April 25, 2024
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BYOB: 235 Years Of Relative independence
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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” â some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it â I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury â he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” â and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging â I was with her at that moment â she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy namedâ” “Yeah, sure â you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that Iâm on the phone with you now, after all thatâs been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didnât seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. Thereâs not a case of that. He wasnât using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had â if that were what the accusation involved â the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. Iâm not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, âYou know, itâs not this, itâs thatâ? Because â let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, thatâs what it lacked. Thatâs what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
Neveldine/Taylor + Nic Cage = GREATEST NEWS EVAR, even if it is for a Ghost Rider sequel.
http://www.slashfilm.com/2010/07/16/nicolas-cage-signs-on-for-neveldinetaylor-directed-ghost-rider-sequel/
Until the studio inevitably forces rewrites or cuts it down to PG-13 and neuters it, or removes them from the movie altogether.
I would hope Sony learned from WB’s mistake with Jonah Hex, RE: firing Neveldine/Taylor. However, PG-13 is not a big issue for me. Cage does not need to be surrounded by boobs to be his own special effect.
Neveldine/Taylor just seem like R-rated dudes.
Yeah, R is preferable, but I think they could probably make PG-13 work well enough. But this might be the greatest director-actor match since…
Cage and Herzog?
Eh I don’t really like Neveldine/Taylor, though I have not seen Gamer. Maybe it is brilliant.
A n/t ghost rider? sign me up.
anyone else see the pic from EW Comic Con for Sucker Punch. I have no idea what it is, but i am very interested.
Even though I kind of dug the first “Crank,” I’m pretty much with Stella’s Boy on Neveldine/Taylor. And trust me, SB: “Gamer” is hardly brilliant. In fact, it’s probably their most obnoxious, incoherent movie to date (and that’s including the slashed-to-ribbons “Jonah Hex”).
Of course, Armond White would disagree since he actually put “Gamer” on his 2009 10-best list (along with “Crank 2”).
“I have not seen Gamer. Maybe it is brilliant.”
It’s very similar to the CRANK movies, and your reaction will vary accordingly.
The only movie they’ve done that wasn’t super-hyper was PATHOLOGY, which maintains their sick, R-rated sense of humor, but at a slower pace.
Pathology is ridiculously stupid. Got dumped into 50 theaters for a reason.
“Crank 2: High Voltage” should absolutely be on the list of 2009’s best. It’s a brilliant kaleidoscope fever-dream filled with all kinds of great subtext, social commentary, and commentary on the way in which we process film, tv, media in today’s iPod/XBOX culture. It’s also the most accurate and blistering depiction of contemporary Los Angeles I can think of. Seriously, fuck Judd Apatow and Lawrence Kasdan and their bullshit white Westside privilege; CRANK 2 is what Los Angeles looks like ethnically, socially, and intensity wise. It’s a work of fucking genius, and the kind of thing that (sorry, DP, Wells, Kenny, whoever) rich white movie blogger turn their nose up at, but it’s every bit as incendiery and technically accomplished as Mann, the Coens, Spielberg, whoever. It transcends being a junk GTA riff and is a legitimate work of ART.
Pathology is deliberately over the top like everything they do, just shot more slowly.
Those guys know that the stuff they do is preposterous — calling it stupid implies they don’t. That its ridiculousness is not to your taste is fine, but I can’t imagine fans of their other work not seeing enjoyable commonalities.
“”Crank 2: High Voltage” should absolutely be on the list of 2009’s best.”
As you know, it was on my mine. Not sure any other critics thought likewise, but I have found that in general, most of them have not even SEEN it. No Neveldine/Taylor movie has ever press-screened except as a day-of, thus many reviewers who usually dislike action B-movie have no idea that these are in any way notably different.
I usually expect to have to be slightly apologetic at my love for CRANK 2. Instead, I generally just hear the phrase “Never saw it.”
FWIW, loved CRANK, hated GAMER. Have yet to see CRANK 2, but it’s on the Netflix queue.
I loved Crank, but hated Gamer and by the time I saw Crank 2 I was just thoroughly sick of the same tricks over and over and over.
Interesting – I would have assumed Gamer appealed to most Crank fans, but i guess not. Maybe Pathology won’t either. I just dug the similar sense of dark humor all of them had.
I would disagree that Crank 2 is the SAME tricks as Crank. The first film, while obviously as heightened a reality as many action movies (and filtered through a drug-addled POV) still clung to the pretense of being set in a real world. The second one, however, refuted literal reality completely.
Gamer is wonderful from the James Roday and Maggie Lawson cameos all the way through Michael C. Hall’s wonderful dance number at the end. Fabulous film. Abfab all the way.
Oh yeah, Inception, is not cold but it is brilliant.
I’ve been reading back issues of Fangoria and come to the conclusion that 1974-1986 is the best bakers dozen decade of horror films.
JPK…. YES SIR! I would add four more years to that and state that horrour peaked around 1990, and it’s all been downhill for the last 20 years. Not that there have no been some good films in that point but from 74 to 90, you have some great films in those 16 years.
JPK – Yeah, maybe a close second to the 1930’s boom, but it’s for the same reason; make-up artists reached a new level.
After ’54 with Creature From Black Lagoon, Beast From 20k and Godzilla, the effects industry plateaued until the early 70’s. Then you had a post-Chainsaw boom because everyone was trying to top the effects of the someone else. Dick Smith, Savini, Bottin, Baker, KNB, Winston, Giger…it tapers off with Kevin Yagher and Chris Walas who did great work but lacked the distinctive quality of the others.
Ah, when Fango mattered.
So much of the modern horror iconography came out of that period and it seemed – to my young mind – like Hollywood was finding new ways to scare me shitless every other weekend. I guess I’m officially an old fart that thinks it ain’t like good ol’ days anymore…
1990? With what?
There’s an FX transition from Predator to Robocop then it splits tracks between The Abyss and Total Recall, then physcial FX is buried by T2 and Jurassic Park.
Completely agree, Martin. I sexually prefer Walas’ Fly II makeup over it’s predecessor. Much more menacing in my mind. I miss the practical effects and really hate CGI gore. I think that’s why I was able to look past the faults in Predators and really enjoy it so much. Nothing is quite as much fun as latex and fake blood.
I disagree that it was makeup artistry – I’d say that the ’70s horror boom followed the general American New Wave in filmmaking in the ’70s, and therefore had more to do with the collapse of the studios and the weakening of the ratings systems.
Also, I’m not sure what the great horror movies were from 1987-1990. Yeah, I like Hellraiser, The Stepfather, The Blob, but I think there’s a pretty palpable dropoff in the second half of the decade up to the Scream era.
JPK – like Hollywood was finding new ways to scare me shitless every other weekend…
That’s the ironic part. The vast majority wasn’t Hollywood financed. I mean, we didn’t know the difference at that time, but so much of the great stuff was independent.
“sexually prefer”?? Goddamn. That’s what I get for trying to type more than three words on my iPad.
I take it jeffmcm does not appreciate the “Child’s Play” series.
Sorry, Jack … Chucky’s back!
Hwuh?
Jeff – I’m with you on the dropoff from ’87. Hellraiser and Predator were pretty much the end.
…but booms are always based on a certain group. For sci-fi it’s the visual effects camp, in horror it’s the make-up effects people. I mean, no matter what American Nightmare and other revisions argue, it was always about what they could sell. Romero, Hooper, Carpenter, Craven, Raimi, even Cronenberg with Reitman’s aid, all had to go out and raise the money independently. The pitch was based on what was selling and with each passing year, they could point to the returns on other horror films. Who could outdo who, which is how we ended up with some of the most malevolent movies ever made, like Last House and Maniac. What would change was the story trend, but the purpose was always the same.
JPK – I saw that and hoped it was a typo because otherwise, I had to tell myself you’re big into Daphne Zuniga.
I visited Rick Baker at his studio around ’91. Place was filled with Gremlins. He knew even then that the future was going to be digital. I remember being slightly upset when, after seeing his design paintings in featurettes on American Werewolf and Thriller, he was now doing his design illustrations on a computer (while listening to Bruce Springsteen).
Gremlins 2 was probably the end of an era in large scale practical work. Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park were right around the corner. By ’97, Baker was combining his puppetry with digital in Men In Black, then Mighty Joe Young, the following year.
Night of the Living Dead 1990. BARBARA KICKING ASS AND TAKING NAMES!
Someone needs to knock 20 years off the lovely Vonetta McGee’s obit headline on the main page; she was 65, not 85.
IO, I’m with you on Hall’s dance number in GAMER, mostly because he’s lip-synching a smashing Sammy Davis, Jr. version of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” But all the frenetic, smarmy, nasty and nihilistic touches that worked for N/T in CRANK just curdle into a glop of dystopian cliches and pointless mayhem, IMO. The relentless camera movement and quick cutting make for action scenes that paradoxically manage to be both adrenalized and boring. It doesn’t help that the plot is basically a rehash of the recent DEATH RACE remake, which is a better film and has the advantage of Jason Statham. Mostly it just washed over me, too chaotic to engage my concentration, too off-putting to make me care about the outcome. Cautiously optimistic about GHOST RIDER, which will undoubtedly be an improvement over the first if only by default.
Yancy, I just loved the idea of a world where social networking and first person shooters went mad. I also love the ending. It’s so anti-climatic that it cracks me up every single time I have seen that movie.
“…then physcial FX is buried by T2 and Jurassic Park.”
i think that’s a bit of a popular misconception; T2 and in particular the cg compositing on ‘Jpark’ is revolutionary and excellent, but both productions still relied heavily on in-camera effects and didn’t cause some sudden shift of the paradigm or an immediate CGI effects revolution so as to ‘bury physical FX’. small-scale cg modelling/compositing had been slowly infiltrating the industry in post-p but after the revolutionary work on T2 and Jpark, it’s not till ’97 or so really with ‘independence day’ and ‘dragonheart’ that CGI compositing shots dominate in big flicks, with ‘titanic’ another watershed featuring the large-scale shots of the ship (which actually look a bit tinpot today), thus heralding in the cgi era proper and the shift into the post-p heavy world with the widespread use of green screen and cg visual effects techniques so widely used today
in terms of just popular horror-type flicks, in-camera special effects were still widespread and prevalent from the early 90’s right past the halfway mark (large-scale practical work extended way past ‘gremlins 2’ in ’90, mutiny, not sure where you get that from); ‘tremors’, ‘dracula’, army of darkness, alien3, braindead, frankenstein, the crow, seven, the prophecy, in the mouth of madness, dusk till dawn, etc (no doubt i’m missing out many) — some may feature CGI/compositing shots but not on a significant or prominent scale, digital visual effects were costly and mainstream horror remained heavily reliant on in-camera production well into the 90’s. i think ‘the frighteners’ in ’97 introduced entirely digital characters to the genre (that might be wrong, just doing this off the top of my head and i’m terrible with years) as part of the sea-change to an emphasis on post-p visual effects going forward
(hopefully i didn’t just miss the point someone was making otherwise i’ve strained my brain for no reason)
typo, ‘frighteners’ was ’96, i actually do know that one for sure
I think it depends on the type – for creature features (excluding tremors), the post-T2 90s saw a massive amount of morphing monsters that look incredibly hokey today. Obviously I’m drawing a complete blank on examples and can’t back that up at all (I want to say “The Relic”… I think maybe it was more prevalent on tv so maybe I’m thinking of “Relic Hunter”).
“drawing a complete blank on examples and can’t back that up at all”
ha, always good to have something to base a conversation on, foamy. i’m not following tho, do you mean morphing CGI monsters?
the relic (and i’m really hoping your not thinking of ‘the relic hunter’ tv show) utilises compositng w/ a combo of stan w studio live-action creature effects and quite a bit of CG beastie; the creature does slowly morph during the film but you don’t see it doing so, by the time it busts a move out in the open it’s a hard-out mostly animated monster (fwiw i happen to adore ‘the relic’, it’s pulpy B-movie funtime and tom sizemore and pen ann miller are cool. don’t get me started on leaving out agent pendegast from the book, that’s a whole nother topic, but still a groovy bit of action/horror).
but anyway, ‘the relic’ is ’97; my whole point was that up until the second half of the decade, horror was still shot mostly in-camera with quite limited post-p visual effects, there were no immediate ‘post-T2’ CGI movie monsters; after the dynos in Jpark in 93 it’s not till ‘relic’ (good example, really), ‘frighteners’, ‘pitch black’, ‘jpark: the lost poop’ (not horror tho but creatures), etc. that the CGI monster revolution kicks in, but even those flicks feature a good deal of composting with live-action special effects, far more effective than the dreadful CGI abominations/craptaculars to come like ‘van helsing’
Here’s some good news to start your Saturday: Pooty-Poot and JCVD fight bare knuckles along the Black Sea.
Well, at least I admit it when I know I’m talking out my arse. đ
Yes, I did mean morphing CGI monsters – it was all the rage for a while, but my 90s memory is terrible enough that all I’m left with is a vague impression of over-saturation seeing it everywhere rather than being able to toss out specifics.
Got to hold up one of the white “Go All Blacks” squares at the game tonight tho – makes up for it somewhat.
you prick! the blacks rule, little frou-frou antelopes get their heads smashed in! all is right with the world
chucky, just when i thought you had entered the realm of the sane in the other thread you go and pootypoot and jcvd along the black sea…keep it real chuckles
I’m rather disappointed that I’m sober though. I have no idea even where decent places are in this town any more.
aw! i watched it at a friend’s house and didn’t get to concentrate on the game much, but not cursed with sobriety at least…too late tonight unless you want to catch the 2am karaoke weirdos at cuba mall; last time i did that there was this monumentally pissed japanese guy and he kept singing the song ‘closing time’ over and over, but he was actually japanese so he sang it, ‘cRosing time’ interspersed with giggle fits, i nearly wet myself laughing at him (in a good way, he was hilarious)
sleepytime
“…then physcial FX is buried by T2 and Jurassic Park.”
Was this a misquote and misunderstanding of what I wrote? Cause I never said digital buried practical. I said:
“Gremlins 2 was probably the end of an era in large scale practical work. Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park were right around the corner. By ’97, Baker was combining his puppetry with digital in Men In Black, then Mighty Joe Young, the following year.”
My quote started with the end of major practical and finished with a blend of practical and digital… Using Baker’s work during that decade as a transformative arc…
Mutiny – I met a lot of those guys a few years after that. Never Winston, which I’ll always regret.
Leah – but both productions still relied heavily on in-camera effects and didn’t cause some sudden shift of the paradigm or an immediate CGI effects revolution so as to ‘bury physical FX…
That’s not what I wrote.
oh brother, switch it around mutiny and martin s.
martin s:
“Leah – but both productions still relied heavily on in-camera effects and didn’t cause some sudden shift of the paradigm or an immediate CGI effects revolution so as to ‘bury physical FX…
That’s not what I wrote.”
yes i know, martin s, I WROTE THAT! are you serious?
this is what YOU wrote:
“…then physcial FX is buried by T2 and Jurassic Park.”
my response – if you bothered to read it – is that your comment above is a popular misconception, and then i wrote a paragraph explaining why. reading it again now, i think it’s fairly clearly written, so did you even bother to read what i wrote? from your response it would appear you did not. here you go then, again, this is my response to your comment wherein you state, “then physcial FX is buried by T2 and Jurassic Park.”:
* me:
T2 and in particular the cg compositing on ‘Jpark’ is revolutionary and excellent, but both productions still relied heavily on in-camera effects and didn’t cause some sudden shift of the paradigm or an immediate CGI effects revolution so as to ‘bury physical FX'[*your words, martin s]. small-scale cg modelling/compositing had been slowly infiltrating the industry in post-p but after the revolutionary work on T2 and Jpark, it’s not till ’97 or so really with ‘independence day’ and ‘dragonheart’ that CGI compositing shots dominate in big flicks, with ‘titanic’ another watershed featuring the large-scale shots of the ship (which actually look a bit tinpot today), thus heralding in the cgi era proper and the shift into the post-p heavy world with the widespread use of green screen and cg visual effects techniques so widely used today
and mutiny, the quote at the top is not attributed to you, CLEARLY martin s’s, having been stated a few comments up-thread.
you said, “Gremlins 2 was probably the end of an era in large scale practical work.” i would have thought it was obvious that my comment to you, “(large-scale practical work extended way past ‘gremlins 2’ in ’90, mutiny, not sure where you get that from)”, was to you, but i guess not.
and now you write this: “My quote started with the end of major practical and finished with a blend of practical and digital”
hopefully this time i’m clearer: ‘gremlins 2’ was NOT the end of “major practical” in-camera effects in the horror genre by any stretch of the imagination. expensive post-p digital visual effects had very little impact on the horror genre until ’96 or so, which is waaaaay after ‘gremlins 2’ in 1990. your assertion that after ‘gremlins 2’ in 1990 horror became a “blend of practical and digital” is way overstating the reliance on digital effects, which were barely used and did not kick in in any significant way until ’96 or so. here is my original comment again in which i explain why your comment about ‘gremlins 2’ does not hold water, since it doesn’t appear you bothered to read it either before responding:
*me:
in terms of just popular horror-type flicks, in-camera special effects were still widespread and prevalent from the early 90’s right past the halfway mark (large-scale practical work extended way past ‘gremlins 2’ in ’90, mutiny, not sure where you get that from); ‘tremors’, ‘dracula’, army of darkness, alien3, braindead, frankenstein, the crow, seven, the prophecy, in the mouth of madness, dusk till dawn, etc (no doubt i’m missing out many) — some may feature CGI/compositing shots but not on a significant or prominent scale, digital visual effects were costly and mainstream horror remained heavily reliant on in-camera production well into the 90’s. i think ‘the frighteners’ in ’97 introduced entirely digital characters to the genre (that might be wrong, just doing this off the top of my head and i’m terrible with years) as part of the sea-change to an emphasis on post-p visual effects going forward
hopefully that clears it up
Leah loves to argue and misrepresent.
I’m not talking about horror in general. I’m simply talking about meeting Baker in ’91. My point was where he was at the decade’s beginning, then where he was at by the end.
In fact, since you mentioned Army of Darkness for its practicals, I visited KNB during the same LA trip — while they were working on Army of Darkness. Nicotero told me that Raimi wanted to do everything old school and if it was up to him it would all have been stop-motion.
As per the other movies you mentioned, most of them were already in production when Gremlins 2 came out. And T2 didn’t hit until a year after G2. Even T2 only had about a dozen legit CGI shots in it, didn’t it? The rest was practical.
I’m not saying Gremlins 2 was “The End” in a literal sense. It’s more symbolic. Baker’s workload was so large he had to expand his studio to 2 adjoining buildings. It was an apex, so to speak. Following T2 and Jurassic, it wouldn’t have been done the same way anymore.
Leah – I know exactly what you wrote. I read it twice trying to figure out where you came up with your theory from what I said. The two ideas are not congruous.
I was discussing trends. I laid out how different booms spur different genres and with horror it’s make-up while with sci-fi its been visual/optical.
Me – There’s an FX transition from Predator to Robocop then it splits tracks between The Abyss and Total Recall, then physcial FX is buried by T2 and Jurassic Park.
1987. Sci-Fi/Fantasy was the meeting ground for make-up and optical effects because of Star Wars. So for the very few succesful attempts, (ET, CE3K, Alien), the landscape was strewn with more that didn’t click, (Krull, Flash Gordon, Blade Runner, Legend, Altered States, etc…). Budgets and scheduling made most productions an either/or proposition in development – either figure out how to do it practically or drop it – because producers knew the costs and time allotment for practical.
Predator was a mixed genre film, action/horror/sci-fi, which called for a variety of different visual effects not accustomed to the other genres. Action films weren’t heavy with make-up effects, horror films didn’t rely on massive optical work. But Silver and Ahnuld had the track record for Fox to gamble and its storied production shows how difficult this was at its time.
Soon after Robocop, another mixed genre film, but here we see an infusion of both effects aspects into sci-fi/action without utilizing horror. It has horrific scenes of violence, but they weren’t executed as moments of horror.
The Robocop approach spawned Batman and Predator begat Total Recall while Cameron was messing with The Abyss. As the former two hit big, The Abyss went nowhere except as R&D. Cameron and Spielberg, both utilizing Winston, realize you can add a third ingredient to the mix, CG. The success of T2 and JP blows Batman and Recall away, burying practical effects in the process.
Bury. As in below. Not eliminate, eradicate or kill off. Anyone who could cite The Relic and not understand this, well, what can I say.
I could go on Leah but you’ve already shown you arguing simply out of spite. Again.
“I could go on Leah but you’ve already shown you arguing simply out of spite. Again.”
“Leah loves to argue and misrepresent.”
OMG
please point out where i am “misrepresenting” anyone, or how i’ve shown i’m arguing “simply out of spite”.
the fact that NEITHER of you can simply have a discussion on an interesting topic without saying something nasty about me personally and being ridiculously condescending…pretty sad and telling.
did i say ANYTHING nasty about either of you personally in my comment? was i not utterly civil and matter-of-fact in my original comment? was i a condescending ass? i think not.
can either of you simply have a discussion without your ego taking some major imaginary hit because i’m a girl or something and i happen to question a couple statements you made about a topic which i find fascinating and relevant?
and you accuse ME of being spiteful? exactly WHERE in this discussion am i “spiteful”? exactly where have i “misrepresented” anyone? i’m very curious. i have done nothing but comment on two statements that you both clearly made, and i’ve made no effort to misrepresent either of you, nor have i been spiteful in any way. you are PARANOID, and if any misrepresentation or spite has been perpetrated here it’s been by you, martin s and mutiny.
and ftr, martin: i did not dispute ANY of the concepts you’ve just elaborated on above, they are sound opinion and i have no problem with ANY OF THEM, i don’t know why you feel compelled to repeat yourself as if you have to defend all that, about which i said NOTHING.
this is the one and ONLY comment of yours i commented on, quite clearly:
“…then physcial FX is buried by T2 and Jurassic Park.”
and sorry but nothing you have said since make that comment any less lacking in accuracy. and your creepy condescension is quite hilarious; the fact you think you know more about this than i do, given that i work in the field and have done so for almost 20 years and you are an accountant, is telling.
and mutiny, i actually appreciate you expanding a bit on what you meant about post-gremlins 2 production, your knowledge of film effects seems genuine and that’s what i was wondering about; pity you couldn’t do it without prefacing it with assholery and being snarky
as for this:
“As per the other movies you mentioned, most of them were already in production when Gremlins 2 came out.”
actually, no. frankenstein (94), the crow, seven (95) and on with prophesy, mouth of madness and dusk till dawn were not in production in mid-1990 when ‘greminls 2’ came out; as for ‘army of darkness’, you just said you visited production in ’91, and ‘gremlins 2’ came out mid-1990, so i don’t see how that fits.
“Even T2 only had about a dozen legit CGI shots in it, didn’t it? The rest was practical.”
uh yes, that is EXACTLY what i said in these words: “T2 and in particular the cg compositing on ‘Jpark’ is revolutionary and excellent, but both productions still relied heavily on in-camera effects…” christ, you’re actually agreeing with me and don’t even seem to know it.
blech
You want old-school FX, then be sure to get THE LOST SKELETON RETURNS AGAIN, which has no CGI and no matte shots, everything in-camera except for a bit of traditional animation (e.g., rays zapping out of a gun). Yes, it’s another shameless plug, but all great movies are beyond shame.
Queen of ad hominem.
I replied that your answer is not what I wrote. One sentence.
Leah – was i not utterly civil and matter-of-fact in my original comment? was i a condescending ass?
So, this is civil in Kiwi land?
yes i know, martin s, I WROTE THAT! are you serious?
this is what YOU wrote:
my response – if you bothered to read it – is that your comment above is a popular misconception, and then i wrote a paragraph explaining why. reading it again now, i think it’s fairly clearly written, so did you even bother to read what i wrote? from your response it would appear you did not. here you go then, again…
Throwing out accusations and answering them is always a sign of civility.
Leah – i did not dispute ANY of the concepts you’ve just elaborated on above, they are sound opinion and i have no problem with ANY OF THEM, i don’t know why you feel compelled to repeat yourself as if you have to defend all that, about which i said NOTHING.
this is the one and ONLY comment of yours i commented on, quite clearly:
“…then physcial FX is buried by T2 and Jurassic Park.”
and sorry but nothing you have said since make that comment any less lacking in accuracy.
OK. It’s sound, but it’s not. I laid it out again because the conversation was spread over several posts.
…and your creepy condescension is quite hilarious; the fact you think you know more about this than i do, given that i work in the field and have done so for almost 20 years and you are an accountant, is telling.
If this helps you sleep at night, then I’ll play along. I have no background in this field. None. I have no idea how to make positive/negative molds, bake latex, run fiberglass, etc… Zero.
Mutiny and I were talking about people we met and knew in their halcyon industry days, but your mid-90’s knowledge from Koalaville trumps all. Got it. Please continue. I’ll be moving on.
The Cranks are another matter, but I don’t think Pathology was intended to be that stupid. That seems like a cop-out defense anyway. “It’s supposed to be idiotic.” The Cranks are different and my beef with them isn’t their preposterous nature. I agree it would be foolish to hate them for being over-the-top when that’s part of the point. Pathology is different. That’s just a flat-out bad movie in pretty much every way.
To go back to back to the conversation wayyyy back before it got nasty and pointless: Martin S, I still think I disagree with you. You’re arguing from a supply side, I’m arguing from a demand side. I don’t think that a sudden surge in makeup technology was the cause of the 70s/80s horror boom but the effect of it. I can see how a surge in special effects technology could drive certain mass-audience movements, like CGI shifting summer tentpole movies away from Stallone/Schwarzenegger car chases/shootout movies towards more fantastical, visually expansive movies like Matrix/X-Men/Pirates of the Caribbean/LOTR. But the horror makeup boom didn’t lead to a paradigm shift as much as it just created an ‘arms race’ as you mentioned in your earlier post towards more and more gory films culminating in the Saw series.
Plus, the start of the horror boom featured a bunch of movies that don’t actually much going on in terms of fancy makeup/gore. Cronenberg’s movies prior to Scanners, the original Night of the Living Dead, Texas Chainsaw, Halloween, Last House on the Left – they all succeeded because of mood, pacing, and direction, not because they offered makeup effects that hadn’t been seen before (which wouldn’t kick in until Scanners, The Thing, The Howling, and the various Friday the 13ths – when makeup coincided with the boom in other special effects from ILM, etc.
A boom in special effects technology doesn’t lead to a rise in quality – that’s one reason why the original Star Wars movies are still better than the prequel trilogy. Likewise, horror movies were better in the first part of the era we’re talking about (1974-1982) than in the latter part, when the focus shifted to the gore effects, to Friday the 13th ripoffs, and away from storytelling.
Love all the New Zealand euphemisms…the worst is calling them Australian. I hear they hate that.