Shocktober Revisited: The Evil Dead Series

 editor's note: this includes portions of reviews from various points in the Blogorium history.


 Other than a mention in the closing notes of Horror Fest V, you might be surprised to see there's no review of The Evil Dead anywhere in the Blogorium. For that matter, there's even less about Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn: it merits less than a sentence and a half in the Horror Fest III recap. In my defense, early Fest recaps were written between movies, usually during smoke breaks for others, so you'll find much of that coverage to be, frankly, lacking. It feels unfair to not give them a proper discussion, considering the lengthy Retro Review for Army of Darkness (see below) and their place in Cap'n Howdy's arrival to watching horror films regularly. Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell are, in many ways, responsible for the person I am today. If I can talk about how Oz: The Great and Powerful is, in many ways, a family friendly remake of Army of Darkness, surely there can be some digital space carved out for the films that made both of them household names. Well, very particular households. Like ones who signed up for Starz after Ash vs. Evil Dead was announced.

 (note: I have left the Army of Darkness Retro Review largely untouched, which should be amusing considering that both the remake and Ash Vs. Evil Dead have rendered the first paragraph moot)


 The Evil Dead is, I'm reasonably certain, the last of Raimi's "Dead" trilogy that I saw, although it's very likely I'm not alone in saying that. Unless you were old enough to have seen them in the order they were released, odds are you came into the films with the second or third film, and then worked backwards. It's an understandable way of doing things: Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn and Army of Darkness are more comedic in tone, while The Evil Dead plays it largely for horror, bringing a few uncomfortable chuckles as the narrative continues. The first time I experienced any part of The Evil Dead may have been late at night one weekend, back when Syfy was The Sci-Fi Channel, back when their "original programming" consisted of Sci-Fi Buzz and they didn't mind showing horror movies to pad out their schedule.

 My memory of it is vivid: I came in at the very end of the movie, right before Ash (Campbell) kills Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss) and Scotty (Richard DeManincor) by burning the Necronomicon. I can specifically remember the stop motion, clay-faced Scotty beginning to melt as he falls forward and hits the cabin floor, before the rest of his skin bubbles off and he becomes a skull in a goopy pile. I'm not even sure if I stuck around for the ending, when the "camera on a 2x4" manifestation of evil catches Ash and it cuts to black, but it's likely I did. When you start watching The Evil Dead, from wherever you start, it's hard not to finish. It's even harder when it comes to Dead by Dawn, but we'll get to that shortly.

 What I've come to appreciate over the years about The Evil Dead, and why it's still my favorite of the three (in a very hard "choose your favorite child" scenario), is the immediate sense of dread for the protagonists. Cheryl, Ash, Scotty, Linda (Betsy Baker), and Shelly (Theresa Tilly) have no idea how doomed they are as they drive up to the "cabin in the woods" for the weekend. We've already seen a seemingly untethered camera floating through the swamp, and Raimi is continually warning us with distorted visual and audio cues that something very bad is going to happen. The exaggerated attention paid to the porch swing hitting the wall, boosting the sound to a ludicrously ominous level, hints at what he'll do again in Drag Me to Hell. But most of The Evil Dead isn't played to for laughs.


 The visceral quality of the film still gets to me - when Linda takes a pencil to the ankle, I cringe. Every time. I know it's coming, but it still works. It's hard not to mention the "tree" scene, because that's clearly the moment that Raimi oversteps his boundary, even by his own admission. It doesn't stop him from making a more comical version of it in Dead by Dawn, but there's nothing funny about what happens to Cheryl in The Evil Dead, and that's really what kicks off the horror. I always found it interesting that Ash and Cheryl were siblings, because it gives The Evil Dead a different level of connection than in the prologue to Dead by Dawn (and, I suppose, Army of Darkness). It's the only time we find out his real name is Ashley, because only his sister is going to call him that, and he's more fiercely protective of her after she's violated in the forest.

 While Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness increase the budget (and scope), I'm quite fond of the grimy, no budget aesthetic of The Evil Dead. There's something to its low-fi ambience, to Raimi's inventive ways around budget limitations, and the sound design that sets the first film apart. It's more assured than the rough draft short film, Within the Woods (which is functionally the same story, only Campbell is evil), and provides the groundwork for a lot of what became Sam Raimi auteur-ial flourishes. If there's anything that keeps it from being the classic it ought to be, it's that people often come to it last, and in doing so are often disappointed that Ash isn't as central a character as they've become accustomed to. He is, in many ways, like Ripley is in the first half of Alien - a member of the gang, but hardly the focus of the story. There's very little of the wisecracking, boomstick wielding lunkhead-turned-hero that people expect. But I don't hold that against The Evil Dead, and neither should you.

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 Before I ever saw Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn, I can remember reading the review in Mick Martin and Marsha Porter's Video Movie Guide. It described Dead by Dawn as "less of a sequel and more of a remake," which was sort of the conventional wisdom passed around about the film until the internet came along to set things straight. Had Raimi been able to use footage from the first film, Ash's trip to the cabin with Linda (now Denise Bixler) might have simply been a recap, picking up immediately after the camera hits him. In truth, I've always been tempted to cut the two (well, even three, really) films together into a super-cut, since the seams are actually very easy to locate.

 Dead by Dawn is still technically a horror movie, but Raimi's fondness for slapstick comedy (particularly The Three Stooges) comes through more in the sequel, and it's a much easier entry point for the series. Not as easy as Army of Darkness, which is how I imagine most of you came in, but it's a great way to ease someone into gory movies. After Evil Dead 2, show them some early Peter Jackson, and they can handle just about anything. Well, maybe not the pencil to the ankle. Or Martyrs. But Martyrs is really an outlier. Where was I? Oh, yeah, Dead by Dawn. So the first twenty minutes or so retells The Evil Dead, just without Cheryl, Scotty, and Shelly. It's just Ash and Linda, and the words are spoken on the tape and she's still possessed and he still cuts her head off with a shovel and buries her. And then the film goes bonkers.

 I actually really like the way that Raimi continues from where The Evil Dead ends to where Dead by Dawn begins in earnest: Ash doesn't die, he's just prohibitively possessed and can't leave. The bridge is still destroyed, and the "force" is still trying to find him in the cabin. But it doesn't, in one of the more amusing scenes: it's chasing him through the cabin, and all of a sudden loses him, and just gives up for a while. Then Linda comes back, and we're introduced to the chainsaw in this version (as well as Freddy's glove, if you're looking carefully in the toolshed), and what will become the hallmarks of the Ash most people know start. It's also a tour-de-force for Bruce Campbell, who spends the lion's share of Evil Dead 2 by himself, fighting with furniture, blood, and most notably, himself.

 There are people out there who don't know who Bruce Campbell is, or at least have never seen him on-screen, and without fail you can win them over by showing them Evil Dead 2. His gift for physical comedy, his willingness to go all out to sell a gag, is impressive to say the very least. Campbell makes you believe his hand is possessed and he has no control over it, and the scene where "it" drags his unconscious body towards a meat cleaver always impresses me. Sure, the sound design for the hand helps, as does the editing, but Campbell is doing the lion's share of holding up Evil Dead 2 for the first half of the movie, so much so that it almost loses steam when everybody else shows up.

 It's probably important to clarify the "almost" - it's not as though the movie was only going to be Ash, because while he's been going nuts in the cabin, we've already met Annie (Sarah Berry), Ed (Richard Dormeier), Jake (Dan Hicks), and Bobby Joe (Kassie Wesley). Annie is the daughter of Professor Knowby (John Peakes in flashbacks), whose voice we hear reciting passages from the Necronomicon. She's on her way back to the cabin, so eventually there's going to be a crossing of paths, and since Ash has reduced the cabin to a smashed up bloodbath, it's not really a surprise she leaps to conclusions. Also, he shot Bobby Joe - accidentally and through the door, but it doesn't help his case. Their presence shifts the direction of the movie quite a bit, but it does lock Ash in the basement, where he meets the Deadite version of Knowby's wife, Henrietta (Ted Raimi). That's a plus.

 Aside from providing Raimi with more bodies to do horrible things to (Bobby Joe swallowing a projectile eyeball, Ed getting hacked to pieces, and the many times Jake is hurt after he's been stabbed with the Kandarian dagger), the only purpose that any of the other four characters serve is to bring the passages from the Necronomicon that can banish the demons in the woods. And yeah, Ash isn't really in any state to do it by himself, so I get more characters, but there's a marked shift in the film after they enter the cabin that doesn't really resolve until three of them quickly exit the narrative. Ed gets possessed, eats some of Annie's hair, and gets an axe to, well, everything. Bobby Joe gets Raimi's cleaned up version of the "tree" scene, and poor Jake gets abused repeatedly before being torn asunder by Henrietta. And then the pages end up in the basement.

 This, if you watch the series backwards, is when Ash finally starts to meet the iconography that fans of the series associate with him. How he goes from barely functioning to able to craft his chainsaw arm is better left unquestioned, but when I saw Dead by Dawn recently on the big screen, the moment brought loud cheers, many before he even had time to say "Groovy." Much of this is where I base the "people watched The Evil Dead series backwards" theory on: not only is that how I did it - I had a VHS tape of Army of Darkness, and then a friend bought me a copy of Evil Dead 2 - but it was as though everybody was waiting for the Ash they knew to show up.

 I'm tremendously fond of Evil Dead 2 - it's the last entry in the original trilogy (to date) that makes any effort to be a horror movie, even if it's also largely a comedy. The film is a great way to introduce someone to horror, because you can ease them into over the top gore while giving them something to laugh at, so they don't get too squeamish. It's a fantastic showcase for Bruce Campbell, and if I'm being honest, it's better than Army of Darkness. Maybe not as quotable as the third film or as visceral as the first, but a happy middle ground. The effects from the fresh off of Day of the Dead KNB still hold up, and it has maybe one of the best puns to go along with cutting your hand off that you're ever going to see.

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I saw an article a few weeks back perpetuating the cycle of "will Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi ever make Evil Dead 4, or will they just remake it?" where Campbell had been interviewed for something he's doing with Burn Notice and he casually mentioned that he'd read the screenplay for the ED remake. The person writing the article included some commentary about how they'll eventually "wake up" and realize that people want Evil Dead 4 and not an "idiotic redo."

The argument has been going on since a remake was announced some seven years ago, and the great "will there be an Evil Dead 4" has been kicking around since 1993's Army of Darkness, but really kicked into high gear when the director's cut arrived on DVD around 2000. This is not actually another editorial about the relative merits of ED 4 vs. ED: R, but instead will dance around elements that consistently appear in said arguments, based on the 18 year history the Cap'n has with Sam Raimi's third journey into the battle between Ash and the Deadites.

I wasn't allowed to see Army of Darkness in February of 1993, and it wasn't because the News and Observer panned the film - it was that pesky "R" rating. It was the same reason I couldn't see The Crow a year later, and why the 14 and then 15 year-old Cap'n had to wait for my Dad to "check them out" to see if they were fit for consumption*. After Dad laughed throughout Army of Darkness, he told my mother it was "too silly" to seriously corrupt my already corrupted mind**, and I was allowed to begin watching The Evil Dead films in the opposite order.

Yes, I saw Army of Darkness first; then Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn; then, eventually, The Evil Dead. I'd been aware of the other two thanks to Carbonated Video, but if you think they had trouble letting me watch the tamest, least horrific of the three, just imagine if I'd tried to rent anything from the "horror" aisle.

As I've mentioned before, horror comedies were my gateway into harder edged films of the genre, well beyond the Universal Classic Monster films that populated my youth. The violence in Evil Dead 2 is so extreme, so impossible to take seriously, it ceases to horrify and instead induces laughter.

Similarly, the blood geyser in Army of Darkness (anyone familiar with the film knows exactly what I'm talking about) became the great ice-breaker in high school - just throw on Army of Darkness in the dressing room during plays and watch as every single cast member shifts their focus from last minute line memorization to Bruce Campbell involved in skeleton-related slapstick. The film (which is honestly harmless in just about every measure you'd gauge "horror" by) was a great introduction to crazier movies, not only Raimi's other films, but Peter Jackson's gross-out trifecta of Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles, and Dead Alive.

Now I've mentioned that Army of Darkness has a Director's Cut, and that it had a VHS and DVD release in '99 / 2000 (respectively), but the funny thing is that I already knew it existed well before it came out. Though I cannot recall why or how I found it, clips of the original ending were already available on the internet in 1997, albeit in postage stamp-sized Quicktime files that took hours to download on a 28.8 modem. This, coupled with the launch of BC Central - the original version of Bruce Campbell's official website - allowed the high school era Cap'n to pursue more information about the "two" Army of Darkness's.

When I say "original" version of Bruce Campbell's website, I don't mean this. That's what BC Central became (the original domain name is now up for sale, I just checked), but in the beginning, Bruce recorded .wav files that were embedded into the page and shared personal anecdotes (many of which ended up in If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor). He also had an email address to send questions to, and back in those early days of the "internet," Bruce Campbell would respond personally to your email (things were different back then, you see).

Logically, having seen the original ending where Ash oversleeps and finds himself in a post-apocalyptic London, I thought I'd be the clever fellow who emailed Bruce asking why they'd changed the ending. While the email is lost to time, I still remember what he replied:

"We didn't change it - the studio did. Cheers, Bruce Campbell"

That's all; I didn't say he wrote long responses, but he did respond, and in all fairness Bruce Campbell did answer my question, which was poorly worded to be sure.

Okay, so the Director's Cut was out there, including on a bootlegged VHS tape we had a copy of in college from a video store that no longer exists but still doesn't have to be "out-ed," and it entered the rotation with the likes of Clerks, Cannibal! The Musical, and Pecker***.

Over the last 15 years or so, I've had a copy of Army of Darkness in just about every iteration you can find: the 1996 VHS release, the Universal DVD, on Blu-Ray, and even on HD-DVD. Oh, and then there are the numerous Anchor Bay releases, of which I only didn't have the "Bootleg" edition, in part because I still had the "Limited" edition with the Theatrical and Director's Cuts. You'll find pictures of all of them scattered around this Retro Review.

With time, I've come to prioritize my Evil Dead preference in the opposite order I saw them: The Evil Dead is a relentless, disturbing, graphic horror film that I enjoy more every time I see it; Dead by Dawn is basically the same movie but with the disturbing replaced with some seriously wicked black comedy, a more enjoyable experience but hints at the direction Raimi was going in; Army of Darkness is essentially a series of one-liners with a dash of Ray Harryhausen "horror" in the guise of an adventure film. There's nothing scary about Army of Darkness, and one will find the 90% of "Ash-holes" prefer the Ash from the third film to the other two - he has the better catchphrases. I watch Army of Darkness less than the other two, but the Cap'n still appreciates its role in dragging me back into horror.

As to whether a remake or sequel happens (or, more likely, doesn't) I must admit I don't give it much thought. Drag Me to Hell was by and large as close as we're going to get to an "Evil Dead" -type film from Sam Raimi, and to be honest, I'm happier with that than a continuation of the "give me some sugar, baby" that closed out the Ash saga.

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 And then there's the remake. Oh, I know, Sam Raimi didn't direct it: he merely produced it, along with Bruce Campbell and Robert Tapert, thereby giving it their tacit "seal of approval", but you didn't really think I was just going to pretend it didn't exist, did you? I may not like it very much, but Fede Alvarez's reboot-sequel-thing can technically be argued to continue the story, thanks to some specific visual cues, and who knows what's in store after Ash vs. Evil Dead...

 The presence of "the classic" - Sam Raimi's 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 - covered in vines seems to indicate that this is the same cabin that Ash was in at some point, although it's not clear that he ever left based on the film. The grittier, less "comedic" approach Alvarez brings to the remake allows for certain elements from The Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2 to be reused - the tree rape (even more uncomfortable), losing a hand (even more graphic), and the chainsaw (more blood), while pushing the boundaries of Deadites in different directions. Now they're self-mutilating demons, not unlike the possessed Ghosts of Mars, and you should never want me to have to compare your movie to Ghosts of Mars. Ever.

 It's no secret that I don't like Evil Dead, and I've tried to give it another chance. I kind of like the idea that Mia (Jane Levy)'s friends bring her to the cabin to detox, and they don't listen to her when things get nasty because she's prone to lying in order to use. Unfortunately, that plotline is all but abandoned halfway through the film, and it's never really explored enough to be more than a device to kick off the movie. The idea that the Necronomicon has been in the cabin and that people try to keep it out of the hands of others is a good one, but is again not especially well developed. Instead it seems to provide a good excuse for Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci) to bleed on the book. I don't really think that addressing the raining blood third act or the Abomination (the, uh, ultimate manifestation of the Deadites) is worth getting into. Or why Mia needs to rip her own hand off - not cut, like literally tear it off - in order to get away. that's just how this Evil Dead rolls.

 Here are my original thoughts, from a recap written in 2013. I think they cover how I feel about the tone of Evil Dead pretty well:

  I get that people like that the remake of The Evil Dead is really violent. Like non-stop, unpleasant, close-up on the gore violent for most of the movie. Got it. I 100% don't believe the continued insistence that the effects are practical and that there's "almost no digital effects" in the movie. Sorry, I've seen it twice and you can see the digital effects, even during parts of the commentary where the director claims there aren't. But that is another argument for another day. The problem with Evil Dead isn't that it exists - there can and are good remakes of horror films out there, so I'm willing to put aside my affection for the original and let this exist in its own right.

 The problem with Evil Dead is that it's extremely violent, and nothing else. If you're looking for a movie where people are slowly, painfully mutilated, with long shots of the aftermath where they're half-crying and half in shock while removing needles or nails from their skin, good news - you'll find it in spades in Evil Dead. There's no humor, no characters, not much in the way of plot (that isn't abandoned, anyway), but lots of moments designed to remind you that this is a remake of The Evil Dead. Just one that's grittier and gorier and more hardcore. Because that's all horror fans care about, right? Oh, also just throwing Bruce Campbell onscreen after the credits to say "Groovy" in silhouette., because you gotta have Bruce, right?  It's no secret why the best and worst reviews of this film said the same thing: "It's REALLY violent." That's all there is to Evil Dead, and it's not enough.

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 For now, that's all there is of The Evil Dead series. That's going to change in a little over a week, when Raimi, Tapert, and Bruce bring Ash back for a new series. They've hinted it could be more than just a one-off, but I'm looking forward to seeing how Ashley J. Williams has been living in a post-Army of Darkness world. Well, also one where they aren't allowed to say "S-Mart" or have a metal hand because Universal won't let them use anything specifically from Army of Darkness. I've tried to steer clear of learning too much about it, but Bruce is looking good and it appears to be tonally similar to Dead by Dawn. Bring it, I says. Then I'll have to update this sucker again...

* The issue for The Crow was the "raped" part of "criminals rape and kill the hero's girlfriend before killing him."
** Long time Blogorium readers are already aware that the Cap'n had been exposed to Blade Runner, Downtown, Aliens, and Animal House at a much younger age. For that matter, they would take me with them to see the much harder "R" Alien 3 later that year...
*** Sorry, I know we had to watch more than those movies, but for the life of me I can't think of one right now and I know we DID watch Pecker at least once...

Shocktober Revisited: More Brains and Swallowed Souls

editor's note: this was originally posted in November of 2011.
 
 I finally caught up on some horror documentaries, specifically More Brains: A Return to the Living Dead and Swallowed Souls: The Making of Evil Dead 2. The former you might have heard of; the latter is more incentive to pick up Lionsgate's 25th Anniversary Edition of Sam Raimi's splatter classic.

 Dan O'Bannon fans will be elated and disappointed while watching More Brains - the film reunites most of the surviving cast and crew members (including the special effects artist fired halfway through the film), but until the very end, O'Bannon - who passed in 2009 - is absent from the oral history of Return of the Living Dead. There's a lot of talking about O'Bannon, often in conflicting narratives (he was too demanding, too aloof; he was easy to work with and open to suggestions), but only in the closing moments does the writer / director have a chance to speak to the film's cult status. In what was his final interview, O'Bannon is candid about the audience embrace of the film and its legacy, and makes a knowing comment about "if I die tomorrow" before the film goes to credits.

 The story of the making of Return of the Living Dead from John Russo (producer / writer of Night of the Living Dead)'s original pitch to the decision of Hemdale Films to hire Dan O'Bannon to write and direct the film as a horror comedy, from casting to premieres, is an affair filled with gossip, contradictory stories, and debates about whether Clu Gulager really threw a can at the director in a fit of rage. I'm tempted to share anecdotes from the cast, or to mention the ongoing bad blood between the production designer (William Stout) and first make-up effects (William Munns) over the inadequate zombie masks and "headless zombie" appliance. The memories are sometimes contentious, sometimes defensive, but always entertaining. More Brains: A Return to the Living Dead is well worth the time of fans of Return of the Living Dead.

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 Meanwhile, I'd like to thank a video store in the mall that will go unnamed until later this week for erroneously placing two copies of the 25th Anniversary Blu-Ray of Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn the weekend before the disc is actually released (it comes out tomorrow). I've bemoaned the endless re-releasing of Sam Raimi's Evil Dead films on DVD before, and we're seeing the first instance of "double-dipping" in high definition for the trilogy. As Anchor Bay closes (or whatever is going on with Anchor Bay) and their catalog is divvied up by Image Entertainment and Lionsgate, we're likely to see another release of The Evil Dead before long, and I find it hard to believe that Universal's underwhelming "Screwhead Edition" of Army of Darkness is the be-all-end-all of HD releases.

 But for now, let's look at the Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn 25th Anniversary double-dip. As a sucker for supplements, I must admit the list of extras seemed very promising - collections of featurette's about the casing, effects, conception, direction, and filming. When I put the disc in, I didn't realize that all of these individually listed extras were part of one 98 minute documentary, Swallowed Souls. It's reminiscent of segments of Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy, and is broken into chapters complete with claymation vignettes to bridge them.

 Like More Brains, the primary element lacking in Swallowed Souls is the presence of Sam Raimi. It's not as though his presence isn't felt, because the "making of" footage shot by Greg Nicotero features young Sam Raimi in abundance, but he's noticeably absent from the proceedings. On the other hand, the doc features an abundance of newly shot interviews with Bruce Campbell, who speaks candidly about Evil Dead 2 and shares stories I don't think I've heard anywhere, including in If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor. Swallowed Souls also prominently features the rest of the leads of Evil Dead 2: Sarah Berry (Annie), Dan Hicks (Jake), Kassie Wesley (Bobbi Joe), Richard Dormeier (Ed) and Ted Raimi (Possessed Henrietta). Hearing their perspective on making the film is in and of itself a treat - many of them had no idea what they were in for.

 The entire makeup effects team, including Mark Shostrom (From Beyond, A Nightmare one Elm Street Part 2) and the first time in years that I've seen all three members of KNB (Robert Kurtzman, Greg Nicotero, and Howard Berger) on camera talking about a project they worked on together*. Their camcorder footage, which documents the conception of Evil Dead 2's effects all the way through the film's production, are a treasure trove of unseen footage from Wadesboro, North Carolina in 1986. They gleefully exploit their creations and play around with camera tricks, mimicking Raimi's "evil force" camera shots.

 So here's where it gets tough - do you want to drop another $14 for Evil Dead 2 to see an admittedly great "making of" documentary? If you still have the Anchor Bay disc, you'll notice that The Gore the Merrier is still included, the commentary is still included, and I'm not sure that the picture is that much different. The price is fair so if you don't already have Evil Dead 2 on Blu-Ray this is a no-brainer, but wary double dippers are going to have to ask themselves if the making of justifies buying the film again. I will say that if it were released on its own, Swallowed Souls would be worth picking up in the same way as Halloween: 25 Years of Terror or His Name was Jason are. Evil Dead fans, prepare yourselves for the impending moral quandary. I don't regret it, but I also have the added bonus of picking the disc up early...


 * Since Kurtzman moved on to create his own production company, it's common just to see Nicotero and Berger appearing in "making of" documentaries that KNB did makeup effects for.

2013 Recap: Working Our Way Up to the Top (Part One)

 Now that we're done wallowing in the worst of 2013, it's time to move on and work our way up to the very best. When we last met I promised that starting with this batch, the Cap'n might not be covering the best that last year had to offer, but from here on out I'd recommend almost everything. There are any number of diverse options for varying tastes, and I suspect you'll find at least something to like in what I saw.

 Unlike the normal "list" format that you see so often on the Blogorium, I'm going to try grouping movies together under loosely unifying themes. It keeps things from getting too long in the tooth and will give you a rough idea of where I'm coming from while evaluating each entry. Some are more logically connected than others, but while I was putting this together, individual films gravitated together, so hopefully this works. Let's start with a fairly logical grouping:


 Three Disney Films That were Pretty Good, but I'm in No Hurry to Revisit.

 I didn't see Frozen last year, which I suppose is in keeping with an unofficial trend of missing newer Walt Disney animated films in theaters (I think the last one I saw during its first run was... The Lion King?), but I did see two live action features and the second sequel from the re-branded Disney / Pixar. Of the three, I probably enjoyed Monsters University the most; it's slight, and problematic in that it's a prequel to Monsters, Inc., so we already know that Mike and Sully will end up friends.

Putting aside the fact that they claimed to have met much earlier in life according to the first filmMonsters University is an amusing and sometimes clever Pixar version of the "college" genre. There are prerequisite references to Animal House and lots of foreshadowing of things to come in the movie we've already seen, but it's nice to have everybody back and Billy Crystal and John Goodman are clearly giving 110%. Steve Buscemi is in and out of the story as a younger, nicer, Randall Boggs, and the new additions (including Nathan Fillion, Charlie Day, Sean Hayes, Dave Foley, and Alfred Molina and Helen Mirren as faculty members) are all welcome. If there's one thing that pushes it slightly over the "prequel" trap, it's that while most of the most goes exactly how you'd expect it to, the denoument is quite a surprise. I'm impressed that Dan Scanlon, Robert L. Baird, and Daniel Gerson opted to take the road less travelled by in closing the story out, and there's a sense of earning the connection to Monsters, Inc. that I appreciated.

 While we're on the subject of prequels, Sam Raimi's Oz: The Great and Powerful got its share of grief for being simultaneously too much and not enough like The Wizard of Oz earlier this year. I will admit that the movie is perhaps not what it could be (although, what were we expecting?), the nearly unanimous consensus I've heard from friends - particularly ones with children - was that they were entertained. Unlike most people, I liked James Franco as the Wizard-to-be, and found some interest in the fact that Raimi keeps him as a basically weasely trickster for most of the movie. Whereas Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland sequel-ish thing for Disney headed down the Narnia-route with an unnecessary battle scene, Raimi keeps the great showdown between Oscar Diggs and the Witch of the East (yes, I'll still keep it a secret which witch is which) limited to an unorthodox clash between magic and illusion. The Wonderful Wizard triumphs specifically because he's so good at misdirection.

Is the rest of the cast great? Eh... maybe not. I liked Michelle Williams as Glinda, and Mila Kunis and Rachel Weisz are okay as Theodora and Evanora, but neither of them really get the chance to develop as characters. Bruce Campbell puts up with a beating from Tony Cox to secure his name in the opening credits (and he's in the movie for maybe five minutes, tops). Joey King's China Girl is something of a marvel as a character but Zach Braff's Finley the talking monkey is mostly there for Oscar to have someone to be mean to. The special effects range from very impressive to okay, but I did enjoy the vintage "Raimi inflicting pain on his lead actor" during the tornado after an otherwise okay opening. I will say the change in aspect ratio and color was a nice touch, but there are too many forced connections crammed in very quickly before Franco shuttles off to Oz.

 The parts may not all work or, at times, even fit together, but the sum is fitfully amusing for one of two viewings. I have no idea if I'm going to watch Oz: The Great and Powerful again any time soon, or if it will have any lasting replay value, but for one go-round the trip down the Yellow Brick Road was worth it.

 I don't mention it here a lot, but the Cap'n is a lifelong fan of Mary Poppins. It's not the kind of thing you'd probably expect, which is why it doesn't come up much, but it's true. Even Dick Van Dyke's terrible cockney accent doesn't bother me; I can settle down and watch it almost any old time and feel like a kid again. Accordingly, I was cautiously optimistic about Saving Mr. Banks, the Disney-approved story of Walt Disney's efforts to secure P.L. Travers' approval of the Mary Poppins we all know and love today (okay, I'm assuming you have the same affinity for it as I do).

 It's a double edged sword, because yes, some of the contentious opinions that Travers had during and after the film's released are, shall we say, smoothed over in favor of a more conventional "dealing with daddy issues" storyline. On the other side, I don't imagine any other studio could have shot on the Disney lot in the original locations (or approximations thereof) and had the level of access and imagery you'd need. Think about Fox Searchlight's Hitchcock, which somehow manages to avoid Universal Studios almost entirely, despite the fact that Universal released Psycho and the iconic house is on their tour.


 Saving Mr. Banks is structured alternating between "present day" 1961 and turn of the century Australia, where Pamela Travers (Emma Thompson) remembers her childhood and her whimsical father (Colin Farrell - I'm leaving out the character name on the off chance you don't know anything about Travers). Throughout the film, we learn more and more about her father, why they have to move around the continent, and the foundations of where the character of Mary Poppins comes from, all while Travers struggles with Disney (Tom Hanks)'s insistence the movie be made his way, with animated penguins and songs, much to her dismay. Travers has an inherent disgust for Walt Disney's films, and early in the movie watches Walt on TV with Tinkerbell, only to sigh "Poor (J.M.) Barrie."

 She's staunchly against giving over the rights to Mary Poppins and is reticent to deal with screenwriter Don DeGradi (Bradley Whitford) and songwriting duo the Sherman brothers: Richard (Jason Schwartzman) and Robert (B.J. Novak), who don't quite understand why. As an audience, we already know how this turns out, and as we see the kernels of what become iconic moments in Mary Poppins, we're obviously rooting for Travers to "come around." At the same time, Saving Mr. Banks is told primarily through Travers' perspective, and while she's often rude and dismissive, we like her. The film takes a few steps in the "easy" direction of softening Thompson as Travers, in particular through a totally sympathetic limo driver played by Paul Giamatti who just happens to have the perfect bonding moment at the perfect time with the writer. Wisely, Walt Disney is shuttled off to the background, so that the naturally likeable Tom Hanks is able to always be a voice of reason and never grouchy (they do show him smoking, though. Kudos to that).

 While it's a touch predictable and perhaps not the most forthright (I would recommend reading Vern's review for a more thorough examination of the negative reaction towards Disney and Travers from other critics) about the actual facts, Saving Mr. Banks is nevertheless a worthwhile "true story," and one people might not be familiar enough with. If you like Mary Poppins or Walt Disney or just Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks, it's an easy recommendation. Just don't expect anything too in depth about the man behind the Mouse or anything hyper-critical, and you'll have a nice time. I liked it, but will probably stick with Mary Poppins from here on out.

 Oh, and while we're on the subject of "true story with some liberties taken..."

 Speaking of "Inspired By a True Story"

 If you're going to watch Oprah Winfrey presents Lee Daniels' The Butler "Inspired By an Article We Read and Pretty Much Went from There," I would strongly recommend not doing so anywhere in the vicinity of 12 Years a Slave or Forrest Gump. It will bring up unsatifsying comparisons to the former and oddly specific connections to the latter, and in all honesty I have the feeling that most audiences will find plenty to enjoy about the story of Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker), a White House butler that served Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, (I guess) Carter, and Reagan. For me, it didn't do much, but that's largely because the screenplay by Danny Strong (Game Change, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) is so predictable.

 The film is "inspired by a true story" in the way that Strong took Will Haygood's Article "A Butler Well Served by this Election" and used it as a springboard to cover race relations in the United States from 1926 to 2008. Eugene Allen became Cecil Gaines, and what Gaines doesn't see firsthand in the White House is covered by his son Louis Gaines (David Oyelowo), giving the film a sort of Gump-like tour through major moments in Civil Rights history. I'm trying hard not to diminish the efforts of Daniels, Strong, or the excellent cast, but the problem I had with The Butler is that you can predict almost like clockwork what's going to happen next based on perfunctory set-up scenes.

 For example (SPOILER, I guess), let's say that Cecil's other son Charlie (Elijah Kelly) has a conversation with Louis about how he's going to Vietnam and Louis warns him he's going to get killed. Charlie tells Louis (who is at this point a member of the Black Panther Party and on the outs with his father) not to come to his funeral if he dies. So when we get the scene that Charlie has been killed, does it happen during the same sequence when Cecil and his wife Gloria (Oprah Winfrey) are watching Soul Train and wearing Disco outfits? Look, I can understand the use of emotional juxtaposition, but you can spot it a mile away over and over again during The Butler and that really took me out of the movie.

 There's also a strange sense of moralization going on during The Butler that's reminiscent of Forrest Gump: Freedom Riders are good, Black Panthers are bad. Martin Luther King Jr. is peaceful, but the only scene involving Malcolm X (as Louis and his girlfriend are walking away from one of his speeches) ends with gunshots. Gloria has a brief dalliance with her neighbor, Howard (Terrence Howard), who ends up being shot by someone else's jealous husband. The Black Panther section, in particular, is almost cartoonish - Louis abandons the Freedom Riders after King is assassinated and brings his girlfriend to dinner, only for Cecil to throw them both out. But Louis also abandons the Black Panthers after one meeting that suggest retaliatory violence against the police, which is followed in the next shot by news of the Panthers being raided by the FBI. I'm sorry, there's no subtlety there whatsoever. Louis and Cecil finally reconcile during a rally to free Nelson Mandela, and then it jumps forward to the 2008 election. If you're wondering if someone dies of before she can vote for Obama, I suggest you look for Oprah Winfrey during the Supporting Actress nominations.

 I found that the end result was that while I watched The Butler, I began to wonder about the more trivial moments, like the often bizarre casting of the Presidents. Questions like "are they really not going to use anything other than a fake nose to make John Cusack look like Nixon?" to "I wonder what was going through Jane Fonda's mind while she was playing Nancy Reagan?" floated around with "why didn't they bother finding someone to play Jimmy Carter?" or "isn't Liev Schreiber too young to be Lyndon Johnson?" If you ever wondered what would happen if Alan Rickman was asked to impersonate Ronald Reagan, you'll get your answer in The Butler. Robin Williams is Eisenhower, James Marsden is Kennedy, and Minka Kelly is Jackie Kennedy (of whom Gloria is inexplicably jealous). The individual moments with the presidents are sometimes so odd that you forget the otherwise fine performances from Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Lenny Kravitz as Whitaker's fellow White House butlers.

 Make no mistake about it: I can be a hard audience for movies, in part because I'm always trying to put together where a film is going next, so The Butler was unfortunately too "easy" for me. Most audiences will find more to like about it than I did, and I'm not trying to say it wasn't good. But for the Cap'n, it wasn't anything more than "good," and I saw movies this year that were a LOT better than good.

  And to close this out, I'd like to take a look at another movie "inspired" on a true story (is this just the new thing to avoid people thinking that a condensed version of someone's life isn't 100% factually accurate?), Dallas Buyers Club. I will openly admit I know almost nothing about Ron Woodruff, the Dallas electrician / rodeo rider who contracted HIV and found a way to make money off of medicine not approved by the FDA by bringing it in from other countries. I listened to a segment about him on NPR shortly before the film's release and from interviews with people that knew him, the real Woodruff was perhaps even more gregarious than Matthew McConaughey portrays him in the film, and he cursed more, which is impressive considering the level of profanity in Dallas Buyer's Club.

 That said, I was rather impressed by the film from director Jean-Marc Vallée (Young Victoria) and screenwriters Craig Borten and Melissa Wallack. Woodruff, in the film, is a man out for number one, a gambler and ladies man who ultimately does a good deed mostly out of self interest, but who is often sympathetic even as we marvel at what a selfish, homophobic asshole he can be. Casting McConaughey goes a long way in helping to not be totally repulsed by Woodruff's actions and attitudes (at least early on); the actor has always been likeable, and string of recent performances went a long way to bringing him back from just a "naked bongo" punchline. Dallas Buyers Club is one of two movies I saw with McConaughey this year where I was very impressed with the actor, and his physical transformation as Woodruff is akin to Christian Bale's in The Machinist.

 But it's not just McConaughey, or some clever choices of misdirection early in the film (I'm thinking particularly of one scene where candles lead you to believe Woodruff is in one place when he's in nearly the polar opposite); Jared Leto is also something of a revelation as Rayon, a fellow AIDS patient who becomes Woodruff's business partner and slowly (though never unbelievably) something of a friend. Rayon never gives Woodruff an inch in his behavior, and the interplay between Leto and McConaughey is the film's strongest selling point. Jennifer Garner, Steve Zahn, and Griffin Dunne are also good in supporting roles, and Dallas Buyers Club mostly keeps things from wandering into maudlin or tear-jerker territory. Woodruff's battles with the medical industry and particularly with the FDA could easily fall into a "David vs. Goliath" narrative, but credit where it is due for keeping the story in less rigidly defined territory. It's a reasonably sober look at someone who did something good for maybe the wrong reasons, but did good nonetheless, and if I'm going to damn the other films in this section of the recap with faint praise, it only seemed fair to close out with something I think you'd all want to see.

"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.

Retro-Review: Spider-Man

 Hey, so maybe you've heard there's a Spider-Man movie coming out next month. Specifically, The Amazing Spider-Man is the first major "reboot" of a comic book franchise since Batman Begins erased all the lingering stench of Batman and Robin from out memories*. I've been noticing quite a bit this summer that when I see "big" summer movies in theatres, audiences are enthusiastic for The Dark Knight Rises, Brave, and The Expendables 2, but the auditorium gets very quiet when the trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man plays. It's not so much that a new director (Marc Webb) and a new Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) are jockeying for our attention, but that the movie seems to be retelling the "origin story" of how Parker becomes Spider-Man.

 I know ten years can seem like a while, but it turns out that audiences seem to remember Sam Raimi's Spider-Man after all, and the response to yet another "origin story," no matter how much it promises "untold secrets" is tepid at best. Mind you, this could just be a casual disinterest for now that suddenly turns into Spider-mania in early July, but even that is going to feel like a bit of a retread. Allow me to explain.

 Let's flash back to May of 2002, when Spider-Man kicked the door open for comic book movies. After the miserable Batman and Robin, the even worse Spawn, the cult following of Blade, and the okay-but-not-great first X-Men film, there was some question about whether comic book movies could hang with blockbuster Hollywood fare. It turned out that Sony had the answer, and it came from an unlikely source. At the time, despite having drifted away from horror films, director Sam Raimi was still best known as the creator of The Evil Dead series, and his only remotely "super hero" film was the gonzo Darkman.

 Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst also seemed like strange choices for Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson, having appeared mostly in indie dramas or goofball comedies, but despite the unusual casting and unorthodox director, Raimi and screenwriter David Koepp were able to do what even James Cameron couldn't: bring Spider-Man to the big screen in a big way.

  Spider-Man, while a little bumpy, is still a whole lot of fun. It stumbles a bit when it comes to the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) being a credible threat, mostly because so much of his transformation feels crammed into the narrative after we've established Peter's transformation and subsequent guilt for inadvertently causing the death of his Uncle Ben (Cliff Roberston). However, prior to getting to Norman Osborn becoming the Green Goblin (and setting up James Franco as Harry Osborn for future installments), there's a very entertaining movie. I know a few people that never bought him as Parker, but I liked Maguire's wide-eyed enthusiasm as the shy nerd turns into reluctant super hero. Kirsten Dunst hits all the right beats as Mary Jane, a girl way out of Parker's league, and there are a host of great smaller roles from J.K. Simmons' J. Jonah Jameson, Ted Raimi and Elizabeth Banks as his lackeys at the Daily Bugle, the first appearance of Bruce Campbell as someone tormenting Peter Parker, and even Randy "The Macho Man" Savage as "Bonesaw McGraw".

 I have two memories that really stuck out from seeing Spider-Man that first time: the first was an argument between two friends about why one refused to accept the energetic action, funny dialogue, and dynamic visuals because he staunchly insisted Spider-Man would NEVER have organic webshooters. That, for him, was a deal breaker, and nothing else in the movie even mattered after that point. He still uses that as his basis for hating the movie, and that alone. The argument was as heated as it was hilarious to listen to.

 The second memory was following the box office for Spider-Man, which was the first time I'd ever seriously considered how well a film was doing. When Spider-Man (at the time) broke the record for all-time opening weekend ticket sales, it was a sign that comic book movies were ready to duke it out with other summer films, and they have been ever since. In the wake of Spider-Man, comic book movies not only became more numerous, but many of them were better than we could ever expect: from X2 to Hellboy to Batman Begins and even Spider-Man 2 (which I actually prefer to the first film - it's a better overall movie). With the good came the bad (and you only have to do a cursory search to be reminded of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Elektra, Catwoman, or, sadly, Spider-Man 3), but we've still had a solid run of comic-based films that are better than could be reasonably expected ten years ago.

 And that brings us back around to The Amazing Spider-Man, a movie I don't really have any interest in seeing. My friends seem to be on the same page, even though Spider-Man 3 wasn't good by any stretch of the imagination. It seems like audiences remember the origin story well enough for Spider-Man, and films like X-Men: First Class have demonstrated you can reboot a series without telling the same story over again (even if they're pushing this "predestined" Spider-Man really hard), so it's more "meh" than anticipation a decade later. The attention span of audiences is fickle indeed, but The Amazing Spider-Man doesn't feel like it has anything to offer we can't find by watching Spider-Man at home. Other than The Lizard (Rhys Ifans), taking over for Dylan Baker as the Curt Connors we were promised in Spider-Man 2 and 3 but never got during the Raimi cycle. Oh well, we shall see what things look like in 2022, when maybe we'll be looking at The Spectacular Spider-Man or Ultimate Spider-Man, or "The Clone Saga": The Movie. *Shudder*




 * Sure, you could argue that Punisher: War Zone was a reboot of The Punisher with Thomas Jane, but I prefer to think of them as films vaguely linked together about the same character, kind of like Ghost Rider and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.

Blogorium Quick Hits: More Brains and Swallowed Souls

 Over the weekend I finally caught up on some horror documentaries, specifically More Brains: A Return to the Living Dead and Swallowed Souls: The Making of Evil Dead 2. The former you might have heard of; the latter is more incentive to pick up Lionsgate's 25th Anniversary Edition of Sam Raimi's splatter classic.

 Dan O'Bannon fans will be elated and disappointed while watching More Brains - the film reunites most of the surviving cast and crew members (including the special effects artist fired halfway through the film), but until the very end, O'Bannon - who passed in 2009 - is absent from the oral history of Return of the Living Dead. There's a lot of talking about O'Bannon, often in conflicting narratives (he was too demanding, too aloof; he was easy to work with and open to suggestions), but only in the closing moments does the writer / director have a chance to speak to the film's cult status. In what was his final interview, O'Bannon is candid about the audience embrace of the film and its legacy, and makes a knowing comment about "if I die tomorrow" before the film goes to credits.

 The story of the making of Return of the Living Dead from John Russo (producer / writer of Night of the Living Dead)'s original pitch to the decision of Hemdale Films to hire Dan O'Bannon to write and direct the film as a horror comedy, from casting to premieres, is an affair filled with gossip, contradictory stories, and debates about whether Clu Gulager really threw a can at the director in a fit of rage. I'm tempted to share anecdotes from the cast, or to mention the ongoing bad blood between the production designer (William Stout) and first make-up effects (William Munns) over the inadequate zombie masks and "headless zombie" appliance. The memories are sometimes contentious, sometimes defensive, but always entertaining. More Brains: A Return to the Living Dead is well worth the time of fans of Return of the Living Dead.

---

 Meanwhile, I'd like to thank a video store in the mall that will go unnamed until later this week for erroneously placing two copies of the 25th Anniversary Blu-Ray of Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn the weekend before the disc is actually released (it comes out tomorrow). I've bemoaned the endless re-releasing of Sam Raimi's Evil Dead films on DVD before, and we're seeing the first instance of "double-dipping" in high definition for the trilogy. As Anchor Bay closes (or whatever is going on with Anchor Bay) and their catalog is divvied up by Image Entertainment and Lionsgate, we're likely to see another release of The Evil Dead before long, and I find it hard to believe that Universal's underwhelming "Screwhead Edition" of Army of Darkness is the be-all-end-all of HD releases.

 But for now, let's look at the Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn 25th Anniversary double-dip. As a sucker for supplements, I must admit the list of extras seemed very promising - collections of featurette's about the casing, effects, conception, direction, and filming. When I put the disc in, I didn't realize that all of these individually listed extras were part of one 98 minute documentary, Swallowed Souls. It's reminiscent of segments of Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy, and is broken into chapters complete with claymation vignettes to bridge them.

 Like More Brains, the primary element lacking in Swallowed Souls is the presence of Sam Raimi. It's not as though his presence isn't felt, because the "making of" footage shot by Greg Nicotero features young Sam Raimi in abundance, but he's noticeably absent from the proceedings. On the other hand, the doc features an abundance of newly shot interviews with Bruce Campbell, who speaks candidly about Evil Dead 2 and shares stories I don't think I've heard anywhere, including in If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor. Swallowed Souls also prominently features the rest of the leads of Evil Dead 2: Sarah Berry (Annie), Dan Hicks (Jake), Kassie Wesley (Bobbi Joe), Richard Dormeier (Ed) and Ted Raimi (Possessed Henrietta). Hearing their perspective on making the film is in and of itself a treat - many of them had no idea what they were in for.

 The entire makeup effects team, including Mark Shostrom (From Beyond, A Nightmare one Elm Street Part 2) and the first time in years that I've seen all three members of KNB (Robert Kurtzman, Greg Nicotero, and Howard Berger) on camera talking about a project they worked on together*. Their camcorder footage, which documents the conception of Evil Dead 2's effects all the way through the film's production, are a treasure trove of unseen footage from Wadesboro, North Carolina in 1986. They gleefully exploit their creations and play around with camera tricks, mimicking Raimi's "evil force" camera shots.

 So here's where it gets tough - do you want to drop another $14 for Evil Dead 2 to see an admittedly great "making of" documentary? If you still have the Anchor Bay disc, you'll notice that The Gore the Merrier is still included, the commentary is still included, and I'm not sure that the picture is that much different. The price is fair so if you don't already have Evil Dead 2 on Blu-Ray this is a no-brainer, but wary double dippers are going to have to ask themselves if the making of justifies buying the film again. I will say that if it were released on its own, Swallowed Souls would be worth picking up in the same way as Halloween: 25 Years of Terror or His Name was Jason are. Evil Dead fans, prepare yourselves for the impending moral quandary. I don't regret it, but I also have the added bonus of picking the disc up early...


 * Since Kurtzman moved on to create his own production company, it's common just to see Nicotero and Berger appearing in "making of" documentaries that KNB did makeup effects for.

Blogorium Review: Crimewave

 Crimewave is not what one would call a "good" movie. It lacks consistency in tone, the lead protagonists are milquetoast (at best), and many of what I presume to be jokes fall flat, especially in the beginning. Generally speaking, there's a reason that Sam Raimi fans aren't aware of (or haven't seen) his follow-up to The Evil Dead, and not just because it isn't readily available in the U.S.: it's a tough nut to crack, and only the most devoted fans of  Raimi and the Coen brothers - who co-wrote the script - are going to want to give it a go. That said, the film has some quirks that I rather enjoyed; small touches that at least place Crimewave in the fairer category of "interesting failure."


 Okay, bear with me here - the synopsis sounds more complicated than it is, something that should be familiar to most fans of Joel and Ethan Coen: Victor Ajax (Reed Birney) is on death row for his involvement in a crime spree in a one-block area of Detroit, Michigan, along with some highway chicanery and murder. Except that Vic didn't do any of it: his bosses, Ernest Trend (Edward R. Pressman) and Donald Odegard (Hamid Dana) are feuding over the control of their security company, and when Odegard makes a deal to sell the property to Renaldo "The Heel" (Bruce Campbell), Trend decides its in his wife's best interest to kill Odegard. He hires Faron Crush (Paul Smith) and Arthur Coddish (Brion James), exterminators who work "in all sizes" to take out Odegard, but ends up their victim as well, and Helene Trend (Louise Lasser), who saw the whole thing from her apartment across the street, becomes their next target. Meanwhile, Vic is trying to win over Nancy (Sheree J. Wilson), the girl of his dreams, but she happens to be with Renaldo. Madness ensues.

 What I told you amounts to maybe the first ten minutes of this 83 minute movie, which rushes to put every piece of the mousetrap in place, and then hits the switch to see what happens next. The madcap tone of the film, likely inspired by Raimi and the Coen's love of Preston Sturges films, really doesn't gel early on, even if everyone behaves as though it does. Paul Smith's voice is clearly dubbed, and whether Brion James dubbed his over later or not, they have an intentionally cartoony sound that is, at best, a little jarring for the first few scenes. The film is too cartoonish at times and morbidly comedic in others. Meanwhile, Reed Birney is playing Vic as the straight and narrow schlub while Sheree Wilson seems disinterested for the first half of the movie. Only Louise Lasser and Bruce Campbell really give it 110% for the entirety of the film, which is good for Helene Trend but bad for Renaldo, who is at best an extended cameo*. More of a problem is the uneven sense of setting in the film.

 Crimewave seems to occupy a time stranded between the 1940s and the 1980s, so much so that until one gets one's bearings, the movie can be awfully confusing. At first, the dialogue, costumes, and tone seem to indicate a period film - to be specific, a screwball comedy of the mid-forties. Then we find out that Vic's job at Trend & Odegard security is to install security cameras, which he is happily putzing about doing in the apartment building where the Trends live (conveniently across the hall from Nancy. The cameras are late 70s, early 80s models (I have one that looks a lot like the kind Vic is installing), and when he wanders down into the street, he's nearly run over by a 40s-style pesticide truck, but across the street are a very modern (for 1985) tow truck and "the classic," Raimi's Oldsmobile Delta 88, seen in all of his films somewhere. It's hard to call it anachronistic, because the streets look like Detroit in the 1980s while the characters speak and dress like post-war artifacts but seem comfortable in the never-never-land of the film.

 With that in mind, there are a number of small touches in the film that stick with you, in a good way. There's a wonderful chase down "The Parade of Protection: the Safest Hallway in the World" between Helene and Faron that's visually dynamic and isn't likely an image you'll forget soon. The exterminators, once you get past the artificiality of their voices, infuse the film with a number of silly moments: the setting for their rat electrocution device includes "Men" and "Heroes," there's a moment where Faron pulls up the carpet in the Trend apartment and literally drags it (and Helene) towards him, and the back-and-forth between the killers and the landlord Mr. Yarman (John Hardy) is a highlight. Brion James (Blade Runner) has some time to shine during a third act car chase, and again, I'm going to mention Campbell's Renaldo, who is so proud of being a heel that he wonders why people think it's a bad thing.

 Watching Crimewave in conjunction with The Hudsucker Proxy - which the Coens and Raimi all wrote around the same time - explains both films' idiosyncrasies; both are products of young filmmakers, working through a laundry list of disparate influences**, synthesized into movies that did little for audiences and only really appeal to their most ardent supporters. Hudsucker is easily the more successful of the two, but Joel and Ethan Coen had an additional nine years (and four films) to hone their skills while Raimi was coming off of The Evil Dead four years prior. Raimi famously disowned Crimewave after producers Edward R. Pressman and Irvin Shapiro removed his editor Kaye Davis and composer Joe LoDuca, and the film has wallowed in a sort of limbo ever since. There are touches of Sam Raimi in the film, although one could argue there's almost as much in Crimewave that would remind you of Raising Arizona as there is the man who would eventually direct Spider-Man.

 Ultimately, Crimewave is something of a curio, a film that never quite finds its footing, that never connects the way it wants to. Moments of ingenuity sneak through, and in small touches, there's probably enough there to recommend the film to the Raimi and Coen camps, but don't expect a hidden gem. At best, it's a nice piece of cubic zirconium, sitting at the bottom of a dusty drawer. Sometimes, there's a reason you haven't heard about it.




 * Raimi originally wrote the film with Campbell as Vic Ajax, which honestly makes much more sense. Birney lacks charisma, reminding me as his best of a pale Joe Pantoliano replica, and has no chemistry whatsoever with Wilson.
** By the way, Vic is sentenced to be executed at Hudsucker State Penitentiary.