PolarisDiB
Asked 8 years ago
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What's the last thing you watched and what did you rate it?
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[archived]
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Should be a simple discussion exercise...
I saw Ringu. I didn't find it that interesting, but it was okay. I rated it 3 out of 5 stars. Since I haven't seen the remake, I now know that I don't really intend to.
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Answers
vargus
Answered 7 years ago
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Batman Begins - 4 stars
What lednerg said. Very enjoyable.
Anyone else notice the 9-11 subtext: nihilistic bad guys out to destroy what they consider a decadent civilization, smoking ruins and a vow to rebuild, constant reminders that we shouldn't confuse revenge with justice?
BTW, if the microwave-emitter vaporizes watermains, wouldn't it also make nearby people explode, or at least poach their insides? I know, it's a quibble.
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lednerg
Answered 7 years ago
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BTW, if the microwave-emitter vaporizes watermains, wouldn't it also make nearby people explode, or at least poach their insides? I know, it's a quibble.
In the brief description given of the weapon, it was said that it uses a focused beam of microwaves. I take that to mean it acts kinda like a magnifying glass when held to the sun: You can burn a piece of paper with it, but only at a certain distance. Too close or too far and noting happens. I'm guessing this (fictional) weapon acts in that way, they can input the distace of a water supply and it 'focuses' only to that distance.
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vargus
Answered 7 years ago
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BTW, if the microwave-emitter vaporizes watermains, wouldn't it also make nearby people explode, or at least poach their insides? I know, it's a quibble. In the brief description given of the weapon, it was said that it uses a focused beam of microwaves. I take that to mean it acts kinda like a magnifying glass when held to the sun: You can burn a piece of paper with it, but only at a certain distance. Too close or too far and noting happens. I'm guessing this (fictional) weapon acts in that way, they can input the distace of a water supply and it 'focuses' only to that distance.
True, except that you see waterpipes bursting all over the ghetto, in every apartment, not just where the microwave gun happens to be pointed. (Besides, if you boil the water at the main pump station, it wouldn't cause steam to come shooting out of your faucet half a mile away; it'd just leak out of the pump station.) And if the gun uses a focused beam, why were the baddies trying to crash into the main waterworks under the Wayne building? Why not just calibrate, aim, and fire the durned thing from a distance? Ah, because then you wouldn't have the mandatory chase-and-crash scene for the big explosive finish, I guess.
It just seemed like such a Rube Goldberg way of dispersing chemical weapons, is all.
Quibble, quibble, I know.
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Sumytra1
Answered 7 years ago
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My Own Private Idaho: It barely works, and it only works because it was forced. Since it was forced, it doesn't work. 3 stars.
--PolarisDiB
MOPI suffered from Shakespearean pretension. It started out as a dark, interesting movie about male prostitutes in Portland, OR, but made a screeching U-turn about a third of the way through and tried to become a low-rent update of the Prince Hal story and, as a result, fell flat. I'm beginning to think that Gus Van Sant is a director with genuine talent but not nearly enough intelligence to match his ambition.
Vargus: What do you mean by Shakespearean pretension? Do you mean Shakespeare's plots are pretentious or MOPI was pretentious because it attempted a retelling of a Shakespeare plot? If its the second choice, what about MOPI is like the Prince Hal story, namely Henry IV?
--Sumytra
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vargus
Answered 7 years ago
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Vargus: What do you mean by Shakespearean pretension? Do you mean Shakespeare's plots are pretentious or MOPI was pretentious because it attempted a retelling of a Shakespeare plot? If its the second choice, what about MOPI is like the Prince Hal story, namely Henry IV?
--Sumytra
Word is that Van Sant had originally intended to make an intimate, slightly surreal movie that would have done for male prostitutes what Drugstore Cowboy did for junkies. But just before production he happened to see Chimes At Midnight and decided on impulse to get all high-falutin' and introduce that whole subplot about the mayor's wastrel son (Keanu Reeves) casting off his dissolute ways and coldly turning his back on his boon companions so he could assume political power. There's even a Falstaff character who dies of "grief" after his rejection by Keanu. If this subplot had been handled with skill and subtlety, it would have been okay; but it's just stuck in there, with great big gobs of barely disguised passages from Henry IV and Henry V. It kind of ruins the movie.
(I also thought the jetting-off-to-Italy thing was clunky and distracting and added nothing to the film except scenery.)
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PolarisDiB
Answered 7 years ago
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I'm not much one for calling Shakespeare pretentious... only bad. I'm also not much one for calling allusions or adaptations of Shakespeare to be pretentious. I don't like the movie any less because of the Shakespeare. I just think that overall, with editing, story flow, and direction, none of it really fits together, and while it's amazing that it even does fit together (that editor must have gone nearly insane doing it) at all, it makes it look too forced and ruins it even more.
I guess I'm not really adding more than I've already talked about, but that my focus on the failures of that movie don't really have much to do with the Shakespeare in it. I don't like actual Shakespeare very much, but I was still surprised how much people assumed my dislike of the movie came from that.
--PolarisDiB
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vargus
Answered 7 years ago
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I'm not much one for calling Shakespeare pretentious... only bad. I'm also not much one for calling allusions or adaptations of Shakespeare to be pretentious. I don't like the movie any less because of the Shakespeare. I just think that overall, with editing, story flow, and direction, none of it really fits together, and while it's amazing that it even does fit together (that editor must have gone nearly insane doing it) at all, it makes it look too forced and ruins it even more.
I guess I'm not really adding more than I've already talked about, but that my focus on the failures of that movie don't really have much to do with the Shakespeare in it. I don't like actual Shakespeare very much, but I was still surprised how much people assumed my dislike of the movie came from that.
--PolarisDiB
No, you made it very clear in your second post exactly why you thought MOPI deserved no more than 3 stars, and that your reasons had nothing to do with the film's Prince Hal subplot. I, on the other hand, am somewhat annoyed by clumsy interpolations of classic lit into contemporary stories. It does strike me as a pretentious move on the director's part.
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Vigilans
Answered 7 years ago
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To Live (Ikiru), 5 stars. Kurosawa is easily my favourite director. Before that it was Twilight Samurai another 5 star film. Both films are beautiful in terms of both cinematography and theme.
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Sumytra1
Answered 7 years ago
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The Machinist left me nauseous and asking one question--"Was the outcome of this film worth having 120 pounds on a 6 ft. 2 inch frame? I don't think so. On the other hand, I couldn't separate the weight loss from the acting so Christian Bale totally immersed himself in this role and should be commended for it.
There were repeated lines that foreshadowed nothing, like "If you were any thinner, you wouldn't exist." Okay. Existentialism is back from the 60's and 70's along with ugly clothes and furniture styles.
The directing, clouds overhead that rivaled the sky in Poltergeist as a metaphor for "a storm is brewing," and a trip through the underground sewage system in Barcelona as a metaphor for descension into hell, was too heavy handed. This film doesn't breathe.
The more I try to like it the more I find not to like.
Movielens predicted a 3.5 for me, I gave it a 3.
--Sumytra
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PolarisDiB
Answered 7 years ago
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Saw The Big Sleep. Not my favorite of Bogart's, was actually kind of bored, didn't feel I should have been. Still, it wasn't bad or anything and it had some of that quick cynical dialog I always like from Bogart's characters, so I gave it a 3.5. That's what movielens predicted.
--PolarisDiB
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