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Liam Neeson Attached to Play Philip Marlowe … But Not in a Raymond Chandler Adaptation for Some Reason

Liam Neeson Attached to Play Philip Marlowe … But Not in a Raymond Chandler Adaptation for Some Reason

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raymond-chandler-with-cat Liam-Neeson-Philip-Marlowe

Irish actor and dadbro buttkicker extraordinaire Liam Neeson (known around these parts as Liam Neesons) has upped his righteous tough guy game to play the most righteous — and possibly greatest — tough guy of all: Philip Marlowe. The hardboiled detective. This news comes from Variety, which reports Neeson is attached to the new Marlowe project to be produced by Gary Levinson for Nickel City Pictures from a script by William Monahan (The Departed).

This is inspired casting. Neeson is a brilliant actor who can portray the world-weary but upstanding Los Angeles detective, although Neeson will need a director to ensure he doesn’t slip into the more action-leaning characters he’s played recently. But any return of Philip Marlowe to the big screen is a monstrous, tarantula-on-a-slice-of-angel-food-cake deal. The last Philip Marlowe big-screen film was in 1978!

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The Complete Carpenter: The Fog (1980)

The Complete Carpenter: The Fog (1980)

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the-fog-blu-ray-coverIn my John Carpenter career retrospective, I’ve now crossed the Rubicon: moving past the director’s most famous and successful film and entering the 1980s, a decade his movies helped define and often looked far beyond … frequently to their initial box office detriment.

The decade opens with Mr. Carpenter in a slight quandary: when you just made the most profitable independent movie of all time (a record unbeaten until The Blair Witch Project more than twenty years later), there’s going to be a bit of pressure for the follow-up. Carpenter stuck with the horror genre for his next film, although a much different type than the realistic slasher of Halloween. Taking inspiration from classic ghost stories, the vengeful corpses of EC Comics, and a trip to Stonehenge, Carpenter and producer Debra Hill came up one of the best low-budget horror elevator pitches: magical fog brings pirate leper ghosts to unleash their wrath on a small seaside town. Yep, pirate leper ghosts.

The Story

Antonio Bay, a sleepy coastal Northern California town where nothing happens, is preparing to celebrate its hundredth anniversary of being a sleepy coastal town where nothing happens. Then everything starts to happen at once when the ghosts aboard the Elizabeth Dane, a leper colony ship that sank near Spivey Point a century ago (timing!), slosh ashore in a shroud of thick, luminescent fog. It turns out Antonio Bay was founded on a double-cross that tricked the leper colony out of their gold and lured their ship with false beacons into wrecking on the shoals. The murderous specters and their pointy fishing tools make a mess out of the lives of folks in Antonio Bay, including lighthouse keeper and radio DJ Stevie Wayne (Adrienne Barbeau), the anniversary event organizer Mrs. Williams (Janet Leigh), a hitchhiking artist (Jamie Lee Curtis), and a priest who’s discovered the dreadful truth about the town’s history (Hal Holbrook).

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The Valley of Gwangi Finally Reaches Blu-ray Because I Mistakenly Said It Never Would

The Valley of Gwangi Finally Reaches Blu-ray Because I Mistakenly Said It Never Would

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valley-of-gwangi-frank-mccarthy-posterDuring my years of writing for Black Gate, I’ve repeatedly pointed out certain films aren’t available on Blu-ray or DVD … only to discover after I post the article that said films are already scheduled for a release. This happened again three weeks ago when I mentioned that the only Ray Harryhausen film still unreleased on the Hi-Def format was The Valley of Gwangi. I dug myself in deeper by predicting we wouldn’t see one for years because of how slowly Warner Bros. moves with its catalogue titles.

Yet here I am in possession of a Blu-ray from Warner Archive of The Valley of Gwangi and writing about it. Maybe I should start making gloomy declarations about the Blu-ray chances of other favorite movies, just to invoke the intervention of the muse who controls home video releases. (Melpomene, I believe.)

Everyone who loves movies probably has a specific film that seems as if it were made just for them. A Ray Harryhausen stop-motion giant monster in a Western? That’s what I call Ryan Harvey Niche Marketing. The only way The Valley of Gwangi could be more targeted to me is if 1) the monster was Godzilla, 2) Peter Cushing was one of the stars, and 3) Sergio Leone directed it. However, if such an event actually occurred, the shockwaves would’ve knocked Earth from its axial tilt and annihilated civilization. Perhaps it’s for the best we stopped at “Ray Harryhausen giant monster Western.”

Although The Valley of Gwangi has some of the flaws found in other Ray Harryhausen-Charles H. Schneer films (workmanlike direction, some stilted performances), it’s still one of the greatest dinosaur movies ever made, in the same league as One Million Years B.C. and Jurassic Park. Is Jurassic Park overall a superior movie? Yes, but in terms of creative dinosaur action, The Valley of Gwangi competes. The only dinosaur movie that ranks higher than these is the original King Kong.

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Goth Chick News: Full On Fan-Girling Over MST3K

Goth Chick News: Full On Fan-Girling Over MST3K

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MST3K-small

Though in my early Goth Girl days I was admittedly too enthralled with my beloved (and sometimes cheesy) horror movies to ever consider hacking on them, my teenaged years did find me gaining an appreciation for snarky commentary during movies.

So it will be no surprise to anyone that discovering Mystery Science Theater 3000 meant Joel, Servo, Crow and Gypsy became my early mentors, playing a big part in creating the sarcastic, mocking and malicious critic who sits before you and would ultimately find a safe haven in the page of Black Gate.

In a word – I was hooked.

Years later I now own every episode of every season, in multiple formats. And I waited in a two-and-a-half-hour line to spend a total of 30 seconds saying “hi” to Joel Hodgson at a con – right behind a guy hauling around a life-sized “Crow” which I coveted to the point of violence.

So clearly, I’m not alone.

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Kong: Forget Jurassic Park; Book Your Next Family Vacation to Skull Island!

Kong: Forget Jurassic Park; Book Your Next Family Vacation to Skull Island!

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kong skullOkay, I loaded the family up in the van today and we went to see the big ape, the Eighth Wonder of the World tearing it up at the box office.

It delivered pretty much what we all wanted and expected, from the youngest son on up to the oldest boy in the family (that would be me, the boy pushing 45). That is to say, there isn’t going to be any “Oscar buzz” around it (like there is with Logan), but big-budget popcorn B-movies don’t get much better.

A lot of people were excited to see Tom Hiddleston in this movie, and then disappointed to see his performance wasn’t much like Loki: he’s the fairly bland leading man, but he executes the role fine. Likewise for Brie Larson, the anti-war photojournalist who tags along on a hunch that there’s more going on in this expedition to an uncharted island than some mundane mapping (boy is her hunch right!). Samuel L. Jackson and John Goodman have more memorable parts, but those, too, are pretty one-dimensional types. The real stand-out, as you’ve probably heard, is John C. Reilly as the WWII fighter pilot who has been stranded on the island for 28 years.

Enough said about the human cast, because, really, they’re all just bit parts to the Main Attraction: Let the Kaiju Main Event begin!

Kong: Skull Island is a lean, mean movie that barely hits the two-hour mark. Can you believe this Kong is more than an hour shorter than Peter Jackson’s outing with the Primary Primate back in 2005? It cuts out what some critics considered a meandering, overlong first act in Jackson’s film, getting straight to the action and then not letting up – right up to the closing shot that zooms in on Kong’s pupil as it reflects the towering rock formation in the center of Skull Island. It also does not grind the action to a halt to capture the big ape and haul him off to New York: this is all Skull Island, baby. The Island “where evolution is not finished,” and its many, many weird denizens.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Talking About Poirot

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Talking About Poirot

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Poirot_OneI mentioned last week (which you know, enlightened reader, because you love this column. You probably bookmarked the link as a memoriam to me. Anyhoo…) that I discovered the Nero Wolfe books through the A&E television series starring Maury Chaykin and Timothy Hutton. I’d just never read any of the books, even though the series had been around for decades. And now it’s my favorite mystery series of them all (sorry Holmes and Pons).

Well, some thirty-ish years ago (maybe a little more), I read a couple of Agatha Christie books. I remember that one was definitely a Poirot. I didn’t care for them and that was that. So, while Christie (alongside The Bard) is reckoned to be the best-selling fiction author of all time, she was absent from my not inconsiderable mystery library.

Then, a few years ago, I began watching the Hercule Poirot television series starring David Suchet (here’s a trailer). And I really, really liked it. From 1989 through 2013, Suchet filmed 70 Poirot stories! So, I decided to give Christie’s writings a chance again. Well, Poirot, anyways: I’m not sure you could pay me to read Miss Marple. Thus, I bought Hercule Poirot: The Complete Short Stories and had at it. As I write this, I’m on story 19 of 51.

First thing I noticed is how short these things are. Yes, I know they’re called ‘short stories,’ but while I haven’t tried counting words, most of them are between 8 and 16 pages long. And that’s on big ol’ 6” x 9” paper. Also, she was really cranking these out. A new Poirot was appearing almost weekly in The Sketch magazine.

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Oz’s Bag of Holding, TV Edition: Ash vs Evil Dead, Barney Miller, Parks & Recreation: What do these Sitcoms Have in Common?

Oz’s Bag of Holding, TV Edition: Ash vs Evil Dead, Barney Miller, Parks & Recreation: What do these Sitcoms Have in Common?

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ashAnswer: They’re all in my bag of holding. I will now draw them out and discuss them.

Parks and Recreation

Parks and Recreation (2009-2015) has no reason to be mentioned on a site devoted to fantasy, but I’ll rationalize my inclusion of it here by pointing out that the character Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott) is a legit connoisseur of science fiction and fantasy, frequently making allusions and drawing analogies to Star Wars or Star Trek or The Lord of the Rings that fly over his colleagues’ heads. We’ve all been there, surrounded by coworkers (or classmates, or family members) who do not share our outside interests and passions. (Then we found the Internet. And, if we were really fortunate: conventions.)

In one episode, coworkers encourage Ben to take a break for a day, to cut loose and totally indulge himself at the mall. While they’re getting facials and manicures, he purchases and dresses up in a Dark Knight costume.

The refreshing thing about Ben is that he is not written as the stereotypical sitcom caricature of a nerd. He is somewhat socially awkward but smart and sharp, on top of things. He’s actually a more “normal,” down-to-earth, audience-POV person, surrounded as he is by flamboyant and eccentric characters. He is respected and, in one case, adored (he becomes the love interest of Amy Poehler’s lead character Leslie Knope).

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Peplum Populist: Colossus of the Stone Age (Fire Monsters Against the Son of Hercules)

Peplum Populist: Colossus of the Stone Age (Fire Monsters Against the Son of Hercules)

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colossus-of-the-stone-age-maciste-contro-i-mostri-italian-posterHere’s a pleasing discovery: Amazon Video has a widescreen print of the 1962 sword-and-sandal (peplum) film Colossus of the Stone Age available under its U.S. television syndication title, Fire Monsters Against the Son of Hercules. And the print is a good one. It’s not the level of a professional 4K restoration like the Phantasm Blu-ray that came out in December, but considering sword-and-sandal movies often look like someone dragged the film along the sidewalk on the way to the telecine department, Colossus of the Stone Age is damned near pristine. It isn’t part of the Amazon Prime library, however, so subscribers have to shell out $1.99 to rent it, or an extra 51¢ to own it. There’s a version streaming on Amazon Prime under the same title, but it’s the standard cropped and dragged-across-the-pavement type.

So as far as pepla available in English, Colossus of the Stone Age looks fantastic. But is it any good?

Perhaps the better question is, “Is it worth watching?” For this type of low-budget fantasy production, the question of quality is often separate from the question of whether to spend time with it.

But my answer to both questions is “no.”

The appeal of a peplum movie set in the Stone Age and the promise that it will have fire monsters is tempting, and the quality widescreen presentation is a legitimate bonus, but Colossus of the Stone Age (the U.K. theatrical release title) is one of the more tatty and flavorless examples of this genre. Pepla at their best have bizarre imagination, creative production designs and visuals, and robust action scenes. At their most mediocre they have heroes who don’t do anything and long scenes of extras running around in fields or through cheap cavern sets while clumsily swinging sticks at each other. Which is a sentence that works as a summary of this movie.

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Goth Chick News: A Fan Girl Meltdown Over Amazon’s Good Omens

Goth Chick News: A Fan Girl Meltdown Over Amazon’s Good Omens

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good-omens-smallI can say with certainty that I almost never get worked up over film adaptations of books, with good reason; they rarely live up to their source material.

But today I make an exception.

I might actually squee… Well probably not, but still.

Amazon Studios recently announced a six-part adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s novel Good Omens which will debut in 2018.

Insert small squee here.

I first picked up the book Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch in an airport bookstore in 2006. I then proceeded to laugh out loud on my flight from San Jose to Chicago, and laughing out loud at a book is something I haven’t done since my first reading of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

Later I picked up of the audio version which I listened to in the car and nearly drove off the road. Finally, in January of 2015 I acquired the BBC Radio 4 dramatization, performed with a full cast and fell in love all over again.

There is no better cure for a bad day then listening to a few chapters of Good Omens.

But what is just so darn amusing about the story?

For me it has all the elements — demons, angels, witches, the Antichrist — all wrapped in a story that boldly showcases the absurdity of it all in the most biting and British of ways.

The book is set “today” but the show will be set in 2018 and in both, the world is on the brink of an apocalypse. But follies ensue when Aziraphale, a somewhat fussy angel, and Crowley, a demon, aren’t all that enthusiastic about the end of the world, having grown quite comfortable with their lives on earth. Also, they may have misplaced the Antichrist. And he may just be an ordinary boy who wants to stay in his small town with his gang of friends.

I’m snickering just typing that.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Mister Bean as Simenon’s Maigret?

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Mister Bean as Simenon’s Maigret?

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Maigret_AtkinsonGeorges Simenon wrote seventy-six novels and twenty-eight short stories about French police commissionaire Jules Maigret (May-gray) between 1932 and 1973. Maigret’s career paralleled that of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe, who appeared in thirty-three novels and thirty-three novellas/short stories from 1934 to 1975.

There have been many film and television adaptations of Maigret in various countries over the decades. Rupert Davies starred in a popular British television series in the sixties and Michael Gambon played the policeman in a Granada series in the eighties. Now, I’ve never read a Maigret story or seen any of the films or television shows, except for the two I’m going to talk about in this post. So, I don’t have a frame of reference for the two new films, other than the actual movies themselves. They may be nothing like the original character, in the vein of Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes; or they could be spot on: though that seems unlikely.

A British company cast Rowan Atkinson as Maigret and filmed a pair of television movies that were aired in 2016: Maigret Sets a Trap and Maigret’s Dead Man.  Two more are on the way: Night at the Crossroads and Maigret in Montmarte.

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