I had great plans this weekend to Christmas shop and wrap presents and write more Blogs and then TNT decided to torture me by running a marathon of ALL 3 Lord Of The Rings movies. That put an end to everything short of minimal life support activities. If I could have hooked up an IV while watching for 12 hours I would have. The movies are so hypnotically gorgeous how can you not watch it. So much has been written over time about this story there really isn't much I can add beyond my belief that D&D/RPG geeks everywhere owe everything to Tolkein. And that's up to and including World Of Warcraft. The world stopped and nothing mattered as I watched Frodo's trip to Mt. Doom again. If you don't think time travel exists watch this trilogy and when it's done you won't know what day it is. My favorite of the three is the first one, The Fellowship Of The Ring. Once I had seen the movie in theaters I didn't want to see any other movies for a while for fear of ruining the experience. In my mind there was no way any other movie coming out could even come close. So I went back and watched it a couple more times until I could move on. It was like a religious experience.
I did manage to watch one other movie this weekend: The Omega Man (TOM). I wanted to watch this before seeing I Am Legend (IAL). I have a funny feeling IAL is nothing like TOM. SPOILER ALERT. Charlton "Mr. NRA/Moses" Heston vs. Will Smith's Robert Neville. This is a definite Cult Classic but sadly it is almost too campy for me, and I used to watch Adam West's Batman. I know I'm not being fair to this movie but it just looks dated. There are quite a few things I liked, however. Watching the head of the NRA run around with an arsenal of weapons killing cult members like it's his job just makes sense somehow. There is no vampirism in this movie but a cult of post-doomsday, near-zombie people that shun the daylight, and hate everyone who doesn't look pasty with sores and wear aviators. Neville spends his days mapping out LA for supplies and trying to find the cult (aka The Family) headquarters. By itself this could make an awesome video game, like a cross between GTA and Dead Rising. Speaking of Dead Rising, the cult in that game reminds me a lot of The Family in this movie. There was this moment in the beginning of TOM when Neville realizes it's dusk and he hears telephones ringing everywhere in the city. He staggers, looks at the nearest pay phone, then declares it's all in his head. The ringing stops. Huh? WTF? They never explained it but it gave me an eerie feeling, the same eerie feeling I had playing Silent Hill when the Darkness was preceded by an air raid siren. This might be a coincidence but I doubt it.
Sadly there are a lot of things left unexplained. I could justify this by saying, "if Neville doesn't know it, we don't know it," but some things just don't make sense. For the most part it surrounds The Family. At one point they put aside the prejudices of the 70s and all people are one, but they immediately hate the person that could cure them of the "zombie-itis." The backstory here is a war breaks out between Russia and China and biological agents are used. This spreads around the world infecting everyone. Neville is a Doctor with an experimental cure that uses it on himself when his helicopter crashes. The rest is history. Why it doesn't kill The Family isn't explained but it appears to work really slowly eventually killing them. Of course we don't see this as Moses happily guns down the cultists like he's euthanizing them. "Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty cultists!" Later on Heston finds more humans, a black lady (played by Rosalind Cash) he later gets Jiggy Wit' It (side-boob and full-boob), and another guy who's only redeeming quality is his middle-finger jacket. There are some good points and bad points but (and I'm guessing here) this is almost nothing like the book. However, the movie has whet my appetite for IAL even more because I see all the great things this movie could have been in the 70s.
There is also a call for racial equality which I always applaud in movies but seems slightly stilted here. Kind of like how it stood out in Volcano even though it didn't have to be said. In TOM prejudice is already put aside because humanity is pretty much dead, so there ain't really a chance or reason to be racist anymore. There are only two (2) groups of people, the zombie cult (who all look like Ashy Larry) and the survivors (2 adults and some children). The group causing all the grief is The Family. The survivor lady, and her younger brother, once were part of the family but they got kicked out after a while. Huh? Some stuff just doesn't make sense. What I'm trying to say is I already got the message without the need to spell it out. But I'd like to add, good for Neville for hittin' it. I'm leaving out several plot points so as not to ruin everything because I think everyone should see this movie and make up their own minds. For my part I had a hard time believe huge chunks of the movie, but I see where it spawned a lot of pop culture media from movies to TV shows to games.
Today is the 25th anniversary of The Dark Crystal. I am so old. I was 10 when this was in theaters and I remember discussions in the household over whether it was too scary or not for me. "Not Scary" won out and I got to see it. Every child should see this movie. The creative work of Jim Henson's muppet people is a sight to behold. I've never really liked birds and I blame this movie for it, especially vultures, as the Skeksis are an awesome and creepy to behold. Especially when they strip one of their own of its clothes. That's just some weird stuff to show kids, but so imaginative. I've even heard rumor of a new Dark Crystal movie in development. Please don't let it be CG, muppets are the way to go. See you next broadcast.
6 comments:
So thaaaaaats why I kept seeing LOTR on TV this past weekend! I figured it was a random appearance, not an actual marathon. I think they do the same thing on xmas as well. My LOTR needs are seasonal – I crave fellowship in the summer. During the winter times, I cant get enough of Two Towers (ive probably watched the extended version two or three times in the past month). In the spring the King returns. One fact remains though – I have not stopped watching these movies since they were released. They are simply everything a movie should be.
The Dark Crystal is another great piece of film. Eh?! Gelfling! One of those movies that paint the early 80’s as a wonder-filled time, when Lucas and Spielberg, and even Henson ruled the world. If my internet wasn’t being blocked I would link you to Youtube, where you can see some of Henson’s real early puppet work, including some of his really genius film school pieces. Henson really was an artist. His puppet shop lives on, and still has a very right place in cinema. In this post-CGI revolution world, Directors have begin to realize once more that CGI isn’t the answer to everything. People like Favreau, who has become the only director I would trust with Iron Man, simply know how to make real special effects work. The robot in Zathura is a work of genius that CG simply could not convey (even though it was like 1/3rd CG). Even though that instance was Stan Winston, and not Henson, its still great to see filmmakers returning to the same methods that brought us Jabba and the Skeksis.
I did get to see the new Batman trailer with I Am Legend. I remember when the teaser came out, my friend pre-convicted Heath Ledger of doing a bad Nicholson impression for his joker. While I didn’t agree with that on any level, the trailer made me think – is it possible to do a version of the Joker without at least referring to what Nicholson did? If you think about it, there was no template for the Joker other than what the cheesy TV series fleshed out when Nicholson was given the task. Even the animated series could be charged with picking up on Jack’s insane slyness. Just curious, now that we have all seen a bit more of Ledgers more dark Joker, what you all thought.
On a side note, in I Am Legend, there is a quick shot of a movie billboard that has the batman symbol sitting beneath the superman logo. There is a release date on the billboard, but it was obscured and happened too quickly for me to see it. I was left wondering, as I’m sure many fanboys are. The more I think about it, the more I think it was just done for funsies – but who knows, right?
If LOTR is on again, marathon style, then I will, again, watch all of them. I haven't gone as far as watch any of the Extended Versions yet (shame on Me) but that will become a New Year's Resolution.
I probably haven't watched Dark Crystal in over a decade and I plan to watch it this week so I can compare my childhood memories with a fresher outlook. I have always been a proponent on non-CG special effects and this is one of my banner movies to support my stance. CG could never accomplish the believability of a model (scaled or full-size) environment. However, I think Spielberg nailed Jurassic Park with his combination of CG-enhanced models. I loved Henson's work in Farscape and I wish he had more outlets for us to watch. Just have to wait for Power Of The Dark Crystal in 2009.
I am not a fan of Either Matt Damon or Heath Ledger, but I got my mental butt whooped watching The Bourne Identity. So if Matt Damon can impress me then I'm will to give HL a chance, and he looks awesome as the Joker. I think the only references we have to The Joker are Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, and the actual DC comics. It will be impossible to watch The Dark Knight and not compare it to 1989's Batman. So, I'll be open minded with him, I'm just not sure about Katie Holmes/Cruz replacement, Maggie Gyllenhaal. I liked her in Stranger Than Fiction so I should just shut up and trust the director.
This weekend I hope to see I Am Legend, then the Omega Man comparisons can begin.
If you check IMDB for what Henson’s creature shop has accomplished of late, the list is actually quite long. I remember hearing the director of the wrongly-maligned Hitchhikers Guide movie saying that no CG can replace a physical entity as far as how we perceive it, and how the actors ineract with it (this was in reference to Marvin the robot). I think this is absolutely correct, and I see a trend of filmmakers recognizing this fact as well. Or maybe I’m just lying to myself.
I know its hard to admit ones fandom of Ledger, he didn’t make it easy on us by becoming one of the poster boys for teen movies of the late 90’s. After disappearing for some time, he then went on to be in both The Brothers Grimm and Lords of Dogtown. While the brothers grimm is a flawed movie, his performance is anything but. Its as if he wanted, after being cool for the last half of the 90’s, to show us he could play a literary geek with alarming accuracy. Then in Lords of Dogtown he played a stoned out hippy surfer so well, I found myself guessing, even after I knew it was him, if it was in fact him. It was.
And sure – we can all run away scared because he played a gay cowboy. But he also was a joust-happy Knight during the oft-documented David Bowie era of the Medieval ages alongside Hoban Washburn. So I think those two cancel each other out.
Oh, and I did a little research and The Superman/Batman poster was simply to fuck with people. A writer was charged with making fake billboards, and being as he was part of the failed 90’s effort to make a batman/superman film, he thought it would be funny. Little did he know, it would have the opposite effect, as thousands of geekboys cry out and were suddenly silenced.
Im taking up this entire post with my comments. Its intentional now. Fox, after you mentioned a new dark crystal, I had to take a peek. Turns out none other than Genndy Tartaovsky is at the helm – Mr. Samurai Jack, Senor Dexters Lab, Executive Officer of The Clone wars. I think we can safely assume that it wont be computer animation. We can also assume the safeness of the hands this franchise is in.
Well, I started to watch the first Lord of the.. movie, annnnnndddd, turned it off after 1/2 hour. I won't say that "something came up" but, I never did go back to it. If fox4649 could be so kind as to loan out said movies again I could be persuaded to give it another go.
Muppets? Scary. I can't even watch Wallace and Grommit, or however you spell that s.o.b. That's torture to kids. So, giant birds and Dark Crystal? Naaahhh. Not enough MTV music for me, as one fellow commenter might say.
However, I did watch Superbad, and have to say it was pretty funny. Of course that was after a half bottle of wine. It did need a little help.
I too look forward Mr. Samurai Jack at the helm of the Dark Crystal. I just acquired the 25th Anniversary of the original and I'm slowly digesting it for the next blog. For instance, why is the crystal called "The Dark Crystal" and not "The Crystal" or "The Light Crystal." I'm also fascinated with the trinary star system their world is in, the ecology of the swamps, and Aughra's observatory. For debi, I will do my best to share the legend of The Lord Of The Rings. If you can get through the first half hour there are another 12 hours of awesome story.
Post a Comment