“I don’t care, if the audience sees my movies..."

“I don’t care, if the audience sees my movies, given that my producer doesn’t lose money.”
-Jean-Luc Godard

Found that quote in a movie yearbook from ’66.
I love it, because it exactly mirrors my personal view regarding the (in Europe) ever popular discussion about artistic freedom versus business interest.
The quote becomes all the more interesting when reflected against several articles printed in the very same magazine where the authors essentially put forward that a successful movie can’t be an intellectual stimulating experience, i.e. it can’t be a good movie*, while at the same time constantly wailing that movie making is a dying art form.
They show the usual contempt of the intellectual masses towards the idea of making movies for commercial success, claiming that whoever puts his money down in hope of making some profit, diminishes the “artistic value” of the finalised work.

Like most itellectuals they couldn’t care less who has to pay for something, long as it isn’t them and long as he doesn’t do it to turn a buck.

It’s small wonder that the art film has gained a worse reputation among producers than cheap Italian giallos among conservatives.


*Actually later one author did make a concession to Arthur Penn’s Bonnie & Clyde when opening his review of the movie with “The movies success notwithstanding...”

What's on their wall...

That's some good taste Soul Man Thomas C. Howell shows right there!
The original The Blob is in my humble opinion one of the most underrated, unfairly treated B-Movies. Yes, like a lot of Drive-In classics The Blob would have been forgotten by now if it hadn’t had the fortune of starring a young Steve McQueen, I won’t deny that. But most critics are so blinded by this little fact that they offhandedly ignore the very real entertainment value of this little gem. We have a delightful mix of the Horror, Sci-Fi and rebelling youth genres with a surprisingly early, pre Al Gore Earth warming warning.

It is a far superior movie to the remake which substituted the original’s straight faced seriousness with off-hand, self deprecating humour and better FX, none of which really worked in favour of the story. The cheesy 50’s Sci-Fi satire had been done before and a lot more amusing and it’s been proven often enough: Expensive FX kill cheap movies.*
In the end the remake misses what keeps the original alive, the memorable performance of actors struggling to stay serious in the face of a ludicrous story.

*Upon reflection, that’s about as much of a revelation as saying: Death kills people.
But so what, I’m a blogger, not a philosopher.

In memoriam Frank Frazetta

Frank Frazetta ... died on Monday in Fort Myers, Fla.
He was 82.


Frazetta is best known for his cover illustrations for fantasy mainstays like
E. R. Burroughs Tarzan and Carter of Mars series and his work on Warren magazines like Vampirella and Eerie.
The huge influence his work had on Fantasy artists is visible in the work of younger illustrators like Mike Hoffman, but also in the early work of such greats as Boris Vallejo.
He's certainly best known to the younger generation for his iconic Death Dealer, which appeared among other places prominently on the movie poster for Ralph Bakshi's Fire & Ice and an album cover for rock band Molly Hatchet.

Re-Imagined II

Found a few new takes on old acquaintances, enough at least for a second round.
I'm going to start with a second helping of poster-art for the TCM classic film festival:

















It's an unwritten rule in this house to start when ever possible with posting a picture of a beautiful woman, here's two for your viewing pleasure.

















Beautiful designs both, in the end I do slightly prefer the take on Jailhouse Rock which reminds, at the very least me, so much of the late & great Johnny Cash and his formidable prison concerts.


The next couple posters come from a Flickr stream the link to which I've forgot to scribble down, but don't worry you'll only miss some overly artistic approaches if you haven't seen it:

















More comic art influenced stuff, but I like it.

















This idea for Blade Runner is perfectly fitting to the movies retro noir style, and there's never anything to say against a tasteful nude.

Art comparison

High time to get some Science Fiction in here.
















Back to school, you almost want to believe it wasn't half as bad as memory makes it out to have been.
















Paying homage ... to the homage.

"May the 4th be with you"

"And with you, my son."

Have a happy Star Wars day!

Have a few Star Wars flyers, too:

"In movies give somebody $150 million and fifty years to make a film and the odds are good they'll make a professional movie.
The real challenge is to do it for a minimum amount of money in a reasonable amount of time."

"When I look at films I can tell one that cost $30 million, but if you can make a film that looks as good but only cost $15 million, then you've accomplished something."

"I remember George Cukor saying to me once, 'You refer to yourselves as filmmakers. I don't like the word filmmaker. I'm a director. A filmmaker is like being a toymaker.'
I replied that a director sounds like someone who runs a business. I'd rather be a toymaker."

-George Lucas

All quotes are taken from interviews held by Alan Arnold during the making of The Empire strikes back.

Picture perfect moment

Destruction of the eyes is a leading theme within Fulci’s L'aldilà (The Beyond).
The movie tells the story of a young woman that inherits a hotel build on one of the seven gates to Hell (and nomen est omen it’s named Seven Doors Hotel), the topic lends itself to use the metaphor of the spoiling of the eyes.
Eyes are gateways; gateways to the soul.

One has to wonder if the makers were aware of the acuteness the message would gain in these internet times where all the horrors ever imaginable are only a fingers tip away for us to revel in. Not the faux horrors cooked by some dim wit mind, brought to life in a dim lit effects shop, to finally be savoured in the dim lighting of our home rooms, not those horrors we shudder over, shrink back from, and then brush off with a laugh, secure in our knowledge that is was only smoke and mirrors, no, not that kind of horrors, but real ones, images of all the depravity humans are capable of, horrors we inflict on others on a daily basis, unspeakable acts of terror that no movie could ever hope to equal, images bound to poison our eyes and permanently stain our souls.
Whoever gets a glimpse of the gates to hell forfeits his life in L'aldilà, in real life we may not die, but still, what has been seen can’t be made unseen, and we should be careful about what we let enter through our eyes, what we let pass through the gateway to our soul for it just might kill this necessary last bit of innocence deep within us…

Misty - Crazy

It's nice to see this one make the way from The Mist to The Crazies (and hey, they both begin with The), even if the final outcome doesn't have much to do with either movie.
The fact that there's a certain laziness to the design not withstanding I do like the latest version of the The Crazies poster, it reminds me of another 80's favoured of mine: Rats - Notte di terrore.



Thanks go to William S. Wilson for pointing me to the DVD-Cover for "The Mist"

The Crazies

Brilliant artwork!
But let's face it: The Crazies will never be able to live up to the awesomeness of it's Korean poster.

Still, the trailer looks fairly promising if reminding me very little of the The Crazies I tend to remember having seen in my childhood.
And let me just quickly add I loved it!
It might, as in various places declared, not have been Romero's best work and not have the same brilliance as Night of the Living Dead, but I remember it to be a thoroughly entertaining work, far from being his worst (as such Martin or "Lost videotapes of the Dead" aka Diary come ready to mind).

The trailer I keep seeing for the remake constantly reminds me of a different take on much the same story shot in '84: Impulse.

If you haven't had yet the misfortune to see this movie, then just take my word on it when I say that it is almost not worth it.
The highlights of the movie can be quickly counted off on one hand:
Young Meg Tilly
Shot in the 80's
Young Meg Tilly
Reminds of The Crazies
Young Meg Tilly

In short, the movie is every bit as boring as the poster makes it look.
Talk about truth in advertising!

And while where at the topic and because I've already happened to mentioned the movie: The Thai poster for Martin, if only the movie had been half as exciting...

Bande Dessinée

I'm always getting a nervous itch when an American director tries his hand at an established piece of European culture.
So with the threat of Spielberg’s version of Tintin looming ahead, let’s cast a glance at how the French* fared in their own treatment of their comic-art heritage:

Blueberry is a highly successful Wild-West comic that comes in different cycles: Lt. Blueberry, Marshall Blueberry, Mr. Blueberry and Young Blueberry (for a timetable see here: Click). The movie Blueberry is a very loose adaptation of the comic, that after a promising start which reminds us that Europe once had a thriving Western movie industry, slowly succumbs to a convoluted new-age mystery plot. At the end there’s so few left of the original figure that one can only assume that all the makers were interested in was a popular name to tag on a otherwise completely mediocre story.



Working our way up from there we meet another French comic institution, Michel Vaillant.
A surprisingly entertaining, more faithful movie than Blueberry. There are times when the makers sacrifice realism in order to give their character a bigger than life appearance but nothing that would seriously hurt the story flow. My only real gripe with the movie was the drastic changes made to the character of Julie Wood, a fairly prominent secondary figure from the comic strip.




Going up in time and quality we come to Largo Winch. A fine example of how action movies have to be constructed. We get a continuous build-up of suspense and a story that gains both speed and depth over its runtime, right up to the not completely surprising but logical conclusion.
Largo Winch is a highly welcome deviation from the Bay school of movie making that doesn't simply rely on throwing money at something but actually builds on characterization.

To be counted as best comic to movie adaptation is most likely Les chevaliers du ciel, the movie by Taxi director Gérard Pirès is in all but name a mostly faithful take on the popular military adventure comic series Les aventures de Tanguy et Laverdure.

The fact that it doesn't say at any point that it is related, grants the movie a right to take liberties with its heroes that others can not claim. It is exactly this freedom that makes Les chavaliers shine where other comic to movie projects are most often bound to disappoint.


Finally we come to what looks already most promising to me, and by far outshining the mystery adventure comic title it was adapted from:
Luc Besson’s Les aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec.
The comic strips alwas looked to be a tad on bland side, but much the same can be said about Tintin's ligne claire style, and you simply have to love that poster. *Le sigh*
Besides, with Luc Besson we have a director at the helm that I'm bound to put much more trust on than I do on either Spielberg or Jackson.


We have to see how Tintin will play out, but it is always daring to try to adapt European comics which other than their American brethren tend to follow a more strict characterization. It's not like in the Superhero market which sees a new version for each new decade, or much rather every year by now, complete with "earth shattering" changes that will only last to the next re-launch, if that long...
European comic book characters evolve over time, they grow in character, they age, they ain't caught in an unfortunate, perpetual state of limbo that occasionally calls for plot twists which make Bobby Ewing's infamous return from the dead pale in comparison.
Franco/Belgian comics are grown up entertainment for grown-ups and kids alike, without having to resort to sex and senseless violence in order to appear adult.


*I know, I know, Tintin is actually Belgian, but that’s much the same market, if not he same style.