They did it again!

Let's talk about movie remakes, since they are all the rage these days.

Not only are they all the rage, they can also inspire quite a bit of rage as well, since Hollywood likes to take beloved classics ( I use the term loosely) from ages past, and redo them with modern technology. Now I get why they remake films that are liked, since the odds of anyone watching a remake of a lousy film, are pretty slim indeed.

Case in point: Evil Dead (2013)

Why? Why take a movie that, though technically not all that good (the budget was only about $350.000) had a magnificent atmosphere and good acting and turn it into ninety minutes of boredom? The original was great, the remake is like a gooey, choppy music video.

Sure, the remake is prettier, and the characters have a better excuse for being in a ghastly shack-nasty in the middle of nowhere. But apart from that, the Sam Raimi/Bruce Campbell version wins. No further questions, Your Honor.

To make matters even worse, despite much better technology and a budget of 17 million dollars, they actually managed to make the possessed less scary than the original. Instead of “WTF?”, we get “meh”, which only goes to show that while a decent budget is great, it is in no way a substitute for imagination, vision and passion.

But it's not all Doom and Gloom. 

 

TheNightmare on Elm Street (2010) remake is actually fairly decent, if not actually good. Here they did a better (imho) make up job on Freddy, making him look grimmer and more intimidating than he used to be. Not that Jackie Earle Haley can hold a candle to Robert Englund, but props for trying! The biggest problem with this little remake is that I can't think of a single reason not to just watch the original instead.

I have vague recollections that that Omen (2006) remake was so bland and uninteresting that I won't even mention it any further.

I suppose it's prudent to point out that my point of view may be a bit skewed, since one tends to look back with a certain amount of nostalgia, but since I have watched the three original movies mentioned above, many many times, I truly believe my points are valid.

As a matter of fact, I don't even hate these remakes, I just find them utterly pointless, which might be worse, come to think of it. Why not take all the money, talent and time it takes to remake classics and put out something fresh and original? It might be a gamble for the studios, but is it not a gamble as well to throw millions at a remake project, when the audience might not care enough to go watch it? Or rather, watch it again...

The Hollywood bosses sitting in their big shiny boardrooms, wondering why they are loosing money and respect by the truckload might want to consider the following;

1. Stop relaunching the same movie franchises over and over again (especially superhero franchises).
2. Stop remaking everything that was even vaguely popular twenty years ago over and over again.
3. Make new original works, that will in time become classics on their own merits, and we the audience, will watch them over and over again.

Truly Heroic

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines a hero thus:

a : a mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent endowed with great strength or ability

b : an illustrious warrior

c : a man admired for his achievements and noble qualities

d : one who shows great courage

Today I want to talk about three men I consider heroes, but only as defined by entries C and D above. You may have heard of them, you may not, but they all accomplished something extraordinary. Whether from of a lifetime of study and hard work, or a stubborn refusal to stand idly by, or making a decision during a short terrifying moment, they all deserve recognition for their deeds.

I'll link to their respective Wikipedia pages for further reading, should you be interested, but a short synopsis of their work is provided below.

First up is the Swedish diplomat and all-round bad ass Raul Wallenberg, 1912-1947 (probably).

This guy had some serious guts. He worked in a Europe torn to bits by WWII, and personally saved tens of thousands of Jews from the Nazis by handing out Swedish passports, and designating houses where Jews were hiding as Swedish soil, thereby giving the inhabitants diplomatic immunity.

But his perhaps most audacious act was climbing on top of a train headed to Auschwitz, and handing out passports to the people trapped in the cars, while the Germans were shouting at him to get down, and members of the Arrow Cross (a Hungarian fascist party) were shooting at him. His driver at the time, Sandor Ardai, speculated that the men from the Arrow Cross weren't really trying to hit him, as they were too awestruck by his boldness. He just simply refused to be intimidated by anyone.

His ultimate fate is still unknown, but it has been established that the Soviets grabbed him for some reason, and he hasn't been seen since.

Next on our list is scientist and Nobel Prize winner Norman Borlaug, 1914-2009.

Norman didn't run around doing dramatic stuff like Raul, but through his tireless work in the field of genetics and biology he has saved an estimated one billion lives with his resistant, high yield crops. Yeah, that's not a typo, 1.000.000.000.000 people didn't starve to death thanks to this man. And that is in itself pretty damn dramatic!

Sure there are still things we don't know about the really long term effects of bio-engineered crops, but I defy anyone to claim this is not a heroic act.

Finally I want to mention a man who is nowhere near as famous as Raul and Norman, but in all probability saved even more lives than both put together:

Vasili Arkhipov, 1926-1998.

Never heard of Vasili? Most haven't, and yet without him the Cuban Missile Crisis would have turned into World War III.

When you think about the principal players in the Cuban Missile Crisis, one tends to think about Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro, but ultimately it was Vasili who, at the end of the day, stopped WWIII from erupting.

How? Well Vasili was the 2^nd Captain of a Soviet nuclear submarine, B-59, at the height of the Crisis. The B-59 had gotten damaged by sonar depth charges and was unable to receive radio messages from Moscow. The captain became convinced that the war had already broken out, and wanted to launch the sub's nuke. Vasili refused, and talked him out of it.

Imagine for a moment what would have happened if Vasili had just obeyed his orders.

Nuclear Holocaust.

Multiple billions would have lost their lives if a Soviet nuclear missile had been launched. The U.S. would have responded in kind, and this planet would have become a radioactive wasteland.

So there you have it. Three very different men, who in their own ways have made this world of ours slightly better.

But I think we can all agree they fit the Merriam-Webster definition of Hero.

Birds of a feather pecks your eyes out

The other night my wife and I were talking, and for some reason one of us mentioned The Birds by Alfred Hitchcock. We had both seen it previously, but decided to give it a re-watch as it had been quite a while for both of us.

It's still a great movie, if a bit dated, seeing as it was made in 1963, which means it's fifty years old now. Even so, the British public voted it in 7^th place of scariest films ever, back in 2006. Do I think it's scary? No. Not even close, although it employs several different great horror techniques I've discussed previously here on Eccentric Spheres.

First off, there is no explanation what so ever. None. Zero. The birds just decide to start killing people for some fowl reason of their own.

Secondly, birds are common place, I'd even call them pedestrian, except they fly. We see them every day, in every place, so it could happen to you. Maybe tomorrow?

Thirdly, the sound is awe inspiring. The whole movie has no music, except as performed by characters on screen.

One scene in particular leaps out, where Mrs. Brenner discovers a local farmer dead in his bedroom. It has barely has any sound at all. This is an ingenious technique, in that not only does it build suspense, but it also makes the birds squawking and screeching more poignant. This is not something you would necessarily notice, but it will affect you nonetheless.

The actors do their jobs as well as can be expected, but a quick look at imdb, reveals some interesting facts about the principal cast.

• Tippi Hedren (female lead) is the mother of Melanie Griffith.
• Rod Taylor (male lead) so dashing and handsome (if a bit smug) played British Prime Minister Churchill in Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds (2009), neither handsome or dashing.
• Veronica Cartwright (the young girl, Cathy Brenner) is perhaps best known as the second female on board the Nostromo in Ridley Scott's Alien (1979). From birds to xenomorphs. Talk about the old frying pan and fire, eh?

If you haven't seen this movie yet, it's high time you did. It's worth it. Just do it before it turns 100, ok?

The art of the Scare

Continuing on my beloved theme of horror, I'd like to talk about the following clip from the Exorcist III. Over all, this movie isn't all that great, and certainly nowhere close to the original, but this scene is a hidden gem. Take a look, and we'll discuss it in a moment.

All done? Wasn't that awesome? Best scene in the entire film, and here's why;

It starts off really normally. Basically it's just a night shift nurse doing her job. The security guard looks bored until he gets up and leaves. Then, BAM, blood chilling terror!

There isn't anything overtly supernatural in the scene, though certainly there is a lot in the movie as a whole, but no werewolves, no tentacles, just a ghastly figure wrapped in a sheet, wielding a giant spring-loaded pair of scissors, designed to cut through the sternum. The sheet combined with the gruesome weapon held at such a weird angle creates a more chilling effect than just a dude with a mask and a knife.

Naturally, the sound is extremely effective as well, but the scene works even without sound. The stillness of the scene really does set you up nicely, raising the shock value even higher.

I think the main key though, is the security guard. Why? Well, he walks past the same spot the nurse gets killed at two seconds later, which means either the killer is already there, and the guard would have seen him had he turned his head, or the killer really appears out of nowhere. Either way, the fact that the guard walks right past, tell us the area is safe, when in reality it absolutely isn't. This effectively raises the terror again.

Finally, we have no blood in the scene. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Depends on your taste I suppose, but in my mind, the decapitated statue is considerably creepier. Most gore scenes diminish the terror, since blood works on the disgust factor rather than the nerves. An otherwise pristine statue mangled like that really slams home what has happened to the poor nurse.

I think all aficionados of horror can learn a lot from this scene. It's set up is flawless, it's execution brilliant. It kind of goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway) that some of the techniques employed here can't be used elsewhere but in this kind of media, but the main lessons should work anywhere.

In a nutshell, when done right, less is more.

Empire: Total Review

Last week I got my paws on Empire: Total War by continuing my trend of waiting until games are affordable (really cheap, that is). After all, whether a game is good or not, is unrelated to it's age or purchase price, as long as it runs on your computer.

I was particularly careful with Empire, since I've never really gotten into the whole Total War franchise until now.

Years ago, I tried the first Medieval: Total War (the 2^nd game in the series), and I got absolutely nowhere, fast. I just didn’t get it. The only memorable thing that happened was when the Pope declared my ruler “Christian of the Year” and then promptly tried to have him assassinated. I still fondly remember that. Sneaky old bastard!

With that in mind, I waited until Empire: Total War (the 5^th in the series) was dirt cheap on Steam, just in case I would get just as far as I did with Medieval. You could ask why I bought it at all considering my track record, and the answer is I love the 18^th century. So much of interest happened during that time, and besides, I get to play with cannons and tricorne hats!

So it was with some trepidation that I fired it up, and delved into my first campaign. I chose a short one, and jammed the difficulty sliders down to easy, both on general and combat. After all, I have to learn the game first before challenging myself. Training wheels, and all that.

I chose to play as Sweden, in part because that meant I controlled Finland as well (rooting for the home team, as they say), and because I avoided dealing with any colonies from the start.

Initially things went well. I invaded Norway and handily stole it from Denmark, before ultimately destroying the entire Danish nation. Russia gave me some trouble early on, but my Baltic armies beat them hands down.

After mopping up the last remains of Denmark on Iceland, I turned the full wrath of my army on Russia. Considering the size of it, I had a pleasant walk in the park there. The locals gave me more trouble with occasional uprisings, then the Russian army did when I conquered them to begin with. In fact, it was so easy, I gave serious thought to upping the difficulty.

Luckily, I didn't. Next on my list of campaign goals was Poland-Lithuania, who being allied with Russia was already at war with me. They were a lot harder to squash than Russia, but squash them I did, and finally all I has to do was conquer Prussia, which I just managed before the time ran out in 1750. I won my first Total War campaign ever!

Today I tried a new campaign as England, with the same settings as with Sweden, but things went south quickly due to some silly mistakes on my part. So even with the difficulty sliders down low, it's not an easy game.

Do I like Empire: Total War? You bet I do. The atmosphere is great, the sounds are awesome, the possibilities are practically endless, (particularly if you install a mod that lets you play as the minor nations) I have no complaints at all, at least for now. The Swedish troops even speaks Swedish! I was rather blown away at that. I have to say. if you like strategy, the 18^th century, and history in general, this is an absolute must for you. The turn based system really let's you take your time, and the built in advise works great.

It's well worth getting, it really is!