two movies
Jul. 14th, 2008 01:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
topazThis weekend I noticed that The Omega Man was available for instant watching on Netflix, so I turned it on. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, it's the first film adaptation of Richard Matheson's vampire novel I Am Legend, before the Will Smith version that was released last year.
Good lord, what a dreadful movie. It's an early-1970s science fiction flick, so I expected it to be low budget and cheesy, and let me tell you, it surpassed my expectations in every way. It stars Charlton Heston, which is without a doubt their first mistake. He spends much of the movie acting like his chief weapons against the monsters are his dry wit and his arched eyebrows. (Of course, it is Charlton Heston, so he gets plenty of screen time slinging around semiautomatic weapons too.)
The monsters don't fare much better. In Matheson's novel (which is really very good), the villains are vampires. Some sort of mysterious virus is responsible, but they're real, honest-to-goodness, classically gothic vampires -- garlic, stake-through-the-heart, and everything. The 2007 remake made them into kind of silly-looking CGI zombies, I guess because zombies are chic again. But in the 1971 film they look and act more like anemic Moonies. They roam around at night all pasty-faced, wearing long black robes and Oakley sunglasses (apparently because the virus has made them so night-sensitive), call each other "brother" and act like they're all in a religious cult. I assume that the producers didn't think they could get away with having a virus turn people into actual vampires, but the solution they came up with is really no less hilariously campy.
Will Smith is far better in a role like this than Charlton Heston, and his movie is somewhat better, but really, the time put into either of these movies would be way better spent reading the book.
Then last night after dinner, my father and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
keyne and I sat down to watch Stranger Than Fiction. It was a blessed antidote. I saw this movie when it was released and enjoyed it a lot, but on repeated viewing I think I like it even more. Say what you like about Will Ferrell (and lord knows the man has made some clunkers): he can hold his own against both Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson at the same time, which is no mean feat. It's a lovely and touching movie and manages to be sentimental without pandering. (Well, maybe just a little bit.) And really anyone who writes should see this at least once.
Good lord, what a dreadful movie. It's an early-1970s science fiction flick, so I expected it to be low budget and cheesy, and let me tell you, it surpassed my expectations in every way. It stars Charlton Heston, which is without a doubt their first mistake. He spends much of the movie acting like his chief weapons against the monsters are his dry wit and his arched eyebrows. (Of course, it is Charlton Heston, so he gets plenty of screen time slinging around semiautomatic weapons too.)
The monsters don't fare much better. In Matheson's novel (which is really very good), the villains are vampires. Some sort of mysterious virus is responsible, but they're real, honest-to-goodness, classically gothic vampires -- garlic, stake-through-the-heart, and everything. The 2007 remake made them into kind of silly-looking CGI zombies, I guess because zombies are chic again. But in the 1971 film they look and act more like anemic Moonies. They roam around at night all pasty-faced, wearing long black robes and Oakley sunglasses (apparently because the virus has made them so night-sensitive), call each other "brother" and act like they're all in a religious cult. I assume that the producers didn't think they could get away with having a virus turn people into actual vampires, but the solution they came up with is really no less hilariously campy.
Will Smith is far better in a role like this than Charlton Heston, and his movie is somewhat better, but really, the time put into either of these movies would be way better spent reading the book.
Then last night after dinner, my father and
keyne and I sat down to watch Stranger Than Fiction. It was a blessed antidote. I saw this movie when it was released and enjoyed it a lot, but on repeated viewing I think I like it even more. Say what you like about Will Ferrell (and lord knows the man has made some clunkers): he can hold his own against both Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson at the same time, which is no mean feat. It's a lovely and touching movie and manages to be sentimental without pandering. (Well, maybe just a little bit.) And really anyone who writes should see this at least once.
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