"Dolemite, motherfucker!"

Rudy Ray Moore, better known as Dolemite, passed away today at 81. Rudy had done it all: stand up comedian, actor, movie director, and master of pimp-fu. He will be missed.

With all of the posturing in the indie movie world of today, Moore did it before it was cool, when low-budget films were an economic necessity, not simply a style co-opted by studio boutique divisions. Moore made films on his own terms outside Hollywood for thirty years, always adhering to the credo, "Thank you for letting us be ourselves."

I met the man earlier this year. He was in poor health, confined to a wheelchair with a broken hip. He appeared confused, his quick wit dulled with age and infirmity. Often, he was unable to finish his famous routines without prompting. There was an air of sadness about the proceedings; a gaggle of white hipsters gathered in an arthouse lobby half-gawking at an old man. This was the man who had a top-25 selling comedy album, starred in movies, and was acknowledged by no less than Snoop Dogg as a major influence.

But on a one-on-one level, I found him personable and pleasant. Moore told us of his time in the Army, where he first plied his trade as a stand up comedian while stationed in Germany. He even conversed in German with a lady in the crowd. My heart goes out to the man; even at 80, he was still on the road, living life.

It touches even this jive-talking, rat soup eatin', honkey motherfucker.

Watchmen

Landing moments before The Dark Knight is the trailer for another hotly anticipated superhero epic: Jack Snyder's Watchmen (2009). Adapted from Alan Moore (From Hell, V for Vendetta) and Dave Gibbons' landmark 1986-7 graphic novel, Watchmen was a revelation in the comics world, garnering an unprecedented level of critical praise and influencing countless comics since. It won a Hugo, a first (and last) for the form. It wove an uncommonly dense and literate story, deftly critiquing the genre it embodied with layers of metafiction, alternate history, and Freudian analysis.

Snyder is still unproven with a dense, character driven story like Watchmen. After two decades of false starts with the likes of Terry Gilliam, Paul Greengrass, and Darren Aronofsky, this guy finally gets the shot? Really? His remake of Dawn of the Dead (2003) was exciting and technically competent, but lacked any of the social commentary or strong characterizations of George Romero's 1979 original. And 300 (2007), adapted from Frank Miller's graphic novel, was an exercise in pure style, an epic ode to testosterone that somehow managed to be both homoerotic and homophobic. (Kind of like pro wrestling.) These films boast attractive surfaces and visceral thrills, but little to linger in the mind afterward.

But the trailer gives me hope. Cut precisely to the Smashing Pumpkins track "The Beginning is the End is the Beginning," it looks simply amazing. (A neat reversal; it's a remix of a song in one of the worst comic book movies.) Working from a draft by X-Men scribe David Hayter and Alex Tse, Snyder keeps in so many of the things that make Watchmen special. The scope, and fidelity to the source is simply staggering. Sharp-eyed viewers are rewarded with a number of astonishing details: Tricky Dick on TV, the brand of hairspray Rorschach wields, Dr. Manhattan's expression moments before becoming something more that human. The promise of the Vietnam and Mars scenes alone have me giddy with anticipation. (Physically, Veidt looks a little off, however.)

The real worry is the way Warner Bros. is marketing this movie. This is not Spider-Man or even Batman Begins. These characters do not benefit from years in the public consciousness. These are introspective, dark, middle aged antiheroes in a $100 million dollar, political, R-rated, two-and-one-half-hour period piece spanning the 30's through the 80's set against the backdrop of the Cold War. I doubt any of the tween ticket buyers were a proverbial gleam in their fathers' eyes when the USSR rolled into (and out of) Afghanistan. The action beats of Moore's story are perfunctory, yet the trailer sells them hardest; the real conflicts are largely philosophical and emotional. Perhaps the topicality of the material (note the skyline behind the Owl Ship) in out post 9-11 will strike a cord with audiences.

If not, Zack Snyder might have the next great cult film on his hands.

Check out the trailer here.

Quantum of Solace

Casino Royale (2006) was a revelation. For the first time in decades, attending a James Bond picture was not simply a joyless, long-observed ritual. There was finally a new Bond picture worthy of genuine excitement.

For years, Bond fans hoped in vain that some of the old 60's magic would return. Casino Royale brought it back in spades: The girls. The villain. The coolness. Like Batman Begins, it successfully rebooted a franchise that had grown sillier and sillier over the years (I'm looking at you, Roger Moore) imbuing it with a renewed sense of energy and added emotional depth. It also boasted an intricate, modernized origin story, concessions to third wave feminism, and several plausible, expertly executed action sequences. (They even bothered to faithfully adapt the book!) Daniel Craig, Bond Actor Number Six (Yes, six. Forget Barry Nelson. And for that matter, forget David Niven.) was tough, surly, and seductive. Surely even the most ardent "James Blonde" haters must now admit: Craig IS Bond.

After successfully rebooting the franchise twice (Goldeneye was the first) Royale director Martin Campbell handed the reigns over to Finding Neverland's Marc Forster, who seemed like a curious choice until you realize, hey, Michael Apted of all people directed The World Is Not Enough (1999). Foster, more known for the emotional introspection of Monster's Ball and The Kite Runner, said of the Bond character: “People travel a lot more now, and with the Internet they’re more aware of what the rest of the world is like. In a way the most interesting place for a James Bond movie to go is inward — deeper into Bond himself.” Bond held no appeal to Forster until Royale plumed the depth of the character's origin and damaged psyche.

Quantum of Solace is a direct sequel to Casino Royale, an unconventional move. Borrowing only its cryptic title from an Ian Flemming short story, it follows Bond on his quest for revenge on the organization employing the enigmatic Mr. White (Jesper Christensen). Each previous Bond film functioned as a self-contained episode; each adventure was fun, with few long-term consequences. The new Bond is shaping up to be a very different animal; very little solace is expected.

The Solace trailer looks as tough and as hard hitting as Royale. Let's hope it's an inner journey worth taking.

Click here for the trailer.

Rob Zombie's Tyrannosaurus Rex

A bit of promotional art for Rob Zombie's next flick, Tyrannosaurs Rex, hit the net yesterday. Despite the amusingly filthy tag line and the garish Frank Frazetta meets Enzo G. Castellari artwork, one can't help but groan a little when seeing this thing. Hasn't Rob gone down this tired road before?

And more that once: Rob’s terrible debut, House of 1000 Corpses, was an little more than an extended Texas Chain Saw Massacre homage. His shockingly good sequel, The Devil’s Rejects, took his psychobilly clan on the road, moving through the plot outline of Empire Strikes Back. In 2007, Zombie swapped Tobe Hooper for John Carpenter, remaking Carpenter’s seminal Halloween into a joyless hash. (His Grindhouse fake trailer contribution Werewolf Women of the SS can't even get it's homages straight.)

In his defense, Zombie has chops as a director. Visually, his work is admirable, alternating gritty realism (the seedy hotel from Rejects) with formal beauty (the slow motion apocalypse of Rejects ending.) His portrayals of violence are unflinching and nasty, but laced with black humor. His films are steeped in genre history and lore, giving perfect roles to aging genre icons (Bill Mosley, Ken Foree, Sid Haig, Michael Berryman etc.).

Why does his work feel so second hand?

Even his best moment feel cribbed from other films. Despite how lovingly crafted they are, Corpses and Rejects feel like the world's most elaborate Tobe Hooper homages, muting their potentially subversive edges. Showcasing levels graphic violence, profanity, and general nastiness seldom seen in mainstream features, Zombie strives for the type of in-your-face punch that Quentin Tarantino pulls of with aplomb. It’s hard to take things seriously when the whole thing feels like a giant in-joke filled put-on. Tarantino can synthesize his myriad influences into something that feels original. Zombie’s best efforts feel second hand.

Taking a look at that Tyrannosaurs Rex poster again, I can’t help but feel déjà-vu. The tag line uses the words "motherfucker" and “son-of-a-bitch," familiar from nearly every line of Zombie dialogue. The guy in the middle is clearly Danny Trejo. Sheri Moon Zombie is the blonde. Ken Foree, maybe, as the guy on the left? The wrecked vehicles suggest a stab at Mad Max-type dystopia. Perhaps Zombie will add George Miller to his catalog of influences?

It might be premature to judge a film from just a poster, but Zombie’s track record suggests otherwise.

Source.

Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Too Much Soft Living (1982) is a classic 80's film. A druggy descent into the depths of madness. A subversive underground manifesto parading as a gleaming tech-noir adventure. A bastard love child of William S. Burroughs and Phillip K. Dick. A cult classic ranking with Brother From Another Planet, Liquid Sky, and Blade Runner. And it has a killer, highly collectible soundtrack album.

Too bad it doesn't really exist. At least, the movie doesn't exist.

Special Affect was a Chiago- based new wave/ glam band fronted by the flamboyant Frankie Nardiello, later known as Groovie Mann of My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult. Drumming was handled by Harry Rushakoff, later of Concrete Blonde. Playing guitar was Al Jourgensen, who would soon form his own new wave outfit, Ministry. After releasing one EP and one "soundtrack" album, Affect called it a day.

Too Much Soft Living joins the ranks of a small, but curious musical genre: unused but released film scores. Notable examples include Alex North's bombastic 2001: A Space Obyssey score, John Zorn's Tresspass noodling, and Coil's industrial Hellraiser score.


It is unclear if the film Soft Living was ever real or not. Was it simply and unfinished work? Little seen or unreleased? Could a lost classic could be gathering dust in some Chicago basement? Let's not forget that My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult was formed in order to make an eponymous "B" movie. Lacking funds or technical know how, the project mutated into a band. Maybe this was Frankie's first attempt?

Or maybe it was just a gimmick for a bunch of young, hungry musicians to get press.

The Cycle of Life

...according to John Boorman's 1974 acid freak-out, Zardoz:

Xenogenesis

Xenogenesis (1978) is James Cameron's first film. Essentially a 12 minute demo reel for the young director's stop-motion prowess, it predates even his god-awful feature directorial debut, Piranha II: The Spawning. Six years later, The Terminator would become a runaway hit, and thirteen years after that, Cameron would be the King of the World, winning a fistfull of Oscars for his "200 million dollar chick flick," Titanic. In between he would make a series of popular, thoughtful, character-driven genre films that reinvented special effects technology without sacrificing storytelling prowess.

Despite its ambition and impressive do-it-yourself special effects, Xenogenesis didn't become a feature, but it did get the fledgling Canadian filmmaker a gig at New World Pictures in the art department. He toiled on Roger Corman flicks like Android, Battle Beyond the Stars and Galaxy of Terror, even doing some matte painting for John Carpenter's Escape From New York. Under Corman, he formed a partnership with an ambitious young producer named Gale Ann Hurd Together, they would put together The Terminator, Aliens, and The Abyss.

The robot-battling soldier of the future in Xenogenesis is played by William Wisher, who would co-write Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The credited co-writer/director/ producer, Randy Frakes, would help Wisher, Cameron, and Hurd write The Terminator's screenplay and pen the novelizations of the first two Terminator movies.

The striking thing about this short are the number of future Cameron tropes and images on display. Man vs. machine. The apocalypse. Man's need to repopulate a dying world. Mechs with tank treads. Tough female characters. It rivals Martin Scorsese's Who's That Knocking at My Door? for sheer number of seminal directorly moments. All of his themes were there from the beginning:

Truck Turner

Truck Turner (1975)

Jonathan Kaplan had just directed back-to-back sleaze classics for Roger Corman, Night Call Nurses and The Student Teachers. Isaac Hayes had won the Oscar for scoring Shaft. Nichelle Nichols, in a rare post-"Star Trek" gig, gets all the best lines as a vicious, foul-mouthed madam. And Yaphett Koto seethes with method menace as a killer pimp. Too bad the end result is so turgid and clumsy.

But this trailer is damn funny.



"She's Fort Knox in panties."

Roy Scheider 1932-2008

New Hollywood mainstay Roy Scheider succumbed to a long battle with melanoma today at the age of 76. Like his co-stars Gene Hackman and Richard Dreyfus, Scheider benefited from a desire to see "real looking" people on the screen. His air of reason and common decency made even his most bizarre and strange characters seem understandable, as if underneath they were grounded in some middle-American decency. After paying his dues in 60s TV, he took starring turns for Spielberg (Jaws), Friedkin (The French Connection, Sorcerer), and Fosse (All That Jazz). Twice Oscar nominated- Best Supporting Actor for The French Connection and Best Actor for All That Jazz- Schieder retreated largely to television work in the last two decades after his heyday in the 70s.

The ultimate Scheider role was of course as Chief Martin Brody in Jaws. (The less said about Jaws 2 , the better.) The Chief is the stand-in for the audience; he's as bewildered ("They don't even know how old these things are!") and scared ("We're gonna need a bigger boat.") as we are, making him our point of identification. Hooper (Dreyfuss), the manic liberal intellectual is a font of shark exposition and Quint (Robert Shaw), the Ahab-like right-wing he-man, is insane. Scheider wisely underplays, giving us one of the most memorable characters in the cinema. Plus, he ad-libbed one of the greatest lines in cinema history.

Screw Your Pass

You knew this was coming.

Michael Bay's horror movie remake factory, Platinum Dunes, is negotiating with New Line Cinema to buy remake rights to A Nightmare on Elm Street.

That's right. Michael Bay is producing Freddy.

After bungling their entire slate of films including Marcus Nispel's dull and disposable Texas Chain Saw Massacre redux, the ill-fated Hitcher retread, the forgettable Amityville Horror update, and the upcoming, sure-to-be-awful remakes of Friday the 13th and The Birds (!), New Line honcho Robert Shaye is foolishly trusting these clowns with the franchise that turned his studio from just another exploitation house into the mini-major that gave us Boogie Nights and The Lord of the Rings saga.

I'm not unaware of the original Elm Street's flaws- the uneven performances, the silly effects, and that ending. But Bay's remakes, despite their pictorial flair, have no story sense. No concept of the tiny details that add up to a satisfying, coherent experience. Way to kill a franchise reboot by handing it to the one guy guaranteed to get it totally wrong. Any of the spark of originality, subversive menace, or atmosphere will be drained out, leaving a well-tooled, handsome, but anonymous copy behind. Nothing resembling what made these films hits in the first place will remain.

Let's forget about the fact that no one will remember this movie in a year. It will be just another forgettable horror sequel cluttering the $5 DVD bin a Wal-Mart.

Source.

Heath Ledger

Australian actor Heath Ledger was found dead today in a New York City apartment of an apparent drug overdose. He was 28 years old. Ledger is survived by his two-year-old daughter Matilda Rose Ledger.

Man, what can I say? What a terrible, sad loss of a vital artist just coming into his own. Looks like The Dark Knight will be Ledger's last completed project. He was currently filming The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus for director Terry Gilliam.

Once Upon a Time In Japan

Charles Bronson, the son of Lithuanian immigrant coal miners, was born Charles Buchinski on November 3rd, 1921. His stoicism and craggy manliness made him an unlikely star, earning him supporting roles in over 100 films, including a clutch of classics like The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven, and Once Upon a Time In the West. After years of being one of the top box-office draws everywhere else in the world, it took Death Wish to make the 53-year-old Bronson a star in America. Inspired by the Death Wish-fest on AMC this week (American Movie Classics? More like the Any Movie Channel), enjoy the Great Leather Face himself schlepping for Mandom, a Japanese aftershave lotion:



"Mmmmm.... Mandom."

Brad Renfro

Bully and The Client star Brad Renfro died today. He was 25.

RIP Vampira

Maila Nurmi aka Vampira died yesterday at age 86. Best known as the silent, slender-waisted zombie vixen in Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space, Vampira made her showbiz breakthrough as a pioneering horror movie hostess, inspiring Cassandra Peterson's much better known character, Elvira. Nurmi went on to a spate of cult movie roles, including I Passed For White, Sex Kittens Go To College with Mamie Van Doren, and The Magic Sword for "Mystery Science Theater 3000" all-star director, Bert I. Gordon. Still, her most memorable role was in Wood's camp classic staring alongside a frail Bela Lugosi.

"I want more life, father."

Blade Runner: The Final Cut Limited Edition (2007)

LOS ANGELES: NOVEMBER, 2019

The single most important thing a science fiction film can do is create a seamless, believable future world- a contiguous setting that is appropriately high tech, yet plausible. World building is a fine art, a ballet of careful art direction, tasteful costume design, precise expository dialog, and performances grounded in an emotional reality. In all of these respects, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner is the most convincingly real vision of the future since 2001: A Space Odyssey and perhaps the single most complete and influential future world ever captured on film. Before Blade Runner, depictions of the future were largely the Utopian progeny of Gene Rodenbery or George Lucas. Man's humanity was never a question. Technology was simply a tool to explore the stars with. Phillip K. Dick was always suspicious- of technology, humanity, even reality itself- and this paranoia informs every aspect of Blade Runner. Before his death in 1981, Dick attended a screening of 10 minutes of footage of the then-unfinished film. Overwhelmed, he was shocked the filmmakers had captured the world exactly as he imagined it in his head.

Swimming through the copious extras on the Blade Runner: The Final Cut Limited Edition set, it would seem that director Scott expended more time and metal energy conceptualizing this film than any other in his career. The sheer number of ideas that populate this world- the spouts of pollution that erupt in the opening "Hades Landscape" sequence, the ethnic makeup of the extras, to the operation of 2019 parking meters- is breathtaking.

Also breathtaking is the breadth of the extras on the set- literally every aspect is covered with a worthy level of obsessive detail. Casting (Dustin Hoffman was seriously considered before Harrison Ford), costuming (Michael Kaplan discusses the pantyhose of the future), and post-production (Hear Harrison stumbling through outtakes of the voice over). Compleitists can rejoice, as the set provides five cuts of the film, the US Theatrical Cut, the slightly more violent European Cut, the long-lost Workprint that got the Blade Runner revival going when it was uncovered in 1990, the much-praised (and re-appraised) Director's Cut and the shinny new Final Cut. Blade Runner's Achilles heel was always it proliferation of cuts. The Final Cut, is not the Lucasized retrofit that many feared, simply a further refinement of the 1992 Director's Cut, with some additional digital spit and polish. Matte lines have been cleaned, Spinner wires painted out. Continuity errors have been tweaked. And the voice over is dead; long live the voice over.

But this, honest-to-god Final Cut is the crown jewel of them all. A worthy retrofit for a classic among classics.

2007: The Year in Review

Theatrical Viewing Experiences 2007
*Watched on DVD

1. No Country for Old Men

2. 3:10 to Yuma

3. Superbad

4. Zodiac

5. Knocked Up

6. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

7. Black Book

8. Inland Empire

9. Paris Je T'aime
   

10. After the Wedding

11. The Dolemite Explosion

12. Apocalypto

13. Spiderman 3

14. Bourne Ultimatum

15. American Gangster

16. Babel*

17. 300

18. Blade Runner: The Final Cut

19. Eastern Promises

20. Letters From Iwo Jima

21. Rescue Dawn*

22. Sicko

23. The Simpsons Movie

24. Sunshine

25. 28 Weeks Later

26. Grindhouse

27. Die Hard 4.0

28. La Vie En Rose

29. The Science of Sleep*

30. Hot Fuzz

31. The Host*

32. Rob Zombie’s Halloween*

33. The Tripper

34. Breach*

35. The Mist

36. Talk To Me*

37. Crazy Love*

38. Severance*

39. Bug*

40. 30 Days of Night

41. Paprika

Disco Halloween

I'm not one to beat the "Hollywood-has-run-out-of-ideas" drum too loudly, but this latest entry in the remake-everything-made- before-1985 sweepstakes is really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I give you the Prom Night remake.



Wait, you don't remember Prom Night? Seriously? You know, slasher movie, came out about 1980? Stupid kids making out and getting offed? Nerds get it in the van? With Jamie Lee Curtis? Creepy opening with little kids causing an accidental death? And Leslie Nielsen as the principal? Okay, Leslie Nielsen as the disco dancing principal? Ah, I knew you knew the one.



Talk about a carbon copy of something that wasn't that original to start with. Halloween, for all of its grace and style, was built out of shopworn pieces, even for 1978. It was John Carpenter's stylish treatment of those hackneyed elements that made the film into a all-time classic. So why remake a film that was a rip-off of a rip-off? At least the original Prom Night, bless its unimaginative and derivative little heart, was rated R. For some reason, the studio decided that the remake should be PG-13. No gore, no nudity, no drugs, and judging by the trailer, none of the campy fun of seeing Leslie Nielsen disco dance as a severed head goes sailing onto the dance floor.

Just because it's old, doesn't make it a "classic." Or even fondly remembered. Or any damn good to start with.

The unfortunate casualty of this situation is not just originality, common sense, or good taste, but Idris Elba, who has a thankless role in this turd as a cop. Stringer Bell gotta eat!