Watched: Planet of the Apes

This one's more or less a classic so I doubt I have very many original thoughts to add to whatever has been said over the years. Still, I was surprised by how much of a misanthrope Charlton Heston's astronaut Taylor is at the start of the film. Like, he gives several speeches about how men kinda suck and he came on this expedition because he wasn't really interested in anything humanity had going on anymore. There's also a really weird emasculation theme that keeps getting repeated, which is a nice parallel since at the start Taylor doesn't even want to identify with men anymore and by the end of the film, after several apes have threatened to "geld" and "emasculate" him, he's kind of clinging to that manhood. Anyway, I think this holds up pretty well even considering that the film sets up some plot elements like "twists" but if you are alive and have spent any time in popular culture it's pretty hard not to know what they are. The religious/political allegory is a little heavy-handed, but the film's still got some punch thanks to Heston playing a supercrazy asshole and a whole bunch of British theatre/character actors managing to give the ape faces some expression.