Fan-Freaking-Tastic

Last year, I posted an April Fools joke on April 1st. I considered it this year -- I thought maybe a fake movie review or something. But then I realized that the entire Internet was full of April Fools posts, so I decided against it.

Instead, I'm posting about yet another remake of yet another Sci-Fi movie classic. Variety is reporting that director Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy) is slated to helm a (sigh) 3D remake of the 1966 classic Fantastic Voyage. Starring 60's B-listers Stephen Boyd; Raquel Welch; Donald Pleasance; Arthur Kennedy; Arthur O'Connell and Edmond O'Brien, Fantastic Voyage is the story of a group of doctors who are shrunk down to microscopic proportions and injected into the bloodstream of a near-death diplomat whose survival is vital to world peace.

Pre-dating nanotechnology by 40 years, the movie's "micronauts" make their way through the diplomat's body toward his brain, in an attempt to repair damage that was caused by an assassination attempt. Using then state-of-the-art special effects, the team and their ship (The Proteus) travel through the diplomat's vascular system, encountering thunderous heartbeats, turbulent rises in blood pressure and an attack by antibodies on their trip to the brain, where they use a laser to repair the damaged tissue. Of course, the antibody attack was simply an excuse to have Ms Welch in a skin-tight diving outfit. Pleasance plays the bad guy while Boyd and Welch provide the eye-candy. Science Fiction legend Isaac Asimov went on to write the movie's novelization, fixing several flaws inherent in the original script.

To be honest, I am not all that upset by this particular remake. The original is hokey and while it may have been cutting-edge in 1966, it hasn't really aged all that well.

Honestly, if anyone can do justice to a remake, it's Greengrass. He's already proven his skills at making exciting, tension-filled movies. And advances in biology, medicine, nanotechnology and visual effects can only improve upon the original. Of course, the whole 3D thing makes me crazy. Yes, I know we're probably stuck with it until true holographic 3D movies arrive, but it seems like every Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror movie slated for production in the next two years is going to be in 3D. And while the new optical 3D is certainly better than the old 2-color process, I for one see no real advantage in 3D filmmaking. If Avatar is any indicator, 3D obviously does nothing to enhance what all of the best movies have in common: great stories, terrific acting, intelligent writing and honest direction. Truth be told, give me Casablanca over Piranha 3D, any day.

More, anon.
Prospero

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3D-Licious?

While I can't exactly blame Avatar for the 3D explosion that has taken over the mini-IMAX screens at your local cineplex, I can complain that every movie that would otherwise be a flop will make far more money than it should, simply because it's in 3D.

Such, I fear, is the case with director Alexandre Aja's (High Tension; The Hills Have Eyes; Mirrors) next film, a remake of the Joe Dante semi-comic '80's horror film Piranha.

Piranha 3D boasts a cast of mostly B-Listers (Jerry O'Connell; Ving Rhames; Christopher Lloyd; Elisabeth Shue; Eli Roth; Richard Dreyfus) in a fishy gorefest about giant piranhas unleashed into Lake Victoria by an underground earthquake. The hungry beasties soon find an ample supply of flesh at a lakeside resort celebrating its grand opening.

I found Aja's High Tension (Haute Tension) a mostly well-made slasher flick, though it had an infuriatingly confusing "twist" ending. His 2006 English-language remake of Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes wasn't exactly terrible, though 2008's Mirrors was mostly a complete mess.

While Dante is a director whose films (the Mad Max trilogy; Gremlins) display a definite tongue-in-cheek attitude, I fear Aja may take the subject matter a bit too seriously for its own good. I'll probably see it (what self-respecting Horror won't?), but I don't know that I'll actually like it. And I know a certain Go-Go Elf that'll probably be going with me... I hope that the eye-candy of O'Connell and Roth in 3D will worth the price of admission, if nothing else. And maybe, just maybe, Aja can recapture the sense of dread he managed to create in High Tension.

Oh, who am I kidding? It's The Final Destination meets Jaws. Expect loads of jiggling boobs, spurting blood and sharp-toothed fishies coming RIGHT AT YOU!

Piranha 3D is scheduled for an August, 2010 release, despite what the below trailer would have you believe.

More, anon.
Prospero

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Triskaidekaphobia

Well, Happy Friday the 13th to one and all! I love this picture of our buddy, Jason. I wish I had found it during the election. It's still pretty damned funny. And I do so love that slogan.

So, did you see any black cats today or walk under ladders? Did you break a mirror, spill some salt or say the real name of "The Scottish Play" in a theatre? Step on a crack and break your mother's back? Or maybe you left a pin on the floor, whispered "Bloody Mary; Bloody Mary; Bloody Mary..." 13 times into the mirror of a darkened room; invited a vampire to cross your threshold or gave the nazar, maloik or hamsa to a passing gypsy after you ran his mother down in the street because your wife was pleasuring you while driving (Really? Did I have to go there? Apparently, yes I did).

Of course, these days there aren't too many superstitious people left in the world (except maybe the Pope, Creationists and the head-shrinking tribes of South America) and to most people Friday the 13th has come to mean something else, entirely. Which is where Candidate Voorhees comes in, obviously.

I don't remember ever discussing the F13 franchise in great detail. I've seen most of them. A few are fair to middling and one or two are actually almost good. Most of them are simply 'celluloid bowel movements' (a phrase I've just now trademarked, so don't get any ideas). I know I've told you that when we got our very first VCR - a clunky, monstrously heavy old think with big push buttons like a giant cassette deck - the first movie my father brought home from the video store was the original Friday the 13th. I'd heard how horribly graphic and realistic the kills were, but I couldn't imagine anything more gruesome than Dawn of the Dead, and while the kills in F13 are pretty good, they didn't live up to the hype. I think Kevin Bacon in one of his earliest roles has the best death - skewered from under the bed with an arrow through his throat (and we'll talk about that death again when we get the film's antagonist). You all know the story. A group of horny young counselors gather at the soon-to-be-reopened Camp Crystal Lake. After a crazy old man on a bike warns them all that they're doomed, they indulge in alcohol, marijuana, strip Monopoly and premarital sex; four things to always guarantee an 80's slasher movie character's death (either each by themselves or in any combination thereof). Anyway... 20 years ago, blah-blah-blah... counselors having sex... yadda-yadda-yadda... Jason drowns... etc.; the real killer is Mrs. Voorhees. Now did you get a good look at Betsy Palmer? She's a tiny little woman approaching middle age in that movie. How the hell is she strong enough to push an arrow through a mattress and the back of Kevin's neck all the way through to the front? Seriously.

That terribly-acted first film featured some astounding effects from Tom Savini, but made no sense, really. And the rest of franchise never shied away from making sense, either. With the original killer decapitated (in another ridiculous feat of human strength on the part of actress Adrienne King), but the box-office revenues crying out for a sequel, Jason Voorhees (miraculously grown up, despite having drowned as a child) out for revenge for his mother's death in a weird, almost Oedipal role reversal. Jason wears a burlap bag over his disfigured head (it wouldn't be until F13-3D that he would don the now-iconic hockey mask), and it does feature one of the few film performances of the late and much mourned Tom McBride:

They get worse and worse as they go on, F13VIII being arguably the worst of the sequels:

What a lovely depiction of Manhattan, eh? And maybe even sillier, the franchise goes Sci-Fi in Jason X (one of only two in the franchise not to use the original title). Just imagine Jason as the Xenomorph in Alien, as the writers of this film obviously did:

And then they went right into Abbott and Costello territory with Freddy vs Jason, (the second not to mention the original) a combination of two franchises which had become such jokes, they couldn't even parody themselves well-enough to make a good movie:

One, two... New Line's comin' for you... (or at least your wallet, sucker!).

Then last year, the inevitable (and atrocious) re-boot starring "Supernatural" and "Gilmore Girls" hottie Jared Padalecki, who can't even be bothered to try and please his fans by taking off his shirt:

Needless to say, inspired by the surprising box-office successes of The Final Destination and My Bloody Valentine, a sequel to the re-boot is underway in 3D (yay?).

Anyway, I hope you had a lucky Friday the 13th. Mine wasn't awful (though my day job clients seemed exceptionally stupid and whiny, today - either they're getting worse or I'm becoming far less tolerant). Having fun talking about movies (even bad ones), more than makes up for it.

More, anon.
Prospero

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