Daniel was excited to see the Japanese Prime Minister dressed up as Super Mario. This was the highlight of the closing ceremony of the Rio Olympics, and he could imagine how the Tokyo Olympics would turn out. Robots were assisting athletes and spectators. We were skeptic until he told us of his arrival at the Haneda Airport last summer. He was delighted to see a robot, resembling a school boy, attracting young lads. Pepper was his name, which baffled him. And then he figured out that the creator might be a huge fan of The Beatles.
Dan had an Olympic hangover, unable to change the topic of conversation. (He believed Ryan Lochte would participate in the Olympic trials. He could be forgiven for the incident at Rio if he would qualify for the 2020 Summer Olympics. And Speedo might give a second chance.) He seemed disappointed when he saw our reaction. Iain woke us from a stupor. It wasn't the humidity, not the chances of "Doctor Strange" of reaching the one-billion-dollar mark in the box office either. It was about box-office flop of "Ben-Hur". No one in the room was surprised about it, as Timur Bekmambetov made a wrong move by working for a big studio. Iain pointed out that the greatest filmmakers were Europeans by birth. I told him that no producer in his right mind would ever think of adopting a Seth Grahame-Smith book to the big screen.
Lew Wallace penned a tale of an American society on the brink of greatness, but moviegoers wouldn't see any of it in William Wyler's epic treatment (of the book). It was the same thing with the silent-film version, which we were fortunate to see months ago. (We wrote a paper about it.) It was unfortunate that Bekmambetov had to deal with another flop, as I thought "Night Watch" was a visual treat. The Light Others were like secret agents, who kept an eye on the Dark Others. They were angels, the fallen ones as well, and vampires and other malevolent creatures. And they must endure subzero temperature. This led to werewolves.
Werewolves in London: They're too funny to be scary
We were huge fans of "An American Werewolf in London", which didn't take the werewolf genre too seriously. I should know, as the setting would play a part. (Iain grew up in Bath.) August 21 would mark the film's 35th anniversary. It had a budget of $10 million, grossing nearly $31 million. It was a dismal figure if compared to the box-office figures of "Raiders of the Lost Ark", but the movie earned a cult following through the years. The film would deserve a second, if not third, viewing. The sharp moviegoers were the only ones who could sense the humor immediately.
The moorland was the opening scene, and director John Landis would pull a leg. Emily Brontë used this habitat as a metaphor of violent passion and conflicting feelings, and she might have raised an eyebrow at the mention of Slaughtered Lambs. It was a name of the pub, and the customers could only warn two young backpackers about the dangers of hitchhiking at night time. Landis, who also wrote the script, might suggest that Heathcliff became immortal. It didn't take long for the filmmaker to make fun of past werewolf films. Lon Chaney, Jr., the star of "The Wolf Man", wouldn't appreciate it. After all, his breakthrough picture was the granddaddy of werewolf films.
I urged my housemates to watch it, and they shared my sentiment about it. I wouldn't say that we have the same taste, but it revealed a few things about us. We loved cheap thrills. We were leading uneventful lives. And we were interested in Gothic settings. Dan asked us if we would fancy a weekend in the Maine countryside. Stephen King wrote a lot about that part of America. I heard a low humming in the room.
