Nostalgia Time!

I forgot to mention this in Saturday, but it turns out that Best Buy isn't alone in the "exclusive" Blu Ray release department*. Target fired back by releasing Gremlins all on their lonesome, and boy howdy was the Cap'n pleased to see that.

Gremlins and Gremlins 2: The New Batch sit happily alongside Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, The Goonies, The Monster Squad, and Tron as "movies that made young Cap'n very happy." Still, it's been some time since I watched Gremlins, and despite having the dvd special edition, I'd never listened to the cast commentary.

I was quite surprised to discover that Back to the Future and Gremlins have something else in common; something I'd never noticed before. Both movies were shot on the Universal backlot (confirmed by the commentary), and the downtown in Gremlins is the same town square from Back to the Future. See for yourself:

There's the clock tower, just off to the right. When you see Zach Galligan running to his job at the bank, you can see him run past the diner and the movie theatre from 1955, although it's been dressed somewhere in between the 1955 and 1985 of BTTF. Crazy!

For comparison's sake, the closest corollary photo I could find:

It's been redressed a bit, but I'm almost positive they're one in the same.

One of the other things I'd honestly given thought to that comes up in the cast commentary (featuring director Joe Dante, Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, Dick Miller, and Howie Mandel - voice of Gizmo) is just how illogical the third Mogwai rule is. Technically, it's always "after midnight" somewhere, so how do you ever know when to feed a Mogwai?

Anyway, if you're wondering, Gremlins is pretty spiffy on Blu Ray, and the picture holds up surprisingly well for the 1980s. The prologue with Hoyt Axton is a bit grainy, but even in the shop you can see more of the trinkets for sale than I'd ever noticed. The gremlins themselves look great, especially Stripe, and I'm looking forward to seeing the more colorful New Batch hit high def. Well worth picking up.

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Tomorrow brings Trick r Treat and Anvil! The Story of Anvil, two movies I've been waiting to see for a while now. Quite exciting.



* at one point, they were merely duking it out by adding extra discs or content, but then Best Buy dropped Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead a month early, and then Children of the Corn. Now Target's hitting back with their own exclusive releases, which means we'll get more varied product faster. That's fine with me.

Late Nights with the Cap'n

It's a not very well kept secret that the Cap'n is a night owl. Whenever possible, I intentionally schedule classes around the ability to stay up late the night before. I can be perfectly functional during the day if necessary but my preferred hours of operation are well after sunset.

Since not many people are interested in keeping similar schedules (what with job restrictions or a general interest in sleeping), I tend to rely on movies to keep me company. Since summer is rapidly approaching and its not easy to sleep anyway, having a nice selection of dvds on hand is just what the Doctor (or, in this case, Cap'n) ordered.

Contrary to popular belief, I don't always watch horror movies or even "bad" movies. In the last few nights, I've hunkered down with the likes of Back to the Future Part 2, Videodrome, Grey Gardens, and Simon of the Desert. I'm not sure what I'll watch tonight but I like to save horror movies and "bad" movies for festival-like atmospheres. Other night owl-inclined folk have already been asking for another marathon between now and The Greensboro Summer Fest Massacre Part 2, so I might have to cook something up. Stay posted for details as they emerge.

I've been ridiculously verbose in the last few days, so I'm going to keep tonight short and rather low-key. What I did want to mention briefly is perhaps the only time I've been surprised by the Rob Zombie fanatics (or maybe just fans. Let's be nice and include fans as well), particularly those that liked Halloween.

Am I the only person who doesn't hate this "Sheri Moon-Zombie as Evil Ghost Mom Spirit" that urges Michael to keep killing? Don't get me wrong, it's totally retarded. Yet, I figure in this world of "fuck it, let's make the Halloween remakes retarded" that this development just seals the deal. It's so stupid that I kind of like it. Not really enough to see H2, but it amuses me that this was the straw that broke the camel's back on the internet. Not the Weird Al cameo, not the "Hobo Michael", not even the fake-out Halloween II hospital massacre sequence. If Rob Zombie wants to pull a Pamela Vorhees for his franchise reboot, and he wants to make it look as ridiculous as Sheri Moon-Zombie looks in that trailer, I say go for it. At this point he could have Bozo the Clown show up and I wouldn't be surprised.

That's about all I have to say about H2. Like the first one I'm sure that I'll end up seeing it on dvd some time next year and like the first one I probably won't like it. What I'm more interested in is seeing how people who liked the first one react to this one. Will they reject a movie that looks (on paper) to be balls out ridiculous? Or will they love it? Time will tell.

Okay, I'm off to watch... something. I don't know. It's hot in here and I can't sleep when it's hot, so now that I've finished season one of Dexter I need to find a new vice, cinematic or television-wise.

"It's Not Your Father's Star Trek"

I found that to be very interesting when the ad for JJ Abrams relaunch popped up on TV earlier today. It goes a long way in supporting this idea of adaptations/remakes making concerted efforts to replace the source material in cinema discourse. I'd been playing with that theory for a while, but rarely do you hear such a brazen disavowal of an original source (in this case, Star Trek) in order attract new viewers.

Typically the filmmakers and studio make efforts to pay lip service to the "classic" nature of the original (e.g. "Rob Zombie's re-imagining of the classic horror film" or "No one's saying that King Kong isn't a classic, this is just our homage" and so forth) so I was impressed that in order to draw in new fans (and potentially alienate the trekkie / trekker base), this film is being advertised as the "sexy", "action packed" Star Trek that your stuffy old man wouldn't like. Because The Wrath of Khan is soooooo 1982, guys!

Of course, from a marketing standpoint (and, from what I understand, a plot standpoint. more on that in a bit), it makes sense. With documentaries like Trekkies and frequent jokes made at the Star Trek universe's expense (which are, to be fair, at times warranted), it can't hurt to "sex it up", so to speak. Star Trek needs to be "cool" again is what Paramount is saying, I guess. I'm fuzzy when exactly it was ever "cool", and this is coming from a nearly life-long fan of the show(s) and movie(s). For their sake, it is just easier to forget that Nemesis and Enterprise ever happened and start fresh, so they are correct to market the film accordingly.

If I understand the plot correctly, this also makes sense. I'm going to wade a little bit into "spoiler" territory but most regular readers of a blog with Dr. Re-Animator on the splash logo don't strike me as Trek fans, but tread cautiously.

The comic which leads up to the film (an olive branch extended to fans who actually want to know how Nemesis could lead to Star Trek) seems to involve some catastrophe that destroys Romulus and drives a simple Romulan miner crazy. That miner is the Eric Bana character (or, since even I didn't reconize him, the bald dude with the tatoos that screams "Fire Everything!"), who somehow goes back in time in order to undo that massive disaster. Or just kill Spock, who tried to save Romulus and failed. I didn't actually read the comic so I don't know.

Anyway, that's why Leonard Nimoy appears as "Old Spock" in the movie, because the evil bald miner dude changes history and basically creates a "tangent" universe, ala Donnie Darko or Back to the Future Part 2, minus the falling engines and hoverbikes. That way, JJ Abrams is free to change histories of characters or where ships came from or how Kirk took over the Enterprise etc etc. This way, old school Trek fans can still have their Star Trek and the "new", "hip" crowd can enjoy the "Not Your Father's" Star Trek. Everyone wins, and Paramount gets to release all of the movies on Blu Ray in the next few weeks.

Except that yes, this open disavowal of the "old", "boring" Star Trek does mean that new fans to this movie are not necessarily encouraged to buy the original shows or films. Because, unless you want to be a lame-o Trekkie, why the hell would you care that the Enterprise wasn't built on Earth in the original series? That's totally dumb to even be bothered about, right? Duh! This isn't the OLD Star Trek, it's the hip cool NEW Star Trek so get over it boring old nerd dude*.

I find it very interesting that it's necessary to replace source material, or in this case, openly disavow it in order to guarantee success of a more recent incarnation. Along the same lines, why bother watching Friday the 13th parts 1-4 when they roll all the best parts into one remake? Pirate Channels are soooooo 20 years ago, people! The New Flesh would obviously work its way through a YouTube channel. Come on now, isn't that obvious**?

Hell, sometimes it works. Cronenberg's remake of The Fly does, in fact, contemporize the story in a way that makes it legible for 1980s audiences. Instead of a fear of science, we understand the story as a way to deal with the AIDS epidemic or watching a loved one fall apart (in The Fly's case, literally). John Carpenter's The Thing is, in many ways, a more effective and creepy movie than The Thing from Another World because it taps into fears about not knowing who we are. Both of them have generally taken the place of their predecessors in film discourse. They are, without a doubt, two of the most frequently cited "successful" remakes.

I will undoubtedly return to this subject in the future, but I thought it might be interesting for readers to watch this trend in full effect as we move towards the "new" Star Trek. Film discourse happens in ways we might not even be aware of on a conscious level, so maybe this will help you watch carefully.



* In this theoretical exchange I imagine douchebag hipsters taunting Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons.
** I'm not actually saying that's how the Videodrome remake will operate but it is the logic behind remaking these types of movies.

"When this baby hits 88 miles per hour..."

The Cap'n spent most of the weekend getting writing of the other sort done, so there's not a lot of movie talk to do. I did watch Back to the Future, which has become the equivalent of "comfort food" along with movies like Murder By Death, Dazed and Confused, Tron, and The Goonies; movies I can put on any time and watch all the way through. I realize that's a motley crew of a line up, and I'm forgetting other movies that make "regular" rotation (like A New Hope or Escape from New York), but there are things I go back to all of the time for whatever reason.

Anyway, to focus on Back to the Future: watching this movie after ragging on Mac and Me's shameless product placement made me feel a little bad for going so hard on that shitty movie. True, it wears its sponsorship on its sleeve, but Back to the Future is just as guilty.

We are talking about a film that responds to the question "Are you telling me you built a time machine... out of a DeLorean???" with "The way I see it, if you're gonna build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style? "

This along with shilling for Pepsi, JVC, California Raisins, Burger King, Chevy, Lexus, and yes, Huey Lewis and the News (check out that Sports poster on Marty's wall!). Oh, and Van Halen and several other I'm forgetting. The hover board in part 2 is a plug for Hasbro, for crying out loud!

Anway, I rescind some of the disdain for Mac and Me, but still I can't give a film with Ronald McDonald in the trailer a free pass. The 80s may be loaded with shameless product placement; I contend Mac and Me takes it to a whole new level.

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What remake of Videodrome? That's like the prequel to The Thing that nobody is making, right? Or that remake of They Live Cranpire is excited isn't happening, right?

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Speaking of Cranpire, we've been having quite a back and forth about whether Jason Vorhees died as a young'un in Friday the 13th (hence being a zombie in every movie since part 2) or if Jason actually didn't drown and was a living dude until part 4 when he died big time. Then was revived as Zombie Jason in part 6. I'm standing by my argument (the latter) while Cranpire has some interesting points for his side.

What do you folks think? Cranpire I already know what you think and will be happy to excerpt it in a followup blog but if others would throw in their two cents we can get a full fledged conversation going on here.

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Gotta go. Still some school junk to deal with. Eegah!