the OMan...
I rarely walk out of movies.
Honestly, all things considered, I think it would have been more effective to just launch a special showing of the original Omen on 6/06/06 than to go to all the work of putting together another production of it. And it was a lot of work, don't get me wrong. Credit where credit is due. It took work scouting and dressing all the sites and locations (I liked the sites and locations, incidentally). It took effort tracking down and casting all of those excellent actors. It took the actors work to play the roles. I think most of them spent more time working at it than achieving it, but the work is evident. Julia Stiles takes so long to get into it that she finally gets interesting as she dies. Liev Schrieber has that same charming, wooden with an edge persona on screen, although it served him better in the Manchurian Candidate when there was an edge to be had than here, I'm afraid. That British actor that I love actually did a great job of reacting with great honesty and committment to revelations and in scenes that unfortunately fell flat because none of the other actors could reconcile or show what they felt most in the moment. I shall have to wait for Harry Potter 5, I'm afraid, and hope that the director honors it's adapted namesake and gives as much screen time to the beyond amazing adult cast of makeshift professors and aurors as it does to the adequate child stars. We shall see.
What we shall not see is the last 30 minutes of The Omen, 2006. What we wish we had seen was a nicely edited reel with a merciful pair of letterbox bands. Not a boom mic over every head in every indoor shot. Not the curved edges of the camera the thing was shot with. Not the dangling labor of the grips and lesser techs. I'm all for honoring the work they do, but that wasn't why I went to the theater tonight. I wanted to be sucked in to a (hopefully) refreshing and bold take on a landmark film of horror and suspense. Instead I had to sit with an insufferably full bladder and battle the comments of the LESS THAN 17 YEAR OLD, TICKET PURCHASING, WTF audience break up every time a dangling phonic phallus interrupted an already awkwardly staged scene.
Which leads me to my conclusion. There are writers. It's a gift. It's a gift that many have. MANY. Maybe not many you know, or many you'll ever know, but many have it, and do so in spades. Many of those people will write dialogue. Many of those dialogists will write for the silver screen. It to them that I am writing now. Listen to me. DO NOT RE-WRITE OLD HORROR MOVIE SCRIPTS. If I'm writing to the next generation, then do not re-write A Nightmare on Elm Street. Do not adapt USA's Scream Theatre 2010. Resist the sweaty, paycheck promising, 10 million Budget wielding, A-list actor name fondling, starry-eyed well-wisher who wants to get you on board for the 3rd gen version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Write something new. That's all I'm asking. If you must do a remake, do it liberally, leave your mark. Duplicates make a silly homage. This may not be true of Shakespeare, but it is certainly true of horror flicks. Scream was gimmicky, but it was also a Yield sign.
Oh, and if you manage a movie theater, don't be greedy. If it's the opening weekend for a film, and the distributor has sent you an upolished reel, either send it back or put a disclaimer out front so that people are aware of it going in. Don't just take their 8-12 bucks and then let them find out that they are paying for a Big Mac without the special sauce. Just have a little decency about it. Especially when you knew about it before I said something to you. You...unsavory, you.
There. It has been said. It will be said again. As long as there is cinematic injustice, as long as big studios make big messes in little britches, I will be there to toss paltry criticisms at them, and to lead my ranks of readers towards a new dawn where that magical question is answered: So, what happens twenty-nine days later...?
Honestly, all things considered, I think it would have been more effective to just launch a special showing of the original Omen on 6/06/06 than to go to all the work of putting together another production of it. And it was a lot of work, don't get me wrong. Credit where credit is due. It took work scouting and dressing all the sites and locations (I liked the sites and locations, incidentally). It took effort tracking down and casting all of those excellent actors. It took the actors work to play the roles. I think most of them spent more time working at it than achieving it, but the work is evident. Julia Stiles takes so long to get into it that she finally gets interesting as she dies. Liev Schrieber has that same charming, wooden with an edge persona on screen, although it served him better in the Manchurian Candidate when there was an edge to be had than here, I'm afraid. That British actor that I love actually did a great job of reacting with great honesty and committment to revelations and in scenes that unfortunately fell flat because none of the other actors could reconcile or show what they felt most in the moment. I shall have to wait for Harry Potter 5, I'm afraid, and hope that the director honors it's adapted namesake and gives as much screen time to the beyond amazing adult cast of makeshift professors and aurors as it does to the adequate child stars. We shall see.
What we shall not see is the last 30 minutes of The Omen, 2006. What we wish we had seen was a nicely edited reel with a merciful pair of letterbox bands. Not a boom mic over every head in every indoor shot. Not the curved edges of the camera the thing was shot with. Not the dangling labor of the grips and lesser techs. I'm all for honoring the work they do, but that wasn't why I went to the theater tonight. I wanted to be sucked in to a (hopefully) refreshing and bold take on a landmark film of horror and suspense. Instead I had to sit with an insufferably full bladder and battle the comments of the LESS THAN 17 YEAR OLD, TICKET PURCHASING, WTF audience break up every time a dangling phonic phallus interrupted an already awkwardly staged scene.
Which leads me to my conclusion. There are writers. It's a gift. It's a gift that many have. MANY. Maybe not many you know, or many you'll ever know, but many have it, and do so in spades. Many of those people will write dialogue. Many of those dialogists will write for the silver screen. It to them that I am writing now. Listen to me. DO NOT RE-WRITE OLD HORROR MOVIE SCRIPTS. If I'm writing to the next generation, then do not re-write A Nightmare on Elm Street. Do not adapt USA's Scream Theatre 2010. Resist the sweaty, paycheck promising, 10 million Budget wielding, A-list actor name fondling, starry-eyed well-wisher who wants to get you on board for the 3rd gen version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Write something new. That's all I'm asking. If you must do a remake, do it liberally, leave your mark. Duplicates make a silly homage. This may not be true of Shakespeare, but it is certainly true of horror flicks. Scream was gimmicky, but it was also a Yield sign.
Oh, and if you manage a movie theater, don't be greedy. If it's the opening weekend for a film, and the distributor has sent you an upolished reel, either send it back or put a disclaimer out front so that people are aware of it going in. Don't just take their 8-12 bucks and then let them find out that they are paying for a Big Mac without the special sauce. Just have a little decency about it. Especially when you knew about it before I said something to you. You...unsavory, you.
There. It has been said. It will be said again. As long as there is cinematic injustice, as long as big studios make big messes in little britches, I will be there to toss paltry criticisms at them, and to lead my ranks of readers towards a new dawn where that magical question is answered: So, what happens twenty-nine days later...?
posted by Master of None at 9:42 PM
1 Comments:
where are thou, Master of None?
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