Jason's Blog, page 192

The Lost World

This film doesn't really have anything to do with anything. I just felt like watching some junk. Good junk, I should say. I've seen this film on lists of bad sequels, but in my mind this is one of those rare cases where the sequel is actually better than the original. Jurassic Park I thought was a pretty awful film, with unappealing characters. Especially those two kids. You really sat there hoping the dinosaurs would get them. There's a kid in this film also, but on an annoyance scale from 1 to 10 she's only maybe around 3. The other actors do their job well enough, especially Jeff Goldblum. There are some great set pieces in the film. You can sort of feel the presence of the writer, though, moving the characters around. The CGI looks pretty convincing. Spielberg cheats a bit, having most of the film take place at night. Logically the scenes in San Diego should have been in the day time. If I have a problem with the film it's that you never really get "lost" in it. There are constantly shots that are so spielbergian that you can't help but notice them, you keep being pulled out of the film. And Spielberg being Spielberg, he of course insists on telling you exactly what you should feel at all times, never really leaving that part to the viewer.

Watchmen

I found a used dvd of this film so I finally got to see it. It's interesting how Snyder gets the details right, but completely misses the spirit of the comic. The film is far too stylish, looking like one long rock video, and there is never a minute where you actually believe in the characters or see them as real people. It takes place in an alternative 80s, but should have had more of a 70s feel, like a Taxi Driver with super heroes, and with as little CGI as possible. I'm not a big fan of Greengrass's shakycam, but I think he would have been a much better director for this. Snyder treats the comic as if it was The Bible, being too faithful in the adaptation. The flamethrower at the end of the sexscene was already silly in the comic. The title sequence is the one place he shows some imagination - it's probably the best part of the film; too bad it's the opening and that it only goes downhill from there. I don't mean to say that the comic was a masterpiece. At the time it was released I think I was mostly impressed with it's structure, the way it went back and forth in time. If anything, the film only accentuates how kind of ridiculous it was.

Selfpromotion

Cover for a small catalog of my illustration work, mid nineties.

Local Hero

Head of an American oil company Burt Lancaster sends Peter Riegert to Scotland to buy a small village that will be turned into an oil refinery. Written and directed by Bill Forsyth.

Made 27 years ago, the film today is slightly dated. Riegert describes himself as a telex man, and he doesn't walk around talking on cell phones during the first half of the film. Forsyth took the conflicts of USA/Europe, Big city/Small community, Technology/Nature and turned it into a gentle comedy. Lancaster is terrific in his role - older, but probably still able to beat you in armwrestling or drink you under the table. Mark Knopfler's music is perfect, as well. If there is a wrong step, it's the crazy psychiatrist in the Houston part who seems to belong in an other film.

My Life As A Dog

Sweden, the 1950s. A boy is sent to live with his uncle in the countryside while his mother is ill from tuberculosis. Directed by Lasse Hallström.

It's a good film, carried in a large part by the seamless performance of Anton Glanzelius as the boy. You never get the impression that he is acting. The film is based on a book that I can only imagine is more or less autobiographical. There are details, like the scenes of the boy reading from a lingerie catalog for an old, bedridden man, that can't really be made up. It has to be true. In fact, the film perfectly captures the mystery and the sadness of being a kid. You can think on some of the things you did back then, and it's like it's some totally different person. Which it is, of course.

Top Secret!

What phoney dog poo? Before Val Kilmer was Elvis in True Romance and Jim Morrison in The Doors he played rocker Nick Rivers in the much better film Top Secret! Also starring Lucy Gutteridge and Omar Sharif. Written and directed by Jim Abrahams and Jerry and David Zucker.

I saw Airplane! and Naked Gun some time ago, but I felt an emptiness in my life, something was missing, and I finally figured out what it was... Top Secret! I've tried everything: the embassy, the German government, the consulate. I even talked to the U.N. ambassador. It's no use, I just can't bring my wife to orgasm. The film is clearly influenced by the old parodies in Mad Magazine, with some jokes in the foreground, others in the background. Not every gag works, but at least two out of three. Favourites are hard to pick. The Swedish bookstore? The cow? The underwater barfight? It all sounds like some bad movie. It's not. It's one of the funniest films ever. It's got some great songs as well! And not by Mel Tormé. I know a little German. He's sitting over there.

A nice review...

of Low Moon on the Comics Journal site, to be found here: http://www.tcj.com/review/low-moon-2/

Another page...

... from the book I'm currently working one. It's page one from the third story. And yes, it's the return of the two main characters from "&", one of the stories in Low Moon, this time involved in some kidnapping scheme that naturally goes wrong. The book should be out by the end of next year, both in French and in English.

Married To The Mob

Michelle Pfeiffer is married to gangster Alec Baldwin who is killed by his boss Dean Stockwell. Moving to Manhattan to get away from her old life, she is followed by Stockwell and put under surveillance by FBI agent Matthew Modine. Also starring Chis Isaak in a small part and directed by Jonathan Demme.

This is the kind of small, quirky films that Demme was very good at. Something Wild is another one. Married To The Mob's story isn't that much to brag about - I can only imagine what some hack director would have done with it, but Demme rather goes for the small details, creating something with real charm, and never taking the film too seriously. The shootout at the end is right on the edge of parody. Pfeiffer and Modine are great together and Dean Stockwell, an underestimated actor, has a lot of fun in his part. It's too bad Demme seems to have lost his light touch after he made Silence of the Lambs, doing Important Message Films and when trying to return to his old roots making one of the worst movies ever, The Truth About Charlie, a remake of Charade.

Beetlejuice

Boring couple Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis die in an accident. They find themselves back in their old house that is now taken over by yuppiecouple Jeffrey Jones and Catherine O'Hara and their daughter Winona Ryder. Baldwin and Davis hire "bio-exorcist" Betelgeuse, Michael Keaton, to chase them out. Directed by Tim Burton.

This is another case of a film that I used to like, but now discover to be slightly boring to rewatch. Again, I'm not sure if this is because I've seen it too many times or because I'm just getting too old to enjoy it. What really saves the film is Keaton, whose performance is a real tour de force. I wouldn't have minded a sequel to this film just to see more of him.

Burton is a pretty uneven director. I still think Ed Wood is his best film. Which he then followed up with Mars Attacks, probably his worst film. I'm not sure I agree with the opinion that he has sold out. I haven't seen Alice in Wonderland, but I thought Sweeney Todd was pretty good. As a whole, though, his recent films seem to have less heart than the early ones.