The Last Man On Earth...

First there was Richard Matheson's book I Am Legend, then came this - The Last Man On Earth - starring he of that great voice and 'tache, Vincent Price. Then it was the recently departed Charlton Heston gruffing up the silver screen in The Omega Man ... then the mediocre, dripping-with-Hollywood big budget Will Smith pop-corner I Am Legend. The Will Smith flick is pretty good for the first-half-up-to-two-thirds, then it all just goes rather arse as the CGI monsters with their silly rubbery jaws go yomping around and all tension, intelligence and effort goes right out the window. A missed opportunity for post-apocalyptic greatness ... next stop, the adaptation of World War Z, which could quite possibly be an astounding zombie apocalypse epic ... or it could suffer the same fate as I Am Legend's recent incarnation, or worse. Tracking back and we have The Omega Man, which upon first viewing I really liked, it certainly has that 1970's charm when films could hold a simpler thrill without being absolutely idiotic. However, upon a recent re-watch, I was much less impressed, I'm genuinely shocked to say. It is showing its age worse than I originally recall, the music is almost entirely camp and out-of-step with the over-all pace, and the brotherhood of infected nut-jobs don't play out as well as they once did. They bitch about the machines of man, right before they roll out a complex catapult to fling fireballs about ... then again, there's no reasoning with nutters. That said, it's still a great little flick, but nowadays it feels too cheap to have really pulled off what it set out to do, as well as the fact that it ignores the majority of Matheson's book. Indeed, the Will Smith version of Legend feels more like a 'no-more-than-based-on' adaptation of the book mixed with a hefty dollop of a remake of The Omega Man, with a dusting of 'lets make the monsters really shitty CGI things' zest. Track back even further to the mid-60's and we find ourselves with Vincent Price as The Last Man On Earth. An incredibly faithful adaptation of Matheson's cultural landmark book it most certainly is, a big budget extravaganza it sadly is not. Evidently it's a mish-mash of American and Italian filmmaking (originally it was going to be a British Hammer Horror effort), seemingly foreseeing the likes of Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2 (aka Zombie Flesh Eaters) and other such cheapy combination horror flicks. Price isn't exactly the Robert Neville in the book, mainly due to the main man's underlying reputation as a mad cackler and entertaining scenery chewer (he was gleefully so in The Pit & The Pendulum, which I fortunately got to see at the Bristol Bloodbath 2006 film festival, in true grindhouse fashion on a rickety old print which broke down twice - it was certainly a memorable viewing which took me back to my Uni days watching the old prints of classics like The Maltese Falcon, or some Godard flick when the reel got jammed and the projector burned out the film...) ... hmm, gotten carried away with a tangent, ah memory lane... Anyway, Price is perhaps 90% the Neville we know from the book, although he's now Robert Morgan. It's sad in a way because this, still the most faithful adaptation of I Am Legend, is such a low budget affair. Again, the process of aging hasn't been especially kind, but the downsides of a cheap-as-chips, USA/Italian partnership is clearly the harshest mistress standing over this otherwise solid film. Many performances are wooden, lazy or just unskilled (meanwhile Price is overtly dramatic, but a comparative thespian of legend). The production value is rock bottom - either that or Morgan is a magician and can drive a car at night and at day at the exact same time. It really is an incredibly cheap film, insanely cheap sometimes, which is the main flaw. However, as previously stated, a wonderfully typical turn from Price and the sincere nature of the adaptation ends up making this quite possibly the best I Am Legend re-telling. At the very least, it is in terms of storytelling. Meanwhile, the Will Smith version pimps great visuals (aside from the awful compu-monsters) but a story that holds few resemblances to the source material, ultimately raping it in the third act. As for The Omega Man, it's somewhere in the middle. Middling production value, middling script and retrospectively rather camp, even kitsch. Perhaps, if only, instead of Smith's I Am Legend partially remaking The Omega Man, it could have looked a decade further back and taken several pages out of TLMOE's book. Maybe the fourth book-to-film adaptation will get it properly right? Any Hollywood players with bundles of cash who fancy giving me said green backs would easily tempt me into doing it justice. Scale and story, both of which are intensely important for this particular tale.

The first long-arse blog of 2008...

Well, we're firmly into 2008 now and I figured I'd knock up the first big post of the year with a kind of seasonal round up, although I mostly just indulged and watched DVDs, but still...

One thing is for certain, now armed with a new digital photo camera, I have been taking pictures of all sorts of things around the house. I'm particularly transfixed by close ups...I guess it's my background in art coming back through this device which has enabled it in a more quick & easy way. Plus it makes making graphics for my own short films easier.

But the holidays are for lazing about, and yes I certainly relished the opportunity. It was a DVD marathon alright, so I guess I'll give a quick run down of my viewings (or indeed re-viewings):

Superbad - even better than the first time I saw it now that I'm familiar enough with it to quote-as-it-goes, so-to-speak. Seth Rogen & Co are unquestionably comedic masters. Bring on Pineapple Express!

Alien, Aliens, Alien3 - I got all hot & bothered to get the Ultimate Edition DVDs for them, and I now appreciate them even more than I did, especially the first and third (Aliens is one of my absolute all-time faves). Alien is a masterpiece and Ridley Scott is a genius. Alien3 is a troubled gem with an air of greater things, thanks to David Fincher.

Long Way Down - not as good as Long Way Round, because LWR was just perfect, but still a bloody good adventure to admire and inspire. Bring on Long Way Up!

The A-Team: Season 4 - the majority of the episodes are actually rather good, though the celebrity guest episodes are just pandering, but the show over all has improved at this stage in it's life. Still awesome.

28 Weeks Later - I once scoffed at it, assuming it'd be a cheap and nasty money-spinner trash sequel, but it actually turned out to be equally as good as the original film. It even had a good story to match the visuals!

Spider-Man 3 - wordier than I remember it in the cinema, but still a great romp with a story to boot. Leaving it at three would be no crime, and Sam Raimi could do with returning to his roots for a laugh with his mate Bruce.

Halloween 2007 - having seen the work print, the unrated director's cut is much tighter. Not perfect and not as good as the original (obviously), but is a proper remake - not "name rape" like the new versions of "Dawn of the Dead" (Yawn04) or "Day of the Dead" (Day of the Remake -aka- Day of the Flying Bulgarian Vegetarian Zombies -aka- Careers of the Dead). Michael Myers is at last scary again!

Ricky Gervais: Fame - the least of his stand ups, still mostly funny but nowhere near the quality of the Extras Christmas Special, which was just superb.

I Am Legend - not complete trash, but the infected a bit gash and the final third is a bit cack-handed. At times though it's rather spiffy, and Will Smith actually gets to act instead of wink at the audience. The Omega Man was better though.

SAW IV - least of the series. A convoluted re-hash of the earlier films with a shite continuation of Jigsaw's work. The impact of the first film has long since worn off, and the suitably twisty script of SAW III has been snubbed. Surely it's all downhill for the two coming back-to-back sequels?

American Gangster - not Ridley Scott's best film by far, nor Denzel's. It's not shite, not by a long shot, but I've certainly seen the 'rise & fall of a criminal figure' story several times before, and at times done better I feel. To me it didn't have a strong enough Ridley vibe, to be honest.

This Is Spinal Tap - yes I've only just gotten around to it. Didn't laugh uncontrollably, but appreciated it nonetheless. I guess it just doesn't resonate with me personally as much as it does with others, but regardless I can appreciate it's quality.

Jackass 2.5 - it sucks that the Vito/Lambo tooth yank was excised. The deleted Wildboyz footage is hit & miss, but the rest is decent enough. Hopefully the DVD will plump it up a bit more and provide some more laughs, once it's in stock anyway, I'm still waiting for it.

...

So a well appreciated couple of weeks to lounge around and eat it was, although the wickedly harsh spot of indigestion I got a few nights after Xmas Day sucked big style...now though, the decorations have been cruelly yanked out of my life and stored away for the ass-end of 2008 ... this of course means that I've returned to writing.

For the past few days I've been busy refining the second act of my comedy script, which I'll just refer to as "GenPro" (a short nickname of the full, working title). Next up - planning out and then actually doing the third act...and of course, after that it'll be onto one of two horror scripts I've got percolating in the old noggin.

And there you have it, the first beast-sized blog of 2008!