Random Movie Talk That Probably Doesn't Deserve Its Own Thread (Page 11 of 39)

I went back and read some of the discussion on page 5 and I think the complaints about Lisbeth's character in the movie vs. the books isn't really valid. The movie didn't make Lisbeth more mysterious than the source since the reader doesn't find out what her whole deal was until well into the second novel. The movie actually gave more explanation since they bring up Lisbeth's father.  And I am glad that they cut out a lot of Micke's relationships.  Him sleeping with nearly every female character got a little silly.  I agree that there were flaws in the way the film handled the reveal, but I don't think David hindered what the story was trying to do at all. 

I wish there was a sequel coming, because when you look at the series as a whole it's way less problematic when it comes to characters and pacing.  I think that the first book is the weakest of the three when it comes to juggling plot lines and characters and the last two would be more suited to good adaptations.  And, really, let's think about the Zalachenko barn confrontation directed by Fincher. I want that.

But, if I remember correctly, a sequel might not happen since it didn't do as well as MGM had hoped.

I just read Bendis' "Torso" again today. Really good comic with some unfortunate layout ideas (Let's make the page a giant spiral that the reader has to flip around to read! That won't be annoying at all!), and this thread popped into my mind afterward because Fincher would be perfect to direct a film version of this. Lo and behold, in the back of the book it mentions that one of the writers had adapted it into a screenplay. I head to IMDB to see if it had been made already in a small production or straight to DVD or whatnot and, well, it died in preproduction apparently. Guess who was all set to direct it?

I guess he didn't want the next film after Zodiac to be another serial killer flick, tho. Also, the film had been retitled to "Ness" because the main character is Elliot Ness. Probably an attempt by the studio to drum up interest for the flick by associating it with The Untouchables or something. I feel like Bendis is one of those guys who hollywood really needs to tap into. He's kinda like Joss Whedon in the sense that everything he's done has been above-average to fucking amazing, but no one outside of comic nerds has apparently noticed.

The only fault I've found in his writing is that you can often totally remove the last line or two of dialogue from every scene and it plays better. Not so much in his latest stuff, tho. Powers and Alias are both pretty tightly written. Dunno if he still does Alias or not, tho.

Go read Torso. It's really good. Not if you're squeamish, tho. He draws anything that involves blood or gore, and there's quite a bit of that, but there are photos of actual dead people and skeletal remains in the book as it's based on an actual series of murders.

Zarban, I've not seen that, but I've noticed a disturbing lack of training montages in recent years as well. I mean, how the hell are we supposed to know he's been trained without the training montage? They put one into every Rocky movie. You're not even allowed to grandfather clause that shit. Remove the training montage from Rocky 4. Now it looks like Dolph Lundgren was destined to fail the whole time, right? Not to mention how all the training sequences in movies like The Karate Kid weren't just giving you an excuse for the hero's ability to beat the crap out of the bad guy at the end, but were providing you with examples of how he deals with situations or what happens when he gets frustrated, and then he can overcome that by the end of the movie, or it gives ObiWan or Mr Miyagi a reason to get all philosophical and work the theme of the movie in there somehow.

Training scenes now are terrible. TERRIBLE! Excuses to write some slapstick or show off how bad-ass all your characters are. The hero often shows up and barely needs training at all. The trend lately is that they get to the point where they're about to do the training montage, but then the hero's like "whatever" and does something super-impressive and the trainers look at each other and say "He's amazing! Surely he's going to be the best ever!"

I'm being totally serious right now, too. Training sequences are so important to that sort of film.

On a totally unrelated note:
http://metaphilm.com/
Anyone ever read any of the articles there? It seems to be people who interpret the meanings of film. I don't think they're joking. There's an article where this guy argues that Pirates of the Caribbean is an allegory for the way debt and bankruptcy are handled the same way, legally, as death. The film is trying to clue you into the fact that we're all living under maritime law, and that you don't have a right to property. I finally have a place where I can post ten page interpretations of all of the Asylum films. HUZZAH!

Last edited by Squiggly_P (2012-06-24 18:12:31)

I love this forum.

I haven't seen a lot of Ryan Reynolds, but he seemed fine here. I don't know what you mean by "too many villains" and "two many subplots". The stuff on Oa was focused on Parallax, and the stuff with Hector was directly related. Only the romantic subplot was unrelated to the central conflict.

The story IS messy, tho. The themes of living up to responsibilities and conquering fear are repeated but not really demonstrated. If flying an experimental airplane to the edge of space isn't conquering your fear of dying in a fiery airplane crash, I don't know how defeating a space monster IS.

Well, that's a case of the Green Lanterns being modeled after E.E. 'Doc' Smith's Lensemen stories, and Lucas dipping into that same source for the Jedi. Interestingly, the new Green Lantern cartoon gets the main characters away from the Corps for the first season, although the direct to DVD movies dealt with them.

The so called...ahem..."training sequence" in First Class is just beyond pathetic.

Oh yeah, walking and talking, that doesn't sound like the prequels at all

The best part about Green Lantern… oh man, I wish it was on YouTube so I could link you, but I'll just describe it.

Our villain Hector Hammond, as played by Peter Sarsgaard, is a man you cannot help but feel sorry for. His father hates him, Ryan Reynolds has stolen every girl he's ever fancied (or so I concluded, that might be false), he has a receding hairline, some truly unfortunate facial hair, and the one time he gets to do anything cool and performs an alien autopsy, he gets infected with space goo. In short, he is a man Life itself has crapped upon.

Anyway, the space goo gives him powers, as I'm sure we're all familiar with, and he begins to develop telepathy and telekinesis. In the film, his powers first manifest themselves while teaching at what appears to be either a high school or a community college, where all of his students hate him for being pathetic.

In this scene, he has his back to his class when a jock thinks something particularly mean—I forget—and he asks him to repeat it. The jock refuses until, frustrated, Hammond uses his telekinesis to throw him across the room.

Now, this can be done to be honestly terrifying. However, the execution the filmmakers chose to go with was "cartoon ejector seat". It feels like they had to digitally remove the spring and the sound effect, it is that silly.

And that's the only good part of Green Lantern.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK7y8Ou0VvM

Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher. That's like casting Meryl Streep in an easter bunny outfit as Batman.

I saw The Raid when it first hit theaters, and that is to date the absolute best theatrical experience I've ever had.  I've NEVER seen an audience THAT into a movie, guys were shadowboxing, audience was applauding all the kills and hits, cheering for the villain to get taken down. It's absolutely an action classic, I can't wait for the blu-ray, that movie is perfect for movie nights with a bunch of friends.

BTW, if you follow the director on Twitter, he is clearly very legit in his genre film knowledge.
I hope he can cross over an inject some life into Hollywood without getting chewed out the way John Woo did.

Unfortunately, Dredd will probably bomb at the box office. It comes out in two months and there hasn't been so much as a teaser yet.

EDIT: Some light Googling revealed that a trailer was in fact released last month. Weird that I never heard about it.

http://collider.com/dredd-movie-trailer/133319/

Looks like some stupid fun. Maybe I'll actually see it.

Last edited by Doctor Submarine (2012-07-14 05:27:17)