Shocktober Revisited: Never Sleep Again - The Elm Street Legacy

 Review originally appeared in 2010. Some amendments have been made to reflect the Blu-Ray edition.

 If anything good came of Platinum Dunes' remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street, it's that more attention shifted to the original film and its sequels. Not only did fans get A Nightmare on Elm Street on Blu-Ray (and let me tell you, the "arm stretching" scene looks even sillier in HD*), but the insanely comprehensive Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy arrived for Fred Heads to pore over. And boy howdy is there a lot to pore over.

That is, if you could find it. To date, I still can't find Never Sleep Again in stores. It just recently made it to Netflix, and I had to order my copy from Amazon, where it was on a "Ships in 1 to 3 weeks" back-order. Fortunately, I ordered from one of the Marketplace sellers - Moviemars - based in NC, and got it in about a week. However, it was totally worth the wait.

 2014 Note: At the time this was written, it was more difficult to find Never Sleep Again, but in the four years that followed, a second edition of the DVD and Blu-Ray were released, which are widely available. I currently own the Blu-Ray and recommend it wholeheartedly.

Surrounding the remakes of Halloween and Friday the 13th, retrospective documentaries were released for each: Halloween: 25 Years of Terror and His Name was Jason, which set the template for Never Sleep Again - interviews with cast, crew, fans, and creators of each film in the series. In fact, Never Sleep Again is co-directed by Daniel Farrands, who directed His Name Was Jason. Each set came in two discs - one disc was the documentary, and the other was extended interviews, set visits, recaps, or short featurettes on music, makeup, or fandom.

The difference between the all-encompassing docs for Friday the 13th / Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street is sheer depth of presentation. Halloween: 25 Years of Terror and His Name was Jason are 89 and 90 minutes respectively; Never Sleep Again is 4 hours long. That's just the documentary. I'm guessing the second disc has roughly 2-2 1/2 hours of additional material. And none of it drags.

 Directors Farrands and Andrew Kasch managed to get just about everyone involved in the Nightmare series to appear on camera** and talk about the films, and almost none of it rehashes information from the previous making-of's in the Nightmare on Elm Street boxed set or Infinifilm disc. Narrated by Heather Langenkamp, each film gets a good 30-40 minutes covering every aspect of the production from story to casting to production, release, controversy, and direction.

 There's a surprisingly comprehensive list of cast members who came back from the first seven films, including Mark Patton (Jesse in Freddy's Revenge), Danny Hassel (Dan in Nightmares 4 and 5), Ken Sagoes (Kincaid in Dream Warriors), Jsu Garcia (Rod in Nightmare 1), Alice Cooper (Freddy's father in Freddy's Dead), Mike Smith (Super Freddy in Dream Child), Lisa Zane (Maggie in Freddy's Dead), Zack Ward (Bobby in Freddy vs. Jason), Lisa Wilcox (Alice in Nightmares 4 and 5), Clu Gulager (Jesse's Dad in Freddy's Revenge) and even Charles Fleischer (Dr. King in Nightmare 1); people I've never heard talk about the Nightmare movies before. For crying out loud, the even talk to Dokken!

 Once and for all, there's a comprehensive discussion of the various iterations of Freddy vs. Jason in one place, complete with a breakdown of how the final script differed from the film - including reactions from some of the cast about changes that occurred between signing on and filming. Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash even comes up, and there's a pretty good explanation by former New Line executive Jeff Katz (who wrote the spec script for FvJvA) on why it never came to pass. Even Kane Hodder (Jason Vorhees from Friday the 13th part 7 to Jason X) chimes in about how he was in and out of the film without ever being given a specific reason.

 It was also interesting to hear Wes Craven talk about each of the sequels on the record, including (as one of the extras) the remake. Additionally, I have to say it's fascinating hearing the ways that Jack Sholder, Chuck Russell, Renny Harlin, Stephen Hopkins, Rachel Talalay, and Ronny Yu talk about their approaches to the film, and cast and writer experiences of working with each director, warts and all.

 My personal favorite section of the documentary was the discussion of Freddy's Nightmares, the ill-received anthology TV series that aired between The Dream Master and Freddy's Dead. Considering that almost no one ever talks about the series, it was fun to see William Malone (House on Haunted Hill), Mick Garris (Masters of Horror), David J. Schow (The Crow) and Tom McLoughlin (Friday the 13th Part 6) talk about making a very low budget show for syndication where the limits on gore and sexuality were, shall we say, lax. Nobody seems particularly proud of the end result, including former New Line CEO Robert Shaye, but that it was even mentioned - let alone get its own block of documentary - made me happy***.

 I haven't completely finished the second disc (in that I haven't watched all of "Horror's Hallowed Grounds: A Nightmare on Elm Street") but the extended interviews are great, the 10 minute recap of the Nightmare films - comprised of cast members performing memorable lines - is a lot of fun, the fan segment is cool, as are the various people who make glove replicas, the music section is cool, I liked the spin-off books (which also cover FvJvA), and a nice interview with The Angry Video Game Nerd about his Nightmare on Elm Street game review is included. Overall, it's just a solid package covering damn near everything you could want to know. Think of it as a documentary version of Peter Bracke's Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th.

 2014 Note: Speaking of which, Farrands and Kasch went on to "adapt" Bracke's book into a companion piece for the Friday the 13th series, which is comparably exhaustive (thereabouts seven hours) in its coverage of the films. It's also notable for an alternate version of the interviews from Freddy vs. Jason, focused more heavily on the Friday the 13th side.

 While I'm slightly biased as a massive Nightmare on Elm Street fan, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that even casual fans won't be bored watching this 4 hour documentary. There's never a point where the discussion isn't interesting or there's something new to learn (for example, I'd somehow never heard that Tron's David Warner was originally cast as Fred Krueger and had to drop out) and it's broken up in such a way that you can spread it out over a day or two. This is an absolute must-see for Nightmare fans, and a high recommendation for people who want to see what all the hoopla is about.


* That being said, everything else looks great. Don't let the cynics tell you that a low-budget movie from 1984 can't look good in High Definition. A Nightmare on Elm Street looks better than I'd ever imagined it could.
** Notable absences are Johnny Depp, Patricia Arquette, Ronee Blakely (Nancy's mother in part 1), Breckin Meyer (Freddy's Dead), Frank Darabont (who co-wrote Dream Warriors), Peter Jackson (who wrote the mythical and unproduced A Nightmare on Elm Street 6: The Dream Lovers) and strangely much of the cast of Freddy vs. Jason (including Katharine Isabelle, Kelly Rowland, Jason Ritter, and Ken Kirzinger), although there is a great joke involving Jason Mewes and the assumption he played Freeburg in Freddy vs. Jason.
2014 Note: During the commentary, it's explained that Depp and Arquette were willing to film interviews but could not find time in the schedules, and that Frank Darabont was filming the pilot for The Walking Dead during production of Never Sleep Again. While Darabont was unable to film an interview, he provided many stills and behind the scenes memorabilia for the production.
*** Craven and Shaye, among others, also address Dreamscape - which was released the same year as A Nightmare on Elm Street - for the first time I can remember.

Horror Fest VIII (Day Two): All the Boys Love Mandy Lane and A Nightmare on Elm Street

 As some of you have already noticed, I re-posted a review of All the Boys Love Mandy Lane earlier this month, with more contemporaneous thoughts about the film (as much as two years’ worth of reflection allows, at any rate), so I don’t have much more to add. It’s strange how the intervening years (Jonathan Levine made the film before the smartphone was a regular presence in the life of teenagers) make Mandy Lane more “quaint” than it would be otherwise: the choice in music and many choices in editing resemble any of the CW-style “modern” slasher film, but the lack of always connected, social networking makes for strange bedfellows.

 It’s a modern horror movie that isn’t quite modern enough, and not enough of a “throwback” (as loathe as I am to use that term) to feel different. I understand why people aren’t responding to it now, but I’m curious how it would fare in the height of remake-mania seven years ago. I apologize again for not spoiling the end of the movie – this is the third time I’ve brought up All the Boys Love Mandy Lane without directly addressing the ending of the film. To be honest, it’s why I like the movie, and why I think people interested in Final Girls as a horror trope would find it worthwhile. If this gives you any hint to how it ends, Mandy Lane would have beaten Scream 4’s “twist” to the punch by five years, and only been behind High Tension by a year. It’s a newer, if under-examined, development in Final Girl theory.

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Along similar lines, I feel like I’ve written about A Nightmare on Elm Street so many times that I’m not sure what to say about it. I appreciate how grimy Freddy Krueger is in the film, how disgusting and creepy without relying on puns or horror showmanship. Robert Englund is clearly relishing the opportunity to make Freddy (really, it’s more “Fred” in the first film) as sadistic as possible. The more I watch A Nightmare on Elm Street, the more I notice that, frankly, surprise me that I didn’t remember from the last time. To wit:

The “dream logic” of the first film is much more, let’s say “practical” than in the subsequent films. It’s more like actual dreams are than what people might associate with the series (although Dream Warriors did push it in a direction that was almost impossible to come back from). The craziest “nightmare” moment early in the film is a goat in Tina (Amanda Wyss)’s dream that opens the film, and after that it’s largely limited to things Freddy can do: the (terrible) extended arm effect, cutting off his fingers, pulling off his face, etc. When Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) starts experimenting with her dreams, we see simple things, like the door into her basement leading to the boiler room at the high school. It’s more of an Inception level of “dream logic” than what people assume when they think of the series. They resemble dreams we’ve had, where one place becomes another but it seems to make sense in the dream.

 This is not to say there isn’t some nightmarish imagery in Nancy’s dreams – while it’s hard to forget Tina in the body bag while Nancy sleeps at school, I’d totally forgotten about the second time she appears later in the film. Nancy is dreaming and Glen (Johnny Depp) is supposed to be watching her (more on this in a moment), and in the dream Tina appears again, her feet covered with worms writhing around on the pavement. It’s an effectively unsettling image, as much so as the trail of blood Nancy follows in the hallways of school.

 Now, speaking of Glen, it’s worth pointing out that Wes Craven does something in A Nightmare on Elm Street that would subsequently be picked apart and reconfigured for the sequels (and, apropos to this discussion, a Simpsons Treehouse of Horror segment) that I completely forgot was in the film. Nancy is at home, watching The Evil Dead, and nodding off when Glen climbs in through the window. She asks him to sit next to her while she’s dreaming and wake her up if she starts struggling, which he agrees to do.

 Nancy then enters the “dream world” and is walking down Elm Street, when she turns and asks Glen if he’s still watching her. Inside the dream, Glen appears from behind a tree with to let her know that he is, and then disappears again. With the other films, and also The Simpsons in mind, this is an odd moment, because Nancy is dreaming, not talking out loud, and if Glen is in her dream, there’s a good chance he’s not awake. Now it turns out he isn’t, but they aren’t sharing the dream, so either Nancy imagined Glen reassuring her in the dream or he really was responding to her from the “real” world. I bring up The Simpsons because when Lisa appears in Bart’s dream, that’s how Bart knows she isn’t awake to save him. It’s not something that harms the film – as I mentioned before, I forgot it even happened – but upon reflection, it’s an odd moment.

I also picked up some dumb details that I’d never seen before, like the poster of a cat wearing a Hawaiian t-shirt and riding a trolley in San Francisco in Dr. King (Charles Fleischer)’s office. While he’s monitoring Nancy, you can’t miss it behind him on the wall.

It’s not difficult to spot the palm trees in the background of A Nightmare on Elm Street (like in John Carpenter’s Halloween, Craven is doubling California for the Midwest – Springwood is supposed to be in Ohio and Haddonfield in Illinois), but for some reason I’d never focused on how prominently a palm tree appears in one scene. When Nancy and Glen are on the bridge having a conversation about homemade weapons and giving dreams power, there’s a rather large palm tree right in the middle of the frame. I guess I’d been focused enough on the story that I willingly blocked it out, but it’s really hard to miss.

The last one is just an odd tidbit I picked up, one that only has any relevance if you’ve listened to the Wes Craven / Heather Langenkamp commentary before: during the bathtub scene, Langenkamp and Craven point out that the girl pulled into the tub and trying to escape is a body double. No, fanboys, that’s not a nude Heather Langenkamp you’re seeing. On the other hand, when Nancy is pretending to sleep so her mother will leave her alone, she does get up and change shirts, exposing her bare back to the camera in a shot that is Langenkamp. I suppose it’s a “neither here nor there” addition to the conversation, but I did know because of the commentary that she avoided any nudity in the film, so it was a scene I didn’t remember being in the film (technically it’s not nudity, but it’s a shot that implies it and doesn’t necessarily add anything to the plot).

 Up Next: John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness, the middle chapter of his “Apocalypse Trilogy.”

"O" is for Oz - The Great and Powerful

 Allow me to begin with a seemingly unrelated anecdote: the reason I was hesitant to write a full review of The Hobbit last December was that when I found myself describing it to friends, I almost always began by saying "well, it's not as bad as you've heard it is." Beginning a review from a defensive position is tricky, and I find it's much more helpful when you have the benefit of time and context to help support enjoying a film with strong assumptions about its quality or lack thereof (see Retro Reviews of Tron and Dazed and Confused, both of which refute the most common stereotypes surrounding the films.)

 Meanwhile, movies that are more recent exist in the echo chamber that is the internet, where everything sucks more than it might actually and movies that are considered to be very good to great will also suck in a year's time*. So movies that are good but not great or that generally succeed in being entertaining for the target audience - let's say, kids - from directors held to impossibly high standards are therefore "total crap" and "a waste of time."

 And so the Cap'n finds himself in the unenviable position of explaining to you that while Sam Raimi's Oz - The Great and Powerful is nowhere as good as we thought we deserved, it's still a mostly harmless bit of Disney-fied Raimi as anyone should reasonably expect. Considering that trying to make anything tied to The Wizard of Oz without anything specifically trademarked in the MGM film (which, let's be honest, is where more people base their knowledge of Oz than Baum's novels), it's an admirable, if flawed, end result.


  Being that it's a prequel, I'm guessing you know that Oz - the Great and Powerful doesn't have Dorothy or the Tin Man or the Scarecrow or the Cowardly Lion (well, the latter two in a form you'd recognize, anyway) but it does have a young version of the Wizard - Oscar Diggs (James Franco) is a carnival con-artists and serial ladies man who finds himself in the wrong hot air balloon during the wrong tornado in Kansas and ends up in Oz. You might have heard of it. He meets three witches - Theodora (Mila Kunis), Evanora (Rachel Weisz) and later, Glinda (Michelle Williams) - one of whom will be a Wicked Witch of the West by the end of the film. Can you guess which one?

 SPOILER - It's Glinda. Totally Glinda. Those bubbles are toxic, man.

 Since Oscar isn't the Wizard we know yet, that means he has some adventures with characters not appearing in that other Oz movie (and also not that OTHER Oz movie or the OTHER OTHER OZ movie - sorry Tik-Tok and Pumpkinhead), so we meet some other Baum characters or variations thereof, like Finley (Zach Braff), a talking money who wears a bell-hop's uniform, and China Girl (Joey King) who is thankfully not a racist stereotype but is instead a little girl made of china. Also there's Knuck (Tony Cox), who I mention because it amuses me that the only thing he really wants to do is play a fanfare and nobody will let him.

 They have adventures, etc, and then Oz becomes the Great and Powerful by slaying the Jabberwocky... wait. Wrong Disney reboot of a famous children's novel turned movie. Actually Oz - The Great and Powerful manages to resolve itself without a huge battle, which puts it a notch above similar relaunches of crap that was for kids but is now bad-ass action (Snow White and the Huntsman, Jack the Giant Slayer, Alice in Wonderland). There's some ingenuity and good old fashioned misdirection to Oscar's plan that logically places him where we remember the Wizard from that other movie we can't see the likenesses of characters from. Hence the "sexy" Wicked Witch.

 I know, I know - I'm making it sound as bad as you assumed it was. The truth is that Oz - The Great and Powerful does a few things very right and plays it safe in a lot of other ways, and the end result is pleasant but mostly forgettable. It's summer popcorn fare a little bit earlier than usual and I suspect children love it. Good for them. It's not a timeless classic but it's a LOT better than I was expecting considering Alice's Adventures in Narnia is its spiritual ancestor in this round of "what property do we have people remember fondly?" If Oz - The Great and Powerful HAD to happen, this is at least a better version of it than I'd anticipated. There are some nice homages to the film done within legal parameters and I appreciated the Academy Aspect Ratio that opens the film (black and white, full frame, not sepia. We don't want to upset the ghost of Louis B. Mayer!)

  Also, when you compare it to the Raimi-produced Evil Dead remake, Oz - The Great and Powerful is a LOT better!

 Speaking of Evil Dead movies -  I'm not sure why people are clamoring so much for Army of Darkness 2 when it seems pretty clear to me that, like he did from Evil Dead to Evil Dead 2, Raimi remade the film and Disney slapped a different title on it. Make no mistake, were this film to star a younger Bruce Campbell and not James Franco (The Ape), you'd be wondering why Ash was fighting flying monkeys and non Deadites. But how, you ask? Allow me to explain:

 Both Army of Darkness and Oz - The Great and Powerful have a protagonist who is basically a good guy but who has some serious character flaws. Both are sucked through a vortex to another time / place and they immediately agree to the assumption that they are the great savior everybody has been waiting for. They take advantage of this for a brief period of time before being sent off on a quest that will rid the land of evil, and subsequently fail to do what they set out to do (yes, the reasons are different, but stick with me). They rally a small group of willing locals to fight a witch they were somewhat to directly responsible in creating and use modern science to overcome their foes. The only difference is that one leaves and the other one terrorizes a lion he will one day bestow courage onto. Also another witch turns into the "Raimi Hag" after being defeated, and will eventually be crushed by a house.

 (I couldn't find "The Classic" but have heard it's somewhere in there, despite the fact that Raimi's Oldsmobile would stick out like a sore thumb in turn of the twentieth century Kansas or in the land of Oz)

 I'd like to point out that I disagree with the common held argument that James Franco is wrong for the Oscar Diggs / the Wizard but that Robert Downey, Jr. (initially cast) or Johnny Depp (approached after Downey left) would have been better choices. While hating James Franco is almost as in vogue as hating Anne Hathaway or Kristen Stewart, he brings the right kind of sleazy but affable charm to the role. I like that he has his con man act down, and he's a non-threatening sort of lothario - charming but ultimately incapable of much more than skipping town.

 Robert Downey, Jr. has, for all intents and purposes, been showing us what his version of Oscar Diggs would be like since Iron Man - and to be frank, his presence would be overpowering in this movie. He's sweep in to Oz like a human tornado, chewing the scenery and owning the place from the moment he arrived, and it would, quite frankly, rob the reveal of "the Wizard" at the end of much of its power.

 Similarly, bringing Johnny Depp in would for Oz - The Great and Powerful into one of two directions - either Oscar Diggs would end up an eccentric when the audience desperately needs a protagonist who is closer to normal or we'd end up with the toned-down Johnny Depp of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, a leading man he was never meant to play. You bring in Depp for eccentricity, because when he plays the straight man or is forced to carry a film like this without being quirky, it collapses on itself.

 Not to mention furthering the connections between Oz - The Great and Powerful and The Tim Burton Players Present Alice in Wonderland, which already share a studio and producers. So hate James Franco all you want, but shy of Bruce Campbell circa 1993, he's as good of a choice as Raimi could make.

 Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Oz - The Great and Powerful's tangential connection to Disney's other Baum-inspired film, the traumatizing Return to Oz. Is Return to Oz a better movie? Well, it certainly elicits a stronger reaction from me than The Great and Powerful did, but that's because it scared the living daylights out of me as a child and some of the imagery (the hall of heads, the Mountain King) continue to haunt the recesses of my memory. Oz - The Great and Powerful mostly plays it safe instead of opting to give children nightmares, but one aspect of the film that I think gets overlooked is that it's still very much a Sam Raimi film - just in a context we're not necessarily used to seeing it.

 You need to wait no longer than the hot air balloon scene in the tornado to see the love that Raimi has to torment his leading man, as sharpened stakes of wood come at Diggs from every direction with ferocity and a sense of cruel glee coming from behind the camera. It continues throughout the film, after Diggs lands in Oz, although Raimi saves a bit for Bruce Campbell (who apparently managed to make it into the opening credits by spending the 60 seconds he has on screen by being beaten by Tony Cox with a stick). As I mentioned before, the return of the "Raimi Hag" was a nice surprise, although how I could have forseen him making a movie with witches and NOT including that, I don't know.

 For a film about goodness and light or some crap, the man in the title never really drops any of his misleading ways, right down to the establishing of his iconic throne room (I guess MGM couldn't prevent that one from happening, although the ruby slippers, Munchkins, and Flying Monkeys are absent or changed considerably). He's still a charming scoundrel, one that scared off one truly wicked witch and one that was basically evil because of him. While you can go home happy with your children, there's an undertone of cynicism in the film that I don't think gets attention.

 Since most of you will probably Redbox or Netflix Oz - The Great and Powerful (I can't believe I just used both of those as verbs), the hyperbole of internet complaining will be softened and you might even enjoy it. It's a trifle of a film, to be sure, and I'm not convinced we need more of these movies (don't tell Disney that), but it's honestly not as bad as you've heard. In fact, sometimes it's pretty good, or at least better than okay.

 Can you choose something better? Of course you can - there are literally hundreds, if not thousands of fantastic films out there just waiting for you - but let's be honest with ourselves. We all like a little mindless popcorn fun every now and then, and this isn't going to ruin your day with nit-picking or insultingly stupid narrative decisions. And it's Sam Raimi, so if you're going to make your case that I should watch Evil Dead because his name is attached, the least you can do is meet me half way.


* True story - while reading the comments under a review of Oblivion, I learned that Wall-E is over-rated, that Tron Legacy is better than Prometheus, and that Wall-E ripped off Short Circuit, therefore Wall-E sucks. Also that Wall-E is shit and everybody hates it just like Christopher Nolan fuck that guy.

Blogorium Review: Dark Shadows

 So, it's come to this: The Tim Burton Players presented Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sweeney Todd, Alice in Wonderland, and now Dark Shadows. Having finished the latest foray of Burton and company into the world of "things we already knew existed and probably liked the first time", I have to say that at least Dark Shadows has the benefit of not feeling "phoned in." It may be the fact that I've only spend two hours with Shadows, as opposed to the (usually) one-and-a-half times watching the other three, but this one was at least mostly successful.

 In the interest of fairness, I was once a Tim Burton "fanboy": to this day, I can watch any of his films from Pee Wee's Big Adventure to Sleepy Hollow without hesitation, and I also really like Big Fish as a stylistic, if not tonal, departure from what one expects when one hears the phrase "A Tim Burton Film". On the other hand, I have trouble finishing Planet of the Apes, Corpse Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sweeney Todd, and Alice in Wonderland, movies that struggle to capture the Burton "style" but feel labored and undercooked, so to speak.

 Additionally, while I may not be a "late" era Tim Burton fan, I am also no devotee of Dark Shadows the series. I am, however, aware of its existence and actually watched it in syndication on USA or the Sci-Fi Channel (I can't remember which) for a while*. I stopped watching not because of the soap opera plotting or the lack of Barnabas Collins (honestly, I think I saw him twice the entire time), but because I seemed to keep catching episodes where a member of the Collins family ended up traveling back in time to the 1700s. Rather than follow their story, the show would immediately jump into the lives of their ancestors while the displaced Collins descendant cooled their heels in jail. As I remember, this happened at least twice - once on the air and again on the videos I rented when it wasn't possible to see it during the day.

 So I come to this not as a Dark Shadows purist nor as a person who really "likes" Tim Burton movies anymore. Maybe that's why I enjoyed the film, even if it is a mess for long stretches.

 The prologue, with narration from Barnabas (Johnny Depp) explaining the Collins family journey from Liverpool to America in the late 1700s, has an appropriately Gothic sensibility and efficiently explains the tragedy of the "cursed" founders of Collinsworth. Barnabas chooses Josette DuPres (Bella Heathcote) over servant Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green), who is also a witch. She lures Josette to her death and transforms Barnabas into a vampire before bringing the townspeople to Collinwood Manor and burying him alive. So far, so good.

 But then we jump ahead to 1972, where Victoria Winters (Bella Heathcoate) arrives at the dilapidated Collinwood Manor to serve as the new governess to David Collins (Gulliver McGrath). She meets what's left of the family: matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer), her daughter Carolyn (Chloë Grace Moretz), David's father Roger Collins (Johnny Lee Miller), live-in psychologist Dr. Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter), and caretaker Willie Loomis (Jackie Earle Haley). Oh, and thanks to some construction nearby, the freshly awakened Barnabas Collins.

 I appreciate the fact that the advertisements playing up the "fish out of water" jokes of an 18th century vampire in the 1970s don't dominate the film, because most of the ones in Dark Shadows don't really work. Aside from Barnabas' fascination with Carolyn's lava lamp, gags about keyboards and television or not understanding that Alice Cooper (Alice Cooper) isn't a woman don't really connect. Maybe it plays with some audiences but not so much with the Cap'n, but like I said, the trailers used pretty much every joke that's in the movie and it isn't what most of Dark Shadows is about.

 Instead, Dark Shadows occupies most of its time with Barnabas' devotion to family and to restoring the Collins name in the small fishing town, even if it means hypnotizing fishermen (including Christopher Lee) into breaking their deal with Angel Bay Fishery. Now in direct competition, Angel Bay's owner demands to meet with Barnabas and he comes face to face with the seemingly ageless Angelique, who it would seem is still a little hot for her spurned (spurning?) lover. Things get complicated when Barnabas takes a shining to Victoria, who bears a striking resemblance to Josette, much to Angelique's dismay.

 Dark Shadows doesn't have a large cast, necessarily, but it may still be too large for what amounts to a nine person ensemble. Victoria disappears for stretches of the film because there's simply nothing for her to do, and Johnny Lee Miller's Roger never figures into the film in any meaningful way. When Barnabas gives him an ultimatum and he chooses to leave, it's a hollow moment because Roger never amounted to anything in the story. Helena Bonham Carter fares a little better as Dr. Hoffman, but her sudden removal from the narrative only seems to happen in order to set up a sequel.

 Chloë Grace Moretz's Carolyn serves exactly two purposes in the film: one is to provide the 70s soundtrack to Collinwood Manor and the other is an arbitrary plot twist in the last act to justify her being around during the climactic battle between Angelique and the Collins family. Pfeiffer and Haley are at least somewhat memorable with broad characters and dramatic posing, but Dark Shadows is really about Eva Green and Johnny Depp, who go all out with their bizarro versions of "witch" and "vampire."

 Barnabas is so devoted to being a gentleman that he apologizes to people before killing them (in a moment that made me laugh, he informs a group of hippies that he "deeply regrets" the fact he's going to slaughter them) and is fiercely loyal to his "distant" relatives. After last year's Pirates of the Caribbean, I was worried he might sleep walk through another performance or go too weird like Willy Wonka, but Depp's Barnabas Collins is a monster trying to be a man. It may not be on the level of the Ed's (Wood and Scissorhands) but he isn't so far over the top that it borders on caricature.

 Eva Green has a tougher role to play: Angelique is a powerful witch that really only wants Barnabas to love her, and when he continually refuses she lashes out, even when it's clear she doesn't really want to do it. Her conflicted relationship with the monster she created gives Green the ability to be more than just the villain of the film. While the Angelique / Barnabas "sex" scene isn't really funny or titillating (and clearly it's meant to be both at different points), they do manage to destroy her office while a Barry White song plays. That cue at least makes more sense than the lengthy "happening" that Barnabas throws for the town, including Alice Cooper performing live for no good reason.

 In the end I guess I was pleasantly surprised that Tim Burton at least seemed to be interested in Dark Shadows. After the detached, lifeless Alice in Wonderland it really seemed like he didn't always care about the movies he was making, at least since Planet of the Apes, so to have nice flourishes in Dark Shadows like Angelique's skin cracking like china near the end were welcome. I don't know that I'm going to be in a hurry to put on Dark Shadows when it comes out on DVD, but I didn't mind watching it. I chuckled a few times and was able to overlook the meandering parts in the middle. It may not be a return to form for Tim Burton but there's some fun to be had and every now and then a glimmer of the good old days. Sometimes that'll do.



 * I also had (maybe still have) a VHS copy of Scariest Moments from Dark Shadows. It's a montage of scenes that, in context, might be "scary" but in this edited format with no clear idea of what's happening is just silly. Mostly it's the reveal of some kind of monster and someone gasping, which really doesn't have the desired effect of being scary to anyone.

Retro Review: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

 Quick story: in the world of quasi-counterculture of high school circa 1998, there were very few things as exciting as the impending release of Terry Gilliam's adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I know this because I and friends of mine were quasi-countercultural in high school, insomuch as one could be where we went to high school. For a few of us, following the every movement of the film was like a trail of breadcrumbs to something that of course would be amazing. Even more amazing, we hoped, than the release of Thompson's oft-delayed Polo is My Life (which never came out, by the way).

 As recently as five years ago it was fashionable for assholes to assume that people only knew who Terry Gilliam was because of Fear and Loathing - I guess because the assholes making that assumption weren't old enough to see it themselves. If this qualifies as justification, I think it's fair to point out that before I had a working understanding of what the words "Monty" "Python" "Flying" and "Circus" meant in conjunction, I had already seen Time Bandits. In fact, I'm positive that I had seen Time Bandits on home video long before Monty Python registered in my brain. I was traumatized at a young age by the parents who failed to recognize "Evil" and were destroyed, orphaning Kevin until Sean Connery arrived as a fireman (and not Agamemnon) to rescue him.

 To be fair, it was probably years later before I saw Brazil, which is what most defensive geeks cite when someone throws the "you only like him because of Fear and Loathing" slur, but I did see The Fisher King and Twelve Monkeys in theatres (with a bonus Independence Day trailer in front of Monkeys, which I remember for no apparent reason). Anyway, so the collision of director we liked and author we loved (with Johnny Depp as Raoul Duke, no less) we a "must see" affair. We put on hawaiian shirts, poker visors, and headed to the Grande in Raleigh.

 It didn't matter that critics savaged the film, or that people got up and left during the movie while we howled with laughter. We loved it, and though the film died the quick death at the box office, it became its own bona fide cult phenomenon on video. Hell, it even has its own Criterion Spine Number (175). Eat that, fashionable assholes.

 But that is not the quick story. Oh no. That's the background to what happened after we saw the movie, where our own bourgeoisie version of "Gonzo" kicked in. See, a nearby high school was building a new annex and we'd been sneaking by there on weekends and evenings to poke around the in construction and rarely secured proto-building. We figured that night would be a good opportunity to do the same, and the driver in question parked his Dart across four parking spaces as we tromped around the pretty-much completed and now totally locked new area. The important part here is how he parked the car, because otherwise there's a reasonably good chance the local police wouldn't start investigating potential tresspassing.

 But he did, and they did, and we three geniuses came marching around the building like people with something to hide (rather than walk all the way around the campus and pretend we'd simply been out for a stroll nearby), so they took our ID's and ran them while we sweated it out. Of course, being suburbia, they just told us to go home and we did and that was that. There's no good ending to the adventure, because we lived in and near a city where police are bored, kids are even more listless, and misdemeanors aren't worth anybody's time.

 Still, at the time it felt like a fitting cap to seeing the film, and it wasn't like we didn't visit other high school campuses and tool around (forgive me, but I have a fascination with structures designed to be populated but are instead deserted, hence my dalliance with abandoned mall exploration years later). We watched Fear and Loathing again and again on video, and eventually Thompson published The Rum Diary, Kindgom of Fear much (MUCH) later, followed by Hey Rube. I still haven't seen the critically lukewarm-ed The Rum Diary adaptation (also starring Depp) but I did watch all of Gilliam's subsequent films, including the terrible Brothers Grimm, the Cormac McCarthy-level bleak Tideland, and the fascinating but inevitably compromised The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. I haven't tooled around and empty campus in a long time, though. It seems a little perv-y now.

Blogorium Review: Pirates of the Caribbean - On Stranger Tides

 The newest Pirates of the Caribbean film, On Stranger Tides, isn't exactly a disaster, but that's not as reassuring as you might think. The movie is lacking in nearly every way: the plot, the acting, the strangely stunted sense of scope (despite visually sumptuous locations), even the villain feels less imposing than he ought to. I'm half tempted to chalk it up to director Rob Marshall, who was not only taking over for Gore Verbinski after three films, but has a track record (Chicago, Memoirs of a Geisha, Nine) that in no way prepares him for a rousing adventure film of swash-buckling and derring do. But I don't know that I'm willing to hang it all on Marshall - the story doesn't really work in the first place.

 Why the story - a overly complicated race to find the Fountain of Youth featuring zombies, mermaids, and Blackbeard - is incongruous with the other films is due in large part to the fact that returning screenwriters Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio built their script around Tim Powers's On Stranger Tides. The film, accordingly, feels like characters from earlier Pirates films shoehorned into a separate narrative, one that can hardly accommodate them. At first it seemed odd to me that a series that managed to incorporate Davey Jones, voodoo curses, the Kraken, the afterworld, and undead pirates would be unable to intermingle with zombified crew members, mermaids, and the Fountain of Youth (hinted at in At World's End), but the end result is a movie that shouldn't have Jack Sparrow in it but does.

 Speaking of which, I don't know what Johnny Depp was thinking during On Stranger Tides. It's as though he knows he supposed to be playing Jack Sparrow, but often forgets under the demands of playing the lead (a semi-romantic lead at that), so for much of the film he's painfully ordinary, and then as though he's remembered he's playing Captain Jack, Depp will swagger or make a funny face. The performance is uneven at best, but then again Jack Sparrow should never be the lead of one of the Pirates films. He functions best as a secondary character - a ruthless, conniving trouble maker with rotten luck - as a counterpoint to Will Turner and Elizabeth Swan. If coupled with compelling leads and a strong villain, Depp is able to shine and be loopy. On his own, he's adrift.

 And there's nobody in On Stranger Tides to help take the attention away from Depp's "am I or am I not Jack Sparrow" routine. Penelope Cruz doesn't have much to do as Angelica Teach, daughter of Blackbeard and someone who Jack (possibly) corrupted at a young age. Depp and Cruz do their damnedest to generate chemistry, and while the effort is evident, the end result is less than palpable. Worse off is Sam Clafin as Phillip, a missionary being held captive aboard The Queen Anne's Revenge, who has as much chemistry with fellow captive Astrid Bergès-Frisbey (as mermaid Syreena) as a couple of mops in a bucket. Their story is so uninteresting that I failed to care a) when Blackbeard appears to kill Phillip, and b) when the film never bothers to explain exactly how Syreena "saves" him near the end.

 Oh, speaking of Blackbeard, it's probably fair to note just how unimpressive Ian McShane is in a role that should have fit him like a glove. Instead of the imposing presence that Edward Teach ought to be, given that he has a supernatural power over his very ship, McShane underplays Blackbeard at every opportunity. I never once believed he was dangerous, capable of betrayal, or short tempered and cruel enough to murder people (even though he does). The sense of urgency surrounding his need to find the Fountain - due to a prophecy of his death - also never connect in McShane's face. He says all the right things, but one never believes that he's really concerned about anything. Instead of towering, he's annoying - his cruelty is tacked on and half-hearted.

 Only Geoffery Rush emerges with something close to a memorable performance, though it takes the better half of the film for Barbossa to emerge as anything more than a stooge for the Royal Navy. Stephen Graham (Boardwalk Empire, Snatch) has flashes as Scrum, the sort of substitute Gibbs (although actual Gibbs, Kevin McNally, is in the film and traveling with Barbossa). Keith Richards has a perfunctory cameo that makes even less sense than his appearance in At World's End. By the end of the film I'd forgotten that Richard Griffiths (Withnail & I) played the King.

 So Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides sometimes looks nice, is sometimes entertaining, but not really good enough to make it more than a movie you could wander in and out of freely. Pay no attention to the mermaid tears or silver chalices or the rules of finding the fountain, because they really don't matter. They belong to another story, one without a nice wrap-up scene featuring Gibbs and Jack on the beach, explaining what just happened. Unfortunately we have this middling affair, not bad enough to be avoided and not good enough to recommend. If you, like me, were invested in the previous films, then On Stranger Tides is likely to keep you half involved for two hours and fifteen minutes, but the nagging feeling you could have watched something better will creep up repeatedly.

Retro Five Movies: Did I See That?

 Every now and then, a movie will hover by, causing me to think "wait a minute - I saw that!" I had forgotten that I saw the film, and will in all likelihood forget about it shortly thereafter. It happened all the time when I worked as a projectionist, when I had the opportunity to see (and promptly forget) The In Crowd, The Replacements, The Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps, or... see, this is when I draw a blank. Until recently I'd simply forgotten about Spy Kids 3D, a movie I saw and enjoyed.

 Today we'll take a look back at movies I not only saw, but owned on DVD and did not commit to memory. Some are good, some bad, but all of them vanished into the haze of my memory over the last decade.


  1. 3000 Miles to Graceland - There was this movie, way back in the early aughts, about a gang of criminals who decide to rob a casino during an Elvis convention in Las Vegas. You may have heard of it, or like me even seen it; 3000 Miles to Graceland stars Kurt Russell (Escape from New York), Kevin Costner (The Postman), Christian Slater (Pump Up the Volume), Kevin Pollak (The Usual Suspects), and Courtney Cox (Scream). Also, Jon Lovitz, Howie Long, Ice-T, Thomas Haden Church, and Bokeem Woodbine.

 What Does the Cap'n Remember: Well, I think there was a suggestion that Kurt Russell's character might be Elvis' illegitimate son. I think that was a subplot.

 2. Blow - I forgot about Blow for a reason: I didn't like the movie. Over the years, I'd see the cover and simply tune it out. The existence of Blow became white noise to me, and the film itself disappeared for the Cap'n. I watched the film because I liked Johnny Depp. I liked Ted Demme. I liked Penelope Cruz, Paul Reubens, Ray Liotta, and even Ethan Suplee (then of Mallrats and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back). I did not like Blow - it's a wholly unlikable "true story" that apes the structure of Scarface without the bite or compelling characters. People yell at Depp's George Jung and he just takes it. Wow, what an enticing film to watch for two hours. It's no wonder I struggle to recall seeing it.

 What Does the Cap'n Remember: Penelope Cruz being grating to the point that you wonder why anyone would stay with her. That's it.

 3. One Night at McCool's - Funny thing about One Night at McCool's; I remember really liking the film when I saw it. I may have seen it twice, and certainly told friends about the film. Ten years later? I can't conjure up ANYTHING about the movie. I think it has overlapping flashbacks, or at least some twists and turns. It was funny, and I know that John Goodman, Matt Dillon, Liv Tyler, Paul Reiser, and Michael Douglas are in it. Beyond that? I guess I should watch it again, because I couldn't even tell you what the film is about.

 What Does the Cap'n Remember: ...

 4. 15 Minutes - Edward Burns and Robert DeNiro are cops (?) trailing two Russian / Eastern European bad guys who commit crimes and then film them to be famous. One of them is Oleg Taktarov (Predators). I had this on DVD, watched it once, and it wasn't very memorable. So much so that I'm about to share the only thing I think I took away from it.

 What Does the Cap'n Remember: The bad guys kidnap DeNiro and torture him while filming. What happens after that? Beats me. I'm not positive that part happened anymore.

 5. The Avengers - You'd think I'd remember a movie as stupid as The Avengers. Sean Connery wears a bear suit at one point! In fact, we laughed a lot in the theatre and spoke about it for months after, and then I just sort of lost track of it. To this day I know I did see it, and moments pop out, but it sometimes catches me by surprise that a) the film exists and b) I watched it less than 15 years ago.

 What Does the Cap'n Remember: Well, the bear suit sticks out. The evil plan involved weather, right? And there was Good Uma Thurman and Bad Uma Thurman. Pretty much all there is here.


Honorable Mention to The Libertine, The House of Mirth, Keeping the Faith, Bridget Jones's Diary, The Last Castle, The Mexican, Saved!, Shanghai Noon, Sugar and Spice, The Matador, The Tailor of Panama, The Cider House Rules, Timecode, The Way of the Gun, Red Planet, Valentine, Down from the Mountain, Phish: Bittersweet Motel, Detroit Rock City, Finding Forrester, and Life as a House. I guess I did see you after all...

Retro Review: Dead Man

I hadn't actually planned on watching all of Dead Man yesterday; the Cap'n had been backing up some videos and stumbled across a copy of Jim Jarmusch's 1995 western, and when I put the movie on, I found I couldn't turn it off. Jarmusch's sparse, black and white photography and minimalist camerawork had me transfixed, unable to turn away.

Dead Man, like Apocalypse Now and Blade Runner, is a film that operates in a dream-like state; I've seen all three many times, and while the narratives are all reasonably straightforward, they have a hypnotic effect that renders me incapable of remembering the story until I watch them again. For the life of me I couldn't remember the progression of Dead Man's story. Only moments, images stuck with me: Crispin Glover covered in coal soot, Lance Henriksen's cannibal bounty hunter, Iggy Pop wearing a dress, and Johnny Depp painting his face with the blood of a dead fawn.

Bill Blake (Depp) leaves Cleveland, Ohio and heads west by train to Machine, where he's promised an accounting job at Dickinson Metal Works. Informed by Dickinson's assistant, John Scofield (John Hurt) that the position was filled a month before he arrived, Blake demands to see John Dickinson (Robert Mitchum), which is met with disaster when the old man threatens to kill him on sight. Broke and with no work, Blake meets Thel Russell (Mili Avital), who left her life as a prostitute to sell imitation roses, but their romance is cut short when Charlie (Gabriel Byrne) returns to kill Thel, his former lover. Charlie kills Thel, and in the process shoots Blake near the heart, before Blake kills him and escapes. Unbeknownst to Blake, Charlie is Dickinson's son, and the old man hires three outlaws - Cole Wilson (Lance Henrikson), Conway Twill (Michael Wincott), and Jimmy "The Kid" Pickett (Eugene Byrd) to track down Blake and the horse he stole. The injured Blake awakens to find Nobody (Gary Farmer), an outcast Native American, trying to dig out the "white man's metal" next to his heart, but when Nobody discovers Blake's real name, he sets out to return the lost soul to the spirit realm.

Dead Man is a film of facsimiles, of imitations and "almost there"'s: Nobody mistakes Bill Blake for the spirit of poet William Blake, although Bill has no notion of his namesake. Blake wanders home with Thel Russell, who sells paper roses. Nobody is a mixed-blood Native, captured by white men and taken to England. Despite his escape, his heritage is denied by his tribe, and he is left to wander the desert, alternately imitating and mocking the "stupid white man." Blake, who arrives in town wearing a "clown suit" from Cleveland, doesn't seem to fit in anywhere - Depp's appearance is reminiscent of his role in 1993's Benny and Joon.

The hypnotic effect is a result of Dead Man's episodic lapses; despite the fact that the story is a simple "pursuit" film, Jarmusch and editor Jay Rabonwitz made the decision to fade out after every scene, effectively creating a series of dreamlike vignettes, starting with Blake's train ride from Cleveland to Machine - itself half-dream, half shifting reality, and closing with the Train Fireman (Crispin Glover)'s stream of consciousness warning against going "all the way out here to hell." The lapses in narrative, coupled with Neil Young's ethereal (if repetitive) score, result in an experiential, rather than linear, tone.

Nobody (a character whose name is almost certainly borrowed from Tonino Valerii's 1973 spaghetti western) has most of Jarmusch's directorial flourishes: his flashbacks fade to white (how appropriate) with images surrounded by a hazy iris. When he takes peyote midway through the film, Nobody sees Blake with a skeleton superimposed over his face (perhaps a too literal image for the film). Gary Farmer does manage to transition Nobody's role from off-kilter comedic to sage-like smoothly, which helps smooth over Dead Man's few, but obvious, thematic touches.

I'd also forgotten how funny Dead Man is, and not simply because of Nobody's insistence on calling Blake a "stupid fucking white man." As is the case in most of Jarmusch's body of work, the comedy comes from character quirks or awkward situations; the way that John Dickinson admonishes Wilson, Twill, and Pickett like errant school children, or the way they behave like petulant truants waiting in the Principal's office before Dickinson arrives. The bounty hunters, who are not accustomed to working together, are a mismatch from the outset: Conway Twill talks to much and sleeps with a teddy bear; Cole Wilson barely talks at all, but is prone to random, brutal acts of violence; and Jimmy "The Kid" Pickett is trapped in the middle, unable to fully grasp how out of his league he is.

The film teeters on the brink of self-parody during a sequence involving Blake and three trappers: Big George (Billy Bob Thornton), Benmont Tench (Jared Harris) and "Sally" Jenko (Iggy Pop), who eat beans and talk of philistines, then argue amongst themselves who gets to kill Blake, the interloper, before Nobody swoops in for the rescue. That Thornton actually utters the line "Well, I guess nobody gets you" before Nobody kills him, is almost too on the nose, but Dead Man recovers by resorting (as it often does) to a violent conclusion.

There are a handful of recurring themes in Dead Man: the conflict between Christianity and Native spirituality (particularly in a late confrontation between Nobody and a trader played by Alfred Molina), mistaken identity, running gags involving tobacco and beans, Blake's encounters with sexuality appearing increasingly bestial, of innocence corrupted, and miscommunication between allies. This is excluding the numerous references to William Blake in the film, both direct and implied.

I must have seen Dead Man for the first time in high school, almost assuredly on video. I have vague recollections of the film (dubbed an "acid western") not being received well, but can only find one truly negative review from the period: a one-and-a-half star review by Roger Ebert that might be the basis for my conception (although knowing the News and Observer, which nothing is ever "good enough" for, that was no doubt also a pan).

Revisiting the film, beyond the fact that I could not wander away from Jarmusch (and cinematographer Robby Müller)'s black and white photography, I find that I enjoyed Dead Man more than I have at any of the various points I've spent with the film in the ensuing sixteen years. While it doesn't have the intangible joy of Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, or the laconic wit of Down By Law, or even the emotional resonance of Broken Flowers, Dead Man is certainly head and shoulders above the obvious, show-off-y The Limits of Control, and more cohesive than Mystery Train, Night on Earth, or Coffee and Cigarettes. Dead Man may never be clear where it's going (if it is, in fact, going anywhere), but the trip makes up for its ambiguous destination.

From the Vaults: Blogorium Review - Sweeney Todd

There are a lot of things I really like about Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd. I think the production design is fantastic, and the "look" of the film is reminiscent of Sleepy Hollow, right down to the way the blood is handled. Speaking of which, the gore is awesome in Sweeney Todd: remember the first round of kills in High Tension, particularly the closet scene? It’s like that level of arterial spray, but with the distinct combination of Hammer blood and Herschell Gordon Lewis blood.

I love the way that Todd and Mrs. Lovett don’t look like anyone else in the film: it’s like they’re this unique little goth couple with skin three shades to pale and eyes much too dark. They almost look like Conrad Viedt in The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, which it turns out is intentional. Helena Bonham Carter is great, and Johnny Depp physical manifestation of Todd when he isn’t killing had me chuckling, particularly during "Down by the Seaside". Sacha Baron Cohen makes the best of what amounts to a cameo and really stands out among the already impressive supporting cast. What Burton replicates of London digitally isn’t always distracting and by and large I felt like Sweeney Todd has a lot going for it.

And one thing going against it, but it’s such a serious strike against that I can’t decide how I feel about the end result.

Every time Johnny Depp sings, I cringe. It’s not so bad when Todd and Mrs. Lovett are singing, like in "Little Priest", but when Depp has to carry the song all by himself or is paired with someone who isn’t up to the material ("Pretty Women" is a really good example) then the film grinds to a halt.

This Sweeney Todd, referred to in a lot of reviews as the "rock star" version, sounds a little bit like Depp is trying to replicate David Bowie, and it just doesn’t fit for some reason. Not for me it didn’t. I had no problem with Helena Bonham Carter, who is no Angela Lansbury but for the world of this film suits the music just fine. Sacha Baron Cohen, it turns out, has quite the singing voice. Alan Rickman and Timothy Spall, not so much. The two young lovers were pretty good, as was the boy that Todd and Lovett adopt, but when the lead character of the film, who needs to carry the music by himself at crucial points, doesn’t deliver then the movie fails on some fundamental level.

Like I said, Depp is otherwise well suited in this Burton-esque variation on Sweeney Todd, and when he isn’t singing, I bought it completely. He’s alternately funny, frightening, and sad throughout the film and even though the voice isn’t dissimilar, there’s not a trace of any Captain Jack or other Depp characters in his Todd.

But that singing issue really makes it hard to say the movie succeeds. So much hinges on the songs, and when the really important ones are nearly unlistenable, it really undermines all that is great about this Sweeney Todd. If the question is "does it do Sondheim justice?" the answer is most definitely no. For fans of Tim Burton, if you can get over this critical hurdle, you can find much to admire in his take on the story.

I would recommend it, and dare say some of you might even not have the same reaction I did; those not as close to the play as Adam was may find as much if not more to love about the movie, but I fear I can’t give anything better than a "mixed" review. This is certainly a renter.

An Important Note from the Cap'n: I feel it is fair to disclose that generally speaking, I’m mixed on recent Tim Burton output. As a big fan of his films through Sleepy Hollow, I did not like Planet of the Apes at all, was not a fan of Corpse Bride, but generally like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Big Fish, for what it’s worth.

Blogorium Review - Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy

If anything good came of Platinum Dunes' remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street, it's that more attention shifted to the original film and its sequels. Not only did fans get A Nightmare on Elm Street on Blu-Ray (and let me tell you, the "arm stretching" scene looks even sillier in HD*), but the insanely comprehensive Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy arrived for Fred Heads to pore over. And boy howdy is there a lot to pore over.

That is, if you could find it. To date, I still can't find Never Sleep Again in stores. It just recently made it to Netflix, and I had to order my copy from Amazon, where it was on a "Ships in 1 to 3 weeks" back-order. Fortunately, I ordered from one of the Marketplace sellers - Moviemars - based in NC, and got it in about a week. However, it was totally worth the wait.

Surrounding the remakes of Halloween and Friday the 13th, retrospective documentaries were released for each: Halloween: 25 Years of Terror and His Name was Jason, which set the template for Never Sleep Again - interviews with cast, crew, fans, and creators of each film in the series. In fact, Never Sleep Again is co-directed by Daniel Farrands, who directed His Name Was Jason. Each set came in two discs - one disc was the documentary, and the other was extended interviews, set visits, recaps, or short featurettes on music, makeup, or fandom.

The difference between the all-encompassing docs for Friday the 13th / Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street is sheer depth of presentation. Halloween: 25 Years of Terror and His Name was Jason are 89 and 90 minutes respectively; Never Sleep Again is 4 hours long. That's just the documentary. I'm guessing the second disc has roughly 2-2 1/2 hours of additional material. And none of it drags.

Directors Farrands and Andrew Kasch managed to get just about everyone involved in the Nightmare series to appear on camera** and talk about the films, and almost none of it rehashes information from the previous making-of's in the Nightmare on Elm Street boxed set or Infinifilm disc. Narrated by Heather Langenkamp, each film gets a good 30-40 minutes covering every aspect of the production from story to casting to production, release, controversy, and direction.

There's a surprisingly comprehensive list of cast members who came back from the first seven films, including Mark Patton (Jesse in Freddy's Revenge), Danny Hassel (Dan in Nightmares 4 and 5), Ken Sagoes (Kincaid in Dream Warriors), Jsu Garcia (Rod in Nightmare 1), Alice Cooper (Freddy's father in Freddy's Dead), Mike Smith (Super Freddy in Dream Child), Lisa Zane (Maggie in Freddy's Dead), Zack Ward (Bobby in Freddy vs. Jason), Lisa Wilcox (Alice in Nightmares 4 and 5), Clu Gulager (Jesse's Dad in Freddy's Revenge) and even Charles Fleischer (Dr. King in Nightmare 1); people I've never heard talk about the Nightmare movies before. For crying out loud, the even talk to Dokken!

Once and for all, there's a comprehensive discussion of the various iterations of Freddy vs. Jason in one place, complete with a breakdown of how the final script differed from the film - including reactions from some of the cast about changes that occurred between signing on and filming. Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash even comes up, and there's a pretty good explanation by former New Line executive Jeff Katz (who wrote the spec script for FvJvA) on why it never came to pass. Even Kane Hodder (Jason Vorhees from Friday the 13th part 7 to Jason X) chimes in about how he was in and out of the film without ever being given a specific reason.

It was also interesting to hear Wes Craven talk about each of the sequels on the record, including (as one of the extras) the remake. Additionally, I have to say it's fascinating hearing the ways that Jack Sholder, Chuck Russell, Renny Harlin, Stephen Hopkins, Rachel Talalay, and Ronny Yu talk about their approaches to the film, and cast and writer experiences of working with each director, warts and all.

My personal favorite section of the documentary was the discussion of Freddy's Nightmares, the ill-received anthology TV series that aired between The Dream Master and Freddy's Dead. Considering that almost no one ever talks about the series, it was fun to see William Malone (House on Haunted Hill), Mick Garris (Masters of Horror), David J. Schow (The Crow) and Tom McLoughlin (Friday the 13th Part 6) talk about making a very low budget show for syndication where the limits on gore and sexuality were, shall we say, lax. Nobody seems particularly proud of the end result, including former New Line CEO Robert Shaye, but that it was even mentioned - let alone get its own block of documentary - made me happy***.

I haven't completely finished the second disc (in that I haven't watched all of "Horror's Hallowed Grounds: A Nightmare on Elm Street") but the extended interviews are great, the 10 minute recap of the Nightmare films - comprised of cast members performing memorable lines - is a lot of fun, the fan segment is cool, as are the various people who make glove replicas, the music section is cool, I liked the spin-off books (which also cover FvJvA), and a nice interview with The Angry Video Game Nerd about his Nightmare on Elm Street game review is included. Overall, it's just a solid package covering damn near everything you could want to know. Think of it as a documentary version of Peter Bracke's Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th.

While I'm slightly biased as a massive Nightmare on Elm Street fan, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that even casual fans won't be bored watching this 4 hour documentary. There's never a point where the discussion isn't interesting or there's something new to learn (for example, I'd somehow never heard that Tron's David Warner was originally cast as Fred Krueger and had to drop out) and it's broken up in such a way that you can spread it out over a day or two. This is an absolute must-see for Nightmare fans, and a high recommendation for people who want to see what all the hoopla is about.


* That being said, everything else looks great. Don't let the cynics tell you that a low-budget movie from 1984 can't look good in High Definition. A Nightmare on Elm Street looks better than I'd ever imagined it could.
** Notable absences are Johnny Depp, Patricia Arquette, Ronee Blakely (Nancy's mother in part 1), Breckin Meyer (Freddy's Dead), Frank Darabont (who co-wrote Dream Warriors), Peter Jackson (who wrote the mythical and unproduced A Nightmare on Elm Street 6: The Dream Lovers) and strangely much of the cast of Freddy vs. Jason (including Katharine Isabelle, Kelly Rowland, Jason Ritter, and Ken Kirzinger), although there is a great joke involving Jason Mewes and the assumption he played Freeburg in Freddy vs. Jason.
*** Craven and Shaye, among others, also address Dreamscape - which was released the same year as A Nightmare on Elm Street - for the first time I can remember.

Blogorium Review: Twilight - New Moon

So New Moon is the second film in the Twilight series, based on the popular novels by Stephanie Meyer. Like the first film (entitled "Twilight", which is a little odd since that would make it The Twilight Series: Twilight, but that's kind of like changing the title of Pitch Black to The Chronicles of Riddick: Pitch Black, because what does that make the title of The Chronicles of Riddick?), New Moon centers on Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), a teenager trying to make her way in the world.

At the end of Twilight, it looked like Bella and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) were going to be together and happy despite the fact that he's a mopey hundred and something year old vampire that turns sparkly in the sunlight (don't ask). But some rival vampire clan isn't okay with this and things get a little heated during Bella's birthday party and Edward decides that the farmer and the cowman should be friends world of humans and vampires shouldn't mix, especially in this specific case, so he decides to take off for parts unknown.

Bella is devastated and goes catatonic, but then this dude Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), who was in the first movie, starts making his move, and suddenly she's caught up in this love triangle between an absentee vampire and a shirtless werewolf-

Okay, I'm just joshing you. There's no way I watched New Moon, or Twilight, nor will I ever. But I did watch Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, and that is true. No April Fools there.

The best part is that even if I didn't put up that whole Twilight ruse to much with your schemas, you still won't believe that I kinda sorta enjoyed Alice in Wonderland. You really have to temper the hell out of your expectations, and it doesn't hurt that it cost me nothing but time to watch the movie, but I was truly ready for a massive trainwreck of a movie, which is not exactly the case.

Let's get this out of the way first: this movie could easily be called Alice's Adventures in Narnia. It's not really Alice in Wonderland in any form or fashion. Oh sure, all the characters you're expecting to see are there: the White Rabbit (Michael Sheen), the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), the Queen of Hearts (Helena Bonham-Carter), Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum (Little Britain's Matt Lucas), the Caterpillar (Alan Rickman), The White Queen (Anne Hathaway), The March Hare (Paul Whitehouse), the Dormouse (Barbara Windsor), and of course the Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry). Even the Dodo from the beginning of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is there, voiced by Michael Gough. But they, like Alice (Mia Wasikowska) are simply there to service an epic battle story.

Remember how in Prince Caspian (for the four of you who watched it), how the children return to Narnia and it's all broken down and decrepit after they left? That's Wonderland - pardon me, Underland - now, because the Queen of Hearts staged a coup with the help of the Knave of Hearts (Crispin Glover) and the Jabberwocky (Christopher Lee) and stole the White Queen's crown and Vorpal sword. Alice has been summoned back to Underland (the explanation is actually so stupid I don't want to explain it) in order to be the White Queen's Champion and slay the Jabberwocky to restore blah blah blah.

The story is crap. I mean, it's a dundering bore of a plot, hampered by its insistence that rather than finding her situation unusual, Alice insists that she's dreaming and should take nothing seriously. There's no sense of whimsy whatsoever, which I suppose is in keeping with the "take all the fun out of it" Hot Topic mentality of post-Ed Wood Tim Burton films. And believe me, Alice in Wonderland is going to make a killing for that faux-goth clothing emporium.

"But wait, Cap'n; you said you kinda sorta liked it! What gives?"

Too true. You got me; despite the fact that the story is alternately infantile and desecrating to the source material, Alice in Wonderland is a visually arresting movie. There's nothing that isn't fun to look at when Alice goes down through the rabbit hole, and Burton gets all the credit in the world for making something that had to be 95% visual effects and making it look like a world. Had I seen it in 3-D, maybe I would have appreciated that even more, but under the slightly dubious circumstances I saw it, even the partially washed out picture looked great.

The character designs are great too, and while it takes a little bit to get used to the elongated arms and legs on Crispin Glover, by the time he crashes the Tea Party hunting for Alice, you're more interested in watching the characters interact. There is a period before the battle when Burton is principally interested in re-acquainting the audience with (ugh) Underland, and that part is pretty good. Not great, or even necessarily very good, just pretty good.

I really can't forgive the ridiculous 11th hour dance sequence, as it really sticks out like a sore thumb and screams "kid's movie!" as loudly as possible. To wit: I find that funny because, for a children's movie - and this most certainly is that - primarily, Alice does cross the moat to the Queen of Hearts' castle by jumping from one decapitated head to the other. To make it clear they ARE actually heads and not head-shaped rocks, she gets her foot stuck in one and drags out some viscera. Gross, and not exactly kid-friendly, unless you like explaining to your children precisely how you get from "Off with their heads" to what Alice has to cross.

On the other hand, I really did like Stephen Fry's Cheshire Cat and Helena Bonham-Carter's Queen of Hearts. Crispin Glover is also pretty good and has a genuine speaking role for a change, but isn't exactly trading on the "weird" persona people tend to cast him for. Mia Wasikowska is also pretty good, although she doesn't have much to do as Alice. I realize that by necessity the Mad Hatter should be all over the map, but despite that it's hard to find any kind of character in Johnny Depp's performance. There are a few moments when he calms down a little bit and you get a glimpse of the Hatter behind the madness (a particularly good moment comes after *spoiler* Alice beheads the Jabberwocky. The Mad Hatter has the Knave of Hearts at sword-point, ready for the kill, but when he sees what actual killing looks like, he throws his sword down in disgust.)

You know, I'm having trouble figuring out exactly what it was I liked about this movie. Every positive I come up with is countered by an equally valid negative. I'm beginning to suspect that the Cap'n is being more forgiving of Alice in Wonderland because it wasn't totally unwatchable. It's aggressively okay, but not much more. It's certainly not something I'd own or even watch again (even in 3-D), but I suppose that the expectation for a truly awful movie was tempered enough that I'm willing to shrug and let Alice in Wonderland and I go our separate ways.

- so Bella goes to the Volturi to find Edward before he exposes himself in sunlight and is put to death. She doesn't quite get there in time, but she pleads her case to their leader Aro (Michael Sheen), and they agree to spare Edward on one condition. Because Bella has seen the vampire world when no mortal should, she has to be turned into a vampire when she's "of age", and Edward agrees to do it. But Jacob's not giving up, because werewolves and vampires should can never be friends. Not at least when they're duking it out over the girl from Panic Room and Catch that Kid, and I don't mean Joan Jett.

To be continued in the Blogorium review for The Twilight Saga: Eclipse...

Blogorium Review: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

I'm still trying to properly digest The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, and the Cap'n has the feeling that I will probably be reviewing it again when I've had another viewing under my belt. What I can tell you is that I really liked Terry Gilliam's latest, and any concerns about the surrounding Heath Ledger business disappear quickly for two reasons:

1) Perhaps precipitously, the film addresses many issues audiences might have about Ledger's presence in the film. The character of Tony, while introduced hanging and near-dead, is essentially tied up in a moral quandry about life and death as it is, and his desire to escape into the Imaginarium is handled well enough that the substitutive performances by Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell make perfect sense in the story.

2) The movie isn't really about Tony. He plays an instrumental role in the story, but Tony is more of a pawn in the ongoing struggle between Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) and Mr. Nick (Tom Waits), or The Devil. Parnassus lives eternally - perhaps a result of Nick's doing - and the two of them are constantly making bets in order to prove the other one wrong, almost all of which seem to be about who can claim more souls.

Parnassus begins the film in a bit of a mess, because he made a deal with Nick that if he ever had a child, he would give them over to Nick at age 16. His daughter Valentia (Lily Cole) doesn't know this, and despite being told she's 12 by Parnassus, his assistant Anton (Andrew Garfield) and ringmaster Percy (Verne Troyer), she knows something bad is looming on the horizon. But Nick is willing to make one more deal with the Doctor: the first person to claim five souls wins.

Herein enters Tony (Heath Ledger), and more importantly, The Imaginarium. Parnassus creates the Imaginarium by meditating, and by traveling through a mirror any person that enters is taking into their own imagination. Of course, they have to choose whether to follow Doctor Parnassus on a hard journey to spiritual enlightenment, or a quick fix with Mr. Nick that ends in flames. Many opt to take Nick's way out until Tony arrives.

Tony, it seems, has a flair for keeping people in the Imaginarium on the right path, even though he is desperately hiding from something in his own past. Terry Gilliam sets up early on that appearances can change in the Imaginarium to reflect your state of mind, and the transitions from Ledger (who seemed to have filmed almost exactly the right amount of footage) to his surrogates is seamless. If you didn't know better, you'd swear that's how the story was all along.

I'm not going to get too much further into the story until I watch it again, because I really want to spend more time with the second half of the film (particularly the Jude Law and Colin Farrell sequences), but I will say that the film does look amazing. Gilliam has finally hit upon the perfect balance between his vision and what digital effects can do, and what didn't work in The Brothers Grimm fits like a glove here.

Before I go, I really do want to mention the cast of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. And not just Ledger, who is actually pitch perfect as Tony - another reminder of just what audiences lost when he died two years ago. Christopher Plummer manages to balance Parnassus somewhere between a shambling mess and world weary enlightenment.

I'd never seen Lily Cole before, and didn't recognize Andrew Garfield from a few episodes of Doctor Who I'd seen, but they're both very good. Garfield has the tough task of being a roughly unlikable character - particularly compared to Tony - but he still keeps Anton sympathetic. Verne Troyer has never been better than he is as Percy; I was really quite impressed with how well he holds all of the characters and plot machinations together so effortlessly.

Johnny Depp actually has the least to do of the Imaginarium Tony's, but he's quite good. Jude Law takes a little longer to register, mostly because his Tony says very little at first (and is running most of the time), but his scene with Anton makes up for it. Colin Farrell gets the lion's share of Tony time and makes the most of it, splitting the difference between himself and Ledger as Tony's story comes full circle at the end. All three fit into the atmosphere quite well and they never make you think anything but "well, of course that's Tony!"

Special recognition has to go to Tom Waits, who is endlessly watchable as Mr. Nick. His devil is a dapper fellow in a bowler cap with bright red hair and a pencil thin moustache. Waits and Plummer are so enjoyable together that I would readily watch another movie about Parnassus and Nick if Gilliam were so inclined. Waits gives Mr. Nick an impish tone, but one that makes it clear at all times just how dangerous he really is, and while he's not underused in the film, I'd gladly take more Tom Waits.

I'm giving The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus a big recommendation for all of you, and insisting that Gilliam fans go ahead and buy a copy when it comes out on DVD and Blu-Ray next month. Personally speaking, I not only need to but very much want to see it again, because this is the sort of film that requires multiple viewings to really let it all sink in.