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Author: Ryan Harvey

2 Clash 2 Titans: Clash of the Titans (2010)

2 Clash 2 Titans: Clash of the Titans (2010)

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clash-of-the-titans-1Clash of the Titans (2010)
Directed by Louis Leterrier. Starring Sam Worthington, Mad Mikkelson, Gemma Arterton, Alexa Davalos, Ralph Fiennes, Liam Neeson, Pete Postelthwaite.

You may not believe this, based on other things I’ve written at this site, but I walked into my local movie theater showing the re-make of Clash of the Titans with an open mind. Or as open as possible for someone who can pinpoint the original 1981 film as the moment from his childhood when he awakened to fantasy adventure.

And I’m glad I kept my mind pried open. Because Clash of the Titans: 2010 is a perfectly adequate modern fantasy movie, and I was able to enjoy the good that it had to give.

This may not sound like a stirring recommendation, but when you consider the complete Olympian thrashing the film is getting from the majority of critics, for a Ray Harryhausen defender to say, “Hey, I kind of liked that,” is, ahem, a titanic deal. (I’m really, really sorry about that pun.)

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How to Train Your Dragon

How to Train Your Dragon

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how_to_train_your_dragon_posterHow to Train Your Dragon (2010)
Directed by Chris Sanders and Dean DeBloid. Featuring the voices of Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Jonah Hill, America Ferrera, Craig Ferguson.

A new U.S. Godzilla film is on the way! One that will do it right! Rejoice!

Sorry, had to get that out of my system. Now, where was I . . . something else about giant monsters. . . .

I avoid most CGI animated films that don’t have the name “Pixar” in front of them; last year’s Monsters vs Aliens was just another reminder that nobody else seems to even try to reach Pixar’s level of story quality and characterization. “Those Who Are Not Pixar” are quite content just to wink at the adults with pop-culture jokes and coast on celebrity voices. However, when I saw the trailers for How to Train Your Dragon, I was intrigued. The movie appeared to be mostly ironic fantasy—not a genre that does much for me, aside from an occasional Terry Pratchett novel—but it also seemed to have some genuine heroic sword-and-sorcery going on in it. Vikings and dragons . . . I thought there were some juicy possibilities.

Okay, so I was wrong.

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The Weird of Cornell Woolrich: “Speak to Me of Death”

The Weird of Cornell Woolrich: “Speak to Me of Death”

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speak-to-me-of-deathMost pulp writers of the 1930s were itching to break into the hardcover book market. Since reprints of pulp stories in book form were rare at the time, these writers did not expect that their work for the newsstands would survive past an issue’s sell-date. They felt comfortable re-working and expanding on them to create novels. Raymond Chandler famously called his process of novelizing his already published work as “cannibalizing.” He welded together different short stories, often keeping large sections of text intact with only slight alterations. Other authors took ideas that they liked, or else felt they could do more justice to in the novel format, and enlarged them into books without text carry-over. Robert E. Howard used “The Scarlet Citadel” as a guide for The Hour of the Dragon. And Cornell Woolrich turned many of his short stories into novels. “Face Work” became The Black Angel. “Call Me Patrice” became I Married a Dead Man. “The Street of Jungle Death” became Black Alibi. And “Speak to Me of Death” became Woolrich’s most depressing novel (which is really saying something), Night Has a Thousand Eyes.

In most of these cases, Woolrich made major changes from the short version to the longer one. “Face Work” is a minor piece and only remains as an incident within The Black Angel. “Street of Jungle Death” is a pretty wretched piece of junk, and yet Woolrich took this silly “big cat on the loose in Hollywood!” and fashioned it into a grim classic — one of his best novels — set in the web-ways of a South American city.

But in the case of “Speak to Me of Death” and its growth into Night Has a Thousand Eyes, Woolrich changed little of the story. He instead deepened this examination of fate, psychic powers, and police work so it lasted over three hundred pages. The short story is a classic, and so is the novel — it’s merely a matter of the length of the author maintains the effect. If Night Has a Thousand Eyes is the superior work, “Speak to Me of Death” might be better for your nerves because it ends much sooner.

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No Mere Nostalgia: The Original Clash of the Titans

No Mere Nostalgia: The Original Clash of the Titans

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medusa-defeatedOn April 2nd, “Titans Will Clash!” Which is perhaps the worst tag-line I’ve seen since “The Story That Won’t Go Away” for JFK. I wonder why the tag-line on director Louis Lettier’s previous film wasn’t “This Summer, The Hulk Is Incredible!”

And the Titans will also clash in 3D. But not real 3D; this is a post-production fix designed to cash-in on the success of another 3D movie. Clash ‘10 wasn’t shot with the extra dimension in mind, so don’t expect me to shell out extra cash for the polarized goggles.

I would feel a bit easier about the upcoming re-make of Clash of the Titans if it weren’t for the attitude of some online movie sites and critics who seem to take pleasure in putting down the 1981 original in their anticipation of the new film. I should feel nothing but excitement; who am I to object to Greek myth and big beasts on the silver screen? But I have this discomfort with those critics who normally object to re-makes but somehow feel that the Ray Harryhausen classic is going to get improved in a re-do because the original is only “cheesy nostalgia.”

No. It’s. Not.

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Two Blasts from a 70 mm

Two Blasts from a 70 mm

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2001-space-station-docking

I spent a large chunk of the evenings this weekend watching two films in 70 mm prints on the large screens of grand old Los Angeles cinemas. The timing was right for the prodigious L.A. revival screening community to drag out the mega-sized celluloid for enjoyment in Gargantua-Vision: it was Oscar weekend and everybody was talking and joking about Avatar, even if they knew Hurt Locker was going to win Best Picture. Which it did. (I think District 9 should have won, but didn’t delude myself for a moment that this would happen. But Jeff Bridges, huh? Pretty cool. Kevin Flynn has an Oscar.)

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Forgive Me, Solomon Kane, For I Once Wrote a Screenplay about You

Forgive Me, Solomon Kane, For I Once Wrote a Screenplay about You

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croatoanThe movie Solomon Kane has gotten released in the U.K., and although it doesn’t have U.S. distribution yet, we will eventually see it on this side of the pond, either in theaters or on DVD. A Solomon Kane movie after so many years of patient waiting is a sword-and-sorcery/Robert E. Howard lover’s dream. But Al Harron at The Cimmerian, who has seen the movie in the U.K., doesn’t have a high opinion of the Howard-side of the results. Although he thinks the film “wasn’t that bad.” His detailed analysis is definitely worth reading, although the spoiler-wary should know that it contains many significant plot details.

I have a personal link to any Solomon Kane film project, and not just because Howard’s puritan adventurer is my favorite of his characters and also the one most suited for the silver screen. It’s mainly because I actually wrote a Solomon Kane screenplay in the mid-‘90s, when I was just out of college, working as an apprentice editor in Warner-Hollywood Studios, and flush with the desire to become a great screenwriter.

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The Historian, or An Excuse Not to Read Dracula, the Un-Dead

The Historian, or An Excuse Not to Read Dracula, the Un-Dead

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historianI don’t have a dislike for the vampire in general. I’ve repeatedly reminded myself about this  even as I cringe at the saturation in our culture of mediocre work based on supernatural bloodsuckers. (Do I really have to name the book and movie series at the center of this creative blood drain? Of course I don’t.) Vampires are everywhere today, and this visibility has reduced their effectiveness for me, no matter what “new” spin the artists claim they’re putting on the legend. Exceptions are out there—for example the action-packed novels of certain contributor to Black Gate—but today I actively avoid horror and dark fantasy and especially parodies using vampires. I want more werewolves and phantasms and cosmic weirdness. Specifically werewolves. I love werewolves.

I wasn’t always this apathetic about vampires. I had a great interest in vampire legendry and literature when I was in college, right at the time that Bram Stoker’s Dracula was an enormous hit in theaters. I was always focused on Dracula, and not as interested in other vampires. This is still true today; while I shrug at most vampire offerings, I’ll still pick up something about the King of the Undead. Perhaps it’s the history major in me, or my love of the Victorian Gothic, that pulls me back to the vampiric Transylvanian noble. Literary Dracula excursions I’ve taken over the past few years include Fred Saberhagen’s The Dracula Tape (an intriguing piece of literary criticism, but his heroic and misunderstood Dracula isn’t my flavor of garlic seasoning), the anthology Dracula in London (answering the question, “So what else was the Count doing in London Town when not desanguinizing Lucy and Mina?”), the history volume Dracula: Prince of Many Faces, and Kim Newman’s wonderful “Anno-Dracula” series. If you haven’t read these three novels and wonder if there’s anything out there that might make you feel a bit better about vampires in general, seek out the nearest used book service posthaste.

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The Wolfman

The Wolfman

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wolfman-poster-mainThe Wolfman (2010)
Directed by Joe Johnston. Written by Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self from the Screenplay by Curt Siodmak. Starring Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt, Hugo Weaving.

The re-make of the 1941 Universal horror classic The Wolf Man had a hellaciously crazy time getting to you this weekend. Original director Mark Romanek was removed from the film right before shooting commenced, giving replacement director Joe Johnston only two weeks of prep time. The studio rejected Danny Elfman’s classically-toned orchestral music and hired Pauls Haslinger from Tangerine Dream to re-score the picture . . . only to reject his music a month before the release date and put Elfman’s music back in. The movie, shot in the summer of 2008, was pushed back repeatedly, with new editors brought on in what seemed like a flurry of desperation to save a troubled, messy film.

All this caused considerable concern among old school horror fans like myself, for whom the George Waggner/Lon Chaney Jr. The Wolf Man is a primary text. (Read my thoughts on the original here.) Maybe the movie was in serious trouble; or perhaps Universal wanted to get it just right. We all wanted this film to work; we feared it would not.

I can now confidently report, as a Universal-and-Hammer Horror geek, that the compound word 2010 The Wolfman most definitely does work. It shows evidence of breaks and tears and furious hammering to cover construction difficulties. It has pacing trouble (for once, a movie that goes too fast), character and plot loose ends, and a female lead who doesn’t bring much to the film. It’s flawed, when you come down to silver tacks (not brass tacks; this is a werewolf film). But The Wolfman is also bloody furious fun of a kind that contemporary horror films just haven’t given to somebody with my tastes in a long time. Terence Fisher fans, James Whale fans, Jack Pierce fans, Lon Chaney Jr. Fans, werewolf fans, Victorian London fans, steampunk fans, go see this movie . . . warts and bare patches and all, this is your film.

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The Weird of Cornell Woolrich: “Dark Melody of Madness”

The Weird of Cornell Woolrich: “Dark Melody of Madness”

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dimemysteryContinuing from last week’s look at the weird tales of pulp suspense maestro Cornell Woolrich, today I’ll walk around another bleak urban corner of the midnight-hued world of my favorite pulp author.

“Dark Melody of Madness,” first published in the June 1935 issue of Dime Mystery and often reprinted under the less-chilling title of “Papa Benjamin,” is one the superb pulp horror stories, and one of Woolrich’s earliest classics, written during the first year of his career as professional magazine writer. In its use of race as an undercurrent, it has connections to some of the great horror works of Robert E. Howard, in particular “Pigeons from Hell,” which also uses the device of voodoo of the West Indies. Anyone interested in the American Weird should read it. Fortunately, it’s been reprinted in many anthologies.

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The Weird of Cornell Woolrich: “Jane Brown’s Body”

The Weird of Cornell Woolrich: “Jane Brown’s Body”

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harry-clarke-upon-the-bedIt might surprise regular readers of this website that Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard are not my favorite pulp writers. They rank among the authors who have influenced and inspired me the most—and they provide endless material to discuss and analyze. But my favorite pulper, perhaps my favorite writer of all time, is Cornell Woolrich.

I haven’t written anything about Woolrich on Black Gate before because his genre doesn’t intersect with the dominant focus of the magazine, except maybe in the broad way that Black Gate readers are usually interested in the pulps in general. Woolrich wrote suspense and mystery stories, and the majority of his work appeared in crime magazines like Dime Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, and the legendary Black Mask. His specialty was the “emotional thriller,” harrowing trips into fear and paranoia with suspense set pieces that no author has equaled. Often called by admirers and critics “the literary Hitchcock” and “the twentieth-century Edgar Allan Poe,” Woolrich could wring more palpitating dread out of everyday life than any writer I’ve encountered. His style is defining of noir, the existential crime tale. Eventually, Hitchcock and Woolrich did merge, when Hitchcock turned Woolrich’s short story “Rear Window” (originally published as “It Had to Be Murder”) into a film that you might have heard of.

But there is one part of Woolrich’s oeuvre that falls into the compass of Black Gate: he made occasional forays into stories of the fantastic. He was actually ideally suited for the horror story, but the market for such tales was not as strong as the crime fiction market (just ask anybody to whom Weird Tales owed money). Woolrich had a personally dismal view of existence—universe and fate are essentially hostile to humanity, and the inevitability of death made life pointless—that could transfer perfectly to the supernatural, where those malign forces of the universe manifest in the unnatural occurrences. The idea that the world doesn’t care for you is one also found in H. P. Lovecraft, although visualized in a different way. If the two men had ever met, there would have been a strange, strange discussion. (Woolrich, however, could rarely be budged from his hotel room in Manhattan. H. P. Lovecraft was a partying socialite in comparison.)

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