| Article: 2807
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews
From: [email protected] (Mark R. Leeper)
Subject: PREVIEWS: Upcoming SF Films
Sender: [email protected] (Evelyn C. Leeper)
Organization: AT&T, Middletown NJ
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 1994 20:24:38 GMT
[Followups directed to rec.arts.sf.movies.]
Upcoming SF Films Presentation
Film commentary by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1994 Mark R. Leeper
This year the World Science Fiction Convention was held in
Winnipeg. The upcoming film presentation at each year at the World
Science Fiction Convention used to have reasonably detailed looks at
upcoming films by people who are actually working on the films. And
for me anyway that made it one of the high points of the convention.
After a few years the style was changed and a single publicist would
come and cover several films, not all of which had he worked on
(obviously).
Now even that is not usually done any more. There will be maybe
one or two "look inside" presentations, but most often what you have is
a publicity film that covers some of the same territory but with more
hype and less detail. The film will be of the sort of short that also
runs on cable stations. Or a studio may just the same trailer that
they show in theaters. These days the amount of special inside
information that one gets is small compared to the amount of gloss and
hype. Even so it is getting harder to make the current crop of films
look good since there really seem to be fewer interesting films being
made and a lot more like JUDGE DREDD. For someone wanting to know
about upcoming films, there generally is more useful information even
from ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY (this year it is the August 26 issue) than
from the World Science Fiction Convention film presentation. The
earlier films were the least promising; the second half of the
presentation seemed to contain the better films.
JUDGE DREDD
This was the only real presentation. This film, based on the
comic book, is set in the world of the 21st Century with towering
skyscrapers. There has been a good deal of class stratification in the
society that is background to the film so that the bad neighborhoods
are all over at ground level and the higher you are, the further up you
live. It is an interesting metaphor, but it really doesn't work if you
give it much thought. Apparently the police force in this society are
called the "judges." A judge is, from the looks of things, a little
bit of judge, a little bit of jury, much more a policeman, and a whole
lot an executioner. The title character is the meanest of the judges.
In the comic book, you never see Judge Dredd's face, but in the film
you can be sure you will see that he is played by Sylvester Stallone,
but a supporting cast including Max von Sydow and Juergen Prochnow.
The presentation showed several production sketches with what they want
the city to look like and especially what care they are lavishing on
designing the guns. This one is a futuristic pump-action shotgun, that
one is a handgun that shoots six kinds of bullets. The talk was about
20 minutes and totally failed to mention anything at all that would
interest me in seeing this film.
SPACE GHOST
Back when I was young there was a cartoon that I never watched
called SPACE GHOST. This seems to be a resurrection of the character
for TV syndication with more intended humor. It seemed pointless and
weak. The words did not even fit Space Ghost's lips. It was an odd
choice for this audience, but I suppose there might have been a fan or
two in the room.
TWO STUPID DOGS
A joyless presentation with a promo tape for a cartoon series from
Hanna-Barbera. Apparently like "crazy" and "bad," the word "stupid" is
becoming a positive. This one is chock-full of gags like telling the
dogs to "shake" and having them stand up and dance. Stupid is the
word, all right.
IN THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS
The most popular author in America has disappeared. Sam Neill
plays a detective looking for him and the search leads to finding a
town where something Cthulu-like seems to reign. This is John
Carpenter's adaptation of an H. P. Lovecraft horror story. The trailer
implies that there is something very non-human at the center of the
problems that you do get to see this thing, but beyond that it is tough
to judge the quality of the film. Juergen Prochnow is in this one also.
WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE
Apparently this film is about the return of Freddy Kruger from
what was promised to be his death in the last film. It is Wes Craven
directing again for the first time since the first film. For those who
like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like.
DON JUAN DEMARCO AND THE CENTERFOLD
Johnny Depp plays a Latin who believes himself to be the legendary
Don Juan. He is sent to a psychiatric hospital where women on the
staff cannot help but fall passionately in love with him. Some people,
including his doctor (played by Marlon Brando), become convinced he
really is Don Juan. The film appears to be like THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS
with sex. Faye Dunaway also stars.
THE LEGENDARY JOURNEYS OF HERCULES
Just what the world needs: A weekly TV show with beefcake and
sandal. The trailer made it look only mediocre, but even that may be a
moral victory for whoever made the trailer. There is a special effect
in showing Hercules defeat a giant in the trailer and it looked okay,
but unimpressive in a world that has toaster graphics.
TIMECOP
Jean-Claude Van Damme kicks his way into another science fiction
film which looks a little better than his UNIVERSAL SOLDIER. The
downside is that the film is directed by Peter Hyams who tends to make
bad judgements about what to do with science fiction. Ron Silver is a
politician from the future who uses backward time travel for money
(e.g., knowing when some famous gold shipment took place) and political
gain. Van Damme is the title character sent back to prevent nasty
changes in the timestream. I sat next to a woman who had attended an
advanced screening and said that it really is a good piece of science
fiction built on time travel paradoxes. She thoroughly enjoyed the film.
STREET FIGHTER
Jean-Claude Van Damme has a second film coming out. This is based
on a popular video game of the same name in spite of the fact that
Jean-Claude Van Damme seems to be spending none of the time in the film
fighting anywhere near a street. Raul Julia plays a dictator who has
captured a herd of American hostages and intends to execute them if we
don't either hand him a chunk of the GNP or send over a crack commando
team for his minions to fight with. I am amazed they could get Julia
into the silly looking pseudo-military uniform complete with cap out of
a Blackhawk comic and cape out of Zorro. The real question is whether
they be able to capture the intelligence and depth of character
development in the video game. Initially it looks like they won't.
FRANKENSTEIN
The trailer for FRANKENSTEIN is the same trailer that has been
playing in theaters for months. Kenneth Branagh directs as well as
taking the title role. The publicity shows nothing of Robert De Niro
as the monster. The production looks very stylish and this one is
certainly on my must-see list. One wonders what kind of liberties it
will take with the story. A faithful adaptation of the Shelley novel
would probably move too slowly to be cinematic. Certainly that was in
the one faithful version to date, VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN (a.k.a. TERROR OF
FRANKENSTEIN). This version looks a lot more melodramatic, if one can
judge by the trailer. Certainly this is the film I am most eagerly
awaiting this year.
STARGATE
This looks like a big budget science fiction spectacle about an
odd artifact discovered by an archeological dig in Egypt which proves
to be a gateway to a parallel world. This world is supposedly where
the ancient Egyptians got all those weird ideas about architecture and
what gods look like. Today we, of course, know a lot better what gods
and buildings should look like. The film stars Kurt Russell and James
Spader and is spending a lot of green recreating the desert culture of
Ancient Egypt. In the alien world there are pack animals that look
very much like fugitives from THE DARK CRYSTAL. I didn't see a credit
but that leads me to think that Brian Froud may be involved somehow.
There is an open question of why equipment on the other world is done
in motifs with Earth animals like jackals and falcons. Jaye Davison of
THE CRYING GAME appears.
RAPA-NUI
This is a story of love and passion on a South Sea island. In
this case it is Easter Island at the time when the natives were
erecting the famous giant stone heads. The story looks like it could
almost be a remake of TABOO. South Sea Island romances sounds like a
cinematic idea whose time has come and gone. This one will succeed
with me or fail depending on how interesting they make the background
culture.
THE SPECIALIST
Sylvester Stallone and Sharon Stone star in a film about a woman
who hires an explosives expert to get revenge on the Cuban-American
crime figures who murdered her family. How very timely! The nasties
are Rod Steiger and Eric Roberts. James Woods fits into it somewhere
also. I think that all the acting talent is in the supporting roles.
This one looks like sex and explosions. Luis Llosa (SNIPER) directs
from a screenplay by Alexandra Seros (POINT OF NO RETURN).
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE
There is not much to be told from the trailer for this adaptation
of the Anne Rice novel. The film looks to be stylish. Tom Cruise does
not look at all silly as the Vampire Lestate. In fact he may even look
as good stiff in a high collar as he looked dancing in his underwear.
Rumor has it that Anne Rice fought having Cruise cast. But like
Frederic March, Cruise might well overcome his "pretty-boy" looks to
become a decent actor. Certainly Neil Jordan is a good director with a
fresh eye for the supernatural as he showed in THE COMPANY OF WOLVES.
Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, and Christian Slater also appear. The ad
seems an imitation of the trailer for FRANKENSTEIN.
GARGOYLES
Years ago the trailer for WILLOW showed skull-faced warriors on
horseback and said "Forget all you know about good and evil." I
thought this looked like a great idea. It sounded like the skull-
warriors were going to be the heroes and perhaps the angelic looking
creatures could be the villains for once. I was wrong, but I have long
wanted to see that sort of thing done. I get very tired of this
equation of pretty and good. In this apparent TV series the title
characters are reasonable creatures on whom the French sculpture based
gargoyles. They are living in of world where we humans assume they are
evil just because they are ugly to us. There is some room there for
interesting ideas, I suppose.
THE PUPPET MASTERS
Donald Sutherland stars in an adaptation of Robert Heinlein's 1951
novel about aliens taking over the minds of humans and the battle to
stop them. The story was (probably) the inspiration for Jack Finney's
novel THE BODY SNATCHERS, itself adapted three times into films.
Director Stuart Orme is counting on it cutting the mustard with
audiences that he is adapting the earlier and hence more original
novel. Right. The fact remains that audiences will probably see a lot
of similarity in the two stories and the film will have to try very
hard not to have a derivative feel. The alien creature is sufficiently
creepy looking and realistic to make for some chills. The production
values look quite good.
ED WOOD
I really dislike the practice of making fun of bad films or trying
to pick the worst film ever made. That is really a search for the
worst film that was ever good enough to get relased at all. It is sort
of like looking for the coldest warm day on record. Ed Wood was a
truly incompetent filmmaker who has become a cult figure for a bunch of
mean-spirited, smirking film fans. That said, Tim Burton's ED WOOD
bio-pic looks like it is going to be a lot of fun. I always enjoy
films about filmmaking and Wood was a man with a lot of strange kinks
in his head to make it even more interesting. Johnny Depp does not
look a lot like Wood, but they at least make him up to look the type.
On the other hand, they do a really terrific job on Martin Landau to
make him look like the dying Bela Lugosi. There might even be an Oscar
nomination for Landau in the role from what I have seen. The film clip
made sure to show that Bill Murray was in the film as one of Wood's
actors. Unfortunately Murray ruins the re-creation of some of the
scenes by not at least taking the films as seriously as the original
actors did. Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander wrote the screenplay
and their only experience is co-writing PROBLEM CHILD 2. Sarah Jessica
Parker co-stars as someone reasonably normal compared to Wood, though
she previously played SanDeE*, a character with her own weird kinks in
L.A. STORY. Jeffrey Jones and Patricia Arquette co-star also.
HIGHLANDER III
Oh, now look. The first HIGHLANDER film, as shot, had fights,
rock music, and an interesting fantasy about the implications of
immortality. Then they decided they wanted a shorter film and sliced
out something like nineteen minutes of the best material of the film.
HIGHLANDER II: THE QUICKENING reportedly was awful, made no sense, and
was just an exploitation of the property. It was a way to shake money
out of the fans of the first film. Now we are being told that
HIGHLANDER III is a sequel to the first film and the second film is
invalid. Didn't Toho try this with Godzilla and they just went back
and made the same mistakes all over again? By lobotomizing the first
film and then turning out a tripe sequel the producers have shown that
they do not care about the fantasy element or the character. I will
wait until I hear from somebody else that Fox did well by the immortality
concept in HIGHLANDER III. And even then I probably won't believe it.
Well, that was the round-up. There was nothing I can say I really
am desperate to see, though FRANKENSTEIN and ED WOOD look like they
could be very good and STARGATE, TIMECOP, and THE PUPPET MASTERS might
turn out decent also.
Mark R. Leeper
[email protected]
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