Forgot to mention he’s doing and Evil Dead remake. What do you think about that?
….hes also doing that rather questionable TV adaptation of Wizard’s First Rule, Legend of the Seeker.
Evil Dead 2 is fantastic.
Crap Monster – Yeah, I heard about that, too. Hmmmmm!
When you guys say “doing” do you mean directing or producing?
Richard – I’m referring to directing.
whoops…i was thinking in both in context of my earlier comment.
Spiderman blows!!!
“Ouick and the Dead” was the last good thing he did.
Evil Dead trilogy and Quick and the Dead are my favorites. But aren’t they everybody’s?
Wonder how Drag Me to Hell will turn out..
Evil Dead 1 and 2 are decent but everything else after sucks bad!
Mr. King, wondering about that one too. Either way, its nice to see Raimi returning to his roots…
The only director I knew as a kid at 7 or 8 was Sam Raimi and that through Evil Dead.
the first sign of ghost in part I was the first time ever I was in shivers, I love both parts…
I keep going back to my childhood memories … blame it on Fellini or should we?
Andy, you saw Evil Dead at 8 yrs old? Wow, you were a tough kid.
What has struck as fascinating is that the ending of Darkman and the Ending of Spiderman (the first) are like word for word the same.
Raimi’s alsways been more style than substance, hasn’t he? I’ve liked all 3 Evil Dead films, DARKMAN and THE QUICK AND THE DEAD, but I’ve kind of lost interest since then. His tackling the Spiderman films – and continuing on & on with them doesn’t strike me as selling out so much as acheiving what’s been his goal for some time. Great big, honking budgets& subject matter that allows him to play with every camera trick in the book. The man is never going to tackle something along the lines of DOUBT or HOWARD’S END.
The Spiderman films drive me wild with indifference, but if he actually directs another Evil Dead entry (though not a remake, please), I will definitely check it out.
Richard, the video stores, apart from carrying Indian cinema had a few horror titles, action movies (esp. stallone and schwarzenegger) Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. Being youngest of the lot (older brothers and cousins) I had the luxury of sneaking into Evil Dead screening.
Clovenhoof: You didn’t like Army of Darkness? I loved the skeleton war. Hilarious! Brought back fond childhood movies of Harryhausen and all those Sinbad films.
HARRY LONG – Agreed. While I thought “A Simple Plan” was a decent film, I think Raimi is truly in his artistic element when he’s making special-effects-driven films. It’s his forte. Before the Christopher Nolan Batman films, I thought most of the comic book films that had come out up until Spiderman were a halfass joke. Tim Burton’s Batman was ridiculous, and the sequels that followed were just denser turds that sank even quicker in the toilet bowl of obscurity. The Crow was barely watchable. The only exception (and this is just my opinion, was X Men). I thought the Spiderman films were great escapist entertainment, which we all need now and then. I think the casting of James Franco and Willem Dafeo had a lot to do with that as well. Am I missing any decent comic films. I don’t follow them too closely.
Army of Darkness is like film canon to me. Its one of the few films Ive seen probably over a 100 times…..
As for comic films, if we accept the theory that Road to Perdition is an adaptation of Lone wolf and cub, I would definitely give that mention. I for one actually liked the Crow although it differed heavily from the original graphic novel.
Crap Monster – I really enjoyed the graphic novel of the Crow, and I think that was my reason for not liking the film as much. I’m thinking about revisiting that one again, and perhaps a couple of others. It’s funny you compare Road to Perdition to Lone Wolf and Cub. I own both Lone Wolf and Cub and Shogun Assasin, and I really enjoyed Road to Perdition, but I never thought to compare the two, and that is a really good comparison.
strangely enough Lester, someone else pointed it out to me and I was shocked at myself for not realizing the similarities as well
LESTER – Bear in mind that I’m no big fan of comic book movies for their own sake. It’s one reason why I have yet to catch up with any of Raimi’s SPIDERMAN entries – also I wondered just how diffrent his treatment was going to be from DARKMAN. I tell you that so you might understand why I like the Tim Burton BATMAN entries – particularly the second. The first had the darkness of the initial comic book adventures while the second faithfully (if somewhat exaggeratedly) replicated the twisted strangeness of the stories up until Robin’s arrival. Additionally they are films very much growing out of the director’s vision.
Around the time of QUICK AND THE DEAD, I thought that given decent budgets and an escape from genre (and don’t get me wrong, I love horror films) Raimi might develop into another Ken Russell, a director who uses extreme visuals to tell the story & even to comment on it. But it soon became clear that there just wasn’t that much substance supporting Raimi’s visuals.
But, hey if the guy directs another EVIL DEAD segment, preferably a continuation (didn’t he already remake EVIL DEAD in EVIL DEAD 2??) that has Ash at age 50-something, I’ll be there.
I’ll throw some love to A Simple Plan, Raimi’s response to that wintry film, Fargo, made by his pals the Coen Bros.
Evil Dead remake? Does Raimi really need the money after all that Spiderman 1,2,3 foo-fa-raw?
Harry – It will be interesting to see how the Evil Dead remake will fare. I’m imagining something along the vein of Rob Zombie’s version of Halloween – nothing even remotely close in comparison to the original, but hopefully it will offer up something unique in it’s own right. For example, for all the problems with the Rob Zombie version of Halloween, I think one of the things Zombie did get right in that film was the mask. It was perhaps just as creepy as the one in the original Carpenter film (remember all the other masks in the Halloween sequels that just didn’t look right and never really measured up to the original mask?) I attribute Zombie’s success with the mask to his artistic talent and true love of the horror genre. What I didn’t like about his version of the film was the transformation of the Meyers family from a normal, middle-class suburban Midwest family to that of the stereotypical white trash, abusive family. But transforming Michael Myers from a boy who came from a normal family in a normal Midwest neighborhood to that of a boy raised in a white trash, abusive family, therefore making him the whole textbook serial-killer-shaped-by-environment character instead of one whose evil was just innate and unexplainable, I think, stripped away the Michael Myers mystique and minimalized the impact of his monstrous character.
Wait a minute, why did I go off on that tirade? Back to Raimi . . .
I see Raimi as a good craftsman whose has made increasing impersonal films, that’s about it.
Lester Burnam
Need anything more be said? Go!