Tuesday, October 1, 2024
Dracula Rising (1993) Directed by Fred Gallo
What a mess this movie is! Christopher Atkins of Blue lagoon fame is Dracula? Sure, though his monk "buddy" is more Dracula like and is the actual bad guy in this film.
Not sure I can describe the "plot" most of the movie takes place in flashbacks, like 80% of it. This gives the excuse to show Atkins as the young hot Dracula with his soon to be burnt alive love having sex and swimming naked at some waterfall with full frontal. I guess they had to reference Blue Lagoon somehow. He has a monk pal who is also sexy and whips him when he is bad or immoral or something... it's VERY homoerotic.
Anyway they both become vampires and to be honest I couldn't follow the path to that with all the flashbacks and the friend coming across more as Dracula than Dracula as they carry their feud/relationship? into modern day with the obligatory reincarnation of Vlad's old flame. She ends up in a flaming car by Dracula saves her and... I can't even remember. No one is good in their roles though they all look hot which I think is the point, maybe the only point to make this in the first place.
Thursday, August 22, 2024
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson
The sequel to the 2018 Spriderman: Into the Spiderverse was a long time coming and at 2 hours, a long time to watch as well. While it did better at the box-office than the first film I think this one has at least one major flaw I cannot overlook.
To start with, I LOVED the first movie. It was breath fresh air in it pacing, style and animation. The story was gripping and managed to be exciting and heart wrenching at times. I thought it might be good, but it was great. The second film is lesser as one might expect but it still has eye popping animation and good character development, for the most part, of the main actors and uses the multiverse concept in interesting ways to move the story along and to add some unexpected twists. I can’t say the movie was boring in any way or cut corners animation wise or went in a direction that took away from the overall quality of the production. So what is the problem?
The problem starts with the villain who is barely there and milk toast. I am not sure if we are supposed to care about him at all, the personal life of Miles Morales was fantastic and keeps getting interrupted by a bad guy I have investment in. A bigger issue was the ending…or lack of an ending might be a better way to put it. There isn’t an ending! There is a sequel tease that makes no sense. If a they cut out some of the overlong senses at the multiverse HQ they could have wrapped this up in a few minutes and not made the movie any longer. The 3rd film was already has supposed to have been released by now but there is no sign of it as of this writing. In my opinion it ruins the movie, which I was liking the ride if was taking me on until it suddenly ended seemingly within minutes of a resolution. It felt like a cheat and a cheap ploy instead of a cliffhanger for the next instalment.
Saturday, July 27, 2024
Laserblast (1978) directed by Michael Rae
The is by no means a good movie, even at only 80 minutes it drags but it' isn't completely unwatchable for me. for one thing as. a stop motion animation fan it's has surprising competent stop motion aliens that are in the film much loner than one would think for such a low budget endeavour. The acting is very wooden but the there might be a serviceable story in there somewhere, we just never see it.
Billy is skinny bullied kid in a town of REALLY underfed locals. MST3K makes not of this in their version of the film which is maybe the best way to see it. Roddy McDowell picks up a quick paycheque in a roll that really goes nowhere but he doesn't phone it in completely. Billy finds and alien weapon left by some other kid who found it first or an alien race that looks much more human than the other aliens that come looking for the weapon a points throughout the film. The weapon and the amulet that lets you use it begins to transform Billy and he get revenge on those who bully him mostly by blowing up their cars. Oh and a billboard on the highway for "Star Wars" as well for good measure.
Eddie Deezon gets his cinematic debut as the nerd character he played throughout his career. he seems to have a good sense of humour of about it. This is a B Movie that meanders its way along and while not exciting, I did find I could sit through it. I won't say everyone will, I have seen alot of bad movies in my time!
Monday, July 22, 2024
New Lovecraft Animation: The Hound (le chien) 2024 directed by: Vincent-louis Apruzzese
(Texte français ci-dessous :)
Story: As I usually do, the original story had to be stripped down to its most simple and basic form. Lovecraft had the characters traveling internationally for their adventures and the hound chases them intercontinentally. As a one man band making animation, having too many elements, locations and characters will make doing the animation impossible accomplish practically. I felt the 2 characters were not likeable and Mike and I tried to get that across. The narrator is a bit pompous despite his degrading mental state as events unfold.
Production: My animation style is usually very stop motion inspired, this is as well but not as much previous efforts.
This was a challenge, more so than my other short films because my older version of C4D stopped working in my OS and I HAD to learn Blender or not make any more animations. I have been trying to learn it for a decade without any real success. Recently the software has been advancing in leaps and bounds, not just technically but also changing it’s interface to a much more artist friendly one that is closer to industry standards. My work has dropped to almost nothing so while that is certainly panic inducing and financially disastrous, I was able to put a full time effort into learning and since Blender is free it didn’t add to my money woes.
After 3 months I was ready to try and start production and gathered my research, worked on the script and started to make the sets and characters. I made a couple of plugin purchases ( OK more than a couple) to help me get the look I wanted which included a human character generator that works within Blender and also does the rigging automatically which saved me months of time. It is limited in that clothing options are all modern and no third party additions so far so I have to modify to give a pseudo 30s look to the costumes. I spent a HUGE amount of effort reformatting 100s of models from Cinema 4D to Bender friendly files but it was worth the effort. I was also able to easily ad fog, a gothic horror must that did not take hours to render each frame and I was very happy with the result.
I restricted myself with some technical choices to avoid getting overwhelmed on my first project so I didn’t learn how to export separate passes of elements that would normally let me do post motion blur and give me more control over the final images. I also rendered in the faster real time engine EVEE that Blender has developed and it was more than good enough for this. The full force render engine is really great but I would be rendering until next year if I used it, partly because I have to learn how to optimize it for my needs.
Conclusion: I love Blender! Now I finally have a beginner’s handle on it I think I go upwards from here. It is up to you if this is a step up or down from my previous work but it seems a step up to me!
Voici une version avec des sous-titres français :
Histoire: Comme je le fais d'habitude, l'histoire originale a dû être dépouillée dans sa forme la plus simple et la plus basique. Lovecraft a fait voyager les personnages à l'étranger pour leurs aventures et le chien les poursuit de manière intercontinentale. En tant que groupe d'un seul homme faisant de l'animation, avoir trop d'éléments, de lieux et de personnages rendra l'animation impossible à accomplir pratiquement. J'ai senti que les 2 personnages n'étaient pas sympathiques et Mike et moi avons essayé de le faire passer. Le narrateur est un peu pompeux malgré son état mental dégradant au fur et à mesure que les événements se déroulent.
Production : Mon style d'animation est généralement très inspiré du stop motion, c'est aussi bien, mais pas autant d'efforts précédents. C'était un défi, plus que mes autres courts métrages parce que mon ancienne version de C4D a cessé de fonctionner dans mon système d'exploitation et que je devais apprendre Blender ou ne plus faire d'animations. J'essaie de l'apprendre depuis une décennie sans aucun succès réel. Récemment, le logiciel a progressé à pas de géant, non seulement techniquement, mais aussi en changeant son interface pour une interface beaucoup plus conviviale pour les artistes et qui est plus proche des normes de l'industrie. Mon travail est tombé à presque rien, donc bien que cela soit certainement induisant la panique et financièrement désastreux, j'ai pu mettre un effort à temps plein dans l'apprentissage et comme Blender est gratuit, cela n'a pas ajouté à mes problèmes d'argent. Après 3 mois, j'étais prêt à essayer de commencer la production et j'ai rassemblé mes recherches, j'ai travaillé sur le scénario et j'ai commencé à faire les décors et les personnages. J'ai fait quelques achats de plugins (OK plus que quelques-uns) pour m'aider à obtenir le look que je voulais, qui comprenait un générateur de caractères humains qui fonctionne dans Blender et qui fait également le gréement automatiquement, ce qui m'a fait gagner des mois de temps. C'est limité en ce sens que les options de vêtements sont toutes modernes et qu'il n'y a pas d'ajouts de tiers jusqu'à présent, je dois donc les modifier pour donner un look pseudo des années 30 aux costumes. J'ai dépensé énormément d'efforts pour reformater des centaines de modèles de Cinema 4D à des fichiers conviviaux de Bender, mais cela en valait la peine. J'ai également pu facilement ajouter du brouillard, une horreur gothique qui n'a pas pris des heures pour rendre chaque image et j'ai été très satisfait du résultat. Je me suis limité à certains choix techniques pour éviter d'être submergé sur mon premier projet, donc je n'ai pas appris à exporter des passes séparées d'éléments qui me permettraient normalement de faire du flou post motion et me donneraient plus de contrôle sur les images finales. J'ai également rendu dans le moteur en temps réel plus rapide EVEE que Blender a développé et c'était plus que suffisant pour cela. Le moteur de rendu pleine force est vraiment génial, mais je le rendrais jusqu'à l'année prochaine si je l'utilisais, en partie parce que je dois apprendre à l'optimiser pour mes besoins.
Conclusion : J'adore Blender ! Maintenant que j'ai enfin une poignée de débutant, je pense que je monte à partir d'ici. C'est à vous de décider s'il s'agit d'un pas en hausse ou en bas par rapport à mon travail précédent, mais cela me semble être un pas en avant !
Sunday, July 21, 2024
Dragonwyck (1946) Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
I would swear I wrote about this film a few months ago, but apparently I meant to and never did. I really liked it so I don't know why I would have forgotten but that is now rectified.
Miranda, a farm girl who dreams of romance and luxury finds herself invited to visit her rich distant cousin to be a companion to his little girl and she jumps t the chance. Once there she discovered his wife and daughter have very little to do with him. Vincent Price is the rich cousin and if you are expecting this to be a gothic horror treat, it just isn't. Sure is has one gothic horror element, a harpsichord playing when tragedy is about to strike and only the cousin's direct bloodline can hear it but that goes pretty much nowhere.
Where the film does go is into a murder mystery and family drama as Price's wife gets a cold but suddenly dies of it. The doctor he has come over, which price assumes is dumb turns out not to be. In no time The cousins are getting married after he confesses that his unhappy marriage was caused by the former wife not bearing him a son and she is pregnant shortly after the nuptials are over. Sadly, the infant dies shortly after being baptized of a heart condition.
Price becomes a lot less likeable after that, becoming a drug addict, abusive and it is revealed that, even worse, he is an atheist! Things degrade and Miranda becomes suspicious of the previous wife's death and enlists the doctor's aid to find out. They also seem to be falling for each other.
This is not a best film of all time sort of thing but it is pretty great, mostly because Vincent price is so amazing in the role. Gene Tierny deserves a better role and the doctor as well but who can outshine Price?
Saturday, June 29, 2024
Cinema presentation of my documentary "The Picnic" at The Brattle Theatre in Harvard Square, Cambridge MA!
My documentary "The Picnic" is playing July 20, at 3:30 pm at The Brattle cinema in Harvard Square Cambridge! The doc is about the 50 years of the legendary comic book store I used to manage a very long time ago and is still there, very close to the theatre. Some of the interviewees will be in attendance as well!
This was a long, multi-year project made possible by donations of many people but particularly Denis Leclerc and Spike MacFee (the first employee of the Picnic who sadly passed in 2019.)
If you or anyone you know would be interested and can be there please show up, it would mean a lot to me, the store and those who are in the documentary.
The Brattle: 40 Brattle St. Cambridge, MA 02138Saturday, July 20 - 3:30 pm 40 minutes
Wednesday, June 26, 2024
Marooned (1969) directed by John Sturges
Friday, June 21, 2024
Award: Pulled Towards the Sea voted best Horror film in Warped Dimension 5 Festival!
Part of the "Another Hole in the Head" San Francisco, "Warped Dimension" is a fun online festival I have been a part of for many years now. It was wonderful be voted for an award!
If you missed the film, it's on Youtube. Be sure to like and subscribe and all that so more people can see it.
Saturday, June 8, 2024
Silent Summer: The last laugh (1924) FW Murnau
Can a Murnau film with Emil Jennings go wrong? Nope, but it can sure go right. This is the height of silent cinema. The acting is outstanding, the sets are breathtaking, the cinematography is draws you in and keeps you in.
The story is very simple, hard to believe such a good film is based around something that should be mundane. A doorman loses his job at a famous hotel. That is basically it. He is deemed too old by his cold hearted boss and demoted to washroom attendant. When his neighbours find out they mock him and doubt he was ever the doorman and was just trying to make himself seem important. Jennings gives his typical top drawer performance and brings humour and pathos to the character.
This is spoiler (the film is 100 years old this year but I doubt too many know it now).
At the end, the humiliated doorman reads in the newspaper that he inherited a fortune from a patron who died in his arms in the hotel washroom and shares his wealth by going back t the hotel and treating the staff to generous tips. Especially the night watchman who was the only one there who teated him kindly.
This is one of those films that will amaze anyone not familiar with the silent era and think they are all overacted, sped up comedies. Its hard to imagine that the street shots are actually sets, they have a realism you don't expect and the editing, effects and compositions are far beyond what anyone would think of as "early cinema".