Forgotten movies – Around the world in 80 days (1989)

Based on the novel by Julies Verne; in the year 1871 Phileas Fogg takes on a wager to prove that a journey around the world in 80 days is possible. Along the way he makes friends, meets the love of his life and, above all, loses time. Will he make it back to the London reform club on time?

This is how popular culture goes; sometimes an entertainment business wants to go big and people at the time admire it for it – but, then, as time goes by, they forget it.
In 1988 Harmony Gold wanted to go big and they set their eyes on the classic novella: Around the world in eighty days by Jules Verne.

Spare no expense (as the John Hammond-character would have it four years later) they hired a top notch cast

They even managed to include Robert Morley and John Mills from Michael Anderson’s (equally ambitious) original staring David Niven and Cantinflas.

and shot the tale of Phileas Fogg and his trusty manservant Passepartout around the globe. And, when I say: 'around the globe', I do mean around the globe! Which, in the late eighties was quite the pricey undertaking. So the company  was going big!

The result was a highly ambitious five-hour movie that sprinkled from delight on every corner of the TV-screen. Everything that one could think of about travelling the world in the 1800’s was in there: steam trains, elephants, pirates, cowboy gunmen and crime.

It’s like Harmony Gold took up the challenge the late Michael Anderson left. He went big in cinemas in 1956, in 1989 television went even bigger.

But, alas, hardly anybody remembers this beauty of an adventure movie nowadays.
But that’s where I come in!

Pack your bags
Featuring a (very) young Pierce Brosnan as the leading character this movie already had half in the bag. Nobody but a pre-Bond Pierce can play ‘stiff upper lip’ as it should today. Just seeing him (worried) as he goes his way in the final seconds of the bet is great acting of a man pushing every emotion bursting down to his belly.

The same goes for Peter Ustinov who was hired as a comic relieve but managed to transform it to a character with a true hearth. Ustinov’s character Fix is never, ever, a bad man. He’s the common bloke who just wants to do his job right. Particularly so because he wants to marry his charming sweetheart (a sweet actress featured during the credits that fulfils this character who until then was only spoken about by Fix).

Eric Idle, then, is the odd one out. Why not hire a true French person? Truth be told, Idle was spreading his wings during those years and quickly found

After some mediocre events like Too much sun and Splitting Heirs.

that, even though, he’s a capable actor (as he certainly is in here) he’s far better off being a producer.

Idle, as Passepartout, works, but then, at the same time, he does not. It is difficult to explain unless you compare him to the character written in the script: a French athletic (circus experience) womanizer. Just looking at Eric Idle you know that that(!)’s not the case.

Still Idle does his best and he, does, gets away with most of it. But in the end he is the weakest link in the bunch.

To end with a strong performance it is the Indian princess Aouda played by Julia Nickson.
Feminism is all the rage right now. But, somehow, people tend to forget that it was also a rather big thing in the late ‘80s.

Picking up the ‘feminist’ glove ‘our’ princess shines as she dares Fogg –time and again- to explain his emotions and himself. She is deeply in love with him but she will be damned if he doesn’t give her something in return!

I, especially, enjoyed her character because she is the ‘true’ original against the (always lovely) Shirley MacLaine in the original-movie version.

At least the actress is born in the right continent.

Board the train
Now, of course, there are faults in this movie. The whole French primadonna bit at the start you can skip. Also the ‘I hid your guns!’-bit, later on is a bit too ‘80s political correcty to carry on the flow of the show.

Even though, as I was re-watching this movie for this article it is still very much an issue. Americans and their guns (sigh).

Then there’s the whole of China and Japan-bit that (as in the original book) is boring.

The Jacky Chan-adaptationin 2004 tried to make it interesting by including the great Arnold Schwarzenegger.

But, in the end, that’s all people will remember: Schwarzenegger was in there, somewhere. 

But overall the movie is structurally perfect; the reason being: that Fogg has to stay on the move all the time. There is no moment to rest!

As such, every little scriptural meandering gets swallowed up in the whole of things. In short: they don’t matter because Fogg has moved on.

Stuck in traffic
When you watch this movie you see the wonders of the world! The director Buzz Kulik hasn’t forgotten the first rule about adapting Verne’s novel: ‘show the people of the world places they’ve never been!’

A rule the same year (truly) encompassed in Michael Palin’s (another Python) travel documentary.

Each landscape and each setting is –almost- Disney-esqe- in beauty. You’d want to travel there because the frame (and the story) leave reality out of the picture.

There are the French Alps, the American prairies, those Japanese paper windows. It’s a visual desire to time-travel back in time to.

True, this version, doesn’t have the (famous) train-ride over a collapsing bridge (a shame) it did in the original. But it does show the beauty of the countries it visits in the bests of sense.

Around the world in 80 days shows the beauty of the world not only in the time setting of the movie but also as it was in 1989-or so. Around the world in 80 days invites the viewer to enjoy the splendour and seduces the viewer to get the bags together and go travelling.

Keeping track of time
The thrill of the story about Phillias Fogg has always been the last stretch. Michael Anderson realized this. So, obviously, he placed dear, meek, David Niven, in the clutches of a religious choir.

The end-strech of the 1989's version of Around the world in 80 days is equal to its predecessor in every way. Just seeing Brosnann’s Fogg commanding the ship to ‘break everything wooden to burn’ (paraphrasing) is a feast for the senses.
By then the clock is ticking loudly and (even though you know how it is going to end) your blood is up.

It is the ‘end-strech’ that this version of the beloved tale does on par with the original (which is quite a feat).

Arriving
When you compare this four-hour marathon of a movie with the original you have to accept that this 1989’s production went far-more-out-there than 1956 ever dared.

It shows the spectacular beauty of the world, but, alas, the main protagonist is too pressed for time to take it all in. That is, until love changes his course.

This version of Around the world in 80 days will remain to be (to me) the ultimate –to be defeated- champion of Jules Verne’s original story.

Remaking movies: a train ride past the past

As any movie buff I have a love-hate relationship with the term ‘remake’. I, for one, loathed The day the earth stood still (2008) with a vengeance but then I adored The departed (2006).

I also adore the original; point in fact I even consider it the better film.

When I was watching 2018’s The Commuter a thought struck me: am I watching a remake? Because, to me, it looked like it was based on the classic Hitchcock: the lady vanishes.

If you’ve seen this classic a lot of The commuter is very recognizable.

I turned out that I was wrong; No remake; Just shameless stealing.

But, then, I liked The commuter. I like it enough that I actually wanted it to be a remake! To share the spotlight with the ‘original’ as it were. So now my mind was boggling. Here we have a remake that isn’t a remake that I wanted to be a remake.

So taking The commuter’s train track as my basis I want to take you, reader, by the hand and explain some of the concepts surrounding remakes.

The main gist is the question: why are movies remade? And with it comes the fallout from fans who love the original artwork. So let’s start at the first station: what kind of movies people don’t mind about being remade?

In short the scale goes from “Sure remake it” to “why would you want to mess with the original”. But, like any train ride in the movie The Commuter –which I will refer to in the last paragraph- it has various stops along the way.

The “Sure remake it!”-zone

This is the easiest category. If a movie has a certain reason that would permissibly allow for it to be remade. Let’s name a few:

Outdated and forgotten

The original movie is quite old, outdated and utterly forgotten not only by the mass audience but by film scholars as well. These are the movies that creep up on us in ‘clickbait lists’ like “ten movies you didn’t know were remakes”.

If nobody remembers the movie then nobody minds if a studio tries it again.

Outdated but loved

The original is terribly outdated, only true cinephiles would protest against it being remade. The best example is, of course, King Kong (1933).

Yes, the original is loved (by me). But even we lovers of the original know that a remake would allow for some wonderful cinematic trickery to bring the big ape to life.

A bit too much trickery in Peter Jackson’s version for my taste – but it’s still a very good movie in my humble opinion.

So the big ape goes on the screen once more with a bigger budget and more CGI.

Outdated for today

1995’s Hackers is a hilarious movie when you recognize what kind of (drug-fuelled) visions, early nineties, filmmakers had about computer culture.

But going even further back to the science fiction movies of the 1950s you’ll notice –with today’s eyes- that moviemakers often got their fantasies way off.

In this sense it is understandable that moviemakers want to try Lost in Space and Star Trek again. The original is still loved and respected but the cardboard decors and puppies masquerading as aliens have to go. Update is the magic word here.

Even though a lot of contemporary science fiction movies are making the same mistake their predecessors did:
by assuming the likes of Facebook and Twitter will still exist in the future.

The crossing/The crossroad

Here we are at the fork in the road. Now we get fans involved. Like it or not, nowadays fans have the power of the internet at their fingertips and they are using it.

It is at this point –I argue- that the word ‘remake’ becomes a thing.

Because there is one thing to consider when you remake a movie (even if the choice objectively might make a lot of sense): The subjectivity of the audience.
People might not want a remake and rally against it. From this point on the question ‘Why’ becomes tangible.

Why remake The day the earth stood still and actually remove all elements of –human created- global destruction?

Why remake Ghostbusters if you exclude any (ongoing) ghostsbusting and fill in the paranormal elements with soup-jokes?

The “Why remake it!”-zone

Re-adaptation

This first ‘station’ is an arguable one. If an original movie was based on a book a second movie would (technically) not be a remake. So, we’ve got various different versions of The Phantom of the Opera and nobody bats an eye.

However, the unmasking scene is very much a plot-device created by the movies.
Thus every single unmasking scene would be a remake within a re-adaptation…

However, when an almost flawless adaptation is made (or even two) in the case of Murder on the Orient Express (1974 and 2010) the latest adaptation not only has the book to answer to but also two previous movies. And, as such, does suffer the ‘remake curse’ a bit.

One of the current (online) discussions is the idea of adapting The Lord of the flies with girls instead of boys. I’m wondering whether this will work as well (considering how the book is so macho driven). But trust me, when the movie comes out, people are going to compare it to the two original movies.

If it worked before…

If a studio owns the rights to a story and characters who can blame it for, in a few years, time churning out another version of the original tale? This is where the term: ‘cash-grab’ is most often used.

Who needs another version of The Thing or The Nightmare on Elm street? These remakes are often quickly forgotten in favour of the original. But, by that time, a lot of tickets have been sold.

So here we have a clear case of studios succeeding while fans protest.

But that doesn’t mean that the studios don’t listen to the wishes of the audience.

Nostalgia

If an original tale is loved by an audience why not make a new movie out of it. Not only does this create interest. But when the movie is released the nostalgic audience will be so preoccupied with recognizing all the little details they loved in the original that they’ll fail to see whether it is actually a good movie or not.

Time, however, is a cruel mistress. In time any nostalgic remake has to stand on its own of be forgotten in obscurity.

Detour – or pampering the ‘wanting audience’

The original cast is in! Or: the original cast approves!

This is apparently the magic potion to ease the fans’ suffering. Just rehire the original actor or actress to play a part in the new movie. Or, let the original director, actor, actress fully support the movie (The Evil Dead). Sometimes this works (Star Wars), sometimes it doesn’t (Ghostbusters).

This is one of the ways of legitimizing a remake. So, in my schema, it creates a track between the two rails.

Changing things

Originality versus cash-grab this is the big debate surrounding remakes. So, whilst movies studios prefer to play it safe and simply and remake the original they do tent to listen to filmmakers wanting to take the original story into a different direction. The question is, however: how different?

So the villain becomes the good guy in Malificient. Or the men become women in Ghostbusters.

The success of such a movie depends on how different it is in regards to the original and, more importantly, if it is any good.

Rereleasing yet updating

Movies get rereleased all the time. Old classics get cleaned up and released into cinemas usually for some kind of anniversary. The rerelease of the Exorcist featured an additional scene or two that didn’t make it in the original cut. But still every single frame shown on screen was shot in 1973.

Not so with the rereleases of E.T. (guns become walkie-talkies). Let alone the rerelease of the original Star Wars-trilogy.

Now this unique situation occurs in which the artist is constantly refining the original to the extent that the original becomes none-existent.

‘When is the artist done?’ And, more importantly: ‘How much does his current vision differ from the one he/she had back then?’

Sufficient to say that fans aren’t pleased about that.

Not changing anything

A rare remake is the ‘not changing anything’ remake. The famous example is Gus van Sant’s Psycho which took a lot of Hitchcock’s original notes and only changed the shots the great master of suspense wasn’t able to achieve in the original version. The rest is pretty much the same (often a copy).

Michael Haneke did the same with his second version of Funny People. You could also call it a ‘country swap’ but since so little things change in his second version both movies stand as some kind of mirror image of each other.

These remakes are for the interested niche moviegoers only.

The “Franchise county!”-zone

The Reboot

When a movie franchise appears to be finished it is sometimes time to get back to the beginning and start again. Sam Rami’s Spider-man-trilogy or Christopher Nolan’s Batman-trilogy both ended themselves after their respective three-movie run.

To take Spiderman as an example, a new starter was developed.

Again poor old uncle Ben died.

However, after two (bad) movies, it turned out that this direction wasn’t working for the studio. Especially as a franchise starter (=wanting to make numerous more movies than a ‘mere’ trilogy). So after those two movies were scrapped the studio decided to try again.

That’s what the reboot also is: a cut-clear case of ‘let’s try this again’.

The soft reboot

A subtle approach to the reboot is the soft reboot. Instead of openly going back to the beginning of the overhanging storyarch a ‘soft reboot’-movie is a new movie in the franchise but with some small references  leading back to the beginning.

Casino Royale is the perfect example of the soft reboot.

This man is Bond in all his mannerism whilst fighting megalomaniac criminals, yet he is at the start of his career.

So –in a sense- it is the ‘old’ Bond thrown back in time.

Considering the fan-theory that both the number ‘007’ and the name ‘James Bond’ are code the soft reboot works.
You, the viewer, simply sees a new alcoholic hero at work.

Alas, Skyfall destroyed that theory the minute it showed the Aston-Martin.

Exiting the “Franchise county!”-zone

The country swap

Americans and subtitles.

It could be worse – they could have opted for the German dubbed versions.

"Nein, Mr. Bond - ich erwarte von Ihnen, dass Sie sterben!"

Or the Russian versions which are even more hilarious because it is often a monotone voiceover.

Basically it is the exact same movie but with different actors playing the parts in English this time round.

If it works, it works beautifully. The American remake of Let the right one in (Let me in) compliments the original by taking an ever so slightly different approach. This way the two movies can stand together on their own both individual works of art; one in Swedish and one in English.

In this sense the two Haneke Funny Games movies can’t stand side by side because they are –basically- the same movie. Nothing has changed.

But when it doesn’t (Oldboy) it is quickly forgotten in favour of the original.

The not-really-an-obvious-remake

A perfect murder was a remake of Dial M for murder. However, by changing the title and lots of other elements this movie distanced itself from the original.

Going into A perfect murder blank you might not even recognize, at first, that you are in fact watching a remake. You might recognize certain elements but you might not be able to put your finger on it. Only during the credits do you realize the truth.

Or not; if you take the commuter.

Conclusion –coming full circle: the commuter

The commuter isn’t the first movie to play with the idea of finding somebody on a train. Source Code comes to mind, so does Silver Streak, as does Hitchcock’s The lady vanishes.

But, The commuter does use a heck of a lot of things from The lady vanishes. So many, in fact, that one could wonder whether or not this movie is an indirect remake?

The commuter uses Hitchcock’s famous MacGuffin, double agents, a missing person and even a standout in a train cart.

Yet the movie isn’t a remake. So we’d have to settle with ‘something borrowed’.

By ‘borrowing’ the writers and director have crafted a delicious movie. And, most of all, they didn’t feel the need to proclaim themselves as a remake which they could’ve done easily.

‘Remake’, therefore, is a ‘wonder word’. It hinges on whether or not the new movie uses the original title. If it doesn’t one could actually photocopy a movie and get away with it.

So this struggle between fans and movie-producers resides mainly in the title of a movie; and as such the intention.

Movie-producers want to cash in on an old favourite. Fans, however, see no need for this rehash if the original was/is perfect in their eyes.

I argue that often the intention of remaking blows up in movie producers faces while it could easily have been prevented by not leaning too much on the term: remake.

Mixed tape movies: Submarines

In the eighties it was the-thing-to-do to make a mixed tape (like an mp3 but touchable, always in need of a pencil and definitely cooler). On it you would make a little playlist of all the cool songs. Now the trick was to make each song correspond with the rest of the tape. In this post I will try to do the same with movies.

Every once in a while I will select a general topic and select movies to accompany it. As you can see the more child-friendly movies are at the start of the day, but  when night falls: ‘here be monsters’. Please feel free to give suggestions of other unknown movies.

One rule though: Auteur themes like ‘Shakespeare’ or ‘James Bond’ are not allowed. ‘Spy-movies’, naturally, are.

Theme: Submarines.

Submarine movies are a peculiar bunch. Usually these movies can be divided in two distinct categories the majority being the war-submarine movie and then the lesser category: the fantasy-submarine movie.

And because of this/when you get right down to it: It’s the war motive that over-encompasses it all.

When one compares submarine movies to, for instance, race car movies or train movies

you’ll notice the two latter often play with different genres than war.

But regardless of the target audience a good submarine movie is playing at –be it child or adult- it always makes good usage of the two main dangers these metal deathtraps inherently possess: you are surrounded by a sea of water (with who knows what in it) and you have to stay silent.
Here is my list of submarine movies:

08:00-10:00

20.000 leagues under the sea: A Childfriendly version of the classic Jules Verne tale. I always preferred this version to the darker 1973 version (which was my introduction to Nemo and his crew). This movie works particularly well in contrast with the next entry: whereas this version has the limitness of animation at its disposal it is still visually less imaginative than than Disney’s live action version.

10:00-12:00 
20.000 leagues under the sea: The ultimate classic with the best designed Nautilus. Period! James Mason is brilliant as the eco-egomaniac Nemo introduced to us whilst playing a very Phantom of the Opera-like organ. But there’s more: Peter Lorre plays the sniffling weasel the actor enjoyed playing from time to time.

Even though he also played two ruthless killers in Hitchcock's and Fritz Lang's movies and was, of course, the embodiment of the righteous Mr. Moto. Talk about a nice role variety for the actor.

And then there is the all-American hero Kirk Douglas (turning 102 this year) doing what he does best: being an awesome hero for the kiddies.

12:00-14:00

McHale's navy: Again a movie somebody has to compare to the next (Down Periscope two entries down). Both movies try to play with the notion of a haphazard crew stuck on each other’s lip on an underwater ship.
Based on the classic television show this movie almost fails miserably if not for the (always) reliable Tim Curry playing the baddie.

14:00-16:00 

Operation Petticoat: Feminists beware! This movie is as campy as it can get. Though the movie does try to empower woman a bit it is still Grant’s and Curtis’s show. But than again, who can resist the charm of a pink submarine in the second world war.

16:00-17:00

Down periscope: The earlier movie to (Universal 1997’s) McHale’s Navy. At the time it was common practice for Hollywood to make a lot of competing movie. A tactic that often only left one winner in remembrance.

Dante’s Peak over Volcano, Armageddon over Deep impact.

Down Periscope is the better movie because Kelsey Grammer’s hero Dodge is written a lot cleverer than Arnold’s McHale. Yes, Down Periscope is a comedy all the way but still with some smart thinking behind it as Dodge outmaneuvers –a deliciously arrogant- Bruce Dern at every turn.

17:00-19:00

The Hunley: Now going into darker territory we investigate the first usage of the submarine. It is common knowledge that Leonard DaVinci designed a submarine but it wasn’t until the American Civil war that the idea was put to practical use. The Hunley submarine is a interesting metaphor for the people fighting this bloody war in the movie. The submarine, after all, is a deathtrap and the men inside them are on a suicide mission.

19:00-21:00

Crimson tide: Making good usage of the claustrophobic space of a submarine Crimson Tide decides to play an excellent power-struggle between two headstrong characters. Both Hackman’s and Washington’s are on form as each brings solid reasoning to the table as they debate, to the extreme, whether or not to launce nuclear missiles.

21:00-23:00 

The hunt for Red October: The last good cold-war movie and, at the same time, the silliest. Even though Connery looks the part of an aging Soviet commander he certainly doesn’t sound like it. Still, if you manage to overlook that you will be rewarded with one of the strongest cold-war thrillers that –to me- cemented Alec Baldwin as the ultimate Jack Ryan.

And, as a bonus, it has Josh Acklan playing a Russian – which he always plays so well.

23:00-01:00
Das Boot: The classic submarine movie that works on two levels: first of all it is as claustrophobic and nervewrecking tense as it can get. Second it depicts the soldiers of the Third Reich as protagonists. The movie never lets us forget that these are men fighting on the wrong side in a terrible war. But at the same time Das Boot shows us that these were human beings two who all longed for their families.
 
01:00-03:00 
U-571: If you can live with Sean Connery playing a Russian with a Scottish accent than U-571 has the next challenge for you: rewritten history. Of course it weren’t the Americans who managed to acquire an Enigma machine it were the Brits.

One should watch U-571 back to back with The imitation game

 (also a movie with some creative liberties concerning the Charles Dance-character).

Still, U-571 is without a doubt the tensest submarine thriller to date. Especially Matthew Mcconaughey is on top of his game as his character has to make cruel choice after cruel choice to save millions.

Honorable mentions:

Black Sea: I once wrote a review about this movie (here). I only ever saw it once and that was enough. This is one of those movies that could’ve been a whole lot better.

Run silent, Run Deep: The clue is in the title. It is a bit too patriotic for my taste but, then, this movie does have Hollywood-era Lancaster and Gable to admire. 

Below: Horror on a submarine. I decided not to include this movie because the war-thematic was overtaking my list. Still, Below is an interesting genre film that banks on the claustrophobia of submarines.

Ghost stories (2017) – a review

A paranormal debunker Philip Goodman is contacted by his idol -and fellow debunker- Charles Cameron to investigate three cases. At first the cases seem separate but as Goodman travels deeper down the rabbit hole nothing is like it appears.

A few years ago I bought an interesting book on a flea market called ‘The encyclopedia of horror’ by Richard Davis. This book obviously deals with the different types of horror movies. But, I must say,  with the foreword by Peter Cushing, this rather complete beginners guide on all stories supernatural is a must read for all those interested in the macabre.

The reason I brought this book up has to do with the neat cataloguing this books does. Chapter one is about vampires, two about werewolves, then there’s a chapter about the fallen angel himself and, of course, an entire chapter devoted to what goes bump in the night: ghosts.

Ghost stories applies the same palette to the script as this book applies to its chapters. Three ghosts stories but each vastly different. There’s the haunted asylum, the devil, the ghost and then, of course, the insanely Lovecraftian weird one.

I chose not to put a spoiler tag here because it is rather obvious what kind of story you are getting even before the character tells his tale.

What I like about ghost stories isn’t because I believe in the supernatural (I don’t), it’s the wanting to believe in it. We all like a good fright every now and then. Like any magician’s routine we’d like to be amazed once or twice; second guessing what we just saw. That’s what ghostly horror movies are to me: a good time whilst ‘looking away when it gets too scary’.

Ghost stories keeps that mindset throughout the movie. It’s here to entertain the kiddies on Halloween-night and nothing more. Not overreaching itself pretending it is something it is not Ghost stories has set itself a simple task: to scare you. And yes, it does a great job!

Ghosts
One of the reasons why this movie is light on its feet is because the viewer never really gets a chance  to invest in the characters. The three main storytellers are all on screen too short to invest in. and the main character spends most of his time listening and when he’s not he is actually quite unpleasant.

Charles Goodman (Andy Nyman) immediately makes his mark in one of the first scenes

Slight spoiler: After a nicely lingering opening montage. A bit too lingering for my taste  since it 

never truly gets resolved.

as he smashes through the porcelain cabinet of the question: ‘do people need to know?’

It’s a nice introduction to a character that doesn’t get a whole lot more character work after that moment. That’s all you get and that’s fine because it allows our three storytellers to take the spotlight.

All three actors that follow play their part as if it was written for them (which I think is the case). Paul Whitehouse plays the rough common man Tony –complaining about the world between his lager and cigarette. Alex Lawther then is (again) playing a character on the brink of nervous collapse as Simon.

He’s very good at it. But now I’m hoping the poor lad gets a happy (mentally stable) character someday soon.

And finally there’s Martin Freeman as Mike who enjoys the heck out of his new-money City-boy character.

As I said, it are characters these actors can with their eyes closed. But that’s also what the movie needs: stability –because after the first story poor Charles’s world is gradually getting stranger.

Phantoms
It’s at the start of the second story that the movie misses a beat. There’s a bit of a gearshift as the movie quickly drops some weird elements on the viewer. It makes the Alex character more interesting, that’s for sure. But, then again, it is a bit of a miss as it tones down again in the third story.

Also there is a rather annoying editing jump in the church-scene just before this.

Ghost stories wants to take the viewer gradually into the inferno. However, the road down is a bit wobbly.

Spirits
Still, critiques aside the ghost stories Ghost stories tells are fabulously shot. Not being ashamed to take what is needed from the classics this movies relishes in the tropes of yesteryears.

Any moviebuff can spot the references: In the mouth of Madness, Evil Dead,

House on haunted hill, Poltergeist and many others.

Whilst, at the same time, throws some of its own elements in the ever-growing pool of horror tropes. Be it birds, mannequin dolls or freakish babies.

Making good usage of the spaces scenes take place in the camera plays with its focus to highlight bits and pieces of importance. But then, when it needs to be dark it is dark. As Tony and Alex stumble through the dark in their stories the camera lowers or angles itself just enough to give the viewer that uncomfortable feeling that something might pop into frame right behind them.

One shot I particularly liked was a green light travelling across the screen during the first story.

I am convinced that it was entirely unintentional but, for me, it worked to increase the suspense.

Ghouls
When you get right down to it ghost stories are still mysteries. The reader has to know what (to some extent) realize the truth in the end. Ghost stories ends its own mystery in the only true way it can. A choice that might, ever so slightly, unbalance what was before.

But, then, the end is never what the stories about spooks and shadows are about. The end is whether you can sleep at night.

Some random thoughts about IT: Chapter II

The next, and final, chapter of IT is coming up and even though I capped my last four pre-movie musings off with a (mediocre) review there’s no need for me to stop there. Because casting news is upon us and somehow, somewhere the financial success of the first movie has made ‘getting a part in the sequel’ such a hot topic in Hollywood that any actor -or one actress- that somewhat resembles the one of the kids in the first part wants to take part.

Fantasy versus reality casting
This is the reality of fantasy casting. I would love Tom Cruise to play to play the father in Eowyn Ivey’s The snow child. But it will never happen because the book is too obscure and the possible revenue hard to tell.

But if you have a book based movie set, from the get go, to be a two-parter. And the first part of the book is a gigantic success. Then fantasy casting becomes a possibility because all kinds of A-list actors are interested.

So my original fantasy-casting was a bit conservative (LINK). I figured I could do with normal (cheap) actors who would deliver greatly. It hadn’t crossed my mind that the success of IT: chapter 1 would open up the gates to A-list actors being interested.

This brings an interesting dilemma to the table. For me as the fantasy caster as well as the actual movie makers. Should one cast the best actor for the part or should one cast the best A-list actor for the part?

By the looks of it the movie makers are wise. They are casting actors of which only some happen to reside in the A-list category for now.

Remember fame is temporary. Johnny Depp was the highest grossing actor in his early Pirates days.

Now people mock him. He’ll return, no worries.

So who do we have right now: Jessica Chastain is confirmed for Beth. One red-haired girl for the next. But Chastain is a great actress in the right age-group so the A-list-bit is a bonus.

James Mcavoy, then, is Bill. This is an actor who (I always enjoy this) had to work for his career. He didn’t get his big break on his first job. The dear chap got his break playing a faun in a kids movie. I certainly respect that.

I also respect the fact that most of the coins in The Chronicles of Narnia: the witch, the lion and the wardrobe’s -swear jar were his.

But what I really enjoy is James Ransone being cast as Eddy. This is an actor that can act (I saw as much in Insidious II). But he also looks remarkably like the younger actor. He could be his father for all I know.

Now Ransone isn’t an A-list actor as the two previously mentioned. But he can certainly pull the part off right.

So that’s the balance I like: the casting-playing field is entirely open. Anyone can join: famous or less-famous. The only requirement is looking like the younger ‘self’ and being able to actually act.

Other news: more horror
For a horror-connoisseur like me the first chapter of IT was, at certain times, a bit of a let-down. Some CGI tomfoolery with Pennywise’s face and that whole strange projection-scene thing didn’t quite work for me.

And I’m still bothered how a group of kids can clean an entire bathroom of blood

(including ceiling) without getting it on their clothes.

But luckily there was more than enough awesome stuff hidden in that movie as well.
Now rumours are spreading that IT: Chapter 2 is going to up the horror scale. Considering some of the deaths at the start of this chapter I am intrigued.

The ending
Which brings me to the ending. The original ending in the book is so far out there (with a wonderful Stephen Hawking’s A brief History of time-influence) that I doubt it will make it into the movie.

However, I don’t want the big spider from the mini-series either. So when it comes to the end of chapter II the betting game can begin.

Will the second chapter for IT bank on the ‘big monster fight’-finale? Or will the movie opt for the ‘supernatural inter-dimensional –what the heck was Stephen King using at the time- finale?

I’m hoping for a combination of the two. Ben being in gaga-land and defeating the transcendental Pennywise whilst the rest of the ‘losers’ are, fighting the bloodiest of fights, destroying the physical Pennywise.

Anyway, filming is currently underway, so in the upcoming months news will gradually leak out like an old sewage pipe.

Music, radio and youtube

The premise of this little blogpage of mine is –partly- media-science. So let me get back to the basics and highlight something I noticed.

Back in the day music was brought by word-of-mouth. Meaning, a minstrel had to sing a song from town to town. Then, one day, a recording-device was discovered. Now the song could do without the artist and travel on its own.

Luckily those records, back then, couldn’t be reproduced that easily. So any copyright infringement only concerned people stealing other people’s music.
Of course this all changed when casette tapes were introduced. Now one could record a song from the radio.

Only to find out that halfway through the song the tape had run out.

It is also around this time that Disc-Jockeys decided to babble away through the song (including annoying sound effects).
You can still find some of these MP3’s online that were obvious radio copies.

Then computers and CD’s came to be. Now the whole copying became a whole lot easier. And with peer-to-peer sharing so did the distribution.

Now anybody with a pc could get a copy from a song without the tape-like (noise) quality. A, to the human ear at least, perfect copy of the original.

But then something strange happened. As the internet entered the brave new world of ‘web 2.0’  the original file-sharing-services in which one downloaded a song at a time made way for bulk-filesharing. With torrents one might share entire albums containing ten or twelve songs – even if the one downloading it only wants one.

Moreover, as ‘web 2.0’ happened upon us so did youtube.

Also Spotifi happened but we are talking about old obscure music and not-paying-for-anything here.

Spotifi is for the new generation.

You see, as peer-to-peer began a lot of people saw it as an opportunity to share their copies of once-of-a-lifetime performances and other rare gems in music. For the music lover those early days were a goldmine because people shared the beauty of music.

But, peer-to-peer was still considered illegal. So when youtube came to be the ‘treasure troves of’ music changed to the video platform. There it was legal for people to enjoy it. Moreover, the original uploader could be thanked for their effort in the comment section.

I still believe that is the original intention of the comment section. Although some might disagree.

Now we are at a crossroad. The original peer-2-peer networks have vanished in favour of bulk-sharing sites using programs like torrent.

And if that’s not enough it is now often the case that these ‘bulk-sites’ only offer the newest of the newest instead of the classics. So downloading the next attempt at eardrum-mutilation by Kayne West is easy. But finding the 1973 rendition of Ruby the Rolling Stones did at Weatbury is near impossible.

Moreover, obscure songs can hardly be found using the conventional googling technique of ‘title’ with the added term: ‘.mp3’.

So what did people come up with? Sites that let you convert the audio-track of a youtube video to mp3.

We’ve come full circle.

From taping a song from the radio we are now ‘taping’ songs from youtube.
History has a tendency to repeat itself.

Geostorm – a (very short) review

The changing climate causes various natural disasters. To counter this the world has decided upon a high-tech shield around the globe controlling these weather phenomena. However, one day the people who created this life-saving ‘shield’ find their creation hacked and causing global mayhem; leading up to a world-destroying ‘Geostorm’.

No this isn't the Inception poster BTW...

Geostorm isn’t a good movie; not by a long shot. But I’d be surprised if anyone working on it ever expected it to be ‘good’.

Intermezzo: the destruction of science fiction.
There are a few hot topics that Hollywood doesn’t like to touch. The best known example of this would be a critical movie about the state of Israel (only Spielberg got away with this one).
Mainly these topics are defined by the times. Now in 2018 we live in a delicate era where race and gender are hot topics. So Black-face-jokes are out. The N-word should never be uttered unless a character him/herself is African American. And, concerning gender,  housewives are out,  every woman should have a meaningful job and at least three minutes of dialogue that doesn’t deal with her ovaries.

In fact, Hollywood is bending itself over backwards to find ways to make female

characters more than just a pretty picture (and failing hilariously).

A third element I wish to pose here is science: people, nowadays, take offence when science is brought to the table as some sort of magic MacGuffin.

We’ve got the Internet to thank for that. We, the people, are getting smarter. One wiki-search and we know how things work and –apparently- we expect the movies to teach us true science.

I’m on two minds about this. The silly refrigerator escape in Indiana Jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull looked marvellous (with Indy backlit by a nuclear explosion). Of course it couldn’t happen, but it looked cool. By wanting ‘perfect’ science people grounded the imagination.

This trend is actively taking over the Star Wars-universe where people are

examining the sci-fi technology there (or why flames can exist in the vacuum of space).

In this sense Geostorm is a movie ‘too late’. Back in the early 2000s’ this movie would’ve been a sure-fire hit.

Continuing…
Instead Geostorm is very entertaining. This movie strikes the balance quite right between goofy and serious.

Accepting this I will never understand the (online) people denouncing this movie as utter trash by awarding it a ‘one’ out of ten.

These people have no filter, everything is black or white to them. Very strange.

I, myself, have only seen a handful of movies that I might consider handing out a ‘one’ to. White chicks got very close.

So reading this review you have to keep in mind that most of the faults in this movie are obvious to me. However, the entertainment-value of this movie has won me over – so that’s the reason for the positive tone you’ll be reading.

So here’s the actual review…
Should aliens ever visit the planet I am sure that they will ask us humans why we keep on making movies in which we destroy the planet – then save it – than wilfully destroy it in real life.
We can’t blame them for wondering because we all kind of wonder ourselves.

There are various ways of looking at it: from a cultural religious perspective,

a nihilistic perspective or even an scientifically evolving perspective.

In short: why we keep on destroying the world nobody fully knows.

Geostorm is the next movie in the long list of world destroying movies and it is great. Solidly produced it has a screenplay that ticks all the boxes we want in this genre and the special effects to underline it.

Truth be told the budget was too small to fully destroy the entire planet (Europe apparently survived). And it shows. But, then again, the movie does put in a rather clever line as to why we only see certain countries getting destroyed.

But who cares about the impending Armageddon when the movie delivers such a nice ride with charming characters.

Truly Butler and Sturgess are wonderfully keyed onto each other as the two bickering brothers saving the world.

A small lie on the poster – Butler has two scenes with his daughter and in neither

of those scenes does he need to save her from a tidal-wave.

Because Geostorm is so utterly predictable you check your mind at the door. And even though the movie is smart enough to actually put some real (computer)science in the science fiction plot it is no requirement to actually think.

SPOILER: As predictability goes: we all knew the president was innocent the minute it turned

out he was a democrat.

And naturally there had to be a hero Mexican in the movie – because, well current political tensions.

Another thing I like to say about this movie is the three great woman performances who are all against type: A computer-wizz who works her magic on the keyboard without actually being a socially awkward super geek. A tough as nails bodyguard who does in fact have love to give. And a German astronaut with a sense of humour.
Moreover, neither of them need any saving.

The astronaut once but only after she saved Butler several times.

I could fill the rest of this review with cinematography, directing, art-direction, screenplay and acting. But to be honest: they are all (just) okay.

Geostorm is just a fun time at the movies. Ten years ago this would be a smash hit. Nowadays it’s just ‘fun’. This is the movie you watch at a relaxing Friday night after a long week of working. Just relax and have Gerard Butler save the day.