You can never trust trailers but my God, the new Renfield trailer looks magnificent! Could the film itself be as good? Could this be the definitive vampire comedy that will unseat Love at First Bite and present one of Nicolas Cage‘s greatest-all-time performances?
If the film turns out as good as the trailer I’m seriously in favor of Cage being Oscar-nominated for Best Actor…trhe campaign would become a career tribute thing, and he could win. Look at him, for God’s sake! Listen to that enunciation! The crescendo of his career!
Directed by Chris McKay and written by Ryan Ridley (based on an story by Robert Kirkman), Renfield is about a toxic, dysfunctional relationship between Renfield, the apprentice vampire played by Dwight Frye in Tod Browning‘s original 1931 Dracula and played in Renfield by Nicholas Hoult. Awkwafina plays Renfield’s traffic-cop girlfriend.
Universal will open Renfield on 4.14.23. Possibly the first excellent film of 2023!
Duel, the made-for-TV thriller that launched StevenSpielberg’s career, originally aired on 11.13.71. The original length was 74 minutes.
To the best of my knowledge the original TV version hasn’t been in circulation, if ever. The Duel Bluray contains only the extended 90-minute version that was assembled for theatrical release in Europe and Australia. Here are two links for the original version, in two sizes — 74 minute version #1 (3.7 GB) and 74 minute version #2 (700.9 MB).
Filming happened in a desert region northeast of Los Angeles (Sierra Highway, Agua Dulce Canyon Road, Soledad Canyon Road, Angeles Forest Highway). Principal photography took 13 days (three longer than the scheduled), leaving 10 days for editing prior to broadcast as the ABC Movie of the Week.
The positiveresponse was such that Universal decided to release Duel theatrically in Europe and Australia. Wiki excerpt: “The TV movie, however, wasn’t long enough for theatrical release, so Universal had Spielberg spend two days filming several new scenes, turning Duel into a 90-minute film.
The 90-minute Duel Bluray was released on 10.14.14, as part of the eight-film box set Steven Spielberg Director’s Collection. It was also released as a separate Bluray on 5.5.15.
Condemn and cancel the following persons for creating this obviously deranged and predatory serving of erotic titillation — a scene that more or less gives a pass to all would-be rapists and gun fetishists: Robert Redford (alive), director George Roy Hill (passed in 2002), screenwriter William Goldman (died in 2018), actress Katharine Ross (because she went along with it!). Who else?
YouTube commenter #1 (Masked Panther): “The joker is supposed to be a respected dangerous lunatic. Not some pregnant man. So sad the direction D.C. is going / allowing.”
YouTube commenter #2 (Harley Quinn): “If this doesn’t show how dead DC is then [I don’t know] what will.”
Last night a six–month–oldSubstackpiece called “TheImportanceofBeing Earnest,” penned by Sherman McCoy, was passed along, I blame the whole trend of irony-poisoned, meta-commentary dialogue on the Marvel/D.C. plague as well as Millennials and Zoomers in general. I for one would love it if sincere dialogue and plotting where to make a comeback.
A forerunner of North by Northwest, Alfred Hitchcock‘s Saboteur (’42) is about an innocent man (Robert Cummings‘ “Barry Kane”) suspected of arson, espionage and manslaughter, and is on the run from the bulls as he darts from one location to another.
Early on the handcuffed Kane shows up at a mountain cabin occupied by “Phillip Martin” (Vaughan Glaser), a blind but kindly and obviously wise and well educated older fellow. (Phillip’s distant European cousin was the blind, bearded hermit who showed kindness to Boris Karloff‘s Frankenstein monster in The Bride of Frankenstein.)
Phillip’s niece Pat Martin (PriscillaLane) shows up, spots Kane’s cuffs and concludes he’s the alleged arsonist the cops are after. She takes Phillip aside and warns him about the “dangerous” Kane.
Phillip patiently explains to Pat that his blindness has left him with heightened perceptions, and not just in terms of touch, hearing and a sensitivity to aromas. He knew Kane was wearing handcuffs from the get-go, he tells her, because he could hear their slight clinking, but more importantly he can sense when a person is innocent or good of heart, and he knows without question that Kane is no saboteur.
In fact, several people whom Barry encounters during the first half of Saboteur not only believe in his innocence but help him to elude capture — the mother of a deceased burn victim, a cheerful truck driver, a troupe of circus performers.
Saboteur was shot between December 1941 and February 1942. Roughly two months after finishing principal photography, the big premiere happened in Washington, D.C. on 4.22.42. It opened in New York City’s Radio City Music Hall on 5.8.42. Here’s Bosley Crowther’s review.
What happened then? Renner was runoverbythetruck–sizedSnowcat, treds and all, blunt force impact upon one of his legs or his chest or something. Possibly, one suspects, because he failed to secure the vehicle with the emergency brake. Or because the Snowcat had been taken possession of by Christine or HAL 9000.
It was announced a few hours ago that Sara Dosa‘s Fire of Love (Neon/National Geographic) has won the North Carolina Film Critics Association award for 2022’s Best Documentary. The same award was handed out last month by the Chicago Film Critics Association. I respect Dosa’s film as far as it went, but it’s not as good as all that. Here’s my 7.13.22 review:
“Fire of Love tells the story of devoted (one could say obsessive) volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft, who died in a volcanic explosion atop Japan’s Mount Unzen on 6.3.91 — 31 years ago.
“The married couple — French natives, deep soulmates — had been studying, cataloguing, filming and photo-snapping volcanic eruptions since the early ’70s, and were among the most fearless and exacting in their field.
“Dosa’s 93-minute doc is mostly composed of volcano footage (color, 16mm) that the Kraffts shot over the years, and which apparently was only made accessible to Dosa and her producers somewhat recently. The film also contains a fair amount of footage of the Kraffts themselves.
“The dynamic visuals (miles-high clouds of gray ash, thunderous rumbling, pools of intense red-gold lava bubbling over and streaming down mountainsides) are exciting or at least fascinating until they become familiar, at which point you’re left with ‘okay, here are some more lava flows’ and ‘wow, more shots of nuclear blast ash clouds.’
“The problem, for me, is Dosa’s decision to weave it all together with Miranda July‘s whispering, barely enunciated narration. I was on the verge of abandoning the doc because of this aspect. July sounds like a parent quietly reading a Babar the Elephant story to a small child at bedtime.
“The idea, presumably, is to pass along a certain romantic sensibility as well as (I gathered) soft-spoken Katia’s view of volcano worship, marriage, the twists and turns of nature…the whole magilla. But if ever a narration track rubbed me the wrong way, it was this one.
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“The honest truth is that I found Fire of Love a tad boring at first. If the Kraffts hadn’t been killed there would be no film, just as Werner Herzog‘s Grizzly Man wouldn’t have been a film if Timothy Treadwell hadn’t been eaten by a bear.
WordPress tells me that I’ve written and posted 49,645 items and stories over the last 18 and 1/2 years. 18.5 x 12 = 222 months = 223 posts per month or 7.5 posts per day. This is why I revisit and repost from time to time. Figure half of what I’ve written is better than the other half, so just under 25,000 are possibly worth a revisit or reconsideration. Narrow these down to the real creme de la creme (roughly 20%) and you’re left with 5000 gold-standard riffs, reviews and articles. Well-written articles sometimes spark ideas for fresh takes. Part of the process.
