A couple of articles that have caught my eye here in the gloaming of a Friday afternoon:
Dec152006
Film Studies
Dec082006
Mary Really is Scary, and The Fonz is a God!
So, if that trailer the other day wasn’t enough to convince you that there’s something deeply disturbing about Mary Poppins, perhaps this will do the trick: it’s a lengthy essay that details all the ways in which the 1964 “children’s” film fulfills all three dynamics that typically characterize horror films. (The average horror film is usually predicated on only one of these dynamics, so Mary must be extra horrific!) Consider:
Dec082006
The Return of an Old Favorite
Although most of my all-time favorite movies are natural choices for someone of my generation — i.e., they were made during my childhood and adolescence in the ’70s and ’80 — I also have a great deal of affection for movies that pre-date me, often by decades. I guess I’m kind of unusual in that regard; I’ve met a lot of people who have no tolerance for old movies, “old” being a highly subjective definition, of course. (I know of one guy who flatly refuses to watch anything that was made more than five years ago, even if it’s something he saw and enjoyed a mere ten years ago. Yeah, I don’t get it either.) Personally, though, I’ve never seen much difference between “old” and “new” movies, aside from the obvious stylistic and technological details. Movies are movies, in my book, and they’re either effective and enjoyable or they’re not.
Dec062006
Scary Mary
Remember that fake movie trailer that was all the rage a year or so back, the one that made The Shining look like a romantic comedy? If you enjoyed that one, check out Mary Poppins re-done as a horror film:
Just more evidence of how powerful editing and music can be…
Nov292006
The Most Overrated Movies of All Time
Uh-oh, it’s another blog post commenting on somebody else’s arbitrary list of movies that share a particular subjective designation. Specifically, we’re talking about Premiere magazine’s 20 Most Overrated Movies of All Time. Naturally, I disagree with a number of the selections. I’ll save you the discomfort of exeriencing the interface at the end of that Premiere link — it’s one of those sucky click-through-one-at-a-time pop-up dealies, rather than a straightforward page of text — by running down the the list here:
Nov242006
The Top 10 Movie Spaceships
Another Turkey Day is past, the trytophan slept off with nary a trace of hangover, and I’ve just had a slice of apple pie for breakfast. Yummy. I’m now ready to set off on our next blogging adventure, a journey that will take us deep, deep into the very heart of blackest geekdom. Don’t be afraid, though. I’ve got a flashlight, and a good blaster at my side. And it’s definitely not set for stun.
(Hm. Here’s a random thought: do all blaster-type weapons in the Star Wars universe have a stun setting? Or do Imperial troops have some kind of special crowd-control blasters? Inquiring minds want to know, Uncle George!)
Anyway, I saw earlier this week that a web site called FilmCritic.com had posted a list of the Top 10 Movie Spaceships as determined by the site’s editorial staff. The criteria used to determine “topness” were vague, consisting mostly of which examples struck the editors as “awesome.” However, awesomeness is in the eye of the beholder, so naturally I have a few quibbles with their selections. To begin, here is their list:
Nov202006
An Announcement from Peter Jackson
Bad news for Tolkien fans: Peter Jackson won’t be making a live-action film version of The Hobbit after all. Following the stunning financial and artistic success of his Lord of the Rings films, I think everyone just assumed that any further cinematic adventures in Middle-Earth would naturally be Jackson’s babies as well. Now, however, New Line Cinema has decided to look for another director to do the Hobbit film and possibly a second LOTR prequel as well (whatever that may be). The breaking point, not surprisingly, was over money, specifically a lawsuit Jackson’s company brought against New Line concerning the profits from The Fellowship of the Ring. (Basically, Jackson feels he didn’t get what he was owed due to some dicey and/or shady accounting practices on the part of New Line.) New Line apparently hoped it could bluff him into dropping the suit, using The Hobbit as its bet. Jackson called the studio’s hand, the film deal is off, and the lawsuit continues. You can read Jackson’s complete statement on this matter here.
I’m not exactly a Peter Jackson partisan and I know this sort of thing happens all the time in Hollywood, but it would have been lovely, if a Hobbit film was inevitable, to have it blend seamlessly with the existing LOTR films. That’s still a possibility, but I think the odds of it happening have just gotten much, much longer. More likely we’re going to have a version of The Hobbit that complements Jackon’s trilogy about as well as that bombastic MTV schlock-o-rama version of Anne Rice’s Queen of the Damned fits with Neil Jordan’s elegant adapation of Interview with the Vampire. C’est la vie, I suppose…
Nov102006
Browsing with Celebrities
So where would you expect to see a genuine movie and television star here in little old Salt Lake City? A fine restaurant, perhaps? Maybe a private club? (FYI for the out-of-towners: that’s what the rest of the country would call a bar or a nightclub. It’s a long story…) How about browsing postcards in your favorite neighborhood bookstore?
I walked over to Sam Weller’s on my lunch hour today, as I often do, and this is who I spotted not three steps inside the front door:
Nov062006
Cheeta Lives!
Huh… here’s an interesting factoid I’ve just run across: it seems that Cheeta, the chimpanzee who co-starred with Johnny Weissmuller in all those Tarzan movies of the 1930s and ’40s, is still alive. Now 74 years old, he holds the Guinness World Record for the oldest known (non-human) primate. He lives in an animal sanctuary that bears his name and a mission to “provide residence, care, and rehabilitation for homeless or unwanted ex-show business primates.” Much like Norma Desmond, the retired ape reportedly passes his time watching his old films and painting. Yes, painting. As in art. You can even buy one of his canvases, if you so desire. The money goes to support the sanctuary.
I don’t know why, but I find this story positively charming…
Nov032006
How Far We’ve Come
Last weekend, I watched one of my favorite old movies, The Guns of Navarone. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend that you immediately add it to your Netflix queue. It’s a 1961 wartime adventure starring Gregory Peck, David Niven, and Anthony Quinn as commandoes tasked with destroying a Nazi artillery emplacement that guards a vital sea passage.
As the cliche says, they don’t make ’em like this anymore. War movies these days, on the rare occasion that somebody actually makes one, tend to be self-important, self-conscious, and burdened with the need to say Something Important. Guns isn’t like that; it takes its subject matter seriously enough, even allowing David Niven’s character to make a couple speeches about the pointlessness and horror of it all, but the film’s overarching goal is to entertain, not to enlighten, and it succeeds wonderfully in that regard.
I did notice something on this latest viewing that’s had me thinking, though.