Howls of Laughter: The Wolfman, Redux

By Steve Evans

Here's a Halloween rental idea for a flick that most people managed to miss when it hit theaters last winter after a delay of nearly two years. Take a looky at Benicio Del Toro's pet project, The Wolfman. Keep the volume at a moderate level for effective background texture at your Halloween party. Or crank it up for a laff.

Universal Studios had a hairy idea: take one of the lesser Universal monsters from the studio's cycle of classic horror movies from the 1940s, slick him up with digital effects and a handsome makeup job by the great Rick Baker, and turn loose a remake to see if it gets contemporary filmgoers barking with excitement. Who knows? Maybe they thought it would spark a revival of old horror films, the way Brendan Frasier kick-started the Mummy franchise 10 years ago. It certainly helps when you have two Oscar-winning stars on board (Del Toro and Anthony Hopkins), as well as a director (Joe Johnson) known for helming expensive, effects-laden productions (Jumanji, Jurassic Park III). It also doesn't hurt that Del Toro is an avowed fan of the original The Wolfman (1941) and had been trying for half a decade to bring an update to the screen.

Sad to say, this flea-bitten retelling of the old classic spurs more giggles than gasps. For all the guts, gore and green money on display in this new Wolfman, the project labors under the weight of living up to its inspiration. Trying too hard to pay homage to Lon Chaney Jr. in the not-bad original film, Del Toro as the titular wolfman looks more like a bloated Brad Pitt, licking his tongue inside his mouth as though trying to dislodge a bit of raw meat from between his teeth. Hopkins seems content to chew the (mostly computer-generated) scenery, delivering a carbon-copy of his performance as the syphilitic Dr. Van Helsing in Coppolla's 1992 Dracula movie. Pretty Emily Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada) has a devil of a time making any impression, since she's here only to make a fuss over Del Toro and help him fight through his lycanthropy, which must be inconvenient as hell on moonlit dates.

Fans of the original film will enjoy the inside jokes and nods to Wolfman lore peppered throughout the screenplay credited to Andrew Kevin Walker (Se7en), but extensively re-written, reportedly at the director's insistence late in pre-production. Really, though, this new Wolfman owes as much to John Landis' crazy cult classic An American Werewolf in London (1981) as to the old Universal Studios tropes that also inspired Landis. This new picture delivers a corker of a chase to enliven the film after way too much plot in Act 1, but the sequence pales in comparison to the virtually identical mayhem that Landis staged in Picadilly Circus for the climax of American Werewolf.

What's left is a terrific makeup job by Academy Award winner Baker (he won the first Oscar for makeup effects in American Werewolf), as well as two excruciating transformation sequences and a decapitation that's so amusing they reworked it into the climax so the gag could be used one more time. By then, The Wolfman has already lost a lot of blood and most of its bite.

As a double-bill with the original Wolfman this silly remake offers adequate Halloween chills. Just don't be disappointed if the picture comes off less like the Lon Chaney classic and more like Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

Cinema Uprising copyright (c) 2010 by Steve Evans. All rights reserved.

Loose Nuns of Black Narcissus

By Steve Evans

If you've never seen Black Narcissus, co-directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, indulge yourself in the glorious Criterion Collection edition, recently revamped and re-released last month. Deborah Kerr leads as a nun charged with starting a mission in the mountains of the Himalayas, where the exotic locale and sensuous locals gradually push the holy women over the edge of sanity.

Behind the scenes, Powell was conducting a torrid affair with actress Kathleen Byron, above, having only recently broken off an extramarital entanglement, yes, with co-star Kerr, who was married to producer Tony Bartley at the time. I mention this so you'll take close note of the interaction between Kerr and Byron while viewing Black Narcissus. I'm betting the off-screen shenanigans between the director and his leading ladies lent a certain tension to their thespian exertions on the set.

Black Narcissus is one of the great Technicolor achievements of the 1940s and an absorbing psychodrama that stands with the best of the Powell-Pressburger oveure, which includes The Red Shoes and A Canterbury Tale.

Enjoy.

Cinema Uprising c 2010 by Steve Evans. All rights reserved.

Dennis Hopper dead at 74

By Steve Evans

Two-time Oscar nominee and legendary hellraiser Dennis Hopper died today of complications stemming from prostate cancer. The 74-year-old Hollywood iconoclast partied with James Dean, bedded Natalie Wood, smoked grass with Jack Nicholson and was once married to Michelle Phillips of Mamas and Papas fame for an entire seven days. Those aren't even the highlights of the man's life; just the side notes.

I shall miss Dennis Hopper and rue that his amazing career has reached a coda, probably much later than even he would have expected.

Perhaps best known for directing and starring in Easy Rider, Hopper was likewise renowned for his hard-partying ways and evidently gleeful embrace of madness, tempered only slightly by his advancing years and the illness that would ultimately take his life.

I could dwell on tales of Hopper's wild life of excess, his consumption of vodka, beer, and narcotics in quantities that could easily have killed seven strong men, his five turbulent marriages and chaotic career, all of which would be too easy, too obvious and ultimately pointless.

Dennis Hopper was an artist of uncompromising vision who let nothing and no one get in his way. His thirst for living was exceeded only by his dedication to cinematic craft, of which he was a master. No actor could have embodied Frank Booth in Blue Velvet with such total, chilling effectiveness as Hopper, whose performance in that seminal David Lynch film will lease permanent space in your mind and haunt you forever. You cannot avoid it. I dare you to even try.

It is said Hopper's cameo in Apocalypse Now is autobiographical, as he was allegedly so hopped up on cocaine that Francis Ford Coppolla merely had to point a camera at the actor and let him rip. Apocryphal though the tale may be, the performance lingers in the mind's eye as a near-effortless example of the ramped up mania and exuberance for which Hopper was justly famous, just as his brooding eccentricties could make audiences (and his many lovers) quake in fear.

Here was a man who stomped the earth on terms of his own choosing, reputation be damned. I could care less for the man's reputation, as that is merely the collective assessment of other people's opinions, which I don't care for, either. But I will always hold up Hopper's legacy and life in my admiration of the man's dedication to his principals, no matter who agrees with those principals.

Cue: Sid Vicious' cover of the old Sinatra chestnut, "My Way."

RIP, Dennis. We may not see your kind again. This rotten, boring culture seeks out and destroys men like you, if you don't destroy yourself first. And we are all the more diminished for your absence.

Corey Haim and Other Has-Beens of the Modern Age

By Steve Evans

Former teen actor Corey Haim died earlier this week at 38 of an apparent prescription drug overdose. While few people may remember, much less care about, Haim’s fleeting acting career, his passing got me to thinking about other actors who stubbornly fail to acknowledge their time is up, their careers are over, kaput. Would someone gently tell these top 10 has-beens, please, to go away?

Keanu Reeves. This wooden Indian actor hasn’t had a hit in the 11 years since The Matrix introduced the movie-going world to “bullet time” and transgender directors. I pose the question, by way of Dorothy Parker: if Keanu Reeves died, how could they tell?

Owen Wilson. He allegedly tried in 2007 to off himself, reportedly over a failed relationship with Goldie Hawn’s daughter Kate Hudson. We would do well to wonder if he wasn’t actually despondent, instead, over his mediocre career, the very existence of which is inexplicable.

Jennifer Garner. She married Ben Affleck. Game over. For the both of you.

Jim Carrey. Wasn’t funny 20 years ago. Still isn’t. A face of rubber. The talent of a spent condom, which is a different type of rubber altogether. Ick.

Angelina Jolie. Wanna bet the insides of her lips are tattooed with the instructions, “inflate to 32 psi”? This “actor” copped an Oscar 11 years ago for Girl, Interrupted, the story of a sad little rich girl (Winona Ryder) who gets committed to an asylum for disturbed chicks, Jolie ranking near the top of thehen house pecking order. From all accounts, very little acting was actually involved.

Robert De Niro. C’mon, Bobby. Stop desecrating the legacy of your work in Raging Bull, in Taxi Driver and The Deer Hunter and Godfather Part II with these insipid comedies and lame police procedurals that wouldn’t cut it on the Lifetime Network. Go back to Tribeca and run your film festival. There ya go. Run along, now.

Liza Minnelli. Judy Garland’s little girl just turned 64. Rumor has it, she’s slated to play aging silent film start (and hopeless psychotic) Norma Desmond in a completely unnecessary and unwelcome remake of Sunset Boulevard. Liza. Sweetheart. Go back to the Cabaret, ol’ chum.

Michael Douglas. Son of Kirk. Zeitgeist of finger-on-the-pulse megahits from days gone by, such as Fatal Attraction and Disclosure. Word is, director Oliver Stone has completed a sequel to Wall Street with Douglas reprising his Oscar winning role as Gordon “Greed is Good” Gekko. Word is, the release date has been delayed. Hmm. Now, why would a man of 65, with two Oscars under his belt (the first was for producing One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest 35 years ago), want to toot around making moves when Catherine Zeta Jones is waiting for him at home? More importantly, who wants to see him?

Warren Beatty. Once upon a time the most notorious playboy in Hollywood, Beatty hasn’t seen a soundstage since Town and Country bombed in 2002. Don’t cry. He’s got plenty of money and Annette Bening to keep him warm at night. Did anyone really notice his eight-year absence from the silver screen?

Tom Cruise. What’s he waiting for? The comeback tour? The farewell show? Who cares? Nobody even wants to see pictures of Katie and Suri anymore. How’s Tom supposed to flash those dazzling porcelain veneers on cue when everyone is sitting in another theater down the hall? Not to fret, Tom. Travolta is still kicking around a sequel to Battlefield Earth, with plenty of casting opportunities for fellow believers.

Cinema Uprising copyright (c) 2010 by Cinematic Cteve. All rights reserved.