ASoundOfThunder Tagged Articles at Cinematical

So a few months ago I'm enjoying a stupid cigarette outside of my Park City (Sundance, woo) hotel, and I see my old friend Chris Hyams walking my way. Chris is one of the founders and wizards behind Bside.com, an outfit that does everything from mega-nifty festival schedules to full-bore film distribution. So because I am loud (and also a pathetic movie nerd), I say "Hey Chris! Wouldn't it be cool if your Dad was PETER Hyams?"

Chris smiled and said "It sure would be. And he is my dad!" After about four minutes of Chris trying to convince me he was telling the truth, we quickly got rambling about the awesomeness of Outland, which is a film his dad made way back in 1981, and is still the finest "High Noon in space" movie that Sean Connery ever starred in. During my conversation with Chris, my brain kept screaming "Don't mention The Musketeer! You HATED that movie!" So I didn't.

But then Chris was off to see a movie and I was left thinking "I'm a moron. Been a Hyams fan since I was a kid and Outland is all I could come up with?" So in an effort to rectify my idiocy, I offer this (rather eclectic) list of Peter Hyams flicks that I sorta, really, or very much dig.

Capricorn One (1978) -- Elliot Gould and James Brolin star in this dated-yet-interesting sci-fi tale of a FAKED Mars landing. As he would later do (several times) in his career, Mr. Hyams wrote, directed, AND shot the movie.

Hanover Street (1979) -- Follow a sci-fi film with a wartime romantic drama? With Harrison Ford? Sure, why not?

Outland (1981) -- If you're going to do an unofficial semi-remake, you could at least do it with half the cleverness found here. It really IS High Noon in Space, and it works surprisingly well. Even holds up well today. Solid brawls, a nice percolation of tension, great character ensemble and a great performance by Frances Sternhagen.

In honor of the Thanksgiving holiday that nears, it seemed only fitting that our minds turned to those films for which we are most unexpectedly grateful, those flops and duds, those bombs and turkeys rife with unintentional humor and renewed entertainment values. Now, we've pretty much stuck with the past decade or so with our picks; anything before that has either been done right by MST3K or is probably titled Showgirls.

With that said, please enjoy this Cinematical Seven responsibly, and do feel free to contribute your own personal favorite howlers of late in the comments below...

1. Twilight (2008)

Oh, dear God, I'm kidding. J/K!

He's always a great actor, but Ben Kingsley has a habit lately of working with undeserving directors (e.g. Uwe Boll) and appearing in undeserving movies (e.g. A Sound of Thunder). Give him a great director (Spielberg, Glazer) or even a good one (Attenborough, Levinson) and he shines. So, it's an enormous treat to learn he's finally working with Martin Scorsese, appearing in the newly Oscar-winning director's next film, Shutter Island. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Kingsley (or Sir Ben, as he's typically referred to on set) will play Dr. Cawley, the chief physician at a Massachusetts hospital for the criminally insane who must play host to two U.S. marshals played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo. Based on the novel by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone), the plot follows the marshals as they investigate the disappearance of a mental patient/inmate. While on the case, they experience a hurricane, get stuck on the eponymous island thanks to a riot and of course, "encounter a web of deceit."

Best known for being the fourth collaboration between Scorsese and DiCaprio, Shutter Island will also hopefully be known as the movie in which Sir Ben has a Massachusetts accent. As a cranky "enigmatic" doctor, though, he could be from anywhere (and with Kingsley, I truly mean that literally). Actually, this could be a rare Lehane adaptation where none of the main characters have that Boston-area intonation. Regardless, it should be entertaining to watch Kingsley as a slightly villainous physician who performs illegal brain surgery. Picture a cross between Don Logan, his character from Sexy Beast, Cosmo, his character from Sneakers, and Xavier Fitch, from Species. I would add in his loony psychiatrist character from the upcoming The Wackness, but I've only seen one scene and you likely aren't familiar with any of it. Of course, under the masterful direction of Scorsese, Kingsley will probably give us something fresh, like no character of his we've encountered before. I see a fifth Oscar nomination on the horizon.

 

Poor Ray Bradbury. Has his work ever been treated right on the screen? In 1966, François Truffaut clumsily adapted Bradbury's most well-known novel, Fahrenheit 451, about a future society in which information is repressed through the burning of books. The Martian Chronicles became a mixed-bag miniseries starring Rock Hudson in 1980, though it is remembered largely by sci-fi purists and self-styled xenosociologists. It was during Disney's "dark years" in 1983 (which also produced the bleak 1985 animated feature The Black Cauldron) that someone came the closest to capturing Bradbury's spirit when Jack Clayton, with whom Bradbury had worked on the 1956 adaptation of Moby Dick, made Something Wicked This Way Comes (from Bradbury's own screenplay). That trend of misses continues, as the time travel misadventure A Sound Of Thunder is an inept wheel-spin which, at best, will earn a "wait until DVD" (followed by "...and skip it then, too.")