Monthly Archives: August 2021

Few films have reached the same level of notoriety as The island of Dr Moreau.

This 1996 sci-fi adventure destroyed the career of its once promising director and tainted the legacy of an all-time great Hollywoodian. Adding insult to injury, he topped the Razzies the following year after being a disappointment at the box office.

If his $ 40 million production process had gone smoothly, perhaps Doctor Moreau’s island – who turns 25 this month – would be considered little more than an overly ambitious curiosity. After all, to recap the film’s bizarre premise, at its center is a man (David Thewlis) rescued and brought to an island where a doctor (Marlon Brando) experiments on animals and turns them into humanoid hybrids.

Yet by the time the film crept into theaters in August 1996, the high-profile drama that had erupted behind the scenes cemented the film’s reputation as an all-out disaster.

The third adaptation on the big screen from the mad scientist novel by HG Wells, The island of Dr Moreau, is not entirely without merit. Special effects creator Stan Winston’s Monster Fan – a byproduct of Moreau’s determination to tinker with the evolutionary process – is one of the most disturbingly impressive to ever appear in a PG-13 movie. When castaway Douglas of Thewlis saw a horse-human hybrid deliver a mutant baby, such a moment likely marked the Blockbuster generation for life.

Then there’s the performance that divides Brando as the titular megalomaniac, an individual prone to covering their face in sunscreen, wearing metal bucket hats, and playing the piano with a two-foot Mini-me ( inspiring Mike Myers in the process). For some, it was a perfectly eccentric performance that cleverly leaned on the feverish dreamy quality of the film. To others, it seemed like proof that the Oscar-winning actor had lost his mind.

As reported by the documentary 2014 Lost Soul: The Cursed Voyage of Dr. Moreau’s Island by Richard Stanley, the shooting is even Apocalypse nowThe notoriously troubled production looks like a picnic. And Brando was at the center of his storm, oddly enough.

The film’s original director, Richard Stanley, claimed to have used the powers of a wizard in an attempt to get Brando to play. Yet whatever fate prompted Brando to work on Doctor Moreau’s island also appeared to trigger a curse that struck anyone in the orbit of the film. Stanley’s mother’s house has been struck by lightning no less than three times! A poisonous spider bit his production assistant. Even said wizard ended up in the hospital after contracting bone disease.

However, not everything can be attributed to the supernatural. Stanley, who had dreamed of tackling Wells’ sci-fi classic since he was a child, didn’t really make it easy. Undoubtedly upset to learn that New Line Cinema had previously courted Roman Polanski for the concert, the then-29-year-old director repeatedly failed to attend production meetings. Stanley’s first 24 hours of filming were so catastrophic that the film’s lead actor – North exposure alum Rob Morrow – begged executives to get him back on the first plane back. And as if further proof of gender inequality in Hollywood is needed, actress Fairuza Balk was told she would never work again after making a similar request.

It was co-star Val Kilmer which proved Stanley’s real downfall. True to his reputation as a hothead at the time, the reigning Batman had previously caused trouble by negotiating a 40 percent cut to his work schedule. Kilmer had been hired rather than Stanley’s first choice Bruce Willis to play the shipwrecked United Nations Agent Douglas, but that decrease forced the director to redefine Kilmer in a less important role, as sinister vet Montgomery.

It still hasn’t appeased Kilmer, who arrived two days late for his first scene, declined to talk about Ron Hutchinson and Stanley’s dialogue, and generally reportedly acted like a Grade A jerk.

Suddenly enough, Stanley’s inability to appease Kilmer was apparently part and parcel of his faxed dismissal just three days after filming began. Despite having much more experience than Stanley, replacement director John Frankenheimer (known for The Manchurian candidate and Alcatraz Birdman) was not much luckier.

“Even though I was making a film called The life of Val Kilmer, I wouldn’t have this fucking in it, ”he once remarked.

Frankenheimer also took issue with Brando’s unruly conduct, although his behavior was more excusable than that of his wayward co-star. Brando’s daughter, Cheyenne, had committed suicide just before production began (which lends a heart-to-heart character that Moreau has with his feline “child” in the film), and the grieving actor has continually left the team in suspense as to its fate. When he introduced himself, Brando spent most of his time in an air-conditioned trailer hatching bizarre ideas about his character. (That includes a twist that the Doctor was a dolphin man from the start ?!)

Brando’s reluctance learning his lines meant he ultimately fed them through an earphone while filming. Moreover, his refusal to enter the plateau before Kilmer (and vice versa) made production as complicated as the unpredictable weather of North Queensland.

Stanley should have thanked his lucky stars for being relieved of his duties. But just when you thought things couldn’t get weirder, the ousted director planned his unusual comeback. New Line Cinema had been so worried about the prospect that Stanley seeks revenge after Doctor Moreau’s island they escorted him to the airport.

Somehow, however, the British coxswain managed to let his keepers pass and made his way to the isolated region of the Cairns region of Australia, recovering from the depression brought on by his hasty exit. Although Stanley has once joked about setting the scene on fire for revenge, he ultimately went for something more playful – he returned to set in disguise appearing in a full dogman costume.

Stanley later claimed that this secret door break was therapeutic. However, the whole experience still deterred him from setting foot behind a camera for another 23 years. Color out of space, an equally disgusting Lovecraftian tale starring another notable maverick, Nicolas Cage, was a fitting return to cinema for Stanley. However, recent allegations of horrific domestic violence make it clear that the return has been short-lived.

The fact Doctor Moreau’s island To have done it in theaters is an achievement. And while it’s not a misunderstood classic, it’s certainly less of an abomination than that. other massive anthropomorphic flop.

Doctor Moreau’s island is available for rental or purchase on VOD platforms.

WEST OFFICE:

Unless there is some form of respite from the devastating impact of COVID-19 soon, more people will face mental health challenges, noted Dr Beverly Scott, a respected family therapist based in the western Jamaica.

With the third wave of the virus plunging the country into its worst phase yet, many are struggling to cope. And after being suffocated for over a year, many people are now overwhelmed by COVID-related fatigue – depression, loneliness, lack of motivation, exhaustion and isolation.

Now the country has been placed under a seven-day lockdown to try to control the spread of a virus that has so far infected more than 60,000 Jamaicans and killed more than 1,300, which experts say has failed. will only exacerbate the mental health crisis.

“For those who have to go out every day and make a living from jostling or whatever, the lockdown is going to be devastating for them. If you are locked up on Monday and Tuesday, the first two days of the work week, that alone will cause anxiety and panic in human beings, not just families, ”Scott said.

Urging families to create their own internal support structure to help them cope, she added, “All families have members who are stronger than others. I believe that the strongest people need to reunite the family and see how they can best discuss how to get through the crisis. ”

In recent weeks, there has been an explosion in deaths and infections from COVID-19 in the west, to include up to 39 people who have died in Westmoreland in just eight days. With each new day bringing more disheartening numbers, it looks like the region’s medical infrastructure is on the verge of collapsing.

Earlier this week, nurses at Savanna-la-Mar Hospital in Westmoreland gave in to the pressure of long hours of continuous work without interruption. It took the encouragement of Eric Clarke, chairman of the Western Regional Health Authority (WRHA), to convince them to persevere as the powers that be sought to find ways to remedy their plight.

“You talk about working 16 hours a day. They can’t even find time to stop for lunch, ”said Clarke, describing the dire situation facing the nurses, one of whom said she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. .

With more uncertainty to come since news surfaced that Jamaica has recorded 22 cases of the highly contagious Delta strain of the coronavirus, Scott fears the added worry could lead to further mental problems.

“With the Delta variant of COVID-19 that has been announced, people are getting uncertain and they don’t know what’s going to happen, and it is going to look like things are getting worse. When you are immersed in unusual situations, the usual reaction is panic, anxiety, mistrust, suspicion and all kinds of emotional responses, ”Scott noted.

“Having thought that we were going to overcome the pandemic, only to hear that people who have been vaccinated are prime targets for the spread of the virus, it creates confusion and chaos in the mind. We’re going to have more people breaking down and having emotional issues. “

Like Scott, a senior lecturer at the University of the West Indies, Dr Christopher Ogunsalu, who developed a treatment regimen for people infected with COVID-19, using Menthol Crystal, said he was extremely concerned about the latest peak but even more so because not enough effort is being put into getting people to understand the virus and how it works.

“I feel like far too many people are not properly educated about the coronavirus when it comes to transmission and treatment and this is what creates anxiety and fear,” said Ogunsalu, who has worked alongside a multinational team of healthcare professionals. and the International Postgraduate Medical College of Montego Bay on the Menthol Crystal option.

“When people understand what they are dealing with, it helps them cope better, so more effort needs to be put into educating people. This will help them cope better, ”Ogunsalu added.

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