I kind of don't want Chris to tell me whether he chose this as the Harryhausen tribute because (as mentioned in the review), it's one where you can draw a pretty direct line between Ray and the evil wizard. To be fair, almost all of Harryhausen's fantasies are going to have at least one scene where a villain brings an inanimate object to life, but how often is it so specifically his thing?
Not that I necessarily made this particular connection right away; I'd kind of liked that Koura's magic was consistent rather than all over the place, but the likely-silly connection came as I was writing the first paragraph of the review, deleting, having an idea come into my head and go nowhere, etc. The funny thing is, the first thing that made an impression on me was seeing Tom Baker's name in the credits; the last time I saw some Harryhausen, I noted that one of the cast members was Patrick Troughton and spent a good chunk of the movie saying "is that him? maybe..." It turned out to be the blind guy, and it never clicked for me. Tom Baker playing the villain was pretty obvious this time, fortunately, so I was much less distracted by it.
Anyway, another fun late night at Somerville on the big screen. I don't know that I'll do the Cinema Slumber Party this weekend - there's potentially a lot of stuff going on - but it's another different take on the midnight movie - The Blair Witch Project - with a potentially nifty lecture on found footage horror that evening at 8pm.
The Golden Voyage of Sinbad
* * * (out of four)
Seen 22 June 2013 in the Regal Theatre (Cinema Slumber Party, 35mm)
Few people went to movies with special effects by the late, great Ray Harryhausen for the stories; they went to see him bring impossible things to life while his collaborators wove an entertaining enough tale of high adventure to make up for the fact that, back then, a movie couldn't just be an hour and a half of monsters fighting. He made a great many of these movies, but I suspect The Golden Voyage of Sinbad held a special place in his heart - and held it because he empathized with the villain.
First, though, we meet the hero. Sinbad (John Phillip Law) and his crew don't seem to be sailing anywhere in particular when they spot a strange animal flying over their ship; a bowman shoots it down and they find it is carrying a strange amulet. Visions lead Sinbad to a nearby port, where the masked Vizier (Douglas Wilmer) has a second amulet that links with the first, providing direction to the fabled isle of Lemuria and its magical fountain with a local merchant's layabout son (Kurt Christian) and a lovely slave girl (Caroline Munro) whose tattooed hand matches one of Sinbad's visions in tow. They are pursued by the wizard Koura (Tom Baker), who has reasons to find this fountain beyond his desire to take control of the city.
Wizards in fantasy stories - especially the evil ones - often have broad, vaguely defined powers, capable of doing anything the story requires until the writer realizes they're too powerful and says all that expenditure of mystic energy has worn them out, so they'll be of no use until the climax. It's noteworthy enough that Koura isn't like that - he's basically got one trick, and using it takes a visible toll on him. The fact that his main skill is bringing inanimate objects to life, seeing through their eyes, directing their actions, and feeling some sort of pain when Sinbad dispatches them... You have to admit, that's a pretty interesting guy to have as a villain in a Harryhausen movie, more human than the typical evil wizard, right down to having a henchman who seems genuinely concerned with his welfare.
Full review on EFC
Showing posts with label Cinema Slumber Party. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cinema Slumber Party. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Errors of the Human Body
Well, I would have liked to talk about this one earlier, but as you can see from the last couple of posts, Saturday was a pretty crazy smallish-movie-watching day (and that's not even including the Superman movie). This was the very tail end of it, at midnight at the Somerville, leaving me ready to drop because it got out after the Red Line stopped running my direction.
Still, it was a nifty way to begin the Cinema Slumber Party series at the Somerville Theatre, which looks like it's going to be a fun one. Chris Hallock, one of the guys behind the "All Things Horror Presents" series, has lined up what looks like it could be an interesting line-up in that it started off with something new and unusual and will have everything from Day of the Dead to Pitch Perfect over the course of the summer (note that the schedules on the Cinema Slumber Party and Somerville Theatre websites are slightly different). This coming Saturday should be a different kind of fun with a 35mm print of Ray Harryhausen's The Golden Voyage of Sinbad.
It was a somewhat quiet first week, but to be fair, they did have the rotten luck to open up against the Bruins playing overtime in the Stanley Cup finals. I'm guessing that won't throttle this series in its crib the way I'll always (somewhat irrationally) feel the Red Sox' 2004 championship run did for the Boston Fantastic Film Festival.
Speaking of... Well, let's save spoilers for after the review!
Errors of the Human Body
* * * (out of four)
Seen 15 June 2013 in Somerville Theatre #1 (Cinema Slumber Party, digital)
There's a pattern to movies like Errors of the Human Body - scientist arrives at secretive new lab, discovers his research being used for secret programs, confronts the results of the perverted and monstrous use it is being put to, maybe stops it, maybe doesn't, delivers a speech about how men shouldn't be playing God, etc., etc. And while there's a lot of that in this movie, writer/director Eron Sheean inverts and twists enough of it to make things interesting. Not always exciting or scary, but interesting.
In this case the scientist is Geoffrey Burton (Michael Eklund), who has been forced out of his position at the University of Massachusetts for the fringy research he has been conducting into genetic screening ever since his newborn son died from a rare and horrible condition. He's hired by a laboratory in Dresden, with his supervisor Samuel Mead (Rik Mayall) suggesting he work with his former student Rebekka Fielder (Karoline Herfurth) on her cellular regeneration project. He also attracts the attention of Jarek Novak (Tomas Lemarquis), a suspicious-looking guy who runs the "mouse house" and seems to be hijacking Rebekka's work.
For all that there are mutated genes, retroviruses, and other science-fictional devices in the story, Sheean and co-writer Shane Danielsen opt to keep much of the focus on the office politics and other interpersonal drama. It proves to be a rich vein of tension even next to the horror elements, in part because of the particular dynamics of a research laboratory - the competitive publish-or-perish atmosphere, the graduation from mentor-student relationships, the eccentric people that the field attracts, the knowledge that one is working on something that could potentially change the world but will more likely leave one in unappreciated anonymity. On top of that, these characters' backstories may occasionally be kind of familiar (of course Geoff and Rebekka were more than teacher and student!), but even if their interconnections aren't complicated, they're enhanced by the characters' intense feelings about their work.
Full review on EFC
SPOILERS!
As much as I have a few issues with the movie, I do kind of have a twisted love for how things play out in the end. Whenever the subject of assisted suicide or "death with dignity" comes up in real life, I always say that I want none of that, because the day after I take my own life would be the day that scientists announce that they've made a really awesome discovery involving stem cells, and it was kind of gratifying to see Eron Sheean more or less play that scenario out, albeit in the most horrifying and heartbreaking way possible. The trope of scientists being called out for "playing god" for trying to discover and apply knowledge - as opposed to, say, "having faith" - is one that annoys me much more than it really should, and I found the idea that Dr. Burton ending his baby's suffering winds up as the worst thing he could do, rather than somewhat noble if painful, was a very welcome twist.
And that's not the only way that the last scene turns conventional horror movie storytelling on its head, either - I love that when the audience sees Geoff awake, strapped to a hospital bed, our first impression is that we're getting the almost-expected dark ending, where the evil pharma company is harvesting the Easter Genes his system is producing for their own nefarious purposes, but, no - friend/lover/student/peer Rebekka is just worried about him and trying to help. Then she hits him with the bombshell that his son would have lived... And as she says it, she figures out what he did herself. And then that last shot is kind of beautiful, with us looking through a window to get an even more exaggerated widescreen framing, so that we're even more aware of the horizontal spacing between Geoff and Rebekka, just pointing out how the course of his life from here forward is going to be determined by whether she walks toward or away from him. Is he forgiven, loved, treated as a valued member of the scientific community, or is he a damned outcast?
Sheean winds up holding the shot and fading to black; it's the audience's decision to make. But the length he holds it for emphasizes the difficulty of it, and that's a much more effective way of getting the point across than all the movies that wring their hands over the moral complexities involved.
!SRELIOPS
I kind of love that, but I wonder how it plays to others. I suspect it will help make Errors of the Human Body even more of a niche picture than it already is. I'm glad I fall in its niche, though.
Still, it was a nifty way to begin the Cinema Slumber Party series at the Somerville Theatre, which looks like it's going to be a fun one. Chris Hallock, one of the guys behind the "All Things Horror Presents" series, has lined up what looks like it could be an interesting line-up in that it started off with something new and unusual and will have everything from Day of the Dead to Pitch Perfect over the course of the summer (note that the schedules on the Cinema Slumber Party and Somerville Theatre websites are slightly different). This coming Saturday should be a different kind of fun with a 35mm print of Ray Harryhausen's The Golden Voyage of Sinbad.
It was a somewhat quiet first week, but to be fair, they did have the rotten luck to open up against the Bruins playing overtime in the Stanley Cup finals. I'm guessing that won't throttle this series in its crib the way I'll always (somewhat irrationally) feel the Red Sox' 2004 championship run did for the Boston Fantastic Film Festival.
Speaking of... Well, let's save spoilers for after the review!
Errors of the Human Body
* * * (out of four)
Seen 15 June 2013 in Somerville Theatre #1 (Cinema Slumber Party, digital)
There's a pattern to movies like Errors of the Human Body - scientist arrives at secretive new lab, discovers his research being used for secret programs, confronts the results of the perverted and monstrous use it is being put to, maybe stops it, maybe doesn't, delivers a speech about how men shouldn't be playing God, etc., etc. And while there's a lot of that in this movie, writer/director Eron Sheean inverts and twists enough of it to make things interesting. Not always exciting or scary, but interesting.
In this case the scientist is Geoffrey Burton (Michael Eklund), who has been forced out of his position at the University of Massachusetts for the fringy research he has been conducting into genetic screening ever since his newborn son died from a rare and horrible condition. He's hired by a laboratory in Dresden, with his supervisor Samuel Mead (Rik Mayall) suggesting he work with his former student Rebekka Fielder (Karoline Herfurth) on her cellular regeneration project. He also attracts the attention of Jarek Novak (Tomas Lemarquis), a suspicious-looking guy who runs the "mouse house" and seems to be hijacking Rebekka's work.
For all that there are mutated genes, retroviruses, and other science-fictional devices in the story, Sheean and co-writer Shane Danielsen opt to keep much of the focus on the office politics and other interpersonal drama. It proves to be a rich vein of tension even next to the horror elements, in part because of the particular dynamics of a research laboratory - the competitive publish-or-perish atmosphere, the graduation from mentor-student relationships, the eccentric people that the field attracts, the knowledge that one is working on something that could potentially change the world but will more likely leave one in unappreciated anonymity. On top of that, these characters' backstories may occasionally be kind of familiar (of course Geoff and Rebekka were more than teacher and student!), but even if their interconnections aren't complicated, they're enhanced by the characters' intense feelings about their work.
Full review on EFC
SPOILERS!
As much as I have a few issues with the movie, I do kind of have a twisted love for how things play out in the end. Whenever the subject of assisted suicide or "death with dignity" comes up in real life, I always say that I want none of that, because the day after I take my own life would be the day that scientists announce that they've made a really awesome discovery involving stem cells, and it was kind of gratifying to see Eron Sheean more or less play that scenario out, albeit in the most horrifying and heartbreaking way possible. The trope of scientists being called out for "playing god" for trying to discover and apply knowledge - as opposed to, say, "having faith" - is one that annoys me much more than it really should, and I found the idea that Dr. Burton ending his baby's suffering winds up as the worst thing he could do, rather than somewhat noble if painful, was a very welcome twist.
And that's not the only way that the last scene turns conventional horror movie storytelling on its head, either - I love that when the audience sees Geoff awake, strapped to a hospital bed, our first impression is that we're getting the almost-expected dark ending, where the evil pharma company is harvesting the Easter Genes his system is producing for their own nefarious purposes, but, no - friend/lover/student/peer Rebekka is just worried about him and trying to help. Then she hits him with the bombshell that his son would have lived... And as she says it, she figures out what he did herself. And then that last shot is kind of beautiful, with us looking through a window to get an even more exaggerated widescreen framing, so that we're even more aware of the horizontal spacing between Geoff and Rebekka, just pointing out how the course of his life from here forward is going to be determined by whether she walks toward or away from him. Is he forgiven, loved, treated as a valued member of the scientific community, or is he a damned outcast?
Sheean winds up holding the shot and fading to black; it's the audience's decision to make. But the length he holds it for emphasizes the difficulty of it, and that's a much more effective way of getting the point across than all the movies that wring their hands over the moral complexities involved.
!SRELIOPS
I kind of love that, but I wonder how it plays to others. I suspect it will help make Errors of the Human Body even more of a niche picture than it already is. I'm glad I fall in its niche, though.
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