Category: Movies

J. O’Barr and “The Crow” Reboot

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Many of you are going to let out a groan or even stop reading when you move to my next sentence; but please read on.

The cult classic film that was Brandon Lee’s last starring role, The Crow, is gearing up for a remake.

I know.  I know.

I agree.  There is no need to remake or reboot The Crow.  Heck, even James O’Barr felt the same way…

I  was 110% against it.  There was no point or need for a reboot.  In my mind, you could throw a $100 million at it, put Johnny Depp in it and had Ridley Scott direct and it wouldn’t top what Alex Proyas and Brandon Lee did.

But after talking with director, Javier Gutierrez O’Barr’s feelings changed and he came on board.  Principal photography starts in October.

The original Crow mini-series was published by Caliber Comics in 1989.  I loved it.  The Crow movie was released in 1994 and I liked it a lot.

Since the release of the first Crow mini-series by O’Barr there have been many attempts to bring back the character or to pass the Crow mantle on to others.  I’ve given each a chance but none has the power of the original.  I have to wonder can lightning in a bottle be caught once again?

Thanks and a wave of a crow’s wing to Shock Till You Drop.

The 25 Greatest Westerns of All Time

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Recently Hollywood.com posted Christian Blauvelt’s choices for The 25 Greatest Westerns of All Time.

Blauvelt’s list has an interesting mix of classic (“The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” – “The Wild Bunch” – etc.), obscure (“The Ruthless Four” – “The Great Silence”), and guilty pleasures (“The Quick and the Dead”). 

My only question is how can ANY list of the 25 Greatest Westerns of All Time not have a spot for “The Outlaw Josey Wales”?

How John Carpenter Turned “The Thing” into a Horror Classic

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John Carpenter’s The Thing is a classic in the horror genre.  Most fans consider it Carpenter’s high-water mark.

What many don’t know is that The Thing  that was released to theaters was very different from what was originally planned and filmed.  When Carpenter saw a rough cut he realized that the movie didn’t work.  It lacked tension (can you believe that?), the pace was slow and MacCready (played by Kurt Russell) was just another face in the crowd.

Luckily a six-week break had been built into the shooting schedule.  During that time Carpenter…

…restructured the film, wrote what was essentially a new Second Act to conform to the editing he had done (including new death scenes for two characters), adopted MacCready as his spiritual doppelganger, and scrambled to get all of it shot on location in Stewart, B.C. Coming face to face with his own greatest fear – fear of failure –  he was able to make THE THING undeniably his…

Stuart Cohen was a co-producer on The Thing.  Cohen was on location during filming and in his blog,   details the changes that Carpenter brought about to turn a movie that didn’t work into a horror classic.

The Terminator Reboot – How Will It Work?

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Recently Annapurna Pictures and Skydance Productions announced that the Terminator movie franchise was going to reboot with the first of a projected trilogy to premiere in the summer of 2015.  Arnold Schwarzenegger was in talks to star.

Over at the MTV Movies Blog, Kevin P. Sullivan posted Terminator 5: Everything We Know About the New Movies.  In his piece, Sullivan posts his thoughts on the direction the new film should take.  Here are his major points and my thoughts:

Arnold has to be human.  Sullivan contends, and most would have to agree, that because Arnold ain’t a spring chicken, it would be hard to accept him as a Terminator.  My first reaction was, Sullivan is right.  But then I reconsidered.  With the right make-up and stunt doubles Arnold could realistically play a Terminator again… if that’s the direction the movie goes.

(Arnold) has to be the model for the T-800.  Sullivan asks, “If Schwarzenegger’s character is human, how do you explain his uncanny resemblance to the Terminator that hunts Sarah Connor in the first film and protects her son John in the second?”  This could be a problem except for the fact that the new Terminator films are a reboot.  As long as this is clear to the average movie-goer, then the earlier Terminator movies’ continuity are no longer a problem.

 

This deleted scene is getting reconned. Two things stop the above deleted scene from being a problem: 1) It is a deleted scene and so has no place in the any Terminator continuity and 2) the new film is the start of a reboot — past continuity doesn’t come into play.

It’s either set it in the past… …or in the future.  Well, yeah.  I like the thought of a Terminator film set in the 1940’s or 50’s.  I also like the idea of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson playing a part.  I especially liked the idea that “Schwarzenegger would play the man who stops the futuristic assassin using period-appropriate technology, thus impressing the robotic overlords and becoming the model for the T-800.”

I’ve always enjoyed the Terminator movies (and the first two remain all-time favorites) so I look forward to seeing  how this will all play out.

Thanks to Kevin P. Sullivan for the Terminator food-for-thought. – Craig

How the “Terry and the Pirates” Comic Strip Influenced “Enter the Dragon”

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In honor of the 40th anniversary of its release,  Warner Bros. released a special 2 disc edition Blu-ray of Enter the Dragon. 

CBR.com had a post that is no longer available.  Enter the Dragon’s producers Fred Weintraub and Fred Heller, cinematographer Gil Hubbs and co-star Bob Wall were interviewed.  In it, Fred Heller talked about how comic books influenced the look and feel of Enter the Dragon:

Heller: Comic books played a big part in Enter the Dragon. When we first started thinking about the look of the film, there was a comic strip called Terry and the Pirates, and that became sort of the genesis of the whole look of the film. It was about a Dragon Lady and Chinese pirates, and it was a wonderful moment in time about adventure. But it has a wonderful, brilliant color scheme of golds and blues and reds, and if you think about Enter the Dragon, that’s what we did. And that was very, very conscious. It just felt like it would be very right for the film.