I love George Clooney.
There, I said it. He has a remarkable charisma that seems to be fuelled by one thing: his generel George Clooney-ness. He walks into a film and everything stops for him as if out of respect the world gives a small silence and a brief nod in his direction. I swear any straight guy on the planet, if they were being honest, would admit they have a little crush. However, they will not be able to explain it.
The worst thing is the charm won't stick to the screen. It follows him into the real world making interviews, appearances and photos in the tabloids just as bad a tease than the films.
He is a true classic actor in the style of Cary Grant but invokes so many more. Look at Clooney closely next time and you will see elements of Hollywood in it's prime. I'm sure he is the product of early genetic engineering wherein DNA was removed from every actor in Golden Age Hollywood and dumped into Marylin Monroe. She brought young George to term.
Clooney born 6th May 1961
Monroe died 5th August 1962
Maybe she found out the plan for world domination?!
Kennedy 22nd November 1963
When will it end!?!
Anyhoo, I am pumped to see Men Who Stare At Goats featuring Swooney... (ignore that) as a self proclaimed "Jedi Knight". Based on a true story etc. I would detail the story but other sites get paid to do that 'kay?
'Kay.
The reason for my excitement is Clooney being a comedy genius. He VERY rarely seems to flex his comedy muscles even though humor can be found in the majority of his work. His performances in Coen Brothers movies are the creations of comedy genius.
If you need any evidence that Clooney is the funniest performer in the world then go watch Return Of The Killer Tomatoes...
I stumbled across this film late on Sci-Fi and having nothing to do (Plus the Nudie channels didn't start Freeview for 2 more hours) I decided to sit and bitch about what I already knew: It's a low budget Troma film. What I soon realised was it was also the funniest film ever made. Seriously? Yes. Funnier than Airplane? Yes. The hit and miss ratio of Airplane and the HIT and HIT ratio of Tomatoes just puts the fruit first.
When Clooney appears he is a young big haired 80's kid. You can see the face but it doesn't feel like Dr Ross, almost like some bizarre alternate reality Clooney. This soon falls away when you start seeing the slight facial gestures and ticks that made him huge. He has the majority of the best lines too:
"That's the bravest thing I've ever seen a vegetable do."
Delivered almost perfectly deadpan but with a dash of sarcasm in perfect dosage. For the whole film Clooney seems like he is just there. Like he wandered onto the set and nobody could get rid of him. He seems to do the most ridiculous things that don't seem intentional (even if they were scripted) such as flutter one eye in close ups, repeatedly hold the back of another actor's jacket when playing fear and product placement.
Mike Myers is a hack. Everything he has ever done has been furiously ripped off from something else. The "product placement" scene in Wayne's World was done much better in 1988 - FOUR YEARS before. Watch both scenes and tell me it wasn't ripped off.
Go watch Return Of The Killer Tomatoes. Okay?
They are gardeners and carpenters, they are not tomato men
Tuesday, 29 September 2009
Monday, 28 September 2009
Video Hero and the Quest to clear George Lucas Part 1
I have been putting this off for a while now despite it being one of the main reasons I wanted to start a film blog in the first place. I have an abundance of free time at the moment so here goes.
George Lucas is a visionary genius. No other person in the history of film has come close to matching his achievements and through him we have the cinema we take for granted today. He inspires many. Take Peter Jackson, who's earlier work was very Sam Raimi influenced, who created his own make up and special effects company much like Lucas. He single handedly created MERCHANDISING with the Star Wars toy range and is a pioneer in sound design (THX), special effects (ILM) and Pixar was an early Lucasfilm experiment which gave the world CG animation.
I don't think a single child growing up in the Star Wars era has not felt George Lucas' mark on them. Much as kids today, even if not into the Star Wars saga, are still effected by the films and tv shows that were influenced by Lucas.
The reason I was hesitant to write this blog is simple - it's going to be a long one. I am going to write about MY connection to George Lucas' work and lead up to the later works and my defence of them. So please sit back, get cosy and read about one man and his love of George Lucas.
1977 - the year I was born. A year made popular by the release of Star Wars. My Dad was a huge fan and I remember being bought the action figures from a young age. I can't remember first seeing the movie but remember wishing I was Han Solo. The story is simple - farm boy saves the world - but as a kid I wouldn't have understood the influences Lucas used in his creation of the film. I had NO clue who Kurosawa was and the idea of a Space Western was beyond me. What was creative was how George took old mythology and all these differing influences and put them together in a new and fresh way. I often wonder how he came up with Lightsabres - the single greatest sci-fi creation ever and how all the names of planets and characters were developed. To create such a diverse universe is an incredible feat.
The Empire Strikes Back followed and extended the mythology and the universe. The cliffhanger ending and Darth Vader's bombshell must have been great to see at a young age. I lament that I cannot remember and was probably too young for it to do anything for me as it would be great to have that hit you in the face. The film was praised for it's darker tone and more grown up feel. There is a reason it is a favourite among film-goers and that is that it doesn't force anything at you - it just flows, dragging you into the story. The single best example of this is Yoda. By the time Luke lands on Dagobah you are already suckered in and then, suddenly, there appears a puppet... and you don't realise. Watch any other Star Wars film and you see puppet like moments that break the reality a little. In Empire it was perfect.
Return Of The Jedi was a bit lacklustre. After perfection it is difficult to get rallied into a sequel that starts very slow and very boring and never quite picks up the pace. Oddly ROTJ features the best moments in the saga, namely the Sarlacc Pit sequence and the final race to the Death Star core. I guess that is something that bothered me - a second Death Star just seemed like they had nowhere else to go. How dumb would the Empire be to say "Let's build another. Lightning never strikes twice in the...." BOOOMMM!
Now I'm going to jump ahead a bit and zip straight to The Phantom Menace. I was a wreck when this film was released in 99. A girl I loved had left me and I was living alone in a crummy flat. I had started drinking heavily and whenever someone mentioned Episode 1 I would just stare back and say "It's only a movie for god's sake!" as I sat in my own misery.
I almost didn't get a ticket for the first night showing until a friend said he'd already got me one. So I picked myself up and went along to see the film I had waited years to see but didn't care about. And then a couple of hours later I left the cinema renewed with a smile on my face and a sense of giddiness about the future. The experience started when the opening blurb - A long time ago etc - popped onto the screen and the entire cinema ripped up in applause. It was a perfect moment with a couple of hundred other people all excited to see this film, something I haven't felt since. As for the movie? I liked it and I have watched it a few more times. It isn't like it was with the original trilogy especially as I am not a kid anymore. If this film had been released in 77 I would have loved it as much then as I do the originals but sadly not many others shared my feelings. Kids turn into adults and don't realise that the things we loved as kids are not the same. Anyone who has watched an old 80's genre show thinking I can't believe I used to watch this crap knows this. As a filmgoer The Phantom Menace was a great film but as a Star Wars fan it could never equate to the classics... nothing could. As I sit here now I haven't watched Star Wars in years... they just don't bother me anymore. The saddest thing I ever started hearing was "George Lucas raped my childhood". It was a pathetic display that if a movie can ruin your youth then maybe you WERE raped in your childhood and your love of Star Wars helped block the memories.
At this point I started becoming very disillusioned with fandom. The nerds were attacking this film like crazy and Simon Pegg even dedicated a whole episode of Spaced to the one joke of "Phantom Menace sucked". I didn't understand and, once agin, I found myself in a minority of fans. This got worse with the announcement of Attack Of The Clones where everybody who complained about Episode 1 dragged up the old, tired criticisms and laid them on the announcement. "Will Jar Jar ruin this one?", "Let's hope George isn't directing.." among others. This new culture of Internerds were scathing and viscious attacking, not only the film, but Lucas himself. The attacks were personal and professional even going as far as to mock his appearance. It was shameful, cowardly and horrific to read some of the posts at the time. Hopefully Attack Of The Clones would put this to bed....
It didn't. The movie was attacked again. These 2 films took a fortune at the Box Office and sold millions of action figures and toys so it was obvious kids liked them. Maybe I was just a big kid but I liked them too. Clones has some impressive moments and watching Anakin's attack on the Sandpeople is sooo shocking. It seems a line was added to the DVD release after the attack where Anakin states "I'm a Jedi. I'm supposed to be better than this", which struck me at the time. He can't control his anger but knows it's wrong - something I could relate to in my life.
I remember vividly getting to the Yoda fight scene. The entire cinema felt a collected nervous twinge as we knew what was about to happen. Then a sigh of relief when it turned out to be awesome. The sound design in the asteroid scene was also a personal highlight where all sound dropped at the moment the bombs exploded to be followed by a loud TWANG!! sound.
None of the fans held out hope for Revenge of the Sith. They again began hate campaigning against Lucas and the new Star Wars trilogy. Fans would write "He doesn't listen to us, he doesn't care for the fans", well would you? If my fan base were a bunch of petty, whining little brats I would switch them off.
George Lucas is a creator - THE creator of the SW saga and therefore is entitled to do whatever he wants with his franchise. When he announced the re-release of the original films with updated effects and sound I was interested to see what would be done. Like I said the original trilogy has sat around stagnant in my film collection and, honestly, could use something in there to pep them up a bit. New dynamic effects shots and some very crafty background additions really sold me back into these films. The fans hated it. I loved it. Typical.
Then George tinkered with them again for the DVD release and, once more, added a few additional touches. At some point I will list the changes in a blog and why I like them but I'll leave it at this for now.
So Revenge of the Sith was released and actually got some pretty good critical acclaim. People said that the film was an improvement on the previous films but many still had some issues. I was no exception - dying of a broken heart? However, this and a couple of other very small things didn't take away from the film. I cried at the end when Obi-Wan leaves his friend to burn - it was well written and superbly acted. The final fight leading up to it was a showstopper too. A flurry of blades in a climactic showdown we'd been waiting to see forever.
Plus with the release of this film - the saga was finished. I rewatched all the movies and realised something special. The entire Star Wars saga is the story of redemption of ONE MAN'S SOUL! How monumentally mind-blowingly awesome is that!
Everything in the entire trilogy was about Anakin Skywalker. The political maschinations of The Phantom Menace to the (NOW) tragic sacrifice for his son in Return Of The Jedi were all there to serve the story. SO The Phantom Menace is now THE ONLY WAY to have started the saga and all those who criticised it were wrong. George Lucas wanted to write this tale and did so with aplomb but the only problem was people liked it TOO MUCH!!
So who is the real villain in this piece? Not George Lucas but a group of nerds who couldn't see the saga for what it was: a 12 hour, almost Shakespearean in effort, tale of a man who does wrong beyond his control, pays the price and, almost too late, realises he must fulfill the destiny he was born for.
That is the reason cinema was created... and why George Lucas must be thanked for recreating it.
NEXT UP: Part 2 - Indiana Jones and the Whining Critics of Doom
George Lucas is a visionary genius. No other person in the history of film has come close to matching his achievements and through him we have the cinema we take for granted today. He inspires many. Take Peter Jackson, who's earlier work was very Sam Raimi influenced, who created his own make up and special effects company much like Lucas. He single handedly created MERCHANDISING with the Star Wars toy range and is a pioneer in sound design (THX), special effects (ILM) and Pixar was an early Lucasfilm experiment which gave the world CG animation.
I don't think a single child growing up in the Star Wars era has not felt George Lucas' mark on them. Much as kids today, even if not into the Star Wars saga, are still effected by the films and tv shows that were influenced by Lucas.
The reason I was hesitant to write this blog is simple - it's going to be a long one. I am going to write about MY connection to George Lucas' work and lead up to the later works and my defence of them. So please sit back, get cosy and read about one man and his love of George Lucas.
1977 - the year I was born. A year made popular by the release of Star Wars. My Dad was a huge fan and I remember being bought the action figures from a young age. I can't remember first seeing the movie but remember wishing I was Han Solo. The story is simple - farm boy saves the world - but as a kid I wouldn't have understood the influences Lucas used in his creation of the film. I had NO clue who Kurosawa was and the idea of a Space Western was beyond me. What was creative was how George took old mythology and all these differing influences and put them together in a new and fresh way. I often wonder how he came up with Lightsabres - the single greatest sci-fi creation ever and how all the names of planets and characters were developed. To create such a diverse universe is an incredible feat.
The Empire Strikes Back followed and extended the mythology and the universe. The cliffhanger ending and Darth Vader's bombshell must have been great to see at a young age. I lament that I cannot remember and was probably too young for it to do anything for me as it would be great to have that hit you in the face. The film was praised for it's darker tone and more grown up feel. There is a reason it is a favourite among film-goers and that is that it doesn't force anything at you - it just flows, dragging you into the story. The single best example of this is Yoda. By the time Luke lands on Dagobah you are already suckered in and then, suddenly, there appears a puppet... and you don't realise. Watch any other Star Wars film and you see puppet like moments that break the reality a little. In Empire it was perfect.
Return Of The Jedi was a bit lacklustre. After perfection it is difficult to get rallied into a sequel that starts very slow and very boring and never quite picks up the pace. Oddly ROTJ features the best moments in the saga, namely the Sarlacc Pit sequence and the final race to the Death Star core. I guess that is something that bothered me - a second Death Star just seemed like they had nowhere else to go. How dumb would the Empire be to say "Let's build another. Lightning never strikes twice in the...." BOOOMMM!
Now I'm going to jump ahead a bit and zip straight to The Phantom Menace. I was a wreck when this film was released in 99. A girl I loved had left me and I was living alone in a crummy flat. I had started drinking heavily and whenever someone mentioned Episode 1 I would just stare back and say "It's only a movie for god's sake!" as I sat in my own misery.
I almost didn't get a ticket for the first night showing until a friend said he'd already got me one. So I picked myself up and went along to see the film I had waited years to see but didn't care about. And then a couple of hours later I left the cinema renewed with a smile on my face and a sense of giddiness about the future. The experience started when the opening blurb - A long time ago etc - popped onto the screen and the entire cinema ripped up in applause. It was a perfect moment with a couple of hundred other people all excited to see this film, something I haven't felt since. As for the movie? I liked it and I have watched it a few more times. It isn't like it was with the original trilogy especially as I am not a kid anymore. If this film had been released in 77 I would have loved it as much then as I do the originals but sadly not many others shared my feelings. Kids turn into adults and don't realise that the things we loved as kids are not the same. Anyone who has watched an old 80's genre show thinking I can't believe I used to watch this crap knows this. As a filmgoer The Phantom Menace was a great film but as a Star Wars fan it could never equate to the classics... nothing could. As I sit here now I haven't watched Star Wars in years... they just don't bother me anymore. The saddest thing I ever started hearing was "George Lucas raped my childhood". It was a pathetic display that if a movie can ruin your youth then maybe you WERE raped in your childhood and your love of Star Wars helped block the memories.
At this point I started becoming very disillusioned with fandom. The nerds were attacking this film like crazy and Simon Pegg even dedicated a whole episode of Spaced to the one joke of "Phantom Menace sucked". I didn't understand and, once agin, I found myself in a minority of fans. This got worse with the announcement of Attack Of The Clones where everybody who complained about Episode 1 dragged up the old, tired criticisms and laid them on the announcement. "Will Jar Jar ruin this one?", "Let's hope George isn't directing.." among others. This new culture of Internerds were scathing and viscious attacking, not only the film, but Lucas himself. The attacks were personal and professional even going as far as to mock his appearance. It was shameful, cowardly and horrific to read some of the posts at the time. Hopefully Attack Of The Clones would put this to bed....
It didn't. The movie was attacked again. These 2 films took a fortune at the Box Office and sold millions of action figures and toys so it was obvious kids liked them. Maybe I was just a big kid but I liked them too. Clones has some impressive moments and watching Anakin's attack on the Sandpeople is sooo shocking. It seems a line was added to the DVD release after the attack where Anakin states "I'm a Jedi. I'm supposed to be better than this", which struck me at the time. He can't control his anger but knows it's wrong - something I could relate to in my life.
I remember vividly getting to the Yoda fight scene. The entire cinema felt a collected nervous twinge as we knew what was about to happen. Then a sigh of relief when it turned out to be awesome. The sound design in the asteroid scene was also a personal highlight where all sound dropped at the moment the bombs exploded to be followed by a loud TWANG!! sound.
None of the fans held out hope for Revenge of the Sith. They again began hate campaigning against Lucas and the new Star Wars trilogy. Fans would write "He doesn't listen to us, he doesn't care for the fans", well would you? If my fan base were a bunch of petty, whining little brats I would switch them off.
George Lucas is a creator - THE creator of the SW saga and therefore is entitled to do whatever he wants with his franchise. When he announced the re-release of the original films with updated effects and sound I was interested to see what would be done. Like I said the original trilogy has sat around stagnant in my film collection and, honestly, could use something in there to pep them up a bit. New dynamic effects shots and some very crafty background additions really sold me back into these films. The fans hated it. I loved it. Typical.
Then George tinkered with them again for the DVD release and, once more, added a few additional touches. At some point I will list the changes in a blog and why I like them but I'll leave it at this for now.
So Revenge of the Sith was released and actually got some pretty good critical acclaim. People said that the film was an improvement on the previous films but many still had some issues. I was no exception - dying of a broken heart? However, this and a couple of other very small things didn't take away from the film. I cried at the end when Obi-Wan leaves his friend to burn - it was well written and superbly acted. The final fight leading up to it was a showstopper too. A flurry of blades in a climactic showdown we'd been waiting to see forever.
Plus with the release of this film - the saga was finished. I rewatched all the movies and realised something special. The entire Star Wars saga is the story of redemption of ONE MAN'S SOUL! How monumentally mind-blowingly awesome is that!
Everything in the entire trilogy was about Anakin Skywalker. The political maschinations of The Phantom Menace to the (NOW) tragic sacrifice for his son in Return Of The Jedi were all there to serve the story. SO The Phantom Menace is now THE ONLY WAY to have started the saga and all those who criticised it were wrong. George Lucas wanted to write this tale and did so with aplomb but the only problem was people liked it TOO MUCH!!
So who is the real villain in this piece? Not George Lucas but a group of nerds who couldn't see the saga for what it was: a 12 hour, almost Shakespearean in effort, tale of a man who does wrong beyond his control, pays the price and, almost too late, realises he must fulfill the destiny he was born for.
That is the reason cinema was created... and why George Lucas must be thanked for recreating it.
NEXT UP: Part 2 - Indiana Jones and the Whining Critics of Doom
Sunday, 27 September 2009
George A Romero
I have just read a review of "Survival Of The Dead", the new Zombie movie from George Romero. It was bad.
I am a fan and in true HollywoodRant fashion I shall begin talking about one thing and turn it into a list of something else.
Night Of The Living Dead was brilliant. Duane Jones as Ben is the best actor in a horror movie ever putting more emotion into a horror movie role I have ever witnessed. The story starts small and finishes slightly smaller with a sour ending that sticks in your gullet. Karl Hardman is also great as the asshole Harry Cooper (looking too much like Rob Corddry though) who is always one step from war with Ben. Given the belief these days that HORROR=GORE it is refreshing to see this black and white film being scarier than all modern zombie films.
Dawn Of The Dead is the favourite of many including me. I think it's as is said in the film: "This was an important place for them" and as you watch the film you almost feel you are IN the mall. We have all had to negotiate a busy shopping precinct - just imagine if the ignorant shoppers really were zombies! In all this film also adds scope and makes the zompocolypse seem real and BIG which is something I haven't felt with any other zombie film.
Day Of The Dead was the one I didn't like originally. Too much talk and not enough meat. Looking back it has the worst acting of the series and despite the natural astounding location it looks terrible. The lighting is off and what could've looked vast and epic looks tiny and dull. Viewed as an adult though it shines in terms of character. Plus Joseph Pilato... I love him.
The Zombie genre vanished for a while and just as I started to plan on resurrecting the Zombie film there was suddenly a slew of Undead films being released. One of those a Romero movie.
Land Of The Dead was hugely anticipated but attacked by critics and fans. The Romero films always had bad acting and poor dialogue (mostly poor due to delivery) but in the new age people were not prepared to give any leeway. This was a shame as Land is actually quite good and something new in the genre (which Romero created by the way?) and the next film I am planning to watch.
Diary of the Dead was the last outing for the Romero Zombies.I saw Cloverfield on DVD and Diary at the cinema - I still feel I made the right choice. It was smart, well shot and used the modern online media angle very well. In all honesty, like the other films, it is a Romero Zombie movie and, thus, is great.
I cannot wait until Survival... even though I know I will be in the minority once more.
I am a fan and in true HollywoodRant fashion I shall begin talking about one thing and turn it into a list of something else.
Night Of The Living Dead was brilliant. Duane Jones as Ben is the best actor in a horror movie ever putting more emotion into a horror movie role I have ever witnessed. The story starts small and finishes slightly smaller with a sour ending that sticks in your gullet. Karl Hardman is also great as the asshole Harry Cooper (looking too much like Rob Corddry though) who is always one step from war with Ben. Given the belief these days that HORROR=GORE it is refreshing to see this black and white film being scarier than all modern zombie films.
Dawn Of The Dead is the favourite of many including me. I think it's as is said in the film: "This was an important place for them" and as you watch the film you almost feel you are IN the mall. We have all had to negotiate a busy shopping precinct - just imagine if the ignorant shoppers really were zombies! In all this film also adds scope and makes the zompocolypse seem real and BIG which is something I haven't felt with any other zombie film.
Day Of The Dead was the one I didn't like originally. Too much talk and not enough meat. Looking back it has the worst acting of the series and despite the natural astounding location it looks terrible. The lighting is off and what could've looked vast and epic looks tiny and dull. Viewed as an adult though it shines in terms of character. Plus Joseph Pilato... I love him.
The Zombie genre vanished for a while and just as I started to plan on resurrecting the Zombie film there was suddenly a slew of Undead films being released. One of those a Romero movie.
Land Of The Dead was hugely anticipated but attacked by critics and fans. The Romero films always had bad acting and poor dialogue (mostly poor due to delivery) but in the new age people were not prepared to give any leeway. This was a shame as Land is actually quite good and something new in the genre (which Romero created by the way?) and the next film I am planning to watch.
Diary of the Dead was the last outing for the Romero Zombies.I saw Cloverfield on DVD and Diary at the cinema - I still feel I made the right choice. It was smart, well shot and used the modern online media angle very well. In all honesty, like the other films, it is a Romero Zombie movie and, thus, is great.
I cannot wait until Survival... even though I know I will be in the minority once more.
Double Whammy - The Cinema Snob
Yup 2 posts in one day. Maybe going for 3.
Look reader, I don't know why you are here or how you got here (from my view count I don't even think you are here) but I want you to tell your friends about me. Get me noticed as it were. This is not for me but a truly selfless act....
I want to tell as many people as I can about The Cinema Snob.
He's a character created and portrayed by Brad Jones in a series of review videos that got him banned from Youtube so he started his own site - http://www.thecinemasnob.com/.
I stumbled across him in passing and immediately became hooked. I watched all his videos in one day and rewatched them recently. He scrapes the bottom of the barrel in cinema and vents his anger and frustration at them for 6 to 10 minutes a video. The catch is, unlike other internet reviewers, the films he watches are never mainstream - they are the worst kind of cheap crap and he skewers them brilliantly.
I recently emailed Brad and poured praise all over his genius. Within a day he fired back a response (and not a one word short response) which cemented him as a great guy and one of the most knowledgable film guys out there.
I have a common nitpick with reviewers - they find it too easy to leap onto a bandwagon. Case in point: Gigli (I am so In Defence Of Drossing this movie) which wasn't the cinematic face rape everyone made out. The Indiana Jones 4 debacle is another - a good film which stands up well as entertaining, fun and inkeeping with the rest of the films (if anything Last Crusade is the worst).
So I mentioned it and, whereas I won't mention his reply, he GOT exactly what my own thoughts on the film were.
The Cinema Snob is almost what I set out to do with this blog but 100 times better.
So, in closing, GO check out The Cinema Snob. If you love film you owe it to yourself to.
Also I want Brad Jones to be my best friend. Just saying.
Look reader, I don't know why you are here or how you got here (from my view count I don't even think you are here) but I want you to tell your friends about me. Get me noticed as it were. This is not for me but a truly selfless act....
I want to tell as many people as I can about The Cinema Snob.
He's a character created and portrayed by Brad Jones in a series of review videos that got him banned from Youtube so he started his own site - http://www.thecinemasnob.com/.
I stumbled across him in passing and immediately became hooked. I watched all his videos in one day and rewatched them recently. He scrapes the bottom of the barrel in cinema and vents his anger and frustration at them for 6 to 10 minutes a video. The catch is, unlike other internet reviewers, the films he watches are never mainstream - they are the worst kind of cheap crap and he skewers them brilliantly.
I recently emailed Brad and poured praise all over his genius. Within a day he fired back a response (and not a one word short response) which cemented him as a great guy and one of the most knowledgable film guys out there.
I have a common nitpick with reviewers - they find it too easy to leap onto a bandwagon. Case in point: Gigli (I am so In Defence Of Drossing this movie) which wasn't the cinematic face rape everyone made out. The Indiana Jones 4 debacle is another - a good film which stands up well as entertaining, fun and inkeeping with the rest of the films (if anything Last Crusade is the worst).
So I mentioned it and, whereas I won't mention his reply, he GOT exactly what my own thoughts on the film were.
The Cinema Snob is almost what I set out to do with this blog but 100 times better.
So, in closing, GO check out The Cinema Snob. If you love film you owe it to yourself to.
Also I want Brad Jones to be my best friend. Just saying.
Platinum Dunes - A Nightmare On Elm Street
I frequent a Nightmare On Elm Street forum... I'm not proud of it. Forums are the depths of the world of fandom full of semi literate people who are SO obsessed with ONE THING. They blindly fly off the handle at the slightest mention of anything that dares poke at the delicate frame of mind they exist in.
Case in point: Platinum Dunes.
Platinum Dunes is a film production company spearheaded by Michael Bay. It's sole purpose is to remake 80's horror movies for a modern day audience. Now as we know I am not a complainer in the world of remakes - they exist and I have absolutely NO WAY of influencing the Hollywood game - yet in the wilderness exist a pocket of people so deluded they believe whining can actually do something.
It can't. It never will.
In 2010 Platinum Dunes will release A Nightmare On Elm Street. The film is practically in the can and the trailer goes live tonight. It is unstoppable. Yet, here on http://nightmareonelmstreetfilms.com/forum/index.php you will find a bunch of people who still live in denial.
Forum topics exist on such subjects as "They have to use the ORIGINAL HOUSE" and "They have to use the ORIGINAL MUSIC" - note: they don't.
One smart reply stated:
"It better be the original house and it better be decorated EXACTLY as it was in the first one. The script should be the EXACT same one they used too. In fact get all the original actors to reprise their roles and use the same music too. In fact they should use the old footage that was filmed in 83 or 84 and re-edit it EXACTLY how it was. Then they should release it and call it Nightmare On Elm Street"
They then continued later with an interesting point:
"Isn't it better they do their own thing. This isn't a sequel - it's a remake and therefore aside from storyline and select characters nothing should be the same. It's okay to say "Platinum Dunes are hacks and don't do anything creative" but then complain when they DO creative things like NOT use the same house, music, filming locations etc. It boggles the mind. Why should PD have to cater to a crowd that instantly dismisses everything they do yet will blow their money on it when it hits theatres? If I were them I would be sat in a big office surrounded by bags of money laughing my ass off."
Which is my EXACT point on remakes. Unless you are going to alter the story and do something new then WHY the hell would they repeat the same things? I for one DO NOT want to put down a hard earned £6 at the box office to watch something I can sit at home and get for FREE!
When PD announced it's remake of Friday the 13th I was quite jazzed. I own all the F13 movies and can safely say the only good one is part 6. The final part of the original franchise was set in space and many people stated the same thing - this franchise is now dead because after taking the character to space, in the future no less, there is nowhere to go. Any continuance would be set in the future with the uber Jason killer and as such be redundant.
The ONLY possible option left? Reboot.
Now look at Nightmare On Elm Street as a franchise. The first part is good. Very good. Bordering on genius in terms of character, story etc. The second one (I recently rewatched) was a sharp, smart sequel that gave audiences more of the first. It was dark and twisted and has so many insanely obvious metaphors for young homosexuality it has to be seen to be believed. The third was once a favourite. In the days when I just watched movies I loved every aspect of it.
The freshness and extension of the dream mythos was the perfect route for the franchise and Freddy started his one liners that turned him into a truly remarkable beast - a killer who made fun of you while he killed you. Now, as a surly failed screenwriter, I pick films apart and Elm Street 3 is fodder for the beast. It started the "Bastard son of 100 maniacs" angle - like Rob Zombie's Halloween it started giving us MORE info on why Freddy was who he was. I find in MANY cases the simple facts are the more powerful - Freddy was a child (molester*) who was burned to death by a hate mob - perfect! Also the one liners... Freddy was HUGE when I was a kid and like most kids I loved him. Wether this was due to my own insecurities and being a bullied kid I dunno but he was that guy nobody could mess with. Except he was a CHILD (MOLESTER*)!!! We NEVER should have been given the option to relate, feel or side with Freddy ever.
Elm Street 4 was the bridge between the last kids from Elm Street and the new kids in town. At this point the acting quality dropped sharper than Freddy's wit and the "kid's" became more and more stereotypical. It also introduced something else which annoyed me - when we first see a kid we are immediately introduced to an element about them which will become their death. So if a character is noted as being afraid of bugs then, lo and behold, Freddy makes them a bug - a character who is bulemic? Well they will be fed to death! So obvious and so lame. Part 4 tried and failed to be anything more than entertaining and an unwatched DVD in my boxset.
This goes for 5 too. Dream Child could've been more but there is a tonal shift with the rest of the series. It tries to be gothic and comes off as cheap... very cheap... and did I mention dull? It also has THE worst character in the series - Yvonne. She cannot act and she is written as such a bitch (unintentionally of course, I think we are supposed to like her or something) that I grind my teeth at the sight of her. Also Mark... Mark is a dickhead who I would punch if I ever met him.
Maybe this was intentional as part of the making Freddy likable and the hero of the series? I have never understood why the protagonists in horror ARE so fundementaly unlikable and it seems to be getting worse. I watched The Hills Run Red last night and out of the 3 main characters only one (the Guy) was passable. His girlfriend was cheating on him with his best friend in the first 10 minutes - then I'm supposed to care about them!
Freddy's Dead was the end. The only thing they could do was bang on a shitty 3D ending. It didn't work and is apparently the lowest taking Elm Street movie. They killed him. He was dead and gone forever...
I DO NOT and WILL NOT include Wes Craven's New Nightmare in this list. It is a work of genius and shouldn't be thrown in with the others.
The character of Freddy ran out of steam once the pulled him from the shadows and shone light in his (eventually non gory) burnt face. There is nowhere to take the character anymore.
Except... Reboot?
*Molester in brackets as I had always believed Freddy to be a molester of kids. Wes Craven apparently rewrote molester to murderer in the wake of recent molestor news. Fair enough.
Case in point: Platinum Dunes.
Platinum Dunes is a film production company spearheaded by Michael Bay. It's sole purpose is to remake 80's horror movies for a modern day audience. Now as we know I am not a complainer in the world of remakes - they exist and I have absolutely NO WAY of influencing the Hollywood game - yet in the wilderness exist a pocket of people so deluded they believe whining can actually do something.
It can't. It never will.
In 2010 Platinum Dunes will release A Nightmare On Elm Street. The film is practically in the can and the trailer goes live tonight. It is unstoppable. Yet, here on http://nightmareonelmstreetfilms.com/forum/index.php you will find a bunch of people who still live in denial.
Forum topics exist on such subjects as "They have to use the ORIGINAL HOUSE" and "They have to use the ORIGINAL MUSIC" - note: they don't.
One smart reply stated:
"It better be the original house and it better be decorated EXACTLY as it was in the first one. The script should be the EXACT same one they used too. In fact get all the original actors to reprise their roles and use the same music too. In fact they should use the old footage that was filmed in 83 or 84 and re-edit it EXACTLY how it was. Then they should release it and call it Nightmare On Elm Street"
They then continued later with an interesting point:
"Isn't it better they do their own thing. This isn't a sequel - it's a remake and therefore aside from storyline and select characters nothing should be the same. It's okay to say "Platinum Dunes are hacks and don't do anything creative" but then complain when they DO creative things like NOT use the same house, music, filming locations etc. It boggles the mind. Why should PD have to cater to a crowd that instantly dismisses everything they do yet will blow their money on it when it hits theatres? If I were them I would be sat in a big office surrounded by bags of money laughing my ass off."
Which is my EXACT point on remakes. Unless you are going to alter the story and do something new then WHY the hell would they repeat the same things? I for one DO NOT want to put down a hard earned £6 at the box office to watch something I can sit at home and get for FREE!
When PD announced it's remake of Friday the 13th I was quite jazzed. I own all the F13 movies and can safely say the only good one is part 6. The final part of the original franchise was set in space and many people stated the same thing - this franchise is now dead because after taking the character to space, in the future no less, there is nowhere to go. Any continuance would be set in the future with the uber Jason killer and as such be redundant.
The ONLY possible option left? Reboot.
Now look at Nightmare On Elm Street as a franchise. The first part is good. Very good. Bordering on genius in terms of character, story etc. The second one (I recently rewatched) was a sharp, smart sequel that gave audiences more of the first. It was dark and twisted and has so many insanely obvious metaphors for young homosexuality it has to be seen to be believed. The third was once a favourite. In the days when I just watched movies I loved every aspect of it.
The freshness and extension of the dream mythos was the perfect route for the franchise and Freddy started his one liners that turned him into a truly remarkable beast - a killer who made fun of you while he killed you. Now, as a surly failed screenwriter, I pick films apart and Elm Street 3 is fodder for the beast. It started the "Bastard son of 100 maniacs" angle - like Rob Zombie's Halloween it started giving us MORE info on why Freddy was who he was. I find in MANY cases the simple facts are the more powerful - Freddy was a child (molester*) who was burned to death by a hate mob - perfect! Also the one liners... Freddy was HUGE when I was a kid and like most kids I loved him. Wether this was due to my own insecurities and being a bullied kid I dunno but he was that guy nobody could mess with. Except he was a CHILD (MOLESTER*)!!! We NEVER should have been given the option to relate, feel or side with Freddy ever.
Elm Street 4 was the bridge between the last kids from Elm Street and the new kids in town. At this point the acting quality dropped sharper than Freddy's wit and the "kid's" became more and more stereotypical. It also introduced something else which annoyed me - when we first see a kid we are immediately introduced to an element about them which will become their death. So if a character is noted as being afraid of bugs then, lo and behold, Freddy makes them a bug - a character who is bulemic? Well they will be fed to death! So obvious and so lame. Part 4 tried and failed to be anything more than entertaining and an unwatched DVD in my boxset.
This goes for 5 too. Dream Child could've been more but there is a tonal shift with the rest of the series. It tries to be gothic and comes off as cheap... very cheap... and did I mention dull? It also has THE worst character in the series - Yvonne. She cannot act and she is written as such a bitch (unintentionally of course, I think we are supposed to like her or something) that I grind my teeth at the sight of her. Also Mark... Mark is a dickhead who I would punch if I ever met him.
Maybe this was intentional as part of the making Freddy likable and the hero of the series? I have never understood why the protagonists in horror ARE so fundementaly unlikable and it seems to be getting worse. I watched The Hills Run Red last night and out of the 3 main characters only one (the Guy) was passable. His girlfriend was cheating on him with his best friend in the first 10 minutes - then I'm supposed to care about them!
Freddy's Dead was the end. The only thing they could do was bang on a shitty 3D ending. It didn't work and is apparently the lowest taking Elm Street movie. They killed him. He was dead and gone forever...
I DO NOT and WILL NOT include Wes Craven's New Nightmare in this list. It is a work of genius and shouldn't be thrown in with the others.
The character of Freddy ran out of steam once the pulled him from the shadows and shone light in his (eventually non gory) burnt face. There is nowhere to take the character anymore.
Except... Reboot?
*Molester in brackets as I had always believed Freddy to be a molester of kids. Wes Craven apparently rewrote molester to murderer in the wake of recent molestor news. Fair enough.
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