44 new of 326 responses total.
which will be bought my Time-Warner.
which will be acquired by the new Seagram's/SBC Communications partnership
Saw tonight:
"Rules of Engagement" -- (C+) No surprises in this military coutroom
drama, except perhaps the performances phoned in by Tommy Lee Jones
and Samuel L. Jackson, both of whom can do better. I won't go off on
another implausibility rant, but I will say that sensible plotting is
a lot more important to a movie that's not going to have any car chases
and the writers would have done well to have considered that. I will
also admit that I'm looking forward to the time, not long from now,
when military dramas set in the present day will no longer be able to
feature characters who suffer from Vietnam flashbacks..
"Mission to Mars" -- (unratable) I may have thought that "Rules of
Engagement" didn't feature the two leads' best performances, but I
wouldn't have said, either, that they were their worst. There's nothing
stopping me from saying that about "Mission to Mars", though. Terrible
script, numbing performances, and a monstrously intrusive and annoying
sountrack are the substantial downsides here. Unintended humor is the
only upside, but things were so laughable that I nevertheless managed
to enjoy the movie at least enough not to be bitter about two hours of
my life that are now gone forever..
Has anyone seen "Chicken Run" yet?
Nope, but I've seen the HBO special on the making of it. Worth seeing. They show how they animate the characters. Trays and trays of plasticine(?) chicken mouths in different positions.
I just read Dave Stein's review from the stilyagi mailing list. He says it's a hoot!, worth seeing.
Saw 2 good flix tonight: Rear Window- What else? 4 stars. Hitchcock didn't make dogs. I never saw this one before and all I can say is OH MY GOD. The movie is completely awesome, even for being made in the early 50's. You know the story, so it is pointless to recap it here, but the last half hour was so intense, I wouldn't have left the house if it was on fire. I was on the edge of my seat, paralyzed with fear that something really bad would happen to Jimmy Stewart. Fortunatly, I had the presence of mind to record it from AMC. Hitchcock, when you're speaking about movies, is God. The cast was great: Jimmy Stewart, Thelma Ritter, and Grace Kelly, not to mention Raymond Burr. Then on TCM came: Father of the Bride-4 stars In my opinion, Spencer Tracy never made a bad film. He was very funny as the Dad Who Paid For The Wedding. You had to start feeling bad for the guy when all the bills begin rolling in, then the bride decides she can't possibly get married, and from there it only gets worse. Soon, it is time for the main event and... I won't spoil the ending. An excellent cast: Elizabeth Taylor and Russ Tamblyn, as well as Spencer Tracy. Can't wait to see "Father's Little Dividend" which is the sequel. Another very funny wedding movie was "Betsy's Wedding" which borrowed a bit from FOTB. I'm getting to like old movies. :)
hot damn . . . got 'crumb' and 'rope' and a documentary on dietrich bonhoeffer on tape.
Re Dogma: Joey Lauren Adams was supposed to be in the movie, but becasue the movies was financed heavier, Kevin Smith lost some control - she was supposed to play Linda Fiorentino's part.
I finally saw "Gone with the Wind" yesterday. I'd never watched it all the way through. I also finished the book yesterday. As my wife said, the movie was over-acted. There was no subtlety; if you were supposed to think "Scarlett is self-absorbed", the movie banged you on the head several times and shouted at you "Self absorbed!!!" As anyone could tell you, it was very long. It was probably the most faithful reproduction of a book I've ever seen in a movie. Many things were left out of the movie, but almost nothing was added or changed. I thought it was a great movie. I don't know how it could have been improved in any way. I guess there's no point in saying much. If you're interested, you've seen this movie 100 times. If you don't know about it, it's because you want it that way.
Re Dogma: Some of the financing could have been spent on a good script doctor, in my opinion. A promising start and a few clever bits, but the thing became insufferably talky after a while and went on much too long.
That's probably a fair criticism.. re #288: Actually, Hitchcock made a number of films which are mediocre at best.. They're just generally swept under the rug whenever his films are discussed..
re: gwtw - my gawd what an overblown, over acted cornball flick. every actor in it chews the scenary. from "superman" on the steps of tara to rhett butler who cares more about how he stands visa vis the camera than how he "acts." far more entertaining is the pbs documentary "the making of gwtw."
<i'm a sucker. i liked the book and movie>
me too, iggy, me too
GWTW is great, but not something I'd want to watch repeatedly.
the 39 steps still kick ass. can't swallow dogma, or any other kevin smith movies -- the problem, for the most part, is the color. kevin smith can't keep his colors under control. his flics (except clerks, course, cuz it's black & white, which he obviously has better control over) come off like sloppily thrown together crayon drawings. he has no respect for shade, no respect for shadows and darkness, he has no evident interest in blank space -- just busy busy busy color color color, no symmetry, no decent portraiture, no motherlovin feng shui. i watched 'mallrats' 7 times because jason lee is a doggone funny boy. but the movie was still an acrylic array of crap. is it because smith grew up so close to comics that he can't direct anything but contrived spunk? every time i go into a comic store these days i have to put up with his cartoons everywhere. he wrote daredevil for a while, and a really good story at that, with really long, slow, sometimes pathetically dull dialogue. i wish he'd stick to movies rather than contribute to the quickening decline in the quality of comic books. i bet tim burton thinks he's an asshole, and signed him up to write the superman script just so burton could reject it. tim burton isn't the greatest director in the world, but, christ, at least he knows how to deal with something as basic as COLOR.
(by making everything a murky grey and claiming it's "artistically moody"?)
I liked GWTW, although it was a bit too long. There are a number of fine performances given by: Jane Darwell, Clark Gable, Butterfly McQueen, and Hattie McDaniel. I particularly liked Olivia DeHavilland's role. I have always like Ms DeHavilland. Ok the movie is cheesy, but it does tell a good story.
resp:299 i know it may be more work than you're willing to take on, but if you can manage to think about more than 'sleepy hollow' you might be able to contribute to discussion rather than muck it up. i used burton as an example because he's recent, well-known, and has extraordinary control over the pallette of his flix. most of the time his movies have a synthetic look to them: very plastic as in edward scissorhands' suburban setting, the miniature model town in beetlejuice, the hokey alien invasion in mars attacks, etc. etc. yadda yadda. maybe one can criticize burton for always employing such an artificial look to his movies, but since burton seems to strive for said artificial look in accordance with the characters and the places in which they exist in the movies, without trying to pull wool over the audience-eye, it wouldn't be criticism, it would be a matter of difference in aesthetic opinion. a buddy of mine is severely anti-formalist, so he'd fall into the bracket of cats that despise burton for this reason (and others); beyond aesthetic difference, it's impressive stuff that he does with his colors. then look at kevin smith, who also has very unrealistic arrays of colors, but i get the feeling that smith doesn't want his colors to look unrealistic, but that he wants his scenes and characters to look authentic, real, real-life-like. so he uses generic shirts, unprovocative lighting, and striaghtforward camera-angles. metatron and what's-her-name drink tequila in a mexican restaurant: i saw only one angle of this mexican restaurant, making it seem very much like a stage dressed up to be the quintessential small mexican restaurant. snore. snore. boy ain't no FENG SHUI, that be fo damn shur.
Kevin Smith is arguably influenced by four-colour layout comics,
though, and in accordance with that theory, his not-quite-real colour schemes,
staging, and dialogue, make considerably more sense. He's also directing on
a very small budget, unlike Burton, and the combined budgets of all of the
Kevin Smith films put together wouldn't begin to approach the special effects
budgets of one Burton film.
My beef with Burton is that he's a one-trick pony. His ideas were
fresh and creative in Beetlejuice, but by the time Edward Scissorhands rolled
out, the "Burton feel" was beginning to get a bit dated. Sleepy Hollow
deviated enough from the traditional "Burton feel" that I didn't mind it at
all, but it was still obviously a Burton film.
omni . . Rear Window . . that was Raymond Burr!
sheesh I wasn't paying attention.
Yes the Hitchcock mass showing on AMC is irresistable . .
I made the mistake of watching The Birds in it's entirety.
Their entirety. The Great Gasoline Accident is
still great, but I found myself being very critical
of much of the film, e.g., the superficial romance that
is the premise for the leading lady's visit to
Bodega Bay. Yes I was just pecking it apart, I've
seen it too many times.
I've always wanted to visit Bodega Bay.
So since then I've just watched chance segments. A bit
of Miss Froy in The Lady Vanishes. The very end of
Suspicion. The climax of Rear Window. The light and
shadow, shadow, shadow, let's colorize it all and
erase all the shadows.
I think the problem with the superficial romance in The Birds wasn't that it was superficial but rather that the actors weren't up to making the audience forget that. Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren were no substitute for Cary Grant and Grace Kelly.
Believable rumor has it that Hitchcock's interest was not primarily in Tippie Hedren's acting skills..
I've seen enough Perry Mason to know that it was Raymond Burr. He did a great job, nonetheless. Didja see Hitchcock in Dial M For Murder and The Birds? He's easy to spot in The Birds, but you have to be closely watching to see him in Dial M.
what did billy joe throw off the tallahatchie bridge?
Omni is right about Burr. And Hitch's trademark was to sneak a cameo appearance in all his movies, so keep an eye out next time . . . .
re #308: not quite all, but most anyway.. my favorite was the "appearance" in 'Lifeboat'
Was that one a dead body?
Hard to believe but there were huge protests about GWTW when it came out because when Clark Gable leaves at the end, he tells Scarlett, "Frankly my dear, I dont give a damn" A four letter word in a movie?!?! The studio wanted to change that last line to "frankly my dear, I dont care" or something weaker. Gable, to his credit, absolutely insisted that line stay in as is, and almost quit over it.
Frankly, I don't give a damn
i remember when you couldn't say pregnant or bathroom on tv.
re #310: Not a body, no.. If I recall correctly, one of the characters is reading a newspaper that has somehow survived the shipwreck and Hitchcock's image appears in an advertisement for some sort of weight loss method.
Hedren has aged well (surgically enhanced no doubt).
The best thing is to let people look for themselves. I've yet to see him in Psycho, and Rear Window.
resp:303 it doesn't take much money to make good colors, even when influenced by comicdom's classic flatness. by the time he was making movies most good comics had either improved their color schemes or stuck w/ black & white, and long, long before then, when he was still shaving with an abrasive washcloth, comics had much better use of flat color schemes, beginning over in europe. it might be better argued that he learned how to be a director from watching gap and mcdonalds commercials.
I have seen him in Psycho, but I missed him this time. I did spot him in Rear Window. We saw him in one or two of the others, but I've forgotten the details. Re the "romance" in The Birds: There wasn't one. Mother and former girlfriend *assumed* there was a romance.
Are we assuming that we share an
unambiguous definition of "romance"?
Probably. She visited Bodega Bay because she was a practical joker with no reason to limit herself. 'Twould be interesting to know what was in the original note, the one she destroyed when replacing it with a note to the sister.
Where was he in Rear Window? I watched it really close and still must have missed it.
Early in the film he can be seen in one of the apartment windows, doing some repair work or something.
are there any hitch movies where he makes his sole appearance anywhere beyond 'early in the film'? i understand he tried to get the tradition out of the way quickly so viewers wouldn't spend the whole movie searching for him while ignoring the flic.
Actually, he was visiting the piano player. I heard that he moved his appearances to earlier in the films after people started looking for him.
i just saw an episode of the simpsons where they did a brief sendup of 'the birds'. homer lisa and bart walked into a daycare to get maggie, and all the babies were sucking pacifiers in an eerie way. tons of them. like they were ready to attack and just waiting to be provoked. after homer grabbed maggie, he slowly backed out of the daycare and shut the door. alfred hitchcock made a cameo walking a dog outside.
(It was the Ayn Rand Daycare Center, if I remember correctly.)
You have several choices: