OPEN WATER 2: ADRIFT

So I'm browsing at the local ma & pa vid store and their bank of TVs run a clip from OPEN WATER 2: ADRIFT...This "sequel" makes about as much sense as, well, JAWS 2...

Tagline: "In the water no one can hear you scream."

Now OPEN WATER (2003) was a subversive little thriller - as potent as Spielberg's original JAWS. The beauty of the film was that you never saw the sharks that were circling Susan (Blanchard Ryan) and Daniel (Daniel Travis) - you just saw the fear on their faces, their exhaustion and despair.

OPEN WATER - shot using a Sony DCR-VX2000 and a Sony DSR-PD150 - places the viewer's nose deep in roiling water right alongside the two protagonists. Its probably the closest feeling to floating without actually being in water.

OPEN WATER reaches BLAIR WITCH PROJECT fear handily, which is very difficult to achieve in horror cinema. This type of "reality" is rarely explored in this genre because too many filmmakers abide by the erroneous rule that gore and "monsters" are key elements to fright.

Obviously the makers of OPEN WATER 2: ADRIFT think they can capture this primal fear again but, sadly, there's no sane reason for the attempt.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

I picked up the DVD set for the TV show BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, which starred Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman. I don't want to take any shit here but I bought it for my wife because she loved the show while she was still in college - must have answered some sort of fantasy for her and what love "should be" and all that, which of course is slightly misguided.

The disc has the first season episodes - six discs in all. I never watched the show during its first run - only saw photos of Perlman in that mullet sporting lion make-up and - at that time - thought the show looked, well, lame.

By time BEAUTY AND THE BEAST aired Hamilton had been around a while - most notably, she was in THE TERMINATOR with the governor of California. THE TERMINATOR was hugely popular and helped put Hamilton on the cinematic map so to speak. Between THE TERMINATOR and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, she'd also been in b-movies like BLACK MOON RISING, SECRET WEAPONS and a couple of made-for-TV things that really didn't amount to much.

But Hamilton really left her mark in TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY, with her character Sarah Connor slimmer, muscular. I remember the first shot of Hamilton doing pull ups with her bare arms and shoulders flexing - didn't look like the same Sarah Connor from the original TERMINATOR at all.

In fact, I thought Hamilton would go on to other action oriented films - maybe even follow Sigourney Weaver's ALIEN lead - but she didn't. She pretty much stayed in TV, even though BEAUTY AND THE BEAST ended in 1990. I don't fault Hamilton for this - she's worked steadily in the decade and a half since BEAST and TERMINATOR 2. But maybe the problem with her finding work in movies was twofold:

1. She was getting older - always a curse for actresses
2. Her marriage to TERMINATOR director James Cameron ended.

Hard to say and it doesn't really matter that much - worrying about some rich actress' career.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST was originally shot on 35 mm with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, given its TV nature. No need for widescreen here but I'm going to make the assumption that the orginal film elements are missing because the DVD doesn't look all that great with the shows looking culled from a video source as opposed to film sourcing. Colors bleed and there's some "digititis" going on here with speckles of pixelation, fall out, shadowing - and for a show that takes place underground (for the most part - Vincent (the Beast) lives in a world just below the streets of NYC), you want the blacks to be really black. But, with this set, that just isn't the case. That said, the show does retain a rich, goth feel (at times I was reminded of the Terrence Fisher Hammer classic from 1960 called THE BRIDES OF DRACULA).

The series' original music (either by Don Davis or Lee Holdridge) is emotional - if not overwrought - and, at first, I found myself swept up by the musical swelling but, by the end of the show, it became wholly predictable.

Anyway - BEAUTY AND THE BEAST is pure treacle - a romantic fantasy that, basically, makes most guys feel inadequate in the romance department. If you watch this with your girlfriend or wife be prepared for lots of sighing and sniffing back tears (not yours most likely).

But if you really want to understand the underpinnings of the myth of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, find the DVD of Jean Cocteau's 1946 LA BELLE ET LA BETE - a surreal excursion into hallucinatory madness of the happiest kind. Mesmerizing with childlike wonder.

APOCALYPSE NOW crushed by plasma?

I bought a 50" plasma tv made by a company called Vizio, which emphasizes low price and the set I bought was at my price point. The reason I bought the thing was because my previous set was one of those huge tube behemoths (36" and ridiculously deep and so heavy it took two of us to haul it down three flights of stairs) but - with letterboxing, widescreen, correct aspect ratio DVDs, the image on the tube set was too small.

I thought a 50" would appease my needs but, weird thing is, it still looks kinda small. I'm not complaining but my fantasy was that the set would overwhelm me and I'd be able to finally see movies like TAXI DRIVER, THE WILD BUNCH, RABID, ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, THE GODFATHER, MIDNIGHT COWBOY, DAWN OF THE DEAD, etc. bigger than life. Sure, they're bigger now (compared to the 36-incher) but its not like the movie theater. Well, no shit...

So Vizio sets are a cheap alternative to the expensive plasmas made by the likes of Panasonic, Toshiba, et al, and I don't know if I see any fault in my set visually. I really couldn't tell the difference from my perspective.

But a heartwrenching thing did happen when the first movie I popped in was APOCALYPSE NOW (from the Complete Dossier set) and the opening sequence - the green inferno, napalm explosions, the jungle, Willard's sweat-drenched face (upside down), which looked so beautiful on the biggest screen in Chicago (the now defunct McClurg Court) during an APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX release a few years back - was spackled with all sorts of digital fall-out, shadowing, pixelation, muddy grunge.

My heart sank and I thought I was going to cry or put my foot through the screen. APOCALYPSE NOW, which had originally been shot Technovision, 35 mm (70 mm blow up), with a 2.35:1 or 2.20:1 aspect ratios (depending on theater - I first saw it in 1979 at the UA Cinemas in Oak Brook, Illinois, which was a HUGE fuckin' screen - and they gave you a program as you walked into the theater!), is a gorgeous movie to look at and - of course! - should be seen in theaters but, with technology the way it is today, you should be able to see it pretty close to pristine at home. At first I thought I was ripped off by Vizio - that the set was a cheap piece of shit.

So I went in and fiddled with the settings on both the set and my DVD player and found a close approximation to the way sight and sound should be. I put in THE DEER HUNTER (which was originally released in 1978, shortly before APOCALYPSE in '79) and was blown away at the sharpness of the Michael Cimino film. It was so crystal it almost took on a 3-Dimensional effect. It crushed the Coppola film visually - yet Cimino's film (which takes place in Pennsylvania and Vietnam [actually shot in Thailand]) is muted in outdoor shots in Pennsylvania, explodes in variations of green when in Vietnam but is not as psychedelic as APOCALYPSE.

I can't bring myself to put in APOCALYPSE again, for fear the film will look crappy even with my updated settings. Maybe the definitive DVD release of APOCALYPSE is yet to come- Blu-Ray or HD DVD?