Midnight at the Egyptian
If you’re as wary of SIFF as I am (all of those lines and rules and very obsessive people are scary, kids), you’ll be glad to know that it’s over and we’re back to regular old midnight movies at the Egyptian.
Unfortunately, the first movie they’re showing is The Dark Crystal, Jim Henson, Frank Oz, and Brian Froud’s well-loved fantasy tale. I object to this movie because of the insistence over many years by many people that I bear a striking resemblance to Kira, a pointy-faced puppet. I do not consider this a favorable comparison, and would therefore not be sad if the damnable movie fell off the face of the earth.
But most people are not saddled with unfortunate Gelfling heads, and as a result lots and lots of you love The Dark Crystal. Jerks. It is the story of Jen, a Gelfling, who has to find the missing shard of the crystal so that the world is not ruled by the Skesis. He teams up with Kira, the only other surviving Gelfling, Audra, a witch, and Fizzgig, Kira’s pet, uh, something.
The puppetry in this movie is, admittedly, amazing. No one rides a bicycle, but Jen plays the flute and I seem to remember a rather well done high-speed chase. There are a lot of people that consider The Dark Crystal a Jim Henson masterpiece, and if I didn’t dislike it so much I’d probably agree.
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I’m out of town, otherwise I’d go. One of the secrets you learn from watching the extras on the DVD is that they smeared the lens of the camera with purple-tinged vaseline while filming, to create a soft-focus look that showed the puppets in the best light. What Jim Henson and Bryan Froud were doing with stockpiles of purple vaseline I’ll leave up to the imagination.