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| gromit |
 Posted: Wed May 02, 2012 11:10 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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When I was growing up the dumb teen comedy series was Porky's, which seemed to be an embarrassing strain of American "culture." Think they made three or more of those.
Nothing wrong with enjoying blockbusters or action films or horror films. I just don't care for them. Usually I find they are targeted towards the 16 year old make. But they're just genres I don't enjoy much for a variety of reasons. Can add chick flicks and many romances as well. And I'm also leery of prestige period dramas.
Animation has been great the last decade plus. Might benefit from being aimed at kids and adults and NOT the teenage market.
As for the superhero stuff, I mostly liked the first Hellboy.
Disliked alot one of the recent Batman films I saw -- the one with Heath Ledger as the Joker. Bored by Iron Man. Don't think I ever saw a Spiderman or an early Batman. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Thu May 03, 2012 10:09 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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| Horror-comedies are entertaining and sometimes rise slightly above the teen schlock strata....e.g. Drag Me to Hell, the Scream trilogy, Dracula: Dead and Loving It, Witches of Eastwick, Ghostbusters, Beetlejuice, Teen Wolf (with the wonderful metaphor of puberty), They Live!, Love at First Bite, American Werewolf in London, and many others. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Thu May 03, 2012 10:16 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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| Can't make even a short list without Bubba Ho-tep, and really just about anything with the Bruce. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Sat May 05, 2012 3:38 am |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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The Avengers is nothing special. Same old, same old. Once you've seen a few of these super-hero flicks you've seen them all. I'm so fucking tired of watching Manhattan being destroyed by aliens. How about blowing up Salt Lake City for a change. Plus, the 3D adds nothing to this film other than making it eye-exhaustingly dark. Booooo.
On the other hand, The 3D preview for Ridley Scott's Prometheus is awesome. Looks like a major winner. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat May 05, 2012 5:54 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Marc's comments seal the deal. No Avengers, no apologies!!! |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sat May 05, 2012 9:24 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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Quote: How about blowing up Salt Lake City for a change.
I am SO there.
The only superhero flick recently enjoyed was Thor, which had a certain wit and visual artistry that stood out from the pack. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat May 05, 2012 9:45 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| I enjoyed all the prequels except the Hulk movie. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat May 05, 2012 10:18 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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bartist wrote: Quote: How about blowing up Salt Lake City for a change.
I am SO there.
The only superhero flick recently enjoyed was Thor, which had a certain wit and visual artistry that stood out from the pack.
I agree about Thor, which was very enjoyable, with nice performances, and almost inevitably got less than positive reviews from most of the fanboys. They don't seem to like too much character delineation. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat May 05, 2012 10:21 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Marc wrote: The Avengers is nothing special. Same old, same old. Once you've seen a few of these super-hero flicks you've seen them all. I'm so fucking tired of watching Manhattan being destroyed by aliens. How about blowing up Salt Lake City for a change. Plus, the 3D adds nothing to this film other than making it eye-exhaustingly dark. Booooo.
On the other hand, The 3D preview for Ridley Scott's Prometheus is awesome. Looks like a major winner.
Ditto for the 3D. To make it worse, many of the early scenes take place at night. I had problem with the sound, too, but that's probably just me.
My worries that Ruffalo might be miscast were unfounded. It's a different take on Bruce Banner and I liked it better than Norton's and Bana's. Downey and Ruffalo are quite good together (as are Downey and Paltrow, of course). For me, the weak link was Thor, who didn't seem to have all that much screen time. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat May 05, 2012 10:29 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| I thought I heard somebody address Black Widow as "Major Romanoff." This means she outranks Captain America. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Sun May 06, 2012 1:25 am |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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Syd,
Ruffalo was the highlight of the film for me. He may have salvaged The Hulk's cinematic rep. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun May 06, 2012 5:27 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| See, now you're making it difficult for me. Ruffalo is one of my favorite living movie stars and now I'm maybe gonna hafta see The Avengers. Damn. Well, maybe I'll wait for DVD or cable. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Sun May 06, 2012 3:14 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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Earl and I caught The Cabin in the Woods last night. It's well worth seeing, and as an added incentive for the Whedon aficionado, seems to combine every series he ever created into one single story. Importantly, he's found a way to incorporate into a single movie one of the key elements of his series: the tossed out hints, the ambiguous references and character traits, keeping you constantly guessing and re-defining your relationship to the story and the complex story underneath reveals itself. For the movie buff, it's kinda Charade meets Friday the 13th.
In this instance, I think the final reveal is a little weak, a little lacking in an ironic twist. I also think the cast in the cabin, with the exception of Fran Kranz, is basically devoid of personality and fairly conventional. But of course that latter gripe is a key to the master plan. Unfortunately the movie ends up a little shallow for some of the ideas it's playing with (at one point I wondered if it wasn't an allegory for our nation's hunger to constantly be at war, but then I discarded that). I'm not sure everything is explained well enough for a set-up where you want to go back and put the pieces together in your mind, but I plan to go back and see it again. Maybe I missed it.
Anyway, see it. And avoid the slightest spoiler until you do. I generally have no problem with spoilers, but this movie is an exception. The fun is the constant change of direction, and if you know what's coming, you won't get that. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Mon May 07, 2012 8:16 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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Joe, that toss-everything-in-the-stew thing drives me nuts, generally, but of course I want to see it anyway.
The Raven, OTOH, is bound to be pure disappointment to any fan of (a) Poe, (b) Cusack, or (c) well-crafted period drama/horror. Cusack, though playing Poe in his final bibulous days, comes across as a little too sober, albeit punctuated with scenes of rageful emoting. At one point, he manages to remove two sets of flooring; at another, he handles a high-speed chase, both afoot and on horseback, that seem beyond the level of a drunken and dying poet.
Baltimore is played by location shots in Serbia and Hungary, and the seams show.
The parlance of 1849 is uneven, veering between 1849 and 2012, and what was a minor blip in the excellent The Conspirator - addressing adults by their first names - is a major linguistic wardrobe malfunction in The Raven. At least two major characters who are not close friends of Poe, call him "Edgar." PLEASE DO YOUR PERIOD RESEARCH, WRITERS.
And then there's the cliche-ridden and ridiculous plot, which concerns a serial killer who is murdering Baltimoreans by copying the methods from Poe's tales. (Gee, where have I heard that before?) Poe, of course, is recruited to assist the police, all while he is busy romancing (and, mystifyingly, winning) the beautiful young daughter of Brendan Gleeson, a brutish aristocrat who can't seem to persuade her that hooking up with a drunken pauper at least 20 years her senior is a bad idea. One reading of Annabelle Lee and she is hopelessly in love.
Very disappointing. See this movie again? Quoth the Bart, "Nevermore!" |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Mon May 07, 2012 9:45 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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bartist wrote:
Baltimore is played by location shots in Serbia and Hungary, and the seams show.
That sounds to me like it could work.
But depends on the execution.
Quote: The parlance of 1849 is uneven, veering between 1849 and 2012, and what was a minor blip in the excellent The Conspirator - addressing adults by their first names - is a major linguistic wardrobe malfunction in The Raven. At least two major characters who are not close friends of Poe, call him "Edgar." PLEASE DO YOUR PERIOD RESEARCH, WRITERS.
What would be good is if a character called him Edgar and then got a severe depressing down for presuming to be on such intimate terms and showing disrespect and npt according oneself with propriety. That would nicely clue in the audience about different standards, taking a moment we wouldn't notice and normally take for granted and using it to capture the period mores and behavior.
I won't be surprised if I see it because I do like Poe and Cusack, so how can I avoid Cusack as Poe? If it gets decent reviews then I'll definitely see it ... |
Last edited by gromit on Mon May 07, 2012 12:00 pm; edited 1 time in total
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