In the 1980s, Hollywood didn’t quite know what to do with Rutger Hauer. The actor broke out in a pretty major way following his acclaimed turn in Paul Verhoeven’s Soldier of Orange, paving the way for his American debut in the Sylvester Stallone thriller Nighthawks, where he played the villain Wulfgar. His performance as Roy Batty in Blade Runner blew people away, and for a while, it looked like he might become the next big Hollywood heartthrob, especially when he signed on to star in the epic adventure film Ladyhawke opposite Michelle Pfeiffer for Richard Donner.
But major stardom didn’t happen? Why? Perhaps it was because the movies of Hauer’s that did best at the box office were the ones where he played the villain, such as The Hitcher. He was so unforgettable as a bad guy that when he played a hero, such as in the 1986 actioner Wanted: Dead or Alive, he came off as too intense and possibly psychotic. That movie hurt his chances at a big-screen action hero, even though the way he kills the villain, played by Gene Simmons, is perhaps the most excellent kill in 80s movie history. While his movies did poorly theatrically, they cleaned up on home video, paving the way for many low-budget actioners. Yet, next to Philip Noyce’s Blind Fury (wel loved on The Best Movie You Never Saw), one Hauer movie stands head and shoulders above the others, Split Second, which is this week’s best movie you ever saw!
Split Second is a UK-US co-production and a bit of a riff on Alien, with a heavy dose of Predator or Predator 2 mixed in. Set in the far-out futuristic world of 2008, Hauer plays a renegade cop working in London, flooded due to out-of-control global warming. Boasting the kick-ass cop movie name, Harley Stone, Hauer’s burnt-out Copper is mourning the death of his partner, who was killed by a serial killer who may or may not be human some years back. Stone, who – as his captain says – survives on “anxiety, coffee and chocolate,” has a psychic link with the killer, who he knows is staying in the flooded London Underground network of tube tunnels.
Stone’s fellow cops hate him because they’re sure he got his partner killed due to the fact that he was having an affair with the man’s wife, played by Kim Cattrall, so they pair him with a real nerd – an Oxford-educated psychologist named Durkin. Of course, none of these bozos have ever seen a buddy cop movie, as by the time the two have a few run-ins with the killer, Durkin is Harley’s new best bro, starts wearing a leather jacket, carrying big “f*cking” guns, and mouthing off to the captain.
Split Second is a fun little movie that I recently had the pleasure of seeing on a 35mm archival print at this little film club I belong to in Montreal. The film has a pretty interesting crew of people involved that went on to bigger things. The writer, Gary Scott Thompson, went on to become one of the original writers of The Fast and the Furious, with him credited as the creator of the characters on all following instalments. The movie’s creature bad guy was designed by Stephen Norrington, who went on to direct Blade and The League of Extraordinary Gentleman, before quitting the business due to all the behind the scenes drama on the latter film.
It’s directed by Tony Maylam, who directed an infamous horror movie called The Burning, but apparently, the stress of making the movie got to him, and Ian Sharp, who directed one of the best British action movies ever – Who Dares Wins, aka The Final Option, was called into to finish it.
While a standard creature feature, some things make Split Second stand out. One is Hauer’s performance. Sporting tiny sunglasses and an oddball haircut, his Harley Stone is weird-looking but unforgettable. Hauer was always too much of an oddball ever to be a regular leading man, but his vibe makes Split Second better than it would be, with him also having good chemistry with the sexy Kim Cattrall, who shows up in her Star Trek VI haircut to play his love interest. There’s just one scene in the movie that drives me nuts as an animal lover. Hauer’s character is addicted to chocolate, and at one point, he pets a dog and, as a treat, gives the dog a piece of chocolate, which – as any dog owner can tell you – is very toxic to dogs. It was a tiny piece, but when I saw this, everyone in the audience groaned because this is something you don’t do!
But I digress. The movie also has an interesting cast of British character actors, including Krull’s Alun Armstrong as Harley’s captain, Thrasher, while Pete Postlewaite, Michael J Pollard and even Ian Dury of Ian Dury and The Blockheads fame show up.
Split Second had a decent chance of being a sleeper at the US box office. It was picked up for release by a short-lived company called InterStar, which specialized in releasing medium-budget genre films. They had hits with two Christopher Lambert movies, Highlander 2 and Knight Moves. Split Second got a significant advertising campaign but, sadly, opened the same weekend as the LA Riots and died a quick death at the box office, later becoming a hit on home video. While unoriginal, it’s a fun little piece of 90s sci-fi action cinema worth seeing for Rutger Hauer fans.
The baddest one-chick hit-squad that ever hit town is brewin’ some hot coffee – or should we say Coffy? Quentin Tarantino has opened up a coffee shop next to his own Vista Theater called Pam’s Coffy, so named after both actress Pam Grier and her 1973 blaxploitation classic.
Now an official neighbor to the Vista Theater – which reopened last November thanks to Tarantino – Pam’s Coffy opened on February 14th while the iconic theater was in the middle of their IB Tech Fest, honoring the process that is marked for having pristine colors that don’t fade. That night’s double feature was What’s Up, Doc? (1972) – which Tarantino has said will be part of the Cinema Speculation follow-up – and The War Between Men and Women (also 1972).
But enough about screenings most of us won’t be able to attend. Pam’s Coffy is an ode not just to its namesake star – although her face is on the label (as is Tarantino’s name) and a poster for Coffy hangs inside – but meant to be a chill place to have a cup of joe. As an employee put it (via Eater LA), “The whole vision was let’s make it funky…Let’s make it like two high school kids are putting together a little coffee shop.” Now, let’s just hope that Bonnie isn’t in charge of purchasing the beans…
Tarantino has, expectedly, brought his own personal touches to Pam’s Coffy, like offering bowls of cereal, something he has openly been a fan of. The price? As much as a Jack Rabbit Slim’s milkshake. There, too, is some self-promotion, as the counter displays the logo for Video Archives, the podcast he co-hosts with Roger Avary, and figures from Pulp Fiction. There is even a street sign for Cielo Drive, which is where Rick Dalton – and of course Sharon Tate – lives in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Surprisingly, Pam’s Coffy looks to be light on Jackie Brown nods despite it being the only time Tarantino ever worked with Grier.
Tarantino also owns the New Beverly Cinema a few miles up the road from the Vista Theater.
What is your favorite Pam Grier movie? Give us your pick!
It’s beautiful how movies can take us back to an innocent time. A perfect example is the absolute adoration of Jim Henson’s classic features, The Dark Crystal (1982) and Labyrinth (1986). For many, growing up on The Muppets and Sesame Street brought a level of excitement for both of these features. Even still, while Crystal made a decent showing at the box office, audiences weren’t ready for Labyrinth upon its release. Now, however, both films have found themselves well-loved and admired. So much so that both are getting the 4K treatment, and you can stream them immediately.
We at JoBlo had a childhood dream come to life. We joined other journalists and influencers to celebrate the release. And the after noon gave us the open invitation for a Henson Studio Tour. Included in the event was a contact juggler named Rewi HoopHooligan. Used in Labyrinth, Rewi put on quite a show explaining how to make us believe that the crystal ball was floating between his hands. It was impressive, to say the least, even knowing the secrets that made it all so fascinating to watch.
Fellow JoBlo mate Ryan Cultrera joined in the festivities, and we both dove into the realm of a Labyrinth Tarot card reading. The cards were cool, and the experience was dead on. While I’m not necessarily a true believer in that stuff, it was an intriguing session with a few things to consider. I was impressed either way.
Then came the tour. If you are a Jim Henson fan, this was one of the most impressive experiences you could have. Ryan delighted in the exhibits as we wandered the buildings holding all that movie magic. We took a ton of pics and couldn’t believe all the history that was there to experience. A favorite film of mine is Where the Wild Things Are, and seeing one of the gorgeous creatures’ heads on display filled my heart with joy. If you have any appreciation for Hanson’s magic, this was a beautiful reminder of just how vital Jim’s legacy is to fans decades later.
And then came the conversations. During our visit, we spoke with Brian and Lisa Henson and discussed puppetry with Toby Froud. Toby chatted about his memories of David Bowie and being part of the cast of Labyrinth. Having now become part of the behind-the-scenes crew creating the puppets, he was incredibly knowledgeable about what goes into making these creatures.
And if you’d like to relive Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal, they are both now available in 4K so I highly suggest you check out the splendor for yourself.
BRIAN HENSON
These movies are so important to so many people. How is it for you to go back and look at what’s changed, get these rereleased, and see these stories brought back for a modern audience, younger kids?
BRIAN HENSON. : One fantastic thing about fantasy is that it doesn’t date itself. Having said that, I guess to a degree, Labyrinth has David Bowie in it, captured it really at a specific time in his career. Maybe that has a slight dating effect, but not really because they’re fantasies. It’s really cool and very rewarding that a fantasy movie can keep being credible to a modern audience. The messages and the themes and all that work over time and cross cultural lines and all that stuff. It’s fantastic. Then part of what’s fun is, of course, at the time, we thought of ourselves doing cutting-edge technology characters, and now it’s a retro style of creating characters, which is really interesting because he said both movies enjoyed great popularity, mostly on video after their theatrical releases, and then probably leveled off a little bit. Then, when they became sort of retro 80s titles, they became more popular than ever, which is really wonderful. That’s amazing.
Are there any special scenes or moments in the films that hold a special place for you?
BH: I’m really going to be talking about Labyrinth because Dark Crystal, I was in boarding school, and I wasn’t there. I was in boarding school and college. I wasn’t really there much during Dark Crystal, although my dad had been building it for years beforehand. I was there when they were building, but when they were shooting it, that was one of the few projects that my dad did that I almost didn’t work on at all. Labyrinth, I worked all the way, start to end. Okay, so favorite scenes? I don’t know. I loved working with that little team, Sherry Weiser, who was inside of Hoggle, and Rob Tigner and, Mac Wilson, Dave Greenaway; we all worked the face. I did the voice while working the face. It was really fun working in that little tight team on Hoggle. Then I was also directing all of the background puppetry for my dad as puppeteer captain. It was all a very rewarding experience. You were asking about specific scenes. I think the scenes with David Foley were probably some of the most fun because he has a really wicked sense of humor and really enjoys it. He’s such a workaholic that for David, doing Labyrinth was like going on vacation. It was like, what? I just sit in the dressing room, I come out, we have fun for a little bit, I go to the dressing room, come out. He’s used to a really rigorous work schedule. For him, it was like he was on holiday. Every time he came out, he was always full of fun, very buoyant to work with. I remember the scenes where he couldn’t get Hoggle’s name right, which he made up, and then it was integrated into the script. Then, he would do it a little bit differently in every scene. He would always defend Hoggle. I really enjoyed doing that. The scene where he throws the peach to Hoggle was a fun one where he turns the crystal ball into a peach and throws it to Hoggle and he says, what is it? Then David says, I can’t remember. A gift, I think, is what he says, a gift. We kept doing it, and I’d say, what is it? I would do it in some weird way every time, and he’d just start laughing, and he’d go, it’s a peach. Then we would all fall apart like idiots, and we’d do it again. Yes, the scenes with David were a lot of fun. Then the scenes that were just lots of goblins were a lot of fun but also really hard work.
What were some of the technical challenges in bringing all these creatures to life and how did it all work?
BH: There were a lot of challenges. It was very ambitious for its time. Animatronics were still relatively new. It was only Dark Crystal and Star Wars that were using animatronics at the time. Training the puppeteers: I remember we trained 40 puppeteers, Kevin Clash and I, and that was a lot of work. Then, we were mixing every technique. Something I’ve always believed in when you’re trying to realize any sort of illusion is you can either. Nowadays, you can go fully digital, and you can do anything. You can just keep throwing money at it until it looks perfect. In my day, starting in the 80s through the early 2000s, you would just mix up techniques. You’d use a marionette technique for one moment of a movement and then switch to a rod technique and then switch to a different technique. Then, when you cut it together, people would go, whoa, how did they do that? Really, what you had was a series of techniques that could only do a little bit of the action, which is a little bit more like stop-action animation. In terms of the animatronics, on Labyrinth we were trying to transition away from cable control mechanisms where Dark Crystal was almost entirely cable controls. You had cable controls for everything. You had a lever, and a lever might just work an upper eyelid, and then another lever that works a lower eyelid. There were so many levers that Labyrinth was the beginning of trying to use motors more and figuring out controls where one performer could work several motors. I was working two hand controls that worked all the motors in the mouth and jaw. Hoggle was fully wireless. It was a big deal to have an animatronic character that could walk around on Dark Crystal. Augur would be walking around with a bundle of cables dragged behind and people on little rolling chairs working behind. The fully radio-controlled Hoggle was definitely an innovation and the toughest thing to pull off in that. Then what started there probably culminated in Dinosaurs, where I eventually did a series where I had 12 full-sized dinosaurs shooting a half an hour a week at sitcom, and they were all wireless. Awesome.
Innovation-wise, were there things that you learned that carried through in your career?
BH: Yes, I think on everything, we never start from scratch. We always build on what we know. Actually, that’s not true. We sometimes start from scratch. We try, in our company, not to do too much repeating ourselves. I know we did the big Dark Crystal miniseries, but even that was meant to be a springboard to even more techniques. Sometimes we’ll do something entirely original. In terms of the techniques for performing a character, yes, Labyrinth was the beginning of reducing the number of puppeteers required for a character. The reason why it was Little Shop of Horrors, for instance, all cable-controlled, and I performed one of the characters I performed was Feed Me, where I was inside Audrey II, and weighed 150 pounds in front of me, and then tons of cables coming out. To do that song, Little Shop of Horrors is probably the most impeccably performed animatronic. The reason is that we would probably rehearse that two-and-a-half-minute song for two-and-a-half months. We’d go to work and just do it every day. That’s just really hard work. We realized that the fewer the number of performers required to do a character, the less rehearsal it would require. Ultimately, what I wanted to get to was such a small team that they could even improvise, that they can even just go off without any preparation. Actually, I normally really did that on Earth to Net, which is a very recent production where I had a very complex animatronic character who was doing a live comedic interview with a guest. It’s not scripted. Ultimately, we were trying to get to a place where an animatronic character is almost as flexible as an actor.
Labyrinth has been talked about, a sequel, a spin-off, something for probably as long as we’ve been journalists in this room. I want to know, how important is that still to you? Do you have any updates?
BH: My sister is mostly working on that. I can say we’re still very enthusiastic. We are actively engaged in developing a sequel to Labyrinth.
Was there ever a character that you envisioned differently? Obviously, the character development and the designs are incredible, but was there ever a character that you envisioned differently?
BH: That would be a question for my father. Because I didn’t envision the characters, I realized the vision. My job was to realize the vision that my dad and Brian Froud created together. Brian was designing with my father and then the creature jobs building, and then I had to; I was the one who had to figure out how I could get those creatures to do what my dad was hoping that they’d do in the scenes. I can’t really say, yes, I’m the wrong person to ask. I think we got it; there are probably things that were more impactful than we thought. I didn’t think the worm was going to be as important. People really remembered the worm, and I honestly think it’s a great little effect. It was just a little tiny table-controlled worm, and then you cut it, and then it was a hand puppet. I think it was honestly just because the worm was really nice to Sarah. Literally, you get to the end of the movie, and you go, nobody was really nice to Sarah. Hobble eventually is, Ludo certainly is, but all the other parts were not nice, and that little worm was just so inviting. Sure, yes. Bog of Eternal Stench, nobody knew what to expect. Honestly, we didn’t. It was just like a free-for-all with the art department and the special effects department, and it really started stinking. Yes, because in those days, now cameras are extremely fast and you can go into a shooting stage, and it’s actually much more often, it’s much dimmer than the lighting that you would have in an office. Back then, we had to put so much light that the stages were all really hot, and makeup artists were constantly removing sweat from all the actors. That bog got really stinky. By the time we finished, it really was the Bog of Eternal Stench. Let’s see. , Shaft of Hands. Shaft of Hands was a really tough one because it required so much to set it up. It’s leaning boards from 40 or 50 puppeteers around a shaft with an actress on flywires. Even when we were rehearsing, it would have to be a stand-in on flywires. None of us could see what we were doing unless there were cameras from the outside pointing at us because we were all blind and behind. That one just turned out really good, and it terrified me. I have no idea if this is going to be good. We had an idea of what we could do, but we didn’t know what positions we were going to be in or anything. It turned out the only real hurdle with Shaft of Hands is my dad trying to direct. Okay. The one that’s sort of to the left. Jennifer. Just wave so I can tell you which one. No, five of you are waving now. Wave one at a time. Okay, now none of you are waving. Somebody wave. No, now five are waving. It was impossible for my dad to direct. We had to quickly do an illustration that showed what person was behind every pair of hands around Jennifer so that my dad could look at it and could actually talk to us.
LISA HENSON
Did you ever think that The Dark Crystal would be one of the crown jewels of the company?
LISA HENSON: That’s a really good point because when The Dark Crystal was first released, people were a little bit confused by it. Jim Henson and the Muppet puppeteers had only been doing Sesame Street and The Muppet Show. They’d been doing many other things, but what the audience knew about was only Sesame Street and The Muppet Show. Yes, the movie was greeted with some confusion, particularly by the critics, but it did actually do fairly well. The funny thing is some people think The Dark Crystal was a big commercial failure. Actually, Labyrinth was a commercial failure. Dark Crystal did okay, and it did well enough for George Lucas to help Jim raise the money to do Labyrinth. It wasn’t so much that it didn’t perform well; it’s just that it created a lot of confusion in the minds of the audience. Why is Jim Henson trying to scare our children? Right.
When did the change? After the release, when did people start going? No, this is special; this is something I want to share with my children.
LH: I’m not exactly sure, but it’s been quite a while. It’s been quite a while. It’s been quite a while. Certainly, all of the 2000s, I would say, when the films were less than 20 years old or maybe about 20 years old, they were considered classics already. It’s nice to have such enduring love for these movies and to now have Shout Factory giving it another big push. We’re excited because we always want to have more generations, new viewers, and families, including their new youngest generation in, watching the films again.
Do you have any moments from this film that really stands out to you or that you always go back to?
LH: The Dark Crystal really works as a whole for me. It’s not that I don’t have favorite scenes because I do. I guess if I have to really answer that, I would say the Skeksis Banquet is the most fun. It’s the most lunatic, crazy. You’re just seeing unbridled weirdness in that, from what they’re eating to the way they treat each other. The gaudy narcissism of the whole scene is amazing. Even just to be like, hmmm. I do that every day. Just the idea that they think they’re so fancy and important and they’re so repulsive and gross. There’s something so pleasing about that.
The Skeksis are some of my favorite villains. I wanted to see what went into creating the characters of them. How did you guys choose these as your villains?
LH: This was Jim Henson working very closely with Brian Froud. The whole world was designed by Brian Froud. He designed every character. The plants, the creatures, and the world itself all came from his visual imagination. I think the idea of the Skeksis was a little bit what I was just saying. My father really liked the idea of something reptilian. absolutely creepy and a little bit dinosaur-ish or dragon-y. Dressed in frippery and finery and thinking that they look amazing. That vanity was really built into these characters. Even the strongest, toughest ones are very vain. They all are preening and peacocking around. Even the tough ones. Brian Froud’s costume designs and his original sketches are full of little… You can see the lace and the jewels. They were always envisioned that way.
In terms of Dark Crystal, are there things that are still benchmarks? That film really helped establish where you guys continue to go to this day, either in an ethos or in terms of something that was invented or crafted in that. You’ve certainly improved upon it, but that was really a benchmark for you guys taking your craft to the next step.
LH: When the Dark Crystal was first conceived, when they put the workshop… They put together a sort of think-tank workshop to make creatures. They were calling them creatures instead of puppets. They were using much more naturalistic textures. Trying to come up with ways where the puppets would perhaps look more real on camera. They would also take these creatures outside, shoot them outdoors, see how they looked in nature. There were so many technical innovations in Dark Crystal. It’s almost countless. Whether it was the materials that went into it, the controls were all original for that movie. Even the word animatronics was applied to the puppets for that movie. I was actually there in a room when somebody was going through the lists of titles that they could give people for what they did in making the puppets. They were like, there’s a union position called animatronics builder. They were like, okay, circle that. We’ll call them that. This whole business of animatronics, which was the 80s and 90s, all of it came out of Dark Crystal, E.T., and Yoda. There’s nothing that doesn’t descend from those characters, that entire industry.
I was just going to ask about the Netflix show and what you guys learned from that. That seemed to be the most amazing technical achievement that you’ve ever done, but it obviously didn’t connect in some way or connect enough or whatever. What have you learned from that experience, and is the Dark Crystal still alive somewhere in your heart?
LH: The Dark Crystal is very alive. It was such a spectacular experience. I would say for almost everybody who was involved with it was the best thing we ever worked on, the most fun we ever had, the biggest, deepest dive into puppetry in this art form that most of us will ever have that experience again. Dark Crystal is going to keep going. Whether we ever do 10 hours of pure puppetry, premium television quality, we may not get to do that again, but we’ll definitely get to do more Dark Crystal. One of the wonderful things about the Dark Crystal world is, for the Henson Company, it’s like our mini version of a Star Wars universe, because it’s a real expansive world. It’s got a past, a present, a future. We have things in even other dimensions that are happening at the same time. We have a whole story in our publishing that takes place in the center of the Earth, but it is still the same world. It’s really fun for us that we can revisit the Dark Crystal, whether it’s in publishing or gaming, and even within publishing, whether it’s graphic novels or the YA books, that we’re able to tell all kinds of stories that didn’t even make it into the productions.
Is there any truth to the story that Labyrinth began life as a Dark Crystal sequel? No. Okay. I heard that somewhere. I didn’t know if it was true.
LH: There was a very little bit of Dark Crystal sequel storyline developed by David O’Dell and my father. We wrote it up as a feature film script. Then, when we made the Dark Crystal television show, we decided not to base it on that script. We went into the prequel era because we wanted to see what was it like when the Gelfling were thriving and they had civilizations. Basically, there was a genocide in the Gelfling world. We wanted to go before that. For the television series with the big expanse of what we could produce, we did that. I felt a little bit bad that the sequel storyline didn’t get produced, so we published it. That became the Power of the Dark Crystal graphic novel. There are two graphic novel series based on Power of the Dark Crystal. It has Jen and Kira in it. They’re very old. It’s years and years later. They’re sitting on the throne. It’s what has happened in the kingdom in the period of time that they’ve been ruling it.
We were talking with your brother about a potential for a Labyrinth sequel. I think the thing that always struck me is that your dad was ahead of his time with a lot of his ideas and it took audiences, like you said at the beginning, a while to understand and then get caught up with where he was really going and his innovations and ideas. As we’re hearing now, we finally got the sequel to this, and Labyrinth is being talked about. Are there other things, we talked about the Storyteller as well, are there things that you guys look at as a company and say, listen, the world’s caught up and maybe the things we had to sit on for quite some time, for budget or just for interest.
Do you guys look in the archives of your dad’s old scripts and things and just go, okay, let’s revisit? Are you looking more at new properties and things to introduce the world and to a degree innovate again with what your dad was always doing and what you guys have done?
LH: It’s a great question and it’s a bit of a balancing act. I think more of what we do is new because we have a small library. We’re not the Walt Disney Company, where they can go into just a random vault and find a hundred new things. We have a smallish library, so we don’t have as many legacy titles, but it’s a balance. I think we take more risks with the new things. Then, when it comes to doing a legacy property, we go for perfection. We don’t want anything less than a perfect product. If it’s the Dark Crystal television series or if it will be a Labyrinth sequel, and a good example of that is the Fraggle Rock series on Apple, which is the production value is so good. I think it’s everything anybody would have hoped for from a new Fraggle Rock series. When we’re doing the legacy titles, we shoot as high as we possibly can and then we are a little more experimental and try new things or maybe try something we’re not sure if it’s going to work in the new things.
Brian said to ask you about a Labyrinth sequel, and that you were going to tell us where it is in development, who’s attached, whether or not Conway’s coming back.
LH: The story.
Yes, and the story. Why has it taken so long to get that off the ground, and where are you now?
LH: It is set up at TriStar. TriStar, which is one of the Sony studios, will do it. TriStar was the original distributor of Labyrinth. They have wanted for many years to do a sequel to Labyrinth. We just haven’t been able to get the script right. We’ve had a couple of scripts written, and we’re going to start over again. We’re going to start with a new script and a new director. Okay, I was going to ask if Derek’s in. No, it won’t be anytime soon. In fact, because we’re in that starting over process, I just don’t even want to ever talk about dates or when it could be because I don’t want to get anybody excited.
We’re not at Labyrinth 2 yet, but are there people that you’re thinking, hmm, okay, we could Tilda Swinton or someone like that, somebody who could capture Bowie’s magic?
LH: That particular idea seems very odd to me, and I’ve heard it brought up a lot. People have said that Tilda Swinton should play Jareth. I think generally we’ve been pursuing ideas that he’s not in, that Jareth isn’t in. Because it feels, it’s very hard. I think people have said she could do it, and I don’t disagree. Then the other point of view is why? Why not create new characters? If we can have Jennifer, if we can have Sarah be the continuity, that would be great. It’s good, absolutely.
Was there any concern with Dark Crystal being the first and really only puppet-only feature having such a dark tone? It’s not a comedy, it’s not a little kid film, it’s a spectacular piece, but it does have a much more serious tone. Was there any concern with that when you guys were going into it?
LH: Yes. My father knew he was just stepping out into the unknown with that because he was so famous for The Muppet Show, and the Muppet movies were being made at the same time. The whole Muppet world was ongoing, very successful. He directed The Great Muppet Caper right before Dark Crystal. He did them back-to-back. That was in post-production. The Great Muppet Caper was in post-production basically while Dark Crystal was shooting. He was really holding both ideas in his head at the same time, like this is what the Muppets can do, we’re going to be a big crowd-pleaser, and here’s what I’m going to do over here that is going to be deep fantasy, dark fairy tales. I think he knew it was pretty risky.
TOBY FROUD
What’s the feeling like when you create something that you are proud of when you finish?
TOBY FROUD: It’s wonderful because you’re exhausted. It’s interesting because then you’re either onto the next thing, or you just know you’ve got to do about 12 more of them.
Are you ever sad, though, when you’re done with a certain character?
TF: Yes, I am. I think there’s an energy that goes into making something, especially the first time with something. For me, I do a lot of maquette work. You’re taking the first moment from a 2D design into three dimensions. That’s fun because the energy’s there, one from you as the sculptor and creating, but everyone else around you, the director and the creatives, the higher-ups, they’re all wanting to see something come to fruition, and they’re all bringing their inputs into it. It’s great because you get to translate that. When you get a room of people going, yes, that’s it, that’s the energy. Then it’s really cool because at that point, you then get to throw it into a workshop of people and creatives and build it into a moving puppet or a character that’s going to be either live-action or stop-motion. That’s when a whole bunch of people get to do that. Then you go through the process again. You get the moment where the director goes, yes. Then you get to throw it to a whole other set of people, which are animators and puppeteers, and they bring it to life. They make it function and move, and they make you, the audience, believe. We do all those things. It’s a really… Then you get to see those things come back to you, like moving on screen, which is beautiful, and then also come back broken, and you have to fix them. It’s like you’re going to that hospital where you’re not caring for your patient, going, it’s okay, we’ll get you back out there. I love that. That’s the whole process. You have different stages of feeling really good about it and then sad about it, and then really good about it, too.
Having worked with, not only here, but Laika, what are some of your favorite creations that you’ve put into fruition on the screen?
Let’s see. I love… The things that I actually… I got to take from Maquette to… Apart from Gelflings and stuff, but on the Dark Crystal TV show with the Hensons, we did something called the Grunex, which hadn’t been in the original film, but they had been designed in some respect. We went back to the rough sketches of my father’s, and then I did new Maquettes, which are just actually over there, in that case, in the middle. Then we got to build them into puppets, and they became characters and had things in the series, and that was really cool, because you get to see it from that moment to that moment, all the way through. That’s brilliant. That’s awesome. Yes, and then… In stop motion, it all depends… I think for me, the Box Trolls was really fun, because they were close to my heart. Box Trolls. They’re fun, modern-day type creatures. Getting to create some of those and work with the amazing people and building them. Kent Melton was one of the other Maquette sculptors on there. Getting to learn from him how to translate animation from 2D into 3D, to be able to then make sure that stays with the whole puppet and the process. I learned so much there, which then applied through all the films. I think then Pinocchio would definitely be the Angel of Death and Life. Those were especially… The dogfish. I did a lot of the creature work, and that was really fun. Beautiful. That was really fun. Those were good challenges as well, to create, because you deal with del Toro sort of things, and that’s an amazing style with Guy Davis’s designs. Translating them, so they don’t quite feel like my own stuff at all. Really trying to bring those to life. I enjoyed that immensely. It was good fun.
Do you remember the first time when you were so little when you were in Labyrinth? When did it first process either that your parents told you that you were in the movie or that watching it for the first time you could be outside of yourself and have that experience?
TF: I always, I always knew I was. I was always just a part of it because I grew up surrounded by all those things and literally surrounded by those things throughout the films because I was in the workshop, so I loved playing with the puppets or pinching the goblins’ noses and things as a baby. That’s why it worked for me because I was so comfortable around these things. They weren’t scary. I happened to be the right age, or I happened to be the right sort of baby to be able to do that. That’s why I was there, and I was chosen for that. Then after it I grew up watching the movie so I don’t know I don’t it all just felt natural and then also I had a photograph of me with David Bowie as Gerald in my room. It’s still in the room at my parents’ house.
What would you recommend for people interested in getting into puppet creation and sculpture?
TF: Do it. Absolutely do it. It’s easier nowadays to get an audience to see things. It was harder years ago, but now you’ve got social media. You can absolutely build something and put photographs or video of it online, and you get an instant reaction. It’s also a really hard thing because you have to put yourself out there. Boy, the world is mean. The world is mean. Because people can instantly say something, good or bad. That’s tough. Don’t get disheartened by those things. Keep making them. You gain groups. You get to see the other people. You get to feed off of people and create community. That’s the whole beauty of something like a puppet workshop or a stop-motion workshop. You are a group of people who spend a lot of time together building and creating. It becomes family. That is a big difference. That’s tough when you do it on your own. Keep going. Find that community, whether it’s online or whether it’s a group of friends. Just keep making. Don’t worry about the end result. Don’t worry about being good yet. Just create. Because then you get better. You just have to keep going. Don’t get disheartened by the things said in the book.
Is there a favorite anecdote of your father related to working with Jim?
Anything that changed him or impacted him as an artist with your collaborations?
TF: I don’t know if there’s anything particular between my father. Because they worked so well together. Jim allowed everyone to play and work. Because he would always come in and go, I would like this. This is great, but can you do this? People may say, no, Jim, I don’t think we can. He’d go, I think you can.
What are you excited about in the future that you can talk about that you’re working on?
TF: I’m always excited for new stop-motion things. There are. There are lots of, Pinocchio, Guillermo del Toro and Pinocchio opening stop-motion back up from the old art form. There have been successes along the way. It always feels like it’s on the brink of extinction. Then a whole lot of awards. There was a whole other light shone on stop-motion. There’s now a moment that there could be a lot more happening. We hope so. there are a lot of projects on the horizon. We’ll see. You just never know what’s going to hit and what’s going to stay. I’m excited for all of those possibilities. That’s really good. I think with the computer technology, CG and everything, levels being so high now, amazing things, that they’ve actually caught up to puppets. I say that in the way that it took over from puppetry and puppets became effects and disappeared. Now you can do a puppet and enhance it. That’s the best thing. They’ve proved it with Grogu, and they’ve done all sorts of different characters and things. You’re seeing it again and again in amazing shows and work in the world. I’m excited for that. I’m excited for that combination more. I hope there are some really interesting things that will come out soon, or in the next few years, to be able to create new worlds in new ways. Using all the technology now. Together, again, grounded in puppetry, grounded in something that you can feel and touch.
Both Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal are available to stream on Apple TV in 4K. The two features are worth bringing a little nostalgia back into your life. Thanks to everyone from Shout Factory and Henson’s Studios for such a terrific event.
We recently heard that Lionsgate has picked up the distribution rights to the reboot of the classic film The Crow (get it HERE), which was released by Miramax back in 1994. Before Miramax acquired it, The Crow had originally been set up at Paramount. They decided to let go of it due to the controversy surrounding the on-set death of star Brandon Lee and the amount of violence in the film. So when Paramount acquired Miramax back in 2020, gaining the rights to The Crow in the process, it was like the film had gone full circle. It came back to Paramount. Recently, cinematographer Dariusz Wolski, mentioned a 4K restoration of The Crow would be on the Paramount Plus streaming service soon. While it hasn’t hit streaming yet, Blu-Ray.com announced that the 4K Blu-ray is set to come out on May 7th to mark the film’s 30th anniversary.
The 4K version looks absolutely amazing, with Wolski previewing the new look on his Instagram:
Directed by Alex Proyas from a screenplay by David J. Schow and John Shirley (with uncredited rewrites from Walon Green, Terry Hayes, René Balcer, and Michael S. Chernuchin), The Crow has the following synopsis: The night before his wedding, musician Eric Draven and his fiancée are brutally murdered by members of a violent inner-city gang. On the anniversary of their death, Eric rises from the grave and assumes the gothic mantle of the Crow, a supernatural avenger. Tracking down the thugs responsible for the crimes and mercilessly murdering them, Eric eventually confronts head gangster Top Dollar to complete his macabre mission.
Brandon Lee turns in an incredible performance as our hero Eric Draven and is joined in the cast by Rochelle Davis, Ernie Hudson, Michael Wincott, Bai Ling, Sofia Shinas, Anna Levine, David Patrick Kelly, Angel David, Laurence Mason, Michael Massee, Tony Todd, and Jon Polito.
Are you a fan of The Crow, and will you be picking up the new 4K edition? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.
Strange pairings in TV Sitcoms are nothing new. Series like The Honeymooners would have the sort of violent buddy’s of Ralph and Ed, The Flintstones would have Barney and Fred, and of course The Odd Couple would have Oscar and Felix.
But in 1986 a new duo would be added to this list and Friday night TV viewing would never be the same. Cousin Larry and Balki would become a hit power couple for viewers who would fall in love with the quirky pair and their misadventures trying to make it in Chicago.
The series would become a favorite for a number of fans not only in the states but eventually around the world and would spawn a spin off that would become just as big a hit for ABC.
On this episode of Gone But Not Forgotten our destination is America or Burst as we look back on the sitcom classic, Perfect Strangers.
Perfect Strangers was created by Dale Keith McRaven, the man behind the classic series Mork and Mindy. McRaven had written for a number of TV’s legendary shows like The Dick Van Dyke Show, That Girl, Gomer Pyle and Laverne and Shirley just to name a few.
McRaven along with Thomas Miller and Robert Boyett came together to make the series which was originally inspired by the 1984 Olympics. All three men thought it would be a good gimmick about seeing what culture shock of an athlete from another country would play out like as they dealt with the weirdness of mid 80s America. From there the story was changed to one about a man who was living alone in a big city who gets a surprise guest in the form of his odd ball cousin, that he never knew, arriving on his doorstep.
The series followed Larry Appleton, a young man who has just moved to the big city of Chicago from his Wisconsin home he shared with a large family. One day his cousin Balki Bartokomous appears, also having taken the plunge to move to a new place away from his large family. Only Balki’s journey was a bit longer, taking him from the island of Mypos to the states. Larry is shocked and surprised when this shepherd appears and is reluctant for him to stay, which is Balki’s goal.
Eventually the two become roommates and close friends. They even wind up becoming co-workers and then co-creators of a comic strip. The series follows the two as they make their way through crazy situations, relationships, and eventually each of them getting married to two other best friends and having families of their own.
Perfect Strangers would start out fairly different from what would eventually be on screen when it came to the two lead characters. Firstly, the show was turned down by CBS, NBC, and ABC when it was pitched to them. What changed the mind of ABC was when, thanks to his turn as the very memorable Serge in Beverly Hills Cop, Bronson Pinchot caught the eye of the producers. When they came back to ABC stating they would try and get him as one of the leads they said yes.
While the creative team knew they wanted Pinchot for the fish out of water cousin, Pinchot was actually reluctant about taking the part because he felt it would be typecasting him as a guy with a silly accent. At the time Pinchot was starring in another series which would wind up being cancelled and so he went ahead and joined the production. He even went so far as to being the one to come up with the name Balki which was taken from the nick name of his sisters dog. Pinchot would actually be the one to choose Greece as the location of Balki’s home, he elaborated about Balkis origin story in an interview for cryptirock.com on April 21, 2023, when he said quote
“To find the character, I decided I would lock myself into a bungalow at a hotel near Santa Barbara. When I was there, I would not allow myself to come out until I had the character. That’s what I thought I needed to do and I was there for two to three days. One day I woke up, and there were these weird slip-on shoes that I had actually purchased in Greece that were woven leather and they were blue. They were sitting on the floor, I woke up, looked at the shoes and went, “Ohhhh!”. That is how the character came to me and then I let myself go out to get something to eat.”
But it wasn’t Mark Linn-Baker who would be in the unaired pilot opposite Pinchot. The late Louie Anderson was cast as “Cousin Louie.” The pilot was shot and after viewing the footage it was decided that the two didn’t mesh as they had hoped for. The creative team brought back Baker who had auditioned previously and worked well opposite Pinchot. So a new pilot episode was shot. It’s funny both of them had the same Alma Mater, Yale university.
The original first season of Perfect Strangers would actually only be 6 episodes as it was used as a mid-season replacement at the decision of ABC. These episodes were shot in record time with the first episode hitting airwaves only a week after rehearsals.
Mark Linn-Baker and Bronson Pinchot had a fantastic chemistry and had a blast making the series. Which shows and is one of the main reasons for the show’s success. It was also boosted along by starting out on Tuesday nights as the lead in for Moonlighting. A show that, in the mid-80’s, was part of the crown for ABC. The first truncated season was a hit with both Balki and Larry working at a department store.
The following season would see not only a change of night in the show airing as it would move to Wednesday. But, it would also see Larry and Balki each get a girlfriend in the guises of Mary Anne and Jennifer, played by Rebecca Arthur and Melanie Wilson. The characters who were also flight attendants would become regulars on the series and would stick through the rest of the series run.
Season 3 would see the show move to the legendary TGIF block for ABC. The 3rd season was actually a big one in a lot of ways for Perfect Strangers. This season would see the duo of Larry and Balki move jobs to the Chicago Chronicle, something massive for Larry who has had dreams of being a reporter and photographer.
Unfortunately the two were starting in the basement and mailroom…but we all have to start somewhere, right? But thanks to the building being huge there was the need for an elevator and an elevator operator. That elevator operator would be Harriette Winslow played by Jo Marie Payton France.
Harriette and her husband Carl Winslow’s names should be very familiar to fans of 80s sitcoms. So as you guessed, they would get a spinoff series that would become another legendary sitcom called Family Matters. Family Matters would be the only spin off from Perfect Strangers and would start in 1989 and run until 1998 after being picked up by CBS from ABC for its final season. Family Matters would actually have a longer run than Perfect Strangers at a total of 9 seasons.
At one-point Balki and Larry were supposed to show up in the pilot for the series, but it never happened. Neither of the cousins would actually appear in Family Matters.
During the 3rd season ABC decided to try and recreate their success of TGI Friday with Saturday night programming. Perfect Strangers was moved to Saturday night, and it was a disaster. Ratings dropped on the show which was one of the heaviest hitters on Fridays. It was moved back to its original slot not long after.
At one point the series tried to add a kid character to the mix. But, those of us who remember Cousin Oliver know how much of a bad idea this is. This was in guise of Alisan Porter, Curly Sue herself, who was a young girl who lived in the cousins apartment building. She lasted one whole episode.
As the series progressed Larry and Jennifer would get engaged and Balki and Mary Anne would soon follow…after a number of will they or won’t they’s. Both couples would get married, with Balki and Mary Anne actually heading back to his home in Mypos to meet the family.
The cousins would show that all those dances of joy got them in synch more than they thought as we discover both couples are having babies. I’m way too amused that Balki’s son is named Robespierre, the name of the guy in charge of the French revolution. I’d love to know if this was Pinchot’s idea too.
Speaking of the signature dance of joy Pinchot and Baker created the dance after the writers just told them to “do the dance of joy”. They knew how good their physical comedy talents were and just let them loose. Balki’s now classic catchphrase “don’t be ridiculous”was a happy accident. In the pilot, Pinchot was supposed to badly lie to Larry about not having a color TV. The original line was him responding to the question by lying saying “yes” then just yelling in shock “BLUE!”. Pinchot decided to ad-lib the line and it a got a huge laugh…the rest as they say is history.
Season 8 would, like season 1, be a truncated season with only six episodes. In the two episodes being a two-part storyline ending with the two couples having their babies.
The finale was an emotional one, with Baker and Pinchot doing one last dance of joy for the audience which you can watch on YouTube when it was shown on Entertainment Tonight. Bronson Pinchot started crying when they were asked by the audience to do it one last time. The duo would, after filming episodes, take questions from the studio audience and more often than not, they’d always be asked to do the dance. After 8 seasons with this being the last time it hit hard.
People may seem surprised at the enduring love and fan base Perfect Strangers has a few 30 years after its last episode aired. But you really shouldn’t be. The show rested on the shoulders of its two leads, Bronson Pinchot and Mark Linn-Baker who had a chemistry that’s hard to find. Returning to the show I forgot just how hilarious these two were and the sheer amount of physical comedy they brought to the show. They both said they insisted on doing the physical bits in one take, as they felt the best reaction from the audience would be the first attempt. In fact they would get annoyed when new directors would come on and ask them to do it again, since they felt it was not needed.
They played off each other perfectly and brought that physical comedy chops but they also brought to life two characters with a lot of heart. The core of Perfect Strangers were these two men who were from completely different parts of the world and different backgrounds, but were family, nevertheless. They grew together and supported each other in their hopes and dreams, and in the end they succeeded together.
Perfect Strangers had hilarious writing and fantastic actors, not just with Pinchot and Linn Baker, but also with Wilson and Arthur who held their own with the two cousins.
Over the 8-season run there were a number of familiar faces who would share the stage with the Perfect Strangers cast. Holland Taylor, Ted McGinley, Wayne Newton, Carl Lewis, Doris Roberts, and Leslie Jordan would be just a few of the names to be part of the series.
The Perfect Strangers opening sequence and theme song became iconic as well, with fans on YouTube even recreating it in their hometown of Seattle years later. The song, Nothings Gonna Stop Me Now was sung by David Pomeranz. It was written by Jesse Frederick and Bennett Salvay who also wrote the majority of TGIF tv show themes, like Fullhouse and Step by Step. A fun fact about Pomeranz was the fact his record, Born For You – His Best and More was one of the best-selling records of all time in the Philippines.
The same year the series ended; Pinchot would co-star in the Quentin Tarantino penned True Romance. He’d follow this up with Beverly Hills Cop 3, returning as Serge along with a turn in the Stephen King mini series The Langoliers. Pinchot has been consistently working in film and television over the years but has also done a ton of audio books including being the voice of the Christopher Farnsworth President’s Vampire book series. He also was the ill-fated principal in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Recently Pinchot appeared in the HBOMax series, Our Flag Means Death.
Mark Linn Baker has also consistently been working in film and television since the series ended. This included turns on The Blacklist, The Electric Company, and Blue Bloods. He recently even joined the Marvel universe as Jennifer Walters, AKA She-Hulk’s father Morris Walters.
I find it very amusing that both Mark Linn Baker and Bronson Pinchot both played memorable murderers who took on Bobby Goren in Law and Order Criminal Intent. It just makes me twistedly happy.
Currently Perfect Strangers is available to stream on FreeVee…which means ads but hey at least you can stream it. But for some insane reason season 1 does not seem to be available to stream anywhere.
Like I said, Perfect Strangers is beloved by fans and continues to be. So much so that one industrious fan actually created an online video game where you could run with Balki as the theme song plays through images from the show gathering stars to make your dreams come true.
While it may sound sentimental, I think the reason the show has stood the test of time and has so many people who love it, is at the heart of the show is finding common ground between two seemingly different people. Larry and Balki, while they are family, find a friend with each other.
Balki with his fumbling of the language and his strange catch phrases is an adorable fish out of water. And even though Larry grew up in the here, he’s just as much at a loss as Balki is, trying to find his path and follow his dream of making it in the big city after being in a house filled with siblings. The two need each other and help, and sometimes hinder, one another. Perfect Strangers is really about finding common ground with your fellow man and realizing we’re all really just trying to make it through a crazy world.
So should Perfect Strangers be remade? I don’t think you could recreate at all what this show pulled off without it feeling ham fisted and just nowhere near as charming. Mark Linn Baker and Bronson Pinchot just had a magic that those old school duo acts had, and you can’t really recreate it.
Now would it be interesting to see the two of them return to the roles to see where Balki and Larry find themselves down the road? That might be a treat to see. I could imagine Balki with a successful line of wool based clothing he’s designed, world famous with his House of B collection. Cousin Larry is a writer who just snagged a Pulitzer Prize who hasn’t seen him in a while, walking through the door because he needs a suit for the awards ceremony.
I’m giving you this for free Universe. Go make it happen and the fans would do their own dance of joy.
With Madame Web opening to the worst superhero movie reviews since the last time Sony made a live-action spin-off Spider-Verse movie, we thought now would be a good time to look back at the franchise. Indeed, the instalments run the gamut from being bad to all-out masterpieces. But which of these is your favorite?
He doesn’t ask much, he just wants you…to stop using his music. Ozzy Osbourne is coming after Kanye West for using a version of Black Sabbath classic “War Pigs” despite never receiving permission to do so. Ozzy apparently refused to lend the track to Kanye, citing the controversial rapper’s anti-semitic remarks. Come on, Ozzy, maybe Kanye just couldn’t read the response?
Ozzy took to X to write that Kanye West “ASKED PERMISSION TO SAMPLE A SECTION OF A 1983 LIVE PERFORMANCE OF “IRON MAN” FROM THE US FESTIVAL WITHOUT VOCALS & WAS REFUSED PERMISSION BECAUSE HE IS AN ANTISEMITE AND HAS CAUSED UNTOLD HEARTACHE TO MANY. HE WENT AHEAD AND USED THE SAMPLE ANYWAY AT HIS ALBUM LISTENING PARTY LAST NIGHT. I WANT NO ASSOCIATION WITH THIS MAN!” (Not that it really matters, but Kanye actually used a sample of “War Pigs” and not “Iron Man”. However, “Iron Man” was previously sampled on Kanye’s Grammy-winning My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy album.)
Ozzy Osbourne’s longtime wife, Sharon, doubled down on Kanye, saying he “f*cked with the wrong Jew this time,” referring to herself. They went on to send a cease and desist over the usage.
It might be worth noting that Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne actually went as Kanye West and Bianca Censori for Halloween last year, well after Kanye made on-the-record comments that would eventually see him missing out on numerous lucrative endorsements, with his Adidas deal pegged to be worth $1.5 billion. While the couple’s costume could be seen as a dig at the way Kanye and Censori present their public persona, some have come after Ozzy for displaying some hypocrisy: he wants “no association” with the rapper yet will dress as him for a Halloween costume?
Ozzy Osbourne, who turned 75 in December, was recently nominated for a solo induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. If he makes the cut, he will join a rather commendable list of people inducted twice, including Eric Clapton, Michael Jackson and every Beatle. Black Sabbath was inducted in 2006.
What do you make of Ozzy Osbourne’s comments about Kanye West? Do you see Kanye stepping down after a cease and desist?
Andrew Davis’ Under Siege is usually considered Steven Seagal’s best movie. However, at the time, most critics singled out Tommy Lee Jones’s performance as the baddie, Strannix, as a scene-stealer. According to Nick de Semlyen’s new book, “Last Action Heroes”, Jones dominating the film was intentional, as Seagal was somewhat reluctant to sign onto the movie. To help entice the star, his screen time was kept to only about 41 minutes. As Davis tells de Semlyen, “Between the Pentagon stuff and all the other cutaways, Tommy is actually in the movie more than Steven.”
According to Davis, Jones took the lead in reworking his bad guy, who he remembers was “flat” and “boring” in the original script. “Tommy said, ‘Why can’t I be a rock n’roll kinda guy? It was a little weird, but Tommy made it work.” Indeed, Jones’s performance would elevate his career, and just a year later, he would reread with Davis on The Fugitive, a movie that earned him a best supporting actor Oscar.
While Seagal’s screen time may have been limited, his contributions to the action scenes were still highly praised at the time, with Seagal mentioning that Dan Inosanto, the famed martial artist renowned for battling Bruce Lee in Game of Death, approached him at Brandon Lee’s funeral to praised the knife fight between him and Jones. The movie became Steven Seagal’s biggest hit ever, grossing $83 million domestically and $156 million worldwide. The sequel, Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, would be made without Davis and would only gross $50 million domestically, although it did better business overseas, earning $104 million worldwide. Recently, WB was talking about doing a reboot. We also recently interviewed Mr. Davis to celebrate the 30th anniversary of perhaps his greatest movie, The Fugitive!
If you want more cool stories about all the 80s and 90s action icons we grew up with, pick up de Semlyan’s book. Buy it here!
When it was announced that Linda Hamilton would be joining Stranger Things for its fifth and final season, it felt like a perfect addition to the cast, as she was a favorite presence in the 1980s, when the series is set. She, too, is a fan of the Netflix show…and that’s precisely why she won’t watch the season she’ll be featured in.
Speaking with Us Weekly, Linda Hamilton said that being cast in Stranger Things will interfere with her appreciation of the show, adding that she won’t be able to finish it like the rest of its fans. “When you really buy into something, you don’t see yourself in it. So I think in a way, it kind of ruined the show for me. I never watch [a project], once I’m in something…It would just completely take me out of the reality of it to see myself in there. So I won’t be watching [season 5].”
Details on Linda Hamilton’s role on Stranger Things – which is currently in production – haven’t been revealed, making it one of many secrets surrounding the highly anticipated finale. Hamilton herself isn’t even sure what the overall plot of season five will be, saying, “I Zoomed [creators] Ross and Matt Duffer, and they gave me the shape of the character, but not of the story. Because they have to be very careful with their story. So I still don’t know how it ends…And it takes a lot of discipline to not know where it’s going to go. But that’s to protect it from all of the people that want to know.”
Outside of Linda Hamilton, Stranger Things has previously brought in actors who made their bones in the ‘80s, like The Goonies’s Sean Astin, who played Bob Newby in the second season. And of course there is Winona Ryder (Joyce Byers), Matthew Modine (Dr. Martin Brenner), Paul Reiser (Dr. Sam Owens), and Cary Elwes (Mayor Larry Kline), all of whom made their film debuts at least 15 years before the Hawkins kids were even born.
What do you want to see Linda Hamilton do on Stranger Things? Are you looking forward to the final season? Share your thoughts with us below!
There’s a pandemic going on right now. It involves filmmakers taking characters that have recently fallen under Public Domain and making a horror film with them. This isn’t an issue on its own, as adaptations of past work can make for some great films. But with movies like Mickey’s Mouse Trap, Steamboat Willie, Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey, and even Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare, quality doesn’t seem to be on these filmmakers’ minds. No, the intention just seems to be to make a quick buck.
There was a YouTube trend many years ago where fan films would spring up that looked damn near movie quality. I still look back fondly upon stuff like Mortal Kombat Legacy or even serious Power Rangers. So, it’s not exactly a new concept. But what these new films are lacking is any kind of passion for the adapted material. The IP is another marketing element and getting people to see their movie versus a driving force behind a story they NEED to tell. They’re showing the heights that these IPs can reach. And I get it; movies are hard to get made, especially in this era. But tricking audiences into watching your film isn’t the greatest idea. Just look at Asylum.
Asylum Entertainment would famously release films at the same time as big-budget Hollywood blockbusters, with slightly different names. So when Transformers released, they had Transmorphers, with the entire goal of getting naïve viewers to accidentally rent or purchase their film. It resulted in many awful movies that would have easily populated the old Sci-Fi channel. They are able to use the name recognition, as well as the marketing from an entirely unrelated project, to help propel their cheap film into households. It’s similar to what is going on with these Adapted releases.
Let’s take Steamboat Willie, for example, which entered the Public Domain earlier this year. Immediately, multiple horror films were announced, all based on the character. Is it because this character has all the hallmarks of a great horror villain and, therefore, lends itself to a horror film? No, it’s simply that Disney has marketed the hell out of Steamboat Willie, and he’s known far and wide, so much of their marketing job is done for them. There’s both name and visual recognition, which would seemingly give them a leg up on the competition. Only the quality is absolute drivel.
My worst experience in the theater last year was Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey. What should have been fun and schlocky was simply a dark and gritty slasher starring the characters of Pooh. The usage of the now public domain characters felt completely inconsequential. They constantly relied on the reaction of “Can you believe these characters are KILLING people?” This doesn’t sustain any sort of wonder or amazement. The kills are all lame, and the lighting is so bad that it’s hard to make out what is happening during key moments. And don’t even get me started on its pacing. It’s infuriating that Winnie the Pooh was in theaters while many great horror films could only dream of reaching so many audiences.
It would be one thing if these films were smart, clever, or well-made, but none are. They are cheap and lack any entertainment value. Whenever a new one is announced—and it feels like this is happening every other day at this point—I can’t help but roll my eyes. And this is coming from someone who has an appreciation for bad cinema. Sure, I’m not going to rate it well, but I can still vibe with some trash. Unfortunately, there’s nothing to connect to with in any of these films. It’s almost offensive that in this day and age of robust content, that they think this stuff is even worth your time. It’s not, and you’re better off checking out good Indie Horror. At least they’re trying.
