Continued discussion of Spring Agora Item #11 (Movie reviews)

197 responses total.

Has anybody seen Sex, Lies, And Videotape? Any good?

  "Sex, lies and videotape" is a bizarre film but really very good.  It
deals with perceptions and reality.  Some wouldnt like it because the
central character (james spader) videotapes all of his sexual 
encounters because I guess he cant believe he's in them.  Good Movie.

I'm going to see "Apollo 13" the first chance I get. Tom Hanks is slowly 
becoming my favorite actor.

I liked it.

Saw "Die Hard [3]" last night.  Pretty good plot, for a Die Hard film, with
no huge plot holes like II.  Action was *great*, better than Batman, except
that the explosions were a bit too reminiscent of OK City...

Apollo 13 was very well done.  Quite intense.  Can't imagine how
much more suspenseful it would have been not knowing the  outcome.
Incidentally, the grandma is played by Ron Howard's mother and the
clergyman at Lovell's house is Rance, his father.

Bet you didn't know that some of the airport scenes in Die Hard ll were taped
in my hometown.

i'd watch anything with keanu reeves in it, just because he is cute.
even if it is a terrible movie....

Re: #7:  Yes, Alpena.  I used to be a stagehand in Lansing, and know some of
the people who worked on the shoot.

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Riddle me this: What has four famous actors, three faboulus women and no plot?
Batman forever. Din't like it. I felt sorry for Tommy Lee Jones. He was one of
my favorite actors. He kicked ass in the Fugitive.

  Question of the day: Who is the best looking "batwoman"?
        1. Kim Basinger (Batman)
        2. Michelle Pfieffer (Batman Returns)
        3. Nicole Kidman (Batman Forever)

This is a toughy, and Bruce Wayne would do well to marry any of the
three, but I'd have to go with Basinger by slightly because she IS
from Georgia.  Then again Nicole Kidman knows karate...hmmm

Gonna have to go with #2.

Saw Apollo 13 yesterday night. All I thought it would be and then some. I was
amazed, Tom Hanks continues to pund out one great performance after another
                                ^
                              pound

A++

re #8- I second that emotion!! :_

 er :)  ooppsss...

the best 'batwoman' has gotta be Selena Kyle, Catwoman.  She's tough,
smart, and DOES NOT JUST STAND THERE AND SCREAM!!!!!!

OK "JUDGES" Anyone seen that SLY guy as the comic hero Judge Dread? WOW whatr
an awsome flick. Talk about excessive gunplay, it was great. True to much
of what makes that comic so cool. 2 thumbs up because "I AM THE LAW!"

I saw _Batman Forever_ tonight, and I really liked it.  Nicole Kidman's 
character didn't have much of a place in it though, except to provide
visual feasting.  It was cheey in some places, but overall I thought it
was great.  =)            ^
                         cheesy

Batman is okay, Apollo 13 is pretty good, Dredd is fine, but everyone must
go see Friday. That is the funniest movie I have seen since Clerks. And no,
I'm not black!

Ok, I finally found the obligatory gaping plot hole in the latest Die Hard
venture.  What with these super high tech "binary component" bombs where the
contents of one tank has to be pumped into the other, why couldn't they just
separate the two tanks, either by clamping the lines or draining off one of
the tanks?

Saw _Apollo 13_ tonight. A+. This was the best film about spaceflight I
have ever seen.

Two things you have to know: I grew up with the space program. I have followed
every aspect of it all my live and have been a very ardent supporter. I am
also very picky about technical detail in movies, both from a "Hey, that 
such-and-such doesn't work that way", to "Hey, any normal human being in
that situation wouldn't act that way". The line most often heard when I
watch movies with other people is: "Greg, quit complaining, shut up and 
watch the movie!" :-)

Given all that, I was *amazed* at the attention to detail, the historical
accurracy, the sets, the acting. The few things I did find to quible about
were trivial and not worth mentioning.

If you have had any interest in the space program, this is a *must* see.

Apollo 13 was very impressive.  It ought to grab a lot of academy awards.
I was especially impressed by the way they handled the NASA techno-jargo.
They just throw it at you full-force, sneaking in just enough explanation
to let you get the gist.  It's danged audacious film making to let the
actors spend half their time speaking veritable gibberish, but they pulled
it off.  Ron Howard deserves best director for this.

What was even more impressive, was that it was *accurate* techno-jargon
90+% of the time. It's one thing to just throw out alot of fancy sounding
jargon that doesn't make any sense, becuase you know that 95% of your
audience won't know it's nonsense, it's quite another to do the research
to get it all accurate.

After thinking about this movie for another day, I'd have to say that my
biggest complaint(and it's not very big), is that they over-dramaticized
several things. Almost everything they did on the ship really happened,
but it wasn't really quite as down-to-the-last-minute as they implied in
the movie. The sequence with the LiOH filters for instance, they procedure
they used was dead on accurate, but it wasn't a oh-my-ghod-we've-got-to-
rig-this-in-the-next-10-minutes-or-we'll-all-croak kind of emergency.

The screenwriters were evidentally concerned about maintaining interest in
a story where we all know the ending.  The did a good job, but overdid it
a bit at points maybe.

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Has anyone besides me seen the Power Rangers movie yet, and what do they
think?

if it's anything like the TV show, I don't care to see it.

btw, Kevin Bacon said in an interview that they took the dialogue from mission
control exactly as it was said from reports and interviews.

Saqw Apollo 13 last week. A++ Loved it.
Yes, the gravity scenes were done on an Air Force zero-G plane. I saw an
interview about the filming of it with Tom Hanks.,

The term "plummeting" doesn't best describe the zero-gravity simulation:
the plane flies an arc, concave downward. For half the time it is
still climbing. 

Yes, i was going to mention that in my previous response and forgot. They
used NASA's weightless training plane, a specially equiped KC-135(Boeing 707),
to film all those scenes. NASA loaned(rented?) them the plane and they built
a command module and LEM set in the front of the plane. Each pass was about
30 seconds of free-fall, and I heard they flew 96 loops total. The plane's
nickname is the "Vomit Comet" for obvious reasons.

From what I've heard, the 3 actors and the film crew now have more Free-fall
training time under their belts than *any* active astronaut!

Rane slipped in at #27.
Yes, the plane goes ballistic and "flies" a parabolic arc. The intention is
to make the plane coast along the same arc it would follow if it didn't have
wings or engines and had been simply shot out of a cannon. Since the plane
is decelerating and then accelerating at a rate that matches  gravitational
acceleration, everything inside the plane becomes "weightless" relative to
the plane. Unfortuneately, you can't do this for very long. At an acceleration
of 9.8m/sec^2, you very quickly approach mach speeds on the way down and
you would run the risk of tearing the plane's wings off. Also, at slower
speeds, the airplane "slips" through the air pretty cleanly with no imparted
drag, and maintains it's ballistic nature. As the plane approaches sub-mach
speeds it encounters more atmospheric drag that prevents it from maintaining
the 9.8m/sec^2 acceleration profile and occupants again begin to experience
"weight" relative to the plane. 

This increases pretty rapidly becuase the plane executes a 2G pullout
manuever at the bottom of the arc! There is also a 2G pullup to initiate
the climb to the ballistic arc.

This makes me wonder how many close calls they had during filming. Consider:
Actor "A" is floating upside down relative to other 2 actors to show off
weightless state. 10 seconds later, plane is pulling 2G's, actor "A" didn't
get the warning in time and is now waering a neck brace. :-)

Wait a minute.  What happened to the first twelve Apollo movies?

Wes Craven didn't direct *any* of them, so nobody went see them  ;)

<birdlady smiles and shakes her head at the fellow smart-alecks>

The first twelve all went under the alias "Rocky"

  O.K., O.K., Apollo 13 was a great film.  Any film that can make you wonder
  ever for a minute, when you already know the outcome has to be given some
  credit.  However, there were no Oscar calibur performances in this movie
  Yes, those worthy of a nomination in the light of the lack of quality
  performances these days, but Hank's role (not his acting

  was just not in the same league as Forrest Gump or Philadelphia.
 

Yes, I would agree, for all it's merits, there was no individual performance
in _Apollo 13_ that was worth an Oscar, even a nomination. But that, I feel,
is one of the *good* things about this film. The moon landings were very
much a cooperative effort of hundreds of people. Getting the astronauts
back from 13 was the same. It would have been improper to have any one
person in the movie be the "star" who saves the day. That's not what it
was about. OTOH, I think Ron howard deserves a nomination for *directing*.

Species:  C.  (As with most films of any "B Movie" genre, that category
          is unduly flattering.)  After a promising initial ten minutes
          (albeit derivative of other films, including Carpenter's "The
          Thing"), this film degenerates into a "hunt" for the alien.  And
          a rather dull hunt it is.  Which perhaps explains why the alien
          spends so much time in its human form, displaying as much as
          possible of its human form.  The initial promise that there
          might be some moral poignancy or insight is quickly abandoned
          in favor of a one-dimensional alien's incessant drive to mate,
          and the various manners in which she can "morph" her body parts
          to kill people that get in her way, surprise her, or just
          happen to be in her way.  The film steals unabashedly from many
          better films, but can't capture their inspiration in its
          imitation.  Those who say "the special effects are amazing" are
          simply wrong.

          Nonetheless, if your choice is "Species" or "Congo"....

Enough Apollo 13...
what about the little movies that don't get so much media coverage?
I saw "While You Were Sleeping" and thaght that was great.

 Oops...I'm not in weezle mode anymore...oh, well too lazy to change it.
  
RE #35: Agreed!
 

BRAVEHEART--gets an A

I really liked _Rob Roy_ more than I liked Braveheart, but I got my
money's worth in entertainment.  The critcism that has already preceeded
my comments here have accused BRAVEHEART of having too much gore.  The
bloodied wounds are indeed there and once should think twice before taking
child to see it.  I think that most adults can take it well, for we are
spared disembowelment or severed limb scenes.

Direction was standard except for one scene of betrayal that shocked even
me.  Very good direction in setting me up for quite the surprise.  The
score is rather standard (by Horner, I think).  No awards for score here: 
even the bagpipe at a bier was dubbed by some synthetic horn.  Poor
choice.  The music for _Rob Roy_ set the scenes better.
 

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