Saturday 2 November 2024

BITE-SIZED: Late Night with the Devil (Cameron Cairnes, Colin Cairnes, 2023)

 In a bid to boost ratings, a struggling late night show brings on an exorcist and a young woman who claims to be possessed.


I was really looking forward to Late Night with the Devil.


I left feeling underwhelmed - it feels like a better idea than in execution.


Some of the seventies trappings are great - the live band, the corny repartee, even the inter-titles.


David Dastmalchian is great in the lead - riding the line between empathetic and fame-hungry monster.


The possession does not quite carry off the build-up - for one, the look and behaviour is too familiar, resembling the iconography from The Exorcist.


Maybe it is a reference to fit with the seventies milieu, but it feels generic.


It does not quite capture the aesthetics of TV, and it never quite feels as spontaneous as a live broadcast.

The Burning (Tony Maylam, 1981)

After being disfigured in a prank-gone-wrong, former camp caretaker Cropsy (Lou David) returns to Camp Blackfoot to enact his revenge...

When I was growing up and first reading about the slasher genre, The Burning was a title that kept coming up.


After 2017, it gained new infamy when producer Harvey Weinstein was accused of multiple incidences of sexual assault, including by people involved in the making of this film. It is impossible to talk about this movie without the prism of the Weinsteins. Not only is The Burning the first Miramax production, but both brothers have screenplay credit.


Because of those revelations, I put this movie on the backburner.


Almost a decade later, it is impossible to watch the film with that knowledge in mind - particularly when it starts with a minor character (Brian Backer’s Alfred) who gets caught creeping on girls in the showers.


Waiting to catch up with The Burning did it some service. Particularly since when I did finally watch it, I had binged the first eight Friday the 13th movies.


There is a lot to like about the movie on its own terms. But it makes for an interesting comparison with the Jason movies, particularly the early instalments.


The most obvious difference is scope. In the early Friday movies, Camp Crystal Lake is abandoned. 


In The Burning the camp is operational, giving the action a real sense of jeopardy as the counsellors have to take care of the kids as well as each other.


Like My Bloody Valentine, the film benefits from a level of regional specificity. In this case, it features a cast of distinctly New York actors. Even though it does not affect the archetypes they are playing, their look, accents and even clothes, give the whole enterprise a unique feel.


Tony Maylam’s direction is effective, and occasionally distinctive.


There is some POV shots, but the killer is mostly shown in elliptical montages: 

Gloves, shears, the back of his head. He is an otherworldly, supernatural figure.


There is a sense of escalating chaos and encirclement that feels organic - a slow-building sense that our heroes are not in control.


And once the killer attacks the counsellors (in the film’s most memorable set piece), the film starts to feel like a siege narrative.


Even before Cropsy appears, there is a grim undertone to the piece, a sense that too many of these people do not like anyone they are with.


To the film’s credit, the lion’s share of scumbags get hacked to bits first.


Cropsy chalks up an impressive body count, which feels like a reaction to other slashers.


There is an interesting strain of empathy to the movie that feels distinctive: after the iconic raft set piece, there is an extended scene of the campers, traumatised, reacting to the raft.


Instead of a final girl, we get a pair of Final Boys, who are forced to face Cropsy by fate, rather than chance.


It is revealed that Todd, our supposedly clean-cut hero, was involved in Cropsy’s disfigurement. He is forced to join forces with Alfred - the character introduced peeping on girls. Facing the killer becomes an act of redemption for both of them.


Darker than the Friday the 13th movies in tone, The Burning also boasts a more gothic atmosphere.


Cropsy’s lair is a striking piece  of art design: a disused mineshaft filled with dark shadows broken by shafts of light.


This environment is the one place where we get a good look at Cropsy, and where he is presented as a human man.


While he does die, the film does not end - instead it ends on a campfire re-telling of Cropsy’s story.


Cropsy is now immortal.


Related








Never Send Flowers (John Gardner. 1993)

In this season of The James Bond Cocktail Hour podcast, we are covering the six year gap between Licence to Kill and GoldenEye, covering everything James Bond-related, from books to comics to video games, to non-Bond properties which tried to fill the gap.


We return to the work of John Gardner with 1993's Never Send Flowers.

Check out the episode at the link below:



























Edge of Darkness: Compassionate Leave

Edge of Darkness: Into the Shadows

Edge of Darkness: Burden of Proof

Edge of Darkness: Breakthrough

Edge of Darkness: Northmoor 

Edge of Darkness: Fusion








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Tuesday 29 October 2024

Jewel of the Nile (Lewis Teague, 1985)

Six months into their round the world cruise, the bloom is off Joan (Kathleen Turner) and Jack’s (Michael Douglas) romance.


When Joan is offered the chance to pen the biography of an Arab ruler, Omar Khalifa (Spiros Focás), she abandons Jack.


Jack soon finds himself following Joan, to both rescue his love, and find the titular Jewel of the Nile.



I feel like I watched this movie multiple times when I was a kid. I remember so many images from it - the pirate opening, the plane chase, the titular character Al-Julhara (Avner Eisenberg) walking through the flames at the end.


I probably filed it with the Indiana Jones movies as a comparable action adventure.


I do not think I knew it was a sequel for a long time. I certainly did not make the connection with Romancing the Stone.


After this last re-watch of Romancing I was jazzed to check out the sequel. I knew its reputation, but I thought I had its measure.


This movie was rushed into production following the surprise success of the original, and it feels it.


It is bigger in scope but without the strong characterisation of the original, it feels smaller.


Right from the beginning the movie is off.


Gone is Alan Silvestri’s score; in is Jack Nitzche with synthesisers.


The opening fantasy is set on a stylised set. There is no attempt to ape the genre as in the opening of the previous film.


In an early line, Joan’s publisher (Holland Taylor) admonishes her for being stuck on a happy ending, when real life does not tie up so neatly.


It is meant to set the table for the conflict between the couple - instead it punctures the movie.


The focus and the perspective is completely different - instead of following Joan, the film seems to be pitched toward Jack.


Joan is listless, dropping Jack to take up a stranger’s offer. It is meant to be motivated by her feeling stuck both personally and creatively but it does not come off that way.


More importantly what is attractive about Omar’s offer that would draw Joan - especially the Joan of the previous film - in?


Jack has lost all sense of vulnerability.


He is now a man’s man who is jealous of his partner.


He seems to have lost all the sensitivity and empathy he had developed toward Joan.


Whether it is the script or the strain of the chaotic production, Douglas seems irritated.


He also carries a level of sleaze that was not present in the original.


Douglas has always been a little seedy - it worked for Romancing the Stone - but he seems to be evolving toward the persona he would consolidate with Gordon Gecko and Fatal Attraction.


Danny DeVito is the real star of the movie.


The film is basically a buddy picture between Douglas and DeVito as they try to find Turner.


And when the central couple reunite, Ralph gets his own subplot: He ends the movie as a Sufi Muslim and member of a band of freedom fighters.


Taking over from Robert Zemeckis, Lewis Teague lacks the former’s comic touch. The film is vaguely competent, but the film never manages to find its feet as either an action adventure flick or a romantic comedy. Watching this movie, you realise how complicated the blend of genres and tones is in Romancing the Stone.


Another missing key player is composer Alan Silvestri; instead we get Jack Nitzsche with synthesisers. And when it is not Nitzsche, the film is packed with contemporary pop songs, as though the film is more concerned with selling the soundtrack album. 


The biggest missing piece is Diane Thomas. There is no uniting spark to Jewel of the Nile - not in terms of the characters, the tone or the perspective on the genre. 


A tired, expensive cash grab.


Related



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Romancing the Stone (Robert Zemeckis, 1984)

When her sister is kidnapped in Colombia, novelist Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) heads south to trade her life for a mysterious stone.


Joined by shady smuggler Jack Colton (Michael Douglas), Joan finds herself only one of multiple parties who are on the trial of the stone.



What an amazing movie.


I almost did not want to write anything about it. Nothing I write will be new. I just want to sing its praises.


For some reason, no matter how many times I see it, I always forget how great it is. Ironically I have memories of watching Jewel of the Nile more often - it was probably cheaper to air on TV - but I have not seen it in years.


I first watched this movie as a kid, and I have caught a couple of times since.


I need to make it part of my regular rotation.


When I was studying screenwriting, all the literature I read always cited Romancing the Stone for its narrative structure and character development.


What an amazing sense of economy. It just feels so breezy and easy.


It is not until you watch Jewel of the Nile that you realise how hard it is to make a movie like this. The closest thing I can think of to its vibe is The African Queen except this couple get to have sex.


The overheated opening scene is amazing, not just because of what it sets up but (and this was my takeaway after watching the comparable sequence in the sequel) the way that manages to evoke the cinematic language of the genre that Wilder is writing.


The hard cut to a close up of Kathleen Turner, crying and congested, is the movie in a nutshell - it immediately deflates the mythic, cinematic promise of the title.


Kathleen Turner is a movie star with a charisma and a presence that would not usually suggest a character like Joan is a poor fit. Yet she commits totally to selling the character’s lack of self-worth.


The script has such a strong sense of the character. And while Douglas’s name is top-billed, this is Joan/Turner’s story.


While she works as part of a team with Jack, she is often the primary active party. She even saves herself at the end.


The film is her learning she can have an adventure.


She does not have to rely on her imagination, and she has the capacity to steer the action herself, rather than waiting on a mythical gunslinger to save her.


The role of Jack is unique in Michael Douglas’ filmography.


Casting himself (after other potential stars baulked at playing second banana) is inspired - Douglas would never be mistaken for a Boy Scout.


There is an inherent cynicism and weakness to the star that fits the character. Jack Colton is constantly forced to make a choice between greed and helping Joan.


Playing someone who has to grow and become a hero carries more weight and tension because it is Douglas.


What is wild to consider is that this is the role that helped make Douglas a star - and he would develop a persona that would stray far afield from the relatively straight-laced Jack.


As with Joan, his entrance is cinematic. In a manner that recalls the western opening, he is a silhouette on a hill, quick-drawing a shotgun to chase off Joan’s attacker.


He is established as a mythic figure, an echo of Jessie, the lover of Joan’s novels. That image is deflated as soon as Douglas actually introduces himself.


Jack is not only morally grey, he is not as competent as he appears: her bus crashes because he parked his jeep on the road


Danny DeVito is great as Ralph, a minor hoodlum who is on the trial of the stone. He is in less of the movie than I remember, but he gets the biggest laughs (the moment where he is running away from a car and shooting his gun over his head is sublime physical comedy).


The movie zips along. The simple plot giving space for the characters.


And while there are setpieces, they are never on the same scale of Indiana Jones. They feel just heightened enough for this story.


The movie is great at undermining expectations: the drug lord who turns out to be a fan of Joan’s books; Jack trying to hotwire a car, not realising there is a key in the ignition (because it’s owner, Ralph, is sleeping in the backseat).


The kidnapping scene is amazing - as Joan’s sister tries to make her escape, a young boy playing on the street uses bolas to knock her out and then kidnaps her and takes her away in her own car.


What makes Romancing the Stone such a great adventure movie is the focus on the relationship between the central pairing - and it is a testament to the script and the actors’ chemistry that this is enough to make the movie engaging.


Related


Raiders of the Lost Ark 


Temple of Doom


Dial of Destiny


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