Subject:
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Re: Monday Morning Diversion
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.fun
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Date:
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Wed, 25 Aug 2004 17:54:09 GMT
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Viewed:
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1642 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.fun, David Laswell wrote:
> In lugnet.off-topic.fun, Dave Schuler wrote:
> > I like The Fifth Element, though I accept that it's darned goofy, and
> > the "love is the answer" bit *is* pretty weak.
>
> Oh, my opinion of that film goes well beyond that tiny little point. I was
> twitching during the song-and-dance routine, my eyes were drawn to Gary Oldman's
> hideous costume like it was a 20 car pileup, the "perfect woman" badly needed
> braces...and an acting coach, the bad-guy costumes looked like the sort of
> padded-suit outfits you'd see in a Godzilla movie, and the whole movie tried to
> be too many things at the same time (many of them contradictory).
This is one of those goofy movies that if you take it seriously at all you'll
just hate it. It's one of those bad movies that I enjoy. I find Mar Attacks
hilarious, but most other people just absolutely despise it. I suppose you had
to be a kid in the 60's and collected the cards...
>
> > Wing Commander--good call. I didn't see that one in the theater, but you're
> > right that it's a major stinker.
>
> Like I said, I watched it for the TPM trailer. I'd gotten my money's worth
> before the movie even started.
Wing Commander may have been a landmark game at the time, but this came on TV
and I tried to prop my eyes open, but alas, I ended up drowning out the
soundtrack with my snores, so I can only call the part I watched as boring.
Dungeons and Dragons did the same.
>
> > If I had to list a Star Trek film, it would probably be V. I just can't
> > watch it.
>
> I never watched any of the 6 TOS movies in the theatre, which was listed as a
> criteria for this exercise. I have watched them all on TV or video, though I
> refuse to watch The Motionless Picture again because it was so boring, and I
> refuse to watch ST5 again because...well, I can't remember, but I know it was
> bad enough that I've managed to purge nearly all of my memories of having
> watched it.
The only one worth watching is II, maybe IV. Anything that listed William
Shatner as a director had given fair warning and you deserved what you got if
you watched it.
> > I had read Frank Miller's treatment of Batman in the years before Batman hit
> > the screen, and I wanted it to be so much more than it was.
>
> Oh, if his treatment was anywhere near being on par with The Dark Knight
> Returns, I doubt anyone would even remember the Superman series.
The Dark Knight Returns was perhaps a spiritual revival of what Batman should
be, but the actual story seemed like nothing more than warmed over Dirty Harry.
Nor am I a fan of Miller's stylized art (but then, I loved Ditko's Spiderman and
Dr. Strange, so there's no accounting for taste, or maybe it's a function of
age).
> > And it really cheeses me that Burton's Batman is the yardstick by which all
> > subsequent comic book films have been measured.
>
> It's an odd situation that led to that. The Superman movies started out okay
> and went downhill pretty fast, but to me they always seemed a bit too sedate for
> comic book movies. They've later been upstaged by not one, but two different
> live-action TV series, so noone really gives them more than cursory attention
> when ranking comic book adaptations. The first Batman movie really captured the
> feel of both the original and present-day Batman comics, as well as washing away
> the stain upon his reputation that came with the uber-camp 60's TV series.
> Between then and the point when the first X-Men movie was released, pretty much
> every other comic book adaptation was either not a true cultural icon (Spawn,
> Blade, etc) or deemed to be so abyssmal by the distributors that it either sat
> on the shelf for years or went directly to video (Punisher, Fantastic Four,
> etc). When people think back to the beginning of the comic book movie trend,
> Batman is usually the first one that'll come to mind, followed by a long gap
> wherein no other comic book character really hit it big. At this point, in
> order for any movie to supplant Batman as the poster-child, it will need to be
> leaps and bounds beyond anything we've already seen before, in any genre. I
> mean, just think of how many movies have promised to be the "next Star Wars".
> Well, you might have trouble doing that, because you probably won't even
> remember most of them.
Spiderman and Spiderman II are the new yardsticks now. But certainly the
current trend for comic book characters goes to Burton's Batman. It was a step
towards a darker and more complex character than the traditional Good Guy in
Bright Tights (->tIGHt<- tights!).
> > My complaints about TPM are relatively few:
> > 1. JarJar: Hate him, hate him, hate him. Nothing can sway me on this.
>
> I've lost track of the number of people who said they used to think that very
> same thing until they watched it in a theatre packed full of really little kids.
> Jar-Jar hitting the screen is reportedly like pumping tranquilizers into the air
> system.
It was hard to truly despise Jar-Jar when my son was rolling out of his chair
with laughter every time Jar-Jar was on the screen. I find him annoying, but I
don't have the vehement blind hatred that others ascribe to him.
>
> I don't like him, but I don't hate him. I guess I'm willing to take his role in
> Ep2 into account when rating his worth in TPM.
>
> > 2. Jake Lloyd: A cute enough kid, but he should have had more guidance
> > from Lucas or from some kind of acting coach.
>
> He's a kid playing a kid. Not every child actor is going to be Haley
> Joel-Osmont, and not every kid character is going to need that level of acting
> ability for a believable performance. Lots of kids are real dorks, if you judge
> them by the same standards that are applied to adults. I think his timing could
> have used some improvement, but beyond that, I think his performance comes
> across as a typical kid trying to pose as an adult.
He was a complete dud. I think that was more the fault of the director, who was
used to having experienced actors in the first movies fill out their parts (or,
bail Lucas out, if you prefer).
>
> > My complaints about AOTC are likewise pretty few:
> > 1. Hayden Christiansen: His whole Sociopathic Obsessive Love-
> > Stalker performance was so overwrought as to be unwatchable
>
> Anakin has been obsessing over Padme for ten years, after having only seen her
> for a few days. He _is_ a sociopathic obsessive stalker, and that's going to be
> a major component of his downfall (no spoiler info, just the bright flashing
> signs that were presented to us in AOTC). And her initial instinct shows that
> some part of her mind, at least, realized that.
>
> > 2. The Love Story: Wholly unconvincing and generally creepy
>
> Have you ever seen teenagers who are newly in love? It's rarely something that
> would inspire romantic epics. As for being creepy, I think that was
> intentional.
Hayden was just truly awful. Terrible. Miscast. Bad actor. Bad direction.
Stupid writing. A combination of each and every one of those things. It needed
a stronger actor to rescue the part.
>
> Now, I'm not saying that Lucas couldn't/shouldn't have found actors who could do
> a better job of portraying Anakin and Padme, or better directors to film the
> movies, but I think there are a dearth of middle-aged guys who are using the
> actors as scapegoats for the fact that they didn't have the same jaw-dropping
> experience that they did when they saw the original trilogy when they were young
> enough to be impressed by the Smurfs.
I'm a little confused by the above: you complain about a "dearth" (small amount)
of middle age guys complaining, but seem to be sneering at them, which would
make a lot more sense if you had said a "plethora" or some other fancy word for
"a lot".
And guys who are middle-aged now didn't have smurfs when they were young (they
were probably in high school or college at the time).
>
> > Lucas has a real problem with writing convincing dialogue, but he's always
> > been that way; either you accept his writing or you don't.
>
> I've got a couple of behind-the-scenes videos of the original trilogy, and there
> are at least a couple of instances where some of the main hero actors are
> commenting on how they'd told Lucas up front that his dialogue couldn't possibly
> work...until they saw the result on the screen.
Clearly they watched a different release than the public did. :-)
-->Bruce<--
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Monday Morning Diversion
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| (...) For me, Mars Attacks suffers from too much Burton, but that's just a function of my elsewhere-articulated non-fondness for the man's directing. Still, I give it props (yo yo yo, check out my mad skills re: hiphop linguistics) for being (...) (20 years ago, 25-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
| | | Re: Monday Morning Diversion
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| (...) I actually liked Mars Attacks, but I thought T5E tried to take itself too seriously, while at the same time trying to be light-hearted...with a deep philosophical message. It's theme is just to muddied and contradictory for me. (...) At what (...) (20 years ago, 26-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Monday Morning Diversion
|
| (...) Oh, my opinion of that film goes well beyond that tiny little point. I was twitching during the song-and-dance routine, my eyes were drawn to Gary Oldman's hideous costume like it was a 20 car pileup, the "perfect woman" badly needed (...) (20 years ago, 24-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
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