Friday, September 05, 2008

Camera Obscura: "Honey West' Returns; JCVD is a Hit; Del Toro Does Frankenstein; plus a Zombie Puppet Musical!

I heard rumblings about the movie "J.C.V.D." a few months back - b-movie action guy Jean Claude Van Damme stars in a wildly satiric comedy as himself, caught in battles over child custody, his problematic career, media swarms and a bank robbery.

The movie is out now the Toronto Film Festival and got raves at the Cannes Festival this summer.

One review
, like others, is stunned by his performance:

"
That JCVD is able to show you a new face to its star and subject at all makes it a major accomplishment. That it does so with such an incredible sense of style, insight, and pure entertainment value makes it a revelation. Ladies and gentlemen, after spending decades turning out lowest-common-denominator action pictures Jean Claude Van Damme has just made a truly great film. No matter what criteria you may use to judge it - scripting, cinematography, humour, action, even dramatic performance - JCVD is one remarkable piece of work. Yes, I flat out love this film. "

And a trailer --





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And since I'm posting wee movies today, this is for all the folks who are beyond being zombified by the ongoing political debacle in America and for zombie fans too. And musical fans. And puppet fans. Oh, just watch it.



I love the one zombie back up guy there just mumbling the lyrics and sort of off the beat. And if your jaw falls off while singing, it's gonna affect the performance. Yep.

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"Hellboy" director Guillermo del Toro is gonna be busy, busy, busy. He's already at work on a pair of movies adapted from "The Hobbit", and this week he announced a monster deal with Universal. Remakes of "Frankenstein", "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", plus a version of Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-Five" ... and a new TV series based on "Hellboy." Whew!

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HBO rolls out their new vampire TV show, "TrueBlood", from "Six Feet Under" creator Alan Ball, on Sunday night after months of obligatory online viral ad campaigns. The story is set in an America where vampires have 'come out of the coffin' and now seek some respect and rights, the ones due them as 'undead Americans'. OK. The show stars Anna Paquin. One blogger tackles the viral marketing and offers a pilot episode review here.

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The internet sci-fi musical comedy known as "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" released the soundtrack this week, according to the first of the Horrible Newsletters in my mailbox:

"The Official "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" Motion Picture Soundtrack is now available on iTunes. Internationally too. Thanks to all of you, we're already one of the top sellers in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and the list goes on! It is great for listening in your car, at work, while working out, it makes a great gift, do I sound like a whore? I'm whoring now, aren't I? Anyway, spread the word, tell a friend, say it was Horrible..."


Go here for more info.

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A fantastic arrival at long last on DVD, the complete series of the 1965 TV show, "Honey West." If you haven't seen or if you are one of those folks like me who recall it fondly, this is a must have. Honey made American TV history:

"Certainly the character of Honey West wasn't TV's first independent woman, or even its first female private detective. But she was the first TV action heroine (in the U.S. TV market, at least) to be modeled specifically after her male counterparts: namely in this case; James Bond. And even more importantly, she was the star of the show. In no way did Honey "answer" to her bigger, stronger, hotheaded partner Sam. It was her name on the agency, and she ran it her way, despite Sam's constant hectoring for her to play it safe and let him protect her. Not that she needed his protection. Equally skilled in the martial arts, Honey could keep up with Sam in hand-to-hand combat, small weapons proficiency, and in utilizing all those tricky little gadgets Sam thought up for audio and video surveillance. And she did it all while being a most...aggressively erotic woman - something that TV audiences regularly tuning into the housewives on Bewitched, The Dick Van Dyke Show, and The Lucy Show didn't see as a lead character in a weekly series. That kind of thoroughly independent, sexualized (while not being punished for her looks and appetites) woman was a first for American TV audiences. Mrs. Emma Peel would have a bigger, longer-lasting impact, but Honey West was there on American TVs first."

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