The Creature Strokes Again

    Moebius Models has made it their mission to fill in the gaps in the Aurora monster kit collections of everyone who a) didn’t buy these kits when they were easily affordable, b) love the kits, but not seriously enough to fork over $100 for a 7  plastic toy, and c) who just want to build one of these rarities guiltlessly. (When building a pure, unassembled Aurora rarity, it’s easy to feel like you are defacing it.) I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but Moebius deserves a lot of credit. 
    One of Aurora’s– and, now, Moebius’– masterworks is their “Monsters of the Movies” “Creature from the Black Lagoon”. Originally released in 1975, the Creature was one of Aurora’s very last monsters and one of their most exciting. The Gill Man’s pose was a major experiment for the company, a break from their static tableaux, with the various monsters’ arms raised in standard groping, menacing positions.
    Unlike any of Aurora’s other monsters, the Creature’s design gives the impression that he is swimming underwater. Captured in mid-stroke, his arms broadly thrust out and his legs paddling, the sculpture’s pose is kinetic, dramatic, and dynamic in ways that Aurora had never before attempted. (and seldom attempted again.)
    To give the illusion that the Creature is floating, his body is only connected to the base by a hole in its foot, which a peg on the base plugs into. (Aurora used a similar technique to make their Rodan model seem as if it’s hovering with its wings on the upstroke.) The effect is so striking that it’s easy to imagine shafts of sunlight rippling over the Creature from above as he strokes upward to bedevil the crew of the Rita. (The base is decorated with swaying seaweed, a rusty old anchor, and a cleverly-mounted fish sailing through.)
    The one complaint that generally arises about the sculpting on the kit is that the Creature is slightly disproportionately stocky, but this is a minor quibble with an otherwise excellent kit.
    This repro. is molded in green plastic and snaps-together ridiculously easy. Like most of the Aurora monsters, most of the fun lies in painting the kit. I can’t recommend this long-awaited model highly enough. 

Son of Gigantic Frankenstein

I only infrequently collect model kits, but this one is worth writing about.
It’s commonly known among kit collectors that there are major choices to be made when accumulating the rarer Aurora monster models. For instance, do you want to send your teenage kid to dental school or buy the “Castle Creatures” Witch kit? Do you want to take your wife on that month-long tour of Europe, staying exclusively at four-star hotels, dining only on gourmet food, or do you want to buy the legendary Gigantic Frankenstein kit?
    All exaggeration aside, until now, the 20  tall Gigantic Frankenstein’s name not only referred to its status as Aurora’s largest monster kit by far, but to the unholy prices that this mere plastic toy fetched. Originally released in 1964, its sales were lousy because its asking price was five times higher than that of the hugely popular 1/8th scale Aurora kits.
    Like Aurora’s Monsters in Hot Rods series, the Gigantic Frankenstein presented an unthreatening, un-frightening, comical version of the classic movie monsters. This might also explain why the kit didn’t sell well– the 10-year-old boys who snapped the monster kits up might have hankered for creepiness, not goofiness, from the classic Universal monsters. It might have seemed almost undignified to present them like that. But it was the kids’ loss, except when it came to their allowances. Since the 1980s, the “Big Frankie” has remained as scarce as Blackbeard’s treasure and about as valuable.
    But Frank Winspur and his Moebius mob have scored big again, making it reasonably affordable for a kit-builder to actually BUILD essentially identical replicas of the kits that they love at prices that won’t leave them subsisting on Top Ramen for days.
    As if this near-perfect replica of the Aurora original wasn’t enough, Moebius has also faithfully reproduced James Bama’s extraordinary cover painting of Glenn Strange as the Monster. It remains one of the most beloved and archetypal pieces of popular monster art of the ’60s, rivaling even Basil Gogos’ classic Famous Monsters of Filmland covers.
    The kit’s basic design is peculiar– he has an oversized, cartoonish linebacker’s build, dangling, apelike arms, and huge feet to firmly support his bulk. But meanwhile, the Monster’s face– a decent caricature of Boris Karloff– looks amazingly sad for such a seemingly light-hearted kit. Its outstanding feature is its network of wrinkles, which, along with the Creature’s desolate expression, give it a weary, grizzled look. Unlike its body, the Monster’s face looks about as cute and light-hearted as a hard-living country singer on a bender. That’s not a complaint– it’s praise. Oddly enough, this seemingly whimsical kit perversely captured the agony and pathos of Boris Karloff’s performance better than any of Aurora’s numerous kits of the Monster.     
    This expressive sculpture’s wrinkles are one of the most fun parts of preparing the kit and the same goes for his hands’ numerous creases. Layer upon layer of washes along with some brighter highlights make the face come alive. And simply antiquing the hands made its extensive details leap out. As big as the kit is, you spend ages detailing it.
    Assembling this surprisingly light kit was probably the simplest part. It requires almost no manipulation of small parts of any kind (including the button on Frankie’s coat) and, were this a snap-together kit, a five-year-old kid could probably put it together with little difficulty. His arms are movable and can easily jut out in THE iconic, immediately recognizable Frankenstein’s monster pose. The rock and chain that came with the original kit are also, naturally, included.
    As usual, Moebius has produced a first-rate reproduction that won’t disappoint anyone. A glow-in-the-dark version is also available.

All hail Ronald Lacey!

 It does my heart glad to see that this fanpage devoted to one of my all-time favorite actors, Ronald Lacey, has returned to the net:

http://tederick.com/toht/phohtos.html

I contributed most of the photos out of sheer love for the singularly odd British character actor who has been described as "A cherub well-versed in the writings of the Marquis de Sade." 

Criterion Collection: Fire your subtitlers!!!!!

Criterion Collection, fire your subtitling staff. In Drunken Angel, '40s Japanese gangsters don't say "bro." In Touchez Pas Au Grisbi, '50s French gangsters don't go to their "cribs." In The Hidden Fortress, 16th century Japanese buffoons don't talk about "heaven." Stick to the original text!!!!! You don't have to "gangsta-ize" movies in a failed attempt to make them appeal to people who won't watch them anyway! Trying to "update" or otherwise make truly great cinema like that "accessible" to today's slack-jawed youth is akin to making a new translation of Crime and Punishment where Raskolnikov says "F***, yeah!"

If there's a disco in hell, this will be playing there... Good God, what a bass line.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x9KunO7OsY&feature=related

Part one in a continuing series of miscellaneous things that I like (One of the best parts of blogs, in my opinion)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4P-WQLon90

More pearls of wisdom from the estimable Mr. C.

"The strength of the middle class is that it's like a huge amoeba. It can absorb anything that seems radical & threatening to it. The way it defends itself is not to put a shell around it that can be cracked or broken, but just to absorb whatever it is & assimilate it." -David Cronenberg

A commitment to social irresponsibility

"As an artist, one is not a citizen of society. An artist is bound to explore every aspect of human experience, the darkest corners-not necessarily-but if that is where one is led, that's where one must go. You cannot worry about what your own particular segment of society considers bad behavior, good behavior, good exploration, bad exploration. So, at the time you're being an artist, you're not a citizen, you don't have the social responsibility of a citizen. You have, in fact, no social responsibility whatsoever."

-David Cronenberg

My life is a Gothic Beach Party movie

"Amore è non dover mai dire che sei brutto": The long-LONG-overdue Robert Fuest biography

The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) is one of my favorite films (for what that's worth), so the news of a book on its director, Robert Fuest, filled me with glee. Fuest told me how delighted he was by it, and I can see why. Though I've been collecting Phibes-abilia for eons, there are still several excellent behind-the-scenes shots from it and Fuest's other films that are entirely new to me. My Italian is multo lousy, so I can't comment on the text-- it looks very solid, though. Visually, the book is essential reading for Fuest aficionados, covering every aspect of his career-- as director, production designer, and, most recently, fine artist. Fuest's marvelously unique and mordant films are finally being given their due. (I wish that someone would dig up a bunch of behind-the-scenes shots from Fuest's The Final Programme... Does anyone know where I can find the still of Jon Finch in his Jerry Cornelius foppery talking with Michael Moorcock on the set, with the latter's outstanding tattoo, a mushroom cloud over his heart, very apparent?)

Animafest intro by the great Zdenko Gasparovic

I can't come up with enough superlatives to describe Zdenko Gasparovic's animation. He is the Mozart of cartoons. Here is a short, sublime intro. that he created for the 1980 Animafest in his native Zagreb, Croatia (formerly Yugoslavia). I will definitely be referring back to him at great length later.

R. B. Kitaj's "A Woman of the People"

Jesus Christ, was Kitaj's draftsmanship good!

The Last Straw: Why was Straw Dogs remade???

    The latest of the endless unnecessary remakes is much more unnecessary than most– Sam Peckinpah’s brilliant, unique Straw Dogs is being transplanted from rural England to the American south to no good effect. Part of the charm of the original film was that it reminded Americans that rednecks are a universal phenomena. As much as the film’s protagonist, David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman), tries to avoid violence in his native America, he discovers under the worst possible circumstances that stupid, subhuman scum lurk everywhere and that their only means of communication is through brutal acts of greater or lesser degrees. I reiterate: Why bother remaking it to begin with, and why relocate it to the south? I suppose because the south is the movies’ default location for backwards degeneracy thanks to Deliverance and all of the other ’70s ‘Yankee nightmare’ movies. It also gives ‘consummate actors’ the excuse to speak in unspeakably bad southern accents– non-southerners almost NEVER get them right.
    Speaking of never getting it right, why do emasculated Hollywood executives always remake movies that were damn near perfect to begin with and then inevitably botch them? Why don’t they choose very promising projects that became mediocre movies– ones with excellent ideas that were sunk by poor execution? (Case in point: Byron Haskin’s lame adaptation of Frank Robinson’s excellent science fiction suspense novel The Power.) The only reason that those lemmings probably chose Straw Dogs was because it was– and is– a genuinely shocking film. With American gorehounds’ decadent palettes more jaded than ever, they almost certainly figure that it will make a fine excuse to trot out another hollow,, degraded torture porn movie a la The Hills Have Eyes– call it Saw Dogs. And the original Straw Dogs’ incredible artistry gives the remake a vague patina of quality that a remake of a drive-in movie like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre doesn’t (for snobs who refuse to the see that latter film’s merits, that is).
    The REAL Straw Dogs was a film, like most movies that get remade, whose disparate elements coalesced beautifully in ways that can’t be replicated. Without Sam Peckinpah’s direction (and overwhelmingly paranoid vision) and the virtuoso editing of Garth Craven, John Coquillon’s note-perfect cinematography (with his usual muted, autumnal palette), the finest English rednecks in film history (led by the estimable Peter Vaughan), a note-perfect cast (foremost among them Dustin Hoffman, Susan George, and David Warner), and Jerry Fielding’s low-key music... IT AIN’T STRAW DOGS.
    Straw Dogs was also very much a product of its time. It was a reminder to the flower children that their notions of peaceful coexistence were naive at best. Human beings have a loooong way to go evolution-wise– some more than others– and as long as that’s true, violence will always be part of the human experience and, in certain situations, the only moral solution. Love, understanding, and misguided humanitarianism didn’t stop Charles Whitman. What special significance does Straw Dogs hold for the twentieth century that the original didn't already eloquently convey?
    The only way that you could coax me into seeing the new Straw Dogs was if it was called Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Straw Dogs and it starred Tyler Perry in the Susan George role, Chris Tucker as David, with Fat Albert in the Peter Vaughan role and Rudy, Dumb Donald, and Weird Harold as his scummy redneck cohorts. In 3D.
    I suppose that some of the improvements in the remake will include having the hellish image of Amy’s hanged cat dangling from her closet’s light chain transformed into David reduced to tears by the sight of his Blackberry suspended in his closet, smashed by the rednecks.

Price 1, Satiemania 0

I'm going to have to hold off on that "Satiemania" entry-- today is the 100th anniversary of Vincent Price's birth and it's my civic duty to announce it. Price starred in what is very possibly my favorite movie, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, along with about fifty other wonderful films (and some fairly dull ones... but NEVER because of him). Art collector, actor, writer, bon vivant, and all-around swell guy, Price is sorely missed. If there was anything like an equivalent to him in the current cinema, I might see more than three new movies in the theater every year. My favorite Price quote is probably "The secret to life is knowing that life is a joke and being in on the joke. And I'm in on the joke." Happy birthday, Vinnie, wherever you are.

Let the pettiblogging begin!

Greetings-- Justin Humphreys here-- I will begin posting soon with a little ditty about one of the finest pieces of animation ever made, Zdenko Gasparovic's "Satiemania." Stay tuned...