An Autopsy of the Dead Films, Part 2

In our second part in this series, we have an interview with director Jeff Carney and producer Jim Cirronella, two independent filmmakers who pooled together their enthusiasm and research to make Autopsy of the Dead, the latest documentary on George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead.

The chief difference between Autopsy and some of the previous docs - Night of the Living Dead: 25th Anniversary Documentary (1993), for example – is its focus on the people not named Romero, Hardman, or Russo.

Many of the interviews consist of participants whose involvement with filmmaking may have been this one-time 1968 project, but collectively they present views and stories that are sometimes strikingly different from the standard replies in the usual anniversary docs and featurettes fans expect DVD producers to assemble every time a year ends with the number “0” or “5.”

Part 1 of this Q&A focuses on the making of Autopsy of the Dead, whereas Part 2 addresses the new soundtrack album produced by Cirronella, and details of the little-known Capitol Hi-Q stock music library from which Romero assembled his striking score.

Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

Elvis at 75

My pop culture /cultural familiarity with Elvis Presley is very minimal.

I was still playing with metal Hot Wheels cars (metal, people, not the el cheapo plastic ones) when he died in 1977. I have a vague memory of the TV concert that aired that year, and I was struck by how big and sweaty the old man was, except he wasn’t old at all – certainly not at 42.

Dying at 42 is just ridiculous, particularly when you’ve got rockers in their sixties still making decent music, and furthering their skills in different idioms.

Soon after the King’s death came his televised funeral, the tribute specials on TV, myriad news items, and the lengthy saga of whether Dr. Thomas Noguchi was responsible for Elvis’ death by prescribing a steady amount of prescription baddies.

Basically a lot of negative stuff, as well as images that really said nothing of the man’s talent and impact on popular music (although I do recall seeing record store windows in Germany filled with various Elvis albums in 1978, which I guess were testaments to the lengthy mourning process fans were experiencing a year after his death).

Nevertheless, the fact you could buy velvet Elvis portraits, lampshades, and busts in Niagara Falls (the Canadian side) in the late eighties wasn’t flattering; having nothing to do with the Falls, they were perhaps symbolic of what happens when the artist is cheapened by disposable crap in a place with which he had no connection, at least personally.

The only positive impression I had of the King was in the 1979 mini-series starring Kurt Russell, who managed to portray a hungry creative force who had to break into the world arena to further his art, as well as a delight in sharing his work with people – something that got lost when he started to make too many movies and stepped away from his first calling.

It seems to happen to singers and even composers once in a while – dabbling in film, doing well, but then losing interest or getting trapped in outright crap – but Elvis was a unique case because of that long, kind of brutal contract that mandated he deliver a lot of movies when inside he probably lost touch with his musical mojo. He could still sing in the films, but the songs weren’t inspiring, and one suspects his broadest fans knew the music was going downhill in these cheap movies, until it seems once his last film was done – Change of Habit (released in 1969) – he said ‘The hell with this,’ and did the ’68 Comeback Special and the ’69 Vegas sets.

By 1969, the mojo was back, and for a while he satisfied fans with new material, new performances of classic material, as well as songs reaching back to the gospel music of his youth.

Elvis on Tour (Warner Home Video – DVD and Blu-ray) provides a sampling of his peak seventies years before the decline, and while the fancy split-screen concert film / documentary has some flaws, it shows the King as a great showman, and as an artist who loved making music. The joy is so evident in his interactions with the singers, the choir, the orchestra, and his band, and Elvis perhaps provided a template that showed how other musicians could make music again after their own meteoric rise, and the popularity began to wane when new styles and new faces were pushed up front by the labels.

Elvis reinvented himself, and that’s quite an accomplishment when other artists became one-hit wonders, and ephemeral pop culture icons specific to a few years in music history. If you can survive and evolve over 20+ years and remain valid, that demands some respect.

Elvis’ life has been portrayed in dramas several times – all on TV – and yet none has been wholly satisfying, but the first was the two-part drama Elvis, which starred Russell, and marked the first of four teamings with directed by John Carpenter.

That teleplay’s absence on DVD probably stemmed from apathy, music rights, and maybe getting pushed aside every time a new dramatization was about to be broadcast, like the 2005 mini-series with Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Rather than cash-in and release the damned thing, the ’79 production stayed in the vaults, and whether its release was planned all along for the King’s 75th birthday or was just plain good timing, Shout! Factory’s release is overall pretty pleasing.

Not present: the commentary that should’ve been recorded between Carpenter and Russell, but the teleplay’s out there now on DVD (and Blu-ray in the U.K.), although there are a few issues with the transfer and running time, which I’ve addressed by comparing the original broadcast version with the new DVD.

Check out the reviews for more details…

Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

Abandoned Matinees III - The Cinema Theater Varia (Belgium)

Forbidden Places has a great page on this Art Nouveau theatre that was built between 1910-1913, and has remained derelict since 1986. Efforts to restore this poured concrete edifice have apparently floundered, and it remains a home to pigeons.

A photographer gained permission to enter the theatre with a video crew in 2004, but it’s his lovely photos that reveal the swerving lines, thin metal railings, narrow seating steps, and faint remnants of coloured walls and moldings that give a hint of this gem’s former décor.

The interior’s been stripped down to its concrete superstructure, but one can imagine it filled with nattily dressed patrons, either for a theatre show, or the movies, since it was also outfitted with an Italian projector.

To view the stills at Forbidden Places, click HERE. It’s also worth examining the video link on the page (French only), and reading some of the comments.

Further details of the interior – surviving wall colours, bathroom floor tiles, stairwells, light pools – are at Friched.net, taken in 2005, and there’s a shot stills montage on YouTube (archived also at http://www.photurbex.magix.net/), taken in 2010.

Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

An Autopsy of the Dead Films, Part 1

Next week marks the home video release of George A. Romero’s latest zombie flick, Survival of the Dead (2009), a film that for some critics signals a nadir in the horror director’s career.

I still think Romero’s best film is Knightriders (1981), largely because it’s a drama about a tightly knitted social group whose entire make believe world of living in the past is slowly disintegrating.

The Renaissance troupe are constantly fighting off aggressive contemporary folks (who also happen to be the paying patrons that keep the itinerants alive), as well certain levels of modern technology that can poison their chosen lifestyle. The troupe has a moral code that stabilizes their world, but it also breeds primal jealousy and infighting.

Although it co-stars Tom Savini (who’s really very good in a straight role), Knightriders has no gore or zombies because it’s a drama, and it shows Romero can create quiet social commentary unfettered by the walking dead clichés that he’s chosen to work with in recent years, although it’s perhaps fair to say that this film is very much a product of the seventies, albeit made maybe 5 years too late, after its target audience had aged, ascended within the evil corporate structure, and made down payments on BMWs.

The local arms of the law in Knightriders aren’t very friendly, and the troupe just want to live peacefully by their own code, and rise according to their own social hierarchy. They’re fringe folks, but there’s no harm in their madness to live 70% in an electrified, gas-fueled Middle Age.

Knightriders is representative of a benevolent social order that struggles and ultimately thrives – something absent in Romero’s gloomy horror films – and one wonders if the troupe represents the ideal society for its director, because in his zombie films, he tend to fixate on fascist element that eventually upset a few folks trying to maintain an idyllic life within a world gone mad.

You see it (in varying levels) in the first three zombie films – Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978), and Day of the Dead (1985) - as well as in The Crazies (1973), which is why those films have been targeted for remakes in the last few years; what’s striking is how those remakes – Tome Savini’s version of NOTLD (1990), Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead (2004), and Breck Eisner’s The Crazies (2010) – actually work when transposed to the present day.

However, when the aim is on a cash-in - the ineptly doodled, straight-to-video garbage Day of the Dead 2: Contagium (2005) - or a gimmicky, low-rent knock-off – Night of the Living Dead 3D (2006) – it just fails miserably.

If Romero is making use of the few funds he’s getting from the upscale remakes, perhaps under the influence of tunnelvision, he’s chosen to work exclusively in the zombie arena, and that infers he either feels there’s more social critique to be wrought from his walking dead caricatures, or he’s lost any interest in expanding his own creative boundaries.

Perhaps it’s a tangent that has to run its course, but Land of the Dead (2005) was a dud, Diary of the Dead (2007) failed to ignite his brand of zombie horror for the digital generation, and the poorly received Survival of the Dead (2009) is poised for a home video release this coming Tuesday.

Before revisiting the last three Dead efforts, let’s start with an autopsy, or more precisely, some of the documentary materials out there that cover the history of the first film from 1968.

Romero & Co. have been interviewed to death about ‘Why NOTLD is a classic,’ but there are two docs out there worth tracking down for less canned examinations of the film’s genesis, production, and impact.

The most recent effort is Autopsy of the Dead (2009), from filmmakers Jeff Carney and Jim Cirronella, who present an alternative angle to the film’s production in Pittsburg and Evans City.

The pair sought out many of the locals whose one-time involvement with the magic of the movies was Romero’s zombie film, and the result is a doc that brings out voices from the margins, and fills in some of the missing perspectives; it’s very much a film made by fans for NOTLD’s ardent fans.

The doc runs a length 144 mins. – a bit heavy in one sitting – but doable if you break it up in its two natural halves: straight Q&As with bit players, technicians and locals, and in the second half, chronological recollections of filming at the farmhouse, where the posse routed out the walking dead with shotguns and fire.

Included among the extras are montages of the original locations, vintage publicity materials, a rare 1967 newsreel that provides behind-the-scenes footage of the posse hunt sequence, and an interview with Rick Catizone of The Animators, who designed the film’s still montages and end credits.

Autopsy is also an unofficial companion piece to the first NOTLD doc, Night of the Living Dead: 25th Anniversary Documentary (1993) by Thomas Brown. Released long ago on VHS, the doc marked the first time Romero, writer John Russo, and fellow co-producers Russell Streiner, and Karl Hardman were interviewed together in a lively and democratic roundtable discussion of the film – a kind of pre-DVD audio commentary session.

Hardman and wife Marilyn Eastman also discuss the make-up, as well as the stock music used by Romero, drawn from the Capitol Hi-Q library – music that was finally released on a superb CD this year by Jim Cirronella.

I’ve uploaded reviews of the two docs, and will have interviews with Jeff Carney and Jim Cirronella shortly, covering the genesis and production of Autopsy of the Dead. That’ll be followed by a review of the NOTLD CD at Rue Morgue’s blog site, plus an interview with Cirronella on the challenges of releasing music from a little-known stock music library.

Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

Piranhas, Piranhas, Everywhere - Part 1

Although the review for Alexandre Aja’s Piranha 3D (Alliance) was uploaded way back on Saturday, it’s been a busy week, hence it’s ‘official’ announcement in this blog, alongside an interview with the film’s composer, Michael Wandmacher.

I interviewed Wandmacker back in 2008 / 2009 regarding his first 3D film, My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009), and in our new conversation we discuss scoring for 3D, in addition to the score’s orchestral-electronic design, and Alexandre Aja, maker of some of the bleakest statements on humanity. (Go see Furia. Not happy film. Nope.)

My review of the Lakeshore soundtrack album (score only) will appear in an upcoming issue of Rue Morgue. Though not as overtly theme-based as Cry_Wolf and My Bloody Valentine, it is a fun score, with a clear emphasis on Angry Fish Wanting Meat.

Speaking of Rue Morgue Magazine, those wanting further details on the 2010 as well as Joe Dante’s 1978 version of Piranha should check out the current August issue, which is loaded with details, and another beautiful cover.

It’s actually not fair to use the term “version” because the 2010 film isn’t a sequel nor remake of anything; it’s just another killer fish tale, with its director and writers drawing the bets ideas from classic 70s drive-in fare, which also includes the last entry, Piranha 2: The Spawning, where the fish fly. (Part Duh was directed by then-newcomer James Cameron, and featured a score by veteran genre composer Stelvio Cipriani.)

Next week in Part 2 of this peek at the Piranha franchise, I’ll have reviews of Dante’s 1978 film, as well as Pino Donaggio’s score, as well as Roger Corman’s 1995 cash-in remake for cable TV.

Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

Soundtrack News & Upcoming Releases

Before I get to the latest tally of new and upcoming soundtrack releases, I have to point out a recent announcement from A&E, who are releasing a fully-loaded Blu-ray edition of Space: 1999, Season 1 in Region 1 / Region A land. Yes, that series, which looked great, sounded great, had awesome GIANT TOYS (some selling for hundreds on eBay now), but was saddled with wretched scripts, and the worst acting of Martin Landau's career.

I'm a partial fan of the series, in the sense of having a perverted fascination in watching a TV concept that was developed after the design had been finalized, the toys had been built and shipped to stores, and the actors had been cast before any scripts were written and vetted for production. The show's reputation as a gorgeous production of nothingness are true, but a lot of creativity went into the visual and aural conceptualizations of Season 1, which is why grown-up kids remember it for sights and sounds that were sometimes quite weird. (Season 2, which will inevitably follow, is another matter. Arguably the worst re-tooling of a concept, re-aligning it for kids born with pudding instead of synaptic brain matter.)

Click HERE for details revealed thus far, which included isolated score tracks. Still no confirmation on whether the North American release will contain all of the British Network extras, but a full-blown special edition has been due for a long time coming, and say what you will about the series, because I can't wait to see how Moonbase Alpha and its limitless supply of Eagles will look in HD. (I just hope among the extras someone will explain how the base never managed to run out of the combustible space vehicles.)

Sony has announced David Lean's Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) for a 2-disc BR release Nov. 2, though no confirmation if, among the new and old extras, there will be the isolated score track from the older "Limited Edition" 2-disc DVD release from 2000 that's been in print for 10 years. That track, incidentally, features quite a bit of music not on the original soundtrack album.

Kino Lorber (formerly Kino) released more specs on the upcoming BR and DVD editions of Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) , details of which have been snipped and posted at the Digital Bits.

Lastly, Intrada will reveal their next Special Collection release on Mon. Aug. 31st. Seeing how the blasted Predator CD was gone in around a day, it may be worth your while to act fast when the new title's revealed, since it's also limited to 3000 copies.

Based on the label's Grand Poobah blog, some have conjectured it may be John Barry's The Deep (1977). Of course no one can nor will confirm it, but if you read the details, there's something awfully familiar, since the original LP sold well, and the film was a pooling of two studios - EMI and Columbia. The LP was released by Casablanca Records & Filmworks (which I believe is owned by Universal) and was never released (legally) on CD, and the score (likely owned by Sony) has been something Barry fans have wanted for decades.

Wholly coincidental, a post at FSM's message board contains a link to a vintage TV ad for the soundtrack album. The platter came out in standard black vinyl, and in a special blue vinyl pressing, with a mini-poster.

If The Deep is indeed a mere 5 days away from getting a 2-disc release, it sure would be nice if the extended TV edition one day makes it to Blu-ray via seamless branching. The current Columbia BR has a portion of the extra scenes integrated into the film, but I'd like to see the full 50+ mins. of sublime dullness on disc, purely for curioisty, and to see what footage matched the comic book I bought as a kid, and re-read many times, not knowing some scenes were not in the theatrical cut.

It was convention at the time for producers to sometimes shoot extra scenes for TV, since profanity and, in this case, Bisset's wet boobies, couldn't be shown in detail on the, er, boob tube. The cosmetic filler material also allowed networks to inflate a film to a bulbous 3 hours, allowing for a tightly packed 2-parter, and lots of extra ad revenue gleaned over two nights. These broadcasts were genuine TV events for viewers, since some of these flicks weren't out on video, and in many cases the extra footage was never seen in any other venue except on TV. The only exception of late is Waterworld (1995), which was released on DVD ( but not BR) in a longer edition, with the footage shown on network TV.

Moving on, below is the latest tally of new and upcoming soundtracks from around planet Earth.

If you're a label and would like to have your latest release listed and reviewed at KQEK.com, feel free to shoot a query, via editor2010 "at" kqek "dot" "com". (Just omit the parentheses... but if you're a spammer, please include them, so that your gobbledeegook get bounced to our special representative in Pinikindu, who will ensure your words of wisdom are fully appreciated.)

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NEW AND UPCOMING SOUNDTRACKS:

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ABKCO Records (USA)

Middle Men (Brian Tyler)

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Alhambra (Germany)

Themba (Annette Focks)

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BSX Records (USA)

Dexter: Season 4 (Daniel Licht)

Going Up of David Lev, The (Jerry Goldsmith) --- ltd. 2000 copies

2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams (Patrick Copeland)

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Chris’ Soundtrack Corner (Germany)

Papaya dei caraibi / Papaya: Love Goddess of the Cannibals (Stelvio Cipriani) --- early Sept.

Vai gorilla / The Hired Gun (Fabio Frzzi, Franco Bixio, Vince Tempera) --- early Sept.

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Colosseum (Germany)

Hochzeitspolka (Jacob Ilja) --- Sept. 24

L’arbre / The Tree (Grégoire Hetzel) --- Sept. 1

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Disques Cinemusique (Canada)

25 Ans De Musique De Cinéma Français (various)

Suite Francaise, Intermedes et autres oeuvres orchestrales (Mauice Jaubert)

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Film Score Monthly (FSM) (USA)

CHiPs, Vol. 3: Season 4 (1980-1981) (Alan Silvestri, John Parker) --- ltd. 1000 copies

Dragon Seed (Herbet Stothart) --- 2 CDs, ltd. 1000 copies

Hunters are for Killing (Jerry Fielding) --- ltd. 2000 copies

TV Omnibus: Volume One (1992-1976) (various) --- 5 CDs, ltd. 2000 copies

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GDM (Italy)

Addio zio Tom / Goodbye Uncle Tom (Riz Ortolani)

Anastasia mio fratello / My Brother Anastasia (Piero Piccioni) --- early Sept.

Drammi Gotici / Gothic Dramas (Ennio Morricone) --- early Sept.

Un tranquillo posto di campagna / A Quiet Place in the Country (Ennio Morricone)

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Intrada (USA)

Cohen and Tate (Bill Conti) --- ltd. 1200 copies

Maxie (Georges Delerue) --- ltd. 1200 copies

Mean Season, The (Lalo Schifrin) --- ltd. 1200 copies

SpaceCamp (John Williams) --- ltd. 3000

These Thousand Hills + The Proud Ones (Leigh Harline, Lionel Newman) --- ltd. 1200 copies

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Kritzerland Records (USA)

Billy Barnes’ L.A. (Billy Barnes) --- ltd. 1000 copies --- early Sept.

One-Eyed Jacks (Hugo Friedhofer) --- 2 CDs, ltd .1000 copies --- mid-Sept.

Saint Joan (Mischa Spoliansky) --- ltd. 1000 copies

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Lakeshore Records (USA)

Dinner for Schmucks (Theodore Shapiro)

Piranha 3D (Michael Wandmacher)

Vampires Suck (Christopher Lennertz) --- Aug. 31

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La-La Land Records (USA)

Batman (Danny Elfman) --- 2 CDs, ltd. 5000 copies

Beach Blanket Bingo (Les Baxter)

Krull (James Horner) --- 2 CDs, ltd. 3000 copies

Lone Gunman, The / Harsh Realm (Mark Snow) --- ltd. 2000 copies

Predators (John Debney, Alan Silvestri)

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MovieScore Media (Sweden)

Deadline (Carlos Jose Alvarez)

Legend of Silkboy, The (Alain Mayrand)

Within (Jeff Toyne)

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Perseverance Records (USA)

Red Sonja (Ennio Morricone)

Unforgettable (Christopher Young) --- ltd. 1200 copies --- coming soon

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Polskie Radio (Poland) --- see Soundtracks.pl

Ojciec Mateusz (Michael Lorenc)

Projekt Dziecko (Maciej Zielinski)

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Silva Screen (USA / UK)

Classic Greek Film Music (various) --- Oct. 16

Expendables, The (Brian Tyler)

Get Carter (Roy Budd)

Stieg Larsson’s Millenium Trilogy (Jacob Groth)

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Brad Fiedel)

Town, The (Harry Gregson-Williams) --- Sept. 14

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Tadlow (UK)

Lawrence of Arabia (Maurice Jarre) --- 2 CDs, re-recording

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Varese Sarabande (USA)

Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (Christopher Lennertz)

Charlie St. Cloud (Rolfe Kent)

Hachiko: A Dog's Story (Jan A.P. Kaczmarek) --- Oct. 12

Lost: The Final Season (Michael Giacchno) --- Sept. 14

Nanny McPhee Returns (James Newton Howard)

Never Let Me Go (Rachel Portman) --- Sept. 14

Pillars of the Earth, The (Trevor Morris) --- Sept. 21

Spartacus (Alex North) --- 6 CDs + 1 DVD

Spartacus: Blood and Sand (Joseph LoDuca) --- Sept. 21

True Blood: Season 2 (Nathan Barr) --- Sept. 14

Tudors: Season 3, The (Trevor Morris)

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Warner Sunset (USA)

Inception (Hans Zimmer)

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Water Tower Music (Warner Bros.) (USA)

Batman: Under the Red Hood (Christopher Drake) – Amazon on-demand

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This handy-dandy list was compiled from various sources, including catalogue announcements at Screen Archives Entertainment, Soundtrackcollector.com, Chris’ Soundtrack Corner, and Intrada.

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Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

No Superpowers Whatsoever

Superheroes are supposed to have special powers, but what if the heroes are just normal people, if not inept?

Mark Millar’s Kick-Ass actually grew from the writer’s own wish at 15 to become a superhero with his friend. Using maybe sticks and teen angst, they would somehow keep the fishy ones in line so the rest of their Scottish townsman could live in peace and harmony.

That concept morphed into a story about a high school kid who figured wearing a costume and emulating a superhero would better his community, his life, and chances at getting a girlfriend. Woven into that narrative is an unlikely father-daughter crime fighting duo (daughter Mindy being bloodthirsty at eleven…), and a mob boss with a son bored being a nerdy teenager.

The Losers are heroes of sorts – ex-Specials Ops wronged and left for dead in South America by a CIA villain – but aside from training, unique skill-sets and fringe personalities, they’re nothing special. Mortals who take a good punch or gunshot, and laugh about it in spite of the smarting pain.

Both films didn’t make any box office history this year, but they deserve a look on home video because they do reflect the qualities that made the original comics so popular (and they’re very fun).

The Losers (Warner Home Video) sports a great Blu-ray transfer and decent extras on the original comic and the film’s production, and the Kick-Ass BR (Canada: Maple, U.S.: Lionsgate) is loaded with detailed featurettes and a feature-length documentary on every aspect of the film’s genesis, production, and reception.

Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

News Trims

With two days left in the 5th Toronto After Dark Film Festival, the last films in the lineup are perhaps the most controversial – Steven R. Monroe’s remake of Meir Zarchi’s I Spit on Your Grave (1978), screening tonight, and Tom Six’ wacked-out Human Centipede (2010), which closes the festival on Friday.

Grave may be the more divisive of the two because Zarchi’s original was, according to the director, an anti-rape film. The digest version of its genesis: when Zarchi and a friend brought a young rape victim to their local station, she was treated with contempt, and his seething outrage at the police’s callousness was channeled into a script that focused on a young woman’s brutal revenge for the ongoing assaults she suffered at an isolate lake resort.

Zarchi kept that backstory secret until he recorded a commentary for Elite’s 2003 DVD, and while Grave is an ugly film, it’s supposed to present rape as a despicable act; the revenge is pure dramatic payback. The screen story is fairly straightforward, but I wonder if the reportedly grittier revenge sequences in Monroe’s 2010 version will be regarded as tonal updates for contemporary audiences accustomed to nasty images, or will stop the film cold for the sadistic minutia inherent to torture porn sequences, and cause any anti-rape message in the film’s subtext to virtually evaporate. There is a point where style can smother a message – presuming a message was there in the first place.

In a segment of Talking Movies, the BBC series recently focused on A Film Unfinished (2010), Yael Hersonski’s documentary on a planned propaganda film the Nazis were making as a ‘record’ of Jewish hypocrisy for future generations of Third Reichians. Shot in the Warsaw Ghetto, the project was abandoned and sat undisturbed for 70 years, including raw footage that hadn’t been edited into any assembly version.

The BBC’s report features an interview with Hersonski, and David Fenkel from Oscilloscope Pictures, the company releasing the film, in spite of it being slapped with an R rating by the MPAA. The restrictive rating, and some editorial comparisons with the PG-13 rated 1998 documentary The Last Days, are covered in this Cinematical piece.

Lastly, the Digital Bits’ Bill Hunt weighs in again on the issue of scrubbing out film grain in overly sanitized Blu-ray transfers, although this time he was given an opportunity to visit Universal and speak with their technicians regarding the disappointment film fans have expressed towards Spartacus (1960), Out of Africa (1985), and Flash Gordon (1980).

“… The reality is that market for most of these titles - especially catalog BD titles like Flash Gordon - is really driven by enthusiasts, many of whom know the film better than all of us (in the room) and probably already own multiple copies on DVD and even laserdisc. Enthusiasts are willing to buy the film again on Blu-ray, but if they're going to pay $29.99 or $39.99, they demand the highest possible A/V quality - meaning one that's true to the original film presentation - and they at least want all of the previous DVD extras to carry over. So the transfer and mastering work really needs to be done with these enthusiasts in mind.”

That’s a pretty clear statement on why people get fussy over transfers – music or film – and why technicians and studio execs shouldn’t be swayed by the wow factor of new scrubbing software and restoration tricks. They key is finding a balance that removes some of the pesky flaws without ruining the visual design of the cinematographer and director.

The same goes for sound mixes, particularly those 5.1 remixes that weren’t always the best. A personal example is Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977), of which the best sound mix is on the old Image laserdisc; it’s Dolby Pro Logic, but it’s far punchier than the 5.1 remix on the old Anchor Bay / Blue Underground reissue.

Hunt also cites two related pieces regarding James Cameron’s involvement in fixing some flaws in Aliens (1986) for the film’s upcoming BR release, and Columbia’s new HD master for David Lean’s Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). (The only shot in Aliens that’s been a sore spot for more than 20 years is the crash-and-rollover of the rescue ship, after an alien creature kills the crew and causes the ship to nearly smother the survivors hoping for a flight back to the mothership. The optical processing is grainy and blotchy, and unlike other shots in the film, the lighting discrepancies make it clear the actors were filmed in front of a blue screen.)

Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

Abandoned Matinees II

This week’s Abandoned Matinees focuses on a pair of French photographers with a fascination for things once elegant, and now seemingly irreparably destroyed by the elements of water, apathy, and repurposing.

In The Ruins of Detroit (announced for print, but excerpted online), photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Mefre showed the tarnished elegance of Detroit’s corporate and economic buildings from interior shots, but perhaps the most haunting were views of the active and populated sections of main streets through the blown-out windows of derelict towers, now giant works of architectural art that stand as ghosts - too solid to crumble into total ruin because they were built with far too much care. (A related piece on the photo-essay was published at Ruin with a View.)

Their more recent project covers former U.S. movie palaces, some of which have new lives as churches, furniture storage, or swap meet stands, while others appear as gems awaiting secondary lives as entertainment houses –places where the spirit of these buildings could would once again find joy in being appreciated by the people they were meant to serve.

Other buildings aren’t so lucky. Detroit’s United Artists Theater, for example, is a devastating example of horrific neglect; it’s as though its owners are stubbornly determined to let natural elements destroy the once-palatial theatre, but it just won’t freakin’ die.

The work of Marchand and Mefre is showcased via the New York Times (see “Tattered Palaces”) as well as their own website, and if that final image of the United Artist Theater interior leaves you with an intense desire to see more (oh, it’ll hurt…), you can find images of its current state at Flickr, courtesy of Alan Machielse, and SNWEB.ORG Photography (starting with rooftop views of Detroit before views of the building interiors).

And then there’s Forgotten Detroit, which offers a photo-essay on the theatre’s glory years, a detailed chronological essay at Buildings of Detroit, and the UA Theater’s MySpace and Facebook pages. Seriously.

Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

Durham County and Other TV News

Uploaded is a review of Durham County: Season 2 from Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada (the series is distributed by Well Go USA in the States), the Gemini-winning series that once again shows how weird Canadians are, and why we shouldn’t build our suburban snout-homes close to hydro wire towers.

Those of you attending Rue Morgue’s upcoming Festival of Fear can also meet series creators and cast on Saturday Aug. 28th at 12:30pm. The hour-long panel discussion (hosted by CTV’s Richard Crouse) will feature actress Michelle Forbes, co-star Greyston Holt, series-co-creator & director Adrienne Mitchell, producer Janis Lundman, and co-creator Laurie Finstad-Knizhnik.

Other TV news:

Some may have heard that the legal headaches surrounding the original Bionic Woman and Six Million Dollar Man series for DVD release were sorted out, which is why there will finally be Region 1 releases of both series.

This far, Season 1 of Woman will debut Oct. 19 ($39.98 SRP), whereas the full run of Man will be available first as a Time-Life exclusive, much in the way Get Smart debuted. Hopefully it won’t take an eternity for the series to trickle down to standard retail outlets, because for those not willing to make that exclusive leap for this 40-DVD set, well, it’s not fair!

Coming out Aug. 31 is the complete series of Thriller (also Universal), starring Boris Karloff, and featuring some isolated score materials.

Image, who recently announced the Blu-ray debut of the original Twilight Zone: Season 1 for Sept. 14, will release Season 2 on BR Nov. 16 (also at $99.98 SRP).

Like Season 1, it’ll contain the same extras (including those isolated scores) from the DVD set, plus new material: 25 commentaries by author Marc Scott Zicree with some of the series writers, additional interviews (some archival), and 15 radio dramas.

Getting Zicree to provide commentaries makes sense, given the author / historian wrote the definitive series guide in 1982 (my copy is quite shop-worn by now), and each episode is a microcosm of the top talent that was around during the late fifties / early sixties, spanning composers, directors, writers, and actors.

Coming out via Shout Factory is The Complete Larry Sanders Show, which, like the bionic Man and Woman series, demonstrates video rights and legal bickering eventually get tempered with time. After the debut of Season 1, further seasonal Sanders sets were in limbo, so this is great news for fans of the acidic satire of late night talk shows. The monster set debuts Nov. 2 ($149.99 SRP), whereas those who sprung for Season 1 around 2007 can take gradual steps at the series’ acquisition via a separate Season 2 set ($34.93 SRP).

Shout Factory is also releasing something called The Psycho Legacy in a 2-disc DVD set Oct. 19 ($19.93 SRP), which is apparently a 90 min. doc on the franchise by Robert V. Galluzzo. I wonder if he acknowledges the TV movie / laughable attempt at a series, Bates Motel (1987), and the unrelated TV movie Psycho 4: The Beginning (1990) as part of the Psycho universe?

Lastly, Paramount will release a full series box of Tales from the Darkside Oct. 19, and War of the Worlds: Season 2 (sold separately, and in a Season 1 + 2 combo) Oct. 26. That may be the longest wait between seasons for any TV series. Season 1 of War came out around 2005, so that’s 5 years fans of this gory, mediocre show have had to wait.

I doubt Season 1’s been remastered, but it would be nice to see it cleaned up for DVD. Both War and the companion series Friday the 13th: The Series were shot on film and posted on video, and look terrible on DVD, which is either due to cramming too many episodes per disc, or broadcast masters that, during the TV’s evolution towards higher resolution, now look wringy, noisy, and smeary. That is the frank legacy of cheap eighties production budgets.

Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

Bring on the Virgins

There was a time, long, long ago, when the ills of a city or kingdom were solvable by sacrificing a virgin or a high-level babe to a monster. Nowadays we convene Royal Commissions (well, in Canada we do) or Senate Hearings where political chess maneuvers dominate any genuine effort to solve problems and create bridges so bickering factions can live together and govern its populace with rational intelligence and fiscal responsibility.

If money is the reason the long-form mandatory census is being scrapped by the Conservatives up here, perhaps a virgin could revitalize the nation’s coffers; it might give power to a monster more malevolent than our graying pinhead PM, but we’d have more money.

Maybe that sounds a bit extreme, but in the worlds of demi-god Perseus and dragon Vermithrax, a virgin did the trick until a hero brave enough to scrape away the stupid stuff came along. His success (and the general safety of virgins) banished the demons into oblivion, and allowed peace and civility to reign again in ancient Greece and grubby Medieval Scotland.

When Clash of the Titans was released in 1981, was part of a three-film offering of ancient lore. There was John Boorman’s Excalibur, beloved by some in spite of it being visually steeped in bad eighties décor, costumes and soft focus lenses (not to mention the most amateurish use of Carmina Burana on record); Matthew Robbins’ Dragonslayer, with stunning cinematography, music, and a real dragon; and Titans, which also featured soft focus cinematography, but was mostly redeemed by a stellar montage in which Perseus and his crew cross the River Styx, and venture into Medusa’s lair to hack off her snake-encrusted head.

Warner Home Video recently released both the 1981 and 2010 versions of Titans on Blu-ray, and I’ve uploaded reviews that examine the virtues and flaws of the first, and compare the main changes made to the ’81 script by a trio of screenwriters for their ’10 remake.

Not addressed in either review is the need for studios to adapt existing scripts instead of going back to the original Perseus myth and creating something new. The presumption is that Beverley Cross’ script was so well structured that there was little point in creating more work when the filmmakers of the remake already had a well-defined skeleton. Titans is, in fact, not a bad remake of an older script, and a good point of comparison is The Jackal (1997), which is a godawful attempt to rework an older script based on a good book into something hip and kinetic.

Also uploaded is a review of Dragonslayer, which I’ve wanted to see for a while because it represents an early attempt by Disney to venture into more adult fodder. The film was in fact a co-production with Paramount, and unlike Disney’s other co-production with MGM, Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983), it doesn’t feel schizophrenic.

It also helps that Dragonslayer wasn’t affected by major reshoots, child actors growing older between principle and secondary shooting schedules, and Disney’s desire to lighten up an otherwise grim and gloomy story. Dragonslayer is probably PG-13 material, since it has some moments of graphic violence that’s unnatural to the Disney brand. The fact the film was left alone is perhaps a miracle, or maybe it was Paramount who wanted to make sure the production didn’t get dumbed down for a younger audience.

Tied to the DVD review is a review of Alex North’s score, which was recently released in a newly remastered and expanded CD from La-La Land Records. In the case of Wicked, Georges Delerue’s darker score was junked in favour of James Horner’s music (which is actually quite affecting), but there apparently wasn’t any danger of North’s dissonant music being tossed; the filmmakers loved it too much, and he essentially delivered what they wanted, so a replacement would’ve made as much sense as, oh, Wolfgang Petersen junking Gabriel Yared’s Troy music in 2004 because of some bizarre panic attack, and brining in Horner (again) to write a new and more accessible score for Western audiences.

Ahem.

Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

Abandoned Matinees

When a movie theatre (or any performing arts house) has outlived its usefulness, or is abandoned and left to rot, or has been allowed to disintegrate by private or public city owners in order to justify the wrecker’s ball for the sake of public safety, it’s all just sad.

Reading about a building’s glory years in print is rather dry, but there’s something impressionable in the still photos of a modern ruin taken by amateur historians, preservationists, photographers, urbanauts, or the curious.

There are a number of websites either dedicated to the state of forgotten buildings, or collections of stills in which the photographer has made a point in capturing the sadness, the mystique, and hypnotic decay of what was once a top-notch centre for artistic and commercial pleasure.

Think of your current favourite theatre… and now imagine the walk up the stairs towards the auditorium by flashlight… stepping around rubbish, plaster from crumbling walls, mold stains, a dead mouse, and piles of seats packed to one side, waiting for a scrap metal pickup that never happened.

Now the torn posters outside of the auditorium’s main doors… and then inside, where you see patches of rotting cloth seats… and a giant whole in the ceiling through which light, water, and pigeon dung have littered the torn red carpet and seats with crud.

The screen still looks good, and one side of the curtains hangs at the halfway point, as though the motor crapped out and no one bothered to finish the job in closing the curtains to signal the last show has long past.

This may be an irregular series for Sundays, or it may be regular, depending on how many collections of forgotten movie houses and drive-ins are out there in the internet’s ether, but for this starter, I’m picking the abandoned Loew’s Poli and Majestic Theatres in Bridgeport Connecticut.

There are several ways you can approach the entry into the past:

--- via the brief historical listing at Cinema Treasures, and a scanning of reader comments

--- pictures snapped by 826 Paranormal, and archived at Flickr.com

--- 826 Paranormal’s creepy YouTube video

--- or look for clips in the Steven Seagal actioner Pistol Whipped / The Marker (2008) and the upcoming Ryan Gosling / Kirsten Dunst film All Good Things

My suggestion is the photo galley, because its silence says a lot more about the glory that used to be, and leave Seagal until the very, very, very end, because, you know, it’s Girdle-Man doing his squintry-eye routine under a helmet of jet black hair that’s impervious to fire, water, and bolts of lightning.

Why do that to yourself?

Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

Sanity Slippage

Sometimes an environment can drive a person slightly cuckoo, and it takes a major effort to pull one out from a destructive tumble into insanity – assuming that’s what the director and screenwriter wants.

In Erik Skjoldbjaerg 1997 detective thriller Insomnia, it was the incessant daylight in the high north that drove the film’s otherwise sane detective to lose his mind, making clumsy mistakes that endangered the lives of colleagues and eventually himself.

Christopher Nolan’s 2002 remake doesn’t improve upon the original Swedish / Norwegian film, but it manages to be its own thing, and stands strong as a superb procedural thriller that also boasts a strong, creepy performance by Robin Williams, and perhaps one of Al Pacino’s last good performances before he started picking mediocre projects where he could yell for a good 90 mins. Warner Home Video’s sparkling Blu-ray ports over all of the DVD’s heavy extras, and the review is up & running.

Isolation (and lack of prescription medication) affects a son who travels to classic Ontario cottage country to see why his estranged father isn’t answering the telephone. Mike Stasko’s Iodine (2009) is a moody, meditative drama that catalogue’s a man’s decline when major stressors just don’t let up. The son’s delusions eventually smother his perception of reality, and what’s left is a badly damaged psyche (and maybe a cadaver or two). Stasko wrote, directed, co-edited, co-scored and co-starred in this intriguing suspense drama (with the great Ray Wise among the small cast) which Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada is releasing in a solid special edition.

The label’s Canadian arm also offers the film version of George Ryga’s Hungry Hills (2009), in which a black sheep boy returns to his home town, and stirs up a lot of latent anger. It’s a period drama about old conflicts, but it’s also a somber, strikingly visual drama where the desiccated, disintegrating town has turned its inhabitants into bored ghosts, frozen in time because their ugly town is smack in the middle of nowhere. People stay and rot, and manage to merely dream of escaping.

The last entry in this quartet of mental misery is Nightwatch / Nattevagten, Ole Bornedal’s excellent thriller that has a broke law student becoming the suspect in a serial killer investigation. The film’s subtext is what makes it a worthy entry: a boring job, and working the night shift in a building where silence and the stench of pickled and fresh cadavers transform our unlikely hero in a pale victim.

Anchor Bay released the DVD back in 2001, which is frankly a miracle, since Miramax distributed the film theatrically, and has since left it on the shelf to rot while the movie is available in other parts of Europe.

Bornedal’s 1997 Hollywood remake is still around on DVD, but its script (co-written by Bornedal and Steven Soderbergh) was gutted to suit the North American market; there’s nothing controversial, risqué, or dramatically powerful in the ’97 version, and it’s unsurprising Bornedal went back to Denmark, where he continues to make good films.

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Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com

Chloe and Tronno

Toronto (or as locals tend to say, ‘Tranna’ or ‘Tronno’) rarely plays itself in movies, and having grown up in T.O., it’s often been fun / frustrating to see glimpses of the city in movies, teleplays, and TV shows (often just in pilots for U.S. productions) when the setting is supposed to be the U.S., or sometimes Europe: fun in the sense of spot-the-location (like the bank machine I used outside of Bayview Village, both of which were also used by Carrie Hamilton and Carol Burnett in the 1988 TV movie Hostage); and frustrating because the city rarely appears as itself, and as a noteworthy tertiary character.

Shoot ‘em Up (2007) wasn’t set in a specific city, but the filmmakers made no effort to conceal the city, allowing even the trunk of the CN Tower to appear in shots, but perhaps the best examples of the city as itself are in works of lesser value.

Director / local boy Clark Johnson (Homicide) had the grand climax of The Sentinel (2006) take place at City Hall; a racing sequence in Sylvester Stallone’s Driven (2001) had the actor drag racing his formula car down University Avenue (Ha! Like that could happen with total impunity); there was also Bill Robertson’s awkward comedy-drama Apartment Hunting (2000), and during the tax shelter years, both The Kidnapping of the President (1980) and Circle of Two (1980) were wholly shot in and around City Hall and the Toronto Island, respectively.

(Note: I’ve never seen 1970’s The Heart Farm / The Man Who Wanted to Live Forever nor 1982's Highpoint, so I can’t vouch as to whether Toronto played itself, or was some generic American city that happened to feature Canuckle landmarks like the CN Tower. I would like to see them, but as with all tax shelter films, the damned things have vanished from circulation, except perhaps in Spain.)

That’s a select list, but you get the idea. While it’s not unusual that local boy Atom Egoyan set Chloe (2009) is set in Toronto, it is pleasantly surprisingly that he took pains to show the city’s striking architectural style (yeah, we have some, but you have to look hard beyond the banalities) and impart a sense of its cultural flavour.

Setting aside Chloe’s story, the city, as a character in the drama, actually looks like a great place to live, and in winter, which is saying a lot, because winter sucks.

I’ve uploaded a review of the Chloe Blu-ray from Sony (which is apparently another American-import-of-a-Canadian-movie home video release), and it’s also worth checking out the review of Anne Fontaine’s Nathalie (2003), the original French film upon which Chloe is based. These are two very different films in spite of them sharing the same premise of a wife who hires an escort to flirt and have an affair with her cheating husband for revenge.

One of the two is a drama that keeps side-stepping away from the trappings of a psycho-sexual thriller and focuses on the peculiar friendship between the two women, and the another film falters with familiar genre cliches.

Guess which one…

I’ve also added links to the Chloe review for online news pieces, an Atom Egoyan interview at Spacing about his use of real T.O. locations, and my recent review of Mychael Danna’s excellent score (Silva Screen)

I’ll also have an update of new scores in a few days, but the most important soundtrack news this week is the reissue of Alan Silvestri’s original 1987 Predator score, via Intrada. The album’s been remastered and apparently features a slightly longer music content. Released Aug. 2, it’s now… sold out… which means the 3,000 copy run was not enough, just like the prior Varese CD from 2003, which sold, at its peak, for $425 smackaroons on eBay for a sealed copy.

I guess this will happen again, though you have to wonder why Intrada didn’t consider coughing up the extra licensing fees for a larger 4000-5000 run to satisfy its customer base, the composer’s fan base, and fans of Predator.

Since 1997, this score has been bootlegged 3 times on CD, and there’s clearly a demand for Silvestri’s classic and muscular horror score.

Why not charge a higher retail price for a larger run that’ll still sell out, since Fox is determined to reboot the Predator franchise every few years? By releasing it as a score with a broad appeal ‘limited’ every few years, it just promotes the album’s distribution via file sharing, and one would suspect the loss of sales due to the album’s availability via torrents and P2P networks and bootlegs on auction sites is greater than any loss Intrada might have had from excess copies sitting on the shelves.

Limited releases are logical only when the run is catered to the general size of a score’s fan base. Labels spend only as much as they have to in order to get the music out there, and in general the low pressing run ensures only the people who really love the music and want to own the album will get it within a reasonable time-frame. A 48-hour sellout of a genre classic for an active franchise isn’t smart business sense; it may guarantee there will remain pent-up demand among fans who lucked out on the disc for another seven years, but I’d call this a colossal missed opportunity.

Again.

In other news related to Fox, the folks at the Digital Bits have reprinted their inside look at the Alien Quadrilogy, the mega-set that Fox put out in 2003 for the Alien franchise.

Why is this of interest? Because it’s a glimpse at the production of an exhaustive special edition set, and it relates to the upcoming Blu-ray monster set coming this fall, which will feature new content, including isolated scores.

Coming shortly: films in which the mental stability of disparate characters are affected by isolated environments.

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Mark R. Hasan, Editor
KQEK.com