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Posts Tagged ‘Alex McDowell’

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Friday, July 18th, 2025

July 15, 2005

I’d like to say Tim Burton’s CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY plays better now than it did then, but for me it’s the reverse. I can guess based on some costumes I saw when I went to see the 2023 movie WONKA that there are people who grew up on this one and still like it, but for people my age I felt alone in believing it even had some good qualities. It was disappointing because I had faith that Depp would have an interesting take on Wonka, and that faith was not rewarded. But I could point to many things I liked about it, so I felt a little protective when people said it was worthless.

SUMMER 2005I’m partial to both the 1964 book by Roald Dahl (or at least the version of it that existed in the ‘80s) and the 1971 film by Mel Stuart starring Gene Wilder. After a teacher read the book to us in class I decided Dahl was my favorite author – I read James and the Giant Peach, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, Danny the Champion of the World, The Twits, George’s Marvelous Medicine, The BFG, The Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes, I’m not sure what else. I remember waiting what seemed like forever for The Witches on inter-library loan, and it was worth it. His dark sense of humor really appealed to me. His descriptions of awful people next to those scratchy Quentin Blake drawings. When I found out he wrote “Lamb to the Slaughter” (the short story turned into the Alfred Hitchcock episode about the woman who killed her husband with a frozen leg of lamb) I was amazed. When I found out he had a book for adults called Switch Bitch I giggled. (But I never read that one.) (read the rest of this shit…)

The Crow (30th anniversary revisit)

Thursday, May 16th, 2024

On May 13, 1994, Johnny Carson was on Late Show with David Letterman, his final televised appearance. Times were rolling on, guards were changing. That same day Miramax, an indie studio recently purchased by Disney, had their biggest opening ever with a bitter R-rated comic book adaptation. While boomers were preparing to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Woodstock, here was a movie with a soundtrack full of Lollapalooza bands, their names underlined on the poster, above a 1-900 number you could call “for music CD preview.” That particular demographic hadn’t really been cinematically catered to so directly, and they showed up, as did others. It was even well reviewed by critics, who were unlikely to be comic book nerds or Nine Inch Nails fans in those days.

Now THE CROW is 30 years old, further in our past than Woodstock was at the time. Jesus christ, man. I wrote a review of it 15 years ago. Time flies when you’re getting old, I guess. In 1994 this movie seemed amazing and important – it not only felt so new in its style, but was part of a collective mourning and/or discovery of this exciting actor who had lost his life making a movie about losing his life. Maybe I was falling for the ads asking us to “EXPERIENCE THE MOVIE EVENT OF THE YEAR” and “Take the journey. Experience the phenomenon.” But I went solemnly into a dark theater, the movie washed over me, I could just feel it more than think about it. Watching it now it’s more a movie I find interesting than a movie I can love. But I don’t mind that it’s style over substance. That’s why it works. Evocative imagery and effusive, unexamined emotion – that’s what goth is about, as far as I can understand. That’s what being a teenager is about. I used to be one of those. (read the rest of this shit…)

The Crow: City of Angels

Wednesday, July 12th, 2017

a survey of summer movies that just didn’t catch on

August 30, 1996

I don’t remember ever hearing anybody say nice things about THE CROW part 2, CITY OF ANGELS, so let me start out with one: this is a gorgeous looking movie. Part 1 production designer Alex McDowell (LAWNMOWER MAN, CRYING FREEMAN, FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, WATCHMEN) returns, this time with cinematographer Jean-Yves Escoffier (GUMMO, GOOD WILL HUNTING), to tweak and expand on the aggressively stylized gotholopolis look he created for Alex Proyas’ THE CROW.

This time it looks more real, and has a yellow tint on its foggy (maybe it’s smoggy?), trash-strewn streets, representing the heat of Los Angeles, I hope, and not the piss that it clearly smells of. I don’t know my skylines, so I’m not sure I would’ve understood that they changed the location from Detroit without the subtitle or the cool shot where a row of palm trees burst into flame one-by-one as the crow (the bird that seems to be responsible for resurrecting murder victims, not the vengeful harlequin ghost he enables) flies past them. There’s a great tracking shot of the bird flying over the (model) city, and a profile shot of the ghost speeding on his motorcycle, his feathered friend right in front of him. The movie definitely achieves on levels of technical craftsmanship. (read the rest of this shit…)