“Consume, Be Happy”: Feel The Force In Blu August 25, 2010
Posted by ghostof82 in : Film General , add a commentThe news of the Star Wars movies being released on Bluray late next year is pretty much history already. The hysteria/internet-geekdom-meltdown has been as sad as it was predictable. Sad because yet again the fans are being manipulated as part of the slow year-long marketing push to earn gazillions by selling the same stuff all over again to fans who probably have three VHS boxsets of the Original Trilogy in the loft and each film on DVD at least once. Reminds of those hapless citizens being instructed to consume in THX:1138- yep George predicted the future alright. Sad that Lucas still has no interest in releasing the original theatrical versions (which coming from a guy who hated colourisation of movies and pushed the industry to archive films for cinematic posterity just bugs me completely).
There’s an interesting interview with producer Gary Kurtz doing the rounds on the internet, where Kurtz talks about his reasons for leaving Lucasfilm after TESB. History has it that Lucas sacked Kurtz because he blamed Kurtz for going over budget on TESB, and that Lucas felt he’d lost control as Kurtz sided with director Irving Kershner too much. There’s likely some truth to that, but Kurtz maintains it was Lucas’ change of direction in planning ROTJ that led to the parting of the ways, that the emphasis was clearly changing from making movies to making merchandising opportunities, and Kurtz left of his own accord. Lucas is said to have moaned that TESB would have made just as much money had it been cheaper and less polished. Well George, there’s a reason why TESB is the best of all the Star Wars films…
There’s been an older, lengthier interview with Kurtz on the web for some years now (if I can remember/find the link I’ll add it to this post later) that is absolutely fascinating for Star Wars geeks, offering a tantalising glimpse of what might have been and behind the scenes arguing. In particular there’s a section regards the finale of TESB, where Kurtz wanted to spend money getting ILM to fix/finesse one of the final shots of the rebel fleet that wasn’t quite right and Lucas was happy to go with the botched shot to save money. Kurtz got the money and fixed the shot but its a telling exchange between them, an indication that Lucas the film-maker had been replaced by Lucas the businessman. I guess in some ways, Lucas is right, he’s a multi-billionaire afterall. But Kurtz notes that the story was no longer king, that any subtext in Star Wars and TESB got dumped for Jedi, as Lucas opted for keeping it simple/familiar resulting in another Death Star (an idea Kurtz hated thinking it was simply remaking the first film) and Ewoks/merchandising etc. Kurtz actually cites Raiders Of The Lost Ark as when the rot set in, when Lucas found it was easier to create a cinematic amusment ride than a film. I like Raiders, but Kurtz has a point- all the Raiders films were dumb stuntshows, and the people berating the latest Indy film forgot how stupid the previous films were. Remember Indy hitching a ride on the outside of a submarine all the way to a remote island? No food, no water, and did the sub not submerge?
Lucasbashing is a bloodsport on the web these days. But George Lucas made some great movies. THX:1138, American Graffitti, Star Wars… yet it was all downhill from there, and it reminds me of the life of Orson Welles, and the film Citizen Kane, of the lessons that that film teaches/warns us, because I don’t think, in all the decades that followed the seventies, that Lucas has ever near-equalled his achievements of that decade, as a filmmaker. As a businessman, yes, he equalled and surpassed them, but as a filmmaker… well. I guess we have to ask the question how we measure success. In dollars, or in art?
Lucas is, in many ways, a genius, I don’t want this post to be a tirade against the man. THX:1138 was a revolutionary film in sound design, American Graffiti was ground-breaking film in its use of songs as a soundtrack to visuals (a wall-to-wall jukebox of songs), that would influence the use of source music and songs in film for decades on. And I cannot say enough about how groundbreaking Star Wars was, either in the use of special effects on screen or merchandising off it. But all those those things in those films have one thing in common- they are pretty much all technical breakthroughs really, something which, tellingly, Lucas has continued with for the rest of his career. The way the Star Wars prequels turned out was inevitable, looking back- they are technical showcases, albeit not artistic showcases. And there’s the rub.
So I’m somewhat “meh” about the hype and hoopla about Star Wars films on Bluray. In as much as there’s a sadness about the whole thing, what might and should have been. I think I’m nostalgic for the days when Jedi was the last we saw of the Star Wars brand, before the Special Editions and Prequels, when our daydreams of what happened after Endor, or what the Clone Wars were like, was all we had. Back when Star Wars was a huge epic motion picture trilogy, not a kid’s cartoon tv-show. But never-mind. Consume. Be Happy. May The Force Be With You In Blu.
The Final Destination… (we can only hope). August 17, 2010
Posted by ghostof82 in : Film General , 1 comment so farLets be clear on one thing: Final Destination- avoid. There, thats about it.
Best thing on this bluray is, frankly, the featuretes, in which the idiots behind this film go on about how exciting and groundbreaking the film is. It’s embarrassing watching some pretty airhead gushing about how great her death scene is, as if she’s making a classic horror film. Oddly, the director even shows his face on camera for interview, when you’d think he’d be running for the hills in shame. The Hollywood careers of everyone involved in this travesty should be consigned to the bin of infamy, but as the film made a fortune at the box-office, no doubt a fourth (Absolutely Final Destination?) seems inevitable. Which proves only one thing- filmgoers will go watch any turd as long as it’s in 3D. Yeah, that kind of lesson is really going to educate Hollywood to make better movies- we may as well give up now and return to our DVD collections of 70s and 80s movies.
I won’t dwell on the plot (does anyone ever watch these things for a plot?), as it follows the standard path of the three films that precede it. We have the obligatory beautiful young people who don’t appear to work for a living, dodging Death after the carnage at a speedcar derby leaves them as sole survivors. There’s all the tension of a night at the Rovers Return as excrutiatingly tiresome deaths follow. The cgi is cheap and overdone, the acting cheap and overdone, the script is cheap and overdone. Its just awful. As if to emphasise that the makers were clueless, the featuretes include some truly shockingly bad alternate endings that, rather than enlighten or impress, only reinforce the idea that they were making this rubbish up as they went along.
And I’m now officially Sick Unto Death of watching 3D films in standard 2D being irritated by things flying out at me pointlessly. One guy uncorks a bottle and -wheee!- the cork flys up into the air ‘into’ the camera. Wow. Bet that was amazing at the cinema for the 3D spec crowd, trully groundbreaking cinema. Perhaps students of the future will look back and cite James Cameron as The Man Who Killed Movies, because its one long slow lingering death with films such as this being made. The cgi fx look incredibly fake, possibly due to the fact that most of the shots are set up for cgi objects to fly ‘into’ the camera- in 2D it just sticks out like cardboard, looking so fake its some of the worst cgi I’ve ever seen.
So. Final Destination. Avoid. Thats all really.
Solomon Kane August 16, 2010
Posted by ghostof82 in : Film General , 2 commentsSolomon Kane might be THE guilty pleasure of 2010. Anybody with any affection for 80’s-style, grim-and-dirty fantasy movies with low budgets but big heart, simply needs to see this film now that it has been released on DVD/Bluray here in the UK (criminally, it still hasn’t even had a cinema release in the USA). Forget all those $200 million blockbusters and 3D, this is proper genre film-making. It may not be perfect, it may not be a bona-fide classic, but good lord its a great slice of fantasy fun.
That all said, no-one could be more surprised than I am.
I’ve been collecting/reading the stories and poetry of Robert E Howard since the ’seventies, when I first read the comic Savage Sword of Conan in 1975 and saw Frazetta’s paintings on the covers of the Sphere paperback collections. REH was a Texan who in the space of some 12 years wrote a canon of work still discussed and popularised today in books, comics and movies. His life was cut short at the age of 30 when he committed suicide, arguably just when he was on the cusp of genuine greatness. Most famous today for his character Conan the Cimmerian, and credited with pretty much inventing the sword and sorcery genre, he also wrote boxing stories, historical tales such as of the crusades, horror fiction, and westerns, the genre that perhaps, had he lived longer, he would have been probably most famous for.
REH has had a poor time of it in Hollywood, his tales being treated poorly at best and criminally at worst. Of the films (supposedly) based on his characters, it’s likely that 1982’s Conan The Barbarian is the best of the bunch, although that film itself has little to do with the original tales REH wrote. I like the film but don’t really count it as a ‘proper’ Conan film. It has a great score, some excellent production design, but very little REH… its an ok Sword & Sorcery film but lets not kid anybody, it ain’t Conan. Regrettably, it looks like next years Conan film looks to be repeating the sins of its predecessor- indeed, it would appear to be a remake of the 1982 film rather than an attempt to go back to REH’s original tales.
One of REH’s earliest characters was the 16th century Puritan Solomon Kane, who travelled the Elizabethan world in dark, brooding adventures fighting an often fanatical crusade against evil. Kane is a complex character, and his stories are filled with action and horror. A film version of some of REH’s Kane stories could be brilliant, but it soon became clear a few years ago that the Solomon Kane movie was going to have, like the 1982 Conan, a new, ‘origin’ story loosely based on the REH character, without any REH material. Another case of history repeating, it seemed. Independently produced on a low budget with a limited cinema release, trailers made it look like a typical gung-ho action flick with none of the dark mood of REH’s original (message to Kane’s marketing dept- you blew it boys).
And so watching it on Bluray was such a pleasant surprise. First of all, it looks just gorgeous, with fantastic cinematography and good use of location shooting and weather to bolster the budget. Frankly, there are films that cost three times as much that don’t look this good. Costume design is great, the sets, while limited and duplicated at times, are very impressive. Very often I had the feeling I was watching a 1970’s/1980’s film, everything feels real, not created ina computer- indeed what cgi there is, is limited but very effective.
The cast is simply to die for. James Purefoy is excellent as Kane, chewing up the scenery in his ‘bastard bad old days’ and later engendering warmth and charm as he tries to become ‘a good man’ with all the conflict that causes as the only thing he is really good at is killing. His supporting cast, which includes such stalwarts as Max Von Sydow, Alice Krige and Pete Postlethwaite, are uniformly excellent. Their roles may not be complicated or deep, but the film demonstrates, as did ALIEN all those years ago, that proper casting does half the character work for you. Sometimes the character nuances are in the actor, not the script, and that’s the case here.
The story may not have much, if any, REH in it (a brief aside by Kane to his days with Francis Drake “not ending well” will be recognised by REH fans as a nod to an REH poem about Kane, which is a neat touch), but at the films end the character has arrived at a point that leaves him as a Solomon Kane that readers of REH will recognise. Indeed, the cruelist thing of all is that the promised sequel that looks to finally adopt elements of REH’s original stories may not ever happen. So we get all those endless mega-budget, mega-stupid Pirates of The Caribbean and Transformers movies and their comicstrip ilk shot in 3D instead.
Don’t get me wrong, Solomon Kane is no classic, it won’t change your life, but its a damn good fantasy movie, that sets up a sequel that deserves a shot with the same cast and crew with a slightly bigger budget to enable the bigger scope it requires. But it probably won’t get the chance. I only hope DVD/Bluray sales have been good and that it eventually gets similar success in the USA, because intelligent (I dread to say ‘old-fashioned’) genre films like this, with ambitious and imaginative use of a resticted budget, deserve some reward.
Do see it, if only giving it a rental. You may just wind up loving it.
The Crazies (2010) August 13, 2010
Posted by ghostof82 in : Film General , add a commentIt’s becoming woefully tiresome being so uncharitable about horror movies these days but I have to say that The Crazies is as poor as most every horror film I’ve seen of late. Another remake of a George Romero film (his back catalogue has been mined as much as that of John Carpenter, further evidence of the imaginative redundancy of modern horror), this one is as slick and polished as they come, with a fine cast unfortunately hindered by a formulaic script. Its funny how inured the public seems to have become to horror cliches- this film has so many of them, from demonstrating that mobile phones don’t work, to ‘frantic moments’ of fumbling with keys or car-engines turning over but not firing up, to soundtrack BOO’S! that accompany sudden shock moments. Instead of gasping I yawned.
Maybe I’ve just seen too many horror films, but watching this film I had an awful sense of deja-vu, and not just in reference to the Romero original. For me none of the characters really worked, despite the fine acting talent, and the script moved from set-piece to set-piece with a plodding predictability- where were the shocks, the surprises, the twists? Thankfully devoid of many laughs (deliberate or otherwise) it was however also devoid of any real scares or tension. Set in a remote, hicksville-middle-of-nowhere town, the townspeople are souless ciphers with no real character- when the shit hits the fan we simply don’t care. Real tension/horror could have been served by one of the ’stars’ of the film succumbing to the maddening disease, with accompanying betrayal/loss emotional turmoil, or maybe the characters successfully escaping to the next town only to find its already infected. Instead the film carries on its sadly unambitious way of attempting not to upset too many fans of the original by keeping to the familiar. I suppose that’s the point of remakes though so maybe I’m being unfair. To me though there seems to be far too many glowing reviews for this film- maybe most horror films are so bad these days that even an average one gets praised as a great effort. That’s all this is though- average but also woefully unoriginal.
The Descent Pt 2 August 5, 2010
Posted by ghostof82 in : Film General , add a commentI think The Descent is one of the best horror films I have seen in many years, its a taut, claustrophobic piece that is brutally effective, with, (at least here in the UK) a perfectly-judged, bleak ending.
In America though, the film ended rather differently, leaving things open for a sequel, something that quickly became inevitable when the film became very successful, especially considering its low budget. The title sums things up perfectly- The Decent Pt 2, as if the original was ever Pt 1 or was ever half a tale. It was a perfect, complete film guys, why spoil a good thing?
I had considerable trepidation about even watching this. The original is a great horror film and I didn’t want future viewings tarnished by knowledge of the events of an unnecessary sequel, in just the same way as I’m wary of the Alien prequels- do we really need to have the mystery of the alien derelict/space jockey revealed? Won’t it spoil watching Alien again when we find out the space jockey was some guy in a weird suit and the eggs are actually man-made or God only knows what else they come up with? The Descent had a perfect ending of Sarah having a near-death experience of seeing her dead daughter, still hopelessly trapped in the caves. In the sequel, Sarah has managed to escape and a rescue party is launched for the rest of her party, Sarah conveniently having lost her memory through the ordeal. Credibility becomes ever wafer-thin when the cops decide to take Sarah with them, hence returning her to the nightmare just as Ripley did in Aliens. In-fact it would not have surprised me if marines did indeed lead the rescue but the budget evidently would not stretch to that so instead a small team of rescuers assemble and off we go on other excursion into darkness.
To be honest the films starts reasonably well, introducing some new characters and setting the scene successfully- it seemed to be an honest attempt at expanding the original rather than a cheap cash-in, whatever my grievances with much of the plot. But the plot guys, come on. I mean, would any cop take a blood-soaked amnesiac woman in deep shock back to the scene of her trauma hoping that inspite of her amnesia she could somehow assist in finding her colleagues? Would any doctor allow said cop to remove said woman from his hospital only a few hours after she has been admitted? Its all very tenuous but they are obviously desperate to keep our heroine in the picture. But about midway through the film it takes a really bad turn, when increasingly ill-judged ideas start piling up, culminating with the return of another character from the first film that we thought was dead (hell, we heard her being torn to pieces screaming her head off if I remember rightly). Incredulous, I almost thought we were in dream-sequence territory, but no, the film-makers are serious and the script has jumped the shark. Abandon all hope, discerning viewers. I won’t comment on the ‘twist’ ending either.
Better to imagine we live in an alternate universe in which The Descent Pt 2 never happened, and that the first film was a glorious one-off. However, I have been told that this sequel cost somewhere in the region of a frankly ridiculous £5 million (can that be right? Some American tv shows cost as much as that for a single episode) so it would not surprise me if it made enough profit to warrant a third visit to the caves. Count me out though; once bitten, twice shy and all that- I’ll stick to rewatching the original in future.
Inception July 30, 2010
Posted by ghostof82 in : Film General , 4 commentsInception is one of those films that, it seems to me, you can admire but not love- there’s a detachment from it thats hard to fathom, which, on thinking about it, is a common feature in all of Christopher Nolan’s movies. Kind of like Kubrick’s films- polished and intellectually stimulating, they just don’t really engage emotionally.
Does anybody really root -emotionally I mean- with Batman in either Batman Begins or The Dark Knight? Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne is a cold fish and his Batman something of a robot, there’s no real emotion or raw anger to him, just a repressed billionaire taking out the trash. I find Gary Oldman’s Jim Gordon or Arron Eckharts’ Harvey Dent fair more interesting and easier to empathise with (maybe thats the point of The Dark Knight though?). Am I unfair there or does anyone else agree with me? Maybe its just me, but while Inception is no doubt a good movie, and quite smart for a summer blockbuster, I never found myself really caring for any of the characters. There’s no connection.
I was also bugged by the film in other ways- the tech was never explained as to how it works (is it just a drug/why no headgear to ‘link’ the users brains/all the computer tech is in the briefcase?) or how widespread it is (is it everywhere like ipods/is it controlled by state legislation or illegal) or what the nature of these feuding corporations are (I mean, what the hell are they?). I mean, if you think about it, the ability to share/build/escape into dream worlds has so many possibilities and ramifications socially/politically (hell, the porn possibilities alone) that there is an incredible amount unsaid in the film. At least Strange Days explained everything more regards the tech and how it fitted in its world.
Okay, the films a thriller, not all the above is perhaps pertinent but it kept occuring to me while watching it- so much is unexplained/unsaid. I always like things a little open to interpretation and conjecture but sometimes its a bit too open. Perhaps thats partly the point- maybe it doesn’t really make sense/stand up to scrutiny because ultimately it really is all just a dream within a dream within a dream and the whole thing is just in Cobb’s head. Maybe thats why all the bad guys are the worst shots in cinema since Star Wars’ Stormtroopers. Who knows? Maybe a second and third viewing provides more answers.
Still, a really enjoyable film. Don’t want to seem overly critical as its far superior to the usual mindless dross we get in the summer, just got a few reservations about it. Its good to see it has had considerable success at the box office but I don’t really think it will lead to much original fare in future, it’s really a bit of a fluke, a project that only gets greenlit when a directors previous films are huge. Visually its amazing without too much emphasis on cgi, the supporting cast are outstanding (I have a bit of a problem though with Di Caprio, while I admire him he’s always a bit too much of a pretty-boy to really convince as a life-worn character, in any of the films he’s in). The music score is quite extraordinary- a sort of tech-noir James Bond score, and I’m sure a future Bluray release will be fascinating and gorgeous.
Now if I could really care and emotionally invest in the characters in Inception it would have been a classic. as it is, its a very good film. For me, Nolan hasn’t quite cracked the craft yet, but then again, the coldness/detachment never hurt Kubrick. But you know, I get the feeling that if Spielberg, with his warmth, had shot Inception it might have been amazing- I’m no huge fan of Spielberg, but just a thought.
Zombiefest July 25, 2010
Posted by ghostof82 in : Film General , 3 commentsThanks to the random vagaries of Lovefilm’s rental service, I’ve recently seen three zombie movies in a row, that’s enough gore to last anyone for awhile. Whatever happened to scary horror films though- is everything all a joke these days? I miss the good old days of films like Poltergeist, where the balance between laughs and scares was, in hindsight, just right, something lost on film-makers now, it seems.
Zombieland, for instance- whats that, some kind of post-modern zombie flick? Lots of gore and zero scares/tension. Must admit I got off to a bad start with the film right from the start, with its slow-mo titles sequence that was too similar to that of Watchmen for my taste. When a film rips off another films titles from the off it doesn’t bode well for originality, and I wonder how many more slo-mo sequence edits/pseudo-3D cgi titles are going to be inflicted upon us in future. The danger with all these comedy zombie films is that they will soon become a parody of themselves rather than the horror films they are trying to parody, and no matter all the witty and imaginative cgi gore-shots of zombies meeting funny ends, there’s all the the horror and tension of a catfood advert. And somehow it manages to totally waste Bill Murray, which is a sin against cinema in itself. I miss the scares.
George Romero of course is the Godfather of zombie flicks, but alas he too has become a parody of himself and his original clasic horror films. Survival Of The Dead(released straight to DVD here, which sums up the state of Romero’s career just now) is very telling in how unambitious and generic it is. It follows the routine of Romero’s past zombie flicks all too closely- a group of travelling survivors find a new location (in this case, an island just off the coast) and have several encounters with zombies and rival survivors until the zombies all run amok killing and being killed in an orgy of gore and violence, until a handful of survivors escape at films’ end. There’s none of the telling political commentary or wit of Dawn Of The Dead or Day Of The Dead, just a humdrum tale enlivened only by ever-imaginative methods of dispatching zombies (tellingly with lots of cgi). As the work of a film-maker who once had a unique voice, this is just further evidence of a continuing decline. Perhaps Romero only has such limited budgets these days that he can’t produce anything imaginative or pioneering anymore, but I have to wonder whats the point of films like Survival Of The Dead. Viewers are better served by just re-watching Dawn of The Dead, pretty much the same story but told far better.
But even Survival of the Dead seems a classic compared to Zombies of War, a film that looks like a student movie featuring actors from the local amateur dramatic society. It really is pretty awful, an attempt at a poor-mans Saving Private Ryan crossed with, well, Dog Soldiers with zombies instead of werewolves (although one of the zombies looks/behaves like a werewolf just to confuse matters further). It’s not just a bad zombie film, its a bad film, period. Worth watching if only as a case-study in how not to shoot and direct a film, it’s really worse than I can describe. It has the look/feel of those old turkeys celebrated in the early eighties, like Plan 9 From Outer Space, only without any of the old charm. Someone could probably make a reasonable film from the general plot, something in a Tarantino-mode perhaps, but the execution of this is just so poor and clumsy its an embarrassment. Some of the worst dialogue delivered by some of the worst actors shot by the worst director you will ever have the misfortune to see, really quite painful.
Dragonslayer June 28, 2010
Posted by ghostof82 in : Film General , 2 commentsFantasy/Sword & Sorcery movies have always had a hard time at the movies, at least until The Lord Of The Rings. Numerous examples had stumbled, like Excalibur, Sword & The Sorcerer, Hawk The Slayer, Conan, Krull, even George Lucas failing with Willow. Something’s never quite worked somehow. Perhaps its the technological age we live in- we find it easier to accept Klingons and robots rather than elves and wizards. Things seem to work well on the written page but tend to look plain embarrassing onscreen. Its noticeable that Peter Jackson downplayed many of the more fantastic aspects of LOTR and tended to play it very down-to-earth, historical rather than fantasy; many fans of the books disliked this approach although it clearly made the movies more approachable for the general audience.
In many ways Dragonslayer anticipates Jackons approach to LOTR- its very a realistic, gritty Dark Ages adventure. The people are grimy commoners rather than Knights in shining armour, the buildings and setting reminiscent more of history books than fantasy art. The sorcery is downplayed, without the flashy pyrotechnics that might have been expected of ILM- the most fantastic element is obviously the dragon, a go-motion tour-de-force that is curiously portrayed as a ‘real’ beast rather than the talking fantasy creatures Hollywood has displayed since in post-cgi forays. There is corruption here, ineffectual leaders and religious hypocrisy. Hardly what might be expected of a Walt Disney movie.
The curious thing about watching it now for the first time, (as I’d never seen the film before) is how it demonstrates so clearly film-making in the post-Star Wars era. It’s part of that immediate post-Star Wars generation of films, that utilised the motion-control/bluescreen technologies championed by ILM, and the mythic themes of Lucas’ saga- good versus evil, elements such as the young hero and the old, wizard-mentor, the rite of passage, a heroine in peril and the ‘evil empire’ represented by the corrupt, self-serving King. Of course these are old archetypes but also clearly representative of Luke and Ben Kenobi, Luke training to be a Jedi, of the captive Princess Leia, and the Emperor and his henchman Darth Vader. Just as Ben Kenobi perishes to aid Luke from the ’spiritual’ plane, so too does Ulrich ‘die’ and later return to save the hero. There was little ‘new’ or original about Star Wars, other than how Lucas fashioned his many ‘borrowings’ into something set in a fantastic setting no-one had seen before abetted by the wizards of ILM. With Dragonslayer, Disney attempted a Dark Ages fantasy in the Star Wars mould, complete with the ILM wizards behind the magic.
It doesn’t entirely work though. Partly this is the inescapable feeling, watching it in these post-Jurassic Park/LOTR days, that in some ways it suffers from the limitations of its technology. This isn’t to say the film would have been saved had it the benefit of cgi etc; rather that without the flash-bang of contemporary tech, the film suffers from failings elsewhere- chiefly the miscasting of Peter MacNicol as Galen, the apprentice wizard. Nowhere does he convince, either as a Harry Potter magic apprentice or heroic lance-welding fighter of dragons. Caitlan Clarke is a somewhat insipid damsel in distress, the love affair feels forced and lacks any real chemistry. Best thing in the film is Ralph Richardson as the wizard Ulrich, merrily chewing up the scenery early in the film, he leaves a great hole when his character perishes all to soon that nothing really fills.
Ultimately though Dragonslayer is a rewarding experience- it’s dark, cynical approach is refreshing. I like how both the corrupt King and ineffectual priest claim responsibility for the slaying of the beast at the film’s end, while Galen takes his leave. And the realistic Dark Ages world the film depicts predates much of LOTR, accenuating the believabilty of the fantasy world and the Beowulf-like sense of the passing of the Old Order of magic and myth, and the rise of Christianity. In that sense, it also represents the beginning of the passing of photochemical/stop-motion effects and the rise of the cgi advances decades ahead.
Al Williamson, 1931-2010 June 26, 2010
Posted by ghostof82 in : Film General , add a commentThe name Al Williamson may not mean anything to most readers, but if you were a fan of Star Wars back in 1980 and loved comics, then Al Williamson’s name will bring back many happy images and fond memories, I’m sure. Back in the days before VHS, comic-book movie adaptations were pretty much the only way to re-live movie experiences unless you were lucky enough that it got the Fotonovel treatment (anybody remember those?). I must have re-read the comic version of The Empire Strikes Back countless times back in the day- I remember I had the original comic version, a paperback reprint with the graphics cut-up/resized to fit the traditional paperback dimensions, and a hardback annual reprint. I remember Howard Chaykin adapted the original Star Wars comic- for the TESB comics veteran Al Williamson took the reigns and produced a lush, faithful adaptation, visually so close he must have worked from countless stills from the movie. Williamson was a perfect fit for Star Wars though, as his style had a romantic, matinee-idol style that recalled the old ‘thirties serials that so inspired Star Wars. Indeed, Williamson was famous for earlier Flash Gordon strips and carried their sensibilities into original Star Wars comics that bracketed the official movie adaptations.
Sometimes the oddest things happen in life though. Only the other day I was browsing through some of my old books and I came upon the annuals of TESB and Blade Runner comic adaptations, both Marvel comics productions graced with the sumptuous art of Al Williamson. The Blade Runner one, like TESB, must have been crafted from hundreds of stills. It is also, tellingly, an indication of the original shooting script prior to some scenes being re-ordered in the films finished edit. In the comic, Deckard sees Rachel, gets ambushed by Leon, and then buys the bottle of vodka prior to being met by Bryant and Gaff (look closely in the film over Deckards shoulder as he buys his bottle- Rachel is standing behind him, slightly off-focus, out of continuity the way the film is edited, as she hasn’t saved him from Leon yet). Truth be told, Blade Runner is an odd choice for a comic, a telling example of how expectations for the film back in 1981/82 to be an action sci-fi flick were just all wrong and that the marketing boys were in trouble.
But the reason why I mentioned that life is weird sometimes, is that only the very next day after looking through those annuals, I learned that Al Williamson had just died, aged 79, back on June 12th. I was hit by a very real sadness. I loved those Star Wars comics he did, and his Blade Runner comic was like a bible to me until the VHS tape of BR came out. There is something wondefully tactile about reading comic adaptations, you can scan pages, retrace steps, linger lovingly over imagery/sequences you enjoyed in the film. Okay, we’re spoiled rotten these days of DVD/Blurays coming out less than three months after cinema releases, but back in the day, those comic adaptations were fantastic for kids of my generation. So for me the passing of Al Williamson is very sad news indeed.
It’s also tragically close to the recent passing, only a few weeks earlier, of the great Frank Frazetta, who was a colleague of Al Williamson back when they were starting out in the comics field of the 1950s. We will not see their like again, I fear.
The Many Frustrations of Minority Report June 12, 2010
Posted by ghostof82 in : Film General , 4 commentsMinority Report is one of the better movies based on a PKD story, but, like the 1982 version of Blade Runner, its not without its frustrations. Typically enough for most modern Hollywood movies, the script is the biggest culprit. There are plotholes you could drive a truck through. It is established early on that people travelling through this future world are easily identified and tracked by scanners ‘reading’ their eyes. It’s how John Anderton, the films hero is first tracked down whilst using the metro system, and the reason why he later has his own eyes replaced by someone elses. And yet when he keeps his own eyes, and then uses them in order to pass security at his Precrime base, no-one notices. No alarms sound, no alert registers he has been spotted/recognised by the system. Infact, the security system grants him access, despite him being an official fugitive. He just walks in to Precrime headquarters.
The ending bugs most people, as the film seems to turn from a bleak, grim outcome to a happy, positive ending that recalls the ‘hero conquers all’ ending of the Studio-bastardised version of Terry Gilliams’ Brazil. In actual fact, it recalls Gilliams own ‘proper’ Brazil conclusion even more than that, as it is pretty clear that it is all just a fantasy concocted by Anderton whilst Haloed- otherwise, it just doesn’t make sense. We are expected to accept that his estranged wife will suddenly risk everything to rescue her husband, and indeed be able break him out of prison all by herself. Likewise we are not supposed to blink at the fact that his gun, a murder weapon that should presumably be held in some police evidence archive, is left for her in a box of Anderton’s belongings. The film is either suddenly incredibly stupid or the whole thing is a wish-fulfillment fantasy of the still-incarcerated Anderton. I choose the latter, if only because I have some faith in Spielberg, but I’d still prefer him to have shown Anderton back in his Haloed state at the very end, to tip his directors hat at the audience, because the ambiguous ending the film has actually weakens it, as the audience infers that everything is ‘real’ and that Spielberg has blown the whole thing by giving a silly, happy ending that defies the films own logic. When I first saw the film it seemed uncannily like the ending of the original 1982 version of Blade Runner, it seems exactly that kind of ill-judged about-face.
I like the film, and consider it second to Blade Runner in the canon of Hollywood adaptations of PKD, but it bugs me how its problems should have been fixed by some more work on the script before it got to the shooting stage.