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| 25 new of 304 responses total. |
rcurl
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response 100 of 304:
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May 7 00:28 UTC 2002 |
...and I thought it was me....
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senna
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response 101 of 304:
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May 7 02:17 UTC 2002 |
There were more Superman references than what Richard mentioned. Mary Jane
was involved in several of them.
I presumed that the hospital scene was deliberately overdone--it had to be,
because he kept going, and going, and going, and going... I'll take middle
ground between the extremes, thanks. Again, I enjoyed the movie, but we're
not looking at a real achievement or anything. Take it for what it is and
you'll have fun.
I can't believe it set an openning weekend record, though. That should tell
you about how far prices are jacking up.
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gelinas
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response 102 of 304:
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May 7 03:11 UTC 2002 |
I refuse to get defensive about liking Spiderman. I liked the comic books
when I was growing up, and the movie caught those early books nicely. I don't
see the "Superman, the Movie" references, but maybe I will on the second
showing. For folks who didn't read Spiderman before the Superman movies, I
suppose it could be different.
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jaklumen
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response 103 of 304:
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May 7 08:50 UTC 2002 |
So does Julie, and she was filling me in on a lot of the references--
such as material they used for MJ that was featured with Gwen in the
comics. This was a nice movie, and I'm sorry I don't share the
criticism of William DaFoe as the Green Goblin. It worked well enough
for me.
And geez, like any of you geeks never said stupid things to love
interests in high school 8/
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gelinas
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response 104 of 304:
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May 7 14:32 UTC 2002 |
A friend has offered to let me read "Amazing Stories" #15; I need to take him
up on that RSN.
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senna
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response 105 of 304:
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May 7 22:01 UTC 2002 |
It's been reprinted in other forms, I suppose. And I *have* read quite a bit
of Spiderman through numerous eras, and the Superman references stuck out
glaringly. Interesting more than anything.
I don't see why anybody should have to defend why they like something to
somebody else. It's the height of stupidity. :)
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jaklumen
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response 106 of 304:
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May 8 03:32 UTC 2002 |
call me Jolly Green Giant stupid, then!
haha, true.
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fitz
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response 107 of 304:
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May 9 17:59 UTC 2002 |
SPIDERMAN (B)
I canna say much more about this film than has already been said (resp 72).
I paid matinee prices and got my money's worth. Elfman's score didn't steal
the show they way it has in other films and however proper a score it be, I
don't think that he'll get an Oscar for Spiderman.
My kids and I all agree: Not enough wisecracks.
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krj
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response 108 of 304:
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May 13 02:21 UTC 2002 |
Leslie and I would like to put in some good words for ITALIAN FOR
BEGINNERS, running for a few more days at the Michigan.
To crib from Roger Ebert's review: forget all the stuff about this
being a Dogma 95 film (complete with affidavit at the beginning!) --
it's a really sweet romantic movie about a bunch of Danish people
and their quirky lives, who will eventually pair off in couples,
of course. Highly recommended if you like small movies about
people and emotions with no special effects, no gunshots.
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gull
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response 109 of 304:
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May 13 16:38 UTC 2002 |
Rented _The Lathe of Heaven_. This is a video release of a 1980 PBS
production based on the Ursula Le Guin novel of the same name. It's
moderately low budget, much like a lot of BBC stuff, but not so much that it
distracts from the story. It starts out slow, but it's easy to get into the
story and it becomes quite creepy once you do. A good film to rent when you
want something thought-provoking and aren't particularly interested in
seeing lots of eye candy. I think the plot has been covered once before in
the movie items, so I won't describe it again.
As an aside, I'd forgotten how different TV looked in the early 1980s. This
production appears to have been shot on film, then telecine converted with a
tube-type TV camera, and it shows. The picture is softer and has lower
contrast than you see with modern cameras, bright lights trail streamers
behind them, and scene changes are accompanied by a brief reverse-image
'ghost' of the previous scene. You don't realize how many subtle
improvements there have been in the last two decades of television until you
watch something like this.
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senna
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response 110 of 304:
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May 16 07:07 UTC 2002 |
I might not be the first in a flood of Attack of the Clones reviews, but there
are none posted as I write mine. I just got back from the first showing,
obviously.
Not bad at all. This movie clearly demonstrates just how difficult an
undertaking George Lucas has saddled himself with--very few franchises have
to flesh out a plot for which the conclusion is already known in this fashion.
Further, the overwhelming expectations of the Star Wars franchise make movies
like this (particularly *this* episode) difficult to make. There is NO WAY
everybody is going to walk out of the theater satisfied, and this cliche has
much more weight for this movie.
I really enjoyed this movie. It was well put-together, it was less cheese
and less overbearing than Ep I, and it did a terrific job of beginning to
weave the plots together. There are, naturally, a lot of critics who don't
like the movie, and I say to them: What do you want? Roger Ebert complains
of flat dialogue and specifically points out how unimpressed he was with the
special effects. Well, I'll grant that the dialogue had little in the way
of memorable interchanges, and one of the delightful elements of Ep 4 and 5
is the banter of the characters particularly where it focused on Han Solo,
but it was serviceable and I can't think of where the catchy phrases would
come in with such predefined characters.
And that's the thing, we know what is going to happen and we have an extremely
vague idea of what it will take to get us there--you can't just start taking
liberties with the script, turn Obi-Wan into a sardonic wisecracker, or Anakin
into a one-liner expert. The most memorable dialogue from episode I was of
course that of Jar-Jar, for all the wrong reasons. His part is well
controlled and guised, and as a result the characters we're left with are all
straight-talkers.
Mostly, anyway. Ewan Macgregor does a fine job as an understated Obi-Wan,
his phrases often carrying more meaning than the words give. Anakin is a
passionate kid, with all of the emotion and none of the humor, and I can't
say that it's inappropriate. It's not like Luke was the first coming of Jerry
Seinfeld, either.
Where'd I get this from? Oh, yeah, enough about the flat dialogue. The
special effects, as expected, were... er, everything you'd expect. I was much
more engrossed in the film this time than in Episode I, and I felt that the
effects did a great job complimenting the movie rather than sticking out in
it. Much like the change between Star Wars and Empire, the movie is doing
all the same stuff, but with much more panache. Coruscant is vivid without
too much fluff, Tatooine might as well be entirely set-based, and the arena
toward the end was everything that the Colosseum from Gladiator should have
been and wasn't.
There are other parallels in the move from I to II and from IV to V, common
themses, tricks, jokes, and plot developments. Astute viewers will be able
to pick up a lot fo them right away, but they're hardly ostentatious.
Neither is the plot itself, which escapes the stumbling romance between
Amidala and Anakin (not bad, except that you cringe when you hear the words
they're speaking to each other) to weave an excellent storyline setting up
what will hopefully be a slam-bang finish. The setup is all there--we all
heard "Clone Wars" when we heard the hype, and I thought that they were trying
to do too much, and they would have been--but in truth there's a lot more
coming. You'll see. There are precursors to future events, crowd-pleasing
battles with fan favorites (and between a pair of fan favorites) and a rousing
climactic Lightsaber battle. Better yet, there is no real feeling of cheap
completion like there was after the first movie (they connect that original
conflict decently well, by the way), just more to come.
What else? Only to mention that the development of Anakin Skywalker, relative
to who he'll become and what he's doing, was near-perfect. Tied in the Lars
family a lot cleaner than I was expecting, too. We're finally on our way.
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scott
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response 111 of 304:
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May 16 07:14 UTC 2002 |
Star Wars episode 2, Attack of the Clones:
An incoherent mess. Honestly, most fanfic is better written than this movie
was. The visuals are usually great, but the dialogue... Samuel L. Jackson
managed to breathe some life into most of his lines, but Natelie Portman and
Hayden Christensen were clearly not up to the task. Not even the fight scenes
were interesting to watch compared to the ones in Ep. 1.
And all those references and quotes from the original trilogy... it really
did look like fanfic.
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rcurl
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response 112 of 304:
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May 16 13:07 UTC 2002 |
I haven't seen the new movie, but from TV news I gather that there has
been no advancement in light saber technology over quite a few years. This
is at odds with the expected rate of technological development. Or has
technology finally plateaued at the time of these events?
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gull
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response 113 of 304:
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May 16 17:53 UTC 2002 |
I haven't seen it yet myself, but a friend of mine feels Anakin's been
miscast again -- there isn't enough of a hint of evil in him.
Re #112: I got the impression that light sabers, in the Star Wars universe,
are a sort of traditional weapon, unique to the Jedi. (Everyone else seems
to use blasters.) That'd make them kind of akin to Samurai swords, which I
don't think changed a whole lot over time, either.
I kind of wish Lucas would get over himself. No one really believes he was
trying to create a "modern myth" when he wrote the Star Wars movies, or that
his inspirations were really 'The Odyssey' or any of the other things he's
claiming. More to the point, the general public doesn't care, and the
sci-fi geeks that might already know better and can pick out the sci-fi
authors Lucas was *really* imitating.
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baluxp
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response 114 of 304:
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May 16 17:58 UTC 2002 |
where does my new message get displayed at the ned or beggining eg #1 or #234
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tpryan
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response 115 of 304:
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May 16 18:08 UTC 2002 |
Much more satisfying this movie be. Discuss more after you do see.
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baluxp
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response 116 of 304:
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May 16 18:26 UTC 2002 |
i see now at the end
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rcurl
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response 117 of 304:
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May 16 19:38 UTC 2002 |
Re #113: no one has been fighting with Samurai swords since firearms became
prevalent. The Jedi "knights' don't just keep them around as adornments.
Also, historically, such obsolete weapons become parts of recreated rituals,
not life-and-death scenarios. If they want rituals, they should use proper
masks and body armour to prevent injuries - and have a few rules of
combat. Touche!
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flem
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response 118 of 304:
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May 16 19:54 UTC 2002 |
I'd set my light-saber against your blaster any day, rebel scum.
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rcurl
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response 119 of 304:
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May 16 20:03 UTC 2002 |
My blaster is an upgrade, Ver. 6.67, which makes light sabers go limp. All
you'll be swinging round is a wet noodle.
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jmsaul
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response 120 of 304:
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May 16 20:56 UTC 2002 |
I'll use a Samurai sword, then. They still work. ;-)
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jep
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response 121 of 304:
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May 17 01:03 UTC 2002 |
I don't know what caused me to pick "Planet of the Apes" when I rented
a movie for myself, but this ranks alongside "Anaconda" and "Volcano"
as the memorably least entertaining movies I've ever seen. The 20th
century cliches, the vapidly thin plot, the abysmal costumes, the
massive variation from the original movie and the book with even less
justification for the setting, if that's possible... I didn't stop it
after 20 minutes, when I should have given up. I kept watching for
almost an hour, and have left it in the VCR, where it's still running,
in case I hear some shred of appeal that leads me to go and resume
watching. It's in another room. Please, let it stop!
I don't recall this movie being resoundingly trashed here on Grex, as
it deserved. Maybe I skipped over the discussion. I rented a "Blue's
Clues" movie for my son at the same time I got this dog. I'm much more
likely to watch that one again than I am to re-endure this version
of "Planet of the Apes".
Zero stars. Maybe a black hole. This was awful.
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jp2
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response 122 of 304:
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May 17 02:38 UTC 2002 |
This response has been erased.
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pthomas
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response 123 of 304:
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May 17 06:11 UTC 2002 |
Saw Ep2 tonight...All I'll say is I appreciate what happened to Jar Jar.
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tpryan
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response 124 of 304:
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May 17 15:48 UTC 2002 |
The weak minded thing that he is.
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