The dark crystal: age of resistance – a review

For the last few generations the vile Skeksis have ruled over the planet Thra, using honeyed words and deceit to keep the Gelflin population under control. But the Skeksis’ time is coming to an end, there is a resistance growing.

This’ll be another longspun article before I get to the actual review. I rather enjoy writing my reviews like this because it allows me to get some of my personal thoughts in whilst being different than the many (many) ‘this-many stars-rated reviews’ you can find online. I actually want you to read my thoughts and musings. But I’ll always allow you to skip to the important bit: did I like it!

Thank heavens for titles.

The golden cage of television.

“We are currently living in the ‘golden age’ of television!”  this is a phrase that gets thrown around all the time nowadays and it’s only partly true. Yes, there are a lot of very good television shows being produced. But the best of those are on demand only; behind a pay-wall. ‘Normal’  television doesn’t have remotely the budget Netflix or Amazon prime has so, as a result, these shows rely on tried-and-tested favourites like comedy shows in favour of grand sweeping sagas. So, are we really talking about television here?

Then there’s another thing to consider: not all shows work. On both normal television as on demand shows get scrapped all the time. Each year when studios bring out their plans for the next television season some shows will get the chop.

As it has always been in television-land; it’s a case of survival of the fittest.

But, then, what changed? The grand-sweeping experience of cinema stories made their way to the small screen. Game of Thrones can easily stand on equal footing to The Lord of the Rings. Breaking Bad is the Scarface of the 2000s. Sharp Objects fits wonderfully next to the Oscar-winner Gone girl.

There’s been a merging going on. A merging in which not only the televised stories got better (no more three-seasons dragging out of ‘we-were-on-a-break’/’will-they-won’t-they’) but also the budget of series increased to showcase some spectacular visuals.

The debate

There’s a reason why there’s currently a debate going on about disallowing Netflix and the like to compete at the Oscars. ‘TV’ can be considered equal to classical cinema in every part. But –and this is the debate- ‘the other way around’.

When I see Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia walking across the roof of that train he just raided, on my very small TV mind you, I know in the back of my mind that I’m supposed to see this (wonderful) shot in a cinema on a big silver screen. I should be overwhelmed by its size, not squinting to read the subtitles.

The 2000s on demand series then, were tailor fitted for a television-screen. There is no wish to make things larger than life, no matter how large TV-screens get.

In short the stance is: Stories made for television don’t use the same tools of ‘aw and wonder’ as the big screen does, therefore it has no place at the Oscar table.

I disagree of course. In fact, I believe that a movie like One flew over the cuckoo's nest works better on a smaller screen to entice the drama. The bigger the screen the less the audience accepts a character as ‘one of them’. But (to stay with Jack Nicolson) ‘the elevator doors’ of The Shining need to be seen on the grand screen.

Nostalgia

So why this lengthy introduction with me telling you something you already know? Because there is another pinnacle of television we are currently living in: the ‘golden age’ of nostalgia!

Again, this isn’t entirely true. Movies and TV-shows always loved to grab back at things from the past.

For a short while it was even rather evident when a new generation of moviemaker came to be

because they would tell a story about the decade of their youth (Boogie Nights, Super 8).

But, nowadays, this notion of making a sequel to an older movie is more prominent.  I argue that Internet-nostalgia called those movies into being. It’s the post-post-modernistic world in which all there’s left is to look back.

So we’ve got: Blade Runner 2049, It, The Thing, The Hitcher, Halloween, a new Indiana Jones and many, many others on the silver screen. And, on the smaller screen it’s Lost in Space, The twilight zone and now The Dark Crystal (and I didn’t even mention Star Wars/Trek).

And then there are series like Stranger Things which loves to nod and point

to the past but still manages to tell a rather unique story.

This current focus on nostalgia cynics might call this a cash-grab. And, to be honest, I sometimes feel like this as well. But, then again, look at what we got for it:

We’ve got a television medium that has ‘grown up’ and is now on equal footing to its silver screen big brother. It has over a hundred year of ‘pure art cinema’ to take inspiration from. Plus, inherent to the medium, it has more time to tell the story it wants to tell than its older brother.

It took Peter Jackson a lot of effort to get The lord of the Rings-trilogy movies produced. I argue that, nowadays, he would’ve simply called Amazon (as is currently happening). Not to mention the fact that his extended cuts are the ‘real’ movies; the man needed time.

 

Political Skeksis? To sidetrack a bit on the nostalgia timeline. When The Dark Crystal was released in 1982 Ronald Reagan was the president of the United States. I won’t be too harsh on the man but for two things: he was a famous person before he became president. And he, pretty much, made the U.S.A. dependant on big business instead of the other way around. That’s as far as I’ll go. So, of course, when the original the Dark Crystal came out people compared the Skeksis with the GOP-administration. Go forwards thirty years. Now there is another famous person president. And, once again, his GOP-administration is, pretty much, messing with the American economy in favour of big business (a massive tax-cut, trade-wars, trickle-down-economics). Can you blame the very first episode having a Skeksis say the words: “Sad! Very sad!”? Taking this reasoning a bit further the Gelfling are awfully naïve. They are like children here (moreso than the Podling were in the original movie)! They want nothing more than to keep things like they were and are willing to follow any lie that promises this. Could this be a stab at ‘populist politicians’ winning worldwide? Shoot! Now, I’m committed on being political.

The Dark Crystal

Which, finally, brings me to the Dark Crystal: age of resistance!

You need to understand the above to truly appreciate what makes this show such a triumph.

To be able to create the Dark Crystal in the first place the creators used the current hype of nostalgia to get funding (which, thanks to ‘on demand’ is now far more than in 1983).

But, once they got that, they earned their keep by allowing such visual creativity in the project that its lasting splendour will be hard to ignore in the years to come.

Then, the show builds upon this by using the television-staple to tell an eight-hour The Lord of the Rings-like sweeping story. Eight hours in which the viewer is pulled into this marvellous magical landscape, learns the lore of the lands, understands each and every character and is moved by the smallest of details. In short: it gets the viewer even more invested than the original movie ever could.

In fact, the Dark Crystal: age of resistance compliments the original movie in every way.

With ‘on demand’ moviemakers have to coerce the viewer once again. Betting on nostalgia might be a safe bet for now. But I argue that it is variety that wins over calculated-pragmatism in the long run every time. Especially if the people behind it are so devoted to their vision. Whereas most ‘cynical-cash-grabs’ will be forgotten in the future; I dare to predict/hope that the Dark Crystal: age of resistance will live on.

This has everything to do with the hand-craft involved. The Dark Crystal: Age of resistance feels hand-made. I’m certain several shots and tricks were pulled from the computer but most of all it are real puppeteers playing the parts live on set. It are the puppeteers who are the real actors here -something the celebrities providing the voice-acting are all very aware off.

The Dark Crystal: age of resistance has a devotion to acting that shines through this tale of Thra. That combined with some fabulous mythology and a keen eye for detail makes this show something you easily return to time and again.

Of course there are some nitpicks to mention (there always are). But that shouldn’t bother you when The Dark Crystal: Age of resistance is such a loving work of art.

IT: Chapter 2 – a review

After 27 years Pennywise has awakened again. The bodies of his killing spree confirm this for Mike, the last of the ‘Losers Club’ left in Derry, Maine.

As he contacts his friends to uphold the oath they made as teenagers, the final stage is set to defeat the monster nicknamed ‘IT’.

 

I wrote this review on the basis of the theatrical release of IT: Chapter 2 in 2019. So before the extended version was brought out. And before the possible release of Andrés Muschietti’s ultimate version of IT (combining chapters 1 and 2 into one movie).

Ouch

Something went very wrong with this second chapter. It’s like the moviemakers decided to cut all the things that made the first movie rather good and increased on the things that made the first movie bad.

Maybe I was sucked into the hype (the deadlights). Maybe I expected the movie to fulfil my each and every expectation and then some. This could very well be. But –as I wrote before in my review of Game of Thrones: season 8- I’m usually ‘oke’ with a movie going in another direction than I expected. Not with IT though. This movie pretty much managed to rub me the wrong way constantly throughout the 2 hours 50 minutes running time.

Yikes

The scares don’t work because the only scares in this movie are jump-scares. There is only a shimmer here and there of actual suspense (pretty much every scene with a ‘non-Loser-kid’ involved). But, then, when the manifestation of the monster comes to show the audience is treated with a ghastly CGI-monstrosity. This kills the movie. Each time the scare scene happens you jump up a little and then you laugh not out of that pleasant old feeling of ‘you got me’, but because said monster looks detached, dare I say, unfitting (unfinished?).

It doesn’t help that the movie constantly throws funny remarks at the audience.

Which made me wonder what the heck I was watching a horror or a comedy.

Phoe

Talking about detached the whole of two hours the movie treats the audience with one contained scare scene after another. There’s a scene for old Richie and a scene for young Richie; A scene for old Bev and a scene for young Bev. It’s like the movie is ticking all the boxes with the flimsiest story to attach those scenes together.

This is strange because, as any movie fan will tell you (especially horror movie fans), you need the audience to invest in the characters for the scares to work. IT: Chapter 2 just shows a whole shebang of character reacting to the monster’s manifestation without enough emphasis on the characters and their relations with each other.

Richie and Beverly might get a bit more character work in the movie but Bill is utterly downplayed and stays pretty one-dimensional throughout the sordid tale.

Aargh

Bowers arrives and is forgotten in a heartbeat. It is truly a miss that such a potentially great nemesis
is demoted to a timewaster.

Then there are the scenes-without consequence. The Gay-couple-scene(s) or the Buying-the-bike-scene are, pretty much, useless. These scenes add nothing to the movie. There's no cause-and-effect. Nothing that happens later on that requires that particular previous bit of story.

 

According to online rumour the gay-couple-scene does have a fallout in a court scene. But it got edited out. So now we are left with a scene that’s basically Pennywise getting dinner. No matter how brave or well acted the scene is it adds nothing to the grand story of IT.

Uhm

Because IT: Chapter 2 relies on separate scare scenes with only the smallest story in-between the movie feels far too long. There is so much this movie could cut to make it a manageable two hours. ‘Kill your darlings’, the audience doesn’t need another young Richie or Eddie scare-scene, this chapter is about the adults.

Also, Stanley’s final entry…just no.

Whee

But that’s enough of me ranting. Every cloud has a silver lining and there are only a handful of movies that I truly detest with a vengeance. IT: Chapter 2 has its good sides as well.

The acting is fine (especially Bill Hayder is a scene stealer). The Barrens flashback scene is hilarious. There are some clever scare scenes (the mirror maze, the old woman build-up), but that’s about it.

Then I read other reviews online (people who are faster than me in posting ramblings).They often applauded the CGI tomfoolery. They enjoyed the combination of havoc and humour.

I disagree. I think IT (the full story) should be dark, unpleasant and traumatising. This horror movie, for me, should be akin to Hereditary (2018) or In the mouth of madness (1995); bleak and dark. Not Homebound (2016), The final girl (2016) or Behind the mask: the rise of Lesley Vemon (2014). We are talking about traumatized kids here...the tongue firmly in cheek simply doesn’t fit.

So, in the end, it is the style of the movie that doesn’t work for me.

Nope

IT: Chapter 2 feels to me like it missed the mark completely. Competently shot and acted and still this movie doesn’t work. Now, this can all be fixed. The CGI tomfoolery can be turned around. The editing can be pruned just the make the movie more solid.

I’m actually looking forwards to Andrés Muschietti’s ultimate version of IT. Maybe if he sticks to the book he can get a solid movie out of it.

Still no space-turtle though.

Again, like the 1990 mini-series before it, it is the adult chapter that doesn’t work. There is potential but, down to brass tacks, what I saw was sometimes good in parts but certainly wasn’t that good as a whole. As the losers always said: “We have to stick together!” Unfortunately Chapter 2 doesn’t stick.

Childs Play (2019) – a review

A thirteen year old boy get’s the ('last years’) hottest new item on the market: a Buddie doll! A fully functioning robot for younger children with all kinds of interactive gizmo’s and gadgets to make your life easier. But most of all, you get a friend for life! That is, until some abused programmer decides to say: “‘F- it all’ let’s take the safety features off!”

In a world of constant lacklustre remakes and uninspired reimaginings it is sometimes a breath of fresh air to get a remake that actually works from start to finish. Childs Play (or ‘Childs Play 2.0’ as I like to call it) is such a movie. It has the same concept as the 1988 original (a killer doll), uses the same three base characters (the mom, son and cop) but that’s about it. The rest of 2019’s Childs Play is deliciously different and, more importantly, the new subplot on why the doll gets killing actually works a lot better than that whole hocus pocus (although Brad Dourif was/is great) that was used in the 1988 original.

Update Chucky

A good remake (or reimagining) walks a fine line between the original and the new path. Undertaking such a movie can easily go wrong. To take a critique I have about 2016’s Ghostbusters remake as an example. That movie was riddled with cameo’s and nods to the original movie. But, at the same time the new stuff the movie put in wasn’t very good; not to mention tonally out of sync with the original movie (soup jokes, a very silly personal assistant).

So, as a result the movie became a strange mix of constantly reminding the audience that it’s supposed to be in line with the original whilst, at the same time, not giving any of the things that made the original fun (like macabre humour).

What Childs Play (2019) does is that it never overtly (no cameos here) connects itself to the 1988 original. But it does bring a whole range of scenes that are in sync with the ‘flavour’ of the Childs Play-franchise.

As I said the base trio is present. But the mother is dating, the son is older and the cop has a mom. Another reference I got was the apartment building the main characters live at, it’s similar to the original. But there’s a big difference between a cameo of an actor and a building.

“This IS the end!”

I can tell you (without spoiling much) that the famous above sentence gets a return as well. And, luck would have it, this time ‘round it isn’t overacted.

I love that moment in the original movie. It's so bad it's good!. The original child who said those words in the original tried his best but he was just too young to pull it off believably. What does the remake do? It ups the age of the child.

Now Andy (Gabriel Bateman) is a thirteen-something Millennial kid who swears, watches horror movies and laughs about them and is highly capable in the new high-tech-cloud-world we currently inhabiting (the movie takes place slightly into the future).

I was a bit shocked when I read an interview of the IT kids cast when the first chapter was about to come out.

They said they all saw the original Tim Curry mini-series and that they didn’t find it scary.

What’s up with this new generation? I’m still traumatized.

Because that’s the strength of Childs Play (2019). It uses technology to conjure up the danger.

The movie even spotlights this by a characters talking about the robot apocalypse.

If you have a machine that can command all kinds of other machines like a puppet master, a Roomba suddenly becomes a deathtrap. The only thing the writer needs to do is to find a way to get said machine on the path to murder. Which is where the character of the overworked and abused programmer comes in.

After that, you are the first hand witness of seeing Chucky following in the fictional Lenny’s (big) footsteps. Starting small Chucky’s lust for blood becomes bigger and bigger. And with all the power the audience, by now, already know he possess a lot of fun is to be had.

Critique

Before I get to the good part I do have to mention a little critique. Childs Play (2019) doesn’t take itself too seriously (this is a good thing). It uses the 80s mould of baddies getting slaughtered and goodies surviving. As such there are some hilariously vile characters in the movie that I was just waiting for to go.

Basically Childs Play (2019) wants you to sit down and relax and watch Chucky having a grand ol’ time. However, for this to happen the main character Andy has to make some rather strange choices.

True, as we all know, the puberty-brain isn’t the most stable mind in the world. But some of the choices the boy makes along the way made me (from a story perspective) scratch my head.

But this critique is quickly forgotten when Chucky starts having fun again.

Blood, gore and acting

For a movie that feels like an 80s movie in which every kind soul survives Childs Play (2019) is pretty darn bloody. The movie does cut away when things get too graphic but still, the amount of blood could fill the Overlook hotel elevator. But the murders are always done creatively with tongue firmly in cheek.

I’ve often talked about Space and Place in horror movies on this blog. I’ve also highlighted the usage of shadows in horror movies. This time ‘round I wish to focus on something else: the petite killer. As any other antagonist the small killer uses the above mentioned tropes to his benefit. Space/Place: kitchen cabinets suddenly become dangerous because he could’ve hidden in there. Shadows: He might be lurking in the shadows and lunge at you. There are two elements that I wish to highlight here. For starters: size. Ad I said above a small antagonist can hide anywhere. But, more importantly, a small antagonist can use its size against its prey. You can see and hear Jason Voorhees coming for miles. You don’t see or hear Cage Creed until he cuts your Achilles tendon. A movie with a small antagonist is, therefore, I argue, far more dependent on the suspense of looking for something in the dark (and the eventual pay-off) then the likes of Friday the 13th which are more about the suspense of the chase. The second point is the obvious one. Every ‘killer kid’ (small antagonist) movie uses this same template. The movie introduces a apparently sweet character and then toys around with childlike innocence contrasted with bloody murder. Again, to compare it to Friday the 13th there is no black-and-white killer in ‘killer-kids’-movies because your own morality/humanity gets turned upside-down. My favourite ‘killer kid’ was in the TV-show Highlander. Here a boy immortal used his innocence to convince other immortals to protect him. Then, when they had their backs turned, the boy decapited them with a meat cleaver (if memory serves). I remember, thinking, at the time, that the kid was probably more powerful than the Highlander.

Which is then underlined by the great Mark Hamill (the Joker himself) as the voice of Chucky. He brings the doll just enough innocence and menace to make this character memorable. Strangely enough it weren’t Chucky’s glowing red eyes that unnerved me, it was his voice. Hamill (after his Star Wars-tour he became a great video-game/voice actor) knows his craft of making a voice sound the way it should.

Hamill also sings two versions of ‘The Buddie song’ on the credits.

One version happy go lucky.

The other version darker (plus it feels like Chucky’s battery is dying out).

Andy, being an older boy gets to show a lot more emotions than the boy in the original movie was
ever allowed to. Moreover, teenagers are allowed to get hurt in Hollywood-fiction. So there are some nice action scenes for him.

His mother (Aubrey Plaza), then, is handed the delicious part of the ‘not perfect mother’. Too often mothers in movies are too perfect (almost like a Mary Sue). Thankfully not in horrors (e.g. The Ring) and certainly not in Childs Play. Plaza’s, Karin, has a terrible taste in boyfriends, isn’t scared of blackmailing people to get what she wants, but she does love her son with whole her heart. Karin is a rather complete character in a movie that doesn't need her to be, and Plaza portrays her quite well.

The third member of the party is ‘The cop’ (Mike Norris played by Brian Tyree Henry). The first half of the movie he is all charm. But thankfully the actor gets somewhat of an arch to go through. But, then again, the minute this arch starts the movie is already going full throttle towards the finale. So it's a bit of a letdown.

Still, Henry’s natural charm and the wonderfully delivered little quirky moments of him talking to himself is all you need to root for him.

Another shout out goes to the child actors and all the victims of Chucky. Even the most two-dimensional character (Omar) has a little scene for the actor to showcase his skill set. Childs play (2019) therefore is a very good harmony of witty writing and delivery.

This IS the END!

What a surprise this updated Chucky was for me. The evil doll is now a computer glitch (leave the paranormal for Annabelle) and it actually works. Chucky has more powers, less morals and a wonderful new voice. And even though Childs Play (2019) is very much in line with the 1988 original, never overtly so.

This is –like any Childs Play movie- one of those movies you watch with your friends on a Saturday night. Screaming at the TV-screen: “Don’t do that!”, “Don’t go out!”, “Chucky is there!” to which SIRI replies: “Roomba...kill!”

Fixing movies: Signs

Let’s start with the arrogance of the title: fixing movies.

There are, of course, a whole lot of movies that I personally would have loved to have seen go differently than what happened. I would’ve preferred Call me by your name to have ended happily. Or, if it were up to me, the kid in Dinocroc wouldn’t have died.

Yes, I watch a whole array of different films.

But these are all choices made by the director. My personal preference or opinion gets in the way.

However, sometimes a movie has a ‘happy mistake’ that I can use to make the movie more to my liking. One of these movies is M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs (2002). Obviously this article is filled with spoilers for the movie.

Signs is a peculiar case of a movie. Because it is actually very good. The story is grand. The acting is fantastic. But it all tumbles down with the (so-called) ‘twist’ before the end.

Spoiling the story for you (you should’ve seen this movie by now) it appears that the aliens invading earth are lethally allergic to (drum roll please) ‘water’.

Water...the key element to life on other planets. Water...the one element that our silly little planet earth has such an abundance of that it often just falls from the sky.

So here we have a superior alien race that decides to use all its advanced technological knowhow to fly lightyears towards a planet on the outskirts of the universe that actually consists of the one substance they are allergic to. And, of course, because that’s how the superior alien race union of workers decided, the aliens invade without any protection –naked.

Basically the minute the ‘twist’ lands Signs becomes laughable after the fact. The aliens –who inspired fear and tension for the first hour of the movie- are suddenly demoted to a ‘guy who, drenched in gasoline, visits the sun’. Stupid beyond believe!

This hurts the movie so tremendously that everything that came before this ‘twist’ becomes obsolete. Every great acting scene, every beautiful shot is diminished because ‘aliens can’t take water’.

So how to fix this movie?

The simple answer would be to change the water into any other kind of substance. Be it cola, motor oil, Red Bull. It doesn’t matter. Any other liquid would’ve been fine.

But I like to take a different approach!

The story of Signs is all about a priest who lost his faith after his wife died in a car accident. He is doubting the existence of God.

Or, maybe, the ‘goodness’ of God.

Signs is a movie that has a religious strand woven through throughout. The story is about faith, predestination and believing.

The son can’t inhale the toxic gas (in the finale) because of his asthma (predestination).

And the father ‘believes’ that, due to this, his son will be alright.

So –this is how my mind works- what does a priest do, amongst other things? He blesses water. A priest can make water holy.

So why not have the daughter ask her father time and again to bless the glass of water she is holding? And supposedly he humours her and makes a half-hearted hand-gesture and mutters some words to make it holy (even if he doesn’t believe -he is a priest after all, he has the power).

Now all the water-filled glasses in the house contain ‘holy water’.

This would make the finale consisting of the evil aliens being some sort of ‘spawns from hell’ intolerant to holy water.

It would also insert some notion of the entire family being religious.

Something that is strangely lacking in the movie (due to the detached father-character).

But that’s not enough for me!

M. Night  loves to ground his fantastical tales in reality. A boy named Cole sees dead people (in the Sixth Sense). Does he become a superhero? No! M. Night calls the psychiatrist –as it were.

David Dunne realizes he’s ‘unbreakable’. Does he go to Pakistan to kick Al-Qaida’s behinds? No, he fixes his city and stays low-key.

Keeping this in mind I would add some ‘murkiness’ to 'my -above mentioned- twist' of Signs. This would invovle just a short news item playing in the background that the tap-water in the region has been contaminated by chlorine. Then the viewer sometimes sees the main characters occasionally drinking water from a bought bottle instead of the tap.

Now, to me at least, the finale becomes interesting. The setting is still the same. Mel Gibson still tells Joaquin Phoenix to ‘swing away’. But the water could be, at the same time, holy (thus God exists) or just filled to the brim with an unnatural chemical which the alien being can’t abide.

I think that this would fix the movie. It would create a rather nice ambiguity between religion and science without making the invading aliens ‘stupid after the fact’.

I still love Signs. It truly is a great movie. But the movie gets hurt (very) badly by the last act. In a perfect world M. Night would’ve thought of the same sort of things I’ve written above. I, honestly, believe that my suggestions would make the whole of the movie more logical, ambiguous and –in the end- better.

Then again, the man didn’t realize the ‘twist’ in ‘The sixth sense’ until his fifth draft of the story.

We are all human!