Original Muppeteer Jerry Nelson has passed away at 78.
He was Robin, the Count von Count, Floyd Pepper, Lew Zealand and many, many other wonderful characters.
I'm at work at the moment so can't write anything too long. I just felt I had to mark the passing of one of those amazing people who had a marked affect on my childhood. I'm gutted at this.
Something longer and more appropriate will be posted later this afternoon.
There are too many obits on this blog. Not because I'm obsessed with that kind of thing (as some folks claim) but because when someone who has affected me through popular culture, I feel the need to speak about them. And unfortunately, there have been too many of these, particularly this past year. My message to the cosmos? Give it a break.
As I'm sure everybody knows now, Tony Scott took his own life yesterday, aged 68. To be honest, his reasons for doing so are nobody's business but his own and his family's.
He was responsible for a lot of the way modern blockbusters are filmed these days. Especially in the 1980s, his films had a fabulous, sleek sheen to them. Lots of rain, gradient filters, screwed up angles and a pervading sense of heat. No Tony Scott pretty much means no Michael Bay, for good or ill. Much of the style he developed has been used by modern filmmakers to varying degrees, mostly poorly. I was never a fan of Top Gun but consider The Last Boy Scout and Crimson Tide to be my favourites of his films. But of course a special mention must go out to True Romance, considered by many to be his best.
One of those moments when it all comes together in a movie. Scott's direction, Tarantino's writing and Walken & Hopper's performances. In fact I consider this scene to be Scott & Hopper's finest hour. Hopper's character is a man at ease with the universe and all of those around him because he knows exactly what the deal is. That there is no way out so enjoy the ride.
A sad day for his family and a sad day for the movies.
Been a while since my last blog. Had a few things on and getting into a new routine.
I've started a new temp job - not bad so far - and am in the early stages of a new feature project with some great collaborators. Not much I can say about that just now but I am very excited about it and it's right up my alley. A lot of work to do on that.
A bit fucked off at some of the right-wing US gun enthusiasts who thought my last blog post was a good place to spread their brainless, simple-minded and selfish propaganda. But this is the internet so there we are.
The Doug McLure dinosaur posts are coming, I promise. Just not had the time to get it going. But I have re-watched The Land That Time Forgot recently. Thoughts to be posted soon.
I'm still getting over a quick trip to London at the weekend for an old friend's birthday party. It ended at 5.45am, listening to The Grumbleweeds.
Something appalling and terrible happened in Colorado yesterday. One of those things that tends to put things in a clearer focus but at the same time manages to bewilder us at a fundamental level. A lot has been said and I'm sure anything I have to say would be one of countless versions of the same sentiment most people are expressing.
But a friend posted something on Facebook that I think is pretty appropriate
Thoughts with all of those affected by yesterday's events.
I've been belted with a rotten cold these past few days so I'm still to begin my Lure of McClure series of posts. And now it seems I've given my cold to my wife, so there's grovelling to be done.
Presuming this is from The People That Time Forgot.
Whilst flipping through the DVD review section of this month's copy of Empire, I caught a quick glance at their thoughts on Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. One particular bit amused me where the film in question was compared thus:
"pleasingly naff, like a Doug McClure movie on space dust."
This got me thinking about the great man (TM) and those 4 films he did with Amicus based on Edgar Rice Burroughs stories, The Land That Time Forgot, The People That Time Forgot, At The Earth's Core and Warlords Of Atlantis. I have the classic Doug McClure Fantasy Adventure Triple Bill DVD set. Classy.
All pretty terrible films but mostly films I love. Go figure. In fact, At The Earth's Core was the one that really got my attention as a kid, particularly with it's bizarre electronic soundtrack. It's frankly ridiculous but fantastic. Forgive me if I've gone on about this before, but if so, it's going to happen again.
Therefore, be aware that some of the next posts will feature ropey miniature effects, rubber dinosaurs, cavemen and Keith Barron.
The Sound of Music
Planet of the Apes
The Sugarland Express
Jaws
Jaws 2
Cocoon
Road to Perdition
Sweeney Todd
Driving Miss Daisy
The Verdict
The Eiger Sanction
The Sting
Speaks for itself.
Oh, and in all likelihood, no Zanuck = no Spielberg.
Mark Harris' Scenes from a Revolution and Leonard Mosley'sZanuck (a biography of his father, Daryl F. Zanuck, who both hired him and fired him as head of 20th Century Fox) are good references on his career.
He was working right up to his sudden end and had produced a lot of Tim Burton's recent output.
The thing about working from home (working? Doesn't that imply earnings? Not for me so far...) is all the other jobs that crop up. Take this, for instance.
That's been my Thursday. One shed down, another one up. With a lot of help from my Dad. Writing? Not a word. I may try and squeeze some in this evening before I collapse.
It needed doing. The old one was a spider cemetery and mouse flop house. Not pleasant clearing the old one out, the work of the past couple of days, which led to no blog posts. And it's not over yet.
Who cares? I care. It's my blog, I'll say what I like.
Catching up on my Fellini. That could be a euphemism, I suppose. This thought saddens me.
After several aborted attempts, I finally watched La Strada a few nights ago. I admit, I had trouble watching it but it's worth it by the end.
Incredibly moving. Utter desolation.
But the fact that Anthony Quinn and Richard Basehart are dubbed was off putting. I can barely stand foreign films dubbed into English, unless they're mad Japanese monster movies, but it seemed that dubbing English Language performances was common in Europe, or Italy at least. While Quinn's dubbed voice of Zampano is relatively close to his own in tone, the fact that it's not him (I'm presuming) took me out of the final scene slightly. Zampano sobs in grief/guilt finally at the fate of Guilietta Masina's Gelsomina and buries his face in the sand. It's an incredible moment but it made me think of how Quinn's performance might have been altered by the use of someone elses voice. It really worked against Richard Basehart's Fool / Il Matto. The voice dubbed over his performance is ridiculously overdone and pitched much higher than Basehart's own, making him sound like a caricature of a clown. Obviously my own knowledge of Basehart's voice (he was, after all, the deep, gravelly voice in the opening of Knight Rider) affects my opinion of this, but the fact that Fellini chose such a daft voice for the character is odd. Would an actor find that insulting? I found this equally distracting with Donald Sutherland's performance in Fellini's Casanova.
Here's an example (without subtitles). There is something a bit too childlike or clownish about it for me.
And then, oddly, Basehart dubs his own performance into the English language version in the same scene as above.
But this is still a great film with moments of utter sadness, particularly when Gelsomina waves goodbye to the nuns. An awful resignation from a girl who's naivete is torn from her by a cruelly indifferent man who realises his error far too late.And a beautiful score from Nino Rota.
You may have noticed a slight change in the look of the blog. I've tried to make it more in line with the look of my main website and have also added buttons to take you to pages over there as well in an attempt to make it seem like the same beast. As I tweak/massively overhaul/make a mess of the website, the blog may change correspondingly.
