Wednesday, March 12, 2008

The Eyes Have It

I actually thought the recent "Eye" movie was going to be a remake of the "classic" 1978 flick "The Eyes of Laura Mars". And by "classic" I mean "not very good".

It was a good idea, scripted by John Carpenter, who I believe parlayed it into his first pro directing gig (or maybe his second). When people ask him how to become a director he said something to the effect of "write scripts and then use that as leverage".

Huh. Worked for Chris Columbus, I guess. (And they don't even have to be good scripts!)

I had forgotten that Tommy Lee Jones played opposite Faye Dunaway. And in 1978, Tommy Lee was actually fairly handsome. (I'm not dissing him; I know some chicks dig him. But he's not exactly a "pretty boy" these days.)

The supporting cast is great: Rene Auberjonois (from M*A*S*H and "Deep Space Nine"), Raul Julia, and "Chucky" himself, Brad Dourif. Director Irvin Kirshner would follow this up with (IMO) the best "Star Wars" movie (The Empire Strikes Back) and the weird Connery Bond redux Never Say Never Again.

Kirshner replaced Michael Miller on the job after a fallout with Jon "spiders are natures most ferocious killers" Peters. Michael Miller's work has been discussed previously on this blog. All-in-all, you can't help but wonder if they shouldn't have let Carpenter direct.

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