CABARET VILLE
MAGAZINE. P187 CONT'D
FROM P186
THE BUZZ
Now Angel is in charge of Wolfram & Hart's Los Angeles office - but
was the firm's surrender real, or just a new bid to corrupt him?
"It's really brought a new energy to it, having the characters
relocate to the enemy's quarters and become the generals of the
opposing team," said Alexis Denisof, who plays Wesley, the
conscience of the show who sees the Wolfram & Hart alliance as a
nefarious ploy. "I think there's a lot of territory to explore in how
the characters respond to their new environment, how they'll pull
together and how they'll pull apart," Denisof said. Spike brings to
the show a blood rivalry with Angel. Both vampires had a rocky romance
with the vampire-slayer Buffy, and both are competing to be the one
bloodsucker who gets to become human again by fulfilling an ancient
apocalyptic prophecy (that's the long-term "one-armed man"-style
plotline Angel established when it started in 1999.) At least for now,
the two won't be getting into any fistfights: Spike has returned as a
ghost, a phantom in the shape of his corporeal self connected to a
mystical amulet. "I get to be the grit in the wheel," says Marsters.
"I just get to make life as miserable as I could possibly make it for
Angel, and poor Angel has to deal with it as a hero always does, with
as much patience as he can muster." Marsters said his transition to
the new cast has been welcoming, and Boreanaz seems content - if not
enthusiastic - to share the shadows with another vampire. Meanwhile,
some critics are already sold on the Angel changes. "The episodes are
more self-contained, and the stories are easier to follow," wrote USA
Today critic Robert Bianco. "What hasn't altered is Whedon's ingenious
mix of comedy and suspense; his fascination with the meanings of
right, wrong and responsibility; and his ability to produce a
ceaselessly entertaining hour of television." The long-time fans,
however, are still debating the value of Spike, the abandonment of
Cordelia and which new character should become Angel's love interest.
"Right now all I can really say about whether the changes will be
good, is that whatever Joss Whedon does to Angel keeps the show
on the air for several more seasons, I'll be happy," said Karen Drowne,
41, an insurance claims adjuster from Lakeland, Fla., who runs the fan
site www.solitaryphoenix.com. "And that will be good."
 Harrison
Ford: So says bone-weary hero Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost
Ark, the first in the trilogy of Steven Spielberg-George Lucas
adventure films that, much to the delight of their legions of fans,
Paramount is finally releasing in a new digitally remastered set of
DVDs next Tuesday. The two-fisted archeologist was referring to his
bruised and battered body but it could also describe the film elements
themselves that have suffered wear and tear over the last two decades
or so. So the job of restoring the original picture materials fell to
the industry master, Toronto native John Lowry, founder of Burbank,
Calif.-based Lowry Digital Images, which is on the leading edge of the
motion picture restoration business these days. Lowry says it was a
painstaking job but he and his staff and their banks of powerful
computers managed to remove numerous instances of flare, flicker and
jitter, and an estimated half-million specks of dirt from the frames
of the three features.
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Each title has its own special problem, too. In Raiders, it was a huge scratch
right through some 30,000 frames of the opening sequence. "Nice blue scratch
right through the faces and everything and that, of course, was quite
challenging," says Lowry. "But it's gone now. . .there's absolutely no trace of
that scratch."
The Temple of Doom, meanwhile, had considerable jitter, flare and quality
discrepancies. "We processed that through our entire system to reduce the
granularity, reduce the flare, sharpen the image, get rid of the dirt, of
course. . .and it's absolutely seamless now." And in The Last Crusade, there was
a blue matte outline around Harrison Ford and Sean Connery when they jumped from
the Nazi zeppelin into a biplane. "In no time we had it gone. . .we just removed
the blue fringes." Lowry, who worked on image processing for NASA's Apollo moon
pictures back in 1971, says the Indiana Jones images are now pristine. "They are
probably looking better than anybody's ever seen them," he boasts, revealing
that he is not only a technical expert, but a true fan. "Raiders, I can watch
that movie over and over and over and every time I look at it I find something
else." One important bit of news for diehard followers: unlike the restorations
performed on Lucas' Star Wars and Spielberg's E.T. re-releases, there has been
no CGI enhancement of the original special effects nor any director's cut scenes
inserted. The three films are exactly as fans remember them in theatres or
earlier VHS editions.
Paramount has packaged the trilogy in the same manner as The Godfather movies -
each film stands alone on its own disc, while a fourth disc contains all the
background extras, three hours' worth, including onset home movies, a variety of
making-of documentaries, trailers and all-new cast and crew interviews.
A particularly fascinating item is Tom Selleck's much-talked-about but
never-before-seen screen test as Indiana. Not bad but today anyone but Harrison
Ford in the role is unthinkable. So what was it about these action films that
makes them so durable and beloved? John Rhys-Davies, the ebullient, lusty-voiced
Welsh actor who played Indy's pal Sallah in the first and third films, suggests
it's quite simply bang for the buck, noting there's huge entertainment value in
almost every frame. "The secret of making a successful movie is quite simple:
give the audience $50 worth of entertainment for every 10 bucks they spend at
the box office. "You have to imaginatively and creatively entertain and delight
and please them." On the DVD extras, Lucas is heard saying he wanted to shoot
the films "quick and dirty" much like the low-budget Saturday-matinee
cliff-hanger serials they were emulating. But of course the films don't look
that way at all. Rhys-Davies explains it was never their intention to make them
cheesy-looking, but that the shoot was going to be quick, without the 60 or 70
takes that Spielberg often went for in his films to get scenes just right.
The actor quotes Spielberg: "'What I want is a freshness and an immediacy that
this film needs if we're to get away with it. Just an insouciance that comes
from spontaneity.' And I think he not only captured that, he let it flower." The
DVD extras also show the filmmakers conceding that the middle installment, The
Temple of Doom, did turn out much darker, and less fun, than they anticipated.
It may also have suffered from the absence of Sallah who was brought back for
The Last Crusade." It was very gratifying, actually, to sit in the cinema and
hear that great cheer when Sallah came on. It actually moved me, touched me
greatly. I thought 'Oh gosh, I must have dome something right.' "Some trivia
about the Indiana Jones movies, coming to DVD Oct. 21:Indiana was the name
of George Lucas's dog. The line was later given to Sean Connery in the third
film when he reminds Harrison Ford they called him Junior and "named the dog
Indiana."
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