Monday, March 17, 2008

The Sleeper has Awakened!


Fave film of moment: DUNE
First off, just finished watching this for the second time and am definitely in love with David Lynch's golden boy, Kyle Maclachlan.
siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh
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But it's like he and Bruce Campell went to the same Sore Thumb School of Over-Acting. The Harryhausen-esque/early 80's bluescreen FX don't help either (see below). But certainly all that can be excused as charming camp.
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And then!, the Baron Harkonnen is a completely creepy, incestuous, letch of a villain. He cultivates diseases on his face and carries out ludicrous tortures: "We've brought you a little cat, Thufir. You must care for it if you wish to live. A poison has been introduced into you, Thufir Hawat. By milking this smooth little cat body each day you receive your antidote."
chillinggg.......
See also: awesome trippy dream sequences, crazy mutant monster people, and a totally believable yet fantastic future-setting...think Fifth Element meets Blade Runner.
Which! totally makes sense anyway because Ridley Scott was slated to direct but dropped out to do Blade Runner instead (also interesting because Sean Young plays Kyle Maclachlan's alien love interest).
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And now that I mention Sean Young...the fact that MALE sci-fi geek is the demographic is absolutely palpable. Sure, yes, all of the women characters are either Sean Young, a tough and capable yet beautiful and vulnerable warrior, or else belong to the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, which is a group of perfect beings who can mind read and use "the voice" to control people...which is cool...but basically they are witches and have been waiting for Paul (Kyle Machlachlan) to come, have prophetic dreams, become the messiah of the universe and go where "women are afraid to go...where [they] cannot see"....see the movie, you'll get it....
Anyway, Paul's mother, Lady Jessica, is a Bene Gesserit and is the only other female character one can identify with...but she's certainly no Ripley. Lets just say that Glenn Close turned down the role because she didn't want to play "the girl who is always running and falling down behind the men".
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Double anyway, totally love it, will watch it a third time and probably read the book...and then, how awesome is this treatment proposed by Alejandro Jodorowsky!...
"Jodorowsky had originally planned on filming Dune in the early-'70s, and had enlisted the help of Jean Giraud and H.R. Giger to create the movie's visual style. Salvador Dali was enlisted to play the part of the Emperor, and Jodorowsky also intended to cast his own son as Paul, David Carradine as Duke Leto, Orson Welles as the Baron, and Gloria Swanson as the Benne Geserit Reverend Mother. The soundtrack was to be done by Pink Floyd. According to Jodorowsky, "The project was sabotaged in Hollywood. It was French and not American. The message was 'not Hollywood enough'." - IMDB

Oh, PS: Sting's in it too....and is a hyper babe...
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