Fans of a certain costumed web-slinger have been dismayed by a string of recent developments which have threatened to bury the crime-fighter’s sterling reputation under a mountain of kitsch and banality.

First, there was the departure of director Sam Raimi and his crew from the lucrative Spider-Man movie franchise. Raimi had helmed three episodes of the block-buster series that has earned an estimated $1 billion worldwide. And despite what many fans felt was a lack-luster third movie, there was never any doubt that Raimi – a Spider-Man fan from way back – perfectly translated to film the heart of the Spider-Man universe, which was always the character of Peter Parker and his relationships with the women in his life, especially Aunt May and long-time love Mary Jane.

Despite his spectacular success, however, Sony studios didn’t trust Raimi to make his movies the way he wanted, and reportedly made life so miserable for him that he walked. Instantly, the studio announced that they would be rebooting the franchise with a new director and crew, sending Peter Parker back to high school and re-casting the story with trendy young actors and promising (sigh) that the new Spidey will be delivered in 3D.

Great.

This lamentable focus on youth and style over story and character is not limited to Spider-Man, of course. Raimi’s first two Spidey films may have been shot in 2D, but the characters were so well written and acted that the story felt 3D. But never mind. Like everything else, the new Spidey must be targeted to teens and tweens, who don’t know from story and couldn’t care less about plot (witness the Twilight abominations). (more…)

#16: Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn (1987) 

“Groovy.”

This masterpiece mix of horror and slapstick gave whole new meaning to the term “eye candy” and forever cemented co-writer/director Sam Raimi’s status as a unique talent on the rise. There are so many directorial flourishes in this low-budget sequel/remake of the even lower budgeted “Evil Dead” ($350k versus $3.5 million) that to list each one would mean listing most every beat of the story. Endlessly inventive in every possible way, like most of the films on this countdown, while giving it another look last night I wondered if it deserved a higher ranking.

The sole survivor of “Evil Dead,” Ashley “Ash” Williams (The Mighty Bruce Campbell), takes his girlfriend deep in the woods for a quiet, romantic weekend in a secluded cabin. Drawn to a reel to reel tape recorder, Ash hits PLAY and listens to the cabin’s absent owner, a professor, read a spell from the pages of the Book of the Dead. What this spell unleashes is a bona fide tour de force of shocks, gore, comedy, and all the qualities required to craft a timeless cult-classic – most especially Bruce Campbell’s mind-blowingly awesome central performance.

Most of the story’s action takes place in and around the single location of this rural cabin and how Raimi and his co-writer Scott Spiegel managed to keep the plot relentlessly churning with the benefit of only a few location cutaways (to four people who have no idea they’re about to join Ash’s fight with the evil dead) is a minor miracle. There are more story turns in the first ten minutes here than you see in the entirety of some feature films. If forced to register a complaint it would be only that Raimi never stops to give us a breather. (more…)

After waxing poetic about John Woo’s talent for the last month, it may surprise you to learn that I consider his later career an embarrassing falloff from his Hong Kong prime. That such sad declines are all-too-common among directors (and actors, and authors, and painters, and musicians) doesn’t make it any easier a pill to swallow. I miss young John Woo almost as much as I miss young Steven Spielberg, and I don’t make that comparison lightly.

Part of Woo’s problem was the advent of American special effects capable of mimicking, with a few mouse clicks, the previously unique style he pioneered via endlessly inventive cinematography and editing. Soon anyone could make what at least superficially looked like a John Woo movie, and they saturated the market with mediocre simulacra of his imagery until it felt old and tired. This is what I suspect Werner Herzog once meant when he condemned the “worn-out images” which imperil our civilization’s collective imagination “because of the inability of too many people to seek out fresh ones.”

Then there was Woo’s catastrophic loss of creative control, resulting from his move to Hollywood soon after he finished Hard Boiled. He once wearily explained his momentous decision to abandon his homeland in this way: (more…)

In that classic issue of Spider-Man #50, the cover blazed that question as the reader stared at an image of Peter Parker, head down, walking away from the enlarged ghostly image of Spider-Man. Inside, a panel showing his suit in a garbage can was lovingly recreated by Director Sam Raimi in the film Spider-Man 2.

Director Sam Raimi

What made the Spider-Man movies some of the best superhero adaptations ever was that Sam Raimi was a fan who knew the comics, translated them faithfully. But more importantly, had the style and panache to breathe life into those stories on the canvas of celluloid.

Rumor has it, in their “infinite wisdom,” the execs at Sony decided that John Malkovich was too old to play the villain the Vulture in the new movie that was planned. They wanted all kinds of changes to the script and they wanted the film to come out in 2011. Raimi, having had a third villain forced on him in the last film, decided he couldn’t maintain the quality under that schedule and left the project. Taking the cast with him. (more…)

Just before Christmas rumors began to leak out of Hollywood that Sam Raini’s Spider-Man 4 had run into trouble.  Nonsense, came word from Sony; the production is only on “holiday break,” all is well in Spidey-Land, and your favorite web-slinger will be swinging into your local multiplex on May 6, 2011 as planned.  

What a difference a new year makes.  Apparently, those rumors were true after all:  Variety is reporting that sources from Sony confirm that the production is on hold, perhaps indefinitely, and that a May 2011 release is now unlikely.

The reason?  It seems there are deep and perhaps intractable differences between Raimi and the studio regarding the quality of the latest script, the structure of the proposed plot, and even the choice of villain for this fourth outing.  Raimi is said to be keen on the Vulture, with John Malkovich to fill the bald baddie’s bird suit.  The studio, however, reportedly fears that the Vulture – an elderly character in the comics – is a poor choice of villain for a tent-pole, summer franchise film.  It’s unclear whom the studio would prefer, but clearly they are angling for more ‘hip’ than ‘hip replacement’ to bedevil Peter Parker’s alter ego. (more…)

Director and co-writer Sam Raimi’s ”Drag Me to Hell,” his first horror film since concluding the iconic “Evil Dead” trilogy with “Army of Darkness” in 1992, feels very much like a Sam Raimi horror film, but one hobbled with a PG-13 rating and slapdash script. The story of Christine Brown (Alison Lohman), an ambitious Los Angeles loan officer fresh off the farm with only a few days to shake a curse that could end with her being literally dragged down to Hell, is presented with the director’s signature style and wit, but lacks the intensity and memorable set pieces that make the adventures of Ash must-see viewing at least once a year.

In a depressingly bright and clinical bank, Chistine’s up for promotion to assistant manager and sees the opportunity to show her manipulative boss (The Great David Paymer) she’s got management chops when a grotesque old woman comes in to ask for a third extension on her mortgage. It’s only after Christine evicts her that she discovers the crone’s as batty as she looks and twice as vengeful.

Vengeance arrives in a parking garage, but a vicious beating isn’t enough to satisfy the old woman. She lays a curse on Christine that means plenty of disturbing and violent visions to come. (more…)