And guess who sold off his record player a while ago? Boooo to me!
Clearer message: Go here. BUY STUFF. Be happy. That is all. Rinse and repeat if necessary (and it will be necessary). Show this post to friends and don’t be at all surprised when it works on them as well. OBEY.
Okay, NOW, that is all.
-GW
As I’m er, vintage enough to have been around to see it when it premiered back in 1975, it’s just great to see Dan Curtis’ Trilogy of Terror getting a snazzy 4K version and unleashed on the masses by Kino Lorber. This flick put me in a sleepless zone for a while, but it also became one of my favorite scary films that’s lingered in the memory in terms of nailing a particular set of moods and generating a superb amount of tension.
While I kind of wish this restoration would have included Curtis’ nowhere as impressive 1996 followup, Trilogy of Terror II, I’ll take what’s here for the pure scare factor and still somewhat timely Richard Matheson stories. Kino sadly has no new trailer up, but this tiny snippet from the final episode of the anthology, “Amelia” is all you need to know about what’s coming your way when you place that order. The rest of what’s on the disc is listed below the jump.
So… this is actually happening and let’s just say my skin is crawling (and NOT from fear). Granted, the cast seems solid and veteran TV director Angiezka Holland is an excellent choice (her work on AMC’s The Killing, HBO’s The Wire and other shows shows she’s a master at her craft), but the original film is so (and still) perfect at what it does that even the best intended reworking will fall short by comparison. I may catch this when it runs, but why the hell is it playing on Mother’s Day? Yeah, I get the inherent humor here, but ha-ha, I know some people won’t like the idea of this being a way to end an otherwise fine holiday. Eh, my mom will probably watch it just because she was around to see the Polanski classic and I think she liked it a lot.
(Yeah, it LOOKS creepy… but sadly, by network standards ONLY)
The mini-series format and network not cable airing bugs me as well, but given that network TV has been approaching mild levels of cable-like content for a while now, I’m sure that this will deliver where it counts. That said, I definitely don’t like some saying this isn’t a remake because of the Parisian setting and whatever else has been changed from the book and original film. Zoe Saldana’s got a similarly skinny frame and has a variation on the haircut Mia Farrow had, it’s still the same plot (despite a few changes here and there) and if they show the baby in this one, it’ll destroy the ending of the film because it ruins the mystery completely of what the spawn of the devil would look like. That and you can’t top the dream sequence from Polanski’s classic one bit.
As noted in the title, I’ll try to keep an open mind, but there are a few strikes against this one already for me. Hopefully, the cast and director can save this one enough that even the more ardent fans will want to check it out. I’d imagine though, if it DOES do well, we’ll either see NBC trot it out yearly (eek) or get a sequel fast-tracked for next year (double eek). That idea didn’t do well for the original film at ALL, by the way…
I’ve never trusted machines much even though like most of you, I tend to take them all for granted. Heck, we built those stupid machines (and even built the robots that build most machines today), so it’s not like they’re going to NOT do what we want them to like a mistreated pet suddenly turning on its owner, right? RIGHT? Wrong. Granted, plenty of industrial and freak accidents claim some while humans using machines constructed for menial to major tasks to kill other humans has been a thing ever since man started inventing and building stuff. Someone gets mad enough or crazy enough and even the most innocent looking tool gets used to do someone in, usually in a pretty messy manner. If Lizzie Borden had say, an old rolling pin instead of an axe, she might have merely lumped up her parents and not hacked them to bits. Even with an axe, bad aim is still pretty deadly…
Call me crazy, but I find this whole need to recapture every big media frenzy tale that really doesn’t need to be retold because someone actually died as a truncated TV or big deal high-budget movie presented once completed as “based on actual events”, “inspired by a true story” or however else any flick that mixes made up for extra oomph and actual things that happened to be kind of stupid. Granted, movies have been doing this for decades, but it’s getting so damn predictable that anyone committing a crime worthy of a few too many news cycles has practically got MADE FOR TEE-VEE tramp-stamped in big type (and misspelled exactly like that) just where you’d expect.
That said, I bet this will be a total hoot, between Mamet’s tendency to write his dialog all too well and Pacino’s tendency to be Pacino in crazy mode with some of his more out-there performances. On the other hand, this might actually be good… but I really don’t give a flying rat about the subject matter. So…. will I watch this? No. Or to be more truthful, Hell no (but if it’s reviewed as unintentionally hilarious, well… I lied and there goes two hours when it’s rebroadcast)…
"DESTROY ALL FANBOYS!" 