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| Author |
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| 25 new of 304 responses total. |
cpnmonk
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response 50 of 304:
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Apr 29 11:57 UTC 2002 |
Yes I read one critic who argued that the Scorpion King is a really great B
movie. Although as I recall some said Conan the Barbarian was also a reall
y great B movie.
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flem
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response 51 of 304:
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Apr 29 16:14 UTC 2002 |
The thing that got me about The Rock was how thorougly ludicrous the sword
fights were. My tolerance for this sort of thing has been going down over
the years, as I've actually learned to fight with a "sword" and shield; it
really breaks the suspension of disbelief when I'm watching two
larger-than-life superhero types duking it out with big flashy swords and
suddenly realize that I could beat both of them together.
In other news, I watched Frailty the other night, and I am never, ever going
to Texas again.
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other
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response 52 of 304:
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Apr 29 17:03 UTC 2002 |
Watching swordfighting on film is, in most cases, like watching extremely
well-coordinated toddlers in a stickfight. Really good fight choreographers
have to go to great lengths to make good actors really look like they are
fighting for their lives. Change any of thosae factors forsomething less,
and you get shinyplasticbitchslapfighting of the sort flem describes.
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gull
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response 53 of 304:
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Apr 29 17:34 UTC 2002 |
Could you give some examples of films with good swordfighting, so those
of us who aren't sure that it should look like have an idea? :)
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edina
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response 54 of 304:
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Apr 29 18:03 UTC 2002 |
The Princess Bride?
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flem
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response 55 of 304:
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Apr 29 18:03 UTC 2002 |
That's a good question, and I don't have a good answer handy. The one thing
that springs immediately to mind is "The Princess Bride", though I may get
flamed for that. It's in my mind for some reason that Rob Roy had some pretty
good swordfighting, but I haven't seen it in years, and I can't remember any
specifics.
One telltale of bad swordfighting: when someone has a Huge Mucking Sword,
and insists on swinging it slowly and clumsily with one hand, even when their
other hand is empty.
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scott
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response 56 of 304:
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Apr 29 18:34 UTC 2002 |
"Rob Roy" had some good swordfighting. Some of the Toshiro Mifune samurai
films have good Japanese swordfighting.
And "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" had some great Chinese swordfighting.
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senna
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response 57 of 304:
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Apr 29 22:00 UTC 2002 |
I won't flame you for the Princess Bride comment. I felt it was well done,
and stayed within itself, an underestimated quality. I actually enjoyed the
lightsaber battle between Obi-Wan and Darth Maul (after Qui-Gon was already
gone) in Phantom Menace, if for nothing else because of its sheer intensity.
It humiliates the choreography in the other three movies, for certain.
Particularly unimpressive, to me, were the fights in Gladiator. That wasn't
just sword choreography, though.
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bru
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response 58 of 304:
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Apr 29 23:31 UTC 2002 |
Robin Hood, with Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone, who was an experienced
swordsman and did the choreography for the movie. My freinds wer also
impressed with The 13th Warrior. swordplay was good, what wasn't was covered
in darkness and the realities of melee battle, and the behavior of the
warriors, each knowing what his strengths and weakesses were adn that of his
fellow fighters, adn how they approached a problem not with bravado, but with
caution and stealth.
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flem
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response 59 of 304:
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Apr 30 16:41 UTC 2002 |
Hmm, I haven't seen 13th warrior, I'll have to check it out now. I'll agree
that older Robin Hood style movies tend to have much better fencing scenes
than one sees nowadays.
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scott
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response 60 of 304:
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Apr 30 16:47 UTC 2002 |
"13th Warrior" has some cool scenes, and the characters are pretty
interesting. A lot like a Xena episode, actually. There's even a Xena
episode with a similar plot. :)
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oval
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response 61 of 304:
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Apr 30 17:18 UTC 2002 |
one of the "once upon a time in china" flicks has some GREAT stick fighting.
i think it's part II.
i saw "requiem for a dream" - A+
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brighn
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response 62 of 304:
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Apr 30 20:40 UTC 2002 |
For a linguist, 13th Warrior has one of the coolest five minutes of film,
too... the bit where the audience begins to understand Old Norse (or whatever
they're talking) along with Banderas.
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drew
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response 63 of 304:
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Apr 30 21:02 UTC 2002 |
Michael Crichton, _Eaters of the Dead_.
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jaklumen
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response 64 of 304:
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May 2 10:08 UTC 2002 |
resp:57 I'll have to agree, although I heard the swordfighting
choreographer had initial troubles with Ewan McGregor-- he kept
dropping his 'saber.
I expect we may see some more good stuff in AotC.
Haven't seen "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" yet.
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aruba
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response 65 of 304:
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May 2 16:25 UTC 2002 |
The guy who played Sinbad on the syndicated Sinbad TV show was a fencing
champion in college.
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oval
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response 66 of 304:
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May 2 18:45 UTC 2002 |
y tu mama tabien was great. this old couple in front of us couldn't take it
though and walked out.
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slynne
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response 67 of 304:
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May 2 18:54 UTC 2002 |
I want to see that but I think I will wait until it is out on video.
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oval
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response 68 of 304:
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May 2 19:20 UTC 2002 |
but you wanna see cute young boys nude one the BIG screen!
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slynne
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response 69 of 304:
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May 2 20:36 UTC 2002 |
That might be too scary.
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oval
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response 70 of 304:
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May 2 20:52 UTC 2002 |
er young men..
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richard
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response 71 of 304:
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May 5 03:03 UTC 2002 |
SPIDER-MAN: Ive wanted to see this movie since I was a little kid, and Im
glad to say it doesnt disappoint. Its well made with terrific special
effects and really well cast. Tobey McGuire is an excellent spiderman,
but he's been uniformly good in everything he's been in (from Pleasantville
to Wonder Boys to Cider House Rules .etc) And Kirsten Dunst shows a lot
of range. Best of all Willem Dafoe as the Green Goblin! Dafoe is a
great actor and no movie works without a good sinister villian. You too
will believe a man can swing between skyscrapers using spiderwebs!
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senna
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response 72 of 304:
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May 5 04:43 UTC 2002 |
SPIDERMAN: This movie has been on the drawing board for 10, 12, 14 years.
It has undergone numerous incarnations, including one planned release that
was to be directed by James Cameron. I'm glad to say that it's another
classic comic-book movie, not only making allusions to predecessors like
Superman and Batman but indeed fully embracing the emerging superhero
archetype.
The similarities to Superman were unmistakable, and in my opinion excessive.
I can grant you the "running-while-tearing-open-shirt" allusion, but the
subsequent scene following it, with Mary Jane doing her best to play the part
of frightened sex kitten hanging on an object about to fall a fatal distance
to the ground, was way too similar to the helicopter scene for me. The only
real difference was that the villain was present in this scene...
And in too many others. Green Goblin is a good villain in the pages of the
comic book, and has potential to be a good villain on screen. The Green
Goblin we saw was not a good villain. It was a serviceable villain, with a
suitably demonic costume and a suitably vile croak of a voice that everybody
can use to identify the villain "because he just sounds so ugly." However,
there was no compelling interest in this villain, no dark motive that drew
horrified sympathy from the audience or dreadful invulnerability that made
defeat of said villain a virtually impossible task (think T2). He was just
a bad guy in a suit, with no defined strength or weapon that scares the
audience and no mystery about his origins or motives. Like a child's picture
book, this movie has to walk the audience through the enemy's story from the
beginning.
A lot of this movie wound up being typical set pieces. It is almost as if
the creative forces decided that effort just wasn't worthwhile, and instead
recycled things we've already seen. We never get a feel for Spider-Man's
limitations or his expertise, because he never really goes through a
feeling-out process after his first thrill ride over the building roofs out
of costume. The thing is, one of the most compelling elements of the
Spider-Man comic series is that Spider-man's enhanced strength never makes
him more powerful than the supervillains he faces--it merely puts him on the
same playing field. Spider-Man wins his battles through determination and
ingenuity rather than power, and his mortalility is a refreshing bit of
"realism" in an outrageously fantastical comic. This element is never present
in the movie, and something is lost.
Another major element of Spider-Man is the regular-guy feeling you get from
his life of Peter Parker. This movie does a magnificent job of capturing
Peter's high school insecurity and shortcomings, and his difficulty in talking
to Mary Jane. The relationship with Mary Jane was well-portrayed, sort of
a high-form rendition of the Clark Kent-Lois Lane romance from SuperMan I,
with less cheesiness and better emotion and the same high-pitched
woman-in-distress archetype that we get everywhere else. I enjoyed Mary Jane
on screen, except that she never acted-she was always acted upon, and that
makes for a cheese character.
Is it bad? Nah, it's a better-than-average superhero movie with decent action
and some thrilling web-swing sequences, and a secret identity romance that
is not groundbreaking but is certainly well done. The mild twist at the end
begs sequel, naturally, but it's a pleasant change from your usual
action-flick denoument and even provides a question or two for the viewer to
answer. I enjoyed this movie a fair amount, and I'm hopeful that some of the
problems I complain about now will be solved in the inevitable sequels (yeah,
right) and I *really* hope that they make this a more contiguous series than
Batman. I will probably see it again.
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gelinas
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response 73 of 304:
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May 6 00:44 UTC 2002 |
I disagree about the 'invulnerability' aspect: he takes a visible beating,
every time he meets GG. I think GG's almost-last line was the best one in
the whole movie, and it puts your premise in doubt.
Yeah, the Spiderman/Mary Jane relationship has *always* been reminiscent of
the Superman/Clark Kent/Lois Lane triangle. But I've always thought Marvel
did it a little bit better, and that holds true here.
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mcnally
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response 74 of 304:
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May 6 01:04 UTC 2002 |
My impression was that in the comics Mary Jane Watson was a later addition
to the Spiderman cast of characters and that she existed sort of as a joke
character for a long time before anyone ever saw her -- if I recall
correctly Peter's Aunt May kept trying to set him up with one of her elderly
friends' niece and he kept avoiding the blind date. Eventually he ran out
of excuses and reluctantly agreed to a date, only to discover that the niece
was a knockout..
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