I've never liked Dark Crystal. It seriously wigged me as a kid. My seventh grade English teacher had us learn about story structure with it (earning me brownie points for knowing what it was), but it still weirds me out.
I don't see how you can not like Labyrinth, though. David Bowie! And Jennifer Connelly's fantastic wardrobe! And I've read some analyses of it as a feminist movie--and I have to say that's part of why it spoke to me so much as a kid. Her final statement, you have no power over me, that's important stuff for a thirteen-year-old girl.
(And as one who has hated other classics--Alien and The Shining both bored me--I do see the genius in Godfather.)
I am a woman who both likes David Bowie and feminist movies, but who felt that Labyrinth reflected poorly on both. The heroine is a mess and a useless lump. Her "empowerment" is akin to that of horror movie heroines: if you spend most of the movie being a scared/useless ninny, you don't immediately get props for managing to survive to the end.
I agree with you on Alien--next to the frenetic pace and truly terrifying Aliens, it is ponderously slow and merely creepy--and, to a degree, The Shining (some parts of that are okay). But The Godfather is two hours of MEN BEING MEN: THE MOVIE. There's some interest, in that Michael Corleone is clearly a somewhat tragic figure--someone who is trying to stay above the bad but is too good at it, too necessary to escape--but other than that, it's MEN MEN MEN, BEING MANLY, AT OTHER GUYS. (To that movie's credit, it doesn't read as gay as so many others of that genre do.)
And I thought the Matrix borrowed a lot more, both stylistically and thematically, from Ghost in the Shell. Your garish attempts at tarnishing the reputation of great films, aside...
...I think you have a point about how influencers tend to pick up points for nostalgia through the lens of what came after. I thought about what you're talking about with The Dark Crystal, and you're right, I can't actually consider the film *good*; what I really remember as amazing was the puppetry.
I think it's like fortune-telling; people have a tendency to remember the good bits and forget the bad bits, even when the bad bits are much more numerous.
Ghost in the Shell is a good example, actually. It's a very, very uneven film that had enormous influence on later cyberpunk stuff.
I am very surprised you had NOT seen Labyrinth until recently, being a David Bowie fan. Weren't you there when CUSFS screened it? Or was that before your time? (omg I'm ancient
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I enjoy Labyrinth. Sarah sucks and I had never realized until the re-watch how unbearably whiny she is, but her adventure remains interesting. There are a lot of really clever little puzzle things (the door being flipped around, the stairs, etc.) that she stumbles across, I like the ballroom scene at the end, and it's just visually interesting. And David Bowie is obviously having a good time. But it's not a good movie.
The Dark Crystal was just terrible. You're right, it's actually unimaginative, despite everything.
I didn't enjoy Labyrinth, I think, because the story didn't engage me enough and the effects on the side didn't interest me enough to offset the deficiency of either. Expectations may have also played a factor--I'd been told it was great and expected more from it as a result, I suppose.
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I don't see how you can not like Labyrinth, though. David Bowie! And Jennifer Connelly's fantastic wardrobe! And I've read some analyses of it as a feminist movie--and I have to say that's part of why it spoke to me so much as a kid. Her final statement, you have no power over me, that's important stuff for a thirteen-year-old girl.
(And as one who has hated other classics--Alien and The Shining both bored me--I do see the genius in Godfather.)
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I agree with you on Alien--next to the frenetic pace and truly terrifying Aliens, it is ponderously slow and merely creepy--and, to a degree, The Shining (some parts of that are okay). But The Godfather is two hours of MEN BEING MEN: THE MOVIE. There's some interest, in that Michael Corleone is clearly a somewhat tragic figure--someone who is trying to stay above the bad but is too good at it, too necessary to escape--but other than that, it's MEN MEN MEN, BEING MANLY, AT OTHER GUYS. (To that movie's credit, it doesn't read as gay as so many others of that genre do.)
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And I thought the Matrix borrowed a lot more, both stylistically and thematically, from Ghost in the Shell. Your garish attempts at tarnishing the reputation of great films, aside...
...I think you have a point about how influencers tend to pick up points for nostalgia through the lens of what came after. I thought about what you're talking about with The Dark Crystal, and you're right, I can't actually consider the film *good*; what I really remember as amazing was the puppetry.
I think it's like fortune-telling; people have a tendency to remember the good bits and forget the bad bits, even when the bad bits are much more numerous.
Ghost in the Shell is a good example, actually. It's a very, very uneven film that had enormous influence on later cyberpunk stuff.
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The Dark Crystal was just terrible. You're right, it's actually unimaginative, despite everything.
I like Blade...
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