We’ve been through too much negative stuff of late and it’s time to look at something light and… funny?
From Cinemassacre, here is an examination of a curious piece of cardboard attached to a night light in the famous Bela Lugosi film Dracula…
Now, I will critique the video a tiny little bit here and say that while the video is a blast for someone who is as into cinema as I am to watch…
…the conclusion, well:
SPOILERS FOLLOW!
The video starts out by presenting this cardboard piece and its inclusion in several scenes within Dracula as being a source of controversy and/or mystery. In other words, that people out there aren’t certain why its there and wonder whether it is a flub/mistake or if its inclusion is purposeful within the film itself.
By the end of the clip, however, one comes away with the clear idea that this (admittedly cheesy) cardboard piece was indeed a part of the story -a silly, unnecessary part, I grant you- and that its inclusion is even hinted in the screenplay.
Still, this one minor quibble doesn’t take away from the fact that its a fascinating subject matter. Further, I was just as surprised as the narrator when I saw this video: I’ve seen Dracula many, many times before and for the life of me never noted that silly piece of cardboard attached to the lamp.
Kudos also to the realization that the first encounter with Dracula is actually a scene which likely was meant to fall later in the film.
Back in 1982 legendary horror director George A. Romero, best known for his deservedly famous zombie films, united with equally renowned horror author Stephen King to create Creepshow, an horror movie featuring several individual horror stories and presented in the vein of the E.C. comic books of the 1950’s…
The movie was a success and Romero and company wanted to make a TV series out of it. However, because of issues regarding rights and, I’m quite certain, money, it was decided to make a TV series in the vein of Creepshow but which had nothing to do with it… other than having some of the same creative talent behind it. The TV series Tales From The Darkside debuted in 1983 and finished off its run in 1988.
The series did well and, in the meantime and in 1987, Creepshow 2 was released. There was interest in continuing the Creepshow brand but, again due to those pesky contracts and rights, Creepshow 3 would never be made.
Tales From The Darkside: The Movie (let’s refer to it as TFD from here on in) featured a trio of stories tied into a framing story.
The framing story featured singer/actress Deborah Harry as a seemingly normal suburban housewife who happens to have a young child locked in her home and whom she intends to cook. The child (Matthew Lawrence) manages to hold her off by telling her the trio of stories which make up the film’s run time.
The first story, Lot 249, was based on a story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (the creator of Sherlock Holmes) and features Christian Slater, Steve Buscemi, and, in her motion picture debut, Julianne Moore in a tale concerning a mummy which is, eventually, brought to vengeful life.
The second story, Cat From Hell, is based on a tale by Stephen King and concerns and ornery millionaire (William Hickey) who hires a hit man (David Johansen) to take out a black cat the millionaire is certain is a vengeful spirit.
The last tale, Lover’s Vow, involves a struggling artist (James Remar) who witnesses a bloody, supernatural murder and subsequently finds everything he desires, including true love and artistic success, when he bumps into Rae Dawn Chong’s Carola.
It is after the telling of the third tale that we get resolution in the framing story involving Deborah Harry’s curious evening meal.
TFD is not a bad film but, I would quickly add, it didn’t exactly fill me with awe. The first story, involving the vengeful mummy, was probably the best of the four (including the framing device) yet it wasn’t without its problems. Still, it was fun to watch a trio of well established actors in their youth doing their thing. Christian Slater was quite fun as the clever, but not clever enough, college student out to do the right thing. Julianne Moore gets a chance to play the vamp and Steve Buscemi was fun as a nerdy student who seeks rightful vengeance from those who put him down.
I’d probably put Cat From Hell and the framing story in second place and, again, these weren’t bad but neither did they wow me. Actor/singer David Johansen was good as the hitman and Deborah Harry was fun as what amounts to a witch straight out of a Grimm Brothers fairy tale.
The final, and longest segment, Lover’s Vow, was clearly intended to be the showcase piece of the movie but, alas, winds up being the least of the tales presented. And this despite some good acting by James Remar and Rae Dawn Chong and the goriest, though by today’s standards pretty tame, effects. The main problem is that the story presented is way too obvious and never terribly gripping.
Ah well.
Still, TFD isn’t a total bust. It is far from the worst horror film I’ve seen involving multiple horror stories.
Having said that, one can understand why this movie isn’t as well remembered as the original Creepshow. Hell, even Creepshow 2, IMHO a far lesser film than the original, nonetheless has fans of at least one of their segments (The Raft).
With that in mind, I offer a mild recommendation for TFD but this is directed to those who want to see some very familiar actors in their formative years.
Released a couple of weeks ago to glowing reviews, Blade Runner 2049, the very belated sequel to the original 1982 Blade Runner, arrived with plenty of good reviews and buzz but delivered an underwhelming box office.
In fact, its safe to say the film is on its last legs in theaters though, perhaps like the original film, cult status beckons. Still, one can’t help but wonder what went wrong.
Welp, I just now came from seeing the film and I have some ideas about that.
The first, and predominant one relates to the film’s runtime.
2 hours and 44 minutes.
You read that right.
That’s an awful long time to spend on any film and, if you’re going to ask audiences to stick around that long, you better make damn sure the film is worth that much time.
That, to me, proved to be problem number one.
I’ll cut to the chase and say that I felt the film was good. Further, I have no problem recommending it, though I strongly suspect fans of the original film will find more to love than newbies. Thing is, unlike long -but mesmerizing- films like Lawrence of Arabia or 2001: A Space Odyssey, I feel this is a film that would have benefited greatly from some skilled editing.
Nonetheless, the main story is easily the brightest element of the movie. As much of a fan of the original Blade Runner as I am, I was skeptical what sort of story could merit a sequel to that movie, especially one that somehow logically brings Ryan Gosling’s character, a replicant Blade Runner (ie Replicant killer), to eventually cross paths with Harrison Ford’s Deckard.
The basic elements there work really well (I won’t go into Spoilers… at least not here), but the problem is that there are too many other things brought into the movie that could have either been pared down (ie skilled editing) or eliminated altogether.
Again, without getting into spoilers, Jared Leto shows up for a whopping 2 scenes but, frankly, they could have cut that down to one scene or, with some minor story modification, eliminated altogether.
Robin Wright, so damn effective in a small role in Wonder Woman, isn’t nearly as effective, or effectively written, this time around. Her character could -and in this case probably should (see below)- been pared down to one scene or eliminated all together.
Then there’s Edward James Olmos, playing a character returning from the original film, who is also given a scene that plays out like fan service more than necessity to plot.
When we finally get to Harrison Ford’s Deckard, it feels like we could and should have gotten there sooner. Even then, we’re given a fight between Ford and Gosling which feels like action presented just for the sake of giving us something exciting after too long not getting much of it.
Still, I can’t hate the film. While the story could have been firmed up, like the original Blade Runner 2049 immerses us into a bleak future that feels organic and makes us care for its lead characters. Ryan Gosling’s “K”, the Replicant Blade Runner, is quite good and his journey is emotional and, in the end, satisfying. I recommend the film, though I lament the fact that it could and should have been even better than it was.
I know what you’re thinking: How would you have made the film better, smart guy?
All right, here we go.
BEWARE SPOILERS
I would have begun the film exactly as it begins, with our “hero”, replicant Blade Runner “K” goes to a distant farm and confronts Sapper Morton (Dave Bautista). Everything presented in this part of the movie is ok, but instead of ending the scene when they did, I would have continued and have K discover everything, including both the buried box AND the stuff written at the tree’s base, which of course affects him. (The stuff in the piano could be cut out)
Here’s where I would then diverge big time.
Have K contact his Lieutenant (played by Robin Wright) and tell her he’s found bones but she doesn’t care all that much.
“Did you get Sapper?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“That’s all that’s important. Get back home.”
That’s right, the humans are content. They feel replicants are under their thumbs to the point where they’ve allowed them to take care of themselves. Why should they care about what one stray replicant hid in his farm?
K, however, knows something is up and when he returns to the big city he presents what he found to an also uninterested coroner. The coroner doesn’t much care to examine these old bones when he’s overwhelmed with so many other crimes to deal with.
K winds up examining the material and discovers the bones belonged to a replicant and, even more startlingly, that the replicant died in child birth. (He can reveal this to his audience via talking to his computer “girlfriend”)
Being a good cop, he tries to tell his superior but, again, they don’t care. Here we can have the one “big” scene for Robin Wright. She cuts him off before he gets to any of the juicy stuff about replicant child birth and says something to the effect of: “The body belonged to a replicant? All right, go off, figure it out.”
Again, to so many humans, replicants are wind up toys and, what the hell, if this case gets him out of her hair, all the better.
So K begins his formal investigation and heads to Wallace industries and it is they who take an interest in his investigation -though they don’t act it- and wind up follow him along, though for most of the movie this is a secret kept from the audiences.
We don’t need to meet Wallace (Jaret Leto) at this point, instead have him be a ghostly figure who may even not exist for all the audience knows. Also, keep the fact that our main antagonist, who we are introduced to at this point, is a replicant from the audiences as well as K. For all we know, she’s another totally uninterested human who could give a shit about replicant problems.
When she steals the bones K (in my scenario) has found, we don’t need to show it was her. Instead, have K realize at some point the stuff is gone and that he isn’t simply spinning his wheels. The coroner could well be killed (or not, it doesn’t matter in my scenario) and K digs deeper, this time thinking he may have secrets of his own (ie, the memory stuff presented in the call back to Blade Runner’s oddball pseudo sequel, the Kurt Russell film Soldier. Only the big time Blade Runner fans will pick up on the dumping grounds’ meaning!).
K meets with the memory specialist just like we’re presented and then moves his way toward finding Deckard. After he does, they’re ambushed and it is there and then that the replicant identity of the antagonist is revealed. To everyone’s surprise, she beats K up, something we think a demure, smallish woman like her should not have been able to do.
K barely escapes with his life but Deckard is captured. He now knows Wallace is behind everything and we can then have his single scene where he reveals all -that he wants to have replicants be able to reproduce- and menaces Deckard with considerable torture.
But K hunts down the kidnappers, saving Deckard right in the nick of time and noting, as he does in the film, that Deckard, as far as the world is concerned, no longer exists. We then have the ending as presented and fade out.
So that’s my scenario.
(And, by the way, note I removed entirely the replicant underground stuff. Didn’t really need it, either)
Opening today, October 20th, is the film The Snowman. Here’s the movie’s trailer…
Looks ok, no?
Based on one of the several bestselling Harry Hole (don’t snicker… that’s the name given the detective protagonist) novels by Jo Nesbø, the film features a cast that’s quite literally to die for. You’ve got Michael Fassbender in the role of primary role of Harry Hole, Rebecca Ferguson (the standout actress, IMHO, in the last Mission: Impossible film and, hopefully, the one to come), the always reliable J. K. Simmons, the also always reliable Chloe Sevigny, and one other big name actor who I will mention in a moment.
The film is directed by Tomas Alfredson, who gained very positive reviews for Let The Right One In as well as (though I didn’t particularly like it) Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
Unlike those last two films by Mr. Alfredson, The Snowman, carries all kinds of hints it might be a disaster. To begin, the film is being released in a relatively dead period of time, movie-wise. Trailers, though they certainly exist, are hardly being shown on TV. Fans of the books, likewise, can be forgiven in that the film’s lackluster advertising barely makes mention of the movie being related to the Jo Nesbø book(s). Was this done on purpose? Is the author himself not terribly thrilled with the film?
Let’s cut to the proverbial chase: You don’t have to be a psychic or a tea reader to feel the studios know they have a stinker on their hands. They are essentially dumping it into theaters in the hopes they recover some of the budget spent on it yet it is equally clear these same studios aren’t getting their hopes up. They refuse to spend on advertising -the also proverbial spending good money after bad- a film with this pedigree might merit.
Finally, the very early reviews (those that beat the movie embargo) are almost all negative.
The reason for my posting about the film is not because of the film itself but rather based on the following fascinating article concerning the actor I didn’t mention above, Val Kilmer. He’s in the film, though based on this article, by Sam Adams and on Slate.com, his work here is very weird…
I really hope you click on the link above because it is a fascinating article that gave me memories of the late Bela Lugosi in Plan 9 From Outer Space. Without giving too much of the article away, it would appear Mr. Kilmer’s role in this film is something akin to Mr. Lugosi’s role.
If you find inside Hollywood stories as fascinating as I do, you’ll enjoy this article.
After finishing that last Mad Max picture, I was thinking about Mel Gibson’s career and the movies featuring him.
As should be obvious, my favorite Mel Gibson role is certainly Mad Max and my favorite film featuring Mr. Gibson is The Road Warrior aka Mad Max 2.
Easy peasy.
But then I thought: With The Road Warrior my favorite Mel Gibson starring feature, what would I consider my second favorite?
I thought about that for a while. The original Lethal Weapon was a damned good movie, even if it felt like director Richard Donner and company threw the script away soon after starting filming (I always chuckle at the grim tone of the movie in its opening minutes and then how quickly it becomes a slapstick action/comedy!). There are plenty of others to consider, from Braveheart to The Year of Living Dangerously to (yeah, I liked it) Maverick, etc. etc.
But the one that seemed to come back to my mind over and over again was the 1999 film Payback. Now, to be very clear, I saw the film when it was original released to theaters and hated that version. But a few years later director Brian Helgeland’s version of the film, Payback: Straight Up, The Director’s Cut, was released and that, my friends, was a whole different animal. (The below trailer is from the theatrical cut)
Based on The Hunter, the first of the Parker novels by Donald E. Westlake (writing under the pen name Richard Stark), this version of Payback was a lot closer to said novel and a hell of a lot better overall as a movie.
As good as that film was, and bear in mind I’ve already stated it is my second favorite Mel Gibson film, it isn’t nearly as clever and strong, IMHO, as the original movie version of the same novel, this one released in 1967 and starring Lee Marvin. I’m referring, of course, to Point Blank…
Point Blank was, if memory serves, not terribly well received upon its initial release but, over the years, it has attained a cult following and is considered by many today among Lee Marvin’s best works.
The plot of these movies are essentially the same: Lee Marvin, like Mel Gibson, plays a version of the character of Parker (in Marvin’s case he’s named Walker, in Gibson’s its Porter). He is involved in a heist along with his wife/girlfriend and best friend and the two betray him and leave him for dead.
Parker/Walker/Porter come back, seeking their fair share of the money and revenge… though one can’t help but wonder if the character’s interest is more in getting that money versus getting that revenge.
Here’s the thing though, and the reason why I like Point Blank more than Payback: Director John Boorman and his screenwriters crafted a fascinating new addition/wrinkle to the story, one that, IMHO, elevates the material into the stratosphere.
What they have done is taken this tale of criminals, revenge, and stolen loot… and made it a ghost story.
Yeah, you read that right: Point Blank is a ghost story.
We have in the opening minutes of the film the heist and the betrayal and Walker is shot. He collapses to the ground and, his best friend and wife/girlfriend believe, is dead.
In Payback, he’s clearly not. In Point Blank, though, if you pay close attention to you come to realize that Walker is no longer among the living, but that he’s a vengeful ghost.
First thing to note: His hair is dark during the heist. After the heist and after “recovering”, his hair is (ghost) white. As the movie progresses and he goes after the people who betrayed him and demands his money back, you notice a second thing: Walker does not kill anyone in the course of the film.
Yeah, he roughs people up, but the ones that die -and there are several that do- do so either by other’s hands or their own. Further, Walker’s obsession with getting his money appears to be so all consuming that it seems to be the only reason for anything he does.
And, BIG SPOILERS, by the end of the movie, after he’s run down the Outfit to the point where those that remain in it finally decide to give him his damned money, the movie ends on an extremely curious note.
We return to the scene of the original crime, Alcatraz (this location is not featured at all in Payback), where Walker and his partners did the original crime and where he was betrayed and “died”. The money he’s sought all this time is delivered by a Mob boss. The exhausted mobster yells out that the money is there for Walker to take.
Walker, hiding in the shadows, watches the delivery and the mobster but doesn’t leave his hiding place. The audience, feeling there is another betrayal coming, understand Walker’s hesitation.
But…
After a while, the mobster shrugs. He leaves the package with what we assume is indeed the money where it is and gets back into his helicopter and departs. Silence follows. The money remains where it is and there are no other people around and, we realize, there is no chance of another betrayal.
Still Walker remains in the shadows, not saying anything nor going to get the money. Instead, he retreats further back into the darkness, until he’s completely swallowed by it.
Fin.
My take?
Walker’s ghost has gotten what he wanted and can now rest in peace. The irony is that a ghost -of course!- doesn’t need the money. But by going through all he has and delivering revenge to those who deserved it while getting his proper cut of the loot, he can now rest in peace and does so when he disappears into the shadows that final time.
As someone who fashions himself a writer, that ending, and that ingenuity of writing, absolutely floors me.
The upshot of all this is that a) If you haven’t already, you should see Payback: Straight Up, The Director’s Cut. Even more importantly b) you should see Point Blank.
Today we have the release of a very belated sequel.
I’m referring, if you haven’t paid attention to the headline above, to Blade Runner 2049, the Ryan Gosling starring vehicle -though Harrison Ford is back as well- of the 1982 film (duh) Blade Runner.
Which means this sequel comes an astonishing 35 years after the original movie’s release, which I believe is a new record. The previous record of the longest time between original movie and its sequel is, I do believe, 1982’s Tron to 2010’s Tron Legacy, something I’ve had on my mind very recently. To save you doing the math, that movie had 28 years between original and sequel.
I plan to catch the film in theaters as I am a fan of the original though I feel director Ridley Scott’s previous film to that, Alien, is a far better overall film.
Blade Runner was a difficult sell back in the day it was originally released. It was something way different from what many expected and was a murky, at times difficult film to understand. In some ways this was understandable. Director Ridley Scott was forced to add a “voice over”, which Harrison Ford reportedly couldn’t stand doing, to explain for audiences what was up.
The film wasn’t a terribly big success but over time the movie received second and third looks and, voila, people began to appreciate the movie more and more. In fact, things became so good for the film that Mr. Scott was given the unheard of until then chance to return to the film and “fix” it so that it more resembled the version he wanted.
That meant various versions, most of which did away with the voice over and included or cut certain scenes but, with the eventual release of the “Final Cut” of the film, we have what is likely the final word on it… though I personally don’t feel the “other” versions are so terrible they should be burned at the stake. Hell, I don’t even mind the Harrison Ford voice-over!
But when I watched the original Blade Runner a little while back, I noted something that always troubled me about it: The story presented was… slight. In fact, if you look at Blade Runner as a modern noir mystery, the mystery part is surprisingly slight. Here we have the police department going to Harrison Ford’s Deckard to find these lost Replicants as if he’s the only one capable of doing this type of dirty work -the classic “he’s the only one with the knack” archetype- and the way he goes about finding them is, let’s face it, something the police should have been able to do.
For example, he finds a snake scale -something the police should have found- in an apartment along with a photograph (which he does not much more than zoom in on) to get valuable clues to where those replicants are.
But here’s the thing: The movie uses a film noir/mystery to offer us a fascinating sci-fi mood piece/environment which influenced pretty much all futuristic movies that came afterwards.
In fact, so many movies were influenced by the visuals presented in Blade Runner (which, to be fair, was itself influenced by works such as Fritz Lang’s Metropolis), that today’s audiences looking at the movie for the first time may have trouble finding it as great a film as others have. In fact, I recommend those who are fans of the film (or not) to check out this interesting article over at i09.com, a site dedicated to geek culture, which had two of its staffers see the film for the first time and react to it.
Anyway, as I said above, I do plan to catch Blade Runner 2049 sometime in the very near future, though the run time -two hours and forty some minutes!- does seem rather… long.
Still, as a fan of the original film and based on many of the good reviews, I’ll give it a look-see.
The commercial ends and Alex Trebek smiles to the cameras. We’re watching the latest episode of Jeopardy.
Alex: E. R. Torre, you’re in a bit of a hole with negative $1,398,032, but you’ve got a little better than five minutes to make it all up. (Offers the camera a “yeah, right” smile and rolls his eyes) So, what category would you like to start your (suppresses a chuckle) comeback?
E. R. Torre: Let’s take Films That Make You Want To Slit Your Wrists for $200.
Alex: All right, let’s see what–
E. R. Torre: Oh, and Alex?
Alex: (sighs) Yes Mr. Torre?
E. R. Torre: The comeback has officially begun, baby!!!
I recall when the (unfortunately) named It Comes At Night (2017) er… came out. The critics were ecstatic about it, calling it a dark, nightmarish vision. Over at Rottentomatoes.com, the film earned an impressive 89% positive among the critics.
Here’s the movie’s trailer:
But here’s the thing: While the critics loved the film, audiences weren’t quite as intrigued.
In fact, over at that very same Rottentomatoes.com subsection devoted to this movie, you’ll find that audiences gave it a far less positive approval rating of only 44%.
Ladies and gents, I’m siding with audiences on this one.
It Comes At Night is a post-apocalyptic thriller in the vein of recent zombie features/TV shows except that instead of zombies the very small cast in what I imagine was a very low budget film fights to survive against a disease that has decimated humanity.
Father is, for all intents and purposes, gone. The infection has taken him and he looks like something from a proper horror film. His eyes are black orbs and blood seeps out of his mouth. The danger from the infected, we find, lies in the fact that they are contagious rather than a physical threat. Both Sarah and Paul deal with him while protected by gas masks. Sarah gives the man some last words before they take him outside, put a bullet in his head, and burn his body.
As you can see, the fun has just begun!
We find these now three survivalists have a very tight regimen for dealing with the dangers of this post-apocalyptic world. They’ve barricaded their home and have one entrance/exit.
In through that exit comes, one night (it does come at night!), Will (Christopher Abbott). He’s quickly disarmed, beaten, dragged out of the house, and tied to a tree. We learn that if a person is infected, they’ll show signs of said infection within 24 hours. When Will makes it through that time period, Paul talks to him, roughly, and wants to know what his deal is.
Will states he has a wife and child and broke into the house thinking it was empty and while looking for supplies… specifically water. Though the film doesn’t come right out and state it, one gets the impression that the infection is in the water as Paul and his family are quite diligent in filtering it.
Anyway, Will and Paul make a tenuous peace and head out. They eventually get Will’s wife (Riley Keough) and child and the two families try to make a go of it before tragedy eventually overtakes them.
I won’t give away everything -though believe it or not these plot developments, meager though they are, have just given you roughly 1/2 of the film- but suffice it to say things don’t end well for the entire group.
The movie mostly follows the sometimes distorted visions of Travis, Paul’s 17 year old son, who is having a tough time dealing with the deaths and horrors of the apocalypse. He isn’t helped by the fact that his parents try to shield him from these horrors and that only serves to augment them in his mind.
As one may have implied from what I noted above, It Comes At Night, unfortunately, has too little plot and too long a runtime, in my humble opinion. Had this been a one hour episode of, say, a show like The Walking Dead it might have worked out better as my patience was severely tried as the production dragged along.
When we do eventually reach the film’s end/resolution, I felt there were also too many things up in the air. I don’t mind a film that leaves a lot of mystery behind, but this one’s mysteries aren’t all that earth shattering and it didn’t feel like a mystery was needed.
Who was ultimately responsible for what happened? We don’t know. Yet instead of appreciating the mystery, I found I didn’t care all that much. Who was infected, who wasn’t? Again, it didn’t matter all that much.
When so little matters, one can’t help but feel the film has failed in its mission.
The bottom line is that I’ve seen films like this before and while It Comes At Night is stylish and well directed and well acted, works like it –better works, it must be said- are out there and are worth pursuing before giving this movie a try.
Watching this trailer for the first time since seeing the film yesterday, I’m struck by a couple of things presented in it that didn’t make it to the film itself. For example, there is a quick shot of what looks like someone firing a gun with a silencer. Not in the film at all (either that or I’m suffering from some startling memory loss) but I think I know where that scene might have gone, and it involves someone (MILD SPOILERS) Newman’s character visits early on in the movie and finds was shot.
The second thing in the trailer that didn’t appear in the film is what appears to be a funeral. I think I know what that was about… Paul Newman’s character at one point tells another character that his life fell apart when he lost his daughter (this is not a terribly big spoiler as its more background information regarding his character and doesn’t figure much into the story proper) and that led him to lose his wife and become a drunk, which he’s now cleaned up from. Either that or the funeral involves another character and may have been part of the film’s ending… but I’ll not give this one away.
I only point these two things out because it indicates to me the film was crafted in the editing stage and, obviously, extraneous material was trimmed back… thought at times this led to choppiness in the story presented. For example, in the trailer you see one scene where Newman and Hackman’s character are talking by the pool. This scene, which does appear in the film itself, has Mr. Newman with a white towel around him and appears suddenly in the movie without much explanation as to why these two just happen to suddenly be at the pool and talking about things.
Odd stuff.
But let’s back up a moment and address the film itself.
I first heard about Twilight years ago, likely when it was released in 1998. Though I didn’t see it then, a relative of mine went to see it and we talked about it and, for whatever reason, I recalled the conversation. She said the film was good but that Mr. Newman looked so old in the role… whenever there were fisticuffs, she feared he’d break his hip.
That image remained with me as did my curiosity to see the film. It came and went in theaters and, truth be told, is mostly forgotten today and yet…
I’ve noted before I’m a fan of Paul Newman’s 1966 film Harper (I reviewed it here) which featured Mr. Newman’s playing private detective Lew Harper. This movie, which many consider a great updating of the then previous generation’s detective novels by the likes of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, was itself based on the excellent Lew Archer novels by Ross MacDonald. In 1975 Mr. Newman returned to the role of Lew Harper in the belated sequel to that movie entitled The Drowning Pool (here’s my review of that film).
With Twilight, I instinctively thought Mr. Newman was -in a sly way- returning for what would be the last time to a role similar to that of Harper, though this movie was very clearly not based on any Ross MacDonald novels nor featured the “Harper” character.
Ok, enough preamble. My quick take:
Twilight is a decent enough, if choppy, detective thriller that is never quite as engaging as one hoped it would be and features Paul Newman in a role that, frankly, my relative was right about. Mr. Newman, who was 72 or 73 years old at the time he made this film, simply looks too old for this role. Understand: I’m not trying to be ageist here. There have been elderly actors who have successful played in roles like this.
But Mr. Newman, unfortunately, at that point in his life just did not look spry or strong enough to get into the fist and gunfights he engages in here. As my relative so correctly pointed out, when he gets knocked over and falls to the ground, your instant reaction is to worry he won’t get back up again.
Curiously, the film might have worked better if Gene Hackman and Paul Newman exchanged roles. Gene Hackman, who was approximately 68 at the time this film was made (only four or five years younger than Newman), would have looked a lot better in the detective role, with all due apologies to Mr. Newman.
Anyway, without getting into too many spoilers, Twilight features a plot reminiscent in at least one prominent way to Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep. In Twilight we have a detective who is given a certain job and slowly sinks into a far deeper pool of shady characters, blackmail, and (this is where The Big Sleep similarity really come in) the fate of a specific person, and how that has led to the present situation for all the actors.
As a non-official conclusion to the “Harper” films, Twilight is OK enough but, alas, the least of the three Newman detective movies. Still, it isn’t a terrible movie by any stretch but it would have benefited from a sharper script which, in turn, may have led to less work in the editing stage.
If you liked Harper and The Drowning Pool and are curious to see Mr. Newman return to a similar role, then give Twilight a try. At the very least, your curiosity, like mine, may be sated.
A couple of additional notes:
Twilight features a couple of very odd story points, one which is very brief and the other stretches through much of the film, both of which are completely and utterly unbelievable.
MILD SPOILERS
First up, there comes a point in the movie where Mr. Newman’s character goes to Mr. Gardner’s character’s home. Mr. Gardner’s home has two levels so Newman heads toward the stairs and is outside the house when he is nearly hit with what turns out to be Mr. Gardner taking a piss outside his balcony.
You read that right.
Mr. Gardner lives in a nice neighborhood and has a nice house and he feels the need to… take a piss outside his balcony and onto the first level of his home?!
It’s possible the movie’s writers intended this to be some kind of symbolic thing. Perhaps Mr. Gardner was showing contempt toward Newman’s character but there is never an indication given that Mr. Gardner’s character knew he was there. I suppose it could also show that despite living in such a beautiful environment, he’s still a low level person, but that seems an awful stretch. Finally, maybe he bought a house without any working bathrooms.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
The second thing the movie presents, early on, is that Newman’s character gets shot in the leg. However, we later find the scuttlebutt by all the people he knows in the police department is that he was shot in the genitals and, therefore, is… uh… penis-less.
Eventually Newman’s character finds out what others think, but this too stretches credulity. These are people he knows, perhaps not as friends, but you would think that two years later (which is the time between him being shot and the movie’s main story beginning) he’d know what they think and correct their misconceptions.
Hard to believe but there was a time actor Nicolas Cage was a very hot and in demand Hollywood celebrity.
He starred in “A” movies, whether they were intended to be nothing more than commercial, “fun” summer type releases (The Rock, Con Air, etc.) or critical darlings (Leaving Las Vegas, Raising Arizona, etc.).
Mr. Cage always struck me, even back then, as an edgy, somewhat “out there” kind of guy, but then again, being “out there” is certainly a plus when you’re an actor.
In 2009, things went downhill for Mr. Cage. He was in trouble with the IRS and, ultimately (and according to the article I’ll link to in a moment), he was assessed some $14 million in owed taxes.
Since then, he’s been on a tear, appearing in movie after movie regardless of quality. Is it to pay his bills? I suspect so because in the past 8 years he’s appeared, believe it or not, in 29 films (or close to 4 films a year!). Most of them are VOD works and few are considered terribly good.
Over at Slate.com, Nate Jones checks some of the many movies Mr. Cage has done since 2009 and offers the following fascinating list:
Many of these films are clearly not worth your time to pursue, much less see. But there is a perverse thrill in seeing some of the acidic takes on some of the films so I’ll re-post, from the article, the description of the 2017 film Arsenal:
Cage reunites with (John) Cusack again for this revenge tale about a pair of brothers (Adrian Grenier and Johnathon Schaech) going to war against a local mob boss. (That’s Cage, wearing fake nose and a mustache than can only be described as “limp.”) Upon its release, the L.A. Times was confident enough to dub Arsenal a contender for the worst movie of 2017. It came out the first week of January.
Yikes!
Check it out. I suppose its better than seeing most of those films all the way through.
A couple of days ago it was announced that Warner Brothers were finally going to release the full, 3 hour version of the Richard Donner directed, Christopher Reeve starring Superman (1978) to home video. They announced this on Facebook…
As you can see in the image I posted above, this is the “3 Hour Long TV Version” that is being promoted/sold here. Back in 1982, when the film aired on television, is was a very big event and they showed the film over two nights and this version, unlike the later released “Extended Version” (or, as its listed above, the “Special Edition.” I’ll refer to this version as SE from now on), featured even more footage not seen before.
While I haven’t seen it in a while, I didn’t like the SE that was released in 2000.
Why?
Because at some point in the late 1990’s -and this was when laserdiscs were first coming into their own and waaaaaay before the advent of DVDs- I was at a convention and among the various dealers I found one who sold a bunch of VHS tapes of oddball/unavailable films and TV shows. Among them was the then red-hot Pamela Anderson sex tape (this was before the internet came into its own, as well!), the Roger Corman directed (and never released) Fantastic Four, a bunch of TV shows that to that point weren’t at that time available (Space: 1999, Thunderbirds, etc.), and that TV aired version of Superman.
Though it shames me to admit it, I purchased the Pamela Ander– uh– Superman VHS tape and when I got home I eagerly put it on.
I have to give credit to the bootleggers: They took considerable time and effort into making this admitted bootleg copy the best thing they could. They took the laserdisc/widescreen version of Superman as the base and intersliced all the extended scenes from that TV airing into their proper places. As a viewer you could easily see what was the theatrical release -it was all the widescreen stuff- and what was aired during that two night TV event -fullscreen and of sometimes dodgy quality.
I wound up enjoying the TV version immensely. Other than an extended bit with a Kryptonian Military Policeman which went nowhere (see next paragraph), this version seemed to be very close to a working “final cut” of the film for director Richard Donner.
(As for that Kryptonian Flying Motorcycle cop bit: After General Zod and his cohorts are banished to the Phantom Zone, Jor-El (Marlon Brando), talks to the Council of Elders about Krypton’s imminent destruction. The Council will have none of it and forbid him from causing any hysteria. He returns home to place his son on the rocket ship and the Council, fearing Jor-El continues defying them, calls a Kryptonian Military Policeman -see image below- to go arrest him.
The Military Policeman gets on his flying motorcycle and is off to get Jor-El when the end of that world occurs. We get some shots of his POV as he flies through the devastation before eventually dying via falling buildings. It was a silly bit of scenery that didn’t really add much suspense to the proceedings and was a welcome cut, IMHO)
When in 2000 they released the SE of Superman, I was eager to get it and figured it would be that TV version. Alas, it was not. Sure, you got some new scenes, most famous of which is probably the sequence involving Superman working his way into Lex Luthor’s lair for the first time and being attacked by Luthor’s many security features, including a machine gun and heat…
In the theatrical cut, they got rid of the security features and just went ahead and showed Superman arrive in the underground, then cut to him ripping the metal door to get into the lair.
There was also Luthor’s “Babies”, some kind of wild and deadly animal that he torments Otis into feeding and which plays a role toward the end of the movie…
However, there were also scenes that were put back in that, frankly, had me scratching my head. It seemed like the whole thing was fairly haphazard in terms of what they decided to add back into the film and what they left out.
There was one tiny only a few seconds long sequence that I really liked in the 3 hour version that, for whatever reason, they didn’t bother putting back into the SE:
Immediately after the Clark/Lois-mugging-scene, our leads emerge from the alley and take a cab and, with them inside it, drive off. The camera (if memory serves) then pans away (without cutting) to across the street and there we see, for the first time, Otis (Ned Beatty), Lex Luthor’s henchman. As we shift from Clark and Lois and to Otis, the music shifts as well and we transition to Otis’ theme.
I always liked the way that little scene worked. It made the massive city of New York suddenly seem smaller, more interconnected, and provided a much more comfortable transition from our leads and to the introduction of our movie’s villain. (In the theatrical version, it always felt rather abrupt the way we go from the mugging scene to suddenly seeing Otis walking the streets)
As I already stated, this sequence couldn’t have been more than a few seconds long yet I always liked it and was scratching my head when the SE didn’t bother including it.
I wish I could give more examples but, alas, I haven’t seen the extended version in quite some time. I got rid of my VHS player a very long time ago though I still have those VHS tapes of the extended movie. A while back I considered taking them to get converted to a DVD format.
Now, with the formal release of that 3 hour TV version of Superman, I won’t have to.
I can’t wait to get my hands on this copy of the movie!
