The Cap'n finally got one of my Out of Print Criterion DVDs back. While it's not Sid and Nancy or Dead Ringers or even a completely gone one like This is Spinal Tap or Tokyo Olympiad, I was happy to find a copy of Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious at a downright reasonable used price. Maybe it's because of the 20th Century Fox boxed set, which also carries alternate editions of similarly OOP Rebecca and Spellbound, but somehow I got Notorious for less than it would have been new six years ago.
Looking at Amazon, it wouldn't be too difficult to get Spellbound and Rebecca at reasonable prices too. Sid and Nancy is still pretty pricey, and Tokyo Olympiad is downright ridiculous at $64 used and $115 new. This is Spinal Tap is comparably silly at $48.95 and $109.99. Many of them aren't so bad any more, as when Criterion loses the rights other companies typically swoop in. Even Hard Boiled and The Killer aren't where they once were (pushing $500), and I bet the guy trying to sell Criterion's old version Salo is going to have his work cut out for him at $68 (to wit: it once sold for $2000 on eBay. Seriously).
The Silence of the Lambs and Robocop have fallen dramatically from where they once were, which is fine because I still have those. If there's one I wish I still had that I don't, it's Bruce Robinson's How to Get Ahead in Advertising, which is baselining around $50 (discount the $20-30 copies, as they're rentals and missing components). Oh, make that two; I had no idea Fellini's Nights of Cabiria was out of print. Damn.
---
My goal with Spine Numbers is to no longer try to get all of them (it is, after all, a fool's errand to keep up with a collection that shows no sign of ending), but to seek out the ones I really want and rent the films that sound interesting. For example, right now I'd really like to have Salesman, Peeping Tom, Sullivan's Travels, Shock Corridor, The Naked Kiss, Mona Lisa, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Insomnia, Nanook of the North, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, House of Games, and Kind Hearts and Coronets. I wouldn't mind having Night and Fog, La Jetee, Hoop Dreams, The Long Good Friday, That Obscure Object of Desire, The Horse's Mouth, Burden of Dreams, Overlord, Children of Paradise, and The Orphic Trilogy. I don't know that I need Maitresse, Border Radio, El Norte, Dodes ka-den, Bad Timing, I am Curious, or Fishing with John. There are others that aren't occurring to me that fit in a nebulous category of "I'd probably just rent it", but I think you get the idea. My days of being a completist are over and done.
I envy some of you mad men and women out there trying to conquer the collection. I no longer want to be you, although I may have to drop some coin in order to pick up a few of those OOP discs (the Sid and Nancy one is worth it for the commentary track alone, which is comprised of members of the NYC punk scene, many of whom dispute the portrayal of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen in the film). I don't know that I'd ever need the John Woo movies, or even This is Spinal Tap, but I suppose it is nice to know they haven't totally vanished from the face of the earth.
Thus endeth the blathering.
Showing posts with label Classic Movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Classic Movies. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz!
Finally, the Cap'n has come back to talk about something worthwhile! Oh sure, dissecting a two-and-a-half minute advertisement for a movie I'm not going to watch anyway was fun, but now it's time to stop the childishness and talk about something you might actually care about.
Yes, dear reader(s), I speak of The Wizard of Oz on Blu-Freaking-Ray High Definition!
Even a day later, after dousing my eyes in red and green Krueger-ness, I'm still boggled by how wonderful it looks. Even the sepia toned beginning and (spoiler!) ending are as impressive as those new-fangled movies you keep buying.
Well, not you, Mr. Not-Going-to-Adopt-Blu-Ray-for-Price-and/or-Personal-Reasons, but certainly for everyone who asks me "why bother mastering old movies for HD? they always look like crap, right?"
Wrong. If Casablanca didn't prove them wrong, if The Third Man didn't wear them down, The Seventh Seal didn't hush them good, and The Adventures of Robin Hood didn't shoot that argument right into the gutter, Oz will. The Wizard of Oz makes The Adventures of Robin Hood look like a warm-up for High Def.
I guess this isn't going to mean anything to you if you aren't already inclined to watch The Wizard of Oz, but the Cap'n is. Beneath my horror loving exterior, I can be a down right softie, and while I wasn't even planning on watching the whole movie before reporting, I couldn't turn it off.
The Wizard of Oz is designed in such a way that you very easily fall into the story without losing interest: the opening section in Kansas dispenses with all the necessary foreshadowing and character introduction quickly, split right down the middle with "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", and before you know it, you're hanging on to see this bland middle-America turn technicolor trip-out.
Similarly, although I really thought it would take longer, the Munchkin sequence is over and Dorothy has the Ruby slippers and is following the Yellow Brick Road. The pacing isn't breakneck, but you've met the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion (with a song apiece) in short order, and they're a poppy field away from the Emerald City.
I gave a cursory thought to doing some homework, only to realize "I'm halfway through the movie already" and decided to just finish it off. I"m still not sure how it is the last fifty minutes go by faster than the first, but there goes the Wizard, floating off in his balloon and Glinda the good witch was back to tell Dorothy she could go home all along.
One digression: I don't know how I always forget this, but The Wizard (and the movie) certainly does a disservice to the Lion, Scarecrow, and Tin Man (and the kids at home) by not imparting the "you had a heart/brains/courage all along" speech. Instead, he suggests that what's more important that Hearts, Brains, and Courage are the trinkets that make them clear to others (a diploma, a medal, and a heart clock). I'm serious!
To be fair, it makes the Futurama spoof even funnier, because I could almost hear the Wizard say "You don't need courage when you've got... a GUN!" to the Cowardly Lion. I guess that I want to believe the movie is less superficial in that one regard, so I conveniently forget it and replace it with a trope from every other kids' book.
But enough about the movie. If you like it (as I do) then you want to know how it holds up to that ten year old dvd you've got, or that... uh, three year old(?) two-or-three disc set you have.
The answer is: pretty damn well. There are clips from the oldest of the versions (seen in any extra featuring the voice of Angela Lansbury), and the difference is astounding. Even the fancy re-mastered newer dvd doesn't sport the clarity and depth of picture quality this Blu Ray does. The poppy field is an excellent example, both before and after the snow fall. I was rather surprised how easy it was to tell one flower apart from the other, even when staring at hundreds of like-colored plants. The evil forest that Dorothy and company tread through is more ominous, and for some reason, an especially cheesy shot of flying monkeys dazzles.
I don't mean to be rude to The Adventures of Robin Hood, but The Wizard of Oz really blows it out of the water when it comes to seeing early color films in High Definition. I've seen newer movies with robust color palettes that don't sparkle like Oz does. If this is what Warners is planning on doing with all their catalog titles, count me in. I expect that Oz and the in-production-at-the-same-time Gone with the Wind are their way of announcing "old movies can look great too!"
And they're right. This wasn't the first time I've sat down with Oz and stuck around until the end, and having seen it like I did yesterday, it won't be the last time either. For a 7o year-old movie, you'd hardly be able to tell...
---
While this isn't Oz related, I thought I'd share that 1986's Labyrinth looks pretty damned good in its own right on Blu Ray. I haven't seen The Dark Crystal yet, but I expect similar results.
Yes, dear reader(s), I speak of The Wizard of Oz on Blu-Freaking-Ray High Definition!
Even a day later, after dousing my eyes in red and green Krueger-ness, I'm still boggled by how wonderful it looks. Even the sepia toned beginning and (spoiler!) ending are as impressive as those new-fangled movies you keep buying.
Well, not you, Mr. Not-Going-to-Adopt-Blu-Ray-for-Price-and/or-Personal-Reasons, but certainly for everyone who asks me "why bother mastering old movies for HD? they always look like crap, right?"
Wrong. If Casablanca didn't prove them wrong, if The Third Man didn't wear them down, The Seventh Seal didn't hush them good, and The Adventures of Robin Hood didn't shoot that argument right into the gutter, Oz will. The Wizard of Oz makes The Adventures of Robin Hood look like a warm-up for High Def.
I guess this isn't going to mean anything to you if you aren't already inclined to watch The Wizard of Oz, but the Cap'n is. Beneath my horror loving exterior, I can be a down right softie, and while I wasn't even planning on watching the whole movie before reporting, I couldn't turn it off.
The Wizard of Oz is designed in such a way that you very easily fall into the story without losing interest: the opening section in Kansas dispenses with all the necessary foreshadowing and character introduction quickly, split right down the middle with "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", and before you know it, you're hanging on to see this bland middle-America turn technicolor trip-out.
Similarly, although I really thought it would take longer, the Munchkin sequence is over and Dorothy has the Ruby slippers and is following the Yellow Brick Road. The pacing isn't breakneck, but you've met the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion (with a song apiece) in short order, and they're a poppy field away from the Emerald City.
I gave a cursory thought to doing some homework, only to realize "I'm halfway through the movie already" and decided to just finish it off. I"m still not sure how it is the last fifty minutes go by faster than the first, but there goes the Wizard, floating off in his balloon and Glinda the good witch was back to tell Dorothy she could go home all along.
One digression: I don't know how I always forget this, but The Wizard (and the movie) certainly does a disservice to the Lion, Scarecrow, and Tin Man (and the kids at home) by not imparting the "you had a heart/brains/courage all along" speech. Instead, he suggests that what's more important that Hearts, Brains, and Courage are the trinkets that make them clear to others (a diploma, a medal, and a heart clock). I'm serious!
To be fair, it makes the Futurama spoof even funnier, because I could almost hear the Wizard say "You don't need courage when you've got... a GUN!" to the Cowardly Lion. I guess that I want to believe the movie is less superficial in that one regard, so I conveniently forget it and replace it with a trope from every other kids' book.
But enough about the movie. If you like it (as I do) then you want to know how it holds up to that ten year old dvd you've got, or that... uh, three year old(?) two-or-three disc set you have.
The answer is: pretty damn well. There are clips from the oldest of the versions (seen in any extra featuring the voice of Angela Lansbury), and the difference is astounding. Even the fancy re-mastered newer dvd doesn't sport the clarity and depth of picture quality this Blu Ray does. The poppy field is an excellent example, both before and after the snow fall. I was rather surprised how easy it was to tell one flower apart from the other, even when staring at hundreds of like-colored plants. The evil forest that Dorothy and company tread through is more ominous, and for some reason, an especially cheesy shot of flying monkeys dazzles.
I don't mean to be rude to The Adventures of Robin Hood, but The Wizard of Oz really blows it out of the water when it comes to seeing early color films in High Definition. I've seen newer movies with robust color palettes that don't sparkle like Oz does. If this is what Warners is planning on doing with all their catalog titles, count me in. I expect that Oz and the in-production-at-the-same-time Gone with the Wind are their way of announcing "old movies can look great too!"
And they're right. This wasn't the first time I've sat down with Oz and stuck around until the end, and having seen it like I did yesterday, it won't be the last time either. For a 7o year-old movie, you'd hardly be able to tell...
---
While this isn't Oz related, I thought I'd share that 1986's Labyrinth looks pretty damned good in its own right on Blu Ray. I haven't seen The Dark Crystal yet, but I expect similar results.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Composition book.... of Doom!
Other than a jaunt out of town and back, the one thing I've been doing more than anything else is unpacking. By my estimation, the Cap'n has two more boxes to open and then the Apartment that Dripped Blood will start looking like somebody lives there. Of course, once somebody lives there, the demons will make sure that somebody dies there, probably the former "living tenant", but I digress.
A curious byproduct of unpacking boxes is finding things I'd forgotten about or just haven't looked at in years. For example, I just found the Movie Quiz, an oft mentioned relic of my college geekery that never made it online. I'm reasonably certain that if you slog your way through the "From the Vault" entries, you'll find a general explanation that amounts to this: fandom is not a pissing contest so there's no point in putting the Movie Quiz online, not to mention that you could use that Google toolbar to the right to immediately answer the tougher questions.
I had considered sticking to that declaration and not putting any of the questions online, but re-reading it, I found that there were a few interesting entries into the quiz that merited sharing. I'm beginning to wonder if the quiz was difficult not because of the trivia you needed but because of how I worded some of them. At any rate, here's a sample of the quiz that plagued many a friend ten years ago:
2. What American director did Akira Kurosawa credit as a prime influence?
13. What is Mel Brooks' cameo in Young Frankenstein?
23. Other than Nosferatu, name a literary adaptation by F.W. Murnau
48. Radiohead's "Exit Music (For a Film)" is exactly that. Name the film.
63. Name one sequence planned but never completed for Fantasia.
64. What character does Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh play in the film version?
66. Don't fuck with him, but what is the Jesus man's last name?
86. What was the first film to utilize "Cinemascope"?
100. How many times did George C. Scott play Patton?
138. What was the sister production to King Kong, shot on the same sets and using many of the same cast members?
140. What is the only film directed by Igmar Bergman to star Ingrid Bergman?
148. Roald Dahl wrote which James Bond film?
153. Katherine Beaumont voiced two Disney heroines back to back in the 1950s. Name them.
158. Which have there been more of: John Ford films featuring John Wayne or Martin Scorsese films featuring Robert DeNiro?
166. Of the Twilight Zone movie's four main vignettes, which one was not based on an episode of the original series, and who directed it?
There are many more, and what appears to be an aborted "guess the aspect ratio" page, which is even more ridiculous. Looking back, there are a few questions even I don't think I could answer anymore, so if you struggled over getting all of the quiz correct, take comfort in knowing even the Cap'n can't do it now.
Oh, and if you really want to answer them, feel free. You won't win anything other than respect amongst your fellow nerds, but sometimes that's enough. Right?
A curious byproduct of unpacking boxes is finding things I'd forgotten about or just haven't looked at in years. For example, I just found the Movie Quiz, an oft mentioned relic of my college geekery that never made it online. I'm reasonably certain that if you slog your way through the "From the Vault" entries, you'll find a general explanation that amounts to this: fandom is not a pissing contest so there's no point in putting the Movie Quiz online, not to mention that you could use that Google toolbar to the right to immediately answer the tougher questions.
I had considered sticking to that declaration and not putting any of the questions online, but re-reading it, I found that there were a few interesting entries into the quiz that merited sharing. I'm beginning to wonder if the quiz was difficult not because of the trivia you needed but because of how I worded some of them. At any rate, here's a sample of the quiz that plagued many a friend ten years ago:
2. What American director did Akira Kurosawa credit as a prime influence?
13. What is Mel Brooks' cameo in Young Frankenstein?
23. Other than Nosferatu, name a literary adaptation by F.W. Murnau
48. Radiohead's "Exit Music (For a Film)" is exactly that. Name the film.
63. Name one sequence planned but never completed for Fantasia.
64. What character does Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh play in the film version?
66. Don't fuck with him, but what is the Jesus man's last name?
86. What was the first film to utilize "Cinemascope"?
100. How many times did George C. Scott play Patton?
138. What was the sister production to King Kong, shot on the same sets and using many of the same cast members?
140. What is the only film directed by Igmar Bergman to star Ingrid Bergman?
148. Roald Dahl wrote which James Bond film?
153. Katherine Beaumont voiced two Disney heroines back to back in the 1950s. Name them.
158. Which have there been more of: John Ford films featuring John Wayne or Martin Scorsese films featuring Robert DeNiro?
166. Of the Twilight Zone movie's four main vignettes, which one was not based on an episode of the original series, and who directed it?
There are many more, and what appears to be an aborted "guess the aspect ratio" page, which is even more ridiculous. Looking back, there are a few questions even I don't think I could answer anymore, so if you struggled over getting all of the quiz correct, take comfort in knowing even the Cap'n can't do it now.
Oh, and if you really want to answer them, feel free. You won't win anything other than respect amongst your fellow nerds, but sometimes that's enough. Right?
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Cult Movies, Continued.
editor's note: I woke up to discover this, for some reason, hadn't been posted on Saturday evening when it was written. Apologies.
I was looking through some of the vintage pieces from the Blogorium "vault", and I realized while reading one about what classifies a "cult" movie that I suddenly had a serious problem with my premise.
The issue isn't so much about what is or isn't a "cult" movie but more about the nature of the cult movie phenomenon itself:
Does it still exist?
When I was in high school, in the early days of the internet (when you couldn't actually find anything if you didn't know exactly where to look), I was kinda/sorta doing some student teaching during an "independent study" period, and one of the students came up to me and said "I want to know what 'the list' is."
I wasn't sure what she meant, but it turned out she was talking about "the list" of books you're "supposed" to read that aren't part of the high school curriculum. As recently as ten years ago, this was something that someone brought to you: usually the cool kid who seemed wiser than their years or the outsider or whoever. The list itself had no origin that anybody knew of, existed as a meme or as viral content. One day you didn't know it existed; the next day you did.
Suddenly you knew that you needed to read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. You needed to read Catch-22, Brave New World, Naked Lunch, beat poetry, and other subversive-for-its-time literature. You would seek the books out and be able to recognize those who were ready to take a similar journey, but it was never thought of or referred to as "the list". It just was.
(The music industry figured out a way to capitalize and exploit this during the nineties in an all-inclusive banner called "alternative", and many of us drank the Kool-Aid in one form or fashion.)
For movies it was a little trickier, because you really needed someone who worked in a video store to steer you away from renting everything (something I discussed not too long ago). The other helpful method was to have (or read) one of those movie guides cover to cover and be dedicated enough not just to skip over something you didn't recognize. You had to spend a LOT of time getting past the lurid cover art to really discover something worth passing along, and the "list" of cult films was pretty short, even when I was in high school.
It went something like this:
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
The Evil Dead trilogy
Eraserhead
Escape from New York
Shaft
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Halloween
A Clockwork Orange
Meet the Feebles
Dead Alive
The Big Lebowski
eventually, in college, it expanded considerably, thanks in part to more access to film fans, video stores, classes, better independent theatres. Notice how few foreign films are on the list of "cult" films as I understood them in high school. Shit, notice how few films there are period, how many classics I'm leaving out (Polyester, for chrissakes!).
As the internet started to grow, and as people became more easily connected, suddenly more and more movies that had been lost in the shuffle got out there, and something changed to the "cult" movie phenomenon: more people new about them. Not only did they know more about them, but they could point you to where they heard about them in a concrete manner. It wasn't Dave at Carbonated Video, it was the Entertainment Weekly list of "Best Cult Films" or Cult Movie Watch*, or Videohound's Guide to Cult Movies You Must See Before You Die.
So I must ask: if almost anyone can tell you they know that Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn exists, and that they or someone they know has seen it, is it a "cult" film anymore? Does the film reach a point where it is so well recognized because of its presence online that it ceases to be something unknown and "discovered"?
I suppose then the followup question is "would that be such a bad thing?" Do we need to have the sense of discovering something to really enjoy it? When I saw Donnie Darko for the first time, no one I knew had seen it or heard about it. I read a review in the News and Observer that mentioned a giant bunny named Frank and then it never came out. Showing it to everyone I knew was like sharing a secret, and then about six months later everyone knew about it. It was all over college campuses and for some reason, things were less fun. It's weird.
Discovering movies is really hard now, because most of the time I hear about it all over the place online before I think about renting it. The last "discovery" I can think of was Primer, and that was after months of reading about the film. Word of mouth still happens, but it's usually coupled with "yeah, I saw that online" or "I read about that" The conversations about "Holy Fuck have you heard of this movie about puppets throwing up and killing each other?!" don't seem to happen as much. It's kind of a bummer.
Rarer and rarer are the days of something like Blood Car, a movie that came from a friend of Neil's that I'd never heard of before and, had he not brought it to our attention, I may well have never seen. The same goes for Terrorvision, which came from the memories of Major Tom. Both of those are "must see" movies, and they're pretty tough to find if you don't know where to look, but that ilk of movie is getting more and more difficult to find these days. Mrm.
* I don't actually know if that exists but if googled, I wouldn't be surprised to find it.
I was looking through some of the vintage pieces from the Blogorium "vault", and I realized while reading one about what classifies a "cult" movie that I suddenly had a serious problem with my premise.
The issue isn't so much about what is or isn't a "cult" movie but more about the nature of the cult movie phenomenon itself:
Does it still exist?
When I was in high school, in the early days of the internet (when you couldn't actually find anything if you didn't know exactly where to look), I was kinda/sorta doing some student teaching during an "independent study" period, and one of the students came up to me and said "I want to know what 'the list' is."
I wasn't sure what she meant, but it turned out she was talking about "the list" of books you're "supposed" to read that aren't part of the high school curriculum. As recently as ten years ago, this was something that someone brought to you: usually the cool kid who seemed wiser than their years or the outsider or whoever. The list itself had no origin that anybody knew of, existed as a meme or as viral content. One day you didn't know it existed; the next day you did.
Suddenly you knew that you needed to read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. You needed to read Catch-22, Brave New World, Naked Lunch, beat poetry, and other subversive-for-its-time literature. You would seek the books out and be able to recognize those who were ready to take a similar journey, but it was never thought of or referred to as "the list". It just was.
(The music industry figured out a way to capitalize and exploit this during the nineties in an all-inclusive banner called "alternative", and many of us drank the Kool-Aid in one form or fashion.)
For movies it was a little trickier, because you really needed someone who worked in a video store to steer you away from renting everything (something I discussed not too long ago). The other helpful method was to have (or read) one of those movie guides cover to cover and be dedicated enough not just to skip over something you didn't recognize. You had to spend a LOT of time getting past the lurid cover art to really discover something worth passing along, and the "list" of cult films was pretty short, even when I was in high school.
It went something like this:
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
The Evil Dead trilogy
Eraserhead
Escape from New York
Shaft
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Halloween
A Clockwork Orange
Meet the Feebles
Dead Alive
The Big Lebowski
eventually, in college, it expanded considerably, thanks in part to more access to film fans, video stores, classes, better independent theatres. Notice how few foreign films are on the list of "cult" films as I understood them in high school. Shit, notice how few films there are period, how many classics I'm leaving out (Polyester, for chrissakes!).
As the internet started to grow, and as people became more easily connected, suddenly more and more movies that had been lost in the shuffle got out there, and something changed to the "cult" movie phenomenon: more people new about them. Not only did they know more about them, but they could point you to where they heard about them in a concrete manner. It wasn't Dave at Carbonated Video, it was the Entertainment Weekly list of "Best Cult Films" or Cult Movie Watch*, or Videohound's Guide to Cult Movies You Must See Before You Die.
So I must ask: if almost anyone can tell you they know that Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn exists, and that they or someone they know has seen it, is it a "cult" film anymore? Does the film reach a point where it is so well recognized because of its presence online that it ceases to be something unknown and "discovered"?
I suppose then the followup question is "would that be such a bad thing?" Do we need to have the sense of discovering something to really enjoy it? When I saw Donnie Darko for the first time, no one I knew had seen it or heard about it. I read a review in the News and Observer that mentioned a giant bunny named Frank and then it never came out. Showing it to everyone I knew was like sharing a secret, and then about six months later everyone knew about it. It was all over college campuses and for some reason, things were less fun. It's weird.
Discovering movies is really hard now, because most of the time I hear about it all over the place online before I think about renting it. The last "discovery" I can think of was Primer, and that was after months of reading about the film. Word of mouth still happens, but it's usually coupled with "yeah, I saw that online" or "I read about that" The conversations about "Holy Fuck have you heard of this movie about puppets throwing up and killing each other?!" don't seem to happen as much. It's kind of a bummer.
Rarer and rarer are the days of something like Blood Car, a movie that came from a friend of Neil's that I'd never heard of before and, had he not brought it to our attention, I may well have never seen. The same goes for Terrorvision, which came from the memories of Major Tom. Both of those are "must see" movies, and they're pretty tough to find if you don't know where to look, but that ilk of movie is getting more and more difficult to find these days. Mrm.
* I don't actually know if that exists but if googled, I wouldn't be surprised to find it.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Frequently Asked Questions
But first, I'll get the final plug out of the way:
As many (read: all) readers of the blogorium know, tomorrow night is the beginning of Summer Fest, a four day celebration of horror-comedies, cheesy horror movies, and film in general.
If you're coming to this page for the first time, what we do is pretty simple: a group of cinemaniacs gets together, watches movies from dusk til dawn, gets some sleep, and starts over. Summer Fest is the sister marathon to Horror Fest, which takes places near Halloween every year. Since we're celebrating horror in the summer, we go see something playing in theatres and try not to scare the crap out of each other. That's what Halloween is for. The summer is all about having a good laugh, intentionally or otherwise, at ninety years' worth of genre fodder. You are welcome to join us.
---
Tonight, since I'm not really in a "rant" mood and I've sufficiently pimped out Summer Fest, I figured it would be a good time to address questions based on things I say or take for granted that readers might know. I've compiled a list of Frequently Asked Questions to help clarify the more confusing aspects of Cap'n Howdy's Blogorium.
1. Why Cap'n Howdy?
I enjoy The Exorcist, for one. Another big one is that it's difficult to distinguish yourself on the blogger world, and while there are probably other Captain Howdy's out there, I settled on this one. That, or I'm secretly Dee Snider trying to trick you into visiting Strangeland.
2. Why do you call Lost "Dinosaur Island"?
Easy: For starters, the Island is full of mysteries. And dinosaurs. Just because we haven't seen ONE dinosaur in five seasons doesn't mean that it's not a Dinosaur Island. Because it is.
The actual, other truth, is that during the first episode of Lost, my at-the-time roommate and I were watching the scene where Smokezilla is tromping around in the forest at night while the 815'ers are freaking out. I suggested it was a Jurassic Park-esque scenario, at which point he guaranteed me he'd stop watching Lost the instant a dinosaur showed up. I've called it Dinosaur Island ever since.
3. You say you write every day, but does Trailer Sunday really count?
Here's why Trailer Sunday counts: I spend as much time (if not more) scouring YouTube for trailers I've never seen or think you might not know as I do writing the other six days of the week. There are Sunday's when I've actually spent MORE time hunting for just the right trailer than writing a blogorium post.
4. Who is the dude in the banner picture?
Doctor Re-Animator. Type "Move Your Dead Bones" into a Youtube search engine. Prepare to be amazed.
5. You seem to talk about Horror Movies and Remakes a lot. Is that all you do?
It isn't, but I understand how you could see the blogorium that way. I actually have an appreciation for all kinds of films and many of my very favorites are in no way horror or remakes. Why they don't necessarily get the same coverage is something I try to adjust regularly.
6. Seriously, dude: Horror Fest, Summer Fest, and Bad Movie Night. Just admit that's all you're into and we'll leave you alone.
Not technically a question, but a fair point. I've never said that enjoying all of those aren't a component of the cinephile I am. They are, however, not the defining factor of who the Cap'n is or what I enjoy. They are, admittedly, the easiest to celebrate with a group and really spread the love of cinema, so I gravitate towards marathons in that vein.
7. What are your top five favorite movies of all time right now?
At this moment? Okay, I'll give you five movies I can watch over and over again: Touch of Evil, Ghostbusters, Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Sunset Boulevard, and... fuck it. Tron.
8. Tron?
You heard me. Tron.
9. Since we all don't need to watch shitty movies, why do you insist on these "So You Won't Have To"'s?
I agree that none of us should (or probably will) waste our time with the movies I review in SYWHT, but the ones I choose are based on a curiosity factor. Even if we know there's no point in seeing them, there is some lingering question for details you can only really understand by seeing the movie. I do it so you won't have to, and impart the details I think will satisfy curiosity.
10. Why can I never see today's post until the following day?
You caught me. I work until midnight and rarely post before heading out, so I come home after midnight and adjust the timestamp. Technically speaking, it's already July 2nd as I'm writing this.
Final Question:
11. I'm in a horror movie, and the clock just struck midnight. Am I dead meat?
Probably, but if you can help it, try to stay alive past 3 a.m. I have this pet theory that 3 is pretty much the dead of night, so if you can make it to 4, you have a chance of lasting until sunlight. It's two hours away, tops. Even at midnight, there's a chance of finding other people around in public places and achieving safety in numbers, but since most places have last call between 2-3, you're pretty much screwed by that point in the night. Lock yourself somewhere safe and hope that watch is in your favor.
As many (read: all) readers of the blogorium know, tomorrow night is the beginning of Summer Fest, a four day celebration of horror-comedies, cheesy horror movies, and film in general.
If you're coming to this page for the first time, what we do is pretty simple: a group of cinemaniacs gets together, watches movies from dusk til dawn, gets some sleep, and starts over. Summer Fest is the sister marathon to Horror Fest, which takes places near Halloween every year. Since we're celebrating horror in the summer, we go see something playing in theatres and try not to scare the crap out of each other. That's what Halloween is for. The summer is all about having a good laugh, intentionally or otherwise, at ninety years' worth of genre fodder. You are welcome to join us.
---
Tonight, since I'm not really in a "rant" mood and I've sufficiently pimped out Summer Fest, I figured it would be a good time to address questions based on things I say or take for granted that readers might know. I've compiled a list of Frequently Asked Questions to help clarify the more confusing aspects of Cap'n Howdy's Blogorium.
1. Why Cap'n Howdy?
I enjoy The Exorcist, for one. Another big one is that it's difficult to distinguish yourself on the blogger world, and while there are probably other Captain Howdy's out there, I settled on this one. That, or I'm secretly Dee Snider trying to trick you into visiting Strangeland.
2. Why do you call Lost "Dinosaur Island"?
Easy: For starters, the Island is full of mysteries. And dinosaurs. Just because we haven't seen ONE dinosaur in five seasons doesn't mean that it's not a Dinosaur Island. Because it is.
The actual, other truth, is that during the first episode of Lost, my at-the-time roommate and I were watching the scene where Smokezilla is tromping around in the forest at night while the 815'ers are freaking out. I suggested it was a Jurassic Park-esque scenario, at which point he guaranteed me he'd stop watching Lost the instant a dinosaur showed up. I've called it Dinosaur Island ever since.
3. You say you write every day, but does Trailer Sunday really count?
Here's why Trailer Sunday counts: I spend as much time (if not more) scouring YouTube for trailers I've never seen or think you might not know as I do writing the other six days of the week. There are Sunday's when I've actually spent MORE time hunting for just the right trailer than writing a blogorium post.
4. Who is the dude in the banner picture?
Doctor Re-Animator. Type "Move Your Dead Bones" into a Youtube search engine. Prepare to be amazed.
5. You seem to talk about Horror Movies and Remakes a lot. Is that all you do?
It isn't, but I understand how you could see the blogorium that way. I actually have an appreciation for all kinds of films and many of my very favorites are in no way horror or remakes. Why they don't necessarily get the same coverage is something I try to adjust regularly.
6. Seriously, dude: Horror Fest, Summer Fest, and Bad Movie Night. Just admit that's all you're into and we'll leave you alone.
Not technically a question, but a fair point. I've never said that enjoying all of those aren't a component of the cinephile I am. They are, however, not the defining factor of who the Cap'n is or what I enjoy. They are, admittedly, the easiest to celebrate with a group and really spread the love of cinema, so I gravitate towards marathons in that vein.
7. What are your top five favorite movies of all time right now?
At this moment? Okay, I'll give you five movies I can watch over and over again: Touch of Evil, Ghostbusters, Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Sunset Boulevard, and... fuck it. Tron.
8. Tron?
You heard me. Tron.
9. Since we all don't need to watch shitty movies, why do you insist on these "So You Won't Have To"'s?
I agree that none of us should (or probably will) waste our time with the movies I review in SYWHT, but the ones I choose are based on a curiosity factor. Even if we know there's no point in seeing them, there is some lingering question for details you can only really understand by seeing the movie. I do it so you won't have to, and impart the details I think will satisfy curiosity.
10. Why can I never see today's post until the following day?
You caught me. I work until midnight and rarely post before heading out, so I come home after midnight and adjust the timestamp. Technically speaking, it's already July 2nd as I'm writing this.
Final Question:
11. I'm in a horror movie, and the clock just struck midnight. Am I dead meat?
Probably, but if you can help it, try to stay alive past 3 a.m. I have this pet theory that 3 is pretty much the dead of night, so if you can make it to 4, you have a chance of lasting until sunlight. It's two hours away, tops. Even at midnight, there's a chance of finding other people around in public places and achieving safety in numbers, but since most places have last call between 2-3, you're pretty much screwed by that point in the night. Lock yourself somewhere safe and hope that watch is in your favor.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
High Definition, Low Expectations
Welcome back! We're trying something new today: in order to make the Blogorium a little easier to read, the Cap'n is going to make the font a smidge bigger. It was requested by a regular reader, so I'll do what I can to make the experience more enjoyable. Now onto the main event, my posing the question "Now why is THAT on Blu Ray?" and exploring the possible answers.
I run the risk of almost totally contradicting my series of essays on "remastering" for some of you, but I feel that there is a sufficient difference between the two. Allow me to explain.
The format is relatively new, so we can't blame studios for dragging their feet in releasing older catalog titles or "Classic" films just yet. Blu Ray only really "won" the war with HD-DVD last spring, so companies have been adjusting to working strictly with one format and have released a relatively substantial amount of movies compared to the early days of dvd. The problem seems to be that an unusually high number of those movies don't seem to benefit from high definition releases.
For example, Predator 2 will be coming out on Blu Ray next month. As I made it clear yesterday, I have no qualms with the film itself, but I am rather confused at 20th Century Fox's desire to release that particular film in HD. It's equally confounding because their earlier releases of Predator and Commando don't really look that much better than the dvds. There is some improvement in picture clarity, but neither of them are discs you're going to put in to demonstrate just how much of a difference 1080p can make.
Warner Brothers has similarly released a wave of catalog films from the 80s and 90s, most notably Steven Seagal films like Above the Law, Out for Justice and Under Siege 2: Dark Territory. They also just put out Tango & Cash, a cop movie from the 90s starring Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell. I'm not going to be surprised if you haven't heard of any of those movies (my own personal enjoyment of them aside).
Despite liking these films on varying levels, I am confused to see them benefitting from the HD upgrade when other movies are not. It would be one thing if they looked radically improved (as some older titles do, like Batman Returns) but Out for Justice looks like a slightly clearer version of the dvd.
Then there are movies that clearly don't make sense to get a BD upgrade: the one that springs to mind is Faces of Death. The film (if you can call it that) has a reputation for being the nastiest of video nasties because of how ragged and beat up the vhs copies looked, adding to the "authenticity" of a film exploring people being killed on camera. Well, alledgedly, because now that the Blu Ray is out it's abundantly clear just how fake the "death" footage is. While it might make it easier to show to squeamish friends, the newly enhanced Faces of Death loses the one edge it had for decades: arguable authenticity.
Even more bizarre (to me at least) are movies I'm positive no one was asking for on Blu Ray that DO look better, like Short Circuit. When I put the disc in, I was stunned how much better Short Circuit looks than any other time I've ever seen it, which begs the question: Why Short Circuit?
Why does a mid-level comedy from 1986 get a full-on remaster and something like Predator doesn't? For that matter, why is Short Circuit getting this kind of attention when there are classic movies not even out on dvd that could use this attention. I continually bring up The African Queen specifically because it's never had an American release, on dvd or Blu Ray, but there are no less than seven versions of Terminator 2 on both formats. The second BD version of Terminator 2 is on the way, and that's not even the first HD "double dip.*"
Similarly, while I appreciate having them in HD upgrades, I am slightly confused by releases like The Road Warrior and The Omega Man from Warner Brothers. Sure, I enjoy both movies but neither one was something I expected to be able to find. 2001? Blade Runner? Sure, but The Final Countdown?
I don't mind giving great treatment to more obscure movies but can't we at least get the "big guns" out of the way first? The Wizard of Oz, Ben-Hur, and Gone with the Wind have been announced but are still pending a release date. There's no hint of Citizen Kane or The Treasure of the Sierra Madre on the horizon, but Big Trouble in Little China is on the way. So are Road House, Fletch, and Walking Tall.
In the meantime I can probably name all of the black and white films on Blu Ray, including Good Night and Good Luck: The Third Man, Casablanca, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The 400 Blows, The Ray Harryhausen Collection, Raging Bull, Wages of Fear, Sin City, The Seventh Seal and I guess you could count the black and white cut of The Mist. Am I forgetting anything?
One of the things you'll notice is that four of the movies listed are from 1980 or later, four of them were released by Criterion and not a major studio, and all of the Harryhausen films that are in black and white are also offered in "colorized" versions.
That leaves Casablanca and The Day the Earth Stood Still as the major studio releases of "Classic" titles, and the latter was to tie in with the remake from last year. I mention this because Blu Ray and High Definition in general are still largely considered "niche" markets. Like laserdiscs, some are inclined to regard BDs as a stop gap between the next big shift in home entertainment.
So why then does the product not reflect that? Laserdiscs included what could be considered the first wave of "supplemental" material (commentaries, documentaries, director's cuts) and included releases like The Magnificent Ambersons, a film that also never made its way to dvd. Why? Well, the film is more interesting as a piece of Hollywood history than as a easily marketable disc, and the studios have dragged their feet in the 12 years dvd existed to get older titles out. If Blu Ray is comparable to Laserdisc, what explains the presence of films designed at a marketdly broader audience?
Day and date release of new films makes sense, but some of the choices for "catalog" films confuses me. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and not Brazil? The Life of Brian and not The Quest for the Holy Grail? Domino? American History X? Wayne's World? Collateral Damage? Universal Soldier? Paycheck?
Seriously. Paycheck? Many of you know of my unjustified fondness for the movie even Ben Affleck disowned, but what "niche" market was looking for Paycheck in high definition?
I could seriously go on and on listing movies inexplicably available in high definition while others that you would expect languish in vaults, possibly to be released. Some of these movies look pretty spiffy and other looks negligibly different yet the one thing I notice is that none of them ever seem to be sold out in stores, even when they're on sale.
What is nice is that some studios at least recognize that if their titles aren't radical improvements, like First Look's BD of Dog Soldiers, they won't charge more than they do for the dvd. Dog Soldiers is 14.99, and so is The Proposition, which actually looks great in high definition. Short Circuit is comparably inexpensive, and for some reason Tango & Cash is perpetually marked down to 16.99. They may not be necessary but I guess you aren't always being asked to pay top dollar for the "privilege" of high definition.
As time goes by, eventually we'll get more releases like Cool Hand Luke or The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. Why the studios sit on these and not their lesser selling titles remains a mystery: are they waiting to see if more people adopt the Blu Ray players / PS3? Do they think only a very specific audience wants Blu Rays, and rather than cinephiles it's action film fans? Are they simply testing the waters with the same type of crap they can't sell on dvd?
I wish I knew the answer, because many of you have asked to watch such-and-such a title on Blu Ray only to discover it doesn't exist yet. Films you would expect to be out in order to show off picture quality or representing box office power are inexplicably missing, meaning that Indiana Jones fans have only Kingdom of the Crystal Skull to show off, and George Lucas is secretly stockpiling Star Wars Blu Rays for the, uh, 35th anniversary in 2012**? Is it too much to ask for that Night of the Living Dead be able to join all of its sequels on Blu Ray? That Orson Welles could get some high def love?
Or, dare I ask for it, Night of the Lepus remastered for true 1080p fancy schmancy picture?
Okay, even I admit that Night of the Lepus would merit a "you've got to be kidding", just like Moonraker would...
oh, wait.
* Take your pick: it's either The Matrix, Batman, Casablanca or No Country for Old Men, to name a few.
** Don't think he's not. They might come out sooner but I wouldn't be shocked.
I run the risk of almost totally contradicting my series of essays on "remastering" for some of you, but I feel that there is a sufficient difference between the two. Allow me to explain.
The format is relatively new, so we can't blame studios for dragging their feet in releasing older catalog titles or "Classic" films just yet. Blu Ray only really "won" the war with HD-DVD last spring, so companies have been adjusting to working strictly with one format and have released a relatively substantial amount of movies compared to the early days of dvd. The problem seems to be that an unusually high number of those movies don't seem to benefit from high definition releases.
For example, Predator 2 will be coming out on Blu Ray next month. As I made it clear yesterday, I have no qualms with the film itself, but I am rather confused at 20th Century Fox's desire to release that particular film in HD. It's equally confounding because their earlier releases of Predator and Commando don't really look that much better than the dvds. There is some improvement in picture clarity, but neither of them are discs you're going to put in to demonstrate just how much of a difference 1080p can make.
Warner Brothers has similarly released a wave of catalog films from the 80s and 90s, most notably Steven Seagal films like Above the Law, Out for Justice and Under Siege 2: Dark Territory. They also just put out Tango & Cash, a cop movie from the 90s starring Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell. I'm not going to be surprised if you haven't heard of any of those movies (my own personal enjoyment of them aside).
Despite liking these films on varying levels, I am confused to see them benefitting from the HD upgrade when other movies are not. It would be one thing if they looked radically improved (as some older titles do, like Batman Returns) but Out for Justice looks like a slightly clearer version of the dvd.
Then there are movies that clearly don't make sense to get a BD upgrade: the one that springs to mind is Faces of Death. The film (if you can call it that) has a reputation for being the nastiest of video nasties because of how ragged and beat up the vhs copies looked, adding to the "authenticity" of a film exploring people being killed on camera. Well, alledgedly, because now that the Blu Ray is out it's abundantly clear just how fake the "death" footage is. While it might make it easier to show to squeamish friends, the newly enhanced Faces of Death loses the one edge it had for decades: arguable authenticity.
Even more bizarre (to me at least) are movies I'm positive no one was asking for on Blu Ray that DO look better, like Short Circuit. When I put the disc in, I was stunned how much better Short Circuit looks than any other time I've ever seen it, which begs the question: Why Short Circuit?
Why does a mid-level comedy from 1986 get a full-on remaster and something like Predator doesn't? For that matter, why is Short Circuit getting this kind of attention when there are classic movies not even out on dvd that could use this attention. I continually bring up The African Queen specifically because it's never had an American release, on dvd or Blu Ray, but there are no less than seven versions of Terminator 2 on both formats. The second BD version of Terminator 2 is on the way, and that's not even the first HD "double dip.*"
Similarly, while I appreciate having them in HD upgrades, I am slightly confused by releases like The Road Warrior and The Omega Man from Warner Brothers. Sure, I enjoy both movies but neither one was something I expected to be able to find. 2001? Blade Runner? Sure, but The Final Countdown?
I don't mind giving great treatment to more obscure movies but can't we at least get the "big guns" out of the way first? The Wizard of Oz, Ben-Hur, and Gone with the Wind have been announced but are still pending a release date. There's no hint of Citizen Kane or The Treasure of the Sierra Madre on the horizon, but Big Trouble in Little China is on the way. So are Road House, Fletch, and Walking Tall.
In the meantime I can probably name all of the black and white films on Blu Ray, including Good Night and Good Luck: The Third Man, Casablanca, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The 400 Blows, The Ray Harryhausen Collection, Raging Bull, Wages of Fear, Sin City, The Seventh Seal and I guess you could count the black and white cut of The Mist. Am I forgetting anything?
One of the things you'll notice is that four of the movies listed are from 1980 or later, four of them were released by Criterion and not a major studio, and all of the Harryhausen films that are in black and white are also offered in "colorized" versions.
That leaves Casablanca and The Day the Earth Stood Still as the major studio releases of "Classic" titles, and the latter was to tie in with the remake from last year. I mention this because Blu Ray and High Definition in general are still largely considered "niche" markets. Like laserdiscs, some are inclined to regard BDs as a stop gap between the next big shift in home entertainment.
So why then does the product not reflect that? Laserdiscs included what could be considered the first wave of "supplemental" material (commentaries, documentaries, director's cuts) and included releases like The Magnificent Ambersons, a film that also never made its way to dvd. Why? Well, the film is more interesting as a piece of Hollywood history than as a easily marketable disc, and the studios have dragged their feet in the 12 years dvd existed to get older titles out. If Blu Ray is comparable to Laserdisc, what explains the presence of films designed at a marketdly broader audience?
Day and date release of new films makes sense, but some of the choices for "catalog" films confuses me. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and not Brazil? The Life of Brian and not The Quest for the Holy Grail? Domino? American History X? Wayne's World? Collateral Damage? Universal Soldier? Paycheck?
Seriously. Paycheck? Many of you know of my unjustified fondness for the movie even Ben Affleck disowned, but what "niche" market was looking for Paycheck in high definition?
I could seriously go on and on listing movies inexplicably available in high definition while others that you would expect languish in vaults, possibly to be released. Some of these movies look pretty spiffy and other looks negligibly different yet the one thing I notice is that none of them ever seem to be sold out in stores, even when they're on sale.
What is nice is that some studios at least recognize that if their titles aren't radical improvements, like First Look's BD of Dog Soldiers, they won't charge more than they do for the dvd. Dog Soldiers is 14.99, and so is The Proposition, which actually looks great in high definition. Short Circuit is comparably inexpensive, and for some reason Tango & Cash is perpetually marked down to 16.99. They may not be necessary but I guess you aren't always being asked to pay top dollar for the "privilege" of high definition.
As time goes by, eventually we'll get more releases like Cool Hand Luke or The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. Why the studios sit on these and not their lesser selling titles remains a mystery: are they waiting to see if more people adopt the Blu Ray players / PS3? Do they think only a very specific audience wants Blu Rays, and rather than cinephiles it's action film fans? Are they simply testing the waters with the same type of crap they can't sell on dvd?
I wish I knew the answer, because many of you have asked to watch such-and-such a title on Blu Ray only to discover it doesn't exist yet. Films you would expect to be out in order to show off picture quality or representing box office power are inexplicably missing, meaning that Indiana Jones fans have only Kingdom of the Crystal Skull to show off, and George Lucas is secretly stockpiling Star Wars Blu Rays for the, uh, 35th anniversary in 2012**? Is it too much to ask for that Night of the Living Dead be able to join all of its sequels on Blu Ray? That Orson Welles could get some high def love?
Or, dare I ask for it, Night of the Lepus remastered for true 1080p fancy schmancy picture?
Okay, even I admit that Night of the Lepus would merit a "you've got to be kidding", just like Moonraker would...
oh, wait.
* Take your pick: it's either The Matrix, Batman, Casablanca or No Country for Old Men, to name a few.
** Don't think he's not. They might come out sooner but I wouldn't be shocked.
Monday, May 11, 2009
The Dreaded Cousin of the Remake: The Unnecessary Sequel!
Before diving right into the subject of "did we really need THAT in high definition?" tomorrow, I thought I'd touch upon a similar subject and revisit the dreaded "unnecessary sequel."
Our first sequel is one I'd honestly forgotten existed, until a review of it popped up online: The Descent 2. There was maybe a 20% chance of getting me to see it in the first place, and that was only because of the Aliens-like premise of a search team going in following the events of The Descent. Then I heard about why they were going in, and there's no reason to watch this movie.
For those of you who haven't seen The Descent, I'm going to have to spoil it a little bit for you: there are technically two endings to the film. Director Neil Marshall had his original ending which is a downer but links up nicely to the beginning of the film, but Lionsgate didn't feel like that ending tested well, so they changed it. In the "American" cut, a dream sequence that precedes the actual ending is now the ending, complete with a last second "jump" scare for the audience. The chief difference between the two is that one implies a character lives and the other one makes it clear there's no hope.
(From here on out I'm going to be kind of deliberately vague in case you want to see The Descent, which I highly recommend.)
The Descent 2 is a sequel to the "American" cut, so I don't even know how it'll be legible to audiences outside of the U.S. Personally speaking, I like the "downbeat" ending more and am a bit surprised the director of this movie (not Neil Marshall) talked the actress into coming back. Let alone two of them. The explanation for the second not-dead character is the impetus for our heroine returning to the caves of Appalachia. Her father is a Congressman or Senator or something like that, so he drags our newly-christened British Ripley back underground with a group of, I don't know, State Troopers? They get lost, monsters attack, it's Aliens in caves.
However, in a movie that pretty much betrays the dynamic between characters in The Descent, the other "should be dead but now isn't" character has become a bad-ass monster killer, just like our lead from the first film. That's dumb in and of itself, but this character is also a) the reason the girls went into the wrong cave in the first place, b) killed one of her friends and lied about it, and c) was the ONE person the heroine from The Descent had the chance to save and DIDN'T! Why would she go back to expose that?
So yeah, any hopes of me wanting to see The Descent 2 are dashed. This sounds like a pointless cash-in on the title by folks not related to the first film, ala s. Darko. Speaking of which...
---
As the Cap'n promised, so that you won't have to, I will sit down and watch s. Darko: A Donnie Darko Tale (I swear to you that's the whole title) either on Wednesday or Thursday*, despite the litany of bad reviews I've been seeing. What can I say? I'm a glutton for punishment sometimes, and as horrible of an idea as s. Darko is, the trailer kind of captured the vibe of Donnie Darko. Kind of.
Periodically I'll look into a sequel which is tangentially related to the original film, and while there's not really a reason to care about Samantha Darko's adventures or history of Frank the Bunny sightings, I don't see what other direction they could have gone in. Why they'd do it at all is a question I can answer for you: because anyone who can talk themselves into liking Southland Tales** will probably buy a copy of s. Darko in the hopes it captures some of their obsession with the Donnie Darko universe. The producers knew that, so they made a sequel no one was asking for.
But then again was anyone seriously asking for a Predator movie with Danny Glover and Gary Busey? And look how awesome that turned out to be***!
---
That leads us nicely into tomorrow's piece, which will try to answer the question "Why is Predator 2 coming out on Blu Ray instead of, say, The African Queen?" I'll also try to figure out why so many mid-90s action films are available when it's clear that other studio classics have also been remastered in HD but aren't on shelves. See you then.
P.S. I'm terribly saddened to see so many negative reviews of The Limits of Control, the new movie from Jim Jarmusch. Even the ones that try to be positive admit that basically the movie is an exercise of repetition for 116 minutes in order to test how long people will wait for nothing to happen. Bummer.
* Let me be totally honest here. It's probably going to be Thursday because I don't want to be angry before or after the season finale of Dinosaur Island.
** You would have to talk yourself into liking that hodgepodge of bad ideas, and if any fanatic can do it, Darko-heads can. Trust me, I've seen them.
*** Don't get it twisted: s. Darko will not be as awesome as Predator 2, I can promise you that. Also, I'm not insinuating Predator 2 is not awesome because it IS, dammit.
Our first sequel is one I'd honestly forgotten existed, until a review of it popped up online: The Descent 2. There was maybe a 20% chance of getting me to see it in the first place, and that was only because of the Aliens-like premise of a search team going in following the events of The Descent. Then I heard about why they were going in, and there's no reason to watch this movie.
For those of you who haven't seen The Descent, I'm going to have to spoil it a little bit for you: there are technically two endings to the film. Director Neil Marshall had his original ending which is a downer but links up nicely to the beginning of the film, but Lionsgate didn't feel like that ending tested well, so they changed it. In the "American" cut, a dream sequence that precedes the actual ending is now the ending, complete with a last second "jump" scare for the audience. The chief difference between the two is that one implies a character lives and the other one makes it clear there's no hope.
(From here on out I'm going to be kind of deliberately vague in case you want to see The Descent, which I highly recommend.)
The Descent 2 is a sequel to the "American" cut, so I don't even know how it'll be legible to audiences outside of the U.S. Personally speaking, I like the "downbeat" ending more and am a bit surprised the director of this movie (not Neil Marshall) talked the actress into coming back. Let alone two of them. The explanation for the second not-dead character is the impetus for our heroine returning to the caves of Appalachia. Her father is a Congressman or Senator or something like that, so he drags our newly-christened British Ripley back underground with a group of, I don't know, State Troopers? They get lost, monsters attack, it's Aliens in caves.
However, in a movie that pretty much betrays the dynamic between characters in The Descent, the other "should be dead but now isn't" character has become a bad-ass monster killer, just like our lead from the first film. That's dumb in and of itself, but this character is also a) the reason the girls went into the wrong cave in the first place, b) killed one of her friends and lied about it, and c) was the ONE person the heroine from The Descent had the chance to save and DIDN'T! Why would she go back to expose that?
So yeah, any hopes of me wanting to see The Descent 2 are dashed. This sounds like a pointless cash-in on the title by folks not related to the first film, ala s. Darko. Speaking of which...
---
As the Cap'n promised, so that you won't have to, I will sit down and watch s. Darko: A Donnie Darko Tale (I swear to you that's the whole title) either on Wednesday or Thursday*, despite the litany of bad reviews I've been seeing. What can I say? I'm a glutton for punishment sometimes, and as horrible of an idea as s. Darko is, the trailer kind of captured the vibe of Donnie Darko. Kind of.
Periodically I'll look into a sequel which is tangentially related to the original film, and while there's not really a reason to care about Samantha Darko's adventures or history of Frank the Bunny sightings, I don't see what other direction they could have gone in. Why they'd do it at all is a question I can answer for you: because anyone who can talk themselves into liking Southland Tales** will probably buy a copy of s. Darko in the hopes it captures some of their obsession with the Donnie Darko universe. The producers knew that, so they made a sequel no one was asking for.
But then again was anyone seriously asking for a Predator movie with Danny Glover and Gary Busey? And look how awesome that turned out to be***!
---
That leads us nicely into tomorrow's piece, which will try to answer the question "Why is Predator 2 coming out on Blu Ray instead of, say, The African Queen?" I'll also try to figure out why so many mid-90s action films are available when it's clear that other studio classics have also been remastered in HD but aren't on shelves. See you then.
P.S. I'm terribly saddened to see so many negative reviews of The Limits of Control, the new movie from Jim Jarmusch. Even the ones that try to be positive admit that basically the movie is an exercise of repetition for 116 minutes in order to test how long people will wait for nothing to happen. Bummer.
* Let me be totally honest here. It's probably going to be Thursday because I don't want to be angry before or after the season finale of Dinosaur Island.
** You would have to talk yourself into liking that hodgepodge of bad ideas, and if any fanatic can do it, Darko-heads can. Trust me, I've seen them.
*** Don't get it twisted: s. Darko will not be as awesome as Predator 2, I can promise you that. Also, I'm not insinuating Predator 2 is not awesome because it IS, dammit.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
No Offense to The Carolina Theatre...
...but when you send me an email that starts "CASABLANCA AND TWISTER - with a special gift!", I'm really hoping the "special gift" is not showing Twister. Other than "they were available", I can't even begin to guess why they're showing one after the other. The Cap'n has some love in him for Casablanca, to be sure, but there's no room in his shriveled black heart for 1997's Bill Paxton / Helen Hunt disasterpiece.
It could just be me, but I'm betting not. A show of hands: how many of you saw Twister when it came out? Okay, how many of you ever saw it again? TV counts, yes. How many of you ever saw Twister, even in passing on television?
That's kind of what I thought. I welcome any defenders of the movie to light up my comments, but the Cap'n sincerely doubts he'll be seeing any. If I were to ask how many of you had seen Casablanca, I guess the numbers might be similar, but I'm going to hold on to my belief, thanks.
Speaking of which, there's nothing "low art" about Twister, if you were thinking of going that route. That's a movie with (at the time) big stars and a pretty big freaking budget directed by the guy who made Speed (also a big hit) for a major studio designed to cash in on the success of movies like Independence Day and that (forthcoming) Armageddon.
Twister with Bruce Campbell is low art, and I urge you to rent it to see exactly how "low" it can go.
---
I have to say that I'm pretty keen on watching Wall*E some time next week. Doctor Who is a big priority but I feel like I should finish Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures first as they both tie into series four.
Tropic Thunder is also of interest, as no one who's seen it seemed to dislike it. Most of them loved it, and I really appreciated the way that Rain of Madness the Hearts of Darkness to Tropic Thunder's Apocalypse Now claims that Jack Black's character got his start on Heat Vision and Jack. Even better: in the "universe" of Tropic Thunder, Heat Vision and Jack was a huge hit and not just a failed pilot you can find on YouTube*.
Needless to say that I'll be agonizing between watching these films and doing homework, and homework will probably win. Or sleep will lose. (Stupid sleep)
---
I'm glad not to be 14 or a girl. Otherwise I'd be spending all of my money on seeing Twilight 11 or 12 times in two weeks. As it is, I won't see Twilight once, and yet this is somehow not heartbreaking or ________ (insert current hip phrase used by 14 year olds).
* I linked to it once a long time ago, so you can do the work yourselves this time. I promise it's worth it.
It could just be me, but I'm betting not. A show of hands: how many of you saw Twister when it came out? Okay, how many of you ever saw it again? TV counts, yes. How many of you ever saw Twister, even in passing on television?
That's kind of what I thought. I welcome any defenders of the movie to light up my comments, but the Cap'n sincerely doubts he'll be seeing any. If I were to ask how many of you had seen Casablanca, I guess the numbers might be similar, but I'm going to hold on to my belief, thanks.
Speaking of which, there's nothing "low art" about Twister, if you were thinking of going that route. That's a movie with (at the time) big stars and a pretty big freaking budget directed by the guy who made Speed (also a big hit) for a major studio designed to cash in on the success of movies like Independence Day and that (forthcoming) Armageddon.
Twister with Bruce Campbell is low art, and I urge you to rent it to see exactly how "low" it can go.
---
I have to say that I'm pretty keen on watching Wall*E some time next week. Doctor Who is a big priority but I feel like I should finish Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures first as they both tie into series four.
Tropic Thunder is also of interest, as no one who's seen it seemed to dislike it. Most of them loved it, and I really appreciated the way that Rain of Madness the Hearts of Darkness to Tropic Thunder's Apocalypse Now claims that Jack Black's character got his start on Heat Vision and Jack. Even better: in the "universe" of Tropic Thunder, Heat Vision and Jack was a huge hit and not just a failed pilot you can find on YouTube*.
Needless to say that I'll be agonizing between watching these films and doing homework, and homework will probably win. Or sleep will lose. (Stupid sleep)
---
I'm glad not to be 14 or a girl. Otherwise I'd be spending all of my money on seeing Twilight 11 or 12 times in two weeks. As it is, I won't see Twilight once, and yet this is somehow not heartbreaking or ________ (insert current hip phrase used by 14 year olds).
* I linked to it once a long time ago, so you can do the work yourselves this time. I promise it's worth it.
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