Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[jough]

A schlock is like a combination of a schlong and a cock. 

Wombat, I would never yell at you about not liking a great film.  Your dissatisfaction is punishment enough.  I know what you mean about all of the elements of Dark City being from other sources, but that describes every movie.  Are you saying you are bored with tropes now?  You don't like movies that have genres?  Oh, womby, you are going down a dark road from which I cannot offer you rescue or escape.

[wombat]

I know what you mean.  But sometimes, you put together familiar elements and the work comes out as more than the sum of its parts, and the familiarity of the elements are good because they resonate beyond that one work, etc. And sometimes it doesn't. For me, at least, it didn't.

[side_show]

See I saw Life Aquatic with a big group of friends and I sat next to my weird foreign friend who was totally captivated by Willem Defoe's character Klaus.  Sitting next to a weird foreign guy laughing at a guy for being weird and foreign is very entertaining all by itself.  I really enjoyed it the movie and the company.  It was magical.  But then, I'm a fan of melancholy recent Bill Murray movies.

[wombat]

"Magical" might be a good word for it, in the sense of 'better if you are on drugs.'  We did stop in the middle and make margaritas, which might have made a difference.

But yeah, it was sort of this out of body experience.  It didn't make any sense, I had no idea what they were really trying to acheive, but I just kept sitting there.  Usually I have a lot of rants and raves about a movie that I didn't llike and didn't think worked, but my only real complaint about this movie?  It was that in the outtakes they showed a scene with a really great made-up giraffe and it was incredibly stupid of them to have cut it out.

This is the Ebert review I should have linked to earlier, it is definitely worth reading. I usually think he's kind of a dope - has he ever seen a movie he didn't like? - but he gets this just exactly right.

[V-Adore]

This is the Ebert review I should have linked to earlier, it is definitely worth reading. I usually think he's kind of a dope - has he ever seen a movie he didn't like? - but he gets this just exactly right.

Ebert has gotten kinder the past few years, but he is certainly capable of disliking movies. Exhibit A: his book I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie, which is a collection of two-star-or-lower reviews, some of which are savage and hilarious. (It's also an interesting archeological artifact, in that it has several reviews from his very early career, when his style was substantially less refined.)

What I find interesting about Ebert is that he'll admit in his reviews when he enjoyed a movie that doesn't really work -- like, say, Life Aquatic, or Rapa Nui. I find this kind of respectably honest, in that, let's be honest here, many of us have favorite films that are not really "good." (I'll freely admit that I like The Fifth Element a lot more than its objective quality would indicate, for example.)

[theinevitable]

I like The Life Aquatic, without thinking that it is in any way bad.

um, what?

[V-Adore]

I like The Life Aquatic, without thinking that it is in any way bad.

um, what?

Well, I was just referencing Ebert's own review, where he basically says "I liked this film but I can't say it actually works." I have not seen it, so for all I know it could be the finest film in the history of the cinema.

[jough]

I sorta liked Life Aquatic the first time I saw it, but found it somewhat lacking after the successes of Rushmore (one of my favourite films of all-time) and The Royal Tenenbaums.  Then I bought the DVD anyway.  And I watched it about eighteen times in a row.  I kinda left it on all the time in the background.  I really like it now.

[Choop]

PROVING MY POINT.


Education.

[wombat]

That review of Rapa Nui is very funny. 

Speaking of which: OK, fans of The Life Aquatic - so is it supposed to be funny?

[theinevitable]

I find it very funny, personally. But I'm a big fan of really dry humor.

"do you really think you should hit the sauce when you've got a bun in the oven?"

"*points at espresso machine* Is this mine? where did you get this?"
"well... we fuckin' stole it, man."

I don't know. it gets me.

[wombat]

I guess I am confused because there seem to be mixed signals.  A guy who plays David Bowie songs in Portuguese on acoustic guitar is something you expect in a movie that is trying to be funny.  But a plot where a guy finds a long-lost son who then falls in love with an unwed pregnant woman and then dies in an accident - not what you expect in a movie that is trying to be funny.  Of course the characters are sufficiently unrealistic that one isn't actually moved by the death or anything, but it still seems like an odd way to end it.

[theinevitable]

really? I bawl every time.

(not really. but I get all "damn, why did he have to die.")

[Sub_Topical]

Craptaters, this is why wombat is watching suggested movies, I suppose. You guyzos are all babbling on and it's all CHING CHONG WING WONG to me. Guess maybe I outta watch some of the suggested list too.

Whoa, cancel that. I cared for a moment there, but it passed.

(why care about bill murray after meatballs)

[KeithHernandez]

Wait, was Meatballs a movie, or is it just like a good food, you know, puts you in a carefree mood.  If meatballs is a movie, I hope it came after Where the Buffalo Roam, a superb HST based bill Murray movie.

Wait, no, I liked A Life Aquatic as well, so either way, uh, i don't know what to say, I have been writing essays and cramming for test for 30 straight hours.  Only 2 hours until the end of the semester.  By 6 oclock I am going to be so high and have at least 5 Beam and Cokes in me.