Craven's Documentaries

I watched Music of the Heart yesterday; Wes Craven's first and only venture outside of the realms of "genre" filmmaking (not including his inclusion in Paris je t'aime). He apparently agreed to only make Scream 3 if he could direct it. The story in the video below is a bit different (the Weinstein's "offered" him the chance to direct a Miramax movie), but I'm not sure I believe that. As I was scooting around YouTube I did indeed find the following video and it's an interesting one for a few reasons.

One of which is that Craven admits to being on the Academy's documentary committee. Or, at least, he was in 1995 when Allen Miller's Small Wonders, a documentary that became Music of the Heart, was nominated for the Oscar. Am I the only one surprised by this? I wonder if he's still involved or not.


"Wes sees reality in a different way than other people do. He has a very clear understanding of the darkness in life and I think that he waited 20 years to explore the flip side of the darker side.
The other bit I love is during the parts of Meryl Streep's interview where she lavishes praise on Craven. I like it when actors I like are so open about the affection for a director I like, especially when they're someone such as Wes Craven who, by his own admission, quite easily have been called a fraud as he made this wholesome "nice white lady" movie. My favourite bit is how she admit to "not knowing anything about him" ("I'd never seen any of those scary movies because I don't go to them. I'm a total wimp.") and that she relied on her son to tell her that "he's a really good storyteller". I hope she went home after the shoot ended and watched some. Can you imagine Meryl Streep sitting at home on her couch watching Scream or A Nightmare on Elm Street? "Poor Drew!" she'd wail, I'm sure of it!

Sequel on a Stick

Head on a stick.

What's that do for ya? Shivers, shudders and sweats?

The news of a new sequel (or remake) brings about a flood of different feelings. Since word of a new sequel (or remake) seems to come about every other day it can be a rollercoaster for us cinephiles. Yesterday came word, and today official 100% conformation, that Wolf Creek 2 was a go and... well, I don't know. On one hand I think Wolf Creek is a very well-made movie and does what it does with a visceral edge that is missing from so many other films going after the same thing (it's a flavour that another local upcoming horror title, The Loved Ones, also has in spades). Also in the film's favour was an iconic performance by John Jarrett as "Mick Taylor" so it will be legitimately interesting to see where he takes it, especially since Jarrett's last attempt at recreating the success was a big, fat dud.


On the con side of things is the unmistakable vibe of desperation about the project. It's quite obvious that Wolf Creek's writer/director Greg McLean decided to proceed with this project because his last original movie - the underrated killer crocodile movie Rogue - disappointed at the box office. McLean was on record as saying he didn't want to make a sequel and yet here we are several years after Rogue and McLean's directorial slate has remained empty (he has helped produce the upcoming Aussie horror/western Red Hill), which leads me to suspect he's doing it to get some confidence back.

The film is being produced by Darclight Entertainment and, I think we can safely assume, won't have anything to do with the Weinstein brothers, who have royally screwed McLean twice before in the past (first by releasing Wolf Creek on Christmas Day, and then barely releasing Rogue at all). Since the original was made with a minuscule budget, I do wonder whether McLean will be able to resist grabbing more money from the funding bodies.

If he does then maybe he will be trying to broaden the film, make it bigger and better. But if he does that he risks stripping the movie of what made Wolf Creek so successful. It's a delicate line that he must travel. Does he want to make another film like Wolf Creek, but just BIGGER or does he want to completely reinvent it and turn it into some deranged Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 styled effort. We'll see. Moviehole has some exclusive words from McLean himself so check them out if you're interested (and if you've read this far then I assume you are.)

I just hope he resists the urge to title the movie Wolf RIVER or Wolf Creek 2: The Return of Micky Dundee or something ridiculous like that.

Scream to Scream, Scene by Scene: SCENE 20 of Scream (0:53:01-0:55:47)

In this project I attempt to review the entire Scream trilogy scene by scene in chronological order. Heavy spoilers and gore throughout!

SCENE 20
Length: 2mins 45secs
Primary Characters: Randy Meeks, Stu Macher and Billy Loomis
Pop Culture References:

• Frankenstein (movie plays in video store)
• Mother's Boys, Smoke, Clerks and Just Another Girl on the I.R.T. (film posters hang in the store)
  
• Prom Night (Randy mentions this as the key to the crimes)
• The Howling and E.T. (a customer inquires about both)
  

I think this scene acts much like the Principal Himbry murder scene in that it merely gives us more time with certain characters (specifically Randy) and gives just a little bit more to mull over for the home stretch. The way it makes it so obvious that they're trying to make viewers think Billy is the killer (I remember it being a big surprise that there were two so at this stage first time viewers wouldn't be thinking of a duo), so much so that I'm sure many thought "nah, that'd be too obvious."


Whatta klutz!


"We've had a run in the mass-murder section!"
This here, ladies and gentlemen, is the very middle of Scream. I think that line of dialogue is quite an apt one considering the success of Scream less to a rush of horror titles. This shot is the 196th screencap that I have taken so far for this series, which sounds like a lot... because it is. Yikes. I was kinda hoping it would be the 200th, but unfortunately that didn't pan out.


"What's that werewolf movie with ET's mom in it?"
Before I discovered IMDb and before I knew who Dee Wallace was (oh, the humanity) I used to think this line was a joke about someone incredibly ugly ("ET's mom" as in his alien mother) and not just an actual bit of movie trivia. The answer? The Howling. I like that Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes had a reference to Steven Spielberg's Jaws and then all these years later he's doing it again!

Just look at this shot for a second though and consider the last time you ever saw a movie rental place that big. In light of Blockbuster going bankrupt I'm sure there will be a few obituaries such as this one, recalling the good ol' days. I even have a blogger tag labelled "VHS Memories" about anytime that I discuss my fondness of visiting the local video store as a child/teenager (first family owned business and then eventually Network Video, Civic Video and Blockbuster) and perusing the isles, looking at all the amazing video sleeve artwork and wanting to watch them all. Sigh. Good times.


Jamie Kennedy looks like such a baby in this movie. I mean, he actually got kinda hot in Scream 2 and these days he's fugly and gross, but he was definitely hot in Scream 2. Just wait and there's be plenty of screencapping for that!


If you squint it almost looks like Randy and Stu are about to kiss. Considering how homo-erotic this movie is I wouldn't put it past 'em.


That is the 200th screencap. Amazing. And to think, we've still got half the movie to go!! I like that Randy pieced (almost) everything together before everyone else though. It's fitting. He correctly guessed Billy as the killer and Stu as his "lapdog" and he was right about Sidney's father being a part of the killer's plot ("his body will come popping up in the last reel somewhere!"), he just didn't predict there'd be two killers. That's where Randy's movie knowledge slipped him up, always expecting a lone murderer when he should've known whoever it was was going to do something different.

I want to bring to light my favourite extra. She clearly didn't listen when told "don't look at the camera!"






Then she just shakes her head and walks away. I love it! Who she is, I'll never know.


That really was in poor taste, Billy.


The best bit about Stu's weird hyper moments is when he comes back down and says stuff with such deadpan sincerity like this moment. "No I don't. At all. No."

"This is standard horror movie stuff. Prom Night revisited, man. ... if they'd watch Prom Night they'd save time. There's a formula to it, a very simple formula. EVERYBODY'S A SUSPECT!"

Oh, Randy!

I'm trying to remember Prom Night and I don't recall how any of that movie relates to the goings on in Woodsboro. I only saw that Canadian horror movie for the first time earlier this year and wasn't the killer in Prom Night Jamie Lee Curtis' BROTHER? In fact, that movie did try to position the final girl's father (played by Leslie Neilson of all people) as the prime suspect, but her boyfriend it was not. Of course, maybe Randy was just getting confused with the amazingness of Prom Night II: Hello Mary Lou?


It's no wonder the video store "fired his ass" ("twice!") if he does stuff like this on a regular basis.



It really is amazing how much Billy appears to be trying to come off looking like the killer. Threatening people in broad daylight and all.


Was there a lot of gay slash fiction written after Scream? I can't imagine a world in which there wouldn't be? Was it so completely obvious to everyone in 1996 how gay this movie was? Like, actually very homoerotic (we've always discussed this, but it bears repeating.)


"What would be your motive?"
"It's the millennium; motives are incidental."
"Millennium. Millennium, I like that. That's good, millennium. Good kid."
Nothing dates a movie quite like millennium references. Why not throw in a "Y2K bug" joke just for fun?


Love that evil look that Billy gives to Stu as if to say "we're total badasses." Also, Probably the only time in the entire movie that Skeet Ulrich is attractive.


My "Movies in Movies" series used the Mother's Boys poster shot up there for this movie, but this scene also features clearly visible posters for other Miramax titles such as Smoke and Clerks. One poster I did not expect to see, and I only just picked it up now as I screencapped the movie, was a poster for Just Another Girl on the I.R.T. Now, I know Weinsteins obviously just filled this video store with posters for their own movies on the off chance that some obsessive weirdo such as myself was paying attention (there are more posters in the background but I cannot make them out), but Just Another Girl wasn't a particularly popular movie in 1992 when it came out, so I'm not sure why this video store in northern California would have a poster for it up in 1996.

Nevertheless, I really like Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.. It's flaws are obvious, but they're forgivable when the lead performance by Ariyan A. Johnson is so strong and the sense of place that director Leslie Harris creates in these districts of New York City is so evocative. I wish they'd release it on DVD.

Okay, that little detour was brought to you by my bizarre ability to recognise a blurry movie poster for a movie almost nobody knows. Next extry will be back to Scream.

Intro, Scene 1 Scene 2, Scene 3, Scene 4, Scene 5, Scene 6, Scene 7, Scene 8, Scene 9, Scene 10, Scene 11, Scene 12, Scene 13, Scene 14, Scene 15, Scene 16, Scene 17, Scene 18, Scene 19

Shanghai Surprise

Typically when a movie gets delayed by up to two years and is being distributed by a studio that couldn't even get some decent-looking poster designs up for big time Oscar contenders I would expect the posters to be drab and boring. Such is not the case with Shanghai, a movie that has been hanging around the Weinstein vault for, surely, nearly two years just hanging by a thread to hopes of Oscar dreams due to its prestigious cast and exotic setting.

It appears to finally be receiving a release and, while nobody will care, I do quite like the poster. It is nothing spectacular, but it gets the job done in selling the movie. I like the colours and how it looks as if its been painted, which you can tell from the dimpled texture that it has (if you click the image you can see better as to what I'm talking about). Sure, it has stripes and stripes are bad, but at least the bottom stripe has this wonderful image in it that really does look hand-painted. And they even stuffed something into the empty space in the top part!


Again, it won't change anything, but it's a nice image to sell your exotically-flavoured film on and, hey, at least it's better than the images the Weinstein brothers put up to see Nine or A Single Man!