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Ask FlickChick: Cigarettes and Werewolves Go Missing, and More
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow courtesy Paramount Pictures
Question: I saw and liked Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow but was wondering: What was the source of Sir Laurence Olivier's performance? I've always wanted to know. — Jay
FlickChick: The late Sir Laurence Olivier's "performance" as Professor Totenkopf ("dead head" in German) in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) was digitally built from archival BBC footage of Olivier giving a speech at some fund-raising event. The movements of his mouth were manipulated to match the film's dialogue, and the footage was processed to look like a staticky video holograph.
The same basic technology was used to alter existing footage of Marlon Brando from Superman (1978) so he could speak new dialogue for Superman Returns (2006). But in Superman Returns, the Brando footage looks as "real" as the rest, so it's another step toward being truly able to have a living actor appear alongside a dead one, the way singers can now do thoroughly convincing "duets" by integrating their new tracks with another vocalist's classic ones. It's a brave new world.
Question: What do you think about banning smoking in movies? — K.K.
FlickChick: The short answer is, I think it's ridiculous. Yes, smoking is dangerous to your health. So is drinking, reckless driving, pitched gun battles, eating French fries and bacon, sleeping with mysterious strangers, and checking on that noise in the basement. Remove all those behaviors from movies and you might as well go to church.
That said, I'm not an unreasonable person. I see where the Walt Disney Company is coming from in banning smoking from its kiddie films. As an internationally famous provider of wholesome, child-friendly entertainment, I can understand why Disney feels that, on a corporate level, it bears some responsibility to not actively disseminate images that could encourage children to engage in destructive behaviors like, say, smoking or huffing paint fumes. I can't say I'm aware of recent Disney children's films that feature children smoking or huffing, but hey, no harm in getting a rule on the books. Now, if they'd just ban kicked-in-the-'nads scenes....
ALl joking aside, Disney's promise to "discourage" smoking in films distributed by Touchstone and Miramax strikes me as a little more problematic. Some people smoke. Barring smokers across the board is like barring heavy people across the board: It's a weird distortion of reality. And once you ban smoking from new movies, someone will come up with the idea to delete it from old movies, the way HarperCollins erased illustrator Clement Hurd's cigarette from the photo that appeared on every edition of the children's classic Goodnight, Moon from 1947 until 2004. That smacks to me of Joseph Stalin's army of retouchers "disappearing" purged party officials from photographs.
Question: Hey, FlickChick, you rule. I thought Shane Carruth's Primer was one of the most dazzling films of the last decade. But there's been nary a peep out of the filmmaker since. Do you know if he is working on a follow-up project? I am dying to see what he does next. — Dominic
FlickChick: Thanks, and good question. After doing hundreds of interviews to promote the release of Primer (2004), software engineer turned self-taught filmmaker Shane Carruth seems to have vanished from the face of the earth. Three years ago he told interviewers he had already started the script for his next film, which he described as a coming-of-age romance between "an 18-year-old oceanography prodigy and the daughter of a commodities trader." He even said he'd written some music and hoped to find the money to pay a real composer to do something with it. And then... complete radio silence. But like you, I look forward to seeing what he does next: Primer was bracingly different from the kind of films most first-time filmmakers come up with. Come back, Shane!
Question: I just saw a poster for Skinwalkers, and that got me to wondering: How come people don't make more werewolf movies? I'm tired of vampires and psychos. — Kyle
FlickChick: My gut is that at the low-budget end of genre filmmaking, which is where the overwhelming majority of horror films are made, it comes down to special effects. You can do a vampire movie without investing in anything more than fangs; in fact, you can even do without them, was in movies like Martin (1978), Near Dark (1987) and The Addiction (1995). You can spring for more elaborate effects, you just don't have to. Ditto slasher movies: they can be utterly minimalist, though if you want to you can pay for elaborate gore effects. But with werewolves you need to deliver transformations, and they cost.
Skinwalkers is heavily action-oriented — think guns-and-motorcycles action — and it goes for a wolfman look rather than the kind of full-body, man-into-wolf transformations that have been the norm since The Howling and An American Werewolf in London (both 1981). I think that was a more a creative decision than a flat-out cost-cutting effort, but I also I think it may be off-putting to horror buffs, especially in combination with a PG-13 rating.
Send your movie questions to FlickChick.
See Maitland McDonagh and Ken Fox review this week's new flicks on the Movie Talk vodcast.
Hear Maitland on the weekly podcast TV Guide Talk.
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Jul 26, 2007 4:57 PM
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I've seen the photos from Goodnight Moon and the retouched one looks ridiculous. I don't know why they didn't just crop the photo so it was only a headshot instead of having him stand there with his arm inexplicably stretched out and nothing between his fingers.
I also remember the fuss when Spielberg removed the guns from E.T. and replaced them with walkie talkies. Supposedly it had always bothered him as he thought it was ridiculous that the police would stand there looking for a bunch of kids with huge rifles. But wasn't the point of the movie that the adults were overreacting in fear to something harmless merely because it was different?
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Jul 26, 2007 5:44 PM
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Maitland - Thank you for answering my question, but where did you find the information? I Googled the film's title
shortly after it opened, but found nothing helpful.
Thank you very much.
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Jul 26, 2007 6:32 PM
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I agree with your reasoning, Maitland. But I am not so sure there has been a dearth of werewolf movies recently. Underworld and its sequel had them as well as Van Helsing. Then there were Cursed and the Ginger Snaps movies.
Also look at Wild Country, Big Bad Wolf and a few other smaller ones.
The problem is that none of them were very good.
Fortunately, Benicio Del Toro is starring in the upcoming The Wolf Man so we may see a reversal of fortunes.
Still waiting for "Dog Soldiers: Fresh Meat"...!
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Jul 26, 2007 7:56 PM
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This is the first I'd hear of Benicio Del Toro in The Wolf Man. Is that in the tradition of the original Wolf Man?
I agree with you on the banning smoking thing. For the same reason I defend movies like A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints' language. To see a movie where an action would be normal, say graphic language or smoking and to not have it there, just doesn't ring true to me. I don't smoke. I don't promote smoking, but some people do and if they should be represented that way in a movie - it's what I want.
People need to make good individual choices for themselves as far as what to watch and not make all of us march to their goosestep.
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Jul 27, 2007 2:39 PM
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Cinder:
It's a Universal remake of their 1941 classic. Benicio's last name is even Talbot in the movie.
Anthony Hopkins is attached. But I am not sure if that's a good thing these days!
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Jul 27, 2007 3:17 PM
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Anyone remember the ridiculous retouchings of ET a few years back? If I remember correctly they erased some shotguns and replaced them with walkie-talkies.
That being said it doesn't bother me if they keep smoking out of their new movies aimed at families. Good role models or some other such nonsense. I will say that if kid's only role models come from some of these "family" movies I've seen recently, I'm a little bit scared!
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Jul 28, 2007 4:00 AM
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Anthony Hopkins is attached. But I am not sure if that's a good thing these days!
I hope you mean his roles and choices of projects and NOT his acting! Although, of course, you are entitled to your opinion!
It's hard for older actors of BOTH sexes to find good roles! Why do you think we haven't seen much of the likes of Gene Hackman lately? Don't even want to start listing all of the great actresses who can't find a good part...
Anyway, I feel that movies need to be believable in order to entertain, make money, etc. and guess what, Disneymovieguys, people smoke! (and sorry, A&E, but mobsters swear!) But I do think it's a good idea to ban certain behaviors in new movies aimed solely at kids.
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Jul 31, 2007 3:53 AM
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I'm surprised Maitland did not bring up Blood & Chocolate, the awfully overwrought werewolf love story with its transformation consisting of a bright light engulfing the human characters and then replacing them with real wolves.
Now if that's not cheap, I don't know what is.
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Jul 31, 2007 4:59 AM
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Mr. Furley:
Yeah, I did mean Anthony Hopkins' acting of late. Sometimes he seems to be phoning it in. But I didn't see his last movie ("Fracture" I think it was called) and he got some respectable reviews so maybe he's back on track.
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Jul 31, 2007 12:03 PM
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Just wanted to say I did see Fracture and Anthony Hopkins did his usual (in my opinion) fantastic job. Very compelling and Ryan Gosling did a great job keeping up with him. Also, I thought Ginger Snaps was a great werewolf movie so I have to disagree w/the previous poster who listed it as one that wasn't any good. Just watched Dog Soldiers for the first time recently and loved that one too.
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Jul 31, 2007 12:58 PM
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dolphin:
Regarding the Ginger Snaps movie, that was my bad. I shouldn't have lumped it in with those weaker werewolf movies. It's sequels, not so much. But the original was fun.
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Jul 31, 2007 1:45 PM
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Acky--I think one of the movies you were referring to was All The King's Men-Didn't see it, but I read that Anthony's "southern" accent was pretty much non-existant. I guess his accents, besides his own, is the only criticism I will concede. I thought he was good in another semi-recent movie, Bobby. I think that he will be perfect as Daddy Talbot-anyone else?
P.S-also liked the first Ginger Snaps. Some of the Uncut version of Cursed wasn't too bad...The Howling is one of my all-time favs...Oh, and Acky-I may blog tomorrow morning, so I need your help to keep me from getting a "goose egg!"
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Jul 31, 2007 2:03 PM
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Any time, dude.
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Jul 31, 2007 3:16 PM
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For a combo of Vampires and Werewolves(Shapeshifters) I would recommend Night Watch.
As far as smoking in the movies go, I think they should leave originals alone, no going back and "touching" them up. In a lot of cases it was a kind of shorthand--you know the bad guy was the one who smoked, the good guy didn't. I do agree in principal that smoking should be removed from children's movies, but once Hollywood starts down that slippery slope where do they stop? What if smoking is necessary for the story? Seems to me that Hollywood is just trying to placate some of the "interest groups" that generally don't have a clue what the general population wants.
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Aug 1, 2007 9:18 AM
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