Bees and other films from the “message movies” era of the 1970s inevitably mention “eeeeevil corporations,” parroting the way Rush Limbaugh always says eeeeevil corporations to mock people who think differently from him. I realize “think differently from him” is a pleonasm.
Evidence of the reality of corporate culture was unknowingly embedded right into this silly movie itself. The killer bees are a fabrication. Our cities were not under siege by super bees. But we DID have Geico-free, Verizon-free events to attend with our families, where we could enjoy the music, the parades, the ball game, the french fries, without every sense overwhelmed by constant advertising. And we DID have a social understanding that: 1) The air we breath and the water we drink are kind of important from a certain perspective; 2) A tiny, tiny percentage of the biggest corporate owners (NOT YOU) benefit hugely from destroying your air and water; 3) Only a moron would feel Proud, Informed, Patriotic, Logical, to smugly side with huge profits for the very few at the expense of his or her own environment.
But here we are, 2016, and poor people living in trailers with no future, no cushion, and who barely make enough money to buy the gas to drive back and forth to their no-benefits, minimum wage Wal-Mart jobs, understand that it’s the EPA and the environmental wackos who are destroying America.
I enjoyed this movie much more than I expected to. There were many quick moments intended to be funny that truly made me smile, in addition to sci-fi props charmingly rooted in the ’50s and John Carradine’s hilarious overacting.