Tabula Rasa lj

a competition.

Anyone in Sydney, or thereabouts, who wants to see a double billing of The Honeymoon Killers and Carrie next week, courtesy of the nice people at The Chauvel, head over to my website. Details are here.

Two more points about Rocky Horror, while I think of them:

I noticed last night that Rocky, the character, disappears somewhat in the final act. In the movie they get away with it when he grabs Frank and scales the tower, but on stage it seemed lop-sided. Oh well.

This is also an excuse to mention Summer of Secrets again. Not many people know that the director of the RHPS made a movie a year later in Australia, that is something of a thematic follow-up (not to be confused with Shock Treatment). Here is Kyla's review of the movie, for those who like tracking down such things.

We saw Prom Night yesterday. Obviously, supplies of fake blood haven't recovered since Sweeney Todd.

In a way, it was nice seeing an attempt at a suspense movie with an emphasis of character over 'torture porn' -- but the characters were so generic and sloppily managed it loses sympathy fast.

I can't say it is worse than the original, if only because it has been so long since I saw it -- and my main memories are of Leslie Nielsen. That was quickly followed by sequels that were basically satire, but I'm not sure that would work these days either.

I have no great interest in seeing the upcoming Punisher movie, having neither read the comic nor seen the previous adaptation. But I'll point you towards this blog entry from the director, which has a fabulous photo and an interesting take on it all.

Alas, it turns out we won't be able to get to this year's A Night of Horror film festival, which started this week. You certainly cannot fault their ambition -- contrary to its name, there are about ten nights of movies, including a lot of full length ones making their Australian debut (Sunday sees the much loved Call of Cthulhu, just to single out the one I've already seen). So for Sydney-siders more mobile than us, get along.

(And if you do, we'd love to host a review on Tabula Rasa.)

Apparently someone is planning to make Hyperion as a movie. Could be traumatic.

We saw the last episodes of Young Dracula S2 and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles S1 this week.

As I think I reported earlier, YD S1 was charming but seemed to be running out of ideas. It turned out this wasn't a problem with S2 -- they amped up the nastiness and weirdness, introduced some story arcs, and managed to make something freaky. It's still the sort of program with a stuffed hellhound on wheels as a character, but likewise you start to wonder if everyone is going to survive the experience.

Terminator is of course already nasty and weird, and we wouldn't want it any other way. My main quibbles are actually with the characters, which is a bit sad. The whole point of T2 was to make Sarah more human, which does make it difficult for Lena Headey to be as memorable as Linda Hamilton -- and she isn't. I don't think she has earned her place in the subtitle as yet (I guess Terminator: Summer Glowers was out). Likewise, I think there were missed opportunities with Derek (I won't go into too much detail here). But still, lots of interesting ideas, and the return of Dr Silberman was indeed special.

(I failed to recognise Lena Headey as the new teacher in St Trinian's, but I shudder to think of the damage if Sarah Connor was in her place.)

What both seasons shared was a cliffhanger ending -- due warning for those who hate them. But I'm looking forward to new eps of each.

I always loved the anecdote about Carrie and Star Wars having shared auditions. Think of the possibilities. William Katt, John Travolta and Sissy Spacek as Luke, Han and Leia. Piper Laurie as Grand Moff Tarkin? Not to mention Carrie Fisher covered in pig's blood.

Anyway, yes. Star Wars is a good movie. It still manages to look authentic and audacious, and after the prequels, some humanity is very welcome.

(The anecdote about elephants in Death Valley, which I only discovered this evening, is also a good one.)

When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back;
Three from the circle, three from the track.
Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, brat;
And that's enough, said about that.







(Actually, the movie was quite well made for what it was, it's just that what it was, was very shallow indeed.)

After failing dismally at kateorman's selection, I thought I'd do my own. I had to swap some movies out to get usable quotes, and one is from the DVD.

( Read more... )

And now we have Revenge of the Sith, and we have to start thinking a bit harder. Is it any good? (Better than the original says the NY Times -- but not Empire it should be added.)

I wouldn't go that far. It is indeed very pretty and suitably dramatic, whilst retained the stilted acting of the previous two. On the (very self-congratulatory) commentary Lucas says the performances were deliberate done in a 1930s style, though I find this note from the trivia list more telling:

Lucas said that given the emotional intensity of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005), and the fact that he rarely has time to converse with the actors, it would be ideal for someone else to be there to get the strongest performances possible.

Yah.

But does it make any sense? On the surface Palpatine's plots are so transparent that the whole thing is ridiculous. It's not really a good idea to use an army created for you by an unknown agent, and though we see the mechanism by which Palpatine becomes Emperor, it is given very little context. On a more personal level his designs on Anakin seem equally obvious, but you can't say the young Jedi was getting any support from his council in navigating such terrain. The moment when Anakin snaps -- intervening between Mace and the Emperor -- is genuinely fraught, and you can see why he makes his decision, even if it is less obvious why that leads immediately into mass slaughter.

Speaking of context, it is a shame that Padmé's scenes as a founding member of the Rebel Alliance were deleted -- they aren't that good, but do give her something to do other than procreate and die. (Was she simply poisoned by the Emperor? With some entirely mysterious prophecy at work, who knows?)

Anyway, it certainly gives more to natter on about than the first two prequels. And technically it is indeed a marvel -- it is perhaps a shame that the worst special effect is make-up, since the transformed Emperor looks more like a disgruntled muppet than evil incarnate.

No lines of dialogue struck me as stand-outs, but I did like the tv ad that went something like this:

Anakin versus Obi-wan!

Yoda versus the Emperor!

And an army of wookies versus everything in their path.

The fact there was a real 'SITH HAPPENS' ad seems rather sad, however.

As found by seancollinsblog, Cronenberg's The Fly is going to be an opera, directed by the man himself.

Well, what do you know; Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones isn't half bad. It isn't half good either, but amidst the leaden dialogue and plot there is some genuine spectacle and (dare I say) emotion.

This time round my vote for best line is: "Well if droids could think, there'd be none of us here, would there?"

Sometimes it's hard not to focus on the negative. I liked Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street a lot, although it was a bit too rushed to be fully successful (I'm sure someone who remembers the play better than I could tell if that was because of the missing songs).

But it looks gorgeous and the singing works and it has lots of good stuff -- which is less specific and memorable than, for example, saying Anthony Stewart Head's cameo was a distraction. Such is always the way.

Maybe Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace will have the opposite problem. It is so deeply mediocre that you can just try to list the good things and hope. Indeed, for about thirty seconds when the Queen takes over the throne room and the battle rages with Darth Maul, there is some dramatic tension at least. The best line was "I hope you didn't kill anyone I know for it," and the poster is great.

Apart from that, let's not dwell.

Alas for Heath Ledger, best remembered by me for the wonderful Two Hands, and what I expect will be a striking performance as the Joker.

Grindhouse is the first movie in a long time to give me an actual adrenaline rush. Fuckin' A.

(If, yes, perhaps a little too much dialogue in Act 2.)

I really can't imagine that splitting them and cleaning them up would do anyone any favours, so thanks to the Chauvel for their limited run in original condition.

This guy protests too much, but he has some good points: Is Technology Killing Movies?

The Chauvel in Sydney is playing the original cut of Grindhouse from the 17th. Excellent.

As a bit of a change, we went down to Melbourne this year to do the Christmas thing with my brother and his ever-burgeoning family. The day itself was very nice, and mostly spent playing Heroscape, which we gave to the nephews. It was declared the best game ever, and it did indeed work pretty well to these more jaded eyes, after a somewhat fiddly set-up (we safely escaped before anyone tried to put it away again).

They are also into train games (we played Ticket to Ride on Saturday), so we got them Transeuropa as well, thanks to a propitious sale at MilSims. No word on that as yet. There was also much spinning of nephews at high speed, and thwacking with cushions, which I'm sure was just as exciting.

Apart from that, we visited some friends, including artbroken, went off to the theatre, watched Ed Wood (is charming), received a Forgotten English desk calendar (looks good) and sat around reading stuff, so it was a good trip all up.

At Patrick's we played Vampire: Dark Influences, a more or less simpler version of Prince of the City, and I got walloped at Goth: The Game of Horror Trivia. Oops.

As for the theatre, we saw the mighty Spamalot. Despite all the love it gets, I wasn't quite as convinced -- there's quite a bit of it that relies on nostalgia rather than actual laughs. Recreating Monty Python sketches just isn't as funny as the original, especially when taken out of context (the fish-slapping dance and Always Look on the Bright Side of Life in particular). But I can't complain too much -- the extra songs and jokes did bind it all together, and we enjoyed it a lot.

I loved Philip Pullman's Northern Lights, but thought the remaining books went downhill, so I'm not really worried about the religious controversy over the movie. That wasn't what grabbed me in the first place. The screenplay stopped at a fairly sensible point, I would go so far as to say, in regard to the missing three chapters at the end.

Actually, if they took the entire last half of the book and shunted all that off into another movie, it would have helped enormously. It looks great and the performances work (though I wasn't completely convinced by the bear), but so much stuff needs getting through that it gallumphs along from major plot point to battle without much room to make a living world out of all that fascinating detail. It's a pretty good movie, if not more than that.

Back to religion though, I do agree with these comments from the author himself -- at the very least it would be fascinating to see play out:

I think if everything that is made explicit in the book or everything that is implied clearly in the book or everything that can be understood by a close reading of the book were present in the film, they'd have the biggest hit they've ever had in their lives.
—His Lighter, Brighter Materials, interview with Henna Rosin, SMH Good Weekend 21/12/07

I'm sure they'd have trouble fitting that in too.

As for splitting books in half, I hear they are doing exactly that with The Hobbit adaptation. That seems to be going overboard to me, but then, I wasn't pining for a movie in the first place.