WHAT I THOUGHT ABOUT CITY OF EMBER, PERCY JACKSON, AND BEING MEH AND BEING DUMB.
I have decided that it is healthier for me to write my thoughts of books, movies, television, music, media, etc. etc. down in this empty cavern of a place rather than give people long spiels about how this was blah and this was waugh and this was hrmphh and this was meh or whatever. Just so happens that City of Ember was pretty meh! Also Percy Jackson, but I will elaborate more on the extent of its meh-ness.
So first off I saw City of Ember, which is based on some fantasy book written in 2004 or something. Tom Hanks liked it and made it into a movie. The poster looked like this:
First off, this poster is just terrible. I mean really will I be enticed to watch some girl need a man's help to get lifted off a cliff thing? I AM WOMAN I DON'T NEED BOY HELP TO GET WHERE I WANT I HAVE EMPOWERMENT I AM A STONE COLD BOTCH so yeah.
Besides my whole feminist issue, the poster doesn't really seem to have any sort of aesthetic. I mean I'm not going to look at it and go oh look what nice looking stalagtites they have in that cave omg i am so enticed to watch those dang stalagtites man oh man i will pay cold hard cash to see those stalagtites in action blahblahblah so yeah in the end this movie made like less than half its budget and its all because this poster sucks. The End.
Which is quite a shame because I was hoping it would at least make like 4/5ths of that dang budget. I mean seeing the movie, the one thing that impressed me was the production design they had. It was like cave-friendly steampunk and everyone was wearing wool or really old leather or something attractively moldy. I do find it quite ironic that the thing that probably screwed the marketing of this movie over is the thing that made the movie itself most redeeming. I mean like the aspect of aesthetic. Not like the lack thereof or oh whatever maybe you get it.
As for the writing, the dialogue was meh and so was the pacing. Like nothing really happened for like eighty minutes and suddenly like OH HEY AUDIENCE JSYK YOU MADE IT TO THE CLIMAX THIS IS PRETTY BIG WOOOO and this happens for ten minutes or so and then the movie ends. So basically this movie was really meh. Not even the very pretty Saoirse Ronan nor her 10-years-older skinny male lead nor TIm Robbins nor Bill Murray or basiclaly anyone who made this movie less meh than it was could save it. So yeah. Meh Meh Meh.
Anyway the second movie I will talk about was also meh, but not quite as meh as City of Ember. And this movie is
YEAHHHHHHHH PERCY JACKSON I am slowly realizing after putting this in the post that it is foreign oh well.
So yes, this poster also suffers from some measure of boringness, but I believe that this movie made more money because
1. Logan Lerman is a bajillion times more fascinating to look at than a bunch of stalagtites.
2. yeah Logan Lerman, everybody
Man I think i'd just see this movie just for LL. I mean look at dat boi he looks like he's going to sing the reprise of Part of Your World anytime now.
So anyway the actual movie wasn't too meh really. But actually the movie swapped that mehness for incredible dumbness. Not Beverly Hills Chihuahua type dumb, because if dumbness were a grade, BHC would get like A+++ and Percy Jackson will get like a B.
I mean first of all, the first thing we get out of this movie is GIANT-ARSE POSEIDON turning himself into an itty-bitty Poseidon and then him talking to Boromir from Lord of the Rings (aka "Scene Bean" as my sister and I like to call him). Then they have this big dumb argument about who stole my lightning bolt and it was your son and I haven't seen my son since he was a baby blahblahblah clunkety clunk clunk.
Cut to Logan Lerman in this incredibly long shot of him closing his eyes underwater with some awkward executive producer credits hanging around in the foreground. So yeah Percy Jackson also has a black BFF and has this teacher character in a wheelchair and OMG LOOK THE TEACHER IS A CENTUAR WHO KNEW RIGHT I NEVER WOULDA KNOWN HE'S IN A WHEELCHAIR he is also played by Pierce Brosnan. Anyway he goes to Camp and for some reason everyone there insists that they wear armor made of reindeer-arse or whatever and for some reason have Roman army helmets. You know the ones with the little horse manes at the top. Yeah. The dumbest thing though is how they have these REAL SWORDS for practice that have been shown to ACTUALLY CUT PEOPLE and these training demi-god teenagers literally swing these swords at each others heads. And no one dies.
So yeah more dumbness ensues due to soem cross-country journey where they end up going to Vegas and get high on some Lotus Flowers while listening to Poker Face. This really happens in the movie I promise you. There is even a scene where the black BFF gets his satyr hoofs painted at the salon whilst being high and accompanied by Lady Gaga's m-m-m-mahs.
In the end some kind of cool stuff happens liek some shoes with wings on them and Steve Coogan as Hades and Rosario Dawson as his wife/hostage Persephone (remember Proserpina anyone?). Their acting was still kinda bad, but I admitted made me slightly happier.
So yeah dumb dumb dumb. For some smarter insight into Percy Jackson, I must say that it reaffirms the fact that a key to a good story is really characterization. In seeing LOTR the other day, I found myself fascinated in how Frodo and whether or not his character would succeed in superseding the struggle with the ring. I lacked this fascination with the characters of the film. Presumably, the books are better though.
As for City of Ember, the characterization I suppose was bettered with the acting. Saoirse Ronan blessed her character with eagerness as her male lead gave his character some curiosity. In the end though, both characters were not strong enough to overcome the power of the One Ring of dare I say it again MEH.
So yeah. In ending this I will apologize for
1. Overuse of the words DUMB and MEH.
2. lack of punctuation and coherence
3. overall laziness
So yeah.
EDIT: it is "stalactites" not "stalagtites" o how embarassing thanks to Nina though
So first off I saw City of Ember, which is based on some fantasy book written in 2004 or something. Tom Hanks liked it and made it into a movie. The poster looked like this:
First off, this poster is just terrible. I mean really will I be enticed to watch some girl need a man's help to get lifted off a cliff thing? I AM WOMAN I DON'T NEED BOY HELP TO GET WHERE I WANT I HAVE EMPOWERMENT I AM A STONE COLD BOTCH so yeah.
Besides my whole feminist issue, the poster doesn't really seem to have any sort of aesthetic. I mean I'm not going to look at it and go oh look what nice looking stalagtites they have in that cave omg i am so enticed to watch those dang stalagtites man oh man i will pay cold hard cash to see those stalagtites in action blahblahblah so yeah in the end this movie made like less than half its budget and its all because this poster sucks. The End.
Which is quite a shame because I was hoping it would at least make like 4/5ths of that dang budget. I mean seeing the movie, the one thing that impressed me was the production design they had. It was like cave-friendly steampunk and everyone was wearing wool or really old leather or something attractively moldy. I do find it quite ironic that the thing that probably screwed the marketing of this movie over is the thing that made the movie itself most redeeming. I mean like the aspect of aesthetic. Not like the lack thereof or oh whatever maybe you get it.
As for the writing, the dialogue was meh and so was the pacing. Like nothing really happened for like eighty minutes and suddenly like OH HEY AUDIENCE JSYK YOU MADE IT TO THE CLIMAX THIS IS PRETTY BIG WOOOO and this happens for ten minutes or so and then the movie ends. So basically this movie was really meh. Not even the very pretty Saoirse Ronan nor her 10-years-older skinny male lead nor TIm Robbins nor Bill Murray or basiclaly anyone who made this movie less meh than it was could save it. So yeah. Meh Meh Meh.
Anyway the second movie I will talk about was also meh, but not quite as meh as City of Ember. And this movie is
YEAHHHHHHHH PERCY JACKSON I am slowly realizing after putting this in the post that it is foreign oh well.
So yes, this poster also suffers from some measure of boringness, but I believe that this movie made more money because
1. Logan Lerman is a bajillion times more fascinating to look at than a bunch of stalagtites.
2. yeah Logan Lerman, everybody
Man I think i'd just see this movie just for LL. I mean look at dat boi he looks like he's going to sing the reprise of Part of Your World anytime now.
So anyway the actual movie wasn't too meh really. But actually the movie swapped that mehness for incredible dumbness. Not Beverly Hills Chihuahua type dumb, because if dumbness were a grade, BHC would get like A+++ and Percy Jackson will get like a B.
I mean first of all, the first thing we get out of this movie is GIANT-ARSE POSEIDON turning himself into an itty-bitty Poseidon and then him talking to Boromir from Lord of the Rings (aka "Scene Bean" as my sister and I like to call him). Then they have this big dumb argument about who stole my lightning bolt and it was your son and I haven't seen my son since he was a baby blahblahblah clunkety clunk clunk.
Cut to Logan Lerman in this incredibly long shot of him closing his eyes underwater with some awkward executive producer credits hanging around in the foreground. So yeah Percy Jackson also has a black BFF and has this teacher character in a wheelchair and OMG LOOK THE TEACHER IS A CENTUAR WHO KNEW RIGHT I NEVER WOULDA KNOWN HE'S IN A WHEELCHAIR he is also played by Pierce Brosnan. Anyway he goes to Camp and for some reason everyone there insists that they wear armor made of reindeer-arse or whatever and for some reason have Roman army helmets. You know the ones with the little horse manes at the top. Yeah. The dumbest thing though is how they have these REAL SWORDS for practice that have been shown to ACTUALLY CUT PEOPLE and these training demi-god teenagers literally swing these swords at each others heads. And no one dies.
So yeah more dumbness ensues due to soem cross-country journey where they end up going to Vegas and get high on some Lotus Flowers while listening to Poker Face. This really happens in the movie I promise you. There is even a scene where the black BFF gets his satyr hoofs painted at the salon whilst being high and accompanied by Lady Gaga's m-m-m-mahs.
In the end some kind of cool stuff happens liek some shoes with wings on them and Steve Coogan as Hades and Rosario Dawson as his wife/hostage Persephone (remember Proserpina anyone?). Their acting was still kinda bad, but I admitted made me slightly happier.
So yeah dumb dumb dumb. For some smarter insight into Percy Jackson, I must say that it reaffirms the fact that a key to a good story is really characterization. In seeing LOTR the other day, I found myself fascinated in how Frodo and whether or not his character would succeed in superseding the struggle with the ring. I lacked this fascination with the characters of the film. Presumably, the books are better though.
As for City of Ember, the characterization I suppose was bettered with the acting. Saoirse Ronan blessed her character with eagerness as her male lead gave his character some curiosity. In the end though, both characters were not strong enough to overcome the power of the One Ring of dare I say it again MEH.
So yeah. In ending this I will apologize for
1. Overuse of the words DUMB and MEH.
2. lack of punctuation and coherence
3. overall laziness
So yeah.
EDIT: it is "stalactites" not "stalagtites" o how embarassing thanks to Nina though