Speaker 1: Sid Girl, dasy scart sleep Si, No, I don't have
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 2: Don't the shadows braining with them?
Speaker 1: I got speak six spades, got me a ship seling.
Speaker 2: Bad sail side, most shoes chist.
Speaker 3: Welcome back, midnight viewers to Father Malone's a weekly round up.
Speaker 3: I'm Father Malone and beside me in white face paint.
Speaker 3: That's right. In order to go goth, a black pug
Speaker 3: needs the Krylon White liberally applied. This tiny goth sitting
Speaker 3: next to me is ripley. Say hi to the folks.
Speaker 1: Rip.
Speaker 3: That's the great thing about that song. It'll never not
Speaker 3: be true. Bello Legosi is dead, she's gothed up. I'm
Speaker 3: quoting Bauhaus. Could it be Oh god, no, it's a
Speaker 3: themed episode. Run or stick around? Or actually you should
Speaker 3: perch on a tombstone, on a power line, on a
Speaker 3: muscly shoulder. That's right. You've been chosen to be a crow.
Speaker 3: The satellite of Love needs you. No, not that crow.
Speaker 3: We're talking about the comic. We're talking about the nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety four flick, and we're talking about the newly released remake,
Speaker 3: reimagining adaptation that's in theaters now. It's got penny Wise
Speaker 3: horror Fiends. This is a series of films and its
Speaker 3: inspiration that are positively drenched in tragedy. The Crow started
Speaker 3: out as a comic series on the Caliber label. They
Speaker 3: were all written and drawn by the excellently named James O.
Speaker 1: Bar.
Speaker 3: Not so excellent was the inspiration. The Crow was born
Speaker 3: out of Obar's grief and rage following his fiance's death
Speaker 3: by a drunk driver. But he didn't take that misery
Speaker 3: and paint sunflowers like van go Van Goch then Goff.
Speaker 3: I don't know anyway. He didn't do that. He created
Speaker 3: an undead avenger and a psychopomp who guides him. Now, look,
Speaker 3: we all love the Brandon Lee film. There's something wrong
Speaker 3: with you if you don't like that film, and we'll
Speaker 3: get there. But as a comic book reader, let's take
Speaker 3: a look at the source material. I find little things
Speaker 3: like antecedents to be important, especially when there seems to
Speaker 3: be a whole fan base who've decided anything other than
Speaker 3: that Brandon Lee movie simply will not do when it
Speaker 3: comes to interpreting these comics. And we're going to get
Speaker 3: there too. The comic was a four issue series came
Speaker 3: out in nineteen eighty nine, and it is about an
Speaker 3: auto mechanic, not a musician, named Eric, no last name.
Speaker 3: He returns from the dead a year later, we're told,
Speaker 3: and he immediately sets out hunting down criminals, pumping them
Speaker 3: for information and then dispatching them in brutal and not
Speaker 3: really outlandish at all.
Speaker 1: Ways.
Speaker 3: It's the plot of every iteration of the Crow, even
Speaker 3: in the movies and in the comic books. But the
Speaker 3: differences between the ninety four film in the first comic series.
Speaker 3: While the plot's the same, it's Detroit. The villains are
Speaker 3: the same, although they've swapped top Dollar and t Bird
Speaker 3: in the film. But these are street thugs. They are
Speaker 3: barely above a gang. There's nothing brand going on in here.
Speaker 3: There's no plot to evict tenants that make Eric and
Speaker 3: Shelley at target. There's no club where they don't have
Speaker 3: to take you away. No, they don't have to take
Speaker 3: you away. All breaks two cops. Sarah the little girl
Speaker 3: who narrates the film. She's in one scene in the comic.
Speaker 3: You know how a movie is usually like a strip
Speaker 3: to the bone version of a novel. The comic is
Speaker 3: like a strip to the bone version of the movie.
Speaker 3: And it's told in this maddening flashback structure where it
Speaker 3: isn't revealed until the end that Eric in Shelley's car
Speaker 3: breaks down and there happened upon by T Bird's gang.
Speaker 3: It's all totally random. Also, the Crow in the comic
Speaker 3: is not the source of his power. It's nothing but
Speaker 3: a guide. It in fact speaks to him, something none
Speaker 3: of the films have ever attempted, which is weird because
Speaker 3: every film ends up employing a narrator or some sort
Speaker 3: of audience proxy so we can find our way through
Speaker 3: that universe if only the original comic had a solution
Speaker 3: to that. But which character in the Crow could be
Speaker 3: counted on for that sort of thing? Oh yeah, And
Speaker 3: in the comic, the Crow, like I said, he can
Speaker 3: talk to Eric, and he's kind of a dick. He's
Speaker 3: constantly chiding him that he's wasting time with his memories
Speaker 3: of Shelley. Oh, it's a fun relationship. And oh at
Speaker 3: the end, there's no fancy supernatural twist when it comes
Speaker 3: to dispatching T Bird. Eric doesn't pour the pain that
Speaker 3: Shelley endured for thirty six hours in intensive care into
Speaker 3: the villain. In the book, Shelley dies on the scene,
Speaker 3: and it's Eric who clings to life before dying and
Speaker 3: joining her here. The finale is t Bird crashes his
Speaker 3: car trying to elude Eric, and then Eric walks up
Speaker 3: with a hammer and bashes his skull in. It's that
Speaker 3: kind of comic. It is a less nuanced punisher. If
Speaker 3: I'm being totally honest about the comic books, it's the
Speaker 3: later stuff than I found interesting. That's when the Crow
Speaker 3: would assume many different forms. It's not just Eric, it's
Speaker 3: different figures through history, like there's a cowboy who is
Speaker 3: resurrected after one hundred years to settle up with the
Speaker 3: descendants of his murderers. That one's actually a favorite. But
Speaker 3: the entire series is hamstrung by its premise because it's
Speaker 3: always revenge. It's always the Crow leads somebody back to
Speaker 3: murder the people who murdered him. Basically, though, I will
Speaker 3: say o Bar became a lot more adapt with his
Speaker 3: artwork as the comic continued. I loved how grubby the
Speaker 3: first run of it was when I read it, but
Speaker 3: I'm glad he's improved. It is an angry book, and
Speaker 3: I hope it helped mister Obar exercise some of his demons.
Speaker 3: Me I loved those books, as did a cyberpunk author
Speaker 3: John Shirley and producer Jeff Most, who were the once
Speaker 3: who wrote the initial drafts of the script for The
Speaker 3: Crow together, though only Shirley is credited due to a
Speaker 3: WGA rule against producers taking a credit. That's a pre
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety five rule. No producer could take a writing
Speaker 3: credit where their script would be rewritten by splatterpunk author
Speaker 3: David Scow, who brought the supernatural more to the forefront
Speaker 3: and sharpened a lot of the dialogue. And that pretty
Speaker 3: much brings us to nineteen ninety four starring Brandon Lee.
Speaker 3: The Crow.
Speaker 4: People once believed that when a soul can't rest, a
Speaker 4: crow can carry it back from the dead to seek
Speaker 4: justice and put.
Speaker 3: The wrong things right.
Speaker 4: In the thirteen, It's a good day to be a
Speaker 4: bad guy, raged Lee, the Crow rigguedar.
Speaker 3: Now the name that screams to mind when talking about
Speaker 3: The Crow is Brandon Lee, which is only appropriate. His
Speaker 3: death was a preventable tragedy that seems somehow to keep happening. Nevertheless,
Speaker 3: this is his film. But I would argue there are
Speaker 3: a couple of other names you ought to be considering
Speaker 3: Alex Proyus, Alex McDowell, Ariann Phillips, and Jolene Cherry, because
Speaker 3: those four look a lot of other people worked on
Speaker 3: the movie. No film is made in a vacuum. But
Speaker 3: those four are responsible not only for your continued love
Speaker 3: of the Crow, but I dare say that the current
Speaker 3: state of goth culture begins with these four. I know
Speaker 3: Lydia Deeds and Tim Burton are obviously huge accomplices in
Speaker 3: the subcultural explosion. But Alex Proyus, the director, al McDowell,
Speaker 3: the production designer, Arian Phillips costume designer, and Joelne Cherry
Speaker 3: the music supervisor. These four, those sets, those models, those outfits,
Speaker 3: that look, those sounds. Troyes turns this film into a
Speaker 3: comic book in ways the comic book couldn't. Detroit and
Speaker 3: the Crow is a dream world. It's burned out architecture,
Speaker 3: burning architecture, every street is wet, every shadow is everything
Speaker 3: is big, outsized. The crimes, the criminals, oh and such criminals.
Speaker 3: I knew I was gonna like this movie once a
Speaker 3: Caesar cutted cigar chomp and David Patrick Kelly showed up.
Speaker 3: But I knew I was gonna love the movie. When
Speaker 3: Michael Wincott in a Crystal Gale wig arrived, Good Lord.
Speaker 3: They say, your hero is only as good as your villains.
Speaker 3: Our hero ought to be fucking awesome, and he is.
Speaker 3: In the comic Eric is just unable to die. He
Speaker 3: has no special skill beyond that. Eric Draven is a
Speaker 3: martial art zombie. And watching Brandon Lee decimate room full
Speaker 3: of goons is breathtaking. Brandon Lee jumping from rooftop to
Speaker 3: rooftop is breathtaking. Hell, Brandon Lee laying in a dumpster
Speaker 3: in the rain is breathtaking. It's a goddamn shame, but
Speaker 3: goddamn it, the performance and this film continue to live on.
Speaker 3: In nineteen ninety four, when this movie came out, I
Speaker 3: was living in Los Angeles. I saw it opening night
Speaker 3: in Westwood, California, at the Man National. They tore that
Speaker 3: theater down in two thousand and eight, which is a drag.
Speaker 3: It was a massive, one screen with eleven hundred seats. Beautiful.
Speaker 3: I saw Bram Stoker's Dracula their opening day first show. Anyway,
Speaker 3: I'm waiting in the queue and there's a protester moving
Speaker 3: down the line of moviegoers, handing out flyers telling us
Speaker 3: how horrible we were for supporting the murderers of Brandon Lee.
Speaker 3: And I said to the guy, I've seen interviews with
Speaker 3: Brandon Lee about this film, and he was fucking stoked,
Speaker 3: and you'd prefer no one ever to see it. This film.
Speaker 3: He literally died making this testament. I shouldn't go in
Speaker 3: there and honor him. He just moved away. I wonder
Speaker 3: sometimes if that was the right thing to say, or
Speaker 3: if I was complicit in supporting an industry that is
Speaker 3: too cavalier with its workers' safety. I don't know. My
Speaker 3: other brush with the Crow involved this soundtrack. I'm not
Speaker 3: talking about that phenomenal fucking mixtape that became everyone's soundtrack
Speaker 3: the summer of nineteen ninety four. No, I'm talking about
Speaker 3: the score by Graham Ravel. My friend Ramone was a
Speaker 3: sound engineer and it was his jump to burn the
Speaker 3: final master for the CD score for the film. It
Speaker 3: came in these chlorophylled discs, the CDs that were all
Speaker 3: green from chlorophyll, and you have to watch the laser
Speaker 3: burn it and it was amazing. Actually, in order to
Speaker 3: do this mastering, whatever the hell they were doing, you'd
Speaker 3: have to actually sit and listen to the tracks in
Speaker 3: real time. He invited me to go listen, and god damn,
Speaker 3: what an experience. That score has some high melodrama in spots,
Speaker 3: but the Middle Eastern strings and percussion are sweet, and
Speaker 3: the darker portions of it are pretty remarkable. Speaking of remarkable,
Speaker 3: I mentioned the cast. There's a lot of great performances here,
Speaker 3: but I'm gonna mention him again, David Patrick Kelly. He
Speaker 3: plays t Bird in the movie. I'm talking about him
Speaker 3: again because there are simply not enough performances by this
Speaker 3: man here. He is in the.
Speaker 5: Film What what are you talking about?
Speaker 4: No? No, no, no, no.
Speaker 5: You mean that place downtown? Yeah, I remember her. We
Speaker 5: needed to put some fear into that little lady. She
Speaker 5: wasn't going along with our tenant relocation program. The Idiot
Speaker 5: Boyfriend shows turns a simple sweep and clear into a
Speaker 5: total cluster fuck.
Speaker 2: Who gives a shit?
Speaker 5: Agent history? Why what do you watch?
Speaker 1: What is it? What? Sweet to me speak?
Speaker 3: The keen eyed viewers will recognize him from the Warriors.
Speaker 1: Come to Play?
Speaker 3: How about Commando?
Speaker 5: Remember Sally?
Speaker 4: When I promised to kill your last That's what.
Speaker 5: I lie.
Speaker 3: He's also my favorite part of Twin Peaks and Twin
Speaker 3: Peaks the return. Go get your own clip. Anyway, I
Speaker 3: just wanted to say, David Patrick Kelly is awesome. I
Speaker 3: also wanted to remind you that your kids are all
Speaker 3: goths because of The Crow. Those are two different thoughts,
Speaker 3: but they're both true. Are you ready to move on?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: Fuck, yeah, that's right. The other thing I wanted to
Speaker 3: mention was the model work in The Crow. It is
Speaker 3: practical and it is spectacular. There is an entire car
Speaker 3: chase in this film that I'll say is eighty five
Speaker 3: percent models. It's amazing. Less so are all the dodgy
Speaker 3: composite shots. So I'm not even talking about the wildly
Speaker 3: sketchy and wildly unnecessary shots of Brandon Lee that they've
Speaker 3: inserted into the loft scene when he's returning from the opening.
Speaker 3: I'm talking about all the fire effects on Devil's Night,
Speaker 3: Oh man, I'm talking about that horrible shot of Skang
Speaker 3: falling out of the club. I'd say they didn't age well,
Speaker 3: but I was there and I saw them on the
Speaker 3: big screen. They were unacceptable then, but everything else was
Speaker 3: so goddamn cool that you didn't care. I care now.
Speaker 3: But the practical stuff is still so disarming. It's like
Speaker 3: Wes Anderson's The Crow. Oh we can move on now, Okay, cool,
Speaker 3: So let's go ready, The Crow City of Angels. All Right,
Speaker 3: I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Jeez. That movie would
Speaker 3: be acceptable if the first one didn't exist, sincerely, because
Speaker 3: it's just the same goddamn movie, you know what. Actually,
Speaker 3: I want to mention two things about that film. I
Speaker 3: think it's really well directed by Tim Pope, the Cures
Speaker 3: longtime videographer. By that, I mean he made all of
Speaker 3: their music videos, not that he followed them around with
Speaker 3: a video camera. He made a brilliant choice in that film,
Speaker 3: which is he made it a world without a moon.
Speaker 3: That entire film basically takes place at night in it's
Speaker 3: all sodium arc lamps creating artificial moonlight. I love it.
Speaker 3: The other thing is Iggy Pop is in the film.
Speaker 3: That's because scheduling prevented him from staring in the first Crow.
Speaker 3: He was supposed to be fun Boy. That's the part
Speaker 3: Michael Massey played. It was that character's gun that fatally
Speaker 3: wounded Brandon Lee. In another universe, Iggy Pop killed Brandon Lee. Wait,
Speaker 3: that was two, So actually I have three three things
Speaker 3: I want to mention. I almost laugh. I almost laughed,
Speaker 3: like the count there, I'm not going to do that, Okay.
Speaker 3: This film also has some fucking awesome model work, particularly
Speaker 3: the city scape in the opening scene The Crow. It's
Speaker 3: the Crow's point of view. It flies past a Jesus
Speaker 3: Save sign where a clutch of the neon letters are
Speaker 3: burned out, so it reads save us. Look, maybe I'm
Speaker 3: easily impressed, but I thought that was super fucking cool
Speaker 3: to have an entire city pleading via a misappropriated religious ad.
Speaker 3: It foretold a level of greatness that the rest of
Speaker 3: the film could not live up to. But wait, you
Speaker 3: know what, there are more sequels? No, there aren't. How
Speaker 3: about that TV show? What the fuck are you talking about?
Speaker 3: To date, in my opinion, there have only been two
Speaker 3: other cinematic incarnations of The Crow, City of Angels and
Speaker 3: the current remake. Once again, this is the Crow.
Speaker 5: What's the first thing you liked about me?
Speaker 4: I know that you are quite brilliantly broken. You tree
Speaker 4: like my person, you feel like my pass.
Speaker 5: What's the worst thing you've ever done?
Speaker 4: I saw things I shouldn't have seen. Any of it
Speaker 4: When someone dies, a crow carry that soul.
Speaker 5: To the land of the dead.
Speaker 4: But sometimes something so bad happens that the soul cannot
Speaker 4: rest until you put the wrong things right. You were
Speaker 4: given the power of a god.
Speaker 3: But you're running out of time to save her.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna kill have you single one of them?
Speaker 4: I've killed you? Yeah, you did.
Speaker 1: We have a problem.
Speaker 3: He came first.
Speaker 5: First and pulse bar.
Speaker 4: It's not anger, it's love.
Speaker 5: What you becoming?
Speaker 4: You don't all the love problems is only patty. You
Speaker 4: have no idea?
Speaker 3: Hell await, excuse.
Speaker 5: No, I do?
Speaker 1: How many people I'll never be along?
Speaker 3: Remember at the start of the program when I was
Speaker 3: telling you all about the original comic and how the
Speaker 3: film that we know and love differs so wildly from it.
Speaker 3: It's not as severe as the differences between the Thing
Speaker 3: from another World and who goes there, the short story
Speaker 3: that it's based on. And I'm not saying that this
Speaker 3: Crow remake is an analog for John Carpenter's The Thing
Speaker 3: as far as quality. I bring the whole thing up
Speaker 3: because I'm actually talking about fan bases. Maybe I should
Speaker 3: just check out from social media, because fans of The
Speaker 3: Crow seem to be acting just like the Mad Max
Speaker 3: fan base, like the Star Wars fan base, just like they. Well,
Speaker 3: no one's as horrible as the Snyder fan base, so
Speaker 3: at least as a hierarchy to all is awful to
Speaker 3: see Crow fans so vocally derisve of something they haven't
Speaker 3: seen when there's a Crow movie out there starring Edward Furlong.
Speaker 3: Is very disappointing and as far as remikes go, this
Speaker 3: movie might not be the thing, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Speaker 3: There are lots of problems, but then there's also a
Speaker 3: lot to recommend it, first and foremost being the relationship
Speaker 3: between Eric and Shelley. For one thing, there is a
Speaker 3: relationship between Eric and Shelley. The first act of the
Speaker 3: film has plenty of intrigue, but it's less interested in
Speaker 3: the supernatural and it's more interested in these two characters
Speaker 3: finding each other, and it's lovely. The two leads I
Speaker 3: mentioned Pennywise, Bill skarsguard at the as Eric and British
Speaker 3: singer actress Fka Twiggs is Shelley, luminous and just as
Speaker 3: fucked up as Eric. Oh they're not happy go lucky
Speaker 3: kids in this one. Shelley is involved in all sorts
Speaker 3: of infarious dealings with some bad folk and finds her
Speaker 3: in a co ed correctional facility where she meets Eric.
Speaker 3: They break out and have a pretty phenomenal romance on
Speaker 3: the run. But this is the Crow, so that ain't
Speaker 3: gonna last. The film follows the same structure as the
Speaker 3: comic and the original film for that matter. Eric is
Speaker 3: returned from the dead with a crow to guide him,
Speaker 3: and he cannot die. That is his only power. He's
Speaker 3: self healing, which, by the way, it looks astonishingly good.
Speaker 3: The effects overall are used sparingly, but when they do,
Speaker 3: they pack a punch. Speaking of punches, this Eric doesn't
Speaker 3: come back a kung fu master. He's just a guy,
Speaker 3: and the fights start out stumbling and awkward. They get
Speaker 3: a little more nuanced by the end. Now actually they're
Speaker 3: not nuanced. He becomes a better fighter by the end.
Speaker 3: The fights do not become nuanced at all. They maintain
Speaker 3: a level of brutality that echoes the book in ways.
Speaker 3: The first film only hinted at I'm serious a couple
Speaker 3: of times. I actually looked away an aging gorehound like myself.
Speaker 3: You can be a gorehound, but that would have to
Speaker 3: be your official designation. You wouldn't a pug anymore, all right,
Speaker 3: we think about it, This is the Crow that New
Speaker 3: Line Cinema would have made in nineteen ninety four. They
Speaker 3: did try to buy it outright from James Obarr, but
Speaker 3: would have cut him out completely. So that's why he
Speaker 3: went with Jeff Most and John Shirley. And had this
Speaker 3: been made in nineteen ninety four, we would be talking
Speaker 3: about it right now as if it were a classic.
Speaker 3: But it's thirty years later. And while I don't feel
Speaker 3: like comparing the two films, the lingering ghosts of the
Speaker 3: first film's villains cannot be banished. The villains in this
Speaker 3: film are completely serviceable. There's nothing wrong with them. They're
Speaker 3: very well acted, and they're perfectly suited for this very
Speaker 3: real world to take on the Crow. The problem is
Speaker 3: even the comic book doesn't feature a real Detroit. That's
Speaker 3: fantasy Detroit, just like it was in the first film.
Speaker 3: Just like La was a nocturnal nightmare in City of Angels,
Speaker 3: all three had tons of character. This film takes place
Speaker 3: in nondescript major American city. I couldn't tell you if
Speaker 3: there was a coast involved or mountains, prairies. I have
Speaker 3: no idea. It shouldn't matter, but it does because, like
Speaker 3: I said, that first act is so endearing. I love
Speaker 3: these two kids. I'm rooting for them. I'm shattered when
Speaker 3: they're murdered. The rest of the film is fine. In fact,
Speaker 3: there are elements at play here that are superior to
Speaker 3: any iteration of the character so far, but those would
Speaker 3: be spoilers, and we shall not spoil lest the Crow
Speaker 3: showed up or the skull cowboy. That's a deep dive character,
Speaker 3: but insummation for that. I just want to say, fuck
Speaker 3: all the haters and fuck all the bad reviews. I
Speaker 3: was dismayed by the trailers for this film, just like you.
Speaker 3: It's because this setting seems so contemporary. Trust me, this
Speaker 3: is a fucking good movie and it tells a complete story,
Speaker 3: and I dig it. I'm not suggesting you spend any money.
Speaker 3: No no, no, no, no no no no, don't even rush.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying, sooner or later, there's gonna be a
Speaker 3: whole lot of Hey, this wasn't so bad all over
Speaker 3: social media. You mark my words.
Speaker 1: The crow.
Speaker 3: What do you think, baby? We did it again. We
Speaker 3: wrapped it up, We wrapped this week up in a bow,
Speaker 3: a long dark fishnet bow, black paper with black writing.
Speaker 3: All right, enough of the coffiness. Thank you once again,
Speaker 3: midnight viewers for joining us here at Father Malone's weekly
Speaker 3: round up. You want to tune in This coming Friday,
Speaker 3: we have Midnight Viewing the Horror Anthology podcast. We're taking
Speaker 3: a look at the next two episodes of Tales from
Speaker 3: the Dark Side. Until then, where can people find you? Ripley,
Speaker 3: don't stare at me, I'm just playing. You can find
Speaker 3: her here. You can find me here, and you can
Speaker 3: find me at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. And you can also
Speaker 3: find us at Patreon dot com slash Father them alone.
Speaker 3: If you want to support the show, get you episodes
Speaker 3: early in commercial free and some bonus episodes and such
Speaker 3: and such. Until next time, I'm gonna leave you with
Speaker 3: a line from the first filmed iteration of the Crow.
Speaker 4: I know you.
Speaker 3: I knew.
Speaker 1: I knew you. I knew because you ain't you.
Speaker 4: You can't be you.
Speaker 3: We put you through the window.
Speaker 4: There ain't no coming back. This is the really real work.
Speaker 1: There ain't no coming back.
Speaker 5: We should your dad, There ain't no, there ain't.
Speaker 4: No coming back, right, No coming back.
Speaker 1: M M
Speaker 5: A bass of devils and fellow awful goodness, you, fellow
Speaker 5: awful goodness.