James Gunn’s Waxy Superman: What’s With it? John Wildman’s Wild Thoughts on Film #2
James Gunn’s Waxy Superman: What’s With it? John Wildman’s Wild Thoughts on Film #2
SON OF WILD THOUGHTS ON FILM
Remember when sequels would have a “Son of…” title? You’re lying if you just said yes, because no one old enough to remember that knows how to work the internets, HAHA. I mean, the last one I remember is SON OF THE MASK. And…I would kinda prefer not to remember that one. Like maybe someone could do an ETERNAL SUNSHINE thing with me to erase it from my brain…
Anyway, let me talk for a moment about SON OF BLOB (Or BEWARE! THE BLOB – its alternate title), because I just thought about it and… Well, here’s why the film will always have a special place in my headspace (as well as a spot for the film’s poster in The Gore Room, my guest bedroom dedicated to horror films):
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I saw the film when I was 6 or 7 years old, I believe. Goaded my big brother into taking me to see it. (I loved horror films from the start and would badger my family to take me to them. Oftentimes, to the drive in, where I would then proceed to fall asleep in the car forcing them to actually watch terrible (but great) films like THE BOY WHO CRIED WEREWOLF or SSSS (Yeah, that’s an actual title of a film where Strother Martin turns Dirk Benedict into a snake. No lie.)
Anyway, My big brother takes me to see SON OF BLOB and the film scares the living shit out of me. Because, in little kid monster logic, The Blob was the worst creature since you couldn’t kill it and damn near couldn’t escape it. It could squeeze through any cracks or holes or whatever to get to you and the best you could hope for would be to freeze it and never let it thaw out. (Kids like me would cling to monster facts for survival: You can outrun Frankenstein, keep yourself locked up and indoors during a full moon to steer clear of The Wolfman, and we all know the rules and regulations to protect ourselves from Dracula, right?)
So, I was petrified by The Blob. And the film – the only one directed by Larry Hagman (Yes, from Dallas and I Dream of Jeannie) was objectively incredibly bad. I’m pretty sure he made it under a haze of marijuana and recruited various Malibu neighbors like Burgess Meredith and Shelly Berman to make cameos in it. But it’s still…. The Blob, and my little 6-year-old-self will always be terrified by it.
Anyway, we’re going to try to do something here, which is have me weigh in on film news, and other things in little bite-sized nuggets of thoughts the way the old-time newspaper columnists used to do. We’re going to call it Wild Thoughts on Film. I don’t know how “wild” they will be, but sometimes, I can come up with ‘em.
Now let’s talk about the films I’ve seen recently…
John Wildman’s Wild Thoughts on Film
MOVIES I’VE SEEN RECENTLY
MEMORY: THE ORIGINS OF ALIEN
As I look forward to Fede Alvarez’s ALIEN: ROMULUS, I decided to pull the Blu Ray for Alexandre O. Philippe’s fantastic documentary MEMORY: THE ORIGINS OF ALIEN from my library. First off, I recommend watching ALL of Philippe’s docs on filmmaking, including 78/52 (about the PSYCHO shower scene) and LYNCH/OZ, which are also in my library.
MEMORY is an amazing look at all the films and graphic stories and even science research on parasitic wasps that influenced Ridley Scott’s enduring classic. But that is far from all contained in the film, which pays special attention to the chest burster scene and co-writer Dan O-Bannon’s story as well. Watch it and I guarantee you’ll eventually want to rewatch it.
LONGLEGS
Went to the Angelika Film Center in Dallas to see Oz Perkins’ thriller LONGLEGS. Other critics have made comparisons the THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, which are legit as Maika Monroe’s fledgling FBI investigator definitely has close ties to Jodie Foster’s character and performance.
Nicolas Cage (also a producer on the project) is unrecognizable as the title character – and that is despite him chewing all the scenery in sight as some of us thrill to when he is onscreen. Bottom line – this thing is weird in all the right ways, not a gore-fest, yet still harrowing/tense ridden, and lightly sprinkled with a supernatural element to throw you off the standard NCIS trail.
I enjoyed it.
Also, shout out to Alicia Witt for an unexpected performance. Give her some respect, kids!
TOKYO COWBOY
Marc Mariott’s TOKYO COWBOY screened at the Asian Film Festival of Dallas (also at the Anjelika Film Center), though to be real, I watched a screener of it while I was under Covid quarantine. This one is a pretty classic fish-out-of-water treatment of a Japanese business exec great with the numbers who goes to a beef ranch in the states sure he can turn it around with his cost cutting know how and eye on tech innovation, and on the ground finds it ain’t all that simple. And maybe, just maybe, along with learning to don a new look with western garb and a cowboy hat, he’ll combine his knowledge with the reality of ranching, make new friends, learn some things, and possibly even save his on the rocks love relationship too. Yee haw! Seriously, this is a pleasant ride – on horseback.
SORRY/NOT SORRY
I saw Cara Mones and Caroline Suh’s look at the whole Louie CK story, SORRY/NOT SORRY on Amazon. The film is a much more thorough look at the history of the female comics and writers’ accusations against Louie CK coming to light, their experiences throughout all of it, and the aftermath. It does not include his direct participation, but there is, naturally a lot of interview footage from him on other shows, pod casts, etc. It is as nuanced as it gets, and it is as deep a dive into multiple angles of the story and the topics it inspires as well. I found it engrossing and fascinating.
FAYE
I caught Laurent Bouzereau’s documentary FAYE, which looks at the life and career of Faye Dunaway on HBO MAX. This is one of those career look backs with the subject involved – literally commenting each step of the way that can go all kinds of wrong because it can become a slavish kiss-ass endeavor, with all the rough patches or incidents sanded down and polished or left out entirely. But to her credit, Dunaway is frank, and forthcoming, and even admits shortcomings and mistakes. That is always remarkable, and it’s remarkable cubed because she has a tough reputation – which she admits she earned.
Full disclosure is that I have had a couple instances “handling” Faye at my film festivals (including watching THE SOCIAL NEWORK with her at NYFF – she was our guest, and being instrumental to having her be an honoree at a Dallas-based film festival – which included the cool experience of watching BONNIE AND CLYDE with her and having her lean in and tell me a behind the scenes memory or two as we were watching the film) and I enjoyed those experiences, even when I had to step in to relieve a tense moment that would pop up.
Film lover or not, prior knowledge of Dunaway’s career or not, FAYE is a great watch.
John Wildman’s Wild Thoughts on Comic Book Movies
COMIC BOOK MOVIE HYPE-O-RAMA
James Gunn’s waxy SUPERMAN
The rebooting, and rebooting, and more rebooting.
Now it’s James Gunn’s turn to take his shot at Superman (and the entire DC universe), which meant everyone had to go. In the case of problematic Ezra Miller as The Flash, okay, maybe dodging some on set and PR issues, I get it. (Though I enjoy his take on Barry Allen.) But I believe Henry Cavill made a great Superman / Clark Kent, so that move struck me as throwing out super baby with the bathwater. Whatevs. Universe builder gotta do what a universe builder gotta do.
BUT.
The first look at the SUPERMAN: LEGACY trailer and there’s this waxy thing about it. I don’t know if it’s CGI effect, I don’t know if it will be the new DC…thing, but it threw me off. And possibly it’s just me looking at it…weird…? I feel like I should do a Nathan Thurm look to the camera and ask, “Is it me?” What do you think?
Robert Downey Jr IS Doctor Von Doom
The Jonathan Majors/Kang thing done fucked everyone up in the MCU, didn’t it. I mean, THERE WERE PLANS, DAMN IT!!! He was the big bad for the next phase – all built around him. And then it all went to hell because of Majors’ issues (and when I say “issues”, where do we start and where do we end, right?) so Marvel cut bait. Wow. That had to have been one of those decisions where Kevin Feige is serving everyone highballs in his office Mad Men style as they sat on sofas, sipped, and soaked in it and ruminated what had to be done.
So, who is the sure thing? Who kicked the entire thing off unexpectedly and then performed box office wonders EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. he appeared in their films. Hmm…. Who could they depend on to “get it”. And Marvel comics just happened to have a couple versions of an Iron Man/Tony Stark Doctor Victor Von Doom intersection/mash up/college roommates gone wrong? So, it makes sense. Security (in many ways) for Marvel, more money for RDJ (and the Russo Brothers, who will direct), and that’s that. I mean, listen, if we can handle Chris Evans moving from Johnny Torch to Captain America then I think we can deal with this one too. And be happy about it, damn it! Just throw back another Kevin Feige cocktail and relax…
WHAT ELSE?
In festival land, after a reliably great Waco Indie Film Festival (formerly the Deep in the Heart Film Festival) including a great interview with H. Nelson Tracey and Chandler Riggs, the director and star of BREAKUP SEASON, which won Best Film and Best Actor, I ended up catching Covid for the first time at the Filmmaker Awards brunch. You try to be so careful, and then…
Anyway, for the time I was in quarantine, I completely missed the Asian Film Festival of Dallas, including my red carpet, which was run instead by some friends of mine very familiar with my “system.” That was just weird. But what sucked is that AFFD once again reminded Dallas how you put the “festival” in film festival with the comedy performance by Kufiya Comedy (including Marena Hussein and Arun Rama), music performance by the Folkstory Band, a red-carpet including filmmakers from THE GUEST who made the trip to Dallas from South Korea, along with all the screenings that were offered. And I had to miss it by being in quarantine.
This week, I’m in New York City for the Festival of Cinema NYC in Queens/Forest Hills and next week we add the Greenpoint Film Festival in Brooklyn. It’s all about the NYC-based film festivals starting this weekend and I’ll report on those in the next Wild Thoughts on Film.
So…that’s our first sequel to this thing. Let’s see what I come up with next week…
James Gunn’s Waxy Superman: What’s With it? John Wildman’s Wild Thoughts on Film #2