Sunday Nightcap 12/23/12 Bye DB hello Steve plus the disappointments of Taken2, On the Road and Chow Yun Fat in Asaassins



The mad mind behind Unseen Films reveals his true self


DB here…but not for much longer…well not in a front and center mode anyway…or at least not as DB

Actually I’m actually not really leaving , what is going to happen over the next couple weeks is that the DB persona is going to take a step back and my real self, Steve, will be taking the spotlight. It’s going to be the same person, just under my real name.

For anyone who writes for Unseen or who knows me in the real world there is no big reveal, the difference is coming for all of you who read Unseen and for a number of people I deal with relating to Unseen. It’s that last bit that is forcing the change, simply put trying to run the blog under two names is not going to work any longer., there is too much confusion. I’ve had too many exchanges recently where people were confused as to which me was the real me.(“I don’t see any trace of you at Unseen…”, “That’s because I write under another name”, “OOOH, I get it now”)

The DB persona is something that has been kicking around for more years than I care to think. It came out of a friendship with a female friend and then carried over online. I then began posting and blogging under the name and it stuck. When I started Unseen as goof the name came with it. I used the name because it allowed for a clear division of the real world and the on-line world, which is now something that has become very very blurred. There was a time when I could switch hats, not it isn’t possible.

The weird thing is that when I started reviewing things, for a now long defunct website called Animation on DVD, I wrote under my real name. When the website folded I was told that everything I had done was going to be moved over to a new site and that I would be allowed to continue reviewing. That never happened and I was left drifting. The Steve stuff faded and the DB stuff survived.

Now it’s time to use a fader and switch some things around.

Nothing is changing but my name. Everything, you love or hate is going to remain.

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I saw the new screen version of Kerouac’s On the Road. I wish I could say more than that but the film made very little impression on me. Mostly I loved the narration and dialog, but the rest of it I could take or leave. The trouble is the novel works because of how it is written. The novel is the language. Stripping the language away or illustrating them is pointless. I could listen to the movie all day long, but as something to watch I need never see it again.

Chow Yun Fat recently stared in a film that’s called Assassins in English. The original title is Bronze Sparrow Terrace which probably makes more sense. The plot has something to do with a pair of teenagers trained for years to be assassins who end up mixed up in the Emperors court, and with the legendary Cao Cao (Chow). I’ve seen the film twice and I still don’t what to make of the film. Is it a drama of the royal court? Is it a romance? What of the occasional (barely) action scenes? I have no clue. To be honest the film feels like it was stapled together from three or four other films and released on an unsuspecting world. It’s not that the pieces are bad, they aren’t rather it’s that none of them work together. The most baffling thing concerned with the film is a remark I found in a review of the film that said this is the first part of a trilogy. Okay- but I’d really like to know where this goes from here.

Taken 2 disappointed me. It is so exactly what you think it's going to be, but with less action, for much of the first half that by the time the second half comes and Liam Neeson goes into action, it kind of rolls over and dies. The second half is better than the first but without a proper set up there is no emotional punch.

And now a heads up on the next two weeks of posts here at Unseen Films:

First up all this week I’m looking at stage plays and musicals that were broadcast on TV. Two can be had on home video, but three can not and the only way to run them down is if you know a crazy person, such as myself, who recorded them when they originally ran.

Tuesday is Christmas and if all goes well I should have a very special treat going up sometime after noon.

Wednesday is Boxing Day so expect a boxing related film in the afternoon.

Next weekend some reviews of John Pilger films that have been bouncing around being scheduled and rescheduled for the last six months will finally get posted.

Also next Sunday my own personal four part year end list extravaganza, starts with a look at the festivals, Then we go the worst films of the year, followed by the film finds and then the best/favorite films.The lists are, as always uniquely my own (and the reason I decline participating in a critics round up, no one was going to pick the films I loved).

All of the transition week from 2012 to 2013 I’m going to take a look at a bunch of 2012 films that were worth noting. The week is bookended by pieces on animation, one on the sequels and the other on the horror films.

By then, my own transformation should be done and we can rocket on to our third anniversary in February. Keep reading because we'll keep posting.


Photo courtesy of Randi