Theo Cinema: ATLANTIS - THE LOST EMPIRE (WOEFULLY Bad)

[Paul MacLean]

One other thing I really enjoyed was Michael Kamen's score. This is one of his best IMO, possessing a real exuberance and joy that I think was absent from a lot of his ROBIN HOOD score. Kamen cold run hot and cold at times, but he was very committed here for whatever reason, writing a lively and lyrical work that ought to be expanded by Intrada at some point.

Agreed on Kamen's score -- a much more vibrant and effervescent effort than Robin Hood. Your review in fact prompted me to give the CD another spin (I have it playing right now as I write!). The setting affords him an opportunity to indulge some wonderful baroque touches (even if they aren't strictly "period"), and overall there is a nimbleness to the music which is absent from the comparatively lugubrious Prince of Thieves.

I suspect Kamen had more time to write this score -- the orchestrations sound more like his early work (Brazil, Highlander), which he orchestrated himself, and Kamen had a unique style of orchestration. It wouldn't surprise me if his Three Musketeers sketches were more detailed than those of Robin Hood (whose orchestration always sounded, to me anyway, professional but perfunctory).

Three Musketeers was also recorded at the spacious Todd A-O stage (preferred LA venue of Goldsmith and Horner -- which has since been razed, sadly).

[BobaMike]

I agree about Kamen's Three Musketeers score- it's way better than Robin Hood. Up there with Baron Munchhausen and 101 Dalmatians as my favorite of his.

Hopefully it gets an expanded cd someday.

[AndyDursin]

THE BLACK STALLION (1979)

It's not going to be breaking news but my goodness, this film is SO good. I mean, absolutely exquisite in every sense of the word, that every time I see it, I'm still overwhelmed by the story and the way it's told, the cinematography, the editing -- this is one of the all-time classics, one of the most spectacular cinematic "children's films" (if not THE most wholly cinematic), and while other movies remain anchored to time and place, this movie is only enhanced as the years pass. It was great in '79 and when I was growing up, wearing out the VHS in the early '80s, but it's something truly remarkable when viewed against what's out there today.

The lack of dialogue is such a plus. The story is relatable to any kid -- Theo was pretty much mesmerized by it -- and yet it's told in an intelligent way with an economy that makes it that much more compelling. There doesn't need to be a dumb comic relief character. There doesn't need to be a ton of explanation for what's happening -- you can read everything into the story, it's all there, from the expressions and the low-key performances (Mickey Rooney is just great) to the movement of the narrative.

Caleb Deschanel's cinematography is unreal. The 2nd unit work of Stephen H. Burum and director Carroll Ballard -- all of it is gold. The sequence where you see Alec ride the Black by getting on his back in the water is simply indescribable. The horse race at the end, the flashback to Alec and the Black's time on the island -- they're just on a whole other plain compared to most movies. Credit Robert Dalva's editing as well, since the film was pegged as being a "troubled shoot" I believe.

I also love the score in this film. There are several emotional flourishes that really get to you but it's mostly dialed back, in a good way, supporting the film richly at times, creating an air of mystery without spoonfeeding emotion to the audience. As much as I like Georges Delerue his score for the 2nd film is indicative of the difference between that sequel -- a decent but conventional kids flick with a comparatively syrupy, and overpowering, orchestral score -- and this movie, which transcends its genre into something utterly spellbinding, every time you watch it.

[Paul MacLean]

I haven't actually seen The Black Stallion since I was a kid in the theatre! Time for another screening I think.

Agreed, Ballard is an extraordinary "visual filmmaker", whose work (as you note) primarily imparts the narrative through imagery, and relies on dialog only when absolutely necessary -- which is what all cinema should strive for (and something I wish Tarantino -- and more to the point, his fan base -- would realize).

Gotta sit Theo down for Never Cry Wolf next!

[AndyDursin]

Good idea, though I think Fly Away Home first...I wasn't as crazy about Never Cry Wolf, at least the ending. Then again I haven't seen that one since 3rd grade!

Ballard's general capture of nature onscreen is second to none, but here he got a major assist from a good script (which he didn't always have) and major talents like Deschanel working alongside him. Plus Coppola's production backing him up.

There is no false note in this film. Is it on the Criterion Channel? It's a Criterion BD title.

[mkaroly]

Confession...I have never seen The Black Stallion.

[AndyDursin]

Dude....lol

Seriously. Get it. Watch it. You're in for something special.

[Eric Paddon]

I saw it in the theater in 79 (I know I'd read a couple of the books beforehand. A change from the books is that the father is not traveling with him, an uncle is, so the father remains a character in the series as a whole). I may or may not have seen it once on video since.

[AndyDursin]

SUPERMAN II - THE REAL ONE

Couldn't get past the first hour of CLASH OF THE TITANS (Calibos scared him a little too much) but we had success with SUPERMAN II.

In fact the Theatrical Version plays every bit as well as I hoped, and Theo loved it. He laughed during Lois and Clark's "rendezvous" (said "they're naked!") but really enjoyed the action and got a huge kick out of the diner sequence at the end. Watching him laugh so hard reminded me why that scene is in there.

One thing that again struck me while seeing the "real" Lester theatrical version again is, yes, Margot Kidder's shifting appearance is a major distraction and the dubbed over lines for Hackman are obvious....but when I went back to the "Donner Cut" that version has so many problems structurally (it shouldn't even be considered a "movie" per se) I again gained more appreciation for the film that was actually released in '81.

Lester deserves a lot of credit for improving the footage what was there, tightening it up and making a better film than the scraps of footage Donner left. Unnecessary dialogue was dumped in numerous scenes, much to the benefit of the film's pacing.

Meanwhile the major revisions from Lester are virtually all improvements over what Donner filmed. The Paris opening is exponentially better than the Daily Planet open Donner had shot. The Niagara Falls identity reveal is exponentially better than what Donner had envisioned (judging from the awful screen test included herein).

For all the talk of Brando and his involvement, his first scene with Lex Luthor goes on forever. Like ridiculously long. It's made even more worthless in Donner's horrible cut since they've already rehashed the open of the previous film (much longer than Lester's movie does) and already reestablished the villains. This sequence is nearly three times as long here and only would've worked if the movie had a cold open without a reprise of what happened in the first film. Much of it is unnecessary.

But even the second Brando scene from Donner's material has a major problem: Reeve's performance. While I don't know how early this scene was shot, Reeve's performance with Brando is stilted and even carries a quasi Brit accent at times. He seems uncomfortable and stiff, whereas his performance in the Lester reshoot with Susannah York is appreciably stronger, more confident and gritty. My guess is Reeve had to shoot this scene fairly early with Brando but the Lester reshoots gain quite a bit from Reeve having to redo it, and provide an earthier turn that's much stronger.

The one scene that does work with Brando is the restoration of Superman's powers, which gives Brando and Reeve a chance to actually "interact". Still does the movie lose anything really minus this scene? It goes on much longer than the scene in the Lester version, yet much of the dialogue has that "seriousness" of the Krypton sequences from I, and it almost seems out of place now that we're so far removed from that part of the first movie.

The editing is much quicker, the film is much crisper in Lester's version too. Even the final confrontation is improved in Lester's movie. I rewatched the Fortress climax in Donner's cut and it's almost completely LIFELESS. Maybe with proper scoring and editing it would've worked better (Ken Thorne's scoring is 100 times more effective than the terrible "assembled" score in the Donner Cut), but you can see why inserts were added by Lester in general. They punched up the scene and made it work in comparison to what Donner originally filmed.

Really had Kidder's appearance and seeming health not deteriorated in-between the two rounds of filming (she nearly looks like a different person in II, gaunt and a far cry from the scenes she shot for I), people wouldn't have asked about Donner's material as much over the years and created this urban legend that his "cut" not only existed but was a better movie.

The theatrical cut of II is a genre classic and deserves to be appraised as it initially was before the fanboys got all riled up about Donner and his firing.

[Monterey Jack]

Agreed on all counts, Andy. Aside from Margot Kidder's haggard, ever-shifting appearance and the awful dubbing and body doubles for Gene Hackman in the additional scenes where he refused to come back for reshoots, Superman II simply works better in Lester's version, and the "Donner Cut" is nothing more than a poorly-edited curiosity that's only interesting to finally see the axed Brando footage. I have a strong feeling that next year's much ballyhooed "Snyder Cut" of Justice League is going to be every bit as disappointing after all of the pre-release self-hyping fanboys have engaged in, refusing to believe that Snyder's original intentions with the film will be anything other than genius, and that his film was "despoiled" by lightened tone of the Joss Whedon reshoots (which is bizarre, as pretty much everyone complained about the dour tone and misrepresentation of Superman's character in Man Of Steel and Batman v Superman ). Hell, for years there were people who thought that David Fincher's "original vision" of Alien 3 was some kind of lost masterpiece that "The Suits" at Fox had torn to pieces and ruined , and when we finally got the not-endorsed-by-Fincher "Assembly Cut" in the "Alien Quadrilogy" DVD set in 2003, the result was every bit as mediocre as the theatrical version, albeit slightly less choppy and incoherent. No amount of massaging the raw footage from that ill-conceived film could erase the fact that it killed three of the four survivors of the previous movie in the opening credits.

[Eric Paddon]

In general I think the ultimate "compromise" edition for me would be to put *just* the power restoration sequence of Brando back in because a cut of the film where that is Brando's only scene in the movie would pack a greater wallop IMO. And I admit I prefer the tightening of the Metropolis battle in the Donner cut to remove some of the more stupid visual gags etc. The Lester Fortress battle cut IMO I thought was okay.

My biggest complaint with the "Donner cut" was using the turn back time gimmick which was NOT going to be used even if Donner had stayed with the film. Especially since it made the beat up the bully scene ludicrous and spiteful.

[Edmund Kattak]

In general I think the ultimate "compromise" edition for me would be to put *just* the power restoration sequence of Brando back in because a cut of the film where that is Brando's only scene in the movie would pack a greater wallop IMO. And I admit I prefer the tightening of the Metropolis battle in the Donner cut to remove some of the more stupid visual gags etc. The Lester Fortress battle cut IMO I thought was okay.

My biggest complaint with the "Donner cut" was using the turn back time gimmick which was NOT going to be used even if Donner had stayed with the film. Especially since it made the beat up the bully scene ludicrous and spiteful.

Ultimately, I have been disappointed with ALL versions of SUPERMAN II throughout the years. I had that reaction after seeing it in the theater back in '81 and the Donner cut, although a curiosity, is rife with issues. Probably, the only aspect I've ever liked about it was Donner's use of Brando, which had always been his guiding figure through SUPERMNAN THE MOVIE. Let's not forget, that Donner shot all this footage and the movie needed to be parsed down to what would become the first movie due to the pressure to release it. So I never did buy into Donner's concept of turning back the world in II when we've already had it happen it the first movie. That opening sequence was too long with the exposition and could have been parsed down by immediately starting where Superman intercepts the missile and sends it off (Not clear from the first movie if it goes into space, but Donner could have provided that explanation in that opening of II without the 10 or 15 minutes of the previous film). Then he leads into the "Krypton Three" release from their exile and towards the moon and the earth, then cue main titles. I think the audience would have gotten that simplified beginning, but for me it was a bit tiring to watch it play out the way it did.

While I can be objective about Lester and his changes to make whatever concept was envisioned a reality, I can't really blame him for what I didn't like about II. I'm sorry, but you can blame the Salkinds for creating that situation. Lester did his best and it wasn't horrible. He at least bring some comedic sensibilities that reminded you that this was a movie based on a comic book (Some of the Metropolis comic elements during the battle were amusing, some were a little schticky). But some of those moments broke the overall flow for me. The lack of Brando, some of the goofy moments (Can anybody say farm boy with an English accent in the middle of Texas!), and yes the bully revenge ending, seem a bit much compared to the tone of the first (which was an imperfect film as well). While I liked whatever little they gave Susannah York to do in the first movie, it became jarring for me for her to suddenly be the "Svengali mentor" in II, especially since she was never established like Brando was to an adult Kal-El like in the first movie. To me, that continuity gap always stuck out (even as a kid) as the conclusion became: Oh, they couldn't afford to bring Brando back, as opposed to, That's great, Superman's mom is now the "Yoda" of the movie.

Now and then I still watch it, so overall, it's not as bad as sitting through "Supergirl." To me, the Salkinds were always the more classy versions of what would become Menachem Golan and Yorum Globus.

[AndyDursin]

The thing that struck me this time around is that both the Brando and Hackman footage Donner shot seemed to be a handicap for Lester -- as far as working it in -- in different ways.

Brando's dialogue, and the whole Krypton thing, is kind of stodgy and serious tonally. In I, the tonal differences separating that, and the rest of Donner's Superman, is acceptable because of how the movie is set up. But when you bring Brando and Jor-El back here -- and we're now firmly in the modern Clark/Lois world -- it doesn't really mesh for me. His style of performance, the stoic Kryptonian dialogue, just feels out of sync with the rest of the movie. I suppose you can say those tonal differences are a weakness (one of the few!) of SUPERMAN THE MOVIE, but it's less of an issue in the original simply because of its structure.

I don't think Reeve and his style of performance -- and that part of the movie in general -- meshes well with the stoic Brando and his pontificating. That outtake from SUPERMAN THE MOVIE between them -- which Donner added back into his Director's Cut -- doesn't work that great either. I wonder when that stuff was shot, because Reeve's performance in that moment is pretty bad -- and very different from his mannerisms in every other scene. It's like it was shot early, before he got a handle on the role. He looks like he's "acting!" whereas he's in command in every other scene.

Either way, I thought Reeve's performance is infinitely better in the Lester sequence with York before he "de-powers", as opposed to the comparative sequence Donner shot with him and Brando.

As for Hackman, Lex's involvement in II isn't very heavy and they shot a lot of material that wasn't needed with him and Valerie Perrine -- really it's just 4 sequences he's in (breaking out of prison, the Fortress scenes at the beginning and end, the White House bit and scenes from the Daily Planet) and while Hackman is funny, they didn't need most of it. Did Hackman only sign to shoot his scenes all at once? Would they have had to pay him more to come back for reshoots? I'm guessing that's the case, but again, you can tell they had to "patch it all together".

some of the goofy moments

And yet there are a host of comedic lines Lester had actually removed that Donner shot (I think) -- Miss Tessmacher looking for the bathroom, Otis with the bedwetting inmate, John Ratzenberger asking who's using a hairdryer...lol. All scenes I thought were funny, but not needed.

and yes the bully revenge ending,

Which was a Donner-shot sequence! Which of course, in the Donner Cut, now makes no sense to retain at all since Superman "backed up time" so that the confrontation never happened to begin with...

I had less of a problem with it here because it's a pretty funny scene. Theo thought it was hilarious and I think that's how it was intended, for Clark Kent -- as opposed to Superman -- to get a moment of wish-fulfillment. There's also an outtake in the II deleted scenes (which I think was in the TV version also, or at least one of them) where a bully snaps at Clark as he's leaving the Daily Planet, which spurs him to go back to the diner, to teach the jerk a lesson. Maybe if that had been retained as explaining Clark's motivation, it would've made the character's motivation clearer.

Lester though was wise to add the beat where Superman returns to the White House with the dome, a patriotic end that puts a nice cap on it.

While I liked whatever little they gave Susannah York to do in the first movie, it became jarring for me for her to suddenly be the "Svengali mentor" in II, especially since she was never established like Brando was to an adult Kal-El like in the first movie.

For me, it made more sense that he's hearing "girl talk" from her and not Marlon after going to bed with Lois.

[Eric Paddon]

My understanding is they shot the turn back time ending for II *before* the decision was made that they needed it for I after they shut down the rest of the II production. So that was what what left us hamstrung in terms of "Donner footage" to use as far as an ending for II was concerned and unfortunately the fan-edit was trying to max things out on Donner to the point where it kept that cut from being more enjoyable an experience. They should have just stuck to the Lester ending (E.G. Marshall of course did not come back for the Lester shoot so that's a double from behind. BTW, whose idea was it to give Marshall one of those "who are you trying to fool?" toupees??)

Of course if the entirely separate dispute with Brando hadn't happened there would be no "Donner cut" because that was the driving impetus behind it. We wanted to see those scenes and everything else was totally incidental.

[AndyDursin]

They should have just put the Brando scenes in a deleted scenes Special Edition of the film. Instead they indulged Donner and did a cash grab, trying to sell that as if it was an actual movie, and it's not.

What I would like to see are the TV cuts of II and III on Blu-Ray, but the Warner Archive is too invested in 1940s westerns to bother right now!