The Thing; Farewell Summer
I'm not sure what made me think of John Carpenter's The Thing a few weeks ago, but I realized I hadn't seen it in a long time, and had never seen it in wide-screen format. So I placed a hold on it from the Beaverton library system and got it last week. During my lifetime I've seen critical opinion on this movie slowly shift. I remember one of those big paperback movie review books back in the 1980s saying the film was "sickeningly gory" and giving it something like one star. As the years have gone by it is has achieved something like classic status, being promoted to a three-star film in many of those books. When I first saw the movie (on pay cable a year or so after its release) I was not mature enough to appreciate it as a film, but I certainly remember finding the viewing experience intense, both for the disturbing monster elements, and the human conflicts as well. I was enough of a horror fan to have seen lots of fairly lame-o movies that were boring despite their goal of being shocking. I've noted before that when you really think about it, there are few truly great horror films in existence. Just browse the horror section at a Blockbuster and you'll see what I mean. Horror film addicts put up with a lot of crap (or take with a dose of campiness) just to get their fix of a cool gross-out scene, or whatever it is they are looking for. I've never been part of that genre-fan's attitude of exceptionalism that one often finds. By this I mean the idea that "mainstream" standards for what makes a great film/book are irrelevant when it comes to science fiction, horror, fantasy, since those genres are out to provide some other type of experience (awe, shock, uncanniness) for die-hard fans, and thus plot, characterization, cohesive logic, basic craftsmanship, etc. can all go out the window so long as that magic ingredient is present. In fact what makes The Thing one of the better horror films is that it doesn't play into that too-tempting pattern of half-silliness which allows people to get their dose of gore, along with plenty of tension-relieving laughs along the way. It's pretty grim overall (in plot, lighting, music, set design). The pre-CGI visual effects hold up quite well, and I must admit that the Thing sequences are still among the most disgusting and nightmarish things I've ever seen in horror films. Years ago when I was talking to someone about Ennio Morricone's film music, the other person said that one of his favorite scores was from The Thing. I had the album, but was surprised this was one of his very favorites because I had found the music innocuous and even a little dull, in the style of too many then-trendy minimalists. But over the years the score has become one of my favorite Morricone albums as well. (Luckily I got one of the few CDs from Varese Sarabande's small release in the 90s). It is indeed pretty minimalist, but it grows on you. I watched it twice, one straight, and once with the commentary track. John Carpenter is actually an engaging and intelligent guy, displaying an awareness of what made The Thing a notable film within the genre without patting himself on the back too much. He says the scene where Kurt Russell has everyone else tied up to do the "blood test" was the scene he thought of first when he decided to do the film, and for me, besides the Thing transformation/attack sequences, that scene is indeed the most memorable of the film.
--
While getting the DVD in Beaverton I also picked up Ray Bradbury's Farewell Summer. This is a book whose existence I had only recently even heard of, and which I didn't think I'd ever see while Bradbury was alive. While the flap copy bills it as a "sequel" to Dandelion Wine, it is really more of a collection of material cut from the original version. Over the past twenty five years or so, Bradbury has been at his best when riding on top of previously written material. In Green Shadows, White Whale, he takes a dozen or so of his Irish stories from his prime years as a writer and stitches them together with connective chapters to make a novel. He did the same with From the Dust Returned. In both of those books, the "seams" between his earlier writing and the later additions are all too obvious. This is especially true of the latter book. Farewell Summer has a better pedigree in that it must largely consist of material written in his better years as a writer. Still, I suspect he must have revised most of the material for this publication, since it has that thinness of texture that marks (and limits) his recent writing. You used to be able to count on Bradbury for descriptive richness, even bordering on purple prose. No more. And sadly it isn't as if he's discovered Hemingwayesque simplicity either. No, his recent stories tend to seem inconsequential in both theme and language. If he didn't have his already established reputation I doubt they would be published with nearly so much fanfare.This latest book is somewhere in between his older and newer fiction. Unlike the stitched together new/old collections, this book is more unified and the classic, richer texture of Bradbury's 1950s writing colors the entire book, but in muted tones.
With generous margins and a large typeface, Farewell Summer manages to fill 210 pages, but it's an incredibly fast read and left me feeling as if I'd merely read a novella.
--
While getting the DVD in Beaverton I also picked up Ray Bradbury's Farewell Summer. This is a book whose existence I had only recently even heard of, and which I didn't think I'd ever see while Bradbury was alive. While the flap copy bills it as a "sequel" to Dandelion Wine, it is really more of a collection of material cut from the original version. Over the past twenty five years or so, Bradbury has been at his best when riding on top of previously written material. In Green Shadows, White Whale, he takes a dozen or so of his Irish stories from his prime years as a writer and stitches them together with connective chapters to make a novel. He did the same with From the Dust Returned. In both of those books, the "seams" between his earlier writing and the later additions are all too obvious. This is especially true of the latter book. Farewell Summer has a better pedigree in that it must largely consist of material written in his better years as a writer. Still, I suspect he must have revised most of the material for this publication, since it has that thinness of texture that marks (and limits) his recent writing. You used to be able to count on Bradbury for descriptive richness, even bordering on purple prose. No more. And sadly it isn't as if he's discovered Hemingwayesque simplicity either. No, his recent stories tend to seem inconsequential in both theme and language. If he didn't have his already established reputation I doubt they would be published with nearly so much fanfare.This latest book is somewhere in between his older and newer fiction. Unlike the stitched together new/old collections, this book is more unified and the classic, richer texture of Bradbury's 1950s writing colors the entire book, but in muted tones.
With generous margins and a large typeface, Farewell Summer manages to fill 210 pages, but it's an incredibly fast read and left me feeling as if I'd merely read a novella.