Wednesday, November 30, 2005
They're a bit rusty, these tools
Based on the news that a pair of American screenwriters, Jace Anderson and Adam Gierasch, would be co-writing Dario Argento's Mater Lachrymarum, I decided to check out one of their previous gigs to get some idea of what lies in store for the concluding part of the Three Mothers trilogy. I picked Toolbox Murders, a vague remake of a 1978 Video Nasty, primarily because it stars Angela Bettis, who was so good in May. Toolbox Murders is not an overly good flick, but if Argento has seen it, I can see why he chose its screenwriters to help pen his film, since it does share a number of plot devices with Inferno.Basically, Angela Bettis and her husband move into a creepy old apartment building where all the residents act like nutcases. An assassin is on the prowl, murdering the inhabitants using various DIY tools, but no-one seems to notice. The only one who isn't crazy and/or woefully negligent, Angie turns amateur sleuth and decides to get to the bottom of what's going on in the house. At this point the film changes pace and decides to mix some supernatural elements into what was previously a straightforward slasher, revolving around strange symbols, missing rooms and a killer who just won't stay dead. This is hardly the high point of director Tobe Hooper's career, but then again it's not as if he's ever managed to live up to his seminal The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Even so, though, old Tobe does throw in some sadistic kills (my favourite being a spinal cord being severed by bolt cutters), the house has a suitably creepy atmosphere, and Angela Bettis puts in a good performance. The script, I'm sorry to say, is probably the biggest problem, with some extremely lame exposition and badly-written dialogue (or maybe it's the actors reading it badly?).
Basically, my dalliance with Toolbox Murders has left me with ambivalent feelings about Anderson and Gierasch. All I can say is that if Argento is looking for them to provide more believable English dialogue for Mater Lachrymarum, he's come to the wrong place. Then again, clumsy, blatantly expositional dialogue didn't hurt Suspiria or Inferno. Eh, he can probably pull it off.
5/10 for Toolbox Murders, 2/10 for the hideous transfer, sourced from some sort of analogue video format on this rental copy. The retail release, handled by Anchor Bay, is apparently superior.
And the CGI shit factory continues to spew out faeces...
http://www.imagi.com.hk/movie/web/catc.htmFor once, I am rendered utterly speechless.
Gadzooks! Here come the nutters!
With only two days to go before the cut-off date for submission of responses to the British government's proposed draconian criminalisation of laying eyes on so-called "violent pornography", a number of eloquent individuals have drawn up their own criticisms of the legislation. They lay out the problems with the government's propositions better than I ever could, so instead of listening to me prattling on, have a read of what they have to say:- Franco
- Julian Petley (Professor of Film and Television in the School of Arts at Brunel University)
- The BBFC
Yes, the last one surprised me too. You go, team!
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Asterix box set
It seems that there have at last been some developments in the long-delayed Asterix DVD box set (for those who have been reading this site for some time, you may remember that I was first expecting to receive my copy at around this time last year). Gaumont have updated the entry on their web site with a new title, Astérix: La Trilogie Gaumont, new cover art, a release date (December 6th) and details on the bonus features:DE LA BD AU FILM (26 min)
Toute la BD est adaptée. Toute ? Non ! Des cases sont délaissées, des situations transformées, des personnages inventés. La vie n’est pas facile pour une adaptation de bande dessinée.
ASTÉRIX ET LA MARGUERITE (51 min)
En ouvrant les portes d’un camp non retranché dédié à l’animation, Gaumont permit aux Gaulois de s’épanouir sur grand écran en s’amusant. Et l’Obélix de luxe sort grandi.
COMMENT ASTÉRIX EST DEVENU UN HÉROS DE DESSINS ANIMÉS (63 min)
Selon la maxime qui veut que les voyages forment la genèse, voici narré le tumultueux périple qui fit d’un petit guerrier à l’esprit malin et à l’intelligence vive une star de l’animation.
LA FABRICATION D’UN DESSIN ANIMÉ (23 min)
Nous sommes en 10 avant l’image de synthèse. En cette (lointaine) époque, faire un dessin animé tenait autant de l’art que de l’artisanat local. Retour sur ces temps reculés.
For those who don't speak French, they are essentially (as far as my ropey grasp of the language goes): (1) the adaptation from graphic novel to film, (2) the creation of the animation studios that produced the films, (3) how Asterix became an animated hero, and (4) the animation process itself. With just under three hours of extras, this set looks like it will have been well worth the wait...
...unless it gets delayed yet again, that is.
The Skeleton Key
The Skeleton Key turned out to be quite a bit better than I was expecting. Don't get me wrong, it's got problems, most of them down to Ehren Kruger's script, but the execution is of a high standard and the film manages to make the most of its eery New Orleans bayou setting. There's something naturally disturbing about crazy old Southern coots, and director Iain Softley seems to be aware of this, since much of the horror comes not from the standard "gotcha" jump scares (although there are a few of these) but the atmosphere of the setting and the presence of several creepy Southerners.Anyway, Kate Hudson plays Caroline, a nursing assistant who quits her job in order to go into private caring. She lands a gig looking after a paralysed old man who hasn't got long to live, all the time heckled by the gent's overbearing wife (the aforementioned crazy old Southern coot). As she cares for the gent, she begins to think that he was paralysed not by a stroke but by some sort of hoodoo curse, and that his wife plans on offering him up as some sort of sacrifice. To be honest, the plot isn't very important, riddled with holes as it is, but the atmosphere is very good, and Softley more than redeems himself for inflicting Hackers upon us all those years ago. Kate Hudson also turns out to be a far better performer than I was expecting, and it's nice to see a film shot in Panavision in this day and age (what with most filmmakers opting for Super35 for their 2.35:1 movies).
6/10
Monday, November 28, 2005
More on Mater Lachrymarum
The Horror Channel has some more information on the writing of Dario Argento's Mater Lachrymarum (previously The Third Mother), including the welcome news that Argento is himself heavily involved in the writing process rather than just overseeing it, and is currently going through Gierasch and Anderson's first draft with a fine toothcomb. I'm feeling a lot more confident about the film now than I was initially.Gibson goes after CleanFlicks
Source: JoBloIt's about time that somebody took these mofos to court! Actor/director/all around-freakazoid billionaire Mel Gibson has decided to sue a Utah-based company called CleanFlicks, who have been editing all "offensive" elements out of copyrighted films for years now, and then selling those unauthorized copies to their customers. Gibson's Icon Distribution is suing them for said unauthorized versions of Gibson's THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST and asking that CleanFlicks stop distribution and unspecified damages.
I've a little late reporting on this story, but it's such a juicy one I can't help thinking it deserves to be told again. I may not be a fan of Christianity enthusiast Mel Gibson or his viewpoints, but I commend him for going after these butchers.
A day in the life of a cartoon character
Today's Animation lecture, the second-last, was pretty interesting. The vast majority of them have been good, but this one stood out as being of a particularly high standard, given that, unlike the previous eight lectures, which were all to do with films intended to be screened theatrically, it dealt with television animation. That's not to say that everything we watched was of a high standard - indeed, there was some absolute garbage - but even the worst material provided food for thought.We got off to a bad start with an episode of Scooby-Doo, and I reaffirmed my hatred of that dismal pile of kangaroo faeces. Even when I was a kid, I never thought much of the show, but watching it again after so many years, on a cinema screen no less, had me reaching for the puke bucket. Surely no child ever enjoyed garbage this puerile? Okay, I know it developed a bit of a hippy fan following, but I can't believe anyone ever watched it seriously and actually considered it to constitute a good use of the animators' and audience's time.
Afterwards, we watched two cartoons by Genndy Tartakovsky: the Dexter's Laboratory pilot (not really a fan) and an episode of Samurai Jack, featuring a large, hairy Scotsman. I'd seen bits of Samurai Jack before, but I don't think I'd ever watched a whole episode. I enjoyed it. The visual design was interesting and, surprisingly for a modern TV show, it was allowed to take its time rather than constantly rushing forward in search of the next gag.
An episode of The Simpsons followed (The Front), and it seemed to get the most consistent laughs out of the audience. I guess you can't beat predictability. We then watched the "Mr. Hanky" episode of South Park. I'm not a fan of the show, but I'd forgotten how funny that particular episode was, especially the fake live action commercial for the Mr. Hanky Construction Set. Don't get me wrong, I strongly dislike Trey Parker and Matt Stone's blindingly obvious form of social satire, but they sure know how to tell a good poo joke.
What followed was a couple of minutes of the vomit-inducing Strawberry Shortcake (I'm sure any longer would have led to walk-outs) and around 15 minutes of the smug, loathsome Tiny Toon Adventures (fuck off and make more feel-good films about special children, Spielberg). We also got to see the unaired pilot episode of Rugrats, which wasn't significantly better than the actual show in terms of storyline, but was much more impressively animated with an overall more interesting visual style.
The Skeleton Key
A review copy of The Skeleton Key (R1 Canada) arrived today. This isn't a film I've seen before or know all that much about, but the premise, dealing with spooky attics, voodoo rituals and the like, sounded quite interesting, so I decided to give it a shot. The only other film I've seen by Iain Softley is the ghastly Hackers, but The Skeleton Key at least has the strength of being written by Ehren Kruger, the man responsible for the excellent Arlington Road... and the less than excellent Scream 3... and the US version of The Ring... Hmmm.By the way, I'm accumulating quite a stash of Loaded247 "50p off" vouchers via these review copies. It's just a shame you can't use more than one in a single order.
The Devil's Rejects
The Devil's Rejects will surely not be for everyone. Many will, no doubt, find the sudden shifts between abject horror and juvenile comedy jarring, not to mention tasteless, while others will find the gleefully anarchic behaviour of the characters, especially Baby, infuriating. Ironically, though, it is these same traits that make the film positively endearing to me: a bizarre blend of hilarity and terror that never fails to surprise and remains riveting viewing throughout. Of all the films released in 2005, I have to say that this is the one that has proven to be, for me, the most enjoyable, bang for buck.
I've reviewed the R1 Canadian release of The Devil's Rejects, Rob Zombie's excellent follow-up to his quirky House of 1000 Corpses. Lions Gate have presented the unrated director's cut in an excellent 2-disc set packed full of interesting and amusing bonus features.
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Cursed
Hmmm, yes, well, this could have been a lot worse. Trouble is, it could have been a lot better too. Wes Craven's Cursed had a particularly "cursed" (See what I did there? Aren't I hilarious?) production history, being meddled with by the hated Weinstein brothers to the point of ridiculousness, with the vast bulk of the movie being re-written, re-cast and re-shot on a whim. Given the right material, Craven can be a good director, but he can't salvage this mess. There's a good horror movie in here somewhere, and a good thriller too - hell, even a good high school drama if you want to be really desperate. The problem is, none of it comes together at all, with an addled script by Scream writer Kevin Williamson - then again, given what the Weinsteins did to it, that's not exactly his fault - and some of the most hideous CGI known to man. Add to this a whole bunch of Dawson's Creek drop-outs and you have yourself a recipe for disaster. Geez, I really hope Craven's Red Eye is better than this.4/10
Friday, November 25, 2005
Fulci fun
Alias canceled
Source: E! OnlineI suppose this has been waiting to happen for some time, and with Jennifer Garner about to squeeze out a brat I doubt it could have continued with her as the lead, but it's a shame nonetheless. Apparently the show has been coasting for some time, never managing to get particularly good ratings, and I get the impression it only survived this long because some benevolent executive at ABC liked it.
Thursday, November 24, 2005
New DVD image comparison
Enjoy!
Jenifer
I'm going to have to rewatch Jenifer to give it a re-appraisal. I was pretty dismissive of it first time round, but there are parts of it that I've been unable to get out of my head. That's a sure sign of something worthy of a second look, in my opinion...Fun at the chocolate factory
I watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory today. Having read a number of very positive reviews and some more mixed ones, I wasn't sure what to expect, but from the trailers and other promotional material I had seen beforehand, I was already a bit wary of Johnny Depp's embodiment of Willy Wonka. In that regard, the film more or less lived up to my expectations - I felt that Depp played him too much like a goofy children's TV host with a dash of Michael Jackson thrown in for good measure - but in most other areas the film was a success. The sets are excellent, and Tim Burton does a damn good job of capturing the quasi-UK, quasi-US, non-specific timeframe from Roald Dahl's book. Additionally, the added subplot featuring Wonka's dentist father didn't grate anything like as much as I thought it would. The musical numbers were terrible, though, destroying the aforementioned non-specific timeframe with their impressions of the Beatles and heavy metal, and the kid playing Charlie annoyed me intensely.Wonka and his exploits get a 7/10 from me. It's an improvement on the Gene Wilder vehicle from the 1970s, but I don't think it's the triumph that some people have made it out to be. If you want a more positive review of the film, though, Todd S. Gallows' in-depth report constitutes as good a defence as any.
Gialli galore
The less said about Blood and Black Lace the better. The previous release, from 2001, was one of the poorer DVDs I've come across, so I assumed, not unreasonably, you'll probably agree, that the 2005 re-release, touted as an "unslashed collectors' edition", would be an improvement. Not so: in fact, it's significantly worse. The buzz online regarding this release was already bad when I discovered that my copy had already been dispatched, preventing me from cancelling it, but I wasn't prepared for just how horrible it would be. The transfer is a grotty standards conversion from what looks like a VHS tape, and the sound (a hideous 5.1 remix) is completely out of sync with the picture. This really is dreadful. It's blatantly obvious that VCI spent more time on the ridiculously over-animated menus than on the film itself. Sigh. At least I have a use for the second disc, which contains a bunch of extras, since, although they're replicated from the previous release, my copy of that version was defective, preventing me from playing anything but the audio commentary.
Almost Blue, on the other hand, is presented on a very nice DVD with a solid transfer (although I suspect some contrast boosting, as a number of the whites look unnaturally blown-out). Better still, the film is very good. Modern-day gialli are few and far between (barring Argento's recent output, the only two that I've seen are this and Occhi di Cristallo), but the ones that have been produced seem to be of a high standard. Almost Blue is a gritty, police procedural oriented thriller with some incredible cinematography and a very interesting central idea: a serial killer who assumes the identity of each individual he murders. While watching this film, I was reminded several times of what Argento later did in The Card Player (backed up by the fact that Claudio Santamaria is featured in both films, albeit in very different roles), and I think that, of the two, Almost Blue is the superior movie. 8/10
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Howl's Moving Castle
My copy of the 4-disc R2 Japanese limited edition of Howl's Moving Castle arrived this morning, winging its way from YesAsia, and coming complete with an authentic 35mm film frame encased in a glass block. I've not got round to watching the film yet, but I did briefly glance through all four discs.Disc 1 contains the film with Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 audio and no subtitles. In other words, if I want to watch the film using either of those audio options, I'll have to find some way of transplanting subtitles on to it.
Disc 2 contains the film again, only this time with Dolby Digital 2.0 tracks in Japanese, English, French, Mandarin and Cantonese, with subtitles in the same array of languages.
Disc 3 contains the entire film in storyboard form with Dolby Digital 2.0 Japanese audio, trailers, a featurette about the New York premiere, an interview with author Diana Wynne Jones, an interview with dubbing director Pete Docter, and trailers for a bunch of other Studio Ghibli releases.
Finally, Disc 4 contains a featurette on the Miyazaki Moebius exhibition in Paris, more material on the New York premiere (this time featuring interviews with Miyazaki and various members of the English voice cast), footage of Miyazaki visiting Pixar Animation Studios for the first screening of the English dub (along with copious amounts of interview footage with John Lasseter), and a piece on the use of CGI within the film.
The Third Mother > Mater Lachrymarum
Following the news that Adam Gierasch and Jace Anderson would co-write the script for Argento's The Third Mother, more details have now materialised at Fangoria, including the announcement that the film will now be called Mater Lachrymarum, after the Latin name for the Mother of Tears about whom the film deals.“We just returned from three weeks in Rome writing the first draft of the film, based on Dario’s original story,” reports Anderson, who goes on to explain how she and Gierasch became involved with the project: “We met Dario—as fans!—while he was in Los Angeles editing his MASTERS OF HORROR episode JENIFER. After speaking with Dario, he was interested in reading one of our scripts—and after he did, he asked us if we would like to do a treatment of MATER LACHRYMARUM! His brother Claudio then asked us to come to Rome. It was intense! Dario is such a sweet man. It was wonderful!”
[...]
“So we spent our time working with Dario [on the script] in Rome,” Anderson continues. “It was important for him that we do it there. He wanted us to soak up the atmosphere, the catacombs, etc., since the film will be shot exclusively there.”
Regarding the subject matter of MATER LACHRYMARUM, Gierasch doesn’t reveal plot particulars, but does promise, “It’s fast-paced, and more violent than you can shake a stick at! This is a horror movie, plain and simple. There are a lot, and I mean a lot, of murders! It really wraps up the trilogy, but is quite different from the first two. Dario didn’t want to do the same thing again.
“I think it’s really going to be the movie that everyone is hoping for,” Gierasch concludes. “It’s a ‘wow’ kind of film, from the very first scene.”
We'll see about that.
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
And just when you thought 3D animation couldn't get any worse...
http://www.apple.com/trailers/weinstein/hoodwinked/trailer/No comment.
Alias: Season 4
My copy of the R2 UK release of Alias: The Complete Fourth Series (they actually mean "season" rather than "series", but sshhh!) arrived yesterday.Once again I am extremely impressed by the image quality. There's something strange about the fact that a TV show receives better transfers than many of those given to major Hollywood blockbusters. Not that I'm complaining, as I'm hugely impressed by the lack of filtering and noise reduction applied to Alias, but it just strikes me as a completely bizarre state of affairs.
Anyhoo, I haven't watched any of Season 4 yet, and although I've read all about how awful it is for the first 16 episodes or so, I'm still looking forward to getting my teeth into it.
Better news regarding The Third Mother
Following yesterday's worrying news that the writers of Crocodile would be penning the script for The Third Mother, Dark Dreams has released some more positive information via Argento expert Alan Jones. At the Turin Film Festival, it was revealed that that Adam Gierasch and Jace Anderson will be writing the script in conjunction with Argento. The film will be shot in Rome starting in April and former Goblin (Profondo Rosso, Suspiria, Tenebre, Phenomena) member Claudio Simonetti (Opera, The Card Player, Jenifer) will compose the score.Monday, November 21, 2005
Bad news regarding The Third Mother
Up, down, touch the ground... News regarding the The Third Mother has been all over the place, from it happening, to it not happening, to it happening again. This article at Fangoria, however, has absolutely filled me with dread: the film will be written by American scribes Adam Gierasch and Jace Anderson, authors of such classics as the Toolbox Murders remake and Crocodile. Argento, apparently, "wants a better chance at reaching the U.S. marketplace by using Stateside talent". I have to wonder if he has entirely lost his head.First the decidedly lifeless Jenifer hauled its carcass in front of me, and now this. I'd love to say I'm wrong, and that the film will be a masterpiece, but with those two involved I can't see how that can possibly be the case. The phrase "sell-out" is bandied around too often, but I'm genuinely worried that it will be entirely appropriate in this case. This is incredibly worrying news for Argento fans.
Jenifer
Today I got my hands on a copy of Jenifer, Dario Argento's episode in the Masters of Horror TV series. I wasn't all that impressed, to be honest. Yes, it was reasonably entertaining and had some nice gore effects, but there was nothing in this to signal that a director of Argento's calibre was behind the camera. This could really have been done by anyone, in my opinion, and the fact that it was written by someone else - itself an adaptation of existing source material - unsurprisingly means that there's really nothing personal at all in it. The performances are reasonable, but none of the characters are really developed enough for us to care about them at all.I guess I went in with my hopes too high, expecting some sort of "return to form", but in reality I feel that Jenifer is a non-event.
5/10
Saturday, November 19, 2005
Look what happened
How do you like that? Thanks to last night's review of Pillow Talk, I've now got Doris fucking Day all over my AdSense banners.PS. I've now made $2.22. Whoo. Only $97.98 more to go before they actually send me some money.
The Beyond
I've just been on a trip into the crazy, crazy world of Lucio Fulci's The Beyond. I'll preface this review by saying that, although the film is flawed, the limited edition tin version I bought was certainly worth the money. Although Fulci clearly owes a great deal to both George A. Romero (for The Night of the Living Dead) and Dario Argento (for Inferno), I've never seen anything quite like this before. Part zombie slasher and part supernatural horror flick, The Beyond is a disturbing, trippy piece of work that very nearly reaches classic status.
Originally, I had planned only to look at Fulci's giallo films and ignore the horror movies he directed in the 80s, but my experience with The Beyond has shown me that he was, quite probably, as adept in this department as he was in thriller territory. The Beyond is definitely a great film and a very enjoyable exercise in excess. Lucio can take a bow.
8/10
Haha
This choice link appeared in one of my AdSense banners:http://www.customessays.co.uk
Guess I've been wasting my time studying all these years. Why actually work for a degree when I could pay these people £15,840 to write me a 60,000 PhD level dissertation (First Class standard guaranteed)?
If you want further proof of what a sound investment this would be, feel free to peruse their web site and marvel at the quality of their prose. No spelling or grammatical mistakes there, no sirree Bob!
My Summer of Love
UK: Pawel Pawlikowski, 2004** CAUTION: SPOILERS **
I'd wanted to see My Summer of Love for some time, but didn't get around to it until last night. I'm glad I took the time to rent and watch it, since while it's not perfect, it's a solid, thought-provoking piece of work with a twisted sense of humour.
The basic plot is that Mona (Nathalie Press)'s brother Phil (Paddy Considine) comes out of prison as a born-again Christian and converts the pub he and Mona run into some sort of temple ("He went inside, and he came out funny," Mona explains). Appalled by her brother's sudden insanity, Mona turns to Tamsin (Emily Blunt), a girl who lives in a large house on the hill, virtually on her own, as her sister is dead, her mother is a flaky actress off touring the world, and her father is off banging some bimbo. Mona and Tamsin's friendship turns to romance, but predictably all is not what it seems and Mona quickly finds herself facing up to some rather harsh realities.
"I'm going to get a job in an abattoir, work really hard, get a boyfriend who's, like, a bastard, and churn out all these kids, right? With mental problems. And then I'm gonna wait for the menopause, or cancer."
Interestingly, a crucial difference between the film and the book on which it is based is that, while the book ends with Mona drowning Tamsin, in the film she stops short of actually killing her. This makes me wonder if Pawlikowski is aware of the infamous Dead Lesbian Cliché (admittedly, both characters seem to be bisexual rather than gay, but I think the principal still applies as they are in a "lesbian relationship") and consciously trying to avoid it.
8/10
Friday, November 18, 2005
Pillow Talk; or How To Piss Off A Film Student In Ten Minutes
Yesterday I found myself faced with a dilemma that has troubled me before. A few months ago it was Citizen Kane; yesterday it was Pillow Talk, a feel-good 1959 romantic comedy starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day. Even if you've only visited this site on a couple of occasions, you'll probably be able to guess that feel-good romantic comedies starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day are not my idea of a grand old time. Truth is, I was made to watch it as part of my Film Studies course, and it proved to be 103 minutes of pure torture. So my dilemma is this: how do I rate a film that completely goes against my way of thinking?On the one hand, I could simply hand it a 1/10 score (I'm sorely tempted to). On the other, just because I personally loathed it doesn't mean that it doesn't have any merit. With Citizen Kane, my reaction was mere indifference, so it's easier to pass it off with "rating withheld". In the case of a film that really annoyed the hell out of me, though, it becomes much more contentious.
Films like this really do inhabit a world of their own - and I don't mean in a good way, like Suspiria, or The Nightmare Before Christmas, or even The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. Pillow Talk and its ilk are simply films that are so removed from my way of thinking that it is impossible for me to appraise them without resorting to a string of expletives. It's a product of its time, to be sure, but I still can't believe how blissfully ignorant its outlook on life is. This is a film in which an obnoxious prick who has his way with every woman he lays eyes on can persuade his latest conquest to go out with her by pretending to be a charming country bumpkin, only when she discovers that he is in fact the slimy goon with whom she has had a long-running feud over a shared phone line, she accepts him anyway! I guess that's the power of true lurve (gag).
I really don't have anything nice to say about this film at all, and while there is an old adage which says that, in situations like these, it's best to say nothing at all, I'm afraid I can't really go along with it. Pillow Talk was a horrible, nasty little piece of ass candy that I hope never to lay eyes on again.
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[Rating Withheld]
Update on the Sony scandal
Source: Melon FarmersIt seems that Sony were not quite as forthcoming with the truth regarding the number of CDs affected by their rootkit spyware as was initially thought. The initial list they published numbered 20 titles, but it has since been revealed that several of the CDs released by their subsidiary companies were also affected. The full list, therefore, is:
Foo Fighters - In Your Honour
Van Zant - Get Right with the Man
Ricky Martin - Life
Celine Dion - On Ne Change Pas
Neil Diamond - 12 Songs
Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten
Kings of Leon - Aha Shake Heartbreak
Chris Botti - To Love Again
Switchfoot - Nothing Is Sound
Patty Loveless - Dreamin’ My Dreams
Montgomery Gentry - Something To Be Proud Of: The Best of 1999-2005
Mary Mary - Mary Mary
David Gray - Life In Slow Motion
Bob Brookmeyer - Bob Brookmeyer & Friends
Shelly Fairchild - Ride
Kasabian - Kasbian
Pete Seeger - The Essential Pete Seeger
The Bad Plus - Suspicious Activity
Elkland - Golden
Susie Suh - Susie Suh
Buddy Jewel - Times Like These
Chayanne - Cautivo
A Static Lullaby - Faso Latido
Our Lady Peace - Healthy In Paranoid Times
The Coral - The Invisible Invasion
Dexter Gordon - Manhattan Symphonie
Acceptance - Phantoms
Dion - The Essential Dion
The Dead 60s - The Dead 60s
Goapele - Change It All
Los Lonely Boys - TBD
Life of Agony - Broken Valley
George Jones - My Very Special Guests
Horace Silver - Silver’s Blue
Amici Forever - Defined
Ahmed Jamal - The Legendary Okeh and Epic Recordings
Anna Nalick - Wreck of the Day
Hitch - Soundtrack
Charlotte Martin - On Your Shore
Vivian Green - Vivian
Raheem DeVaughn - The Love Experience
Amerie - Touch
Nivea - Complicated
Mario - Turning Point
G3 - Live In Tokyo
Again, I don't own any of these releases, but I feel for those that do and have been duped by Sony into infecting their computers with spyware that is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to remove.
To their credit, Sony have decided to recall the millions of affected discs and claim that they will implement a CD exchange programme, although the fact that they have only taken these measures after being exposed in such an embarrassing manner and threatened with multiple lawsuits speak volumes about the integrity about this company.
Thursday, November 17, 2005
AdSense redux
Since I implemented AdSense banners on Monday, I've made a grand total of... 77 cents. If the revenue doesn't improve relatively soon, I think I'll just junk it. If I'm making as little money as that, I don't really think it's worth the space on the site.The Beyond
My copy of The Beyond Limited Edition arrived this morning, the shiny metal case factory shrink-wrapped as promised (thanks, Mukesh!).I've not watched the film yet, but I did take a gander at the opening ten minutes and have come to the conclusion that the image quality is reasonable, but when watching it on the 26" LCD it became apparent that it was too heavily filtered - something of a problem given how grainy the film stock is. I also sampled some of the commentary by Catriona MacColl and David Warbeck, which becomes remarkably poignant when you consider how soon after it was recorded Warbeck died of cancer.
Anyway, here's what all the fuss is about:
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Disney essay
I sat down early this afternoon to make a start on my essay on Disney, and when I next looked up it was 6pm and I had written close to 1,200 words. That's pretty impressive by my standards, and it just goes to show that, if I'm sufficiently interested in a subject, essay-writing can be a relatively painless process. Right now I've got the introduction finished, and tomorrow (or the next time I get a chance to do any work on it) I'm going to begin discussing Pinocchio. Not having read Collodi's original book, I'm not quite sure where to begin, but luckily I have Robin Allan's excellent chapter The Dark World of Pinocchio from the book Walt Disney and Europe: European Influences on the Animated Features of Walt Disney to refer to.Tuesday, November 15, 2005
The return of Michele Soavi
Source: Dark DiscussionThe elusive Michele Soavi, director of Dellamorte Dellamore, The Church and The Sect, is finally making a new movie. Arrivederci Amore, Ciao is set to be a gritty zombie horror film, and even though there are few, if any, details on what the specifics of the plot will be, the man's track record is spotless, with every one of his four films at least entertaining, if not outright brilliant - Dellamorte Dellamore probably being the best Italian horror film of the last decade.
You can read (and watch) interviews with various cast and crew members at Cineuropa.
Cartoon conundrum
Ah, the joys of essay-writing are once again almost upon me. For the beginning of January, I have to deliver two essays: one for my Core Course, the other for the Animation option. The former is to be 3,000 words, but it must also encompass, in some wierd and abstract way, a diary, the contents of which have never been explained except in unbelievably vague terms. I also have to essentially choose a question and a film to analyse myself, the format of which is to be based largely on one of the pieces of set reading we've done as part of the course, with the subject matter being comprised of some sort of revelation I've had while writing my diary. As you can probably guess, I'm not 100% sure what I'm going to do yet, but I would quite like to re-tool my recent review of The Bird With the Crystal Plumage, which was far more analytical than my usual writings and is a film in which I'm sufficiently interested. That review, by the way, was almost 3,000 words itself (not counting the material pertaining to image quality, extras, etc.) so if I can use roughly the same content and argument I'll probably be on the right track.Because of the complexity of the Core Course question, I'm understandably feeling significantly more confident about the question for the Animation option, which, despite being significantly longer at 5,000 words, should prove to be much more straightforward, as we actually have a list of set questions (we can also come up with out own, if we want). The question I've decided to do is this:
Is it possible to identify a Disney "aesthetic"? What would be the main qualities of this aesthetic? Illustrate your answer with reference to no more than THREE feature length Disney films.
The way I interpret this question, I'm basically being asked to decide whether or not there is a standard (visual, aural, subtextual, narrative, etc.) that can be ascribed to Disney's work (and I'm taking that to mean any feature film produced by the studio, not just those made under the guidance of Disney himself). As is always the case with this sort of thing, I suspect I probably won't get many points for simply saying "yes" or "no", since despite the wording of the question, they're really looking for me to say "well, sort of".
It's certainly true that certain common themes and stylistic touches run through a large number of Disney's films, but whenever you pick something and try to claim it as a standard, it turns out that there is one film, somewhere, that doesn't fit. Two-dimensional villains who are evil to the core, can never be redeemed and are always punished is a popular one, and indeed it was pointed to in one of the hand-outs we were given in the class as one of those supposedly unshakeable standards. And yet, look at John Silver in Treasure Planet. Not only does he flit between the roles of villain and surrogate father figure throughout the course of the film, he ends up being partially redeemed and allowed to sail off into the sunset without being punished for his misdemeanours. This is a perfect example of the sort of path I want to take with this essay: to highlight the stereotypes commonly associated with Disney films and blow them apart.
Of course, at the same time, it's undeniable that these stereotypes do have some basis in reality. There are undoubtedly several stylistic traits that embody, if not all, then most Disney titles. The "I want" song, for example. The problem is that Disney's theatrical features (I'm not going to consider their slate of upcoming 3D monstrosities in this essay, by the way) were produced over the course of a lengthy period, between 1937 and 2004, with a vast number of changes in personnel and management, using a wide range of different fairytales and books as sources, so to assume that there is a standard thread running through them all is a bit misleading. For the purposes of this essay, I've decided to select three films from radically different periods of the studio's history: Early - Pinocchio, Mid - One Hundred and One Dalmatians, and Late - Treasure Planet. While distinctly different, these films do share a number of elements, not least the fact that they are all sourced from European literature reworked into an "Americanised" format.
Should be fun.
AdSense revisited
I've added AdSense banners to my DVD Image Comparisons, DVD Transfer Hall of Fame and Commentaries pages. These are the parts of the site that use the most bandwidth and attract the most hits, so it makes sense to exploit this.More Third Mother news
Source: Dark DiscussionApparently, at the Turin Film Festival, Argento said that he will be shooting The Third Mother in April.
Monday, November 14, 2005
AdSense
You've probably noticed the banner at the top of the site. In an attempt to milk a few pennies out of the online institution known as Whiggles.com Compact, I've decided to add some advertising which will hopefully be reasonably inconspicuous and not distract too much your adventures in the wonderful world of whimsy. Oh, and once my account has been approved, etc., the ads will hopefully be a little more varied than ones asking for donations for the US hurricane relief fund.You can get an AdSense account for yourself if you too want to turn your site into a money-making enterprise.
New Argento interview
Fangoria has a new interview with Dario Argento. Focusing mostly on his most recent project, the Masters of Horror episode Jenifer, it also includes information that should be heartening for every Argentophile:Currently, he is wrapped up in the screenplay for a project that every Argento fan has been waiting to see come to fruition for some time. “Right now, I’m working on the third part of the Three Mothers trilogy,” he reveals. “It’s the last part of the saga that started with SUSPIRIA and continued with INFERNO. It’s about the Third Mother, Mother Lacrimarum, the ‘Mother of Tears.’ ” Since both SUSPIRIA and INFERNO rank among the director’s finest films, this new installment has a lot to live up to, but Argento promises, “It will be a very shocking film. The trilogy will close with a bang! It will be shot in English, because it’ll be a co-production between the U.S. and Europe.”
Casting for this project hasn’t yet begun; both previous installments of the trilogy featured strong female leads (Jessica Harper in SUSPIRIA and Irene Miracle in INFERNO), though Argento insists that wasn’t a conscious decision. “It’s just a coincidence, because I’ve done so many movies,” he laughs. “I believe it’s because of the interest I have in women as a whole. As for the soundtrack,” he continues, “I don’t know if it will be composed by Goblin [the band which did the music for his earlier classics and recently reunited to work on SLEEPLESS and JENIFER]. First I have to finish the script, then shoot the movie, and then I’ll tell you,” he laughs.
First he wasn't doing it, then he was, then he wasn't, now he is again. This project has stopped and started so many times now that it's probably pointless for me to get my hopes up, but I'm glad it's still potentially on the cards. The news that "it'll be a co-production between the U.S. and Europe" does suggest that some headway has been made, given that the last thing we heard was that the Italian production company Medusa was going to be funding the whole thing. Here's hoping.
Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye
Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye is enjoyable enough, but it's far from the best that either the traditional giallo or the gothic horror have to offer. Its biggest problem, arguably, is its inability to decide precisely what it wants to be, although some might feel that this mishmash of different styles adds to the fun. Blue Underground's DVD is not particularly noteworthy, although the fact that they have released it uncut and in its correct aspect ratio for the first time is certainly appreciated.
Gothic castles, mad lords and pet gorillas are just some of the weird and wonderful attractions on offer in Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye, a 1973 effort from Antonio Margheriti which melds giallo chic with gothic horror. I've reviewed the recent R0 US DVD from Blue Underground.
Sky Blue
Sky Blue is as tedious a film in English as it is in Korean, and while it might be of interest to those with an affinity with the technical side of animation, purely because of its landmark combining of different techniques, this is not the best way to see it. The presentation is quite frustrating both because of the absense of the original Korean audio and because of the counterproductive organising of the bonus materials. If you really want to see the film, I recommend the Korean release; otherwise, you probably shouldn't bother.
For its Western release, Wonderful Days gets a complete makeover - but are an English-language dub and a few edits enough to transform this flawed Korean animated epic into something worth watching? Released under the title of Sky Blue, Tartan's DVD replicates many of the extras from the Korean release, but the lack of the original Korean cut and dialogue means that this version is difficult to recommend to enthusiasts.
Review at DVD Times.
Sunday, November 13, 2005
Fulci binge
Sony's knuckles rapped for hacking
Source: Melon FarmersSony's music division is facing several lawsuits as a result of the recent discovery that a number of their CDs feature a highly dodgy form of copy protection which imbeds itself, hidden, within the Windows system, leaving computers slower, less reliable and more open to hacking. Sony is, in effect, guilty of hacking users' systems, since the "rootkit" they use modifies the Windows code without the user's permission and compromises both stability and security. Since news got out, the same methods are now being used by hackers to implant backdoor Trojans in affected systems. Way to go, Sony. And you wonder why people pirate your music?
For those who are interested, here is a list of the affected releases, so instead of buying them you'll know to DOES NOT COMPUTE! DOES NOT COMPUTE!
Trey Anastasio - Shine
Celine Dion - On ne Change Pas
Neil Diamond - 12 Songs
Our Lady Peace - Healthy in Paranoid Times
Chris Botti - To Love Again
Van Zant - Get Right with the Man
Switchfoot - Nothing is Sound
The Coral - The Invisible Invasion
Acceptance - Phantoms
Susie Suh - Susie Suh
Amerie - Touch
Life of Agony - Broken Valley
Horace Silver Quintet - Silver's Blue
Gerry Mulligan - Jeru
Dexter Gordon - Manhattan Symphonie
The Bad Plus - Suspicious Activity
The Dead 60s - The Dead 60s
Dion - The Essential Dion
Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten
Ricky Martin - Life
Looks like a load of old rubbish to me, but there's no accounting for taste, and I wouldn't want anyone to have their computer ruined even if they do like Ricky Martin.
An analysis of Trauma
While surfing the information superhighway that is the World Wide Web, I came across an interesting analysis of Dario Argento's Trauma at Kinocite. Trauma, as some of you will probably know, is one of the less popular films in Argento's canon, and while I consider it to be, for the most part, a bit of a wasted opportunity, it undeniably features some very interesting ideas and is worth defending against accusations of it being a complete failure.This paper wishes to explore the critical reception given Italian filmmaker Dario Argento's 1993 American-made film Trauma. Focussing in particular on the deployment of notions of 'originality' and 'authenticity' in a close, scene-by-scene discussion of the film, it will argue the case for Trauma's status as a more or less classic example of film maudit.
Retrospectively Trauma can be identified as having inaugurated a new phase in Argento's cinema, with a new-found emphasis on 'realism' that the director has continued to explore in films such as The Stendhal Syndrome (1996) and The Card Player (2004). It will be argued this 'realist' impulse perhaps lies at the heart of the film's poor reception, many of the arguments against it as an inauthentic, compromised and above all Americanised film failing to hold up to close scrutiny. Rather, Trauma will emerge as authentically and distinctively the work of its auteur as any other Argento film.
Read on...
Saturday, November 12, 2005
Chicken Little a success?
Yeah, I'm at a loss to explain it too. The film has made a total of $60 million so far, with $40 million of that being made on its opening weekend. I guess this proves it: the public really are crazy.There is a real problem with this situation. I've said again and again that the problem with Disney's recent films (or most of them, at any rate) lie in the storylines rather than the medium being used, and that switching to 3D animation would not improve matters at all. The problem is not, as some morons seem to think, that cel animation is an outdated medium, but rather a deep-rooted rot right at the heart of the corporation, the worst of which is brought to fruition in the form of the so-called "creative executives": the idiotic managers, mostly from a theatre or accounting background, who are given free reign to meddle with affairs that should be left to the artists. Why anyone would let a bean-counter mandate plot changes is anyone's guess.
Anyway, the line from the studio was that today's kids are too hip and smart for cel animation and had to have the latest and greatest 3D bells and whistles. I mean, look at Pixar's films. They're 3D and they're raking it in. The answer couldn't be that Disney's stories are shit, could it? Gawd, no! It's because if you make your film 3D, it will automatically become better.
Bull fucking shit.
Pixar's films are successful and consistently do well with both critics and audiences because they are good films with great stories and characters. Disney's films, well, aren't. But sadly, the box office success of Chicken Little has no doubt pretty much proven to the executives that their plot to kill 2D was right on the money. Seriously, guys, Chicken Little is a fluke. I'm willing to bet that, deep down, it's still the same old garbage, and sooner or later the 3D novelty will wear off. Where will the execs turn then?
Fulci on film
I'm planning a major binge on Lucio Fulci films at some point in the near future, most likely Christmas. I was initially quite dismissive of the late Fulci, until I actually sat down and watched some of his films. I've only seen four (A Lizard in a Woman's Skin, Don't Torture a Duckling, Seven Notes in Black, The New York Ripper) and found something to appreciate in all of them (with my order of preference probably being pretty close to the order in which I listed them, which happens to be their chronological order). After reading Stephen Thrower's Beyond Terror (well, the parts that interested me), I've come to the conclusion that I really need to see the horror films he made in the early 1980s, an element of his filmography that I had completely neglected until now. I'm particularly interested to see The Beyond - it sounds neat.In other movie-related news, I'm finally catching up with all the reviews I need to get done. Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye and Sky Blue are now both in the can, and once I finish (or rather start, then finish) The Devil's Rejects I'll be completely up to date with my "mandatory" (i.e. ones I got through DVD Times) reviews.
Peep Show
Peep Show: Series Two (R2 UK) arrived this morning.The first episode of the third series also aired last night on TV. It was good, but not great - definitely not the best episode they've ever done, but it certainly had its moments. There was some great dialogue (paraphrased):
"I hear you're going to have a threesome, Jeremy."
"Yyyyeah."
"Oooh, that'll be nice."
I was a bit disappointed by Big Suze, though. I was expecting a whale of a woman, but what we got wasn't nearly as funny as it would have been had she lived up to her name.
Friday, November 11, 2005
RIP Moustapha Akkad
The executive producer of the Halloween franchise and his daughter were both killed during the suicide bombings in Amman on Wednesday.Source: BBC News
Thursday, November 10, 2005
The Bird With the Crystal Plumage
Complex, clever and skilfully executed, I am sorely tempted to give The Bird With the Crystal Plumage a 10/10 score. As a thriller, it is top-notch: a tightly-written and superbly directed affair, its influence on the film industry, both Italian and internationally, cannot be understated. The fact remains, though, that Argento would go on to bigger and better things, with his 1975 giallo Profondo Rosso leaving The Bird With the Crystal Plumage and its sea of imitators in the dust. As a result, therefore, to differentiate it from its superior successors, I am giving it a 9, but be in no doubt that I find it hard to imagine how any specific aspect of this film could be faulted. Truly, a thriller Hitchcock himself would have been proud of.
I've reviewed the recent R0 US Special Edition release of The Bird With the Crystal Plumage. Dario Argento's audacious and masterful directorial debut is presented as a lavish 2-disc set by Blue Underground, who provide a plentiful array of audio options and extras, although the image quality leaves a little to be desired.
Analysis of The Ninth Gate
Source: Dark DiscussionThe first time I saw it, 'The Ninth Gate' intrigued me, but until I began to look seriously at its symbolism, I had no idea of what