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An Early Test Screening for HARD RAIN
A few months back I got this review of HARD RAIN, then known as THE FLOOD, I
kept forgeting about it, and well, I finally found it again so you can get a gander at it. The
Big Shemp is a pretty damn good judge of movies, so if he says it was once really good,
then I believe it had to have some merit. However, I really do despise the title HARD
RAIN. Perhaps later they'll title a film WET RAIN or even SOFT RAIN. However, as
bad as the title is, you should probably give the film a looksee!!! As with all test screenings though the film
the Big Shemp saw will undoubtedly be changed quite a bit.
I went to a test screening of THE FLOOD back in March at Paramount, and the movie
was terrific. THE FLOOD has been officially pushed to first-quarter 98, since Paramount
also has Gary Fleder's KISS THE GIRLS, also starring FLOOD co-star Morgan Freeman,
coming out on October 3. It was initially pulled from a May 2 release because of some
FX which weren't done and the fact that VOLCANO was coming out at the end of April
and they were worried about saturating the marketplace with disaster films (which, in
hindsight, was a pretty good idea). But, unlike some on-the-shelf features, which stay on
the shelf because the film just sucks (GONE FISHIN' and the saw-on-Movie Channel
"Long Way from REPO MAN" Alex Cox-directed Vincent D'Onofio/Rebecca
DeMornay/Billy Bob Thornton-starring THE WINNER are two that come to
mind.), THE FLOOD seems more a victim of bad timing than any problems with
the film itself. It's very good.
Anyway, thought your readers would appreciate some dirt about the screening, which was
attended by creepy Jonathan Dolgen, the President of Viacom, Paramount's parent
company. The film still had big holes in the FX-- including a title sequence (set to
Springsteen's "The River") that is a long tracking shot of a river and a big dam which is on
the verge of overflowing. They used toy models and mock-ups in some shots, and a
couple of times intercut reaction shots of something horrible happening with a
thoroughly underwhelming photo of water over a dam.
The film, which basically takes place over the course of one night, is not as much a
"disaster" film as it is a solid action/heist picture with the flood as a backdrop. The cast is
uniformly solid -- even Christian "Ain't Done Nothing Good Since TRUE ROMANCE"
Slater -- and Morgan Freeman makes a good villainous foil, though he's outdone by the
film's true antagonist (revealed in a believable plot twist), who I won't reveal here. The
only rub is that we're never sure of Freeman's motivations -- who he is, why
he's masterminding this heist, why he's hanging around with some dimbulb
henchmen.
As written by SPEED and BROKEN ARROW scribe Graham Yost, THE FLOOD has all
the momentum of the former and little of the artifice of the latter. The action sequences --
the best of which are a chase through the corridors of a flooded highschool on jet-skis and
a boat pursuit that runs in and out of buildings (through windows, etc.) -- are tremendous.
But the real star of the film is its waterlogged setting, which was created in an airplane
manufacturing hangar in Palmdale, CA, with buildings and streets built on platform sets
which could be lowered and raised into the "floodwaters," making the river seem to rise
and fall at will, when it's actually the buildings which are moving. It's an entirely believable
set and you never get the impression that you're on a big soundstage, unlike FIFTH
ELEMENT (except for that cool taxi chase) or -- from what I've seen so far -- BATMAN
& ROBIN. There are apparently some transitions between the practical locations and the
sets and between the sets and models/CG models (a dam bursting for one) that haven't
been finished -- hence the "toy" shots and still cutaways mentioned above.
It's too bad this got pushed back from early summer to what looks like early next year --
the trailer, which I saw on BEAVIS & BUTTHEAD and THE RELIC was really good,
and I think the film, if handled properly, would do great business. But there's such a glut
of product out there that I'd rather see a movie placed in a more favorable slot than be up
against five other big films and get slaughtered, or at least get its share of the pie cut
down. Fox did the same thing with the Howie Long/Scott Glenn movie FIRESTORM
(okay script; also polished by Yost)
THE FLOOD -- which may get retitled to the retarded-sounding "Riders of the
Storm" or "Riders on the Storm" -- is a solid movie.
((HARRY NOTE: IT WAS INDEED RETITLED SOMETHING RETARDED, HARD
RAIN, THE MOST HIDEOUS TITLE IN A LONG TIME))
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I'm gunna take a little nap.
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I am here to comfort you. Wait... no, there are many years between us. I've been in this situation before.
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And don't you dare challenge my lastness! It's bad luck for you.
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Next time, you'll respect the lastness. Not that I'm claiming lastness here, because I know you'll be back. One day.
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I gotta say it. You watch the old Talkbacks like the Eye of Sauron. Lidless, sleepless, wreathed in flame.
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Blessed with extremely large teeth. And only available on the special edition DVD.
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To be locked in the dungeons of Morgoth. The brown eye of Sauron being one significant reason.
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It just puckers once in a while
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and can't go to the eye doctor.Being a bad wizard, one doesn't get good employee benefits.
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You'll shot your eye out kid
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Mmmm. Annie's Ovaltine.
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That smells real bad
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The moment that some call eternal, that some call insane.
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cha cha cha
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Everybody's eyes are closed. I don't know why I miss you so, so, Hot Cha, where are you?First time Hot Cha went away, a floating island was his home. But then the phone rang off the hook, and Hot Cha had to come back home.
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Orcus thinks the LSD from the earlier thread stillconfounds you
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I thought for sure you'd recognize Hot Cha. Think it's from "Flood".
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But Istanbul is Constantinople. That an Existential Blues are the only songs Orcus knows from TMBG
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Their first album, if nothing else. They Might Be Giants (eponymous first album), Lincoln, and Flood are the triumvirate of classic music from my besotted college years. But if I had to pick only 3 TMBG albums, out of the forty or so they've done, it would be those first 3. Alienation's For the Rich? Absolutely Bill's Mood? The World's Address? Hot Cha? Rabid Child? She's An Angel?"I met somebody at the dog show, she was holding my left arm/but everyone was acting normal so I tried to seem nonchalant . . . "
Not that some of the later albums aren't good, too. But "Don't Let's Start"? Oh, jeeze, and "Where Your Eyes Don't Go"?
Where your eyes don't go, a part of you is hovering
It's a nightmare that you'll never be discovering
You're free to come and go, or talk like Kurtis Blow
But there's a pair of eyes in the back of your head -
Now Orcus has a few titles to d/l. Thanks
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I'm watching Tron. Sorry. Love me some Yori.
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I do the thinking around here.
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Followed by thunder
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