Miscellaneous Movie Musings

[mousepod]

Saw Children of Men today. As far as violent dystopian flicks go, it's not too bad. Cuarón does a great job of creating moody and foreboding atmosphere, and Michael Caine has one of the greatest exit scenes of his career. One of my friends observed that the plot is the macguffin. Worth seeing on the big screen if you like that sort of movie. Made me want to go home and watch 12 Monkeys.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by mousepod

One of my friends observed that the plot is the macguffin.

Made me look. There are still a lot of things in this world that I don't know, apparently.

[Alex]

It's a current movie but it's been out a couple weekends I think and nobody has discussed yet so I assume there won't be much of one.

Anyway, saw The Good Shepherd tonight. It performed the trick of being very interesting without being particularly compelling. Of being almost three hours long, feeling like it is that long, and yet not being bored.

One spooky thing, however, is that in one of Robert De Niro's short scenes in looks like the love child of Henry Kissinger and Buddy Hackett.

It is a solid effort in the director's chair by De Niro, but a little too in love with the quiet pause. The score is pretty heavy handed too.

[innerSpaceman]

Babel could hardly have been more unpleasant if all the subtitles were omitted and I was left to suffer understanding only the worst Brad Pitt and lamest Cate Blanchett performances ever captured on film. Three stories of unrelenting and purposeless woe, feebly connected at the film's end by the most tenuous of explanations and unfathomably connected in theme to this sorry viewer.

I can't believe there is Oscar buzz about this work of total crap.



Oddly, the only thing that interested me was hearing the musical score sequeway into a piece very familiar from the TV series Deadwood - from four years ago. The score is by Gustavo Santaolalla (who also did Brokeback Mountain), and it's credited to have been composed for Babel. But it's not simply a matter of a John Williams or James Horner having scores which are rip-offs of earlier works ... this particular cue was the precise cue from Deadwood - so iconic to that series it's used as the background for the DVD menus. (The episodes themselves, however, feature no music credits).


Not that this score would ever garner an Oscar nomination, but I hope discerning members realize it's ineligible for having not been composed for the film in which it appears. And I hope discerning Academy members ignore the buzz and recognize this film for the disjointed piece of crap it truly is.

[tracilicious]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

Made me look. There are still a lot of things in this world that I don't know, apparently.

Originally Posted by wikipedia

According to film historian Kalton C. Lahue in his book Bound and Gagged (a history of silent-film serials), the actress Pearl White used the term "weenie" to identify whatever physical object (a roll of film, a rare coin, expensive diamonds) impelled the villains and virtuous characters to pursue each other through the convoluted plots of The Perils of Pauline and the other silent serials in which White starred.

So, if she used weenie and McGuffin interchangeably, can we now call the weenies at DL McGuffins? Asking that has just made me realize that I have no idea what those spinny rocket things with a ridiculous line in Tomorrowland are called. I will now only call them, McGuffin.