September 11, 2001.
Photo credit: By Journalist 1st Class Preston Keres – This image was released by the United States Navy with the ID 010914-N-3995K-026.
Tag Archives: 2001
Cover to “Andrew Wyeth: Close Friends,” 2001
Mississippi Museum of Art.
Cover to “Grendel: War Child” Paperback, Matt Wagner, 2001
Dark Horse Comics.
Never Forget.
Photo credit: Sted716 / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)
Throwback Thursday: “Gremlins” (1984)!
There are few movies more quintessentially 80’s than “Gremlins” (1984). To this day, I still think it was a strange movie because of its successful juxtaposition of elements.
On the one hand, it was a family film with a sense of wonder and the kind of wholesome sentiments about the American family that you would associate with Steven Spielberg. (I was surprised to discover that though he was executive producer here, “Gremlins” was written by Chris Columbus and directed by Joe Dante.) It takes place in a small town on Christmas, and follows a Spielberg-esque, young, good-natured, male protagonist.
On the other hand, the violence and black humor were pretty unexpected for a mainstream blockbuster feature film. (If you’ve seen the movie, you can vividly remember the titular monsters being dispatched by the blender and the microwave, for example — and the murder of an elderly disabled woman is maybe the film’s biggest sight gag.) Even the monsters themselves (which were skillfully rendered in this era of pre-CGI practical effects) were a little too scary for younger kids. It was this movie, along with 1984’s “Indianan Jones and the Temple of Doom,” that led to the MPAA to establish its “PG-13” rating — for films that didn’t quite merit a hard “R,” but were still more intense than a mere “PG rating.”
What’s remarkable to me, though, is that these disparate elements were woven together more or less seamlessly. “Gremlins” isn’t “Casablanca” (1942), but it’s a fairly decent goofball movie that kinda works.
A little trivia — the department store where the heroic Gizmo finally dispatches the villainous Stripe is a Montgomery Ward, which modern audiences would not recognize. The chain went out of business in 2001. (The eponymous online retailer has no relationship to the old brick-and-mortar stores.) I last remember being at a “Ward’s” at Spotsylvania Mall in Virginia in the 1990’s.
Theatrical poster art for “Vanilla Sky” (2001)
Paramount Pictures.
Tis’ the season.
Isn’t this the coolest Halloween card ever? The little skeleton guy dances.
Hope you guys have something scary planned for the month ahead. I’ve got a short list of movies I’d love to make time for: “Dracula” (1939), “House of the Devil” (2009), “Annabelle Creation” (2017) and “Mr. Mercedes” Season 3 (2019). Yeah, I know that last one isn’t a feature film, but it’s a program of truly cinematic quality. “Mr. Mercedes” has been the best kept secret in Stephen King fandom — no, its antagonist isn’t as flashy as Pennywise the Clown or The Gunslinger’s various nemeses. But it’s a gorgeous adaptation of a King novel that might even be better than its source material. Check it out, seriously — skip “American Horror Story” if you have to.
There are two movies I need to get to that have been recommended to me with a lot of enthusiasm. The first is “In the Mouth of Madness,” 1994’s H.P. Lovecraft adaptation starring Sam Neill. (I actually started it a few years ago after a friend in New York urged me to, but it just didn’t hold my interest.) The second is 2001’s “Shadow of the Vampire,” which features Willem Dafoe doing Nosferatu. (I only discovered just now writing this that John Malkovich portrays F.W. Murnau.)
I’ll tell you something else, too — I’ve checked out one or two short films on the free ALTER channel and they’ve been terrific. Maybe I’m due for another visit there.
She spilleth about Lilith.
So I learned from a friend last night about the mythical significance of Lilith in the Talmud. This was Adam’s first wife, portrayed in the same books that would later comprise the Book of Genesis — though she was excised from them when they were incorporated into the Bible. (Yes, I have weird telephone conversations with my friends before bed.)
Aside from being a notable figure for feminists (she demanded equality with Adam), Lilith is alternatively portrayed as an evil or demonic figure. If I understand correctly, this is because she defied God’s law about Adam’s superiority, essentially “divorced” him, and left the Garden of Eden. (Jewish tradition holds that Eve was actually Adam’s third wife.)
So now I understand why the name pops up so often for villains in horror films and fiction. My own favorite is the vampire queen Lilith from the 2010 film adaptation of Steve Niles’ comic series, “30 Days of Night: Dark Days.” (See the trailer in the first video below. She’s the girl with the … dark eyes.) “Dark Days” was a surprisingly terrific movie for a direct-to-video sequel … Niles seems to be the rare creator to have anything he touches turn to gold. (In addition to the movies, the many comic book limited series under the “30 Days of Night” banner have been almost uniformly excellent … “Dead Space” was pretty clunky and the 2017 reboot was largely unnecessary, but they were both still enjoyable.)
Anyway, the Lilith you see in the trailer was played by the priceless Mia Kirshner. If she seems a like a familiar female villain, it might be because you remember Kirshner as Mandy, the mysterious, cherubic assassin on “24” (2001-2014).
It also occurs to me now that the name of Frazier’s ex-wife on “Cheers” and “Frazier” was a subtle joke too — complete with an ostensibly psychic character calling her an “evil presence.”
You learn something new every day.
A review of Season 1 of “Condor” (2018)
When Season 1 of “Condor” was good — and it almost always was — it was a cinema-quality spy thriller. This was a smart, suspenseful, well made TV show that was very nearly perfect — I’d rate it a 9 out of 10.
“Condor” was adapted loosely from James Grady’s 1974 book, “Six Days of the Condor,” and its famous film adaptation the following year, “Three Days of the Condor.” I’ve neither read the former or seen the latter, but I can tell you that this new iteration of the story is intelligently written, nicely directed and edited, and well performed by its actors. It seems to channel the modus operandi of Tom Clancy’s books and films — showing multiple thoughtful characters plotting and acting either against or alongside one another — while the show keeps the tension high with sequences of surprise violence. (And there is indeed some disturbing violence here, particularly when the story calls for it to be perpetrated against non-combatants. “Condor” aired on the Audience channel on DirecTV; I suspect its content might be too much for a regular network.)
William Hurt has always been a goddam national treasure, as far as I’m concerned. (I may be biased in my appraisal of his work, as I grew up watching him in films like 1983’s “Gorky Park” and 1988’s “The Accidental Tourist.” I think he’s one of the best actors out there.) Seeing his talent colliding with Bob Balaban’s on screen should make this show required viewing for anyone who enjoys spy thrillers. (There is an extended, loaded exchange between them in a coffee shop here that is absolutely priceless.)
The whole cast is great. I’ve never been a fan of Brendan Fraser, simply because his movies are usually too goofy for me — but he shines in “Condor,” playing against type as an awkward villain.
Leem Lubany is terrific as the story’s merciless assassin. (See my comments above about the violence.) The role doesn’t call for her to have much range, as her character is a somewhat stoical sociopath. But she looks and sounds the part — combining sex appeal with an incongruous, calm, homicidal intensity. She reminded me a lot of Mandy, Mia Kirshner’s priceless, plot-driving assassin in Fox’s “24” (2001-2014).
If “Condor” has a failing, then it lies with its saccharine protagonists. The screenwriters seem to have gone to great lengths to paint an edgy, unpredictable, violent world full of compromised good guys and moral ambiguity. Why, then, are its handful of young heroes so implausibly perfect? The putative hero is “Joe,” nicely played Max Irons, who is just fine in the role. But the writers make him so idealistic, so gentle, so smart and so kind that it just requires too much suspension of disbelief. At one point I even wanted to see a bad guy at least punch him in the face, simply for being a goody-goody. It makes the story feel weird, too. (Who wants to see Jesus in a violent spy thriller?) The few other protagonists that we see here are also too good — they feel like thinly drawn, cookie-cutter heroes and not real people.
There are some plot implausibilities, too, that I’ve seen pointed out by other reviewers. (I have arrived at the resignation that others are simply far more perceptive about these things than I am.) But there was nothing that affected my enjoyment of Season 1.
“Condor” is great stuff. I recommend it.
French poster for “Vanilla Sky” (2001)
Paramount Pictures.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 