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Movies

The General

Directed by Clyde Bruckman, Buster Keaton, starring Marion Mack, Buster Keaton

Modern audiences accustomed with surround sound home theater systems and Hollywood monstrosities that basically yell at you for their duration might have trouble becoming acquainted with films of the silent era. In these movies, some exposition is given through little snippets of text narration but most of the stories are told through sheer physicality. And if you consider how much physical risk a star like Buster Keaton faced making a movie like The General, it makes the thrill of watching him pull off his stunts much more enthralling than any computer effect.

The story is based on a book about a real-life US Civil War train chase where Unionists stole a Confederate locomotive and almost got away with it. Here, we follow the adventures of Johnnie Gray (Keaton), a train engineer whose dream girl refuses to be with him because he is refused by the army. However, Johnnie springs to action when Northern forces steal his train and his girl. Two chases - Johnnie chasing them and then them chasing Johnnie - ensue with the engineer using every trick he can think of to keep one step ahead (or behind).

An actual train was used in one scene where a locomotive crashes into a river off a burning bridge. Added to this are stunts that had they gone wrong could have easily injured or killed Keaton in the process. It's a staggering performance of acrobatic skill coupled with the star's trademark poker face and deadpan reactions. He is, after all, a man on a mission, not a clown sent in to deliberately shake things up. Ben Davey

The Blob

Directed by Chuck Russell, starring Kevin Dillon, Shawnee Smith

Before Chuck Russell decided to remake a 1950s b-grade icon, he had been one of a string of directors to have made a Nightmare on Elm Street movie (he made the third one), so I guess you could say that he was accustomed with rehashing old stories. Russell's 1988 Blob upgrade puts a few new spins on the 1958 version (which is most famous for being the first leading role for a young Steve McQueen). The good guys are now bad and the gelatinous villain far meaner than its meandering predecessor.

This time around, an unethical government agency wants the alien slab of goo for its own nefarious purposes and the killer jelly itself is given a special effects overhaul. As opposed to the original, in which the deadly blob looks about as menacing and swift as a puddle of personal lubricant, this 1980s mass of man-eating goodness is extremely versatile. It climbs, reaches for limbs to pull from bodies, and is appropriately colored a reddish purple, like a deeply sunburned stretch of pustular flesh.

McQueen's hero in the original was a clean-cut teen but here the savior, Brian Flagg, is a motorcycle-riding outsider, a la Brando in The Wild One. Kevin Dillon plays this role with adequate attitude while his hair rivals the blob itself for sheer volume.

However, the feistiest of all of the threatened townsfolk is a high-school cheerleader, Meg Penny (Shawnee Smith), who swaps her pom-poms for a high caliber firearm. So sure, the weapons, heroes and villains have changed but so has the tone: Where the original was silly yet strangely charming, the remake is humorless, cynical and far less endearing. BD

(China Daily 08/08/2007 page20)