Super

I rented Iron Man (2008, Jon Favreau) on Blu-ray this week. Now, there is no way that I'm in the target audience for a film like this. I suffer from an extreme case of superhero fatigue - tales of men with secret identities who dress in gadget laden outfits to fight crime and take vengeance don't interest me at all. Sometimes an individual film in the genre will take my fancy, but as a whole, superheroes just don't do it for me. I think Spiderman 2 (2004, Sam Raimi) is the contemporary high water mark for the form, much as Richard Donner's 1978 Superman was at the time.

Iron Man is a much loved and hugely successful film. Of course, so are Christopher Nolan's Batman films - Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008) -  and they both left me cold. So let's just say superhero films generally face an uphill battle when it comes to me liking them. It's a battle Iron Man struggled with for the first forty or so minutes, before I grudgingly came around to admitting that I was finding it quite enjoyable.

One of the things that was so great about Iron Man, I was breathlessly assured in blogs and conversations with aficionados of the genre, was how the main character, Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) is an arrogant prick who discovers compassion along the way. All very well and good, and the choice of Downey - a man who has been to hell and back with his own demons and never been boring onscreen - was promising. However, the film is not brave enough to challenge the audience to like the man - yes, he's never far from a whiskey on the rocks, even when being driven through a war zone in the Middle East, he treats his staff like dirt, and ignores the affections of the ever loyal Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), but he's really a likeable rogue, the kind of lovable bad boy that the film really just wants us to adore from the outset. He'd take a private jet to get milk and seduce the stewardess on the way, and every teenage male in the audience wants to be him.

I know, of all the things to complain about, I choose to complain about a character being likeable. For me, watching Iron Man was akin to sitting down to what is expected to be a spicy dish and instead being served vanilla ice-cream. The terrific cast acquit themselves well, and Jon Favreau proves himself a competent and workman-like director, certainly no visionary, but not a hack, either. The film improves as it goes along, with composer Ramin Djawadi dropping the annoying "hey kids, isn't this bit cool?" guitars when the film has to settle down to dramatic business in the climax - the score improves to the point of not being noticeable. How's that for damning with faint praise?

The film schizophrenically creates a character arc around Tony Stark's realisation that weapons manufacture may not be the best use for his talents, while celebrating and fetishising his increasingly sophisticated suit and fire power. A particularly troubling moment has Stark jetting into a Middle Eastern hotbed of terrorism and kicking butt, until he's faced with a multiple hostage situation - the hostages being a group of women and children (of course). He pauses for a moment, and we wonder how the situation will be resolved. Cut to the interior heads up display in Stark's helmet, a bunch of CGI target trackers isolating the bad guys, who are then all taken out by an array of weapons which appear from the shoulders of the suit, leaving the bewildered hostages standing while their aggressors drop dead around them. Within the space of one minute, the film has raised the notion of how complicated these real world situations can be and then solved it with a piece of simplistic wish fulfillment. Am I reading too much into this? I thought we might have left this stuff behind when James Cameron combined Islamic terrorism and comedy relief in his 1994 film True Lies, but apparently not.

Finally, I was pretty surprised by the number of gags the film lifts wholesale from older films, especially RoboCop (1987, Paul Verhoeven) and Rocketeer (1991, Joe Johnston). At least Favreau shows good taste in the films he steals from.

New Blu-rays

It's common knowledge that the even numbered Star Trek films are - for the most part - superior to their odd numbered counterparts. Of these, I have three particular favourites - The Wrath of Khan (1982, Nicholas Meyer, #2), The Undiscovered Country (1991, Meyer, #6) and First Contact (1996, Jonathan Frakes, #8). It follows that these are the ones I got on DVD, although I recently caved and bought the first film, Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Robert Wise, 1979).

All six films featuring the original series cast have been released as a Blu-ray box set (the individual films are being released next week), and when I saw it at JB Hi-fi with a price tag just under $200, I did the math and came out at a little over 30 bucks per film, thought 'what the hell', and picked it up.

Each of the films - even the poorer ones - has points of interest, either the scores (all six of them have terrific scores), the visual effects, the appearance of everyone from Miguel Ferrer to Christian Slater in bit parts, and main supporting cast including the likes of Kirstie Alley, Ricardo Montalban, Christopher Lloyd, Kim Cattrall, David Warner (who appeared in both #5 and #6, the second time under heavy Klingon makeup), and Christopher Plummer. Not to mention standout moments for the ageing main cast scattered throughout the films.

I haven't watched any of them yet, but I've done a bit of a chapter skip through Khan and The Search for Spock (1984, Leonard Nimoy, #3) and they look terrific. Those fabulous matte paintings of the underground Genesis Project in The Wrath of Khan just pop off the screen! This release also marks the debut - on a home digital format - of the theatrical versions of three of the films. The visual effects for the director's edition of the first film were only produced to NTSC video resolution, with an astounding lack of foresight, and The Undiscovered Country is presented for the first time ever in the correct aspect ratio on home video.

I'm gonna have to put my foot down in another month or so when the box set of the next four films - featuring the crew from the second show Star Trek: The Next Generation - comes out, as only one of them is worth watching. So I'll be waiting for the individual release of First Contact.

New Blu-rays

JB Hi-Fi (where I usually go shopping for DVDs and BDs) has an ongoing "buy 2 get 1 free" promotion for Blu-ray discs. Which is great if you want to buy The Transporter or Prince Caspian. However, if you're like me and hate the majority of Hollywood films these days, and what really gets you going is the release of 30 year old favourites in High Definition, then you're shit out of luck. That bright yellow sticker signaling a disc is part of the promotion never adorns the likes of The Thing or RoboCop.

And so it goes with my latest Blu-ray purchases, both old favourites that I was delighted to see appear on the format.

The stark one-sheet for Poltergeist.

Poltergeist (1982, Tobe Hooper) was never very well served on DVD, despite being released a couple of times. The first release - which I bought - had a good 16:9 transfer but seemed to have been sourced from inferior elements. It was re-released for its 25th anniversary, with a new transfer but still tellingly lacking any kind of special features which offer any real insight into the notoriously troubled production. The Blu-ray release also lacks any decent special features - the docos on the discs are about real life poltergeist phenomena rather than any behind the scenes looks at the making of the film. The HD transfers, however, are stunning.

The film is a top notch production all-round, never mind the ongoing dispute over who's responsible for directing it: the film clearly bears the strong stamp of co-writer/producer Steven Spielberg, who oversaw post-production (with his regular editor Michael Kahn) without Hooper's involvement. Nevertheless, I feel that Hooper's personality is evident in the film, partly in a couple of the more effective scare moments, but mainly in the heightened hysteria of the performances - Dominique Dunne's screams of 'what's happening? WHAT'S HAPPENING?!?' in the climax could only have been drawn out by the director of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974).

The film is a product of the very best Hollywood at the time had to offer. James H. Spencer's production design looks great in High Definition, as does Matthew F. Leonetti's rich anamorphic cinematography. The innovative visual effects by Industrial Light and Magic (under the supervision of Richard Edlund) are still striking today. And then there's the great sound-mix, put together by a talented team which included Alan Howarth, who was just beginning a fruitful collaboration writing scores with John Carpenter. And the sound on the Blu-ray disc makes the most of Jerry Goldsmith's Oscar nominated score. 1982 was a banner year for film scoring, with extraordinary works from James Horner (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan), Basil Poledouris (Conan the Barbarian), and John Williams (E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, the Oscar winner that year), but Goldsmith's Poltergeist was a stand out even in this company. This is a score that can do anything - from evoking everyday suburbia to calling up forces from the other side that are wondrous, mystical, and terrifying by turns. It is strong both in melodic writing and jagged shocking rhythms. A truly wonderful score.

But what really makes Poltergeist endure is the cast. Everyone is great - from Spielbergian moppets Heather O'Rourke and Oliver Robins to Zelda Rubinstein's medium and Beatrice Straight's warm portrayal of the kindly Dr. Lesh. Holding the film together though are the gorgeous Craig T. Nelson and the beautiful JoBeth Williams, both delivering career best performances as Steve Freeling and his wife Diane. They bring credibility to even the most outlandish sequences with their thoroughly believable characterisations, completely selling every single moment. The (to my mind) unfairly maligned Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986, Brian Gibson) retained some of the spirit of this film by bringing back most of the cast and such key behind the scenes players as Richard Edlund (now heading up his own effects firm, Boss Film) and Jerry Goldsmith.

The one-sheet for Escape From New York - iconic.

Escape From New York (1981, John Carpenter) continued Carpenter's run of commercial hits which started with Halloween in 1978 and would screech to a halt in 1982 when he made The Thing, his first film for a major studio. It's a genuine "high concept" thriller - in the future world of 1997, Manhattan Island has been walled off to create the world's largest prison, and when the United States president (Donald Pleasence) is forced to make an emergency exit from Air Force One due to a hijacking and is trapped in New York, the authorities send in notorious vigilante Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell, in a role that would define his action film persona) in a desperate rescue attempt.

The film starts off strongly and then kind of runs out of steam once Russell (at his hottest in this film) lands in the streets of Manhattan. Here the main menace is provided by a pack of Mad Max cast-offs, the same kind of crazies in leather with punked up hair that would also appear - with a similar lack of effectiveness - in later Carpenter films such as Ghosts of Mars (2001). However, with a cast including Lee Van Cleef (throwing every bit of Kurt Russell's cynicism right back at him) Isaac Hayes, Harry Dean Stanton, Ernest Borgnine (at his hammiest), and Adrienne Barbeau (Carpenter's then wife, providing a splash of busty B-movie sleaze) and rounded out by Carpenter regulars like Tom Atkins and Charles Cyphers, it never gets boring.

As usual for an early John Carpenter film, the small budget is belied by the technical ingenuity, with ace production designer Joe Alves creating the dystopian world of 1997 New York in the then fire ravaged streets of St. Louis, aided by the typically bold widescreen camerawork of cinematographer Dean Cundey. The electronic score was the first collaboration between John Carpenter and Alan Howarth - a working relationship which would see a significant increase in the musical and technical sophistication of Carpenter's scores - and the inventive low budget visual effects were created by a team which included future uber-director James Cameron.

The towers of the World Trade Center were indeed still standing in 1997, when the film is set, and one can forgive Carpenter for failing to predict - in 1980 - that New York councils would take an increasingly effective zero tolerance policy towards crime. It's tricky stuff, this future speculation business - there are dozens and dozens of science fiction films which have, over the years, been transformed from amazing visions of the future to catalogues of anachronisms and wrong-headed speculations. Of course, the great films remain great films - 2001 wasn't how Stanley Kubrick saw it, and it's looking pretty likely that 2019 won't be how Ridley Scott saw it, but the issues touched upon in their films - Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Scott's Blade Runner (1982) - remain relevant and potent, no matter how many logos of now extinct businesses are featured. Sadly, that cannot really be said of Escape From New York, but it remains an entertaining and effective action film.

Rented last weekend

Only three posts in January. Must... try... harder...

What to say about the remarkable WALL•E that hasn't already been said? I didn't see this one at the theatre, perhaps a little wary after Finding Nemo, which felt to me as though the mechanics of Pixar's storytelling were starting to show. WALL•E truly lived up to the rave reviews. The animation is so detailed and lifelike that it's easy to lose sight of the fact that you're not watching live action. I was completely enthralled from the opening minutes to the end. It's worth mentioning that this is the only time a film or television show has used Richard Strauss' 'Also sprach Zarathustra' as a reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey without making me groan.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army was less satisfying. I liked Hellboy enough, but I think I was mainly just overjoyed to finally see some decent Lovecraftian monster gods in a movie. The sequel is a classic Hollywood-blockbuster-empty-spectacle, with a fabulous menagerie of fantastical creatures and one of those aggressive soundmixes that needs to be noticed constantly, topped off with Danny Elfman phoning in another superhero score.

Welcome to 2009

I wasn't going to post about the casting of relatively unknown actor Matt Smith as the new Doctor, but since Wired have used it as an excuse for the flimsiest look at the eleven Doctors, I figured 'what the hell'...

My first response was shock at how young he was. The first seven Doctors were men when I was a child, David Tennant is about the same age as me, and now I'm seeing the Doctor played by someone almost young enough to be my child. Weird. However, incoming executive producer Steven Moffat has praised Smith for having a young/old quality which would be an important factor in playing the Doctor, and a second look at Smith confirms this. He's got an interesting face, and provided that his costume and behaviour are suitably different from Tennant, I don't see any reason why he can't work. The most fatal mistake would be for them to try and re-create Tennant, but as they say on the Outpost Gallifrey Doctor Who forum "in The Moff we trust". The production team have been doing everything right for four years, I doubt they're about to stuff up now. On a related note, I saw the Christmas special 'The Next Doctor' and it's great fun. Especially good to see Doctor Who finally get around to doing some proper steampunk.

I also saw The Clone Wars on Blu-ray. Now, I'm not one of those genre guys who rails against defiling of childhood treasures. If you've read my post on the latest Indiana Jones film, you'll know how benign my response was to that one. George Lucas' Star Wars prequels were all disappointments to varying degrees, but it doesn't bother me too much. I'm even pretty tolerant of the alterations he made to the original three films. Hell, when they seemingly destroyed Doctor Who for good with the 1996 telemovie, I didn't even bat an eye. And I find myself looking forward to J.J. Abrams' Star Trek more than I would have thought. The only defilement of a beloved story which really makes my blood boil is Brian Herbert's continuing exploitation of his father's Dune series, but even that one I usually just ignore. I'll always have Frank Herbert's original sextet of books, and nothing will take that away. I met Frank Herbert once - it was in 1985, about nine months before he died, and I got my movie tie in edition of his novel Dune signed by him. It's a memory I will always treasure. If I ever meet Brian Herbert, I will punch him in the face.

All of which is a windy prologue to my statement that The Clone Wars sucks, then blows, then sucks some more. The 2003 animated series was surprisingly good and more satisfying in a way than the prequel films. This one... where to begin? Anyone who knows anything about the Star Wars universe will find the main storyline - the Jedi Knights attempt to rescue the son of Jabba the Hutt from a separatist plot - about as plausible as if The Godfather II had a scene of Don Corleone imploring the US government for help. And those unfamiliar with Star Wars are shit out of luck - dumped into the middle of the clone war without a hint of setup or backstory, the only intro being a montage with an appalling newsreel style voice over, which plays like a scene from Starship Troopers without the satire. The storytelling - in terms of both visuals and dialogue - is so basic that it seems to be pitched at an audience that is just about ready to move on from the Teletubbies. Which is fine, although I'd argue that such an audience need not be confronted by the image of a Twi'lek whore dancing for the pleasure of a gross slug-like gangster lord. Dialogue is usually along the lines of 'protect Jabba's son' or 'we must keep those droids back' - bald statements of conflicts the audience are well aware of, and more than once a scene began with one character relating to another a description of the scene we just watched. The main dramatic conflict of the first ten minutes or so is a communications breakdown where a vital message ends up needing to conyeved in person. How thrilling is that?

No, The Clone Wars must rank as the least interesting Star Wars production - at least the notorious 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special had Harrison Ford! I nearly switched it off half way through, and in retrospect, my life would not have been any poorer if I had. I feel obliged to mention that the animation - a CG extension of the stylised characters from the 2003 show - is stunning, but here put to the service of a team of writers and a director who would struggle to tell the story of Goldilocks in a concise fashion. There are many, many, fan made Star Wars films with more compelling drama than this. One to avoid.

I really want to get around to reviewing The Mist, but I also got The Descent on Blu-ray for Christmas, and I reckon I'll end up writing about that one first. Second time around I loved it just as much - it's the genuine article, a scary horror film.

Halloween on Blu-ray

After being delayed by about two weeks, and missing being available on October 31 (thanks heaps, Beyond Home Entertainment) this one finally hit the shops, and of course I picked it up immediately. The film is wonderful as always and they've ported over the John Carpenter/Debra Hill/Jamie Lee Curtis commentary from the old Criterion laserdisc (as Anchor Bay did with the Region A Blu-ray disc).

It looks terrific with one major caveat - the transfer here is inexplicably presented in 1080i instead of 1080p. Mercifully, its not too apparent apart from occasional stepping on fine details like the odd car grill or power line. Once again, many thanks to Beyond Home Entertainment. I almost feel like calling them to ask what the story is but I know I won't get anyone on the phone who has a clue what I'm talking about. Hell, I might do it anyway - could be fun.

Disappontment

I couldn't get Halloween on Blu-ray. It's supposed to be out, but it wasn't in any of the shops. So sadly, I didn't spend my Hallowe'en watching Halloween in high definition.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

I saw this film for the first time on the opening night of its theatrical run here in Australia. I was with a group of hardcore Indiana Jones fans, all of whom emerged from the screening bitterly disappointed. I didn't actually hear anyone say 'Lucas/Spielberg raped my childhood', but the sentiment hung in the air like a bad smell as the group dispersed. I couldn't fathom the strength of the emotions on display - I mean, I love Raiders of the Lost Ark as much as the next guy, but it seemed to me that the greatest crime Crystal Skull committed was to have the downright affrontery to be a fun time at the cinema. I was certainly much more entertained than by the first viewing of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I've since found that a good way to easily enrage people at dinner parties is to say that I didn't mind this film - I don't even need to use strong language, like I 'liked' or even 'loved' the film. Professing anything but a profound and burning hatred for Ang Lee's Hulk (a film I actually do love) elicits a similar response.

Last night I rented the film on Blu-ray for a second viewing, and I remain an unrepentant fan. Sure, the film has issues - for every scene (and there are many) that looks like it could have come from one of the old films, there's a scene where cinematographer Janusz Kaminski is obviously uncomfortable shoe-horning his own visual style through an anamorphic lens. And there's something a little off about the way Karen Allen is brought into the film only to be promptly sidelined again and again, as though there's a faint air of embarrassment about the fact that she hasn't kept her physique up, Madonna style. And after the film gets away with a terrific jungle chase sequence by the skin of its teeth, there's a sense of 'we pulled that off, now we can do anything' - the only possible explanation for throwing our heroes over three increasingly gigantic waterfalls and having them emerge shaken but unharmed. And then having John Hurt regain his wits at the last minute, seemingly with the single purpose of having him repeatedly remind the audience that the creatures in the climax are not from outer space, but from another dimension. Not that that little nugget of information makes any difference to most audience members' incredulity.

This last one is popular at dinner parties too - the notion that aliens and flying saucers can pop up in the Indiana Jones universe is the cause of blinding rage in people who never had a problem with a man's beating heart being ripped out, leaving him alarmed but still alive (though not for long), in Temple of Doom. Obviously there are rules about where one draws the line that I am not privy to, as having swallowed one, I have no trouble accepting the other. Sure, the film sometimes coasts along on the enormous amount of goodwill generated from the reunion of Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood, but it offers too many treats for me to be surly about the bum notes and crap bits (Shia LeBeouf swinging from the vines along with the monkeys being a prime example of the crap bits).

ILM and John Williams are working at the top of their game, as is editor Michael Kahn. Shia LeBeouf shows again that he is a genuine movie star. Cate Blanchett (another bona fide movie star) has a ball with her Boris and Natasha Russian accent before being given a send off which resembes nothing so much as the dark flip side of the fate which awaited Richard Dreyfuss at the climax of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Sure, the formidable talents of John Hurt and Ray Winstone are pissed against the wall here, but I refuse to say anything bad about a movie in which Cate Blanchett and Shia LeBeouf engage in a sword fight from the back of two moving vehicles. Now that's movie magic!

The Blu-ray disc, by the way, looks and sounds fantastic.

Australian Blu-ray viewers well served again...

The Blu-ray disc of RoboCop contains the director's cut of this wonderful film. I've seen reviews of this and other Blu-ray discs contain phrases like 'screwed the pooch' and 'dropped the ball' over failure to port over special features from previous DVD editions, but as far as I'm concerned, if you get a great film (like this) in High Definition and the transfers are good, I'm a happy customer.

Region B Blu-ray of 'The Shining' is longer American cut...

I haven't come across much in the way of commentary or reviews of the region B Blu-ray disc of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, although there is definitely something about this disc worth highlighting, especially for region B (Australia, UK) readers.

Stanley Kubrick trimmed one scene from The Shining after the premiere screening - a brief epilogue featuring Wendy and Danny safe (not sure of it's exact nature - it may have been a scene of them fishing, as in the book). When the film was met with befuddled reviews and unspectacular box office, Kubrick and Warner Bros made further trims for the international market, removing some 15 or so minutes of footage (around 30, according to the DVD and Blu-ray packaging but I don't often trust them and can't be arsed putting the discs in to get the exact number). Presumably one of their main goals with the new cut was to shorten the film by 1 reel for international distribution.

It is this shorter version which has been the only version available on home video formats in Australia, including the DVD. Until this new Blu-ray disc, which contains the original domestic (US) theatrical version.

It is not a radical transformation of the film - it remains magnificent, hilarious, and terrifying - but some sequences are imbued by certain moods as a result of information we know about the characters in inserted scenes. But you know this already, don't you? If you've already found this blog, that means you're the kind of person who already has the Blu-ray disc.

If so, I suggest you check out the short documentary on Wendy Carlos and her music for The Shining. A ten minute look into the world of this extraordinary lady.