| Author | Message | ||
     Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.187.44 |
I just received my copy of the Hellboy 2 DVD, and so far (I'm only a third of the way through) the commentary by Del Toro is fun and informative, as expected. He just mentioned Algernon Blackwood and Arthur Machen! I like the nod to Dunsany in the film, too (Bethmoora). At the same time I received the Night Gallery second season DVD set, and lo and behold, there are several Del Toro commentaries on that, too! Not to mention the Eureka Vampyr disc. He's everywhere! | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.209.78 |
He's also one of the voice overs in DIARY OF THE DEAD. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.177.62 |
Really? He seems to be popping up everywhere! | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.177.62 |
After looking up his entry on the IMDB, I notice he's credited in Quantum of Solace as well ('additional voices'). | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.8.58 |
HELLBOY2, to semi-repeat myself from another thread, is glittering piffle. I wasn't bored. I wasn't un-dazzled. I wasn't un-amused. And when it was all over, I wasn't impressed (both senses). | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.98.9.4 |
Makes a change for you to only semi-repeat yourself... TEMPLATES} | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.177.62 |
I liked Hellboy 2 a great deal, and that's all that matters to me. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.168.4.179 |
I was sad not to have loved Hellboy II. I loved the first because it had a sense of drive, destination. And HB wasn't so puppyish. It felt like a rifle being aimed and for a second film surely the finger should be beginning to squeeze the trigger, not put the gun back down? I'm glad people liked it, though, and wish I weren't so damned analytical! | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Hellboy 2 is the greatest film ever made in the history of films being made in history or otherwise. Ever. In the universe. Infinity. To the power of infinity. Ever. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.168.4.179 |
Um, irony...?  My taste in film is so limited. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.15.202 |
HELLBOY2 wasn't bad, or unenjoyable... it was just empty fluff is all.... Praising it would be like extolling cotton candy. Hating it, would be like hating cotton candy. Either response is extreme. Tony's resonse is measured... Zed's response is just this side of extreme... and Weber's response is, as usual, incoherent.... | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.177.62 |
I don't agree with Craig or Tony, but never mind - when something works for me, I honestly don't care what anyone else thinks. I don't fully understand Tony's complaints about the film, and think they better describe the first Hellboy film than the second. Craig, 'empty fluff' is exactly the way I'd describe Transformers, but hey, that's personal taste for you, I guess. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.168.4.179 |
That's great - it's nice to agree but we don't HAVE to. It's odd, but it does happen here that we don't rest easy if people don't. | ||
| Steve Bacon (Stevebacon) Username: Stevebacon Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.209.220.3 |
I like most of his work, but I've yet to see HB2 (or HB1, for that matter). From what I've seen though, he's the great deal; a bona fide horror fan. "One of us, one of us!...Gooble, gobble" | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.168.4.179 |
You know, it's lovely if a person is into horror but for me horror is broad that there can be divisions within it. For me there are people one might not even consider as 'horror' and yet their work touches that vein for me. Like Ruth Rendell being a horror writer of great calibre, for instance. Does that sound daft? | ||
| Steve Bacon (Stevebacon) Username: Stevebacon Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.209.220.3 |
No, not at all. I like Ruth Rendell (especially as Barbara Vine). I think the artists who work outside horror - or what the mainstream perceive horror to be - are important, because they challenge the preconceptions of what horror is actually about. Your average Joe on the street probably thinks of the Saw movies, or Stephen King, when they picture what horror is. People generally think that it starts with ghosts and ends with zombies. They tend not to realise that they may have experienced horror in other forms. Dickens, or Bronte, or John Connolly, or Cormac McCarthy, etc. But I meant, compared to Michael Bay, a director who has recently meddled with things he seems to know nothing about, at least Del Toro seems to know his (Oliver) onions. | ||
| Steve Bacon (Stevebacon) Username: Stevebacon Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.209.220.3 |
By the way, I agree that 'horror' is an emotion that can be prevalent in anything. Not a genre. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
All joking aside, I loved Hellboy II. Pure no-nonsense entertainment. Craig: all Hollywood films are glittering piffle. Indeed, all films could be classed as that, because, ultimately, they're meaningless yet on a personal level they mean everything to the viewer. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.203.130.161 |
I loved Hellboy II. I was just sorry to discover Barry Manilow isn't on the soundtrack alsum | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.98.9.4 |
"and Weber's response is, as usual, incoherent...." Sorry, was "Makes a change for you to only semi-repeat yourself... " a bit too opaque for your American mind to process? I mean you repeat yourself constantly I mean you repeat yourself constantly I mean you repeat yourself constantly I mean you repeat yourself constantly | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.98.9.4 |
That's not meant to be as aggressive as it sounds when I read it now. American is not intended as a perjorative. Apologies | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.239.105 |
Don't get me wrong - I enjoyed HELLBOY2. But it was ultimately as ephemeral as cotton-candy (though it was fun seeing the Old Ones). I'm not insulted by your use of the term "American" there, Weber, or anything else you say. I always sort of sigh inside when I see you've responded, roll my eyes heaven-ward, fashion a very condescendingly-polite smile on my face, and then turn and listen with rapt interest to whatever it is you have to say.... That's only meant to be archly sarcastic, not insulting.  Craig: all Hollywood films are glittering piffle. Indeed, all films could be classed as that, because, ultimately, they're meaningless yet on a personal level they mean everything to the viewer. Chris, Zed... certainly you can do better than that.... | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.239.105 |
That's "Christ," Zed... not "Chris," who I don't even know... and not "Christ Zed," which would be a scary thing to imagine in and of itself.... | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
Hallowed be my name. I don't need to do better than that - good bit of dialogue, that. It'll probably make it's way into one of my tales. ;-) To be serious, though, I appreciate a film like Hellboy II as much as I do, for example, Bergman's The Silence. Both are important, but in very different ways. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.65.135 |
Melanie and Steve Rasnic's crockery! | ||
| Matt_cowan (Matt_cowan) Username: Matt_cowan Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 68.249.98.52 |
I read that Del Toro was set to make a short film for an anthology film using Ramseys story, Down There as it's inspiration but the financing fell through. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.153.174 |
That could be a very clever joke about the story in question. Or it could be perfectly straight. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 85.158.139.99 |
 | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.179.171 |
It fell through so badly that he decided to call it 'The Depths' instead... | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 204.104.55.242 |
Del Toro optioned Dan Simmons' forthcoming novel DROOD- about the mysterious final years of Charles Dickens- to be shot allegedly after The Hobbit. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
Matt's right about "Down There". Alas, the anthology film (which would have involved three other directors - one was John Landis, I think) lost its backing from New Line. A pity! When I met Guillermo in Madrid he was enthusing about the monsters he'd designed for the adaptation. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.165.182 |
That's a shame. That would really have been worth seeing. | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 204.104.55.243 |
That would have been excellent alas. I suppose studios are also worried about anthology films for some reason, though you would think that the format could reach an even greater audience with the talent involved-- But that shouldn't stop it having a life on TV. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.44.101.224 |
I think anthology films work best when the connecting story is solid. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.98.9.4 |
Which anthology movie stars writer Joe Hill in the connecting story? | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.44.101.224 |
Creepshow. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.65.135 |
Creepshow! | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.44.101.224 |
I think antho stories don't usually work because when you go to see a film you want to be immersed for a couple of hours, not build up and down again. It's a big emotional upheaval to warm to a story, and it needs time. I've never been fully keen on them. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.98.9.4 |
There's a great antho film called Grim prairie tales with James Earl Jones and Brad dourif telling the stories. Excellent stuff. The Illustrated Man antho film's quite good as well | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 204.104.55.243 |
King's 'Cat's Eye' worked fine I thought. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
I Tre Volti della Paura for me. And Night Train to Terror, by gum - an experience I still don't quite believe I had. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.254.144 |
TRICK 'R TREAT, a 4-story anthology horror movie made by Warner Bros., has been in the can for some time - it was set to be released last year, then this year; now the last I heard, it was not to be released until October '09 (thought it was screened at Screamfest this year). It's supposed to be pretty damn good, but for some reason it keeps getting delayed... one opinion I read was because a lot of kids get aced in it... but who ever really knows with these things (IDIOCRACY, anyone?...). | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.65.135 |
Pulp Fiction is a good antho movie. I really love Cat's Eye, Weber. What first got me into King, I think. Dead of Night, of course (though rewatching it recently wasn't as great as I'd hoped). | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.254.144 |
DEAD OF NIGHT let me down a bit too, Gary, when I reviewed it. KWAIDAN - let's not forget that one. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.65.135 |
Dead of Night is half devastating, half whimsy. An uneasy combo, rather than one that is complimentary, IMHO. Do antho movies have a template, Craig? I ask without any funny business.  | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.44.101.224 |
Dead of Night suffers from being all over the place. The stories don't build toward something, and in some ways the first two are the scariest, and the tension fades. Oddly enough the most consistently enjoyable ep is the daft one about the golf players. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.98.9.4 |
I didn't list Cat's eye | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.254.144 |
I would think each story in an antho-movie has its own template... so I'd say, not really. Non-templates: you've reminded me Gary, of a very strange but pretty good two-story non-horror "antho" movie (two distinct stories; ueven in length - first one is 30 minutes, second one is 1 hour; and completely non-connected), Todd Solondz's STORYTELLING. That guy wouldn't know a template if it kicked him in the shin!  (btw: I'm a big fan of Solondz.) Are there lots of anthology movies in other genres?... Not ensemble movies or interconnected story movies (like Woody Allen), but classic one story after another movies... why am I blanking?... | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.44.101.224 |
I wanted to see Storytelling for the bit with her offa Hellboy nekkid. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.44.101.224 |
When I watch an antho film I feel I take a step back, don't feel I want to commit. I never felt satisfied after one, either. I did quite enjoy Twilight Zone the movie, however. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.254.144 |
Maughaum was tickling my brain, and indeed - looking him up - three movies: QUARTET (1948), TRIO (1950), and ENCORE (1951): W. Somerset Maughaum anthology movies all. Anyone see these...? A bug has suddenly crawled up me bum to go try and find all three now - see what you started... whomever that was up there?!? | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.254.144 |
Since you brought up "templates," Gary.... I came across this - Northrop Frye is writing here on Shakespeare, but it touches much of what I am clumsily feeling out in my "template" theory: "... [a confusing phrase is] 'giving the public what it wants.' Any dramatist who knew his audience as well as Shakespeare would know that the important difference in it is not the difference between intelligent and stupid people, but the difference between intelligent and stupid responses to the play, both of which may exist in the same mind. In all audiences there is an attitude that comes to the theater with a mass of prejudices and cliches and stock responses, and demands that the play illustrate them, or some of them. There is nothing to be done with such an attitude except to keep it quiet, and the superficial meaning of the play is what does that.... There is also a more intelligent attitude that wants only to see a play, and does not know until the end whether or not that play is what it wants. [italics mine] One attitude is focused on the apparent meaning, or moral, of the play; the other is focused on its structure. One attitude is reassured by the fact that in the historical plays the English are the right side and the French the wrong; that in the romances only a real princess marries a real prince; that clowns are ridiculous and gentlemen stately. The other attitude does not seek a hidden meaning in the play addressed only to it: it simply observes the dramatic tension...." -- Northrop Frye, A Natural Perspective: The Development of Shakespearean Comedy and Romance (1965). ... so perhaps in my case, I am too overly focused upon structure in film, to the exclusion of other, equally-valid considerations?... yes, it's possible.... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.65.135 |
My great-grandfather talked shit. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.157.91.96 |
Oddly enough the most consistently enjoyable ep is the daft one about the golf players. Tony; stop it! | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.179.141 |
I'm with you on Black Sabbath, Ramsey! I haven't seen the other one you mentioned though (Night Train to Terror). I'll be on the lookout for that. Aside from the Bava classic, I also like Kwaidan, Three... Extremes, Dead of Night, From Beyond the Grave, Tales of Terror, Asylum, and Tales of the Unusual. I enjoyed Creepshow well enough, but the EC-style of story wears thin quickly, I find. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.179.141 |
I have to agree with Mick here, Tony! I thought that section was by far the weakest - I thought the others were far better, especially the dummy story and the one with the mirror. The segment based on Burrage's Smee is also quite effective, especially the child's icy "goodbye" (Barbara has noted this as a favourite too, if I remember aright). |