MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT (1975)

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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.)
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DVDs: the latest opiate of the people meets the internet, where everyone's a critic.
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Saturday, October 30, 2010

THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT (1975)

The schlock-meisters @ American-International hoped to grab some of the lucrative fantasy-adventure kiddie market long cultivated by Disney, Schneer/Harryhausen & Irwin Allen with this Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptation. The result is plenty cheesy, but not as much fun as it should be. Doug McClure keeps a straight face as an American neutral who leads a motley group of WWI Brits & Boche thru the perils of an uncharted island where dinos still roam and cavemen still evolve. But the ridiculously uneven (and just plain ridiculous) F/X creatures & effects only make you miss the resourceful craftsmanship of the cleverly handled, if spare, sea battles between ships & U-boats that open the film. Two years later, THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT/’77 went back to the island to look for survivors and found goofier beasts and a plot lifted from H. Ridder Haggard’s SHE/’35;’65;’85!

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A last thought before we go.

Well, enough from me. But before we sign off, here's a great quote from Emile Zola's L'OEUVRE (THE MASTERPIECE), which is about painting rather than the yet to be invented medium of film, but which points a fine critical eye toward the whole idea of art criticism. It's a good, if chilly, thought to keep in mind, especially when you surf the net.

"Has it ever struck you that posterity may not be the fair, impartial judge we like to think it is?

"Suppose the artist's paradise turned out to be as nonexistent as the Catholics, and future generations prove just as misguided as the present one and persisted in liking pretty pretty dabbling better than honest to goodness painting. There are some accepted masterpieces for which I myself wouldn't give a twopenny damn.

"Classical training has given us a wrong view of everything and forces us to acclaim as geniuses a lot of fellows who are no more than well-balanced, facile painters, while what we might really prefer is the work of more emancipated but less even artists known only to an initiated few. Immortality at present depends entirely on the average, middle-class mind and is reserved only for the names that have been most forcibly impressed upon us while we were still unable to defend ourselves...

"Perhaps that's the sort of thing that's best left unsaid. It's certainly the sort of thing that gives me the shudders!"- Emile Zola

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Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

Saturday, October 30, 2010

THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT (1975)

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A last thought before we go.

DROP ME A LINE