Kelly WandHouse of Wax
October 14th 2006 03:49
My son’s friend wants to bring over the remake version because he wants to share the moment where Paris Hilton dies. It’s a nice thought but it has its drawbacks. To watch Paris die, one must first watch her act and I have better things to do with my time. There are, for example, those bamboo skewers I have been dying to shove under my fingernails.
It is not that I have anything against Ms Hilton apart from the fact that she is a personality free zone elevated to the level of celebrity thanks to her father’s riches. That doesn’t make me hate her personally but it does make me wonder why the media wastes their time with her. With all that money, couldn’t she at least have bought some kind of an education. She could have been introduced to books without pictures or, at the very least, books without pictures of herself.
I can understand why little girls would want to be like her but they and their parents should feel at least some safety in the knowledge that dreams do not always come true. I was working in a shopping mall in Erina north of Sydney. I saw a women, her skin aged to the consistency of leather by a lifetime of tanning without protection. She wore a short skirt and walked some rat like dog. Her t-shirt read “Paris for President”. I would like to be charitable and imagine that there was a sense of humour behind this display.
Paris says dumb things about how, if the Japanese really like eating whales, it would be cruel to stop them. I could attempt to be charitable here also and pretend that La Hilton was being funny but we all know she was not. Humour requires you have your wits about but – alas - Ms Hilton barely reaches the half way bar.
A lot of men criticise Ms Hilton on the basis of her sexual promiscuity but I cannot go along with this. When they say “that bitch would fuck anything” they are – in fact – forgetting the most important part of that sentence; “except me”. I can’t criticise someone for having a rich and interesting sex life. I can envy that rich and interesting sex life and you’d be right if you think I’d swap places. Having a rich and interesting sex life is fun. Well, I seem to remember that it was. It has been a while.
No matter how long it gets, dear reader, the one thing I will not be doing is sleeping with Ms Hilton even in the unlikely event she would want me. It has been a long standing battle in life but I have finally learnt you should not sleep with anyone you wouldn’t want to talk to the next morning. You will still suffer the pains of break up, the arguments and hurt but you will at least be able to look at your own reflection in the mirror.
I would like to ignore the sound of Gay Paris but it would seem I have merely contributed to her cult of (lack off) personality. You see, it really doesn’t matter what they write about you just so long as they keep writing. So rather than continue with the remake of “House of Wax” lets go back to the original 1953 remake of “House of Wax.”
Vincent Price is always worth watching on screen. When it comes to acting, he is a man who slices his ham thick but still manages to pull it all off. On the other extreme of the acting scale, you get to see Charles Bronson being so wooden that they make him play a mute. This is one of his earliest roles and you wouldn’t place a bet on his chances at reaching the status of leading man no matter how long the odds got.
A special delight for me is seeing Carolyn Jones in the days before she became Morticia Addams. There are few people who understand the level of this woman’s cultural significance. Whilst Monroe may have been the face of an era, the majority of people who dress up like her are drag queens. Since the late seventies, you haven’t been able to walk into a bar without tripping over a Jones clone. (Okay, maybe it’s just the kind of bars I go to.)
“House of Wax” (1953) is atmospheric, scary, fast paced and fun. It’s only annoying features are that, because it was initially shot in 3D, you get annoying scenes where people bounce ping pong balls at the camera. I’m sure it was great fun if you were wearing the glasses but, if you are not, it is fairly tedious.
The plot is fairly straight forward. Master Wax sculptor gets burnt in a fire and can’t use his hands any more so he dips dead bodies in wax instead. The whole idea is ridiculous but why should that stop you going along for the ride?
Among this disc’s special features you will find “Mystery of the Way Museum”, the 1933 film that “House of Wax” remakes. This is also quite an interesting film to watch. Film buffs might be interested in this rare opportunity to see a two colour strip. This was the original technicolour process that went out of its way to ignore the fact that there are three primary colours.
Freaks like me will be fascinated by how much more vulgar the 1933 version is. It is quite surprising to see Fay Wray walk up to a policeman and ask him about his sex life let alone to see her as a reporter not adverse to stealing bootleg alcohol and rolling into work pissed. She is quiet clearly a woman of loose morals but she is the film’s hero. She is certainly tougher than the men in the picture.
In the 1953 version, the mad man’s chief assistant is a drunk who cracks under the pressure of not having a drink. In the 1933 version, the guy is a junkie and the police take it all quite matter of factually. What were soon to be taboo subjects are casually dropped into conversation. Clearly, audiences did not need the fine details spelt out to them. Certainly no one seems to need to tell the audience why a drug addict will start talking to the police if you lock him up for long enough or why, by the time he does spill the beans, he should look like Alice Cooper’s father.
It is only upon seeing a film like this that you realise that the moral changes of the nineteen sixties were not the aberration conservative politicians would have you believe. The real period of aberration came in the years of the Hays Code when a self appointed group of moral guardians came up with such rules as “thou shalt not be filmed upon a bed without at least one foot on the ground”. Clearly they were unaware that this was one way to get better traction.
If I make these films out to be historical curiosities, then I do them little favour. Both these films are entertaining but you probably wouldn’t want to watch one straight after the other. Ms Hilton’s version might be quite entertaining too but I won’t be chasing it down any time soon.
If a drunk or a junkie comes up to me on the street asking for money, I won’t dig into my pocket and hand over cash. I’ll bring them a cup of coffee. I’ll get them some food. The one thing I won’t do is to support the habits that have placed them in their current circumstances. Seeing Paris Hilton in a movie falls somewhere in a similar category.
It is not that I have anything against Ms Hilton apart from the fact that she is a personality free zone elevated to the level of celebrity thanks to her father’s riches. That doesn’t make me hate her personally but it does make me wonder why the media wastes their time with her. With all that money, couldn’t she at least have bought some kind of an education. She could have been introduced to books without pictures or, at the very least, books without pictures of herself.
I can understand why little girls would want to be like her but they and their parents should feel at least some safety in the knowledge that dreams do not always come true. I was working in a shopping mall in Erina north of Sydney. I saw a women, her skin aged to the consistency of leather by a lifetime of tanning without protection. She wore a short skirt and walked some rat like dog. Her t-shirt read “Paris for President”. I would like to be charitable and imagine that there was a sense of humour behind this display.
Paris says dumb things about how, if the Japanese really like eating whales, it would be cruel to stop them. I could attempt to be charitable here also and pretend that La Hilton was being funny but we all know she was not. Humour requires you have your wits about but – alas - Ms Hilton barely reaches the half way bar.
A lot of men criticise Ms Hilton on the basis of her sexual promiscuity but I cannot go along with this. When they say “that bitch would fuck anything” they are – in fact – forgetting the most important part of that sentence; “except me”. I can’t criticise someone for having a rich and interesting sex life. I can envy that rich and interesting sex life and you’d be right if you think I’d swap places. Having a rich and interesting sex life is fun. Well, I seem to remember that it was. It has been a while.
No matter how long it gets, dear reader, the one thing I will not be doing is sleeping with Ms Hilton even in the unlikely event she would want me. It has been a long standing battle in life but I have finally learnt you should not sleep with anyone you wouldn’t want to talk to the next morning. You will still suffer the pains of break up, the arguments and hurt but you will at least be able to look at your own reflection in the mirror.
I would like to ignore the sound of Gay Paris but it would seem I have merely contributed to her cult of (lack off) personality. You see, it really doesn’t matter what they write about you just so long as they keep writing. So rather than continue with the remake of “House of Wax” lets go back to the original 1953 remake of “House of Wax.”
Vincent Price is always worth watching on screen. When it comes to acting, he is a man who slices his ham thick but still manages to pull it all off. On the other extreme of the acting scale, you get to see Charles Bronson being so wooden that they make him play a mute. This is one of his earliest roles and you wouldn’t place a bet on his chances at reaching the status of leading man no matter how long the odds got.
A special delight for me is seeing Carolyn Jones in the days before she became Morticia Addams. There are few people who understand the level of this woman’s cultural significance. Whilst Monroe may have been the face of an era, the majority of people who dress up like her are drag queens. Since the late seventies, you haven’t been able to walk into a bar without tripping over a Jones clone. (Okay, maybe it’s just the kind of bars I go to.)
“House of Wax” (1953) is atmospheric, scary, fast paced and fun. It’s only annoying features are that, because it was initially shot in 3D, you get annoying scenes where people bounce ping pong balls at the camera. I’m sure it was great fun if you were wearing the glasses but, if you are not, it is fairly tedious.
The plot is fairly straight forward. Master Wax sculptor gets burnt in a fire and can’t use his hands any more so he dips dead bodies in wax instead. The whole idea is ridiculous but why should that stop you going along for the ride?
Among this disc’s special features you will find “Mystery of the Way Museum”, the 1933 film that “House of Wax” remakes. This is also quite an interesting film to watch. Film buffs might be interested in this rare opportunity to see a two colour strip. This was the original technicolour process that went out of its way to ignore the fact that there are three primary colours.
Freaks like me will be fascinated by how much more vulgar the 1933 version is. It is quite surprising to see Fay Wray walk up to a policeman and ask him about his sex life let alone to see her as a reporter not adverse to stealing bootleg alcohol and rolling into work pissed. She is quiet clearly a woman of loose morals but she is the film’s hero. She is certainly tougher than the men in the picture.
In the 1953 version, the mad man’s chief assistant is a drunk who cracks under the pressure of not having a drink. In the 1933 version, the guy is a junkie and the police take it all quite matter of factually. What were soon to be taboo subjects are casually dropped into conversation. Clearly, audiences did not need the fine details spelt out to them. Certainly no one seems to need to tell the audience why a drug addict will start talking to the police if you lock him up for long enough or why, by the time he does spill the beans, he should look like Alice Cooper’s father.
It is only upon seeing a film like this that you realise that the moral changes of the nineteen sixties were not the aberration conservative politicians would have you believe. The real period of aberration came in the years of the Hays Code when a self appointed group of moral guardians came up with such rules as “thou shalt not be filmed upon a bed without at least one foot on the ground”. Clearly they were unaware that this was one way to get better traction.
If I make these films out to be historical curiosities, then I do them little favour. Both these films are entertaining but you probably wouldn’t want to watch one straight after the other. Ms Hilton’s version might be quite entertaining too but I won’t be chasing it down any time soon.
If a drunk or a junkie comes up to me on the street asking for money, I won’t dig into my pocket and hand over cash. I’ll bring them a cup of coffee. I’ll get them some food. The one thing I won’t do is to support the habits that have placed them in their current circumstances. Seeing Paris Hilton in a movie falls somewhere in a similar category.
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Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
I see no reason to view the remake, I operate under the philosophy "Ignore it and it will go away, just liek Paris"
Comment by Bob Short