It's very simple: the idea of Reed Richards is just completely alien to most of the people who can greenlight something in Hollywood. A renegade science genius so smart and crazy that he'd steal a spaceship and ask his girlfriend and her kid brother to be his co-pilots, but is still a dedicated husband and father who just loves to explore and occasionally saves the world? I mean, the guy named himself "Mr. Fantastic".
He's not motivated by greed or lust or ego, but curiosity and joy of finding new things. They can't handle it. They don't even understand it. It's the same reason why Mark Zuckerberg is allegedly driven by rejection in The Social Network.
So they make him an awkward geek or a nerdy kid because the notion of a good, smart, honest, loving man seems devoid of drama. These movies fail because they don't accept the basic premise of the book. It's an adventure story, like a Scifi Indiana Jones. Marvel studios would get it right. But until Fox or whomever else holds the rights accepts the central conceit, these movies will always bomb.
John Carter Teaser Trailer #johncarter This was the best trailer I'd seen in years. Why? Because it made me want to watch a movie I had to turn off after the first ten minutes. They get around the big explosions problem by finding a piece of music that perfectly captures a FEELING that's at the heart of this story (after all, the original book was called "A Princess of Mars"), and then they cut the highlight scenes to match the building pace of the music. It effectively hides the horrible cgi characters that overpopulate and kill the movie. You feel like you get hints of something sweeping and romantic. It feels like David Lean doing a sci-fi film. Which says to me that there is actually an opening in the marketplace for a film just like that: something epic and grand and passionate set on other worlds. But, frankly, it hasn't been made yet. Star Wars: Episode II wanted you to think that it was it. Alejandro Jodorowsky's Dune could have been that (if he'd made it a 4 hour movie w an intermission, where the first half was Dune, the 2nd have was Dune Messiah, and the love story is about Paul and Chani). But no one has done it yet.
As much as I am a Trekkie and a comic book geek, I have to say that the movie I have been the most fired up to see all summer isn't "Into Darkness" or "Man of Steel", but Guillermo Del Toro's giant monsters vs. giant mecha battle royal, "Pacific Rim".
For anyone who's ever loved Voltron - lions or cars, take your pic - or old Godzilla movies, or even that crazy show Tranzor-Z, this movie has got to seem like a dream come true.
For instance: given the size of their brains, are the Kaiju (the giant monsters) actually intelligent? Like, can they strategize in combat?
And, most importantly, who, or what, is on the other side of that interdimensional rift at the bottom of the Pacific ocean that is mass producing these kaiju to exterminate the human race?
Any way, my hope is that this is finally a film that is really worthy of the 3D Imax experience. With a guy like Del Toro at the helm, my faith is very strong.
There are some movies that you just take for granted that they're supposed to be great, but that most people have probably never seen, let alone seen in a theater.
Lawrence of Arabia is one of those films. I consider myself very fortunate to have had the opportunity to actually catch it on the big screen for the very first time over 10 years ago at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood as part of the American Cinematheque's 70mm Festival.
What was really amazing to me is just how utterly, overwhelmingly beautiful this film is as a purely visual, cinematic experience. The size of the canvas, the sheer scale of the storytelling, yet the exquisite, meticulous attention to detail in every frame is just breathtaking.
So breathtaking that, honestly, I really had no idea what was actually happening in the movie. I had no idea and, frankly, I didn't even care because I was enjoying the experience of the cinematic journey so much.
But, at the end of the day, I'm a storyteller, and it always nagged at me that I didn't actually get the story of such a great film. So when the opportunity came up again to watch it on cable (albeit with my beautiful but not quite as grandiose HDTV), I lept at the chance.
Now, if you only watch the first half of the movie up through the intermission, it's this incredibly uplifting tale about how one man was able to challenge convention to achieve amazing results and possibly remake a world for the better.
Very typical, Oscar-worthy fare. Very inspirational.
But if you stick around long enough to watch the end of the film, I gradually began to realize that it's actually a much more sophisticated story about the hubris and self-delusion inherent in the colonial system, and how even the most well-intentioned colonialist is still a supremacist. To see T.E. Lawrence brought so high as to be nearly deified, only to be literally thrown face-first into the bloody, mud-filled pit he'd dug at the bottom of his own soul is really surprisingly deep and moving today for a story so large. The journey is very deep and personal, while at the same time magnificantly broad and grand.
A great, complex movie. Oh, for the days.
David Lean clearly knew what he was doing and saying about his own home country, and I applaud him, Peter O'Toole, and their whole team. We should all be so bold in our storytelling.
One of the best things I've seen in the last year was Ken Burns' excellent Civil War documentary, but I was always fascinated as to the way all of the combatants referred to each major battle as, simply, "a fight".
Which is why the opening scene of Steven Spielberg's Lincoln is so effective: it is, essentially, a fist fight between hundreds of Confederate soldiers and Black Union soldiers in the middle of a muddy, blood-soaked field.
More than anything else, I was moved by the intimacy of this film.
The war wasn't masses of nameless, faceless regiments moving along a chess board. It was a back breaking street fight to the death, fought among millions. The debate in the congress over these lofty issues like personhood and citizenship immediately descends into a raucous shouting match full of insults and clever name-calling. Average citizens come to the office hours of The President of the United States to settle a land dispute.
I was also particularly impressed by the rawness of the politics. For something so lofty and noble as the abolition of slavery, Lincoln and his cohorts employed every conceivable trick in the book - brides, coercion, misdirection. I'm reminded of a line from "The Kingdom of Heaven": "maybe one day you'll do a little evil to do a great good."
Reminder, again, that all politics are not just local. They're personal.
I have some issues with the end of the film. Frankly, I think the last five minutes are totally unnecessary and hurt the tone and style of the film. But it's still exquisite.
Chill.com is a website where videophiles like me can curate and share all of the gloriously messy videos on the web that they love and share them with the world at large.
Someone at Chill thought it was a good idea to name ME as the curator for the videos that appear on their front page all week.
I think I'll make it my mission to make them regret this decision. :-)
Check out my own Chill collections at http://chill.com/Dayfornight.
And for a taste of what I'm liking on Chill, check out this link.
My earliest memory from inside a movie theater is watching Princess Leia dissing Luke Skywalker for being too short to convincingly impersonate a stormtrooper. I always remember the scene differently from how it was actually shot: some how, my 3 year old brain knitted together the stark black and whites from the hallways of the Death Star with this scene, so I always remember what is actually an all-black room as a high contrast black & white.
Weird, I know. Maybe it was just a bit of information overload for my developing cranium.
Point being, while I'm a much more rabid Trekkie than Star Wars fan, I basically know the dialogue from Episode IV by heart.
I remember when the Star Wars movies were good. Sadly, there's the kernel of a good story in the most recent trilogy, but the difference, as always, is in the storytelling details - the everyday choices made by a director on dialogue, on performance, on camera position, on edits. SOMEONE could have made "The Phantom Menace", "Attack of the Clones", and "Revenge of the Sith" into good movies.
There was a time that the film snob in me completely dismissed the idea of someone else making Star Wars movies because they're really George Lucas' magnum opus, but clearly George Lucas doesn't agree with me, and he's probably right.
So, my thoughts?
Hire JJ Abrams and Damon Lindelof. Unlike me, they really do froth at the mouth about Star Wars. And my namesake has gone on record on more than one occasion about why this whole Mitichlorians garbage completely defeats the entire point about The Force. A great starting place.
Do as many things practically and in camera as you can. The CGI is killing the dramatic tension of the action and it's distracting from the drama.
You all know this is my favorite time of the year. You also know that storytelling and film is my true passion. But one of the things I always loved to do when writing a screenplay was adding music cues to help tell the story. As I think I've mentioned before, the band Godsmack played a big role in my Boogieman screenplay, "Nite-Lite", and my love for '90's R&B is everywhere in my original AFI screenplay, "My Own Lily".
And even though, these days, all of my creative energy is going into by ebooks (for now), I can still hear the guitars playing in my head. So, this time, I thought I'd share it.
As you know, this week, in anticipation of Halloween, I'm offering my horror short, "The Trick-or-Treaters", for free, exclusively on Amazon.com. But, for a little extra something to take your reading experience to the next level, here's my semi-unofficial Trick-or-Treaters soundtrack, featuring the likes of Rob Zombie, Type O Negative, Outkast, Korn, DMX, and Diana Ross.
Yes, Diana Ross.
Kick back, relax, and let it scare the Hell out of you.
As I hinted in a previous post, I'm getting a bit obsessed about Ridley Scott's new movie, Prometheus.
Simultaneously, I've also been on a bit of a NASA binge, thanks to the rantings of Astrophysics Brother Neil DeGrasse Tyson.
But there's something else that just clicked for me this morning.
Consider this fake TEDTalk by the character Peter Weyland (nee Guy Pierce), the founder of the fictional Weyland Corporation that's funding the ill-fated exploration in "Prometheus" and will ultimately become Weyland-Yutani in time to employ Sigourney Weaver and her shipmates in the original "Alien".
Then consider this interview 60 Minutes did with Elon Musk. Musk was one of the original founders of PayPal, then he founded the electric sports car company Tesla, and now he's created a company that's building commercial vehicles for space exploration.
And he's not the only one. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, is secretly financing his own private space vehicle company called Blue Origin.
Other net billionaires are also investing their money in similar projects. And we can't forget Virgin Galactic.
I'm reminded of a quote I'd heard was from William Gibson, that it's getting harder and harder to write sci-fi because, essentially, we now live in a sci-fi world.
Where am I going with this? Nowhere, I guess.
Except to Mars, of course, assuming my fiance let's me buy a ticket. :-)
Yesterday we were blessed with previews and interviews about two very high profile film projects for next year: Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises and Ridley Scott's Prometheus, and I could not help but notice something a bit different from these two films.
There's a moment in The Dark Knight Rises trailer where Selina Kyle whispers into Bruce Wayne's ear:
"Did you think this would last? There's a storm coming, Mr. Wayne, and you and your friends had better batten down hatches, cause when it hits you're all going to wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us."
Meanwhile, over in the Prometheus world, Ridley Scott talks about how this is a movie about the origins of humanity itself, where one of the main characters, played by Michael Fassbender, is an android observing the human's reaction to the horror.
In other words, it's a true sci-fi movie.
Big ideas for, ostensibly, big summer popcorn movies.
Directors who actually have something to say about our world around us, and are not just interested in driving you into an seizure from 3-D effects.
There are certain times of the year that tickle my heart as a filmmaker and a deep lover of movies. I love February, when all of the classic Oscar-winning films suddenly get new life on TV. I love December, when your favorite holiday movies return while the studios generally offer the highest quality films they've made all year. I love May, when the biggest, loudest popcorn movies of the summer come roaring into the multiplexes.
But my dirty little secret is that I love the month of October most of all.
I love scary movies. And these 31 days are the days that they all rise like zombies, shambling across the quiet countryside to frighten a new generation. These old horror films are like old friends:
The tightly coiled maniacal genius of a medical student who can Re-Animate the dead.
The terrible thing Creeping inside the crate beneath the university staircase.
The little boy in the clown costume with the butcher knife on Halloween night.
The puzzle box that Raises a little Hell every time someone is fiendish enough to try to solve it.
The Thing inside that snow dog running across the Anarctic.
I could talk about Val Lewton and William Castle. I could talk about Vincent Price and Peter Cushing. I could talk about Universal and Hammer and Dimension and Artisan and Lions Gate.
In many ways, I think a good horror film is the highest order of filmmaking. Think of the skill it takes to craft a movie that can terrify and amuse, that can horrify but still attract repeat viewings, that can attract the best talent, that can push the boundaries of special effects.
Psycho
Jaws
Alien
The Silence of the Lambs
Cape Fear
I could go on and on and on.
But I won't.
I'll just ask you to turn on the TV or go to the theater, hold on to your sweetheart, and enjoy the rush of getting the daylights scared out of you for the next two weeks.
Do you have those movies that you've seen so many times that you've actually forgotten the first time?
I'm like that with "John Carpenter's The Thing". I think it's pretty safe to say that it is, hands down, my favorite horror movie of all time. I practically know it by heart. I re-watch it and study the evolving (or should I say deteriorating) relationships among the group of fairly ordinary men in an Artic research station that is infiltrated by a shape shifting alien that can perfectly imitate any animal it can devour.
I think it's a perfect horror movie. It's tense and scary. It's got great laugh out loud moments. It's pretty original. And it's super bleak.
It's funny to me that Carpenter himself worships the original movie, "The Thing From Another World", where the alien is basically a Frankenstein monster made of vegetables who fertilizes new versions of himself using human blood. It's such a weird, quirky movie with the stereotypical stupid scientist. But it also has some great jump out moments and a great end line:
"Tell the world, tell everyone: Watch the skies everywhere, keep looking, keep watching the skies!"
But, frankly, I don't find "The Thing From Another World" scary at all. For my money, the original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" trumps it in every way: scare factor, Cold War paranoia, direction, performance... it even has a better end line:
"They're here already! YOU'RE NEXT!!!"
That said, I can appreciate that The Thing From Another World comes from a different era in horror moviemaking, so I can excuse Carpenter's affection. Especially because I so appreciate what he did with his own take on the film. By returning to the original source material, John Campbell's novella, "Who Goes There?", Carpenter rediscovered the true paranoia and horror of this unwelcome visitor from another planet.
What's interesting to me in reading the Campbell story is the intelligence that's implied about the monster by the investigating scientists. While a reviewer of the current prequel to Carpenter's film (which we'll get to in a moment) asks how such a creature could evolve through natural selection, Campbell assumes that the creature has developed the science that allows it to adapt to any environment at a cellular level. They even assume that they've never seen its natural form, that even its ship was something it had appropriated from another species it had imitated.
Which is what is so great about Carpenter's film - the thing isn't just a monster. In many ways, it's smarter than the humans and is constantly a few steps ahead of them, deliberately sowing the seeds of mistrust as it swallows them up, one by one.
It's this intelligence, this cunning, that is the single biggest thing I miss the most in the new prequel, "The Thing", with Mary Elizabeth Winstead. But, don't get me wrong. I actually love this movie. It really takes the horror aspects of the franchise to a new level. For fans of the Carpenter film, the way the two-faced thing is born in this film has to be one of the most horrifying scenes in any movie I've seen in some time. The effects are crazy and the cast is great. Mary Elizabeth really reminds me of Naomi Harris in "28 Days Later". As my better half said, by the end of the film, what she's experienced, you cannot take any chances. You have to be as hard core as possible.
But her survival hinges on the way the thing chooses to attack her early in the film. Frankly, it's sloppy and not nearly as clever as it is in the Carpenter movie.
Then again, it is a prequel. Maybe the Norwegian camp taught the thing a thing or two.
Last month in the post "Scream and Scream Again", I made a defense of horror remakes, and the new 3-D Fright Night in particular - that we should judge all of these movies on their own merits. Well, I just want to say, having now actually seen the new Fright Night, that it's actually one of the better studio horror movies I've seen in some time. Shocking, great twists, and intense. Kudos to all involved. If you're a horror fan and your boycotting it out of some misguided loyalty to the original film, shame on you, because you're missing out.
People often ask me what's my favorite movie. I used to say "Vertigo", Hitchcock's hypnotic masterpiece on unrequited love, obsession, and madness. Makes sense for a teenager still trying to navigate his way through the the maze of frustrated romance while focused on unattainable, unrealistic female idols.
And then I saw Apocalypse Now.
I don't think it's any exaggeration to say that this movie literally changed my life.
But, to understand that, you have to understand who I was before that. I joke with my friends that, if I'd been born bigger, I'd have probably been a bully. A judgmental, moralistic, holier-than-thou bully. The world was quite black and white to me at that age. But, of course, how else could it be? I didn't know anything.
I know young people get really frustrated when they hear older people talk about how much more they know than them and how far behind they are. They think that the older folks have forgotten what it's like to be young. The truth of the matter is, we remember it, quite vividly. We relive those moments every day, looking into the mirror and wondering why what's staring back at us doesn't match what we imagine.
My mother jokes that she believes that time is actually moving faster now because, in her words, "these rascals have messed with the universe." But the fact of the matter is, a year seems much more fleeting when you've had nearly 70 of them like Mom has. When you've only had 16 of them, a year seems like a precious eternity.
But I digress. I thought I knew it all.
What Apocalypse Now showed me was that, out in the jungle, away from the catered safety of a general's trailer where you can issue edicts without mud on your boots, the world is not binary.
It's very, very, messily analogue, where the difference between right and wrong isn't a cliff, but a sloping continuum.
It's funny, because the emotional journey of that movie mirrored my intellectual journey during college and much of my life thereafter. I was sent off to learn and do extraordinary things, and suddenly turned around and realized that I had far less in common with the people in my home than the folks out here in the jungle with me.
Tree of Knowledge, maybe?
Like Capt. Willard says towards the end of the film: "They're going to give me a medal for this, and I wasn't even in their f'n army anymore."
My eyes opened. And for that, I am eternally grateful. It took some old parts of me, but brought back so much more.
Thank you Francis, and John, and Martin, and Marlon.
There was a time when "Love At First Bite" was too much for me to handle as a horror movie.
For those of you who don't remember, that was the comedy where George Hamilton (who made being orange kewl way before anybody had ever heard of John Boehner) plays a bumbling, comedic Dracula in the modern world. And, if my memory is correct, that movie largely came about in response to the success of John Badham's "Dracula", starring Frank Langella as the count and Laurence Olivier as Van Helsing. Which, of course, comes well before Coppola's early 90's remake with Gary Oldman and Anthony Hopkins, and well after the long line of Hammer Films' Dracula movies with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. And let's not even get into Bela Lugosi and the classic Universal "Dracula", or Max Schrek and "Nosferatu".
In short, for as long as we've had movies, particularly horror movies, we've had remakes.
Now, it's pretty fashionable to cry and moan about how remakes suck and the filmmakers have no respect for the original films. But, let's be real about this:
John Carpenter's "The Thing"
David Croenberg's "The Fly"
Philip Kaufman's "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"
Zack Synder's "Dawn of the Dead"
(yes, I'm going to go there) Rob Zombie's "Halloween"
Those are just some movies that I can tick off from memory that are all remakes of great movies that are actually great movies in their own right. Heck, even the original Fright Night, which I absolutely adore, is a very self-referential nod to those old Hammer vampire movies ("Peter Vincent"? Come ON! :-)).
Yes, there are plenty of remakes that suck (I'm looking at you, Vince Vaughn "Psycho"). But even Hitchcock did a remake of one of his own movies, namely "The Man Who Knew Too Much". And, frankly, there are plenty of original movies that suck, too. I think, in the end, we have to evaluate all of these movies on their own merits.
I LOVE that Carpenter "Thing" movie. But, after seeing this trailer, I am all over the prequel:
I remember someone once asked Alan Moore how did he feel about Hollywood ruining his books like From Hell and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Moore simply pointed to the books on his shelf and said "see, my books are just fine."
Those old movies will always be there, and these remakes may just give them new life.
I'll never forget Chris Sarandon as Jerry Dandridge.
Always have been. Always will be. And I wear it proudly.
Heck, when I was in middle school, instead of joining Columbia House, I joined the Sci-Fi Book Club, where a new science fiction novel was shipped to my house to read every month.
Last week, the New York Times magazine published an article where the interviewed top authors in various genres and asked them to list their favorite books in their own genres. The one that caught my eye was William Gibson, author of the famed cyberpunk novel "Neuromancer"and his list of science fiction novels.
Now, long time readers of Macroscope know I've had a bit of a bee in my bonnet over the years about how modern day science fiction film seems stuck in "Blade Runner", largely because most sci-fi screenwriters today only reference other films instead of actually reading sci-fi fiction like their predecessors in the 60's & '70's. And, frankly, I criticize them because I am one of them. I've not read nearly as many classics in sci-fi as I would like, and I would really hope to change that.
If nothing else, how can you go beyond what's been done if you don't know where the edge is?
So, with that in mind, I'm curious to know, among you folks out there, what are your favorite science fiction novels out there?
And, by science fiction, I mean fiction that is in some way referencing some actual scientific theory. Fantasy like "Lord of the Rings" or "Chronicles of Narnia" don't count. And neither does "Star Wars", since there's really no underlying science at work in those stories.
And, with that in mind, here are some of my favorites. Not in any particular order, but, of course, the order the come to mind probably indicates a level of preference:
Frank Herbert's "Dune" series (I've read 4 of the 6 of his original series. Working on "Heretics of Dune")
Arthur C. Clark's "Rama" series (the 1st one is a bit dry, but after he teams with Gentry Lee for "Rama II" and the rest of the series, it's a pretty amazing treatise on evolving human society, literally in a bubble)
Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" series
"The Demolished Man", by Alfred Bester - perhaps the best prose depiction of telepathy I've ever seen or could even imagine. Just on a totally other level.
"Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" and its sequel, "The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul", one of the most underrated sci-fi comedies, courtesy of Douglas Adams
So, before I begin, let me just say, I love "The Dark Knight". I never get tired of watching that movie. I think it's a masterpiece at every level.
But there are two moments that always get this nagging little voice in the back of my brain squawking.
The first is where Morgan Freeman's character puts the conniving Wayne Enterprises lawyer who uncovers Batman's identity in his place:
"Let me get this straight: you think that your client, one of the richest, most powerful men in the world, is secretly a vigilante who spends his spare time beating criminals to a pump with his bare hands. And your plan is to BLACKMAIL this person? Good luck."
Good writing & performances. But stick with me for a moment.
The second scene is when The Joker crashes the crime boss meeting. And as great a scene as that is, I couldn't help but notice something.
Sal Maroni - Italian American.
The Chechen.
Gambol - African American.
Lau - Asian.
This one room had more ethnic diversity than any other scene in the entire movie. But these were the criminals.
Who were the heroes? With the exception of Lucius Fox and, some may say, The Mayor, they're all non-ethnic whites. In the case of Bruce Wayne & Harvey Dent, fairly upper class non-ethnic white men at that.
Dent constantly refers to the criminals as "scum".
I don't know. Am I crazy?
But I felt like I never saw what was actually so bad about Gotham City. Did it have criminals? Of course. Every city does.
But if John D. Rockefeller's great, great, great grandson & his wife had been gunned down after sneaking their scared son out of an opera at Lincoln Center, and that son grew up to decide that he would devote all of his considerable resources to allow him to run around New York City in a costume to shoot up the Gambino crime family and the Brooklyn drug cartels with military grade firepower, would we really consider that kid a hero?
There's a really understated element of direct class warfare in the Batman mythos. In many ways, Bruce Wayne starts reminding me more and more of Bill the Butcher in "Gangs of New York". And class warfare almost always has a racial undertone to it.
I mean, I know it's just a movie based on a comic book, but, as a writer, I always try to think about the fantastic in the most real terms possible.
Like the irony that Captain America, who makes his debut punching Hitler in the face, is, in fact, the living embodiment of the Nazi ideal of a so-called master race. I guess that's why The Red Skull is constantly trying to steal Cap's body.
And let's not even get into the homoerotic undertones of THAT superhero conflict!
But I digress.
I love The Dark Knight. It's one of my favorite movies.
And I cannot even begin to imagine the horrors that man has experienced over the years. I mean, for one guy to escape the clutches of one crazed white supremacist cult leader, namely Hitler, only to have his wife and unborn child murdered by yet another crazed white supremacist cult leader, namely Charles Manson, 30 years later in a single life time is just unspeakable.
But, let's think about this for a moment:
You're a 40 some year old man who drugs and rapes a 13-year-old girl. The prosecution has a difficult, but potentially winnable case, so they offer you a plea deal that requires you to plead guilty to said rape. The deal is set, but the judge appears to be buckling under public pressure to not honor the deal, so you flee the country.
And you've been living scott free ever since.
Remind me, again, why I'm supposed to feel sorry for you?
I mean, what price has Polanski paid for raping a child? How has he atoned for it?
Moreover, are we supposed to excuse you're living outside the law for over 30 years?
And another thing:
Michael Jackson was investigated twice, tried, and then ACQUITTED of child molestation. And yet, that poor guy was literally scandalized and terrorized by the press to the point that he probably drugged himself to death.
MICHAEL WAS ACQUITTED. But it didn't matter.
Polanski PLEAD GUILTY to RAPE. But that mofo wins a freakin' Oscar, splits his time between France & Switzerland, and, when he finally does get caught, has people organizing letter campaigns to get him off for a crime he's already admitted.
No.
Send that guy to jail. It's time to pay the piper.
