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I love, love Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, and it's (mostly) totally irrelevant that the principal characters are female, because it's their friendship that's so heartwarming and wonderful to watch and everyone can relate to that.
So... anyway.. yes it's important not to ignore the genre. Otherwise we might as well complain that they're not enough Asian characters in films about the colonisation of America.
I recall OHMMS having an almost porn-like plot, with Bond essentially failing his mission because he's sleeping with all the women at the mountain retreat. I always felt that Lazenby was the best fighter amongst the Bonds, up until Craig; I believe he had some martial arts training which might explain it.
I rewatched Quantum of Solace recently and it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was. In fact, it has probably my third favourite Bond girl of them all (with Michelle Yeoh and Barbara Bach - spot the common theme amongst these!) and has a few great action sequences (possibly too many actually).
To my mind, all the Bond films have something of value. There's none that I actively dislike, just a few that I don't like quite so much. Even Die Another Day features a great first act.
I believe an opening which established the threat of the alien army would have made for a stronger film (something like them wiping out another alien civilisation or an advance party coming through with Loki and trashing SHIELD forces). As it stands, they drop out of the sky in the third act and we don't know anything about them (and truthfully, don't really even get to see them very clearly either). Further, the ease at which they're removed by the Avengers reduces them to an army of cannon fodder (and thus they aren't very interesting, which is probably why they've got the slightly ridiculous giant flying armoured worms). So with that in mind, I would have had them introduced earlier in the movie and have them defeat some of the Avengers who act separately or without proper teamwork.
But it could be that Joss deliberately did not choose to go with the above as it would be the predictable route to go.
I wonder if much of the dressing and posing of women on comics covers (because internal art tends to be a lot less provocative) isn't done just because it's a shorthand for femininity. What I mean by this is that rather than an intentional effort to draw a woman as a sex object, the artist may simply draw the character as a figure with over-emphasised female features (akin to adding 2 circles on a stick figure to make it female) and putting her in what is perceived to be a feminine pose, or rather a non-masculine one. Artists then end up relying on these features and don't truly ever develop a skill for drawing female characters with the same expressive range, such that an alluring character translates into 'larger lips' or strong willed becomes 'longer hair'. Beauty especially just becomes idealised, and it's a short step from idealised to sexism. I bet if many artists changed the stances of their females to more natural looking ones, they'd just look masculine. And with close-ups of faces, I bet if the women weren't drawn with long hair and Julia Roberts lips, we'd have trouble telling that they were female.
Just a random thought of the moment, but if you had a face hugger replica (as made by avant1963), wouldn't a part of you not put it on your face because you know, just in case?
It's fine you disagree with it The showrunner for BSG also worked on Trek, and at least to me seemed to be reveling in the freedom more than in creating a good show. I have no examples, because I have no desire to go back and look for them
Well, Ron Moore worked on DS9, which is already the most edgy and un-Trek like of the series, so it's not like BSG was his first chance for some creative freedom. I don't know, I just take issue with this idea that all Trek is cut from the same mould, and that BSG diverges deliberately from 'Trek convention' at the expense of a good story, especially when the show's strength is the story. But then... you were fast forwarding through it
Not a fan of Woodie Allen's movies at all either, so agree with that unpopular opinion. And I've said it before on these forums, 2010 is a much, much better movie than 2001.
My favourite Bond film is GoldenEye, which was originally planned to be a Dalton movie. I have this vague recollection that The Living Daylights was the first Bond movie I went to see at the cinema, but looking at the release date I would have been about 6 years old...
I love BSG, one of my favourite Sci-fi shows. It stumbles a few times (what series doesn't?) but taken as a whole entity (which is itself a rarity for TV) it's a great show. Just a few months ago I watched Series 4/5 again, which I'd never been that keen on during the initial run, and found it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I remembered. The exasperation with watching everyone be continuously miserable, and having Starbuck constantly wailing and going mental was much less severe because I wasn't waiting a week for each new episode. In fact, the second half of that final series is fantastic and gutsy stuff.
Invid - I'm not sure I agree with that criticism, and I've a feeling that your examples are going to be somewhat thin
And fourthed. The Terminator is a terrifying, tense and moody action movie that strays into horror genre territory, tapping into the nightmare of having an unstoppable force chasing after you. T2 is essentially a lighter and more outlandish remake. The dial has been turned up, but I don't think it has the same impact. That's not to say T2 is at all bad, mind.
Here's another one for me, I liked both John Carter and Battleship more than Avatar.
I'm of the opinion that the drama of a story is evident in what is happening, so the overuse of capitalisation to force emotional responses from the reader is off-putting and slightly condescending. Scripts shouldn't need laugh tracks.
So that's my initial reaction, but I'm also surprised at how crude the prose is. It's not as bad, though, as Rodriguez's unproduced early draft of Predators (the one with Dutch), which was written as if an 8-year-old on a sugar rush was dictating it.
But fun fact, I've already spotted a few lines of dialogue even in this draft that would have immediately improved the flow and logic of the film had they been shot (or left in the cut of the film) - someone actually registering what Shaw has gone through in the medical bay for instance.
For anyone who hasn't listened to it and/or you're on the fence about picking up the book, I highly recommend the audiobook. Definitely one of the best (and great to listen to whilst playing Dead Island )
I have that feeling with LOTR, same as Eddie mentioned in the episode, which is compounded by the exaggeration of their flaws by repeated viewings. I've also watched Mallrats way too many times.
It's why I'm reticent to watch Avengers again, which leads to:
13. Nostalgia, you might rewatch a film that you loved when you were younger, in a different state of mind, or you associate the viewing with happiness, but come away feeling lukewarm or even cold, such that you end up swinging the entire way to the opposite position on the spectrum - as evidenced by the talk of Chasing Amy in the episode.
I thought LA Confidential was one of the best films I'd ever seen coming out of the cinema, only to find years later that it was actually pretty average. I remember feeling so crestfallen.
Paramount's the studio doing this and GI Joe, but I can see what you mean. I imagine what's driving them is their loss of the Phase 2 Marvel movies. They need a couple of solid hits from other sources before the next Transformers and they can't really afford a John Carter type response to their tentpole releases - better to spend a little more than fall flat on your face is probably the thinking.