Obscure Superhero Week: Condorman

Hey folks, welcome back to Obscure Superheroes Week and I have to be honest, this next title kind of left me perplexed to why I am watching it. Now you know me and I have been up to my waist in some extremely dull, boring or otherwise stupid films ranging from all genre so you can imagine when I saw this title at the request of Rotten Ramblin' On co-host Shawn, I was baffled to why I "need to see it." Then I noticed the author/ Sci-fi novelist that wrote it and it changed my opinion. Robert Sheckley (Escape from Hell Island, The 7^h Victim, The Millions Game, Immortality Inc and Mindswap) became films of Escape from Hell Island, The 10^th Victim, Das Millionspiel, Freejack and Mindswap. With a dark sense of views of the 1950s to a ominous take on the future, Sheckely's books have always entertained me. So let's give this a go. This is Condorman.

William Katt, eat yer heart out!

Straight from Buena Vista distribution (Walt Disney Pictures) opens with a cartoon character rotoscoped (animation technique tracing over footage frame by frame creating action as realistic as possible) into a live-action film surveying Rome. A orchestral intro and chorus singing Condorman and having Goofy sound effects added. Oh yes, this will be dignity and grace.  Possibly a comedy/action hybrid. Woody Wilkins (Michael Crawford of Two Left Feet, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, The Jokers, How I Won the War, Hello, Dolly! And Once Upon a Forest) works as Condorman's writer and comic book artist thriving to be his own creation attempts to make a flying suit plummets off the Eiffel Tower and into the River Seine while between issues. Cause a writer/penciler has all the free time in the world...with the knocking out 45 pages then penciling each frame,caption and blocking each scene. Yeah I know a bit about the comic art aspect and frankly you would only give cover art from me if I went into the biz.

The Femme Fatale...rowr.

His buddy Harry (James Hampton of F-Troop, The China Syndrome, The Cat from Outer Space, Hangar 18, Teen Wolf, Teen Wolf Too, Sling Blade and Fire from Below) photographer, file clerk for the CIA and best buddy tries to talk Woody off his creative ledge on maybe not do everything your character would do for real...because it is inherently dangerous, stupid and likely to get him killed but Woody is eccentric (ready for the wacko basket) and sees the world in relation to films, TV and comics. You know, passionate nerd. Harry gets an assignment from his boss Russ Devlin (Dana Elcar of Dark Shadows, Guiding Light, Fireball Forward, The Bravos, Ironside, The Sting, 2010: The Year We Make Contact and MacGyver) who needs a civilian courier to exchange documents with a Russian asset at the height of the Cold War and return. Yup, so naturally give it to the goofball comic artist. Good call. Right up there with giving a bulldog a live frag grenade to chew on.

CHEWING THE SCENE!?!  HOW DARE YOU, SIR!?!

Woody is nervous but excited as he gets jumped by agents but manages to beat them off (Sixties term for knock down, you pervs. You disgust me.) and impresses the lovely, curvaceous Natalia (Barbara Carrera of The Island of Dr. Moreau, Centennial, I, the Jury, Lone Wolf McQuade, Never Say Never Again, Dallas, Point of Impact, Night of the Archer and Love Is All There Is) who plans to defect with the help of Woody, she must return to her KGB handler Krokov (Sir Olilver Reed of Dirty Weekend, The Three Musketeers, Ten Little Indians, The New Spartans, Lion of the Desert, Castaway and Gladiator) a shouty, scene chewing, bear of a man wanting to know more of this Condorman, does he work with the CIA and what his overall objectives are. Possibly his name, quest and favorite color. Woody is conned into moving with Natalia's defection and as "Condorman" Woody makes the CIA crack open their piggy bank for a suit, offensive weapons, maybe a couple of vehicles... hell might as well have a lair too.  Hmm the Aviary? The Roost??  Will Woody Wax...philosophically??? Will Natalia Defect??? Will Oliver Reed play the hell out of his role??

It's campy, slapstick and wholesome, all the while having car chases, gunfights, boat chases and some decent choreographed fights. Purest in true 1980s comedy down to prat falls, observational gags and a nutty guy doing well with the girl in a PG film and knocking off at a hour and 30 minutes, you have to hail a lot of these stunts and practical effects. Shot in Monaco, Paris and Switzerland, this is where the Disney money comes into play and didn't take the course of two years *cough Speilberg and composer Henry Mancini (Peter Gunn, Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Pink Panther, Hatari!, Remington Steele and Newhart) taking out all the stops, this flick is another post Richard Donner Superman feel giving it fun for all ages. I may actually have to thank Shawn for this recommendation...maybe.

BIIIiiIIIIIiIIIIIIRDMAN!!!!

Sean Connery Week: The Name of the Rose

Howdy folks and welcome to Day 4 of Sean Connery Week.  Yesterday allergies were fun, fun fun and we got knocked back a day.  Today we will examine a cinematic masterpiece directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud (The Bear, The Lover, Seven Years in Tibet, Enemy at the Gates, Two Brother and Day of the Falcon) and based on Umberto Eco (Anthropologist, Medieval expert and writer of The Name of the Rose, Foucault's Pedulum, The Island of the Day Before, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages, The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas and the Bomb and the General)  create the ideal scenery of a tranquil monastery besought by what is deemed evil and a honest to goodness murder.  This is The Name of the Rose.

Can't read my lines without my glasses.

William of Baskerville: Adso, if I knew the answers to spoilers, I would be teaching theology in Paris.





Friar William of Baskerville (Sean Connery of The Red Tent, The Molly Maguires, Diamonds are Forever, Zardoz, The Man Who Would Be King, Just Cause and DragonHeart) and his apprentice Adso of Melk (Christian Slater of Heathers, The Edge, Pump Up the Volume, Young Guns II, Mobsters, Broken Arrow, Alone in the Dark and Mind Games) have traveled to Northern Italy to abby.   A death of unnatural causes raises hackles and superstitions as an important theological conference was to occur prior.   Over the week, more bizarre deaths happen and our two travelers come to the conclusion that the abbey is not all what it appears to be.

Yes, I too, loathe the barber here but he is learning.

William and Adso meet Salvatore (Ron Perlman of Blind Man's Bluff, Beauty and the Beast, Cronos, Hellboy and Sons of Anarchy), a jibbering and seemingly demented hunchback that knows many spoken languages and his protector Remigio da Varagine (Helmut Qualtinger of The Business of Plueckhahn, Ice Age, Tales from the Vienna Woods and Die Hinrichtung).  William deduces from Salvatore's speech pattern that he may have been one of the Dulcinian (deemed by the Franciscan sect as those that stray from the traditional teachings as heretics by the Catholic church and yet this movement was inspired by the Franciscan sect in the eyes of the Dulcinian) heretical sects and both men are possibly involved with the murders.

Meanwhile young Adso meets a semi-feral girl who has snuck in the Abby for food via sexual favors and he starts to fall in love with the girl.   Quick to bypass any and all accusations of the Devil's work, William and Adso uncover a massive labyrinth in the abbey's forbidden tower (Yes, a forbidden zone and there lies cranky irradiated apes) a discover a variable maze of books and scripture the likes William has never seen,  to even come across works of Aristotle in a time where most of his works were burned by the Roman Empire.  This is one of many philosophers that was seen as pagan in the eyes of the Church and must be slowly introduced back into the realms of man and it is this book, Aristotles's Second Book of Poetics that seems to be the center of all the deaths.

His investigations are put on hold thanks to the arrival of Gui (F. Murray Abraham of Serpico, The Sunshine Boys, The Ritz, Slipstream, Mobsters, Nostradamus and Star Trek: Insurrection) of the Inquisition,( a superstitious sect of the Church hellbent on ferreting out blasphemers and burning them at the stake or torturing people until they confess sins).  He has little time to hear anything William has to say and will find the sinner that would take these precious lives.   Yeah this is the same type of Catholic that shames a woman at an abortion clinic and not even bothering to find out the reason for her decision or nuttier idea mind his or her own business.   * Sorry, I will come down from my soap box now*  

Gui and William have butted heads more than a few times.  Gui finds William to be frivolous and taunts God with his forbidden views of Sciences while William views Gui as a myopic, narrow-minded savage that inflicts pain and death in the sake of his God.  Who is the true murder?  What is the reasons behind it?  Who stands to gain anything from these deaths.

Just a few tidbits on the film at this time.  The monastery was actually a set replica built on a hilltop outside of Rome, making it one of the biggest exterior sets built in Europe since Cleopatra or Conan the Barbarian.
Credited as "The Girl" Valentina Vargas was the only female role in the movie.    Robert De Niro auditioned for the part of William but Jean- Jacques Annaud didn't envision De Niro for the part when he announced there should be a sword duel between William and Gui.
Most of the dialogue had to be synced up in post production thanks to all the airplanes coming and over the hill.

You'll have to sell your landspeeder..