E. R. Torre is a writer/artist whose first major work, the mystery graphic novel The Dark Fringe, was optioned for motion picture production by Platinum Studios (Men In Black, Cowboys vs. Aliens). At DC Comics, his work appeared in role-playing game books and the 9-11 Tribute book. This later piece was eventually displayed, along with others from the 9-11 tribute books, at The Library of Congress. More recently he released Shadows at Dawn (a collection of short stories), Haze (a murder mystery novel with supernatural elements), and Cold Hemispheres (a mystery novel set in the world of The Dark Fringe). He is currently hard at work on his latest science fiction/suspense series, Corrosive Knights, which features the novels Mechanic, The Last Flight of the Argus, and Chameleon.
The Hollywood reporter offered an interesting article that focused on the possibilities of sequels to films released this past summer, given their box office success/failure:
The bit that fascinated me was about what was probably one of the most disappointing films released this summer (indeed, considering how eager I was to see this and the high hopes I had for it, maybe the most disappointing film in many summers!), Prometheus. This is what they had to say about the possibility of a sequel to that film:
(FOX) studio’s big summer bet was Ridley Scott‘s Prometheus, June’s sort-of Alien prequel. The $130 million-budgeted film grossed a solid but not spectacular $303 million globally, putting it right on the franchise bubble. Fox confirms to THR that Scott and the studio actively are pushing ahead with a follow-up (stars Michael Fassbender and Noomi Rapace are signed) and are talking to new writers because Prometheus co-scribe Damon Lindelof might not be available. “Ridley is incredibly excited about the movie, but we have to get it right. We can’t rush it,” says Fox president of production Emma Watts, who also has overseen the successful reboots of the X-Men and Planet of the Apes franchises. A Prometheus sequel would be released in 2014 or 2015.
Despite my feelings regarding the film, I have to admit that I’d be open to a sequel. I might -might!- even become excited to see such a thing, provided the story this time around is a good one and not the messy (though undeniably ambitious) story we had with Prometheus.
Going over the reprinted blurb above, the people who did enjoy Prometheus and are eager to see the sequel should note that nowhere in this piece does it say that this potential sequel is a certainty. Indeed, note how the article states the movie’s gross was “solid but not spectacular” and that because of that it is on a “franchise bubble”. Yes, director Ridley Scott is “excited about the movie” and is working on a sequel, but Fox president of production Emma Watts does not come out and say this sequel has been greenlighted.
Perhaps I’m reading more into this very short blurb than I should, but I get the impression that the people at Fox are well aware of the disappointment audiences had to the film and realize the Prometheus could have flopped badly. While it made them money, they may feel they dodged a bullet and whatever profit they made was in spite of the movie’s weak story. This is further reinforced by the fact that they are talking to other writers about the sequel because screenwriter Damon Lindelof “may not be available”. One gets the sense that this is a polite way of saying they may not want him back.
However because the movie did make a profit, FOX studios are willing to give the film’s makers a chance to present a sequel concept/treatment/screenplay. If this presentation excites them enough, they’ll go ahead with the sequel. If it doesn’t…
Then again, the DVD/BluRay of the film will be released soon enough, and if that proves to be a success they might just warm up to the sequel idea a little bit more.
Fascinating article from Slate Magazine that compares some Olympic scores from ancient Greek athletes to those of modern Olympians. The results are alternately predictable and fascinating:
One of the great “What ifs” of the sporting world is the idea of taking a famous (older) team in its prime and theoretically putting it up against another (modern) formidable team. Kobe Bryant cracked that window a bit when he made reference to this current Olympic Basketball team being able to beat the “Dream Team” of 1992. The critics instantly scoffed at Bryant’s statements. Many of them felt there was absolutely no way that this current Olympic basketball team could win even one game against the 1992 team.
But I wonder.
A few years before he passed away, Jim Mandich, the plainspoken and very entertaining ex-Miami Dolphin tight end and radio announcer noted that while he prided himself for having been a part of the “Undefeated” Dolphin team of 1972 as well as what many consider the even better Superbowl winning team of 1973 (though they did not replicate their undefeated record of the year before), he felt that as legendary as those teams were, they wouldn’t put up much of a fight against modern football teams.
The fact is that with each passing year, modern athletics become more and more of a science. And thanks to larger financial rewards, many athletes today can spend virtually the entire year conditioning themselves into peak physical shape. Back in the early 1970’s, it was not uncommon for football players to spent the off season working at other jobs to sustain themselves. A friend of mine, for example, recalled meeting Larry Csonka, perhaps one of the most famous of those Miami Dolphins, working at a car dealership during his off season.
So, who would win…today’s athletes or those of yesteryear? In the end, its all theory.
But if someone one day comes up with a time machine and brings athletes from the past in their prime to play against athletes of the present (or more recent past)…Even though I’d love to think that some of my favorite athletes and teams from the past are and will always be the best, I think I’d put my money on more the modern athletes over them.
When I first heard about Attack the Block, a quirky British alien invasion/Our Gang mash-up, the word was mighty positive, indeed.
Our Gang eventually inspired The Goonies, which this film is probably a bit closer in theme to Attack the Block than the far more innocent Our Gang shorts of the early 20th Century.
As mentioned, early word was very positive about this film, and it was on that basis alone that I became curious to see it. I think the film is indeed a good one, but it has some issues, particularly in the first fifteen or so minutes of the film, that almost made me want to eject it from my DVD player before going much further.
The problem -at least for me- is that when our “heroes” are first introduced, they’re engaging in something that borders on Clockwork Orange territory (without the sexual assault). I suppose its a bold move to present troubled youth in such an unflinching way early on in the film, but given I’m not sure if giving the audience such a negative first impression was a wise move.
What follows, the meat of the story, is what I mentioned before: An alien invasion. This invasion, too, is presented in a mostly unflinching way. There is blood shed and lives are lost. The alien invaders, while not quite on the scary level of the Alien or Predator creatures, are nonetheless a force not to be trifled with, and the eventual resolution of the storyline is quite clever.
Which is a long way toward saying I recommend this film but urge viewers to stick through the opening act which may make you think you’re about to see a very different film from what follows. Once Attack the Block gets rolling (roughly at the point where our protagonist is arrested), things move briskly, leading to a good wrap up.
There was no intention on my part to watch both Alien (1979) and Outland (1981) one after the other. That is, however, what happened. I like both films, and as I mentioned in my blog entry noting the then upcoming release of Outland on Blu Ray (you can read about that here) I always felt that that film was heavily inspired, at least from a visual standpoint, by Alien as much as its plot was inspired by the famous western High Noon.
Starting a couple of nights ago I sat down and watched Alien from start to end. The next day, I did the same for Outland. While I’ve seen bits and pieces of both films over the years, I don’t think its much of an exaggeration to say I haven’t seen either film, from beginning to end, in perhaps two or possibly more decades.
Revisiting films is an interesting experience. Sometimes, a movie that blew you away in your younger years simply doesn’t do much for you years later. There are myriad reasons this might happen. If you like action films, you have to realize that movies have become “quicker”, and their thrills have become bigger and bigger spectacles.
In the case of Alien, when I originally saw that film back in 1979 (or maybe 1980), it quite frankly scared the shit out of me. The film was incredibly beautiful to look at, but its heart was as dark as could be. I loved several things about it: The dread of finding that lost alien ship and its deadly cargo. The chest bursting scene (who didn’t?!), the revelation of what Ash was, and, of course, the surprise “hero” of the piece.
It’s hard today to point out how daring and fascinating a film Alien was. Indeed, while many justifiably focused on the frights, there was a cleverness to the script and story that should not be overlooked. Tom Skerritt’s Dallas, for example, was presented to audiences as the “hero” of the piece. He was the captain of the ship, after all, and the commanding officer. Despite his outward scruffiness, he looked and talked the part of the hero. Yet in a very clever bit of screenwriting, it was his actions that may well have resulted in the tragedy that followed. He was the one, after all, who ignored sterilization protocol and insisted the “infected” Kane be brought back into the ship.
The character of Ash was also a very clever piece of writing. The big reveal of who he was, in my opinion, was every bit as memorable as the chest bursting sequence. What an interesting, unique, and ultimately horrifying way to show a robot!
However, like comedy, the genre of horror often relies on “surprising” the viewers. With the passage of time and the cribbing of ideas, often this element of surprise simply loses that uniqueness with the arrival of sequels and other movies in that vein.
In the case of re-watching Alien, I realized just how much damage that film’s sequel, Aliens did to the original work. In Alien, you have the single creature mercilessly, stealthily, wiping out one cast member after the other. In Aliens, we have the protagonists face an army of such creatures. Suddenly, what was a stealthy being, a creature that hid incredibly well in the shadows and picked off its victims one after the other…a creature that showed evil malice and almost supernatural “hunting” skills, was reduced to the equivalent of an angry wasp. The alien creatures buzzed around, getting swatted here and there, drawing fear from their numbers rather than evil intent.
Mind you, I’m not knocking Aliens as a movie. I think it remains a terrific thrill ride. However, while watching Alien for the first time in so many years it was difficult to get myself in that same frame of mind I had when I first saw it and the alien creature was such a unique and terrifying movie villain. To put it bluntly, it was hard to once again feel terrified of a single creature attacking while, in the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but recall the army of such creatures faced -and defeated- in Aliens.
I still love Alien. I still think it remains one of the greatest horror/sci-fi hybrids ever created. However, I would be lying if I said that subsequent works haven’t somewhat diminished the shocks one originally felt while watching this film.
So, the next night I watched Outland. Clearly, the impact of Alien, released only a couple of years before, was on the mind of the movie’s makers. The visuals, indeed the film itself, could fit comfortably within the Alien universe, though it does not feature any alien creatures at all.
Sean Connery is Marshall O’Niel, a somewhat washed up man sent to the mining colony on Io (a moon of Jupiter) where he comes upon a mystery involving the apparent suicides of various miners. As mentioned before, Outland’s story becomes a rather large “homage” (or, if you’re less forgiving, “rip off”) of High Noon, especially in the film’s last acts. While the film was successful, I suspect the knowledge that it so blatantly used High Noon’s story framework made many dismiss it. Today, the film isn’t nearly as well known as Alien, and it was only last week that the Blu Ray edition was finally released. For those interested, the Blu Ray presents a beautiful picture and sound. It is, however, a fairly “bare bones” release. The only extras present are a theatrical trailer and director comments. The director comments are worth checking out. The previous bare bones DVD edition was apparently of very, very poor quality, so this is pretty much the first time modern audiences get to see this film in such nice shape.
And you know what? It actually holds up after all these years.
Mind you, I was one of “those people” back then irritated by the High Noon parallels. Upon re-watching the film, I was far more forgiving and just went with it. What I found was a pretty exciting piece of action cinema, with Sean Connery delivering a damn good multi-faceted performance. In fact, this could well be one of his more complete acting jobs, as he’s called upon to be alternately tough, vulnerable, desperate, sarcastic, and, yes, even on rare occasions quite humorous. Frances Sternhagen goes toe-to-delightful-toe with Mr. Connery as Dr. Lazarus (I’ve got to groan at that waaaay too symbolic name!), his only real ally in the space mining outfit. The movie builds its plot nicely, and the only bit of silliness the audience has to accept (and I’ve mentioned it in my previous entry) is that given the sensitive nature of this station, the idea that there could be any gun play at all is pretty damn ridiculous.
However, again, I could go with the flow and accept it.
As far as the visuals and effects, considering we are dealing with a thirty plus year old film, they remain quite good. Yes, there are some effects that look a little creaky here and there but, frankly, there was very little to complain about.
In the end, watching Alien and Outland back to back proved an interesting experience and a definite blast from the past. While one can’t entirely forget what came afterwards, it was interesting to revisit these two films which presented a decidedly darker view of science fictional worlds.
One of the more fascinating things, at least to me, is finding out that a famous or even iconic movie/TV roles might have gone to another actor or actress who was first pursued for that role.
In the following link, you have a group of TV roles that were originally considered for other actors/actresses:
Perhaps the one that intrigues me the most of those mentioned in this article is Matthew Broderick, Mr. Ferris Beuller himself, was originally considered for the title role that went to Bryan Cranston on Breaking Bad. But, thinking about it a little…I can kinda see where the producers of the show were going. After all, the character of Walter White, as originally presented in the show, was originally presented as a meek, innocent man who decided to take a very dark path. I suppose Mr. Broderick could have pulled that off, but what a different show it probably would have been!
By the way, a couple of my favorite movie role “what ifs”:
Clint Eastwood’s iconic turn as Dirty Harry was originally targeted for…Frank Sinatra?!
Harrison Ford’s iconic turn as Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark was originally meant for…Tom Selleck!? In fact, the only reason that Mr. Selleck wound up not getting the role was because the producers of Magnum P.I., the TV show he was doing at the time, wouldn’t allow him the time off to make the Steven Spielberg film!
Of course, sometimes an actor takes on a role for tragic reasons. I’ve always wondered, for instance, what type of career Paul Newman would have had if James Dean hadn’t died back in 1955. The next two movies Mr. Dean was supposed to act in before his untimely death were Somebody Up There Likes Me and The Left Handed Gun. Both movies were made, with Mr. Newman in the title role. In the case of Somebody Up There Likes Me more than The Left Handed Gun, that role proved a great success for Mr. Newman, and may well have given his then very early career a much needed boost. Mr. Newman’s only previous feature film, indeed, his film debut, was 1954’s The Silver Chalice. This film was a huge flop, and when the film was aired years later on TV an embarrassed Paul Newman famously paid for and published a full page apology and request for people not to see the film in a trade magazine!
One of those stories that is both incredible and encouraging. Sometimes, a wrong can indeed be righted. Hope the gentleman’s recovered 1967 Austin-Healey is in good working order!
Not to sound too terribly geeky, but much of the material presented was familiar -the one big exception being all those numerical items. I may be a fan of the character, but to have all that data at my fingertips would have been…scary.
Of all the items presented, this is the one I found the most surprising and had never heard of before:
Fifteen years (after the 1949 Batman series) came Batman Dracula, a little-seen avant-garde oddity written and directed (without the approval of the comic publisher) by a rising young artist named Andy Warhol.
As it turns out, some of that (very bizarre) material can be found on YouTube:
Released a mere two years after Alien, it was pretty clear that the 1981 Peter Hyams directed and Sean Connery starring movie Outland took as much from that film’s sci-fi visuals as it did, story-wise, from the classic 1952 western High Noon.
Like Alien, the look of the Jupiter mining station is generally grim and gritty, with dark, well worn equipment and characters who look like they belong in a mining town (as opposed to Alien, where the characters appeared for all intents and purposes like interstellar truckers). The plot of the film is essentially identical to High Noon: Sheriff of the town/colony takes a stand, killers come in on the next shuttle/train, which is due at a very specific hour. During the wait, the Sheriff tries to enlist the aid of others in fighting the killers, is rebuffed.
The clock ticks down, slowly, surely…
Yes, Outland is High Noon in space, and given my tolerance for “homages”, you would think that would instantly turn me off from this film. There is also the secondary issue of logic, which the film sometimes lacks, particularly regarding the whole idea of gun play. As the movie is set in an environmentally sealed outer space colony, you would figure guns would be, if not banned outright, kept under very, very tight control. After all, one stray bullet could prove catastrophic to everyone should it rupture a wall or damage some sensitive equipment. Yet the guns are fairly plentiful, and the shootouts are on the level of a western.
Now that I’ve described the bad, let me state the good: Outland is a solid piece of entertainment. Sean Connery is good in the heroic role, the story moves well, and the bad guys are fearsome.
However, this is one of those films that seemingly is forgotten today. The DVD was released some time ago and the reviews of it were quite brutal (I believe I have it somewhere in my collection but never watched it).
The reason I mention the film at all is because, lo and behold, it is about to be released on Blu Ray this coming Tuesday and I found this review that was quite positive regarding the overall transfer:
Not much information on the extras (if any) are provided, thought this review does note that we get director commentaries. Anyway, I’m intrigued.
In conclusion, if you’re in the mood for some grim and gritty sci-fi action that has the look of Alien and the plot of High Noon, you should check out Outland when it arrives on Blu Ray this week.
The dearth of new blog entries of late is mostly due to the fact that I’m really, really hard at work finishing off my latest novel, Nox. The novel is the fourth in the Corrosive Knights series, after Mechanic, The Last Flight of the Argus, and Chameleon.
It is also the first book in this series that ties together the various story strands introduced in those first three books. Those who have read Mechanic should realize right away that Nox features the protagonist of that book and, thus, is a pretty direct sequel to Mechanic. Without giving away too much, the book is more than “just” a sequel.
I just finished doing the fifth (yes, fifth) revision of that book. It is absolutely grueling work, but the way I write, I need to go over each novel very carefully to make sure all the story elements follow a logical progression. Most people who have written to me about my books or reviewed them note how there are plenty of “twists” in the stories. Making a story work while shocking and (hopefully!) delighting a reader with surprising plot twists involves carefully going over all those elements and making sure the plot twists follow logical paths and “make sense” when all is said and done.
I may have mentioned this before, but I know I’m getting close to being done with a novel when the latest draft revisions involve more grammatical issues rather than story deficiencies or structure. In the case of this fifth revision, a good 90% of the revision was indeed about grammatical issues, ie better sentence structure, tighter dialogue, eliminating repetition, etc. Toward the end of the novel there were some story issues that needed to be addressed but I believe they are good now and, after giving the book one more read-through, I’m reasonably comfortable to say the sixth draft will likely be the last.
A while back I posted an early version of the cover for Nox. Here is that early version:
Even when first posting this image, I figured there were things needed to be done and it wouldn’t be the final image used for the novel’s cover. Here, then is my most recent version, which I’m far more comfortable calling the “final” one:
I’m hoping in the next month or, at most, two, the book will be available.
Sad to realize this film would be the second last one Mr. Kubrick would direct before his death in 1999. Full Metal Jacket was followed a little over a decade later, and just before Mr. Kubrick passed away, with the Eyes Wide Shut, a film that to this day I don’t like. At all. And that’s saying something as I’m a HUGE fan of Mr. Kubrick’s work.
As for Full Metal Jacket, I absolutely loved the first half of the film, which featured boot camp. The second half of the film, wherein the recruits go to Vietnam, wasn’t quite as good, at least in my opinion. I’ve always felt that despite some flaws (most notably a very muddled ending), the Francis Ford Coppola directed Apocalypse Now remains my favorite Vietnam War film and could well be one of the best films about war ever.
Having said that, I always felt that Apocalypse Now was a very Kubrick-like film, though that remains a personal opinion and does not at all detract from what Mr. Coppola created.
![Outland [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Dgh2a2IpL._SL500_AA300_.jpg)
