movies

Star Wars is Dune sans the Duneness

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In other words, when making an adaption of the Dune novel, take away all that makes it extraordinarily epic, such as its brutal take on toxic capitalism and its detrimental effect on cultures and climates, not to mention its more nuanced take on the dangers of cult of personalities slash hero worship, among other critical subplots, and you end up mostly with a Diet Dune a la a George Lucas Star Wars Trilogy.

for educational purposes only😉

Now, I’m not saying that Lucas’ Star Wars isn’t wasn’t epic, because it certainly was to this former 1977 twelve-year-old, but what I am saying is that I have to agree with what Denis Villeneuve said during a recent interview in Madrid while out on global tour pimping Dune II out to international Academy Award voters in hopes of snagging an Oscar nomination from them.

Q. There was a generation that grew up with Star Wars as something more than a simple cultural reference, and to this another followed perhaps that did the same with The Lord of the Rings. Will Dune be able to do the same?

A. It would be very pretentious of me to try to compare myself to those two cultural icons. The potential lies in the novel itself. It is a mythological story that has been extended over countless novels. In fact, I would dare to say that Star Wars is nothing more than an interesting adaptation of Dune. I think George Lucas should admit it. (My emphasis)

Denis Villeneuve: “Star Wars is nothing more than an interesting adaptation of Dune. I think George Lucas should admit it”, El Mundo, November 27, 2024

A lot of folks felt slash feel that way, especially Dune’s author Frank Herbert, as thoroughly discussed in and evidenced by Polygon’s in-depth article.

To fans of Dune, especially of Dune the novel, this debate is nothing new, obviously since Herbert led the charge upon the release of Star Wars.

But for those of you new to the debate, I could list here all the ways that Star Wars is, if not Dune-adapted, then at the least Dune-inspired, such as the easy ones like The Force, Luke, use The Force versus the Voice of the Ben Gesserit, or the similarities between Princess Leia and Princess Alia, but there are many, many nerdy articles out there that can identify them better than me. And the Nerdist has one of them.

Before we just dismiss this so-called debate as nothing more than a nerdy scifi Inside Baseball spat, we need to consider the legacies. George Lucas is a gazillionaire with a name that even non-scifi nerds all throughout the globe probably already know, or at least are familiar with.

I feel comfortable guessing that on the same global scale of non-scifi nerds the name Frank Herbert barely even registers, and that Herbert’s estate is nowhere close to being worth the gazillions that Lucas is.

Anyway… as an aside, Villeneuve’s Dune I was epic, not as epic as the first Star Wars obviously because that set the precedent for epic scifi films, but epic in a fresh and creative way nonetheless.

His Dune II, however, is highly forgetable to me. Literally, it was so boring I snoozed through most of it so I don’t really have a clue what it was about or how it compares to the novel. I guess I need to screen it again to see if it has the same lullaby effect as the first viewing.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see if Villeneuve was on his hustle enough to get the votes for an Oscar nomination for it. If not, then my initial take is probably right and it would be a waste of time to watch it again.

While you’re here, why don’t you pop on over to Amazon and snag one of my books today. They are all free until midnight tonight (PST), including my latest release, Sorrow.

SORROW Book Cover
Get some

An aging white male forsakes humanity, changes his name to Sorrow, and begins identifying as an it, just as its white son learns his Black girlfriend is pregnant, and you begin a murderous rampage targeting interracial couples just like them...

Best Horror Film of 2024

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I’m always looking to be spooked in an intellectually plausible and unsettling cinematic way. Unfortunately, most modern horror flicks consistently fail me.

However, I just watched a production that hits the mark spot on and it has chilled me right down to the marrow of my bones.

Just never imagined such a horrific accomplishment could be achieved through an Apple advertisement…

Bravo, Apple… bravo.

The Pretense of Arthouse Movie Pretention

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empty seats of the cinema
Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels.com

If you are of the persuasion to roll your eyes and shake your head in dismissive disbelief when hearing the terms arthouse or slow cinema, wondering how anyone could suffer through such pretentious nonsense, perhaps a la El Toro as discussed in a couple of blathering posts ago, then you need to watch something/anything from the Hungarian auteur – and I do not use the auteur designator lightly as many seem to do nowadays (I’m looking at you Mubi) – Béla Tarr.

Now, admittedly, there are some serious stinkers when it comes to arthouse, but that can be said of any genre. When doing my laborious nightly scroll in search of a fresh flick to fetish over, I often find myself in complete and utter disbelief at the quantity of cinematic detritus there is out there. Sometimes it feels like I’m trying to scroll through all the waste in all the landfills of the world.

I mean, it seems like for every Tangerine (thank you Sean Baker) or My Own Private Idaho (thank you Gus Van Sandt) produced, there are hundreds of brain mass reducing messes made that never should have gotten past the point of being a bad idea let alone being allowed on even the most obscure and unwatched streaming service.

But alas, art is hard and as we know and as was stated during our recent cult classics post, someone’s cinematic trash is another’s treasure.

Now, if you typically are down on arthouse films and/or this is your first introduction to Béla Tarr, I certainly wouldn’t dive straight into his seven-hour masterpiece Sátántangó, which is why I am recommending one of a little bit lighter fare, of his anyway, in The Turin Horse. It’s one not much in the way of dialogue, but it is everything in the way of art and how great the potential of cinema can be.

You can watch it, Sátántangó, and a couple of others of Tarr’s work on Mubi.

Mubi synopsis: After witnessing a carriage driver whipping his horse, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche ran to the scene, threw his arms around the horse and collapsed—never to recover. This is the story of what happened to the carriage driver, his family, and his steed.

Jodorowsky’s Doom

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desert
Photo by Amine M’siouri on Pexels.com

The MSN stalker bots do their job well and today I was easily hooked with a well-baited article entitled The Greatest Cult Movie Classics of All Time.

All the usual suspects are on the list of course: The Big Lebowski, Plan 9 From Outer Space…

And of coure The Rocky Horror Picture Show tops the list. That’s a no brainer. I have fond memories from my wily teenage years of rounding up rolls of toilet paper and heading to the local theater for the midnight showing of it on many occasions. I’m sure my sister, who was said theater’s manager at the time, does not have quite as fond of memories of the show with all the mess and hoopla it inspired.

So yeah, I’ve seen many of the pictures on the cult classic list, pretty much all of the ones I wish to see. Typically when I hear cult classic I cringe inside because, let’s face it, one person’s cult classic treasure is another person’s cult classic trash.

I was surprised not to find Highlander and Weird Science on the list.

One movie I wish had a large enough cult around it to be even considered for the list is Henry Fool, which happens to be one of my all time favorite movies. Chances are you haven’t heard of it. I don’t know how I stumbled upon it so long ago… probably some obscure bin in some obscure long expired video store. I managed to snag a VHS copy of it somewhere, a copy of which I still have. Unfortuanly, I no longer have a working VHS player. You can imagine how happily surprised I was to see it popping up on Prime. I dare you to watch it. If you do, please report back.

What I was surprised to find on the list was Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo.

El Topo has been on my Mubi watchlist for a long time (It’s currently not showing on Mubi but if you speak Spanish, unlike yours truly, you can watch it over on the Internet Archive. Useless FYI: I am a watchlist=creator-aholic. And typically, even if I watch a movie from the list I will leave it on the list for historical reference purposes, a la this lengthy blather.)). I actually did start watching El Topo when it first popped up on Mubi; unfortunately, right away it begins with Jodorowsky’s son parading around naked in the desert so I decided to take a pass on it at the time. To me, exploiting a child in such a way is not cool, even if it is for outlandish foreign arthouse cinema of the early Seventies. So yeah, I was surprised to find the flick on the list.

But when I got to the end of the list, I understood why it was included. They had to showcase at least one of Jodorowsky’s movies just so they could justify giving him an honorable mention for a film he never even made… but almost did.

And that of course is Dune.

And we know this because of the amazing documentary about the failed project entitled Jodorowsky’s Dune, and which is currently available on Max.

I have been going through a Dune phase ever since the trailer for Dune 2 was released. I loved the first iteration and I can’t wait to see the second. Although, I’m not much of a theater goer these days because, you know, people, so I guess I can wait for it to hit one of the streamers.

Now I’m no science fiction fanboy, particularly of the literary pursuasion; but I am always willing to give a sci-fi flick the benefit of the doubt, especially for Dune. And especially for Star Wars when I was a twelve-year-old kid watching it with unmitigated amazement in the aforementioned theater, sans toilet paper.

Dune the movie made me do something I have never done before, and that is read Dune the sci-fi novel.

And yes, I now understand why it is the best selling sci-fi novel of all time.

And why the author Frank Herbert was so pissed off at George Lucas for ripping off so much of Dune for Star Wars.

And I also understand now why Jodorowsky was so inspired to make a movie about it.

Unfortunately, he was too inspired… and too weird for the Hollywood producers of the time, or any time probably.

Which is why David Lynch ended up with the project. While Lynch’s weird does not take a back seat to anyone’s, not even Jodorowsky’s, he had just proven that he could direct a serious film in The Elephant Man, which was nominated for eight Oscars.

Now I am a huge fanboy of Mr. David Lynch and I would never call any work of his bad, not even his attempt at Dune. Perhaps I would call his Dune a bit misunderstood though. Yeah, okay, it’s bad. But I think it’s bad in a good way, like most of the greatest cult films are.

Anyway…

Jodorowsky was so into making Dune, he was devastaed when it was taken away and given to Lynch. And watching the documentary, I felt crushed for him and feel it is a shame we never got to experience it. I really feel that had he been able to create his vision, there would never had been a need for a Denis Villenueve Dune, which also would be a shame had it not been created, but then we never would have known to miss it.

But the movie was taken away for Jodorowsky and as he tells it, it pretty much ruined his life…

And his son’s, you know, the naked tike from El Toro. He was slated to play Paul… hopefully clothed but we’ll never know.

Long story short, watch Jodorowsky’s Dune and see for yourself what the passion of a truely inspired artist looks and feels like.

And if all you know of David Lynch’s work is his Dune, then you really need to get out there and watch his entire ouevre. Start with his short film The Spider and the Bee. You won’t regret it.

Oh, and by the way, two of Lynch’s flicks were on the list* if anyone is keeping score. I’m sure you can guess at least one of them…

*having written the word “list” so many times in this endless blather, I’m reminded of this classic SNL skit…

Memories of a Movie’s Production

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It’s hard for me to believe that it has been seven years this month that my sons and I hauled ass out to North Hollywood, California to film Leave, a short film based upon my short story of the same name.

That was one fun and memorable experience.

The movie premiered as the 2018 LA Femme International Film Festival, and shortly thereafter found a home at Amazon Prime.

Unfortunately, Amazon, in a huge diss to independent filmmakers all over the world, shut down its service to short films a couple of years ago and Leave has been without a distributor since.

I had plans to find a new home for Leave, but as we all know how way leads on to way, I never did…

Until now.

Read more

Leave has Left the Building

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And by building I mean Amazon Prime.

Sadly, for reasons yet unknown to me, Amazon has decided to eliminate its entire catalog of short films, films which includes Leave and which happens to be an awesome film with an awesome director and an awesome cast and crew and which yours truly wrote and executive produced and which premiered at the awesome LA Femme International Film Festival in 2018.

Yeah, exactly…

Dubya. Tee. Eff., Bezos?

Anyway…

So, now I need to find a new home for Leave. A home which is hopefully a little more respectful of the value short films bring to the world.

Any ideas?

Tell you what, while we ponder over where best to host the flick, how ’bout for the next couple days, let’s say until 2359 Sunday, March 14, 2021, to be exact, I will unlock it at Vimeo for all to see and enjoy?

Sounds like a solid plan, eh.

Also, if you’re interested in watching the short documentary I produced about the making of Leave, you can check that out at leavethemovie.wordpress.com. While there, you can also learn more about the cast and crew.

Of course, you can watch the doc at Vimeo as well.

All righty then…

Enjoy!

Watch Leave at Vimeo

Watch The Making of Leave at Vimeo

Watch The Making of Leave at LEAVETHEMOVIE.WORDPRESS.COM

The Indelible Shining

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Great movie despite Stephen King’s protestations* — it’s one of those rare occasions when the movie out shines, so to speak, the book, which I found mostly laughable and long (as I do with most of King’s books) — and despite the horrible decision to cast Shelley Duvall, which, of course, resulted in her horrible acting. Kubrick abused the hell out of her during production because of it.

Pauline Kael wrote in the New Yorker that Kubrick’s devotion to technique distanced the audience from the domestic horrors of his story. The Washington Post called it “elaborately ineffective.” Gene Siskel said it was “boring” and occasionally “downright embarrassing.” Toronto’s Globe & Mail: an “overreaching, multi-levelled botch.” In its first year of existence, the bad movie-centric Razzie Awards nominated The Shining for worst director and worst actress.

From unloved curiosity to beloved classic: The surprising 40-year legacy of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, INLANDER, May 21, 2020

#allworkandnoplaymakeskurtrethinkhispriorities

*Spoilers of both book and movie

The Bogart Advantage

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It’s a close call but this might be one of those rare instances where the movie outperforms the book. The flick does have an unfair advantage though with Bogart as the lead…

For a crash course on a category that can be hard to pin down, Nicholas Ray’s psychologically complex “In a Lonely Place” has it all, starting with a sneering Bogart.

Even trying to categorize “In a Lonely Place” is tricky: It has elements of murder mystery, melodrama and Hollywood insider scoop. Yet it is certainly one of the most forthright films to deal with domestic abuse ever to come from a major production company, let alone in the early 1950s. Here is a movie so rough-minded, so willing to be unsympathetic that it opens with its protagonist, a screenwriter named Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart), threatening to get into a brawl with a stranger.

New York Times , April 30, 2020
THE BOGART SUSPENSE PICTURE WITH THE SURPRISE FINISH – (original tag line)
A classic California noir with a feminist twist, this prescient 1947 novel exposed misogyny in post-World War II American society, making it far ahead of its time. [Amazon Publisher description]

#alonetogetherinalonelyplace