THE FALL (2006) - when, will it, will it be famous?

THE FALL
(2006, India/UK/USA)

It’s possible to fall in love with new Hollywood movies that cost millions of dollars but no-one has heard of. These can be box-office flops that were killed by word of mouth and/or negative critical reaction. I think The Fall just never got a good enough launch. Looking at the reviews and reactions of anyone who's seen it, there's a potentially large audience out there. An audience that is having to discover the film for themselves. Logically, this is a bizarre phenomenon for an epic film. Sort of similarly, another film slowly gaining an audience is last year's Speed Racer, which had a huge marketing push that somehow failed to attract an adult audience. Speed Racer was special effects-heavy, as in every single scene, while The Fall is also spectacularly beautiful, but naturally so.

Last year, after a telling delay, it was finally released in the UK. I was very interested because of director Tarsem Singh’s previous film The Cell (2000), a mixture of imaginatively lush visuals and dark subject matter - a journey into the mind of a serial killer. I suspect that more people would have gotten to see The Fall if the story hadn’t taken such a late hairpin turn into the dark side, because it's almost a children's film... for all ages.


It's Hollywood, 1915. A stuntman is recovering in hospital from a broken leg. Another patient, a little girl, happens to visit him one day and he starts making up a story for her. A swashbuckling tale full of colourful characters in even more colourful, fantastic locations. The little girl has to imagine it all, but we see everything as he describes it. A band of skilled adventurers from far-flung lands, teaming up against a common foe in a mysterious desert kingdom. The little girl visits him every day for a little more of the story. But as the stuntman’s luck goes bad in real life, he evokes his troubles on the characters in his story, much to the distress of the little girl. Will there be a happy ending to his story?


The Fall starts off as a good-natured, multi-cultural adventure intercut with the light-hearted friendship of the stuntman and the little girl, a slightly unusual and different-looking family film. But towards the end, the tone shifts and gets very dark very quickly, making the film rough for young children and adults expecting to chill out. This leaves the film in a niche category of adult-biased dark fairytales. Presumably this made the film too hard a sell but shouldn't have sunk it completely. It's hopefully being discovered on DVD and, especially, Blu-Ray which is perfect for spectaculars like this.


Director Tarsem (as he now calls himself) has carefully picked beautiful and astonishing locations that I’ve not seen before, though I suspect that some may have already appeared in Indian cinema. Of the many other countries used in the film, he's also revisited a few choice locations from Baraka (1992), a mix of startling images and music from the cinematographer of Koyaanisqatsi (1982). With Tarsem's flair for cinematographic splendour and outlandish fashions, the movie regularly looks surreal, though the marvellous vistas actually exist.


The international cast is led by the charismatic Lee Pace (star of Pushing Daisies). Whenever I see an actor successfully play two entirely different roles, I’m very impressed. Pace impresses as the attractive romantic action hero, but he was also totally convincing as a male-to-female transsexual in A Soldier’s Story! Anyone who can succeed in polar-opposite roles can surely play a whole range between.

While the climax is problematic, The Fall is still the most sumptuous, FX-lite, eye candy of last year, and likely to fuel holiday ideas for decades to come.

DVD Beaver has more screengrabs here, and the promotional website is still live.

After a clue in the end credits, it turned out that the story has been filmed before, on a much lower budget. Yo Ho Ho (1981) is a Bulgarian film that's provided the inspiration here. Though Tarsem has made The Fall very much his own, it would be interesting to compare it. There's a plot description and some useful screengrabs here at Gotterdammerung.

Happy Birthday, Gerry Anderson - thank you for the rock snakes

My first memory of going to the cinema was of being frightened by a Martian rock snake (above). My mum had taken me to see a movie that span off one of my favourite TV shows, Thunderbirds. Thunderbirds Are Go is still in my top ten, and after all this time never fails to entertain me from start to finish. During the Zero X expedition to Mars, man encounters a strange new alien lifeform that haunted my nightmares for years.

While Thunderbirds has always been derided for being entirely cast with puppet characters, and sent up recently with Team America: World Police, I've always taken it at face value, immersed in the stories. The modelwork and special effects were unprecedented for any TV show, even adult ones, for years to come. For a children's show, it didn't get any better for adventure, action and entertainment.


Thunderbirds is the pinnacle of Gerry Anderson's 'puppet years', inspiring me to watch everything he has ever produced. I have boxes of his shows, most of which are from the 1960's and 1970's. Fireball XL5, Stingray, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, UFO and Space 1999 are the best, but all his series have endured repeated TV showings and every subsequent home video format.

Despite moving into live-action TV back in 1969, Gerry has remained firmly associated with his puppet shows. He recently leapt into the CGI world with a reinvention of the Captain Scarlet series, using motion-captured 3D computer-generated characters for a terribly overlooked and gritty series.


I could talk about his work for hours, though these pages are fairly unaffected so far. I'm not alone though - there's these new books coming out for instance. Filmed In Supermarionation goes behind the scenes on the extensive special effects work involved in the shows, and two volumes of Century 21 reprints some of the beautiful comic strips that appeared in the tabloid-sized comic TV21. Also, Gerry's shows are being remastered for HD presentation. Fanderson, the fan club, is still thriving, and new merchandise still keeps coming out for shows that are over forty years old (besides endless Japanese Thunderbirds replicas, there's also a new Stingray CD soundtrack just out).


But, for providing me with so many thrilling memories, I can only say thank you, and...

Happy 80th birthday, Gerry. Wishing you many more.

Walking in L.A. - BLADE RUNNER locations and Japanese shopping

A quick, furtive look round Downtown Los Angeles

Last year, I had a couple of days to spare in Los Angeles, but no car. Luckily I was staying near a subway station of the slowly spreading LA County Metro Rail. There are convenient stops near tourist attractions like Universal Studios (the Metro stop is Universal City), Mann's Chinese Theater and the Kodak Center (both near the Hollywood & Highland stop). The tunnels and the Hollywood station featured extensively in the central heist in The Italian Job remake in 2003.


I first surfaced at the Civic Center stop, just two short blocks from the new Walt Disney Concert Hall, at 111 South Grand Avenue, an architectural marvel from the same designer as the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum (which was seen briefly at the start of Tomorrow Never Dies). The curved reflective silver surfaces intersect in shapes that almost defy description. On a sunny day it's hard to look at the outside without being blinded by the glare, perfect for busy intersections!

Walking downhill, I wanted a closer look at the huge tower atop City Hall, that was blown to pieces (in miniature) in the original The War of the Worlds (1953).


I kept going until Little Tokyo, that has several streets of Japanese stores. I was surprised by a huge replica of a space shuttle standing in the street, that celebrates the first Japanese astronaut in space.


In a small outdoor multi-level mall off E 1st Street is Kinokuniya, an excellent Japanese bookstore that had a good selection of DVDs and film-related books and magazines. Many of the DVDs had English subtitles, but there wasn't much anime.


Not to worry, for only a block away at 319 E 2nd Street was Anime Jungle, a store full of rare DVDs, magazines and Japanese toys. A mixture of the best US and Japanese anime releases.

A short walk to 304 South Broadway meant I could return to the Bradbury Building, a stop that we made on our first trip to the East Coast, ten years earlier. The interior of this office block was a pivotal shooting location for Blade Runner (1982), doubling for the interior of J.F. Sebastian's apartment block.


The staircase, lift, entrance hall, elevator, balconies and skylight are all in the film - an evocative place for BR fans. The exterior shots of the front entrance were dressed up with huge pillars, but the cinema opposite, the Million Dollar Theater, was visible in the reverse shots, like when Pris bangs into Sebastian's car.



A couple of blocks north is the 2nd Street tunnel, used for a startling night scene of Deckard driving, his headlights illuminating the shiny interior of the tunnel. Luckily there's a sidewalk running through the tunnel so it's easy to get a close look.

From the tunnel it's just a short walk back to the Walt Disney Concert Hall - a very satisfying circular tour.


Back onto the Metro, it's only one stop further to Union Station, where the main hall was also used in Blade Runner. The establishing shot of Deckard being escorted towards the police chief's office used the huge interior of this beautiful art deco building.

So if you're ever in town, just a few reasons to detour Downtown.

ORANG MINYAK (2007) - the Oily Man of Malaysian legend

ORANG MINYAK
(2007, Malaysia, The Oily Man)

I couldn't visit a new country without sampling the local horror films. While browsing DVDs, I remembered this title one from a poster on 24framespersecond, back when it was first in cinemas. There's definitely better Malayan movies out there and low-budget horror films give a remarkably skewed view of a country's film industry. But while Orang Minyak (2007) is pretty bad, it led me to a previous version of the legend Sumpah Orang Minyak (1957) which was far more impressive, and I review it further down...

Watching Orang Minyak, the complexities of the plot, if there are any, were hamperered by the lack of English subtitles. Like Thailand, the available languages on DVDs vary from film to film. But here goes...

In a small village in the rainforest, young women are being attacked in their homes at night. A bald, naked man, apparently covered in black grease, hypnotises his victims with red glowing eyes, rapes them and leaves them comatose. The villagers know that the Oily Man of ancient legend is back. But two of them are confused because they'd already vanquished the evil spirit by imprisoning it in a small bottle and throwing it in a lake. Meanwhile the Oily Man is loose, and has sealed a deal with the devil - he's going to need 21 victims in all...


While I've little idea about local beliefs and customs in rural Malaysia, I do know when a camera is out of focus, which it repeatedly is in many shots. Added to this the special effects, brightly coloured animated overlays, which give the film the surreal look of a Chinese ghost story from the 1980's. Together with a flurry of film scratches that belong to 1970's prints, this movie looks decades older than it actually is.

The demon, with red glowing eyes, looks most effective in close up. But in longshots he's unconvincing, wearing what look like skindiver's rubber trousers pulled up to his chest. His superhuman leaping around is achieved with rather slow wirework. The atmosphere is helped by the deep blue light that bathes the night scenes, but the Oily Man is often far too well lit to look anything other than a non-oily man.


The story stalls as the attacks continue without progressing the plot. The young hero tries to defeat the Oily Man with martial arts and cheap animation, where the local priests' ceremonies and endless angry villager meetings have failed.

The broad acting from the supporting cast, and lush jungle locations reminded me of Thai horror films of ten years ago. While this film is sold as horror, and despite the theme of sexual violence, the film is actually non-explicit and I'm presuming it was made for a general audience, particularly with it's many slightly comical characters.

The trailer is here on YouTube, but you have been warned. If you want a horror film, this isn't one. The Malaysian DVD, from Golden Satellite, has no other languages on it, 5.1 stereo, and is letterboxed but not anamorphic. The cover art is the same as the poster. (Movie stills and poster courtesy of Sinema Malaysia).

SUMPAH ORANG MINYAK
(1957, Malaysia, Curse of the Oily Man)

Looking around online for more information about Orang Minyak (which hasn't even got an IMDB entry), I learned of the earlier filmed version of the legend, Sumpah Orang Minyak (1957), which I thought I'd little chance of seeing, until discovering it was also on YouTube in it's entirety (linked below)! It's a very different story, grander in scale, in budget, and in the end more effectively scary than the modern version. Again, it has no subtitles.

Starting off as a drama, in the vein of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, a facially disfigured man (possibly referenced in the new version by a priest with a hugely swollen jawbone) is taken in by an unlucky batik printer. But the dirty-faced outcast is also an excellent artist and helps turn the printer's business around.

When the hunchbacked outcast gets viciously bullied by local fishermen, the women of the village take pity and he begins to fall in love with one of them. While believing she couldn't ever love him back, he appeals to the gods and is miraculously restored to full health and a handsome appearance. But when he approaches his intended love, the villagers realise who he really is and get ugly. They attack him, and by killing one of them, he angers the gods. Outcast once again, he makes a deal with the devil, and is transformed into the Oily Man, and takes revenge with a rampage of violence.

This black and white film gets a handsome budget and big sets, managed by Run Run Shaw, the producer who went on to make it big in Hong Kong by making dozens of internationally successful kung fu films. Some of the special effects rely on simple editing, and appear a little bit Monkey, but there are elaborate camera effects too. The cinematography and acting are far superior to the modern version - but it's a fantasy drama that only really enters the darker supernatural world towards the climax.

While it's again aimed at a family audience, this version is slightly more explicit, more bloody and even gets unsettling, when we hear the nerve-jangling screams of his victims. A grisly touch is the oily 'X' he draws on their faces.

Altogether it's very watchable, and one of the best 1950's Asian films (from outside of Japan) that I've seen.

The film is available on VideoCD, as an example of a Malaysian classic movie, and also for the lead actor P. Ramlee, a much-loved actor and singer of the time. He plays the multiple central roles, sings a couple of songs, in the heaven sequences and directed as well.

The entire film is on YouTube, part 1 is embedded below, but the Oily Man doesn't appear in the story until part 8...

SF Giants 2009

Looking back on the 2008 season the Giants have much to look forward too and also a new look. We have moved on from the Barry Bonds era. In fact the team has a new icon in a scrawny white kid, quite the difference from the huge Bonds. Tim Lincecum was a sensation last year. The kid blew away the competition and won 18 games for a team that only won 72 last year. The team did try to get younger is most ways, there any many new younger faces and they are joined by a few veterans too. Giants are going into the 2009 season with a lot of question makes on offense, lots of unproven talent that hopefully will make some big steps and help the team get better. The pitching staff is stacked. Especially the starting 5. I think this is the best starting 5 in the NL, heck maybe even in the league. The bullpen has been bolstered by the additions of some vets as well. I still think the team should have gone after some bats in the off-season. I read that they will have money to after players IF they are still in the race when the trading deadline starts. I think this is bullshit, why wait to see if teams will give up players then? They are making excuses for why they didn’t address issues of need when they had the chance. Sure we might be able to nap some huge star but who? And for how long? I think the lack of proven hitting will lead to some losses; I think the team can be competitive but I just don’t see a big winning record. I think they will win around 80 games this year and hopefully develop some talent and sign someone who can hit the long ball. If all thing fall into place they could somehow make a good run at the division, but that’s a long a shot in my eyes. Here is a run down by position and how I think the players will do.


Starting Positions:

C – Bengie Molina – Last year Molina was clutch. He should have been an all-star. The guy plays gold glove like D, ends up with 95 RBI’s, and commands a pitching staff that produces a Cy Young winner. Big man gets no respect! I think Molina is a great guy to have on the team. He will be a great mentor to current up and comers Pablo Sandoval and maybe even Buster Posey. I look for Molina to hit around .280/ 15 HR/ 80 RBI.

1B - Travis Ishikawa – I am glad he won the starting nod at first. The guy is built and why is getting a great shot to prove himself. Of course this could be his last shot, he has had a few tries before this one. I think he will be a good player, he was tied for most HR’s in spring training but he is a not a long ball guy. I think he could earn a spot for good with a nice showing, of if nothing else he could become a good back up player. I look for these type numbers. .270/ 14 HR / 67RBI

2B – Emmanuel Burris – Burris had a good rookie year and an even better spring training to wing the starting spot straight out. Now he will have to prove he has the slick glove and can steal some bases. He is no long ball threat, but he is young and could prove to be a valuable source of speed and good D. I think he will have a pretty good year and could get some steals and much needed runs for the team. .290/ 3HR/ 35 RBI/ 27 SB

SS – Edgar Renteria – A proven hitter is a nice thing to have at short. Last year the Giants had almost no offense contribution from the SS position. Just signing the guy means we will have something better then we did last year. He had an off year in Detroit but he is coming back to the NL, where he hits much better. He may have lost a step but it’s nice to have a former All-Star on the team. Look for these type numbers. .275/12/65

3B – Pablo Sandoval – Ah yes, the Giant who everyone is looking forward to seeing for a whole year (me included). He looks like Tony Gwynn in his later years and also hit like him after his call up last year. In 41 games he hit .345 and had 24 RBI’s. The guy looks like he can hit for good average and get some RBI’s. Not so sure he has power but he did win a home run contest for the Dominican Republic. I can’t wait to see what he will do. I predict: .325/ 12 HR/ 84 RBI

OF – Aaron Rowand, Fred Lewis, and Randy Winn –

Rowand was the big signing last year but had a regular numbers season. He did go through some injury problems but I think having been around for a year and knowing more of the team and park will help rebound. He may never put up the numbers he did with the Phillies but he is a solid ball player. Looking for: .288/15HR/74 RBI.

Fred Lewis is a great hustle player who runs well and has a great arm. He is fan favorite because he hustles and goes full blast on every play. He is still somewhat young and still could grow. He put up solid numbers last year and I think he can better some if not most of his numbers from last year: .292/ 15 HR/ 57 RBI/ 22 SB

Randy Winn is another great player, he isn’t flashy but he is a good player and good teammate. He plays with a lot of heart and can get on hot streaks very quickly. He is getting up there in years, but this is a contact year for him. I would look for another good season from Winn. It is pretty easy to see what you will get from him: .288/ 10 HR/ 63 RBI/ 20 SB

Starting Pitchers:

Tim Lincecum – What else can the kid do? We all know he was a monster last year. He did it all, and won the Cy Young. The sky’s the limit for this kid. I don’t think he will let anyone down this year, but also he might not be able to do what he did last year. I still look for a solid year from the kid, and I cannot wait to see him baffle guys with his stuff: Record of 16-8/ ERA 2.76/ 240 K’s.

Randy Johnson – I was surprised the Giants were able to nab the big unit. He has a decent year last year for the b-backs. He will strike out a bunch of guys and if keeps healthy and starts 30 or so games he will easily get his 300 wins and have a good season. He does tend to give up more runs then he used to but I would look for these type numbers: 12-10/ 3.73/ 170K’s

Matt Cain – Ah Matt, you had another no luck year. Is this now a trend? I sure hope not because Cain had another great year but continues to be the least supported starter in the game. His bullpen also happens to blow it when he has a lead. I really feel for the guy, I have been following him since he was playing A ball in San Jose. I think if all goes well he will nod more wins, but either way he is a great pitcher: 14-12/ 3.64 / 180 Ks

Barry Zito – Barry has been here a few years and pretty much has been a disappointment. At least he is a cool guy. He always seems to get his shit together towards the end of the season, like he did last year. Too bad he starting out like 0-9. shit! I think he will do better, what else am I going to think?: 12-13/ 4.54/ 120K’s

Jonathan Sanchez – Sanchez was having a strong start to last season but towards the end it all just fell apart for him. He went from being 8-5 to 9-12 to finish the year. He is still very young and unproven, now is the season he can show how good he is. To be honest I don’t think he would be a fifth starter on a lot of teams. He usually strikes out 8 every time he pitches. He just needs to keep it together and have a break out season: 11-13/ 4.33/175K’s


Bullpen/Bench:

The Giants Bullpen added some much needed veteran players. Jeremy Affeldt was good singing, they also got Bob Howry. Also getting back Merkin Valdez, who missed almost all of lat year will be nice. He was tearing it up before he went down due to injury. Also we have the All-Star closer in Brian Wilson. He was pretty good in his first year of closing duties. He still needs to work on throwing fewer pitches and to give up fewer runners. He did convert 41 of 47 saves last year. If the Giants get improved bullpen help look for more wins, they will no doubt have a lot of close games and the pen needs to get the ball in the hands of Wilson who can usually close the deal.

Giants have some good bench players. Rich Aurilia is a good player to have. He can man the corners and hits well in clutch situations. Eugenio Velez has nice speed and also had some nice hits off the bench last year, he can also play 2B/SS/OF. Juan Uribe is a veteran who can hit the ball if needed and plays 3B and SS; he also brings World Series experience. These players will counted on for much needed hitting and fielding to win games.

THE CHASING WORLD (2008) - deadly fast-paced fun

THE CHASING WORLD
(2008, Japan, Riaru onigokko)

My friend Del (the brains behind 24framespersecond) showed me the trailer for this one and I immediately wanted to see it. So far, the only English-subtitled version is this Malaysian DVD (above) which I stupidly purchased just before visiting Malaysia. The disc isn't recommended, due to lousy subtitles and poor motion compression, but at least I've seen it now.

While the literal translation is something like The Real Monster Game, it's known in English under the catchier title of The Chasing World. The low budget makes the very most of a little. Like Monty Python and the Holy Grail couldn't afford real horses, The Chasing World is like Death Race 2000 without the cars. Scary masked assassins (the iconic poster image) roam the streets and garrot their victims with red hot wire weapons that cut through bodies like Swiss cheese!

Tsubasa Sato is a teenager who's great at not being caught. He can run fast and even up the walls, parkour-style, useful for evading school bullies. But throughout the city, there's a wave of freak accidents killing anyone with the rather common surname of Sato. Just as Tsubasa gets cornered by his enemies, he suddenly swaps dimensions into an alternate world where everything looks similar but different. There, his best friends are a gay couple, his dad isn't a drunk, and Japan is ruled by an insane emperor who's rooting out anyone called Sato in a series of sanctioned street fights. It's their actions that are triggering the freak events in the real world.

As Tsubasa Sato starts running for his life, he starts piecing together his alternate life, family and friends. If he survives, maybe he can also fix his family problems by altering events in this parallel world.


Like a classic Roger Corman film (let's say anything between 1950 and 1979), the constraint of the low budget has made this inventive but no less ambitious. The story is more anime adventure than science fiction, a story that supports the premise of the running game rather than any consistent logic. There are several witty touches early on, but the tone gets more downbeat and starts taking itself a little too seriously. For such a flimsy premise, it could have had a little more fun with it. Likewise, the implied sexual abuse of his semi-comatose sister makes the story more real than it needs to be.

Otherwise, it's fast-paced fun, with dynamic fights, a little gore, and special effects that verge on impressive, particularly the futuristic imperial tower dominating the city skyline. Though shot on video, there's superior camerawork and dynamic composition giving it a very filmic look. Just because there's no money, doesn't mean not taking the story, the acting and the cinematography seriously. Veteran actor Akira Emoto is particularly impressive as the nasty doctor. In the end, this was a surprise hit in Japanese cinemas.


The Malaysian DVD is fairly easy to get hold of, until a better release comes along, at HKflix for instance. The subtitles are very vaguely translated and didn't convey the complexities of the plot. The action scenes are juddery and spoilt by the poor compression. The trailer I mentioned isn't on the DVD. So I'll definitely buy this again if/when it gets released anywhere else in English.

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN (1980) - a blast into the past

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN
(1980, USA)

This was far better than I remembered in the cinema, when I was expecting a big summer blockbuster movie. High on the possibilities posited by mysterious non-fiction paperbacks like Charles Berlitz' The Bermuda Triangle and The Philadelphia Experiment, I was initially disappointed by this slightly science fiction, naval drama. It's like a single Twilight Zone episode padded out by a US Navy recruitment film. That’s not to say it doesn’t have a certain bonkers charm.

Though the widescreen photography of military hardware would soon be eclipsed by the stylish, kinetic camera-moves and even faster editing in Top Gun six years later, this has a tantalising premise that carries along most of the story. A US aircraft carrier sets sail from Pearl Harbor in 1980, but is sucked back in time to 1941, just before the fateful sneak attack by the Japanese air force. The Final Countdown sets up far more possibilities than it delivers on, but it's Sunday afternoon fun while it lasts. The variable acting from the supporting cast, the actual crew of the USS Nimitz, is bolstered by an impressive display of jets, helicopters, perilous take-offs and landings.

A top-heavy cast tries to pump up the drama of the meagre plot. A battered-looking Kirk Douglas never quite takes it all totally seriously, despite the evidence before his character's eyes, and he looks much older than he did in his previous Holocaust 2000 or The Fury. A young-looking Martin Sheen appears relaxed and grateful to be out of the jungle hell of Apocalypse Now, looking good despite his heart attack during filming. James Farentino (Dead and Buried, Blue Thunder) appears grateful he's not doing TV. Katherine Ross (The Stepford Wives) looks grateful that the so-bad-they're-good The Legacy and The Swarm are behind her.

Bizarrely, future chief of schlock quickie, straight-to-video factory Troma Films, Lloyd Kaufman, not only associate produces here, but gets a bit part as communications officer 'Lloyd'. This must be the biggest film he's ever worked on. In fact, the budget would probably pay for everything he's done before and since. (Update: there's a blatantly honest interview with Lloyd on the Blue Underground special edition that's well worth watching, detailing how the movie could have been very bad indeed, or almost never made at all. Plus a frank account of his experience of the cast and crew!).


Though it's light on special effects (especially considering it was up against The Empire Strikes Back in the cinemas), the impressive aspect is the use of real craft instead of effects. Though James Bond title sequence veteran Maurice Binder produced the beautiful, simple, and scary time tunnel effects - the genre highpoint of the film, heightened by eerie sound effects. While John Scott composed the stirring soundtrack that’s almost too good to be used on this - the music was the only thing I'd actually remembered over the years between viewings. Recently, it's had a CD release, with some interesting liner notes in which Scott recalls his time on the project. He also mentions that his music was 're-used' in Japan and even became a hit single! Anyone out there know what Japanese music in the style of The Final Countdown soundtrack? I'll ignore any quips about Europe...

Blue Underground have released a handsome 2.35 anamorphic widescreen DVD, and a Blu-Ray! Lavish treatment indeed, but I'm very tempted. The largely location photography bathed in sunlight should look good in high-definition.