movie talk

[urbpan]

Alex and I watched the last half of Lake Placid last night--Alex wanted to watch the Betty White part again--and it stands as one of my favorites in the genre. I did notice this time that they not only fired darts into crocodile hide (I've seen people have trouble getting darts to penetrate raccoon hide) but with what seemed like only one dart,

Comments

[g_weir]

Oh dear.

Expect Christian at your house a number of hours after posting your review of 'The Prestige.' It's one of his favorites. I greatly enjoyed it and the ambiguity of the endings. In fact, I think you're not supposed to know what happened. It's like a magic trick itself- that's very meta and may be wrong, but it's how I saw it and I appluad the guts to do such a thing.

I'm with you on Fight Club although that ran out of gas for me long before the twist at the end. Despite that, it's a hard movie to look away from- very well crafted.

So if such endings get you down, how do 2001 or Donnie Darko sit with you?

--G

[urbpan]

I didn't find the endings ambiguous, but I did find them to be tricks: Trick one, a sci-fi element introduced at the last minute! Trick two, a character that we didn't tell you existed before!

I think the best words ever written about 2001 are Christian's:
"There's a great 45-minute movie trapped in this painfully dull 148-minute zigguraut of a film." My own Netflix note was "Brilliant, beautiful, ahead of its time, plotless and dull."

I enjoyed Donnie Darko; the ending was like the final piece to the puzzle, which, like in all time travel movies, was a paradox.

[g_weir]

I'm often surprised at the different way you and I process films... see, I would apply your 2001 quote to Donnie Darko (minus the dull). I think it's a finely crafted film but in the end signifies nothing. I'm not sure if I get what the film is trying to say but I'm fairly certain I don't care. 2001 drags quite a bit but I think it has a more meaningful heart.

I will agree that the Prestige isn't showing all of it's cards, but again, that to me is the point.

Anyway, I greatly enjoy your reviews because they are often so different than what I took away from the same film (except lake Placid- which we agree is teh awesome). I'm writing a post about Idiocracy right now, so you can tell me what you think about my take on that on Wednesday.

--G

Idiocracy

[urbpan]

I have to run out and watch it now!

[hildythenerd]

I personally LOVED how you explained VCR and projectors. :) I actually had a hard time finding a replacement VCR when mine shit the bed not too long ago. I have several movies on VHS that I didn't want to lose. (Of course, after the fact, I thought "Why didn't I just buy the movies on DVD?" But I gotta admit..I kind of like having a VHS)

In regards to Fight Club I agree whole heartedly. However, I thought the book (like all of Chuck Palahniuk's work) was amazing. The book and the movie didn't very much at all..but the book was just SO much more entertaining for me.

[smallerdemon]

I absolutely need to second the book on Fight Club here. It's one of my favorites. Nevertheless, I appreciate the movie for the necessity of what it needed to do in contrast to the book and I hold no grudges against it and find it a great piece of work in its own right.

Fight Club as a book, though, is indeed probably one of the great masterpieces of American writing. Of course, my favorite American authored book if Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas, so count that into any perceptual considerations when I say "That was THE MAX!" ;)

[barbmg]

I wanted to like The Prestige but the movie itself worked against that, with the main characters becomiing less and less sympathetic as it went on. The introduction basically says "watch and see how we are tricking you" so I spent the whole time being hyper-vigilant (even for me) and I spotted the un-introduced character about halfway through the movie (especially with the bad beard). I completely didn't give a shit about the sci-fi element by the time we got to it, since the characters were so unlikable. Bleh.

[wirrrn]

Love how the LAKE PLACID folks did just enough research about Indo-Pacific crocs to get almost every fact wrong. "They don't like salt-water". Gee, I guess that explains their Aussie common name, *Salt-Water Crocodiles*!! Betty White rocked (and had the right idea about the crocs too!)

A better, more realistic killer croc movie is ROGUE- if you can ignore a certain character staying miraculously alive (although abdly hurt) after being rolled and taken underwater by the titular croc...

I didn't mind THE PRESTIGE, although I saw the Bale twist coming a mile away...

[bellelvsbeast]

I would say "The Prestige" IS so much better than "The Illusionist" which sucked ass...Plus Christian Bale is THE MAN. I loved the movie personally...I actually went to see it in the theater and I NEVER do that with movies unless I think it will be amazing. I thought the two endings was a good idea, and I love it when movies "surprise" me like that. I hate super predictable movies, like most zombie movies, or horror movies in general...that's why I hate them. Oh and the fact they scare me to death...;P
I have a VCR still too, but we don't actually use it ever...we are DVD people or we play movies off the computer through the Xbox...
You might want to get that VCR looked at, when my parents' started doing that it died really fast...:(
"The Riches" is like the BEST SHOW EVER!!!! :) I saw the first season last year, so I'm watching the second season now...it's getting INTENSE...;)
"Lake Placid" is DEFINITELY not realistic, but still a hoot to watch. I love all the "animal horror" movies...;)