Seems like forever since the last time I updated this blog (although 3 ½ months is certainly a much shorter gap than the almost 3-year break I took previously). The problem has been a combination of being busy with too many other things, and having a hard time getting motivated to write. In effort to address at least the motivation issue, I’ve decided to make a slight adjustment to the nature of ye ol’ blog, somewhat inspired by my previous blog entry. Instead of doing just a movie-centric blog, I’m going to expand the content to include movies, TV shows, comic books, novels, video games, music, horticulture (okay, maybe not horticulture); in other words, whatever random topics happen to catch my attention and inspire me to write. And with the change in format, comes a change in title. I’m taking the title of my previous blog entry and turning it into the title for the entire blog – “And Now For Something Completely Different . . . .” (and if you don’t know where that particular line comes from, well you’ll just have to look it up. Oh, and shame on you!).
For our first entry of our new and (hopefully) improved blog, I’m going with a spooky, post-Halloween theme (I’m only a week late, which for me is pretty good). Topics for discussion today include one old movie, and one brand new TV show. So last night I watched an old supernatural horror/thriller made way back in 1983 – The Keep. I picked up this movie partly because I love the cast, and partly because I vaguely recalled enjoying it the first time around (sadly, it doesn’t play as well 25+ years later, but it’s still not too bad a movie). The first surprise that I got as the opening credits rolled was that it was written and directed by Michael Mann (of Miami Vice fame). This certainly isn’t the type of movie you’d normally associate with this director (this is, however, one of his very early films).
The movie takes place in the mountains of Romania during World War II. A Nazi army captain, played by Jürgen Prochnow (an actor I’ve always really liked), is given orders to garrison his soldiers at a mysterious and forbidding stone keep blocking a pass through the mountains. After his men begin to die horribly one by one, a group of SS soldiers is sent in to deal with the problem, led by Gabriel Byrne (another brilliant actor). Other great actors in the film include Ian McKellen as a Jewish scientist brought in because of his knowledge of the keep, and Scott Glenn as a mysterious stranger who knows the secret of the keep. As the movie unfolds, you quickly learn that the keep was built to imprison a powerful evil that is desperate to escape its prison.
The visual effects for the movie are really cheesy, especially by today’s standards (and were probably at least a little cheesy even by ‘80s standards), and both the writing and acting have their weak, silly moments. What the movie really has going for it, though, is atmosphere. There’s an eerie, spooky feel that the movie maintains throughout, even during the cheesier scenes. Especially impressive is the keep itself, which really does look like it was built to hold some ancient evil. The other thing the movie really gets right as far as atmosphere is the music. The score was done by Tangerine Dream, a new age/electronica group that not only have done several excellent soundtracks (over 60, I was surprised to learn on Wikipedia), but have also done some great non-soundtrack albums (if you like electronic music, that is).
As I was watching the movie, the wannabe filmmaker in me (oh, if only I’d gotten into film in high school, instead of computers) really keyed in on the music. I don’t think I can over stress just how important a part of a movie a good score/soundtrack is. The right music can make an indelible impression on the viewer, forever tying the music to the film in the viewer’s mind. Ennio Morricone’s scores for Clint Eastwood’s spaghetti westerns is a perfect example of this; and who can forget Mike Oldfield’s theme song for The Exorcist?
Other musicians whose scores I really enjoy include Vangelis (who won the Oscar for Best Original Score for Chariots of Fire, as well as scoring Blade Runner and 1492: Conquest of Paradise for Ridley Scott – both phenomenal scores), Graeme Revell (who’s done dozens of great movie scores), and of course the brilliant Danny Elfman, who was the front man of Oingo Boingo before going into movie scores. He’s probably best known for his work with Tim Burton (having done the scores for all but two of his movies), but has done films and TV shows too numerous to mention.
But enough talk about music for today (although in some future blog entry I’m sure I will return to the topic of movie music) – let’s get back on track with our post-Halloween theme. At the beginning of our show I mentioned a brand new TV show. The show in question would be AMC’s The Walking Dead, which premiered on Halloween night. As the name implies, this show is about a zombie apocalypse (and thus, not for everyone). It is based on a very successful comic book series (one which I haven’t read yet, so no idea how good the original comics are, or how close the show is to said comics). I have to say, while not perfect, I loved the pilot for this show! Of course, the fact that it was written for the screen, directed, and executive produced by Frank Darabont (director of such classic films as The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile) probably has a lot to do with that.
Okay, let’s play TV/film critic for a moment, and get the negatives out of the way first. Sadly, there were a few aspects to the story that I found a bit derivative/predictable. The main character awakens from a coma in a hospital to find it completely abandoned, which feels a lot like the opening to 28 Days Later. This same main character later heads for Atlanta, which is supposed to be a safe haven protected by the military where the CDC is busily working on a cure, only to discover the city is filled to the brim with zombies (this is such a standard part of most zombie films as to almost be cliché, but it’s hard to be too upset about its inclusion, because it is such a standard that it almost wouldn’t feel right to NOT have it). The big story aspect that really disappointed me, though, is the tried and true “love triangle” – the main character’s former partner (both were deputy sheriffs) and his wife have assumed that he’s dead, and so naturally have become romantically involved. This is one of those silly story complications that has just been over-used to death. I’ll just have to wait and see how it plays out here before I pass final judgment.
Other than these few slightly weak story points, though, I absolutely loved this show. The cinematography and editing are both especially excellent. You really get to see just what a television show can accomplish when it’s done with cinematic sensibilities (clearly one of the advantages of having a film director on board as the main creative force behind the show). Let’s start with the opening scene. We see our main character, a deputy sheriff, leaving his vehicle and walking down a deserted highway carrying a gas can. Abandoned vehicles litter the street. He reaches a gas station, where we see a small, hand-written sign reading “No Gas” and more abandoned cars. Our hero hears something, and moves towards the noise. Looking under a car, he sees a pair of slipper-clad feet, and a small hand reaching for a teddy bear. Moving around the car, he sees a young girl walking slowly away from him. He calls out to her. She stops, then slowly turns around. Not surprisingly, she is a zombie. As she begins to move towards our hero, he hesitates for a moment, then pulls his sidearm and puts a bullet through the middle of her forehead. We watch her body fall backwards to the ground, then cut to opening credits.
And right there the show lets you know very bluntly and boldly (and surprisingly graphically, especially for a basic cable channel) exactly what it’s about. I loved it. Before the opening credits even roll, you’ve got a really good idea what you’re in for (so if it’s not your type of show, you’ll know it right from word go, and can change the channel before investing any real time watching). After the opening credits, we jump back in time to before the zombies arrive, where we see the main character sitting in his squad car with his partner (same guy who ends up involved with his wife later in the show). After a brief conversation between the two men to let us get to know a little about them, they become involved in a post high-speed chase shootout that leaves the main character seriously injured from a gunshot wound.
When the hero awakens in a hospital bed an indeterminate amount of time later, he finds the hospital both deserted and completely trashed (including dead bodies in the hallways and a line of bullet holes along one wall). He comes across a padlocked door spray-painted with the words: “Don’t Open. Dead Inside.” Finally he stumbles outside. The camera stays close in on him, focused mostly at his feet. You see him walk past a dead body wrapped in a sheet, then another, then another. The camera then pulls back to an overhead shot, where you discover there are dozens and dozens and dozens of dead bodies stacked up in rows outside the hospital. It is incredibly well shot and edited together to really hit you with the impact of just how many dead there are. It is one of the best scenes in the show, and I loved how it was done.
Things are pretty standard from there as he is saved from zombies by a pair of survivors, who explain to him what’s been happening (in brief, at least – they don’t go into as much detail as I would have liked; specifically, at no point does the man ask what date it is or how long the zombie plague has been going on, which in my mind at least is one of the first questions I’d be asking if I'd just come out of a coma – especially if I'd come out of it into such a bizarre and unbelievable a scenario). He leaves the pair to head off to Atlanta, where as mentioned above he discovers it is overrun by zombies. One interesting twist is that after his car runs out of gas, he finds a horse, and ends up riding into Atlanta on horseback, which had a retro western sort of feel that I liked. Of course, things don’t work out so well for the horse (but I’ll leave the details of that to your imagination).
And that’s about where the first episode ends. In the scenes of upcoming episodes, we see our hero connect with a group of survivors in Atlanta, while at the same time his wife, son, and partner are in the wilderness with other survivors also trying to stay alive. Based on what I’ve seen so far, this show has the potential to be really, really good, and I can’t wait to see the next episode. Of course, as the one review on the show that I read pointed out, The Walking Dead is likely going to have to pull in an entirely different audience from that of AMC's other hits Mad Men and Breaking Bad, and if it doesn’t it could have a hard time staying on the air (which would suck). We’ll have to wait and see how it does.
And thus concludes my return to the blogosphere. With any luck, by expanding the concept of my blog to go beyond the realm of just movies, I’ll be able to stay motivated/inspired enough to actually update the stupid thing on a more regular basis. Until then, “Be seeing you.” (another quote you’re just going to have look up if you don’t know where it came from)
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