Rambling review: 15 random thoughts about 'Skyfall'

I just got back from 'Skyfall', and...

 

In short, 'Skyfall' is a Bond movie so good it's like a legitimately good movie, even outside of the franchise. A real review will follow... eventually. 

But, for now, here's 15 random, rambling, thoughts on the film:

Motherf***ing fast zombies and other things in first 'World War Z' trailer

In 2006, master comedic filmmaker Mel Brooks' son Max Brooks wrote a little book called World War Z. An oral history of an almost-apocalypse dubbed the Zombie War, told through the perspective of several survivors from around the globe, the book was written as though it was the final report of the event compiled by an unnamed interviewer/writer some years after mankind ultimately prevailed against the undead.

To put it simply, the book is/was great: sprawling in scope and masterful in its understanding and reinterpretation of the zombie genre mythos established by George A. Romero (et al). It also seemed, to many who read it (myself included), impossible to adapt as a conventional movie. In my mind, the epic and mostly episodic structure of the novel seemed perfect for a television miniseries: on premium cable of course, so the violence could still be on screen.

And yet, after a bidding war with many buyers (including Leonardo DiCaprio), the book was optioned in 2007 by Brad Pitt's company Plan B and Paramount Pictures. The film took years to make the jump past pre-production. A script by J. Michael Straczynski (creator of 'Babylon 5' and screenwriter of the Clint Eastwood-directed 'Changeling') was subsequently rewritten by Matthew Michael Carnahan (screenwriter of 'The Kingdom' and 'State of Play'). Even after the rewrite, the script was apparently problematic but production charged on anyway.

The action-packed 'World War Z' finally began shooting in 2011, under the guidance of director Marc Forster--a man predominately known for dramas, including the Oscar-winning 'Monsters Ball' and 'Finding Neverland', 'Stranger Than Fiction, and 'The Kite Runner' (this book-to-screen adaptation likely landed him the 'Z' job). Forster's first foray into action came in 2008, with the James Bond film 'Quantum of Solace', a film criticized for its incoherently-edited and directed... action scenes.

Brad Pitt was ultimately cast as Gerry Lane, the film's wholly original protagonist, an employee of the U.N. with a mysterious, maybe dark, possibly militaristic past. The segmented, multi-threaded, and interview-based storyline of the novel was largely twisted into a more mainstream arrangement. The budget set at $125 million.

In March 2012, well into shooting, diaster struck. Production was halted when the producers and studio decided and/or realized the third act of their second script just didn't work at all. The film's release date, originally scheduled for December 2012, was pushed back to 2013. The script was rewritten again, first by 'LOST' co-creator Damon Lindelof, and then, when Lindelof's schedule didn't permit him to continue working on the troubled third act, Drew Goddard (writer/producer on 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer', 'Angel', 'LOST', screenwriter of 'Cloverfield', and director/co-writer of 'Cabin in the Woods').

With Lindelof-Goddard's new, perhaps improved, screenplay, production entered reshoots in September 2012 for an additional seven weeks of filming on location in Budapest. The budget is now reportedly somewhere near $200 million.

After a long wait, the first trailer for this massive (maybe mistake of a) movie is out and frankly, it's... well, going to be nothing like the book--which explicitly featured slow zombies--but I guess we knew it wasn't going to be faithful a long time ago, when Pitt's character was given a name, a wife and kids... and became the focus of the film.

So, basically, I'm not excited. Especially in light of all the production woes. Rewrites (specifically rewrites of rewrites), reshoots and delays (almost) never bode well. And the trailer does nothing to dispel my doubts about this troubled, misguided, waste of time and money, which looks like ultra-generic, fast-zombie-movie, shit.

Will I see it? Well, duh. I don't know... the book is really good, amazingly great even, but I just have a feeling the film version is kinda gonna be the opposite of that.

And I still think a faithful adaptation of the book, done as a multi-part HBO miniseries ('Band of Brothers' style), would've been amazing.

'Cloud Atlas': incredibly ambitious, ultimately imperfect, but admirable

An old man with a scared face and milky eye (Tom Hanks) spins a twisting yarn at a fireside, telling a tale of disconnected interconnectedness. His story has intrigue and action, romance, comedy, and everything in-between; politicized social commentary, overt themes of love and loss and death, life and rebirth. His mostly unseen audience, ostensibly a group of children listening to this wise old sage's contorted creation charting mankind’s journey through the ages, is intently enthralled as he speaks of this saga.

But those children matter little, and really the old man is addressing the moviegoer sitting in the theater. A moviegoer who undoubtedly marvels too, at the audacity of this story, which finds more than two-dozen characters—many played by the same actors, some so disguised by makeup and hidden behind impressive visual effects they become unrecognizable—interacting throughout several different eras. The echoes of these many people—perhaps their very souls—ripple across time, their actions and inaction affecting each somehow. Why? In what way? And for the benefit, or to the detriment, of who? Questions asked, and in ways answered, by the audience and even the characters they're watching.

The Bond blogs: 'Goldfinger' (1964)

Introduction 

A massive enterprise of books, comics, movies... even a one-off TV special. The Bond film franchise (consisting of 23 "official", and 3 unofficial, entries) celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, and in commemoration there's been a big blu-ray box of all 22 theatrical films from MGM (the 23rd picture, Skyfall, is on its way to theaters in November). The big Bond craze has also inspired me to write retrospectives on all of the films.

I previously covered the franchise's inaugural outing, 'Dr. No', and the first sequel, 'From Russia with Love'. Now, lets take a look at the birth of the Bond phenonenon with 'Goldfinger'.

The Bond blogs: 'From Russia With Love' (1963)

Introduction

A massive enterprise of books, comics, movies... even a one-off TV special. The Bond film franchise (consisting of of 23 "official", and 3 unofficial, entries) celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, and in commemoration there's been a big blu-ray box of all 22 theatrical films from MGM (the 23rd picture, Skyfall, is on its way to theaters in November). The big Bond craze has also inspired me to write retrospectives on all of the films.

I previously covered the franchise's inaugural outing, 'Dr. No', here. And now, lets look at the second (and some might say best) entry in the franchise, 'From Russia with Love'.

‘Frankenweenie’ (2012) review

ughGrooooan. 

No, that's not the sound of The Creature coming to life. That was the sound film-fans around the world, myself included, collectively made when we first heard, about 2 ½ years ago, director Tim Burton, the once impossibly imaginative mind who gave us Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood, would be remaking one of his own films—a short called Frankenweenie, produced during his early days at Disney in the 1980s—expanded into the incoherent 3rd-dimension no less. Turns out, our groans were for naught, and this is one of the best things the director has done in years. But, no one would’ve guessed so when the news first broke.

'Looper' will throw you for a loop

Acknowledging my terrible title for this review of Rian Johnson's Looper, I have to say the statement is, in all terribleness, nonetheless true. The film is not quite like its--what I assumed was an over spoiler-y--trailer suggests. This is not some cheap, awful, 6th Day-esque shlock-fest disguised as a science fiction thriller. It's really not like any mainstream time-travel film, and in some ways its barely a time travel film at all.

Don't misunderstand, certainly Looper is a sci-fi action film, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis do play the younger and older version of the same character respectively, forced together via a convergence of thrilling time bending trickery. That much is explained, accurately, in the trailer. But the trailer only reveals a fraction of what the film is actually about. And it doesn't come close to demonstrating the depths of the creativity and craftsmanship at work which make Looper one of the years best.

Bond turns 50: 'Dr. No' (1962)

Today, October 5, has been declared James Bond Day. A massive enterprise of books, comics, movies... even a one off TV special. The Bond film franchise (of which there are 23 "official", and 3 unofficial, entries) celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, and in commemoration there's been a big blu-ray box of all 22 theatrical films (the 23rd picture, Skyfall, is on its way to theaters in about a month). The big Bond craze has also inspired me to write retrospectives on all of the films for this blog. 

Without further ado, the first in a 22... er, 23 part series: "Bond 50: Dr. No"

'Dredd 3D' not as dreadful as expected

Actually, I didn't expect Dredd to be dreadful, although I'm honestly not surprised its box office has been, well... exactly that.

Dead or alive... wait, this isn't "Robocop".  Or is it?

So, yeah,  I am now one of the dozens of people who went to see Pete Travis' Dredd 3D (albeit in 2D) in theaters. The film opened this last Friday, and made a pathetic $6.3 million at the US box office over the weekend, and isn’t likely to make enough to cover the cost of its reported $45 million budget. Clearly, no one went to see it. Which is a shame, because Dredd is actually, sort of unbelievably, very decent—and will probably go down as a better Robocop movie than the dreaded reboot of that franchise due in 2013.

Tales from the Trolley, and other terrible things

September 25, 2012

Out there, somewhere, there’s a doppelganger for us all. Or so some say, anyway.

A twin. A double. A real life, maybe mirror-universe, copy.

Today, I saw one. Not of myself, or anyone I actually know. But, on the trolley to San Diego State, I met—or was vaguely near—what can only be described as the spitting, although perhaps inverse, image of Honey Boo Boo Chile and her maw-maw June.

The almost-June was a large, large woman, who could barely fit in the hard plastic seat she was awkwardly trying to sit in. She was a brunette, and appeared as classless and white-trashy as Boo Boo’s slightly fairer-haired momma.

The woman sat; dressed in a sleeveless top, with one black bra strap noticeably slid halfway down her thick arm, not a care in the world.

The little girl, blonde as Boo Boo, and as hyper too, greedily drank from a 7-Eleven Big Gulp. I can only assume the “go-go juice” mixture in that cup was her breakfast, as it was around 8:00 in the morning. A breakfast of champions, indeed. Certain beauty pageant champs, at least.

I noticed all this as I entered the trolley car at the Morena station. The doors had only just closed when the mother of Boo Boo’s twin bellowed, in the direction of someone sitting a few rows away, “Maria! Wa’chu doin’, gurl, come ere” in an almost comically affected accent that told me one thing immediately: she was from San Diego’s own dirty South, Klan—I’m sorry, San—tee.

An exaggerated hand movement, beckoning the slightly-Mexican woman seemingly named Maria to sit immediately beside her, further accentuated Big Momma’s ghetto cattle call and caused her flabby arm-parts to jiggle and jostle more than they already were from the natural swaying of the carriage.

As the two friends took up a conversation, I mostly tuned out. For I had my earbuds in, you see. And I didn’t have a clue what was about to be said.

But I still heard bits and pieces here and there. While Boo Boo drank and frequently flipped into seat-shimmying fidgets of caffeine-fueled attention deficit hyperactivity, her very own momma June described their plan for the day.

The details are not important, but the gist of it seemed to be that they were going to the doctor.

Why?

“Oh, you know, the usual,” the momma-double said coolly.

But not the usual, because—and I kid you not—she relayed that only one of this massive, wheezing woman’s lungs actually worked, and she had also recently had a mild heart attack.

It became quite difficult to hear what they were talking about for a few stops.

Between Fenton Parkway—the stop just before Qualcomm Stadium—and Grantville—the trolley stop in the sky, just before the San Diego State University transit center—I blasted my music, not bothering to stain my ears to hear their horrible, terrible, and surely no good things that would ruin my day.

A day already tainted by stumbling across Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” on the car radio that morning. Somebodyyyyy

But, before I departed and left these truly terrifying TV caricatures come to life, and as we passed into the SDSU tunnel, I did hear this one final, wonderful, tidbit, loud and clear.

“Oh, he was gonna get life, but they got it down to 9 years. He’ll be out soon.”

It seems—at least from what I gathered in the final, frenzied, moments I gleaned as much as I possibly could in my confused state, before the train stopped at SDSU—that Boo Boo’s brother, whom the almost-Mexican used to date, was a convicted felon. And whatever he did was horrible enough for Life in Prison to be an option at some point.

“That’s good,” said Maria, “it’ll be nice to see him then.”

I’m actually glad I had to get out of there as fast as I could, and hop-along to my early morning class.

My head was spinning from the stink of white trash. And it might’ve exploded had I heard any more.

­­­

On the Devolution of M. Night Shyamalan and the Downward Spiral of his Career

Against my better judgment I found myself revisiting “Signs” on blu-ray last night, and it made me realize… I really, really like that movie until its truly terrible ending. Then “Signs”  retrospectively sucks. Kind of like M. Night Shyamalan’s career. Don’t believe me? Let's take a look.

What the fuck happened to my career?

“Praying with Anger” (1992) and “Wide Awake” (1998)

No one has seen these movies. And if you have, you didn’t know they were written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. No you didn’t. Stop lying.

“The Sixth Sense” (1999) ****

A stirring, atmospheric, tale of a troubled boy named Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment). Cole sees dead people, and with the help of a child psychologist (Bruce Willis), finally realizes that his curse is actually a gift, with which he can help the dead move on to the afterlife. Also, surprise, Bruce Willis was dead the entire time, but that’s not really important. That’s just a  minor plot twist to tie up loose ends—a necessary and neat period on what would otherwise be an open, unpunctuated, sentence, if you will. The distinctive camerawork by Tak Fujimoto, Bernard Herman-like score from James Newton Howard, and blink-and-you might miss it cameo by M. Night as a doctor, are nice Hitchcockian touches in homage to the man who was this filmmaker’s most obvious, and greatest, influence—more importantly, they also fit the thriller theme, and dark but not ominous tone and atmosphere of the picture. “The Sixth Sense” was nominated for six Academy Awards and made almost $700 million at the worldwide box office, off of a $40 million budget, to become one of the most successful films of all time. Quite the feat for a 29 year old filmmaker. 

You. Are. A. Toy. I mean, a super hero. Motherfucka.

“Unbreakable” (2000) ****

Using his overnight success to make a film he always wanted, Shyamalan crafted this original story—a comic book movie not based on any actual comic—about a man who cannot die (Bruce Willis) and the comic book dealer/aficionado (Samuel L. Jackson) that is convinced the other is destined to be a genuine, true-life, super-hero. Ultimately, the “Shyamalan twist” at the end of the film is not a twist at all—rather, the reveal that Jackson’s character, who has a rare bone disease that leaves him potentially a literal shattered-man, is actually a super-villain in the making makes complete, logical, narrative and thematic sense. The two men are absolutely perfect antithetical foils of each other. Was anyone actually surprised by the way this one ended? M. Night continues to homage Hitchcock, again with camerawork, the score, and his own quick cameo as a drug dealer, but it’s also very pulp-comic book-y and probably the least imitation-Hitch of his early films. While Shyamalan originally planned sequels, those movies remain un-filmed as “Unbreakable” was not a runaway critical or commercial success. At a cost of $75 million, the film made only $95 million in the US (and a total of $248 million worldwide), and was deemed a bomb by bosses at Touchstone/Disney. Critics denounced the film for its “anti-climatic” ending, not realizing the significance of the open-ended finale to the overall “origins story” arc the film used in order to tell its tale. Unfortunately, the film missed the super-hero bandwagon by two years, arriving too early to capitalize on the whole “Spider-Man”, origins story, thing. It’s a shame, because this is my favorite Shyamalan film. Sequels would've been badass. More badass than Samuel L. Jackson in pretty much anything he's ever been in. Quite the feat considering his badassness.

A sign of the terrible movies to come.
But not more bad puns. I promise.

“Signs” (2002) ***

In my opinion, the downward trajectory of Shyamalan’s career begins said decent in the last five minutes of this movie, when what was previously a purposefully slow-paced “out of this world” chiller jumps the shark—or more accurately, assassinates the alien with a glass of water. Ostensibly, “Signs” is the story of a faithless former preacher (Mel Gibson) who recently lost his wife in a car accident, as he struggles to raise his children with his brother (Joaquin Phoenix) on their farm. What it actually is, is a coded remake of H.G. Wells' “War of the Worlds”, only, instead of the original ending where the aliens are undone by evolution and the lack of a natural immunity to germs, they die of an allergy to water. Which is fucking stupid, plain and simple. Why the hell would aliens—who’ve mastered Interstellar space travel, mind you—land on a planet that is primarily covered with the thing that kills them? That they've never come in contact with germs is kind of the point of "War of the Worlds", so their ignorance is acceptable. But they'd have to be pretty clued in on the fact that their arch-nemesis is the basic building block of life. Are they so desperate that they’d actually take the chance of essentially committing possible suicide by coming to the blue planet? Maybe. But that’s dumb if true, and Shyamalan doesn't even bother to address that possibility. He just uses the water-allergy angle as his way to surprise the audience. 

I have a theory: see below

I’m convinced that the “twist” at the end of the film is there only because it subverts the expectations of a “War of the Worlds” ending. More to the point, I think that Shyamalan was certain the reason “The Sixth Sense” was a success, and “Unbreakable” was not, is because everyone was so shocked by the reveal that Bruce Willis was dead the entire time. Which was genuinely shocking, but not the thing that made the film great. The twist became the thing then. Unfortunately, unlike the flashback-heavy reveal at the end of “Sense”, which pulls everything into greater focus following a sort of circular logic, “Signs” comes apart when it tries to force all the foreshadowed mentions of water and baseball down the viewers throat. The Hitchcockian flairs begin to become  just cockian; the camerawork and editing begins to mesh the showiness of Hitchcock and Spielberg into a horrifically pretentious mashup of fluid visual trickery, Newton Howard’s score sounds basically like a bunch of unused Hermann cues, and Shyamalan begins to overstay his welcome by writing himself into the plot as a central figure. That’s not to say that “Signs” is a bad movie. I quite like the first… well, all of it, until the “swing away, Merrill” scene, basically. It’s a creepy, convincing, atmospheric alien movie about a family, played by great actors giving excellent performances. At least, until the end, when it kind of shits all over everything and reveals that nope, it was actually just about aliens with water allergies the entire time—fuck Mel Gibson and his family. They don't matter. It's the twist that matters. 

All those twists--I have no idea what I'm seeing anymore.
Also,  I literally can't see it.
Because I'm supposed to be blind. 

“The Village” (2004) ** 1/2

Following that flawed logic, “The Village” is a movie built on nothing but twists. I still think it’s pretty okay anyway, mostly because I don’t think the twists are really twists at all. But M. Night Shyamalan certainly thought they were when he made the film. The twists are layered; layer upon layer. An old-timey New England village—populated by Ron Howard’s (not actually blind) daughter, fake-retarded Adrien Brody, William Hurt and a handful of other academy award winning actors—is haunted by creepy monsters, except the monsters are just fabrications of William Hurt as a means to keep peace amongst the villagers, except the monsters ARE real, except that was really fake-retarded Brody in one of Hurt’s costumes, except, actually, that wasn’t even an old timey village at all, but really the result of a creepy cult—a bunch of rich people who got together and built a place where they’d raise their children to think it was the simpler olden days so they could be protected from the outside world.

I called the “actually a cult” thing after watching the trailer before the film even hit theaters. Like “Unbreakable”, I think all the twists and turns the narrative takes are pretty obvious, possibly even understandably logical (or at least predictable) from a storytelling standpoint. The film has an errie production design and evokative cinematography, a moody original score by James Newton Howard and is overall less ‘cockian—Hitch or otherwise, than Shyamalan's previous effort. Night’s back in the cameo role (although he is in the climax, and is seen only from a reflection, and does spell out the final twist in his dialog, which is kind of ultra-egotistical; the know it all, does it all, douche). Doesn’t change the fact that the film is a Matryoshka doll of plot reversals—a gimmick inside a gimmick inside a gimmick, inside a monster costume behind a tall wall. This isn’t a case where the narrative is ostensibly about something else; “The Village” exists simply to exploit twist after twist. Nothing else. So, it's slightly worse than “Signs” in the end.

Here's a picture of Paul Giamatti from "Sideways",
'cause, seriously, fuck Shyamalan's terrible movie.

“Lady in the Water” (2006) *

M. Night Shyamalan stars as himself, in a plot where Paul Giamatti and Ron Howard’s daughter (who isn’t blind this time) constantly interrupt his writing by re-enacting a warped version of Disney’s “Little Mermaid” or something. Bryce Dallas Howard plays a character named Story, because, remember, Shyamalan, the actor/director/writer, plays an author in this film. Real deep. Shit. That's almost a bad pun, and I promised no more of those.

Of some interest is that this was the first Shyamalan film not produced or distributed by the Walt Disney Company or one of its subsidiaries. The director reportedly took the project to Warner Bros. after citing creative differences with the then-current Disney regime; honestly, they probably told him what a turd his script was.

The twist is that M. Night Shyamalan got you to pay to see this movie. Or not. The film failed to make back its $75 million budget, even accounting for worldwide ticket sales. 

“The Happening” (2008) * 1/2

In Shyamalan's first foray into the R-rated realm, Marky Mark and Zombie Deschanel play two people in a world where other people suddenly feel the urge to kill themselves in the most overly elaborate ways imaginable whenever it gets really windy. The twist is that the movie is titled “The Happening”, yet nothing ever happens. The double twist is that the movie isn’t “Signs”, despite a near identical opening title sequence and an actually-identical score from James Newton Howard. Triple twist, Shyamalan really did get everyone to pay to see this one—it made $163 million worldwide, and became one of the top grossing R-rated films of the later 2000s. Ha, jokes on those of us who did go and see it I guess. Quadruple twist: although it was marketed as a mystery/horror film, "The Happening" is actually a hilarious comedy; M. Night didn't intend it to be, but it is. Also, hotdogs. And, “What? No!”, to eyein’ that old lady’s lemon drink.

Being asked to believe Mark Walberg as a science teacher is one of the least unbelievable or problematic things about "The Happening". Let that sink in for a second.

Should'a been called
"The Last Shyamalan (Movie)"

“The Last Airbender” (2010) [no stars]

In this Bizarro-world adaptation of a children’s television series for Nickelodeon, M. Night Shyamalan remakes David Lynch’s “Dune”, replete with disconnected voiceover narration. Or something. One thing’s for certain: he didn’t try and follow the original “Avatar: The Last Airbender” source material.

Twist—the complete mess of a movie had a budget of $150 million and was not only made, but released in theaters without being taken away from Shyamalan and forced into reshoots by the studio. Double, triple, quadruple, centuple twist in the 8^th dimension: the poorly post-converted, CGI-heavy, film had a 3D transfer that more closely resembled 2D, a horribly blurry 2D transfer that would’ve looked better in 1D, and characters without any depth at all!

Shyamalan, you goddamn genius, that was the greatest twist of them all! That, or tricking people into thinking you had talent in the first place. Wow. That shit's better than finding out Bruce Willis was a dead superhero, allergic to water and wind (bending), and totally not a creepy mermaid monster, the entire time. 

All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm Ready For My Close-up--in HD!

NOTE: Yeah, I know I said I'd try not to be an asshole and write too many pretentious film pieces just yesterday in the introduction to this blog. I lied, I guess. This is both technical and about film history; yep, it's pretentious. Probably annoyingly so. Anyway...

Norma's ready for her close up, for the first time in HD!

Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder's sublime 1950 film noir masterpiece, starring Gloria Swanson, William Holden, and Eric von Stroheim is finally coming to blu-ray on Nov 6. The disc will carry over the extensive special features from the 2-disc Centennial DVD release (an audio commentary and around 2 hours of documentary material) and offer new exclusive content, including a never-before-released deleted musical number.

Sunset Boulevard is the story of Joe Gillis (Holden), a hack screenwriter hired by has-been silent movie star Norma Desmond (Swanson, a real life starlet of early Hollywood) to write her career comeback. Gillis, who's deep in debt, retreats to Desmond's dilapidated mansion on the famed Sunset Blvd, where he begins to work closely--perhaps too closely--with her on the film they eventually want to make. There, Joe meets Norma's ex-husband-turned-butler, the famed silent movie director Max Von Mayerling (von Stroheim, who, like Swanson, was a staple of the early silver screen; he directed Greed, one of the longest films, silent or otherwise, ever shot) and soon discovers that, much like the mansion, Norma's mind is slowly decaying, driven mad by a desire to have just one more moment in the spotlight.

Part murder-mystery, part send up to the Golden Age of Hollywood (made during the twilight years of that spectacular era), writer/director Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard is one of the greatest film noirs ever conceived. Shot in stylish and shadowy black-and-white by legendary cinematographer John F. Seitz--a man who helped  define the very features of film noir photography with such films as Double Indemnity (also written and directed by Wilder), the film is a stunning sight. It's expertly directed, also brilliantly acted--Swanson's portrayal of Norma Desmond is simply iconic--and superbly written. The film works on so many different levels, not the least of which is as a fairly faithful tribute to tinseltown itself.  Sunset Boulevard was nominated for 11 Oscars at the 1951 Academy Awards. It eventually won three (Best Screenplay, Best Score and Best Black-and-White Art Direction).

Apparently, the film has been remastered from the "best available 35mm elements" and scanned at 4K resolution, and will be presented in the original 1.37:1 black-and-white format in which it was photographed. The restored soundtrack, again taken from the best elements, will be presented in lossless TrueHD mono. (Basically, if you don't understand the technobable, and who does, what that means is, well... good things.)

I'm very interested in seeing how this all works out, on the technical front especially, because...

Like a lot of movies in the era (actually, this was changing, but true of a fair few films into the early 50s), Sunset Boulevard was shot on nitrate film stock, which, when improperly stored, deteriorates almost exponentially. It's also the stuff that liked to blow up; or, at least, catch fire really easily--like that part in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds--which is why most movies made after 1950 switched to the newer, less volatile, triacetate (negative) or polyester (intermediate, release print) stocks. Sunset was right on the cusp of this transition and was made using the more flammable nitrate. Unfortunately, film preservation wasn't even an idea on a large scale until the 1980s--some 30 years after the cans of Wilder's masterpiece were put into storage--and only then because the studios finally realized they should probably take care of their property, seeing as how it was suddenly profitable again on the VHS and Beta-Max markets.

By the time VHS and Beta battled it out and the JVC-backed VHS won, the negative of Sunset Boulevard was beyond repair; the original camera negative was too far-gone after years of neglect, to the point where it can ever be used again for anything. That particular element will never be able to be restored.

Fortunately for most films, duplicate elements a mere generation away from the negative usually exist somewhere--for some reason, they're usually found in a salt mine in the desert. Better still, for many films, if they were shot on nitrate, at least some of their dupes were done on the less-flammable, and more easily preservable, triacetate. This was done specifically for safe storage.

This is what happened to Citizen Kane, the original camera negative of which was, for years, thought lost (destroyed by the tire company that bought the shell that was RKO Pictures in the late 1950s), only to have a considerable amount of the original negative and even more of a pristine safety-stock duplicate found in deep storage. Kane has been remastered, and restored, quite impressively using a combination of these film elements, and is available in a rather nice looking package on blu-ray. Other films, like the original King Kong, which did have all of its original 35mm elements (even the first generation dupes) destroyed by that same tire company, aren't as lucky. And what we get now with a film like Kong is something grainer, grittier, less detailed, taken from second or third generation duplicates, with more damage and less image density. These films, without an OCN to remaster from, don't look nearly as good as they should, and although the King Kong blu-ray is easily the best the film has looked it years, it's quite unimpressive to the naked, untrained, eye.

But, as John Logan wrote in Scorsese's Hugo last year, time hasn't been kind to old movies. And at least these less-pristine versions of Kong and Kane still exist. Sadly, the same can't be said for other titles. Entire films have been lost to time because of poor preservation; perhaps ironically, the full 10 hour version of Eric von Stroheim's Greed mentioned earlier is lost forever.

But in the particular case of Sunset Boulevard, something weird happened. There's really no other way to say it. Weird is what it is. Despite its popularity upon release, and Academy Award winning status, somehow most of the duplicate prints--some nitrate, others triacetate--disappeared in the years between the original release and the mid-80s and early 90s when the archivists came a-knockin'. And the negative, well, it was an improperly stored nitrate element. It fell apart. What they found in the place of viable elements of respectable quality were the few acetate duplicate prints that still existed, but had essentially been savagely raped for over those 40 years, continually subjected to the wear of supplying more and more second and third generation dupe and release prints.

Each time a film is duped, the source element deteriorates. Usually, the many first generation prints made upon initial release will be the ones subjected to this process, a thousand times over for the rest of eternity, while the negative survives relatively unharmed, presumably in safe storage, only tapped to make a new inter-positive (or first gen dupe) from time to time.

Because the original negative of Sunset was improperly stored, it deteriorated too severely to be viable and so one of the few dupes still in existence basically became the new source on which all versions, from theatrical revival to home video, have been based. A negative, but not actually a negative, you might say. Because of this, Sunset Blvd looked awful until about 2002, when a massive undertaking by Paramount brought the film back from the dead using new digital restoration technology, by erasing much of the damage on the various surviving first and second generation elements cobbled together to form the new DVD presentation. A new master element, using the best possible portions of the various duplicate sources, was created by scanning the film at 2K into computer files, or a Digital Intermediate (DI). Lowry Digital and Paramount then processed the 2K DI with their tools, before putting it back out to 35mm film, resulting in the version we have today. The DVDs look pretty good, at least considering the history, and the fact that the film is sourced from what amounts to a celluloid hybrid.

Supposedly, the blu-ray has had even more work done and should look even better, and from the wording of the press release, it seems that a better triacetate element may have been found and used in this new, 4K, remaster. I hope so.

But I wouldn't be surprised if this disc ends up getting less-favorable scores from those not in the know. I imagine the increase in resolution will only make the imperfections of the Frankenstein-monster-esque source all the more noticeable. Still, digital tools have progressed rapidly in the 10 years since the first Paramount restoration. Maybe some magic will get Sunset Boulevard looking like it did 62 years ago, or close to it. Regardless, the blu-ray is without a doubt going to be the best version most of us without 35mm projectors (and access to a quality dupe print), or lucky enough to have seen it in initial release and still remember that, have ever seen.

Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard streets on November 6, with an MSRP of $26.99, and will include the following special features:

• Commentary by Ed Sikov, author of On Sunset Blvd: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder 
• Sunset Boulevard: The Beginning 
• Sunset Boulevard: A Look Back 
• The Noir Side of Sunset Boulevard 
• Sunset Boulevard Becomes a Classic 
• Two Sides of Ms. Swanson 
• Stories of Sunset Boulevard 
• Mad About the Boy: A Portrait of William Holden 
• Recording Sunset Boulevard 
• The City of Sunset Boulevard 
• Franz Waxman and the Music of Sunset Boulevard 
• Morgue Prologue 
• Script Pages 
• Deleted Scene—"The Paramount-Don't-Want-Me Blues" (HD) 
• Hollywood Location Map 
• Behind the Gates: The Lot 
• Edith Head: The Paramount Years 
• Paramount in the '50s 
• Galleries:

1. Production 
2. The Movie 
3. Publicity 

• Theatrical Trailer (HD)

What's In a Name: An Introduction

I'm lazy. I know this because, my last--mostly pretentious film-centric--blog lasted a whole two months before I stopped posting and then promptly deleted it.

I'm an asshole. Or, so I've been told.

And I'm a loser. I mean this in two ways:

1) I'm generally pretty pathetic. I'm awkwardly anti-social. So much so that while the Internet is my life, I don't actually have, like, a life on the Internet. Some people do--friends from forums; a second life in Second Life or WoW, or whatever else it is kid are playing these days. I don't. And I procrastinate, too, leaving anything til the last possible moment before my NOT doing whatever it is will adversely effect me. And that's also why I'm a perpetual college student. I should've graduated this year. I'm 23. That's what you do when your my age. You graduate. And then you move back in with your parents and cry because there are no jobs. Cause, there aren't. But I only finally figured out my major two semesters ago, so I've still got a ways to go. So, yay me!

2) On August 7, 2010, I joined Weight Watchers. I like to tell people I was dragged their by my mom, and that I only stayed for the meeting under duress. But the truth is, that's just not true. I was 21. I weighed 298.2 lbs. I needed to do something, or just give up and decide to be that dude who was going for the Guinness world record for fatness. Now, some two years later, I'm at my so-called "Goal Weight"; three little numbers, which make up the bigger number, that falls somewhere between what doctors agree is under and overweight. If I step on a scale, and look down at the little digital read out, today, the numbers 1-6-5 or thereabouts shine back at me. Losing this weight is the one good thing I've done with my life. I'm proud of the "accomplishment"... to a point. At the same time, whatever. I did it. The end.

If you care: me, 290ish (left). Me, 160ish (right)

But, not the end. Which is, in part, why I started this blog. I have absolutely no idea what I'll do with it. Post crap, mostly, I'm sure. Musings that I just actually happen to commit to... well, not paper. Who uses that anymore? But the blogosphere, or whatever it's called.

Will I talk about my weight loss more? Maybe. It really depends if I want to get into it more than bullet point number 2 already did. I might, if that's what people want. I'll tell my story, if people ask, although I'm not really into trading recipes or talking weight-loss tips, beyond the obvious. Sorry: I don't have magic beans that'll make you thin, or a super secret workout or diet that got me where I am. When people ask, I always just say this: eat less crap, and more good stuff. Drink water, not soda; although you can drink that too, but make it diet soda and consume in moderation. And exercise regularly, but don't go nuts. It's about balance. That's, really, the secret to my success. I'll extrapolate on that more, if people care, but not much more. Because, really, there isn't much more.

Oh, and I review movies. That's what I finally decided I wanted to do with my life. The thing I changed my major to. Film theory and criticism. I've been reviewing for a DVD and blu-ray comparison website since 2009. You can read my shit there. I'll also be posting plenty of movie stuff here too. I think. But it'll be less pretencious-y than last time, I hope. I'm trying to make this a more personal blog. Something really, generally, just about my shit. My life, I guess. Maybe that approach is wrong (they say a blog should have a singular focus), but, fuck it. I'll do what I want.

That is, unless my lazy, assholish and all around losery ways make me decide not to.

- Ethan (Cody)