It was a great weekend for horror, fantasy, and science fiction, as ALICE IN WONDERLAND scored an easy victory at the box office this weekend, earning more than the rest of the Top Ten releases combined. The fantasy film, directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp, sold over $116-million in tickets while playing in over 3, 700 theatres.
Last week”s #1 film, SHUTTER ISLAND, dipped to third place, behind BROOKLYN’S FINEST. The ominous Gothic thriller SHUTTER added $13-million to its $95-million total, making it one of the biggest hits of director Martin Scorsese’s career.
AVATAR slipeed from fourth to fifth place with $7.7-million, adding up to a $720-million total.
THE CRAZIES fared less well: after its third-place debut last weekend, it feLl to #6 with $7-million, yielding a two-week total of $27-million.
The adolescent-themed PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF landed in 5th place, down two slots, with $5-million, for a $78-million total.
Dropping out of the Top Ten were TOOTH FAIRY with $2.8-million ($56-million total) and THE WOLF MAN with $1.6-million ($60-million total).
Dan Persons, Steve Biodrowski, and Lawrence French follow Tim Burton down the rabbit, analysing his live-action redo of the Disney animated classic, ALICE IN WONDERLAND. Is it Burton at his best – or another blunder? Does it surpass the original, or does it fall flat as a knave of hearts? Also on the bill, a look at the weekend’s award winners for horror, fantasy, and science fiction films; plus the usual round-up of exciting news items, upcoming home video releases, and random recommendations.
[serialposts]
Business Week offers a profile of Tim Burton regarding his new film ALICE IN WONDERLAND, for Disney. The article specifically notes the irony of the director’s return to the Mouse House, with which he has had a decidedly on again and off again relationship:
“Alice in Wonderland” marks Burton’s latest reunion with Walt Disney Studios, where he started his career as an animator 30 years ago.
“It’s the weirdest thing, but it’s true. I didn’t really realize it, but I go, I do, I get kicked out, and I go, and I do, I get kicked out. I think this is the third or fourth or fifth time that’s happened,” Burton, 51, said in an interview.
The article also briefly mentions Burton’s upcoming efforts, a feature version of DARK SHADOWS, starring Johnny Depp (presumably as Barnabas Collins, the sympathetic vampire previously played on television by Jonathan Frid and Ben Cross) and a feature-length, stop-motion rendition of his early Disney short subject, FRANKENWEENIE.
Directed by Tim Burton, the new live-action version of ALICE IN WONDERLAND is less remake than sequel, offering up a 19-year-old Alice (Mia Wasikowska) on the verge of marriage, who remembers her previous journey to Wonderland only as a recurring nightmare that has haunted her since childhood. The supporting cast includes Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, Helana Bonham Carter as the Red Queen, Crispin Glover as the Knave of Hearts, and Anne Hathaway as the White Queen. Additionally, a cast of familiar British voices provide dialogue for the computer-generated fantasy creatures: Alan Rickman as the Blue Caterpillar, Timothy Spall as Bayard the hound, Michael Gough as the Dodo Bird, and Christopher Lee as the Beowulf. Linda Wolverton (BEAUTY AND THE BEAST) wrote the screenplay, which takes considerable liberties with the source novels by Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass.
[serialposts]
So you go into this room at New York’s Museum of Modern Art’s Tim Burton exhibit, and it’s like striking gold: the Jack Skellington figure is there, along with a choice selection of the replacement heads that were used to animate dialogue; there’s the creepy, completely covered baby Penguin wicker stroller from BATMAN RETURNS; you can see a MARS ATTACKS stop-motion figure and some test footage shot before Burton decided to go CG; plus the headless horseman figure and the EDWARD SCISSORHANDS outfit and ED WOOD’s angora sweater. Film geek heaven — and a must-have for MMP’s second video podcast.
I pull out my camcorder and power up, and am instantly intercepted by a MoMA PR person, who politely but firmly informs me that practically nothing in the room, save for Edward and Headless and a vitrine with some figures from THE CORPSE BRIDE, can be filmed.
“Including,” she points out, “the angora sweater.”
Okay, I can dig that, for whatever reasons legal or contextual, stuff may be off-limits (fortunately, no such prohibitions existed for the rest of the exhibit, and, as you’ll see in the video, it’s a big durn exhibit). But specifically throwing the barbed wire up around the angora sweater? Really? Is there some sort of legal constraint, or is this humble strip of fluff so iconic of… something… that dissemination of its presence here could completely blow the intent of the exhibit?
So sorry, all you PLAN 9 maniacs. You want to worship at the alter of the angora, you’re just going to have to make a pilgrimage to New York. Happily, once you’ve performed your obeisances, you’ll then have an opportunity to drink deeply of Tim Burton’s mad genius. There are tons of concept work here, drawn by Burton’s own hand, plus a stunning variety of original and heretofore unseen artwork, sculptures and installations created specifically for the exhibit, and a copy of the hard-to-see HANSEL AND GRETEL adaptation that Burton directed for Disney in 1982.
A lot of the film stuff — including concept designs for ALICE IN WONDERLAND and the aborted Burton version of SUPERMAN RETURNS — was not verboten, so you get a taste of it in this podcast, along with a good sampling of original art, some thoughts from the exhibit’s curators on the director’s life and work, and some footage of Burton’s very Tim Burtonesque appearance at the press presentation. Click on the player above to get a look.
The feature film version of 9 – expanded from Shane Acker’s earlier short subject – is one of the most amazing visual experiences you will enjoy inside a cinema this year – for about the first ten minutes. Acker immediately introduces you to – and immerses you in – an imaginative fantasy world – dark, depressing, and dangerous. After that, ennui rapidly sets in as the screenplay stumbles about in search of a coherent story to take place in this world, and the film winds up being a major disappointment, inferior to the source material and unable to live up to the promise of its own coming attractions trailer.
The problem is not so hard to identify. Much as I hate to go old school on a film that strives mightily to offer an innovative vision, the simple fact is the 9 fails in all the areas they teach you about in Writing 101: plot, characterization, structure. Most importantly, the script never does a good job of establishing what, exactly, is at stake for the inhabitants of this post-apocalyptic future. The little burlap androids are menaced by a robotic predator that has taken some of their comrades, but it is not clear that defeating the monster is going to lead to a new and better life for the survivors, and as the body count rises, one inevitably wonders whether their quest is worth the effort.
As befits a film whose title character is simply “9,” there is little personality given to the humanoids. The one-note characterizations include cowardly and courageous, and there is little to distinguish #9 himself except that he is voiced by Elijah Wood. There is no development or shading, not even a surprising facet that emerges during the course of the story. The failing here is most obvious in the case of Christopher Plummer’s #1: In the trailer, when you hear him say that sometimes “fear is the appropriate response,” it packs a wallop because it sounds out of character, and you wonder what could have driven him to panic. In the film, #1 is simply afraid from start to finish, so his line of dialogue, far from a disturbing change of pace, is a piece of ho-hum expectedness.
Thankfully the computer animation is beautiful. The backdrops are impressively rendered, offering a memorable vision of a blasted world, all dilapidated buildings and refuse. The 9 burlap humanoids have something vulnerable and pathetic about their appearance that inspires sympathy, even if their personalities do not. (They also recall the wide-eye loser of MORE, writer-director Mark Osbourne’s excellent 1998 stop-motion short subject.)
It is altogether unfortunate that this wonderful vision is put in service of a slim storyline that is little more than a fragmented series of vignettes adding up to less than the sum of their parts. 9 looks like one of the great fantasy movies of all time but looks, as they say, can be deceiving. Perhaps too often we hear critics carping about great production values wasted on weak writing, but in this case the cliche is all too true. 9 (2009). Directed by Shane Acker. Screenplay by Pamela Pettler, story by Shane Acker. Voices: Elijah Wood, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau, John C. Reilly, Crispin Glover, Alan Oppenheimer, Tom Kane, Helen Wilson
[serialposts]
David and the HOLY CRAP, WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!: Little doll-person 9 (voiced by Elijah Wood) faces off against a mechanized foe. So… more li’l doll people. Been a good year for that kinda thing — CORALINE, $9.99. And now there’s 9, in which a group of burlapy, goggle-eyed humanoids struggle for survival in a post-apocalyptic waste heap. Would it surprise you that Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov were co-producers on this project? Would it further surprise you that the CG animated film — directed by newcomer Shane Acker, based on his deservedly highly-praised short film (which we have embedded here) — has tons of grotty atmosphere and an overall dark attitude?
And monsters. Really weird, disturbing monsters (if the giant, soul-sucking spider robot doesn’t freak you out, the hypno-snake will). Which is a good thing, because the story itself isn’t really anything to speak of. Shame that a voice cast that includes Christopher Plummer, Jennifer Connelly, Elijah Wood, and Martin Landau doesn’t have better lines to deliver, but when you’ve got little burlap people defending themselves against a robot pterodactyl, snappy patter can sort of take a back seat.
Click on the player below to hear Tim Burton talk about the film.
[serialposts]
In retrospect, it should be no surprise that Tim Burton was drawn to Roald Dahl’s novel CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY. Burton’s films have tended to focus on what we might call “demented artists” — that is, people with enormous creativity whose imaginative flights of fancy make them seem weird, abnormal, and even, on occasion, dangerous.
Pee Wee Herman, in PEE WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE, is an oddly immature adult who seems to live in a childlike world of his own creation. The title character in EDWARD SCISSORHANDS is cut off, trapped in his abnormal world (not of his own making); even when introduced to human society, his deformity makes him both an artist and a freak, capable of creating imaginative hair designs but not of sustaining a romantic relationship. ED WOOD’s real-life character is a transvestite film director. BIG FISH’s lead character is a teller of tall tales. Jack Skellington is the mastermind behind Halloween Town’s annual holiday presentation. In BATMAN and MARS ATTACKS, the demented artist role is given over to the villains, who go about their work with viciously gleeful imagination.
In CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, Johnny Depp’s version of Willy Wonka combines elements of Pee-Wee Herman and Edward Scissorhands: he is a creative genius living in a colorful world of his own making, but he is also isolated and lonely — a sort of damaged child hiding in an adult’s body — like Edward, the victim of an abruptly terminated father-son relationship, seen in flashbacks (although in this case the father is played by horror star Christopher Lee instead of the late horror star Vincent Price).
Whereas’ Gene Wilder’s Wonka (in WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, was a Trickster — an ambiguous character whose bizarre mood swings always seemed carefully orchestrated, indicating a “method to his madness” — Depp’s Wonka really is half nuts, drifting uncontrollably into flashbacks almost like a cliched Vietnam veteran. Although in other aspects, John August’s script is more faithful to the source than the Wilder movie was, this new approach to Wonka moves the film away from Roald Dahl territory, making it even more clearly a Tim Burton film. (Whether or not that’s a good thing, may be a matter of personal taste.)
Unlike director Mel Stuart with WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCLATE FACTORY, Burton has a handle on the material from frame one, instantly pulling you into the fantasy world and making it seem utterly believable within the confines of the story. Unburdened with as many musical numbers (the Oompa-Loompas still sings, and there is a brief ditty when the Golden Ticket winners first enter the chocolate factory), CHARLIE moves along at a faster clip. If the energy flags somewhat in the latter portions, it is only because the bombardment of colors is so consistently eye-catching, that the viewer’s capacity for wonder is eventually worn out.
Danny Elfman’s score is invigorating from the opening frames (a fanciful view of the chocolate-making process, seen behind the opening credits), and his four Oompa Loompa songs (using lyrics taken from Dahl’s novel) are an amusing amalgam of different musical styles. There is no highpoint here that quite matches Veruca Salt’s “I Want It Now” number, but overall Elfman maintains a much higher and more consistent level than Bricusse and Newly did in WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY.
The script by John August slightly updates the characters. Mike Teevee is no longer pops cap guns while watching Western shows on television; now he is a videogame addict, blasting away with his joystick. And Violet Beauregarde still chomps gum, she is now an over-achieving child with a Stepford-Mom (played with a perfectly glazed expression by Missy Pyle).
Depp is wonderfully dazed and crazed as Wonka, and Freddie Highmore is suitably sincere as Charlie. David Kelly makes a far more authentic and effective Grandpa Joe than Jack Albertson did (for one thing, Kelly is British). Deep Roy is hysterical as the Oompa Loompas, and Lee does his sinister schtick really well (you’d be screwed up too if your father was Saruman/Count Dooku). Julia Winter is a a splendidly spoiled Veruca, but the original’s Julie Dawn Cole retains the crown as the queen of obnoxious brats.
The film does go a bit soft at the end. Like the previous film version, Burton must wrestle with Dahl’s anti-climactic structure, in which Charlie wins the big prize at the end basically by default (his big achievement is that no terrible fate befalls him on the tour). The John August script adds an extended coda, a sort of sappy paen to family values, in which Charlie helps Willy resolve his father-son issues. It’s all very well-intended, but it carries about as much conviction as the “Bluebird of Happiness” ending to BLUE VELVET. Like David Lynch, Tim Burton is simply better at the bizarre. Making conventional relationships seem sincere may be a bit beyond his reach.
TRIVIA
Before the film’s release, some commentators (including Time magazine) tried to draw comparisons between Willy Wonka and Michael Jackson, suggesting that Johnny Depp’s appearance in the film was inspired by the real-life pop singer. This theory ignored two basic facts: 1) the Wonka character was established long before Jackson took on his bizarre, adult appearance; 2) Depp’s character is clearly another variation on the standard Tim Burton emasculated artist hero, previously seen in everything from PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE to EDWARD SCISSORHANDS.
DVD DETAILS
The double-disc DVD is a decent presentation of the film, but it does leave one wondering why two discs were necessary: the bonus features are nice, but not overwhelming, and there are not that many of them.
There is a nice documentary about the author of the book on which the film is based, titled “The Fantastic Mr. Dahl,” which takes a look at the author’s life and his approach to writing children’s fiction, but does not focus specifically on “Charly and the Chocolate Factory.”
There are a handful of behind-the-scenes, making-of documentaries that are midly interesting and informative. As often happens with DVDs, these “documentaries” are actually little more than promotional films created to sell the movie to audiences, so they tend to be a bit fluffy, offering little in-depth information.
Perhaps the most interesting featue is “Becoming an Oompa-Loompa,” which details how actor Deep Roy played the entire tribe of Oompa-Loompas. Not only did Roy have to learn how to perform all the elaborate action in the film; the sequences also required elaborate and systematic staging so that the computer-generated effects could multiply him into multiple characters in post-production.
Also worth perusing is “Attack of the Squirrles,” which shows how a combination of trained squirrels, animatronic squirrels, and computer-generated squirrels were used to create the sequence wherein spoiled Veruca Salt is determined to be a “bad nut” and tossed down the garbage shoot by the rampaging rodents.
The DVD also features a number of “challenges,” actually simple games for children, such as searching for the Golden Ticket. The deluxe edition of the disc includes a pack of five limited-edition trading cards. Altogether, it is not a bad presentation of the film on DVD, but calling it “deluxe” seems at least a slight exaggeration.
Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood Daily tells us that the start date for DARK SHADOWS, Johnny Depp’s feature film version of the Gothic soap opera, may have to be pushed back to accommodate director Tim Burton’s schedule:
…any rumor that Burton may bail altogether is “definitely” not true, says my insider: “He loves the project”. But his helming of Alice In Wonderland for Disney — and people who’ve visited the set tell me it looks amazing — is demanding more time than originally planned. Now Burton is facing a hot delivery date for a March 5, 2010 release. And so he’s exploring pushing back the start date for Dark Shadows.
I’m told the postponement hasn’t yet been presented to Warner Bros. Another of my sources says the studio has already reserved stages. “It is our intention to still start the movie in the fall. We’re trying to work it out,” a Depp insider explains to me. “And Tim Burton is Johnny’s first and only choice to direct.”
Warner Bros purchased the film rights to the TV series from the estate of Dan Curtis (the creator, producer and director of Dark Shadows). Depp is both starring and producing through his Infinitum Nihil company which his sister runs. It’s true that Depp has had a long obsession with playing Barnabas Collins. Tim Burton signed on as director last June with John August scripting. Originally, a start date had been scheduled for August but then was pushed back to the fall.
Jonathan Frid as Barnabas Collins
DARK SHADOWS was a daytime serial that became a hit in the ’60s, starring Jonathan Frid as Barnabas Collins, a reluctant vampire seeking a cure for his undead existence. The show, which basically recycled old Universal horror movie motifs in a soap opera context, yield two feature films in the 1970s and was later remade in 1990, as a prime time series, with Ben Cross as Barnabas.
This week brings us a trio of titles from Disney, a belfry full of Batman flicks, some more SOUTH PARK, and a pair of horror films that run the gamut from the worst imaginable to the best of 2008. Which is which? Read on to find out… click to purchase Batman: The Motion Picture Anthology 1989-1997 (Warner Bros Blu-Ray)
No, not those new films – the other, older ones.
Bryan Singer’s first X-Men film was a revelation for comic fans when it was first released in 2000. It showed that we didn’t have to settle for less; that we had every right to expect serious filmmakers to return to the genre and elevate it with smart casting and non-jokey approach. We took the comics universe (be it Marvel or DC) seriously, and expected Hollywood to do likewise. Singer’s two X-Men pictures armed us, and allowed us to shun non-starters like Daredevil, Elektra, Ghost Rider, and even –urgh – Catwoman. We had similar feelings revisiting Tim Burton’s original Batman films: we weren’t exempt from the hype back in 1989; we were thrilled that a talented filmmaker was finally going to take a serious, dark approach to the subject matter, and we left the theater elated from the experience of seeing a decidedly mediocre affair.
Michael Keaton was certainly an interesting choice, but not necessarily a good one for Bruce Wayne/Batman. The actor’s almost total lack of physical presence is accentuated by Burton’s stiff staging (Burton’s heart is usually in the right place – just look at the supporting cast of former Hammer players in Sleepy Hollow – but the superior art direction and costume design in his films mask his failings as a director), and there isn’t a shread of chemistry between Keaton and Kim Basinger’s Vicki Vale (a minor character in the comics elevated to ridiculous stature here). The amount of screen time wasted on Basinger and fellow “reporter” Robert Wuhl is scandalous, and only fails to capsize the whole top-heavy adventure if it weren’t for one other cast member.
Most of the pre-release hype centered on the casting coup of Jack Nicholson to play the Joker. Everyone wanted to see what one of the most iconic actors in the world would to do with such a scenery chewing part; unfortunately, the lazy, unfunny performance that resulted wasn’t all that different from Cesar Romero deliberately campy turn in the ’60s. In 1986, an earthquake called The Dark Knight Returns written by Frank Miller ripped through the comic universe; it created a violent, dystopian vision of our world, mirrored in the book’s depiction of Gotham City. This age of the Mad Hatter running around carrying sacks of money with “$” painted on them was over – in the universe of The Dark Knight Returns, the Joker is a homicidal maniac who murders schoolchildren by the dozen and leaves a beaten and likely molested Selina Kyle hog-tied and dressed in a Wonder Woman outfit. The year before Tim Burton’s Batman hit theater screens, Alan Moore perfectly crystallized the horror of the Joker character in “The Killing Joke” as a giggling psychopath that is as likely to slice your throat as look at you. In light of these (then recent) works, Nicholson’s mincing and mugging harkened back to a time that fans had been trying to forget. BatmanReturns (1992) was an improvement; the gothic nature of the story better suited Burton, and was more a case of him wearing the franchise, rather than the other way around. But the choice of villains was disappointing –the Penguin was as silly a foe as Batman ever had, and Danny DeVito plays him strictly for comic relief, and Michelle Pfeiffer does little but leather up and purr sexually-infused invectives as Catwoman.
What seemed like a good opportunity for a reboot turned tragic when the series passed in to the hands of Joel Schumacher for the remaining two films. Batman Forever (1995) saw the more interesting Val Kilmer take over the title role, but seemed to be acting in a film all his own, failing utterly to connect with anything or anyone onscreen. This isn’t a dig against Kilmer, whom we always enjoy, but against the neon madhouse that he was consigned to. The supporting cast ballooned to the point where no actor – not even Jim Carrey at his rubberiest – was given enough screen time to create a measurable presence (we had to check IMBD to verify that Drew Barrymore was actually in the film, and what do you know – she was!) .
The 4th film, 1997’s Batman & Robin, is little more than a sharpening stone – a delivery platform for the barbs of snarky critics, and rightfully so. The film is so wrongheaded in aspiration, so misguided in execution as to astonish. The foundations that Schumacher had laid in the previous film could finally support the weight of his true vision: a gay fantasia of bright colors, insufferably loud sound effects, and S&M-inspired costumes that bring the show to a level of camp that makes Adam West look like Christian Bale. The released film nearly strangled the career of then-ER star George Clooney while it was still in the cradle, and effectively announced the end of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s reign as unassailable box office king. Neither did it do any favors for the young cast; Chris O’Donnell and Alicia Silverstone weren’t as lucky as Clooney and soon found themselves appearing most often in unsold television pilots. The film was the very definition of a “franchise killer”.
Not even a year after the release of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, who has the time or inclination to revisit this series? Apparently, Warner Bros thinks you do, as you’re getting a Blu-Ray box set of all 4 films this week. Most (the interviews and commentaries in particular) go back to earlier releases, so anyone looking for new content will be disappointed. The picture quality is superb, as to be expected, and will probably encourage many looking for audio/video demo discs to purchase the set. click to purchase Pinocchio: 70th Anniversary Edition (Disney DVD & Blu-Ray)
For its 70th Anniversary (69th, actually, but for a film that features both an unmarried old man whishing for a little boy of his own and an island where young boys are enticed to live out all their most prurient adolescent fantasies, it was probably best to stick with 70 for the box art) Disney has issued what few could argue is the definitive presentation of the film, along with a pleasing collection of supporting materials. Disc one features audio commentary with Disney’s master of ceremonies, Leonard Maltin, along with animation authorities Eric Goldberg and J.B. Kaufman, a pop-up trivia track that plays along with the film, and Disney Song Selection which plays the songs from the film in a karaoke format. The second disc features a feature length documentary No Strings Attached: The Making of Pinocchio, two deleted scenes and an alternate ending rendered in storyboards, and The Sweat Box, which tells the story of the eponymous room at the studio where Walt would critique rough animation, story reels and dailies. Also included are reference footage used to give the animators a handle to begin rough character concepts, some deleted background music, and Pinocchio’s Puzzles, game which should be self-explanatory. There are also several Blu-Ray exclusive features which utilizing BD Live, which allow you to chat with other users while watching the film, send personalized clips, etc. The Blu-Ray package also comes with one unexpected surprise – a standard definition copy (sans extras) of the film on a separate DVD. It’s a pretty shrewd way to get people without players to buy now, and not double dip later, especially when the disc inevitably moves to ‘out of print’ status. We’d also like to mention that the menus, called the Cine-Explore Experience, are far easier to navigate than previous Disney sets (the curtain-pulling effect on Dr. Syn got real old, real fast). Read a complete review of the discs here. click to purchase Escape to Witch Mountain/Return from Witch Mountain(Disney DVD)
However good or bad Race to Witch Mountain turns out to be, we have it to thank for the amazingly bright and sharp transfers on the new DVDs. We’re certainly no expert on the restoration of films prior to a disc release, but either Disney spent a bundle sprucing these up or they have the cleanest vault elements in the business. Only the shots with dodgy matte work or optical effects have that “less than perfect look”. click to purchase
Both discs feature scene-specific commentary tracks featuring director Hough and leads Richards and Eisenmann (the latter were thankfully recorded together and make for a very pleasant listen), a just-under 30min making-of documentary, a trivia track, a “Studio Album” featuring clips from all Disney features released in that given year, and one Disney cartoon (Pluto’s Dream House on Escape and The Eyes Have It on Return). Escape features an extra interview segment with Hough, a clip compilation entitled Disney Sci-Fi, and a featurette on the special effects. Return features an extended interview segment with the now adult members of the “street gang” that helps Tia search for Tony, another clip compilation, Disney Kids with Powers, and our favorite extra, a rare interview with Lee for a Spanish television station (in Spanish – one of the many languages the actor speaks with near fluency – with subtitles) where the actor is sporting the enormous mustache grown for his upcoming role as a Gypsy in The Passage. Read a complete review of both discs here. Crowley (Anchor Bay DVD)
Perhaps Anchor Bay is attempting to add to the air of mystery that surrounds the subject matter of this DTV horror show by flying it well under the radar. There is no entry on the IMDB, and the only place we’ve been able to find any information is on Anchor Bay’s own website, which features the following description:
He was known as ‘The Wickedest Man In The World’ or simply ‘The Beast’. More than 60 years after his death, the demonic life and works of British occultist Aleister Crowley has continued to capture our darkest imaginations. In this provocative supernatural thriller co-written by legendary Iron Maiden vocalist Bruce Dickinson, a virtual reality experiment gone wrong sends the soul of the infamous madman into the body of a shy university professor (a fearless performance by Simon Callow of FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL). But even as Crowley creates all-new orgies of depraved pleasures and black magick, is he now preparing to unleash the ultimate occult event upon the world? John Shrapnel (MIRRORS) and Richard Franklin (DOCTOR WHO) co-star in this over-the-top satanic shocker featuring classic songs by Bruce Dickinson and Iron Maiden.
Now, we have no evidence that a script from Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson isn’t a reason to rejoice – and the presence of the always interesting Simon Callow in the lead role certainly entices – but we find it hard to take seriously the notion that Aleister Crowley was anything more sinister than an over-educated upper class sensualist who rebelled against a strict upbringing by embracing the occult. Simon Callow would be perfectly suited to a realistic portrayal of the actual historical figure, though the metal-driven “satanic shocker” described above appears to go in a slightly different direction. click to purchase
Also out this week:
Dark Reel(North American Pictures DVD & Blu-Ray): Patient gorehounds will be rewarded with several scenes that are surprisingly graphic for a film carrying an R rating – that is, if the obscene 109min (!) running time doesn’t put their lights out first. Click here to read a review.
Synecdoche, New Yorkis out on DVD and Blu-ray. Read a review of this “horror chamber piece” here.
In retrospect, it should be no surprise that Tim Burton was drawn to Roald Dahl’s novel CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY. Burton’s films have tended to focus on what we might call “demented artists” — that is, people with enormous creativity whose imaginative flights of fancy make them seem weird, abnormal, and even, on occasion, dangerous.
