Subject:
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Re: LoTR # 1 on IMDB
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.fun
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Date:
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Fri, 21 Dec 2001 21:18:00 GMT
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Viewed:
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372 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.fun, Richard Marchetti writes:
> Amongst such amazing films I'd list amongst my top favs are (more or less in
> order): Barry Lyndon
It's possible that you and I (and probably a few others around here) are
the only ones who've seen and enjoyed Barry Lyndon--a good pick, though!
> Moll Flanders (BBC version, Alex Kingston)
Haven't seen that in a few years, and it's not a particular favorite for
me, but it's another good pick.
> Prospero's Books
Greenaway is by all reasonable account a phenomenal director, but he
sometimes goes to great lengths to make his films all but unwatchable to
anyone who isn't a hardcore film student. Have you seen Vertical Features?
Awful! While Pete has some neat stylistic maneuvers, I could do without all
the singing.
On the other hand, anything with Gielgud is worth watching. I even sat
through Arthur II.
> Hamlet (Kenneth Branagh version)
Ugh, that was awful! It totally diverged from the written text--directors
should always and only do exactly what the author intended, even if none of
the fanboy zealots can agree on what that was.
Just kidding--I loved that version in particular--but I couldn't resist
sniping at some of the loonies I've seen on Usenet griping about Jackson's
failure to put every single word of LotR on the screen exactly as it was on
the page.
> Fight Club
Geez--what is it about Fight Club that makes people love it so? I'm not
really taking you to task for it, Richard--I've had this discussion before
with other folks, and for me it's basically a matter of the hopelessly
been-there-done-that re: the dual identity and societal angst angle. Aside
from the ol' two-men-as-one-character thingie, the "story" of Fight Club is
also staggeringly simple. Ah, well--tastes vary.
> Excalibur
Yikes! Did you see a different version? I just couldn't get into the
cinematography or characterizations, and the fact that the armor was
anachronistic by nearly a millennium compared with my preferred version of
Arthur. Arthur was tangentially my field of study in college, so I've got a
vested interest in a particular time setting; perhaps that's just a baseless
bias. Not one of my favorites in any case.
> Raising Arizona
'Nuff said!
> Four Rooms.
Wow, that's an uneven script. At least 2/4 of the film was wasted for me.
I loved the dialogue in Tarentino's vignette, though.
> I can probably give honorable mention to things like Blade Runner
The director's cut, I presume. Certainly that film deserves a mention for
establishing the "look" of cyberpunk and most subsequent scifi. On the
other hand, I don't think Scott's as visionary a director as he's made out
to be, and Bladerunner helped establish that myth...
> Croupier
You must have a thing for Alex Kingston (not that there's anything wrong
with that). I just saw this film on Monday, believe it or not, and found it
to be enjoyable. Nothing especially impressive to me about it, and I found
the voiceover monologue to be especially inconsistent. Even the "blur"
between author and character seems somewhat overdone to me, alas.
> Elizabeth
Overall that's a good film, but there are some unforgiveable moments. In
the scene when Rush is interrogating the guy who's hanging upside-down, the
camera does a 180° is trite and wholly out of place in the cinematography of
the film. Likewise the sequence when Liz is posing at the mirror and
practicing her speech; it's inconsistent with her character up to that
point, and it's discordant with the flow of the film, too. Finally, her
little epiphany at the feet of the Virgin seems too quick-and-easy to convey
effectively the change it's supposed to mean for her character. I enjoyed
the film for the most part, though.
> But compare LOTR to Excalibur for a moment. Few things are as grand in
> scale as the Arthurian romances, and yet Boorman managed to tell the
> essential myth in under 3 hours, and the plot even includes the quest for
> the grail! Despite some minor 70s damage, that film is pretty amazing.
I think it was '81, actually. For me, that's the ultimate film that I
remember as a classic but which, on re-viewing as an adult, I can't stand.
I mentioned above my problems with the time period, but even beyond that I
found the acting to be both flat and stilted, and most of the characters
came across as caricatures. Sure, it's a better film than Sword of the
Valiant or First Knight, but I wouldn't put it anywhere near my top 100 film
list.
Dave!
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: LoTR # 1 on IMDB
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| (...) I just think it has great style -- way more style than most films. In a way the story is almost incidental to the main agenda of presenting a series of blacker than black comments and political criticisms about the modern world, and often (...) (23 years ago, 23-Dec-01, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: LoTR # 1 on IMDB
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| (...) I might have used a different metaphor, but I agree. One of my problems with the current LOTR movie is that I REALLY don't have a lot of prior knowledge of the material. Noeckel suggests that this film should be viewed as the first part of a (...) (23 years ago, 21-Dec-01, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
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