And another Thing.

and you thought Resident Evil was cartoonish

noreply@blogger.com (math) — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:30:00 +0000

Puppets, Sock Puppets, Shadow Puppets, Finger Puppets, Oil Paint, Water Color, Acrylic Paint, Ink, Markers, Conte, Charcoal, Pastels, Pencils, Cels, Sand, Cut Outs, Comic Panels, Machinima, In-Game, Flash, Power Point, After Effects, 3D Models, Step Motion, Stop Motion, Photography, Silhouettes, Dolls, Clay, Metal, Wood…

...will be among the methods on display in Night of the Living Dead: Re-Animated, a new take on your favorite and mine. Engineered by animator Mike Schneider, taking full advantage of the perhaps-too-easy conceptual link between zombification and 're-animation,' it's a "mass collaborative animation," an open-call project for animators and visual artists of any sort to recreate or replace a selected chunk of visuals, eventually painting over the whole film.

I naturally wondered what happens when Schneider receives a hundred and eighty clips covering the same four key sequences, but he has a plan in place: a public vote on established public zombie discussion forums (he cites Zombie Nation [please, not to be confused with German electro act Zombie Nation] and All Things Zombie), with non-selected clips winding up in DVD bonus features.

There's an intriguing distribution model as well. In-progress versions will be shown at interested spots around the country, giving folks the opportunity to learn about it while there's still time to submit work. The finished flick, after limited festival screening, will be distributed free of charge on the internet through torrenting (a deal with Demonoid has been set up), with potential revenue from DVD sales and a hefty selection of complete-project and individual-artist merch already up at the film's website.

Plenty of time to get your work in before the December 15 deadline. The only rules: "Must be your own work, must match the original audio, must be in black and white." Sign up or check out samples over at the site. Some look intriguing, some look terrible. More than a couple look like A-Ha's "Take On Me" video, but then, there are some intriguing zombie connections. Tell me you don't see it:

So needless to say
I'm odds and ends
But that's me stumbling away

You're shying away
I'll be coming for you anyway

Take on me
Take me on
I'll be gone
In a day or two

further punishment

noreply@blogger.com (math) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 18:27:00 +0000

So I was sitting in the bargain theater, waiting for the $2 matinee of The Incredible Hulk to begin, and I got to thinking about my post calling T.I. Hulk possibly the first film do-over. While the bargain theater doesn't always show the officially attached trailers, I think the Punisher: War Zone teaser trailer debuted in front of Hulk a couple months back, and so though I didn't see it, I got to thinking about whether War Zone isn't a mulligan as well. It seems to be looked at as a sequel, but when the title character doesn't reprise his role in the second film, four years after the first, the semantics might come into play.

Punisher: War Zone shot under working titles of Punisher 2 (of course, Hulk shot under Hulk 2 as well) and the marquee-confounding Punisher: Welcome Back, Frank, the given title of the first in a relatively well-regarded Garth Ennis run on the Punisher monthly.

The troubled Punisher: War Zone production in brief:
John Dahl offered directing job, not interested. Cites script: "not that good."
Thomas Jane "regretfully and painfully" drops out, declines to state reason, though second-hand information claims it's due to his backing of director Walter Hill, whom Lionsgate decided wasn't the guy for the job.
Jane replaced with Ray Stevenson of Rome.
Kurt Sutter, writer of then-current draft, removes himself from credit arbitration (due to numerous other writers, he wouldn't likely have gotten credit in any case).
Lexi Alexander [pictured], director of well-regarded Green Street Hooligans, rumored off project after no-show at Comic-Con panel. Blog posts containing Punisher-related materials replaced with "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" monkeys. Monkey post shortly removed.
Alexander's composer Christopher Franke (who scored her Green Street Hooligans and Johnny Flynton) removed, replaced with Michael Wandmacher.
Extremely violent aggro jock-metal trailer makes rounds after Comic-Con.
Flick set for December 5 release.

Punisher '04 is itself a retry, of course, after Dolph Lundgren starred in an adaptation back in the 90s. And we know how well those both turned out!

..

noreply@blogger.com (math) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 18:02:00 +0000

Just got the word that the management company is gonna do some remodeling work on my apartment, so I'll be absent for a little while to clean house in preparation.

Neither Gilles Mimouni's L'Appartement nor Luna Kim's The Apartment is a remake of Billy Wilder's famed The Apartment. For that matter, neither is Tobe Hooper's 1999 made-for-TV The Apartment Complex, starring Obba Babatundé, Patrick Warburton, R. Lee Ermey, Charles Martin Smith, Tyra Banks, and with Jon Polito as "Dr. Caligari," but guess what? I'm gonna watch it anyway.

en serie

noreply@blogger.com (math) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 07:01:00 +0000

KOTOR II

noreply@blogger.com (math) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:29:00 +0000

"...we have another Republican nominee who’s telling us the exact same thing — that this time things will be different,” Biden said. “This time he’ll put country before party. Folks, we’ve seen this movie before. And we know the sequel is always worse than the original.”

Thanks to hollie horror for this!

Kinds of Light

noreply@blogger.com (math) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 05:07:00 +0000

Selected sequels from filmography of James Incandenza.

Cage II. B.S. Latrodectus Mactans Productions. Cosgrove Watt, Disney Leith; 35 mm.; 120 minutes; black and white; sound. Sadistic penal authorities place a blind convict (Watt) and a deaf-mute convict (Leith) together in 'solitary confinement,' and the two men attempt to devise ways of communicating with each other. LIMITED CELLULOID RUN; RERELEASED ON MAGNETIC VIDEO.

Cage III — Free Show. B.S. Latrodectus Mactans Productions/Infernatron Animation Concepts, Canada. Cosgrove Watt, P.A. Heaven, Everard Maynell, Pam Heath; partial animation; 35 mm.; 65 minutes; black and white; sound. The figure of Death (Heath) presides over the front entrance of a carnival sideshow whose spectators watch performers undergo unspeakable degradations so grotesquely compelling that the spectators' eyes become larger and larger until the spectators themselves are transformed into gigantic eyeballs in chairs, while on the other side of the sideshow tent the figure of Life (Heaven) uses a megaphone to invite fairgoers to an exhibition in which, if the fairgoers consent to undergo unspeakable degradations, they can witness ordinary persons gradually turn into gigantic eyeballs. INTERLACE TELENT FEATURE CARTRIDGE #357-65-65.

Incandenza, certainly, not known for his originality. See Romney and Sperber, 'Has James O. Incandenza Ever Even Once Produced One Genuinely Original or Unappropriated or Nonderivative Thing?' Post-Millennium Film Cartridge Journal, nos. 7-9 (Fall/Winter, Y.P.W.), pp. 4-26.

Funhouse

noreply@blogger.com (math) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:19:00 +0000

Uwe Boll is nothing if not defensive of his work. Loudly so, in most cases; physically, in others, as when he boxed several smaller, untrained film-critic opponents.

"I think I made a perfect House of the Dead movie," said Boll, referring to his comically idiotic action-horror flick, based on a fun, not-too-serious series of zombie-shootup video games. Later, re-evaluating his catalog: "House, 3 out 10 (for good action, CGI, sound)." At time of writing, House of the Dead is #39 on the IMDb's Bottom 100 list, with a 1.9 rating.

Boll is one of the internet's favorite scapegoats, a position he generally seems to enjoy. In any case, if the prevailing wind criticizes Boll's work, let no one say Boll does not also blow: he joins the fun today by re-releasing 2003's House of the Dead in a new edition, labeled Director's Cut. Also labeled "Funny Version." The problem here is that the original obviously was the funny version; short of subcontracting Rifftrax, there's probably not much you can do to punch up the comedy content.

The specific content of the new disc is a bit sparse – Lionsgate's own site has nothing more than a small picture of the new edition buried in the catalog, but no description sets it aside from the original. Third parties cite "new dialogue, alternative takes, pop-up commentary and animation from the original video game." They may be understandably confused – animation from the video game abounds in the standard cut of the film. I can state this with certainty, because when I saw the original cut of the film, my friends and I lost count of the number of clips of the original video game. We're not unskilled counters. The number was in the thirties.

The Attack By Fire

noreply@blogger.com (math) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 07:01:00 +0000

Here's a nice, unexciting inaugural post for my series which I guess is still temporarily called "Direct-to-Video Sequels Not Really Called For By Readily Apparent Popular Or Financial Indicators." Obviously still more than willing to entertain alternate title suggestions.

The Art of War, 2000. Budget about $60 million. Domestic take about $30m, worldwide take just barely $40m.

The Art of War II: Betrayal is directed by Josef Rusnak, the man on the still-upcoming It's Alive remake. Rusnak, whose last flick was a Wesley Snipes direct-to-video actioner, takes the helm from Christian Duguay (Scanners II: The New Order, Scanners III: The Takeover, and Screamers).

Snipes returns as Neil Shaw, a loose cannon for a United Nations covert-ops squad. Shaw evidently didn't learn his lesson about diplomatic law enforcement the last time he played opposite Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa in an international-protocol thriller (Rising Sun). Here, Shaw must solve or prevent some type of international incident while staying out of trouble for his wild ways, including weapon-carrying, reckless driving, passport fraud, and tax evasion.

"God help us in the future."

noreply@blogger.com (math) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:01:00 +0000

In noting earlier this week that John Johnson, director of The Skeleton Key (2006), was not Iain Softley, director of The Skeleton Key (2005), I checked out Johnson's catalog. Nothing too notable, but the guy does his own writing, director, editing, cinematography, producing, and score, so that gets him a line of credit in my book.

It seems likely he'll max out that line of credit with his next project: Plan 9, a title-simplified remake of Ed Wood's infamous Plan 9 from Outer Space, a popular choice for the mantle of 'worst film of all time.'

Aiming for 9/9/09 (roughly coinciding with the 50th anniversary), Johnson hopes to make a film in the intended sci-fi/horror spirit of the original Plan 9, rather than the result. From the website: "a serious-minded retelling of the original story, paying homage to the spirit of Wood's film without resorting to camp or parody."

Conrad Brooks, sole surviving cast member of the original, will appear in the remake; the gig includes a promotion from Patrolman to Lieutenant. Brooks, who's acted in 21 direct-to-video flicks in the last ten years, has gotten his mileage out of time spent working with Wood. Besides a cameo in Tim Burton's Ed Wood, he's shown up in numerous Wood-related, Wood-inspired, and Woodesque flicks. Most directly related: I Woke Up Early the Day I Died, a 1998 adaptation of a previously unfilmed Wood screenplay boasting a rather surprising cast.

As far as Woodesque and Wood-inspired: Brooks has appeared in more improbably titled films than anyone this side of the Lina Wertmüller oeuvre. After dropping out of film in 1961 with Coleman Francis's worst-ever contender Beast of Yucca Flats, he returned in 1985 with Polish Vampire in Burbank. Since then, just to name a few:

It Came from Trafalgar
Zeppo: Sinners from Beyond the Moon!
Dr. Horror's Erotic House of Idiots
Corpses Are Forever
Max Hell Comes to Frogtown
Ghost Taxi
Armageddon Boulevard
Ice Scream
Rollergator
Blood Slaves of the Vampire Wolf
Baby Ghost
Little Lost Sea Serpent
And who can forget his immortal turn as Police Chief Arbogast in 2002's Raising Dead?

I was gonna give Brooks a hard time for performing in Jan-Gel 3: Hillbilly Monster, until I noticed that he directed the entire trilogy. I should probably give him a much harder time for that.

Plan 9 from Outer Space is in the public domain, allowing John Johnson to write a new screenplay. You too can take advantage of its status. Enjoy!

Slumming

noreply@blogger.com (math) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 22:23:00 +0000

Tonight, a two-hour pilot kicks off the relaunch of Beverly Hills, 90210. The new show – the Walshes are now the Wilsons – is just going by 90210, skipping both the passé Beverly Hills shout-out and the tacky Next Generation tag used in early prep.

A batch of TV vets – Lori Loughlin (Full House), Rob Estes (Melrose Place), Jessica Walter (everything from Arrested Development way back to The Alfred Hitchcock Hour) comprises the part of the cast whose names I recognize; the kids are vets of Degrassi, The O.C., and even The Wire in one case (Tristan Wilds).

I figure the folks who watched the first edition (which ran 10 years, fairly impressive for a high school show) are well past this, save an occasional guilty wallow in the first couple of seasons on DVD, and that the folks of the right demographic will stick with Gossip Girl.

No meat on these bones

noreply@blogger.com (math) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:35:00 +0000

When I saw a scheduled listing for DVD release today of Skeleton Key 2, I naturally assumed it to be a direct-to-DVD sequel to Iain Softley's 2005 Skeleton Key, a rather gray Cajun-themed supernatural thriller with a rather gray ending, notable only for getting John Hurt and Gena Rowlands to take starring roles.

While Skeleton Key's DVD sequel is probably in the works, Skeleton Key 2 is actually a sequel to John Johnson's direct-to-video 2006 Skeleton Key. It could be a clever marketing trick for a canny producer, come to think of it: pick a somewhat successful film with a fairly generic title, rush out a low-budget film of the same title, and then beat the studio production to the punch with the second installment, cashing in on all that sweet DVD sequel money.

Further research shows that the full title is Skeleton Key 2: 667 The Neighbor of the Beast. Though I'm sure it's older, I can casually date this terrible joke back to a horrible Lenny Dee industrial album I had to file and reprice occasionally since 2001, which means I've had a number of years to ponder that 667 would actually be across the street from the beast, and 668 its next-door neighbor.

Laborious

noreply@blogger.com (math) — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 15:19:00 +0000

Happy Labor Day!
I'm off to work, but calling for naming suggestions for a new feature: an occasional series of brief posts calling attention to sequels even when I have no interest in seeing the film or writing too much about it. This way, when DMX passes the acting torch to Young Jeezy for Exit Wounds 2: Point of Re-Entry, you guys can hear about it and maybe see a DVD cover without me having to sit through either one. I am thinking "Films You Did Not Expect To Read About This Morning," or "Movies I Can't Be Bothered To Research," or "Direct-to-Video Sequels Not Really Called For By Readily Apparent Popular Or Financial Indicators," you know, something catchy.

once more unto the Breach

noreply@blogger.com (math) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:40:00 +0000

Since when is late August supposed to be Vaguely-Described-Premise Thriller ad season?

600 giorni di Salò

noreply@blogger.com (math) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 07:01:00 +0000

No sequel to Salò (that I know of). Thankfully no remakes from desperate, would-be extremist filmmakers, but an interesting project inspired by Salò is out there, if tough to come by. In 1997, career controversialist German film and theater director Christoph Schlingensief made 120 Days of Bottrop (a city in western Germany), or 120 Days of Bottrop: The Last New German Film. Bottrop follows a German director engaging in a disastrous attempt to remake Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom. Information is somewhat sparse, but very little I could tell you, beyond that premise, would be more convincing than this translated info from Schlingensief's site. Note (with amusement to taste) that "barrel binder" is translated from Fassbinder.

The last survivors of the old barrel binder guild do together, in order to turn on the Potsdamerplatz the really all-last New German film, a remake of Pasolini's “120 Days of Sodom.” Schlingensief is to lead direction, however of a certain “Sönke Buckmann” is replaced, to which promptly Katja Riemann presents the Federal film award. An homage at Rainer Werner barrel binder, to the Exzentrik and the insanity of one lengthens past time.

“Sound, shrill, obscene - faraway of custom, sense and order… Mr. Schlingensief, you need a psychiatrist” (Bild)

“Deconstructing scoring steel [ed: Riefenstahl] & barrel binder: The German illness film, the Triumph of the Will to the Kömödie, all that must be dead-made. One had to settle this dirty job. He did it for us.” (taz)

“If one Schlingensief sees, white one which the German cinema, so obligingly/pleasingly it come along may, mostly goes off: Characteristic.” (Michael Althen, SZ)

“Naturally earns Christoph Schlingensief alone the Federal film award - for publicly lived, in art continuous puberty and the successful fusion transformed of self-pity and serious unserious.” (BZ)

“… Experimentalorgie the their-same searches. Schlingensief's best film for years.” (The Standard, Vienna)

AnthropophAugust

noreply@blogger.com (math) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 01:14:00 +0000

Is there a holiday I don't know about?

Today's DVD re-releases: Salò, Cannibal Holocaust, Cannibal Terror, and Delicatessen.

Salò and Cannibal Holocaust are two of the most reviled (and celebrated, depending) films in history, both often banned and found in most any controversial-films or extremist-braggadocio list, though Entertainment Weekly puzzlingly left Salò off the Top 25 in favor of at least a couple flashes in the pan...Aladdin? The Da Vinci Code? Time Out's recent list had Salò at #1, the Disturbo 13 list has it at #1, etc..

Cannibal Terror is of significantly less stature, though it keeps Cannibal Holocaust company as its down-the-street neighbor (with Cannibal Man residing between the two) on the official British list of Video Nasties, which means it'll always have completists willing to watch. Delicatessen lives several streets over in an entirely different type of neighborhood, but it too includes the consumption of certain cuts of meat. Salò won't show up on any cannibal keyword searches, but it deals with other sorts of human consumption, both the literal and metaphorical kinds.

On a remakey note, the American remake of South Korean comedy megahit My Sassy Girl arrives on DVD today as well. I was under the impression it was a straight-to-video release, but through the magic of IMDb, I am able to tell you that it made $23,606 on 24 screens during its opening weekend in Thailand.

Father's Little Dividend

noreply@blogger.com (math) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 22:18:00 +0000

Taking a short hiatus. I've been asked to officiate the wedding of good friends, a couple The Apple fans who met at one of my annual Halloween horror-movie parties (/singles mixers, apparently). It's coming up in a couple of weeks, and I'd like to give preparation the better part of my attention. I'll leave you to your own devices to mull over rumors of both Eli Roth and The Office's B.J. Novak cast in Quentin Tarantino's remake of Inglorious Bastards, Britney Spears in Quentin Tarantino's remake of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, and whatever you got on The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2. See you soon.

iKill

noreply@blogger.com (math) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 07:01:00 +0000

On the topic of unlikely video game adaptations, look for an episodic game of Showtime's serial-killer-killer show Dexter to hit iPods and iPhones in the nearish future.

Since this is a portable-device-exclusive episodic video game adaptation of a TV show based on a series of novels, the announcement was naturally made at ComicCon.

Who'll play it?

noreply@blogger.com (math) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 18:01:00 +0000

With the slo-moriffic Watchmen trailer out now and widely discussed, non-readers will be eager to miss the point further with the upcoming episodic video game prequel. It should be out around the time of the film (March 2009), available in increments on XBox Live, Playstation Network, and for PC. Looks like the game will let you partake of some pretty standard action violence as Rorschach or Nite Owl in an effort to make Watchmen roughly the same as everything else.

Zack Snyder mentioned his interest in such a thing back in March, but official press releases arrived just before the weekend.

Game dialogue is scripted by respectable comics author Len Wein, who collaborated (as editor) with Watchmen creator Alan Moore on a seminal run of Saga of the Swamp Thing in the mid-1980s. Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons is collecting a paycheck as "game advisor."

The Demon of Gothos Mansion

noreply@blogger.com (math) — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 07:01:00 +0000

While we're on the topic, and since this blog is in the habit of highlighting these things:

Batman Annex

noreply@blogger.com (math) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:14:00 +0000

Some pictures that didn't make the final draft of Batman Begins post, but which I felt like sharing. You can follow along with the original post, making substitutions as follows:

fig. 1, uncaring Batman
fig. 2, absurd action figure
fig. 3, comic-style Scarecrow
fig. 4, poetic-license Arkham
fig. 5, Gordon v. Flass
fig. 6, creepy Batman

fig. 1

fig. 2

fig. 3

fig. 4

fig. 5

fig. 6

Batmanagan, Begin Again

noreply@blogger.com (math) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 07:01:00 +0000

DON'T BE SCARED

An underacted comic book film? Batman Begins is structured, at least for a while, around subtle, understated performances – Christian Bale, Liam Neeson, Linus Roache in a classy turn like Robert Burke with an imaginable interior. Roache's pleasant performance is more important than his screen time might suggest; as Thomas Wayne, his character must be of sufficient stuff that it must always show in young Bruce as he becomes himself. Bale's persona as Batman must always answer to the standard set by the elder Wayne – Batman himself is an ongoing attempt to answer the loss of the father, and if we are too easily tempted to extend that to an archetypal concept, we would do well to remember the individual case, not losing sight of Bruce Wayne's actions germinating always in the elder Wayne.

If Batman prowls the night because his father was killed (much more the position of Batman Begins than any maternal concerns), it helps the sympathy value of his case if the father in question is an honorable, classy one, whose too-brief time with young Bruce was sufficient to instill in him the solid ethical base required to guide him through his life, rather than the somewhat more cynical assertion that he creeps through the night doling out discipline because his father disappeared from the picture at an important age, leaving him only the most outlandish method of creating the discipline he needed from ages twelve through eighteen: by projecting guilt (his own, at his father's death) onto common thugs and low-lifes, then punishing appropriately. Batman doesn't take life; this was not a punishment his father would have likely considered appropriate. He only seeks to create a civil, caring, well-behaved city-family like the one he lost.

While these subtexts have always been there for the looking in Batman's comic-book world, they tend to be passed over, meaningless as they are. Batman as a series has drawn many of its strongest moments from the idea of discrediting them, from Batman exalting the higher functions: he eschews guns, avoids killing, utilizes gadgets and inventions, hones his mind to become The World's Greatest Detective (a title bestowed upon him, shared with Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Hemlock, and Sherman Holmes). It's all tied together – probably not much of a stretch to wonder if some of that widespread philanthropic donation isn't compensation for an extensively guilty conscience, let alone for the damage caused to Gotham by his nightly adventures – but his emphasis on mental agility, even as he must by necessity practice its physical counterpart against the heat-packing criminal element, is his commitment to overpowering those dirtier psychological secrets.

To the film's credit, this 65-year, thousands-of-issues struggle is recapitulated cleanly in Batman Begins. The conflict is set up in the origin story, and while the film has the benefit of telling the story itself, superhero films fail if they stray too far; the origin must be visible from any point along the line, and Batman & Robin simply doesn't offer that connection. Batman Begins does, playing up the counterpoint to Batman's intellectual resolve, for even as he strives to overcome the guilt of his parents' death, seeking to serve Gotham out of superego morality rather than compensatory, low revenge, it reminds him and the viewer that a more visceral psychological factor is at work: when Batman Begins is about fear, it is at its strongest. If you've been around Batman a long time, you may know a number of his phases; he's in black now, but he was in gray and a fairly bright blue for a while, and the costume from the 1960s television show isn't too terrifying.

Take a look at the cover of Detective Comics #27 (above), though, the first appearance of 'The' Batman (scarier still with the definite article, less a heroic name, more a freak of science, an oddity, an unknown quantity). He's a very creepy character (I prefer the cover of issue #31 on this point). Cynics may wonder, after sixty years of evidence, why word doesn't get around the criminal community that Batman talks tough but isn't going to kill you, and will in fact probably save you if you slip off a ledge running away after he catches you mid-felony, but Batman Begins reminds us via his first sudden appearance at the docks (without any Peter Parker public sneak previews), without the crooks living in an established superhero world, that he must have been pretty scary.

In 1939 and 1940, Batman had limited compunctions about lethal force, and killed more than his share of criminals. He doesn't have to be a kiddie-ready hero, an aspect Tim Burton and Michael Keaton were relatively successful in restoring, until Joel Schumacher ran rampant with the neon glowsticks and silver-toned Batsuit, modeled like the third Batman action figure in any series, when they've run out of authentic costumes and have to put out a Night-Scuba Batman to pad the toy line, decking him in DayGlo to differentiate from the black, charcoal, and gray figures. Batman Begins brings back the black, the body armor, the bats.

SO WELCOME BACK, BABY, TO THE POOR SIDE OF TOWN

Rather than the films continuing to pick the "next" two Batman villains, working their way down the checklist from most famous to least until Batman 8 featured Maxie Zeus and Clayface III, Batman Begins gets it very right in its selection of Scarecrow. Cillian Murphy is perfectly dry and glib, the character much revamped from the Ray Bolger-styled character of the comic to a more workaday appearance in the film, more plausible and significantly more ominous. One of Batman Begins' strengths is the way in which it takes place in a fairly realistic world, and Scarecrow holds down his corner of this aim in more ways than one: not only with his new appearance, dully scientific methodology, and lack of grandiose criminal scheming, but through being fairly unsavory out of costume as well, reminding us that just because a villain isn't cackling maniacally and hurling thematic weaponry doesn't mean he isn't a danger; Dr. Crane's role as corruptible bureaucrat is probably more damaging than his role as Scarecrow.

This isn't to say any of it is joyless; Crane's smugness isn't without humor, a point underscored by what I can only imagine is a subtle Ichabod Crane joke (the Horseman being the naming inspiration for the comic character, usually drawn as rather drawn, but seldom horse-drawn) upon being set loose in perma-Scarecrow form after his inpatient stay in Arkham.

Arkham is usually depicted as a building that reflects its contents, a sort of haunted mansion, possibly set above a craggy cliff-face, depending on who's drawing it. The name is taken from H.P. Lovecraft, and this tends to be the informing motif, a gothic horror forever uneasy due to the dark secrets that once transpired within its walls. As with Scarecrow, Batman Begins holds it up as rather pedestrian, underscoring that same theory of fear being just as comfortable in a quotidian, rectangular cinderblock high-rise as in a creaky designer spookhouse.

It's a shame Arkham Asylum's breakdown isn't what it could have been. On the other hand, it's lucky it isn't what it easily might have been. The concept was a holdover from early drafts of the script of what would have been Batman V (what comes after Forever?), when creative staff, having exhausted every single one of the first five Batman villains that came to mind, thought it might be fun to use up the rest of them in one go by having them break out of Arkham, the mythical maximum-security supervillain mental facility of the Batman universe. The idea of using up the villains was scrapped, but as a story element, the Asylum breakdown remained. Fans of the classy Arkham Asylum graphic novel, in which the Joker invites Batman into a lunatic-run Arkham for a little psychological self-examination, may be disappointed at the relatively staid physical and psychological portrayal of the building, and comic stat-collectors may be disappointed at the relative lack of X-Menesque cameos (Victor Zsasz doesn't really cut it when you're hoping for a Doctor Destiny appearance), but considering how the original concept would likely have turned out, all computer-generated Killer Croc and little class, it's probably for the best.

This isn't to say it's not a wasted opportunity; the breakdown of Arkham and chaos in the Narrows are the perfect high-stakes cataclysm for the end of this film about fear, with its stories about the gap between the common man and the powerful, about the responsibilities of the wealthy, about the Wayne family trait becoming more than noblesse oblige; when Ducard blames Thomas Wayne for messing up the economic warfare instigated by the League, we understand that Wayne wasn't just a rich guy with enough to be generous, not just a corporate giant with a side interest in philanthropy, but a man standing by the side of his city to fight an invader – albeit a fiduciary one – and this lesson, among others, is eventually taken to heart by his son. No wonder Ducard misjudges Thomas Wayne's second-guessable actions on that fateful night: Ducard is equally adept at micro- and macro-warfare, able to plan attacks both martial and economic; he has seen Wayne's stand against the latter and equates his lack of martial skill to a lack of willpower, not understanding how a man can possess one (economic) skill and not the (physical) other.

First, then, we endeavor to separate Bruce Wayne's extensive philanthropy from simple guilt, guilt of (by allowing his parents' death) robbing the city of the future good works of his father, a motivation beyond the already-potent guilt of being born wealthy. This is manageable, but the important part comes in the form of elevating it even beyond unguilty goodwill to responsibility: the responsibility of a city's guardian to its people, shepherd to flock, parent to child. It's never charity work, but another weapon in defense of the city, always a tool in his utility belt: as batarang is a bane to gun-wielding hand threatening a citizen, so a new wing of the hospital is a bane to economic impoverishment threatening the citizenry.

The assault on the poor of the Narrows (that is to say, all of the Narrows), then, makes sense. Like his father before him, Bruce Wayne is an economic warrior, and chaos in the Narrows is the front line. This, on its own, is relevant to the character and to the story; the threat against Gotham as a whole is overkill. It does underscore a cold point left unsaid – that the powerful of Gotham wouldn't be overly concerned with the breakdown of Arkham as long as the raising of the bridges kept the murderous rabble from the city proper – but wouldn't this simply serve to cement Batman's character? If he and a select few others are the only ones to brave the fray while Gothamites watch disenfranchised rioters tear up their own neighborhoods, then we can see that he has grown beyond his inherited wealth and position to understand what it means to fight to save a city, especially one thought beyond saving, both by tongue-clucking establishment types and by the very anti-establishment League of Shadows.

Why abandon it, then, just as it's getting good? Almost as soon as it's set up, it's through. Rachel Dawes shelters a poor helpless kid. Batman beats up three guys and heads off to fight crime where it's important, underneath the center of the city in a building bearing his name. Don't cut to the century-old speeding-train gag. The poisoned ghetto is where the final battle should be fought. Work the fear angle, not the kid-in-danger angle. Work Batman against the poor or not against the poor, turned against by those he is coming to help, those who don't understand his intentions, who have been made to fear their would-be savior by the forces who have done them harm, and who would, in a reversal of the traditional superhero mask, fear him even more if they knew who he really was.

Work Jim Gordon the faithful servant of truth, work Gordon the guy who beats up Flass – created not as Christopher Nolan's go-toguy Mark Boone Junior but as a six-and-a-half-foot blond Green Beret – for threatening his pregnant wife. Work Gordon the beleaguered, bespectacled guy in his undershirt throwing out the trash, not Gordon the "I gotta get me one of those!" sidekick or comic relief. Give Gordon something to do but don't make it joyriding the Batmobile. Gordon has his own story, and it's his grip on integrity as the rest of the crooked department crumbles and destroys itself.

Let Batman deal with the crazed populace who fears everything at this moment, just as they fear him the rest of the time. The conflict was inevitable. There's no avoiding their fear; this is a casualty of his efforts to terrify crime.

The classy underacting in this film – Roache's warm dignity, Neeson's even keel, Oldman's humble turn, Murphy's smarmy frankness – serves multiple ends. It keeps the film fairly grounded in reality, an absolute necessity if the central fear motif is to retain any weight. It keeps the movie feeling adult, a tough challenge of recent comic-adapted film, several of which merely ramp up the grit, the murder, and the nighttime exteriors to try for the same result. It keeps the movie good, an even rarer accomplishment.

Christian Bale, though, out-underacts them all. As Batman, he's the most animated we've seen, trading in the usual flat, low tones for a coarse bark that mixes his intimidation tactics with the idea that he's actually concerned by something under there. As Bruce Wayne, he refuses to play James Bond. Sure, he's younger, and by the time Clooney stepped in, Bruce Wayne had had plenty of time to perfect his act, so to some extent it's only natural that Bale would play it a little more hesitant. More to the point, though, he understands that Bruce Wayne is only an act, ginger ale in a champagne flute. Rather than a cocksure trickster, though, Bale sees the Wayne persona as a necessity – a fortunately wealthy means to an increased arsenal, a well-positioned turret for the financial side of the battle, and little else but a shield for the Batman persona. To that end, Bale makes sure that Bruce Wayne never really inhabits the Bruce Wayne role; even when we meet him he has done what he can to shed his name and place. Throughout his return he does his best to shirk his duties as Wayne – he doesn't call Rachel, doesn't go to work until it suits Batman's purposes.

What is it about Wayne that requires this blankness? Whatever it is, it's something that Christian Bale seems to understand. It's not an uninteresting coincidence – or maybe not coincidence at all – that Bale gained some notoriety and cult status from his turn as Bateman in American Psycho. Bateman and Batman are at odds, as much so as two characters can be, but it's in Bateman that Bale honed the blankness he would need to understand Bruce Wayne. Both characters are empty, reflections of their time and place. Bateman is very much a reaction to 1980s Manhattan, a person created by it and a literary construct created by the knowledge of it. This time and place is relevant to Batman as well, with both Frank Miller's seminal Dark Knight Returns and origin retelling Batman: Year One (from which Batman Begins draws at will) taking place in a Gotham that clearly indicates mid-80s NYC. "Patrick Bateman" is a mythical creation to cause conflict within his territory, purging it of at least some of its iniquities. His morals and methods are different, but his role as urban bogeyman has more than a distant echo in Batman, who prowls his own city (as seen here, sometimes the same city) by night, a mythical creation to police his homeland, not under the guidance of the law, but according to morals that are specifically his own. One asks what you can do when society cannot govern behavior, and the other asks what you must do.

Bateman and Batman are both ciphers, less actual people than urban barometers. Through these conduits flow the psyche of the city, the knowledge and terror of pain and crime. They are the loss of the father and the lack of faith in the police. They are the positive and negative terminals of vigilantism. Finally, Batman is starting to sound scary again.

Scholars of the weird

noreply@blogger.com (math) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 07:01:00 +0000

Today we get Hellboy II: The Golden Army, which I'm not ashamed to say looks like a lot of fun. It's the second theatrical outing for HB, but the fourth Hellboy film - Sword of Storms and Blood and Iron, feature-length animated flicks, premiered on the Cartoon Network in 2006 and 2007 before hitting DVD. Both are on Netflix's instant-watch list as well, if you need to gear up before hitting the multiplex.

And Hellboy III? Maybe. Director Guillermo Del Toro is, since Pan's Labyrinth, a big enough player to pick his projects, and he and series creator Mike Mignola have discussed the details of a third film (Bruce Campbell as Lobster Johnson). Del Toro's a busy man, though, signed on for The Hobbit and with varying attachments to another ten or so projects over the next few years.

Don't despair, fans, Mignola says he's got another ten or fifteen years left in the comic. Here's a fine reason to read it.

Carmageddon

noreply@blogger.com (math) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 07:01:00 +0000

A fine patriotic viewing choice for the holiday weekend would probably have been Death Race 2000, though I was busy with lesser fare.

Continuing the Jason Statham news from last week, the trailer's up for the new Paul W. S. Anderson version. Posted on it a long while ago; nothing seems to have changed. Statham in the lead ("Jensen Ames"? Doesn't have the same ring as "Frankenstein"), Tyrese in Sylvester Stallone's role as Machine Gun Joe Viterbo. Roger Corman returns as producer – alongside Tom Cruise. Looks uninteresting.

I bet he didn't kill his wife.

le transporteur trois

noreply@blogger.com (math) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:00:00 +0000

Left off last week with a bit on Louis Leterrier's* new Incredible Hulk flick. Leterrier won't be returning to the Transporter series for installment #3. The new one (trailer's out now) will be directed by bombastically self-named French ex-graffiteur Olivier Megaton.

Never made it to the second Transporter, but I had to grudgingly hand it to the first film. It's tough to remember a film so completely willing to dispense with even pretending it cared about the plot in favor of moving on to the next action scene, which is both what you want and what you get when you hire Corey Yuen (compatriot of Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung, a 30-year vet action choreographer and martial artist/acrobat since childhood) to direct.

*Some years ago, I made a smarmy comment to a friend about Leterrier being obvious French for "the terrier," which we both rightly dismissed as a pretty lowbrow gag, but you gotta think twice when you realize the guy made a movie called Danny the Dog (released as Unleashed in the US).

Damage Control

noreply@blogger.com (math) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:27:00 +0000

A word on The Incredible Hulk, if only due to its unusual status as not-a-sequel, not-quite-remake, not-quite-reboot. True, the different between remake and reboot (and whatever T.I. Hulk is) is tenuous at best, and often the number of years between projects is the only concrete-ish deciding factor. The other thing is a sort of general tenor – Casino Royale (2006) is universally considered a reboot, rather than remake or re-adaptation, despite multiple versions committed to film already.

With Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk (2008) so quick on the heels of Ang Lee's Hulk (2003), and the prevailing opinion on Hulk to be dismissive (to put it politely), Marvel needed to repackage the character to be palatable to general fans and, more importantly, packageable with the new Avengers wave they're setting up. The new film would have to realign the potential Avengers audience's thoughts of the Hulk so that they didn't think of Eric Bana, or Ang Lee, or whatever exactly was happening there at the end of Hulk. I can't think of another time when a studio asked an audience to please just forget the last one happened: filmdom's first do-over?

The prevailing sentiment seems to be that the new one succeeds where the old one failed; not having seen it yet, I gather that this means "notably more action, slightly better computer graphics." Despite what seems to be a huge gap in popular acceptability, there doesn't seem to be much to distinguish between the productions, at least on paper. But don't take my word for it – let's go to the tale of the tape:

Hulk (2003)
Release date:
6/20/2003
Budget:
$137 mil
Runtime:
2:15
Rating:
PG-13
Foreign director:
Taiwanese
Comic screenwriter of dubious talent:
Guy who wrote The Punisher
Opening weekend:
$62 mil
Theaters:
3660
Second weekend drop:
69.7%
Rotten Tomatoes rating:
61%
"Security guard" cameo:
Lou Ferrigno

The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Release date:
6/13/2008
Budget:
$150 mil
Runtime:
1:54
Rating:
PG-13
Foreign director:
French
Comic screenwriter of dubious talent:
Guy who wrote Elektra
Opening weekend:
$55 mil
Theaters:
3505
Second weekend drop:
60.1%
Rotten Tomatoes rating:
67%
"Security guard" cameo:
Lou Ferrigno