It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Planetfall demonstrates the incredible tools available to no-budget indie filmmakers to realize densely-layered visions. But all of the desktop FX software in the world can’t rescue a story that’s lacking.
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#1 by lyzard on March 19, 2008 - 10:56 pm
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When you posted, my immediate reaction was, “Hey! Isn’t that Ted Mikels!?” So I guess we, too, are an army of two.
#2 by The Rev. D.D. on March 20, 2008 - 6:05 am
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“Hey, I think that’s Ted V. Mikels. No wonder the story sucks.”
Army of three.
Or maybe “army of two + fanatical hanger-on.”
#3 by Joshua on March 20, 2008 - 6:11 am
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1) “Male Butts” are no longer pasty? I guess that’s something…
2) Arch Stanton? Is there a “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly” homage hiding in this movie?
#4 by Matthew Fudge on March 20, 2008 - 7:44 am
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I love the idea of an american director pretending to be italian…there’s payback.
#5 by Nathan Shumate on March 20, 2008 - 8:53 am
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Liz/Rev: It’s great to herd with one’s own kind, isn’t it?
Joshua: The butt in question belonged to an African-American, so “pasty” wasn’t an option. And there are so many spaghetti-western homages in this movie (right down to the director’s pseudonym) it ain’t funny.
Matthew: The DVD contains a tribute to the fictional director “of hundreds of films”who never watched his own films… because most of them weren’t very good. And I was sitting there saying, “But we already have Joe D’Amato! Why create him again?”
#6 by Blake Matthews on March 20, 2008 - 7:04 pm
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I’ll take advantage of Ted Mikels’ appearance to ask a tangent question: Is there a good way to put in a homage name in a film without sounding silly and/or tacky? There’ve been B-movies that gave B-movie star/director names to the characters, hasn’t there?
#7 by Nathan Shumate on March 20, 2008 - 7:12 pm
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I think the answer is “No.”
#8 by lyzard on March 20, 2008 - 7:31 pm
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Qualification: “For the most part, no.” One of the most beautiful moments in all film for me is the revelation in Mant! that Kevin McCarthy’s character is called “General Ankrum”. But too often it’s done in a smug, self-congratulatory way that’s just intolerable.
#9 by Nathan Shumate on March 20, 2008 - 8:13 pm
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It’s even one of the few blemishes on the splendiferous piece of cinema that is Night of the Creeps. (Rule of thumb: There is no way to name a character in a horror movie “Raimi” without having it come across as fanboyish assery.)
#10 by El Santo on March 20, 2008 - 8:38 pm
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It isn’t so bad in The Howling, mostly because nobody ever paid much attention to the directors of 1940’s werewolf films. It takes a MONUMENTAL geek to hear the name “Sam Newfield,” and immediately think, “Hey! That’s the guy who made The Mad Monster!”
#11 by El Santo on March 20, 2008 - 8:50 pm
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“Then I realized that I am now officially one of those people who can identify Ted Mikels at twenty paces. (In my defense, it was the boar’s tusk around his neck which was the clinching detail.)”
The moustache alone was enough for me. Before Mikels, I’m pretty sure the last guy to wear that facial hair in public sailed under the command of Reinhardt Scheer.
#12 by The Rev. D.D. on March 20, 2008 - 9:39 pm
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I was kind of wrong, since Mikels wasn’t apparently responsible for the story.
Still, the fact that I can spot him on sight, without having even watched one of his movies in its entirety (part of [i]The Corpse Grinders[/i], although I actually saw a copy of the sequel in a store down the block…I’ve yet to summon up the courage to buy it) and only having seen a couple photos of him, speaks volumes.
Either about his facial hair choices or my selective memory.
I need to watch [i]The Howling[/i] again and see how many more of those I pick up vs. the last time.
#13 by KeithA on March 21, 2008 - 12:34 pm
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Bah! Naming characters after famous horror directors/stars is made more annoying by the number of people — writers, directors, and fans alike — who still think it’s a novel or clever idea, even when they’re all using the same ones. No more characters named Romero! I beg of you!
That said, I notice the name Larry Talbot all over the place, and not just in horror films.
#14 by lyzard on March 21, 2008 - 3:57 pm
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Greetings.
#15 by Tom Meade on March 21, 2008 - 10:33 pm
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You could always do some sort of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen style deal with characters from 60s crime movies. Although, having said that, it’s probably been done. And not just in the sense of ripping them off due to a lack of originality.