Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House" draws us into its gothic, macabre world even before we set our sights on the titular mansion. When we finally see the scary residence, Jackson's haunting prose etches the picture of a house that observes and reacts to human presence, being every bit sentient as its inhabitants. The true horror, however, lies in the unspoken fears evoked by such a horrible, surreal place. When the mansion brings out the worst anxieties in our protagonist, Eleanor Vance, it's hard not to slip into her shoes and absorb some of her fears.
As the key to capturing the heart of Jackson's chilling tale is to explore these subtleties, few adaptations have managed to reinvent the book's premise on its own terms. The most effective and notable effort (so far) is Mike Flanagan's "The Haunting of Hill House," which uses Jackson's haunted house...
As the key to capturing the heart of Jackson's chilling tale is to explore these subtleties, few adaptations have managed to reinvent the book's premise on its own terms. The most effective and notable effort (so far) is Mike Flanagan's "The Haunting of Hill House," which uses Jackson's haunted house...
- 3/9/2025
- by Debopriyaa Dutta
- Slash Film
Warning: Beware, foolish mortals, this article contains spoilers about Haunted Mansion.
Owen Wilson starred in a scarier horror film with a similar premise to "Haunted Mansion" called "The Haunting," in 1999, which had more screen time for his character and utilized innovative visual effects. "The Haunting" was a box office success, making $180 million, while "Haunted Mansion" has so far failed to make back its budget due to a lack of truly frightening scares. "The Haunting" had a more mature tone, whereas "Haunted Mansion" reflected the narrative of the popular Disney theme park ride and had to be more family-friendly.
After being wasted in Disney's latest film, Owen Wilson was in a better Haunted Mansion movie 20 years ago. In Justin Simien's movie adaptation of the Disney theme park ride, Wilson plays Father Kent, a rakish priest who recruits paranormal guide Ben (Lakeith Stanfield) to exorcise some ghosts from a haunted house outside of New Orleans.
Owen Wilson starred in a scarier horror film with a similar premise to "Haunted Mansion" called "The Haunting," in 1999, which had more screen time for his character and utilized innovative visual effects. "The Haunting" was a box office success, making $180 million, while "Haunted Mansion" has so far failed to make back its budget due to a lack of truly frightening scares. "The Haunting" had a more mature tone, whereas "Haunted Mansion" reflected the narrative of the popular Disney theme park ride and had to be more family-friendly.
After being wasted in Disney's latest film, Owen Wilson was in a better Haunted Mansion movie 20 years ago. In Justin Simien's movie adaptation of the Disney theme park ride, Wilson plays Father Kent, a rakish priest who recruits paranormal guide Ben (Lakeith Stanfield) to exorcise some ghosts from a haunted house outside of New Orleans.
- 8/1/2023
- by Kayleena Pierce-Bohen
- ScreenRant
Hello, everyone! We’re back after a brief hiatus to give you a look at the horror and sci-fi headed home this week on home media. As it turns out, the month of August’s releases are starting off on a quiet note, as we have two titles getting the 4K treatment this Tuesday—Dario Argento’s Tenebrae and Flatliners from Joel Schumacher—and then a handful of indie horror arriving on both Blu-ray and DVD: Scream at the Devil, Paranormal Devil, The Farm, and Joker’s Poltergeist.
Flatliners 4K
Some Lines Shouldn’T Be Crossed.
Known for his impressively eclectic filmography and for helping to launch the careers of several young Hollywood stars of the 80s and 90s, Joel Schumacher tackles the existential question that, at one time or another, haunts us all: what awaits us after we die?
At the University Hospital School of Medicine, five ambitious students...
Flatliners 4K
Some Lines Shouldn’T Be Crossed.
Known for his impressively eclectic filmography and for helping to launch the careers of several young Hollywood stars of the 80s and 90s, Joel Schumacher tackles the existential question that, at one time or another, haunts us all: what awaits us after we die?
At the University Hospital School of Medicine, five ambitious students...
- 8/2/2022
- by Heather Wixson
- DailyDead
Ten years after he first donned Iron Man’s suit of armor, Robert Downey Jr. has reprised his role as the billionaire superhero in the Marvel epic “Avengers: Infinity War.” The film finds the universe’s greatest heroes teaming up to stop the deadly Thanos (Josh Brolin) from gathering the infinity stones with the intention of wiping out half of the universe’s population. Downey Jr. first played the role in 2008’s “Iron Man,” and has appeared in eight subsequent Marvel movies. Of course, his career hasn’t been limited to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So in honor of his latest big screen achievement, let’s take a look back on some of his best performances. Tour through our photo gallery above of Downey Jr.’s 20 greatest films, ranked from worst to best.
The son of underground filmmaker Robert Downey Sr. and actress Elsie Downey, Robert Downey Jr. made his...
The son of underground filmmaker Robert Downey Sr. and actress Elsie Downey, Robert Downey Jr. made his...
- 5/2/2018
- by Zach Laws and Chris Beachum
- Gold Derby
Exclusive: Mongrel International heads to the Afm with a pair of titles from Fox International Productions (Fip) including Mexican box office sensation Guten Tag, Ramon.
Jorge Ramírez Suárez’s fish-out-of-water drama centres on a young Mexican in search of a better life who emigrates to Germany where he strikes up an unlikely friendship.
The Germany-Mexico co-production is arguably the hit of the year-to-date in Mexico where it has amassed $4.9m and drawn more than 1.2m admissions.
Mongrel International will screen the film at Afm and handles all territory sales on behalf of Fip outside Latin America, Germany and the Us.
Fip is scheduled to release Guten Tag, Ramon in the Us on February 20, 2015. It opens in Germany on January 22, 2015.
Fip is enjoying success with its recent Us release of Bang Bang. The Bollywood film opened on October 19 and has already generated $2.5m in the Us and $48m worldwide.
“We’re extremely proud to be presenting Guten Tag, Ramon...
Jorge Ramírez Suárez’s fish-out-of-water drama centres on a young Mexican in search of a better life who emigrates to Germany where he strikes up an unlikely friendship.
The Germany-Mexico co-production is arguably the hit of the year-to-date in Mexico where it has amassed $4.9m and drawn more than 1.2m admissions.
Mongrel International will screen the film at Afm and handles all territory sales on behalf of Fip outside Latin America, Germany and the Us.
Fip is scheduled to release Guten Tag, Ramon in the Us on February 20, 2015. It opens in Germany on January 22, 2015.
Fip is enjoying success with its recent Us release of Bang Bang. The Bollywood film opened on October 19 and has already generated $2.5m in the Us and $48m worldwide.
“We’re extremely proud to be presenting Guten Tag, Ramon...
- 10/27/2014
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Last Friday in Spain we saw the opening weekend release for “There Be Dragons”, the new film from acclaimed and twice Oscar-nominated filmmaker behind “The Mission” and “The Killing Fields”. Budgeted at $35 million, the co-production between Spain, U.S and Argentina the film proved to be a moderate success already before its release as it grossed an impressive 300 000 Euros in pre-sold tickets, although we have to take in consideration big part of these tickets were part of a charity campaign for Doctors Without Borders as well as other non benefit organizations, a clever marketing campaign no doubt benefited the film's tally. Starring Charlie Cox (Stardust, Casanova); Wes Bentley (American Beauty, Ghost Rider); Olga Kurylenko (Quantum of Solace, Max Payne); Derek Jacobi (Gladiator, La Brújula Dorada); Dougray Scott (Mission Impossible II, Ever After), Rodrigo Santoro (300, Che), Golshifteh Farahani (Body of Lies) and Geraldine Chaplin; this also has a first rate crew...
- 3/29/2011
- IONCINEMA.com
Film review: 'Quantum Project'
Hollywood is still trying to figure out the Web. Depending on who you talk to, the Internet is either the next great way to market movies or a cutting-edge delivery system or a damn toy distracting people from what they should be doing -- going to the movies. But, clearly, the Production Company and online distributor behind "Quantum Project" believe the Internet is the future.
At 9:01 PDT tonight, Metafilmics' Internet movie will be released worldwide. For a $3.95 fee, the 301Ú2-minute film starring Stephen Dorff, John Cleese and Fay Masterson and directed by Oscar-winning production designer Eugenio Zanetti ("Restoration") can be downloaded from the SightSound.com Web site.
While certainly not the first film to debut on the Web, "Quantum" claims to be the first made specifically for release in the relatively new medium. In fact, it is such an Internet movie that the characters and story are designed in Internet terms. For instance, when a character is lost in thought, a software tool bar appears on screen.
The story wallows in this kind of techno-babble and is deliberately free-form and obscure, with less of a story line than a stream-of- consciousness progression of imagery. Producers Stephen Simon and Barnet Bain admit to creating a movie that cannot be figured out on first viewing. But the downloader, who instantly owns the film and can watch it repeatedly, presumably puts the pieces together on subsequent viewings.
Or, maybe not.
Repeat business in movie houses usually stems from audiences wanting to re-experience laughs, thrills or emotions provoked by a first viewing. But "Quantum", which is cerebral and philosophical, contains none of these.
Dorff plays a physicist who devotes his life to the pursuit of all things subatomic. In an underground lab where he watches electrons collide, he is startled one day when a particle speaks to him.
Then, in the outside world, the scientist experiences two epiphanies. A billion-to-one accident involving his red Volkswagen Beetle and two exact replicas somehow reunites him with his former girlfriend (Masterson). Later, when two lightning bolts strike his poor VW, he dashes off to an encounter with his father (Cleese), a computer scientist who seems worried that his son has become a computer scientist.
The film constantly probes questions about reality and what it means to be human. Characters say such things as "nothing is real until it's perceived" and "reality is what you choose to make it."
Zanetti films with a digital camera that favors wide angles, employing geometric shapes in his set design that approximate imagery one associates with the Web. The sets range from the chrome-and-glass science lab and a cluttered 1920s mansion to eerie oil derricks pumping away at night and a shipyard of decaying ocean liners.
"Quantum" looks and acts like something that belongs on a computer screen. Which is to say, this is a hybrid: It's not a movie, but it's not an interactive game, either.
But whether or not tonight's event is the wave of the future, films such as "Quantum" and Mike Figgis' digitally shot real-time movie "Timecode" reformulate our perception of the filmic experience. "Quantum Project" may never answer the questions it poses about the nature of reality, but it shakes up our perception of what a movie is supposed to be.
QUANTUM PROJECT
SightSound.com
Metafilmics
Producers: Barnet Bain, Stephen Simon
Director: Eugenio Zanetti
Screenwriter: David Aaron Cohen
Executive producer: Scott Sander
Director of photography: Robert Primes
Production designer: Oliver Scholl
Music: Emilio Kauderer
Line producer: Terry Collis
Costume designer: Laurie Henricksen
Editor: Jay Nelson
Color/stereo
Cast:
Paul Pentcho: Stephen Dorff
Mia: Fay Masterson
Alexander Pentcho: John Cleese
Running time -- 31 minutes
No MPAA rating...
At 9:01 PDT tonight, Metafilmics' Internet movie will be released worldwide. For a $3.95 fee, the 301Ú2-minute film starring Stephen Dorff, John Cleese and Fay Masterson and directed by Oscar-winning production designer Eugenio Zanetti ("Restoration") can be downloaded from the SightSound.com Web site.
While certainly not the first film to debut on the Web, "Quantum" claims to be the first made specifically for release in the relatively new medium. In fact, it is such an Internet movie that the characters and story are designed in Internet terms. For instance, when a character is lost in thought, a software tool bar appears on screen.
The story wallows in this kind of techno-babble and is deliberately free-form and obscure, with less of a story line than a stream-of- consciousness progression of imagery. Producers Stephen Simon and Barnet Bain admit to creating a movie that cannot be figured out on first viewing. But the downloader, who instantly owns the film and can watch it repeatedly, presumably puts the pieces together on subsequent viewings.
Or, maybe not.
Repeat business in movie houses usually stems from audiences wanting to re-experience laughs, thrills or emotions provoked by a first viewing. But "Quantum", which is cerebral and philosophical, contains none of these.
Dorff plays a physicist who devotes his life to the pursuit of all things subatomic. In an underground lab where he watches electrons collide, he is startled one day when a particle speaks to him.
Then, in the outside world, the scientist experiences two epiphanies. A billion-to-one accident involving his red Volkswagen Beetle and two exact replicas somehow reunites him with his former girlfriend (Masterson). Later, when two lightning bolts strike his poor VW, he dashes off to an encounter with his father (Cleese), a computer scientist who seems worried that his son has become a computer scientist.
The film constantly probes questions about reality and what it means to be human. Characters say such things as "nothing is real until it's perceived" and "reality is what you choose to make it."
Zanetti films with a digital camera that favors wide angles, employing geometric shapes in his set design that approximate imagery one associates with the Web. The sets range from the chrome-and-glass science lab and a cluttered 1920s mansion to eerie oil derricks pumping away at night and a shipyard of decaying ocean liners.
"Quantum" looks and acts like something that belongs on a computer screen. Which is to say, this is a hybrid: It's not a movie, but it's not an interactive game, either.
But whether or not tonight's event is the wave of the future, films such as "Quantum" and Mike Figgis' digitally shot real-time movie "Timecode" reformulate our perception of the filmic experience. "Quantum Project" may never answer the questions it poses about the nature of reality, but it shakes up our perception of what a movie is supposed to be.
QUANTUM PROJECT
SightSound.com
Metafilmics
Producers: Barnet Bain, Stephen Simon
Director: Eugenio Zanetti
Screenwriter: David Aaron Cohen
Executive producer: Scott Sander
Director of photography: Robert Primes
Production designer: Oliver Scholl
Music: Emilio Kauderer
Line producer: Terry Collis
Costume designer: Laurie Henricksen
Editor: Jay Nelson
Color/stereo
Cast:
Paul Pentcho: Stephen Dorff
Mia: Fay Masterson
Alexander Pentcho: John Cleese
Running time -- 31 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 5/4/2000
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Film review: 'The Haunting'
Some movies are born bad. "The Haunting of Hill House", a legendary ghost story by Shirley Jackson, was turned into a classic psychological movie thriller by Robert Wise in 1963. Now comes a "contemporary" version of Jackson's novel, which in "The Haunting" turns out to be a crass special effects extravaganza with a muddled plot and thoroughly uninteresting characters.
This DreamWorks release should initially scare up solid numbers at the boxoffice with teens and horror buffs checking out the latest fright movie. But the film may haunt fairly empty houses once word of mouth gets around.
Jan De Bont has not exactly built his directorial career on subtlety with such films as "Twister", "Speed" and "Speed 2: Cruise Control". So it comes as no surprise that his idea of a haunted house more closely resembles a noisy carnival fun house. It even has a merry-go-round and hall of mirrors.
In his version of Jackson's novel, Wise, a veteran of the Val Lewton-RKO horror film unit of the '40s, let his audience's imagination do much of the work. What was not seen was much scarier than what was. But De Bont favors the over-obvious. He would rather bludgeon than tease gasps from his audience.
In both versions, four people spend several restless nights in a haunted New England mansion. However, the basic set-up has been changed in David Self's updated version and not necessarily for the better.
In Wise's film, an anthropologist investigating the supernatural invites three others to join him in an adventure in an evil old house. So everyone knows what he's getting himself into.
But in Self's script, Dr. David Marrow, in the midst of a five-year study of human fear, tricks three other people into staying in a creepy, old mansion with the ruse that he is conducting a study in sleep disorders.
But it's never clear whether this not-so-good doctor realizes the house is haunted. If he doesn't, then why does he expect his subjects to become frightened? And if he does, then why isn't he investigating the paranormal activity?
Clearly though, the house instantly "bonds" with the most neurotic of the insomniacs, Nell, a spinster who has spent the last 11 years nursing her ailing mother. Something in her ancestral past, something even she is unaware of, links her to the ghastly mansion. In her first lead role in a major studio movie, Lili Taylor, long the darling of indie filmmakers, gives a carefully nuanced performance as a troubled woman drawn into an ambivalent attraction to the depraved house.
Her companion in wide-eyed terror is Theo, a flamboyant bisexual who makes more costume changes than a runway model. But both Catherine Zeta-Jones, who plays Theo, and an exuberant Owen Wilson, who plays Luke, the third unwitting guinea pig, have little to do in these reactive roles except utter inane lines such as "Are you all right?" and "She doesn't look too good to me."
The greatest sympathy, however, should be reserved for Liam Neeson, who is truly at sea in the role of the unethical scientist. Neeson flounders throughout the movie, perhaps in uncertainty whether he's a villain or a hero.
In truth, all the actors get upstaged by Eugenio Zanetti's mammoth set, which has only slightly less square footage than the Grand Canyon. De Bont is so in love with its endless corridors, gigantic rooms and enormous carved doors that he pays scant attention to the tiny, mind-numbing story taking place within its towering walls.
Karl Walter Lindenlaub's camera roams the cavernous interiors to set the stage for the film's grand finale in which the whole house comes alive. Statues, paintings, doors, ceilings and fireplaces all turn on the characters, flinging them around like rag dolls or hurling odd bits of debris at their heads. All the while Jerry Goldsmith's overanxious music hammers away on the soundtrack to cue our emotional response.
None of this is particularly frightening. In fact, it's corny in the way Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe movies were corny, only at a stupendous scale. One is awed by the sheer waste in the effort. In some quarters of Hollywood, visual effects have become a substitute for imagination.
THE HAUNTING
DreamWorks Pictures
A Roth/Arnold production
Producers:Susan Arnold, Donna Arkoff Roth, Colin Wilson
Executive producer:Jan De Bont
Director:Jan De Bont
Screenplay:David Self
Based on "The Haunting of Hill House" by:Shirley Jackson
Director of photography:Karl Walter Lindenlaub
Production designer:Eugenio Zanetti
Music:Jerry Goldsmith
Visual effects supervisors:Phil Tippett, Craig Hayes
Costume designer:Ellen Mirojnick
Editor:Michael Kahn
Color/stereo
Cast:
Nell:Lili Taylor
Dr. David Marrow:Liam Neeson
Theo:Catherine Zeta-Jones
Luke Sanderson:Owen Wilson
Mr. Dudley:Bruce Dern
Mrs. Dudley:Marian Seldes
Mary Lambetta:Alix Koromzay
Todd Hackett:Todd Field
Jane:Virginia Madsen
Running time -- 117 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
This DreamWorks release should initially scare up solid numbers at the boxoffice with teens and horror buffs checking out the latest fright movie. But the film may haunt fairly empty houses once word of mouth gets around.
Jan De Bont has not exactly built his directorial career on subtlety with such films as "Twister", "Speed" and "Speed 2: Cruise Control". So it comes as no surprise that his idea of a haunted house more closely resembles a noisy carnival fun house. It even has a merry-go-round and hall of mirrors.
In his version of Jackson's novel, Wise, a veteran of the Val Lewton-RKO horror film unit of the '40s, let his audience's imagination do much of the work. What was not seen was much scarier than what was. But De Bont favors the over-obvious. He would rather bludgeon than tease gasps from his audience.
In both versions, four people spend several restless nights in a haunted New England mansion. However, the basic set-up has been changed in David Self's updated version and not necessarily for the better.
In Wise's film, an anthropologist investigating the supernatural invites three others to join him in an adventure in an evil old house. So everyone knows what he's getting himself into.
But in Self's script, Dr. David Marrow, in the midst of a five-year study of human fear, tricks three other people into staying in a creepy, old mansion with the ruse that he is conducting a study in sleep disorders.
But it's never clear whether this not-so-good doctor realizes the house is haunted. If he doesn't, then why does he expect his subjects to become frightened? And if he does, then why isn't he investigating the paranormal activity?
Clearly though, the house instantly "bonds" with the most neurotic of the insomniacs, Nell, a spinster who has spent the last 11 years nursing her ailing mother. Something in her ancestral past, something even she is unaware of, links her to the ghastly mansion. In her first lead role in a major studio movie, Lili Taylor, long the darling of indie filmmakers, gives a carefully nuanced performance as a troubled woman drawn into an ambivalent attraction to the depraved house.
Her companion in wide-eyed terror is Theo, a flamboyant bisexual who makes more costume changes than a runway model. But both Catherine Zeta-Jones, who plays Theo, and an exuberant Owen Wilson, who plays Luke, the third unwitting guinea pig, have little to do in these reactive roles except utter inane lines such as "Are you all right?" and "She doesn't look too good to me."
The greatest sympathy, however, should be reserved for Liam Neeson, who is truly at sea in the role of the unethical scientist. Neeson flounders throughout the movie, perhaps in uncertainty whether he's a villain or a hero.
In truth, all the actors get upstaged by Eugenio Zanetti's mammoth set, which has only slightly less square footage than the Grand Canyon. De Bont is so in love with its endless corridors, gigantic rooms and enormous carved doors that he pays scant attention to the tiny, mind-numbing story taking place within its towering walls.
Karl Walter Lindenlaub's camera roams the cavernous interiors to set the stage for the film's grand finale in which the whole house comes alive. Statues, paintings, doors, ceilings and fireplaces all turn on the characters, flinging them around like rag dolls or hurling odd bits of debris at their heads. All the while Jerry Goldsmith's overanxious music hammers away on the soundtrack to cue our emotional response.
None of this is particularly frightening. In fact, it's corny in the way Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe movies were corny, only at a stupendous scale. One is awed by the sheer waste in the effort. In some quarters of Hollywood, visual effects have become a substitute for imagination.
THE HAUNTING
DreamWorks Pictures
A Roth/Arnold production
Producers:Susan Arnold, Donna Arkoff Roth, Colin Wilson
Executive producer:Jan De Bont
Director:Jan De Bont
Screenplay:David Self
Based on "The Haunting of Hill House" by:Shirley Jackson
Director of photography:Karl Walter Lindenlaub
Production designer:Eugenio Zanetti
Music:Jerry Goldsmith
Visual effects supervisors:Phil Tippett, Craig Hayes
Costume designer:Ellen Mirojnick
Editor:Michael Kahn
Color/stereo
Cast:
Nell:Lili Taylor
Dr. David Marrow:Liam Neeson
Theo:Catherine Zeta-Jones
Luke Sanderson:Owen Wilson
Mr. Dudley:Bruce Dern
Mrs. Dudley:Marian Seldes
Mary Lambetta:Alix Koromzay
Todd Hackett:Todd Field
Jane:Virginia Madsen
Running time -- 117 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
- 7/23/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Film review: 'What Dreams May Come' Plot Is Rough, but Heavenly Tech Support Lifts 'Dreams' / Williams starrer works, but it's hardly perfect
Taken from Shakespeare's "Hamlet" ("To sleep: perchance to dream. ... For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come ..."), the title of Vincent Ward's remarkable film starring Robin Williams as a dead man is the first sign proclaiming its seriousness -- the first inkling one is not in for another "Hook", "Jack" or "Flubber".
Indeed, what grosses may come will depend on distributor PolyGram's tricky marketing of this afterlife fantasy, which is more challenging dramatically and artistically than "Ghost" but, sadly, less involving on a gut level. A visual feast not to be passed up and bound to pack an emotional punch for many viewers, particularly women, "What Dreams May Come" has the aura of a theatrical hit and should successfully haunt the marketplace before ascending to ancillary Elysian fields.
Departing significantly from Richard Matheson's 1978 novel, the screenplay credited to Ron Bass posits Williams as Chris Nielsen, a doctor who dies and goes to a heaven where "thoughts are real," leaving behind his true love and wife Annie (Annabella Sciorra). There he meets other spirit beings and eventually has to employ a "tracker" to find Annie's tortured soul in a hell she creates when she commits suicide.
Matheson's original, semiautobiographical book may have lacked action and filmworthy epiphanic moments, but it presented a compelling life-after-death scenario that centered mostly on the incredible journey of self-discovery made by a deceased screen and TV writer. Ward and Bass jettison most of the novel's first half and make Chris and Annie's lives marred by disaster, when their teenage son (Josh Paddock) and daughter Jessica Brooks Grant) die in a traffic accident.
In crisp, short scenes of earthly reality alternating with more lyrical attempts to show the dreamy, intangible environment of the beyond, "Dreams" more or less follows Chris' odyssey to save Annie, along with his and her memories and dreams of memories. Got that? It gets much more complicated. Much of Chris' story takes place in the Painted World: the couple's dream house in a spectacular mountain setting, based on Annie's art in real life.
Inspired by Monet, Van Gogh and 19th century German Romanticists, the filmmakers create many beautiful images. The special effects in such sequences as Annie painting a jacaranda tree -- which appears in Chris' heaven and then withers and dies -- are stunning. Other visions, however, are an uneasy mixture of Dante and Disney, with paradise in some ways portrayed as just another big amusement park/art gallery in the sky -- where everyone can fly like, er, Peter Pan and be reunited with old pets (sniff).
Chris must be first be horribly killed and meet ghostly Albert (Cuba Gooding Jr.), who informs him: "You didn't disappear. You just died." Somewhat troublesome for the movie, however, life-after-life-on-Earth still entails too many rules and expository dialogue. When duty calls Albert away, Chris is shown Marie's World -- a mighty golden city perched on the edge of a mighty abyss -- by the radiant etheric denizen Leona (Rosalind Chao). "It's all in your mind" is the catchall phrase of eternity.
In both heaven and hell, the immediate environment reflects the thoughts and moods of the characters, while characters such as Albert, Leona and the Tracker (Max Von Sydow) are not who they appear to be. When Annie takes her own life, soulmate Chris goes against those pesky rules and tries to reunite with her, and the film offers more wondrous sights such as the borderland to hell where the victims of shipwrecks reside.
In addition to the complex structure and its get-out-your-guidebooks metaphysical nature, the film is also somewhat tripped up by Williams' predictable performance. Meanwhile, Gooding and Chao -- the former distorted in many scenes with eerie effects -- are both worthy guides for the audience, and Sciorra is excellent in one of her best roles.
"Dreams" is a technical knockout, another expensive art film in the same league as "Brazil" and "Toys". Hosannas to all involved, particularly production designer Eugenio Zanetti, director of photography Eduardo Serra, costume designer Yvonne Blake and the many digital artists and animators listed on the seemingly endless closing credits.
WHAT DREAMS MAY COME
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment
An Interscope Communications productions
in association with Metafilmics
Credits: Director: Vincent Ward; Screenwriter: Ron Bass; Based on the novel by: Richard Matheson; Producers: Stephen Simon, Barnet Bain; Executive producers: Ted Field, Scott Kroopf, Erica Huggins, Ron Bass; Director of photography: Eduardo Serra; Production designer: Eugenio Zanetti; Editors: David Brenner, Maysie Hoy; Costume designer: Yvonne Blake; Music: Michael Kamen; Casting: Heidi Levitt. Cast: Chris: Robin Williams; Annie: Annabella Sciorra; Albert: Cuba Gooding Jr.; The Tracker: Max Von Sydow; Marie: Jessica Brooks Grant; Ian: Josh Paddock; Leona: Rosalind Chao. MPAA rating: PG-13. Color/stereo. Running time -- 113 minutes.
Indeed, what grosses may come will depend on distributor PolyGram's tricky marketing of this afterlife fantasy, which is more challenging dramatically and artistically than "Ghost" but, sadly, less involving on a gut level. A visual feast not to be passed up and bound to pack an emotional punch for many viewers, particularly women, "What Dreams May Come" has the aura of a theatrical hit and should successfully haunt the marketplace before ascending to ancillary Elysian fields.
Departing significantly from Richard Matheson's 1978 novel, the screenplay credited to Ron Bass posits Williams as Chris Nielsen, a doctor who dies and goes to a heaven where "thoughts are real," leaving behind his true love and wife Annie (Annabella Sciorra). There he meets other spirit beings and eventually has to employ a "tracker" to find Annie's tortured soul in a hell she creates when she commits suicide.
Matheson's original, semiautobiographical book may have lacked action and filmworthy epiphanic moments, but it presented a compelling life-after-death scenario that centered mostly on the incredible journey of self-discovery made by a deceased screen and TV writer. Ward and Bass jettison most of the novel's first half and make Chris and Annie's lives marred by disaster, when their teenage son (Josh Paddock) and daughter Jessica Brooks Grant) die in a traffic accident.
In crisp, short scenes of earthly reality alternating with more lyrical attempts to show the dreamy, intangible environment of the beyond, "Dreams" more or less follows Chris' odyssey to save Annie, along with his and her memories and dreams of memories. Got that? It gets much more complicated. Much of Chris' story takes place in the Painted World: the couple's dream house in a spectacular mountain setting, based on Annie's art in real life.
Inspired by Monet, Van Gogh and 19th century German Romanticists, the filmmakers create many beautiful images. The special effects in such sequences as Annie painting a jacaranda tree -- which appears in Chris' heaven and then withers and dies -- are stunning. Other visions, however, are an uneasy mixture of Dante and Disney, with paradise in some ways portrayed as just another big amusement park/art gallery in the sky -- where everyone can fly like, er, Peter Pan and be reunited with old pets (sniff).
Chris must be first be horribly killed and meet ghostly Albert (Cuba Gooding Jr.), who informs him: "You didn't disappear. You just died." Somewhat troublesome for the movie, however, life-after-life-on-Earth still entails too many rules and expository dialogue. When duty calls Albert away, Chris is shown Marie's World -- a mighty golden city perched on the edge of a mighty abyss -- by the radiant etheric denizen Leona (Rosalind Chao). "It's all in your mind" is the catchall phrase of eternity.
In both heaven and hell, the immediate environment reflects the thoughts and moods of the characters, while characters such as Albert, Leona and the Tracker (Max Von Sydow) are not who they appear to be. When Annie takes her own life, soulmate Chris goes against those pesky rules and tries to reunite with her, and the film offers more wondrous sights such as the borderland to hell where the victims of shipwrecks reside.
In addition to the complex structure and its get-out-your-guidebooks metaphysical nature, the film is also somewhat tripped up by Williams' predictable performance. Meanwhile, Gooding and Chao -- the former distorted in many scenes with eerie effects -- are both worthy guides for the audience, and Sciorra is excellent in one of her best roles.
"Dreams" is a technical knockout, another expensive art film in the same league as "Brazil" and "Toys". Hosannas to all involved, particularly production designer Eugenio Zanetti, director of photography Eduardo Serra, costume designer Yvonne Blake and the many digital artists and animators listed on the seemingly endless closing credits.
WHAT DREAMS MAY COME
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment
An Interscope Communications productions
in association with Metafilmics
Credits: Director: Vincent Ward; Screenwriter: Ron Bass; Based on the novel by: Richard Matheson; Producers: Stephen Simon, Barnet Bain; Executive producers: Ted Field, Scott Kroopf, Erica Huggins, Ron Bass; Director of photography: Eduardo Serra; Production designer: Eugenio Zanetti; Editors: David Brenner, Maysie Hoy; Costume designer: Yvonne Blake; Music: Michael Kamen; Casting: Heidi Levitt. Cast: Chris: Robin Williams; Annie: Annabella Sciorra; Albert: Cuba Gooding Jr.; The Tracker: Max Von Sydow; Marie: Jessica Brooks Grant; Ian: Josh Paddock; Leona: Rosalind Chao. MPAA rating: PG-13. Color/stereo. Running time -- 113 minutes.
- 9/29/1998
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Last Action Hero
Take the word "blockbuster." Dynamite the beginning, chop of the end and what's left? "Bust". That's what Columbia's left with in "Last Action Hero", a noisy monstrosity that not even Arnold Schwarzenegger's star power can pump to life.
Undoubtedly, Arnold's legions will turn out in force for the early rounds, but the boxoffice body count and exit mumblings on this ham-'n'-egger, Schwarzenegger will be "Hasta la vista, baby". "Howard the Duck", "Hudson Hawke" -- there will be talk.
"Last Action Hero" combines those two usual winning action ingredients, nonstop mayhem and dynamite comedy; unfortunately, in this case, the "dynamite comedy" is literally humor detonated by explosions. It would take a unique sensibility to differentiate the funny explosions from the one's that are action driven since the narrative itself is such a convulsion of hyperkinetic jumble and John McTiernan's direction such a mass of frenzied clumsiness. Most woefully, this "Action" movies has surprisingly little action, unless one counts gunfire and explosions as action, which they're not.
"Action Hero's" premise itself is intriguing: a movie-nut kid, Danny Austin O'Brien) is magically transported into the world of his favorite action hero, the superheroic Jack Slater (Schwarzenegger), a megahybrid of comic book-movie action heroes. While burdened with some of the attendant angst of such greats as Dirty Harry and other lone rangers, Juggernaut Jack always gets his man, that is until Danny arrives.
Like most movies-within-movies, "Action Hero" is prone to be a tad confusing, when movie reality and real-world reality jump back and forth. Screenwriters Shane Black and David Arnott seem keenly aware of this pitfall and have kept the overall plot line (Jack and junior vs. the bad guys) pointedly simple. Unfortunately, it's more simple in the numbskull sense than in the plain-as-day sense.
Indeed, "Last Action Hero" might be more aptly dubbed the "Last Exposition Hero", as Schwarzenegger is often reduced to delivering megaloads of narrative exposition to explain what's going on. Fortunately, the decision to make Arnold Schwarzenegger a plot spokesman has coincided with Sony's new digital audio release format so Schwarzenegger's numerous stentorian soliloquies are state-of-the-art clear, if not entirely understandable.
Indeed, technically the film is accomplished: In particular, its fires and explosions rank with the finest work of Joel Silver and sometimes even serve a higher purpose, drowning out the dialogue. While it would be tempting to merely dismiss "Last Action Hero" as an assault on the senses, the film is loaded with comic relief. Unfortunately, there is no relief from the comic relief: movie in-jokes exceed epidemic proportion and, equally annoying, Schwarzenegger's unique comic delivery is grossly overused. While a little of Arnold's wonderfully incongruous delivery goes a long way, a lot of it, simply, blows up in his face.
Among the heroes, Schwarzenegger and young O'Brien have a nice comedic, caring rapport while a medal of valor to the talented supporting players, most prominently Mercedes Ruehl as Danny's protective mom. A similar commendation to Eugenio Zanetti for the cheeky, multidimensionsal production design.
LAST ACTION HERO
Columbia
Producers: Steve Roth, John McTiernan
Director: John McTiernan
Screenwriters: Shane Black, David Arnott
Story: Zak Penn, Adam Leff
Co-producers: Robert E. Relyea, Neal Nordlinger
Executive producer: Arnold Schwarzenegger
Director of photography: Dean Semler
Production designer: Eugenio Zanetti
Editor: John Wright
Visual effects consultant: Richard Greenberg
Music: Michael Kamen
Costume designer: Gloria Gresham
Casting: Jane Jenkins, Janet Hirshenson
Sound mixer: Lee Orloff
Color/Stereo
Cast:
Jack Slater: Arnold Schwarzenegger
John Practice: F. Murray Abraham
Frank: Art Carney
Benedict: Charles Dance
Dekker: Frane McCrae
Ripper: Tom Noonan
Nick: Robert Prosky
Vivaldi: Anthony Quinn
Mom: Mercedes Ruehl
Danny: Austin O'Brien
Death: Sir Ian McKellen
Tough Asian Man: Professor Toru Tanaka
Teacher: Joan Plowright
Running time -- 122 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13...
Undoubtedly, Arnold's legions will turn out in force for the early rounds, but the boxoffice body count and exit mumblings on this ham-'n'-egger, Schwarzenegger will be "Hasta la vista, baby". "Howard the Duck", "Hudson Hawke" -- there will be talk.
"Last Action Hero" combines those two usual winning action ingredients, nonstop mayhem and dynamite comedy; unfortunately, in this case, the "dynamite comedy" is literally humor detonated by explosions. It would take a unique sensibility to differentiate the funny explosions from the one's that are action driven since the narrative itself is such a convulsion of hyperkinetic jumble and John McTiernan's direction such a mass of frenzied clumsiness. Most woefully, this "Action" movies has surprisingly little action, unless one counts gunfire and explosions as action, which they're not.
"Action Hero's" premise itself is intriguing: a movie-nut kid, Danny Austin O'Brien) is magically transported into the world of his favorite action hero, the superheroic Jack Slater (Schwarzenegger), a megahybrid of comic book-movie action heroes. While burdened with some of the attendant angst of such greats as Dirty Harry and other lone rangers, Juggernaut Jack always gets his man, that is until Danny arrives.
Like most movies-within-movies, "Action Hero" is prone to be a tad confusing, when movie reality and real-world reality jump back and forth. Screenwriters Shane Black and David Arnott seem keenly aware of this pitfall and have kept the overall plot line (Jack and junior vs. the bad guys) pointedly simple. Unfortunately, it's more simple in the numbskull sense than in the plain-as-day sense.
Indeed, "Last Action Hero" might be more aptly dubbed the "Last Exposition Hero", as Schwarzenegger is often reduced to delivering megaloads of narrative exposition to explain what's going on. Fortunately, the decision to make Arnold Schwarzenegger a plot spokesman has coincided with Sony's new digital audio release format so Schwarzenegger's numerous stentorian soliloquies are state-of-the-art clear, if not entirely understandable.
Indeed, technically the film is accomplished: In particular, its fires and explosions rank with the finest work of Joel Silver and sometimes even serve a higher purpose, drowning out the dialogue. While it would be tempting to merely dismiss "Last Action Hero" as an assault on the senses, the film is loaded with comic relief. Unfortunately, there is no relief from the comic relief: movie in-jokes exceed epidemic proportion and, equally annoying, Schwarzenegger's unique comic delivery is grossly overused. While a little of Arnold's wonderfully incongruous delivery goes a long way, a lot of it, simply, blows up in his face.
Among the heroes, Schwarzenegger and young O'Brien have a nice comedic, caring rapport while a medal of valor to the talented supporting players, most prominently Mercedes Ruehl as Danny's protective mom. A similar commendation to Eugenio Zanetti for the cheeky, multidimensionsal production design.
LAST ACTION HERO
Columbia
Producers: Steve Roth, John McTiernan
Director: John McTiernan
Screenwriters: Shane Black, David Arnott
Story: Zak Penn, Adam Leff
Co-producers: Robert E. Relyea, Neal Nordlinger
Executive producer: Arnold Schwarzenegger
Director of photography: Dean Semler
Production designer: Eugenio Zanetti
Editor: John Wright
Visual effects consultant: Richard Greenberg
Music: Michael Kamen
Costume designer: Gloria Gresham
Casting: Jane Jenkins, Janet Hirshenson
Sound mixer: Lee Orloff
Color/Stereo
Cast:
Jack Slater: Arnold Schwarzenegger
John Practice: F. Murray Abraham
Frank: Art Carney
Benedict: Charles Dance
Dekker: Frane McCrae
Ripper: Tom Noonan
Nick: Robert Prosky
Vivaldi: Anthony Quinn
Mom: Mercedes Ruehl
Danny: Austin O'Brien
Death: Sir Ian McKellen
Tough Asian Man: Professor Toru Tanaka
Teacher: Joan Plowright
Running time -- 122 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13...
- 6/14/1993
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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