Movies

A Missed Opportunity…?

So over the past week we had the release of two highly anticipated theatrical trailers.  The one for the new Star Wars film, with its Harrison Ford coda, was met with euphoria.  The one for Batman vs Superman, presented below, was met with a more muted reaction…

There are those who felt the more muted reaction was a result of any number of possibilities.  For one, a bootleg version of this trailer was released to youtube a couple of days before Warner’s “official” trailer release and the company was therefore forced to release their HD version a day or two before the announced they would.  Others have bemoaned the movie’s “dark” tone, stating that while it fits in well with the character of Batman, it doesn’t fit with the more optimistic and bright Superman.

My feeling is that whatever muted reaction came as a result of the trailer it was due to the fact that Warner Brothers presented for the most part stuff we had seen before and missed a very big opportunity to give us something new.

The fact is that what was presented in this trailer doesn’t add all that much to what was already displayed (to much cheer!) at last year’s San Diego Comicon.  Sure, we saw a little more of Batman in his suit and we saw a brooding Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck), but the “punchline” of the trailer remained the same as what was shown to great rapture at the Comicon, and that was the armored Batman confronting Superman.  Normally, seeing those images in HD should have been enough.  They are damn powerful.

But we’re living in the era of cell phone cameras and Youtube and those powerful Comicon scenes, which were never meant to appear outside the Comicon, did so in grainy form on Youtube, much like the leaked trailer, for everyone to see.  Sure, the images weren’t all that clear, but they were clear enough to give you an idea of what was coming.

So when this new, official trailer appeared, I personally felt a little disappointment that we didn’t see much that was new this time around.  This trailer, like the one in Comicon, featured the almost identical armored Batman confronting Superman punchline.

The frustrating thing is that the folks behind the scenes have other things –new things- they could have given us in the trailer’s climax.  Something I’m personally dying to see.

Wonder Woman.

That was the trailer’s missed opportunity.  Present everything as before, but at the very end, after we see Batman and Superman square off, give audiences at least a little taste, a hint if nothing more, of the third of the “big three” characters.

Had they shown Wonder Woman in full costume, holding her lasso or standing over a bunch of defeated badguys or getting into her airplane -even if it is something that will not make it to the film itself- I guarantee you that would have turned those frowns upside down.

As they say, hindsight is 20/20.

Movies

Hooper (1978) a (seriously) belated review

As mentioned before, I picked up a couple of Burt Reynolds starring films that hadn’t been released to BluRay until now.  Though copies of these films could be found before this release, word was these presentations had very inferior quality video and sound.  Thus I was hoping the BluRay release of both 1978’s Hooper and 1981’s Sharkey’s Machine would prove to be worth getting, if only to see each films presented closer to its original theatrical clarity.

Well, I haven’t gotten to Sharkey’s Machine yet but I did give Hooper a whirl and found both picture and sound very strong.  So if you’re like me and were holding out on buying a copy of this film until it received a proper presentation, rest easy.  The Hooper BluRay is very much worth getting.

As for the movie itself, this is the first time I’ve seen Hooper start to end since it was originally released to cinema way back in 1978.

My feelings for the film were decidedly mixed.  Like many young fans of cinema back then, Burt Reynolds was a movie GOD.  Just the year before he starred in probably his biggest box office hit, Smokey and the Bandit, and any follow up feature that involved vehicular mayhem was something I was eager to see.

Hooper would come out the next year and was directed by his Smokey and the Bandit director, former stuntman Hal Needham, so I came in hoping to see another comedy/action film very much along the same lines.

I recall, however, walking out of Hooper disappointed.  Unlike Smokey and the Bandit, this was no light-hearted humorous affair.  The film felt too serious and the stunts, remarkably, didn’t thrill me as much as they had with Smokey.

And yet, so much of the film remained recorded in my head.  Why would that be?  I wasn’t particularly crazy about the film the first, and only, time I saw it yet why did it linger in my mind some (gasp) 37 years later?

I had to check it out and did so.

And found the film was much better experience this time around.

The simple fact is this: Hooper aspired to be an “adult” film, even while it had a few elements that didn’t quite gel in that respect.  It took your basic, by now cliched boxer storyline and laid it over the world of stuntwork.

Burt Reynolds is Hooper, a high in demand, devil-may-care stuntman who is currently working on a big budget film directed by an odious “high art” type (Robert Klien doing, it has been rumored, an impression of director Peter Bogdanovich).  Despite his lighthearted attitude, audiences learn from the very first scenes in the film that Hooper’s body is littered with very painful looking scar tissue.  After Hooper performs his initial stunt, a motorcycle crash, we further learn that he’s in considerable pain and the wear and tear of this type of work endangers his health.

His right hand man and best friend Cully (delightfully played by James Best), gives him pain killers following the stunt but begs Hooper to go to a Doctor and get himself checked out.  Hooper declines and, almost simultaneously, hears about a new, young stud entering the stunt field who has set his eyes on being a stuntman as great as Hooper.

There is a certain irony to this situation as Hooper’s girlfriend is Gwen (Sally Field, looking absolutely beautiful) and her father Jocko (Brian Keith) was himself a legendary stuntman…until Hooper took his place.  (A bit of trivia: In real life Sally Field’s step-father was Jock Mahoney, a famous stuntman who also had acting credits.  “Jocko” was inspired by Jock Mahoney and Sally Field, in real life dating Burt Reynolds at the time, essentially got to play a version of herself!).

As the movie progresses, Hooper comes to know his young competition, a hungry and clever stuntman named Ski (Jan Michael Vincent).  To the movie’s credit, he’s never presented as a nasty would be rival or young punk.  He is as I stated: A clever yet hungry young man who wants to make it in the stunt field, though he doesn’t realize that by doing so he will eventually push Hooper out, just as Hooper pushed Jocko out.

There’s plenty of stuntwork to see within the film, including high wire falls, overturned cars, explosions, fires, and, in the movie’s climax, a long car jump.

Sadly, like Smokey and the Bandit, the passage of time has made most of these once thrilling stunts looks rather ordinary.

On the plus side, the film moves well, at times surprising you with some of the story choices and more adult themes.  The acting is also almost uniformly good and at times clever and amusing.  Adam West, the “star” of the film Hooper is working on, plays a superstar actor named…Adam West!

But, as mentioned before, there are bumps in the road (ouch!) as well.  The movie at times shows a childish, almost silly attitude (the two encounters Hooper has with police look like they belong in another film.  In “real life” they wouldn’t end quite so nicely).  Further, I’ve always been bothered by the grand finale stunt(s).  Why exactly did they have to capture it in one take?  Given the piecemeal way films are made, doing this in one take made little sense.

Still, watching Hooper again after all these years was a fun experience.  One can see why Burt Reynolds was such a superstar back then, even as some of the movie’s excesses and silliness pointed to where his career would eventually go wrong.

Comic Books/Graphic Novels, Movies

Superhero costumes in film…

…could it be the porn parodies do a better job of translating superhero costumes to the screen?

See for yourself:

http://moviepilot.com/posts/2015/04/08/nsfw-parody-costumes-that-are-better-than-the-movies-2843418

The only problem with the article is that they assume anyone who reads it already knows what the comic book characters look like on the page and therefore can judge which version, porn parody or movie version, more adheres to the original comic book look of said character.

So, for those not so familiar with the comic book versions, these two of six of the examples stuck me as where the porn parody versions more closely adhered to the original comic book looks:

First up, Scarlet Witch, as presented in the comic books:

Scarlet Witch in porn (left) versus the way she’s presented (right) in the upcoming Avengers movie…

Rogue, as presented in the comic books…

And in porno (left) versus in the X-Men movies (right)…

As I said before, these two, to my eyes, were the clearest examples of the six presented showing that the porn parody versions honored the original “look” of the characters more than the “legitimate” film versions!

General

About that ESPN reporter berating the Tow Truck Company clerk…

It’s been in the news for a couple of days now, the vicious, insulting statements ESPN reporter Britt McHenry made against a tow truck company clerk when she went to retreive her towed vehicle…

Ouch.  Amiright?.

Seems the entire internet has turned on Ms. McHenry, offering some choice words regarding her behavior and comments.

So, you think I’m going to pile on?

Nope.

In fact, while I cannot condone her words, I feel sympathy toward her and her situation.  Further, based on my own experiences with tow truck companies, I can completely understand why she blew her top.

You see, when I”m not writing I work in a high density area where tow trucks are an ever present constant.  As a business owner, you have a love/hate relationship with these companies.  On the one hand, you appreciate what they do.  On our property, there have been innumerable times when cars have illegally parked in our parking area.  Sometimes the offending parkers don’t realize this area is our space and when you point it out to them, they’re quick to move their vehicle and offer apologies.

Sometimes, however, they know very well what they’re doing and/or are rude to you when you point out their illegal parking and ask them to leave.

Sometimes, the very worst of times, someone illegally parks in our lot and we don’t realize this until we find that one of our legitimate vehicles is blocked in.  If the legitimate vehicle’s owner has an urgent meeting or needs to get out quickly, the illegally parked vehicle -and nowhere to be found owner- can create a big problem for us.

In cases like these, I’m pleased I have the option of calling a tow truck to remove the illegally parked vehicle and free the blocked-in vehicle.

But though I appreciate the tow truck services in this case, I’ve seen enough cases and read enough stories -some reaching the local news- of predatory towing to make me very uncomfortable with their business.

I don’t know all the details of Ms. McHenry’s towing situation.  I don’t know the hows or whys of her vehicle getting towed.

But I can completely understand -if not condone- her anger.

Music

Cheap Trick should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame…

…or so argues Annie Zaleski for Salon Magazine.

I’ve heard this argument in support of Cheap Trick before but I’m somewhat torn.  I think the band made some very good music but there are others still not in the Hall of Fame that I personally feel are more deserving of entry.  Music is, after all, nothing more than about one’s personal taste!

This then is a list of musical acts so far not in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame:

http://www.futurerocklegends.com/The_Snub_List.php

Looking over the list, I feel there are many (in fact most!) of these acts should be in the Hall of Fame.  I’ll mention a few below that struck me as particularly egregious in their not being in the Hall.  Note that many of these picks represent bands I DO NOT have ANY of their songs on my Hard Drive.  But it is impossible not to acknowledge their influence to music in general:

The Carpenters – as with Cheap Trick I’m not a huge fan, but it is undeniable how popular they were in their heyday.  Sure they could be considered shmaltzy today, but there’s something about Karen Carpenter’s voice…

The Cars – A group I’m quite fond of.  They had a unique new wave sound and plenty of hits.

Def Leopard – Another band I don’t really care all that much about.  But, again, for many years they released a spate of very popular songs and, even though I’m not a fan, feel they should be in the Hall.

Depeche Mode – Have several of their albums, am a fan.  They have a strong list of hit songs and are certainly deserving of entry.

The Doobie Brothers – Not a fan of their music.  In fact, whenever one of their songs comes on the radio I move on to another station.  Having said that, they were a very big act and their music is clearly very popular with many.

Iron Maiden – Have a few of their albums but don’t consider myself a terribly big fan.  Having said that, they are certainly a very popular band worldwide.

Journey – Don’t stop believing… When I was in high school, I really liked their album Escape (which had that song).  Apart from that album, I never was a huge fan of the group but, again, they created some very popular music.

The Moody Blues – Again, not a huge fan but they’ve created some really solid work.

Siouxie and the Banshees – Am a BIG fan of their music.  Very big fan.  They’ve created some wonderful songs and should be in the Hall.

Man, I really like tnem.  Here’s another:

T. Rex – A strange omission.  Again, not a huge fan of T. Rex but there is no doubt they blazed a trail that many, including David Bowie, would follow.

Yes – Another band I’m not a huge fan of, but they’re not in the Hall yet?!?

So there you have it.  Again, I’m not trying to slight any of the many others on the list.  In fact, many -perhaps even most!- of them could easily be on this brief list.  But why repeat the whole thing?

As they say, your mileage may vary.

Books/Literature, Movies, TV

What Do People Love Today That May Not Hold Up In The Future…?

Fascinating question posed by the folks at i09.com (you can read the article here).

This being essentially an “open ended” question, the meat of the matter lies in the responses following the article itself, which posited that the insanely popular (at least at this point!) TV show The Walking Dead may not age all that well over time.

I found the very first response the most interesting: that the Marvel Cinematic Universe may not age all that well.

Let me go one better: It is often the most popularly watched/read/listened to items when they are originally released  that are in most danger of fading with time.  In part, this is due to oversaturation.  There will come a point, though probably not with the new Avengers film that’s about to be released, when the magic found in those films will suddenly be gone.

There was a time I watched The Simpsons religiously.  In fact, I thought it was the best comedy show on TV, period.  I watched the first five or so seasons, mostly with delight, but then something happened and from that point on I haven’t been willing to see an entire episode of the show at all.  Basically, I had my fill of The Simpsons and didn’t want or care to ever see it again.  And those early episodes that delighted me so?  I have them on DVD.  I have yet to re-watch any of them.

Will the same happen to the Marvel Universe movies?  Frankly, I think it is already happening to some degree.  Already a consensus is emerging on what the “good” Marvel Universe movies and what the “bad” ones are.  I, for one, didn’t find Iron Man 2 as bad as most people felt it was.  And yet, I don’t see myself seeing the film again.  One the other hand, I enjoyed both Thor films when I watched them, yet I don’t see myself revisiting either film in the future, either.

Another reason something very popular today may not be so popular tomorrow: Generational taste.  If there’s one thing I’ve come to realize over time it is that each generation has their own interests and sometimes they have little to no interest in what came before.  In part this could be due to changing attitudes. Perhaps it is also an issue of generational identity.

When I was a child, the novels of Harold Robbins were all the rage with adults.  His books usually featured sweeping generational stories loaded with (at the time) frank, graphic sexuality.  Perhaps it was nothing more than this sexuality (which may be considered tame by today’s standards) that brought the readers in.  Regardless, his books sold in the millions and a mind-boggling ten of them were made into movies and/or TV mini-series.

Yet by the 1980’s, it seemed to me that Mr. Robbins’ red-hot books were suddenly not as popular.  Mr. Robbins died in 1997.  By that time, I suspect very few remembered who he was.  Today, I doubt there are many younger readers out there who have any idea at all who Harold Robbins is.

So we return to the question at hand: What work that people love today will not hold up in the future?

As with everything, time will tell.

Movies

City of the Living Dead (1980) a (very) belated review

Though I wouldn’t consider myself a huge fan of cult horror director Lucio Fulci, I do admire several of the films he directed and, if not always the end results, the concepts he was trying to present to audiences.

Arguably his two best known horror works, Zombie (1979) and The Beyond (1981) were nightmarish tales set in what appeared to be a dream/nightmare landscape.  Continuity between sequences wasn’t always strong, but there were images and concepts that kept you tuned in and creeped out.

Arriving between these two films was City of the Living Dead (1980).  The prolific director actually made four films (one was a mini-series!) between both Zombie and The Beyond, but this is the one I had available to me and this is the one I saw.

What I found most fascinating about City of the Living Dead (I’ll refer to it as CLD from here on to save on my typing) is that this film is effectively a waypoint between Zombie and The Beyond.  Elements of those two better known films can be found in this one, even if the end results aren’t, to my eyes, quite as good.

I’ll pause here for a moment to state the following: Watching a film like CLD today is not the same as watching it when it was originally released in 1980.  I suspect the much younger me would have been blown away by the gore and nastiness to be found in this film, not unlike I was for Phantasm (1979), released at roughly the same time.

But here’s the thing: Certain films age with time, and what was once a potent piece of action/suspense/comedy/horror/etc. does not resonate as it once did when removed from the era it originated.

So it is, sadly, with CLD.

This film, like The Beyond, finds the director very much working in a H. P. Lovecraftian horror setting.  Unlike The Beyond, this worked in spurts, though especially during the film’s opening sequences and its later half.

The story goes like this: A priest in the town of Dunwich walks the town’s graveyard one dark and foggy night.  He ultimately ties a rope to a tree and his intention is made clear: He’s going to hang himself.  Meanwhile, in New York, a seance involving Mary Woodhouse (Catriona MacColl) psychically links into what the priest is about to do.  Mary watches in increased horror as the priest puts his neck around the rope and then commits suicide.  The suicide causes Mary to have a seizure.  She falls to the floor and, when the others in the seance check her out, they think she’s dead.

Mary’s body is taken away and ultimately is about to be interred.  Peter Bell (Christopher George) a reporter interested in this case, stops by the graveyard where Mary is being laid to rest.  But the psychic isn’t dead and her screams bring Peter to her rescue.

Once out of the grave, Mary tells Peter that the suicide of the priest has opened the gates of hell and, by All Saints Day just a few nights from then, the dead will walk the Earth and wreak havoc.  Peter is skeptical but agrees to take Mary from New York and in search of the mysterious town of Dunwich, a place not even maps list (besides, we’re in the days before smartphones and GPS).  If Mary is right, their goal is nothing less than to stop armageddon.

For a horror concept, it’s not too bad, right?

Thing is, the film’s low, low budget and pace start to work against the overall product.  Given that we’re dealing with the very end of the world, its weird how few people we see before the screen.  And when our heroes arrive to Dunwich it would appear that town is populated by a total of something like eight people (and by the end of the movie, half of them are zombies).

Even with such a small cast, we nonetheless have sequences involving ancillary characters that never quite connect with the quest of our two leads, including the fate of a strange Dunwich citizen by the name of Bob (Giovanni Lombardo Radice).

What I ultimately came away with in watching CLD was, as I said before, that this is a film the passage of time hasn’t been kind to.  Even now I could appreciate what the director and actors were attempting to do but I never felt the horror and dread I suspect my younger self watching the film at the time of its release might have felt.

On the other hand, I really liked the movie’s plot and concept.  In an era when too many “big” films of the past are being remade -often very badly- CLD, to my eyes, is a prime candidate for a proper modernist reworking.  It’s story is simple yet intriguing and with the right talent could easily be a modern horror classic.

City of the Liviing Dead is certainly worth a look if you’re a fan of Lucio Fulci.  Others may want to check out Zombie or The Beyond first.

Books/Literature, Comic Books/Graphic Novels, Computers/Electronics, General, Movies, Music, TV

A sign of the times…

Perhaps one of the best known/watched TV shows today is HBO’s Game of Thrones.  This past weekend, as they are wont to do, HBO offered a “free” weekend of viewing for those who don’t have the cable station as a way to give them the premiere of this season’s Game of Thrones (it aired Sunday).  Of course, the free “taste” of the fifth season of this show is intended to get people to, hopefully, subscribe to HBO.

But even before that first episode aired came news that the first FIVE episodes of the fifth season had already leaked and were available to be downloaded at various pirate websites:

http://gizmodo.com/nearly-half-of-game-of-thrones-season-5-just-leaked-1697305966

As I said in the heading, this is unfortunately very much a sign of the times.  If you have anything that is popular and desirable, be it music, movies, books, and, yes, TV shows, chances are good you’ll find pirate copies of them available online.

And that’s too bad.

While shows like Game of Thrones no doubt earn their investment dollars many times over, the fact is that not all works of art and their creators/investors are as fortunate.  Piracy, even in small amounts, hurts the bottom line.  While there may be those who illegally download something and later on legally pay for the same product, there will always be some percentage of these people who get material illegally and for free and do not bother to pursue it any other way.

One of the great concerns I have today is that artistic creations have become dangerously devalued.  There are great and powerful industries out there that create wonderful machines that allow you to see and experience artistic works (smartphones, computers, tablets, etc.) and as consumers we’re willing to pay sometimes big money to have the latest of these items…yet the things the machines allow us to see/hear -from music to movies to books- are for the most part unprotected.

You have the latest iPhone or iPad or Samsung or HP computer, etc. etc. and with them you can go to assorted websites and illegally download a movie/music/book/etc. you want to see.  Sometimes, this movie/song/book hasn’t yet been formally released!

The end result, I fear, is that the ease with which people can get these items creates a sense the act of creating them didn’t involve much actual work.  I’ve noted before the weird (to me) idea that authors “shit out” their books in their free time while and during the rest of the hours in the day pursue a life of fun and leisure.  This concept has been exacerbated by TV shows such as Murder She Wrote and, more recently, Castle.

I fear this idea is permeating other creative fields.  Coming up with a song/album?  Come on, how hard can that be?  Drawing a 22 page comic book?  Shouldn’t take more than a day, right?  Writing a story?  Can’t take much more to create it than it does to read it.

Even worse, there are those who know creating such works takes time and effort and they just don’t care.

If I work somewhere -from a Wall Street office to a McDonalds- eight hours a day for two weeks, at the end of this time I expect to get a check for my work.  With artistic creations, you may do the very same time and work just as hard and for just as long…and your hard work can then be taken from you, posted online, and whatever monies you might have made are now subject to that loss.

I’m not saying anything anyone out there shouldn’t know already.

Piracy is, at least as of now, a sad reality of life.  Perhaps in time there will be a way to more securely protect your artistic works so that they don’t end up pirated online.

Or perhaps there will never be a way of doing this.

Regardless, the irony is that the people who will ultimately be hurt by this are the consumers.  The Beatles took years to practice their trade and be properly paid for their work until they were able to create some truly memorable songs and albums.

Somewhere out there might be a band that, with time, might have become just as good as them, but they make no money from their music because it simply doesn’t sell as much as it is pirated.  Unlike John, Paul, George, and Ringo, the members of this band eventually have to break apart…they simply cannot sustain themselves.

And we, the public, will never get to hear what this band might have made.

Or see what this director could have created.

Or this writer.

Or this artist.

Books/Literature, General

Your daily dose of anxiety…

Today, let’s worry about the rise of Artificial Intelligence machines, and the fact that so many scientists and figures involved in high level technology have expressed concern regarding the imminent appearance of said machines:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-barrat/hawking-gates-artificial-intelligence_b_7008706.html

For those who have read all five (so far) of my Corrosive Knights novels, the concept of Artificial Intelligence, along with a few others, are a central concern.  I have wondered about the possible appearance of a self-sustained AI and, like many in the article, worry what will happen once such a creature appears.  Will it view humans as an obstacle?  I can’t help but think it will.  And depending on how much power it controls, the effects could be devastating.

It is certainly something to think about…yet another worry to ease you into your day.

General

Welcome to the future…part deus

After the scary news of hackers shutting down a major French TV network, here’s some good technology news: It would appear the clean energy “revolution” is ahead of schedule:

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-04-08/clean-energy-revolution-is-way-ahead-of-schedule

How interesting that as we reach what seems to be a tipping point regarding global warming/pollution, we’re moving pretty quickly into the area of far cleaner renewable energy.

To this, all I have to say is I couldn’t be happier.  If there is an alternative cleaner energy source out there to use, why would anyone want to continue using the older, dirtier methods?  Why would anyone want to live in a world increasingly filled with polluted skies, land, and water?

Here’s hoping at least this part of the future is bright.

The Blog of E. R. Torre