Well, things have been slow and awkward this month. Northern Ireland has been swamped with heavy rain and ferocious winds that's kinda kept me indoors until yesterday, and life as a whole has been very meandering and sluggish. I get by, but it ain't the most enjoyable of predicaments.
Progress report! Yes, I'm still working on the ever-perpetual site revamp. No, it's not very easy to exactly describe how much progress is made. All the directories have been rearranged and overhauled that'll make my life a real blessing should I ever dedicate time to the site again. Some sections have been given serious makeovers with both new looks and new content, while some parts are just straight copies of their current HTM files. It's not going to be the most consistent lookin' site in the world, but it's not like I'd ever prided myself on my continuity. Besides, it's given me a whole bunch of opportunities to make needlessly-graphical page designs, and that's the best part of web design for me.
I was hoping to have it ready for the start of June, but, well, that seems unlikely. Mid-June might be possible, though as much as I was hyped about it, I haven't made any work on the Bomberman shrine outside of some rough notes and page designs, so even if the site-wide revamp is online by then, that section will have to wait.
Let's cue some old stuff I wrote.
Bride of Frankenstein: Apparently Henry Frankenstein didn't die by being thrown from the top of a windmill, nor did the monster get either torched to death or crushed beneath debris during its burning. Just when Henry plans to leave this unfortunate event behind him, Dr. Pretorius enters the scene and recruits Franky into helping him create a woman from dead tissue. Meanwhile, the monster is taught the ways of life by a friendly blind man, and learns that having friends is good, but after finding out that the woman made especially for him doesn't like him either, he blows himself up. The end.
It's a strange sequel, to put it simply.
The original Frankenstein was a horror film, plain and simple. The monster is freaky-lookin' and he kills a couple of people (if a bit misguided in doing so), and the atmosphere is very stark and bleak. Bride of Frankenstein seems to take a while to really settle in. It begins with a very strange, almost comedic vibe where an old crone takes the spotlight in speaking out against the monster, trying to warn people of its return and then getting uppity when no one listens, followed by a very... peculiar visit to Pretorius's lab, where he displays some tiny home-grown people in jars for Frankenstein. No, seriously. They otherwise have no plot significance. It is admittedly a really stupendous special effects sequence, with the little characters climbing out of jars and running across his desks, even Pretorius picking one of them up with a pair of tongs, but it's quite irrelevant. It felt like something from Jack The Giant Killer instead, though without horrible Irish accents.
And then after that, we focus on the monster, who after some gratuitous scenes of scaring the townsfolk and accidentally drowning another woman, stumbles into the home of a blind man who takes care of him and treats him like a friend. It's actually a very touching scene, and shows that when people aren't instinctively reacting to his monstrous appearance, the monster isn't actually that bad a guy. He does accidentally burn down the guy's house when two hunters start rampaging after him, but if people still hadn't been trying to murder him, it's almost possible that the creature and the blind man could've lived happily together for some time.
From there, the movie gets a bit wibbly-wobbly and drawn-out. Frankenstein backs out of Pretorius's plan, and then rejoins him after the monster (recruited by Pretorius) kidnaps Henry's wife, so he has no choice but to make a mate for the monster. After a rather gruellingly long creation sequence (there's some great cinematography, yes, but it feels much like a reshoot of the original creation sequence, except with two hunchbacks to order around this time), the bride is made, and doesn't really do much beside cock her head like a pigeon and shriek any time the monster does anything. Then the monster hits a self-destruct switch. It just seemed to trail off and drag on for so long that my interest waned, and the conclusion just came across as a bit, well, sudden. A dynamic and emotional send-off for the monster, I'll give it that, but... eh, didn't make the greatest impact on me. Mind you, I'm sure the creation sequence would've been a real treat to have seen in a theatre back in the day. All the loud noises and dramatic low-angles seem custom-made just to make a real electrifying sequence.
Don't make me acknowledge that pun.
Pretorius is a real intriguing character. While Frankenstein almost embraced his madness during the creation of the beast in the first film, he eventually regretted invading on God's territory, and struggled between his desire for scientific progress and desire to, y'know, not have his creations run about murdering people. Pretorius, meanwhile, has no such qualms is quite keen to take Frankenstein's ideas and take them even further. He embraces the idea of introducing "monsters" to the world, and doesn't seem at all surprised to find the monster sneaking up on him while he's having a picnic in a crypt; he even strikes up some idle banter with the monster. He comes across as a real cartoon villain, though, and if it weren't for having such an intriguing actor (that guy was custom-made for darkly-lit low shots!) it'd probably be hard to take him seriously.
It's an odd film. I'm glad I saw it, but it's a very uneven watch; the sequence with the blind man was very much worth it, but the rest was kinda hit and miss. Not sure if I'll bother watching Son of Frankenstein, but the Hammer Horror films might be worth checking out.
Mad Max: Not bad, but not quite as rip-roaring as I was expecting; I didn't know the whole post-apocalyptic angle didn't show up until the second one. It's a very, very straightforward revenge story that just so happens to have some post-infrastructure themes going on, and it creates a very lonely, almost gothic vibe to the film; you wouldn't have to go far before you're out of the reach of civilisation. Some great sequences, though the opening chase scene with the Night Rider steals the show. It's got a quaintness going on, but it wasn't as totally superb as I was hoping, sadly.
The Midwich Cuckoos: Day of the Triffids made me a fan of John Wyndham, so I knew I had to read this (RQ87 and I caught one of the newer film adaptations for it on TV a couple of years ago, I think). A very intriguing story and premise, but as seems customary for his work, it's very plodding and a lot of it is just characters talking about things. There's a lot of talk about the things that could potentially happen, and less... well, things happening. It works in Triffids because, let's face it, the world's in a bit of a state. A majority of the population is blinded, killer plants make easy travelling a thing of the past, and the world will have to rebuild itself knowing that they fucked themselves over with satellite weaponry (spoilers!). There's a lot of pondering to do. In Cuckoos, a lot of the greater threat is only implied, not seen. We hear of the Children in the likes of Russia and so on, but we never see it in-depth or anything. It's the kind of threat an average joe could live their life totally oblivious to, whereas in Triffids... well, shit, you're either permanently blinded or being whipped to death by killer plants. Not the kind of thing you can just ignore.
Today's strained attempt at getting some comment discussion going on: If you had a Frankenstein's monster (don't get pedantic on me about the structure of that sentence >:U ), what would you call it? I'd probably call it Toby. Or maybe Corky. Just depends on how nice it was.
I watched Frankenstein a couple of nights ago; the old 1931 version.
Everyone knows this story. Do we even need a summary? Dude wants to create a functioning human being with science, and then the monster gets a bit uppity and eventually they both die. Bada bing.
For a film over eighty years old, it's held up remarkably well, at least in the visual design. I think it's hard to top Boris Karlov's monster, and Colin Clive is a really, really rad Dr. Frankenstein, at least if you like having the 'stark raving mad' aspect played up . It's a pity the guy died like six years after the film was made, as Clive has such a distinctive look that I feel he could've gotten a cult following in later years. Or maybe that's just me.
It's kind of interesting watching this and comparing it to other 'early' horror movies I've seen, particularly Nosferatu and Creature From The Black Lagoon. Music is a vital part of those two, particularly for Nosferatu since it hasn't any spoken dialogue at all, while Creature practically sledge hammers music in your ears when it wants to set the mood (you could probably see the Creature shopping at Asda and that bloody 'terror' music would still be playing). Frankenstein has absolutely no mood music whatsoever; outside of the opening and closing credits there are no music cues to try and set the scene. The stark and unfriendly atmosphere carries the film by itself, and the absence of music really boosts it along. I don't know if I've blogged about it before, but I've always wondered how different movies would be if you dropped all the music. I mean, Star Wars relies so much on it to imply "look, this is whimsical!" or "watch out for this dude, he's a bad guy!" that if you removed all the music... well, who knows. Would be interesting to see, though.
The monster himself is a very tragic character, although I imagine the producers back in the day didn't fully intend for it. Yes, the monster has a "criminal brain", but he doesn't wake up and immediately think, "I know, let's strangle the shit out of everyone in sight!" The only reason he acts out against his masters is because Fritz, the hunchbacked assistant, is a real nasty piece of work who takes pleasure in threatening him with fire, and it seems Frankenstein and the professor are just itching to snuff the poor guy the moment he acts out of line. And when you can't even rest in the dungeon for some peace and quiet without a hunchback waving a flaming torch in front of your face, you can't blame him for being grouchy. The reason he kills is because that's the only way he knows how to solve his problems; it's not like Franky and Fritz ever tried interacting with him any other way. Let's face it, the monster is practically like a big baby (with better listening skills) in the body of a 7 foot tall power house; you don't try and set fire to a newborn the moment it kicks aside its breakfast. Then again, maybe they did in 1930s Germany?
I've still got Bride of Frankenstein to watch, so... well, I've no expectations, but it sounds like it'll be an intriguing watch.
I'm getting increasingly concerned about how quickly this year is skimming me by. Are we really nearly halfway through? That's not fair, mang!
Well, what is there for me to say? From the viewpoint of a productive mindset, I've done a lot of work on the perpetually-upcoming site revamp, and although slowly progressing, it's coming along really nicely. I'm, uh, not sure if there'll actually be much in the way of new content besides the directory rearranging, CSS design rampaging and so on, but it'll be nice to get the stupid thing done. From the viewpoint of interesting blog entries... well, yeah, I have not been up to anything exciting.
I did have the house to myself for a week, and then I spent it all working on web design. A world of excitement! I did try and watch a movie or two, but it's no fun watching stuff on your own - where's the fun if you can't discuss it with someone afterwards? It probably didn't help that I made yet another attempt to try and sit through a full episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. I love reading about the show, and there were some decent chuckles from the thirty minutes of the Puma Man episode I sampled, but I just struggle to sit through them.
I did see Thor last night with my dad, though. It was a quite satisfying watch! My experience with Thor is quite limited, both the original Norse mythology and the Marvel Comics spin on things, so I won't even try and pretend that I know what I'm talking about.
I was going to try and give a proper summary to the movie, but when's the last time I ever did that without being half-assed? In a nutshell, Thor's a blowhard jerk and gets banished to Earth for nearly starting a war with some frost giants. Loki, Thor's brother, then suddenly gains a whole bunch of complexes at once and tries to destroy the frost giant's planet, keep Thor banished and usurp the throne and all kinds of stuff. His plan's a bit hard to keep track of. In the meantime, antics ensue on Earth! ... yeah!
The real defining trait of the movie is how "cosmic" it is. Aside from maybe Ghost Rider (which I haven't seen), all the Marvel movies so far have been kinda down-to-earth; at least, as close as superhero movies can be; they're supernatural characters in a regular, mundane world. Thor is a supernatural character from a cosmic, supernatural world, and he happens to land in a regular, mundane Earth - but not without taking some of that supernatural world with him. Even characters like Superman, who come from another planet and have cosmic powers, ultimately end up rather Earth-bound in most of the popular media. Okay, yeah, Thor ends up kind of the same here, but just because he's on Earth doesn't mean all the affairs on his planet are forgotten about. It's not like ol' Supes where they blow up Krypton just so he can hang out with his new Earth buddies; Thor's priorities still lie on Asgard, but he's compelled by his duty and honour to protect Earth and all the other realms of Yggdrasil as well.
Of course, themes are all fine and well, but just the few brief scenes of characters whisking through the cosmos, warping between planets... although brief and eventually skipped altogether, really help establish the fantastic element of the film. Asgard is really beautiful landscape, and even the frost giants' realm, although a dying and decaying, near-inhospitable planet, has a very ethereal allure to it. And nearly half the screen-time is devoted to both places combined. That's not bad! It's about time Earth stopped hogging the spotlight. Pluto represent! If the rumours of a sequel are true, it'll be awesome to see more of Asgard explored, as despite all the awesome panning shots of its splendour, you only ever see the warp chamber (it has a fancy Norse name but hell if I'm gonna remember that) and the main castle. We never see anywhere else in detail, so the mysteries of that floating building with the rotating walls will forever confound me. Until some supplementary material explains it, that is.
Thor is played quite well, and I'd be lying if I said he didn't have a sexy beard; but the real star is Loki, who comes across as a nuanced and - dare I say it - subtle villain. For a superhero film, of course. The figures of mythology never perfectly fit into "hero" and "villain" roles - they were what they were, and Loki, although fitting the villain role for his destructive and manipulative behaviour in the film, isn't just some 1-dimensional shmuck with a weak rise-to-villainy excuse. He's got daddy issues instead! Okay, he's got daddy issues, heritage issues, brother jealousy, and I'm sure if her mother had more than five minutes of screen time they could've worked in an Oedipus complex as well. He's actually a decent spud for the first part of the movie, but then he starts going a bit overboard into the realm of morally ambiguous; and since he's such a trickster, it can be hard to tell if his spoken motives are actually true, or if he's trying to get a reaction out of those around him. It's just a nice surprise to get a villain with even the scantest degree of depth to him in a superhero film. I can barely remember any moments in the Fantastic Four films because Doctor Doom was just a bore. The comic one is so comically villainous that he becomes interesting again, but the movie one just felt uninspired.
If I had to nag about the visuals, it'd be that the Frost Giants were a bit bleh. I have no familiarity with them, though my dad lavishly described a two-page spread from an old Avengers comic featuring the heroes facing off against just one of them, so the originals must've been big. And frosty. The movie frost giants are, well, not very big, and although they have a gimmick of freezing enemies or generating icicle weapons on their arms, they kinda feel like half-baked, for lack of a better term. As if the producers wanted a race of fancy CGI hominids and they hired motion-captured actor for it, but after realising how expensive the effects would be they just painted the mo-cap guy blue and gave him facial scars. I suppose I can understand the simple look because the frost giants are vital to the ethical part of the story, and if they were too monstrous then most audiences probably wouldn't have a probably with Loki trying to genocide them (spoilers!), but given how the entire race looks identical, it doesn't really change much. You could paint them grey and bend their knees and they'd be like a legion of well-spoken Gollums. The giant angle also isn't really played up; I'm told they were meant to be about 10-feet tall, but even that felt like a stretch. The only times they ever felt big, it always felt like camera trickery. Again, the lack of immense size is probably to make for easier interaction (after all, the giants need to invade Asgard and to fight Thor and his small group of allies), but given how the opening fight with them is just a Batman Begins style camera-cutting mess, it feels like a waste. The Frost Giants are the only real blemish on the film, I feel.
It's no masterpiece despite being the recipient of the meatiest paragraphs I've written months, but it's a fun, entertaining movie with a nice dosage of humour on the side. It probably helps that I've been in a superhero mood lately after I rented Marvel vs. Capcom 3 again. Seeing the fantastic cosmic angle of Thor captured on film so well has made me interested in seeing the likes of Dr. Strange get his own film. Yes, my familiarity with him is limited only to the Marvel Legends action figure and Shuma-Gorath's appearance in Capcom's fighting games, but come on, even just seeing that pimped out collar in live-action would be a treat.