They don't pay David Fincher more because he speaks English. *shrug*

I picked Fincher at random, my point is really "you don't just get paid more for making it in English."

Then again, I don't think Fido's point was the guy should make the same movie again, only for forty mil this time.

Nothing to see here.

Yeah, that was going to be my next point in the argument. No fun when you spot the mistake yourself

I'm still holding out hope that the remake never happens, it's one of the most profoundly pointless ideas I've ever heard. They can't top it in the action department, and the story is intentionally super basic and simplistic, why the fuck would you remake it?

And yes, Gareth Evans is currently working on the sequel, Berandal, which should be even more crazy.
Also, the dude has Once Upon a Time in the West as his Twitter background, and if you follow him, the dude is damn-near Tarantino-ish in his knowledge of the action genre. He's the real deal.

Easy test: find out what Takashi Shimizu made for the Hollywood movie The Grudge compared to what he was paid for the original Japanese version Ju-on.

...then I think you're technically doing a theater piece.

So Netflix is turning itself into YouTube? <seinfeld>Who are the ad wizards who came up with that one?</seinfeld>

After watching John Carter along with DIF yesterday, I made the most of my rental fee and watched it properly. I found that I liked it okay, for the most part.

Certainly, everything that the panel said was accurate. There is a hell of a lot of pipe being laid in the opening half hour, much of which is totally unnecessary. While the stuff with Bryan Cranston was funny, it's not a part of THIS story. And while the opening action on Mars sets up the stuff that we find later, it's confusing and largely unnecessary.

Instead, imagine opening with John Carter searching for his gold and getting chased by Indians into a cave. You could even involve Bryan Cranston if you like, just put it in open country. There's your opening action.

The death of the thern in the cave not only transports Carter to Mars but also causes the other therns to change their plans and give their spider-technology weapon to Sab Than. This might happen in part because of what Carter does when he initially arrives on Mars if he, say, attacks Sab Than and rescues Dejah Thoris but ends up getting thrown off the ship and lands near the thark hatchery.

Now the film proceeds as Stanton presented it but we now know the good guy, the bad guy, the princess, and the sky wizards cleanly and naturally before spending time with the tharks for a while. Carter now has a purpose: he wants to get back to help the princess but has to heal and gain allies among the tharks first.

Stanton's ending is clever, but the whole frame story is unnecessary. It's not in the book and doesn't help our understanding of the main story, altho it DOES make it more romantic. You could still use it—just cut the opening prolog to a few minutes.

Instead, the film spends several minutes with the baffling opening action, then several minutes with Carter in the city, then several minutes with Burroughs, then several minutes with the cavalry before getting Carter to the cave.

Last edited by Zarban (2012-08-19 20:26:45)

I watched The Trouble with Harry the other day. It wasn't my favorite Hitchcock when I saw it 20 years ago, and it's still not doing much for me. Instead of being suspense or a thriller with Hitch's comedic undertones, it tries to be a quirky comedy with the suspense overtones, but it doesn't work.

Despite the wonderful location shots from time to time, it feels like a stage play. And the unlikeliest things happen over and over for no particular reason. I think another director with more of a practiced hand at comedy and a lead with better comedy credentials (bless your heart, John Forsythe) could do a great job with it. But it would still need a significant rewrite to keep the quirkiness and lose the corniness.

Shirley MacClaine and the supporters are mostly wonderful, but it often felt like an English parlor comedy, and might actually work well if it was remade as such, along the lines of Waking Ned Devine and Death at a Funeral (altho I didn't actually like Death at a Funeral).

Last edited by Zarban (2012-08-26 23:19:18)

So....I just finished Another Earth (So my thoughts might be a little scrambled)...and I'm not quite sure what to say. Not that I don't have anything to say, it's just my brain is just confused.

I can't say I didn't enjoy it, because I did, but I can't say I really enjoyed it either, because I didn't actually enjoy it all that much. It just sort of sits in this really weird grey zone. I think that might be mostly due to the (VERY) indie styling of the entire thing, the handheld cameras, the sparse single piano score, the long stretches of silence, the desaturated and just on the edge of grainy footage, the very cool concept that merely sits in the background for the overly and overtly emotion based story that tries so damn hard to make sure you know this is a story about humans in pain and dealing with shit. It tries so hard to make me understand that, yet going through it I just found myself not caring, but not in the "Oh it's a movie, so why should I care." way, but in the way that I was looking at these people and buying into the movie and yet going "I don't really care about anything you're doing right now."

Now granted, it is pretty much exactly what it looks like. An indie film by a first time writer/director who didn't have a huge amount of experience. (Written and directed by mark Cahill if interested)

But the positives!

The budget is listed at $200,000 and to that I say Fucking Bravo everyone. There isn't really anything that jumped out at me and pulled me out from a technical level. What little effects work there is is solid (Mostly just comping in the other earth in every other shot, and a very quick car crash effect, unless I missed a bunch of invisible effects), and the picture is at least competently and consistently shot.

And I will say this, the lead actress, Brit Marling (also known as Brita's gay friend on Community) is stunning, in every sense of the word. Every single second she's on screen (Which is most of them) I'm enthralled, she's just damn good and absolutely gorgeous. I really really hope to see her in more (read: better) stuff.

I could make this movie. That's one of the nice things about watching it, there's no giant chases or effects or bullshitery, I could totally make this movie right now, kinda gives me just a glimmer of hope.

The concept of the second earth is really damn cool, I was just saddened that they didn't actually do much of anything with it, it was just sort of there as the backdrop upon which to hang the story. (Not an actual complaint at the story, that's how you do that shit, but more just the sci-fi and filmmaker geek in me screaming out for that awesome concept to be explored)

The bad:

The only really outright BAD thing I can lay at this one, (Aside from the blantant "we are an indie movie" styling) is the lead actor, William Mapother. Most of the time he feels like he's operating around maaaaybe 50-60 percent. There's just something missing. Don't get me wrong, he certainly has moments of really great stuff, but for the most part he just kinda feels like he's thinking about his grocery list. Now, I haven't seen in him anything else so I can't say if that's a him thing or a director thing.

And I mean the rest of the cast is about what you would expect from a movie like this, a couple moments of pretty good but mostly just keeping their heads above water.

In conclusion...

I don't know, I just don't fucking know. At times it feels a lot like someone's film school piece where they really wanted it to be ABOUT something but they still weren't quite sure how to actually do that, and at other times it feels like a pretty nicely laid out, subtle movie.

I would say... hmm, watch it, but be prepared for what it is.

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2012-08-31 06:18:25)

Oh, now you've hit my Go button, baby.

I fucking HATE when DVDs and Blu-rays disable the built-in options for audio and subtitles and shit. That drives me FUCKING CRAZY. The Simpsons disks have a commentary on EVERY episode; they're FAMOUS for it. But on most of the seasons—like it didn't occur to them for YEARS—you can't just press Subtitles to put the subtitles on. You have to find it in the convoluted menu of extras within the convoluted menus for the episodes.

And the bullshit about not being able to skip the trailers and warnings is fucking INSANE. I BOUGHT this—do not advertise to me if I don't want it—I will NOT be well-disposed toward 3 Fast & 3 Furious if it's stopping me from getting to start Jet Li and Jason Statham's I Can't Understand A Word Either of You Are Saying. And I mean, warnings about legalistic crap is one thing, but showing them in DIFFERENT LANGUAGES and not allowing me to skip thru them? WTF?

I came upon a new thing today: Republican(!) political ads before some videos of Nissan Leaf review on YouTube. Not only could I not fast forward (which is fine, because somebody's got to pay the bills)—I COULDN'T EVEN REWIND THEM to make sure I heard their bullshit propaganda correctly. "Wait, wait, WHY couldn't this Canadian woman get the healthcare she needed in Canada? How is that Obama's fault?"

EDIT: as for playing blurries on the road, I bought a Sony portable player. It's a bit of a hassle carrying it because it's kind of bulky, but it means I don't have to worry about my laptop battery life AND, since the screen twists, it's way more practical for watching on a plane.

Last edited by Zarban (2012-09-11 03:42:22)

Just saw Dredd. It's really awful. It shares many of the same problems as Surrogates in terms of not exploring the universe that it sets up. The storytelling is sloppy too. Things that feel like they should be payoffs have no setup.