Recently I became a fan of Modern Family and as I’m watching season 2 episode 6, just named Halloween we are treated to a Hunchback of Notre Dame reference, yay.

Eric Stonestreet as Cameron from the Halloween episode of Modern Family season 2 episode 6 picture image

Eric Stonestreet as Cameron from the Halloween episode of Modern Family

In the episode Cameron makes mentions to his traumatic Halloween of his youth. At the end of episode as the Halloween is being ruined, Cam shares his story and I’m going off of memory to recount it.  He was dressed up as Quasimodo. His friend took a whole bowl of candy as the ran off Cam’s Quasi Hunch got caught on a rose bush as his friend got away but every went after Cam saying ” Get Quasimodo” and them Cam wet his pants. Poor Cam

Also as an added bonus Jay is dressed as a Gargoyle. And the show makes other reference to Hunchback so double Yay!

Happy Halloween!

 

 

The City of Lost Children picture image

The City of Lost Children

What can I say about the 1995 steampunk surreal mind-fuck that is The City of Lost Children a.k.a La Cite des Enfants Perdus? Really, the only thing I can say about it is that I have no idea what to say about it. It’s a weird movie that is dreamlike, wonderful and insane.

Just so you understand this movie a little better, it is a French-German-Spanish movie by Jean-Pierre Jeunet who made Delicatessen and Amelie, so if you know those movies you will get why this movie is weird.

Ron Perlman as One and Judith Vittet as Miette The City of Lost Children picture image

Ron Perlman as One and Judith Vittet as Miette

Despite The City of Lost Children being Steampunk it does have a fairy tale tone. The story follows One, a carnival strongman whose little brother has been kidnapped. As it turns out lots of children are being taken  off to an ocean rig. There is a mad scientist named Krank live and  he can’t dream, so he take children so he steal their dreams. Krank is aided by his “family” Martha, a woman with Dwarfism, Irvin, a brain in a tank who gets migraines and six clones who have narcolepsy.

One is helped by a young girl named Miette who is a member of theives guild which is made up of all orphans. The guild is run by a pair of conjoined twins known as the Octopus. The Octopus becomes distrustful of Miette because of her involvement with One. Both One and Miette are capture by a cult that kidnaps the children for Krank in exchange for optical eye pieces. One is saved from the drowning but Miette is thrown to the water is and is presumed dead. She is saved however by a crazed man who lives in a submarine and looks like the six clones but older and knows something about the children abductions. Miette leaves the submarine and finds One in a bar drowning his sorrows.

Miette and One then have to deal with the Octopus again and they use an assassin flea that injects a serum into One that to makes him try and kill Miette but due to Miette’s tear hitting a spider web that scared a bird which lead to a whole chain of rections it cause the power to go out which means the light house and a huge ship crashes into the doc where everyone is standing. One comes to his sense and he and Miette are thrown into the water. The Octopus douse them with gas and lights a match but Miete and One get away and it The Octpus who is thrown into the water and blown up.

Miette and One make their way to ocean rig to find his brother. To save the brother Miette has to go into the dream and convince Krank to let him go. While that is happening the crazy guy from the submarine sets up explosive to blow it all up. As it turns out he was the one who created them. He created Martha to his beautiful princess wife but she was a dwarf, he created Irvin to talk to but his migraines, he created the clones to be his sons, but their sleep conditions and then he create Krank his great work but he couldn’t dream and because of the he aged prematurely. Miette, One, his brother, the other children, the clones and Irvin make it off the rig before it explodes.

Mireille Mossé as Martha and Dominique Pinon as one of the clones with member of the Cyclops The City of Lost Children picture image

Mireille Mossé as Martha and Dominique Pinon as one of the clones with member of the Cyclops

Trying summarize this movie doesn’t do it justice, trust me. The plot is great, a little weird but on the whole it’s great but this movie exists in the visuals. The movie has very distinct look and feel. As I mention earlier this movie has a steampunk look but this was before it was really a trend so the other elements have non-specific period to them. There is no indication when or where this movie is set in and that adds to the fairy tale vibe.

Also this movie has a color palette of browns and reds. It give the port city a sense of danger and energy.

Irvin The City of Lost Children picture image

Uncle Irvin

The sets are also great. The advantage here is that it made in 1995 which is before CGs stuff took hold, so the sets are real. The reveals in the sets but lets them be too. It’s not trying to hard to showcase elements of the design but lets them exist in place.

Ron Perlman as One and Judith Vittet as Miette The City of Lost Children picture image

Ron Perlman as One and Judith Vittet as Miette

It’s not just the visuals that make this movie, it’s the characters. On the one hand it would seem like the movie didn’t give the characters a lot of development or compelling personality. The movie gives a light yet very controlled hand on revealing characters and motivations. Some are simple, like the Octopus wants money, that is simple. One however shows us that he has a good heart, not super well spoken but can be clever. Miette is gutsy and no-nonsense. Really the character’s flow with the plot so you understanding them as you try an understand the plot.

Daniel Emilfork as Krank The City of Lost Children picture image

Daniel Emilfork as Krank

Which bring us to the plot which is simple and yet has lots of layer like a fairy tale. It’s fairly clear that this story has a lot fairy elements at work. The backstory of Krank and crew reads like a fairy tale. Yet the story isn’t obvious in its fairy tale influence it’s just woven into the story creating the a backdrop for the surreal tone and atmosphere of the movie’s world.

Daniel Emilfork as Krank dressed as Santa The City of Lost Children picture image

Daniel Emilfork as Krank dressed as Santa

If I had one criticism of The City of Lost Children would it weird but then again that its strength . Watch it!

Today we get three clues;

Clue 1, Clue 2, and Clue 3

Few things in Hunchback are a terrifying as bad version of Hunchback. There are actually many awful version of this story either though laziness of acting, writing production values, editing and directing but there is one version that takes it such a degree that it truly the stuff of Nightmares.

I of course mean the Dingo version. Doesn’t Djali look evil?

Esmeralda and Djali with Gringoire, Dingo Hunchback of Notre Dame picture image

Esmeralda and Djali with Gringoire, Dingo Hunchback of Notre Dame

I mean just look at that, that is crap never known to the world before. One has to work to be so lazy, so bad. It someways it like a weird surreal art piece, some commentary of the human condition to wonder at the odd and sincere. To reveal in the discourse of humanity. It is true terror, or just lazy pile of shit.

We’ll get more in more into the Dingo version later, I’m too scared to review it after a month of scary stuff.

So for the next version let’s look at another infamously bad version of Hunchback.

Gargoyles sing to Quasimodo,The Secret of the Hunchback picture image

Gargoyles sing to Quasimodo, The Secret of the Hunchback

More singing Gargoyles? This going to give me nightmare too.

Lon Chaney as the Phantom of the Opera With Mary Philbin picture image

Lon Chaney as The Phantom of the Opera with Mary Philbin as Christine Daae

Finally a deformed dude from movie(s) that I’m familiar with. Prior to Hunchback I was big into the Phantom of Opera so I have seen a lot of the movie/ musical version of this.

Phantom of the Opera comes from  book  written by Gaston Leroux from 1909 and was made into several popular movies namely the 1925 version starting former Quasimodo, Lon Chaney and 1943 version starting Claude Rains, though it was the 1986 musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber that made it a Household name.

The basic plot of Phantom is a deformed musical and all around genius, a.k.a Erik, lives under a Paris opera house where he falls in love with an aspiring opera diva, Christine Daae. Erik is obsessed Christine and kills though who get in his way. Unlike our pal Frollo, Erik is in love with Christine to fair degree. In a way Erik is a combo of Quasimodo and Frollo. He’s tragic and dreams of beauty and love but he is crazy.

Erik’s appearance and back story changes from version to version. In the book he looks like a corpse with a skull head and gray skin. The book was the basis for Chaney’s make-up. In the 1943 version, he was burnt with acid. The Webber musical used a half make so the performer could singer easier. The deformity therefore only affect one side of his face. Typically  the deformity has a hug lip, exposed areas and doesn’t look very nice. The 2004 version just looked like a bad sunburn.

Well the brings us to the end and it’s time to re-read Phantom, I better get reading.

The Brothers Grimm picture image

The Brothers Grimm

Prior to viewing The Brothers Grimm (2005) I more recall the trailer sucking but then I saw that it was written by Terry Gilliam and starred Matt Damon, Health Ledger, Lena Heady and featured Monica Bellucci and I then thought, “Hey, maybe this won’t be so bad.” Then I watched it.

Here is me being totally and 100% objective, The Brothers Grimm is one of the worse pieces of movie vomit and I regret watching it.

 Matt Damon as Will and Health Ledger as Jacob with Lena Heady as Angelika The Brothers Grimm picture image

Matt Damon as Will and Health Ledger as Jacob with Lena Heady as Angelika

The movie starts the Grimm brother’s sister is dying and Jacob, the younger one I think maybe who cares though, gets magic beans instead which Will, the older, gets mad as magic is bogus, can you guess where this plot is going?

But enough of that scene, now Jacob and Will are older. Jacob is a scholarly guy who knows legends and stuff and Will likes ladies but not magic. They scam towns based on legends and stuff. Then we see little red riding getting attacked by something.

Jacob and Will get in trouble with some French dude who has this crazy Italian minion-person because little girls are being taken by something spooky scary. Later we also see a Gretel knock-off get spirited away (That is a better movie I should have watched that).

So Jacob and Will and their crew which featured heavy fake accent Italian guy go to the Village to check things out. There they ask for guide who knows the woods where the little ones are being taken. This where they meet Angelika who knows the ways of the spooky forest where trees move and only Grandmother toad knows the right way. She takes them to a creepy tower that was once home to a vain Queen who caught the plague. Later that night another girl is taken. And they again get in trouble with French dude and it was at this point I wanted to turn this shit off because one “joke” or “gag” involved a kitten getting kicked into a fan of blades.

Let’s wrap this plot up because really this movie is shit, turns out said Queen or rather the Mirror Queen was given immortality but not eternal youth and beauty, so she got Angelika’s father to be her woodsmen and take the girls for some spell by the blood moon. Will learns to believe in magic and Jacob and they save the day by breaking the Mirror Queen’s mirror and all the little girls are a-okay.

Health Ledger as Jacob The Brothers Grimm picture image

Health Ledger as Jacob

Ok before I really start ripping into this shlock, I want to invite you into the first thought I had with this movie. It takes place in the 1700’s at some point and the movie opens with the poor Grimms giving money to Jacob to get a doctor for their nameless sister but he gets the magic beans.

Here is my issue with the scene, the kid had FUCKING GLASSES! Do know how valuable those were back then? He probably could have gotten two doctors and the cow back for those things. I get it was a character signifier but FUCK YOU movie! No! If I know their names, I can bloody figure shit out later of who is who. I can’t do that logic jump. It’s like why not just put a gold clock on the fire place while you’re at it. Also I had an issue with the only thing of them bringing up the beans throughout the movie but not their sister who didn’t even get a name, could have called her Plot-Point-Erlla. I didn’t know she had dead except in passing, really it could have been their hamster and it would have had the same impact the movie gave it.

Matt Damon as Will with as Laura Greenwood Sasha under a spell The Brothers Grimm picture image

Matt Damon as Will with as Laura Greenwood Sasha under a spell

Saying this movie has an identity problem is an understatement. Since Terry Gilliam wrote it, it has like a dark comedy aspect but the tone and direction seems to be more adventure fantasy. While dark comedies and adventure fantasy are not mutually exclusive the genre/tone seems to be more combative in this movie than coalescing into a narrative.

It’s almost like two people had different visions of what this movie should be and couldn’t cooperate. Also it doesn’t help that now of the jokes are not even remotely funny. Like that poor Kitten, I mean you could see it coming but it wasn’t funny, maybe had it gone through the fans and was just shaven would have been funny because the point of said joke was the Italian guy was scared of a kitten on his foot and the punchline was the death of a cat? I get dark horror element but not funny as it one dumb joke and one poor taste joke. Also bad accents does not make for good humor either, this movie lacks all sense of the word subtlety.

Lena Heady as Angelika and Peter Stormare as Cavaldi The Brothers Grimm picture image

Lena Heady as Angelika and Peter Stormare as Cavaldi

Then we have characters-like plot devices. They give the illusion of that actors having to play people with distinct character traits but no they don’t. The most they have is angry, nerdy, vain and accenty, the seven dwarfs have more in-depth well round characters that these characters.

Monica Bellucci as The Mirror Queen The Brothers Grimm picture image

Monica Bellucci as The Mirror Queen

But you know just because the plot and characters either suck or nonexistent, doesn’t make the technicals bad. They just ok to really bad. The CG work is on par with off-brand Disney knock-offs. The sets are ok but as fake as Dolly Patron’s chest. The costumes are blah, though the Mirror Queen’s costume is laughable, I mean that crown is just so fucking cheesy, I laughed a lot, and I said there was no comedy in this movie.

Matt Damon as Will and Health Ledger as Jacob The Brothers Grimm picture image

Matt Damon as Will and Health Ledger as Jacob

The Brothers Grimm had the potential  to be a good movie that used tropes and references to fairy tales but the lack of subtly, humor and all around anything entertaining makes this an unpleasent movie to sit through.

Clue 1 and Clue 2

 

Kim Kardashian picture image

Kim Kardashian

In my life I have to live with the fact that I have two thing in common with Kim Kardashian, which is two more than I could ever wish. One we are both half Armenian and we share the same birthday though a years apart. Because you may not know it though I do, today is our (eww) birthday. So because I like to scare myself  today we have a terrifying casting idea  which is Kim Kardashian as Esmeralda.

Kim Kardashian as Ava from emptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor picture image

Kim Kardashian as Ava from emptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor

First off, No! A thousand times NO to this one! Kim Kardashian couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag even if her role was a paper bag. The lady CAN NOT act. I saw a clip from  Temptation:Confessions of a Marriage Counselor in which she played, I have no idea, some lady named Ava. But in that one clip I could see that she was vapid, flat and unpleasant to watch. It’s like she had no idea what acting is or how to read a line.  It wasn’t even that bad kind of acting that is special to behold, it was like wanting to hammer yourself in the head till it stopped.

I maintain my position that Esmeralda is not a complex role to play but Esmeralda as a role is beyond Kim Kardashian acting powers. Now to be fair Kim Kardashian is not known for her acting prowess, she know she for a sex type and being a reality show star, whatever that means. So the mere idea of her being Esmeralda goes against the concept of the original character, a pure girl who is unaware of sexual appeal.

Kim Kardashian picture image

Kim Kardashian

On the acting front she is a Hell No but let’s not forget what acting is really about, how much a person looks like the character. I would say  Kim Kardashian could look like Esmeralda. Esmeralda has dark exotic yet European beauty at least in the book. As I said Kim Kardashian is half Armenian which is also what Helene Segara is ethically. Unlike Helene Segara, Kim Kardashian has a classic Armenian look. While I don’t think Esmeralda was Armenian in the novel, though we don’t know what her father was so she could be anything, Sister Gudule did wonder if Esmeralda could have been the Queen of Armenia in the book so shrugs. My guess it was an exotic place to Sister Gudule but it’s cool that it was mentioned. So Kim Kardashian gets a pass on looks. Though she is a little too old for the role.

Kim Kardashian picture image

Kim Kardashian

Never have I been more scared of an Anti-Hypothetical casting posting. I mean Anti-Hypothetical and Kayne West could do this if the wanted to and can you imagine Kayne West playing Quasimodo opposite Kim Kardashian  as Esmeralda. Being in a slasher flick would be less painful.

Salma Hayek as Esmeralda, 1997 The Hunchback picture image

Salma Hayek as Esmeralda,

In the 1997 version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame or very simple called The Hunchback, there is a scene about 45 minutes in the movie where Esmeralda and Frollo meet. It a combination a few different scenes, we have Esmeralda’s prayer, the Frollo stares scene al la 1939 and Frollo’s confession.

In the scene Esmeralda prays outside Notre Dame asking forgiveness for Quasimodo’s torture. Frollo is in a cart next to her and through the fabric he confesses his feeling. Esmeralda lingers and hears this and she draws her knife and looks into the cart only to have Frollo around the other side. The scene ends with Esmeralda seeing death in his palm which I guess he talk as sign that he should go kill someone because that is the next thing he does, ah plots you seldom ever make sense.

Richard Harris as Frollo, 1997 The Hunchback picture image

Richard Harris as Frollo

Again the this scene isn’t like scary but there is a creepy tone to this scene. It has good mood and atmosphere. It also helps that Frollo looks like Nosferatu. Really when you think about it this scene is like if the kidnap attempt scene from 1939 version and Hellfire had a baby.

John Matuzak as Sloth Goonies picture image

John Matuzak as Sloth

Again, never saw The Goonies, it never seems to appeal to me. I’m like three for three on not watching these movies for other Hunchbacks/deformed guys. Maybe next week’s  dude will be different.

Anyway Sloth was played the late John Matuzak.  His real name is Lotney Fratelli and he is the middle child of the Fratelli’s. His older brother is Francis and younger brother is Jake.

From what I can tell of Sloth, he locked up in the basement by his brothers and he also   likes sweets and is really strong. He isn’t evil as Chuck, one of the aforementioned Goonies, befriends him after getting locked in the basement with him and I guess he teams up with the Goonies. So he is more like Quasimodo than that 300 Hunchback dude and less violent the hunchback of morgue guy.

Snow White A Tale of Terror picture image

Snow White A Tale of Terror

Funny story, I kept calling Snow White: A Tale of Terror a Tale of Horror. This movie came out in 1997 and was originally slated for having a theatrical release but as such it premiered on Showtime. Sort of like another Snow White movie, this movie tries to carter the fairy tale to an adult audience however where Snow White and Thor tries to make Snow White an ass-kicking female William Wallace-type, this movie doesn’t try to overtly empower Snow White and instead keeps the tone more to the original Grimm’s fairy tale and focuses more on the wicked step mother.

Snow White A Tale of Terror picture image

Sigourney Weaver as Claudia and Monica Keena as Lily

The movie starts with the birth of Snow White, who is named Liliana a.k.a Lily. As she is born her parents are attack by wolves and as her mother lays dying her father has to cut Liliana out her mother whose name in also Liliana.

Fast Forward a few years and Lily’s father, Lord Fredric Hoffman is marrying a pretty lady named Claudia. To make nice with Lily, Claudia gives her a puppy and yet despite this Lily doesn’t like her very much. Claudia also has a creepy magic mirror that was her mother’s mirror. On their wedding night, Lily’s motherly servant is killed by the mirror when she is looking for Lily in Claudia’s room.

Fast Forward a few years again and Lily is now a pretty young woman who is in love with a doctor guy. Claudia is now pregnant and she tries to keep Lily from not being as attractive as she could be by giving her not so pretty childish clothes. But for a ball Lily out-shown Claudia by wearing her mother’s dress. This causes Claudia to go to labour. Claudia’s baby turns out to be still born and as a result means that Claudia can’t have any more babies.

Lily tries to make up this Claudia but Claudia’s reflection in the creepy mirror tells her get revenge on Lily. Claudia orders her brother, Gustav to kill Lily and get her heart. Lily escapes into the forest and Gustav gives Claudia a pig heart which she happily eats. Claudia however learns the truth from her reflection and Gustav is driven to suicide.

Lily then finds her herself with seven rough and combative miners  outcasts who aren’t very nice to her but they come to like her eventually especially one by the name of Will. Claudia then attacks the a few times and kills one of them with a tree. Claudia then tries to bring her child back to life but using Fredric’s seed and bathing the fetus in his blood.

Then Claudia disguises herself as old woman and lures Lily away from the seven miners and she given the poisoned apple and she putted into locked-in syndrome. She is then buried as her doctor boyfriend and the miners think she is dead but Will is like “No” and wakes her up with true love BS.

The Lily has her final confrontation. During the fight Claudia becomes distracted because fire threatens her not fully formed baby. Lily then stabs the mirror and kills Claudia.

Monica Keena as Lily and Gil Bellows as Will Snow White A Tale of Terror picture image

Monica Keena as Lily and Gil Bellows as Will

First of all, I don’t hate this movie. For the most part this is Sigourney Weaver’s movie as Claudia. The other characters are likable but ever so bland. I have see more compelling characters in local car commercials than this movie. And really Claudia and her reflection are just sort vain and bat-shit crazy that they are likable but a weird default. Like you can’t help not like her insane antics. So the characters on the whole just there.

I do like the way the movie changed the dwarfs to outcast miner types. It makes more sense in the context of the story and mood.

Monica Keena as Lily Snow White A Tale of Terror picture image

Monica Keena as Lily

So this movie main objective is to make the story scary, which it was originally and then Disney happen. To make it scary they just made the step mother crazy, which works, Cluadia is scary and she does bad thing to all the other characters. What good about Claudia is we see he decent into madness, she was jealous of Lily and she just lost her baby, so her crazed insanity couple with magic makes sense.

Monica Keena as Lily Snow White A Tale of Terror picture image

Monica Keena as Lily

The technicals are okay. There is nothing bad or amazing, they are just okay. The best things is the coffin. It has a Art Nouveau, stained glass mosaic quality, it’s very pretty. The costumes are just average to blah.

Sigourney Weaver as Claudia Snow White A Tale of Terror picture image

Sigourney Weaver as Claudia

Snow White: A Tale of Terror isn’t the great nor is like the terrifying but it’s dumb but kinda in a delightful way. In a way I feel with the title it should have been worse than it was, way worse.

Clue 1 and Clue 2

Nicolas Cage picture image

Nicolas Cage

I was talking to my friend and he said it’s better for these Anti-Hypothetical Casting post to have an actor who is wrongly appropriate to the character and thus we have Nicolas Not the Bees Cage.

Nicolas Cage as Castor Troy from Face/Off picture image

Nicolas Cage as Castor Troy from Face/Off

Though he did use to be a fairly well regarded actor now Cage has a reputation for being a parody of himself. This is because his sheer levels insanity and those faces he makes. Basically he hams it up for villains. The idea of hims playing Frollo is something of a scary thought but at the same time I would love to seem Cage hamming Frollo up, it would something of a delightful train wreck.

Nicolas Cage picture image

Nicolas Cage

As far as looks go, Cage has a weird face that matches his weird otherworldly expressions. He can either look soft or more angular pending on angle and/or lighting. In my supreme expert opinion I think Frollo should have an angular look as that is how the book depicts the guy. With some make-up he could look the part quite well, isn’t that scary……evil laugh.

Nicolas Cage as Castor Troy from Face/Off picture image

Nicolas Cage as Castor Troy from Face/Off

Cage is oddly good for the role, he known for playing villains and his overlook isn’t bad for the role. Could you just imagine Cage making insane faces and yelling, “Chose the Grace or my bed!”    It would be either  the most glorious thing ever put to film or the scariest.