Doctor Strange

One of the more interesting superheroes to come out of Marvel Comics’ incredible burst or creativity during the 1960s was Doctor Strange. First appearing in Strange Tales #110, he was the brainchild of idiosyncratic artist Steve Ditko and was inspired by stories of black magic and the radio adventure serial Chandu the Magician. The comic book introduced the concept of mysticism into the Marvel Universe and, with its surrealistic imagery, anticipated the psychedelic counterculture of the latter part of the decade.

Doctor Strange (2016) is the 14th film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and continues the company’s successful formula that has repeatedly made them box office darlings. Let’s face it, with a Marvel movie you know exactly what you’re going to get and audiences take comfort in that, especially during these uncertain times. While this movie does not divert from their tried and true formula (if it ain’t broke…), they are finding new ways to present it through inspired casting and impressive-looking visuals.

Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is an arrogant and brilliant neurosurgeon whose life changes radically when he gets into a car accident that damages his hands, rendering him unable to perform surgeries. Benedict Cumberbatch is superb in these early scenes as an egomaniac doctor reminiscent of Hugh Laurie’s conceited medical profession on the popular television program House M.D. He’s not above humiliating a colleague (Michael Stuhlbarg) he feels is beneath him while charming an attractive surgeon (Rachel McAdams) and is very selective in the cases he takes on. Cumberbatch nails the cool and aloof nature of Strange and is not afraid to portray him initially as a conceited prick.

Devastated, Strange travels to Nepal after meeting with a paraplegic man (Benjamin Bratt) that was mysteriously healed at a place known as Kamar-Taj. He meets the enigmatic Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who, in turn, introduces him to the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton). She opens his eyes to a whole new world or, rather, worlds and dimensions while also altering the way he sees things, like being able to exist on the astral plane. The guided tour through the multiverse is a wonderfully trippy sequence that fuses the philosophical mumbo jumbo of The Matrix (1999) with the hallucinogenic imagery of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

Strange is also schooled in the ways of the mystic arts that playfully blends aspects of the Harry Potter movies (especially objects that have a life of their own) with period martial arts movies from the 1970s. Not surprisingly, the brilliant man is a quick learner, taking the initiative and figuring out how to astral project before he’s taught how to do so.

Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen), a former pupil of the Ancient One, and now a renegade sorcerer, has stolen pages from one of her sacred tomes, which allows him to manipulate time. He wants to draw power from the Dark Dimension and acquire eternal life by summoning the powerful Dormammu. Naturally, a reluctant Strange is enlisted to stop Kaecilius and save the world.

The most engaging Marvel movies feature inspired casting choices and, in this respect, Doctor Strange excels with the casting of Cumberbatch as Strange. He gets the self-importance of the character while also displaying fantastic comic timing with the humorous observations that are sprinkled lightly throughout the movie. With her otherworldly presence, Tilda Swinton is ideally cast as the benevolent Ancient One, an immortal being that protects the world from other dimensions but might not be as benign as she appears to be. Chiwetel Ejiofor brings a quiet dignity to Mordo whose ideology clashes with Strange’s own only for it to change when he discovers something about the Ancient One late in the movie.

Doctor Strange is the first Marvel movie to use 3D effectively as evident in an eye-popping sequence where Kaecilius and his followers chase Strange and Mordo through the streets of New York City, bending and manipulating matter so that buildings split apart and fold in on themselves, taking a similar scene in Christopher Nolan’s Inception (2010) to a whole other level of complexity and scale. Furthermore, in a nice touch, when Strange enters the Dark Dimension to have it out with Dormammu, the filmmakers bring Ditko’s mind-altering artwork vividly to life. Along with Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Doctor Strange is the most visually rich Marvel movie to date with a distinctive look that differentiates it from the others.

It may be odd to say and not really stretch if you think about it, but Doctor Strange is also the most intellectual effort in the Marvel Cinematic Universe – albeit in a superficial, popcorn movie kind of way, if that makes any sense. There are several scenes that involve characters arguing or expounding large chunks of dialogue about notions of time and space and the dangers of manipulating them. While the movie features the requisite battles between super-powered beings, it attempts to make them different visually from other Marvel fare. To this end, Strange fights one of Kaecilius’ followers on the astral plane while Rachel McAdams’ doctor tries to revive his physical body. I also like that the climactic battle circumvents the traditional slugfest by having our hero outwit the villain with his intellect. There’s a lot to like about Doctor Strange and I am curious to see where they go with this character.

Lost Souls

Sometimes you can go exploring the nooks and crannies of an actor’s filmography for an obscure gem or an unfairly overlooked film. Lost Souls (2000), starring Winona Ryder, is not one of those movies. Filmed in 1998 and scheduled to be released in October 1999, it was pushed back to February 2000 in order to avoid the glut of supernatural thrillers like End of Days, The Ninth Gate and Stigmata that were populating the multiplexes at the time. It was rescheduled again to October to avoid going up against the popular Scream franchise where it went up against the re-release of The Exorcist (1973) and promptly tanked at the box office and was trashed by critics. Despite featuring a visually arresting look by cinematographer-turned-director Janusz Kaminski and an engaging performance by Ryder, Lost Souls was plagued by a formulaic plot and cardboard cutout characters.

Father Lareaux (John Hurt) and his team, that consists of Deacon John Townsend (Elias Koteas) and associate Maya Larkin (Winona Ryder), arrive at a psychiatric hospital at the request of one of its patients, Henry Birdson (John Diehl) who obsessively writes pages and pages of numbers. He also happens to be suffering from demonic possession. The exorcism goes badly and afterwards Maya decodes Henry’s cryptic pages and discovers that it repeats the same name: Peter Kelson (Ben Chaplin). Meanwhile, Peter, a successful true crime author, is covering the sensational trial of an accused killer. The writer is a dyed-in-the-wool skeptic that doesn’t buy the defense’s theory of demonic possession.

Maya believes that Peter will become possessed by the Devil but, not surprisingly, the Diocese rejects her findings, dismissing them as part of an obsession that originated from a troubled childhood. Of course she ignores them and tracks down Peter, trying to chip away at his skepticism about the existence of God and the Devil by taking him to see Henry only to discover that he’s in a stroke-induced coma. Maya not only has to convince Peter that he may be possessed by the Devil but also work through her own inner demons as it were, especially when she begins seeing things, causing her to question her own sanity.

Winona Ryder brings a fierce conviction and a haunted quality to Maya who firmly believes that people can be possessed and it is her calling to exorcise the demons from them. The actress does a good job of conveying her character’s obsessive nature through sometimes-fidgety body language. She also uses her big, expressive eyes to suggest someone haunted by their past, which we get glimpses of via a flashback of Father Lareaux performing an exorcism on her. She even transforms herself for the role, adopting an almost mousey, unkempt look complete with bulky, ill-fitting clothing and an earthy brown hair color. Ryder is an interesting actress to watch. She has some of the qualities of a silent movie star in the way she carries herself. She has a limited range as a thespian but knows how to work within it.

Ben Chaplin seems like an amicable enough guy and I don’t know if it’s just the roles he picks or it’s his nature but he has a tendency to play characters on the bland side and Peter Kelson is no different. There’s nothing particularly annoying about the character but there also isn’t anything particularly memorable about him either – and he’s supposed to be possessed by the Devil!

Lost Souls is one of those movies you can tell was directed by a cinematographer because he employs all the showy, stylistic flourishes that most directors keep in check on their own productions. So, Kaminski cuts loose with the excessive use of slow motion shots, skewed angles, extreme close-ups and adopts the same washed-out look he employed for Steven Spielberg on Saving Private Ryan (1998). Kaminski does stage a suitably creepy set piece in which a bathroom comes apart around Maya with tiles flying off the walls and foul-looking brown water pouring out all over the floor while Henry suddenly appears brandishing a large, sharp knife.

In 1997, writers Betsy Stahl and Pierce Gardner pitched the idea for a supernatural thriller to Meg Ryan and her producing partner Nina R. Sadowsky as a vehicle for the actress. However, she decided to do City of Angels (1998) instead. While looking for a new lead actress, the studio landed Janusz Kaminski as director who said at the time of its release, “It’s not the most ideal project, but no one will give me the most ideal project without being able to see what I can do as a director.” Winona Ryder soon signed on.

Ryder was drawn to the project because she knew nothing about the subject matter. She was also attracted to the challenge of playing a character that believes in demonic possession, something that she didn’t personally believe in. She also wanted to do a thriller. To prepare for the role, she met with Father John Lebar who had experience with exorcisms and she even watched a few of them on videotape. Ryder also read The Bible but said, “I don’t believe in the devil. Never have. I think he’s a very abusive tool used on children. I think that’s a horrible way to raise a child – through fear. But I respect people who do believe he exists.”

Ryder had heard of Ben Chaplin through director Michael Lehmann who had worked with him on The Truth about Cats and Dogs (1996) and with her on Heathers (1989). As a result, she wanted him to do Lost Souls with her and he needed a job. During release delays, the studio requested reshoots for the finale because they considered the original to be too abrupt. Two more endings were filmed before executives went with the original one.

Not surprisingly, Lost Souls received predominantly negative reviews. Roger Ebert gave it two out of four stars and wrote, “These events and others are related in a downbeat, intense, gloomy narrative that seems better suited for a different kind of story. Even the shock moments are somewhat muted, as if the movie is reluctant to ‘fess up to its thriller origins.” In his review for The New York Times, Elvis Mitchell wrote, “Too late to seize on any New Year dread – though at one point, Philip Baker Hall, as a faux priest, gets to say, ‘They had their 2,000 years; now it’s our turn’ – the picture settles for a muted hysteria and cockroaches flailing about on their backs.” Entertainment Weekly gave it a “D+” rating and Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote, “The deep questions Lost Souls asks are these: Can Maya save Peter? Does the devil flourish in the absence of a belief in God? Was screenwriter Pierce Gardner, previously a producer, struck dumb by repeated viewings of The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby, and Kim Basinger in Bless the Child? But decipherable editorial positions, let alone answers, don’t follow.” The Los Angeles Times’ Kevin Thomas wrote, “Pierce Gardner’s woefully underdeveloped script is further undermined by stretches of unintentionally amusing dialogue. Neither scary nor even suspenseful, the picture is swiftly a turnoff, and stunning cinematography by Mauro Fiore and elaborate production design by Garreth Stover do not compensate for the many flaws.” Finally, in his review for the Washington Post, Desson Howe felt it was a “pretty dreary affair to sit through. It’s not even scary … Basically, it’s just a green-tinted, contemplative pseudo art-horror flick that can’t avoid such silly pronouncements.”

Lost Souls treads the same familiar ground already covered by countless other films, from Rosemary’s Baby (1968) to Stigmata without doing anything to stand out from those other efforts aside from some superficial cinematographic pyrotechnics. Ryder, as always, is interesting to watch and one wishes that she was in it more. In fact, a more intriguing movie would’ve been one that focused on Maya instead of Peter, delving more into her past instead of only the tantalizing tidbits we get in Kaminski’s movie. One gets the feeling that Lost Souls was probably compromised from the get-go and if the studio really had a strong movie on their hands that they believed was good they wouldn’t have moved its release date multiple times. The end result features a solid performance by Ryder but little else.

SOURCES

Ascher-Walsh, Rebecca. “Lost Souls.” Entertainment Weekly. October 12, 2000.

“The Return of Ben Chaplin.” Movieline. November 1, 2000.

Vincent, Mal. “Goody One-Shoe.” Los Angeles Times. November 2, 2000.

Strange

Strange is the best television show you’ve probably never heard of let alone seen. It’s one and only season aired originally on BBC One in the United Kingdom during 2003 and was rebroadcast in the United States on Showtime and later Chiller. Created by Andrew Marshall, the show was an intelligently written supernatural mystery in the vein of The X-Files only if Fox Mulder was a defrocked priest instead of an FBI agent. Each episode featured our protagonist John Strange (Richard Coyle) investigating a demon living among us in human form with the help of a nurse named Jude (Samantha Janus). They are aided in their endeavors by Kevin (Timmy Lang), a young man with Down’s syndrome and psychic abilities, and a resourceful hacker named Toby (Andrew-Lee Potts). A recurring antagonist, of sorts, is Canon Black (Ian Richardson), an imposing figure who disapproves of Strange’s methods and who sometimes impedes his investigations and sometimes helps with them depending on how they benefit his own agenda, which remains tantalizingly elusive with morsels doled out over the episodes.

When a priest is brought into Jude’s ward suffering from a stroke, Strange contacts her. It seems he was doing research for Strange about a demon known as Azal who can manipulate electricity. Naturally, Jude is skeptical of Strange’s admission that the Devil really exists until the demon’s presence strikes a little too close to home. “Kaa-Jin,” featuring a demon that summons its master by assembling body for it host from body parts from different bodies, is the weakest episode of the series in that it isn’t all that compelling with a rather conventional resolution. Fortunately, Strange rebounds with one of its strongest episodes, “Costa Burra” about a spectral horse and carriage that takes a person so that a banshee can stay in our realm. This episode offers an interesting twist in that the demon is remorseful of what it has done.

Known for his comedic turn in the popular British sitcom Coupling, Richard Coyle gets to show off his dramatic chops as the damaged and driven Strange. The actor manages to tread a fine line between vulnerability and obsession with occasional comic asides. He also has the same knack that David Duchovny had in The X-Files of conveying a lot of expositional dialogue about the show’s mythology in a compelling way. He also plays well off of Janus and the show wisely avoids romantically pairing them up while still showing that their characters care for each other deeply.

Samantha Janus is Coyle’s ideal foil as the skeptical woman of science and a single mother raising her sometimes delinquent young boy while holding down her nursing job and helping Strange on his investigations. She’s beautiful and smart, but unlike Scully in The X-Files, is more open to the supernatural, especially when experiencing it first hand. She’s also no damsel in distress, even saving the lives of Strange and her son by vanquishing the demon in the pilot episode.

Ian Richardson’s Canon Black is a wonderfully entertaining red herring. Initially, it seems like he’s the primary recurring antagonist, but, as the show progresses there’s more to his character than it seems. What appears to be ambivalence is actually ambiguity as he has his own agenda. The actor also brings a wicked sense of humor, mostly in the form of withering glares and sarcastic put-downs he directs at his young assistant. Richardson can change tone on a dime and his character is one of the most interesting in the show as Black’s priorities seem to be maintaining plausible deniability about the presence of demons in public, but privately he does everything in his power to keep their existence a secret.

A pre-Primeval Andrew-Lee Potts plays the small but significant role of Toby, the horny hacker that finds information online for Strange. He provides much welcome comic relief in the form of banter with Strange and Potts plays well off of Coyle in their scenes together.

Marshall does a brilliant job in the pilot episode of not only establishing the world of the show, but also introducing the key characters that inhabit it. He also sets the tone – a mix of supernatural horror with well-timed moments of levity that act as a safety valve from the tense mood that is pervasive throughout. He also does a good job of establishing the show’s mythology: the Devil exists and has many demons that run around doing his bidding each with their own specific abilities. It is up to Strange and his allies to uncover these demons and stop them.

Where The X-Files adhered to a monster-of-the-week format interwoven with a recurring alien conspiracy thread, Strange is much more focused with a specific demon every episode building up to the reveal of why Strange was defrocked and the circumstances behind his wife’s death. In this respect, it more closely resembles Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer T.V. show. I like that Strange and Jude discover the various demons through legwork in the form of research and deductive reasoning, much like the characters in Whedon’s show. For a show based in the supernatural, it uses visual effects sparingly, usually for the climactic showdown with the demon, instead placing an emphasis on character and story.

In 1999, writer Andrew Marshall, known mostly as a comedy writer, came up with the idea for a T.V. show about the Devil residing somewhere in England and someone trying to find him, but couldn’t figure out how to make it work until he developed it into a concept where demons live in the city in human form: “It rather conveniently fitted in with the Agatha Christie-type plots, where you had to guess who was the demon this week.” He was inspired by ancient myths and legends featuring demons.

Marshall wrote every episode with Joe Ahearne (Ultraviolet) and Simon Massey (Ballykissangel) directing with filming taking place in Ealing Studios and on location in parts of North London during a particularly cold winter. The pilot episode aired in 2002 and drew a solid 5.83 million viewers, which convinced BBC executives to greenlight a full series of six episodes. Marshall had only written six scripts, one of which was used for the pilot, and wrote a new episode that acted as a second pilot episode for viewers who hadn’t seen the first one while still continuing the story for those that had. Unfortunately, the airdate was pushed back several times for various reasons before finally being broadcast in May 2003.

The second episode alienated viewers that didn’t understand what was going on, but still got decent ratings. The ratings dropped over subsequent episodes before leveling out at just over three million viewers. BBC took Strange from its prime time Saturday night slot to after the movie that aired that night. They also stopped advertising it and the show was eventually cancelled.

Unfortunately, Strange only lasted one season, ending because of poor ratings. The last episode concluded with a cliffhanger that left Strange’s life hanging in the balance and the small fanbase clamoring for a resolution that Marshall penned in a short story on a fansite. It’s a shame that the BBC didn’t handle this show better because it was smartly written and well-acted. It deserved more of a chance to find an audience and time for Marshall to delve into the fascinating backstories of its main characters.

The First Power

The late 1980s to the early 1990s was a good time for Lou Diamond Phillips. La Bamba (1987) was his breakout movie with an inspired performance as legendary rock ‘n’ roller Richie Vallens. He capitalized on this newfound fame by delivering a gritty performance in Stand and Deliver (1988), but his most commercially successfully period was Young Guns (1988) and its sequel (1990). He parlayed the clout garnered from these movies to star in The First Power (1990), a B-movie fusion of supernatural horror and neo-noir that was critically mauled, but a hit at the box office, more than doubling its budget. Written and directed by Robert Resnikoff, the movie looks like an average ‘80s cop picture with a typically intense performance by Phillips and a charismatically creepy turn by Jeff Kober playing the antagonist.

A nun (Elizabeth Arlen) warns her superiors about the rise of cult killings in the United States as a sign that Satan is getting more powerful. They dismiss her claims and send her back to the convent from whence she came. As it so happens, there is a serial killer known as the Pentagram Killer (Jeff Kober) on the loose in Los Angeles who carves a, you guessed it, pentagram into the bodies of his victims.

Russell Logan (Lou Diamond Phillips) is the police detective determined to catch this nutbag, but has been unable to figure out the killer’s next target until he gets a phone call from a mysterious woman claiming that she knows. Resnikoff films the caller in noirish shadows so that her identity is obscured. One night, Logan and his partner Oliver Franklin (Mykelti Williamson) are patrolling streets three nights into their stakeout and their brief exchange not only conveys the camaraderie between the two men, but that Logan is skeptical of the supernatural angle to these killings while his partner is a believer.

Of course, his superiors don’t buy Logan’s theory or his anonymous source, but they’re soon eating their words when one of the undercover cops (Sue Giosa) is nabbed by the killer. Fortunately, Logan and Franklin arrive just in time with the former pursuing the killer through backstreets and ending with a showdown in a warehouse. Logan manages to prevail but is stabbed multiple times in the process.

The sicko is identified as Patrick Channing who is described by friends and co-workers as, big surprise, a quiet, mild-mannered guy that was good at his job. At Channing’s trial, he is all smiles as if he knows something everyone else doesn’t. He confronts Logan on the steps of the courthouse and after joking around cryptically tells the cop that he “owes him one.” Channing looks Logan creepily in the eyes and says, “See ya around, buddy boy.”

Sure enough, Channing gets the death penalty, which prompts Logan’s anonymous source to call again and warn him to stop the execution. He’s killed, but Logan has a nightmare that the killer escapes from the gas chamber as well as seeing things that aren’t there when he’s awake. To make matters worse, the undercover cop that Logan saved is killed in Channing’s preferred style of choice. This provokes Logan’s anonymous tipster to finally surface – Tess Seaton (Tracy Griffith), a beautiful professional psychic that claims Channing’s spirit has been set free and this has enabled him to start killing again.

Naturally, Logan doesn’t believe her, but when some random junkie is brought in and identified as the killer of the undercover cop, something doesn’t seem right and he hears Channing’s voice when he confronts the catatonic derelict. All of these coincidences, plus even more weird occurrences, spook Logan enough so that he decides to team up with Tess to track down and stop Channing once and for all.

Lou Diamond Phillips dresses like a typical maverick cop complete with cowboy boots, jeans and a trenchcoat while spouting lines like, “I can do anything I want!” but the actor wisely tones down these clichés when Logan is taken out of his comfort zone as he transforms from cynic to cautious believer. As the movie progresses, Phillips does a nice job of showing how his character’s confidence is shaken after witnessing several bizarre things he can’t explain. The actor adopts a haunted look as Logan begins to doubt his sanity. To prepare for the role, Phillips rode around with Detective Bob Grogan, the primary investigator in the Hillside Strangling cases, in an unmarked police car and observed him at work.

Tracy Griffith is good as a professional psychic driven to stop Channing when she starts seeing him after his death. She’s a proactive character and a good foil for Logan. Tess doesn’t come across as some kind of New Age flake, but a grounded person who speaks matter-of-factly about the spirit world. At times, Tess brings down Logan’s defenses and the two actors play well off each other in these scenes and in others as he is the jaded cop and she is the true believer.

Known mostly for playing dastardly villains throughout his career, Jeff Kober gets to sink his teeth into a juicy role he clearly relishes playing judging from the shit-eating grin he gives throughout the movie. It’s a larger than life role that all allows the actor to play broadly and have fun with it.

The First Power received mostly negative reviews from critics. USA Today gave the film one out of four stars and Susan Wloszczyna wrote, “This is the kind of film that feels compelled to explain its title long after you care; that has its hero carry bigger and bigger guns, even when they’ll do no good against a supernatural villain.” In his review for the Washington Post, Desson Howe wrote, “Power is so shopworn and imitative, you don’t need Lou’s psychic buddy to tell what is about to happen.” The New York Times’ Vincent Canby wrote, “The action is fairly consistent and some of the special effects are good, but the whole thing is seriously stupid.”

In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Kevin Thomas wrote, “For all its purposed concern for spirituality, The First Power is a hollow, bone-crunching, blood-splattered business.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “D” rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, “The movie is really just a squalid cop thriller with occult clichés.” However, the Globe and Mail’s Jay Scott wrote, “Robert Resnikoff’s lively first film is basically a shock-studded chase sequence, enlivened by dialogue that is occasionally quite funny.”

The first third of The First Power follows typical cop thriller conventions, but as Resnikoff gradually introduces supernatural elements and they begin to dominate the movie becomes more interesting. This results in some impressively staged action sequences, like when halfway through Logan corners Channing on a rooftop only for the killer to jump off, plummeting ten stories and land on his feet. It’s an audaciously staged stunt and also helps Logan believe that the supernatural is playing a part in Channing’s actions. There’s another nice bit where Logan and Tess confront Channing in a run-down hotel only for the killer to tear down ceiling fan and use it as a weapon. It isn’t very realistic, but does look cool.

The First Power does suffer a bit from The Terminator (1984) syndrome in that once Channing is resurrected and starts hopping from body to body he becomes a seemingly unstoppable killing machine much like The Hidden (1987) a few years before only it dabbled in science fiction instead of horror. There’s also very little character development and this leaves it up to Phillips and Griffith to use their charisma to get us to care about what happens to Logan and Tess, which they just manage to do. Resnikoff has created an efficient thriller trimmed of any narrative fat with a deliberately ambiguous ending that feels a bit like a cheat. While it won’t win any awards for originality, The First Power is an entertaining thriller and a supernatural noir that anticipates the likes of Lord of Illusions (1997) and The Ninth Gate (1999).

SOURCES

Smith, Harry. “Lou Diamond Phillips, Actor on The First Power.” CBS This Morning. April 4, 1990.