DIRECT DOWNLOAD - COMMENTARY CLUB 017 - Duel
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Showing posts with label steven spielberg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label steven spielberg. Show all posts
Tuesday, 8 October 2019
COMMENTARY CLUB 017 - Duel
DIRECT DOWNLOAD - COMMENTARY CLUB 017 - Duel
Wednesday, 26 February 2014
THE BLACK DOG #188 - Road Rage Against The Machine
This week we discuss such varied subjects as dead meerkats, ghost tours, french food overdose and how to traumatize your wife while claiming its her fun day!
We also have a slew of crap news... Then after a protein rich sh*tty superhero and a yogurt infused profanisaurus we get round to reviewing Steven Spielbergs Duel...
Next week we are joined by Danny Graydon to review the classic Frank Darabont movie The Shawshank Redemption.
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Sunday, 4 August 2013
HYPNOBOBS 122 - A Tribute to Richard Matheson Part III
In the third part of our epic tribute to the late Richard Matheson, Mr Jim Moon takes a trip through the televisual terrors conjured by the great writer in the 1970s. We look at the early Spielberg feature Duel (1971), Carl Kolchak's run-ins with The Night Stalker (1972) and The Night Strangler (1973), and discuss his many collaborations with the legendary Dan Curtis such as Trilogy of Terror (1975) and Dead of Night (1977).
Direct download - HE IS LEGEND Part III
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Friday, 28 October 2011
THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN - SECRET OF THE UNICORN
Blistering barnacles! There be no spoilers here laddie!
During the 1990s, the phrase 'graphic novel' became all the rage, describing an exciting new development in the world of comics, namely collecting issues together into 'proper' books and gracing the shelves of respectable bookstores rather than backstreet shops with strange names like The Android's Dungeon. Comics had finally grown up, trumpeted the numerous newspaper and magazine articles which popularised this new term, who with typically shoddy reportage entirely missed the point that it was the stories and content of the likes of Alan Moore's Watchmen and Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns which had the comics world frothing at the mouth, not the fact that they were available in collected large format paperbacks in the high street.
For comics being collected into 'proper' books was, as any comics fan knows, not a new thing at all. 'Graphic novel' was merely an update on an older term 'graphic album', and for many European comics fans there first introduction into the four colour world were book collecting the adventures of two Continental titans of the medium, the hilarious exploits of Asterix the Gaul and the globe trotting investigations of young reporter Tintin!
Indeed back in my own school days, volumes featuring these two heroes were frequently fought over in the school library, with many and argument over who rightfully should have them next; I remember waiting for what seemed like an eternity to get my hands on Destination Moon and it's sequel Explorers on the Moon, which as they featured space travel had the highest caché among my peers. We thrilled to his adventures across the world, laughed at the bumbling of his supporting cast and avidly watched the cartoon series Hergé's Adventures of Tintin which was a regular staple of school holiday TV back then.
Of course as we grew older we discovered the exciting super-heroics of Marvel and DC, and the gritty violence of '70s UK comics like Action, Battle and 2000 AD, and Tintin was left behind. But as the boy reporter and his dog have always seen as a good deal more respectable than the likes of Batman and Judge Dredd, generations of European children first discover comics through finding his books in school libraries.
Of course in the US, where they have legions of home grown heroes and because during the '50s comics were seen as a cause of teenage delinquency, Tintin remains something of an unknown quantity. Which is why it has taken Hollywood so long to bring our bequiffed hero to the big screen at last. And it's telling that it took the clout of not one but two giants of cinema, the forces of Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson combined, to make this movie happen.
Now not so long ago having these two names heading the production would have guaranteed geek bliss before a single still had been released. However after the somewhat muted reaction to Jackson's King Kong remake and the complete travesty of a fourth Indy outing, it's fair to say there were more than a few doubts hanging over the project. Although Hergé himself had named Spielberg as his personal preference for a director to bring his creations to the silver screen, he was talking about the young fellow who had given the world Raiders of the Lost Ark, not the beardy buffoon who had removed the guns from ET and cursed us all with Crystal Skull.
So given Mr Spielberg's *ahem* spotty recent record, would we see Tintin similarly bastardised? Would the boy reporter still have his firearms? Would Captain Haddock still be rolling about drunk? But thankfully, there were other notable names onboard to handle the screenplay; Steven Moffat, show runner of Doctor Who and Sherlock, Edgar Wright, director of Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim vs The World, and Joe Cornish, who recently gave us Attack The Block. And you'll be pleased to hear that this trio has managed to stop Spielberg welding any silly bloody aliens into the plot.
Now 'return to form' is a much abused phrase, often wheeled out with the minimum of credit. However in this case it is very well warranted, for The Adventures of Tintin is simply glorious cinema. Now with Spielberg, you always get a high level of production value, but over the years his films have been marred be either too much saccharine and sentiment or weighed down with 'hey I'm a serious film-maker' earnestness. However with a solid script from the afore mentioned three gentlemen, that draws heavily from several Tintin books, to keep the project true to the tone and feel of the original, we are spared either of poles of his directorial excesses. It's proof that that films from even the most gifted directors are as only as strong as their scripts.
And while there has been some inevitable carping in some quarters about the motion capture CG animation, I think this new medium has really come of age with this picture. The Adventures of Tintin looks gorgeous and the style which has a realistically rendered world populated by caricature figures mirrors perfectly the original comic art. And the strength of the animation is matched by fine performances from the cast; Andy Serkis is outstanding as the blustering drunken Haddock, Daniel Craig is evidently having a ball moustache twirling, and there's good comic relief from Pegg and Frost as Thompson and Thomson.
Quite simply, The Adventures of Tintin is a superb adventure for all the family. There's plenty of action, wonderful characters and a lot of laughs all intelligently tied together with an old fashioned detective story that spans the globe. In many ways, it's everything the fourth Indy movie should have been, and rightly so as Tintin is one of the forebears of Dr Jones. Indeed, Spielberg delivers one particular action sequence that trumps everything is the last three Indiana Jones outings.
The movie's biggest triumph however is that is captures the magic of Tintin himself. Not only does Jamie Bell bring the boy reporter to life wonderfully, but the film makes his long lasting appeal clear - essentially Tintin is young enough for children to identify with his, and grown up enough never to need bailing out by adult figures (the bane of many other young investigators like the Hardy Boys). Now I must confess, and I know I'm not alone in this, that when I was originally reading Tintin I always much preferred his supporting cast. However in this screen adventure the character really shines, and in Bell's capable hands, Tintin is warmly likeable and solidly heroic.
And furthermore I really want to see him in action again soon! Indeed I hope that this film has all the box office success it deserves, so that we might revisit his vivid and exciting world again soon. And in the meantime I'm off to revisit the original graphic albums...
Now not so long ago having these two names heading the production would have guaranteed geek bliss before a single still had been released. However after the somewhat muted reaction to Jackson's King Kong remake and the complete travesty of a fourth Indy outing, it's fair to say there were more than a few doubts hanging over the project. Although Hergé himself had named Spielberg as his personal preference for a director to bring his creations to the silver screen, he was talking about the young fellow who had given the world Raiders of the Lost Ark, not the beardy buffoon who had removed the guns from ET and cursed us all with Crystal Skull.
So given Mr Spielberg's *ahem* spotty recent record, would we see Tintin similarly bastardised? Would the boy reporter still have his firearms? Would Captain Haddock still be rolling about drunk? But thankfully, there were other notable names onboard to handle the screenplay; Steven Moffat, show runner of Doctor Who and Sherlock, Edgar Wright, director of Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim vs The World, and Joe Cornish, who recently gave us Attack The Block. And you'll be pleased to hear that this trio has managed to stop Spielberg welding any silly bloody aliens into the plot.
Now 'return to form' is a much abused phrase, often wheeled out with the minimum of credit. However in this case it is very well warranted, for The Adventures of Tintin is simply glorious cinema. Now with Spielberg, you always get a high level of production value, but over the years his films have been marred be either too much saccharine and sentiment or weighed down with 'hey I'm a serious film-maker' earnestness. However with a solid script from the afore mentioned three gentlemen, that draws heavily from several Tintin books, to keep the project true to the tone and feel of the original, we are spared either of poles of his directorial excesses. It's proof that that films from even the most gifted directors are as only as strong as their scripts.
And while there has been some inevitable carping in some quarters about the motion capture CG animation, I think this new medium has really come of age with this picture. The Adventures of Tintin looks gorgeous and the style which has a realistically rendered world populated by caricature figures mirrors perfectly the original comic art. And the strength of the animation is matched by fine performances from the cast; Andy Serkis is outstanding as the blustering drunken Haddock, Daniel Craig is evidently having a ball moustache twirling, and there's good comic relief from Pegg and Frost as Thompson and Thomson.
Quite simply, The Adventures of Tintin is a superb adventure for all the family. There's plenty of action, wonderful characters and a lot of laughs all intelligently tied together with an old fashioned detective story that spans the globe. In many ways, it's everything the fourth Indy movie should have been, and rightly so as Tintin is one of the forebears of Dr Jones. Indeed, Spielberg delivers one particular action sequence that trumps everything is the last three Indiana Jones outings.
The movie's biggest triumph however is that is captures the magic of Tintin himself. Not only does Jamie Bell bring the boy reporter to life wonderfully, but the film makes his long lasting appeal clear - essentially Tintin is young enough for children to identify with his, and grown up enough never to need bailing out by adult figures (the bane of many other young investigators like the Hardy Boys). Now I must confess, and I know I'm not alone in this, that when I was originally reading Tintin I always much preferred his supporting cast. However in this screen adventure the character really shines, and in Bell's capable hands, Tintin is warmly likeable and solidly heroic.
And furthermore I really want to see him in action again soon! Indeed I hope that this film has all the box office success it deserves, so that we might revisit his vivid and exciting world again soon. And in the meantime I'm off to revisit the original graphic albums...
Wednesday, 10 August 2011
SUPER 8 - The Goonies Have A Close Encounter With ET in Cloverfiled?
There's production value but no spoilers!
Already being proclaimed in many quarters, and indeed on many posters here in the UK, as 'the best blockbuster of the summer', Super 8 comes to us with a considerable weight of expectation in tow. Many are hailing it as a modern great, a Goonies or a Gremlins for our times. However the chorus of praise has not been universal; a quick trip to IMDB will show you a considerable numbers of reviewers having an Emperor's New Clothes moment. There's a host of few star reviews out there pressing charges of being derivative and careening through the plot holes on the wings of indignation.
So then is Super 8 a welcome return to the family friendly magic of the legendary '80s blockbusters; a perfect summer storm generated by the meeting of two generations of masters of cinematic fantasy? Or is just Abrams plagiarising all those classic movies that bear Spielberg's name with the old boy's blessing?
Well firstly, to lay my cards on the table, I'm not in the Abrams is God camp - while I greatly enjoy his Star Trek reboot and Fringe, Alias never really grabbed me and Lost, well, lost me somewhere in the morass of flashbacks in Season 2. And I've a bag of similar mixed reactions with Mr Spielberg's oeuvre - obviously Jaws and Raiders of the Lost Ark are classics, but the last time I attempted to rewatch ET, I ended up thrashing about on the floor with a bad case of saccharine poisoning. Now, to be clear I'm not saying either are necessarily patchy in terms of quality, more that what they produce doesn't always suit my tastes. And so, despite it's pedigree, Super 8 wasn't guaranteed an instant pass from me.
Now,for those of you who don't know, the plot goes something like this. A bunch of kids in one of those archetypal small American towns, are making a zombie movie and while out filming, they witness a spectacular train crash. However if all that weren't exciting enough, there was a mystery cargo aboard which escapes and very soon the little town of Lillian is best by twin plagues of weird goings-on and unhelpful US Air Force troops. I'm sure you can all guess the kind of thing that was lurking in the sealed crate, and equally it's not a huge spoilers to tell you that the kids investigate and of course end up saving the day. A classic scenario or clichéd cobblers?
Well, let's cut to the chase here, I really enjoyed this movie; it's heaps of fun and boasts many merits - more of which later. However, is the praise/buzz/hype (delete as personal cynicism about blockbusters deems applicable) garnered by Super 8 justified? Well, yes and no - it is a very fine movie in many respects but there are some weaknesses that mean it just misses the classic mark for me.
It breaks down like this. Firstly, despite numerous comparisons to The Goonies and Explorers, make no mistake this isn't a tale of a band of kids, it's really one boy's story, Joe played by Joel Courtney. Now many of the negative reviews point out that most of the band of young movie makers have paper-thin characters, but in fairness if you accept that this is not a gang of kids tale, this is less of a problem. Firstly, because we are seeing the story unfold through Joe's eyes and secondly because the peers he has the closest ties to to Charles (Riley Griffiths) and Alice (Elle Fanning) are decently fleshed out.
And while we're challenging the received wisdom, let deal with the accusations of being unoriginal. Now the lazy way to sum up this movie is to slap a label on it marked 'Cloverfield Meets ET' and walk away smugly whistling. Now superficially that all looks very big and clever but on poking it with sharps stick this observation very quickly deflates leaving the air full of the unpleasant whiff of smart arsery. For the crashed train train doesn't contain a cute secret pal from outer space or a giant beast that stomps the town Godzilla style. The only real parallels with Cloverfield are we only see glimpses of the cargo until the final act and Abrams name is prominent on the credits and similarly it only really resembles ET in the fact that we have Spielberg's name and some common scifi tropes. In terms of tone and narrative direction, Super 8 is very different to either of these movies.
Now armchair witticisms masquerading as critical opinion aside, there are more credible accusations that Super 8 is just a patchwork of elements drawn from The Goonies, ET, Explorers, Gremlins, Close Encounters, Poltergeist etc. And yes there is some truth in these claims - films buffs can have a field day identifying cinematic ancestors for many scenes and elements of Super 8. However if you;re going to play this game properly and intelligently, you have to look back further than the 1980s and widen your trope taxonomy further than just movies. And if you do, you'll discover firstly that yes, Abrams is drawing alot we've seen done before in all those well loved '80s flicks. However you'll also find that Spielberg, Zemeckis and Dante weren't exactly dealing with original concepts in the first place - all three directors were drawing upon their own childhood favourites - from TV, comics and books as well as movies. The Goonies are just the 80s generation of a long line of adventuring kids such as the Hardy Boys, the Famous Five, the 3 Investigators - which stretches back to the Bastable family of E.Nesbit and the birth of children's literature.
Gremlins is firmly in the tradition of '50s B-movies like The Blob and Invasion of the Saucer Men in which small towns are overrun by monsters but vanquished by teenager power. And as for ET, there are countless stories of small children who make friends with an otherworldly being, be it an alien, monster, faerie or ghost - for example Spielberg's fable is very similar to Raymond Brigg's The Snowman, which also includes magical flying sequences and a tear jerking ending. Indeed originally the short animated feature, now a Christmas TV classic, was going to be shown in cinemas as a supporting feature for ET until someone spotted that the storylines where uncomfortably similar and didn't want audiences thinking that the genius Spielberg had ripped off Brigg's book and just made it's icy hero a talking turd with special light-up action (TM) who turned out to be Space-Jesus.
The simple fact is that all those directors of 80's classics were just repacking even then very elderly tropes and the fact they they a) did it well and b) gained huge box office success and a place in popular memory still doesn't make them creators of original concepts. And even in terms of directorial craft, they were pulling on age old Hollywood story telling techniques. So then if we are excusing Spielberg and co. from plundering their childhoods for both concepts and craft, then it seems churlish of beating Abrams with that stick.
Yes, it's soaked in nostalgia, but we forget that all those '80s classics were too. Essentially Super 8 is drawing on a collection of age old tropes and classic techniques of screen story telling just as much as Spielberg, Zemeckis, Dante and Lucas were - the different is that his immediate reference points in the past are far more better remembered by the general audience than the trashy '50s drive-in fodder and episodes of The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits his forebears freely pillaged.
So then the afore mentioned weaknesses aren't the fact that much of this movie evokes the same warm glow as the summer blockbusters of my youth. Where Super 8 loses those crucial marks that would put in on par with those movies of yesteryear is that in the last act there are several scenes where the details of the plot get somewhat fuzzy. Now many are calling out this instances of plot holes, but I tend to think it's more of a case of exposition being missing in action as I could surmise what was going on well enough but a few lines at certain moments would have meant I wasn't nudged out of the movie by these little questions popping up.
Now if there's a longer cut coming on disc, I would at all be surprised to find that the scenes and lines currently on the cutting room floor will turn out to be the bits that fix this issues. On the other hand however, it may well have been a case that Abrams just wasn't keeping an eye on the devil in the details, because the omissions/failing in the narrative are related to the scifi and action mechanics. For in terms of the personal and emotional story - which in fairness is as much of the focus as the fantasy adventure side of things - the movie's last act round up everything very nicely. So then we have an ending that I will freely admit had me going misty eyed but afterwards did leave me with a few minor 'what exactly was going on there' queries.
Another area where Super 8 is weak is the Cargo itself. Now I loved all the hints and glimpses throughout the movie; it was pitch perfect movie monster handling, teasing the audience and not allowing us too much of a grasp on what it is or looks like, so we cannot easily diminish it in an 'ah, it's just a big tortoise' fashion (note for the hard of thinking: it's isn't a big tortoise - that's just an example). However, when we do get the big reveals in the last reel, I was somewhat underwhelmed by the design. While the effects and camera work were good, I just felt that the Cargo wasn't quite iconic enough.
Now none of the above are exactly a deal breaker but they does make the difference between Super 8 being merely a very good movie and a classic. However, there's far more positives than negatives here, and its strengths easily put it head and shoulders over most other blockbuster fare. For Super 8 relies on none of the usual standards of populist summer flicks - there's no over paid, over weight, and over the hill big name stars running about with guns, no pretty young pin-ups earning mega-bucks arsing about in front of green screens, and everything doesn't explode in a welter of CGI every ten minutes.
There are big action sequences; for example the train wreck, that comes very early on in the movie, is magnificently spectacular. However after this impressive devastation, the thrills are of a much smaller scale and Abrams wisely leaves all the massive carnage until the climax. And so for the majority of the film, instead we have a proper story, packed with suspense, drama and some good laughs too. But as well as the thrills and a decent pace, Super 8 has bags of emotion to touch the heart - it may be sentimental but it never tips into the cloying saccharine syrup that rots a film's teeth.
And this is pulled off not just with good scripting and direction, but some very fine performances. Not only are the kids likeable rather than bratty, but the acting talent displayed by Courtney and Fanning is highly impressive. In particular, the complex and powerful performance Elle Fanning gives not only eclipses her more famous sister but outshines the acting not only in other blockbusters but in many an arthouse and indie movie too.
The great irony of Super 8, is that while Abrams has been served a good deal of flack for mimicking Spielberg, because it delivers some real emotion power rather than overly sweet contrived confections to attempt to warm the heart, he's actually makes a better job of the material than his elder would. For there's in many of the most emotional scenes there's a rawness and darkness that Spielberg would overly balance with sweetness and light. And yet, it is in the action and scifi departments which are Abram's metier that he slightly fumbles.
However the strengths do considerably outweigh the weaknesses. Despite the *ahem* gremlins in the final act, I gasped, I laughed and, to complete the cliché, yes, I damn near well cried too. It may not be perfect but I had so much fun, I am considering a second visit to see it. And to put things in the broader context, too many blockbusters can only offer fumbled plots riddled with holes they hope to fill with a torrent of equally mishandled effects work set-pieces. So then to receive a movie like Super 8 whose story telling places the human drama rather than mindless CGI and explosions at its heart is something to celebrate.
Also if you do go - and I would recommend you do - be sure to stick around for the credits, when in a lovely touch they show the movie the kids made.
Friday, 4 December 2009
OFFICIAL! CHRISTMAS HAS COME EARLY!
Yes! It's really really true! Christmas has come early for cinema lovers everywhere!
In a terrific early present for film fans the world over, today Steven Spielberg has announced that his proposed remake of the Jimmy Stewart classic Harvey will no longer be going ahead. Not delayed, not on the back-burner but gone! Nixed! Cancelled!
Harvey is one of those classic movies that really just shouldn't be remade. Some films are just too iconic, and dare I say it, just too perfect to remake. And even though I'd have rather seen Spielberg in the director's chair than a host of lesser hands for a remake, his tendency to veer into the saccahrine would quite possibly end up replacing the magic and charm of the original with cloyingly sentimentality. Personally, I'd have picked Frank Darabont for the job, with Guillermo del Toro running a close second.
However the decison to not go ahead is the right one - and a wise one. If you are remaking a bona fide classic like Harvey, you either recreate the original or do something new with it. The latter obviously runs the risk of removing everything that makes the original work (see Neil Labute's The Wicker Man, and the former is a pointless exercise (Van Sant's Psycho.
So far, the reasons why Spielberg has decided to drop the Harvey remake have not come to light. But I reckon it went something like this....
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