MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: GHOST STORY (1981)

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Of course, you lose audience interaction and the poor film now has to compete with all the comforts of home.
It's a bit like seeing Rembrandts & Titians in a book reproduction, or from posters with iffy color values, no texture or weight to the surface and the wrong dimensions . . . all while snacking on chips & soda. (Oops! You get that at your local cinema,too.)
The ease of instant movie gratification risks turning an art form (well, sometimes) into little more than low-grade eye-candy & mindfodder. So, maybe it's worthwhile to write a bit down on what we're all viewing, just to keep fully engaged.

DVDs: the latest opiate of the people meets the internet, where everyone's a critic.
God help us.

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Sunday, April 12, 2020

GHOST STORY (1981)

Hard enough to pull off real Stephen King. Third acts and explanations almost always fall apart. And faux Stephen King, here a Peter Straub novel, is trouble from the start. Too bad, too, since the basic idea of four old men holding on to a guilty secret from their salad days, and the ghostly victim who returns to take revenge, is loaded with possibilities. Beginning with a Hollywood ancien régime in their last feature film: Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas & Douglas Fairbanks Jr.. (Only fourth man, John Houseman would keep at it.) Hard to know where the blame goes on this one. Young leads Craig Wasson & Alice Krige are certainly creepy . . . just not scary creepy. Scripter Lawrence D. Cohen has real Stephen King credentials (CARRIE/’76*, two King tv mini-series), but never finds his way back from the flashback episodes, one modern, one 50 years ago. And director John Irwin, fresh off his superb TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY mini-series (the 1979 verison with Alec Guinness) hasn’t horror chops or a feel for ominous atmosphere. (Even with Jack Cardiff lensing.) A disappointment for the old troopers, still in there working and deserving a far better send off.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: *It makes you wonder if Brian De Palma’s CARRIE (King’s debut novel; Cohen’s debut screenplay) holds up. Maybe best to just keep the memory.

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Sunday, April 12, 2020

GHOST STORY (1981)

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