BIFF Review: Heaven's Gate

Margaret Pomeranz made me wait to see Heaven's Gate, and I'm glad she did.

Before I saw her review of the film's last re-release in 2004, all I knew of Heaven's Gate was its ghastly reputation. Considered one of the biggest critical and commercial flops of all time, the neo-western derailed director Michael Cimino's career after the Oscar-winning highs of 1978's The Deer Hunter. Going hugely over-budget during a troubled production, Heaven's Gate finally arrived in cinemas in 1980 as damaged goods, and the reaction was toxic. Cimino was blasted for his hubris and the film contributed to the downfall of its studio, United Artists.

Debate raged about the story behind the film but scant attention was paid to its content, and what reactions there were portrayed the film as incompetent, self-indulgent hackery. With so many dire portents of a production gone wrong, it was no doubt hard to judge the film divorced from that maelstrom.

After a short run in cinemas, it was withdrawn and Cimino cut over an hour from the film for its next release, but it made little difference. Rarely has a film failed so spectacularly. Heaven's Gate was made during Hollywood's 1970s auteur-driven period, so wondrous things were no doubt expected from Cimino when armed with such a huge budget. Instead, the film helped bring about the end of that period and studios began taking tighter control. Just as Star Wars contributed three years earlier to the highly corporate Hollywood of today, so did Heaven's Gate. [More after the jump.]

The X-Files might actually be coming to Blu-ray

This is weird timing: a speculation I made last weekend looks to have unexpectedly come to pass. In my post about the first season Blu-ray release of Star Trek: The Next Generation, I discussed how the success and viability of that project may lead to Blu-ray releases for other shows that were shot on film but edited on videotape. Out of all shows from the 1980s and 1990s that were produced this way, I named The X-Files as a candidate for the next wave of shows rebuilt for HD. I wasn’t terribly optimistic though.

What a difference a day (or two) makes. The Digital Bits reported on Tuesday that they’ve heard Fox have decided to remaster The X-Files for Blu-ray and may have already started work. Although this was in their “Rumour Mill” column, The Digital Bits is so well connected that while they tag anything not yet officially announced as rumour, their sources are so impeccable that it’s almost certainly going to happen. If it doesn’t, it’s because the studio changed their mind or something stopped them, not because it was never true. The Digital Bits were the first to report that CBS were remastering The Next Generation, and a few months later the official announcement appeared.

So we can start getting excited about this as a near certainty, and what an unexpected development it is. There’s been a lot of talk about the long-term viability of Blu-ray as a commercial format. Some cite that it hasn’t been taken up as rapidly as DVD, or assume that the parallel rise of online streaming options will inevitably put the nail in the disc’s coffin. But this ignores the fact that an increasing proportion of units sold of a title are on Blu-ray rather than DVD, and often the majority. Plus, the required online infrastructure to stream 1080p high definition to huge numbers of customers is not even imminent in America, let alone a smaller country like Australia. For a reliable, pristine HD experience, Blu-ray still can’t be topped. [More after the jump]

Braving the savagely compromised theatrical cut of Clive Barker's Nightbreed

Clive Barker's 1990 film Nightbreed has long been a cult favourite of horror fans, and their enthusiasm has been amped up in the last year with grass-roots screenings of the new Cabal Cut. This rough assembly, using rediscovered VHS workprints and the theatrical DVD, reportedly presents a vastly improved film that hews much closer to Barker's original vision, which was ravaged by cuts and reshoots for its theatrical release only to be a critical and commercial failure.

Based on Barker's own novel, Cabal, Nightbreed is the story of Boone (Craig Sheffer), a man plagued by violent dreams only to be told by his therapist, Decker (David Cronenberg!), that he has actually committed serial murders in real life. Horrified, Boone flees and seeks out Midian, a community of monsters and mutants who live beneath a necropolis north of Calgary, convinced he belongs with them after having strange visions of their city. I could explain more but there are twists and turns that are best left a surprise. Well, they are when reading the book, but the theatrical cut hardly does them justice. But we'll get to the specifics later. Just learning that the true version of the film was lost out there somewhere piqued my interest. [More after the jump.]

Why Star Trek: The Next Generation’s first season is surprisingly good, and what its restoration may mean for other classic shows

When a friend is telling you about a long-running show they love, you’re inevitably going to hear something like “it takes a while to get really good” or “the first season kinda sucks”. We seem unable to resist pointing out a show’s relative shortcomings even when we adore it. Perhaps we’re afraid of seeming to lack critical thinking, or we try to ensure that our recommendation will hold water if the person initially finds the show a chore.

That’s understandable, and useful in the latter case: there’s no point sending someone to a set of episodes that do indeed kinda suck when they will genuinely benefit from persisting through them. The unfortunate consequence is that these provisos get thrown around so often, particularly online, that they become immutable facts rather than possible reactions.

So these facts state that the last two seasons of The X-Files are indisputably awful, and Twin Peaks went down the toilet, without question, once Laura Palmer’s killer was revealed. These statements often have a sound basis, particularly if the problems were generated by production hurdles. However, what were clearly bumps in the road for each show have since been transformed into the nails in their coffin. The vehemence or ambivalence of a few outspoken viewers and critics has become the dominant narrative.

The upside of this is that viewers who then approach those installments cautiously may be pleasantly surprised. “Hey, Robert Patrick puts a lot of energy back into this show,” they might say. “Wait, the Windom Earle story is quite creepy and cool, and this finale is spectacular,” they will hopefully rave in shock. And in some cases the quality is so high, or at least not nearly as bad as its reputation suggests, that the show might seem like a revelation.

Such discoveries are rare, but the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation comes close. Yes, it’s as uneven and occasionally cheesy as the dominant narrative has long insisted. However, I was expecting each episode to be a poorly conceived, awkwardly acted, horribly dated test of my endurance. [More after the jump.]