People of a certain age (i.e. “Old”) will remember when in the early days of HBO, a weird ,wild animated film called Twice Upon a Time made the rounds. Many paid it heed because it was executive produced by George Lucas, currently in the process of imprinting our childhoods with a new mythology. But except for a laserdisc and VHS release, the film rather fell off the table, save for dedicated maniacs who remembered it fondly.
Warner Archives, print-on-demand masters of unearthing lost bits of cinema and making them available to the masses, have achieved the impossible and presented the world with a brand new release of the film, unearthing both audio tracks, and getting many of the animators together for a commentary track, including Henry Selick, who has gone on to great things like Neil Gaiman’s Coraline and Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas, and in that order.
Botch (Marshall Efron) presents a perfectly reasonable plan; Mum entreats his cohorts this is not the case
The film tells the tale of two magical lands; Frivoli and The Murkworks, who create the happy dreams and horrid nightmares, respectively, for The Rushers of Din, a land that looks suspiciously like San Francisco. The head of The Murkworks, Synonymess Botch (voiced by former Sunday School teacher Marshall Efron) hatches a plan to plunge Din into eternal nightmares, and cons our heroes Ralph the All-Purpose Animal (Lorenzo Music) and his cohort Mum (who…remains so) into stealing the main spring from The Cosmic Clock, which will freeze time and allow Botch to set his plan into motion. They attempt to undo their blunder with the help of their (and everyone’s) Fairy Godmother (Judith Kahan Kampmann) and Rod Rescueman (James Cranna) a superhero in training.
The animation style of the film is a unique delight, a process called Lumage, that uses colored paper and fabric cutouts to create the characters, a process that inspired the creators of South Park decades later. Animator John Korty used the process for a number of shorts for Sesame Street, most notably “The Adventures of Thelma Thumb” (starring Kahan and Cranna), which amazingly is not available on the web anywhere or I’d have linked to it just there.
The tale of the two audio tracks is somewhat of a confusing tale. There’s a more raunchy version of the dialogue that features a number of curse words – it’s been long assumed that was the original version of the film, but that’s not the case. As Korty explains in the commentary, they were contractually obligated to deliver a family-friendly film, and so they did. But when sneak previews proved unsuccessful, Korty’s producer Bill Couturié (Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt) took it on himself to re-record many of the lines with more salty language, to attempt to make the film more accessible to an older audience. It had the opposite reaction – the film’s limited release resulted in numerous walkouts and demands for refunds, and the wide release was cancelled. The second version is the one that was (accidentally, it’s believed) to HBO, and when it was replaced with the “clean” version for later showings and the video release, the belief arose that the film had been censored – indeed, it had been returned to its original form. Interestingly, even Warner Archives mixes this up – They describe the dirty version as the “Director’s Original Version”, when in fact it’s the PG version that was Korty wanted and delivered.
The print is in widescreen for the first time on video, and bright and pristine, the sound (both versions) is clear and clean. The songs by Bruce Hornsby and Maureen McDonald are pleasant, and don’t litter the cinematic landscape like so many kids’ movies. It’s truly a forgotten classic, one that deserves a new generation of eyes on it.
Hotel Transylvania 2 is so much better than Pixels and it’s hard to figure out exactly why. The material isn’t substantially better, it still feels like the scripts are written by an elementary school joke book come to life— although maybe for Hotel Transylvania the living book has to turn in a couple more drafts. The animated medium might open up for a few more ambitious sight gags but it isn’t like Pixels was stingy with the effects shots. Perhaps it’s that with live actors you can see how little effort they’re putting in and how much they’d rather be doing something else, and an animated character looks more engaged even if none of the voice acting is particularly ambitious. It could just be that an engaged Genndy Tartakovsky is far and away better than a Chris Columbus just out for a paycheck. Something makes this movie sparkle while Sandler’s other latter day efforts are tarnished husks.
While almost certainly not intentional, Sandler and Robert Smigel have written an oddly poignant film about Jewish assimilation in the United States. Adam Sandler’s Dracula has always sounded a little more like an old Jewish man than a Romanian count and for this installment they’ve cast Mel Brooks, who’s been the prototypical old Jewish man for almost 50 years, as his father Vlad, but his daughter, Mavis, is played by Selena Gomez who is doing no stereotypical Jewish inflection on her voice at all. Dracula and Vlad are concerned that by marrying a human and having a potentially human baby that their family is losing the connection with their monstrous roots in much the same way the last few generations of American Jews have seen their community disperse out in to the larger gentile world. This is compounded by the rest of the monsters who live in and around the hotel have also largely given up on their traditional monster ways learning to get along with humans as the world now demands. The end hits a little hollow on this front as Dracula never has to come to a firm opinion on the modern or the traditional as the movie invents a synthesis for him but it’s better than I was expecting to be quite honest. Again, I’m quite sure almost none of this subtext is intentional and that this is really just supposed to be a couple degrees of separation from rehashing The Jazz Singer but it’s interesting to think about especially when you consider the script comes from two people who have made careers out of occupying different Jewish staple characters to various degrees.
Otherwise, this is a slightly above average comedy. I laughed often enough, and because it’s an Adam Sandler movie some of those jokes might have been a little easy or a little corny but this is a nitpick from a comedy snob and should not really hold anyone back. I enjoy Tartakovsky’s work immensely and he’s made a visually arresting movie yet again and some of the best bits in the film are sight gags that I choose to believe are mostly his work. Blobby is one of the funniest characters in the film and has no lines just a steady stream of good physical humor.
This is a movie for young kids and, honestly, I probably aged out of the Adam Sandler demographic 15 years ago, but unlike some of his other efforts the Hotel Transylvania movies feel like they’re willing to try and keep me engaged. The showing I went to was crowded with young kids who seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely, laughing at all the right moments and quietly paying attention most of the rest of the time. I had a good time too, I was laughing and while perhaps I spent a little too much time figuring out if there was a deeper message about 20th century immigrant communities but this has all of the positive qualities of the best kids movies I’ve reviewed, a solid sequel, and maybe even the basis of a successful franchise.
“If someone who knew the future pointed out a child to you, and told you that that child would grow up totally evil, to be a ruthless dictator who would destroy millions of lives…could you then kill that child?”
It’s a classic philosophical question, one that the average person would never truly have to face. Of course, The Doctor is not the average person, and as such, has to face it nearly constantly. But never so personally, and so literally as when a young boy calls for help…and The Doctor walks away.
THE MAGICIAN’S APPRENTICE / THE WITCH’S FAMILIAR Written by Steven Moffat Directed by Hettie MacDonald
The Doctor lands on a planet torn asunder by war, a war going on so long that it’s using progressively declining technology – space fighters are being shot at with bows and arrows. When a young boy is trapped in a mine field, The Doctor tries to cheer him up by asking his name. The boy says his name is Davros, and The Doctor suddenly realizes where he is: Skaro, decades before the creation of the Daleks…by the boy whose life is in his hands.
Meanwhile (well, I say “meanwhile”…) on Earth, Missy has returned (and rudely, won’t explain how) and is asking to talk to Clara. She’s been given The Doctor’s Confession Dial, effectively his will and testament, which means he’s expecting to (or planning to) die. Missy asks Clara for help in finding him, “asks” meaning “kidnaps her”.
After finding him by looking for the biggest party they could find, The Doctor and his friends (more on this later) end up on Skaro, rebuilt from the ashes of the Time War. Davros is dying at last, and wants The Doctor there, to make him suffer a final defeat at the man he could have saved so many years ago, but didn’t.
Anyone who still claims that Steven Moffat can no longer write a solid episode of Doctor Who now has the credibility of Donald Trump. From a truly scream-inducing pre-credits sequence to a corker of a cliffhanger, to a perfectly touching ending, with some of the biggest laughs in years peppered in between. A great deal of growth in the relationship between The Doctor and both of his greatest enemies, and a harrowing climax, all playing perfectly against past events that get called back in the most amazing ways.
The story bookends two important Dalek stories of the past: Terry Nation’s [[[Genesis of the Daleks]]], which brought us the introduction of Davros, and Moffat’s own Asylum of the Daleks which introduced us to Jenna Coleman, and at least one aspect of Clara Oswald. Steven Moffat has elevated the narrative callback to an art form – he’s pulling details from past stories to give them new meaning, as well as the simple practice of Chekhov’s Gun – introducing a seemingly throwaway point early in the story, only to have it come back with a surprise importance at the end.
GUEST STAR REPORT
Michelle Gomez (Missy) makes a surprising but not entirely unexpected return to the series as The Master, much sooner than anyone expected. She was recently featured in the HBO comedy series The Brink. Before Missy, she was best known in the UK for Green Wing, a comedy about a local hospital, and The Book Group, a comedy drama about a curcle of folks who get together more just to find friendship than to actually discuss the books they’ve been assigned to read.
Julian Bleach (Davros) has made several appearances on the various Who-niverse shows. First appearing on Torchwood as The Ghostmaker, he appeared as Davros in the David Tennant adventures The Stolen Earth / Journey’s End. He also played the eponymous monster in the Sarah Jane Adventures tale The Nightmare Man. He played Machiavelli in The BorgiasTV series, and played the ballet instructor in [[[Avengers: Age of Ultron]]].
THE MONSTER FILES –
You could easily argue that The Daleks are more responsible for the success of Doctor Who than anything. After producer Sydney Newman decreed there would be “no bug-eyed monsters” on the series, the team struggled to come up with a truly unique and innovative design for the first alien race for the series. To say they succeeded is an understatement. Terry Nation’s description of the creatures in his script was simple:
Hideous machine-like creatures, they are legless, moving on a round base. They have no human features. A lens on a flexible shaft acts as an eye. Arms with mechanical grips for hands
The Daleks were almost designed by Ridley Scott, who would go on to other triumphs in directing both in and out of science fiction. It was eventually designed by Raymond Cusick, passing the basic plans to Shawcraft Models. After the broadcast, Dalek-Mania hit Britain, and Doctor Who became must-see television.
The basics of the origins of the Daleks were there in that first story – an interminable war between the Daleks and the Dals, the Daleks holed up in their city, their endless hate for everything non-Dalek. But it was years later in Genesis of the Daleks that Terry Nation introduced us to their creator, Davros. Horribly disfigured in an enemy bombardment, when we first meet him, he is literally half a man, his lower extremities gone, attached permanently in a traveling wheelchair and life-support system that greatly resembled his eventual creations. His idea for the eventual triumph in the war against the (now called) Thals was twofold – through experimentation, he developed what he theorized was the final form of their race, the Kaleds – a mutated tentacled monstrosity, almost incapable of surviving on its own. The second step was to build a housing for the creature – a portable tank, both medical and military. He went further – manipulating the DNA of the Kaled mutants further, breeding out “useless” emotions like love and pity, and building a computer system that would weed out any stray benevolent thoughts. The result – a nearly indestructible warrior that cares only about the destruction of anything and everything that isn’t like itself.
Davros has appeared multiple times since Genesis – usually using the same exact makeup, which showed extreme signs of wear over the years. The majority of what has been revealed about his younger life was told in a series of audio plays from Big Finish.
Colony Sarff is the latest in a series of being that Davros and the Daleks have used as mercenary might over the years. Their most often seen were the Ogrons, simian aliens with limited intelligence – perfect grunt soldiers.
BACKGROUND BITS AND BOBS – Trivia and Production details
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION – Spain played the role of two locations in the adventure – a national park near a dormant volcano in Tenerife stood in for Skaro, and the “hot country” Missy waited to speak to Clara in was Garachico, just a bit South.
The Maldovarium is the black market and bar founded and run by Dorium Maldovar, at least until he was decapitated by The Headless Monks.
The Shadow Proclamation makes a return to the series as the interstellar police force. Kelly Hunter also returns as the Shadow Architect, last appearing in The Stolen Earth.
The Planet Karn is the home of the Sisters of Karn, home of the Elixir of Life, used by Time Lords in cases of emergency when regeneration fails. They first appeared in The Brain of Morbius, and most recently in the mini-episode Night of the Doctor.
“Don’t send a helicopter – I can get through” Clara is once again driving the Triumph motorcycle she had in The Day of the Doctor, the one The Doctor drove up the side of The Shard in The Bells of Saint John. She is heading for the Tower of London, secret home of UNIT.
“Not dead, back – big surprise, never mind” – In a recent interview, Steven Moffat went on about how much he loved how The Master, particularly in the Anthony Ainley years, would return from a sure and certain demise, with no more of an explanation than “I escaped at the last moment”. As such, I fully expected to get no solid explanation for Missy’s survival at all. After all, this is the man who presented several fan theories as to how Sherlock survived his plummet from a hospital on Sherlock, and confirmed none. In this case, though, he went with an obvious explanation, indeed, the one that just about everyone had guessed, and good on him for it.
“I’m his friend, you’re just…” The relationship of The Doctor and The Master has been the subject of so many Clever Theories, and only a handful of actual statements on screen. In Death in heaven we got the line “I had a friend once…we ran together when I was little”, so the idea of them being best friends is not far from a lie.
“You’re the puppy” – This whole scene is about exactly how far beyond Human understanding the Time Lords truly are. They attempt to destroy civilizations as a practical joke. They steal moons the way frat boys steal mascots. And as far as Missy is concerned, there’s a reason some Earthlings refer to their pets as “companions”.
“We’re looking for a party” – This is another look at the same swaggering procrastination we saw at the end of Ten’s life in The End of Time, and the more quiet dawdling Eleven did before he headed to Lake Silencio.
“Cheap and nasty time travel” – the Vortex Manipulator has been used by Jack Harkness in several episodes, and later by River Song, though likely not the same one.
“Anachronisms” – Peter Capaldi is an established guitarist, and was once in a punk band called The Dreamboys with a fellow named Craig Ferguson. Also, thought you can’t see it on screen, the amplifier on the tank bears a label from Magpie Electricals, the company that made the cheap TVs in The Idiot’s Lantern.
And here’s a question for you…When he starts playing the opening to “Pretty Woman”…is he playing it for Clara…or Missy?
“Inform High Command – the TARDIS is located” – Bors has been made a Dalek Agent, a sophisticated duplicate first seen in Asylum of the Daleks.
“How scared must you be, to seal every one of your own kind in a tank” – Davros’ motivations are at the core of this adventure. Having seen him as a scared child at the story’s start, the question about being scared here takes a new depth. Until this, save for the audio plays, we’ve never seen Davros as anything but a nearly total megalomaniac. Now we see him much more emotional, and at points, it’s hard to believe it’s all lies.
“I think you’ve been lying” – Oh geez, you THINK?
“Gravity” – As in Kill the Moon, both The Doctor and Missy are walking and dancing about to test the gravity of their location. In both cases, the gravity is natural, leading both to presume that they are on something far more massive than they thought.
“Did you miss our conversations?” – We’re presented with a montage of The Doctor’s past conversations with Davros, from their first meeting in Genesis to their most recent in The Stolen Earth. But it’s the quote at the start of this article, about a child who would grow up to be a dictator, that holds the most importance, as that’s precisely the situation The Doctor found himself in, and to his shame, he walked away.
“This is the planet of the Daleks” – and we see oh so many of them here – models in the style of the first adventure, straight through to the modern age, and all in between. They built an amazing assortment of models for Asylum, and clearly they got a dust off and re-used here, especially that Special Weapons Dalek we all got so excited about and barely got a moment on screen.
But once again, the New Paradigm models are nowhere to be seen. Moffatt admitted the redesign was a mistake – as he put it “They’re scarier when they’re wee”.
“Doesn’t matter which face he was wearing, they’re all The Doctor to me” – Once again, this is a suggestion that Time Lords “see” each other differently – their faces may literally change from visit to visit, but they always recognize each other. This is something how The Doctor says he doesn’t really see faces, especially Clara’s – he can’t tell the difference between when she’s young or old.
“The Doctor gave it to me when my daughter…” – Yeah, the thing about not knowing much about a character, ANY little tidbit is important.
“This is exactly where you dump a smelly old uncle” – The Daleks and Davros’ relationship has always been…contentious. They intended to kill him in Genesis, and only returned to Skaro to search for him in Destiny of the Daleks because they had no other options. He’s been able to order them around to a degree when his plans suited them, but the best description of his position with them is “kept man”. Not a prisoner, just someone useful and handy to have about.
“A man should have a race” – This is the start of the comparisons between Davros and the Doctor – both went to great lengths to make sure they would not be alone in the universe.
“Am I a good man?” – One could argue that everyone asks themselves that at one point or another. An old philosophical question is “Is Hitler in heaven?” – since Catholics believe that intent dictates sin, if he honestly thought he was doing good for the world, could he have been allowed to escape punishment? The end of Genesis of the Daleks tries to get philosophical too – The Doctor thinks about the races whose wars with each other ended as they united to face the Daleks, and wonders if somehow in such evil, there could result some good.
“You are not a good Doctor” – This moment, with two arch-enemies suddenly start laughing as a bad joke, is very reminiscent of Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke. The situation is largely the same – these two men know there will never be anything less than war between them, and the situation seems so helpless, and the surprise of a moment of comedy breaks the tension. Worked wonderfully. Throughout all this part of the story, one has to wonder how much of what Davros was saying was accidentally honest, perhaps even if only to further bait the trap, but honest nevertheless.
BIG BAD WOLF REPORT – So far there’s no blatant threads hanging out there to lead us to the finale. Presuming we’ll see either (or both) the Daleks and Missy again, their appearance alone may yet be the only connection.
“I am a Dalek” – It’s here with Clara in a Dalek we’re seeing the parallel to Asylum of the Daleks, where we saw Oswin Oswald in a similar predicament. While Oswin was part of the Daleks for quite a long while, she had time to hack into their databanks and play merry hell with their systems. Clara has no time to do such things, but she’s got time to be affected by something else – Dalek Nanotech. In Asylum, the air was permeated with it, slowly converting anything on the planet to Dalek Agents. Clara’s just had herself connected to one directly, the nanotech “repairing any damage”. That…may not end well.
“Gallifrey is back, and it is safe…from both of us” – We thought that the return of Gallifrey might be the story of an upcoming season, but this line may suggest that it will be left alone for a bit. The Doctor may be content with knowing that his people are safe, and not worry about the details.
“This is why I gave her to you in the first place to make you see – the friend inside the enemy, the enemy inside the friend” – It was rather left undiscussed, but it was indeed Missy who arranged The Doctor and Clara to meet. She gave clara the phone number of the TARDIS back before The Bells of St. John, and planted the ad in the paper that brought the pair back together in The Eleventh Hour. Eleven asked Clara if she was “a trick; a trap” – might that question still not be answered?
NEXT TIME ON DOCTOR WHO – Clara has a big mouth, and should stop asking for adventures with monsters. After the Lake, passing through this Saturday.
We’ve been asked to reconsider our enjoyment of Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron in the wake of the corporate shuffling that sees Kevin Feige reign supreme. Scuttlebutt has it the film was a disappointment to Walt Disney but one has to wonder how a global box office take of $1.4 billion (as of this weekend) can be a disappointment. Shot with a mammoth $250 million budget, the film needed to earn only about $800 million to be profitable (before licensing and ancillary revenue) so it has to be a financial success.
A critical success is something else. According to Rotten Tomatoes, it is 74% fresh although audiences liked it 86% of the time. Now yes, it is far lower than the 92% the first Avengers film did, but let’s face it, nothing like that had ever been tried on film and it worked beyond anyone’s expectations.
And the expectations were incredibly high this time around as we got Ultron, the deadliest and most powerful of the Avengers rogues plus the introduction of Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), and the Vision so we knew going in this was going to be more packed than before. That writer/director Joss Whedon managed to make it work so well at all is to be commended.
The film is out now on Digital HD and hits stores October 3 on in a Blu-ray combo pack from Walt Disney Home Entertainment. It stands up well to a second viewing. I was sent a Digital HD code and can say the crisp color and strong audio were excellent both on my laptop and on my television via Chromecast.
The film nicely bridges the events from the first film, with Loki’s powerful staff located and taken from a wounded but clearly not dead Hydra (the set up for which was aided by ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.). We open with the team arriving in time to get the staff from Baron Strucker (Thomas Kretschmann) but what do you do when you have absolute power at your fingertips?
If you’re Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), you use if for good, coaxing your egghead buddy Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) into helping you use the power to create an android that would help them police the world. As the artificial intelligence is incubating, they briefly debate the ethics then go party with the team in one of the nicer ensemble moments. However, the A.I. , now called Ultron (James Spader), breaks into the Avengers’ swanky HQ and soundly beats them, propelling the story.
There’s a lot of meat to chew on between punches. While the fights be one too many or perhaps just each one is too long, the themes of power and responsibility echo clearly. There’s a nice moment between Stark and Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) that also sets the stage for next May’s Captain America: Civil War.
This is where the film gets rubbery and weak. We’ve closing out Phase Two and setting up Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and we’re expanding the cast of players rather quickly. As a result, what we loved about the first film is less prevalent here. Time has to be given to the introduction of the powerful siblings, the creation of the Vision (Paul Bettany), Ultron’s plans, and a set up for the eventual Black Panther film with a needless plotline involving Ulysses Klaw (Andy Serkis).
What is more welcome, though, is the middle section as the fractured team retreats from Ultron to a private home, where we learn that Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) is happily married to Susan (Linda Cardellini), raising two kids between assignments. The reminder of what they’re fighting for is nice and it does give us some of the film’s strongest character moments (a little more of the contrast between heroes and mere mortals would have been welcome) from the Stark-Rogers confrontation to the budding romance between Natasha Romanov (Scarlett Johansson) and Banner.
But then we’re globetrotting, all to prevent Ultron from lifting up a small European country and using it to destroy the world, fulfilling its programming in an unanticipated manner. There’s some wonderful action moments in the second half, some good stunts, some lovely CGI, but after a time, it becomes just so much noise so you just want it over. When Mjolnir helps bring the fight to an end, we’re very thankful.
In true Avengers style, now that the premier heroes have had their films and been in two Avengers features of their own, the spotlight is being shifted to the newcomers: Falcon (Anthony Mackie), War Machine (Don Cheadle), Scarlet Witch, and Vision. It is true to the comic series and does stir things up, especially to see how they function together next year before they presumably take center stage in the two-part Avengers: Infinity War later this decade.
The Blu-ray and Digital HD will come with a limited assortment of features, but enough to keep you interested. There’s a brief review of the four already-seen Infinity stones in The Infinite Six (7:31) and you can sightsee during the briefer travelogue Global Adventure (3:00). More satisfying is From The Inside Out – Making Of Avengers: Age Of Ultron (20:53) which shows you just how the CGI for Ultron and Hulk worked and you will be even more impressed with the performances from Spader and Ruffalo. The Gag Reel (3:36) is the usual assortment of pratfalls and blown lines but far more interesting are the Deleted Scenes. You get a much better sense of the stakes in The Norn Cave (3:44) and Bruce and Natasha Talk (4:21). Interesting but less vital are Watch Your Six (2:49) and The Man in the Church (1:11).
Those purchasing the Digital HD through Disney Anywhere will also receive the exclusive Connecting The Universe (4:53) which is incomplete but nicely connects the dots of the cosmic doings, setting up the next two Avengers films, closing out Phase 3.
Pitch Perfect snuck up on us as a charming, funny film that took the national interest in all things acapella and grafted it onto the teen Coming of Age story template from Bring it On. With a strong ensemble and winning soundtrack, it wowed at the box office, making a singing star of Anna Kendrick, and ensuring there’d be a sequel.
If the film had any fault it was that some elements were so outsized they seemed incongruous with the rest of the story, such as the force and volume of Anna Camp’s projectile vomiting or Renee Wilson’s super-sized characterization.
Unfortunately, the trend towards bigger and more preposterous elements plagues Pitch Perfect 2, out now on Blu-ray Combo Pack from Universal Home Entertainment. At a performance before President Obama, Fat Amy has a wardrobe malfunction that gets televised but the reaction is far more extreme than Janet Jackson’s real life exposure during the far better watched Super Bowl.
As a result, the Barden Bellas are now pariahs both on campus and in the acapella competition world. Of course, there’s a loophole which they exploit so the disgraced national champions prepare to compete in the International Competition against a German team that works with stereotypical efficiency. They are the goliaths to beat and we all know they will be taken down a notch with heart and soul.
The film barely pauses to introduce the full Bella squadron so few actually feel like characters as opposed to window dressing. Instead, we focus on Kendrick’s character, who has over the last three years become the leader. But, she wants more and secretly takes an internship at a recording company where she faces new challenges, shaking her from her mash-up comfort zone.
Impossibly, the Bellas are all seniors so graduation looms and until a freshman arrives to join the team, there is little thinking about continuing their legacy or domination. But legacy becomes an undercurrent as Emily (Hailee Steinfeld), daughter of a former Bella (Katy Segal) forces her way into the group. Being the younger outsider does for this film what Kendrick’s Beca did in the first and she is utterly charming in her innocence.
The broad humor does not work for me at all, as I prefer the subtler, funnier bits such as Kendrick’s fascination with her German rival Kommissar (Birgitte Hjort-Sørensen). Or the clearly ad-libbed and inappropriate comments from podcasters
The team’s antics reach a nadir with a senior home performance so they go to seek their mojo from Camp’s Aubrey, now a motivational guru. Cohesive once more, they work hard for worlds and win (not a spoiler) and their performance is all you want from this film.
A third installment is in the works and one hopes that the transition to a mostly-new Bellas will bring with it a downshift in tone so they avoid embarrassing themselves.
The digital transfer is just fine with an excellent 1080p transfer matched with the more important DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack that makes the songs pop.
The Combo pack comes with Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital HD. The Special Features are plentiful but perfunctory. There’s a Bonus Song Performed by The Treblemakers (3:27): The song follows an introduction; Extended Musical Performances: Bellas (1:58), Das Sound Machine (1:23), and Bellas: Finale Clap-Along (0:44); Das Sound Machine Finale Breakdown (2:06) so you can hear each layer on its own; Deleted/Extended/Alternate Scenes: Jesse Drops Off Beca At Work — Extended (1:46), Treble Party — Alternate (1:00), Bumper Arrives at Treble Party (1:18), Treble Party — Extended (1:04), Car Show: “Farter” (0:56), Intro to Mansion — Extended (1:35), Beat Box — Extended (1:21), Setting Up Tents — Deleted (1:50), and Amy and Bumper Make-Up — Alternate (1:32); a fun Gag Reel (3:08); Line-Aca-Rama (3:36), alternate takes; Green Bay Rap (0:52), yes, those are the pro football players and film fans in their glory; Elizabeth Banks’ Directorial Debut (5:20), a celebration of the actress’ ascension to behind the camera; The Bellas Are Back (6:13); Aca-Camp (1080p, 5:04); The Making of the Riff-Off (6:02), a closer look at the underground sing off that seems out of place until they explain why it’s in the film; The World Championships of A Cappella (9:30), when Baton Rouge was used as Denmark; Snoop Is in the House (2:53), Snoop Dogg’s cameo is highlighted; Residual Heat Internship (2:26), as Beca works for the unnamed character played by Keegan-Michael Key; An Aca-Love Story: Bumper and Fat Amy (5:26), exploring the improbable Adam DeVine-Rebel Wilson romance; and finally, Legacy: Hailee Steinfeld (6:04).
There is additional Audio Commentary from Director/Producer Elizabeth Banks and Producers Paul Brooks and Max Handelman which actually tells you more about the film’s production than all of the above.
It’s really easy to dismiss a film by calling it nonsense, and this particular pitfall is one I feel I fall into too many times. I’ve cried nonsense on the plots of so many films over the course of my years reviewing films when I really meant muddled or confusing or pointless that now when I need it most I worry it won’t be taken seriously. Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials is nonsense in the purest form of the word; the movie has nothing resembling coherence or reason and it is a constant struggle just to understand what the hell is happening, let alone why it’s happening. I understand why these characters need to run away from bad things, but just about nothing else about the entire film. I derided the first Maze Runner film for being cliché and boring but it’s so much better to be boring than to be utterly incomprehensible.
You would think that by picking up directly where the last film left off The Scorch Trials could have some sense of narrative continuity, but you would be completely wrong. This film starts with the idea that everything we knew in the first movie was wrong but never bothers to explain what’s right. There’s some disease out there and for some reason it turns people in to zombies. The lab where they’re researching this disease has some weird shrimp monsters in glass tubes but no one acknowledges them in a serious way and they’re never spoken of or seen again. The outside world is one of sandstorms and powerful lightning storms but I can’t imagine that was caused by the zombie shrimp virus. The city they visit (or cities— it’s very hard to tell visually and the narrative gives no clues) is completely trashed with skyscrapers collapsing and fallen bridges, but none of that seems like zombies or sandstorms would cause it. The movie feels like the sets and locations were made with a paint-by-numbers set of post-apocalyptic clichés, and I could probably abide by it if they dedicated any time at all to justifying any of it. It wouldn’t even be that hard to slide this exposition when you consider all of the primary antagonists have amnesia, a disease practically invented to provide opportunities for simple things to be explained.
There’s also a stunning lack of consistency in the simple facts of the world. The kids travel by days on foot apparently risking dehydration and death by exposure to get from this ruined city to a secluded rebel outpost at the base of a far-off mountain. Then when things in the base go wrong two characters run around an underground tunnel for less than ten minutes before being deposited back out in to a giant city that we definitely couldn’t see in any of the establishing shots of that camp. When they leave this new city a few minutes later, they do it in a truck on a paved road. Civilization returned to this part of the world quickly in the maximum three days these events took place in. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt like my intelligence has been insulted so much by a movie, and I saw the Twilight film where the whole climax was a dream twice.
For two movies in all the characters are remarkably thin. I couldn’t come up with descriptions for any of them that last more than a sentence or contain more than two adjectives. I suppose Minho is the brave one and Thomas is the reckless hero. Newt has an English accent and Aris has a weird name. I think Frypan is supposed to be the strong one but I might be wrong. Teresa has almost nothing to do in this movie and barely speaks until it’s almost over but they still expect me to believe she and Thomas have some special connection, maybe by the time this is all over it will be somewhat believable. Patricia Clarkson is suitably menacing in her slightly expanded part as the series’ apparent big bad, but she’s starting to sort of fade in to the scenery as the famous older blond actress playing the big bad has become the new fad among the YA movie swarm. Giancarlo Esposito is a treasure and he gets the most real acting to do in this and while he crushes it I sincerely hope he gets better opportunities soon or that this paid enormously well. Alan Tudyk is featured in a very small role and while he’s utterly transfixing it seems as if the direction offered him was “take everything you’ve ever seen a junkie do on film and do all of it on every line” and it’s awfully strange to see.
While trying to figure out how much of what I didn’t get in this film came from some struggle to adapt the book into the film I read a summary of the book and discovered it basically has nothing to do with the movie they made. Some of the characters are the same and the second act seems to hit a few of the same beats but what are we even doing here at this point? Why make a film so unfaithful to the source material and also so staggeringly terrible? Who is being pleased by this film? Surely not the fans of the book and certainly not the poor audience members with no affinity for this franchise at all. The Scorch Trials is a failure as a film and a failure as an adaptation and it seems like somewhere, with enough effort, they could have gotten one of these things right.
I love autobio graphic novels. I love them to the point that I hope to do one of my own. Fun Home, Blankets, Persepolis, Marbles, Epileptic, Clumsy, there are far too many excellent examples to name. Keeping all this in mind, ComicMix’s own Martha Thomases suggested I read Patrick Atangan’s Fires Above Hyperion to get my thoughts on it. I did in fact read it, and I did in fact have thoughts.
Prior to holding a copy of Fires Above Hyperion I was unfamiliar with Patrick Atangan. He’s an openly gay, multiracial author who has written and drawn many graphic novels before this, including Silk Tapestry and The Yellow Jar, and you can find out more about his work atwww.nbmpub.com. This particular story documents his often antagonist relationship with dating and gay culture spanning two decades.
The story is told chronologically, starting with his Junior Prom, and goes into about eight different anecdotes over the course of twenty years of men he’s been involved with. There was very little reference to what the actual years are that these stories take place, if at all. I’m not sure I realized how much of a pet peeve that is for me until I read this book. When dealing with actual events that happened in real life, I like to have an idea of when they occurred, as it is made clear that gaps do exist between stories. Though, since it is in chronological order, it does make it easy to follow, and this might just be me being nit picky.
Fires Above Hyperion comes in at ninety-six pages. With about eight anecdotes to cover, it gives very little time to delve into the one time encounters, flings, and deeper relationships that make up the story. This ends up getting frustrating for me as the reader, when one of the early anecdotes is about a six-year relationship and how that has as much precious story real estate as an anecdote about a guy Patrick goes on a date with once.
Ultimately, this makes me feel like too much of an outsider. What makes books like Blankets and Clumsy so powerful is that they shared all sorts of little details. It felt like you were going through all the emotions with the author. It’s not as personal and intimate an experience here, and not only does it take away from the story overall, it prevents the humor from landing just right. The dark humor is present, but because I feel detached from the story as I’m reading it, it doesn’t seem to work. Instead of feeling a situation is funny, I end up just feeling kind of bad for Patrick or the person he was with, depending on the particular anecdote.
There is something in this story that is important for the medium, and that’s Patrick’s perspective as a gay man that’s part Latino and part Asian. The vast majority of graphic memoirs dealing with an author who is part of the LGBT community tend to be from a white author. Although this does not take up a lot of Fires Above Hyperion, it is brought up closer to the end of the story, and for me was the most interesting part to read.
Patrick Atangan is certainly talented and was able to lay out this book in a way that was easy to read, and that’s tougher than it sounds. The art itself simple, and in this instance I would argue that it is a bit too simple. Being done digitally, I noticed throughout the book a lot of copying and pasting different illustrations into later panels, and some of the men from earlier in the books are palette swapped and reused later. That did cause confusion at a couple of points, where I was wondering why this character from earlier in the book was back, until I figured out that this was actually a new character. While I don’t think that art being done that way is inherently bad, at ninety-six pages and a price point of $14.99, I think it’s a bit much.
I can’t say I’d give this an overall recommendation. I think it’s a flawed piece that does genuinely try to hit the mark and falls short. However, if you love graphic memoirs, and in particular if you love graphic memoirs from LGBT creators, I encourage you to give Fires Above Hyperion a read. Patrick Atangan has a unique voice and perspective in this field, and this book’s success can help usher in more graphic memoirs by more people whose voices we so desperately need to hear.
In recent years we’ve seen big changes in the Pop Culture retail landscape. Record stores are a thing of the past, of course. We all buy, own and experience music in very different ways than we did even ten years ago. Big toy stores like Toys R Us continue to struggle while small stores become as rare as Tickle Me Elmo was a decade ago. Independent bookstores have struggled, clobbered by online sales and the big chains. In fact, the remaining big retail chains are struggling too.
Barnes & Noble reported that revenue for its fiscal first quarter (which ended on Aug 1st – contradicting all those calendars they sell) at its retail stores and website fell to $939 million, a drop of 1.7% vs. the previous year. EBIDA (earnings before interest, depreciation and amortization) for their retail business fell $21 million, to $45 million, versus a year ago.
But independent bookstores that focus on events, such as author signings and book premiere parties, perform better. In my suburban community just outside of New York City, we have a fantastic bookstore called Bookends. When traffic is clogged in our little downtown, the first thought that comes to mind is “Bookends must have a big celebrity in today for a book signing.”
And my cousin, Yamu, drove five hours to attend the Sammy Hagar book signing at Bookends.
Similarly, comic shops seem to be doing pretty well. The general media has done a good job reporting how comic conventions continue to grow, but the other half of the story is that comic shops, as specialty retailers, are doing pretty well.
I’m researching for more hard data, but there is an undeniable optimism in the air. One unnamed source at a leading publisher told me, ”I can also add to your anecdotal data from retailers by adding that in conversations I’ve had over the past two months with approximately a dozen retailers I have heard YOY gains ranging from 4-9%, and no downturns amongst those I’ve spoken with.”
There are undoubtedly a myriad of reasons contributing to the health of this retail sector. “Success has many fathers…” as the old saying goes. But I’m convinced that one of the key drivers is the ability of comic stores to provide those special events and moments that create memorable experiences for fans.
Sometimes a comic retail shop is like the proverbial office water cooler. Today, passionate fans come armed with their own opinions and news (so much is gleaned from the Internet) eager for the opportunity to share one-to-one.
Today, fans come with a clear expectation of what new products will be available, but are simultaneously ready for a weekly treasure hunt for new goodies. Today, fans come for author/artist signings or to buy tickets to conventions.
It’s so much more about the experience than it is about the accumulation of stuff.
Visits to comic shops are about seeing what’s out there, learning what other people like and finding out about upcoming movies, TV shows and products.
It was in 1998 when the Harvard Business Review published Pine and Gilbert’s Experience Economy article. They argued that American culture had started as an agriculturally based society, then morphed with the industrial revolution, shifted into a service economy and had blossomed into an experiential-based economy.
Hats off to the entrepreneurial comic shop retailers and to the fans that embrace Geek Culture for figuring this out and making it work. It’s a unique retail environment full of marketing potential and community building.
I’m looking forward not only to Local Comic Shop Day on November 28th, but to a lot more experiences in comic shops every week.
The Inker’s Shadow By Allen Say Scholastic Graphix, 80 pages, $19.99
Growing up a Japanese youth during World War II must have been a dizzying time and rich with memories and material for narratives. Allen Say has been mining those remembrances in a series of graphic memoirs, the latest of which is out from Scholastic. The Inker’s Shadow picks up from his The Ink-Keeper’s Apprentice which was released in 1994.
Say was born in 1937 as Japanese aggression was at its height and was the product of a Japanese-American mother and Korean father. Four years after his parents divorced, he apprenticed himself to cartoonist, Noro Shinpei, who became his “spiritual father:” When his real father remarried and started a second family, he moved to the United States and invited Say to join him.
Being a Japanese teen in California less than a decade after the end of World War II brought with it prejudices and tensions that complicated Say’s assimilation to his new home. Here’s where this volume picks up and we see him struggle to make friends, learn English, and continue to develop his art. There was an initial, disastrous experience in military school His father’s inattention did little to help and Say struggled.
Things did not improve until he enrolled at Citrus Union High School, whose principal, Nelson Price, saw the young Say’s potential. Say studied, painted, and held a part-time job while still mastering American cultural mores.
His pages mix prose, illustration, and graphic storytelling seamlessly, carrying the reader through these trying experiences. We see close-minded adults, arrogant, privileged children, and the first true friends Say made in the United States. There’s a poignant moment toward the end as Say prepares to take a girl to the prom only to have his heart crushed.
Still, Say’s perseverance sees him through to his high school graduation and as the book concludes, one chapter closes and we see him on his way.
Overall, this provides a unique view into the immigrant experience at a particular point in American life, just as the Cold War was gripping the country’s psyche and conformity was becoming the watchword of the decade. Say’s individuality is challenged time and again but through his art and work ethic, we watch him gain confidence and skill, putting him on a path that has seen him win the coveted Caldecott Medal, Boston Globe/Horn Book Award, and ALA Notable Book and Best Book for Young Adults.
Even though Supernatural has been on for 10 seasons, I only started watching last August.Though I quickly became a devoted Supernatural fan and by June I wrapped up Season 9. I figured, “Hey, I’ll just wait until season 10 comes out on Netflix,” but when they announced that the Season 10 DVD would be coming out in the Fall at the Comic Con panel, I was like, “No!”And when I got the Blu-Ray (which was released on September 8th), I watched it all in like, a week, because that’s what I do.
The Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Blu-ray, Digital HD and DVD release of Supernatural: The Complete Tenth Season is well worth owning. It contains 23 episodes and over four hours of bonus content.It picks up after Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles) was transformed into a demon and cursed with the Mark of Cain.And of course, Sam (Jared Padalecki) & their angel buddy, Castiel (Misha Collins) must help his brother. This is the detour on the Road to Recovery.Well the scenic route on the road to curing the Mark of Cain.We also get family drama with Crowley, the King of Hell. You probably need to watch Season 10 a couple times. There’s a lot to little stuff in there that you notice after you KNOW the episode.It’s the stuff the internet is filled with.You can’t properly fill the world with Tumblr gifs without watching these episodes many times.This is why you need to own the Season on DVD or Blu-Ray.
Plus the quality is great.In HD, you can see each and every one of Jensen’s freckles.And some might enjoy seeing how silky and soft Jared’s hair looks.Not me, necessarily, but I did notice the Impala changing from a 2-door to a 4-door periodically.What the what?Though maybe you could see that on the regular DVD too.
For those who want to watch on their phones or laptop (out of habit, maybe or because you don’t have a Blu-Ray player in your room and you need to watch with your door shut so your family doesn’t bother you), there is a code with the Blu-Ray to get the episodes on Ultraviolet. You can then watch on all compatible devices & take the Winchesters with you on the road. Yay!
There are lots of bonus features on the discs, like the much awaited gag reel, unaired episodes, episode commentaries, the ComicCon 2014 preview for the season, stuff on mythological influences this season, and more. I was most excited about the behind the scenes for the 200th episode. You should most definitely buy this on Blu-Ray or DVD if you are caught up and start watching the show if you are not. The 11th Season will start this Fall on The CW, so you might want to hurry up. Remember these are the Winchesters, not the Losechesters, so you can’t lose with Supernatural: The Complete Tenth Season.
Maddy’s Commentary & Synopsis of Season 10: For those not afraid of some potential Spoilerishness
Okay,as far as a Season, this one was so amazing!We picked up where we left off in Season 9 with the Mark of Cain turning Dean into a demon after his run-in with Metatron (where he died again), so now Demon!Dean and Crowley are living it up singing karaoke in bars. Meanwhile, Sam’s going nuts and torturing demons, trying to find his missing brother, not knowing he’s a demon, so there’s that. Once Sam finally gets to Dean after being kidnapped by some dude, he locks him up in the Bunker and cures him of his demon-osity. And while all this is going on, our angel buddy Castiel’s stolen grace is fading and his fellow angel, Hannah, hunts down rogue angels while she tries to get Metatron to reveal where the rest of his grace is, but to no avail.
After an episode of regular hunting, we reach my favorite episode: “Fan Fiction”. This is the fabled episode where my two favorite things, theatre and Supernatural, come together.An all girls school performs a musical version of the Supernatural books by Carver Edlund (a.k.a Chuck Shurley) and people who try to shut it down are captured by Calliope. Also in this episode, Sam and Dean are introduced to the popular concept of Destiel (if you read The Tweeks’ column on shipping, you know it’s the Dean/Castiel ship).By the way, you can download the Supernatural: The Musical soundtrack!I also really enjoyed the the next episode, “Ask Jeeves” which is like Clue meets Pretty Little Liars. Everyone is a Liar and they’re solving a murder in a mansion with a bunch of rich people, it’s rad.All the old rich ladies love Sam.
Let’s move on to “Girls, Girls, Girls”. Enter Rowena, a ginger witch who has enemies in high places in Hell’s monarchy, as shown when there are loads of demons chasing her and eventually taking her to Hell’s dungeons. At the end of the episode it is revealed that she is Crowley’s mother and she abandoned him as a child.
In “The Hunter Games,” The Winchesters and Cas attempt to torture the cure for the Mark of Cain out of Metatron who agitates everyone and leaves a cryptic message—“The river ends at the source”. Well, okay, crazy angel scribe. But then next up is an episode where Charlie, my fave, has returned from Oz after fighting a war. She had split her soul in two, good and bad, and she teamed up with the boys to help defeat her rogue bad side.
Then we get some regular hunting episodes, but I want to mention one of them, “About A Boy”.The witch from Hansel and Gretel turns Dean into a teenager, which is very funny. But the fun doesn’t last for the next ep. Castiel discovers that Cain’s been killing people and Crowley,Cas, Dean, and Sam work together to kill Cain. This is when things start to get rough. Sam can tell that the Mark is overpowering Dean and that he’s trying hard to fight it.
The stories move on with more hunting and a continuation of the Rowena sub-plot. Rowena has been banned from practicing magic by the Grand Coven, so Crowley captures Olivette, the High Priestess of the Grand Coven so Rowena can make her case to practice magic. After, she turns Olivette into a hamster and puts her in one of those hamster cages with the wheel that they run around in. Sam decides that he and Cas should sneak around behind Dean’s back to try to find a cure. YOU GUYS DO THIS EVERY SEASON! Can’t you ever learn that none of the Winchesters like being kept from things?But still, they decide to go try and torture the information out of Metatron who reveals that he doesn’t know how to cure the Mark and his message before was utter nonsense. Thanks a lot, Metatron. The only thing he was good for was leading Castiel to his grace, which had a good and a bad side. Cas got his grace back, but Metatron got the angel tablet. Booooo.
After that, Charlie is back, and she has found The Book of the Damned, a book that is believed to hold a cure for the Mark of Cain, but apparently it belongs to the Styne family and so they track Charlie down. I won’t spoil it, but what happens is what drives the rest of the season.There’s some drama about the Book. Dean wants it destroyed, but Sam wants to keep it because he’s still trying to find a cure for Dean even though his brother has given up.
In the midst of all this, Crowley has kicked Rowena out of Hell. Sam brings the Book of the Damned to her and asks if she can read it. She says yes, but in return she wants Crowley dead.She also says that she needs Nadya’s codex. She said that the Men of Letters took it from the Grand Coven’s archives and it’s in their archives. Easy, right? Nope, this is Supernatural. The codex is locked in a box which is protected by a very powerful spell. When you open the box, everyone else in the vicinity starts to hallucinate and is driven to suicide. Creepy. Sam doesn’t know this and so he opens the box. Guess who’s in the house with the box in it? You guessed it: Dean. Also the owner of the house who opened the box when she was a teenager and killed her family. Dean starts to hallucinates that he’s in Purgatory with his vampire friend Benny. Ah, Purgatory. Season 7 was nuts, man, with all those Leviathans.
In the next episode, Sam gives the Book to Rowena who says that Nadya was a very selfish witch and encoded her codex. Sam decides to bring in the big guns to help crack the code. Welcome back, Charlie! The boys have captured one of the Stynes, Eldon, and are trying to get information out of him. He reveals that Syne is not their real name, they are actually the Frankensteins. They had to change their name after Mary Shelley discovered them and wrote a book. Rowena eventually drives Charlie nuts, so she asks Cas to let her out. He says no, but she sneaks out anyway, because she’s Charlie. She cracks the code, but Eldon escapes the Winchesters and starts to attack Charlie.R.I.P Charlie. You were my favorite ginger to ever grace my television, except for Amy Pond, but I’m sure she’s your favorite too.
Dean and Sam give Charlie a proper hunter’s funeral and Dean orders Sam to stop searching for a cure for the Mark of Cain. Sam calls Castiel to tell him of Charlie’s grim end but discovers that her last act on this earth was emailing the code to Sam. He decides to keep going behind Deans back (?????) now that Rowena can read the book. Dean has vowed to kill the entire Frankenstein family and slaughters most of them, then returns to the bunker to find the last three raiding the archives. He kills two of them and listens to the youngest plead for his life, then kills him. This shows that the Mark is truly changing him because the Dean we have gotten to know for ten years would have spared his life. Castiel then shows up and tries to talk to Dean but Dean beats him up and comes very close to killing him while simultaneously breaking my fragile nerd heart. Here we are, the end of the line. The last episode is honestly the best one. There’s this one part where Dean feels like he’s trapped in a place where he doesn’t feel guilty for hurting his friends and after a vampire kill he washes his hands. He does a whole insane Lady MacBeth “Out damn spot” thing. I love Shakespeare so I recognized it immediately. He looks up into the mirror and sees his friends that he’s hurt all bloody and scrubs his hands harder and harder for each person. God bless the writers. He then summons Death, whom I love, and demands that he kill him. Death says that he cannot but he can send him away so he can’t hurt anyone ever again. He then decides to kill Sam so he doesn’t try to rescue him from this far away place. Death hands Dean his scythe to kill Sam, but he kills Death instead. Who knows what this means for people? Is everyone immortal? Rowena then casts the spell to cure the Mark of Cain, which unleashes the Darkness, a pre-Biblical force that is released when the Mark is removed. End of season. Major cliffhanger here, people.
People of a certain age (i.e. “Old”) will remember when in the early days of HBO, a weird ,wild animated film called Twice Upon a Time made the rounds. Many paid it heed because it was executive produced by George Lucas, currently in the process of imprinting our childhoods with a new mythology. But except for a laserdisc and VHS release, the film rather fell off the table, save for dedicated maniacs who remembered it fondly.
The tale of the two audio tracks is somewhat of a confusing tale. There’s a more raunchy version of the dialogue that features a number of curse words – it’s been long assumed that was the original version of the film, but that’s not the case. As Korty explains in the commentary, they were contractually obligated to deliver a family-friendly film, and so they did. But when sneak previews proved unsuccessful, Korty’s producer Bill Couturié (Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt) took it on himself to re-record many of the lines with more salty language, to attempt to make the film more accessible to an older audience. It had the opposite reaction – the film’s limited release resulted in numerous walkouts and demands for refunds, and the wide release was cancelled. The second version is the one that was (accidentally, it’s believed) to HBO, and when it was replaced with the “clean” version for later showings and the video release, the belief arose that the film had been censored – indeed, it had been returned to its original form. Interestingly, even Warner Archives mixes this up – They describe the dirty version as the “Director’s Original Version”, when in fact it’s the PG version that was Korty wanted and delivered.
“I think you’ve been lying” – Oh geez, you THINK?
