Something for the weekend: Indiana Jones (1951)

Brilliant!

(via Boing Boing via Neatorama)

Review: Terminator: Salvation

Like Ridley Scott's Alien, James Cameron's Terminator featured a striking score, gut wrenching tension and a dynamic cast. Like Alien, Terminator maintained a sort of cult status until Cameron blew them up with big budget sequels. From atmospheric origins, both developed big franchises. But while the Aliens films have devolved into schlock (as anyone who has seen Alien V Predator can atest), the Terminator films have been far better up to now.

The Terminator films have stuck to their original premise: in the near future, a computerised defence network - Skynet - becomes self-aware and wages total war on humans. Identifying John Connor (future leader of the human resistence) as the one threat to its dominance, Skynet sends a cyborg hitman back from the future to nip it in the bud.

Terminator: Salvation breaks continuity with previous films in many ways. And while the recent Star Trek showed that it is possible to take new directions and remain faithful to the spirit of a film's history, Salvation does neither.

The film takes place in 2018, during humankind's guerilla warfare against the machines. John Connor is a prominent military leader, whose regular radio broadcasts inspire the scattered pockets of human resistence.

The plot effectively concerns Connor's attempt to rescue human prisoners - and one in particular - from a Skynet prison camp, although there are plenty of diversions, theatrics and ornamentations along the way. In fact, there are three storylines, none of which mesh comfortably, and despite its almost two hour running time, it is thin on story.

Salvation bears all the trademarks of Hollywood 'development', mashing disparate elements together to tick the boxes of what market research focus groups predict will sell. It is chock full of fanboy references to the style of the first two iconic Terminator films, without retaining any of the substance of those films's success.

The absence of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who utterly embodied the role of the implacable Terminator, hangs over Salvation like a pall. Christian Bale, as John Connor, is the stand-out performer, but his characteristic 'intensity' is wasted on a thin role among many thinner ones.

It is worth bearing in mind that Salvation's director, McG, is a journeyman director, whose previous credits include Charlie's Angels, TV show Fastlane and music videos for pop group The Pussycat Dolls. In short he is steeped in shit.

The relentlessness of the machine hunter and the courage and resilience of its human prey gave The Terminator and Judgement Day a kind of mythic depth, beyond the emotional thrills. In Salvation 'grit' is a visual style, but the fear of extermination and personal doom is absent.

Review: Wolverine and Star Trek

Two film franchises expanded this month.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a prequel/spin-off to the X-Men films (which themselves tie into the larger Marvel Universe, as we're sure to see on screen in due course). Star Trek is also prequel of sorts, grafting onto the trunk of the Star Trek mythos.

How did Wolverine become Wolverine? X-Men Origins: Wolverine, presuming this is a question worth answering, follows the relationship and rivalry between mutant half-brothers, James Logan and Victor Creed, via their involvement with evil government scientist William Stryker. Their divergent paths - Logan's towards a normal life and Creed's towards violence and savagery - lead them to become Wolverine and Sabretooth, respectively.

The wild success of the X-Men franchise was due, in no small part, to Bryan Singer's witty direction of the first two episodes. Similarly, the Spiderman films and the recent Iron Man, benefitted from the strong authorial stamps of Sam Raimi and Jon Favreau respectively. The producers of Wolverine tried the same route, hiring Gavin Hood (Tsotsi and Rendition) to direct.

The action sequences are competent, but much of the characterisation is flat and uninteresting, with a consequential tonelessness across the piece. Like the disappointing X-Men 3, Wolverine feels functional, formulaic and indifferent to its material. The character of Wolverine is shorn of much of ambivalence, mystery and vulnerability that made him interesting in the first two X-Men films. And none of the supporting characters are well developed.

Of course Hugh Jackman is fine and veteran character actor Liev Schreiber puts in a menacing performance as Creed, but the plot is convoluted, trite and obscure by turns and serves mainly to service future additions to the Marvel franchise.

By contrast Star Trek is a veritable love letter from director JJ Abrams (of Lost fame) to Gene Roddenberry's original Star Trek series, while remaining accessible to the non-Trekkie. It is also a masterclass on the space opera genre, without resorting to the kind of clichés that tebesmirch : cool spaceships, mind-boggling special effects, fascinating characters, strange worlds and creatures, a love triangle, a diabolical world-ending machine, time travel, near-misses and last-minute escapes.

The plot sees a villainous Romulan, Nero (played with earthy vigour by Eric Bana), seeking revenge in kind for the destruction of his homeworld. Can the crew of the USS Enterprise stop him? In so far as this is as straightforward adventure movie, it is Kirk's story, but the emotional core of the movie is with commander Spock - vulnerable, brilliant and arrogant - caught between his human and vulcan heritages and desires, freedom and belonging.

Successive directors of Star Trek films came to realise that the relationship between Spock (intellectual and emotional) and Kirk (physical and instinctual) was the key to its success, but few have interrogated it so subtly, and sparks fly between Quinto's Spock and Pine's Kirk. To do this while keeping the jumping and fighting in focus is all the more satisfying. This is not so much a revision, as a revisitation, of Star Trek's roots.

JJ Abrams has mastered the pace of an action film. Star Trek, like Abrams Mission Impossible 3, veritably sprints along. In fact, like Wolverine, Star Trek is replete with characters and incident, but never gratuitously. And if it can be a bit breathless at times, Star Trek is never boring and how often can you say that of a 2 hour movie?

Something for the Weekend: Big Man Japan

'The foul odor it emits is equivalent to 10,000 human feces.'

What more is there to say?

Big Man Japan - set for release later this month - is the final in Magnet's Six Shooter film series, which also included Special and the menacing Let the Right One In. More please.

Comic to Cinema

I had never heard of Danger: Diabolik or Female Convict Scorpion before reading Robin Bougie's excellent article, on Guttersnipe Media about the best adaptions of comics for cinema.

I'd seen a lot of the other ones. I must say that Ghost World is one of my favourite films. If Robert Crumb had written an autobiography, Terry Zwigoff's Crumb would surely be on Robin's list too.

(via The Comics Reporter)

The Birth of Indiana Jones

There's a fascinating blog post here about the meeting between George Lucas, Lawrence Kasdan and Stephen Spielberg to develop Indiana Jones.

(via Lout Shelter)

Movies I would like to see

My lady friend and I got through an awesome number of Christmas movies this year. Despite this herculean effort I find my appetite is not quite sated. Inspired by bad movies (of which I have seen many), here are some of my favourite movies that have never been made:

• DeathVixen (aka Avenging Waitress)
  (1985, USA/Mexico) - Supernatural Revenge/Police Procedural
  'Coffee and... die!'
  A waitress returns from the dead to exact terrible revenge on customers of her small town diner. A grizzled veteran detective aims to stop her.
  
• ElephanTitans
  (1989, USA) Medical Drama/Mystery/Adventure
  'With great limbs come great responsibilities'
  During a school camping trip a group of teenagers are struck down by a disfiguring illness. Their recovery is accompanied by incredible abilities. Will Andy Boudreaux discover the cause of their illness.
• Cannibal Circus (aka Carnival of Cannibals aka Midget Holocaust)
  (1980, Mexico/Spain/Italy/Germany) Horror /Adventure
  'Three rings of horror!'
  After the circus comes to town, one beautiful college co-ed after another disappears in horrible, yet clownish circumstances. Will Reporter Marcy Chance prove her dreadful theory or will she become another victim of… the Cannibal Circus.
• Zorro V Frankenstein
  (1978, Spain/Uruguay) Horror/Adventure
  'Only Zorro can save the little vilage' (sic)
  Dr. Frankenstein unleashes his creature on a poor Mexican town. Only one man can stop him.
• Vengeance Four from the End of Time (aka Space Force aka Dimension Team)
  (1986, USA) Sci Fi/Action Adventure
  'They came to the present to save our future'
  A group of powerful soldiers from the future enlist the help of a ragtag bunch of high-school misfits to save Earth from an alien invasion.
• Vampire Hookers from Mars (aka Space Hookers aka Creature di Desiderio aka Blood of the Insane)
  (1983, Canada/France/Italy/Luxembourg) Horror
  'Their lethal lust goes beyond the bounds of time and space!'
  A party turns into a night from hell, when aliens invade a college fraternity party.
  

Six of the best: Incoming SF&F films

Keep away Frakes! Keep away!

Here are six of the best forthcoming Sci-Fi & Fantasy films for late 2008/2009.

• Inkheart - Ahhh! Lovely!
  



• 2012 - Who doesn't like the end of days?
  



• The Day the Earth Stood Still - Keanu plays an expressionless being from another planet, in this biopic of his life.
  



• Star Trek - Just keep Frakes away from it.
  



• Watchmen - In case you'd forgotten... don't.
  



• X-Men Origins: Wolverine - Best of the X-Men, best Marvel franchise, great cast.
  
  

Six of the Best! Most grotesque character actors...

I love character actors. They are all around us. I particularly love the strange ones. The ones that make us want to look away, for example:

1. Ron Perlman - Just an incredible-looking individual. With a frightening voice.
2. John Leguizamo - Teeth and voice combine to produce indelible wrongness.
3. Vincent Schiavelli - Everything is (was) wrong with this man's face. Brilliant.
4. Jeffrey Tambor - Teeth/mouth again, but Tambor also has a rare ability to look wretched.
5. Lily Taylor/Martha Plimpton - I feel guilty about nominating women, so I’ve nominated two. To keep each other company. Lily Taylor has a weird voice and Martha Plimpton is… well Martha Plimpton. (Please note that many of these actors have amazing names.)
6. Brad Dourif - Deeply unsettling face, creepy voice. Correction: the most unsettling, the creepiest.

Naturally, I am unsatisfied with my choices. This is not the last you've heard of grotesque character actors.

Review: The Mutant Chronicles

Tom Jane must save a dreary future Earth from zombies with pointy arms. Hmm.

Films based on computer games are largely poor (viz Street Fighter, Super Mario Brothers, Dead Or Alive). Sometimes the games themselves are poor, but more often they are simply unsuited to adaptation. Genre films demand strong narratives (and hence strong characters), which are not the strengths of the fighting games and shoot-em-ups that more often make it to the cinema.

The Mutant Chronicles (or MuChron, as I prefer to call it), starts from the further disadvantage of being based on a tabletop wargame of the same name.

Set in the 28th century, MuChron concerns the recruitment, by Brother Samuel (Ron Perlman) of cynical soldier Mitch Hunter (Tom Jane) to lead a mission to destroy an ancient alien machine which turns the dead from Earth’s interminable wars into mutant zombies.

Despite a labourious exposition of its dreary steampunk setting, in which four corporations based on racial stereotypes duke it out for control of the Earth’s natural resources, the whys and wherefores of this world are considered irrelevant to the movie (which, after all is about killing zombies).

Nothing could be further from the truth however. Science Fiction set in distant futures, pasts or worlds demands greater explication of its workings, than does fiction set in a familiar contemporary world which we know intuitively. It is never explained why, for example, 700 years into the future, culture, technology and warfare have stalled in the 1940s, except for the steam-powered spaceships.

Despite the absurdity of its premise and its claim to be an Action-Adventure film, MuChron is a particularly grave affair, high in grime and stoicism, short on round-house kicks, impaling, explosions and witty one-liners (not even an anachronistic knees-up ‘round the old Joanna). Indeed it is pretty short on zombies too.

However, if MuChron lacks in plentiful zombies, it compensates by having Brother Samuel bang on about how Faith is great and how Mitch ought to have some, to which Mitch replies: ‘I’m not paid to have Faith. I’m paid to fuck shit up.’ Quite.

To paraphrase another review I once read, the distasteful result is a feeling of having been robbed of precious time and a lingering and humiliating sense of having misunderstood a not very funny joke.

Six of the best! Marvel Comics Film Adaptations

Adapting comics for the TV and cinema is standard procedure. Stan Lee's Marvel Comics has been at it for twenty-plus years. It has found varying degrees of success, but here are six of the best:

1. Iron Man (2008) - Robert Downey Jr. stars as laconic, millionaire playboy, Tony Stark, in a surprisingly potent modern parable, directed by Jon Favreau. Extra points for Black Sabbath in the closing credits.
   
2. Spiderman 2 (2004) - Sam Raimi brings his A game to B+ material to produce a highly enjoyable sequel.
   
3. Spiderman (2002) - Sam Raimi brings pop exuberance to the web-slinger and Toby Maguire is Peter Parker.
   
4. X-Men (2000) - Bryan Singer gives a classy, sophisticated take on the quintessential Marvel heroes, with plenty of character and intrigue to back up the action.
   
5. Blade (1998) - Wesley Snipes camps it up in the then-popular black leather trenchcoat, fights Stephen Dorff.
   
6. Howard the Duck (1986) and Dr. Strange (1978) - Two of the strangest Marvel adaptations are tied for the final spot. Though David Hasselhoff's Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD ran a close third. No, not really. Urgh!

If you can tolerate the sound of overweight, overexcited fanboys at the San Diego Comic Con, then the trailer for X-Men Origins: Wolverine is worth checking out. However, I fear the coming of the prospective Silver Surfer film. [via Tony]

Review: The Dark Knight

Batman defers retirement when a maniac with a sense of the sublime begins to wreak holy terror on Gotham City.

Rarely has an action movie full of preposterous characters, feats and action been so heavy hearted. In The Dark Knight, Batman is not the Caped Crusader, but a lonely outsider, burdened by his sense of responsibility and the moral limbo in which that places him.

In fact, while British director Christopher Nolan's first outing, Batman Begins, was gritty, Dark Knight brings an emotional realism and intensity seldom seen in any film, let alone an action movie.

The characters's struggles with the nature of social order and individual freedom, morality, duty and justice, would not be out of place in the Art House.

The film plays with themes and images of duality throughout. Batman has several 'others', such as Gotham's white knight, hotshot DA Harvey Dent, Jim Gordon, Batman's liaison in the civilian world, and of course the chaotic Joker.

At the heart of Dark Knight are compelling turns from Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart, in a cast full of great actors. Ledger's Joker is frighteningly alien and veteran character actor Eckhart, gives a nuanced performance as Dent. And while Christian Bale and Gary Oldman shine, as usual, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Morgan Freeman are underused.

The action scenes and sequences in Dark Knight are markedly improved from Batman Begins. Kinetic, muscular and unmarred by CGI tells, a couple of the set pieces are astonishing. While the film is largely well-paced, at two and a half hours it can hardly avoid a few longeurs.

The most amazing feat is that a Batman film full of references to the War on Terror™ - extraordinary rendition, meticulously-planned acts of terrorism by a villain with a 'higher calling', video footage of terrorist hostages and a hero who must sometimes play a villain etc. - could be made in America, in its current hysterical mood.

It does Nolan credit that he has made a film that goes straight to the essence of the Batman mythos and the American mythos.

Watchmen

Really does look good. Very faithful to the look and feel of the comic. A lot of people dislike the anti-climactic ending of the comic, so it will be interesting to see if the film gives it more impact. You can view a much bigger, clearer trailer here.

Wired has a good article about the Hollywood 'goldrush' for comic properties.

[via Conor]

Review: The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

Earth is caught in the middle of an alien civil war and only Buckaroo Banzai can save the day.


When astrophysicist/ neuroscientist/ samurai/ rockstar Buckaroo Banzai (Peter Weller) succeeds in trans-dimensional travel, a band of fascist aliens (Red Lectroids) exiled on Earth (led by John Lithgow) steal his device to return to the 8th dimension. The good aliens (Black Lectroids) threaten to nuke the Earth to prevent the Reds coming back.

In the course of saving the day, Buckaroo is joined by his fellow band members/ crime fighters, the Hong Kong Cavaliers, and suicidal girlfriend Ellen Barkin.

I love pulp Science Fiction and had heard that this film was a cult classic, but I was hugely disappointed. Droll names, zany complications and references to Thomas Pynchon do not make up for the fact that the storyline is fairly muddled and the film is poorly paced.

In his review of the film, David Kehr of the Chicago Reader gets it spot on when he says 'the film gives you the mildly annoying sensation of being left out of a not very good private joke.'

Veteran Character Actors is GO!

I love veteran character actors. I have a burning passion for them. Now I wish to share that burning sensation with you! Enjoy!

Surreal. Transcendental. Lynch.

Being a big David Lynch fan, naturally I missed his lecture tour visit to Trinity College Dublin, last October.

My friend, Paul, who did manage to go, told me it was a bit weird.
Really! I said. Weird? David Lynch?

Apparently David Lynch was promoting his book - Catching The Big Fish - the work of his foundation and the practice of transcendental meditation in making people and the world happier.

I've just read Catching the Big Fish and I must say that he has written a lovely book.

Although he claims to have no skill with words - and it is plainly written (a little like Thich Nhat Hanh) - Lynch makes some interesting observations about creativity, filmmaking - in general and his own in particular - and the nature of experience.

"I hear stories about directors who scream at actors, or they trick them somehow to get a performance. And there are some people who try to run the whole business on fear. But I think this is such a joke - it’s pathetic and stupid at the same time.

When people are in fear, they don’t want to go to work. So many people today have that feeling. Then the fear starts turning into hate, and they begin to hate going to work. Then the hate can turn into anger and people can become angry at their boss and their work.

If I ran my set with fear, I would get 1 percent, not 100 percent, of what I get. And there would be no fun in going down the road together. And it should be fun. In work and in life, we’re all supposed to get along. We’re supposed to have so much fun, like puppy dogs with our tails wagging. It’s supposed to be great living; it’s supposed to be fantastic.

Instead of instilling fear, if a company offered a way for everyone in the business to dive within - to start expanding energy and intelligence - people would work overtime for free. They would be far more creative. And the company would just leap forward. This is the way it can be. It’s not the way it is, but it could be that way so easily."

This could sound a bit pat from somebody else, but I find it a fascinating into the creative mindset of an uncompromising artist. It really shouldn't be so strange to think that the creator of Eraserhead and Mullholland Drive :

"It’s good for the artist to understand conflict and stress. Those things can give you ideas. But I guarantee you, if you have enough stress, you won’t be able to create. And if you have enough conflict, it will just get in the way of your creativity. You can understand conflict, but you don’t have to live in it.

In stories, in the worlds that we can go into, there’s suffering, confusion, darkness, tension and anger. There are murders; there’s all kinds of stuff. But the filmmaker doesn’t have to be suffering to show suffering. You can show it, show the human condition, show conflicts and contrasts, but you don’t have to go through that yourself. You are the orchstrator of it, but you’re not in it. Let your characters do the suffering.

It’s common sense: the more the artist is suffering, the less creative he is going to be. It’s less likely that he is going to enjoy his work and less likely that he will be able to do really good work…

Some artists believe that anger, depression, or these negative things give them an edge. They think they need to hold onto that anger and fear so they can put it in their work. And they don’t like the idea of getting happy - it makes them want to puke. They think it would make them lose their edge or power…

If you’re an artist, you’ve got to know about anger without being restricted by it. In order to create, you’ve got to have energy; you’ve got to have clarity. You’ve got to be able to catch ideas. You’ve got to be strong enough to fight unbelievable pressure and stress in this world. So it just makes sense to nurture the place where that strength and clarity and energy come from – to dive in and enliven that."

Smax, Zuda and Satrapi

While Watchmen is excellent, I've never been a huge fan of Alan Moore. However, I was very disappointed by Smax, a spin-off from Top 10. I was expecting something with a bit more substance from the great man (although perhaps I ought to have read the original strip). I found Smax smug and fatuous, the characterisation dreadful and the dialogue awful.

To add insult to injury, the artwork by Zander Cannon and Andrew Currie is awful. Cartoony is fine, but this is just bad; loose and poorly detailed, so that characters hardly look the same from one panel to the next.

The net result is that Smax seems self-indulgent and sloppy.

To distract myself from this terrible disappointment, I have turned my attention, at long last, to Marjane Satrapi's Persopolis.

It is quite graphic and stylised, which I like, and proves that comics needn't be fatuous, sexist or stupid to be funny.

I'm also taking some solace in Zuda Comics. DC Comics's web comics imprint has received criticism for its opaque submissions policy, but there's no question that Zuda features some interesting content.