Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
So Harry and I are just getting in from the SPIDER-MAN press conference over at Sony Pictures this morning (more on that later as we sort out our notes and video) and I hop on to check a little e-mail. I'm irritated because we didn't have a chance to sneak away to peek into the Ape City soundstage or to see any of the ape extras out and about. I mean, PLANET OF THE friggin' APES is shooting three buildings away, and here we are just calmly walking off the lot. Grrr...
As I'm going through the e-mail, I get a letter from "Scooby-Doo," who alerts me to another scoop from those guys over at American Mule, a groovy little site that broke some cute-ass photos of Josie and the Pussycats a few weeks back. This time, it looks like they might be the winners in the "who will post the ape makeup first?" sweepstakes.
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE PHOTOS!!
My reaction? A fervent prayer that these are bogus. Not because I want to break the photos first, but because these photos SUCK!! Dear God... this is Rick Baker? I mean, the makeup appliances themselves are interesting. They're more highly stylized than I imagined. But the armor they're wearing bears a striking resemblance to some of the Stargher armor in THE CELL that was ripped off with such zeal from Francis Coppola's DRACULA. I think the costuming, the makeup, and the insanely bad photography of these pictures all combine to create a horrific first impression. As much as I wish for these to be a hoax, I don't think they are. Check out the helmet on one of the gorillas. It's the same character from the teaser poster that's in theaters now.
There's very few more fervent Rick Baker fans out there than me. I've been a fan of this guy's work forever, and after hearing about Rick's childhood in Burbank and his lifelong friendship with Bob Burns, I have boundless respect for him as not just an artist, but also as a person. I want to believe that PLANET OF THE APES, like MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, could provide him with an outlet to continue refining his life's work, the near-perfect recreation of primates with human actors. I was hoping to be blown away by my first view of Baker's apes. And now that I've seen these photos, I feel like someone cancelled Christmas. Let's hear what your thoughts are in TALK BACK, and we'll be working to verify these images as authentic in the next few days...
"Moriarty" out.
