Now “City of Angels” tries to be two different things. It tries to demonstrate some originality with its new story, but also relies on devices that hearken back to the 1994 original that shows the studios and Goyer really don’t have much faith in what they’re doing and want people to remember Lee’s film and invest just as much emotion in its imagery. Instead of a flaming crow there’s a crow formed out of shattered glass, and instead of devising new face paint for the main character, the protagonist Sarah paints him to look almost exactly like Eric Draven. And even Gabriel makes a few appearances! That wacky cat! While the story tries to chalk the face paint up to her obsession with Draven and the crow, this instead looks just derivative. There’s a considerable cowardice and exploitative undertone here that the Weinsteins rely on to try and keep this franchise in motion.
Tag Archives: Sequel
Victims. Aren't We All? Part Four
The final frame of “The Crow” reads: “For Brandon and Eliza.” Back before the opening of “The Crow” in 1994 life imitated art yet again as when just as filming was wrapping up, Brandon Lee was set to marry his fiancé Eliza Hutton a week after wrapping production much like Eric was set to marry Shelly a day before Halloween before tragedy took its toll Brandon was buried next to his father in a ceremony where reports indicate he was buried in his wedding tux. During the memorial service his future wife Eliza wore her wedding dress, never having children with him.
And not surprisingly, the media jumped on this horrific accident disgustingly describing his death as yet another victim of the “Curse of the Dragon.” In actuality it was the accident on the set of “The Crow” that led to his death, and not a ridiculous curse used to sell books and air time on primetime news with talking heads discussing the cursed Lee bloodline. Unfortunate human error has no place when it comes to making profit off of human suffering. The footage that showed Lee being shot was never used and promptly burned and Hutton has insisted that no one will ever see it again, thankfully.
Victims. Aren't We All? Part Three
Unlike the film, Eric and Shelly are stranded on the side of the road after celebrating their engagement and happen across T-Bird and his cronies who basically taunt Eric. Knowing his fate he makes Shelly lock herself up in their car, and he is shot in the head twice in spite of humiliating himself and begging the guys to leave them alone. About to die he is forced to watch as Shelly is torn from the car and gang raped by each of them very slowly. She then has her face stomped in after she screams, and is also shot in the head. To make things all the more disgusting, Tin Tin proceeds to continue raping Shelly even with half of her head missing. To add pure insult to injury the surgeons who take Eric in make jokes at his expense while trying to bring him back to life on the surgery table. Shelly has long been dead and Eric survives only to live a brief moment as a vegetable forced to endure jokes and mocks from surgeons unwilling to sympathize with his pain. Speaking as someone who knows what it’s like to have loved deeply and lost greatly, “The Crow” manages to speak to someone like me.
Victims. Aren't We All? Part Two
I cried when Brandon Lee died. I can still remember being a young kid still reeling from watching “The Crow” a week before and suddenly watching a news report about the death of Lee. Is that a bit over the top? I don’t know, I can’t say. I don’t think it was an irrational response, to be honest. In that age I was impressionable and very passionate about movies and I was becoming a huge fan of Lee. I’d seen “Rapid Fire” and “Showdown” a million times and he’d convinced me he was worth following in “The Crow.” I mean what’s so wrong with mourning someone you admired? People cried when Lennon died. People cried when JFK died. People cried when John Wayne died. Hell people cried when Bruce Lee died. So I don’t honestly think my reaction to Lee’s death was unreasonable. Because this man had every single aspect that showed he was capable of becoming a humongous star. And whether he became the neo-Bruce Lee or just faded in to obscurity, it didn’t matter. “The Crow” encapsulates everything that was amazing about Brandon, and if he moved on to doing nothing but cheap action movies, “The Crow” would have stood as his ultimate.
Victims. Aren't We All? Part One
“Someday all things will be fair and there will be wonderful surprises.”
If my house was burning around me and I had to pick one movie from my collection to keep, I’d pick “The Crow.” Even over “12 Angry Men.” Yes, I think about these sort of things, because in the last month I’ve done a lot that has revolved around “The Crow” and Brandon Lee. I am finishing up a large fan fiction about “The Crow,” I saw “Rapid Fire” for the first time in a year on HBO, and one day out of the blue I had the strange urge to watch “The Crow” again, and for some reason it was kind of emotional for me. I can’t explain it, really. Movies make me emotional but that’s during the dramas and whatnot. Normally movies based on comic books only manage to elicit excitement from me and that’s about as far as it goes, but with “The Crow” it’s a movie I’ve seen a thousand times and for some reason this viewing on the morning of a Sunday, I found myself quite engrossed in it.
Three Years Later… "Spider-Man 3"
The transformation scene of Flint Marko de-materializing and then forming in to a human once again through his sand abilities is rather incredible. Raimi just outdoes himself here and the sequence is mesmerizing. There’s even a scene where Sandman balloons in to a humongous sandstorm pounding down on Spider-Man. But, again, no one really cared. Venom was the attraction. What do you expect from the fans? Venom is more popular than Spider-Man himself! But you have to give it to Raimi for at least trying to take a considerably lame villain and attempting to bring him to the attention of movie goers alike. He even retcons the entire origin of Spider-Man by making Sandman one of the folks who took part in the death of Uncle Ben.
So what all seems like a quick crime turns in to a pretty lame moment where Ben tries to talk Flint out of stealing his car and is shot by his partner for his resistance. All things considered, it’s a shame because Thomas Haden Church is a doppleganger to his comic counterpart and his strong performance is just forgotten. Venom is obviously shoe-horned in to the movie due to his sudden introduction in the second half because Raimi commits a heinous crime by completely reducing him in to a second rate villain. With that Raimi makes his position clear to both fans and the studio. He wanted Sandman to take center stage, Venom just isn’t important.
Three Years Later… "Spider-Man 3"
Many would agree that the comic book movie has somewhat run its course in film. We have seen all the big guns of the comic book genre tackled on the big screen and we’re now being reduced to watching obscure superheroes and indie comics be adapted and fans are pretty exhausted. Even those who are die hard readers. One thing is for sure though: the fad is not dying any time soon even though they breed surefire controversy.
Such an example is the upcoming reboot of the “Spider-Man” movies. Upon reading the news many fans of the films and comics shouted from the rooftops at the sheer gall Sony studios had of wanting to restart the series. So far Sony is planning to completely revamp the big screen vision for the web slinger kicking out director Sam Raimi, and the entire cast and basically starting over from scratch. Obviously it’s to cut the cost of salary, but they insist it’s to completely rethink the direction the series is going in. Sony surprised many by this decision after talks ensued for months about their meetings with director Sam Raimi about plans for part four of the original franchise and even had the original cast contracted for parts four, five, and six.