Browsed by
Category: Movies and TV

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Talking About Poirot

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Talking About Poirot

Comments 6 comments

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.

…

Read More Read More

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?

Comments 2 comments

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).

…

Read More Read More

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)

Comments 5 comments

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.

…

Read More Read More

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

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

Comments 1 comment

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.

…

Read More Read More

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

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

Comments 2 comments

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.

…

Read More Read More

Why Must Han Solo Die? Revisited

Why Must Han Solo Die? Revisited

Comments 9 comments

force awakens

[SPOILERS AHEAD! (But if you still haven’t seen the new Star Wars films yet, you probably don’t give a damn, right?)]

On July 28, 2014, right here on Black Gate, I predicted that in the new Star Wars film (Part VII: The Force Awakens, released December 18, 2015), Han Solo would die. I also offered some further conjecture about where this would take the plot.

I thought it would be fun to revisit my predictions and see how they panned out. You can read the original brief post HERE, so you can keep score with me.

…

Read More Read More

One Million Years B.C. on Blu-Ray—Because You Love Dinosaurs Too

One Million Years B.C. on Blu-Ray—Because You Love Dinosaurs Too

Comments 9 comments

one-million-year-BC-blu-ray-coverOne Million Years B.C. was released this week on Region A (North America) Blu-ray for the first time, drawing us one step closer to a complete set of Ray Harryhausen movies on Hi-Def. We still need The Valley of Gwangi, which Warner Bros. owns — and they’re stingy about catalogue titles, especially if they’ve already released them as part of the Warner Archive MOD series. (Edit: Warner Archive is releasing a Blu-ray that will be out in a few weeks! So never mind. Thanks to Joe H. in the comments for pointing this out. Yes, there will be a review on March 18.)

But no more of that. I’m here to celebrate the stop-motion dinosaurs of 1966’s One Million Years B.C., which is a crossover of two of my main movie loves: special effects wizard Ray Harryhausen and Britain’s Hammer Film Productions.

Hammer and Harryhausen

I once read a customer review on Amazon for the One Million Years B.C. DVD that remarked at the end, “If you’re buying this, you’re buying it for Raquel.” I wonder if the reviewer nodded off during stretches of the film and somehow failed to notice that there are dinosaurs all over it? Dinosaurs created by special effects legend Ray Harryhausen!

I’m not casting aspersions on the appeal of Raquel Welch; she has a enough screen presence to fill in a rock quarry and was a massive part of the movie’s marketing and initial global success. She adds a tremendous amount to the film and helps hold up the human action between stop-motion sequences. Yes, she is stunningly gorgeous on screen to the point that she almost seems unreal. But Raquel Welch has never been as popular as dinosaurs. Sorry, there’s no contest.

Let’s be honest: if One Million Years B.C. had no stop-motion Ray Harryhausen dinosaurs, it would be remembered today for the famous Raquel Welch image and that’s it. People wouldn’t still be watching the film or buying new releases of it more than fifty years later. The film itself would be a side-note, something discussed in terms of Welch’s career and popular 1960s sex symbols, but not anything viewers today would sit down to enjoy in full. Harryhausen’s effects make One Million Years B.C. a perennial.

…

Read More Read More

It’s A Group Effort

It’s A Group Effort

Comments 5 comments

stargate_sg-1I think we can all remember a time when, with the possible exception of soap operas, TV shows had one lead character. Even when it was a sitcom, and the lead character was married, there was still only one lead. Often these shows were easy to spot because they identified the character in the title of the show. I Love Lucy. The Dick van Dyke Show. The Rifleman.

The first show I remember having an ensemble cast is Hill Street Blues (1981-1987). It was also the first show I remember having ongoing narratives that spanned episodes, something else we see a lot of today. It was closely followed by St. Elsewhere (1982-1988). More recently, sort of between then and now, we’ve got The West Wing, Sports Night (thank you Aaron Sorkin) and the CSI and NCIS franchises. Though we could argue that in these last two shows what we have is an anchor character, in the person of the better known actor, surrounded by the rest of the ensemble.

…

Read More Read More

Goth Chick News Interviews: Deadgar Winter and Dark Coffin Classics

Goth Chick News Interviews: Deadgar Winter and Dark Coffin Classics

Comments 0 Comment

Deadgar’s Dark Coffin Classics hosts-small

When Black Gate photog Chris Z isn’t too busy surfing the net for combat kilts and more camera equipment (both for attracting gender-specific attention at our many trade shows), he is a veritable font of potential GCN subject matters. Granted, much of it is questionable at best or at worse, flat out rejected by the “big cheese” John O (re: Zombeavers which got us both reprimanded before I had even typed the first paragraph).

Still, on occasion he hits pay dirt, which Chris Z did in spades when he suggested I check out a cable access show called Deadgar’s Dark Coffin Classics, hosted by Deadgar Winter.

I did. And though I am still trying to find just the right words to describe what I saw, what I can tell you is that I found my new binge while I wait for season 2 of Stranger Things.

Deadgar’s Dark Coffin Classics is about taking older, sometimes very cheesy classic horror and sci-fi films and reviewing them on an internet / cable access show. Throughout the movie, Deadgar and his “Dead Girls” will break in to comment about what you’re watching; imagine if Svengoulie and Elvira got together and partied on with Joel from MST3K…

…

Read More Read More

Morbid Number Crunching: The Norman Bates Kill Tally

Morbid Number Crunching: The Norman Bates Kill Tally

Comments 3 comments

Norman-Bates-Smile Okay, legit now: Happy Valentine’s Day Weekend.

Beyond the 1978 original, I have close to zero interest in the Halloween franchise filled with numerous sequels, a partial reboot, a remake, a sequel to the re-make, and now another partial reboot sequel (I think; details on the new film remain unclear at this point). The only other film in the Halloween series that interests me is Halloween III: Season of the Witch, which has no connection to any other series installment. However, Halloween III is ultra-bizarre and it has the benefit of making the best use of the holiday.

The only “slasher” franchise that I’m actually a fan of is Psycho. The original Alfred Hitchcock Psycho is a masterpiece, obviously, but it wasn’t a slasher horror film in the way we define these movies now (i.e. define them post-Halloween). It was one of the critical building blocks of what slasher films would become. Its sequels, however, were released when the slasher film was a firmly established genre. And bizarrely, I’m way into them.

Since I recently did a write up on the original Halloween, it became imperative… imperative … that I chronicle the killing spree of the grandfather of the screen slashers, Norman Bates. Because lists are fun.

…

Read More Read More