The first recording today is The Mummy. It’s a film I enjoyed a lot at the time, so it’ll be nice to see how much of it holds up.
The opening is an impressive tracking shot over Ancient Egypt, then a shot tracking into a close-up of the eponymous Mummy, before he was the Mummy – Imhotep, High priest of the Pharoah, played by Arnold Vosloo. The matte shots are impressive, but sometimes the compositing is what lets these shots down. But for the time (1999) this film does look good.
Imhotep is having an affair with the wife of the Pharaoh, Anck Su Namun. This can only end in trouble.
Sure enough, Pharoah discovers them. They kill him, but his guards come. Anck Su Namun kills herself, and Imhotep attempts to revive her using ancient magic, but the guards catch up with him, and mummify him alive, filling his casket with flesh eating scarabs.
Flash forward to 1923 and there’s a very big battle going on among the ruins of Hamunaptra. For all the CG they’ve used for a lot of the matte paintings and various supernatural things, it also looks like there’s a lot of scenes with just a huge number of extras. There’s also a disturbing number of horses falling.
Brendan Fraser plays Rick O’Connell who’s a mercenary, fighting for… well I don’t think the movie cares about that, and I certainly can’t remember. He does an awful lot of shooting with two guns at the same time. This film came out in the same year as The Matrix, and two handed gunplay was all the rage. It’s probably John Woo’s fault.
He’s almost captured or killed by the people he’s fighting against, but they suddenly turn around and run, just before the sand starts moving of its own accord and making faces. So Rick also runs off.
As he runs, he’s watched by a group of people who watch over the lost city (and who are narrating this opening). They’re led by Oded Fehr, who always seemed to play roles like this.
Rachel Weisz plays Evie, a librarian, who we meet replacing books in a museum library in Cairo, before she manages to knock over every book stack in the room. Because smart women are always clumsy and awkward (see also Emma Thompson in Junior).
Erick Avari is her boss, another of those faces that seemed to pop up in everything for a time.
John Hannah plays her brother, very much a wastrel. I found him rather annoying through most of this, I have to say.
He shows her something he’s obtained, supposedly on a dig in Thebes. It’s some kind of puzzle box, which Evie is able to open, and there’s a map inside. Evie thinks the map to to Hamunaptra, and might lead to some great treasure.
Actually, he stole it from Rick, who’s now in prison. Omid Djalili plays the warden. Rick is scheduled to be hanged, so Evie makes a deal with the warden for 25% of whatever they find at Hamunaptra (reputed to be where all the pharaohs kept all their wealth).
Corey Johnson (off of Dalek) is another man looking for Hamunaptra. There really are a lot of characters in this movie.
Also treasure hunting is Jonathan Hyde.
Helping them find it is Kevin J O’Connor, who was Rick’s right hand man at the battle, but who abandoned him when it got hairy.
Once they get to Hamunaptra, nasty things start happening, like scarab beetles burrowing under the skin. Somehow CG of this era never really looked as good as the old school special makeup effects.
Rick and Evie find the Mummy, but it’s currently very dead.
Then Evie starts reading from the Book of the Dead, which has a very positive effect on him.
It causes a plague of locusts, too.
These effects were pretty good for 1999.
The Mummy is so powerful he can cause an unexpected eclipse.
Lucky for Arnold Vosloo, he does get to play some of the scenes in the present, as Imhotep regenerates.
They do finally find the treasure chamber.
Imhotep takes Evie, to sacrifice her and bring back Anck Su Namun.
Rick’s fight against all the undead is still a genuinely great bit of acting and effects. I think Brendan Fraser was performing against nothing here.
Rick and Imhotep square up.
Evie reads the inscription from the golden book, which makes Imhotep mortal again, and Rick is able to kill him.
Like all good action movies, the bad guy’s lair explodes at the end.
Media Centre Description: Fantasy adventure about the search for buried treasure protected by an ancient mummy’s curse in the Egyptian desert. An American mercenary who knows the secret location is rescued from a Cairo prison by an English historian and her brother. Racing against unscrupulous rivals, they head into the desert, where they encounter flesh-eating scarab beetles, killer sandstorms and reincarnated demons.
Recorded from ITV2 on Saturday 6th October 2007 21:48
The next recording starts with the end of Brass Eye – Paedogeddon.
Then, an episode of The Secret Cabaret with Simon Drake. I can’t help thinking that Simon Drake was deeply inspired when younger by Duran Duran’s video for The Wild Boys, as his whole grungy aesthetic seems taken from that.
Ricky Jay shows some false dealing of cards. Impeccable, as always.
Matthew Gryczan explains how a particular carnival game is rigged to be impossible to win.
Jeanie Tomaini is a Living Half Lady who used to work in a carnival.
Named Seuqcaj pokes needles into himself.
David Berglas recounts a story of when he was asked to investigate a poltergeist.
Enrica is suspended by her hair and does aerial ballet.
Frank Abagnale tells the story of his thousands of free flights, obtained by getting a pilot’s uniform, faking an ID and conning his way onto planes pretending to be a pilot needing a flight back to home base. His story was the basis of the Spielberg film Catch Me If You Can.
Max Maven explains one of the tricks of fake spiritualists.
Simon Drake performs a Russian Roulette trick – about a decade before Derren Brown made a whole programme based on the same thing.
Media Centre Description: A dazzling kaleidoscope of dark entertainment for those with a sixth sense of humour.
Recorded from More 4 on Sunday 7th October 2007 00:08
After this, there’s the start of Kabaddi.
The final recording again starts with the end of the Brass Eye Paedogeddon special, and continues to a repeat of The Secret Cabaret with Simon Drake. It also ends with the start of Kabaddi.
Media Centre Description: A dazzling kaleidoscope of dark entertainment for those with a sixth sense of humour.
Recorded from More 4 on Sunday 7th October 2007 01:48
Here’s the first More 4 ad breaks.
Here’s the second set of ad breaks.
Adverts:
- Norwich Union
- Homebase
- Tiscali
- Panasonic Viera
- Comet
- The Kingdom in cinemas
- Vauxhall Zafira and Meriva
- BMI
- Timberland
- Vauxhall Zafira and Meriva
- Sunday Telegraph
- trail: Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip
- trail: Kabaddi
- Sky
- B&Q
- The Observer
- parship.co.uk
- Stressless
- Norwich Union DIrect
- Peugeot 308
- Enjoy England
- Sky
- SCS
- Currys
- BT – Gordon Ramsey
- Sunday Telegraph
- IBM
- Price-Drop TV
- Britannia
- Orbit Complete
- Norwich Union
- The Kingdom in cinemas
- Samsung
- trail: To Die For
- Complete Clapton
- New Zealand
- trail: True Stories: Czech Dream
- Boots Opticians
- Control in cinemas
- moneysupermarket.com
- Samsung
- Hotpoint Aqualtis
- Herbal Essences
- parship.co.uk
- Multibionta
- Orange
- Feast of Love in cinemas
- Complete Clapton
VHiStory 