{"id":3020,"date":"2011-06-08T23:28:30","date_gmt":"2011-06-09T03:28:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mondomark.com\/wordpress\/?p=2084"},"modified":"2011-06-08T23:28:30","modified_gmt":"2011-06-09T03:28:30","slug":"deep-deep-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=3020","title":{"rendered":"Deep, Deep, Down"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As journalists from over the world listen intently, Jimmy explains the mystical meaning of "a Mongolian clusterfuck."<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Way back when theatres were periodically carrying movies bearing a \u201cFrancis Ford Coppola Presents\u201d banner, the resulting films were generally good: The Black Stallion<\/strong>, The Grey Fox<\/strong>, The White Cabbage<\/strong> \u2013 wait, scratch that last one.<\/p>\n

Francis picked the films (if not co-funded them with monies from his American Zoetrope treasury) and it was a form of branding: Coppola = Qvalitaats Film Produckte.<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s a very simple form of self-promotion under a quasi-benevolent aura, and soon afterwards, the procedure was oft-imitated by others for similarly part-genuine, part egotistical, part easy-money reasons.<\/p>\n

An easy money example is Wes Craven whoring his name for crap like the Wishmaster<\/strong> cycle; partly egotistical is Quentin Tarantino using his name to instill himself among burgeoning cult film aficionados as the premiere screener and purveyor of things hip, cool, and cultish; and genuine is James Cameron\u2019s guiding hand in the development of Sanctum <\/a><\/strong>[M<\/a>].<\/p>\n

Written by novice screenwriters John Gavin (who has a small part in the film) and Andrew Wight (who co-produced), the story is based on the latter\u2019s real-life adventure when a team on a cave diving expedition in 1988 was trapped after a freak storm. That\u2019s essentially the hook of the film, but unlike the 1989 documentary Wight produced on the incident (Nullarbor Dreaming<\/strong>), Sanctum<\/strong>\u2019s six producers<\/em> either mandated their own few cents of mandatory \u2018creative suggestions\u2019 or the writers simply patterned the script after Cameron\u2019s own template, going as far as emulating his hokey dialogue.<\/p>\n

When Cameron writes bad dialogue, it\u2019s amusingly laughable (except in Titanic<\/strong>, where it\u2019s interminable); when it\u2019s imitated, it\u2019s just plain bad, and therein lies the biggest challenge for viewers: if you can stomach the first 25 mins. of rubbish chatter & profanity (such as the aforementioned ‘Mongolian clusterfuck’), and tolerate cardboard characters that never deepen nor blossom during the course of the film, it\u2019s a passable adventure B-movie.<\/p>\n

During it\u2019s theatrical run, Cameron\u2019s name was nail-gunned into every form of advertising, leading some to believe Jimmy made another watery movie, but while his influence is felt in the film\u2019s script, the production and focus on diving minutia is more Wight, himself a veteran documentary producer on Things Oceanic.<\/p>\n

Both Cameron and Wight have collaborated on several documentaries regarding iconic ships rusting on dark, benthic ocean plateaus (Titanic, Bismarck, and more guilt-studded, Titanic odes). One suspects that as Jimmy and the other four producers realized Wight was following Jimmy’s own template and style during the final rewrite process, there was a collective sense the script was coming together just fine.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve uploaded a review of Universal\u2019s Blu-ray, which happily includes Nullarbor Dreaming<\/strong> among the extras. The doc\u2019s been long off the radar since its rare airing on PBS stations, and cave diving fans stuck with terrible TV dubs can finally enjoy the eerie cinematography and compelling narrative of the vintage doc in its pristine tube camera glory. Ahem.<\/p>\n

Oh, and just in case you\u2019re still doubting, Sanctum<\/strong> has no monsters<\/span>. It\u2019s The Descent<\/a>, minus bug-eyed creatures, aliens, mutants, viruses, underwater cabbage patches, etc. Just people slowly breaking under the stress of being trapped kilometers underground.<\/p>\n

You know, Jimmy stuff.<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Film review of the pretty but horribly written underwater cave drama Sanctum (Universal), aka ‘The Descent without monsters,’ now out on Blu-ray with Nullarbor Deeaming, the rare 1989 documentary that inspired this James Cameron-produced film…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[523,4212],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-MI","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3020"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3020\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}