Enjoying: Dune

I caught a pretty rare screening of David Lynch's 1984 film, Dune last night and really enjoyed it.

Dune was critically trashed at the time it came out after being savagely cut by the producers (including Dino Di Laurentis, famed for his work in the good and schlocky) and is the only film that Lynch is embarrassed to have worked on.

It had something of a chequered history in the leadup to it's making - Ridley Scott was attached to the project for a while and insane (but awesome - check out El Topo) Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky was also working on an epic 16 hour version of the film for a while with Salvador Dali before it all fell into a big heap and they thought David Lynch might be a saner option. (Presumably not having seen Eraserhead :)

There are evidently 3 versions of this film floating about now - the 2h17m theatrical version I saw last night, a 3+ hour version that was put together for tv which includes a bunch of prologue stuff to better explain the complex plot elements (which Lynch hated so much he took his name off the film as director, going with the popular Alan Smithee pseudonym instead) and there is apparently also a 4 hour Lynch preferred cut taken from the work print which reflects the version of the film that Lynch came up with in the first place.

Personally, I don't see what's so complicated about the plot - it's really just a standard 102nd Century space prince becomes messiah on a planet of space freaks that mine a drug called Spice that's made by 400 metre long giant worms. Simple really.

As a Lynch fan, it's always enjoyable seeing actors from the Lynchiverse crop up repeatedly in his work. The late great Jack Nance (Henry from Eraserhead and Pete from Twin Peaks) has a minor role as one of the evil baron's weird sons and Everett McGill (Ed from Twin Peaks)is the leader of the aforementioned space freaks on the drug planet. Of course, the hero/messiah Paul Atreides was played by Kyle (Jeffrey in Blue Velvet, Agent Cooper in Twin Peaks) MacLachlan

There's also a host of other acting (and geekdom) notables including Dean Stockwell (Quantum Leap), Patrick Stewart (Capt Picard in ST:TNG), Sean Young (Bladerunner) and the list goes on. Sting even ponces around a little in a highly odd way.

As you're watching the film, you can sometimes see the creative battles between Lynch and the producers playing out - big sudden lurches in storyline that you can still accept if you just let the movie flow over you but which you know must have had scenes and scenes of set up and explanation originally and big sprawling, slightly cheesy Di Laurentine battle scenes versus some classic Lynchian wierdness (which at times took me back to Eraserhead more than any subsequent film has - more in tone than anything.)

Stylistically it's magnificent, pure Lynch all the way. Dealing with a story set so far in the future gives you so much license to do whatever the hell you like and the look and feel of the thing - most of all the massive sets is just out there. The guy doing the introduction before the film mentioned the Steampunk quality of the thing and he was so right. The good family (the House of Atreides) and the Emperor's pad had this particularly end of the 19th century Edwardian feel to them and the technology matched.

There were moments of genuinely weird, scary behaviour - the evil Baron Harkonnen pulling out some young pretty boy's heart plug and drinking the spurting blood with homoerotic overtones was up there, as was Paul Atreides doing the burning hand in the box pain test.

It was pretty interesting seeing a tale told about war in the desert too - jihad was mentioned specifically - I'm sure if you had the time you could make this into a whole, massively prescient parable about the current crises - but really, who does these days? :)

I hadn't seen this film for at least 10 years and I'm really surprised at how much I remembered - which I suspect helped the story to make more sense - but honestly, nothing really seemed that complicated.

I'd love to see the Lynch approved version. This is well worth seeing if you get the chance and don't mind the odd cheesy 80s special effect. (Some of the primitive computer graphics effects come up surprisingly well, all things considered).

Oh and music by Toto - how could I forget that :) (Actually, it was pretty good)

Here's the trailer



and here's a fanboi tribute



Update - I just read that around the time this was being pre-produced, Lynch was offered the gig directing Return of the Jedi - how fracking awesome would that have been.

Watching: No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men, the newy from the Coen Brothers, is appearing on the top of best-of-2007 film lists everywhere at the moment - not that I didn't already want to see it anyway.

It tells the relatively simple story of a man (Josh Brolin) who finds a big bag of money at a drug deal in the Texas desert gone wrong and his attempts to keep it, pursued by all and sundry including awesomely, disturbingly calm and evil killer Javier Bardem and disillusioned old local sheriff Tommy Lee Jones.

The Coens make great use of the Texan environment in telling their story (just as they do with most of their films) and weave a twisting tale that features their usual blend of distinctive dialogue as well as tough people behaving as you might think they actually would in reality. There's a feeling of grim determination to this film and a slightly bleak sense at the end that captures the mood of the best of the film noir genre.

It's a little more violent than the average Coen bros film (but never gratuitously) but at the same time you kind of drift through it a little.

Critically it's been hailed as a return to their Fargo kind of form and I can see the parallels though as I say, this is a tougher film (not to watch, more in the characters in it).

Well worth a look. A good friend lent me another book by the writer of the book that this film is based on, Cormac McCarthy, called The Road. Think I might have to read this one first though.

Playing/Loving: Portal

I went out and treated myself to an Xbox 360 during the week and based on the growing mountains of praise, the first game I bought was the Valve bundle The Orange Box. This includes Half-Life 2, a couple of extra HL2 episodes, Team Fortress 2 and most importantly of all, the game I've been hearing oodles about, Portal.

This is quite simply one of the most brilliant, entertaining and enjoyable games I've ever played. It's not a long game - I got around 8 hours of gaming out of it but every moment is better than the last. It's set in a slightly futuristic lab complex where you are asked by a friendly sounding computer voice to complete a series of puzzles using a portal gun that you use to move between otherwise unreachable areas.
If you complete the tests, there is the promise of cake at the end.

This video should give you the gist of how this works.



The writing of this game is simply superb - your only interaction (as it is) is with the computer voice running the tests and some other robots along the way. There is a bitingly dark and funny edge to the whole experience which grows the further through the tests you get - a very corporate "you're very important to us but this test will probably kill you" kind of thing. The strength of the computer character goes to show how important this is in making a good game.

The puzzles themselves get progressively more mindbending and force you to think about using space and physics in your environment in ways I've never had to before in a game. (Not that you need to be a science nerd or anything).

Most of all, it's just a lot of fun and even the end credits are entertaining, with a specially written song by the computer that sums everything up nicely.

It's not surprising that this game is popping up at the top of best games of 2007 awards all over the shop.

Best of all, I haven't done the bonus levels yet.