damoviemaestro

[damoviemaestro]

Finding the bite in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

Did anybody ever notice that in the remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the actual Hitchhiker was Pepper, not the lost girl? Think about it: the girl was not looking for a ride, she was coaxed into the van. Whereas Pepper admits in dialogue she was hitchhiking, was picked up only a day ago, and everything horrible that befell them occurs shortly after they pick her up. Just like crazy Nubbins.

This is what shows how respectful Scott Kosar and Marcus Nispel are of the original film: they know they could never actually recreate any original concept of Hooper’s film. So they find new and inventive ways to redefine old concepts and characters and make an entirely new film from the same story framework. In short, the product they delivered is a very different beast from the product they inherited.

Want another example of what I’m talking about? Just look at Morgan. He’s an annoying and condescending stoner with a propensity toward being a colossal smart-ass. I don’t know about any of you, but that sure sounds like a modernization of Franklin’s whiney stupidity to me, and it just took me 14 years to figure that out.

There are even times Kosar and Nispel completely shun trying to copy the original and pounce straight onto other films, resulting in Kemp, Erin, and the others accidentally trapping an opossum in a clear nod to Ripley, Brett, and Parker uncovering Jones in Alien.

Truth is, they find ways to truly expand upon what was originally there, suggesting the deeper, psychological trauma that living amongst rampant predators inflicts upon humanity. The original was soley about the massacre itself; the remake portrays the aftermath of every other massacre before it. Take for example Jedidiah, who seems so removed from serene normality that he lives on a teetering edge of beeing feral, ticking and crawling but still in possession of language and empathy. It’s obvious he was born (or perhaps kidnapped, like the baby) into this depraved world of cannibalism and murder, much like Leatherface, such that he is perhaps the last generation of humanity that will retain sentience, a victim of the unique brand of the human predator.

Unlike the original film, which seems to imply that the family tradition of “prime meat” started with Grampa, the remake here suggests cannibalism, kidnapping, and indoctrination into this predatory state has been going on for generations. Leatherface is not the anomalous, impaired member of the Sawyer clan, but Jedidiah in 20 years; almost completely sucked of all human compassion and empathy, taught to treat human begins as food and toys until he will eventually eventually make his family proud by joining them as a perfect sadist hunter.

Even the humor is such a tonal shift away from generalized but funny comparisons between the Sawyers to a normal family, now in the form of uber-dark and twisted shock laughs, best personified in Sheriff Hoyt, played in pitch-perfect casting by R. Lee Ermey. He may whine about how liberal Hollywood has blackballed him for being a Trumpite, but with this movie, he proves he was oblivious to his treatment of him already: as a human predator only fit to play vicious roles, rarely ever breaking out of this mold in a memorable way. Hoyt is the true evil in the film (not Leatherface), engaging in casual necrophilia and exerting terrifying power over the leads, mentally torturing them in the middle act of the film. Ermey plays the role with such believability, and it’s because Nispel knows how to push a political agenda much better than Hooper; chances are that if you’re reading this and are not vegan, you most certainly are of a left-wing political stance, and Hoyt ends up reminding you a little too much of Joe Arpaio, doesn’t he? Nispel was using metatextual humor to do more than make you give up meat–he was opening your eyes to the ancient historical tradition of the invasive human species upon Nature. In other words, to recruit you into Fox News’ scary “liberal agenda,” a.k.a. reality.

It’s almost as if TCM03 is in the same class of horror film as It Follows, except that it constantly lifts the curtain to offer a glimpse of the predator’s point of view. If it has a weakness, it’s in the hobbled way it tries to meld Hollywood sensibilities into the script. Cannibalism in not depicted or even mentioned at all, instead relegated to hints and safe nods to the original film. To the trained eye, it is plainly there, but again, been watching this for almost 15 years and I’m just now noticing all of this, can’t be a good sign. The traditional score, the frenetic, music-video-style editing, the illogical nature of Leatherface’s lair, and the uninspired performance of Andrew Bryniarski as Leatherface, all of it stands out like a slightly sore thumb, but the film rolls with it’s disabilities to form as special an experience as could possibly come from this kind of cinema.

It’s not better than the original, that’s not the point: the point is that it’s a rare remake that knows it could never compete with its source, so it does something wholly distinct to make up for the Hollywood scares and old cliches. Like a millionaire’s son who aims to work honestly, it accepts that it’s father had the difficulty level set to easy, and decided to play things fair.

#spooktober #halloween #the texas chainsaw massacre #leatherface

[damoviemaestro]

Reblogging because I'm watching it again and, well, realizing all of this again.

Finding the bite in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

Did anybody ever notice that in the remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the actual Hitchhiker was Pepper, not the lost girl? Think about it: the girl was not looking for a ride, she was coaxed into the van. Whereas Pepper admits in dialogue she was hitchhiking, was picked up only a day ago, and everything horrible that befell them occurs shortly after they pick her up. Just like crazy Nubbins.

This is what shows how respectful Scott Kosar and Marcus Nispel are of the original film: they know they could never actually recreate any original concept of Hooper’s film. So they find new and inventive ways to redefine old concepts and characters and make an entirely new film from the same story framework. In short, the product they delivered is a very different beast from the product they inherited.

Want another example of what I’m talking about? Just look at Morgan. He’s an annoying and condescending stoner with a propensity toward being a colossal smart-ass. I don’t know about any of you, but that sure sounds like a modernization of Franklin’s whiney stupidity to me, and it just took me 14 years to figure that out.

There are even times Kosar and Nispel completely shun trying to copy the original and pounce straight onto other films, resulting in Kemp, Erin, and the others accidentally trapping an opossum in a clear nod to Ripley, Brett, and Parker uncovering Jones in Alien.

Truth is, they find ways to truly expand upon what was originally there, suggesting the deeper, psychological trauma that living amongst rampant predators inflicts upon humanity. The original was soley about the massacre itself; the remake portrays the aftermath of every other massacre before it. Take for example Jedidiah, who seems so removed from serene normality that he lives on a teetering edge of beeing feral, ticking and crawling but still in possession of language and empathy. It’s obvious he was born (or perhaps kidnapped, like the baby) into this depraved world of cannibalism and murder, much like Leatherface, such that he is perhaps the last generation of humanity that will retain sentience, a victim of the unique brand of the human predator.

Unlike the original film, which seems to imply that the family tradition of “prime meat” started with Grampa, the remake here suggests cannibalism, kidnapping, and indoctrination into this predatory state has been going on for generations. Leatherface is not the anomalous, impaired member of the Sawyer clan, but Jedidiah in 20 years; almost completely sucked of all human compassion and empathy, taught to treat human begins as food and toys until he will eventually eventually make his family proud by joining them as a perfect sadist hunter.

Even the humor is such a tonal shift away from generalized but funny comparisons between the Sawyers to a normal family, now in the form of uber-dark and twisted shock laughs, best personified in Sheriff Hoyt, played in pitch-perfect casting by R. Lee Ermey. He may whine about how liberal Hollywood has blackballed him for being a Trumpite, but with this movie, he proves he was oblivious to his treatment of him already: as a human predator only fit to play vicious roles, rarely ever breaking out of this mold in a memorable way. Hoyt is the true evil in the film (not Leatherface), engaging in casual necrophilia and exerting terrifying power over the leads, mentally torturing them in the middle act of the film. Ermey plays the role with such believability, and it’s because Nispel knows how to push a political agenda much better than Hooper; chances are that if you’re reading this and are not vegan, you most certainly are of a left-wing political stance, and Hoyt ends up reminding you a little too much of Joe Arpaio, doesn’t he? Nispel was using metatextual humor to do more than make you give up meat–he was opening your eyes to the ancient historical tradition of the invasive human species upon Nature. In other words, to recruit you into Fox News’ scary “liberal agenda,” a.k.a. reality.

It’s almost as if TCM03 is in the same class of horror film as It Follows, except that it constantly lifts the curtain to offer a glimpse of the predator’s point of view. If it has a weakness, it’s in the hobbled way it tries to meld Hollywood sensibilities into the script. Cannibalism in not depicted or even mentioned at all, instead relegated to hints and safe nods to the original film. To the trained eye, it is plainly there, but again, been watching this for almost 15 years and I’m just now noticing all of this, can’t be a good sign. The traditional score, the frenetic, music-video-style editing, the illogical nature of Leatherface’s lair, and the uninspired performance of Andrew Bryniarski as Leatherface, all of it stands out like a slightly sore thumb, but the film rolls with it’s disabilities to form as special an experience as could possibly come from this kind of cinema.

It’s not better than the original, that’s not the point: the point is that it’s a rare remake that knows it could never compete with its source, so it does something wholly distinct to make up for the Hollywood scares and old cliches. Like a millionaire’s son who aims to work honestly, it accepts that it’s father had the difficulty level set to easy, and decided to play things fair.

[damoviemaestro]

Wow, the cast of Alien: Covenant is stunningly beautiful.

Stunningly.

#alien covenant #i just think they're neat #attainably sexy

[damoviemaestro]

[damoviemaestro]

Well, Criterion did it. They gathered up the 15 Showa Godzilla films whose U.S. rights had been scattered for decades and brought them together for a big ol’ box set. And – as is the case when every kaiju home video release is announced – the warring in message boards and comment sections has already begun over the specifics of that set.

The Showa Godzilla films were dubbed into English a total of 19 times. “Due to  the parameters of [Criterion’s] licensing agreement with Toho,” only 8 of those dubs are included in this set. It is a massive omission and a baffling one. Most of these missing dubs have already been released on DVD and/or Blu-ray. Three of them are among the international export dubs Toho commissioned themselves! Godzilla fans who dive into the minutia of these releases have come to expect seemingly random restrictions on content from Toho, but they’ve surely topped themselves this time, and to one of the companies most likely to finally do these dubs justice. It’s ironic that at the same time that Tsuburaya is making its biggest move ever to bring Ultraman to the United States, Toho seems to be doing its best to erase Godzilla’s rich history in this country.

I can’t comment on the video quality yet. There are fears that Criterion will rely heavily on Toho’s subpar HD transfers from 2008, which they’re currently using for all the kaiju films on their streaming service except for Godzilla, but nothing’s official yet.

But this set will do a lot of good for English-speaking Godzilla fans. All but two of the Showa Godzilla films are out of print in the U.S. right now; as expensive as this set is, new fans would find buying all the previous releases secondhand to weigh even heavier on their wallets. Godzilla Raids Again; Mothra vs. Godzilla; Ghidorah, the Three Headed Monster; Invasion of Astro-Monster, Son of Godzilla, All Monsters Attack, Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, and Terror of Mechagodzilla are coming to English-friendly Blu-ray for the first time. Interviews with the people who worked on these films will be translated for the first time, and it sounds like Criterion is also including the 1986 Toho Unused Effects tape, or something similar. All of the films will have new English subtitles, rendering the shoddy translations and dubtitles of other companies obsolete. And best of all, the Japanese version of King Kong vs. Godzilla will finally be (officially) available in English, until now the only holdout in the entire series.

By the way, the set comes out at the end of October, and Barnes & Noble has a tendency to take 50% off Criterion releases in November… 

[damoviemaestro]

I guess I'll have to get back to making these, now that I know that I have the supernatural ability to make Criterion discs happen.

I’m a little late, but here it is, the first in my Fake Criterions series: Yoshimitsu Banno’s Godzilla vs. Hedorah.

#godzilla #criterion collection #i can see the future

[damoviemaestro]

i’m laughing so hard because they really put pennywise on the stairs in this promo image, making this movie look like some political drama that also just happens to star a clown

[damoviemaestro]

Ugh, definitely gonna need this set.

Now all that is left to do is compare the new poster art that The Criterion Collection commissioned compared to the original poster art.

[damoviemaestro]

How dem aliens be feelin after I'm done wit dem cheeks.

#area 51 #area 51 raid

[damoviemaestro]

If you like science fiction

Please consider watching The Expanse. Just… trust me on this.

complex and relatable characters 

A+ worldbuilding

no cliché good vs. evil setup, just humans with different agendas and varying shades of morality

VERY diverse cast

relevant commentary to many social/environmental/etc. issues of our time (but not in a preachy way)

scientifically accurate as fuck (mostly)

no silly looking aliens (of course this is a drawback if you like those)

visually gorgeous

awesomest spaceships ever (I may be a little biased tho)

based on a book series so the show writers know where the fuck they’re going with the plot (and believe me there’s some mindblowing stuff coming up)

Shohreh Aghdashloo as the Deputy Undersecretary of the United Nations Chrisjen Avasarala is a fucking delight

You can watch the first two seasons on Amazon Prime (US), CraveTV (Canada), and Netflix (rest of the world).

Season 3 is currently airing on Syfy (US) and Space (Canada).

I know some of you may have second thoughts because Syfy has a reputation of making garbage but honestly this is a really fucking excellent show and 100% worth your time.

[damoviemaestro]

[damoviemaestro]

Sums up my thoughts during every fucking Ancient Aliens episode.

Thank Fuck you, Erich Von Daniken.

i’ve been crying laughing over this for the past 5 minutes

#ancient aliens #get a life or go join the flat-earthers

[damoviemaestro]

And here it is folks! I’m not totally out of the woods on the copyright front, but the video is viewable now. Watch it while it’s up!

[damoviemaestro]

The Id Monster - ‘Forbidden Planet’ (1956)

To bring the invisible Monster from the Id to life, MGM made a deal with Disney studios to borrow one of their chief animators, Joshua Meador, and a crew of artists including Bob Trochim, marking the very first occasion that Disney had loaned their talent to another studio. Meador and his team developed a radical new method of animation to create the Id Monster, seen only against the discharge from an electrical fence and the crew’s blaster fire. Rather than rely on traditional cell animation, in which each frame is painted on a clear acetate sheet, Meador had each frame drawn in graphite on animator’s paper. Then, each of these frames was shot using high contrast film, from which a negative image was extracted and composited over the positive image.

[damoviemaestro]

Marvel is smart.

Not only do we sit excitedly and watch post-credit scenes that tell us about future Marvel movies,

but we sit and watch the credits.

We look at the mass of names that scroll through of people who worked on the film.

There’s a production assistant who stands for nearly fourteen hours during Infinity War filming in Edinburgh whose task was to ask a waiting crowd to be quiet during a take. Or this PA switched off with another to walk around with snack trays and waters for crew and talent.

There’s a Winter Soldier location scout who walked around all of Cleveland, Ohio looking for the best place for the interior SHIELD headquarters. They used the Cleveland Museum of Art for the glass lobby that Steve Rogers falls through when he jumps from the elevator.

There’s the food caterers for Spider-Man Homecoming who make sure the cast and crew are fed lunch everday.

Fun Fact: No matter if you’re filming from 6 PM to 6 AM, the production company is required to give cast and crew a meal for a 12-14 hour workday. The meal is halfway through the workday. No matter if you’re eating the meal at 2 AM or 2 PM, this meal will always be called “lunch.”

There’s the Scripty. Her job is to sit behind the camera with the director with the script in hand. She knows the script intimately. She makes sure the actors are saying the correct lines and saying them in the correct time. She is in charge of continuity. If a prop is in the wrong hand at the beginning of a take, she’ll let the talent and director know.

(Also, if there’s anyone who knows the most about Endgame—it’s the Scripty!)

There’s the sound department. The boom operator works with microphones and holds a boom mic so you can catch every line clearly without feedback and background noise. Keep in mind these are 12-14 hour workdays, and boom operators need to stay in uncomfortable positions to get the best sound.

There’s the mass of special effects crew who worked individually so Mark Ruffalo can go looking like this:

To this:

It’s not just the actors, the directors, and the producers who work on a film. I didn’t even scratch the surface on the careers in the film industry.

Marvel is smart. They want the audience to sit and recognize everyone who worked on their films.

So sit back while you’re waiting for a post-credit scene in Captain Marvel and Endgame and enjoy and acknowledge all of the names that pass through. Their only recognition is through the end credits.

These people work hard behind the scenes so you can enjoy the movies you love today.

[damoviemaestro]

Combining horror figures with old TVs  📺. By Rickey Williams

[damoviemaestro]

Yes, the author is a friend of mine, so maybe I’m a bit biased when I say to buy this collection.

But it also contains Binary Confinement, which is one of the best sci-fi stories I’ve ever read in my life, so that outweighs my bias.

If you love sci-fi and want to read a new and original author, buy this. Now.

#science fiction #sci-fi #book #novella #short story #independent author