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Friends In Your Head | Forums → Posts by redxavier
I ask the question because 'Philosopher's Stone' is a thing, a concept for something that's sought and never found, and it always struck me as missing the point to change the philosopher part.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher%27s_stone
Not a great example, but it's like someone saying that a 'Baker's dozen' sounds lame and changing the occupation to cop dozen because it's more exciting.
Haven't listened to it yet. But why did you Americans rename it?
The hero's getting beaten by the big bad in a round of fisticuffs, and then is revived by a flashback of his dad, teacher, mother, neighbour etc. telling him 'be strong/ follow your heart/be the 'one', leading the big bad to suddenly forget how to block or fight...
Are you sure it's a movie and not, say, an episode of a TV series like Outer Limits or Twilight Zone.
What about The Thirteenth Floor?
New book's out today!
I thought Orion was now the MPCV, and Constellation was now Space Launch System?
Absolutely love the books. I've always been surprised that they skipped The Vampire Lestat, the middle book (I know there are more than 3 in the chronicles but after Queen it gets stupid), since I liked that one.
What insight Maggot1300? Spill those beans!
Brian Cox is quite popular over here in the UK and he's had several TV series - Wonders of the Solar System and Wonders of the Universe being the best ones. I'm a big fan, he's similar to Carl Sagan in the sense that he clearly loves science and relishes telling people about it.
Hurray for Harry! Sort of....
I'm of two minds about the Potter films. I never had any interest in the books, but I've mostly enjoyed the movies, but not as much as I'd like. After the first one, I thought, 'Cool! So Harry is just starting to learn magic and will grow into a kick-ass wizard in the next couple of films!"
Then the second film came out, and it was still set in the school, and Harry didn't really do any magic, but he did wield a sword. And I thought, 'Okay, so he'll start whippin' out spells next time and start exploring the wizarding world."
And then the third one came out, and it was STILL set in the school. And the whole plot CLIMAXES with Harry casting ONE spell while Hermione runs around accomplishing all kinds of secret shit. And I was like, "Okay, really? This is the great Harry Potter that everyone talks about like he's the MESSIAH?"
Now we're SEVEN movies in, and it's STILL Sweet Valley High with wands that shoot phaser blasts. About all the magic Harry can accomplish is knocking people down. And he still doesn't know SHIT compared to JK Rowling—I mean "Hermione".
But I've long since settled into enjoying the films as a bit of murky fluff.
I'd say you missed a fair amount of the point of Harry Potter, though that's no surprise since you've just watched the movies. I recommend reading the books, but you aint gonna!
Thanks for the link - I'm not sure I entirely agree that many of these stories have the same beginning and end though, which makes the loop structure a bit of a flawed foundation.
Yeah, Mewes is essentially playing himself in all his movies - which are all the same character too.
Saw Tron Legacy last night. I really liked it and was quite surprised. I had a real sense of wonder when Sam Flynn first enters The Grid and loved the world they've created. The only stumble visually was CGI Jeff Bridges, we're just not there yet, and I was a bit confused with one character's turn (and fate) in the third act.
There's a sequel in the works and I couldn't be happier.
I'm a fan of the long take, and a fan of Hitchcock's Rope too. It can be a very powerful tool to hold on an action or reaction for longer than normal. I agree that not all long takes are equal.
The Atonement clip works far better, putting you admist the action, than the Warrior King clip, which is a following shot. But then the two shots are out to achieve different things. Warrior King's is a demonstration of prowess and skill, a storm being unleashed upon some bad people by an emotionally unbalanced hero in search of his friend. It doesn't relent, doesn't breathe. He's unstoppable. Meanwhile, Atonement's is about the scene of chaos on the beach of Dunkirk, we feel like we're walking through this almost alien landscape following a man who wants to be somewhere else. He's with all these people, but somehow he's alone. Really powerful sense of isolation.
This argument is frustrating, it's akin to taking a slab of Devon and demanding that it becomes foie gras.
We all prefer holistically complete films, but at the end of the day it's a film about guns, pretty people, and robots. As Tim Minchin suggests, isn't this enough?
Nope. Transformers 3 is not a bad movie because it lacks substance when compared to higher brow movies or is big, dumb and stupid, it's a bad movie because it's badly put together on every level (especially editing). There's no consistency in tone or flow. It's like a bad student film or a drunk telling you a story. It's confusing as fuck. Michael Bay's style seems to have become a parody of itself in the same way De Niro's acting has. Which is probably why there's even a teal/orange joke in there.
Whatever happened to the guy who gave us the moving and powerful shower ambush scene in The Rock?
Some might recall that I had a bone to pick about calling movies bad. This is why. There's a big difference between a movie being flawed and a little ill thought out (e.g. Chronicles of Riddick) and a movie that doesn't make any sense storywise or visually like this one. I couldn't even enjoy the film for its hot babe and big robots because most of the time it's jaundice Shia and a bunch of special forces running around the set of Battle LA and changing their plan seemingly every 15 seconds.
I didn't like the first one because it had a crappy third act which was all over the place and a terrible pantomine performance by Turtorro. I didn't like the second one because it had inane humour and a nonsensical plot, but preferred it over the first because it had clearer and more coherent action scenes. This third ones takes the worse elements of the previous films and dials them up to 12.
Yeah, I probably like Never more than something like Diamonds are Forever. It's a remake of Thunderball and isn't 'technically' a Bond film.
Saw Transformers 3 on the weekend. What a fucking trainwreck, one of the worst proper movies I've ever seen. It's nonsensical, stupid gibberish with no redeeming feature. I am flabbergasted as to how the director of Bad Boys, The Rock and Armaggeddon seems apparently incapable to telling a coherent story. The acting is atrociously over the top, with almost everyone trying to outdo John Turturro in his "how I can turn this character into a stupid annoying cartoon" approach to his role. John Malkovich, Alan Tudyck, that chinese guy from Community and Hangover, McDreamy from Grey's Anatomy, Frances McDormand! Why the hell are these guys appearing in the movie?
Again, the story is convulated and confusing in all the wrong ways. And once a-fucking-gain the climax is a clusterfuck of bad editing.
The only good thing about this movie is that it will net Paramount the funding for several fantastic movies in the next few years.
That's one I've been meaning to watch for a while - Long Kiss Goodnight, and speaking of Geena Davis I do not recall anything from Cutthroat Island so going to try and watch that again. Usually I can at least remember bits and pieces from old films, so I'm kinda bemused by the total blank I'm having.
Not seen They Live. What sort of movie is it, horror? Is that the one with the "I'm here to kick ass and chew gum" line?
The last few weeks I've been catching up some old films that I hadn't got around to seeing. A few of them have been pleasantly surprising, such that I wonder why I hadn't got around to seeing them before.
Just now for instance I finished watching a Sigourney Weaver film called Death and the Maiden. Made in 1994 by Roman Polanski the story takes place in a single night (in almost real time) and is a fascinating, brilliantly acted drama about a woman who believes she has met one of the men who tortured her many years before. It's extremely well written, and has just 3 actors and feels very much like a play - which isn't surprising since it is based on one of the same name written Ariel Dorfman.
I highly recommend it if you haven't seen it. Don't do what I did and poo poo it for years.
Likewise, I saw Mystic River the other day, which isn't that old admitedly but I somehow had convinced myself not to bother watching it. Directed by Clint Eastwood, it's got a great cast with Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon and Laurence Fishburne and is... sobering to say the least.
So what have you watched recently? Anyone else stumbled upon some old gems that's made you sit up and pay attention?
Green Mile fun fact...
I used to be friends with Doug Hutchison who played Percy.....
.....and also just married a chick 35 years his junior.
Wait, how could be friends with Tooms? Was it one of those keep your enemies close things?
Now that's a nice combo - two great King/Darrabont collaborations (and the two Stephen King stories that have the best endings).
How about an American Beauty and Road to Perdition double-bill? Or maybe Untouchables in place of American Beauty so you've got two pre-war crime dramas.
For other themed nights, how about the following:
- Mad Max 2/Road Warrior and Doomsday
- Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer
- A Tale of True Grits
I could go on, but then I'd just have written out a long list and you'd think 'I'm not reading all that'.
The season is over and already I'm sad. This was some great television, and you know what, I'm kinda awed by just how faithful it's been. Hope the bluray gets a release soon, hopefully in time for Christmas at least.
Nice topic. For me, it's a toss-up between a slight re-do of Sunshine (specifically its third act) and a full on remake of Pathfinder, because the world needs more viking movies.
Except 2001 doesn't actually have a story, it's a series of ideas and images ending with a philosophical punctuation mark. It's incomprehensible because there's nothing really there to comprehend. Once you've looked past its technical merits or had some pseudo-intellectual prat try to explain it, you just think "and?"... and that's at the end after you've been thinking "ok, so what is going on?" for the previous 2 hours. On the other side, Riddick is incomprehensible because there's too much stuff going on and you're thinking "wait, what?" and "how does this fit with that?".
So you have a film that's severely underwritten to the point that there's no script, whereas the other feels like it's been made with scripts for different films on set. Both clearly have story problems. You enjoy both, and I would guess you'd watch Riddick over 2001 any day of the week, so why is one bad or so below average it makes a mockery of mediocrity and the other fantastic?
Oh noes, did someone just diss 2001? They're both incomprehensible, just in different ways. In other news, Citizen Kane is not the greatest movie ever made.
The last few episodes have been great. Definitely put this show into my all-time favourites. The wait for the second series is going to be agonising.
There is a level of badness that is set aside for films that are well made by good actors and directors with high budgets that just fail. Maybe we should come up with some other term for them to make you happy
But that's the thing. Riddick is at worst average on any scale. It's technically fautless. The fact that it's a bit of a mess in terms of story and/or characterisation isn't unique. There are plenty of sci-films that are like this, including some of the greatest like 2001.
The way people are talking about it, you'd think Riddick was actually worse than both Transformers and the last two Terminator films... is that really the consensus?
Friends In Your Head | Forums → Posts by redxavier
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