THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
10/18/02 -- Vol. 21, No. 16
El Presidente: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
The Power Behind El Pres: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
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Topics:
ConJose Report Available
Studies in Horror (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
THE LOST WORLD (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
AUTO FOCUS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
TAKE CARE OF MY CAT (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: ConJose Report Available
Evelyn Leeper's ConJose report is available at
http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper/conjose.htm
===================================================================
TOPIC: Studies in Horror (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
The last two weeks I have been writing about the horror genre. I
have to say that the American horror film is not is very good
condition. Certainly the directors who specialize in the field of
horror are not very good in my estimation. The good horror films
that are being made usually come from people who do not already
have a name for horror films. Like the shocks in the films
themselves, the good horror films come from unexpected places.
Most of the directors who specialize in horror tend to rely on
formula films. George Romero started his career in horror with a
film that had real edge, THE NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. By the
time he made CREEPSHOW he had switched to soft TV-standard story-
telling. Formula horror has taken over. We have Michael and
Jason and Freddie, who film after film go after interchangeable
teenagers. Based on a trailer I saw, now they are doing it in
space. I cannot think of any high concept more desperate. Horror
films are aimed at a teenage audience and the film makers seem to
have decided that boobs are bigger than goosebumps.
So if the common horror directors are not very good, who are the
good horror film makers? They are generally people who work hard
to create atmosphere. It isn't the jumps that make horror
effective, it is the atmosphere. The United States has not
produced many good horror directors in a while. These days
special effects seem to have eaten the horror genre.
Canadian David Cronenberg is certainly good. His films are about
the best that get wide release in the United States. But two of
the best are only very rarely seen in the United States. There
are certainly a lot of people who like Dario Argento, though he
depends very heavily on stalkers. I can accept that his films
like SUSPIRIA are good, but he is not to my taste. And most of
his films seem to depend heavily on stalkers that reduce his films
to the level of FRIDAY THE 13TH and HALLOWEEN films.
But the people who are my choices for the two best horror
directors are nearly unknown. Kiyoshi Kurosawa is a Japanese
filmmaker who has crept up on greatness without getting a lot of
international attention. SEANCE is a remake of SEANCE ON A WET
AFTERNOON with supernatural elements added. Better yet are CURE
and PULSE. The former is about a man who can with a passing
glance influence others to commit seemingly senseless murders.
There is no way for me to explain in a sentence or two what PULSE
is about. It involves the Internet and suicide and strange spots
on walls. This is about as weird a horror film as you will ever
see. People who like PULSE and want to see something else like it
are pretty much out of luck.
But in my opinion the most talented horror film director today is
Mexican-born Guillermo del Toro. Sadly, he is best known for
BLADE II which was far from his best work. I assume that he was
under studio pressure to conform to certain expectations. MIMIC
also got a decent release, and while not del Toro's best work
either it is beautifully visualized and is quite atmospheric. His
best work is seen in the films CRONOS and THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE.
CRONOS is a new take on the vampire story involving alchemy and a
strange clockwork mechanism. THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE is set at a
boy's school during the Spanish Civil War. The story involves a
ghost and a murderer. All of Guillermo del Toro's films have a
beautiful visual sense and do not seem like films you have seen
before.
Each of these directors has made at least three horror films. I
consider three to be a minimum for someone to be considered to be
a horror director. I think it is very likely that I will shortly
be adding the name of M. Night Shyamalan to this list. THE SIXTH
SENSE and SIGNS qualify as horror films; UNBREAKABLE I consider to
be a decent fantasy film, but I would not characterize it as
horror. But if there are going to be more good horror, I would
look not to George Romero, Wes Craven, and John Carpenter but to
the lesser-known del Toro, Kurosawa, and Shyamalan. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE LOST WORLD (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: The BBC version of THE LOST WORLD is the best of a not-
very-good lot of adaptations of Doyle's great adventure novel of a
forgotten plateau with prehistoric man and dinosaurs. The
dinosaur re-creations are effective, but there are major
discrepancies from the novel. Rating: 6 (0 to 10), high +1 (-4
to +4)
It is not like the last decade did not have several adaptations of
Arthur Conan Doyle's THE LOST WORLD. There were at least three,
having John Rhys-Davies, Patrick Bergan, and Peter McCauley play
the burley Professor George Edward Challenger. But after the BBC
finished their "Walking with Dinosaurs" with very realistic
dinosaurs, I suspected that the next natural thing to do with this
technology for creating lifelike dinosaurs was to juxtapose them
with humans. No respectable non-fiction presentation could do
that. One would have to do a classic story in which humans
interface with dinosaurs. There is only one, Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle's THE LOST WORLD. (Note, JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH
does have humans in viewing distance of an ichthyosaur fighting a
plesiosaur seen from a distance, but these are not really
dinosaurs and it is only one sequence.) So once again the Doyle
has been adapted.
BBC ,in cooperation with the A&E cable network, has brought us a
new version about 165 minutes long. The special effects combine
CGI and full-scale models to give us state of the art visuals and
dinosaur images that look realistic and fit our current
paleontological knowledge. This is the best version of the story
we are likely to get for a while. Willis O'Brien who created the
effects for the 1925 THE LOST WORLD and then was heartbroken when
lizards were used in the 1960 version of the film would have been
very pleased to see this version. Doyle might have been a little
less pleased with the liberties taken with the plot.
Bob Hoskins plays Challenger, a scientist with the reputation for
being a crackpot. He outdoes himself when he claims that on his
last expedition to South America he found a remote place where
dinosaurs still live. The Royal Society is skeptical but fits out
an expedition of four led by Challenger and the bland intellectual
Summerlee (Edward Fox), a skeptic who has no patience for
Challenger's claims or eccentricities. There is also game hunter
Lord Roxton and news reporter Edward Malone. The expedition finds
the plateau where Challenger saw the dinosaurs all right, but
their means of exit is destroyed and they have to face the now all
too real dinosaurs that Challenger reported seeing.
None of the cinematic versions of the novel have been really
faithful. The new version only roughly follows the Doyle and
creates two new major characters. Agnes Clooney, raised in the
jungle near the site of the plateau has lived in the jungle all
her life and will act as a guide at the plateau. Theo Kerr (Peter
Falk) is her uncle, a Bible-thumping missionary at odds with
Summerlee over the issue of Creationism and Evolution. While the
triangle of Challenger, Summerlee, and Kerr contest science, a
romantic triangle of Clooney, Roxton, and Malone sprouts. The
novel is "revised" throughout. In the novel Challenger is the
most irascible character with a reputation for violence against
newspaper reporters like Malone. Hoskins loses this dimension and
seems to be the most pleasant and amiable of the expedition
members. The story stars as great fun, though in the last hour
the writing is disappointingly pedestrian.
Among the modifications from the Doyle is the effort to humanize
the sub-human ape men on the plateau. In the book they were cruel
killers who entertained themselves dropping their enemies over
cliffs. That aspect was considerably toned down for this TV
version. This is the longest version yet made so there is more
emphasis on South American color than there was even in the novel.
The special effects are certainly what set this version apart from
previous cinematic adaptations of the novel. Still, the dinosaurs
are not quite integrated with the people. When we see an entire
dinosaur, requiring CGI, it cannot quite interact with the people
superimposed in the scene. It was much like early Ray Harryhausen
rarely had the creatures he created interacting directly with
people. When need be, he could have cowboys lasso a dinosaur, but
such effects were used sparingly and it showed. In this LOST
WORLD we see even less such interaction. People will be chased by
a dinosaur that looks realistic, but in a different plane from the
people. Admittedly, in the 1950s it was very easy to describe
what was wrong with the special effects of a film. In the 21st
century complaints with the special effects are more abstract and
harder to explain. But some limitations are still obvious to the
eye.
This is probably the best version of THE LOST WORLD since the 1925
version. It will probably be a while until a better version is
made. I rate it a 6 on the 0 to 10 scale and a high +1 on the -4
to +4 scale. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: AUTO FOCUS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Robert Crane of HOGAN'S HEROES was a popular and good-
looking TV actor who got pulled into a whirlpool of sex, lies, and
videotape. This is the true story of his fall. The film is
partially enjoyable for its nostalgic 60s feel and partially for
its cautionary biography. Be warned, this is a film with a great
deal of nudity. Rating: 6 (0 to 10), +1 (-4 to +4)
Bob Crane was one of the more familiar and amiable stars of 1960s
situation comedies, starting as the friendly next-door neighbor on
"The Donna Reed Show" and at his high point playing the title role
on "Hogan's Heroes." His handsome looks and his mild likable
style opened doors for him. He was a devout Catholic who balanced
a career, his family life, and his initially well-covered sex
life. He had a life of success and self-indulgence. "Likability
is 90% of the battle," he says in AUTO FOCUS. That same style
destroyed his private life. He let his looks and his fame open
the wrong doors until he became a sex addict. His behavior ruined
two marriages and destroyed his professional career. Eventually
in 1978 he was murdered under circumstances that were never
officially determined.
AUTO FOCUS is the story of his rise, his corruption, and his very
hard fall. Crane becomes friends with John Carpenter (played by
Willem Dafoe). (This Carpenter was no relation to the director of
that same name.) Carpenter had two passions, sex and the then-
emerging field of consumer video recording. Both of these hobbies
he shares with Crane. The sex parties become orgies which the two
videotape and to watch over and over.
A big problem with AUTO FOCUS is that few people remember Bob
Crane and mores have changed so the story is no longer really
relevant as an object lesson. The moral attitudes represented,
like the recreated segments of "Hogan's Heroes," have what is
almost a nostalgic feel. The problem is that there is not a lot
of dramatic tension in this film. We see what is happening and
know where it is going with no real surprises. The film comes off
as a "True Confessions" expose, but really loses its shock value
in the age of the story. Its value may be more voyeuristic than
anything else.
Paul Schrader usually directs very dark films. Here he balances
that with a credit sequence with a mod Sixties situation comedy
look, unusual territory for Schrader. Greg Kinnear plays Crane
with much the same basic affability though perhaps not the same
good looks. Dafoe is always enjoyable to watch on the screen. He
has the same griminess as James Woods but plays a little more
real. Ron Liebman has a minor role as Crane's good-hearted agent.
Angelo Badalamenti scores.
I rate AUTO FOCUS a 6 on the 0 to 10 scale and a +1 on the -4 to +4
scale. This film has a great deal of explicit nudity. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: TAKE CARE OF MY CAT (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Near Seoul several women near age twenty have romantic
and social adventures. The culture in Korea is surprisingly like
that in Europe or the United States and the story could have been
set nearly anywhere. However, the production values are high, but
the print that has been made has been so poorly subtitled I want
to disqualify myself from rating this film.
When I write a letter, before I send it I read it over to make
sure I did not make typographic errors. In general, it is always
a good policy to look over one's work before it is read by others.
I hope this does not come as news to anyone reading this. It
apparently does come as news to people entrusted to subtitle
foreign language films. I am not talking here about spelling
errors, though they are not uncommon in subtitling. I am speaking
of visibility. Subtitles have to have enough contrast the
background behind them to not fade into that background. A
surprisingly large proportion of subtitled films are subtitled
with indifference to whether all the subtitles will always be
readable. TAKE CARE OF MY CAT is filmed with bright white being
the most common color in the pallette. It is then subtitled in
white. This makes much too many of the subtitles illegible.
The problems I had with the subtitles I will blame on the
releasing company. I will take some blame for not being able to
sufficiently tell apart the major characters, all Korean women in
their early twenties. In any case, I cannot be sure of my value
judgments about TAKE CARE OF MY CAT and I will not rate this film.
The film follows the lives of several women, all friends, as they
interact socially and romantically as they move toward what they
will do with their lives. We see their lives unfold over the
course of some months in modern day Seoul and Inchon, Korea.
Heejou works in a modern office building. Though her work touches
many of the workers, she is basically a functionary. Jiang is not
so lucky. She lives in a ramshackle room and she cares for a
grandfather who lives in an apartment made partially of old
newspaper. These and several of their friends interact. Tae-hee
goes from one job to the next trying to find the right career.
Most Americans have seen films of this sort since at the latest
the 1950s. However, the film also gives a picture of modern day
Korea in the consumer electronics era. Korea surprisingly looks
at least as wired and wireless as the United States. First time
director Jeong Jae-eun points us to a Korea of cell phones and
microwaves and PCs we will not see in the National Geographic. At
least one scene seems to be an homage to the film BREATHLESS.
[-mrl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
The wonderful thing about solipsists is that
you can insult them as much as you want and
they can only blame it on themselves.
-- Ian Stewart
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