E.R. Torre's Blog, page 152

(Very) Shaken, Not Stirred…

It’s my own damn fault, really.

I’m a curious guy and as much as I was (note the past tense) eager to see the 007 film Spectre, released today, I just had to read some of the reviews.

To be fair, the earliest reviews, appearing earlier in the week and following, I assume, the UK premiere of the film, were generally positive and my hopes were raised.  I’m a fan of James Bond and have a love for many of the films, even as I’m clear-eyed enough to recognize there is plenty of chaff among the wheat.

My favorite Bond is Sean Connery though even his run of films weren’t perfect.  Thunderball was a great spectacle but in retrospect was probably the first of the Bond films to show both formula and bloat but its follow-up, You Only Live Twice, was the only Connery Bond film (including the non-canon Never Say Never Again) to leave me cold.  While others loathe the tongue in cheek campiness of Diamonds Are Forever, I happen to like that film for just that reason.

Between You Only Live Twice and Diamonds Are Forever we had On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the only Bond film featuring George Lazenby in the title role.  There are many who consider this one of the all time best Bond films ever but I’m not one of them.  I found the film rather flat, though it was fun to see Diana Rigg and Telly Savalas in it.  Continuity-wise, I never understood why Mr. Savalas’ Blofeld didn’t recognize James Bond and vice versa.  Despite the change in actors, the two characters had come face to face in the previous film, You Only Live Twice.

The first Bond I encountered was the Roger Moore version.  Though many hate Mr. Moore’s take on the Bond character, I enjoyed his work.  The biggest problem, IMHO, with Mr. Moore’s Bond films is that one good film was almost always followed with a really bad one.  Further, two of the worst Bond films ever made, Moonraker (a silly Star Wars inspired affair) and A View To A Kill (an uninspired work -you need only check out the totally ho-hum opening action set piece to see how uninspired the rest of the film was) both featured Mr. Moore.  Yet the highs were very high.  The Spy Who Loved Me and For Your Eyes Only are two of my all time favorite Bonds.

Timothy Dalton would replace Roger Moore in the underrated The Living Daylights, a damn good Bond film that would have benefited even more had the producers/creators tailored their script for Mr. Dalton rather than Roger Moore (as good as Mr. Dalton is, there are moments in the film that appeared designed specifically for Mr. Moore’s interpretation of the character).  Mr. Dalton’s second (and last) Bond film, License to Kill, however, was a big disappointment and I wasn’t too surprised when it was announced he was out.

Pierce Brosnan, the actor who the studios originally wanted to take over for Roger Moore following A View to a Kill, would be hired for the next four Bond films which, frankly, didn’t do all that much for me.  I love the idea of Pierce Brosnan playing Bond but the films, apart from the first, felt like a cookie cutter product.  One film fades into the next and if pressed, I’d have a hard time telling you the plots of his Bond run.

Then came Daniel Craig with the 2006 “reboot” Casino Royale.  Based on the first Ian Fleming penned James Bond story, Casino Royale was what Timothy Dalton’s first Bond film should have been.  Serious, sexy, and tragic.  Here we had James Bond presented as a new agent and, by the end of the adventure when he states he’s “Bond, James Bond” it feels like you’ve just seen his origin story and away we go…

…only we didn’t.

The next Bond film, Quantum of Solace, fell victim in part to a writer’s strike and was a mess of a movie, IMHO.  2012’s Skyfall, however, hit audiences like napalm.  Critics almost universally loved the film and, when watching it, so did I.

But as pretty and adrenaline pumping as Skyfall was to watch in theaters that first time, the movie’s story falls apart even under the most modest of scrutiny.  Worse, this is the only Bond film I know of where the bad guy “wins”.  His stated goal is to kill Judi Dench’s M and then die and this is exactly what he does.  Which makes one wonder: Just how effective is this Bond?

Another thing that bothered me about the film, even upon first watching it, is that at the very end we again establish the “old” Bond setup of a male M, Moneypenny, and Bond.  Didn’t we already do a “origin” story with Casino Royale?  How come we’re now three movies into Mr. Craig’s run and yet we wind once again having an origin story with Skyfall?

Which brings us back to Spectre.

Despite the bumps in the road and the disappointing films, I maintain I’m a fan of the franchise and like nothing more than to see a good Bond film.  The early commercials for Spectre indicated, at least to me, that this new movie would offer plenty of homages to the old ones, something that thrilled me.

In my mind I’m thinking: Now that we’ve finally gotten rid of the whole origin story stuff, we’re going into primo-Bond territory with, among other Bondian staples, a bruiser henchman whom he fights on a train (Shades of From Russia WIth Love and The Spy Who Loved Me)!  You have the evil organization Spectre coming back after all these years (the organization that vexed Connery’s Bond for most of his run!  Hey, it’s in the movie’s title!).  You have car chases and snow and beautiful women (not that they ever left the series) and…

…and it looked like so much fun.

Then came the other reviews.

As I said above, its my own damn fault.  When I read this HEAVY SPOILER review by Drew McWeeny, I was beside myself:

Spectre Manages to Majorly Muddy Daniel Craig’s James Bond Legacy

I’ll try to stay clear of certain spoilery material as best I can, but one of the first things to annoy me upon reading this review is that it appears we once again have a Daniel Craig Bond film that takes place BEFORE he becomes a “full on” Connery-Moore-Lazenby-Dalton-Brosnan Bond.  In other words, we’re once again -on our fourth Daniel Craig film!- yet again dealing with a proto-Bond in an origin story.

Even worse than that was discovering in this review and others like it the identity and motives of the movie’s villain.  I’m not going to give that information away (if you want SPOILERS, click the link above or search for other reviews), but the motives of the villain are -and there is no kind way of saying this- stupid.

Extremely stupid.

How stupid?  So stupid one wonders if the writers forgot the same motivations and relationships were presented years before in one of the Austin Powers films (again, I’m being careful here to not be spoilery).  In the Austin Powers films these were presented as broad comedy and the silliness was intentional.  In Spectre they’re playing it straight and reading about it makes it feel all the sillier.

So here we are, four films into Daniel Craig’s run of James Bond and, based on some of the interviews he’s given, Spectre might well be his final appearance as Bond and, at least for some critics, if this is his swan song he’s going out on a low.

Too bad.

Corrosive Knights 11/5/15 Update

Been a while since I posted an update on the latest Corrosive Knights novel, which will be #6 in the series and whose title I’m keeping to myself for a little bit longer.

Writing these books has been a blast even as they’ve also been a mighty struggle.  I’m working with a series I feel is unique in many ways.  To begin, the scope of the story is incredibly large, taking place over the course of some 20,000 plus years.  Readers are offered events in different epochs which, when put together, form a much larger story.

While there have been plenty of stories featuring flashbacks and flash-forwards, I think its safe to say no series -at least none that I’m aware of!- features entire novels that take place in sometimes vastly different times, past and the future, while (hopefully!) logically building up the larger tale.

The five Corrosive Knights books plus the one I’m currently working on have been/will be released -and ideally should be read- in this order:

I say “ideally” but I’m not being entirely honest: The the first three books of the series, Mechanic, The Last Flight of the Argus, and Chameleon could be read in any order.  They feature unique characters and take place in vastly different times and therefore one could read them in any order they choose.

However, by the time you reach Nox, Ghost of the Argus, and the unnamed Book #6, the continuity established in these first three novels kicks in and, while I think the later books could be enjoyed on their own, I HIGHLY recommend you read books 1, 2, and 3 before venturing into the ones that follow.

Now, if I were to tell the Corrosive Knights story in chronological order, i.e. each book’s main story occurring “one after the other” (and ignoring whatever flashback elements are presented within said novels), the story order would go like this:

That’s right: The book I’m currently working on, #6 of the Corrosive Knights series, actually takes place before the events of The Last Flight of the Argus and Ghost of the Argus.  In fact, they take place a few hundred years before those books!  Yet I would absolutely NOT recommend anyone read that book when it is released in a few short months (I’ll get to that in a second) before already reading the rest of the series and, in particular, The Last Flight of the Argus and Ghost of the Argus.

Why?

Because the events of those two books in particular fill in story concepts which have a big payoff in Book #6 and propels the reader into the Corrosive Knights series finale, which will be Book #7.

Fear not, thought.  There will be an epilogue to the series, a Book #8, which will wrap certain things up that weren’t/aren’t wrapped up in Book #7.  Book #8 will also offer what I hope is a great long view of the heroes we’ve followed for so long while focusing on one in particular.  To further screw with your head, I’m already finished with the first draft of Book #8 but only have a chapter or so written (along with a general idea of the story) of Book #7.

Not only is my series presented in a quirky temporal way, so too it would appear is my creative output!

Now, getting back to Book #6:

I’ve been working on that book for many months now and have a great opening half and a great conclusion but I spent a lot of time filling in what happens between.  I’ve written bits and pieces (amounting to some 30,000 words!) of material for that section but I knew it wasn’t quite coming together.

As I mentioned in previous blogs, writing for me is like a form of OCD.  You spend almost every waking hour at one moment or another thinking about your current work and going through the possibilities of what may/may not work.

Then, about two weeks ago, I awoke at 2 in the morning (not an unusual thing for me) and my mind was racing.  I was thinking about book #6 and that missing section and suddenly I had it.  One scene after the other flowed through my mind all the way to the very end.  Instead of going back to sleep, I headed to my desk and pulled out a yellow notepad and began writing what my fevered mind was giving me.

When I was done, I had five full pages of handwritten notes laid out detailing the second act of the novel leading up to the conclusion.  I was so damn excited yet also so damn exhausted that I stumbled back to bed and crashed.

In the morning, I was so happy I wrote down all my thoughts because while I had a general idea of what I was going to do, some of the details were lost in my near dream state.

On Halloween night, while my wife was occupied with giving kids treats, I had another burst of nervous energy and wrote most of the book’s conclusion.  Two days later, on November 2nd (this past Monday), I finished the whole thing and printed it out.  I still want to go over those 30,000 words of material I wrote and see if they’re at all usable in the novel but the fact of the matter is that the first full draft is finally done and I can now move on to the editing phase.

All my novels, when reaching this phase, feel different.  There have been books I’ve finished the first full draft that I know need a lot of work to be finalized.  That doesn’t feel like the case here.  I suspect I’ll need to go over this book a few times, at least three and possibly as many as six, but I have a feeling the editing process this time around won’t require as much work as with some other novels and therefore I feel (and hope!) this book will be ready to go perhaps as early as February.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

For those who have followed the Corrosive Knights series so far, I think you’ll find Book #6 another great addition to the series.

I’ll offer updates when the book is near ready!

Dark Places (2015) a (mildly) belated review

Whenever a movie has a very limited theatrical run and/or quickly appears on direct-to-video services, one can usually guess the studios decided -whether right or wrong- said features are not strong enough to spend the extra money in promoting it and having a full theatrical run.

These films most certainly could be good but, perhaps even more easily, might be a complete bust.

Often direct to video films star lesser known actors and are low budget affairs.  This happens frequently but not always.  Sometimes these movies may surprise you by featuring one time very big name actors.  Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, a trio of such big league actions stars, have nonetheless each had films released via this format.  In their prime, this would probably never happen, but time passes and these stars no longer command the best and brightest directors and writers for their work.

There are other exceptions to be found, and one of the strangest of them all, to my mind, is the film Dark Places.  Why do I feel this is a strange case?

Because the film features a very hot “A” list star in who just appeared as what was arguably the star of one of this summer’s biggest box office/critical successes in Mad Max: Fury Road.  Further, the film she’s in is an adaptation of a currently very hot author’s novel.  Finally, the story featured in this movie may have drawn Ms. Theron because it touches somewhat on her own personal tragedy when growing up, which means Ms. Theron might have given the role an extra effort in the realization, perhaps something along the line of her critically acclaimed work in Monster.

If there were ever enough ingredients to expect a film would at the very least be a sure fire theatrical release it was this one.  Yet Dark Places, as mentioned, only received a very limited theatrical release before being thrown into the home video market.

With all that in mind, I nonetheless remained curious to see the film and, when given the opportunity yesterday, I did just that, though I lowered my expectations even more than usual.  So, was the film a bust like the studios felt or were they wrong in showing such little faith in this movie?

Read on…read on…

Based on the novel by Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn, Dark Places is the story of Libby Day (Charlize Theron) a woman who, as a young girl, had her mother and two sisters brutally murdered by what was believed to be her then 15 year old brother.  She was the only one to escape the massacre and, in court, fingered her brother for the crime.

Now an adult, LIbby is a woman who has benefited from the notoriety of this sensational crime.  She’s made money by releasing a book (she later claims she never read it and didn’t write it) and, for a time, also received money from well wishers.

But twenty eight years later, the money is drying up and Libby is in deep financial straits.  Her rent hasn’t been paid for two months and electricity to her house has been cut off.  Her financial adviser presents her with some letters from organizations and groups interested in paying her to appear at their events, events that deal with crimes.

Desperate to score money, Libby agrees to meet up with Lyle Wirth (Mad Max: Fury Road co-star ) who runs a “Crime Club”.  Though not interested in re-living the tragedy of her past, she accepts money from him to attend what turns out to be a fractious meeting of his Crime Club.  The members of the club, Libby finds, all believe her brother innocent of the murders and want Libby to re-examine the crime.  Libby tells the members off but something awakens within her.  Later on she again contacts Wirth and, while insisting this is all about money, agrees to allow him to “hire” her for 3 weeks time during which she will go over her case.

What follows are flashbacks and detective work performed, for the most part, by LIbby.  She re-establishes contact with her brother, who remains in jail.  She is terrified by him yet he doesn’t appear to be the monster she expected.  Nonetheless, the now grown man refuses to tell Libby whether he committed the crimes and that makes her believe there’s more to the story than what she remembers.

Despite lowering my expectations waaaay down with Dark Places, the movie proved a slog.  Clocking in at just over two hours long, the film feels overlong yet curiously underdeveloped.  The main mystery is never as intriguing as one would hope and the revelations, when they come, rely too much on coincidence.  Without getting into too many SPOILERS, suffice it to say that the night of the crime several events magically lined up to create this singular event…and its a whopper of a thing to swallow, as much of a whopper to swallow when all is magically uncovered all those years later.

Despite a strong cast and decent acting, Dark Places is too slow, too un-involving, and ultimately too coincidental in its resolution to accept.  It’s therefore not too terribly surprising the film wasn’t given a broader release.

…the horror…the…horror…

So we just finished up the month of October and over at the movie studios they’re wondering…

October Box Office Scare: Why So Many Movies Bombed

The above article by Pamela McClintock and presented on CNN.com, examines the large uptick in failed movie released during the past month.

While The Martian is doing well, so many other films have severely underperformed.

Films such as:

The Walk.

This movie, directed by Robert Zemekis (Back to the Future, Forrest Gump, etc) received generally positive reviews but audiences stayed away in droves.  Personally, I wasn’t all that interested in the subject matter.  And if I was, why would I watch this and not Man on Wire, the 2008 documentary that focuses on, and features footage from, the actual tightrope walk?

Further to that, I have a big fear of heights and, from what I understand, this film really wanted audiences, especially those going to the IMAX presentation, to experience a strong sense of vertigo.  Mr. Zemekis wanted audiences to feel the heights which Phillipe Petite (the man who did the walk) felt.

Regardless of how good the film might be:  Why would I want to torture myself like that?!

Another film that didn’t do so well was Steve Jobs.  Written by acclaimed screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and starring Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, and Seth Rogan (who in particular received great reviews for his portrayal of Steve Jobs’ partner Steve Wozniak), the film nonetheless also tanked at the box office…even though it too received generally positive reviews.  On Rottentomatoes.com, the film has a positive rating of 85% and yet audiences weren’t interested.

I suspect the problem here might be that we’ve already had our fill of Steve Jobs documentaries…if there ever was a desire for such a thing in the first place.  Only two years ago Jobs, featuring Ashton Kutcher in the title role, came and went and no one cared then -though to be fair unlike Steve Jobs this film was almost universally panned- so why should they care now?

Then there’s the Bill Murray vehicle Rock The Kasbah.  While I felt the trailer was amusing, this one may have fallen victim to very bad reviews.

Truth, starring Robert Redford and Kate Blanchett and focusing on the controversial George H. W. Bush military service story that sunk Dan Rather’s career also didn’t do well.  The reviews for this film were decidedly mixed but I suspect the problem in finding an audience with this movie might lie in that almost everyone -including conservatives- wants nothing more than to forget all about George H. W. Bush and his presidency.  Why go to the movies to revisit even one aspect of it?

Our Brand is Crisis, starring Sandra Bullock, in my opinion, simply didn’t look all that interesting.  Then again, like Truth we’re again dealing with politics and maybe people just aren’t in the mood at this time to deal with it.  Regardless, apart from some humorous content, the movie’s trailer didn’t grab me all that much.  Your mileage, of course, may vary:

Burnt, starring Bradley Cooper as an arrogant chef, was even worse, trailer-wise.  Does anyone want to see the film after this:

Slick though the trailer is, almost nothing about it grabbed me and the scenarios presented felt awfully familiar.  If I want to see and arrogant chef scolding his “pupils” I can watch Hell’s Kitchen.  If I want to see people making great culinary confections, I can watch any of a myriad of programs on the Food Network.  Perhaps this subject matter is a little too overexposed?

My comments above, of course, benefit immensely from 20/20 hindsight.  Though it may not sound it, I do not relish hearing about troubles at movie studios.  As an author, I know the work that goes into creating a work and it must be crushing to see your work receive (as some of those features did) great reviews but be met with public indifference.  Besides, while these films didn’t appeal to me personally for the reasons I’ve listed, at least the studios were trying to do something different.

Unfortunately, it appears the studios entered a perfect storm of sorts and audiences simply weren’t buying what they were selling this past month.

Ash vs Evil Dead: “El Jefe” (2015) episode review

He’s back and I couldn’t be happier.

Count me among those who loves Ashley “Ash” J. Williams character featured in the films The Evil Dead (1981), Evil Dead II (1987) and Army of Darkness (1992).

Which means that with this past Halloween weekend premiere of “El Jefe”, the first episode of Starz! Ash vs Evil Dead, it has been a mind boggling twenty three years since we’ve seen a healthy dose of our anti-hero/screwup in action.  Sure, Mr. Campbell made a cameo appearance as Ash at the very end (after the credits) of the disappointing 2013 remake/reimaging of Evil Dead, but that’s all it was, a few seconds’ long cameo…

Here we finally, finally get what we asked for: Ash front and center doing what he does best: Kick demonic ass while simultaneously making an ass out of himself.

For that’s what the crew behind the original Evil Dead films discovered: That graphic, splatter horror could be merged with comedy to create something unique for these times.  While this wasn’t an entirely new idea (years before Abbott and Costello meet up with, among others, Frankenstein, the Wolfman, Dracula etc), the character of Ash, a knucklehead with a penchant for spouting some of the strangest/hilarious lines…

…was.  He’s a clod, a dim bulb.  An arrogant, selfish fool who nonetheless has one very unique ability: To effectively fight evil.  Though the first Evil Dead movie was more of a straight up horror film, it was in the second Evil Dead this unique comic-Ash character really flowered.  The clip above, from Army of Darkness, continued and expanded on that interpretation.  Ash was the dufus character from a comedy that just happened to find himself in a full fledged horror feature.

Happily, Ash vs Evil Dead follows that path beautifully.  Though older, Ash is certainly no wiser.  In fact, other than dentures and a bigger belly, he’s the exact same fool fans have come to know and love.

The first episode of this 10 episode series (with a second season already approved!  Yay!) succinctly re-establishes Ash while introducing us to his modern world, a place where he’s still a low level worker at the “Value Stop” chain (alas, the S-Smart found in Army of Darkness -and indeed all the elements present in that movie- could not be used in this show as that film is owned by another studio.  No big deal: Strong continuity isn’t an important element in the Evil Dead universe).  Ash also remains a lothario, readying himself in comical fashion in the opening scenes to cruise down to a seedy looking bar and pick up the only woman in the establishment…by lying and boasting about how he lost his hand (one can imagine how many times before he’s used this pick up line).

But all is (of course) not well and Ash realizes the evil he faced all those years before may be back.  And the person responsible for its return could be…Ash himself.

I won’t go into all the details of this episode but we are introduced to a larger cast of characters who will accompany Ash on this new adventure.  Some, like ‘ Lucy appear only for a few seconds in this episode while three other regulars are given more time.  Whether there are more characters to join in this journey, I’m not sure.

Yet.

If you’re at all into Evil Dead and, more specifically, the legend that is Ash, you’ll have a blast with this new series’ first episode.  Let’s hope what follows is up to this highly entertaining premiere.

Extinction (2015) a (mildly) belated review

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Extinction, apart from the casting of two popular TV actors in the lead roles, is the fact it is a movie that uses a by now perhaps too common trope, that of a “zombie apocalypse,” to instead tell the tale of friendship gone very sour and the possibility of its redemption.

The relationship between the two leads, played by Lost’s and Burn Notice’s , is never really explained.  Are they good friends?  Brothers?  Brothers-In-Law?  We never really know, though the film hints that their relationship existed a very long time, to when they were kids.

The movie begins with the two of them on a bus filled with other people.  Two heavily armed soldiers watch over the group as the bus, and another in front of it, head to some kind of safe ground. Perhaps they’re being moved to a military base or perhaps an airport to transport survivors somewhere else.

The two accompany Emma, an attractive young woman carrying a very young baby.  Tension rises as the child cries, and rises still more when the bus in front of them stops and doesn’t move.  Through the darkness the group cannot see what’s going on in the bus in front of them.

And then a gunshot is heard and soon all hell breaks loose.

In the ensuing chaos we discover our leads care deeply for Emma and her baby, and when a zombie-ish (they may be zombies, they may be people stricken with some kind of rage virus) attack hits their bus and, eventually, results in Emma getting bitten, we abruptly transition to nine years later.

We find that humanity may well be gone while Earth has entered a new Ice age.  Our two leads live literally right across from each other in barricaded homes but no longer speak to each other.

Jack (Jeffrey Donovan) cares for Lu, the now older baby we saw in the movie’s opening act.  He is well groomed and cares deeply for the child while across the way Patrick (Matthew Fox) has allowed his hair and beard to grow and lives in a house littered with dirt.  Patrick also drinks too much and appears to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown.  He looks like a mountain man and, apart from his dog companion, doesn’t interact with either Jack or Lu.

Not that Jack would allow him to.

We quickly realize something big happened between the two men since we were first introduced to them.  Over the course of the movie, we discover where that break occurred while also finding that the zombie threat, thought long gone after the cold weather took over the world, may not be quite over after all.

As mentioned before, this is a movie that is more focused on the relationship between these characters rather than feeding audiences horror chills.  In fact, there are exactly three big action scenes in the film, the first in its opening act, the second toward the middle, and at final one at the very end.  In between, we witness how Jack cares for the young Lu, a girl who feels herself being overly protected.  She’s also curious about Patrick and his dog, though anytime she approaches him Jack becomes unhinged.

For modern audiences, the movie’s languid pace might be a little too slow, especially if you’re used to the thrill-a-minute Walking Dead.  Worse, when we do finally discover what drove these two men apart, the revelation doesn’t feel as big/terrible as it might have been.

Still, the movie for the most part delivers regarding these character moments.  When Jack finally allows Patrick into his house for a meal and a truce, the scene makes your heart pound with both tension and the hope these two will finally resolve their differences.  It is here, in the movie’s very best scene, that the characters offer hints at their common past in front of the innocent Lu.  However, like in real life, old wounds aren’t healed so quickly or completely.

I don’t want to give away too much more but suffice to say that if you get into the characters, you will enjoy this film.  Unfortunately, where Extinction doesn’t work quite as well is when delivering its action/horror.  The opening zombie attack isn’t anything you haven’t seen plenty of times before.  The middle action scene suffers from some shoddy effects (alas, this is a low budget film and while they did well with creating a snowy apocalypse, its still a low budget affair).  The final attack works the best though it does involve another well-worn zombie trope done many times before and better: the siege.

The bottom line is that if you come into Extinction hoping to see tension filled horror/action film along the lines of a 28 Days Later or Dawn of the Dead (original or remake) or Walking Dead you will probably walk away disappointed.  However, because of the very good characterization presented and, especially, that dinner scene, I can’t entirely dismiss this film.

If I had to rate it on a four star scale, I’d give Extinction two to two and a half stars.  Make of this what you will.

How it was shot…

10 Most Iconic Movie Scenes, at least according to the folks at Screen Rant:

Not to sound too snotty but I was aware of most of the examples included (the problems with Bruce, the name given the animatronic shark from Jaws are quite legendary!).

Perhaps the most interesting one was The Exorcist’s spider walk down the stairs.  I knew the scene was cut but as I haven’t looked at the bonus material on my expanded edition of the movie I didn’t realize the reason for not using that particular scene was because when it was filmed, and before the advent of CGI, they were unable to “hide” the strings holding the contortionist up as she moved down the stairs.

It makes perfect sense that now with the use of computers the wires can be digitally removed and therefore the scene re-inserted into the film, though I wonder if it was, in the end, necessary.  I’m ambivalent about its inclusion in the expanded director’s cut but there have been plenty of people who felt the scene should have remained on the cutting room floor.

Returning to Jaws for a moment, it is also well known that because of all the problems the animatronic shark had director Steven Spielberg was forced to hold off on showing the shark much longer than he originally intended to in the film.  In lieu of this, he created scenes where we adopt the perspective of the shark and/or the shark attacks and we barely see it.

The problems with the shark turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  By not revealing the “villain” of the piece fully until the last acts, Mr. Spielberg created a film whose suspense grew with each new attack/victim.  I distinctly recall having my breath taken away when the shark was finally revealed in all its terrifying glory toward the later stages of the film.

Which just goes to show that sometimes as much as a movie benefits from good acting or directing or script, etc. etc., sometimes you have to also be lucky.

I’ve made it known before how much I like the theatrical version of Walter Hill’s cult classic The Warriors.  That version of the film is one of, in my opinion, Walter Hill’s all time best movies.

And yet because of budget and time he was unable to show “his” vision of the film.  Years later he released an “ultimate director’s cut” of the movie which included new material, mostly in the from of comic book frames, as well as some different cuts of several of the film’s classic scenes…and the end result was, in my opinion, terrible.

While I can appreciate the man who created the film wanted to see it released closer to the way he originally envisioned it, sometimes when the pressure is on and a creative person is forced to make something within rigorous time/budgetary/logistical constraints, the results can be all the better.

Cop Car (2015) a (mildly) belated review

To create a successful action/suspense film, one has to make something that viewers wind up submerging themselves into.  In the best of all circumstances the viewer is no longer watching actors acting, they’re witnessing real life play out before them.  We root for the good guys/gals and hiss at the bad guys/gals and, as the action/suspense torque up, we fearfully wonder how and whether our hero(es) will make it out of their predicament alive.

This is, of course, easier said than done.  There are plenty of films out there, some very well made, which simply don’t engage the viewers in spite of the best attempts of the actors and directors.  A few years back I felt that way about the Tom Cruise film Jack Reacher.  As I noted in my review of it (you can read the full review here):

…the main problem with Jack Reacher and what keeps it from rising from being a good action film to being a truly great one is that there is never a point you don’t feel like you’re watching a movie.

Which brings us, inevitably, to Cop Car.

Cop Car is a low budget film which aims, as the trailer I’m about to present below points out, to fit into an odd niche.  It attempts to be a modern day Huckleberry Finn-type story merged with a bloody No Country For Old Men-type Coen Brothers feature.  See for yourself…

While the attempt is interesting, perhaps even unique, the movie itself, unfortunately, doesn’t deliver and what we have is a suspense film that is never all that suspenseful.  We also have a movie that, like Jack Reacher, never felt like something that would happen in “real life”.

Part of the problem is the setup itself.  The movie starts with our protagonists, two 10 year old boys who may (or may not, it is never made totally clear) be running away from home.  They walk a flat field and obviously live out in the middle of nowhere.

They walk on, talking childish things, until they spot a (ta-da!) cop car parked in a ravine and under some trees.  At first they think the cops are after them (again, they may have run away from home) but when they realize the car is empty, they approach it and, after playing inside it for a while, discover the car’s owner left the keys behind.  They start the car and, soon enough, drive off with it.

MILD SPOILER FOLLOW!

We then backtrack a little in time to find that the man who drives the car, Sheriff Kretzer ( playing a very oddball character), parked the car in this out of the way place to get rid of a corpse.  He had taken the body out of the trunk of his car and dragged it to a hole in the ground where he tossed it in.  When he returned to his car, he discovers it is gone and, of course, hilarity ensues.

As a viewer, I found all this set up so damn hard to swallow.

Our dirty cop leaves his car behind and goes somewhere so far away on foot -and dragging behind him a very heavy corpse- that he doesn’t hear when the boys start his car up?  Considering most of the land around them is flatland, wouldn’t there have been some way for our evil cop to park his car much, much closer to where he needs to dump that corpse?

If not super-near, at least near enough to hear when the car is started?

That’s ignoring, by the way, the whole rather large coincidence of two runaway boys just happening to stumble upon a cop car in the middle of nowhere with the keys inside it and an evil cop doing evil things which just out of sight.

If you can get past that, there’s also this: The two 10 year old children who swipe the car are shown to not know how to drive.  When they start the cop car, it is clearly the very first time they’ve ever done such a thing.  In short order they’re driving off, though they don’t even know (yet) what the “P’ or the “R” stands for on the automatic shift (they state this later in the film).

Not only do they drive off with the car, they’re soon on the road and moving about without all that much trouble.  Granted, we are in the middle of the boonies but still, yet another hard fact the audience is expected to simply accept.  What makes the whole thing all that much worse is that there was an easy way to explain at least this part of the movie away: Just have one of the children say their older sister/brother or mother/father/uncle has allowed them to drive a couple of times.  They don’t have a great skill at driving, but at least they have enough to get the car moving.

But even if such a line of dialogue existed, it still doesn’t explain our Sheriff leaving the car alone with the keys inside, especially when he’s up to no good.

What follows is essentially a chase, where the Sheriff searches for his car which, it turns out, has another surprise in its trunk.  Unfortunately, the movie’s languid pace and almost comical presentation of the Sheriff (as I said above, Kevin Bacon’s character is pretty odd and reminded me at times -by his look as well as some actions- of Lieutenant Jim Dangle from Reno 911!) further dilute the suspense we’re meant to feel.

When we reach the bloody climax, our heroes, the two children, are reduced to trapped witnesses as the bodies fall around them.  Afterwards, a final car chase feels hard to swallow given (again) our heroes just started driving that day.

I feel bad knocking Cop Car like I am.  As with Jack Reacher, the film was made by people who were attempting to deliver a solid, even unique, piece of entertainment.  Unfortunately the end result simply wasn’t all that good.

Too bad.

Oh my…

Stumbled upon this article by Elliot Hannon concerning one Lenny Dykstra and the startling allegations he makes concerning the years previous when he played professional baseball:

Lenny Dykstra Says He Hired Private Investigators to Dig Up Dirt and Extort MLB Umpires

Years ago I went through what turned out to be a sports watching phase.  I watched local sports –all sports– that I stumbled upon.  Football, hockey, basketball, and baseball.  I was very lucky because my interest in watching all sports all the time they aired coincided with the then Florida Marlins (they have since changed their name to the Miami Marlins) 2003 World Series winning season (the stats).

I’m not exaggerating when I say I saw almost every single game presented that year, missing no more than a handful (five or less) when they aired on TV (I didn’t go to any of the games).  Of course, going into that year I had no way of knowing whether the team would be good enough to make it to the playoffs, much less wind up winning the World Series, yet there I was, watching it all.

You would think that would make me a fan for life yet the opposite occurred.

After watching that magical year from start to finish, I looked back and realized just how much time I spent -wasted, really- watching these games and realized I just didn’t have the energy or time to do this again.

I still watch football games.  They’re manageable, one game a week for approximately 16 weeks and then, if my team makes it to the playoffs -and they haven’t in an awful long time- a few more weeks at most before season’s end.  I still enjoy watching basketball, though I cut back tremendously on the amount of games I watched from start to finish.  As for hockey and baseball, I essentially cut them out completely.  In stark contrast to the 2003 season, I can say with all sincerity that since that year, I have yet to see a single baseball game all the way through since.

Of course what I find interesting or not so interesting doesn’t apply to others and I don’t begrudge anyone’s enjoyment of watching their favorite teams in their favorite sports.

Which is why the statements Lenny Dykstra makes above are so abhorrent.  I understand the burning desire to win a game.  I can even understand the lengths players will go to get and “edge” and when it leads to them cheating.  This past year considerable focus was on New England Patriots Quarterback Tom Brady.

Let me be clear here: In time he may well be considered the best Quarterback there ever was, but the things his team -and he– was involved in should give anyone pause.

But that don’t compare to what Lenny Dykstra states he did during his playing days.  There are those who have pointed out in the comment section that Mr. Dykstra is a liar and generally an awful person (I’m only pointing out what the comments state.  Other than a familiar name, I wouldn’t know Lenny Dykstra from the Man on the Moon) and that therefore his assertions regarding investigating Umpires is likely another fabrication.

I kinda hope so.

Yet the fact that he’s willing to go out in public and state he did these things, whether they are true or not, are shocking and, in my opinion, hardly make the guy look good.

The dark side of sports exists, that’s for certain.

Yet more Star Wars musings…or, Is Luke evil (part deux)

A few days back Disney released the first full trailer for the new Star Wars film.  Notably absent from it was Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker.

At the time, I wrote that his absence made me wonder whether the movie’s big surprise would be that Luke Skywalker is evil. (You can read the full post here)

Since then and a few days ago, I linked up to another article, this one arguing that Luke Skywalker is not evil and offering as evidence his clothing (or at least the clothing we’ve seen him in in a couple of leaked photographs…you can read that post here).

Now comes this article, by Rob Conery and for Huffington Post, which goes into great, great detail on why my original thought, that Luke was going to be revealed as “evil” is indeed what we’re getting in the new Star Wars film:

This Luke Skywalker Theory Destroys Everything You Think You Knew About Star Wars

So much reading about a movie I’m at best only mildly interested in…

Which means I’ve gotta give the folks behind it a hell of a lot of credit: They’ve managed to get people talking about this new Star Wars film and it would not surprise me at all that whatever is revealed vis a vis Luke Skywalker, the one’s who will benefit the most from this speculation are the studios.