Yay for busy weekend delay!
*This column here - it’s new! You should try it and fill out the enclosed consumer satisfaction survey, so we can better fulfill your column needs. We’re here to work for you. In this edition there’s personal revelations and a whole lot of gushing about Floyd Gottfredson, and indeed, one must follow the other. Do partake.
*I’m seriously low on time here today; it was busy enough this morning but now I have to go out with some new associates on a social excursion; not really complaining, but it eats into the old blogging time something fierce. In penance, I will have lots of things this weekend, including materials from the past and the future, me being the messiah of the timestream that I am.
*In the meantime, here’s something I found at Christopher Stipp’s “Trailer Park” column over at Movie Poop Shoot (and just to digress, I have to say that I like how Stipp, the column’s second writer, if I recall correctly, has been steering his viewpoint more sharply toward the less-explored areas of independent and international cinema, while including interviews and the like along with the links; the column has undergone a genuine evolution since it began, and I think it’s for the better). It’s the trailer for the upcoming US release of the Russian film “Night Watch” (“Nochnoi Dozor”) and, with all due respect to Stipp’s own opinion, I think it quite neatly summarizes everything I find wrong with today’s fantastical popcorn cinema. It’s apparently “The First Chapter in an Epic Horror Trilogy” although it looks more to me like an ultra-typical Hollywood Summer-style blockbuster candy affair with liberal genre trimmings. Take a look (WARNING: THERE’S A VERY LOUD SHOCK EFFECT A FEW SECONDS INTO THE MATERIAL; TURN THE VOLUME DOWN IF YOU’RE FAINT OF HEART - since I’ve inflicted enough mental injury upon my readers already and I’d rather not expand into the physical realm). There’s exactly two good images in here: the woman smoking a cigarette as the wind blows and the plumes of smoke rising from the boy’s eyes as the screen turns red. The rest of it is a faintly embarrassing mish-mash of bullet-time effects, hilariously ‘cool’ heroes in shades running around fantasy battlegrounds (?), and that awful final sequence with the kid screaming and scream and the ghost writing around… gah. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just the branding of the film as ‘horror’ (certainly loud action and wild CGI don’t meet my own standards for what constitutes horror cinema)… I dunno. Just rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe I'm getting the feeling that this is exactly the type of independant cinema Summer Blockbuster Emulation Project that tends to get bandied about as an instant cult classic through the hype of the internet, which I ought not to let bug me... but I can taste the hype beginning.
*I’m seriously low on time here today; it was busy enough this morning but now I have to go out with some new associates on a social excursion; not really complaining, but it eats into the old blogging time something fierce. In penance, I will have lots of things this weekend, including materials from the past and the future, me being the messiah of the timestream that I am.
*In the meantime, here’s something I found at Christopher Stipp’s “Trailer Park” column over at Movie Poop Shoot (and just to digress, I have to say that I like how Stipp, the column’s second writer, if I recall correctly, has been steering his viewpoint more sharply toward the less-explored areas of independent and international cinema, while including interviews and the like along with the links; the column has undergone a genuine evolution since it began, and I think it’s for the better). It’s the trailer for the upcoming US release of the Russian film “Night Watch” (“Nochnoi Dozor”) and, with all due respect to Stipp’s own opinion, I think it quite neatly summarizes everything I find wrong with today’s fantastical popcorn cinema. It’s apparently “The First Chapter in an Epic Horror Trilogy” although it looks more to me like an ultra-typical Hollywood Summer-style blockbuster candy affair with liberal genre trimmings. Take a look (WARNING: THERE’S A VERY LOUD SHOCK EFFECT A FEW SECONDS INTO THE MATERIAL; TURN THE VOLUME DOWN IF YOU’RE FAINT OF HEART - since I’ve inflicted enough mental injury upon my readers already and I’d rather not expand into the physical realm). There’s exactly two good images in here: the woman smoking a cigarette as the wind blows and the plumes of smoke rising from the boy’s eyes as the screen turns red. The rest of it is a faintly embarrassing mish-mash of bullet-time effects, hilariously ‘cool’ heroes in shades running around fantasy battlegrounds (?), and that awful final sequence with the kid screaming and scream and the ghost writing around… gah. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just the branding of the film as ‘horror’ (certainly loud action and wild CGI don’t meet my own standards for what constitutes horror cinema)… I dunno. Just rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe I'm getting the feeling that this is exactly the type of independant cinema Summer Blockbuster Emulation Project that tends to get bandied about as an instant cult classic through the hype of the internet, which I ought not to let bug me... but I can taste the hype beginning.
posted by Jog at 3:51 PM
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