MCU

Some
Assembly Required

MCU - The Reign
Of Marvel Studios
by Joanna Robinson,
Dave Gonzales & Gavin Edwards
Headline Books
ISBN:  97811472270733

To say that the new book MCU, subtitled The Reign Of Marvel Studios, is an unauthorised look at the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe would be to skew into understatement somewhat. In an introduction, the writers reveal that, after a number of interviews with various players in the history of the famous studio, Disney (who now own the studio) told everyone to stop talking to the writers. I think they must have got wind that this wasn’t going to be a puff piece and, like many of the characters who make up the MCU, would not be pulling any punches.

Perhaps a better subtitle for the novel would be The Rise And Fall Of Marvel Studios because, as the book comes to a close somewhere after the flop that was Ant-Man Quantumania (perhaps deservedly so) and a little before the flop of The Marvels (which was less deserved, as far as I’m concerned), it’s definitely painting a less than idyllic picture of the culture of the studios, where they are today and, well, while 2024 is going to be a weird year for all iterations of the Marvel movies based on their comic books released by different companies (see my 2500th Blog Post here for clarification on that matter), I think they’re going to have to really rework all their plans quite a bit to try and resurrect themselves to return to their former box office pull, it seems to me. A reinvention may well be in order, I suspect.

Okay, so the book is an interesting one. It doesn’t just deal with the MCU branded Marvel movies in the opening of the book... which is split into five multi chapter sections, Phase Zero through to Phase Four, reflecting the chronological stage in time with the marketed ‘phases’ of the Marvel Cinematic Universe... it also deals with other movies (most of which would be swallowed or folded into the MCU much later) and talks about some of the people behind them. Indeed, it’s a well written book and the writers introduce you to key players in the MCU and beyond, introducing people like Avi Arad and the influential Kevin Feige into the mix and showing you just how they fit into things.

And it’s a compelling tome because, while there’s tonnes of stuff I knew from my constant monitoring of Twitter about various stories (well, monitoring is a strong word, the stories just appeared in my timeline because they are well loved movies), it’s all very much encapsulated here in one place and, there’s also plenty of stuff I didn’t know too. For instance, there are some times in the history of these movies where the studio really rolled the dice and risked total bankruptcy to get the resources they needed to make the movies they believed in. Such as mortgaging the rights to most of their own characters for the money to make the first Iron Man... a risk that definitely paid off big time.

And there’s stuff I didn’t know such as the ending of that particular movie being rewritten and recreated in the editing room and with some reshoots to completely change it and give it more of a climactic finale. There’s also the disturbing, to me, element... considering just how good some of the Marvel movies are... of that thing where people off the cuff say... oh, they just made that movie to sell toys. Unfortunately, it turns out that’s completely true in the upper echelons. Iron Man and Hulk were picked to be the stars of the first two MCU films purely because a bunch of kids they play tested thought they would be the coolest characters to buy as toys. Indeed, there’s huge tension throughout most of the history of the studio, since Marvel was bought by Toy Biz before these films, between the creatives and the head suit who didn’t even want female superheroes or characters in the movies because the historical wisdom suggested kids don’t buy female action figures (and, yes, that’s exactly why there were none to few Black Widow toys tying into the first couple of Avengers movies, with the character being replaced in play sets with other figures riding her motorbike). Thankfully, it transpired that Feige and others managed to push back on the inclusion of female characters and a fair few other issues so that, while the majority of the Marvel movies were definitely kickstarted for what they call their ‘toyetic’ value, quality films were still made from the beginnings of these projects.

Another thing which surprised me was the way the artists drawing spectacular visions of Marvel characters out before each film’s conception were dictating scenes which would be in the movies, rather than the other way around. I’m surprised that none of the writers of this book realised (or at least stated that they did) that this is actually a parallel to the way respected Marvel maven Stan Lee used to write the original comics, what he called the ‘Marvel method’, where after a basic storyline was given, the artists would be free to come up with their own panels and Stan and others would then put the dialogue on over the bubbles and tie it all together retrospectively.

And there’s a lot of stuff that people who have followed the studio’s trials and tribulations will recognise in some form. For instance, Edward Norton and Joss Whedon don’t particularly come off very well here. And you get the feeling that some, if not many, lessons were learned from writer/director Edgar Wright’s original, legendary Ant-Man script... which led to some bitterness, for sure. The effect of Covid on the later shoots is also detailed, as are the various spats between the studio and it’s creative talent both behind and in front of the camera. James Gunn’s firing and re-hiring, for example... or the row about simultaneous streaming and theatrical releases as a result of the pandemic that rightly brought actors like Scarlett Johansson out to start law suits against the company. Not to mention the bankruptcy of various special effects companies like Rhythm And Hues, put out of business by being locked into absurdly agreed, low fees for effects work that was, for companies like Marvel, a constantly moveable feast. I suspect that’s still playing out right now because, hmm, I haven’t seen the third Spiderverse movie debuting this April as originally stated... not to mention the number of MCU titles now pushed back to next year.

Another thing I found interesting was the reveal on various intricacies and machinations of just who Spider-Man belongs to in any given film (it’s Sony) and how the MCU movies which feature him were actually negotiated as big profit makers for Sony rather than Marvel, who were helping to bankroll them (although they were, themselves, raking in money on the toys associated with these films). And I also learned about a newish thing instigated by Marvel for character creators called the Special Characters Contract... and how that is also sometimes abused to maintain low payments to some of the creators of the original characters in the comic book universe.

And that’s me done with MCU - The Reign Of Marvel Studios, I think. It’s not ever going to be able to look at all the product they’ve put out in any great detail (it's already well over 400 pages long) but the casual reader like myself will find that it’s very well written and lays out how some of these movies and deals are put together in an easy to understand fashion. And pay heed, future readers. After the end notes of the book start, don’t just assume you’ve come to the end because, to mimic the style of the post and mid-end credits scenes in the MCU movies themselves, the writers have hidden an extra chapter right in the middle of this section... which is a nice touch. I really enjoyed this book and, all I can say is... I hope the writers would consider putting together a similarly themed tome for the DC Cinematic Universe at some point. That’s also a book I’d love to read.

My 2200th Post - Netflix Gets Chilled

Netflix Gets Chilled

Is The Digital Dream
Already Dying Or Shifting?

Hi all,

Thanks for reading what is, my 2200th Blog Post for NUTS4R2. Due to two batches of recent news specifically about the digital streaming channel Netflix, I thought I’d take the opportunity in this post to write a little follow up to my 13 Year Anniversary Post back in March about the future (or lack of) Physical Media (which you can read right here if you like). In that article I also painted a fairly bleak picture about various creative companies who are, at present, funding riskier projects (of which Netflix happens to be a prime example) and where I saw them a bit later down the road, when they possibly stop being able to take risks... and the future of film as an art form looking decidedly darker.

The thing is, these two pieces of news from Netflix made me wonder if we’re accelerating into that state way quicker than I thought. Now I’m not sure what the answer to that is but, these are the two bits of news which became apparent since I wrote that little article...

One, Netflix announced a huge drop off in subscribers to their channel and, two, as of yesterday (at time of writing this... so a little under two weeks from when I go live with this post) they have announced a large number of lay offs (mostly in America) as cuts are made, presumably as a considered response to the shrinkage of their customer base, which they are projecting will lose a lot more subscribers for a period of the near future.

Okay, so I’m not quite that naive to assume this is the end of Netflix by a long chalk but, lets have a look at what might be going on here, just for fun. First of all... I can’t believe this is just happening to Netflix... I’m sure most of their competitors may well be feeling the pinch of people opting out too... but Netflix is a big share of the market so, they’re probably feeling it a little more. Now, when I first heard the news about the customer drop off, I assumed this was just localised to my home country, the UK. And it made sense with the extreme costs of living crisis we are suddenly in (brought on by an incredibly bad government), that people would just begin to choose eating over subscribing to a television channel if they want to live. So I was a little surprised when I discovered that this trend is affecting US customers too.

So then, what’s happening? Well, with an abundance of channels all giving exclusive options, I’m guessing people are trying to pare down the number of individual subscriptions to different companies they have contracts with because, well... because it’s expensive. I suspect Disney+, because it has Marvel and Star Wars on its books, will be winning out and possibly even gaining from the fall off of, not only Netflix customers but all the other channels. If you’re left with only enough money to stream from one channel, then Star Wars and Marvel are going to be the things people feel they can’t do without... for now (okay, I’ll get to that point in a minute). So, yeah, what this means at present is... I suspect everything is going to quickly go the way of the ‘assured blockbuster’ route (which Disney almost have a Monopoly on... thank goodness Warner Brothers has a hold of DC) as the customers are definitely voting with their wallets. I may be wrong but... yeah, I think this is what’s happening.

Now, one of the things companies like Netflix (and indeed Disney+ when it comes for their time in a slump) will blame is the huge amount of pirate channels on the internet, where their content can be viewed for free in HD, with no loss of quality. But, well, my view on video piracy and what it’s become has not changed over the decades. If people could afford to pay for these digital channels then the majority of the customer base would do so, I believe. However, many of them can’t afford to so they go to the pirate stations (and if the pandemic has demonstrated very clearly, these things are incredibly easy to find now). If you manage to close down every single pirate station (which, frankly, I suspect would be an impossible task) then don’t expect a sudden, huge uptake in customers. You might get maybe a few but what this really means is... there will be much less pairs of eyes on your films. And you may say that’s fine because people weren’t paying for that privilege anyway but, guess what? Many fewer eyes on your film means much less cultural presence for your film and, therefore, the slippery slide to the drop off of people watching... and remembering... your legacy of movies.

Another point is... Disney+ won’t always be the winners. They are for now and this should last for at least another decade (although the speed of the drop of from Netflix makes me consider the possibility that it could be around the corner quicker than I think) but, well, have you seen what Disney have doing to their big properties? We all love Star Wars but the new prequels and sequels have been hit and miss and certainly have diluted the brand considerably. A brand which has been corroded even more by multiple TV spin offs. I've not watched any of Obi Wan Kenobi yet but, my cousin who is a big Star Wars fan assures me it's pretty dire. I'll still watch it. Marvel is not quite in such a bad state but, well, I went and saw Doctor Strange And The Multiverse Of Madness at the cinema recently (you can find my review here) and, had I not seen the WandaVision TV show (reviewed here), which it feels like it’s a sequel to, I think I probably wouldn’t have had a clue about what was going on with Wanda’s mindset by that point. So, I suspect after not a few more years, the interest in people turning up for these kinds of properties may be dropping off quite a bit... but it’s been fun while it’s lasted (I would have loved seeing all this stuff as a kid).

So do I think the world of online digital streaming is dying already. Hmm... probably not yet but it is, I think, already beginning to mutate into something far less creative and palatable much quicker than I was expecting, to be honest. And from there we can all watch the slow, creeping downfall which, alas, will change the way we think of movies and TV forever, if I’m not very much mistaken.

Anyway, that’s 2200 blog posts down... thanks for reading.

Jungle Cruise

Conquist Adore

Jungle Cruise
Disney USA  2021
Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra

Well this is a huge slice of fun filled family adventure for cinemagoers, during the illusory 'let up' from the perils of Covid. Jungle Cruise is based on the long standing Disney theme park ride of the same name and was originally started into development after the success of the first of the Pirates Of The Caribbean movies (also based on a Disney ride with a long history). It wasn’t until Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock) came along as a producing partner that the film finally got properly off the ground and realised in the form you see it in now. Which is pretty much an action adventure much like the Indiana Jones, Lara Croft or Stephen Sommer’s The Mummy movies.

After a long, historical flash back sequence filling in the audience of a plot device involving the magical, supernaturally charged ‘Petals Of The Moon’ which can cure all ills and can be found with the aid of a specific sacred arrow head, if it happens to be in your possession... the film starts off in “London, England 1916 - Two years into the Great War.” Here we meet adventuress Lily Houghton, played by the always brilliant Emily Blunt and her brother, played by Jack Whitehall, as she manages to ‘acquire’ the arrowhead to enable her, in theory, to track down the Petals Of The Moon. We then get yet another long but very funny sequence set in Brazil (where much of the action takes place), where we are introduced to river cruise skipper Frank Wolff, played by Dwayne Johnson. It’s only after this third, long introduction that we finally get the opening credits.

Then, when Lily turns up in Brazil, she charters Frank’s boat and services on the long expedition into the jungle to find the mysterious petals, being chased and threatened by a real life German villain, Prince Joachim, played by Jesse Plemons, who also wants to harness the petals for his own nefarious purposes. And we also have some other fine actors and actresses rounding off the cast too, like the magnificent Paul Giamatti, the wonderful Veronica Falcón (Perry Mason’s Mexican girlfriend in the first season of the latest TV show about that character) and Edgar Ramírez playing the conquistador Aguirre. And, yes, that’s the same Aguirre who was also portrayed on film by Klaus Kinski in Herzog’s Aguirre - The Wrath Of God.

Also, the movie both honours the Disney theme park attraction it was based on but, furthermore, there are both visual and verbal shout outs to the film that inspired that ride scattered throughout. Namely the brilliant Humphrey Bogart, Katy Hepburn, John Huston movie The African Queen... although the spirit of the movie is somewhat different in its execution here.

And its great... full of spectacular and unlikely action set pieces and comedy which are just the ticket for a wonderful evening’s entertainment... all helped along by a rousing score (sadly not on a CD so I can’t hear it away from the movie) by James Newton-Howard. And if that wasn’t enough, Johnson cracks what have now become known as ‘dad jokes’ all the way through. And when I say ‘dad jokes’ of course, I really mean excruciatingly brilliant puns which endeared me to his character no end. Yep, this film is absolutely puntastic, it has to be said. Lines like “We’re heading into headhunter territory, which is a terrible place to be-headed.” are the best way to this cinema-goer’s heart, for sure and I think every movie should feature more lines like this.

And if that wasn’t enough, there’s a beautifully rendered alternative look at the ‘animated lines on a map’ style of giving the audience a geography fix and, about three quarters of the way through, an absolutely brilliant character reveal which ties one of the main characters into the shenanigans at the set up of the movie, going back all those hundreds of years. It’s really great stuff and even has a cute CGI leopard as Frank’s constant companion. Although... about that...

Okay, so there’s usually one thing wrong, at least, with a movie and sadly, like so many other modern film’s Achilles heel, it’s the CGI animals. None of the animals look really very good but, bearing in mind how much training and other tomfoolery you would have had to do with various creatures to satisfy the writing, I think it’s a fair trade off and you just have to suspend your disbelief for that element of the film.

And that’s me done on Jungle Cruise. It’s a short review of a long movie but, honestly, there’s not too much to say about it because it’s an absolutely perfect family fun adventure film which really captivates and entertains from beginning to end. I will absolutely be first in line to grab this when it comes out on Blu Ray so I can show it to my family on Christmas Eve this year. I loved it and would absolutely recommend this one to most people I know. 

The Black Hole

In Cygnus And In Health

The Black Hole
USA 1979 Directed by Gary Nelson
Walt Disney Club 30th Anniversary Edition 
Blu Ray Zone A/B/C

Warning: Some slight spoilers in this.

I loved The Black Hole as a kid and, dated as it might seem in certain aspects today... I still love it.

I remember thinking nothing of the details of the story and the way it plays out at the time (I would have been 11 years old when I first saw this at my local cinema) but, looking back on it now, it seems to be a little grim and ambiguous for what was perceived at the time as a ‘kid friendly’ family film. I just read that, despite the ‘cute’ robots in this, it wasn’t necessarily made for kids at all and it was being made with adults in mind as much as the youngsters. Although, if memory serves, it wasn’t exactly marketed like that.

Okay so, first things first, the film has a tremendous cast. You have the main heroic leads played by Robert Forster as Captain Dan Holland, Yvette Mimieux as Dr. Kate McCrae (she was the main female lead in the original version of The Time Machine, you might remember), Joseph Bottoms as Charles Pizer and Anthony Perkins as Dr. Alex Durant. Also joining our heroes is the mighty Ernest Borgnine as reporter Harry Booth (who is a little more ambiguous in his actions towards the end of the movie) and the uncredited voice of Roddy McDowall as the cute robot V.I.N.CENT. They comprise the crew of the Palomino spaceship and later on in their adventure, they are joined by another cute robot, Old B.O.B, voiced, again uncredited, by Slim Pickens.

And the plot is a simple one... they find a black hole in space and when they go in for a closer look they discover the great, lost starship the Cygnus ‘parked’ just outside of the full pull of the hole. It seems deserted but, when they explore it, they find themselves guests of the mad tyrant scientist Dr. Hans Reinhardt, played by Maximilian Schell, along with his giant robot Maximilian. Plus a crew of sentry robots and also... well, there’s a crew of some kind but I don’t want to spoil the movie if you haven’t already seen it.

And, yes, if you are wondering if this sounds a little like the plot of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea relocated to deep space with Maximilian Schell as the Captain Nemo figure, you’re absolutely right and there are a few parallels with Disney’s earlier adaptation of that novel thrown into the mix too. Ultimately though, the plot involves Reinhardt wanting to move into the black hole ‘and beyond’ while the crew of the Palomino are racing to fix their crippled ship and get off the Cygnus before this happens... and, due to some trouble they have later in the story, getting into all kinds of laser gun shoot outs with the various sentry robots as they try to get somewhere safe as Reinhardt steers everyone into the black hole.

It’s a nice looking film, full of colour and action. I well remember the Topps Bubble Gum cards (these days called ‘trading cards’) from the film which hit the newsagents at the same time... still got my set from back then, all in a presentation album now. It’s a bit of a mixed bag in terms of acting and effects though.

The effects work wasn’t farmed out to dedicated houses (as was just about becoming the normal procedure since the invention of Industrial Light and Magic a few years earlier) and so they were done totally in-house by Disney. So some of it, where the various crew members are floating around in various states of anti-gravity, looks quite extraordinary to this day and I would give myself a headache if I could figure out how they did it and make it look so natural with everyone on a different ‘flight path’. There must be some wire work in there but it really is quite special. Unfortunately, the matte lines around the various characters later and the pedestrian, cartoony looking laser gun bursts don’t do the film any favours. They didn’t look great then and, now the film has been restored for this limited Disney Club USA Blu Ray, they look even worse... the film looks especially grainy still where several shots are overlaid so, this didn’t really feel like a great restoration job, if I’m being honest.

And then there’s the acting/tone of the movie too. They really need V.I.N.CENT the robot as comic relief here because absolutely everyone else in the movie is deadly serious. There are very few smiling faces through most of the film and there may not be a lot of gravity in some scenes but there’s an overabundance of gravitas, that’s for sure. Also, for a film which was perceived as a kid friendly movie and was basically one of many space operas which came out riding the Star Wars bandwagon, it’s got some really questionable content.

For instance, you don’t expect the first of the death of three of the main protagonists, Anthony Perkins’ character, who is the only one who thinks what Reinhardt is doing is a good idea, to have his chest and stomach drilled open by the whirling blades of the Maximilian robot and falling to an electrical death (if he isn’t already dead after having his intestines churned in his tummy)... you don’t see stuff like this in a Disney movie for kids that often. Ditto for the unbelievably WTF ending where the heroes totally fail their mission and everyone goes through the black hole, which is when the movie really starts to get like the end of 2001 - A Space Odyssey, with bizarre, religious imagery as everyone, including Maximillian Schell who clambers inside the continuity challenged shell of the Maximilian robot (Schell within a shell!), are transported to a land of skull faced followers around volcanic pits and an angel floating through an endless corridor. And absolutely no comments from anyone in the cast by this point... the heroes lost their roll of the dice and are in some strange, abstract vision of heaven and hell and that’s the end, deal with it! It’s not exactly a fun looking vision (if you’re stuck in the middle of it)... it’s pretty dark and grim, to be honest.

So yeah, I just loved that ambiguous ending as a kid but I remember some of the other kids at school having a problem with it, now that I think of it.

Another great thing is the musical score by the late, great John Barry. I believe it was the first film to have its score recorded on digital equipment and also one of the last two movies to feature an overture of the music in cinemas before the film started (the other being Star Trek The Motion Picture). Now I believe Barry didn’t actually like the absolutely brilliant and upbeat ‘overture/heroic things happening’ theme he was asked to write for this because it was in the romantic adventure mode just being re-popularised by John Williams at the time (and possibly felt inappropriate to him?) but, honestly, it’s a fantastic piece of music. As is his totally hypnotic and repetitive, swirling opening title music, which really makes you feel the presence of the antagonistic title element. And, yeah, the whole score does just sound like Bond in space, more so than even Moonraker (which is a far lesser score in comparison to this one)... and what’s wrong with that? Easily one of Barry’s greatest scores from this period and another CD I could listen to on repeat when required.

So yeah, there you have it. Well performed but sombre characters, a mixture of staggeringly good and unbelievably ropey effects, some impressively colourful scenes, a thunderously cool score and some comedy robots... what more could you want from a movie. I know it has its detractors but I still, after all these years, love The Black Hole and would recommend it to those movie watchers who are interested in seeking out films which are... I dunno... just a little bit wrong or off-kilter for their marketed target audience. I don’t think you could really get away with delivering this movie in the current political and cultural climate but I would absolutely welcome a remake/reboot of this if anyone had anything interesting to add in the way of ideas to infuse into this template. I’ll definitely be watching this one again at some point over the next few years.

9 Years of NUTS4R2

Floating Downstream

“Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream.
It is not dying... it is not dying.”
Tomorrow Never Knows, Revolver, Lennon and McCartney

Okay, so that’s nine years today that I’ve been posting up what are mostly film, book and TV reviews to this site.

I’d planned on saying something about streaming content from places like Netflix, Amazon Prime and the upcoming Disney channel because, frankly, it’s still a hot topic on forums like Twitter. However, I looked back at what I talked about in my eight year anniversary blog and it looks like I covered a lot of it there.

That being said, I still want to go over a few basic things about the huge amount of streaming channels because the people who are all for them, as they feel everyone can access them are, it seems to me, somehow missing the point. There’s also a huge plus to some of these content streams but, I suspect, that huge plus point may severely diminish or completely disappear over the next ten years or so.

So, point one... yeah, Steven Spielberg’s absolutely right when he says movies funded and released almost purely on a streaming platform/channel, even if they have a very brief theatrical release, should not be up for Oscar consideration. Oscars are for theatrical release content and anything else is TV movies and not, specifically, a branch of the art that the Academy Awards were invented to honour. Not that I place much stock in the Oscars myself but it’s an award for a specific kind of entertainment route and I don’t think the rest deserve the chance to encroach on that space. There are other awards they can win which aren’t The Oscars.

Point two,  if you only have a very limited theatrical release... and I’m talking about a few days of single performances or none at all... then a lot of people really don’t have access without indulging in the strange, almost emotional blackmail of shelling out a subscription charge for each channel. And if they are going to do that then the customer needs to find the time to watch more than a couple of hours per month to make it worth their while (although, same with cinema I suppose... to an extent). A great deal of these exclusive streaming releases don’t even get any kind of home entertainment release on the likes of DVD or Blu Ray (especially not over here in the UK)... so not only can some people not even access them in a justifiable manner, they also can’t own a copy to put on their shelf for viewing whenever they want. I have piles of some 500-1000 Blu Rays/DVDs sitting around from the last ten years waiting to be watched and reviewed for this blog. Do you think I'd be able to hold onto any of that lot for that amount of time on a streaming channel?

Which brings me to point three... people who are subscribing to these are subscribing to a moveable feast. Shows and movies come and go as, bizarrely, the channels remove them from their service at various points in time. So, unlike a DVD or Blu Ray, you can’t just watch what you are paying for any time you want to. These things disappear at the whim of the powers that be so you are stuck without the product you want when you require it and, if you’re using something on there because you want to analyse it for, lets say, a film studies qualification... then you may find yourself stuck without warning and with not much that could be done about it. DVD and Blu Ray purchases prevent that from happening to you.

Now, as I said, there’s a huge benefit, at the moment, to directors and writers working exclusively with companies such as Netflix and Amazon Prime and that is... more creative freedom. I think it was Duncan Jones who said his Netflix film Mute (reviewed by me here) would not have been funded or released another way and I’m assuming that’s because a major studio would not indulge his full creative input or be more relaxed about what the artist wants to do as some of these streaming services are apt to be, for the moment. So I can understand the appeal for some directors, even if their product doesn’t make it into cinemas. However... how long is it before these new streaming services get more of an idea of what their core audience want and start imposing tighter creative restrictions on the directors? I’m sure, for example, Disney are being much more precious and controlling about their new Star Wars TV series The Mandalorian in terms of creative control. So I can’t see much, if any, leeway given when it comes to ‘final cut’ on shows like this. I may be wrong but... well, I can only speculate. I suspect we won’t be seeing it on DVD or Blu Ray anytime soon though, since Disney need some kind of carrot to hook their new channel customers with. We shall see how that one plays out, I guess.

Oh...well there you are. Even though I tackled the same subject as last year’s anniversary post, I’ve clarified some of my thoughts on the issue here, I think. The birth of streaming online and on TV has created problems, I think, for the industry and, as importantly, for the end users which we’re only just beginning to grasp. Whether we can turn the phenomenon of streaming content into something which is a more positive, genuinely accessible force for the continuing success of the art form is anyone’s guess at the moment. In the meantime, people can go round their friend’s house to watch something if they don’t have the stream in question or, you know, pick up a free bootleg... which seem to be appearing every now and again at the various places one might expect to see these things. This kind of amounts to the same thing as borrowing a friend’s password and, so far, I’ve not seen any of these discs actually for sale on the black market but, if the content holders continue to withhold from cinemas and home video releases, I’m sure it will become an issue at some point soon for them.

Anyway... those are my thoughts on streaming media providers at the moment and, if some of this seems vague or unclear, please bear in mind that I’m in a lot of pain right now and spaced out on nausea inducing antibiotics as I type this stuff. So cut me a little slack there.

So all it really needs now for me to finish my post off with is this... if you’ve read this far.

Thanks to you all for reading and continuing to read my blog. Each and every one of you, whether you agree with my views or not, is very much appreciated and I hope you continue to come back here when you can. It makes this whole time consuming affair of holding down a day job and then watching and writing about stuff on a regular basis a little lighter, in the end.

Happy reading and please come back soon.

NUTS4R2

Pirates Of The Caribbean - The Curse Of The Black Pearl

Her Cool Pirate

Pirates Of The Caribbean -
The Curse Of The Black Pearl
USA 2003 Directed by Gore Verbinski
Disney Blu Ray Zone 2

Here we go then. It so happens that it’s finally time to watch the Pirates Of The Caribbean films again from the start, since I’ve not really watched these since their cinematic release. My impression of these at the time was similar to what I later thought of Michael Bay’s Transformers movies... that being that the first one in the franchise is a pretty good film and that it’s been followed up with some truly dreadful sequels, none of which has managed to disprove the old adage that, in terms of the quality of both series’ of movies, lightning doesn’t strike twice.

This first one is, in retrospect and as I look at it now, just a little too long in terms of its total running time of almost two and a half hours. That being said there’s very much a case to be made, in my mind, that the movie is made watchable by one particular actor and, coupled with a pretty cool score, he’s the thing which makes this one worth watching at all... although that’s not to dim the light of the other very good performances in this.

The film is based on the 1967 Disneyland attraction of the same name (minus the subtitle). It was the last such attraction to have been steered by Walt Disney himself, although he died a few months before it opened and it’s kind of ironic that, since this film was so financially successful and popularly received, the ride was closed down for a while to make it even more like the movie version... although there are apparently plenty of references to the original ride in this film.

The opening of the movie is a prologue chapter on a ship under the command of a character called Norrington, played by Jack Davenport. Here we see the younger versions of Elisabeth Swan and Will Turner before they grow up, by the next sequence, to be played by Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom. Elisabeth’s father, played by Jonathan Pryce, is quite keen that Elisabeth marry Norrington, even though there are obviously years between them (although Jack Davenport doesn’t seem to age at all in the time between the sequences). Of course, she is in love with the village blacksmith, the aforementioned Will Turner, who she knows to have something to do with piracy from the opening sequence, although she’s doesn’t reveal this information to Will. I remember sitting in the cinema and watching this first ten or so minutes of the film and looking at my watch and thinking... please don’t let the entire film be this dull and boring all the way through. Luckily, it’s just at this moment that we get the opening salvo of shots of Johnny Depp’s entry in the story. The music swells as the camera holds back from an establishing shot and we see Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow in command of his vast ship and the score gives wind to his sails. It’s only then that it’s revealed that Sparrow’s ship is, in fact, a tiny boat with one smallish sail and a reliance on how the camera can change the perspective of a shot and flatten it out. A nice little punchline as the boat is obviously sinking and Jack starts trying to bail it out as he nears port. A follow up shot not so long later sees Jack gliding confidently into port with a pullback to reveal he’s standing on top of the still sinking mast which just manages to get him to port so he can gracefully step off as the boat goes under. Nice stuff and this has got to be one of the best and most elaborately shot entrances for a character in modern Hollywood.

And then the writers throw a plot and some action at everything of varying quality but the film is, frankly, completely reliant on Johnny Depp’s exaggerated performance of Captain Jack Sparrow as the very heart and soul of the entertainment. Without Depp, in this case, the film would be nothing but here he really adds the ingredients so sorely missing from the sequences which find themselves "Deppless" and some nice concoctions of skeletal pirates, blood sacrifices to Aztec gold, coupled with some great swordplay and chase choreography make the film a pleasure to behold. Admittedly, it’s a slow trundling pleasure but there are some nice little movie references too, to keep the weary audience afloat and there are a lot more doubloons than duds in this one... something which sadly can’t be said for the other films in the series, if memory serves.

There’s a nice moment, for instance, where Jack Sparrow and Will Turner decide to team up and use an overturned rowing boat to walk beneath the surface of the sea, like a miniature submarine, using the naturally formed pocket of air left in the top of the boat to breathe. This is, of course, a nice little shout out to the exact same submersible solution created by James Hayter in The Crimson Pirate, as he uses the idea to transport himself, Burt Lancaster and Nick Cravat out of trouble (if you’ve never seen this marvellous movie, make a point of doing so... not only does Hayter’s character invent this submersible when called for... he also invents gun powder and the hot air ballon throughout the course of the story). Similarly, a well choreographed bit of ‘rescue nonsense’ at the end of the movie where Turner tries to get Jack Sparrow away from his impending execution is similarly choreographed almost like a dance routine and recalls the acrobatic antics of Lancaster and Cravat in certain scenes in The Crimson Pirate.

And then there’s the score. Although it’s composed and credited to Klaus Badelt (who also did a marvellous score for the reboot of The Time Machine), he also had a lot of help, primarily from Hans Zimmer who wrote the themes and, according to the original soundtrack album credits, ‘over produced’ the CD release. When you start digging deeper, however, you start to realise that there were a few composers working on the movie but, be that as it may, it’s a great score. There have been some marvellous scores over the years for pirate movies... the as yet unreleased score for The Crimson Pirate by William Alwyn and the much re-issued John Debney score to Cutthroat Island, to name but two... and The Curse Of The Black Pearl certainly joins them in having a rousing and much loved score. It does the job admirably and the strong Jack Sparrow action theme, albeit somewhat similar to something which originally appeared in Zimmer’s score for Gladiator, is one of those cues which people will be humming through the ages. It’s mixed quite heavily into the foreground in this movie and, frankly, it’s all the better for it. More movies these days, where the sound designers are in love with their own miasma of audio bombast and submersion, should give the music greater room to breathe, in my opinion. The films would certainly reap the benefits.

So there you have it. Well before Pirates Of The Caribbean came out, I was an admirer of Johnny Depp as a great actor and on screen personality and, although I’ve learnt in recent years that a good Johnny Depp performance isn’t always enough to save the day (Secret Window, The Tourist, Mortdecai etc.) this is definitely a film where he shines enough to carry the action and weight of the movie on himself and turn it into something quite watchable. There’s much buckling of swashes to be had in this first installment of Pirates Of The Caribbean - The Curse Of The Black Pearl and, though I couldn’t watch it every decade, I feel like there’s still a few viewings of this one left for me. If you like big adventure movies and you’ve never seen this one before... you’re in for a good time.

John Carter And The Gods Of Hollywood

Barsoom Brawl

John Carter And The Gods Of Hollywood
by Michael D. Sellers
Universal Media 
ISBN: 978-0615682310

Okay... so 2012 saw the release of what was for me, at the time, one of the most eagerly awaited films of recent years, the ill-fated John Carter. When it came out I quite liked it but my enthusiasm was tempered somewhat by my bitterness in the way the title character was written, which differed a little to what was in the books, and also the shoe-horned in technological explanation given for the hero’s originally spiritual transportation across the astral planes to Mars - why they thought they should give scientific explanations when there wasn’t any in the source material just to please the majority of the current audience is beyond me (you can read my original review here).

Michael D. Sellers book, John Carter And The Gods Of Hollywood, is written by somebody who feels as close to the original Edgar Rice Burroughs material as I do (again, see my original review for the way the character has impacted on my life) and who, furthermore, actually tried to do something to help put the pre-release buzz back on track to where it should have been after the shoddy treatment that this film had in regards to the marketing push needed by the studio. This is the guy, it turns out, who made that “fan trailer” which was highly regarded as doing the job that Disney themselves weren’t capable of doing at the time and his involvement with the way the movie impacted on his life goes even a bit further than that.

This book is essential in the understanding of what the author calls the “perfect storm” of little things going wrong behind the scenes of the marketing of the film itself and, towards the end, tries to at least give the impression that there’s life in the old Barsoomian war horse yet.

Starting off right from the early announcements of the film as it got into Disney’s hands, it reveals how some accidents in timing, compounded by unbelievably dumb marketing decisions and an enormous lack of attention at just the wrong times in regards to mishandled social media accounts, and the like, led to the premature downfall of the movie that should have been called John Carter Of Mars even before the film had been released. Yeah, I mentioned the stupidity of the title in my original review of the film... John Carter on its own without qualification doesn’t work as a title to the international, young audience who are unaware of Burroughs’ legendary hero and it’s true to say that, when I found out in this book that the decision was made to drop the “Of Mars” was all due to the fact that Mars Needs Moms flopped at the box office... well, anger at the incompetence and buffoonery at the hands of this particular product certainly got an emotional response from me.

The book is extremely educational, even for those with no vested interest in the success or legacy of the movie. This is a great text book to understand just the kinds of “behind the scenes” things that can go wrong with a major Hollywood motion picture when the director, cast and crew are giving it their absolute all but the people at the studio are just tuned out (and it’s still a great film, by the way, check it out if you have a chance, there’s very few people I’ve shown it to who didn’t like it and a friend of mine asked for the novels at Christmas after I’d shown her the DVD). The writer demonstrates a gift for the reading of the market place through various trends and numbers and it’s detailed in all its gory detail, front and centre, in this book... making you wonder why the people in control of the way the marketing was pushed couldn’t do this for themselves. It’s almost like they were trying to kill the movie.

It’s also interesting to note how other things outside the world of Edgar Rice Burroughs' hero affected the fortunes, or should that be misfortunes, of this particular film and I was illuminated by the way films like the first of Marvel's The Avengers (aka Avengers Assemble), Bruckheimer’s Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise and the opening shots of Disney’s deal to buy the Star Wars franchise from George Lucas all had a little contribution to the butterfly effect that ended in the inevitably chaotic reaction at the box office. I was also somewhat surprised to learn a few things about the early history of John Carter’s attempts to infiltrate popular culture outside of the “beyond bestselling” original novels... such as the young Alex Raymond who was working on a strip version of the character's adventures before William Randolph Hearst pulled the plug and, as if by magic, the character Flash Gordon was created. I honestly hadn’t put two and two together before but, now that Sellers has documented stuff like this in this book, it’s quite easy to see how certain elements of the culture of Burroughs’ planet Barsoom somehow made it into the culture of Raymond’s planet Mongo.

It’s all fascinating stuff and a really great read. My only real criticisms being two ommissions. One is that there was no real information about Michael Giacchino’s excellent score for the movie... although, to be fair, this really isn’t a concern of Sellers in that it doesn’t really fit into the intentions of this book. That’s just me moaning as a fan.

What I did find, however, was a bit of a glaring error of absence... and I’m sure there must be a good reason for this (and I can kinda guess what that is but, it’s a reason that doesn’t excuse the error, in my opinion)... is that, other than by title, once, in an extract of something else reprinted as facts and figures source material, does Mark Atkins 2009 movie Princess Of Mars (aka John Carter Of Mars), which starred Antonio Sabata Jr as John Carter and Traci Lords as Dejah Thoris, get any kind of coverage or even acknowledgement in this book. I’ve heard it’s truly awful (and sometime soon I should be able to find out for myself and review it on this very blog - it’s in the post) but I would have thought the way this low budget, straight to video production would have at least have had some kind of impact on the perception of the 2012 movie. So that was a bit of an omission I thought.

Like I said, though, there may be good reasons why this cheaper (and probably far from faithful) "alternate" version of Burroughs’ classic doesn’t get a look in here and... even so, I have to say that I can only strongly recommend this book to anyone even remotely interested in the process of the marketing of a movie. Not to mention the actual fans of the movie, who seem to be increasing in number since the film’s DVD and Blu Ray release, as they slowly wake up to the fact that the film, which Disney kinda abandoned, is actually a pretty great movie. The writer explains a lot of what happened and does so in a fairly insightful and, importantly, well balanced style of writing which doesn’t allow his personal agenda to re-educate the potential audience of the film get in the way of his own minor disappointments with the final motion picture, many of which seem to echo my own thoughts on the film as a whole (which surprised me a bit, actually). Hopefully, a lot of educational establishments will choose to stock this in their library for students on film studies courses because it’s a valuable book, in my humble opinion, on the way a movie both can and... erm... shouldn’t be marketed. Definitely worth a read.

Michael D. Sellers wonderful website, The John Carter Files, can be found here... http://thejohncarterfiles.com/