Sounds familiar

A show of hands please, how many of us are not thinking Friday the 13th right now?

Thought so.







Btw, also check out the amazing motion poster:
http://saw3dmovie.com/Poster/

Lolita's curse

In her book Hollywood Lolita Marianne Sinclair speaks of a phenomena surrounding the later lolita actresses, while most of the early silent lolita-stars could build out solid careers non of the later incarnation of this specific men’s fantasy did fare well, neither in their career nor in their lives. I've been reminded of that recently when, while idly chatting away in some forum, the question came up: “What ever happened to Jane March?”
Far as I know she made only two movies, both times playing the teenaged seductress to a much older co-star.

And now I do wonder: Did she, too, fall prey to the lolita-curse?

All good things...

…come in threes; but this is not true for Hollywood, here we rather seem to be dealing with an unwritten third time’s not the charm rule.
Blade Trinity is a prime example for that.
What started out as fast paced, entertaining new take on movie vampires proved to probably having been too fast paced for its own good, by reaching the third part it already had ran itself to death*. It’s excruciating to watch decent actors struggle their way to this mess of a script the movie was build on, and to add insult to injury the only visible attempt to salvage this mess at least financially was by cranking up the PPM** rate to a maximum in hopes to at least appeal to a large enough crowd of kids that still find the mention of body parts and bodily functions to be a hoot…

And what again had the man himself, David S. Goyer, to say about sequels:

“…New Line, and Wesley, and a lot of people involved hope that Blade will spawn […] other sequels or, you know, Tv-Show or who knows what. The Big question to me will be, I mean Blade is a very graphic violent, dark movie, and the big question to me will be, if a second film is made will it be more user-friendly, will it go down the Batman road. I mean, I was very disappointed with the Batman films, I thought they got successively worse. You know, if there’s gonna be a Blade Happy Meal in five years from now we are in trouble.”

Blade Trinity's feeble charms could be found summed up in its run of teaser posters.

*Actually I thought that the TV-Series marked a huge step-up again in story, but no less it was too little too late.
** PPM = Profanities per minute.

Who's been first?

As you might have gathered from my last post, I'm a fan of the Blade series (of the first two movies and the TV-Show anyways), but I do happen to find the poster for the second to look ludicrous. Who ever approved that should have been fired. I guess all that saved Blade II from oblivion was the quality of it's predecessor and Del Toro's devote followers.
Which he deserves, the man is brilliant.













One of the few other modern vampire movies I happen to like is 30 days of night, such a lovely teaser poster and the movie didn't disappoint either in my opinion, only the end bugs me somewhat because it looks like a one on one copy from the end for Blade II.

In fairness to 30 days it stands to mention that both the comic this was based on (which by a guess already featured the same ending) and Blade II came out the same year.









On a closing note:
Naturally we can all happily agree on one thing - neither of the above can beat the fiercely sensual and dangerous creatures from Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark.

Jesse Hooker and his posse still are the definitve word on modern vampires.

Picture perfect moment

When watching Blade, one thing is clear from the start: This is a comic book character living in a comic book world, even if the world is no longer the one he originated from in Marvel’s Dracula.
What really brings this movie home to me, is a realistic, urban style that yet reminds a lot of Timothy Bradstreet’s art for Vampire: The Masquerade. Interestingly Tim then actually did work on the sequel, which, as is not unusual, goes for a much different, less realistic & urban style. You couldn’t readily tell that he was involved in the creation of the vampires for Blade II, but I would be willing to bet good money that it was Bradstreet’s illustrations made for Vampire: The Masquerade (and to a degree William Friedkin’s formidable movie French Connection) that influenced the look of the first Blade movie the most.
It’s a marvel actually that White Wolf did try to sue them, given how obvious it becomes that the art department consciously tried to recreate the RPG game's look as close as they could without outright copying it.

Art comparison

I stumbled upon the picture on the right over at Deviantart, it's called Fall within II, and interestingly it has been submitted there in the same year/month The Alphabet Killer came out.
According to the artist he didn't see the artwork for Alphabet Killer previous to his own work, which makes for a fun coincidence.

Two artists

I'll take this months issue of "Spoof Posters" tagged posts to highlight two artists who's work I came upon cruising along the internet highway. There's something about it them I like, even if it ain't the kind of style I would put on my wall:

1. Kevin Dart
Kevin's main work is on Yuki 7, for which he does Bond like movie posters, but he also drew the occassional monster movie art (fans of Boris will find the one on the left familiar loking) and other stuff, you can find more of his work here: http://www.kevindart.com/

















2. Tom Whalen
Our second highlighted artist can be found in these places: http://strongstuff.deviantart.com/ ; http://www.strongstuff.net/

I said initally that I wouldn't put that art style on my wall, but truth is that his posters for The Shining could sway me, or his take on Fulci's Zombie.

Gone with the inspiration

Immitation, they say, is the highest form of flattery. That may be, but it sure isn't always flattering. And in case of artworks like Mandingo it smells more of desperation.

Still the vast number of more or less direct, and varyingly original or talented, quotes and imitations of the famous Gone with the wind motiv certainly underlines its continuing importance as a cultural pop icon.






















































In case you want to point out that it was just my personal lack of inspiration that led to this post let me just say:
"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!"

Sex and the World Cup

I'm as far from being a fan of Sex and the City as one can get without being a hater. Quite honestly most of the time I don't see what's funny about that show, but this German Soccer World Cup version for the second movie, actually made me laugh.

"King Football," as the Germans like to call it, squashed under the stiletto heel of some woman's overpriced footwear.
That's a ingenious reversal of the prominent image of a beer-bellied "master of the house" sprawled in front of the TV-set, rather watching his sports instead of going out with the misses.
A nice little reminder of who really is in charge ... it's not us.

Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Day

I used last years SF&F writers day to talk a bit about Arthur C. Clarke who’s unbroken believe that humanity will someday manage to evolve into an intelligent species worthy of calling itself human was a huge inspiration to me as a kid.
Clarke showed a strong believe in his writing that knowledge gained through technical advance is the way to salvation for our race.
Let me point out the writings of another brilliant mind in the field of Sci-Fi, contrasting Clarke's view:

Algis Budrys


Budrys wrote among others the novel from which the movie Who? was adapted. And as for Budrys typical the movie questions if technological advancement really is to be seen as an aid to our development, or if it not rather will ultimately lead to a dehumanisation.
It’s the story of American scientist Lucas Martino who after a car accident beyond the Iron Curtain is only saved through advanced medical technology that replaces half of his body, including his face, with mechanical parts (hence the alternative English title The Man with the Steel Mask). Because of his involvement with an important secret project he’s probed by the CIA after his return to learn if he’s been turned by the soviets or if he’s even at all who he claims to be. While the espionage part of the story is well executed and lending the movie the necessary suspense over its length, it’s the human drama of Martino that’s of real importance, his gradual loss of any sense of self.

The labelling of this powerful Sci-Fi classic as Robo Man with a cover showing The Man in the Iron Mask holding us at gunpoint is an unspeakable atrocity to the movies spirit, who ever came up with that is hopefully ashamed of himself.


Cube owes largely to Budrys writing.
Even if his story isn’t credited, the movie does remind one of his most prominent novel: Rogue Moon.
Rogue Moon tells the story of a life weary stuntman that gets hired to help in the exploration of an artefact found on Moon. All that scientists working on it have been able to find out about to that point, is that its build like a maze on the inside and that it kills people. Using a machine that can create a mind linked double of a human body they send in explorers without risking their live, at least in theory, but the few that tried couldn’t cope with experiencing the death of their double and went insane, which is why they want to try with someone reputed to be possessed with a death wish.
While the scientists involved with the project believe that something will happen once they manage to get a man through this maze, Budrys protagonist stays sceptical, telling them that the artefact might be meaningless, that they might just be like bugs caught at the bottom of a thrown away bottle, going round and round believing to be tested by a higher intelligence. In the end the artefact found in Rogue Moon becomes secondary to the story, it serves only as a warning about a dangerously blind believe in advanced technology.
And as such the tagline for Cube could just as well stand for Budrys's novel:

Don't look for a reason, look for a way out!