Film Flam

[Junkenstein]

I honestly have no idea, it was about 4ft tall, hairy and screaming. Beyond that I never really considered his heritage.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I honestly have no idea, it was about 4ft tall, hairy and screaming. Beyond that I never really considered his heritage.

Huh. Sounds like my family, all right.

[P3nT4gR4m]

So I watched Silver Linings Playbook the other night. I love when someone makes a movie about batshit crazy (especially bipolar) that rings true. Makes me fee a bit less lonely in this big old sane-ass world. Give it a watch if you want to understand, not my story, but an essential part of me nonetheless.

Also watched Zero Dark Thirty last night. Kinda dragged. I wouldn't say it endorsed the whole gitmo/rendition thing like a lot of people are accusing. I'd say it's more a case of trying to examine why it happens. These are real people, motivated to do this shit, for what they think are the right reasons and I find that refreshing compared to the "OMG the guy in charge is Satan" bullshit that seems to be the popular explanation. Evil is good people doing bad shit for what they think are the right reasons and this movie paints that picture without making judgments. Also the last half hour (when they raid Bin Laden's place) is fucking excellent. Dunno how accurate it is and I don't give a fuck - it's a movie and it kicks ass.

It's a fucking long movie, tho and, like I said it kinda drags in a lot of places. I reckon cutting it down to about 2 hours might have allowed a better pacing.

[Eater of Clowns]

I went to see Les Miserable.  I'll admit I was expecting quite a bit going in - The King's Speech was a very good movie, there's some decent talent in the cast, and I grew up listening to the songs from the show.

It was fucking garbage.  I would have walked out if I wasn't with my family.  It's not really the performances, I don't think, even Russell Crowe, who sounds like he's trying to sing in whalesong.  I kept expecting Dori from Finding Nemo to pop out and hold the other end of the numerous singing under a mottled night sky upon a precipice scenes he has.  And then you have Anne Hathaway, who even in her relatively small part was completely breathtaking.

The problem with the movie is it doesn't have the fucking guts to be what it is.  It's almost like it apologizes for itself, alternately playing up the epic plot (did I mention Russell Crowe sang on rooftops under a mottled night sky a few times?  guess how many singing in a rainstorm scenes there are?) and then cheesing it up.  There are a lot of weird first person shots, too.

Part of it may have been that we saw it at a shitty theater with bad sound.  I'll give it that much.  When they do Do You Hear the People Sing there weren't any drums.  No drums at all.  THERE WERE NO DRUMS IN A SONG THAT SAYS "WHEN THE BEATING OF YOUR HEART ECHOES THE BEATING OF THE DRUMS."  FUCK.  JUST HAVE ONE GUY DRUMMING, AT LEAST.  That, at least, might have been the theater's fault.

[P3nT4gR4m]

I hated Les Mis for the same reason I hated Sweeney Todd - they sing the whole motherfucking script. I can just about handle a decent musical if they sing songs but talk the bits that aren't a song. If they sing fucking everything I get so annoyed listening to it that I can't actually take in what they're saying singing, the upshot of which is I had no fucking idea what was going on by the time it got about 5 mins in.

P3nTGF loved it but I was watching youtube with the headphones plugged into my laptop by the time I'd figured out Anne Hathaway wasn't Wolverines wife.

[EK WAFFLR]

Watched Burlesque with WaffleGF last night. Not a bad movie, though the plot is predictable, to say the least.
Cher was brilliant in it, and her voice is as amazing now as it has ever been.

[Faust]

The movie Naked Lunch would have been received better if they told you up front it was a magical realism (lit crit definition) telling of how WSB wrote the thing in the first place.  Anyone expecting the book was in for dissapointment.

I hate the magic realism definition for this, it is surrealism with metaphorical imagery. It's one of my favourite movies because it holds the inexplicable ability to be both shocking and grotesque while at the same time being incredibly boring.
It may have something to do with peter wellers voice...

[Faust]

You may well be disappointed, then.

I've just finished watching Django there.
It is a really good movie up to a point, the characters are interesting, the bounty hunter apprentice and quest to free the girl were a strong enough premise fleshed out by good acting, interesting characters, humour and intrigue.

And then someone flicks a switch and the story is over but the movie continues for fourty minutes.
I think Tarentino was really passionate about getting the movie up to the point where Candy discovers their true intent, and then immediately lost interest.

The German arbitrarily loses his cool over something he should have well been able to handle, gets shot for his stupidity which starts a badly choreographed drawn out shoot out, and the movie never regains any kind of narrative.

There was an attempt at a Student becomes the Master style thing with the shitty cameo scene where he tricks the slavers goes in for a second lame shoot out in the same house.

Samuel L Jackson as the Evil House Nigger caricature was cool when he is shown as the brains of the operation but ultimately fails to deliver as a threat as the real villain, instead coming off as confused or just cranky, something he's done before in the Spirit.

QT needs to write his endings first because this and Inglorious Bastards just trail off.

[AFK]

Seems like as good a place as any to put this, but everyone read that JJ Abrams will be directing the next Star Wars movie, right? 

[Eater of Clowns]

Seems like as good a place as any to put this, but everyone read that JJ Abrams will be directing the next Star Wars movie, right?

I think it's a good thing.  Everything I've seen of his is thoroughly entertaining, if brain candy-ish.  What else can you really hope for?

[LMNO]

Honestly, either way, I won't go see it.

I lost interest when I had my first sexual experience with a woman.

[AFK]

I think at the end of the day, so long as Lucas has less of a stamp on these new movies, they should be improvements. 

[LMNO]

But still, who cares? The Campbell narritive mythos arc has been told, and then fucked up. The story is dead, finished. No amount of stapled-on subplots will save that.

[AFK]

Cloverfield monster vs. the Ewoks.


C'mon, you KNOW you want to see that.

[AFK]

Or maybe a buddy-cop movie featuring Lando and Admiral Ackbar.