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April 24, 2010 at 10:25 pm
Looks like Annie’s going straight for Luke’s Pop Secret.
April 24, 2010 at 11:28 pm
Hopefully it’s not a lite saber…
April 25, 2010 at 3:46 am
i’m glad someone else brought that up
that key art is hilarious, just so so bad. what’s with his weirdly disproportionately large torso and humongous arms (or is it the legs that are short and spindly? or both). and that stance, complete with weirdest facial expression ever… she’s all over him but he’s not having a bar of it. HARRUMPH!!! with hint of ‘deer in the headlights’. what a combo
anyhoo, i remember reading about ‘corvette summer’ when i was a kid and about hamill’s horrible car accident before the shoot that required his face to be basically surgically reconstructed, and how different he looked in this movie and ‘strikes back’ after his fresh-faced self in ‘star wars’. it was sort of a shock even tho i knew it was coming and had prepared myself, a subtle but unmistakable change of visage. i tried to imagine what that must feel like, on the cusp an acting career, and all these years later i still feel this weird stab of sadness for mark when i see him (speaking of which, i have ‘slipstream’ on VHS — who knew? i have movies i didn’t even know i have on VHS, just ridiculously analog/retro — and the other day my boy just arbitrarily decided to watch it, so i sorta got sucked in to the story after not having seen or thought about it in a what seems a lifetime, and lo and behold hamill is actually pretty good in it as the nasty cop. the movie is a mess overall but sort of bizarre and kooky, actually quite entertaining if you’re willing to go with it warts and all. the boy liked it, he dug the gliding)
April 25, 2010 at 7:09 am
WTF ???
didn’t mark hamill had some kind of car crash before empire strikes back ?
April 25, 2010 at 10:36 am
The stories about Hamill’s crash were exagerrated and probably hurt his career:
“I had the accident way before Star Wars came out, but what really happened has been terribly distorted. I broke my nose, that’s it! But I’ve read accounts about how my face has been reconstructed with plastic surgery and how I was pulling myself along the highway with one arm looking for help. I even heard that I drove off a cliff! That’s the best one of all.” – Mark Hamill
As for CORVETTE SUMMER, I had the pleasure of seeing it at the drive-in in Rock Springs, Wyoming. I enjoyed the film thoroughly as a devotee of the 70′s car genre and thought it among the best of the era with SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT, EAT MY DUST, and THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS — no wonder since director Matthew Robbins and co-writer Hal Barwood wrote that. There’s only one major chase in the film and it’s a doozy with a wonderful climax — ironically, the villain, Kim Milford, played the lead in LASER BLAST with its own great STAR WARS gag. The writers hated that the film was re-titled CORVETTE SUMMER from STINGRAY.
Hamill is just fine and I like it when he goes all Vegas on Annie Potts. Hamill never got the props he deserved for the SW films. He’s the only character with a real arc, and the testament to his skills is that nobody I knew at the time or now claim that Hamill wasn’t the perfect Luke Skywalker. He plays Luke exactly as he should be, from spunky youth to wizened warrior. Hamill helped sell Yoda to the audience by acting with a puppet fer gawd’s sake.
And yes, that poster could almost be for a Gerard Damiano XXX film at the Pussycat Theatre.
April 25, 2010 at 2:03 pm
hmm, i don’t think hamill is being forthcoming there for what ever reason, even lucas was widely quoted before production on ‘empire’ that the snow beast scene at the beginning when luke’s face gets thrashed was designed to account for mark’s/luke’s change of appearance and obvious facial scarring after his accident. hamill has a very visible scar on his upper lip in ‘corvette summer’ and ‘empire’ that wasn’t there before (not sure if it’s still there now), his nose and entire face are a bit different, plus lots of scar tissue (i should hunt around for some ‘before and afters’ if i get a chance, lucas’ quotes re: the snow beast scene must floating around cyberworld somewhere, i’m the laziest researcher, i’ll put a cap in my own ass)
April 25, 2010 at 2:52 pm
there’s a conspiracy brewing here, people. let’s call it the hamill facial case. we should look into it…
i need to see this movie. the writer was hal barwood for chrissakes… this guy was a lucasarts writer for their best indiana jones adventure games… he was also the guy behind Dragonslayer – directed by the same matthew robbins if i remember correctly.
April 25, 2010 at 6:24 pm
DRAGONSLAYER — best dragon ever. Saw it opening night, the last time I bought a movie program. Dark Disney.
April 26, 2010 at 2:05 am
love this movie. great alex north atonal soundtrack. best dragon ever.
April 26, 2010 at 6:58 am
DRAGONSLAYER is a pretty kick-ass film and it’s a major crime that it doesn’t get championed more. It has become one of the lost films. I always dug it though. Altho, I imagine it has some kind of cult following now.
April 25, 2010 at 12:13 pm
This is redundant, but that poster is quite phallic.
April 25, 2010 at 2:53 pm
it is.
works fine.
April 26, 2010 at 11:18 am
dave: Yes, DRAGONSLAYER has a very atonal and unique North score that probably hurt the film in not competing with a heroic Williams-eque sound, even though it was perfectly reflective of the movie and received an Oscar nomination, along with the amazing SPFX. I was never particularly fond of the characters, except for Ralph Richardson in befuddled Obi-Wan mode (Ian Mcdiarmid is also in there too). But the visuals are truly spectacular, and it was even filmed in 70mm, which I saw opening night. It was one of the most intense sound mixes ever. And the scene with the princess and Vermithrax’s first appearance…wow. The moment where the dragon races through a tunnel might be the smoothest animation in stop-motion history, with computer assist in blurring the frames (a technique Jim Danforth used in WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH). Go-Motion!
J.D.: I think the cult following is right here…I think DS has been better-regarded than other 80′s genre films, and even at its release, DRAGONSLAYER received a lot of attention and some praise. It’s kind of 70′s in terms of tone.
April 26, 2010 at 3:11 pm
the characters in DS are sooo annoying, especially the young lad/magician, can t remember his name, he played in ghostbuster 2.
April 26, 2010 at 2:23 pm
rather late but re: hamill’s face, a bit of a search has revealed (gleaned from various sources) that hamill’s face was badly smashed in the accident that occurred during the final days of the ‘star wars’ pick-up shoots, which according to hospital records and hamill’s family required an eight hour surgery and resulted in fairly extensive facial scarring, esp on his lip, cheek and nose. but hamill is on record a few times that i came across denying the extent of the damage to various degrees, admitting in one article that he had to have surgery but in another such as christian’s quote admitting only to a broken nose. this is odd, because obviously he did way more than break his nose; for a start the scar on his lip belies that explanation — and if he had only broken his nose he likely could have completed his pick-ups, which i gather were land-speeder long shots for which a double was used, but he was unable to because he was in the hospital (i couldn’t find any direct quotes from lucas re: the snow beast scene but it’s widely reported that lucas designed the scene to account for mark’s scarred face in ‘empire’, which jives with my memory). it sounds (to me anyway) like mark has tried to downplay his injuries for reasons that are his own, perhaps just to counter the wildly exaggerated stories in the media about his near-demise. whatever the case, it sounds like the issue is a thorn in his side.
(i haven’t had a chance yet to look for some ‘before & after’ pics but i’ll try to have a go later. i’m sure everyone will be waiting on the edge of their seats with baited breath in antici———-pation)
April 26, 2010 at 2:28 pm
forgot to say go-motion is awesome, even utilised in the epic t-rex attack in ‘j-park’
April 26, 2010 at 2:48 pm
that was great. thank you leah ;)
http://www.democraticwings.com/images/lukebeforeandafter.jpg
April 26, 2010 at 3:23 pm
Here you go:
http://www.democraticwings.com/images/lukebeforeandafter.jpg
April 26, 2010 at 3:31 pm
Didn’t DRAGONSLAYER come out around the same time as RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK? That might have affected its reception, both critically and at the box office. Kind of hard to win that one on the basis of a good monster.
I agree, though — still the best dragon. I expect GdT to top it if THE HOBBIT ever gets off the ground, but so far no one has beat it, even in the digital age.
April 27, 2010 at 5:57 am
there was a lucasfilm trend and particuliar flavor at this time, yes. the cinematography, the fantasy… for me, it s really what the 80s should have been forever : a perfectly shot fantasy, with dark undertones. and a tangerine dream soundtrack.
my favorite dragon is still Pete’s dragon. it was the first movie i saw in the theatre. it has guided my life forever. i love Pete’s dragon.
April 26, 2010 at 3:52 pm
If animation is allowed, Smaug from the Rankin/Bass THE HOBBIT was pretty cool, with that sizzling drool and Richard Boone’s rumbly voice. A bit too canine in the face, maybe, but pretty scary to a kid.
Shit, I take it back — that’s pretty scary even now!
I was going to give a nod to SLEEPING BEAUTY, but I have to dock several points for those comically tiny wings. What the hell was that?
April 26, 2010 at 5:05 pm
So so phallic. … er … Huh? … What?
April 26, 2010 at 5:49 pm
Smaug was quite awesome and of course, animated by the Japanese. I really like these versions and the Gollum is excellent. Besides, the Orcs sing!
SLEEPING BEAUTY is my fave Disney toon solely because of Malificent..
April 26, 2010 at 6:52 pm
Oops, Dave beat me to it. That’s what I get for not refreshing before I post.
April 26, 2010 at 7:38 pm
So…anybody else see CORVETTE SUMMER?
April 27, 2010 at 5:59 am
i m downloading it riiight now
April 26, 2010 at 7:42 pm
Nope.
Who’s in it?
April 26, 2010 at 11:17 pm
thanks DAVE and FRANKB, couldn’t ask for better ‘before and after’ pics (glad i stopped by ‘the dream’ before looking)
i have seen ‘corvette summer’ (the original title ‘stingray’ is far superior, those re-titling dumbasses) but not for 20 odd years, probably time for a refresher course in vroom vroom
re: dragons, apart from those already mentioned, i’m also partial to the beasties in ‘reign of fire’, the hungarian horntail in ‘goblet of fire’, and in the category of ‘friendly dragons’, the japanese-style wingless beast ‘haku’ from ‘spirited away’ takes my cake)
(frankb, hobbit is a go)
April 27, 2010 at 7:19 am
Yeah, I dug REIGN OF FIRE for its ROAD WARRIOR meets DRAGONSLAYER vibe. It hits all the right pulpy notes even if the direction was pretty flat. Would’ve loved to have seen some of Paul Greengrass’ hand-held stuff for that one. Still, cool premise.
April 27, 2010 at 7:00 pm
REIGN OF FIRE has one of the greatest rip-off posters ever. Where the hell were the dragons battling choppers over London? But it’s an epic Matthew McCounagahy performance. Dragons kinda forgettable.
April 28, 2010 at 6:26 am
Heh! Yeah, I was always pissed off by the misleading posters. What the hell?! As you say, McConnaughy was pretty good in this film as the Quint/Ahab-type character chewing up the scenery and showing off his buff physique. In fact, this is quite a showcase for the ladies as doesn’t Bale also run around shirtless?
April 28, 2010 at 3:34 pm
i would have loved to see real battles and destruction in this movie… so misleading… all we got were burnt cornfields… ah…
April 27, 2010 at 7:41 pm
yes, ‘reign of fire’ is a yet another example of a cool premise that doesn’t quite flesh out to its potential – failing to make the most of the potential thrills and excitement inherent to the story, trodding the heavy-handed ‘tres grim and terribly serious’ route instead – but it has enough style and moxy to make it a rather entertaining, if not entirely engaging, watch (and while i never thought i’d agree with this statement: “But it’s an epic Matthew McCounagahy performance”, i totally do. the shirtless one is a hoot in his ott slightly whackadoo romp. he should take more chances like that and give the romcoms the big flick)
i actually like the dragons in ‘R o F’ because ‘a personality’ isn’t foisted upon them, they’re more like a plague of fire-breathing insects rather than sentient creatures, which struck me as sort of unique in the dragon pantheon
April 28, 2010 at 3:33 pm
i was so disapointed by RoF. expected too much probably. the movie was so stupid and predictable, standard hollywood trash imho. i like dark evil dragons. these RoF beasts were impressive but devoid of any intelligence, of evil charisma. more like big evil chickens.
the first scene in the mine shaft was pretty impressive though, a palatable threat from underground and sinister… oh wait… we didn’t actually see the dragon, right ? now, that s why it worked…
April 29, 2010 at 9:34 pm
Didn’t we see this together Dave? Certain that we did…
April 30, 2010 at 4:48 am
i m pretty sure we did ;)
April 27, 2010 at 9:34 pm
Hmm, RoF is on Youtube in chunks. Let’s see if it gets deleted because I said so. (I have the POWER!) In the meantime, I’ll watch it real fast.
Hobbit is a go? What, do you know Guillermo del Toro? I need to talk to that guy about something.
April 28, 2010 at 6:02 am
hobbit’s in pre-production. del toro is around, in and out, i don’t know him personally but i can tell you he’s always laughing. and swears like a sailor. i’m too shy to tell him frankbooth needs to talk to him about something
April 29, 2010 at 9:34 pm
Tell him we said “hullo.”
April 29, 2010 at 1:22 am
Looks like I’ll have to parachute into his backyard after all.
April 29, 2010 at 9:34 pm
He’s prepared a gauntlet.
April 30, 2010 at 2:08 pm
…of really freaky monsters.