The Torrid Movies of Torcon

Mark brings you his impressions of some interesting upcoming movies based on attending the various trailer shows at Torcon 3, aka 2003's World Science Fiction Convention in Canada.

This article is a report on my impressions of upcoming films based on attending the show of trailers at Torcon 3, the World Science Fiction Convention. Each year I like to get a feel for what is to be released soon, even if it can be a downbeat experience.

There were a few films this year that did look promising and a lot that I am not sure why they even bothered to screen. Disclaimer: I had to take my notes in the dark from trailers I could see only once and form impressions of films based on that. In a past year I thought GATTACA did not look very good. You cannot judge a film by its trailer.

Also I may have gotten some mis-impressions from ambiguities or incomplete notes. (I will gladly refund your purchase price for this report.)

I will not report on films already released like AMERICAN SPLENDOR and (can you believe it, they ran some very old trailers) THE WIZARD OF SPEED AND TIME. In most cases I will not talk about trailers I have previously seen in theaters.

TIMELINE
When I think of Michael Crichton I think of an old article by Budd Schulberg, I think, called "Why Write It If You Can't Sell It to the Movies?" A new Michael Crichton adventure, even though it is in book form, is always a film in the making.

Realizing this I think that Crichton always takes special care to write very cinematically. His novels are visual and not internal. His specialty is to take an old SF idea and to make it sound technically plausible. With JURASSIC PARK he was really not far from what is possible.

TIMELINE is a little more fanciful. This one mixes a medieval adventure with 21st century technology. Modern archeologists sent back in time to the 14th century become stranded and involved in a race against time (literally) to bring them home. It is hard enough for modern people to just survive in the 14th century. The film looks entertaining and might be a good bet.

GOOD BOY!
This seems to be inspired in part by the film DOGS AND CATS. The concept is that alien dogs come to earth and are surprised to find that on Earth humans are the masters and dogs are merely pets.

It was written by someone who does not own a dog, apparently. The dogs get a brain boost. The increased dog intelligence brings some comic/cosmic reversals. Dogs walking people, that sort of thing. If this is not written to be intelligent it will be a dog.

BUBBA HO-TEP
For this one I could actually re-publish my review since I saw the film at the last Toronto International Film Festival. The BUBBA is a crowd pleaser for the right crowd, maybe fans of cult films like REPO MAN. It did little for me. Brought up on mummy movies I was hoping for more. (Well in fairness to my parents I brought myself up on mummy movies.) Both my wife and a friend who works in a nursing home liked the film more than I did.

The emphasis is on comedy and too much silliness and not horror. The story is by noted writer Joe Lonsdale. The audacious premise is that neither Elvis Presley nor John Kennedy died when the world thought they did. Both are in Texas nursing home. Bruce Campbell plays Elvis and Ossie Davis plays Kennedy. (Don't ask.)

The film is very low-budget, mostly taking place in the nursing home. Stalking this nursing home is a Kharis-like mummy. Can the two famous people stop a mummy in a cowboy hat? I find myself strangely uninterested in finding out.

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACE (2003)
Now this sounds to me like a completely unnecessary remake. I am not a great fan of the original, but at least it was original and used its style cleverly. What can a remake offer other than retread gore? Maybe the new filmmakers are just sentimentalists.

JEEPERS CREEPERS 2
Most critics seemed to agree that the first forty-five minutes of JEEPERS CREEPERS was really creepy. Then it lost most of its freshness once the viewer knows what is going on. The whole film builds up to a pun. This is apparently a whole film in which the viewer knows what is going on and the pun has already been spoiled. Ray Wise stars. Most people know him from TWIN PEAKS, but I think of THE JOURNEY OF NATTY GANN. This film combines monsters and basketball. Oh, boy.

THE INCREDIBLES
Pixar, whose FINDING NEMO just became the highest grossing animated film ever, is working on this film. The trailer is a teaser that tells little about the film but shows a super hero who has put on weight and is having trouble fitting into his hero- costume. Apparently it is about a whole family of superheroes. Pixar can probably do something good with the premise. This is one worth looking for. Then again, I am sure it will not be hard to find.

GOTHIKA
I don't think the trailer tells much but I understand the plot involves a psychologist who wakes up to find she is now a patient accused of a murder that she does not remember.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO
The third of Robert Rodriguez's "El Mariachi" stories. Apparently if he makes such good films on $5000 someone wanted to see what he could do with a $10,000 budget. It is not that he makes great films, but on his budget it is amazing he can make films at all.

While Hollywood is making expensive super-violence films with flat characters, nobody can match Rodriguez for his ability to make inexpensive super-violence films with flat characters. (Actually the budget for this film is $30,000,000 which, it should be explained, is not really a lot of money. It's paltry. Puny. It is only a little more than three times what the first STAR WARS cost. It is about the cost of MOONRAKER.)

There was a set of pilots for Canadian TV programs that seemed to be connected with Jim Danforth, a Ray Harryhausen protege. They had titles like STARHUNTER 2300 and BATTLE QUEEN 2020. The first was about a future bounty hunter. One had to do with virtual reality helicopter battles. They looked a little like satires of everything that is wrong with Hollywood films.

Weird animator Bill Plympton had two trailers. One for MUTANT ALIENS (2001) and one for HAIR HIGH (2003). The former is about a human stranded in space and who comes back to Earth with alien pals looking for revenge. There were some humorous images of aliens who look like human body parts.

HAIR HIGH is supposed to have the feel of GREASE! or HAIR SPRAY. The trailer seems to be little more than images of people with pompadour haircuts. Supposedly there are lots of shock scenes in any Plympton feature film (and the small sample of them I have seen, namely I MARRIED A STRANGE PERSON, bears that suggestion out).

MASTER AND COMMANDER
What can I say? It is the British Navy in the Napoleonic wars. I am an old Hornblower fan, though I have never read the Patrick O'Brien novels, but I will definitely see this film. Russell Crowe stars and Peter Weir directs. Yeah, I'll be there.

DECOYS
I seem to be about the only one not excited by the trailer of this film. Maybe it has BUBBA HO-TEP's appeal. Two college kids are looking to find attractive partners for certain social/biological acts. They seem to be getting really lucky until they discover the foxes are really alien monsters in disguise. Call it a Honey Trap. It seems to me like a familiar joke.

THE ORDER
This is a film that looks stylish from the trailer, but it has had no press screenings (always a bad sign) and probably the film is not very good. It essentially deals with what appears to be an attempted takeover of the Catholic Church but are opposed by an order of protectors of the Church.

PETER PAN
This looks like a revisionist live-action version of the oft- dramatized children's story. It looks like it might have mild violence that will make it appeal to a teenage audience. Jason Isaacs plays Captain Hook and Jeremy Sumpter is Peter Pan.

LOONEY TUNES: BACK IN ACTION
This is a ROGER RABBIT-like mixing of animated figures and live- action. Actually I think the animated figures were done with 3D animation like was used in SHREK. The film may be amusing, but not much could be inferred from the trailer. The trailer does have a good joke not from the film.

SHAOLIN SOCCER
Apparently this film has already played a couple of years in Asia and is quite popular. A family of brothers from Shaolin use their fighting discipline to become a super-powered soccer team. Neither soccer nor martial arts is my thing, but the film looks recommendable to others.

RETURN OF THE KING
Peter Jackson is trying to make the last chapter of the series ultimate in more ways than one. It is claimed to have the most complex battle ever put on film. It should not be hard to have the greatest number of fighters since the vast majority of those fighting are CGI. Also you can put a digital image into danger that you would not put a stunt man. On the other hand, a digital warrior frequently looks a lot like a digital warrior.

Trailers are supposed to tempt the viewer. I guess the films I am most tempted to see are TIMELINE, MASTER AND COMMANDER, and THE RETURN OF THE KING. But that is a reflection of my taste.