From the Halls of Epic Fail, a Movie Review

[peristaltor]

Years ago, theweaselking posted a quick review of the movie I Am Legend, noting that it sucked because it did not follow the original story. I decided I had heard enough about that story to actually get it and compare it to the other movies based on the story "I Am Legend," namely Vincent Price in The Last Man on Earth and Charlton Heston in The Omega Man, and then give the Will Smith I Am Legend a spin in the player.

He was right, but he didn't go far enough. All three movies, in fact, failed massively to follow the plot and necessary conclusion the novella outlines. Hell, each of them fail to even follow the author's intent as outlined in the very title, choosing instead to make social commentary appropriate only for the times in which each of these movies were made, and to make the ending a happy one in each instance.

It gets worse. Richard Matheson, author of the original story, wrote the screenplay for the first go-round, but exercised his contractual option of changing his name in the screen credits because the story had strayed too far from his original. (I caught an interview with him in the first movie DVD extras.) And I cannot wave my raised fist and gnash my teeth enough at the corruption the most modern movie version did to the heart of the story. It is an abomination in revisionism.

I've been keeping this very post on a back burner for some time now, wishing to review the story and point out all the variations the screen versions bring to it. A few things have kept me from the task, most notably not wishing to spoil any of the four works for anyone who wishes, like me, to dive in. I would recommend this. It's enlightening. Instead, I got sidetracked by life — Ooh! Look! Bauble shiny! I did kinda get into Matheson's writing, especially when I found out how many of his stories were turned into television and movies, which I love, especially "Prey," which was turned into the best and scariest short telly movie of the 1970s, remembered by everyone as the last segment of Trilogy of Terror, the one with the little African warrior doll that comes to life and hunts a woman in her apartment.

This led me to all of the guys he hung out with in the 50s and 60s, guys like William Nolan, co-author of Logan's Run. From the wiki, I've pulled this short: "He has also co-edited an anthology with Jason V Brock, "The Bleeding Edge" (2010) with stories from fellow writers, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, George Clayton Johnson, John Shirley, Dan O'Bannon, and several newer writers."

Of the names there, Jason V. Brock proves pivotal to this LJ. He also made a movie about another of William Nolan's friends, Charles Beaumont. Shockingly, it's on IMDB. It's called Charles Beaumont: The Short Life of Twilight Zone's Magic Man. The movie opens with Rod Serling talking to Mike Wallace about his up-coming series, The Twilight Zone. Cut to two years later when Serling accepts his Emmy for Best Writing, and says he, Charles Beaumont, Richard Matheson and Bill Nolan were going to "cut it up like a turkey."

It turns out (according to the movie's interview with Ray Bradbury) Serling didn't really know what direction to go with Zone. Bradbury took him down to his library, pulled books by those three guys, handed them to Serling, and said to find them and have them write for the show, and to do what they said, to go where they wanted.

Interested now? I was. This is the kind of movie history I like, the history not of who was banging whom on what set, but the story behind the story, the background without which one lacks the critical context necessary to truly appreciating the nuance displayed on the screen. The movies features interviews with (of course) William Nolan, his Logan's Run co-author George Clayton Johnson, schlock producer extraordinaire Roger Corman, Harlan Ellison, William Shatner, as well as documentary staples like Beaumont's biographer and son. This guy was interesting, to say the least, and well loved and respected by those interviewed. He died early, at 38, of a poorly understood wasting disease that rendered his body and mind old far before their time. The probable cause surprised me (but I'll save that for those that wish to dive into the movie, since it would take space to explain).

Interested now? Sadly, here's where the title of this rant comes into play: This was the worst movie I have seen in years. I know, I know, with all this interesting content, what was bad? The production, people, the production. Look, I know that it's easy for a movie reviewer. Watch movie, tell what you thought. What many do not know is that good movie reviewers do more. They dissect the movie in ways that bring out both the good and the bad, that explain why it was good or bad. So let me continue.

This movie was poorly shot, poorly edited, had crappy sound, inappropriate music put in strange places for no reason, used visual gimmickry where none was useful to drive the story . . . I could go on. But first, let me defend my pan. It's easy to see a movie and say, "Wow, that was a bad shot." It's another to be able to make a better shot. I have seen first-hand people who pan but haven't the chops to do better. I can, and have. I studied movie production, theory, and history in college, just long enough to know that I would not have made a good movie maker. That is not to brag, but merely to trot out the expertise behind my critique. I know how to frame an interview subject, how to light the frame, how to place microphones, at least the rudiments of the art. Heck, I showed clips of this movie to The Wife, a former television production assistant herself, and she could do better. The two of us pointed out the poor in select shots that make the interviewed subject look like Uncle Bob at Thanksgiving when shot by little Timmy, the 9-year-old with the camcorder.

The travesty, of course, is that these are shots not of Uncle Bob or Aunt June, but of William Shatner and Harlan Ellison and Roger Corman. And these people are telling a good story, first-hand accounts of a brilliant writer with a fascinating life and career; in short, a story that deserves to be shot very unlike the Smith Thanksgiving by Timmy Smith. Getting to specifics, Harlan Ellison was shot as if he were slouching in his couch. His eye level should have been about 1/3rd from the top of the screen; it was below the half-way mark, making him look ridiculously short. The vase in the background was in sharper focus as well. Shatner? He was sitting at a desk, shot from the perspective of someone standing over him. Judging from Shatner's expression, that bothered him, but he had agreed to the interview and soldiered on. Many times in interviews the sound came only from the built-in mike on the cheap camera; many times the background window provided distracting background light that was not corrected; many times ambient lighting was used in under-lit homes, giving that dull orange pallor to the shot.

The shooting was not the most infuriating. Let's face it, when on a tight schedule, crap happens on set that can't be re-done later. The editing? One cannot offer that excuse. I'm sorry, but after the high schoolers get tired of the pixelated wipes, they stop using them. These filmmakers, it seems, still find that "cool." Even one in a commercial DVD — yes, let's remember that this is a for-profit production — stands out like a turd in a punchbowl. The selection of filler material? That one baffled me. One has the time in post production to at least make this work, but it didn't happen. At first, I thought this was too low budget to afford or get permission for excerpts from some of the televised material on which Beaumont worked. Nope. That stuff was only seen near the end. Why, then, did the director choose to shoot ad infinitum a pile of old original scripts? What about that pile of pulp novels written by him, shot with a moving camera to give a bit of action? And where appropriate, most competent documentarians see fit to highlight the sections of text that fit the discussion, not just pan over the page and adjust the focus in and out randomly.

Folks, if I hadn't been watching literary luminaries and professionals, I would have thought this was just Timmy interviewing Grandpa about his first car. There the production quality would have been appropriate.

But don't just take my word for it. Another reviewer (linked from the IMDB page) took a gander at this vid and wrote up a review. He mostly liked it, and I would have to agree with much of his content. There were warm moments of recollection and reflection on this man's life. Like I said earlier, it was a great story. The movie did do some things well. But this paragraph sums it up for me:

Technically there are moments that let the production down, like some poor quality sound on a couple of the interviews; however it’s important to keep things in perspective. The documentary was made on a $25,000 budget (going by IMDB) and is the first video release from JaSunni Productions. This is obviously a labour of love piece. Were it a studio production and the sound on an interview with William Shatner came out poorly, then they would more than likely be able to re-shoot, but for a production like this it’s a case of making the best of what you have. I imagine nobody was more put out by these issues than Jason and Sunni Brock, but when faced with the choice of leaving a piece in with flawed sound or taking it out, of course they’d need to leave it in. But let’s not get distracted by this minor quibble; none of the interviews are difficult to hear, and they all do their job well.

A few things stand out. First and foremost, a $25,000 budget?!? Give me a fucking break. You can't convince me those interviewed charged that much for their time. There is no way someone should have paid more than a few thousand to make this, warts and all. After all, judging by the videography it's obvious the camera came from Toy 'R' Us.

Second, and most important, let's address the issue of this being a first production.

Hollywood has a long-standing tradition of the test movie. Haven't heard of it? Essentially, when a promising director comes to a producer with a pretty darned good idea, that idea does not get made right away. The director must first make a tester (or whatever it's called), a movie that has nothing to do with the original Good Idea, just to make sure this is someone who can take on all the tasks necessary to direction. Not all of these are bad movies; far from it. Trey Parker and Matt Stone, despite having quite a few South Park episodes in the can already, had to make their tester Orgazmo before the South Park movie could be made. Orgazmo proves fun, a low-budget but thoroughly entertaining flick. Same with Mike Judge. His Beavus and Butthead Do America was preceded by Office Space, the movie that convinced The Wife and I to quit our jobs and move on.

So, if this was indeed a "labour of love" for the producers, why in name of all that's holy didn't they take their toy camera equipment and, I don't know, shoot an full-length exposé of, say, the Brock family Thanksgiving? Oh, for crying in the night, one must not only walk before one can run, one must learn to walk with some authority before what one is doing can be called anything but a clumsy crawl. And no matter how important the destination, really, no one likes to watch someone else crawl. It's embarrassing.

I would technically agree with the excerpted review, that it's sometimes impossible to go back and re-shoot. That does not excuse, though, the rudimentary mistakes throughout the production that hinted this might be the best the videographer could do, not an anomalous glitch in the lighting or sound in this shot or that. Whoever was behind that camera — and the credits note that person was the director, Jason Brock — needed some time taking classes to get the basics before shooting began.

And here I come up with the most frustrating conclusion of all. Most of the interviewed who knew and worked with Charles Beaumont are now elderly. Ray Bradbury is in his 90s. William Shatner, though one of the more youthful in the video, is 80. William Nolan, noted in the credits as the lynchpin of the movie, the guy who had most of the background material and knew the phone numbers for everyone else, played opposite Shatner in the movie version of Beaumont's The Intruder. He was easily ten years Shatner's senior, judging by the clip. One man interviewed, a writer friend and publisher of Beaumont's, was easily nearing the century mark.

This might have been the last time these people could be interviewed, which should rightfully be seen as a damned shame. Charles Beaumont's story deserved to have been told on film or video before this. At the very least, someone should have passed the collection plate and hired a camera person with some decent experience and equipment. Heck, Brock himself could have hired this person. Yes, the $25K budget would have been blown, but history would not now be regarding Charles Beaumont's story as a DVD rendering his life as cheaply as a family Thanksgiving . . . a DVD, according to the review I quoted, that retails for $24.95.