Category: Cinema

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Still a Month Out…

…from the DUNE premiere in the United States, but the first two of three soundtrack albums have been released. I have to say, they're giving me chills and making me cry tears of joy at the same time, especially this cut:

I have such great hope for this film.

Word has it that if it's as huge a success as everyone is anticipating, Villeneuve wants to not just make the second film, but make a trilogy, encompassing Dune and Dune Messiah; basically the life story of Paul Muad'dib.

I approve of this message.

I would love to see Children of Dune as well as God Emperor of Dune on the big screen as well, but I fear I won't live long enough to realize this, even if Denis decides to take up the whole series.

 

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One of Those Movies…

…that, along with Cabin in the Woods and The Fifth Element, if I happen across it while channel surfing, I will almost always stop and watch, no matter where in the story it might be.

Silent Hill (2006) dir. Christopher Gans

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Still a Classic After More than 80 Years

I had not been aware of The Women until I moved to San Francisco in 1987. (Yes, yes, I know…turn in my gay card.) But after I was enlightened by some friends, it quickly became one of my all time favorite films, and seeing it at The Castro Theater was always a treat. (If you happened to be in the audience at a performance at the Castro in the late 80s when someone yelled "Mommie Dearest!" when Crystal asked Little Mary, "What did I tell you to call me?"…well…that was moi.)

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Because it's October

Levitation in Horror Films

The Craft (1996)
The Conjuring (2013)
The Exorcist (1973)
The Witch (2015)
The Babadook (2014)
Jennifer's Body 2009
Stigmata (1999)
Hereditary (2018)
It (2017)
Ghostbusters (1984)
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A Reimagined Star Wars

What would it look like?

Okay, it was one of those weird laying-awake-at-4am-because-the-world-is-collapsing thoughts I had today.

After seeing Denis Villeneuve's imaging of both Blade Runner and Dune, I wondered, "What would a Villeneuve STAR WARS look like?" Okay, we know wresting the property from Disney will never happen, but just imagine an adult rendering of the STAR WARS story; one that included all the gritty details of what life was actually like under the Empire and drove home exactly why there was a rebellion in the first place.

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Visions of DUNE

I ran across this artist, Alex Jay Brady (his Instagram) the other day and wanted to share. IMHO, his vision of DUNE is amazing, especially the worms:













From The Battle of Arakeen:

Guild Highliners:







Alex presents an interesting take on Giedi Prime, home of the Harkonnens. I'd always envisioned the planet as a dark, perpetually polluted hellscape, but Mr. Brady has a different view:




His interpretation of the ornithopters (in multiple panels above and pictured below on Caladan—something that was never explicitly stated in the books, but upon reflection would have to have been obvious) is also much more aligned with how I pictured them upon reading the novel, even moreso than Denis Vileneuve's vision in the upcoming film:



From Book 3, God Emperor of DUNE, the worm/human hybrid himself, God Emperor Leto II:


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Well This is Interesting

A few images leaked from a teaser trailer for a certain upcoming movie I am very excited to see (and hope that it will be safe enough to return to a theater in time for its debut). Withholding judgment until I see more, because I never found fault with the visual aesthetic of the previous attempt to bring this saga to the big screen, but I do find these images intriguing.

"Put your right hand in the box," she said.

"What's in the box?"

"Pain."



"I hold at your neck the gom jabbar," she said. "The gom jabbar, the high-handed enemy. It's a needle with a drop of poison on its tip. Ah-ah! Don't pull away or you'll feel that poison."

The itch became the faintest burning. "Why are you doing this?" he demanded.

"To determine if you're human. Be silent."

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Sputnik


"There's been an incident in space."

I stumbled across this film yesterday via ads showing up on my Instagram stream and it looked intriguing enough that I was willing to drop the $6.99 rental fee and check it out. While I was prepared to be disappointed, I came away pleasantly surprised. It's definitely worth rental (I watched through AppleTV, but it's also available through Amazon and numerous other sources).

Described by some as a cross between Alien and Arrival (I wouldn't go that far), Sputnik takes place in the Soviet Union in 1983 at the peak of Cold War tensions. It tells the story of the return of the Orbit-4 space mission and its crew. The landing site is horrific: the commander is dead, the flight engineer is in a coma. The third crew member,* Valery Basov, has survived but has lost his memory from the experience and cannot shed any light on the cause of the accent. In a secluded government facility, under the constant watch of armed guards, an upstart, outspoken psychologist Tatiana Kilmova is brought in to attempt to cure the astronaut's amnesia and unravel the mystery. In the process, she learns that Orbit-4 has carried back with it an alien parasite that threatens to destroy them all.














The effects and cinematography are surprisingly good. The lead actor (Pytor Fyodorov) is very easy on the eyes and reminds me tangentially of 60's heart throb Glenn Corbett. The film has the same austere, 80s-era Soviet Cold War Bureaucratic palette that was used so effectively in HBO's "Chernobyl."

The story moves quickly, and the film wastes very little time before revealing the parasite.

If you don't mind subtitles or are fluent in Russian, definitely worth your time. It's an interesting escape from the times we find ourselves in.

*I never could figure out where that third crew member was located, because in all the scenes shown on board the spacecraft before re-entry, you only see two cosmonauts.