Parables Of Riddick.

Installment three of the Riddick juggernaut opens today. The Vin Diesel publicity machine is in overdrive, selling a labor-of-love that's been soon come long time. Vin has fast and furiously found time to service other projects in the intervening period. I see in the society columns this includes starting a family. Nice.

Vin's navel-string connection to the Riddick mythic remains his most personal. My own brush with this franchise-of-the-moment remains resonant with me too - nine years after the Universal extravagance of The Chronicles Of Riddick.

Director of both films David Twohy, a man with the air of a New England rambler, makes a noteworthy foil to Vin's engagingly temperate braggadocio. By my observation, he's a Science Fiction fan. Casting for Chronicles was an intuitive process to the point where we were encouraged, in between gym visits, to name our own characters. Previously nameless lifer-convicts in the middle third of a sprawling, futuristic, extra-planetary adventure.

I called my guy Sniper. The unthinkable Washington D.C. shooting mayhem was recent memory. I stole the vacant soul of Jamaican born Lee Boyd Malvo for backstory. Director comments in my DVD extras keep that angle alive for me, despite much of the screen evidence falling by the way.

I'll have no spoilers on the new Riddick 'til I see it, so read on without fear. The Crematoria arc was very time-consuming to shoot but we got some stunning otherworldly footage. Backlot security was tight but there was a controlled stream of visitors. Like Vin's sis, his mom and kids belonging to Vin's twin bro.

One special day I had my own daughter with me. Coming back from lunch there was an unexpected gathering on our working soundstage, but all film-making activity had ceased. Vin's bullhorn baritone led cast and crew in a Birthday serenade, surprising her, and me, with sixteen candles in a cake. This raised the bar for such milestones in my neighborhood.

Riddick keeps good company. I had camaraderie with Judi Dench, Thandie Newton, Alexa Davalos, Keith David, Colm Fiore,Yorick Van Wageningen and others, while working among a filial cadre of local performers enjoying the bombastic profile of high-level production. It was here, during the hurry-up-and-wait interstices, that I tasted rare humility in Scrabble, which vied with Poker for pastime of choice.

Not to mention Snoop (then) Dogg hit-up da after-party in L.A.

Vin gifted me a VHS copy of Multi-Facial, his first short film. It features a diamond performance from an actor with more versatility than some recognize. You get the feeling he could do virtually anything with direct efficiency, power and charm. Like the best of America's husky heroes.

Makes me wanna send Riddick to go Rambo on Syria.

... apres destructo cinema ...

... can't swear to it but I'm fairly certain this happens from time to time where you live too ... when the going gets tough, the tough go to the movies ...

... with Haiti on the mind and the perpetual high stakes of this complex existence we are a part of, screen fantasy can offer a pressure-release valve, a chance to visit another dimension or the illusion of one ... to breathe in a popcorn-scented, climate-controlled change from routine and limiting existences ... this is true even if the world you are transported to is post-apocalyptic ... or an imaginary, ex-planetary one ...

... I've got news for The Brothers Hughes ... if your story is set in a time following a great manifestation of pestilence or destruction ... and, you style the look of your film in the dusty tradition of Mad Max, you court the tag "post-apocalyptic" ... and, if you construct the sets to be reminiscent of wild-western towns, saloon, shoot-out street, head-'em-off-at-the-pass buzzard's-eye P.O.V. and all, then we will see cowboys and sheriff badges ... jus' so it go ... but why not?, these are genre choices which don't preclude the result being enjoyable ....












... so, when my son said he had strong thoughts of me as he watched The Book Of Eli, and really wanted to know what I thought of it, I was intrigued but thought better of digging too deep for fear of spoilers ...















... what I encountered at the cinema shortly thereafter was a seductively drab futuristic High Plains Drifter ... on foot ... but that wasn't all, this take on the doomsday scenario is as crisply conceived in its sense-of-self as any that preceded it within the genre, the difference here for me was in the pulse ...

... the broadly drawn, unhurried story developments liberated space between the superhero moments ... allowing time to luxuriate in the visuals and decide how to ... or whether to ... suspend disbelief around the nagging questions and doubts which are inevitable when the baddies are so mindlessly led by malevolence and negativity, to no relatable end ...

... my choice for saviour in this case is the consistently deft craftsman Denzel Washington, who walks the unlikely middle ground between Clint Eastwood and New York Governor David Paterson ... my turn with Vin Diesel et al in The Chronicles Of Riddick gave me first-hand exposure to how an actor manoeuvres behind permanent eyewear ... so, after watching, I can with some confidence, endorse Denzizzy as a past master of the art ...

... the "apres destructo" theme is worth a thought in these times ... so too are the psycho-spiritual constructs which inform the specifics of human morality and conduct ... it's a recipe for success if filmmakers can marry popular entertainment to a contemplation of higher calling ... hence the zen-cool, quick-draw defense of the Christian cornerstone enriches Eli in the same way James Cameron's paleo-astral metaphor for environmental responsibility has turned Avatar into his, and the world's, biggest grossing film ... in effect sinking the Titanic one more time ...














... the strong suit here is the scale and scope of Cameron's effort of course, more an indicator of where we are going than where we have been ...

... the vividly realized world of Pandora is rivalled in this film by subtexts in the shooting script ... the hardly veiled twin-threat of oppression and exploitation have the same familiar feel to them now as they had at the start of the previous decades ... if it is accepted that art mimics life then surely we must interpret the truths at the heart of this blockbuster statement as a cinematic challenge to make adjustments ...

... Jake Sully makes significant moves in his character arc, rejecting the part of himself that was obsolete and embracing that which was concealed behind "cultural" barriers ... why concealed, by whom and for what purpose, is for a different post ...










... "avatar" will become a common word I predict ... first used, then over-used and eventually mis-used, but Earth is our Home Tree and, in the absence of readily available alien life-forms, we get the chance to be our own avatars and merge with our fellow inhabitants ...

... I think that's essentially what Eli's book is trying to tell us too ... and, I must have gotten it across to my son at some point ... or maybe I just remind him of Denzel  ... ;-) ...