Hammer Films bought motion picture rights to Cherie Priest‘s zombie-steampunk novel Boneshaker (published by Tor in 2009) via agent Jennifer Jackson of the Donald Maass Literary Agency.
Hammer has already teamed with Cross Creek Pictures and Exclusive Media Group to produce the film, for which John Hilary Shepherd (Nurse Jackie) is writing the screenplay.
The book is set in an alternate 1880s Seattle, in which the city is walled in and a toxic gas has turned many of its residents into Rotters (zombies). A young widow hunts for her teenaged son in the Seattle underworld while dealing with airship pirates, a criminal overlord and heavily armed refugees.
There has been a tremendous amount of talk in our world about reboots, successful or not, and I just got back from experiencing the year’s single best relaunch of a tired property. Deb, Kate, her guy Mike, and I saw The Muppets and pretty much smiled all the way through, guffawing with pleasantly regularity and wiping away a tear every now and then.
Ladies and gentlemen, please pay attention, because this is how it’s done.
You have to appreciate the efforts from MGM and Warner Bros., trolling through their film libraries and resurrecting titles that only a handful of videophiles might be interested in owning. After transferring these to disc, they are made available as manufactured to order, largely available only through websites. Warner has over 1000 such videos available in every genre imaginable while MGM is catching up quickly. Among the recent releases is one curiosity worth noting for ComicMix readers.
While we are all familiar with Conde Naste’s The Shadow, few beyond Anthony Tollin may recall that there were three really low budget features produced in 1946 from Monogram, all starring Kane Richmond. The second of the trio, Behind the Mask, is now out and if you’re a big fan of the character, you might want to check this one out.
The stories are watered down crime adventures; missing the spark Walter Gibson (writing as Maxwell Grant) brought to the pulp magazine that debuted in 1931 and was still coming out twice-a-month but running out of steam by this point. Visually, the gun-toting vigilante wears a full black face mask rather than the red scarf covering the lower half of his face. The slouch hat and cloak are present along with familiar figures for the magazines and popular radio series.
The fairly pedestrian story, from Arthur Hoerl (Reefer Madness) and George Kallahan involves the murder of Daily Bulletin reporter Jeff Mann with people thinking it’s the Shadow when it’s actually an impostor, the Silhouette. While this is happening, Lamont Cranston is about to marry Margo Lane (Barbara Reed), something that was never going to happen. Oddly, despite being his confidante and agent for countless missions, she now wants him to hang up his .45s simply because they are to be married, as if his cause has become superfluous. Others from the mythos include Shrevvy (George Chandler), the faithful chauffeur.
The mystery is predictable but we take our time getting to the obvious, with comedic asides that do nothing to make the characters appealing or counterpoint the story. Richmond handles the comedic elements far better than he does portraying the cold, cruel crime fighter. The film was handled with a by-the-numbers approach by director Phil Karlson, who apparently never thought to make the low budget work in his favor with camera angles and lighting to create some sense of mood, the same mood so easily created on radio. Trust me, the earlier movie serials were better. As for the other two Monogram films, The Shadow Returns and The Missing Lady, last time I looked, both were available for instant streaming on Netflix.
One of the joys of the current Blu-ray era is that studios have been delving into their libraries and restoring gems, releasing them with varying degrees of love and care. We’ve recently seen, for example, the arrival of musical greats West Side Story and My Fair Lady. But studios have also been working to bring back the really good films that have been somewhat forgotten. They may not get the deluxe restoration or bonus features, but it’s nice to have clean prints and high definition editions so we can still enjoy them at home. I’m reminded of all this because out now is the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. This film, starring Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw, is based on a novel and was one of my favorite films of the 1970s. I was interested to see the Tony Scott remake a few years back but longed for the original which I finally tracked down. I watched it and felt incredibly nostalgic.
The film is far from perfect, but is an excellent time capsule of New York City in the mid-1970s, as crime was rampant, the city was dirty, and the public servants were rumpled and dogged. Four men with colorful pseudonyms — Mr. Green (Martin Balsam); Mr. Grey (Hector Elizondo); Mr. Brown (Earl Hindman); and Mr. Blue (Robert Shaw) — took possession of the subway designated Pelham One Two Three. They make demands of cash, threatening the passengers’ lives. On the other end is the MTA’s Lt. Zach Garber (Matthau), trying to determine how they could pull off the hijacking with such precision. It had to be an inside job and the hunt is on. Amusingly, a delegation from Japan is visiting the MTA control center just as all hell breaks loose and provides some stereotypical comic relief with a killer punchline. The film is filled with a wondefrul supporting cast, from Kenneth McMillan to Jerry Stiller.
A cash-strapped New York has one hour to assemble a million dollars cash and deliver it to the subway. Some of the most knowing sequences are set at the home of the mayor (Lee Wallace, who also was Gotham City’s Mayor in Batman), surrounding by his chief aide (Tony Roberts) and his wife (Doris Roberts).
As directed by Star Trek veteran Joseph Sargent, the film is tense and atmospheric, restrained in the action but with enough humor to make it feel real.
The transfer is solid without being perfect, the original’s graininess and subtle colors are nicely preserved. 20th Century-Fox Home Entertainment has included the original trailer as the sole extra.
Seeing this film in comparison with the 2009 remake is a fasciating example of how our moviemaking has changed, along with audience expectations. Now we get a lot of crashes and cursing and time devoted to bringing the characters to an approximation of three-dimensions. Still, the original remains superior for the tension it creatres and the cold, calculating Shaw matching wits with Matthau, a far more interesting matchup than Denzel Washington and John Travolta.
J.J. Abrams’ Super 8 is now a DVD release and to celebrate, a $5 offcoupon is available at www.Super8Coupon.com, which allows users to print a coupon for $5 off the DVD or Blu-ray from 11/22 – 11/27.
Meantime, Paramount Home Entertainment is inviting fans across the country to enter into the world of mystery and adventure created by director J.J. Abrams in his sensational coming-of-age story Super 8 with a unique Twitter promotion. In celebration of the film’s home entertainment debut on November 22, PHE will hide Blu-ray/DVD Combo Packs signed by J.J. Abrams in 20 cities across the U.S. and begin offering clues to the locations today via the film’s @Super8Movie Twitter account and Super8Tweet.com. Each day, the clues will get more specific until all of the prizes are found.
Conan the Barbarian was such a major figure in the heyday of the pulp magazines, that he made an indelible impression on readers. When Lancer Books took over the mass market paperback publishing for the Cimmerian in the 1960s, the Frank Frazetta cover images were so powerful, you had to notice. Since then, different generations have their own impression of how Robert E. Howard’s character and world should look. After Frazetta came Barry Smith and John Buscema and after them came Arnold Schwarzenegger and then…not much. The syndicated Conan featuring Ralf Möller barely made a ripple and as the rights went from owner to owner, he faded a bit from memory. Even the wonderful Dark Horse Comics adaptations have not quite made the stir the original comics did nor have the paperback originals from Tor and others had that same spark.
As a result, there was a lot riding on Lionsgate’s revival of the character and, sad to say, they failed at their task. Conan the Barbarian, which came out in August, was poorly marketed and came up short in the writing, production design, acting and directing, resulting in a worldwide box office of anemic proportions. Now, the movie is coming out this week as a Blu-ray combo pack and we get a chance to consider what went wrong.
This reminds me to renew my membership in the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (no, they aren’t called to defend this one, but they do great work both here and abroad):
The trial in Tunisia over the broadcasting the animated Iranian film [[[Persepolis]]] was cut short Thursday after an uproar in the courtroom. Lawyers for the two sides shouted at each other and exchanged insults inside the courtroom, prompting the judge to adjourn the trial until Jan. 23. The controversy over the film illustrates how Tunisia, the country that started the wave of uprisings that have swept through the Arab world this year, is struggling to work out the role of Islam in society after years of officially enforced secularism.The privately owned Nessma television station provoked an angry reaction last month when it broadcast a dubbed version of Iranian director Marjane Satrapi’s award-winning adaptation of her graphic novels about growing up during Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.The film, which won the jury prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, contains a scene showing a character representing God. Depictions of God are considered sacrilege in Islam.
In August, I raved a bit about Griff the Invisible, a charming independent film about man who dreams of being a superhero. The movie opened and closed without much attention, which is shame because it dared to think big on a tiny budget. Fortunately, though, the film is coming out this week on DVD and is well worth your attention.
This Australian film was written and directed by Leon Ford, who did some commentary on camera with the 50th Anniversary DC Universe poster seen over his shoulder, a testament to his affection for the super-hero. His movie had plenty of heart, anchored by a dynamite performance by Ryan Kwanten.
Fantasy and reality is approached by Griff, a lonely salaryman and Melody (Maeve Dermody), a scientist challenging the laws of physics. They make an unlikely, but thoroughly charming couple of misfits, falling in love.
Shot on 16mm for atmosphere, the film transfers nicely to Blu-ray but lacks the sharpness of the bigger budgeted behemoth super-hero films that also came out this year. Same with the audio so overall, it’s fine on disc and watching it on a home screen makes it feel more intimate and touching than on a Cineplex screen. In some ways, this is better at home than anywhere else.
The disc comes with only a handful of extras, all a little perfunctory such as the commentary form Ford, Producer, Nicole O’Donohue, and actor Patrick Brammall. Ford is also the focus of director diary videos which are too short to be worth seeing. He touches on his thoughts before, during, and after production but never really says anything. There are also several pieces under the umbrella title Anatomy of a Scene — Opening Sequence (3:16), the All-In-One Shot (2:16), and the Anyhoo (2:00) — but is shot and edited in such a way that there’s little to be learned. There’s also the 4:08 making of featurette that again is too short to be worthwhile. Brammall also hosts a 1:24 set tour that shows you only brief sections and again leaves you wanting something with substance. The best part of the extras are the 7:36 of deleted scenes, none of which were vital to the story but did flesh out the story and characters.
Clint Eastwood talks about the cinematic challenge of directing a film that spans a long stretch of history, plus will he will ever go in front of the camera again? Plus – Howard Stern on NBC? It might happen!
Imagine the BBC fifteen years ago, before the current explosion of science fiction and fantasy fare. It was a dowdy set of channels, working on the cheap, and not being necessarily accommodating to the needs of its shows. Instead, they often said we have a hole for X, please take your concept and make it fit.
While their schedules were not entirely devoid of genre fare, it came few and far between with offerings like [[[Neverwhere]]], which aired on BBC Two and was written by Neil Gaiman, in the flush of his success in America with Sandman. He met with producer Lenny Henry during England’s annual Comic Relief event and they began talking about a story. Lenny imagined a society below London and that was enough of a spark to get Gaiman going.
He conjured up a fully realized fantasy world and used the character of Richard Mayhew, a thoroughly typical citizen, who does a good deed and is rewarded with being plunged into this realm. The story of Neverwhere has been told and retold, first as a BBC miniseries, complete with 1996 novelization by Gaiman, and then, years later, a comic book adaptation from Vertigo. There’s been a steady stream of talk of a film version but it remains trapped in a realm of its own called Development Hell.
The BBC at the time treated it like any of its other broadcasts, giving the fantasy a budget fit for a situation comedy and then insisting it be produced in thirty-minute installments coupled with the even odder demand that it be shot on video not film. The result was an unsatisfactory event that has left Gaiman and fans demanding a Redo.
Instead, the BBC is releasing a fifteenth anniversary DVD edition of the miniseries on Tuesday. They had a Region 2 edition around for some time now but this is a first official release in the States. (more…)
