Phantom of the Paradise (album art)Watched Phantom of the Paradise this weekend. It’s a bizarre 1974 mash-up between The Phantom of the Opera and Faust set in a satire of the 1970s music industry.

The movie casts Paul Williams (who wrote all the music for the film) as a reclusive recording mogul, Swan, who steals a struggling songwriter’s pop cantata based on Faust to open his new music palace, the Paradise. The songwriter tries to correct the “misunderstanding,” ends up beaten, jailed, and ultimately scarred when he gets caught in a record press trying to destroy it. He sneaks into the newly-opened club, dons a mask, and alternately pursues revenge on the man who stole his music, and his obsession with launching the career of a young singer he befriended earlier in the film (bringing in the Phantom/Christine dynamic).

Believe me, it’s stranger than it sounds.

Anyway, afterward, I went looking on IMDB (as I often do) to see what else the various actors had been in. Somehow I ended up on a horror movie review site, 1000 Misspent Hours, which gave the movie 3½ stars and basically considered the music to be the main failing (though, since it’s a satire, that’s largely intentional. There’s a reason I only have about 3 of the film’s songs on my iPod).

Phantom of the Opera (1943 movie poster)Something interesting I learned was that the Phantom’s origin is actually derived from the 1943 Phantom of the Opera movie with Claude Raines, which, judging by its review, has about as much to do with the original novel as, well, Phantom of the Paradise does. I’m mainly familiar with the original silent version and the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, both of which track the Gaston Leroux novel fairly well. (Edit: Now that I think about it, the 1943 origin also explains the “Acid: Do not throw in face!” gag from Gremlins 2.)

Rocky Horror Picture ShowI do have to take issue with some of his criticisms of Rocky Horror. Not that they aren’t valid, but that several things he finds inexplicable—the thin plot, nonsensical showstoppers, and how the cult following could possibly have started—are easily explained by the fact that it’s based on a stage play, The Rocky Horror Show (also explaining why the movie is The Rocky Horror Picture Show), which sets up a completely different dynamic and expectations. Interesting that the main venue for the film seems to be the midnight showings, which seek to recapture the experience of live theater.

I found the site’s rating system interesting: not only does he have a 1–5 star scale, but he also assigns negative stars for movies that are “so bad, they’re good.” So of course I had to see which films he gave -5 stars, meaning “So bad, it’s genius.” I ended up reading around 10 or so reviews on Sunday night, some of them for movies I will probably never, ever see.

[Flash Logo]Well, MTV is reporting (possible spoilers for JLA movie) that David Dobkin has taken over as director of the still-vaporware Flash feature film. Dobkin replaces Shawn Levy, who himself replaced David Goyer. Keeping up?

Goyer has long experience with super-heroes, having written or co-written Batman Begins, two of the Blade films and the TV show, the second Crow movie, and even did a long stretch on the JSA comic with Geoff Johns. Levy is best known for Night at the Museum and the remake of Cheaper by the Dozen. Dobkin? Wedding Crashers and Fred Claus.

I’m getting the feeling Warner Bros. doesn’t take the character seriously, despite their protestations.

Flash: Terminal VelocityOf note: The film is now being billed as a spin-off of the Justice League of America movie that’s getting lots of press right now. And while JLA apparently features Barry Allen, Dobkin stated the solo outing will definitely feature Wally West. Draw your own conclusions.

Also of note: MTV’s post uses a section of the cover for the Terminal Velocity trade paperback (shown at left), drawn by the late Mike Wieringo.

More info: Flash Movie page at Flash: Those Who Ride the Lightning.

I finally got out to see Transformers today. Yes, I grew up with the cartoons, the toys and the comics. Yes, I even collected every comic book from the original Marvel series through the Generation 2 series (including the prologue in G.I. Joe) through the first round from DreamWave. But somewhere along the line I just lost interest, and ultimately sold off my entire collection. (On eBay, actually.)

But still, there’s some sort of primal thrill—at least for anyone who grew up as a boy in 1980s America—in seeing giant robots fighting each other. So I finally decided to catch it while it was still in theaters.

It was better constructed than I expected. They had a plausible reason for the Autobots and Decepticons to be on Earth, and they were very good about following up on exposition. Every gun that appeared on the wall was eventually fired, down to Sam’s eBay auctions, with one exception: I really expected them to blow up Hoover Dam.

Which brings me to the biggest gap in logic. SPOILERS follow, for anyone who, like me, has been living in a cave. Continue reading

Stardust PosterWent out to see Stardust with a group of friends, and we all enjoyed it. People have been comparing it to The Princess Bride, and it’s an apt comparison: both are light-hearted fantasy adventures with a love story at the heart. Stardust takes itself a bit more seriously, though there’s plenty of humor.

The concept: Three groups of people pursue a fallen star (in this world, a woman). Tristran wants to bring the star back to impress a girl. The cruel princes of Stormhold are seeking the necklace she wears; the one who claims the gem claims the throne. The witch Lamia wants to cut out her heart to restore her own youth for another 400 years. Tristran gets there first, but has to bring her back without the more malicious seekers reaching her.

There’s swordplay, magic, betrayal, comedy, and romance. Michelle Pfeiffer throws herself gleefully into her role as the witch Lamia. Prince Septimus oozes slime as a cross between Prince Humperdink and Professor Snape. And Robert De Niro’s Captain Shakespeare is… indescribable. Charlie Cox as Tristran and Claire Danes as Yvaine (the star) manage to hold their own with the impressive cast of villains and supporting characters.

I was the only one of the four who had read the original novel by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess, but for the most part I didn’t mind the changes. I did think the climactic battle got a bit overblown after a while, and I really missed one aspect of Una’s character which is revealed near the end of the book.

On a related note, it seems that in the last 3 weeks, the movie “adaptation” (and I use the term loosely) of The Dark Is Rising has been retitled as The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising, probably reflecting how far it seems to have strayed from the source material.

Stardust does it right: change the details, or even the structure if you have to, to make it work in a different medium. But stay true to the heart and spirit of the book.

Saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I thought it was better than the fourth film, and up there with Prisoner of Azkaban, though Katie liked Goblet of Fire better. The main thing I would really have liked to see more of: Hogwarts in rebellion. “It unscrews the other way.”

We agreed that the preview of The Dark is Rising looks terrible. It looks like they’re turning it into an action movie. Will Stanton with magic powers?!?!? It’s sad, since Christopher Eccleston seemed like perfect casting for the Dark Rider.

Saw a second preview of The Golden Compass, though, and it looks even better than the first one we saw. They could still screw it up, but I at least have high hopes for this one. The visual look is dead-on (which was my first reaction to the very first Fellowship teaser), and it looks like they’ve stuck with the book’s concepts.

I haven’t seen 300 yet. But not because I’m not interested in the story.

I hadn’t heard of the Battle of Thermopylae until a few years ago, when I picked up a book called Atlantis Gate, by Greg Donegan. It was a sci-fi/fantasy thriller involving a war across time for the fate of the world. One front was ancient Greece, with one side aligning with the Spartans, and the other with the Persians. IIRC, the Spartans had to protect a gate in the pass until either someone could get a message through, or someone could close it. I actually found that the most interesting part of the book. The rest felt too much like it wanted to be an action movie. (About 2/3 of the way through I discovered it was actually the final book in a series of four. It didn’t grab me enough to pick up the earlier ones.)

Not long afterward, I started reading Harry Turtledove’s Videssos Cycle, in which a Roman legion gets transplanted to a sword-and-sorcery world. Among their number is a Greek doctor, who remarks at one point about the very same battle. At this point I realized that Donegan wasn’t making everything up, and started reading up on the actual battle.

So when I heard about the Frank Miller/Lynne Varley graphic novel, I put it on my wish list. Eventually I picked it up, read it, and enjoyed it. Then I heard they were making a movie, which sounded really promising.

Then the first previews aired, and it looked… well… overblown and hammy. Even the good reviews make it sound like two hours of hack-n-slash.

I think I’ll wait for the DVD.

(Sort of vaguely a response to Warren Ellis’ recent remarks on “Bad Signal” that he hasn’t seen 300 because he read the book—and didn’t like it.)