|
Post by andydecker on Mar 3, 2020 19:19:42 GMT
Watched Requiem (BBC 2018) on tv. At the end I was disappointed. It started well and I liked the actress - even if she looked like the sister of Anna Farris, the star of the sitcom Mom, which felt odd -, still the conclusion felt tacked on and it was too long. The indecisiveness also felt odd, too much kidnapped child and crime and not enough supernatural. The whole Dr.Dee stuff felt incredibly wasted and was underdeveloped, and the drug crime sub-plot was just filler. Boring filler too. It is hard to get a supernatural series right, and while there is no shortage of the topic at the moment on tv, I have not seen one yet which I liked. The last one was Penny Dreadful, and this is a few years old already.
|
|
|
Post by andydecker on Mar 3, 2020 19:27:08 GMT
. But Hollywood's let me down before... That is true. I still mourn for del Toro's abandoned Mountains of Madness. And to think the project was thrown in the trash because an epic disaster like the godawful Prometheus had a few similar plot points. Unbelievable.
|
|
|
Post by Dr Strange on Mar 3, 2020 19:30:55 GMT
Have to say I am quite interested in this. Not my favorite Lovecraft story, but it has some potential to be something interesting. I'm quite hopeful about it too. I've always felt that Lovecraft had some great ideas, but his use of English irritates me and detracts from reading his stuff. A bit like how it's hard to appreciate a well-designed building because the builder decided he'd finished the job but left all the scaffolding up. So a movie which (with luck) keeps the plot but loses the Sticklebrick prose style could be great. But Hollywood's let me down before... Word is that Richard Stanley is intending this to be the first in a trilogy of Lovecraft-based films, with The Dunwich Horror next in the pipeline.
|
|
|
Post by helrunar on Mar 3, 2020 22:51:09 GMT
I am thinking of going to see it tomorrow evening--a local rep theater is screening it. The actual release did not last long and I think finished up a couple of weeks ago. I'm expecting zilch from it. My main concern is that I not burst out laughing every time there's a closeup of Cage doing his version of "serious horror movie acting." I have a loud laugh at times.
The movie I'd really like to see is Gretel and Hansel, from director Osgood Perkins, with Alice Krige. That one closed before I could see it, but the same rep theater might screen it soon.
H.
|
|
|
Post by bluetomb on Mar 4, 2020 10:38:02 GMT
I enjoyed The Color Out of Space tremendously on Friday. Would caution that it doesn't work the way these things "should" as it were, in "good" film terms. But I think it nails rapacious, unknowable cosmic force, there's a lot of trippily gorgeous neon violet, Nicolas Cage on hilarious good form (intentionally so at times) and some nice freakish body horror. Not read the story in about 20 years so can't really comment on how good it is as an adaptation, but I'd definitely rate it high on midnight movie terms.
Richard Stanley did a very entertaining afterword and Q&A. Among other things mentioned that a cameo role in the film from Tommy Chong was originally to be played by a shaman friend of his who unfortunately died of liver failure after performing a ritual to Yog-Sothoth...
|
|
|
Post by Dr Strange on Mar 4, 2020 10:55:07 GMT
Richard Stanley did a very entertaining afterword and Q&A. Among other things mentioned that a cameo role in the film from Tommy Chong was originally to be played by a shaman friend of his who unfortunately died of liver failure after performing a ritual to Yog-Sothoth... Yes, RS talks about Uranie, the French shaman (and ex-electrician) who believed in the Old Ones, in the Fortean Times article. It is quite a long (8 pages, including some very cool illustrations) and really very interesting piece - well worth a read. Stanley has a lot of interesting things to say, and definitely seems to get "cosmic horror".
|
|
|
Post by Dr Strange on Mar 4, 2020 15:51:48 GMT
It will also be nice (and for me a bit nostalgic, I expect) to see Tommy Chong on screen again - unfortunately he too has had some serious health issues recently.
|
|
|
Post by bluetomb on Mar 4, 2020 18:04:38 GMT
Richard Stanley did a very entertaining afterword and Q&A. Among other things mentioned that a cameo role in the film from Tommy Chong was originally to be played by a shaman friend of his who unfortunately died of liver failure after performing a ritual to Yog-Sothoth... Yes, RS talks about Uranie, the French shaman (and ex-electrician) who believed in the Old Ones, in the Fortean Times article. It is quite a long (8 pages, including some very cool illustrations) and really very interesting piece - well worth a read. Stanley has a lot of interesting things to say, and definitely seems to get "cosmic horror". I'll have to check that issue out, sounds like great stuff.
|
|
|
Post by bluetomb on Mar 4, 2020 18:11:28 GMT
It will also be nice (and for me a bit nostalgic, I expect) to see Tommy Chong on screen again - unfortunately he too has had some serious health issues recently. I'm a little too young for him to have been a proper favourite, but I did smile to remember him some from my student days. Hope his treatment's working and that he's managing to take the edge off ok.
|
|
|
Post by jamesdoig on Mar 6, 2020 20:09:01 GMT
I enjoyed The Color Out of Space tremendously on Friday. I liked it too, one of the better Lovecraft efforts on screen. Good to hear there's more in the pipeline.
|
|
|
Post by jamesdoig on Mar 6, 2020 20:29:19 GMT
It will also be nice (and for me a bit nostalgic, I expect) to see Tommy Chong on screen again - unfortunately he too has had some serious health issues recently. I'm happily surprised to learn he's still alive - and not a bad innings.
|
|
|
Post by bluetomb on Mar 8, 2020 13:03:03 GMT
I enjoyed The Color Out of Space tremendously on Friday. I liked it too, one of the better Lovecraft efforts on screen. Good to hear there's more in the pipeline. I'm a little wary of the rumblings about it (the being or just written Dunwich Horror) having a political dimension, near future in MAGA country, as I'm just not convinced Lovecraft is the right medium for that kind of thing, but am still much looking forward to it.
|
|
|
Post by kooshmeister on Mar 19, 2020 20:19:41 GMT
Saw an episode of the new (ish?) Creepshow series, adapting the Stephen King short story Gray Matter with mixed results. It was a decent enough little chiller, and quite gross, as I'd hoped it would be, but I thought that Richie's monster form at the end was a little uninspired. It looked less like a freakish humanoid blob and more like Sloth from The Goonies.
|
|
|
Post by Knygathin on Mar 29, 2020 0:42:43 GMT
Mai GODD!!! (Spurting out saliva in overexcitement.) Goodness Grace!! I had not seen Berkeley Square! Can you imagine!? So I immediately had to remedy that. H. P. Lovecraft’s favorite fantasy film, of which he said, “the most weirdly perfect embodiment of my own moods and pseudo-memories that I have ever seen”. From 1933, starring Leslie Howard. Inspired by a novel by Henry James, The Sense of the Past, which I have not read (I have actually not read anything by James, not even The Turn of the Screw). It is about a dreamy man of letters who is whisked back in time to an earlier existence in the 18th century.
Lovecraft went to see this movie four times! I am surprised he had the patience to sit through it even once, come with his dislike for cinema in general and insipid romance in particular. Superficially so perhaps, but the film is quite sensitive and beautiful. And Leslie Howard is a Lovecraft look-alike, and in spirit too in this film. This could be seen as the documentary story of his failed marriage to Sonia Greene.
I find it fascinating to here view the same characters Lovecraft viewed, and to hear the same voices of fine English that he heard and appreciated. This is the closest to anything like a direct connection to Lovecraft I will ever reach.
The film has similarities of time fluctuation to the haunting The Queen of Spades (1944).
|
|
|
Post by Knygathin on Mar 30, 2020 12:52:44 GMT
I searched for the term "Berkeley Square" on four or five different fantastic fiction discussion forums, similar to this one, and don't get a single hit. This fine little film has not been discussed even once, for as long as these forums have been in existence over the past 20 years or so. That is noteworthy.
Berkeley Square has not, as far as I know, been released on VHS or DVD. It was believed to have been lost until the 1970s. But there is a crappy copy available on the Internet and Youtube. A few years ago a restored 35mm print showed up, that was shown on the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival. I hope they will make a digital print of it.
My favorite scenes in Berkeley Square, is the ball where Peter Standish (or Lovecraft, if you will) revels in an 18th century dance with his love, and the drama really catches on when he later makes himself socially impossible by stumbling on modern words and compulsively mentioning future events, getting himself more and more entangled in turbulent arguments. Tom, the haughty brother of Peter's betrothed, is also quite magnificent, in his well dressed 18th century aristocratic flair, incessantly sniffing from his snuff box.
|
|