Back Issue #2

Magazine: Neon
Issue: No 1 Dec 1996/Jan 1997


Initial Observations
Neon was my favourite movie magazine during its brief existence. It was to Empire magazine what Select magazine was to Q, targeted at a younger, hipper audience. Neon was funny, irreverant and looked at a much broader range of film culture than its sister publication. Plus it had the greatest movie column ever in the form of Graham Linehan's Filmgoer's Companion.
This is issue number one and the first thing that must jump out to contemporary eyes is the cover feature, 'How Hollywood ate Robert Downey Jnr alive', this being written when he was talented but self-destructive and not one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.

What's Inside?
Almost too much cool stuff to mention. Regular features included 'it's not what you think' where film-makers picked ten favourite, usually bizarre and random, things. For example, in this issue we have the Coen brothers picking their ten favourite underwear movies. '100 reasons why' would take the piss out of list-making with usually hilarious results. 'Flashback' would look at the (usually chaotic) production of a film from yesteryear.  Plus you would have the usual news, reviews, features etc that you would expect in a movie magazine but with a Neon twist. And the middle pages would have a gallery of movie-related images you could take out and put on your wall.
Features in this issue include: the now legendary making of The Island of Dr Moreau; a look at WW2 movies; the Downey Jnr article; a Jack Nicholson profile by those who know him; a profile on Ian Hart and a look at the films of Tony Scott.

Old News
David Cronenberg's crash may finally be getting a release in the UK.
Robert De Niro trys to hire out the Acropolis in Greece for himself and some pals.
The question of whether Sleepers is based on truth or fiction is discussed ahead of the film's release.
It Happened Here is finally screened uncut in the British isles.
Kevin McClory is attempting to remake Thunderball again.
George Lucas preparing to film the first of the Star Wars prequels.
American Psycho may finally be adapted for the screen.

Commercial Break
'Give me 5 - Britain's new free tv channel is coming in the Spring. In addition to drama, comedy, news, chat and sport - 5 will broadcast more movies than any other terrestrial channel' - shame the majority of films they seemed to screen were DTV fodder.
An advert for a VodaZap! pager features an amateur photo of a dog and the promise that 'you can leave Boot a message on his owners VodaZap! pager'. I really don't understand what they are getting at with this ad.
'The Greatest Action Trilogy Of All Time', 'For The First Time This Christmas...And The Last', 'Buy Them Now While You Can' - The Die Hard trilogy and the attempt to create demand.

Whoops!
'Due for release in 1999, Episode One: Balance of the Force, focuses on the do-gooder Jedi Knights, who are being hunted down and rubbed out by the Empire as it gets its first toe-hold on the ladder of Galactic tyranny'. How much cooler does that sound?
"We're not making any more movies about making movies". Louis Pepe, director of The Hamster Factor, next made Lost in La Mancha about the making of Don Quixote, so I suppose that he is technically correct in that he made a movie about not making a movie.

Spooky!
Back to Louis Pepe from the article on The Hamster Factor: "We wished for disaster, sure. But we were making a film about Terry Gilliam. We knew something would go wrong". They certainly got their wish with Lost in La Mancha.

(Anti)Promoballs
The feature on Tony Scott is ostensibly to promote the release of The Fan, his film with Robert De Niro. Its somewhat refreshing then to hear him deride his own film: "I knew that I hadn't made it work".

Re-review
The main review is for Neil Jordan's Michael Collins written by none other than Graham Linehan. Elsewhere we have positive reviews for Beautiful Girls and The Long Kiss Goodnight, so-so reviews for The Fan and I Shot Andy Warhol and negative reviews for Chain Reaction and The Crow: City of Angels.
The video reviews remind me that I still haven't seen Nadja, that Heavy sucked ass and Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead might be worth a re-watch.

And finally...
Graham Linehan's Filmgoer's Companion closes out the issue with an imagined pitch for Mission:Impossible.

While doing a bit of research online I came across this website dedicated to Neon magazine which contains scans of the magazine. Well worth a look if you get the chance.

Back Issue #1

Magazine: Empire

Issue: No 73 July 1995

Initial Observations

This issue of Empire came out in June and features their ultimate summer preview. Back then day and date releases were uncommon and, barring a few exceptions, the summer season followed the school holidays in the UK. Hence the summer preview appears in what today would be the half-way point of the summer season. Empire was also less about previewing forthcoming movies back in the nineties. The cover would normally feature a movie that was actually released in the month covered by that issue. The feature pages would discuss movies released that month, and the movies covered were generally reviewed in that issue. How times have changed.

What's Inside?

Apart from the usual bits and bobs we have features on: The Brady Bunch Movie; Quentin Tarantino acting in Destiny Turns On The Radio; cricket in Hollywood; Jaws 20th anniversary retrospective, Greta Scacchi profile; Bill Forsyth's Being Human and DTV releases; Tank Girl; and the ultimate summer preview.

Old News

The big news story concerns the rising budgets of Hollywood tent-pole pictures. This is the summer of Waterworld which was at the time the most expensive movie ever (unadjusted for inflation). The article mentions that the average cost of a flagship movie had risen to $50.4m the previous year. The budgets of Hollywood movies don't seem to get the same sort of press anymore, except in the case of films like John Carter that fail spectacularly. 

Also in the news, the launch of The  National Lottery is partly blamed for poor cinema attendance due to people being 'glued to their tellies on a Saturday night'. The novelty of that rubbed off pretty quickly didn't it?

Re-reviews

Tank Girl gets a three star review and shares the main review page with the Brady Bunch which gets four stars, both fair in my eyes. Elsewhere its Nicholas Cage month with Kiss of Death and Guarding Tess both released (plus he is the star How Much Is A Pint of Milk?), Michael Bay makes his debut with Bad Boys and Will Smith also features in Six Degrees of Separation. A rather fallow month for good movies with only the superb Crumb standing out.

Commercial Break

The biggest difference between then and now is the appearance of adverts for cigarettes. It comes as a shock to come across these things. 

An advert for Cinemania 95 promises an interactive movie guide with over 20,000 film reviews, 900 movie stills and theme songs from 100 movies. This is what we had before IMDB. 

The Goldstar 3DO System promises that 'you can be sure that nothing will come out in a couple of years time to render your investment obsolete'. The PlayStation is only a couple of months away from release.

Ooh Spooky! 

A feature on possible contenders too sing the theme song to GoldenEye proposes Madonna and notes that she would probably want to be in it. Which is exactly what happens with Die Another Day.

Cindy Crawford speaking about her movie debut Fair Game: "But what's the worst thing that could happen to me? That the movie could be a big flop and I could be terrible?" 

Discussing the prospects for The Usual Suspects: "word-of-mouth should generate enough interest to land it in the file marked 'cult'..."

A feature on the future of home entertainment talks about high definition TVs, video on demand, recordable CDs, HDCDs (i.e DVDs) and on-screen video guides. The future is now.

Promoballs

Producer Beau Marks on Jusge Dredd: "Blade Runner took itself very very seriously and what we have is a film that is a whole of a lot neater and more fun and doesn't take itself so dead-on serious".

Joel Schumacher on Batman Forever: "As Batman, Val is heroic and sexy, he has a tremendous amount of depth, sensitivity and mystery...all qualities tailor-made for the role." He certainly changed his tune on the Val Kilmer front two years later.

Home Re-review

The home reviews are split between films to buy and rent and also include films on tv through the month. The big film to rent is Reservoir Dogs, finally given a home video release three years on from its cinema release. A favourite cult film of mine, Freaked, is also given a prominent review: "any film prepared to sink Brooke Shields in a vat of chemical waste is definitely worth an evening's attendance". 

Quote of the month

"Booga had a ten-inch prosthetic cock. A $5,000 cock. It looked brilliant and the whole scene was very romantic. But MGM took it out. Too bestial. We were going, 'It's innocent, like seeing your mum and dad in bed together...'" - Jamie Hewlett on Tank Girl