I’ve decided one of my favorite things about Sam Neill is how his accent can change pretty dramatically with each movie!

Merlin’s Apprentice (TV Movie) (2006)
For full disclosure: I got this DVD from Netflix and it whimped out on me about 20 minutes in to “Part 2″ of this 2-part TV movie. However, Sam Neill’s character died at the end of Part 1, so you can’t make me feel guilty about not even trying to restart. At that point it was pretty much any excuse to stop watching the terribleness. However, I did read a summary of Part 2 on wikipedia, and unfortunately it makes even less sense than I predicted.

This movie has to be a front for something else, right? Sam, what are you doing?

The Movie: So, this is sort of a sequel to Merlin (1998), except it doesn’t follow any of the same story or have any of the same characters, except that Sam Neill is Merlin and Miranda Richardson is the Lady of the Lake, but a different Merlin and Lady of the Lake. I don’t really understand why, but probably because no one else would agree to sign on for this since the plot is ridic. Check it: Merlin is super sleepy after doing all this work to make a perfect Camelot so he finds some cave and goes to sleep. But, whoops, he wakes up 50 years later! Everyone he knows is dead and Camelot has gone to shit. The Holy Grail has disappeared because Camelot is no longer pure, and vaguely-Viking-like barbarian hordes are sweeping ever closer to destroy it. The Lady of the Lake is on their side and helping them with her magic because Camelot has “polluted her waters”. Luckily Merlin finds Jack, a young thief with magical talent and takes him on as an apprentice! Jack has a pig sidekick who may be magical too? Inconclusive. Other characters include: Sir Gawain’s granddaughter, the blacksmith she is secretly in love with, and a girl pretending to be a boy, but not very well. Seriously, she is trying to earn her place as a knight a la Alanna the Lioness, but she is obviously, obviously a girl the entire time. The other characters address her constantly as “Boy!” as if the director knew it was the only way to tell the audience that she’s supposed to be pretending and it’s a huge secret.

Everyone else just thought his voice hadn't broken yet, whatever

The Character: This version of Merlin is a little more serious than in the original TV movie that this is sort of but not really a sequel to. Since Jack is really the main character, Merlin spends a lot of time making seriously melodramatic pronouncements of doom or grumbling about how stupid Jack is. The most ridiculous part is at the end of Part 1 when the Lady of the Lake reveals to Merlin that Jack is HER son. And that he’s a baby daddy. Yeah, Merlin was sleep-raped by the Lady of the Lake. Because she was lonely. Luckily Merlin dies after heroically sacrificing himself to save the people of Camelot pretty soon after that so I didn’t have to watch any more. I thought the pig would definitely turn out to be the Holy Grail in disguise (which would explain why it is kind of magical?) but alas, it’s just a magical pig named Sir Snout. Of course. Of course Gawain’s granddaughter (?maybe) and her illicit “we’re from two different worlds!” love get together in the end as Camelot’s new rulers and Jack gets with the pretend-boy after discovering her secret.

Sam Neill was probably happy to escape after just half of it

Best Sam Neill Quote: (after Jack suggests they could work together) “I’d sooner mate with a dung beetle!”
Or the Lady of the Lake, in your sleep? Ooohhhh.

Sirens (1993)

This week I watched two movies where Sam Neill played an Australian, and he’s pretty good at it! This one also had Hugh Grant. And nudity!

I prefer this cover to the one that's just Hugh Grant's face, trying to look like he can still feel shame

The Movie: Hugh Grant is a stodgy C of E reverend sent to Australia with his wife. The bishop asks him to visit a crazy artist on their way, since he keeps painting erotic pictures with religious themes and won’t stop. Of course, their stay at his villa is a sexual awakening for both husband and wife. Plus, I learn that Australians are totally nonchalant about all the deadly, deadly things that surround them daily.

Like Portia de Rossi

The Character: Sam Neill plays the artist, Norman Lindsey, who apparently was a real guy and also completely awesome. From what I can tell on Wikipedia, Sam Neill captures him well, portraying him as forthright with what we would call a modern attitude about sexuality. Plus he gives off this air of just not caring what you think because, whatever, I’m Norman Lindsey. I get up early, paint some naked girls, and then quietly laugh at Hugh Grant’s puritanical values.

Best Quote: This one is from the real-life Norman Lindsey, after learning that 16 crates full of his art were burned in the US as pornography in 1940: “Don’t worry, I’ll do more.”

Real Life Norman Lindsey: Total Art Badass

A Cry in the Dark (1988)

So this movie, and the true story it’s based on, are both super famous, but I only heard about them in 7th grade when the boy that sat behind me in Life Science kept repeating “Maybe the dingo ate your baby!” in a ridiculous accent whenever the room was quiet. It took me awhile to figure out this was a movie reference (it was 1999, we didn’t just Google everything), but I hadn’t seen the movie he was referencing until this week! So exciting!

Almost every picture you can find of this movie is them hugging dramatically

The Movie: In case, like middle school Patricia, you don’t know this story: Meryl Streep is Lindy Chamberlain, wife of a Seventh-Day Adventist pastor. While on a family vacation to Ayers Rock, her baby daughter Azaria is attacked and eaten by dingoes! Except Lindy is the only witness, and it’s kind of dark, and they never find her body, so people get kind of suspicious and Lindy gets accused of murder. It doesn’t help that she keeps trying to talk to the press and explain her side (it was 1988, before the Internet taught us that saying anything at all just made things worse) or that Seventh-Day Adventism was seen as kind of a freaky cult. Eventually, after she has been in prison for four years, the baby’s jacket is found in a dingo den and she is released!

This was the only picture I could find of Sam Neill's ridiculous shorts. Just know that they were omnipresent.

The Character: Sam Neill plays Michael Chamberlain, Lindy’s husband. He spends a lot of the movie struggling with his faith, and all of it having stupid hair. Meryl Streep is clearly the strong one in their relationship; he seems easily rattled and has a difficult time hiding his emotions. This may be the first character Sam Neill has played that I don’t really like! Even when he’s a psychopathic space murderer I still find him hilarious and endearing, so this was kind of a big deal! Obviously he was playing someone real, which must be more difficult, and I completely understood why he had to be sort of a weepy walrus for most of it–I mean, his daughter WAS eaten by dingoes and then his wife was put in jail. I’ve only watched about 28% of the available Sam Neill movies and TV shows on Netflix (14/50), but so far this is the Sam Neill I’ve liked the least!

Steven and I debated the Sam Neill we liked the most in between comparing the Australian vs. US legal system while watching this movie (one has more wigs!), and decided on probably King Charles II Sam Neill from Restoration. Gotta love a monarch whose not embarrassed to play the “Got your nose!” game with anyone.

Next: Super Croc, Apartheid, and Boat Kidnapping!
Previously: Spaceships, Helena Bonham Carter, Charles II

I have been hard at work watching Sam Neill movies to complete my goal! I’m a fifth of the way there!

Event Horizon (1997)
I am not really that into horror movies, having a terrible fear of jump scares, but my brother once easily cajoled me into watching this one by simply pointing out that Sam Neill was in it. My Sam Neill obsession has apparently infected him, albeit a lesser case, so you should maybe watch out.

Yes, this movie is trying to make you fear black holes

The Movie: In the year 2047 Earth receives a signal from the experimental space ship Event Horizon which disappeared mysteriously seven years ago. A crew of plucky space adventurers plus the ship’s original designer are sent out to Neptune to investigate. The ship was created to move faster than light by creating an artificial black hole inside its core, but of course something went wrong and it ended up in a freakish hell dimension, killing all of the crew, whose creepy frozen remains we get jump scared by while exploring the ship. Plus, the ship has either become evil-sentient or there’s some kind of creepy hell-dimension demon thing hiding out in it, because it eventually starts torturing the new crew with creepy visions before possessing one of them in an attempt to bring them back “home” to creepy hell dimension. Jump scares and gross death scenes abound.

Also, this happens

The Character: Sam Neill plays Dr. Weir, the ship’s original creator and the character the unexplained evil force decides to possess. He spends most of the movie insisting that the ship is perfectly safe, despite evidence, and gruesomely killing the other characters. This movie taught me that it’s pretty much impossible for me to not like Sam Neill, even when he’s being a murdering psychopath. Before he gets all possessed and cuts out his own eyes, he has angsty dreams about his wife who either left him or killed herself, something he hasn’t gotten over. See, Sam Neill’s not evil, he’s just sad, you guys. Is it his fault that the evil hell dimension’s spokesdemon decided to possess him? Maybe, but at least he does it with a smile on his face and general badassery in his heart.

Best Sam Neill Quote: “Where we’re going… we won’t need eyes to see.”

The Revengers’ Comedies/Sweet Revenge (1998)
This is the second time I’ve seen Sam Neill and Helena Bonham Carter together (the other being Merlin) and they’re a pretty great combination! At first I was shocked that Helena Bonham Carter’s character did not seem totally, totally nuts as per her usual, but thankfully you just have to wait a little longer for her to reveal her true crazy.

There's lots of reasons this movie made me happy; that outfit is #2

The Movie: Sam Neill’s wife has left him and he’s just been fired; Helena Bonham Carter’s friend-with-benefits has just gone back to his wife. They meet while attempting to jump off London’s Tower Bridge and decide to get revenge on the people who’ve made them miserable. Helena Bonham Carter gets a secretary job at Sam Neill’s old office to torture his smarmy replacement/job stealer, leaving Sam Neill to hang out in her huge country house to somehow ruin the life of her next-door-neighbor/ex-BF’s wife. Unfortunately, Sam Neill ends up falling in love with the wife instead, which pisses off HBC when she goes to all the trouble to make sure smarmy-boss ends up disgraced and dead. Sam Neill DOES accidentally kill the boorish ex-bf in a ridiculous duel scene, and HBC turns out to be a chronic arsonist who supposedly dies when lighting her own house on fire at the end, though in the final scene we see she is just pretending and still out for revenge OMG LOOK OUT SAM NEILL

This is #1; I had to pause the movie I was laughing so much

The Character: Sam Neill is pretty much the straight man in this movie, spending most of his time somewhat befuddled, especially by Helena Bonham Carter. He does show a little bit of initiative in figuring out the truth about how HBC’s parents died (“mysterious fire”) and does try to stand up to his new love interest’s terrible husband. Unlike HBC and every other character, he doesn’t take death lightly, protesting the duel he’s been coerced into even while his opponent is pointing a gun at his head.

Best Sam Neill quote: Sam Neill protests that dueling with shot guns is far too barbaric and he’s not going to take part, dramatically flinging his gun to the ground. It goes off, shooting his opponent through the heart. HBC’s younger brother, happily: “Good shot!!!”

Restoration (1995)
When I saw this period piece on my list of things to watch, I thought “Okay, some made-for-TV Masterpiece Theater kind of thing with a series of bad accents”. I was so wrong! This movie is full of famous people!

Though sadly not Helena Bonham Carter

The Movie: The opening scenes of this movie made me think it was going to be a classic 1663 doctor buddy-cop type movie. David Thewlis plays the by-the-book conservative while Robert Downey Jr. is more interested in drinking and the ladies, but his disregard for “the rules” marks him for brilliance. We only see this “brilliance” one time: when he dares to touch a live human heart with his grubby, plague-covered 17th century hands. I think I’m with Prof. Lupin on this one. Anyway, his heart-grabbing means that King Charles II takes notice of him and hires him to nurse his most precious pet dog back to health. Robert Downey Jr. gets drunk, but somehow the dog is saved anyway! Huzzah! Everything goes good for awhile until King Charles gives RDJ an estate and makes him marry one of the many royal mistresses in a sham marriage so that the other royal mistresses don’t get jealous. Despite the expert advice of Sir Ian McKellan, his butler, and the conniving of Hugh Grant who appears to be hanging out there for no reason, RDJ falls in love with his fake wife, and so the king banishes him to hang out at David Thewlis’ mental hospital where Meg Ryan is an attractive yet crazy Irish woman. Of course RDJ wastes no time in hitting that and David Thewlis dies of the plague (or werewolfism??). Meg Ryan dies giving birth to their daughter and the rest of the movie involves RDJ finding meaning in his life again through a plague outbreak and the Great Fire of 1666.

Guess who Sam Neill is.

OF COURSE King Charles II!

The Character: Sam Neill is AMAZING as King Charles II! Even if you discount the awesomeness of his wig and clothes, he pretty much goes everywhere with an adorable pack of Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. Plus he’s the perfect blend of silliness and deadly seriousness at the same time, which makes you think “Here is a guy who knows how to have a good time… but also someone I don’t want to cross.”

That mustache alone is someone you wouldn't want to cross

Best Sam Neill Quote: While leaving RDJ to work on his poor sick dog, Sam Neill makes a ridiculous dog howling noise impossible to portray in print. Then he looks at the dog, sighs, and says “There was a time when she would’ve responded to that”.

Previously: Cardinal, Colonel, Madman
Next: Merlin (again), Erotic Artist, Tragic Dingo Victim

So since we last talked I have made great progress on my Sam Neill project! Mostly by making a spreadsheet and discovering that of his 100ish movie/TV movie/miniseries appearances, Netflix has a little less than half available in some format! Luckily, I have already seen around 10 of them (I know, I thought that number would be larger too). Here is a rundown of some of the favorites that didn’t get mentioned last time:

The Tudors TV series (2007)
I know this show is pretty recent, but I’m just now getting around to watching it on Netflix Instant. I’m not finished yet, but I’ve gotten past the part where Sam Neill’s character dies, so I figure I can check it off my list.

The point seems to be that history is ironically all about both sex AND clothes

The Show: Henry VIII has vaguely historically accurate affairs, while the rest of his court does the same, with a side of scheming. People argue about religion a lot and everyone generally dresses like it’s their job. When it’s clear that their real job is keeping Henry from killing them for reasons like “didn’t get me sex fast enough” and “would rather party with the Pope”.

"Dude, our hats!!!" "I know!!!!"

The Character: Sam Neill plays Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, which, if the picture on wikipedia can be believed, he has way too few chins to ever portray accurately. His main role in the first part of the series is to run things so King Henry can have more time with his mistresses, but later he falls out of favor when he can’t manage to get Henry a divorce from his first wife. He ends up banished, eventually killing himself rather than face a probable execution. He’s not really a “good” character, especially for what we might of expect of a churchmen. He’s devious and spends a lot of time scheming with various people, but instead of sleeping around like every other person on the show he seems fairly happy with his not-wife, Joan, which was apparently sort-of-okay for a churchman in England at the time. In the end, I ended up feeling really sorry for him, and not just because I hate to see Sam Neill cry.

Best Sam Neill Quote: “I don’t think anything, but I imagine everything.”
You don’t have to tell me, Sam Neill, I saw In the Mouth of Madness.

The Jungle Book (1994)
No, not the animated version. This one:

The Movie: Unlike the unsettlingly racist Disney movie of the same name, this movie spends a lot more time concentrating on Mowgli’s interactions with people instead of singing animals. We still get lots of shots of him palling around with bears and wolves and winning a monkey king’s affection by battling a giant snake, but most of the plot centers around his attempts to blend in to the society of colonial India. John Cleese and the Love Interest try to teach him English and manners, while an evil Westley jealously tries to kill him.

"Damn it, Love Interest is MINE!"

Eventually, Mowgli is forced to lead Evil Captain Robin Hood into the jungle after the monkey king’s treasure, but prevails in the end because Evil Cary Elwes doesn’t respect the jungle.

The Character: Sam Neill plays Colonel Brydon, Love Interest’s well-meaning but kind of ineffectual dad. Most of the movie he is either telling Love Interest to act like a lady or pushing her to marry the obviously Evil Captain Cary Elwes.

"My dear, all I ask is that you find someone with sufficient mustache to keep you happy"

I know I’m supposed to find Colonel Sam Neill completely tiresome, but I actually agree with him wholeheartedly. The jungle is clearly full of gross bugs and giant snakes, and Cary Elwes was ADORABLE in 1994. I mean, true, he’s also evil, but nobody’s perfect. Anyway, Colonel Sam Neill finally gets with the program but it’s TOO LATE and he ends up dangerously wounded and transported through the jungle on the back of an elephant. Luckily he maintains a respectable Stiff Upper Lip through the whole experience and learns to respect the jungle law, presumably later blessing his daughter’s shocking jungle union.

Best Sam Neill Quote: (to his elephant when it is freaking out about a tiger) “Damnit, pull yourself together!!!”
Sam Neill fears no jungle cat!

In the Mouth of Madness (also 1994)
I saw this movie kind of by accident in high school when I was looking for a horror movie at Blockbuster. This one seemed to be about a writer who fell into his own book or something, which seemed like a good premise. Only after starting it did I realize that, of course, Sam Neill is the main character.

This picture pretty much sums it up

The Movie: John Trent is some kind of insurance fact checker/private investigator/skeptical chainsmoker who is sent to find the missing horror novelist Stephen King Sutter Cane. He ends up in the fictional(?) town where all of Cane’s books take place and everything is exactly as Cane described, with people gradually going crazy, killing each other, and turning into creepy monsters. Trent thinks it is all a publicity stunt for a ridiculously long amount of the movie.

Sam Neill, no one would pay the money for this set up to publicize a BOOK you silly

Eventually it turns out that the insanity/bloodlust/monsterfication is contagious and you can get it just by reading the book! Cane turns out to just be a puppet of an “elder race” and his books are all some sort of master plan to release Cthulhu. Then everything becomes really meta and confusing.

The Character: Sam Neill is our man, John Trent, who Cane insists is just a fictional character in his book and therefore has no freewill. Sam Neill tries repeatedly to NOT follow Cane’s instructions, destroying the manuscript of the evil hellbook repeatedly, but each time it reappears. He tries just not delivering it to the publishers, explaining to them that he’s failed his task, but they act really confused and tell him he delivered it months ago. Then Sam Neil pretty much goes insane, kills some people, and gets locked in an asylum, which is the scene the movie begins with, the rest being an extended flashback. Eventually society ends, Sam Neill wanders out of the asylum to watch the movie version of In the Mouth of Madness, which is also the movie we have just seen.

Realizing you're a fictional pawn in humanity's extinction has a lighter side, apparently

So, yeah, John Trent spends most of the movie either calling everyone else crazy or laugh-crying hysterically. It’s pretty awesome.

Best Sam Neill Quote: (to his creator, Cane) “Your books SUCK!”

So Cardinal Wolsey, an elephant-riding Imperial English Colonel, and a horror movie hero/fictional character/villain/crazy person! Three great additions to Sam Neill’s resume and further proof that he can pretty much do anything!

Next time: Spaceships, Helena Bonham Carter (again), and Charles II

However, the second I saw a giant–nay, MEGA shark attacking a plane while it was FLYING IN THE AIR, I knew this movie would not only be a masterpiece of artistic subtlety, but also an eyeopening account of important global events that the media and Hollywood often ignore. Namely, when prehistoric, giantass sea creatures are unleashed on a totally unprepared modern society. Oh, the Valuable Life Lessons I learned!

1. God will punish us for global warming with GIANTASS SEA CREATURES

The completely believable premise of this movie is that a megalodon and a giant octopus were frozen in ice in the midst of an epic battle for supremacy (since giant icebergs form INSTANTANEOUSLY they were, naturally, caught unawares). When their ice shelf cracks apart, they run rampant again, destroying oil platforms, battleships, and, yes, airplanes. The government’s response is, naturally, to deny and destroy all evidence “to avoid global panic” and the crack team of scientists’ response is, mostly, to pour neon liquids into different beakers and hang out drinking out of paper bags on the beach (I’m not kidding). They do have time for a little philosophizing, however: “The polar ice caps are melting because of our thoughtlessness. Maybe this is our comeuppance”. Jeremy Caves should totally start using this movie to promote his environmentalist schemes. Recycle, OR MEGA SHARK AND GIANT OCTOPUS WILL FUCKING KILL YOU. And your 747.

2. Sharks and Airplanes are natural enemies

Another example of how ground breaking this film is! Before viewing this, I had no idea how sharks felt about airplanes, simply because normal sized sharks have no way of expressing their inner rage towards the flying metal tubes hurtling at top speed thousands of feet above their heads. They have to content themselves with looking at the sky and thinking “Damn you, airplanes! If only you were flying lower and I were somehow ten times bigger! Then I could take you down, you smug bastards.” And that is EXACTLY what megashark does here. You’ll also notice that just before the strike an inexplicable, and oddly purple, thunderstorm starts to erupt. From these clues, we can piece together the subtle message of emotional turmoil within the megashark that the filmmaker is trying to portray: should he strike down the plane with his weather-changing powers, or should he follow his baser shark instinct and simply snatch the plane out of the air?

Another theory about this endlessly debatable clip is that megashark was simply trying to punish what is clearly a plane full of negligent–dare I say, idiotic?–airline passengers. How many of those losers did the stewardess have to remind to put their seat backs up? And when she told “Nervous Passenger” to sit down, he inexplicably told her that “we’re getting married in two days”. This line, mere seconds before Mega Shark chomps them to their doom, could be seen as a subtle attempt by the filmmaker to critique traditional and outdated family values.

3. An all out brawl to the death is ALWAYS the answer

The crack team of scientists is composed of an Irish guy, an Asian guy, and a blonde girl. The viewer picks up on the fact that they are possibly the world’s best scientists because they say things like “Indeed! The laws of physics apply!” and can come up with formulas for prehistoric shark pheromones after hooking up in a broom closet. At first they insist that they will only aid the military if Mega Shark and Giant Octopus can be contained, rather than simply destroyed. However, as multiple close-ups of the Giant Octopus’ eyes show us, the monsters are PURE EVIL and will never stop. After an abortive attempt to contain Mega Shark in the San Fransisco Bay (without anyone noticing?), the scientists realize the error of their ways when Mega Shark bites through the Golden Gate bridge:

A subtle critique on the liberal west coast lifestyle?