Café de Nuit

Okay, this looks pretty cool, in a "Sleepy Hollow" / "Brotherhood of the Wolf" kind of way:

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/42116

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it's a period piece! I expected a modern updating. Terrific cast, and Joe Johnston is a talented director.

--Ken

I am most pleased with the fact that while the transformations are CGI, Benicio Del Toro will be wearing makeup for the wolf form instead of the crappy CGI werewolves we had been getting in past films. This movie shows promise.

Ornum wrote:I am most pleased with the fact that while the transformations are CGI, Benicio Del Toro will be wearing makeup for the wolf form instead of the crappy CGI werewolves we had been getting in past films. This movie shows promise.

It actually looked, to my eyes, like the transformations are being done by successive applications of makeup, as in the old days-- except with morphing making the transitions rather than lap dissolves. I wonder if this is the case?

Definitely looking forward to this.

Brandi wrote:It actually looked, to my eyes, like the transformations are being done by successive applications of makeup, as in the old days-- except with morphing making the transitions rather than lap dissolves. I wonder if this is the case?

From what I've read, they originally intended to go with makeup, but have opted for CGI. The transition does look very smooth; maybe it is a little bit of both.

Ken of Ghastria wrote: From what I've read, they originally intended to go with makeup, but have opted for CGI. The transition does look very smooth; maybe it is a little bit of both.

The smoothness of the transitions practically screams "CGI" but the textures on the skin and hair are far better than I've seen in a lot of films, so it's either stages of makeup or they actually took good care with their rendering for once. (Fur is a stone b*tch to render, being a complex-moving, complexly light-scattering texture-- and it's rather easy to do it badly: American Werewolf in Paris, for example.)

Brandi wrote:(Fur is a stone b*tch to render, being a complex-moving, complexly light-scattering texture-- and it's rather easy to do it badly: American Werewolf in Paris, for example.)

Painfully true ... but what a kick-ass opening.

Ken of Ghastria wrote:Painfully true ... but what a kick-ass opening.

That's as may be, but I have never seen the film, I was so disappointed by the werewolf work. Not only was it poorly rendered, but frankly that creature design would've looked no less crappy in practical effects as far as I was concerned.

If you see it listed for cable, just watch the first few minutes (the jump on the Eiffel Tower). Terrific sequence!

Great !

wow, really excellent looking... serious acting, nice moody-looking direction. Could be great, we shall see.

I am a complete fan of the original "Wolfman" with Cheney Jr. so I would be hard-pressed to be impressed by a reboot. IMO, I think this film could have worked well ten years ago when both the aforementioned "Sleepy Hollow" and "Brotherhood of the Wolf" (both great films BTW) were released, but for me, it just doesn't feel timely now. And where's the vital subplot of the original film with the gypsies?! I find it interesting that they're making the lead actor playing Larry Talbot look an awful lot like Cheney did in '41 though. My gut feeling is that the CGI is going to ruin it and we'll have another epic Universal masterpiece a la "Van Helsing" on our hands. . .

LadySoth wrote:My gut feeling is that the CGI is going to ruin it and we'll have another epic Universal masterpiece a la "Van Helsing" on our hands. . .

I wouldn't worry about that. Van Helsing was an attempt to make a new character from whole cloth and shoehorn in the monsters into Wolfman Meets Frankenstein type movie.

And even that caught the "why did they bother with that monster" that the old mash-ups had.

The Wolfman trailer inspired me to toss in the original 1941 version yesterday and I have to admit that I'm even more charged about this movie than before.

For example, the scene in the trailer where you get a sweeping view of the decaying manor house covered in vines is almost an exact replica of the shot in the original after the opening credits.

Also, unlike Van Helsing, The Wolfman seems to have chosen their primary actors based on acting ability, not sex appeal. Emily Blunt is quite good looking, but she isn't the "stare at my costume and pretend that I'm actually acting" type they had in Van Helsing.

That and they seem to be taking the plot where it should have gone in the original. If you have a man that apparently clubbed another man to death, who then claims that he turns into a monster during the full moon, and is found filthy in bloody, ripped clothes after a killing spree, you toss him into the asylum and try to cure him (as brutally) as only Victorian medicine can. And they you put him on display to see the manifestation of his psychosis during the moon.

And it turns out the make-up artist did the make-up for An American Werewolf in London.

And Del Toro was a collector of Wolfman memorabilia before getting cast in the part.

I think there's enough passion and respect for the source material to make something new. I'm looking forward to it, and so is my fiancee, who isn't a huge horror movie buff.

I went and saw Wolfman last night and I cannot fault it. It is a great atmospheric period monster movie.

Gypsies, torch wielding villagers, a huge half abandoned family home and a detective from Scotland yard. If you have ever run or played in a Ravenloft I'd say you'll love it. There was not one bad note in the acting and the cgi was quite good. It was a pity due to time constraints they couldn't manage a part prosthetic part cgi sequence like they wanted.

I saw it this evening, I enjoyed it overall. My only real complaint is watching 2 hours of washed-out and muted colors became tiresome, I would have liked some colors in the non-horrific scenes if just to provide contrast. If they did this to emulate the black & white nature of the original film, fine, but it was tedious and at times a little too dark for me to see. I don't think it will show well on DVD later unless they brighten it up some.