empire

hello there

risking some repetition of sorts, here. as in yes, this is all to do with me finding another old film magazine on my travels, look you see. well, when i say repetition i think this is "only" the third time i have done such in around 22 years (!) of doing this. the only other instances, unless i have missed one or two (or more), would be here and then here. 

quite the slight difference with this one, however, as it is a 90s one. specifically, if you like, at the time of writing a more or less exactly 30 (thirty) year old magazine. and it's also arguably an edition of one which could consider itself "the best" film magazine what ever existed, for it is (indeed) a copy of Empire what i found. for provenance i likely bought this at the time, but this copy was found at a charity stall at a service station on my travels a couple of years ago. deliberate indeed was my decision to only showcase it here close on a decimal numbered anniversary. 

somehow Empire remains a going concern, as in it being a published, physical edition magazine offered for sale. not bought it in years (likely not since the early 2000s) and am not likely to either any time soon. other than being not particularly interested in "film news" these days, well, from what i can tell from the cover of it when i see it now it has (alas) seem to have become pretty much a promo tool for various "streaming" services. 

frequent readers of this blog (thank you) will not be surprised at why, of the half a dozen or so copies they had on offer, i selected this one. yes, indeed, my proclivity to (mostly) review films on the basis of quality nudies in them saw me drawn to this. also, though, this would have been (when i picked up this edition) around when i saw The Substance, in which cover star Demi Moore was breathtakingly brilliant. i would hope that influenced my thinking. 

like (i imagine) a good many people i have discovered, flicking through this, that i have simply lost the patience (or interest) in reading magazines. probably newspapers too. whereas i still (very much) read novels it is quite extraordinary how "the internet" (or the "information age" as i suppose it is called) has changed us. the seemingly constant, perhaps incessant, flow of fast and compressed information has taken away from engaging with quality journalism. it is entirely possible that the generation of now know not what it is they shall miss with this, for they never had it. 

one of the "big" things film magazines like Empire did was bring you "advance news" on films. stories, rumours and reports on who(m) was doing what. maybe i should have done a "proper" picture, or one of them scan things, of the below, but we are here now. you shall just have to read my account below. 

blimey. essentially what that article is all about (or relates to) is that James Cameron, who at the time was making Titanic (that was a surprise and no one had any idea how huge a film it would be), intended for his next film to feature 0% actors, 100% computer generated actors. quite a statement of intent, since at the time i think the only "entirely computer created" film was Toy Story. obviously the comments in the article from acting unions and what have you are against the idea. the point of interest for me with this is that he damned nearly did it, since the one after Titanic, being Avatar, was made with quite negligible "actual" actor presence. 

any other "coming soon" news in the edition? nothing quite so exciting (or vaguely close to accurate) as the above. there's a picture of Harrison Ford punching Brad Pitt (in the face) off the set of whatever it was that IRA based mess of a film was, and a reference to the apparently exciting idea of broadcasting preview screenings of Evita (yes, the Madonna one) via satellite. otherwise, just something on Eric Cantona making a film (if not acting) debut, plus a bit on the decline of (ahem) "romantic" scenes in summer blockbuster movies. 

  

the articles in Empire were (maybe still are) always good, being quirky, interesting and a times causing a degree of (mass) debate on (in) the readers letters page. in this edition, as pictured above, is an article on fifty (50) films which "should not have been made". doesn't go as far as stating "the fifty worst films ever made", for none of the post-Guttenberg Police Academy ones feature. 

no, i am not listing them all here. one or two (or more) "debatable" choices, since i quite liked Cocktail, the David Lynch Dune, The Doors, Electric Dreams (although i need to watch it again), Problem Child 2 (odd they don't pick on the first too), the 80s Supergirl, Showgirls (for obvious reasons) and, for that matter, Zardoz. should my brother ever stumble on this edition and read that, according to them, that the film The Boys In Blue, starring (Tommy) Cannon and (Bobby) Ball, should not have been made, he would probably set fire to the magazine, track down the writers and set fire to them, set fire to the printing press that produced such heresy, etc. he does tend to take the defence of his favourites seriously. 

pretty sure that 1996 was the last "golden era" for cigarette adverts. when Bliar came into power in 1997, aptly on May Day from what i recall, banning cigarette adverts (with the exception of on Formula One for a while) was one of his first acts. i don't rightly know, or recall, if i ever tried the "Marlboro Medium" on offer here. must be (obviously) before they stopped them using variations of strength as part of the brand name, hence Marlboro Lights becoming Marlboro Gold. likely i gave them a go, but for the most part it would have been Marlboro Red all day every day then (sorry). 

speaking (or writing) of adverts and the magazine is one lengthy reminder about just how big, and presumably lucrative, the home video market was in the mid 90s. believe it more or less was for at least another ten or so years, likely right up to "the internet" being fast enough to pirate things and the rise of DVD recording technology. with this edition being before DVD was a thing. 

exactly how big the market was in illustrated by Woolworths (don't look for it, it isn't there any more) doing a full page advert to sell the video of Judge Dredd. yes, the Sylvester Stallone one, which wasn't particularly bad, just not brilliant and hardly a success. not including a picture of that here (unless someone asks nicely and then i will edit it in later), but there's one other film that gets advertised quite a lot in this edition. 

merry days, for HMV remains a thing (all the other shops advertising have long since ceased to be), and the point of the above here is them advertising Crimson Tide. although describing Pulp Fiction as an action film doesn't feel right. there are at least three (3), possibly 4 (four) adverts from different shops encouraging one to purchase the video of Crimson Tide off of them. really don't remember all that much about the film, to be honest, except it featured some quality Gene Hackman shouting. from what i recall the "big deal" with it was that Quentin Tarantino acted as a "secret" (except everyone knew it) script doctor for it, adjusting some of the dialogue. hence the appearance of abstract 70s cultural references every now and then in a film i think was something to do with a submarine threatening to fire a nuclear missile at someone or other. 

by the way, if you ever end up with the sell thru video (actual) version of Die Hard With A Vengeance in the above advert immediately destroy it. the mid to late 90s was the BBFC being their most keen to needlessly throw their weight around. video releases routinely got extra edits from the cinema versions which they invariably demanded cuts be made to. in respect of this version of Die Hard 3, there is some clumsy, awful "language" censorship, with the soundtrack going silent to remove what the BBFC felt was just a few too many rude (or naughty) words. 

to tie in some of the above with the below and one of my favourite articles ever in Empire pertained (or related) to when the BBFC "refused" to give Reservoir Dogs a certificate for video release. in response, and remember this was all before "internet" or being able to "order online", readers wrote in with the ways and means by which they had "imported" a copy of the video. this went on to the extent that Empire ran a quasi competition to determine the "best" way someone had got their hands on a video of it, with the kicker that no less than Quentin Tarantino, who(m) thought it was "cool" that fans were going to such lengths, judging the best means. no, can't recall the winning method or any sort of prize. 

on to the "small" ads, then, above. which are also "classifieds", yet Empire referred to it as the emporium. again, getting obscure, rare or unusual stuff was not easy pre-internet. whilst i do appreciate how easy it is to pretty much get anything you like (legal or otherwise) these days, indeed it is true that i do miss the days of "mail order". never any reason to have doubts you would get what you wished for and quite quick too, since back then we had a reliable, decent postal service. 

getting film soundtracks, relatively rare videos, rental copies of films and what have you was lovely to be able to do off of this. more importantly, though, since these were not "mainstream" (or actual) shops as such, well. once you built up a relationship with sellers here, this was the way you got the videos which were "banned" or withdrawn from release in the UK. a partial list would be, remembering this as being the 90s, Clockwork Orange, Straw Dogs, The Exorcist and what have you. probably (ahem) some erotica ones too. 

as to why someone would wish to buy a "rental" copy of a video (which cost 4x or so more than the sell thru new), well, quality. rental tapes used better quality video (actual), heavier and slightly thicker than was used on sell thru. the reason is that rental tapes would likely be played hundreds of times and so needed to be resilient, whilst no one expected anyone to play a sell thru tape more than ten or a dozen times. playback of sell thru tapes noticeably deteriorates if you watch it that many times. 

last picture (unless i get requests to add more) and why would one take up any of the many offers to go and buy the video of Crimson Tide when you could get it as a gift if you took out a subscription to the magazine? maybe i should watch the film again, for i really don't remember it being full worthy of all the fuss that was seemingly made at the time. well, the time it came out to buy on video. 

the advert to the right is an interesting one, offering as it does "internet access". again, this was 1996, with most still regarding the "internet" as a novelty, or a passing trend that had no practical future. not sure that was accurate. likely around this time a few magazines and newspapers started to have what we would today call an "online presence", whether they were or were not (possibly the former, maybe the latter) aware that "internet" would come to deliver a near fatal blow to them. specifically for a film magazine like Empire i can remember one late 90s (and early 2000s) web "thing" that seemed to provide fast news. for fun i did a google and yes, it is still going, even looking like i recall. 

right, that shall (more or less) do for another sentimental hygiene trip into the way it all was. once upon a time, then, you could walk into a newsagents with £5 (a fiver), buy this decent magazine, a packet of Marlboro (sorry) and get a few coins change. further, you could then get on an affordable, reliable train, go somewhere knowing you would be on time, reading the magazine but likely not being allowed to smoke on it. 

be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!