Miscellaneous Movie Musings

[innerSpaceman]

Saw the Sherlock Holmes trailer BIG at the Chinese last night before T4, and agree I cannot buy Downey, Jr. as Holmes at all ... at least from the trailer. But those are covers by which I never judge the books.

I walked out on the trailer for Harry Potter because it looked like it was going to show every image in the movie. Hate that.


Terminator 4 was really good, though. I was surprised.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

Terminator 4 was really good, though. I was surprised.

I'd said I would be seeing it because of Lani and hoped to be pleasantly surprised. The result:

To start out by saying something good: McG failed to descend to the level of craptitude he achieved with Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle.

To follow up with something bad: McG is a blight on humanity for which one day we'll all be judged harshly. If he is the creation of a benevolent god his purpose must be only to elevate our regard for the crappiest of Michael Bay crap.

Perhaps it could have been different, when the story was away from John Connor (and the increasingly laughable Christian Bale) it actually showed some tremors of life and coherence.

Also, SkyNet is the apparently the stupidest sentient computer ever presented on film and that includes Keanu Reeves.

[Alex]

You're the first person I've heard really go for it (T4), but Lani wants to see it so I'll overcome my Bale dislike and go see it.

Hope to be happily surprised.

[innerSpaceman]

The friends I saw it with all liked it, but we all liked T3, too. That was widely panned.


This movie's, so far, getting only mid-30's on Rotten Tomatoes. I don't get it. I liked it WAY better than that.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Okay interesting. I kinda liked T3 also, so that makes me want to see this one now.

[Snowflake]

I'm looking forward to seeing UP nest weekend. Looks cute and different.

I caught Frost/Nixon last night on DVD and was very surprised how well I liked it. Langella was channelling Nixon (ew) so well I forgot he wasn't Nixon. Michael Sheen (whom I normally like) was not channeling Frost, more like Austin Powers. Nonetheless, always nice to see Oliver Platt and is is me or is Kevin Bacon just very good at being kinda creepy? The big surprise was Patty McCormack as Pat Nixon, I had to look her up because was she really the same Patty McCormack from The Bad Seed, yes, she was. It may have been mentioned before but I missed it and was surprised. I think Toby Jones needed larger glasses for Swifty Lazar. I missed the Rance Howard cameo.

[innerSpaceman]

Yep, agree about Skynet.

Didn't fully realize the Total Fail of Bale until the movie had sunk in. He's laughable and pretty horrible. I didn't realize till a day or so later that he made zero case for John Connor being the revered leader and messianic savior of his repulation ... and our quarter-century expectation.


But I liked the Marcus Wright character, and it was basically his story with John Connor as an afterthought.


I'm not a fan of Bale's Batman either, so he should retired from the craft.


Still enjoyed it. Except for the original, in all its B-Movie nonpretentions, the Terminator films have tons of flaws to be glossed over by general slick entertainment appreciation.

[Alex]

In honor of dead soldiers everywhere -- well, not everywhere, those dead Falkland Island soldiers got what was coming to them (no offense to anybody who lost loved ones in the Falkland Islands War-Type-Thingy but if we can't mock the military dead then Al Qaeda has won) -- today has been Masochist Movie Day.

I've been going through and watching the last halves of movies that were bad enough that I never finished watching them (via Netflix's Roku).

The Hudsucker Proxy - I know! This isn't a commonly accepted "bad movie" like the others will be but, frankly, you're all wrong if you're going to defend it. Paul Newman was the only good thing in the movie and he was only in the movie for 8 minutes. Tim Robbins was demonstrating every bad overacting tic he has and Jennifer Jason Leigh was killed by the writing; yes, I know what the writing was trying to do but it was still murder.

The Bonfire of the Vanities - Sometimes you swing for the fences and whiff completely. That's understandable. Sometimes the bat flies out into the 15th row and you corkscrew yourself onto your ass and everybody laughs at you. I could see how things looked brilliant on paper but everybody here ended up on their ass.

This Girl's Life - A look at an empowered porn star. James Woods, Rosario Dawson, and Michael Rapaport all show up for this poorly shot and edited waste of tiem.

Xanadu - I assume the acid was good back then. Not because it was psychodelic but because I draw a parallel to my experience with acid. I spend a fair portion of the evening writing and while I wasn't amazed by what I was writing I thought I was writing it in the most perfect penmanship ever. Later I found that it wasn't even legible, just scribbles. Something like that is the only reason I can't think anybody involved with making Xanadu thought there was anything remotely close to merit in their output.

[alphabassettgrrl]

Hey- I liked Xanadu!

Saw "Star Trek" today. Agree with both the ones who liked it and with all the criticisms.

[Alex]

This is not meant to belittle any opinion contrary to my own but rather is honest curiosity. What did you like about Xanadu? After all, it was such a humiliation that after its release Gene Kelly died.