[narfstar]

I just watched DEMOLITION MAN for the first time in nearly twenty years. What a great movie. It was even better than I remembered it.

[Roygbiv666]

I approve of Sandra Bullock's pants in that one.

Also, when it first came out, I was unduly excited, as I thought they were making Alfred Besters' "The Demolished Man". Because I am a loser.

I just watched DEMOLITION MAN for the first time in nearly twenty years. What a great movie. It was even better than I remembered it.

[narfstar]

I usually approve of Sandra Bullock 

[profh0011]

I liked DEMOLITION MAN, too.  Wish I'd seen it when it came out.  Saw it on TV twice (so far).  One of my favorite "middle-era" Stallone films.  (I'd say "later", but I'm sure he's done a lot since I've missed completely.)

Personally, I always wished they'd done a follow-up to NIGHTHAWKS.  That was my favorite Stallone film!  I was rather delighted (though not really surprised) when I read-- decades after-the-fact-- that it had started life as "FRENCH CONNECTION III", only Gene Hackman wasn't interested.  There's so much in there that reminded me of FRENCH CONNECTION... only, MORE exciting.

"...and remember, there's NO security!"  --Rutger Hauer

[narfstar]

Trying to watch French Connection or most other seventies movies now is a chore. The pacing just does not hold up.

[profh0011]

THE FRENCH CONNECTION was always like that. The one part of the film that grabs you is when the hitman tries to shoot Gene Hackman, he runs up to the roof, then back to street level, then engages in a high-speed car chase where he tries to catch up with an elevated train. I watched the film again only about 6 months ago, and, yes, it's one of the few I would say is a "chore" to sit through. (The sequel is far worse, however.)

NIGHTHAWKS, however, is a whole other matter... that film NEVER slows down! This kind of thing apparently mattered a lot to my Dad, especially as he got older, and once I ran NIGHTHAWKS for him, it became one of his favorite films.

The crazy thing is, from what I've been reading (decades after-the-fact) is that apparently somebody went too far on that score.  There were a few scenes that really fleshed out some of the characters that were cut before the films' release, and even the climactic shoot-out was, incredibly, cut to pieces.  You see Stallone shoot the villain twice, but the amount of blood afterwards is far more than that should have caused, as, apparently, when they shot the scene, he EMPTIED his gun into the guy. By that point in the plot, it was called for. Why build suspense for the entire length of a movie, only to leave your audience unsatisfied at the end?

[mr_goldenage]

Watched Night Falcon from Thailand last night..... think Spider-Man meets Nightwing......with two female assistants ... really given the fact it was in Thai dialect it was pretty decent action flick.... 3 1/2 bloody thumbs up.

Richard

[profh0011]

    Just finished KING OF KINGS  (1961).  This is a study in contrasts.  It reminds me a bit of another film Harry Guardino was in-- MADIGAN (1968).  Now let me explain that.  MADIGAN is-- supposedly-- a story about a tough detective and his partner trying to track down an insane killer, while the main character's marriage slowly disintegrates.  But more than half the film focuses on the Police Commissioner and HIS problems, and except for a couple of very brief scenes where they cross paths, the two parts of the film have nothing in common.  Perhaps it was an early example of "parallel" storytelling.  All I know is, the first time I saw it, it left me very frustrated.

    With KING OF KINGS (which, as someone rightly pointed out at the IMDB site, is, in NO way a remake of the Cecil B. Demille silent film of the same name!!) more than half the film is a "Roman Empire" movie, all about oppulance, excess, depravity, evil, etc.  Until about the time of the "sermon on the mount" scene, Jesus is reduced to a bit player in what is allegedly "his" movie.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, as the same was done in THE ROBE and BEN HUR (the latter appears to be the film MGM most deliberately was trying to copy in style, right down to the movie poster art).  But depending on what you're looking for, this film can be baffling, maddening, frustrating, or simply inspiring.  Take yer pick.

    For example... virtually all the miracles are described, not shown.  The scene where the crowd shouts to free "Barrabus!" --is DESCRIBED, not SHOWN! (When that happened, my jaw dropped, even though today was probably the 5th time I've seen this over the years.)  Even the death of Judas-- Barrabus finds his body just as the tree branch breaks, you don't actually see him kill himself.

    It is interesting how they expanded certain characters, like Lucius (Ron Randell), the Roman Centurion, who we wind up seeing all the way back to the slaughter of the newborns, the tax census-check-up 12 years later, in Pilate's court, and in charge of the crucifiction.  (I've only seen Randell in one other movie-- THE LONE WOLF AND HIS LADY, which was really bad, even by "B"-movie mystery standards.)

    Barrabus, as someone said at the IMDB, is expanded from a mere murderer to a freedom-fighting rebel leader (like Judah Maccabbee), and is virtually the main character in the entire film.  As for Harry Guardino, I've lost count of how many times I've seen him in DIRTY HARRY or THE ENFORCER.

    One of the most prolonged scenes in the film involves Herod Antipas, his wife, and their daughter (his wife apparently hadn't bothered to get a divorce from HIS BROTHER at the time).  Someone noted it's almost surprising that after going to such lengths to show Salome's erotic dance for her father, and then the long, long, dramatic scene where she asks for the head of John The Baptist ("HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND???") they don't follow-up and show what happened to HER, afterwards.  During the trial of Jesus, she's sitting there on the side, looking as if she has lost her mind.  She seems totally in a trance or something, as if all life has gone out of her...

    Pilate (Hurd Hatfield, who some years back I finally got to see in THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY) turns out to be a real bastard.  They totally skipped the scene where Jesus is interrogated by the Jewish elders, but the trial before Pilate is shown in more detail than in the Bible, with Lucius arguing in Jesus' defense.  When Herod sends Jesus back to Pilate, his anger & annoyance grows and he seems to relish having him whipped just for getting on his nerves, rather than breaking any law.



    What's interesting is... I read that some 45 minutes of footage was CUT just before release.  Makes me wonder, WHAT did they cut?  Could it have been any of the scenes merely described in remaining dialogue?

    It's still a fascinating film, but now I'm really looking forward to sitting thru JESUS OF NAZARETH again.  I remember at the time that was made, it seemed the whole point to it was the do the "definitive" Jesus movie-- and in many ways, I think they succeeded.  Even if it has the strange thing where they DON'T actually show any miracles onscreen-- and you never see Jesus after he dies.  It struck me the person who did the film may have aimed it at athiests-- to show them it doesn't matter if you believe he was the son of God or not-- his words and his actions were what counted.

[Captain Audio]

I just watched DEMOLITION MAN for the first time in nearly twenty years. What a great movie. It was even better than I remembered it.

I have a store bought VHS tape of this movie, that I found in a bin of old tapes I was given years ago. I pull it out every now and then.
I agree with others that Sondra Bullock's pants are a major contribution to modern cinema.

[Captain Audio]

Have you seen KILLER CLOWNS  FROM OUTER SPACE?

Yep a wacked out movie and fun to watch. Royal Dano is one of my favorites, with a long and honorable career.

[narfstar]

I will have to watch King of Kings. It has probably been over 40 years since I saw it. I think IN SEARCH OF HISTORICAL JESUS was popular around the time Jesus of Nazareth came out. That may have explained the films lack of showing Christ's true Divine nature.

[profh0011]

"Royal Dano is one of my favorites, with a long and honorable career."

He's plays Peter in KING OF KINGS (1961) !

[Captain Audio]

I will have to watch King of Kings. It has probably been over 40 years since I saw it. I think IN SEARCH OF HISTORICAL JESUS was popular around the time Jesus of Nazareth came out. That may have explained the films lack of showing Christ's true Divine nature.

Much of the Bible ,Old Testament as well as the Gospels, is second third or forth person accounts rather than anyone describing exactly what they themselves saw. Even in supposed first person accounts there's no dispassionate observer telling all as it happens.
Much of the accounts of miracles are like that, and much of what happened at the trial.
When some complain of inconsistencies or contradictions in the Bible they are not getting the point that the Bible passes down a true accurate account of what was said about events. If every witness tells exactly the same story with agreement on every detail an investigator will assume something is fishy and that the witnesses have been coached.
The supposed inconsistencies go a long way towards improving credibility of the overall story. Its counter intuitive, but that's often the way things are in the real world.

PS
IIRC first role of Royal Dano I remember was the dying soldier in "Red Badge of Courage".

[narfstar]

Yes you are correct Captain. Sorta the same thing with the flood of Noah. Almost all cultures have some version of a great flood. Due to the passage of time they came out different but point to a historical fact. If everyone descended from Noah and his family of survivors they would have all known the story but details changed over time.

[Roygbiv666]

GLADIATOR w. Russel Crowe

Was flipping through the channels and saw this was on - edited to take out the loverly violence, so I popped in the DVD. Good stuff.

[profh0011]

I saw GLADIATOR when it came out.  Maybe 6 months later, I happened upon THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE on TCM, and realized, it was the same story. Only, much better-written.

[Captain Audio]

I saw GLADIATOR when it came out.  Maybe 6 months later, I happened upon THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE on TCM, and realized, it was the same story. Only, much better-written.

Exactly right. Though I liked TFOTRE better, mainly due to Sophia Loren.

There's a series of novels about an immortal Roman soldier that begins pretty much exactly the way Gladiator starts off. In those books when taken away to be executed the soldier falls into a freezing northern sea and when thawed out centuries later he comes back to life, much like Captain America.
That series is decades older than the Gladiator movie.
Stories often borrow from much older stories, often without the author consciously realizing it.

[profh0011]

I thought both stories had as one of their points the danger of a monarchy where the person in line for the throne may not only not be the best for the job, but could be a danger to the entire country. In this case, the Emperor's son was apparently insane (a running problem with quite a few of the Caesars, it seems-- see also Caligula, Nero, etc.). And tragically, the guy DIED before he could have it publicly known and put in official written documents who he REALLY wanted to take over once he was gone. Given the circumstances, his choice, FOOLISHLY, decides to step aside, so as to, in his mind, avoid a possible civil war (as happened when Julius Caesar was murdered). Had he instead KILLED the Emperor's son himself, he could have saved himself-- and a lot of other people-- an awful lot of trouble.

I found THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE to be far better-written, and also much wider in its scope, especially when it touched on the growing depravity of the Senate. They're faced with a situation where those they've conquered and who now have turned from hunters to farmers and supply them with their food, want to become Roman citizens. Instead of doing the sensible thing, having loyal "Romans" guarding the borders, they decided to get offended by such "arrogance" and to make an example of them by SLAUGHTERING the farmers.  What a pack of A**H***s. At that moment, you know the fate of Rome is sealed, and deservedly so (not that it hadn't been for centuries already before that).

GLADIATOR dumbed it all down to "just" a one-on-one personal vendetta revenge story.

[profh0011]

"Stories often borrow from much older stories, often without the author consciously realizing it."

Another example of this might be the 1932 film THE MUMMY.  It's been pointed out numerous times that there was (allegedly) no precidence for such a story either in Egyptian culture or in Hollywood.  Yet a couple years ago I ran across a website which listed a virtual multitude of stories in the "Mummy" genre, in films and books, going back to the turn of the century at least.  Of course, most of the stories from before the '32 film are not well-known to modern audiences at all.

In a related bit, ever since DARK SHADOWS it seems there's been a growing number of "Dracula" and vampire stories involving reincarnation, something that had nothing to do with Bram Stoker's novel, but which was the center of the whole 1932 film's story.  (Hollywood has a bad habit of mixing source materials-- sometimes deliberately, sometimes unknowingly.)

[Roygbiv666]

Um - did Fall have dudes fighting tigers? Maximus fought tigers. While fighting a dude with a cool mask. WIN.

GLADIATOR dumbed it all down to "just" a one-on-one personal vendetta revenge story.

[Captain Audio]

"Stories often borrow from much older stories, often without the author consciously realizing it."

Another example of this might be the 1932 film THE MUMMY.  It's been pointed out numerous times that there was (allegedly) no precidence for such a story either in Egyptian culture or in Hollywood.  Yet a couple years ago I ran across a website which listed a virtual multitude of stories in the "Mummy" genre, in films and books, going back to the turn of the century at least.  Of course, most of the stories from before the '32 film are not well-known to modern audiences at all.

The Mummy was suggested by a short story printed in Weird tales in 1930. The story is "A Visitor From Egypt" by Frank Belarusse Long, Jr.
I found the story in a horror anthology many years ago. The Mummy of the Brenden Frazier films is very much like the creature of the short story.

Speaking of Mummies, Bram Stoker, and reincarnation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jewel_of_Seven_Stars
Another likely inspiration for the 1932 Mummy.

[profh0011]

Victor Mature fought a tiger in DEMETRIUS AND THE GLADIATORS... and that had a better story all-round than EITHER "FALL" or "GLADIATOR".

"I had a man killed. I ordered him to rise. HE'S STILL DEAD!!!"
--Caligula (Jay Robinson)

[profh0011]

I remember sitting in the theatre watching the Brendan Fraser movie and thinking, I bet I'm the only one in this room who recognizes ALL the earlier films this one is ripping off all at once (including, near the end, LAND OF THE PHARAOHS).

I get the feeling that film wasn't "written", it was "assembled".   

[Captain Audio]

I remember sitting in the theatre watching the Brendan Fraser movie and thinking, I bet I'm the only one in this room who recognizes ALL the earlier films this one is ripping off all at once (including, near the end, LAND OF THE PHARAOHS).

I get the feeling that film wasn't "written", it was "assembled".   

I think it was meant that way, sort of like the Indian Jones "Raiders of the Lost Ark" movie being loosely based on the 50's movie "the Secret of the Incas", with a healthy dose of the old cliffhanger movie theatre series action.
"the Rocketeer" was seen as a straight up rip off of "King of the Rocketmen" and the "Commando Cody" series.
This sort of film is more of a tribute than a rip off.
You can't go wrong recreating the feel of this sort of legendary motion picture, locked in the memory of the old timer who actually buys the tickets so his kids can get a glimpse of the magic of those days.

[paw broon]

Sorry to move away from those epic dramas, and religion (well, actually I am happy to move away from religion) but I want to mention the current series of New Tricks.  The new boss arrived in last night's eplsode and, while the story was interesting enough, there was a bitof back story to be shovelled in.  I think this will work out and the show could continue for a good while with this new cast.  Not the first time a show has changed cast and characters and gone on to even greater success, e.g. Doctor Who and Taggart, where the lead actor died, they brought in a new star and went on even though there was no one called Taggart still in the show.  But the theme was still by the mighty Maggie Bell.