When the original Star Wars hit the movie theaters in 1977 and became a worldwide sensation, George Lucas milked his creation in what seemed to be every means possible–toys, T-shirts, a story album, and the infamous holiday special on TV.  As previously chronicled, Star Wars has given us entertainment in every conceivable medium except for one–live theater.  In recent years, there has been a trend to convert movies such as Disney cartoons, low-budget Roger Corman horror films, quirky John Waters flicks featuring transvestites, Mel Brooks comedies, and ’80′s music-oriented non-musicals into stage plays (often turning them into musicals to boot!).  The closest we’ve gotten to Star Wars live is the recently revised Star Tours simulator ride at various Disney theme parks and the amazing Star Wars in Concert where a live orchestra performs music from the movies in front of a giant LCD screen that plays scenes from the films.  As of yet, Star Wars has not been turned into an actual stage play, and there are some who would say that it cannot be done.  But it can, and it would be incredible.

Obviously, there are major hurdles to overcome, like scripting the story, portrayals of the characters, staging the action, showing the vast array of sets and locations on a fixed stage, and depicting the special effects.  Star Wars is an epic space fantasy that takes place on multiple planets, the Death Star, and various space ships, so translating that for legitimate theater would be challenging.  However, if they can make Spider-man: Turn Off the Dark work, then this is a no-brainer.

Story

Of course, the obvious place to start is with what is now known as Episode IV: A New Hope, though for a stage performance that title might be superfluous.  Even though most film-to-plays transform to musicals, in this case that is unnecessary because not only would the addition of songs to the play expand the production to an over-bloated length, but fans would inevitably react more negatively than they do to Lucas’s often tinkering of the films.  However, the music by John Williams is a critical part of Star Wars‘s success, as Star Wars in Concert demonstrates.  A live orchestra is instrumental in making this production spectacular.

Stage plays generally have a long first act that sets up the conflict and serves as exposition; after the intermission, the play resumes with the second act that shifts the focus to another location, time, or action; then concludes without a break (other than possibly a closed curtain or moment of darkness) with a short third act that serves as the climax and resolution.  For Star Wars: The Play, Act One will dramatize everything leading up to Luke, Han, Chewie, and Obi Wan being drawn to the Death Star on the Millennium Falcon.  Act Two features their rescue of Princess Leia and subsequent escape to the Rebel base.  Act Three is the fighter attack on the Death Star culminating in its destruction.

Characters

The human characters are easy–after all, who hasn’t imagined themselves being Luke, Leia, or Han?  Casting these iconic roles is very important, of course, but there will be a seemingly endless line at the auditions providing easy pickings of actors.  For the film, it was important to cast unknowns, but the stage production can indulge in celebrities starring in the show.  It would be interesting to see what contemporary stars could do with those characters.  The difficulties are with the costumed characters.  The costumes for the movies were hot and often clumsy.  Anthony Daniels often complained about his difficulties wearing the C3PO suit.  Kenny Baker was inside the metal can of R2D2 for certain shots when they weren’t using puppets or radio controlled robots.  Remote control is the only practical way to have R2 appear on stage.  For the play, costumes need that allow free movement (especially for Darth Vader, who needs flexibility for the light saber fight) and will not suffocate the actors or cause heat exhaustion.  These costumes also need to look cool on stage and cannot be too different from what we’ve seen on screen.  Some of the aliens in the cantina can actually be puppets controlled by puppeteers hidden from the audience to give an enhanced other-worldliness to them.

Staging

Due to the scope of the story, the action needs to leave the confines of the proscenium.  Shows that bring the action out into the audience is always crowd pleasing–Spider-man swinging from his web or the chandelier falling during Phantom of the Opera–so this will be the ultimate expression of the technique.  In addition to the main stage, multiple platforms at various levels positioned to either side of the stage will be used for quick and easy transitions from one location to another.  For instance, the kitchen where Luke eats with his aunt and uncle can take place on one such platform with its own lighting to focus only on that sub-stage.  These platforms will come in handy for the scene where the storm troopers shoot at Luke and Leia as they swing over the apparently bottomless pit.

Meanwhile, the primary stage will have a giant LCD screen like one used in Star Wars in Concert on which various landscapes and star fields will be projected.  For instance, when the droids are walking through the desert of Tatooine, the screen will show video of the sandy vista with costumed actors on the stage in front of it.  Similarly, the sides of the theater house will have smaller screen affixed to the walls so that when certain scenes such as space battles play out, these screens will go “live” to create a wrap-around feel for the audience.  Additionally, this production will feature something never before seen by a theater audience–a screen attached to the ceiling over the seats.  The opening shot of A New Hope of the star destroyer flying over the camera and seeming to go on forever is one that is etched in the minds of generations.  This cannot be foregone for the play, but recreated where the ship literally goes over the heads of the audience.

Sets

The various platforms and screens allow freedom to tell the complete story including all the locations required by the plot.  However, there still needs to be a quick and effective method of changing the sets.  The best way of doing this is to have moveable set pieces that extend from the wings and retract when not in use.  There are times when the main stage needs to be empty for the background screen to set the location.  The biggest challenge will be in staging the X-wing attack on the Death Star and the dog fight with the TIE fighters that ensues.  This will be accomplished by hanging mockups of the X-wings over the main stage from a complex wire system from above–essentially giant marionettes with actors inside.  Each fighter is controlled separately so that when they “explode” (using lighting and limited pyrotechnics) they can be removed to the wings.  The TIE fighters will be represented on the screens on the side walls with the exception of Darth Vader’s fighter, which will make use of one of the side platforms.  The final showdown will be a fast-paced extravaganza where the audience’s attention will be directed all over the theater accompanied by an awe-inspiring light show.

Special Effects

With the use of video screens and certain set pieces like the hanging X-wings, much of the special effects will be taken care of.  However, there are still light sabers and laser blasts.  Light sabers are fairly easy–just use wands with internal lighting that are able to withstand repeated blows.  However, the blades will need to expand from the handles as shown in the film.  The trick is to construct a device that has a translucent blade that can be housed in the handle when “off” and somehow extend and then light up with an internal glow.  Unrealistic retractable toy light sabers have been around for a long time and there is a light saber toy that simulates the up and down lighting effect.  It is not inconceivable that a prop that serves the production’s needs can be constructed.  As for the lasers, it is easy to insert actual lasers of the pointer variety into the barrels of the blasters used by the actors.  The problem is making the laser beam visible to the audience.  This can be solved by flooding the stage with a fine layer of fog that does not obscure the actors yet creates just enough atmosphere for the lasers to show up.  Sound effects add so much to the visuals, so the blasters will need to be equipped so that when the trigger is pulled, the familiar “pew” sound will broadcast over the speakers.

With the multiple stages allowing actors movement throughout the theater, video screens, impressive sets and effects, and live orchestra, this play will be a total immersion into the Star Wars universe that the audience will never forget.

Oh, and George Lucas, feel free to use this concept.  You have the resources to make it happen.

copyright © 2012 FilmVerse

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• Lucas On Star Wars: It’s “Just A Movie” (gizmodo.com.au)
• Star Wars, Segmented (newsstream.blogs.cnn.com)
• George Lucas Defends His Decision To Make Changes To Star Wars! (perezhilton.com)

Cast of The Munsters (with Beverly Owen)

Despite the fact that The Munsters is a part of our collective consciousness, the black and white series starring Fred Gwynne and Yvonne De Carlo only lasted two seasons, from 1964-66 with a total of 70 episodes (41 for season 1, 33 for season 2).  By the second season, it was unable to break into the top 30 of the Nielson ratings, which was pretty bad during a time when there were less than 100 TV shows on the air.  Like other low-rated shows from the ’60′s like Star Trek and Gilligan’s Island, it found new life in syndication with a growing fan base.  Most of the people who look back at this series with nostalgia saw it for the first time in reruns and have no idea of its history.

Cast of The Munsters (with Pat Priest)

The original pilot, which was filmed in color, reunited Gwynne with his Car 54, Where Are You? co-star Al Lewis as Herman Munster (literally a creation brought to life by Dr. Frankenstein in Germany) and his father-in-law Dracula (though called Grandpa).  Lewis’s characterization was pretty much the same, but Gwynn played a much more dour Herman who was not as heavily padded as he later became.  The only other cast member to make it into the actual series was Beverly Owen as the outcast niece Marilyn (who was a platinum-blonde beauty, but was considered homely to this family of freaks and who, of course, was named after Marilyn Monroe); however, after 13 episodes of the series, Owen asked to be let out of her contract in order to get married and move to New York and was replaced by Pat Priest.  Instead of Lily, Herman’s wife was known as Phoebe and was played by Joan Marshall, who bore a strong resemblance to Carolyn Williams as Morticia Addams; thus the character was re-worked and De Carlo was hired.  Wolf boy Eddie was portrayed as an obnoxious feral kid by Nate “Happy” Derman, but the network rightly thought it would be an improvement to have him actually be likeable.  Enter Butch Patrick.

Cast of Munster, Go Home!

Even though the show ended its run in May, 1966, a feature film was released in the theaters in July of the same year entitled Munster, Go Home!  It was about the monster family traveling to England to inherit an English estate (even though it was established in the TV series that Herman was from Germany).  The two big draws for the movie were that it was in color and it introduced the Drag-u-la drag racing car.  The entire cast returned except for Pat Priest.  Marilyn, now played by Debbie Watson, inexplicably had auburn hair (Beverly Owen had to wear a blonde wig to cover her own dark hair) and was suddenly a teenager instead of a 20-something.  The movie did not do well, so that was the last we saw of the Munster clan for 15 years.

The Mini-Munsters

In the meantime, the Munsters showed up as a Saturday morning cartoon as part of the ABC Saturday Superstar Movie in 1973.  The one-hour movie of the week for kids featured animated versions of The Brady Bunch, Gidget, Lassie, and the kids from Bewitched, among others.  One such movie was The Mini-Munsters, which found Eddie and his cousins Igor and Lucretia in a rock band.  The only cast member from the live action show to do a voice was Al Lewis as Grandpa.

Cast of The Munsters' Revenge

1981′s TV movie The Munsters’ Revenge was an attempted pilot for a new series that went nowhere.  Gwynne, De Carlo, and Lewis returned in their iconic roles, but Marylin was again recast–this time with Jo McDonnell.  At 30, she was the oldest Marilyn to date.  However, the producers apparently didn’t want Eddie to grow up, as they recast him with 13-year-old K.C. Martel (who a year later appeared in E.T.).  The storyline dealt with wax replicas of Herman and Grandpa running amok.  It makes the plot to Munster, Go Home! sound nearly Shakespearean.  For better or for worse, that was the last time the original cast–even part of it–portrayed the Munsters.

Cast of The Munsters Today

Seven years after that TV movie, a new version of the sitcom, The Munsters Today, hit the air.  The concept is that one of Grandpa’s experiments in the ’60′s goes awry and freezes the family for 20 years.  This show is literally a sequel to the original (apparently ignoring The Munster’s Revenge), though now the characters are played by new actors.  The cast is as follows: John Schuck as Herman, Lee Meriwether as Lily, Howard Morton as Grandpa, Jason Marsden as Eddie, and Hilary Van Dyke as a teenaged Marilyn (replacing Mary Ellen Dunbar in the pilot, “Still Munsters After All These Years,” who played the character as a ditz instead of sensible like all the previous Marilyns).  This show included elements from the original like speeding up the film for comedic effect–it just forgot the comedy.  It was insipid beyond imagination, even worse than most of the bad sitcoms of the ’80′s.  However, it lasted for three seasons in syndication with a total of 72 aired episodes, one season and two episodes more than the first series.  Guest stars included such gifted thespians as Kaye Ballard, Billy Barty, Dr. Joyce Brothers, Ruth Buzzi, Dustin Diamond, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and Pat Morita.  One episode dealt with Eddie going through puberty (a word unheard of on ’60′s TV).  This show is so painful to watch that you need a shot of morphine before enduring it.  Try it…if you dare.

Cast of Here Come the Munsters

And still, this was not the end of the Munsters.  Two TV movies were made in the ’90′s, both with completely different casts (with the exception of Mary Woronov as someone called Mrs. Dimwitty).  Here Come the Munsters in 1995 did not follow continuity and instead created an origin story where the family was being persecuted in Transylvania (instead of Germany or England) and came to the U.S. to help Marilyn, whose father is apparently Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde and has gone missing.  The cast features Edward Hermann as Herman, Veronica Hamel as Lily, Robert Morse as Grandpa, Mathew Botuchis as Eddie, and Christine Taylor as Marilyn (marking her second film in the same year where she plays a character from an old sitcom after portraying Marcia in The Brady Bunch Movie).  The surviving original cast members (Gwynne passed away in 1993) all had cameos, and at least tried to honor the original series while being an entertaining stand-alone film in its own right (Eddie was shown changing into a werewolf, for instance).  Despite having an exceptionally good cast and having been produced by John Landis of An American Werewolf in London and “Thriller” fame, it only received 4.5 out of 10 from IMDb users.

Cast of The Munsters Scary Little Christmas

That movie must have gotten a good enough reception for the FOX network to order a follow-up.  The result was The Munster’s Scary Little Christmas (which probably wanted to sound like the popular A Very Brady Christmas from eight years prior).  Even though it had the same producers as its predecessor, this was an obvious attempt to cash in on a known property.  Yet again, a new cast was introduced as the familiar characters: Sam McMurray as Herman, Ann Magnuson as Lily, Sandy Baron as Grandpa, Elaine Hendrix as Marilyn, and Bug Hall as Eddie (following his turn as Alfalfa in The Little Rascals).  The story involves Eddie longing for Christmas in Transylvania, which brings up two questions: do monsters celebrate Christmas, and what are Transylvanian Christmases like?  And yes, Santa is actually a character in the movie.  This entry was apparently one too many, as it was the last we’ve seen of the Munsters…until now.

Can the Bryan duo pull off a dramatic take on this silly series?  The last time a sitcom was turned into an hour-long drama was 1990′s The Bradys, which featured an alcoholic Marcia, Cindy sleeping with her boss, and Bobby paralyzed in a car race.  For some reason people didn’t respond to this, so to fix it, the producers added a laugh track.  In this new incarnation, will Herman suffer through digging up fresh corpses to find replacement body parts?  Will Grandpa drain the blood from unsuspecting victims?  Will Eddy eat fellow classmates when the moon is full?  Will the plots be more involved than Marilyn’s boyfriends running away in fear upon seeing the rest of her family?  Like Dark Shadows (a ’60′s soap opera remade in the ’80′s as an hour-long drama that only lasted a single season and will soon be a Tim Burton film), there are opportunities for dramatic elements to be found among a family of monsters, as long as tongue is firmly in cheek.  There is potential here, if done right.

Herman

Fred Gwynne

John Schuck

Edward Hermann

Sam McMurray (with Santa)

.

Lily

Yvonne De Carlo

Lee Meriwether

Veronica Hamel

Ann Magnuson

.

Grandpa

Al Lewis

Howard Morton

Robert Morse

Sandy Baron

.

Eddy

Happy Derman

Butch Patrick

K.C. Martel (with Jo McDonnell)

Mathew Botuchis

Bug Hall

.

Marilyn

Beverly Owen

Pat Priest

Debbie Watson

Jo McDonnell (with K.C. Martel)

Mary Ellen Dunbar

Hilary Van Dyke

Christine Taylor (with Veronica Hamel and Mathew Botuchis)

Elaine Hendrix (with Sam McMurray)

copyright © 2012 FilmVerse

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We all love conspiracy theories like the assassination of JFK, the real cause of 9/11, and the reason for the success of Jersey Shore.  Despite clear evidence to the contrary, certain people still hold fast to these fantasies.  Conspiracies are like modern myths, something that some individuals need to believe in no matter how outlandish the stories.  One conspiracy theory that has floated around since the late ’60′s is that Paul McCartney died in a car crash during the height of the Beatles and was subsequently replaced by a look-alike.  Supposedly, the remaining members of the band placed clues in their songs and cover artwork for the fans to piece together and learn the truth.  This urban legend went by the wayside as nothing more than a humorous curiosity, until a documentary came out in 2010 called Paul McCartney Really Is Dead: The Last Testament of George Harrison that makes the case that, as the title states, Paul really is dead and those rumors about his demise are true.

This is heavy stuff.  If true, that means that the front man of Wings, twice-Oscar-nominated songwriter (not counting sharing the win with the rest of the Beatles for 1970′s “Let It Be” for Best Music, Original Song Score), two-time Emmy nominee, three time Golden Globe nominee, recipient of seven post-Beatles Grammys, and composer of a symphony is an imposter.  It also means that John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr are very good liars.  It is that very issue, in fact, that the documentary says brought about Lennon’s murder and the attack on Harrison.  Those two were going to reveal the truth to the public, so they met the consequences.  You see, Britain’s spy agency, MI5, was behind the McCartney impersonation (in order to save the lives of hundreds of teenage girls who were surely going to commit suicide upon learning of the singer’s tragic auto accident), and threatened the remaining Beatles with their lives if they let the secret out.

That logic is shaky to say the least–we’re going to cover up a death in order to save lives by threatening death to others that might cause the very suicides the original coverup was intended to prevent.  Try to wrap your brain around that without getting a headache.  As the story goes, Lennon told Harrison in 1980 that he was sick of living the lie and was going to go public.  Two weeks later, Mark David Chapman shot him, claiming (according to the documentary, at least) that the devil told him to do it.  Of course, we know that it wasn’t the devil, but an MI5 agent.  “Nearly 20 years to the day” of  Lennon’s murder (well, 19 years later and happening at the end of December rather than in the beginning of the month), Harrison also decided to come clean with the deep, dark secret, and similarly he was attacked by a crazy man who broke into his home and stabbed him.  Harrison survived the attacks and supposedly recorded the entire conspiracy story on tape the next day from his hospital room.  He wanted to make sure that an accurate account of the events surrounding the public wool-pulling would survive and eventually be made available for the world to hear.

These tapes (allegedly) were sent to Highway 61 Entertainment, a Hollywood production company that has made numerous videos about Bob Dylan, a couple of anti-Muslim political documentaries, and one piece purporting that Elvis is still alive.  The company’s owner and resident filmmaker, Joel Gilbert, explained at the beginning of Paul McCartney Really Is Dead that the tapes arrived anonymously with London postmarks and he spent five years trying to confirm that it’s really George Harrison’s voice on the tapes.  The results were inconclusive, but that didn’t stop Gilbert from taking the story at face value and making a documentary to support this claim.  He really wants people to know that he made this video, too, since his name shows up three times in the credits as producer and director (while Highway 61 Entertainment appears four times, including a shot of the production offices).  The obvious question is why anyone (presumably Harrison’s widow or family member) would send something as critical as this to a random, little-known production company in California rather than simply turning it over to the press.  The answer is equally as obvious–the tapes were generated by Highway 61 Entertainment.

It’s really sad that people are making a living off of trashing celebrities, but of course we see that all the time with tabloid magazines, TMZ, and reality TV (though in that case, the celebrities are trashing themselves).  If the recent cell phone hacking scandal has taught us anything is that media scavengers have no barriers and no ethics when it comes to digging up dirt on the rich and famous, or in some cases people who suffered tragedies and found themselves in the limelight through no choice of their own.  Is it any surprise that Gilbert is attempting to cash in on the carcass of a titillating yet long dead rumor that is absolutely ridiculous now that so much time has passed?  What’s next, revelations that FDR knew about the impending attack on Pearl Harbor or that the Lindberg baby is alive and well in Florida?  I’m sure there are other media sensations that Gilbert can sink his teeth into.

Paul McCartney Really Is Dead plays the recording labeled “The Last Testament of George Harrison,” and the voice does sound a lot like the former Beatle–but then again, how hard is it to find someone who can do a Liverpudlian accent?  It’s amazing that even though this was supposedly recorded the day after he was nearly fatally stabbed, his voice is calm and robust with a clear, professional sound quality.  You’d think someone with that serious of a wound would sound weak and, you know, injured.  He also has amazing recall, remembering every single detail of the coverup and all the clues they left on their albums, yet somehow gets major events in the history of the Beatles wrong, such as the dates of when John Lennon’s first marriage ended and when he began his relationship with Yoko Ono (of course, he left Cynthia because he was concerned about her safety) and the events surrounding the recording and release of the albums Abbey Road and Let It Be.  However, there are a lot of details that “Harrison” states that amazingly matches up with archival footage the director/producer was able to dig up, like McCartney’s double’s penchant picking his nose.  Essentially, if a royalty-free video of something in the life of the Fab Four exists, then “Harrison” remembered it.  Convenient.

The nitty gritty of the conspiracy is ridiculous.  As the story goes, McCartney had picked up a girl named Rita, who overreacted when she realized who the driver of the car was and caused the accident that decapitated him.  A government agent rouses Lennon, Harrison, and Starr to bring them to the scene of the accident to identify the body (where McCartney’s corpse is compared to a walrus).  The MI5 agent in charge is named Maxwell.  Considering these players are featured in the names of songs, it seems to be a major oversight that those two songs (“Lovely Rita” and “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”) are never discussed while countless other songs are mentioned as having clues in their lyrics.  A replacement Paul (or Faul for “Fake Paul”) was arranged by a Paul McCartney look-alike contest hosted by American Bandstand and Tiger Beat Magazine.  Apparently MI5 has a long reach.  A man named William Campbell was chosen, but since he was not a duplicate of McCartney, he had to undergo a series of plastic surgeries.  In order to hide the scars, he grew his hair long and wore fake facial hair; because of this, the others had to follow suit regardless of the fact that this was a typical look of the day.  Faul had to learn how to play musical instruments (occasionally slipping up and playing a guitar right-handed).  His training must have been exemplary, since McCartney’s first solo album featured him performing all the instruments (or was it really him?).

The documentary never addressed the issue that McCartney was arguably the most successful of the Beatles after the band broke up, or that he continued to be a highly creative musician.  One would think that an imposter would disappear from public view fairly quickly.  Instead, this film indicates that he married Linda because she had found out his true identity and pressured him into making her part of Wings.  After Linda died, he was blackmailed by Rita, the woman who caused his accident–who underwent her own plastic surgery and was given a new identity by MI5.  Faul called agent Maxwell (who must have still been in a position of power after 30-some years after the accident), who then tried to have Rita killed via being run over by a motorcycle.  She lived, but had to have her leg amputated.  She succeeded in marrying the fake McCartney–yes, Rita was none other than Heather Mills.  Though why would someone who’s supposedly in hiding become a model?  Wouldn’t MI5 squash that?  Another thing this film addresses is McCartney’s marijuana use, claiming that his addiction was due to the plastic surgeries.  Apparently, he was the only Beatle who partook in the illegal substance.

Despite this silliness, the one good thing Paul McCartney Really Is Dead does is illustrate all the zany “clues” in the song lyrics and album artwork, though the idea that Rubber Soul was originally going to be called Rubber Paul in reference to his plastic surgeries is a bit much.  The backward masking in various songs is cool to hear, though.  It’s also interesting to hear the origins of this conspiracy theory, that an American DJ “discovered” all the clues and pieced together the subterfuge and F. Lee Bailey jumped on the bandwagon with a TV broadcast of a “trial” to get to the bottom of this rumor.

It’s too bad that Joel Gilbert didn’t make a documentary about the urban legend and everything surrounding it, how it originated, how fans reacted to it, and pointing out how ludicrous much of it is.  Instead, he chose to take the position that it was all true (the title of the documentary says it all).  Even if–and this is a big if–he is telling the truth about receiving the tapes, he takes them at face value.  A better approach would have been to be skeptical of the tapes and show the process he went through (theoretically) to find out if the tapes were fraudulent.  He dug up archival footage, so couldn’t he have found interviews with the parties involved or conducted some himself?  He would have had a much more successful film if he shined a light on the rumor itself rather than being sensationalistic and proclaiming it to be real, presenting the material objectively and letting us reach our own conclusions.  It also doesn’t help that the documentary has non-stop music that’s sort of reminiscent of Beatles songs without ever being distinguishable as the real songs (a clear money-saving measure to avoid paying royalties).  Too much of the film is insulting to anyone with a semblance of intelligence.  While this is an intriguing topic, the presentation is laughable.  Gilbert and his Highway 61 cohorts chose to go the sensationalistic route rather than treating its audience and subject matter with respect.

copyright © 2012 FilmVerse

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Believe it or not, 3D has been around for about as long as motion pictures themselves.  The first time 3D was attempted was in 1915 with a screening of three one-reelers at the Astor Theater in New York, but didn’t work out too well.  Various formats were tried in every decade afterward, with success finally occurring with Bwana Devil in 1952.  There was somewhat of a 3D heyday in the ’50′s, and even Alfred Hitchcock got in on the action.  The red and blue glasses wore out its welcome, but by the ’80′s, there was a resurgence when polarized lenses became the norm for the annoying glasses that we still have to wear to see stereoscope.  Of course, during this era, the trend was to make the third in a series of horror films 3D (Jaws 3-D, Amityville 3-D, Friday the 13th Part III in 3D, etc.).  This was a gimmick, and the audience knew it.  The filmmakers exploited the format by pointing pitchforks at the audience or having half-eaten fish with its entrails hanging out floating over the theater seats.  3D didn’t add anything to the movies other than taking a tired sequel and throwing a new visual spin on it.  As for the movies themselves, the 2D versions proved that most of them were pretty terrible.  It’s no wonder that the format didn’t last beyond a few years.

Now we have another resurgence, and typical of studio mentality, if one movie is a success then they must make every movie in that vein.  Viewer burnout, however, does not equate to a bad product.  3D is a filmmaking tool, like CGI, color, sound, stunts, lens choice, film or video format, and every other element that goes into the production of a motion picture.  And just like all other tools, in the hands of an expert, that tool can create something magical; with an incompetent, the use of the tool is obvious and ridiculous.  It’s easy to point objects at the camera with the intent for the audience to duck and then laugh at their foolishness for being tricked by a visual gag; it’s entirely different to use 3D to completely immerse the audience into a lifelike world, especially one that is wholly created by the filmmakers, such as with Avatar.  Despite its storytelling flaws, that movie worked largely because of the 3D, given that it’s currently the all-time box office champ, both domestic and worldwide.

Avatar‘s director, James Cameron, has been leading the charge for the motion picture industry to embrace 3D with new technology that he developed for that film.  While being critical of the rush to convert every Hollywood blockbuster to stereoscopic, he oversaw the conversion for Titanic, which will be re-released in April, ensuring that the conversion is meticulous and not an inferior cash grab.  He has even worked with NASA to put 3D cameras on the Mars rover, so he is seeing real-world applications for this format.  Regarding motion pictures, he is the first to say that the director must handle this format with care.  It’s not something that you can just throw at a movie.  With poor conversions, for instance, you end up with flat characters separated from a flat background, so the effect is that you’re looking at animated cut-outs rather than a realistic environment.  Obviously, a director who has taken great pains to make a high-quality movie is not going to want it ruined with a bad conversion, but many times the decision is made at the studio level and is one made of business sense rather than creative considerations.  This is no different than when colorizing old black and white movies was all the rage.  Random colors were assigned to various shades of gray without thinking about what reality was.  Wow, Jimmy Stewart is wearing a pink shirt in It’s a Wonderful Life!  The walls are a pastel blue!  Everyone has the same skin tone!  The thought was that you can make a movie more marketable when adding an element that wasn’t there to begin with, which is the same with 3D conversions.  Of course, if the option is there, then it’s up to the audience to decide whether or not they want to take the chance on a format that may lessen the cinematic experience.

This is the reason why directors need to make the decision as to whether or not to shoot their movie in three dimensions.  The key is filming it in that format.  Some of our top directors have embraced 3D for certain movies–Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Peter Jackson, Robert Zemeckis, and Werner Herzog have all played in this sandbox with largely successful results.  Scorsese’s Hugo is a masterpiece in its own right, and its use of 3D is one element that makes it such a good movie.  Scorsese chose shots and camera movements that corresponded with this format, just like he would have if he had shot the movie in Cinemascope rather than Academy aspect ratio.  Again, this was a tool that he expertly wielded which was distinctly noticeable when the movie’s characters sat in a theater watching silent films that played flatly on the screen, at least until Georges Méliès’s Le Voyage dan la Lune popped out at us during the movie’s conclusion.  The manner in which a 3D film is shot is by necessity different than a 2D film; it takes the eye a moment to fixate on where in the Z axis the image is located.  One reason people complain of headaches when watching a converted movie is that the direction and editing did not take the mechanics of the eye into consideration, with the assumption made that the movie would play on a flat screen with no difference in depth of image.  Even Michael Bay toned down his manic camera movements when he shot Transformers: Dark of the Moon in 3D

Film is a visual medium, so it’s surprising when people vehemently criticize a visual aspect of film.  Not every movie should be made in 3D, just like not every movie should be made in color (Spielberg, Scorsese, Tim Burton, Woody Allen, and Mel Brooks have all fought the establishment to produce black and white films).  Any time a new technological innovation in the motion picture industry comes along, there are those who embrace it and those who are chastise it.  When sound transformed silent films into talkies, critics called it a novelty and saw no future in it; indeed, sound added tremendous cost and production problems to the production of a motion picture, slowing down the pacing and preventing creative camera techniques in favor of people standing around talking.  Now it’s inconceivable to have a movie without sound, since in addition to dialogue advancing the story and embellishing characterization, sound design helps create the entire environment in which the film exists (try watching Star Wars, for example, with the sound turned off).  A movie like The Artist seems so fresh because it’s a silent black and white film–wouldn’t it be fun to convert it into 3D?

copyright © 2011 FilmVerse

Related articles

• Time-line of 3D Films (amog.com)
• Sony Corporation of America to Receive Sir Charles Wheatstone Award from International 3D Society February 1, 2012 (prnewswire.com)
• Diatribe: 3D Or Not 3D. That Is The Question. (diatribesandovations.com)
• Dreaming In Stereo: Why 3D Is Here To Stay (theawl.com)
• Is 3D Really Necessary? (thefilmgoer.wordpress.com)

Bag of Bones

Pierce Brosnan (returning to the King-verse after starring in the non-adaptation of the short story The Lawnmower Man) plays MikeNoonan, a best-selling author deeply in love with his wife Jo (Annabeth Gish), who is killed by a bus while Michael signs autographs at a local bookstore.  Overcome by grief, he goes to a lakehouse where Jo liked to go when Mike is busy writing.  Strange things happen, and it appears that Jo is able to communicate with him through a bell hanging from a moose head (King wrote this book supposedly after he kicked his drug habit, though details like this make that questionable).  Unfortunately, there seems to be another, unfriendly spirit at work as well.  Mike also has a series of inexplicable dreams of little girls drowning and a black jazz singer from 1939.  One of the little girls turns out to be real; she is the granddaughter (Caitlin Carmichael) of the local rich tyrant (William Schallert in possibly the best performance of his long career) who makes Mr. Burns look kind and caring.  He is in a custody battle with the girl’s mother (Melissa George), his daughter-in-law who killed her husband when he was trying to drown the girl.  The jazz singer (Anika Noni Rose) also turns out to be a real person, or at least had been a real person.  She disappeared after a performance at a local fair in 1939, but for some reason Mike’s house is filled with her records, which play on an ancient record player at random and seemingly at will.  Magnetic letters on the fridge (why they’re there when they are usually for children to use to learn how to spell is never explained) spell out messages to Mike, which causes him to investigate and get in the middle of the custody dispute.  He discovers a long-hidden secret involving the singer’s disappearance and a curse that he’s unwittingly a part of.  Through the course of the story, he must resolve the curse, face off against the people in the town harboring the secret, and come to terms with his wife’s death.

This marks director Mick Garris’s seventh time directing a Stephen King movie, making him the official King go-to guy for adapting his work (though it appears that King himself had nothing to do with this production, which is unusual).  He photographs the wooded locations beautifully, and his predilection for wide-angle lenses work to his advantage.  He treats the material seriously and avoids the cheese that is tempting with material such as this.  It’s even forgivable that he cribbed from The Shining in having Brosnan kiss a woman who turns into a decaying corpse.  The teleplay by Matt Venne is competent and tells the story in an efficient manner.  While the novel isn’t one of King’s epic opuses (opi?), the hardback version still clocks in at 529 pages, so it’s a feat to condense the story down to a 4-hour (including commercials) running time without losing coherence yet keeping the momentum going.  In fact, when part 1 ended, it came as a surprise because it felt like the story was just getting going.  There were a few genuine jump scares and some fun, creepy atmosphere.  Being a basic cable movie, they could get away with a little more violence and gore than would be acceptable on broadcast networks (the drownings of children, a gunshot to the face, blood spurting from a neck wound) and a few expletives that felt completely unnecessary.

Pierce Brosnan brought gravity to the role and plays it for all he’s worth, but for some reason when he is required to perform a kissing scene it’s hard to think of anything but James Bond’s insincerity and womanizing during those moments; it’s an unfortunate side-effect of being strongly associated with an iconic character.  It’s also interesting to note how old he looks with his graying hair and chiseled features turning craggy, but as he’s in his late 50′s, he’s still holding up quite well and credit needs to be given to him for not trying to hide his age.  That said, it’s sad that in 2011, a man of his age still needs to be paired with a woman nearly 20 years his junior; Annabeth Gish is beautiful and plays her few scenes wonderfully, so it’s understandable why Brosnan’s character is in love with her, but couldn’t he equally have been married to a woman closer to his own age such as Mary Steenburgen or Kate Capshaw?  The supporting cast was mostly good, though this was definitely Brosnan’s show:  Gish’s presence is mostly felt through photographs; Rose’s jazz singer character has only one real dramatic scene other than appearing on stage singing or being represented on record albums; Matt Frewer had just a couple of scenes as Mike’s brother, playing a decidedly non-flamboyant character for a change (in interesting fact is that Frewer was featured in The Lawnmower Man 2 without Brosnan); Jason Priestly appeared briefly as Mike’s likeable agent; Melissa George was serviceable as Mike’s potential new love interest, though she doesn’t make much of an impact; Schallert was wonderfully creepy as the wheel-chair bound old man who ran the town.  The one misstep in the cast was the woman who played Rosette, the apparent caretaker for Schallert (this actress is not listed anywhere, so her name is unknown–if anyone can track it down, please put it in the comments), who is so over the top that she’s a living cartoon.

The biggest flaw in the flick is the climax.  It would be great if for once a Stephen King TV adaptation can have a good ending.  It seems that every TV movie/mini-series based on King’s work–including the ones he writes himself–have disappointing if not outright lame conclusions.  Bag of Bones is no exception.  We are presented with a tree with a badly superimposed face on it slapping Brosnan in the face with its branches; a ghost who just appears in the road, which begs the question as to why she couldn’t have done that all along; another ghost who appears in a water spout; a car chase that ends with a lightning bolt knocking down a street sign that causes a vehicle to explode; and a nonsensical fight scene that comes out of nowhere and serves no purpose other than killing off the last nefarious character.  Granted, this isn’t as silly as the characters in It ripping out the spider creature’s guts with their bare hands or the cast of The Langoliers jumping into the air in a freeze frame, it is still a big let down considering the rest of the movie was very engaging.

copyright © 2011 FilmVerse

Related articles

• Stephen King’s #1 Fans (filmverse.wordpress.com)
• Pierce Brosnan Makes TV Return in A&E’s “Bag of Bones” (inquisitr.com)
• Stephen King’s Bag of Bones (variety.com)
• Stephen King’s Bag of Bones – The Early Review is In! (dreadcentral.com)
• Go Behind-the-Scenes of A&E’s Bag of Bones (dreadcentral.com)
• Pierce Brosnan returns to TV in ‘Bag of Bones’ (cnn.com)

reboot

This word, as the definition indicates, is a computer term and had no meaning prior to the advent of PCs in the home and at work.  The term was hijacked by the motion picture industry in 2005 with Batman Begins.  With four prior movies produced by Warner Bros., the last of which was an unmitigated disaster, the studio wanted everyone to know that this film was something new and unrelated to the previous series.  It’s no secret that a movie series will sometimes ignore a movie that bombed and just move on with the series as if that embarrassing entry never happened, so WB could have done that with Christopher Nolan’s film.  That wouldn’t exactly work, though, because Nolan wanted to tell the origins of Batman, something that had not been done successfully with any of the previous movies; his take would then be a prequel except for the fact that he wanted to include the Joker in his own sequel, thereby nullifying Tim Burton’s Batman.  This discontinuity would confuse the audience–how could there be two Jokers, especially with completely different origins and behaviors?  Simple, this was a new series that had nothing to do with the previous films.  But it wasn’t a remake because, while based on the same source material, it told a completely different story.  They needed a new way of explaining what they were doing–hence the cribbing from the computer world.

Audiences bought it.  They understood that the series was being “rebooted,” meaning that the old was being erased and a new “operating system” was being written in its place.  The old series still existed, but this was a different take on the Batman mythology.  The problem was that since the word “reboot” worked in this case, people began adopting it to refer to every instance of a new version of a known product.  Ang Lee’s Hulk didn’t succeed as expected, so Universal decided to release a sequel but tweak the origin story so that the way Bruce Banner becomes the titular character in the first film was ignored.  Suddenly, The Incredible Hulk became a reboot, even though it was made only five years later and opened where the first movie left off with Banner in South America.  For all intents and purposes, the second movie was a sequel, despite the opening credits changing its own mythology.  After all, other movie series have gotten away with retconning their history.  For instance, Evil Dead II completely retold the entire first movie, though conveniently left out three characters (director Sam Raimi pulled the same trick at the beginning of the third movie, Army of Darkness).  Nobody accused Raimi of “rebooting” his own movie; these were just sequels with inconsistencies.  In fact, usually when sequels change facts previously established, it’s usually just passed off as lazy filmmaking.

Now, every remake and sequel is called a reboot.  Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is made by other people because the first one was deemed a bad movie, let’s call it a reboot to distance itself from the original!  New versions of old horror movies are made and are dubbed “reboots,” even though they tell the same story as the original movies, though perhaps elaborating the story.  Even though Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Nightmare on Elm Street all spawned multiple sequels, their “reboots” retold their origins.  Guess what?  Those are remakes, plain and simple.  You can argue that the recent versions started the series over again, but unlike Batman Begins, they don’t do a completely different take on the material.

True reboots are:

1. Casino Royale since it truly started the series from scratch, adapting the first James Bond book Ian Flemming wrote (the only time the book was accurately adapted for the big screen), and ignored everything that came before (though Judi Dench reprising her role as M was confusing in this context).
2. The upcoming The Amazing Spider-man because it’s going the Batman Begins route and ignoring an established series and telling another origin story as if it’s in an alternate universe.
3. Rise of the Planet of the Apes due to the fact that it tells the origins of how the apes took over out world but in a completely different manner than the movie it closely emulates, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes can be considered a reboot, though he called it a “reimagining“)

“Reboot” is a term that is not only incorrectly attributed to the wrong type of movies, but it is overused.  It’s now jumped ship to other types of entertainment.  Rather than use it as a catch-all for any adaptation, we need to return to using the correct terminology.

threequel

noun – a second sequel; a third installment of a book, movie, event, or other series

Some people who think they’re clever coin cutesy words, which is fine as long as it stays within their ironic origins.  Unfortunately, every now and then, words like “threequel” escape into everyday usage.  This, of course, is a bastardization of “sequel” or “prequel.”  After all, there isn’t a specific word to describe the third film in a series–though why we need one is perplexing.  What’s next, fourquel?  Fivequel?  If this makes you sick, drink Nyquil.  At one time, trilogies were all the rage, until these three-movie series decided to spawn more sequels (see Indiana Jones, Rocky, Rambo, Scream, Die Hard, etc.)  Somewhere along the way, “trilogy” begat “threequel” as the acceptable way to refer to the third film of a series.

News flash–”threequel” is no longer cute, it’s annoying.  While it’s surprising that dictionary.com included that word, at least the Consice Oxford English Dictionary came to their senses and removed that non-word from their pages.

edgy

adjective – daringly innovative; on the cutting edge.

You gotta love movie marketing.  Advertising a film is difficult, which is why movie posters all tend to look alike.  Marketers have the choice of either selling the actors or the concept of the movie.  If the film doesn’t have a major movie star to draw in an audience, then it has to try to make the plot stand out from the crowd.  The best way is to make it seem like this film is unlike anything seen before, even though everyone knows that Hollywood has no originality.  This lack of originality not only applies to the stories told but how those stories are sold.  Marketers are eager to jump on  a bandwagon and use a term that has no real meaning but sounds good, such as “edgy.”  This word implies that there’s a little danger involved, that the movies to which it applies are somehow “on the edge” of some creative expanse.  It also drums up visions of handheld character dramas that are more powerful than the average Hollywood pablum.  The problem is that it seems like every movie is described as “edgy” to the point that the word is meaningless (it’s hard to take it seriously when Fraggle Rock, Hot Wheels, and Zac Efron are described as edgy).  Look at these lists of supposed edgy movies and it’s apparent that it’s one of those descriptors that means anything the person using it wants:

1. Edgy Movies You Might Not Have Seen (but should)
2. Really Edgy Films That You May Not See In Mainstream Cinema
3. Ari’s Edgy Movies
4. 45 Movies – Dark, Smart, Edgy

gritty

adjective – 1) consisting of, containing, or resembling grit;  sandy; or 2) resolute and courageous; plucky.

Like “edgy,” people everywhere want to describe their movies as “gritty.”  Perhaps this is the antithesis of  traditional slick and glossy Hollywood fare, but it sounds like the negative fell into a sandbox.  Urban Dictionary puts it succinctly as “harsh, coarse, rough and unrefined, as in film depictions that portray life as it truly is, without false distortions, stylization, or idealisations.”  So essentially, a gritty movie is one that depicts reality.  That certain describes the movies on these lists:

1. 12 Gritty Movies and Three to Offset the First Group
2. Dirty Frank’s Gritty Movies
3. Top 10 Raw and Gritty Films
4. Listal’s gritty movie list

Based on many movies on those sites, the term “drama” could easily apply, except that movie studios do not want to market their films as drama; they have to be another genre like suspense thriller, biopics, historical epics, coming-of-age, etc.  Even better if you can combine genres, so you end up with science fiction western, comedy horror, or gangster musical.  Best yet if you can throw in a vague adjective that can apply to any movie.

To say that “gritty” is overused is an understatement.  It has been applied to everything from Spider-man to Snow White to Judge Dredd to documentaries to housewives to Indian films to Ghostbusters knockoffs.  One movie actually has been called both edgy and gritty.  That must be quite an accomplishment!

Leave it to Cracked to make fun of both “gritty” and “reboots.”

franchise

noun – a film that is or has the potential to be part of a series and lends itself to merchandising

This term began life as a way to describe a chain of restaurants (such as McDonalds) or other businesses that sold its name to local owners who agreed to run the establishment under corporate guidelines.  Somehow “franchise” now means a movie series.  The reason this term is objectionable is that it’s cynical and regards a movie as a product rather than a work of art.  Of course, you can argue that most movies that become an entire series do not qualify as art (at least the sequels), but the point is that by treating films in a purely business sense detracts from their creative elements.  The writers, directors, actors, cinematographers, production designers, editors, and the dozens of other craftsmen (and even certain producers) who work on a given film put a lot of their creativity and energy into making the motion picture as entertaining as possible.  Sure, many times they fail–but it’s easier to discount their artistry if their work is shrugged off as product, like assembly line workers building appliances.  Of course, this is exactly how movie studio execs look at it; they put together funding that can top $200 million and expect a greater return.  A film’s quality is just one more thing to market since a positive quote from a critic can be put in TV ads while good word of mouth from the audience can translate into ticket sales, but it really doesn’t matter to those in charge.  What matters is how much money can be garnered from a project.  If a movie has potential for sequels, no matter how bad or nonsensical, then that’s what a studio will put into production.

The odd thing is, this blasé way of looking at movies should work against the studios.  It would seem that the audience wants to be fooled into thinking that the studios believe that their material is somehow holy, but the general public has embraced the term “franchise” based on how often the word is used:

1. The Greatest Movie Franchises of All Time
2. The Most Lucrative Movie Franchises
3. Top 25 Movie Franchises of All Time
4. The Most Valuable Movie Franchises of All Time
5. The Numbers list of movie franchises

Can’t we come up with a better word to describe movie series that doesn’t sound so cold and heartless?  A series of sequels can be considered more than just a money-making device, can’t they?

*all definitions were taken from dictionary.com

copyright © 2011 FilmVerse

Take a look at the trailers for these two movies and see if you can find any similarities:

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Let’s go over the elements that are the same in each film:

1. A young person is pressured to take on the job of a babysitter
2. The family hiring the babysitter is from an upscale suburban neighborhood
3. The babysitter has to watch three kids, two boys and a girl
4. The girl being babysat is dressed up outrageously
5. The primary boy being babysat is a generic, preppy type
6. The second boy is obnoxious and quirky, prone to get in trouble
7. A phone call from a girl causes the babysitter to gather the kids up for a road trip into the city
8. The babysitter and the kids get involved with a shoot-out that damages the vehicle they’re driving
9. They end up in a night club or bar where they have to interact with black characters
10. Characters perform on stage in a completely out-of-place manner
11. A high-classed restaurant is featured as a location for comedic effect
12. Organized bad guys are after the main characters
13. The heroes run afoul of other streetwise punks

The trailer for The Sitter actually has the gall to say it will “take you where no babysitting movie has gone before.”  Really?  I wonder what Columbus and Simkins thinks about that.  For that matter, how many babysitting movies has there been besides these two?  Mary Poppins and Nanny McPhee perhaps, if they even count since technically they’re not precisely babysitters.

So The Sitter pretends to tell a brand new story, despite the fact that it looks to have exactly the same plot as a movie that came out 24 years ago.  Were the filmmakers hoping that no one would remember the previous movie?  Did they think that since it’s obviously targeted to a teenage and college-set audience, that those with interest in seeing it are too young to even know Adventures in Babysitting even exists?  Perhaps they don’t care; they can just rip off an older movie and not even bother to call it a remake.

Though let’s give Green and his writers the benefit of the doubt.  Maybe they themselves were not even aware of Columbus’s film.  After all, who can expect to know the entire motion picture catalog in the history of movies?  But wait–The Sitter is being released by Twentieth Century Fox.  It’s not like Green made a small, independent film that happened to be similar to some other obscure movie.  Surely someone at Fox noticed the fact that this was like a movie previously made by Touchtone Pictures (a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company)?  No executive who greenlit the project or anyone in the marketing department (such as whoever came up with the “where no babysitting movie has gone before” tripe) thought to themselves, “Gee, I wonder if anyone at Disney will remember one of their films?”  It could be that nobody at either studio remembers anything made more than a decade ago.  Except how then can you explain why they want to keep remaking movies from the ’80′s?

copyright © 2011 FilmVerse

There probably has been no other author in history that has had such a success in Hollywood as Stephen King.  To date, over 30 movies plus countless sequels have been based on his novels or short stories (including The Lawnmower Man, which only stole the name of his story), plus King wrote Sleepwalkers directly for the screen.  He even directed one movie (the less said about that the better).  Sixteen TV movies and mini-series have been made from his work as well as five TV series; not to mention that he wrote episodes for The X-Files, The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Monsters, and Tales from the Darkside.  His movies have been nominated for 15 Oscars, winning one for Kathy Bates in Misery.  His TV shows and mini-series have been nominated for 30 Emmys, winning eight of them.  There were even five Razzies (two, if you can believe it, for The Shining).  His work has created some of the best horror movies ever made, including The Shawshank Redemption topping the IMDB voter’s list, and have generated some of the worst direct-to-video sequels.  King loves film so much that he even licenses out certain short stories that he wrote to first time filmmakers for a dollar, which account for the seemingly endless number of short films made from his published stories.

Directors as varied as Stanley Kubrick, Brian DePalma, Tobe Hooper, David Cronenberg, Lawrence Kasdan, Taylor Hackford, George Romero, and Bryan Singer have made films based on King’s books while Ron Howard, Ben Affleck and Jonathan Demme are attached for upcoming motion pictures.  King’s features have attracted actors as diverse as Tom Hanks, Johnny Depp, Jack Nicholson, John Travolta, Sissy Spacek, Max Von Sydow, River Phoenix, Julie Harris, Christopher Walken, Arnold Schwarzenegger, George C. Scott, James Caan, Lauren Bacall, Ian McKellen, and Samuel L. Jackson.  However, there are some actors and directors who seem to be stalking the author, repeatedly showing up in or behind the scenes of his films.  These are his #1 fans:

Directors

Stephen King must really like Mick Garris.  After Garris directed King’s original screenplay for Sleepwalkers in 1992, King allowed him to tackle his two biggest babies:  his opus The Stand (which turned into a 4-part mini-series) and the 3-part TV remake of The Shining.  Garris adapted one of King’s short stories into the TV movie Quicksilver Highway and later directed Desperation and Riding the Bullet.  His next King Collaboration is Bag of Bones, due to be released on A&E in December.

Craig R. Baxley gets some of that King love as well, having directed two original mini-series written by King, Storm of the Century and Rose Red.  Baxley also did the prequel to Rose Red, The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer as well as several episodes of Kingdom Hospital, a TV series that King adapted from Lars Von Triers’s The Kingdom.

More famously, Frank Darabont has made a successful career by adapting King.  Three of his four feature films were based on King books: The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Mist.  To say he owes his career to Stephen King is not hyperbole, since he got his start by adapting King’s short story “The Woman in the Room” as a short film that garnered praise and brought attention to him as a writer and director.

Before the Academy bestowed its good fortunes on Darabont and his films, Rob Reiner did two King adaptations that got the little gold man’s attention: Stand By Me and Misery.  Reiner was so pleased working in the King-verse that he even named his production company Castle Rock after the fictional town in which the author’s stories often take place.

Two other directors who did two King films apiece are Lewis Teague (Cujo and Cat’s Eye) and Tom Holland (The Langoliers for TV and Thinner).

Special notice should be given to William Goldman, who wrote the screenplays for three King adaptations: Misery, Hearts in Atlantis, and Dreamcatcher.

Actors

The Annie Wilkes Award goes to Matt Frewer, who had roles in five Stephen King movies: The Stand (TV); Desperation (TV); Riding the Bullet; Quicksilver Highway (TV); Bag of Bones (TV).  This doesn’t even count starring in The Lawnmower Man 2, a sequel to a movie King disowned.  Cynthia Garris technically ties for this honor, appearing in The Shining (TV); The Stand (TV); Sleepwalkers; Riding the Bullet; Quicksilver Highway (TV), but this is cheating somewhat since she is married to Mick Garris, who directed each of those films, and she largely appeared in bit parts (though she’s credited as “Nurse Annie Wilkes” in Quicksilver Highway, so she gets extra points for that).

The George Stark Award goes to Jeffrey DeMunn and Steven Webber, who appeared in four King projects each.  DeMunn is somewhat of a good luck charm for Frank Darabont, having acted in every feature film Darabont directed (as well as the TV series The Walking Dead).  In addition to The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Mist, DeMunn was in the Storm of the Century–with which Darabont had no connection.  Webber took over the Nicholson role in the mini-series The Shining and starred in Desperation.  He also appeared in a segment from Nightmares & Dreamscapes and the episode of The Outer Limits that King wrote.

The Overlook Hotel Award goes to those hardy men and women who acted in King-inspired movies or TV shows three times:

• Kathy Bates – Misery; Dolores Claiborne; The Stand (TV)
• Bruce Davison – Tales from the Darkside (TV); Apt Pupil; Kingdom Hospital
• Ed Harris – Creepshow; Needful Things; The Stand (TV)
• John Landis – Sleepwalkers; Quicksilver Highway (TV); The Stand (TV)
• Robert Mammone – ‘Salem’s Lot (TV-remake); Nightmares & Dreamscapes (TV, 2 episodes)
• David Morse – The Green Mile; The Langoliers (TV); Hearts in Atlantis
• William Sadler – The Shawshank Redemption; The Green Mile; The Mist
• Tom Skerritt – The Dead Zone; The Dead Zone (TV); Desperation
• Frances Sternhagen – Misery; Golden Years (TV); The Mist

The Blaine the Mono Riddle Award goes to those who visited King’s world twice:

• Brooke Adams – The Dead Zone; Sometimes They Come Back
• Drew Barrymore – Firestarter; Cat’s Eye
• Andre Brauer – ‘Salem’s Lot (TV-remake); The Mist
• Pierce Brosnan – The Lawnmower Man; Bag of Bones (TV)
• Clive Barker – Sleepwalkers; Quicksilver Highway (TV)
• Bonnie Bedelia – Salem’s Lot; Needful Things
• Nicholas Campbell – The Dead Zone; Haven (TV)
• Len Cariou – Secret Window; 1408
• Patricia Clarkson – The Green Mile; Carrie (TV-remake)
• James Cromwell – The Green Mile; ‘Salem’s Lot (TV-remake)
• John Cusack – Stand By Me; 1408
• Don S. Davis – Needful Things; The Dead Zone (TV)
• Nicole de Boer – The Dead Zone (TV); Haven (TV)
• Charles S. Dutton – Cat’s Eye; Secret Window
• Miguel Ferrer – The Stand (TV); The Night Flier
• Morgan Freeman – The Shawshank Redemption; Dreamcatcher
• Annabeth Gish – Desperation (TV); Bag of Bones (TV)
• Bob Gunton – The Shawshank Redemption; Dolores Claiborne
• Doug Hutchinson – The Lawnmower Man; The Green Mile
• Timothy Hutton – The Dark Half; Secret Window
• Thomas Jane – The Mist; Dreamcatcher
• David Keith – Carrie (TV-remake); Firestarter
• Ed Lauter – Cujo; The Golden Years (TV)
• Adam LeFevre – Storm of the Century (TV); Hearts in Atlantis
• Geoffrey Lewis – Salem’s Lot; The Lawnmower Man
• Rob Lowe – The Stand (TV); ‘Salem’s Lot (TV-remake)
• E.G. Marshall – Creepshow; The Tommyknockers (TV)
• Samantha Mathis – ‘Salem’s Lot (TV-remake); Nightmares & Dreamscapes (TV)
• Ray McKinnon – The Stand (TV); Needful Things
• Kenneth McMillan – Salem’s Lot; Cat’s Eye
• Ron Perlman – Sleepwalkers; Desperation (TV)
• Jason Priestly – Haven (TV); Bag of Bones (TV)
• Mark Rolston – The Shawshank Redemption; The Dead Zone (TV)
• Martin Sheen -  The Dead Zone; Firestarter
• Casey Siemaszko – Stand By Me; Storm of the Century (TV)
• Gary Sinise – The Stand (TV); The Green Mile
• Harry Dean Stanton – Christine; The Green Mile
• Henry Thomas – Desperation (TV); Nightmares & Dreamscapes (TV)
• Richard Thomas – It (TV); Nightmares & Dreamscapes (TV)
• J.T. Walsh – Misery; Needful Things

The Beep Beep Richie Honorable Mention goes to the following for acting in a King movie and then doing a sequel to a film based on a King novel or story:

• Nancy Allen – Carrie; Children of the Corn 666: Isaac’s Return
• Dan Byrd – ‘Salem’s Lot (TV-remake); Firestarter 2: Rekindled
• Amy Irving – Carrie; The Rage: Carrie 2

Academy Awards

• Carrie – 2 nominnations (Lead Actress, Supporting Actress)
• Stand By Me – 1 nominations (Adapted Screenplay)
• Misery – 1 win (Actress)
• The Shawshank Redemption – 7 nominations (Picture, Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing, Original Score, Sound)
• The Green Mile – 4 nominations (Picture, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Sound)

Emmy Awards

• Salem’s Lot  (1979) – 3 Nominations (Graphic Design & Titles, Makeup, Music)
• It – 1 Win (Music for Mini-series); 1 nomination (Editing for Mini-series)
• The Tommyknockers – 1 nomination (Sound Editing for Mini-series)
• The Stand – 2 wins (Makeup for Mini-series, Sound Mixing for Mini-series); 4 nominations (Mini-series, Art Direction for Mini-Series, Cinematography for Mini-series, Music for Mini-series)
• The Langoliers – 1 nomination (Sound Mixing for Mini-series)
• The Shining – 2 wins (Makeup for Mini-series, Sound Editing for Mini-series); 1 nomination (Mini-series)
• Quicksilver Highway – 1 nomination (Music for Mini-series)
• Storm of the Century – 1 win (Sound Editing for Mini-series); 1 nomination (Visual Effects for Mini-series)
• Rose Red – 1 nomination (Art Direction for Mini-series)
• Kingdom Hospital – 2 nominations (Main Title Design, Visual Effects)
• ‘Salem’s Lot (2004) – 1 nomination (Music for Mini-series)
• Desperation – 2 nominations (Art Direction for Mini-series, Sound Editing for Mini-series)
• Nightmares & Dreamscapes – 2 wins (Music for Mini-series, Visual Effects for Mini-series); 3 nominations (Lead Actor in Mini-series, Makeup for Mini-series, Visual Effects for Mini-series)

Razzie Awards

• The Shining – 2 nominations (Worst Director, Worst Actress)
• Maximum Overdrive – 2 nominations (Worst Director, Worst Actor)
• Pet Semetary – 1 nomination (Worst Original Song)

copyright © 2011 FilmVerse

The holiday movie season is upon us.  Thanksgiving is one of the biggest times for people to go to the theater in the United States since most of us have a four-day weekend (excluding, among others, those who are forced to work in retail thanks to Black Friday sales).  It’s no surprise that the Wednesday before our national holiday has several major releases vying for our well-earned dollars.

Scheduling when movies are to be released is a tricky thing.  Studios have spent in some cases hundreds of millions of dollars on a film, plus much more on marketing, and gamble on the money they will make back.  If it is released at the wrong time, say during a season where people tend to stay at home, then the movie stands a good chance of failure.  There’s also the issue of competition.  Big “tent pole” movies are often scheduled a year or more prior to the release, sometimes even before the film is actually shot.  There are only so many prime dates, so studios decide whether a film is a summer blockbuster or more suited for the holiday season (Thanksgiving through New Year)–or if it would be better to throw it into the no man’s land of September or February where there’s less competition.

Two big action adventures opening on the same day can be box office death for either or both of them.  The average movie-goer probably won’t want to see two movies on the same weekend, so the audience will either choose one movie over the other or else split their vote resulting in lower than expected receipts for both motion pictures.  If one major film already claims a weekend, the other studios will take their biggest hitters and try to fill in the remaining opening dates, unless they go on the attack and schedule the same weekend.  In this case, it’s a showdown to see who blinks and reschedules.  After all, in today’s market, the opening weekend is everything; it makes or breaks a movie.

This year sees the release of two movies directed by Steven Spielberg.  While that’s not unusual (he tends to lump his movies together for some reason), usually he has a summer release and a holiday opener.  This year, The Adventures of Tintin and War Horse are going to be released four days from each other, December 21 and 25 respectively.  Originally they were going to be on the same day until Paramount and Columbia decided to move their animated adventure to the Wednesday before Christmas.  Granted, these two movies probably will have different audiences, but given the beautiful cinematography of War Horse and the fact that it’s about a young man and a horse (looking like The Black Stallion with explosions), it may draw a family audience, which Tintin surely will garner.

Counter-programming makes sense.  If a guy-centric adult drama like Moneyball is released on a particular weekend, it makes sense to open a family film like Dolphin Tale on the same day–parents can drop the kids off to see that movie and then go see the one that appeals to them.  As it turned out, the 3D re-release of The Lion King was still going strong, so Dolphin Tale didn’t really hit its stride until the following weekend, thanks largely to good word of mouth and reviews.  It’s no surprise that Moneyball and Dolphin Tale made virtually the same amount of money, given that they targeted different audiences and did not have to compete despite being in the theaters at the same time.

Which brings us to today, the day before Thanksgiving.  Since kids are out of school until Monday, it makes sense that studios would try to entice them to come to the theater and buy tickets.  Maybe they figure that over the course of four days, parents will be willing to send them out of the house repeatedly since they have scheduled three major kid-friendly movies opening on the same day: Hugo, The Muppets, and Arthur Christmas.  Let’s not forget that Happy Feet Two came out this past weekend to confuse the issue more.

Do the studios really expect that all three movies will do well, or do they think that their own family film will best the other two?  Based on the trailers and critical reaction, all three movies seem to be worth the price of admission.  It’ll be up to personal taste or, more importantly, the marketing blitz that each movie receives, as to how much kids will pester their parents to see any of them.  Will parents reach deep in their pockets to pay for two or possibly three trips to the cinema?

Hugo is based on Brian Selznick’s award-winning novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret.  The film is director Martin Scorsese’s first foray into family fare, jumping in full-force with 3D technology that even impressed James Cameron.  Scorsese is an inventive filmmaker, and since the subject matter deals with an inventive filmmaker, Georges Méliès, it’s no wonder that it will be a visually impressive and highly personal film.  Given the fact that it’s hard to turn on TV without seeing a trailer for Hugo, it would be a surprise if this movie underperforms.

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The Muppets, on the other hand, is a property that has been well-loved for generations.  However, Jim Henson’s creations have not been on the big screen since 1999′s Muppets from Space, which didn’t even make back its budget and forced the Henson Company to do the subsequent two films for TV.  Jason Segel sold Disney (the current owner of the Muppets) on the concept of this new movie and was allowed to write and star in it.  The story does a Blues Brothers bit by rounding up the old gang to put on a new show.  It references the old Muppet Show, which should appeal to those who grew up on that ’70′s series as well as kids who will be entertained by the antics of Kermit, Miss Piggy, and the rest.

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The last of the family films opening today is probably the one with the longest shot at success, Arthur Christmas.  It’s an original story and the first CGI animated film by Aardman Animations, which produces the wonderful claymation Wallace & Gromit films.  A teaser trailer for this film came out last year and was impressive, so they started the promotion early.  It seems like a smart, quirky, and entertaining explanation as to how Santa Clause can hand out so many presents all around the world on Christmas.  Of course, that’s the problem–it’s a Christmas movie released a month prior to Christmas (by comparision, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas was released on November 3 and earned $29 million).  Shouldn’t Arthur Christmas be released closer to Christmas?

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Perhaps the studios releasing these films are not necessarily counting on earning all their money opening weekend, but count on a long-term plan.  The next major family film won’t be out until Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked on December 16–the same day that Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows comes out.

EDIT:  According to Boxoffice Mojo, the top five movies for Wednesday, November 23 were:

1. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part
2. The Muppets
3. Happy Feet Two
4. Arthur Christmas
5. Jack and Jill (shudder)

While Twilight is not exactly little kid fare, it’s still aimed at adolescent girls.  Hugo came in at number eight, but the Hollywood Reporter explained that it opened in only a third of the theaters as the other major releases in hopes of gaining word of mouth over a period of time (something that movies used to do in the old days before everything depended on the opening weekend).  By comparison, The Muppets had a per screen average of $1,919 while Hugo had a per screen average of $1,304.  Arthur Christmas‘s per screen average was $711.

copyright © 2011 FilmVerse

Related articles

• From ‘Muppets’ to ‘Hugo’, Thanksgiving glutted with family fare (pbpulse.com)
• Box Office Predictions: Can Breaking Dawn Hold Off Children(‘s Films)? (screencrave.com)