From: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org (alloy-digest) To: alloy-digest@smoe.org Subject: alloy-digest V5 #178 Reply-To: alloy@smoe.org Sender: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "alloy-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. alloy-digest Friday, July 21 2000 Volume 05 : Number 178 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Alloy: Rockula, 10 years after [Lee Jackson ] Re: Alloy: Rockula, 10 years after [Robin Thurlow Subject: Alloy: Rockula, 10 years after A couple of days ago, I received a copy of Rockula that I'd bought on eBay. Last night I got to watch it from start to finish for the very first time. I'd seen bits of it before, but I'd never seen the entire thing until last night. All I can say is...whew. If it weren't for Thomas, Toni Basil, and "Budapest by Blimp," there'd be very little reason to watch the thing. Fortunately for the film, these three elements make up for the rest. For the benefit of those who haven't seen the movie, Thomas plays Stanley, a seller of "deathware," you might say. You get to see a couple of his TV ads for coffins, tombstones, and cryo-chambers in the movie. He plays the bad guy, Stanley, which he pulls off remarkably well (despite some corny scripting). Stanley is quite the snotty git, who loses a girlfriend to a vampire (long story). He winds up getting talked into whacking her with a hambone on Halloween (by Toni Basil's character), while he's dressed up as a pirate with a rhinestone pegleg, so that he can cryo-freeze her and "have her for himself, forever." Thomas has a couple of priceless scenes in the movie. His meeting with Toni Basil's character (the vampire's mother, masquerading as Stanley's psychic) is funny - she pulls off a good gypsy accent and keeps hitting Stanley over the head with a folding fan whenever he asks her any questions. Later on, Stanley gets ready for Halloween: he's on the phone desperately trying to find a rhinestone pegleg, sharpening a chef's knife with a steel, and looking rather viciously at a pig in his room that's about to donate its hambone for the evening. The funniest scene is a quick bit, where he's changed into his costume in a nightclub's restroom stall and takes his first "step" with the pegleg on (i.e., he falls flat on his face). The best line in the whole movie comes during one of Stanley's TV tombstone ads, where he's selling a tombstone with a coin slot. Insert fifty cents, and up pops a bouquet of magician-style fake flowers on the gravesite. His line: "Ahhh...smell those chlamydias." How he said that with a straight face, I'll never know. ;-) Finally, you'd be surprised to hear how well "Budapest by Blimp" works in a dramatic score. There's a typical "boy/girl breakup" sequence, with lots of shots of the two main characters acting depressed over their splitup - no dialog, just camerawork. BbB plays in the background during the sequence, and turns what would normally be pure film cliche' into an actually very interesting sequence. What about the rest of the movie? Aside from a Toni Basil-performed song and dance number, there's not much to be said. Bo Diddley appears in what had to be either a favor to someone or an "I need the money" gig - he gets put into some costumes you would never picture him in. Dean Cameron stars as the vampire (need I say more?), and he has so much trouble talking properly with a pair of fangs in his mouth that you'd think he has a lisp at times. I think the only music from Thomas was BbB and the music for the death mart ads, unless he was pseudononomously credited for a couple of songs. The movie is about 70% 1990-vintage MTV music video and 30% acting, with only about half of that 30% having any real dialog. I wouldn't give the movie a "thumbs up," but that doesn't mean it's not worth getting a copy and watching it. It's definitely worth it, if only for Thomas' screen time. Suggestion: Thomas, please consider trying out for the villain in the next James Bond movie. I'd pay good money to see you do a serious take on Stanley (see the initial scenes, with Stanley dressed in black and showing off his sampler gear). Bring the character to the next level, and you've got quite a match for 007. ;-) - -- Lee Jackson (jacksonhome@home.com) http://gameaudio.3dportal.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 09:55:08 -0400 From: Robin Thurlow Subject: Re: Alloy: Rockula, 10 years after Lee Jackson wrote: > Suggestion: Thomas, please consider trying out for the villain in the next James Bond movie. I'd pay good money to see you do a serious take on Stanley (see the initial scenes, with Stanley dressed in black and showing off his sampler gear). Bring the character to the next level, and you've got quite a match for 007. ;-) > Funny how often James Bond films are brought up when talk of Thomas' film work surfaces! I think it's a sign from the gods, Mr. Dolby. I've long thought Thomas would be the absolute perfect choice to score a Bond film, and also that he should try for the villain role... I would love this!! And I could certainly see a character like Stanley becoming a fine nemesis for the British Secret Service. We should write a 'crossover' script ourselves, with Stanley vs Mr. Bond! I'll post it on the Alloy site, if anyone wants to get it rolling :) Robin T ------------------------------ End of alloy-digest V5 #178 ***************************