Monthly Archives: May 2008

[  Mood: Scared ]
Oh, George.

I am so scared right now.

Not just by the photo, but by the idea that, if he paid any attention to a poor wretch such as I, and if he then willed it, Lucas could have me squished like a grape.

The way Mr. Miyagi warned about practicing karate "guess-so."

I don’t wanna go out like that…or do I?

Think of the consequences: My wife collects the insurance policy AND she could bring a criminal case against the wealthiest man living south of Bill Gates, provided the lawyers can prove he hired some character actors or down-on-their-luck stunt men to do the deed. It has the potential to defame him for all time AND bring about the release of the Star Wars Holiday Special in an attempt to have the sales cover his court costs!

It’s win, win!

Except where I’m dead, of course. That part sucks.

And it could backfire, making him IN-famous, like El Guapo, and bringing about an unheralded new era in his filmmaking, inspired by true events (like all those Law & Order episodes! They’re really popular, right?).

For a moment, see the headline with me…

Lucas Kills Vocal Ex-Fan In Fit Of Rage!

And why would he do this?

Because I can’t stop thinking, "When is he gonna make good on his threat to go back to making a simple film we can all ignore?"

And every new bit of news that comes out…must…be…commented UPON!

Also, I admit, he’s such an easy target!

Obviously, the man cannot or will not just shut up and put his copious coinpurse where his dilapidated digital tomfoolery is. Instead, we are inundated by Lucas’s meddling hand, threatening at every turn to twist and transmogrify the things we love, leaving torn and bloodied the genre stories of joy we once counted on him to provide!

The latest news? LaBeowulf, waving his switchblade around (this, and being acquainted with Michael Bay are apparently all one needs to make giant Canadian dumptruck loads of cash these days in Hollyweird), proclaims he and George’ll do Indy 5, which will be Mutt One, or some other decidedly non-Cthulhuian horror, but horrible nonetheless.

The truck above might be able to move the amount of bricks the world’s Geekdom collectively drop when the announcement is "officialized, " or whatever Gee-crazzizz-Ell decides to term it.

Before that diShiabance in The Force, our friend Frank Darabont was crying in his beer. No doubt, it had been served by a gruff bartender who looked like Uncle Owen with a bad shave.

From Joe’s article: ‘Frank Darabont says he will get no onscreen credit for Indiana Jones 4. About working again with George Lucas, he said, "Honestly our storytelling sensibilities have diverged to the point where that would be a pointless exercise." Ouch, Lucas. Hurts, don’t it?’

Well boo-filkin’-hoo.

So Lucas obviously wants to continue to make hoary, boring technobabble or poorly conceived serial homages, while Darabont wants to make soul-destroying, unfaithful at-the-last adaptations of otherwise excellently written stories?

What they don’t say on the poster above is this: that guy with his hand in front of his face?
Member of the paid-to-see-it-free preview audience.

Pardon me for obtusity, but I’m missing the "divergence" there, Frank old bean. Maybe your next film will make us all understand?

I highly doubt it. And I’m scared all over again.

[  Mood: In Love ]
[  Currently: Listening to music to slay zombies by… ]
“World War Z,” Mark Hamill, Todd Wainio, Iron Maiden‘s “The Trooper.”

Forgive me, KD. I have not read Max Brooks’ novel "World War Z."

In December of 2006 my wife accepted a promotion with Big Book Company #2 and we moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan amid many claims from friends, family, and acquaintences that we’d see snow banks only heretofore dreamt of in our little inland northwest hamlet of Spokane.

This is Spokane, of which Warren Zevon once sang:

The many claims were proven false by Ma Nature’s fickle temperment that winter. The only precipitation we encountered on our trip came in sparse drips and drizzles as we approached Des Moines, Iowa.

During our dry voyage we enjoyed the full-cast audio performance, author-approved abridgement of "World War Z." Featuring the talents of Mark Hamill, Alan Alda, Henry Rollins, Rob Reiner, Carl Reiner, Jürgen Prochnow, and John Turturro, among others, the audiobook was awarded with the 2007 Audie Award for best Multi-Voiced Performance (thanks, wiki). It richly deserves that award.

Through the dusty, snowless landscapes of Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, on highways empty of even those who’d dare a normal winter’s journey on them, we drove and listened to the performance.

I think it was the nearest thing I may ever get to that feeling many Americans shared when Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater made their memorable entry into cultural history October 30th, 1938: This may really be happening.

Sure, sure, I started the cd and stopped it when necessary on the drive, but the delivery, the nuances in the voices, the accents and the passion displayed-! The word incredible doesn’t do it justice in my mind. Unbelievable might be the adjective I should use, but that counters the effect the performance had on Celena and I.

We could believe that there was a zombie infestation occuring in America even as we drove east across its great highways.

The key performance among the many excellent readings sits with Mark Hamill, as Todd Wainio, former U.S. Army infantryman and veteran of the Battle of Yonkers. I’ve known, loved, and been annoyed by his whining as Luke Skywalker, and seen his performances as the animated Joker.
His imdb.com listing has voice work that should have Mel Blanc applauding every day from his perch on high.

Hamill as Todd Wainio, though, drives home the reality of World War Z. His voice transports you, opening visual vistas in your mind of places you might never have actually seen.

When Wainio talks about the battle that turned the war around, out of nowhere (and this made me even happier I hadn’t read the book before listening) he explains how some soldiers use music to pump themselves up before a hard mission, and how over the loudspeakers the soldiers fighting those zombies that day were lifted to the fight by Iron Maiden’s "The Trooper," I teared up.

If you’ve heard the song, you can hear it in your head when Hamill’s character describes the scene. If not, you’ve missed out on a classic piece of music.

It’s no secret to anyone that I love Iron Maiden.

They are hands down my favorite band.

To have their music referenced in such a way, and that song–so perfectly picked!–used as the aural template for the human race’s battle for survival against zombie hordes?

Priceless!

[  Mood: Angry ]
[  Currently: Listening to Fire, Inc. ]
It’s something we can’t avoid as long as we allow ourselves to be spectators in various aspects of the game of life: watching, unable to vary the outcome, as a bad ending inexorably forces its drudging self upon us.

It happens in every genre we know and love.

Science fiction: The "Huh? Wha-?" ending to Tim Burton’s barely-watchable, otherwise-mockable, ‘reimagining’ of "Planet of the Apes."

This movie stripped Mark Wahlberg of almost every ounce of cred he got from me after I saw this scene in "Boogie Nights." The 5:35 mark is where the magic happens.

Yes, I will likely use this link until it falls dead from YouTube. I LOVE that scene.

But Tim Burton’s big ape turd? I forgot everything that happened in that ‘movie’ about ten minutes after I left the theater. Except the unbelievable, unexplained, I-don’t-care-if-someone-has-a-theory-about-it ending.

Why did I forget?

Because the ending SUCKED.

Horror: I could go for the duck sitting there in its barrel on this one and deride the Frank Darabont horrorshow titled "The Mist," but I, ladies and gentlemen, shall avoid the easy target, and take the high road.

The unbelievable adaptation of Stephen King’s "IT" for television (Richard Thomas as Stuttering Bill!?!), complete with effects ripped right out of some sandbox plastic dinosaur fight I might have had in the early ’70s.

Except MY dinosaurs were BETTER.

King let the t.v. miniseries hacks literally hack his great novel (IT is my favorite, sorry The Stand) into palsied, palatable-to-middle-America pieces.

And, no, I didn’t like Tim Curry as Pennywise, either.

Not because he was freaky.

It’s because he wasn’t the Pennywise I saw when I read the book.

I love the poster tagline: "The master of horror unleashes everything you were ever afraid of."

Yeah.

Another crappy version of one of his books.

Fantasy: Did you enjoy the end of "LOTR: Return of the King"? Really?

‘Cause I was napping off and on from the minute Pippin started singing until Sam carried Frodo up Mount Doom.

Sam carried Frodo up Mount Doom?!? What, did someone slip in my dvd of "Hearts In Atlantis"?
Did I not read that chapter in the book? It’s possible. There were quite a few chapters in the books that I napped through.

So maybe the movies did an admirable job of recreating the book experience, and Tolkien’s relatives, with their incessant bitching about the films, are simply wearing their BVDs one size too small.

I give P.J. and crew props for trying to stuff battle after battle after battle after battle into those last two films, but even though "LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring" just got everything started storywise and ended hanging on a relatively weak cliff (everyone KNEW Gandalf weren’t dead, y’all), it still ended more satisfactorily than ROTK.

The Mutt (a little bit of everything, and Michael Pare): In 1983 I took a trip to Universal Studios and during the tour saw the huge black tents that the tour guide mysteriously, giddily exclaimed to our group were from the in-production movie "Streets Of Fire," starring Diane Lane, Michael Pare, and Willem DeFoe!

OK, I don’t recall the exclamations about the cast, but I’m fairly certain there was mention of them.

I saw this film in theaters the next year and enjoyed it for what it was: a popcorn film designed by throwing together many disparate elements—rock/pop/doo-wop music, a hot damsel in distress (Lane), a brooding anti-hero (Pare), a plucky sidekick (AmyFILKINGMadigan, hopelessly miscast), a sneering villian (DeFoe, both more and less terrible than his Goblin), and a colorful cast of supporting characters (Robert Townshend! Rick Moranis! Deborah Van Valkenburgh! Rick Rossovich! Bill Paxton! Ed Begley, Jr!)—into a fantastic setting neither future nor past.

Touted as "A Rock & Roll Fable," the film manages to entertain on a thin story and a few witty lines delivered from the steely Pre-Swayze chin of Michael Pare (and if the wiki is right, someone needs to tell him, in his long career of bad career moves, he really needs to rethink the upcoming Uwe Boll collaboration).

The music throughout is decent–you can still hear Dan Hartman’s "I Can Dream About You" on the radio, especially XM’s ‘Sunny 24’ station–and the movie is bookended by two of the best Jim Steinman songs EVAR.

This one.

And this one.

If those songs don’t make you yearn for your years of misspent youth, you maybe didn’t have any.

Watch that last clip to the five-minute mark (or pull the dvd off your shelf and find the chapter) and you’ll see what I mean when I say "Why, oh, god, why did they screw up the ending?!"

At the 4:06 mark (in the video), when I was watching the movie for the first time, I thought, "Oh, this movie is going to end JUST perfectly, with our anti-hero walking into the distance (no sunset, but you get the jist), roll credits."

For seven seconds I think this, and my joy is rapturous.

Then the camera cuts to a different angle.

And then the damned sidekick drives up.

Blahblahblah, pseudo-witty banter, and a ride is offered, and the filking anti-hero takes it! Didn’t anyone tell this guy that anti-heroes don’t take rides?!

Why am I torturing myself? When I own the dvd, the movie ends when I make it end! HA! Take that, crappy screenwriter/producer/director/Hollywood system that makes everything so plain that the majority of America won’t have to use ANY cogitation whatsoever!

I have the remote now! And I’m not afraid to use it!

[  Mood: Cool ]
[  Currently: Playing Battleship with Death… ]

I love Kurosawa.

Granted, I haven’t seen the majority of Kurosawa’s films, though I own a number of them on general principal. To paraphrase Sting, as Fayd Rautha: I will view them!

Likewise, I haven’t yet read the autobiography of Kurosawa that I received several years ago on my birthday. There’s so much to read between marathon Oblivion/Xbox 360 sessions.

Really, I’m just making excuses. I’ve watched every Zatoichi film, even the elusive number 14, ordered on eBay (thank you, France!). Ditto a number of the Ichi television series episodes.

I’ve done Akira wrong.

I suffered through The Hidden Fortress because Lucas said it was part of his inspiration for Star Wars.
Inspiration, my @$$. Maybe he was "inspired" to make a movie with a pulse! Those two hours of boredom are just one more thing Lucas owes me an apology for.

I watched Rashomon. Twice. I almost get it. They say the third time’s the charm.

But what I want to touch on here is the proliferation of film references ("remakes," "reimaginings," what-have-you) to Seven Samurai, arguably one of Kurosawa’s best films.

There is, of course, The Magnificent Seven. It is one of my all-time absolute favorite, I-don’t-have-enough-adjectives-for-how-I-feel movies.

A (supposed) scene from Seven Samurai was featured briefly during the "first date" segment of the Kevin Costner/Whitney Houston collaboration, The Bodygaurd–not to be confused with the great 1980 film, My Bodygaurd, that started Adam Baldwin on his long journey to playing the likes of Knowle Rohrer, Jayne Cobb, Marcus Hamilton, and John Casey.

You’ll always be Linderman to me, Adam.

The Seven Samurai’s inspiration can be seen indirectly in such films as The Three Amigos and A Bug’s Life.

More immediate examples are Battle Beyond The Stars and Galaxy Quest.

I’m sure there are more than just these, but let’s go from here.

The little Roger Corman-directed John-Boy vehicle above even starred one of the stars from the star-studded (a pun I use willingly), majestic Seven Samurai "re-imagining," The Magnificent Seven: the one and only Robert Vaughn! He played the same character, too, with many of the same lines, except innnn Spaaaaaaace!

The other main draw of that sad little film was not the special effects…

Is it any wonder I have a (soft) spot for Boobs McGillicutty, a.k.a. Sybil Danning?
Oddly, though, the ship below was flown by Richard Thomas’s unbelievably poorly named character, Shad.

Don’t skimp on the breastfeeding, ladies. Your babies will grow up to fly ships like that one.

And don’t name your babies Shad.

I can’t imagine why, but somehow, somewhere, the soundtrack to that movie exists, too:

Enough badgering of that terrible waste of my youth that I watched every time I caught a glance of it on cable in the ’80s, though.

Galaxy Quest came along in 1999 and made me love Tim Allen all over again.

Great performances, great sci-fi references, a wonder-filled story…you know, I can’t think of a thing I didn’t like about Galaxy Quest. Same goes for The Magnificent Seven.

As strictly faithful adaptations of Seven Samurai, The Magnificent Seven is more direct while Galaxy Quest is more funny fun. Both are excellent ways to spend a couple hours.

What’s strange about Galaxy Quest, A Bug’s Life, and Three Amigos is the addition of the "performers-turned-saviors" plotline.

I wonder where in the history of scriptwriting that idea got added to the mix…

Whatever the case may be, we have a number of Seven Samurai derivatives to enjoy, and Thank Shatner, they are good, if not great. Well, most of them.

Shut up, John Saxon! You won’t be able to save your foxy daughter from Freddie Krueger, so don’t scowl at me about your career choices!

Ahem.

Enjoy the samurai, everyone.