181 new of 278 responses total.
re #97: he's perfectly free to express an opinion on a movie whether or not it agrees with "virtually every film critic in the country."
(Are you certain of that?)
Reminds me of Chris Potter reviews in the Ann Arbor News. I could unerringly spot movies I liked when he panned them. Most of the ones he was excited about were ones I'd best avoid.
Lots of movies that the critics praised I thought were stinkers. I did enjoy "American Splendor", though. I'm a Robert Crumb fan from 'way back but pretty much stopped following his career and underground comix culture after the mid-1970s. "American Splendor" filled me in on later developments that I managed to miss. Re "Dogville": I'll second (third?) the recommendations above and add that I think that the film owes much to Lars Von Trier's fellow-countryman Hans Christian Andersen, who wrote some pretty dark fables of his own.
I never listen to critics. If a movie looks good to me, I'll see it. Only once has that method failed me (remake of "The Front Page.") It's funny when someone says, "yah, that looks good," but if they hear a bad review, they go, "boy, I'm glad I didn't waste my time/money on that." Heaven forbid they should actually make up their own minds.
I usually only read critics after I've seen a movie. (Though I do look up spoiler reviews if I'm worried, as I mentioned above.)
I've found it pretty consistent that the movies that get a 1/2-star from reviewers are movies that I *know* I won't like.
I always think that a very good sign for a movie is that you have one critic raving about it, and another hating it. The best movies provoke strong reactions, they don't provoke yawns and two star reviews. The best movies you either love or hate. Dogville is like that. Some critics hated it, others loved it. Very few were on the fence.
I tend to disagree with critics pretty much across the board, but I've decided that this is because what I look for in a movie is not what a movie critic looks for. I am looking for something that tells a good story with believable characters that is not set in current life and which has an upbeat ending. I do not wish to invest my time in something that will depress me. I want to come out of a movie with a smile on my face.
Sounds like you should watch movies from the 1930s.
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Re #97 I don't take it personally. I know that some of my reviews are heavily weighted around the C average, the pressure for grade inflation being non-existant. I also knew that American Splendor was rated very highly on IMDb before I saw the movie. Nevertheless, I have a modest value to the other grexers who think that they agreed with my evaluation in the past. So, I simply see it as a matter of trusting a friend and knowing something about where you and your friend have differed in the past. I guess that this rather echoes McGee's response #100.
I don't know, some of the movies made in the 1930's were awful downers
I like tragedies - in movies or in operas. They put me in a more thoughful mood than comedies or "happy endings", which generally I find pointless or unrealistic. Also, tragedies have an identifiable *end*, so you are not left wondering what will happen next.
But isn't that why we go to the movies, to get away from our own reality? I'm with Twila. I want to be entertained, to get my blood pumping, to cheer for the underdog...to feel good. I want to be part of a world that doesn't exist yet, or one that has, but twisted around somewhat.
I don't mind a happy ending if it's a reasonable one. I don't usually like movies where they really twist things around in unbelievable ways to get to the happy ending. I sometimes find a tragic ending kind of cathartic.
I find that depressing movies, especially ones about real people, can haunt me after I'm done watching. (That is, I can't get them out of my head for a long time.) So I usually avoid those movies now.
My own reality does not include the grand tragedies of opera: if it did, I would be too busy to go to movies or the theatre (no one in opera ever goes to the movies - or to the bathroom, for that matter).
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It really annoys me that if they have two people working together and they strike up a relationship, if it's a tv series or a series of films, they ALWAYS end up breaking 'em up or killing one or both of 'em off.
Now if they end that weather movie Day after Tommorrow with a view of the Great Nebraska Sea, they are not looking for the happy ending.
There probably is a nice sunrise.....
A friend of mine described it as an "Earth snuff film." ;>
I watched "A Wrinkle In Time" Monday. Not bad, but a little too close to "The Neverending Story" in theme. I read the book when I was a kid. It might'ov been the first sci-fi novel I read, I'm not sure. From what I remember, the movie was fairly close to the book, but as in all Disney flicks, there were notable differences, too.
re #121: "A Wrinkle in Time" was a much beloved book from my childhood, so I watched the Disney version of it the other night, too (or at least the tail end of it..) I thought it was awful, particularly the alteration of the ending so that Meg manages to destroy "It" and liberate the people of Camazotz. Part of what was interesting about L'Engle's books was the idea that a character can be heroic without saving the universe; that life and death and success and failure can play out on a more familiar scale. Changing the protagonist from someone who manages (barely) to save her baby brother into someone who liberates a whole planet messes things up substantially in my opinion.
resp:118 Ads for that movie have made me remember a bit from Robin Williams "Reality, What a Concept", in which he's a very old man talking about past events. "I remember the Great Quake of '88, when everybody in California surfed to Denver".
"Remember World War Three? All six seconds of it?"
"Laws of Attraction": Decent romantic comedy; not the best movie ever made, and the ending is a bit flimsy, but it delivers on its promises and it's nice to see Pierce Brosnan in a movie where he's not killing people. Brosnan and Julianne Moore are two high-powered divorce lawyers, on opposite sides of cases, and Brosnan takes a liking to Moore. Nice to see SNL's Nora Dunn (remember her?) as a judge. Speaking of Brosnan's franchise role: I hadn't heard this before until Leslie mentioned it, but it's confirmed surfing the web: it's not at all certain that Brosnan will appear in the next James Bond movie, the 21st. It had seemed set, but according to Brosnan the producers have become indecisive. Brosnan says he would be happy to play the mythological secret agent one last time, which would be his fifth, but there are plenty of other fine actors who could also assume the role. There is some speculation that the producers were floating a trial balloon and might back away from it, given the audience's general satisfaction with Brosnan's incarnation of Bond
James Bond should *definitely* be getting long in the tooth by now.
Er, he is?
According to IMDB, Roger Moore is 77 and Sean Connery is 74 (or thereabouts.. I only checked birth year, not date within the year..) if that gives any indication..
For a brief burst of 'reality': the Bond books were written in the Fifties and early Sixties, when Bond was in his thirties.
I stumbled across the "Case of the Lucky Legs" on TCM this evening.
(It's on right now.) A very different Perry Mason: we meet him sleeping
off the night before on his office floor.
BTW, a web-search on Perry Mason led to
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/P/htmlP/perrymason/perrymason.htm
which mentioned a Perry Mason radio show. The radio show was re-titled,
and its cast members' names changed, when the television series started,
to avoid 'competition.' I knew that "The Edge of Night" had started on
radio, but I hadn't known that it started as "Perry Mason."
did you know there is some evidence that ancient china had radio around the year 100BC? it was mechanical instead of electrical, but it did exist.
Suuuure.
I read that the actor that the producers most want to replace Brosnan as James Bond is Russell Crowe. Crowe would command a lot more money than Brosnan, and wouldn't be available as often, but if the price is right he'd do it as he's a self admitted huge Bond fan
Has anyone seen Troy?
I'm off to see it tonite.
I haven't. I did get a good chuckle out of one reviewer that commented that Diane Kruger "has a face that could launch 250 ships, maybe 500 at most."
I saw _Shrek 2_. Loved it. If you liked the first one, you'll like this one too. It's more of the same, only better.
re #136: I thought that line was moderately amusing in the first review in which I read it, but by the time I'd gotten to the fourth or fifth review its charms had completely disappeared..
Heh.
Troy: Excellent. Saddle my horse, the epic is back!
Two recent rentals we missed in the theaters: RUSSIAN ARK (A) - A Russian director's loving homage to Russian culture and The Hermitage, the big museum in Leningrad (St. Petersburg to you capitalist pigs). The camera travels from room to room -- 37 of them in all -- following a European snob (Russian actor doing what I suppose sounds to Russian ears like a French accent) and his invisible Russian companion (the voice of the director, from whose POV the movie is seen). There we see personages and incidents from 300 years of Russian history. The movie is 90 minutes long, and although it took four years to prepare, the actual shooting was done in one single 90-minute-long take. I knew beforehand that that's how the movie had been shot, but I didn't beieve it until I actually saw it. The final 15 minutes, in which about a thousand actors dressed in period costumes dance the last dance at a grand ball then make their way down the huge double- staircase and off the stage of history forever, is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in a movie. (This is one movie where the interviews and "making of" documentary in the Special Features are just as interestng as the movie itself.) CALENDAR GIRLS (B) - A trying-not-to-look-exploitive movie about the middle-aged English garden club ladies who made a nude calendar of themselves to raise money for a good cause. Helen Mirren is excellent as the ageing egotistical wild child whose idea the whole thing is. Lots of false sentimentality and other commercial phoniness, but really no worse than most other movies. Plus, the Brit's eye view of American glitz is priceless.
Troy was pretty well done, especially if you like mass (and individual) slauterings. Also, the book was better (having survived for a couple of millenia-plus, which I doubt the movie will). But it was moderately faithful to the book(s) - except for omitting Cassandra, who killed Agamemnon *after* he took her back to Greece.
In Troy's defence, the director does include the caveat at the beginnign of the end (credits) that the story was *inspired* by The Iliad, a level of honesty you don't find in 3rd-rate Tolkien-inspired fantasy.
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Haven't seen "Troy", but as I understand it the movie has no supernatural beings (a.k.a. gods). They were pretty important characters in The Iliad.
There aren't any people in the film playing Gods, but it's hardly a secular travesty of the book; several are mentioned quite often.
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re #142: Agamemnon was killed by Clytemnestra, with the help of her
lover Aegisthus.
Cassandra was pretty much a one-device character, though
it's a great device: always (accurately) foretelling
misfortune and never being believed..
The characters are doing all sorts of things because of and on behalf of their gods, and statues of them abound. One would interpret from the movie that much in their society was heavily influenced by their beliefs in gods. Aha! I will speak to my resident expert on Greek myths, who told me Cassandra slew Agememnon. However, she was close: Clymtemnestra slew both Agemenon and Cassandra. At least it was faithful to Achilles' heel, which everyone knows about and therefore had to be kept (at least, everyone knows Achilles had a heel....).
Heh. One review my Dad read said they made no mention of the heel. D'Oh!
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They didn't *mention* the heel, but it was shown clearly that an arrow shot by Paris penetrated Achilles' heel. Did the actor portraying Achilles perform all those calesthetics in battle, or were some done by stuntmen - or even computer generated?
"The actor portraying Achilles"?! Are you telling us you never heard of Brad Pitt?!
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Wasn't Pitt the actor portraying Achilles?
I believe I just said that...
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Brad Pitt worked out to get in shape to play Achilles for a year previous to filming.
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Shrek 2 is wonderful. I'll have to see it a few times to catch all the stuff.
Supersize Me - In case you aren't familiar with the premise of the movie, here's how it works: A guy decides to eat nothing but McDonalds food for a month. The rules are he can only eat things that are sold at McDonalds, he has to eat three meals a day, he has to try everything on the menu at least once, and if they ask him if he wants to supersize it, he has to say yes. The effects on his health are dramatic -- he gains about 20 pounds, much of it in the first two weeks; his cholesterol skyrockets; his liver starts to shut down; he suffers mood swings and depression that are only relieved by eating more food. Now, to get the main criticism of the movie out of the way, no, there's nothing particularly unique about McDonalds food. If he'd eaten 5,000 calories a day somewhere else, he probably would have gotten pretty much the same results. But there's more to the movie than that -- he talks about how fast-food advertising is targeted at children, how the advertising we see favors unhealthy foods over healthy ones, how portion sizes have expanded over the years, and how school hot lunches are now mostly reheated convenience foods instead of healthier food cooked at the school. It's a funny and thought-provoking movie, and it'll make you wonder about your own diet. Even the doctors he consults with are astounded at how dramatic the effects on his body are in just 30 days.
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At the screening of "Supersize Me" that I saw here in nyc, the director spoke afterwards. He made it clear that one reason the effects of all that eating McD's were so dramatic in his case, is that he did not and does not regularly eat junk or high fat foods. His girlfriend is a vegan chef. So his body was not in any way conditioned to that kind of diet. It is like if you have two guys who decide to go on a booze binge, and one of the guys is a habitual regular drinker and the other guy is normally a teetotaler. Who is the binge drinking going to affect more? Answer-- the guy who doesn't drink normally because his body isn't used to it. So naturally, a guy who is mostly a vegetarian and never eats fried food, to all of a sudden eat nothing but fried food for a solid month, is going to have tolerance issues. As he said, once his body adapted to the high fat fried food diet, the physical problems would be reduced. He was less sick at the end of the month than he was seventeen days in. His body was adapting.
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resp:126 through resp:128, on the immortal James Bond: The creators of series fiction set in the present day have to make a decision: either the characters move through time at a normal human pace, which means they grow old and die, or else they become "decoupled" from the flow of events. To pick two contrasting examples from the comic strips: the Peanuts characters are immune to the changes of time. In "For Better or Worse," however, the characters are moving through life; characters who were introduced as young children are now young adults. Two good examples from mystery/spy fiction: John Le Carre's agent & spymaster George Smiley is clearly moving through time, aging, coming to the end of his career. Which means, no more George Smiley books! On the other hand, the detective team of Nero Wolfe and Archie Godwin (author Rex Stout) settled into their "eternal now" sometime in the late 1930's; the world marched forward around them, and stories changed from the murder of movie stars to the murder of radio stars and onto the murder of TV stars. But Wolfe remained around 55-60 years old, and Archie maybe in his early 30s, for about 40 years of books. If I remember the novel CASINO ROYALE correctly, the literary James Bond began as a British officer in World War II; but clearly the movie character of the same name can no longer have any sort of datable origins.
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Re #165: I haven't read any Le Carre books lately, but as I recall Smiley was already retired in "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold", in 1963. So if he's still kicking, I'm not sure he's aging with the times.
so who else is looking forward to seeing the latest Earth snuff film?
(I don't remember Mr. Smiley in "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold." I guess I need to read more of Mr. Le Carre's work. I'd also like to read all of the James Bond series. I made progress, back in '73, I think it was, but I guess I missed a few. And I know that I wasn't reading them in order.)
THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW-- This is a good popcorn story. A good old fashioned disaster movie. There is a massive ice melt in the north pole, due to global warming, and it causes huge climate changes. Tornados devasate Los Angeles. Softball sized hail tears up Tokyo. It even starts snowing in New Delhi. Eventually what happens is the mother of all winter storms comes roaring down from Canada prepared to return much of the United States to the ice age. New York City is flooded by tidal waves, and then frozen over by -150 degree temperatures. Dennis Quaid is our hero, we always have one in disaster movies, the Paleoplanetologist who tries to warn everyone of whats going to happen. Once the storm hits he takes off on snowskis from D.C. to go up to NYC to rescue his son (Jake Gyllenhall) who is stranded with his friends at the main branch of the New York Public Library. There, since the city is frozen over, they are forced to start burning all the books in the library to keep the fire going. There is even a russian ship that gets washed in from the seas during the tidal waves and ends up frozen on fifth avenue outside the library. Obviously the story and plot are preposterous. If it was really -150 degrees, Quaid would not make it to New York, he would freeze solid along the way. But the special effects are awesome and there are good bits of humor in this film-- such as when the U.S. is being destroyed by the storm, the president decides to order everyone south of the mason dixon line evacuated to Mexico. Mexico closes its borders and we see U.S. citizens trying to break INTO Mexico, desperately trying to swim across the rio grande. Like I said, "Day After Tomorrow" is a good popcorn movie. A good "bad" movie. Probably destined to become a cult favorite
Sounds like a movie made by someone tryning ot make a point, not necessarily about Global Warming, either.
Then, what? I haven't seen it, but adverts for it look like just another disaster movie, almost none of which have any point(s)? The reviews make it sound awful, except for the special effects. Might be worth seeing for those, or if you can boo and hiss.
Re: #172: From #170: " Mexico closes its borders and we see U.S. citizens trying to break INTO Mexico, desperately trying to swim across the rio grande." Maybe that nothign lasts forever?
#172...the movie (day after tomorrow) is bad but it is humorous and enjoyable nonetheless. Lots of in jokes, like the vice president being this gung ho military guy who is a dead ringer for Dick Cheney, and the President being a buffoon who seems to take his orders from the Vice President. Eight guys are telling the President to declare a state of emergency and start evacuating people, and the President turns to the Vice President, "uh what should we do?" Also the Vice President later giving the big post-storm speech, promising never to ignore the weather again, on the Weather Channel...
I go like how NPR made huge fun out of The Day After Tomorrow.
I enjoyed the movie, yes it was preposterous, but so many movies are. (This is an exceptionally high ratio in the disaster movies.) But it an entertaining movie, with incredible effects. I stayed to watch the credits for something, and was amazed at the number of effects houses that were working on this. (ILM and Digital Domain, just to name the two big ones.) I saw this at Showcase lastnight, and would like to know who the Richard Cranium was that decided to throw a concession tray in the theater. It hit someone in the back of the head, then a girl's foot. (I did see someone jump up towards the general direction it came from, so if it was the parent of a tray-throwing kid, I get the general impression that the kids got what was due.)
Heh. I didn't know "Richard Cranium" had made it across the Atlantic. Of coursxe, it's always possible that it came Eastwards, not Westwards.
Re: James Bond 007 is not a person, it's a job. The "00"s are positions within MI-5, each with its own cover name and set of duties. When one dies or retires, another assumes that job. This makes it logical for us to see a Bond mature for a while, then become a different (usually younger) person entirely. It's much the same with the "alpha" positions, (ie: M and Q) except that those don't use names, presumably because they have no public contact and don't need one.
"007" is not a person, but "James Bond" is. Whilst it's logical to look for a replacement for "007", or even "otter" or "twenex" should that become necessary or desirable, it *isn't* logical to look for a clone of Bond or of Jeffrey Rollin or of Spock to succeed Spock. Unless, of course, we perfect cloning *and* human cloning is legalized.
But the name "James Bond" can be a code name. He is a 00 agent. 00 agents have a license to kill. Perhaps teh name goes with the job as well. All 007 agents are thus referd to as JAmes Bond. When they retire, they go back to their real names, and another 007 takes over the job and the name of 007, James Bond.
Why have two code names? Why not just accept that James Bond is one (fictional) person portrayed by several different actors?
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Because you haven't seen Casino Royale. There are many "007"s
Six are going to a heavenly spot / and one is going to a place where it's terribly hot
resp:180 Precisely, bru. When you (whoever you are) assume the 007 position, you also assume the name James Bond. Makes perfect sense. resp:184 Why not? Because that brings actors into it, which sort of spoils the suspension of disbelief for me. ymmv.
Oh my God, They killed 005! You bastards!
In support of the assumed name theory: Last night I saw _Tomorrow Never Dies_; in it, 007 uses the name "James Bond" *as* his cover name. The newspaper mugul has a background check run on the Bond name, and gets back "Banker, squeaky clean". (From which the henchman concludes "government agent" on the theory of "too good to be true".)
Banker?? Whatever happened to "Universal Exports"?
I was definitely LMAO watching Shrek 2. It's not just for kids. In fact, perhaps it's not even *for* kids! :-)
I plan on seeing "Day After Tomorrow". It's a big summer disaster movie. I don't go to those because I want scientific accuracy or a thought-provoking plot. I go because I want to see lots of stuff getting destroyed. ;>
Yeah, I like to see the world being destroyed as well as the next guy, but "Day After..." was a one-trick pony. The characters were boringly underdeveloped, the science was insultingly stupid, but the biggest flaw of all is the lack of humor. I mean, dead serious. Big mistake. BIG MISTAKE. Skip this one. Rent "Men is Black".
Where??
We enjoyed "Shrek 2". It was full of parody, sight gags, and well -- I fell in love with "Puss in Boots". Antonio Banderas really must have been a cat in a previous life! It is definitely a movie to go to if you just want to have a good time.
I saw Starsky & Hutch at the dollar theater and I loved it. I was a fan
of the series and it was a real kick to see these guys again, even if it
wasn't the original actors. They did a good job, especially Stiller
(Starsky). And while I'm not a Snoop Dog fan, I did like him in the
role of Huggy Bear ("Nobody touches the Bear!"). And of course I loved
seeing that red and white Torino again. And lots of (to me) great 70's
tunes.
One noticeable difference was how they protrayed the basic character of
S&H: In the series, Hutch was the neat, orderly, semi-rule-follower
kinda guy and Starsky the do-what-it-takes-to-get-the-job-done, sloppy
(except for his car) kinda guy. Just the opposite in the movie, which
was rather strange.
Unlike the series, they didn't try to play the movie for being totally
serious. This was just a fun flick to watch.
Agreed with Twila on SHREK 2; Puss in Boots steals the movie. Can there be a spinoff? :)
Yeah - Puss in Boots in Mexico ;-) In other news, just on principle, not *another* "legend of King Arthur" remake / variant!!!
:-0
I saw the posters for that king arthur remake. It looks like a feminist version where arthur and lancelot are wimps and lady guenevire is the warrior I'll still take Excalibur, which I have on DVD somewhere
Re: #198. king arthur ... looks like a feminist version where arthur and lancelot are wimps and lady guenevire is the warrior Snicker.
That is because I have heard they are both supposed to be Sarmatians, not Celtic. Sarmatians from Iran are supposed to have had warrior women as well as men.
Sarmatians? rotfl. Please let me know if it gets any more laughable.
Well, they are Sarmatians in the novelization. Yeah. (Though at least they are still doing the Romano-Britain thing, I believe. I *may* go see it.) I hate hate hate Excalibur. What fecking person would have Arthur's mother doing a belly-dance?! And then the sex in full plate armor? Sheah. That lost me right there. Stupid Borman. Stupid movie. Stupid stupid. The only good parts were in the very middle when Arthur was fighting King Lot. (I am a fan of King Arthur. I have about as many versions of it as could be imagined. I get very testy when people mess with it.)
ooooH don't get testy!!!
I see there's yet /another/ King Arthur movie coming out this Summer.
Yes - Clive Owen as Arthur and Keira Knightly as Guinevere. I'm looking forward to it.
Went to see Harry Potter yesterday with some friends. I wish I had a glowing review like I did for the last two movies, but this one I was a bit dissapointed. Yes, there was plenty of action and drama, but this was a much darker chapter. Right from the get-go, there was nothing happy about this film. I understand that the book is very close to the movie (or vice-versa) so I guess it's supposed to be that way. But even the ending didn't have that "feel good" quality that embodied the other flicks. However, I still reccomend it for viewing and I'll certainly be adding it to my DVD collection when it comes out. I've heard that this will be the last Potter movie. If that true, I'll be sorry to see it go. On the other hand, if the remaining novels are as dark as Prisinor..., I won't mind it too much.
It isn't the last movie, they started filming the next one 4 weeks ago. same cast.
SHREK 2 held up well on a second viewing; lots more little details to pick up on now that I know the ending, plus a host of additional comic bits stuffed into every frame. For one not-much-of-a-spoiler example: after picking up the "Medieval Meal" at the drive-through, Prince Charming is fidgeting with a cardboard crown like the ones Burger King used to give away to kids. Puss in Boots and the Fairy Godmother are just amazing to watch, in terms of character detail. The Fairy Godmother might be the most realistic animated human I've ever seen -- except, of course, that she flies around. The Bichon Frise (white puppy), on the other hand, is very crude in its animation, much more so than any other character. There has to be a reason for this, but I can't figure out what it is! I think I'm going to see this another couple of times in first-run. Last time I did that was with GHOSTBUSTERS 20 years ago.
Re 206 The latest HP very much is like the book. The whole point is that there isn't a happy ending and it's at this point that things start getting "complicated".
re #208: My reaction to Shrek 2 was certainly not as enthusiastic as Ken's. Having seen it over the weekend I can't imagine wanting to see it multiple times in the theater. It wasn't horrible but even with decidedly modest expectations I found it didn't really live up to them. Most grating at all, at least to me, was the film's use of music. The original Shrek wasn't a subtle film either, but the person who picked the music seemed to know how to enhance a scene with the right musical choice (for example the scene which uses John Cale's cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah") I couldn't find a single scene in Shrek 2 that benefitted from the accompanying music, and some of the musical choices were cringe-inducing -- the big "Livin' la Vida Loca" musical number at the end and the action scene inexplicably set to a decidedly inferior cover of the Buzzcock's classic "Ever Fallen in Love" both spring to mind. As for the jokes, I will admit that they piled in a *lot* of pop culture references, many of which I probably missed. The ones I had time to notice, however, didn't seem particularly insightful or amusing to me, they just seemed to be there with no real point to them. "Oh look, it's another 'Matrix' reference, or is it supposed to be a reference to Shrek 1's bullet-time gag?" or "Wow. 'Sir Justin' looks just like Justin Timberlake. How hilarious.. <yawn>" But don't let me suck all the joy out of it for any of the rest of you. More than likely you'll have a good time; I seem to be in a distinct minority of people who didn't think it was particularly good.
One problem seems to be you know too much about current pop music.
re #202-- Twila, what was wrong with Arthur's mother being a bellydancer in Excalibur. The scene is a flashback, showing Arthur's mother when Arthur was conceived, when she was young and desireable. Why is it necessary that Arthur's mother have come from high society? If Arthur's mother was a commoner, in these dark ages, and was good looking, she may well have made money the ways in which good looking women made money in those days. Let us not confuse modern times with the dark ages. I think Boorman did not want to look at the probable past of Arthur's family with rose colored glasses and it was commendable Did you also disapprove of the incest between arthur and morgaine, that produces mordred? Other legends have Mordred the son of Lot. I guess it was a bit revisionist but I still liked it
Richard - it's you who's confusing modern times with the dark ages. Nobility married nobility then, no exceptions. If Arthur *was* the son of a common woman, the only way he would have been able to gain the throne would have been to hide his origins, otherwise he would have been excluded on the principle of being a bastard. Mediaeval aristocracy marrying commoners is a fiction which suits the romanticism of our age, which isn't at all like the brutal times they lived in.
For a realistic idea of how the well-born treated the low-born, see the prima nocte scenes in Braveheart.
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mcnally, who knows if Shrek 2 is a good film or not. But it was certainly enjoyable - at least for most people - and the fact that you didn't derive must enjoyment from it won't wreck it for other people, believe me. I mean, c'mon, giant cookie named "Mongo" - that's as good as it gets! :-)
"Why can't we all just, get along?"
Point.
It'd be pretty dull if this was the "everyone agrees about the movies" item. I'm just presenting a contrasting view on "Shrek 2".
Re #213:
What about that bit where Arthur pulls the sword out of the rock while
no one else could?
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Yep - and the device of having Arthur pull the Sword out the Stone is probably simply a mythical or fictional one to get around #213.
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Richard: re212: Hmmm. Guess my suspension of disbelief is way lower than yours about belly-dancers in England. In 500 or thereabouts. Nope. Sorry, I don't think the Celts were really into belly-dancing in Middle Eastern costumes. And Igraine was definitely a Queen. So nope. Again, I'm not buying it. And I still hate the "rape" by Uther while in full plate. Dumb dumb dumb. I am a full Sir Thomas Malory Le Mort d'Arthur canon-fiend (or, if pressed, I'd go with Giraldus or the Welsh Triads, all of which have some pretty definitive Arthurian material), but Borman just doesn't cut it. (Neither does Marion Zimmer Bradley's uber-feminist Mists of Avalon, to be fair.) I admit that the real (if there was a real true person who was Arthur) would have been probably a Romano-British war leader, but I happen to go with the full mythological Malory figure for my Arthur. About the music in "Shrek 2" -- it didn't seem obtrusive during the movie, to the point that I'm still not sure where most of the music on the soundtrack album was actually used (I know where maybe 5 songs were in the movie, "Accidentally in Love" at the beginning, "Funkytown" and the Tom Waits song, and of course both fairy godmother numbers and "Livin' La Vida Loca"...). I bought the album because I wanted to get the version of "La Vida" (I'm a sucker for Puss and Donkey, what can I say? I want to get boots for my cat!) but I like more than threequarters of it quite a bit. I particularly like the Pete Yorn song, after the Fairy Godmother's version of "Holding Out..." and the Counting Crows song. I was particularly shocked to find myself actually semi-enjoying the Tom Waits song, since I don't like Tom Waits's voice at all, and I don't do black depressive songs.
Re resp:206: I liked it for the same reason you disliked it. It didn't
try to be chipper. It was sort of the "Emperor Strikes Back" of Harry
Potter movies.
I haven't read any of the books except the first one, but my friend who
has tells me the dark tone is consistent with the book. He also warns
me that the next one is even darker.
Re resp:208: I still found the computer-animated humans a little creepy
at first, but after the first few minutes of the film I didn't notice
anymore.
Re resp:224: Careful. Tom Waits is an acquired taste, and if you manage
to acquire it you may find yourself hooked. ;> I first encountered his
music on the _12 Monkeys_ soundtrack. ("Earth Died Screaming", another
cheerful party song.)
re #224: > I particularly like the Pete Yorn song.. Ouch.. The Buzzcocks' original of "Ever Fallen in Love" is a pop music masterpiece -- a bouncy, high energy two-minute gem that was an almost perfect blend of punk and power pop. Yorn's cover version, used on the soundtrack, might well be the best track in the movie, and it's also better (in my opinion) than anything on his breakthrough album "musicforthemorningafter" but it's just so.. lacking.. compared to the original.. I'm really trying NOT to be a pop culture snob but it's distressing (in a small way) to think that there are people whose only experience with the song will cause them to remember it as "the Pete Yorn song from Shrek 2" Even if you enjoy Yorn's version of the song, however, it's not a very good choice for the scene it accompanies in the movie (which [mild spoiler] is a chase scene in the potion works.) There are plenty of movies which feature music I don't like which nevertheless manage to use their music more effectively than I thought "Shrek 2" did and which didn't leave me with a feeling of jarring disconnect between what was happening on-screen and in the story with what I was hearing in the music.. > I was particularly shocked to find myself actually semi-enjoying the > Tom Waits song, since I don't like Tom Waits's voice at all, and I don't > do black depressive songs. If you don't do bleak, downbeat songs I doubt that you're in any danger of winding up a Tom Waits fan, as warned in #225, but even singing his own songs I find Waits' voice works very well for some songs, not well for others. If you develop an interest in hearing more of Waits' work I recommend the album "Rain Dogs" as the best starting place.
I just saw "Shrek 2", and while I agree the songs were slightly excessive, overally it was a very funny movie.
Agreed that his voice works well for some songs and not others. I'm sure there's disagreement about which ones, too. For example, I like his version of "Downtown Train" a lot better than Rod Stewart's, but I'm sure there are many people who feel otherwise.
Now there's another depressing thought, though you're undoubtedly right. I have a visceral dislike of Rod Stewart which no doubt colors my opinion on this issue..
Re. 225: I didn't "dislike" it. I was just dissapointed that it didn't match the spirit of the first two. I'm glad that ther'll be another film and I'll certainly be there opening weekend to see it.
Film 4 is due out in 2005, film 5 is scheduled to be out in 2007. That will take it out to the current book.
Hi, Glenda!
Re. 231: Any idea why not 2006?
Probably due to special effects?
Doubtful, considering how many FX were in the last two films.
My guess would be to avoid a 3-year gap between film 5 and film 6 (assuming there ever is a film 6.) The spacing between the books has been growing greater and greater and the films take at least a year of work to produce *after* the book has been finished. Keeping the series relatively evenly spaced-out is probably somewhat important to the producers.
Some of the extra time is so that the kids can actually spend some time at real schools. I just read an article about the actor that plays Malfoy. He said that he is putting college off for a year to finish filming #4. There was a gap between 3 & 4 so that one of them could catch up on school work. It has to be hard working around school and labor issues with kids of this age on projects this big.
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Saw Shrek2. Okay, Love Potion No. IX. I got it. Also saw Harry Potter. I wanna ride on the Magic Bus. Saw "Saved" earlier tonight. A bit of commentary on "Christian Life".
I would like to report that "The Day After Tomorrow" is the best movie I ever saw in Sedalia, Missouri.
I'm guessing it's also the ONLY movie you've ever seen in Sedalia, Missouri?
Saw "Harry Potter and Prisoner of Azkiban"-- my feeling is that the movie is too rushed, and certain details are sacrificed as a result. I know the studio didn't want a three hour+ movie, but the books are so detailed that you can't do them justice without enough time. It was still a good movie but I wanted it to be more than it was. I shudder to think that they might try to bring "Goblet of Fire" in at 2 hrs. and 25 mins or less
I also saw "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" this weekend and agree with Richard's criticism. Even at 2 1/2 hours it was rushed to the point where substantial story cuts had to be made, eliminating crucial exposition and obfuscating character motivations. Discussing the movie afterwards with Cathy it was clear to both of us that the problem is only going to get worse as the series progresses. If you look at the books next to each other on the shelf each book is noticably thicker than the volume that precedes it and the last couple of books have taken a huge leap over the first three. This can't help but be a problem for filmmakers trying to continue the series. I thought that the new look for the series was interesting. A much, much larger portion of this movie takes place outside Hogwarts' castle, much of it in the outdoors. The protagonists wear "muggle" clothes throughout all but a small part of the movie. The lesser characters have largely slipped away into the margins; they get very little screen time and do almost nothing to further the story. And of course the new Dumbledore sucks, but what are you going to do when your original actor dies?
Took the boys to see Garfield. Not great. Good clean family fun, I guess. This screen version of eats, but he doesn't, can't, ... well, you'll just have to see the film to understand what I'm hinting at. :-)
Didn't even know there was a Garfield film. Thanks for the warning.
They should have gotten Gandalf to stand in for Dumbledore.
Re #241: No, I've actually seen two movies in Sedalia, Missouri. "Day After Tomorrow" recently, and "Forces of Nature" a few years ago. Didn't think either was particularly good, but "Day After Tomorrow" was marginally better.
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They've got to be concerned in Redondo Beach - they are onlly 59 feet above MSL.
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Mike in resp:242 :: in press stories around the time of the first Harry Potter movie, director/series producer Chris Columbus was saying that the fourth book would have to be split into two films. But I have not heard anything to indicate that this realization is affecting the current filming of Potter #4.
Are the King and Queen of Spain financing the next one?
Re resp:250: I thought it was pretty funny when the reporter got smacked by the billboard.
THE TERMINAL-- New Steven Spielberg/Tom Hanks movie about a tourist from a small eastern european country who arrives at JFK airport in New York, and finds out that while he was in the air, there was a coup d'etat in his country. Since his government has been overthrown, his passport and his visa are invalidated and he is not allowed to enter the U.S. He is also not allowed to leave the U.S. for the same reasons. He is stuck in limbo. This is like Tom Hanks' "Survivor" movie, except instead of being stranded on a desert island, he is stranded in a big airport with no money (he can't exchange his currency since his government was overthrown), no friends and little command of english. We follow Hanks, as this eastern european tourist, around as he tries to eat, sleep and survive in a hostile, foreign environment where the authorities tell him that he "doesn't count", that he has fallen into diplomatic limbo and is expected to just disappear into the airport crowds. The story sounds preposterous, to get stuck in an airport for more than a year, but it is in fact based on a true story. There really was/maybe still is a guy who got stuck in such limbo at DeGaulle airport in Paris and ended up living there. The story is true, they just changed the location to New York. The movie is a bit long. A 2 1/2 hour movie where the entire movie takes place in a busy airport can get tedious. JFK airport, where this takes place, is my home airport and I've had my share of travel issues there over the years. But anyone who has ever had to spend a night in an airport due to missed flights, bad weather or airline snafus, will be able to identify with this movie. Hanks and Catherine Zeta Jones, who plays this stewardess who keeps coming through the airport off of flights and befriends him, and Stanley Tucci as the head of airport security, are all terrrific. The movie is I think about the natural desire we all have to have identity and be acknowledged, and the fear you can have of finding yourself becoming irrelevant and disappearing into the system and wondering if anybody cares. The ending is particularly poignant, which I won't give away except to say Hanks's character has come to America to finish something his late father started. Because by doing so, he can have closure and feel like he has somehow expressed the importance of his father's life, that he was alive, that he was somebody. The irony is that in the course of doing this, he has seemed to lose his own identity, lose his country, his passport, his money. This is a Spielberg film though, so you know it has a happy ending. Spielberg would never leave one of his characters trapped at JFK airport forever! Good movie, as long as you don't hate airports.
Note, the Tom Hanks "Survivor" movie I was comparing "The Terminal" to, was of course "Cast Away" Of which there are a lot of parallells, as anybody trapped in a foreign airport where they don't know the language and have no money, might well feel like they may as well be on a desert island
SAVED My friend Kate wanted to see a movie this weekend. I let her choose because there arent any movies out there that I feel I just *have* to see. She chose "Saved". I hadnt even heard of it so I did a quick search on the internet. When I first read a plot synopsis I wasnt sure this would be a very good movie. I heard that it was about high school students at a Christian high school. One of them got pregnant . I figured it would be some weird drama about teen pregnancy in what I often view as the rigid world of fundamental Christianity. My little web search turned up two other tidbits about this movie. One was that it starred Macaulay Culkin which made me even more worried about how this film would turn out. I wasnt really sure how well he would be as an adult actor. The second thing I learned was that this movie was produced by Michael Stipe. I have long been a fan of Michael Stipe's and I have listened to interviews with him on the subject of religion. I also know that he is from the south which is a place often referred to as "The Bible Belt" by us yankees in our more rude moments. This had me curious. Maybe this wasnt the Christian melodrama I was expecting. It turned out to be quite different from my expectations. In a general way, while there were aspects of the dramatic and I found myself crying a couple of times, it was mostly a comedy. And quite a good one at least from my point of view which is one of an outsider peering into the world of fundamental christianity with it's christian rock groups and clean cut kids and "Jesus loves You" bumper stickers. I was also pretty impressed with the way it used satire to explore some of the more fundamental Christian values such as forgiveness, tolerence, kindness, etc. In a strange way, it was almost a modern film adaptation of that familiar bible story, The Good Samaritan. Macaulay Culkin, btw, seems to have come into this own as an actor. The rest of the cast was pretty good too. All in all, I was pleasantly surprised and probably will let Kate pick the movie again ;)
I enjoyed the "I'm more Saved than you competition". A great line--after Mary had a Bible thrown at her by the cheif bitch, she turns around, picks it up and says "This is not a weapon".
1. Terminal is not a "true story." It is loosely (very loosely) based upon an actual occurance. 2. Stanley Tucci is not "the head of airport security." He is in the process of being promoted to chief of the INS bureau at the airport. 3. It is not a good movie. It is a fair (very fair) movie. If you miss seeing it, don't be disappointed.
You're loosely (very loosely) based on an actual person.
re: Saved...I want to see that because the movie's producer is REM's Michael Stipe. He's got a pretty good second career going, he also prodeuced Being John Malkovich, which I really liked
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The original Stepford Wives is very creepy. I am getting that this remake isnt so much. I might have to see it but I think I'll wait until it is out on DVD.
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I went and saw Dodge Ball this weekend, which was one of the funniest movies I've seen in a while. There are a lot of details they added it, which just added to more fun. I can't remember laughing out loud so much in a movie.
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Is Ben Stiller a director? Well, then I'm Hitchcock.
What happened to Ben? He used to be funny.
"He should go to the Derek Zoolander school for
kids that can't read scripts good".
Ben has great performance as actor. That's all.
If you like zoolander, you'll love dodge ball. Humor is similar.
Zoolander is one Ben's worst films.
He got into trouble trying to do two things
at the same time: director & actor.
Ben is a great actor but a terrible director.
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No way. It doesn't make sense tod. Why would I be
offended? I am not pretty heheh. I like comedies a lot.
Moreover, I like Ben's work. He has a characteristic
humor.
But I have critical sense and I think Ben gave director
all his attention. That's, he couldn't work that much.
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His performance could be better.
Ben's best performances are with common stories.
Zoolander, filmed in NY and LA, Ben directs, writes
producers this movie. What did he prove with that?
He proved that he doesn't have talent to be director,
writer and producer at the same time.
A good idea isn't ehough, it's necessary talent.
Honestly, he went TOO far.
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Compared to films previous of him.
Well, I know the difference between novella and
comedy. My critic is only related to Ben's work
as director.
And, how I said before, what harmed his performance
was the desire to do a lot of things at the
same time.
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It's no wonder that meybe another rewrite 'from the
truth' was needed.
The fact is Ben would be better off this way when he
plays mild-mannered characters who get into hilarious
trouble like 'Meet the parents'.
This film is amusing, but not quite funny enough, for
the most part there are a few laughable moments here &
there.
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*This film is amusing...I mean t Zoolander :(
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