Séamas posted:
The ENT did a double take when he first saw it.
It took a couple attempts--it felt like an eternity to me, but was no doubt excruciating for my son.
Doctor: "You are gonna want a picture of this".
I'm guessing it was some type of beetle--it looked pretty sturdy--probably got into his ear and freaked out and started scratching and stuff.
His ear canal has no small amount of trauma, but it looks like the drum wasn't perforated.
Hope that wasn't a female.*
*Outer Limits reference that no one will get.
The Big Chill
Yuck.
I remember when this came out, I was in High School and the term "yuppie" was just coming into my consciousness.
I never saw it in it's entirety, but I knew it had something to do with yuppies or something.
I has suite-mates in my sophomore year in college that had a TV and VCR, and this movie was played by them (with a big crowd) several times. They all seemed to absolutely love it.
I saw that it was on Netflix, and figured maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be.
I think it was worse.
I mean there is a scene where everyone is dancing and drying dishes.Sheeesh
I looked up stuff about this movie and saw that the director had also done what I consider to be the worst movie ever: Grand Canyon which saw on a date thinking it had Steve Martin and Kevin Kline, how bad could it be?--answer: bad as the ebola virus.
Both horrible, but with a likable cast.
Paper Moon.
I thought this was entirely excellent. Tatum O'Neil is great --doesn't get too cute as a sassy smart-mouth child. Ryan O'Neil was excellent too, it is a shame he torpedoed his career, he had real talent. The story is nice and simple, but well told and well filmed.
1941
I think Speilberg was trying for a It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World kind of vibe here. It was hit and miss. I don't think he has a knack for timing when it comes to humor. I think I appreciated the early scene with the guys working in the diner, trying to dance and prep food at the same time (totally carelessly) more than any scene. Other than that, meh.
Yuck.
I remember when this came out, I was in High School and the term "yuppie" was just coming into my consciousness.
I never saw it in it's entirety, but I knew it had something to do with yuppies or something.
I has suite-mates in my sophomore year in college that had a TV and VCR, and this movie was played by them (with a big crowd) several times. They all seemed to absolutely love it.
I saw that it was on Netflix, and figured maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be.
I think it was worse.
I mean there is a scene where everyone is dancing and drying dishes.Sheeesh
I looked up stuff about this movie and saw that the director had also done what I consider to be the worst movie ever: Grand Canyon which saw on a date thinking it had Steve Martin and Kevin Kline, how bad could it be?--answer: bad as the ebola virus.
Both horrible, but with a likable cast.
Paper Moon.
I thought this was entirely excellent. Tatum O'Neil is great --doesn't get too cute as a sassy smart-mouth child. Ryan O'Neil was excellent too, it is a shame he torpedoed his career, he had real talent. The story is nice and simple, but well told and well filmed.
1941
I think Speilberg was trying for a It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World kind of vibe here. It was hit and miss. I don't think he has a knack for timing when it comes to humor. I think I appreciated the early scene with the guys working in the diner, trying to dance and prep food at the same time (totally carelessly) more than any scene. Other than that, meh.
The Big Chill has Meg Tilly doing that fascinating yoga scene during the opening credits. Other than that, yeah, you really have to watch it at a certain time in your life to like it. I saw it once and liked it but I probably couldn't stand it now.
"That woman has a bladder the size of a peanut." Kahn was great in Paper Moon. Read the book, though, it's very good and has a whole lot more detail and another entire location.
I've got 1941 but I haven't dared watch it. Steve can do comedy (Back To The Future) but he's got such a big rep that he tries too hard sometimes.
"That woman has a bladder the size of a peanut." Kahn was great in Paper Moon. Read the book, though, it's very good and has a whole lot more detail and another entire location.
I've got 1941 but I haven't dared watch it. Steve can do comedy (Back To The Future) but he's got such a big rep that he tries too hard sometimes.
user posted:
"That woman has a bladder the size of a peanut." Kahn was great in Paper Moon.
My wife and I were dying watching her first scene. She really got the girls bouncing.
Is she ever not great?
dv posted:1941 was pretty good, imo.
Ultimately, any Belushi is good Belushi.
From the Director who brought us The Big Chill and Grand Canyon.
Frozen (2013).
Perhaps I benefitted from not being dragged to this movie by any young girls in the family--as it happens I have no such close (by) relatives--or by any daughters of close friends, so I did not suffer from any of the hype surrounding this movie. Aside from hearing only short snippets of "Let It Go" and watching an occasional commercial, I got to approach this movie with nearly fresh eyes.
I LOVE this movie, enough that over this past weekend I watched it a second time in as many days, then skipped around through various scenes after that.
Mind you: my usual viewing habits are such that I rarely watch a movie a second (or more) times, and even then it is almost always years after the first time. For example: I think I have seen "Star Wars IV: A New Hope" only once all the way through and that was during its first run in 1977 (when, of course, it was simply "Star Wars"). I have caught scenes when (re-)broadcast on cable and commercial TV but I have yet to watch Star Wars from start to finish aside from that first time.
Of course both Elsa and Anna are animated as beautiful young women (though Anna's wake-up scene on coronation day was especially funny), but Elsa suffers from almost never smiling through the first part of the movie. Aside from their scenes as young children (before "the incident") and the fleeting smile the sisters give each other when they are talking (chocolate) in the ballroom before Anna's dance, Elsa's look is at best an unconfident and neutral one when she isn't actually frowning in anger or from fear which makes her much less appealing than Anna (who gets to smile a lot more throughout).
This changes drastically with "Let It Go." While the costume change contributes, the confidence and happiness that Elsa expresses with that song makes her much prettier and--dare I say it?--very sexy, especially at the denouement of that song. I do have to wonder if some of the appeal of this song for girls is because peripherally they notice that their dads are paying more attention.
In any case: I unreservedly recommend this movie (despite some mixed reviews from a year ago in this string).
Now excuse me. I watched "Frozen" via Starz but now I want to pick up the DVD to watch peripheral videos (and maybe watch it again).
EDIT: I changed "first half" to "first part" because "Let It Go" is sung at about 40-45 minutes into the movie.
Perhaps I benefitted from not being dragged to this movie by any young girls in the family--as it happens I have no such close (by) relatives--or by any daughters of close friends, so I did not suffer from any of the hype surrounding this movie. Aside from hearing only short snippets of "Let It Go" and watching an occasional commercial, I got to approach this movie with nearly fresh eyes.
I LOVE this movie, enough that over this past weekend I watched it a second time in as many days, then skipped around through various scenes after that.
Mind you: my usual viewing habits are such that I rarely watch a movie a second (or more) times, and even then it is almost always years after the first time. For example: I think I have seen "Star Wars IV: A New Hope" only once all the way through and that was during its first run in 1977 (when, of course, it was simply "Star Wars"). I have caught scenes when (re-)broadcast on cable and commercial TV but I have yet to watch Star Wars from start to finish aside from that first time.
Of course both Elsa and Anna are animated as beautiful young women (though Anna's wake-up scene on coronation day was especially funny), but Elsa suffers from almost never smiling through the first part of the movie. Aside from their scenes as young children (before "the incident") and the fleeting smile the sisters give each other when they are talking (chocolate) in the ballroom before Anna's dance, Elsa's look is at best an unconfident and neutral one when she isn't actually frowning in anger or from fear which makes her much less appealing than Anna (who gets to smile a lot more throughout).
This changes drastically with "Let It Go." While the costume change contributes, the confidence and happiness that Elsa expresses with that song makes her much prettier and--dare I say it?--very sexy, especially at the denouement of that song. I do have to wonder if some of the appeal of this song for girls is because peripherally they notice that their dads are paying more attention.
In any case: I unreservedly recommend this movie (despite some mixed reviews from a year ago in this string).
Now excuse me. I watched "Frozen" via Starz but now I want to pick up the DVD to watch peripheral videos (and maybe watch it again).
EDIT: I changed "first half" to "first part" because "Let It Go" is sung at about 40-45 minutes into the movie.
Last edited by DEyncourt on Fri Jul 18, 2014 8:35 pm.
Kinda weird seeing a critique of animated character's acting expressions.
user posted:Kinda weird seeing a critique of animated character's acting expressions.
"I'm not bad--I'm just drawn that way."
While it is possible that the agreement of facial expressions for Elsa was unconscious, I am pretty sure that the selection was quite deliberate and possibly literally for the reasons I wrote in my previous post.
Frozen wasn't incredible, but it was good. That they managed to get through the movie without making Elsa the villain really set it apart. That they made the "guy" the villain instead was kind of predictable, but necessary. That they finally, finally made a movie where the female protagonist realizes that it is what is in her heart that matters, not whether she lands the hunky dude who will rescue her ass, definitely put it out of the park for a Disney film.
I wouldn't say it's the best animated feature I've ever seen, but it was definitely several notches above the dreck that Disney usually puts out.
I wouldn't say it's the best animated feature I've ever seen, but it was definitely several notches above the dreck that Disney usually puts out.
radarman posted:Frozen wasn't incredible, but it was good. That they managed to get through the movie without making Elsa the villain really set it apart. That they made the "guy" the villain instead was kind of predictable, but necessary. That they finally, finally made a movie where the female protagonist realizes that it is what is in her heart that matters, not whether she lands the hunky dude who will rescue her ass, definitely put it out of the park for a Disney film.
I wouldn't say it's the best animated feature I've ever seen, but it was definitely several notches above the dreck that Disney usually puts out.
I have never been able to figure out the Disney mystique. Talk about a company that produces nothing but bland, lowest common denominator, focus group refined swill.
Then there is the way they have almost single handedly forced our copyright laws into mutated abominations of crony capitalism.
Not a fan.
Pariah posted:I have never been able to figure out the Disney mystique. Talk about a company that produces nothing but bland, lowest common denominator, focus group refined swill.
It's all about quality control!
Pariah posted:radarman posted:Frozen wasn't incredible, but it was good. That they managed to get through the movie without making Elsa the villain really set it apart. That they made the "guy" the villain instead was kind of predictable, but necessary. That they finally, finally made a movie where the female protagonist realizes that it is what is in her heart that matters, not whether she lands the hunky dude who will rescue her ass, definitely put it out of the park for a Disney film.
I wouldn't say it's the best animated feature I've ever seen, but it was definitely several notches above the dreck that Disney usually puts out.
I have never been able to figure out the Disney mystique. Talk about a company that produces nothing but bland, lowest common denominator, focus group refined swill.
[snip]
Really? Have you never been affected by the universality of the themes in most Disney movies? Sure, in case of Frozen the literal supernatural power that Elsa has is NOT universal, but have you never felt left out by friends and family (albeit for "good" reasons according to someone's judgment that you learned about later)? Maybe it was an insignificant event like a surprise party for YOU so naturally people avoided talking about it to you beforehand, or maybe it was something much more serious like the critical and eventually fatal illness that a relative or a friend had, or something somewhere in between: you have never felt like Anna in this way? If not, then you have had a truly blessed--or perhaps an extremely boring (um, this for Pariah? I am certain NOT)--life.
-----
As to criticizing Frozen: I think that Olaf as comic relief mostly fails. Most of the time such comic relief in these animated features are intelligent and very witty. While Olaf hits there on rare occasions, such times feel like accidents of that particular situation and most of the time his dull-witted nature is played for laughs. To me this feels too much like making fun of dull-witted people.
Did you know that Marshmallow--the giant snow creature that Elsa creates to get Anna and Kristoff out of her ice castle--was originally conceived as a giant version of Olaf?
Olaf is dim-witted because he is the creation of a child's mind. He understands most of what is going on, but doesn't understand death (melting) and is automatically friendly. I didn't get "dumb" as much as I got "naive."
They certainly could have played up the Marshmallow/Olaf similarity more as a perversion of childhood dreams and whatever. But it was pretty cool anyway.
They certainly could have played up the Marshmallow/Olaf similarity more as a perversion of childhood dreams and whatever. But it was pretty cool anyway.
dv posted:Olaf is dim-witted because he is the creation of a child's mind. He understands most of what is going on, but doesn't understand death (melting) and is automatically friendly. I didn't get "dumb" as much as I got "naive."
They certainly could have played up the Marshmallow/Olaf similarity more as a perversion of childhood dreams and whatever. But it was pretty cool anyway.
The contrast I would draw is with Mater from the Cars series. While Mater is deliberately scripted as not particularly intelligent, he does have his own wit who can outsmart Lightning McQueen and others. Even if Mater himself fails to recognize such at that moment, there are usually others in the scene who do.
I like "naïve" and your explanation for that, but Olaf also is not witty at all. Like I wrote before: his rare apt comments feel more like "insert witty line said by ANYONE here" accidents rather than displays of Olaf's wit or intelligence. They could have been given to Sven the reindeer except that he doesn't talk (except via Kristoff's "ventriloquism").
I finally finished watching Monsters University.
I had started watching it about a week ago but I gave up at the point where Mike and Sully and the rest of the OK fraternity go to the party at the ROR frat house. While there were certainly some laughs in the first part of this movie up to this point, overall I thought the story was rather flat and uninspired. It was especially disappointing for being the prequel to Monster, Inc. (which I loved). I even erased it from my PVR.
But...well, this movie wasn't costing me anything more except for some time, so I found it again to be recorded, then watched the rest of the movie last night. Still disappointing overall, but not THAT bad. As it happened I had stopped watching previously at the point where the OK frat was just squeaking by the other frat teams in the Scare Contest. In the first round the OK'ers didn't win by guile or sheer effort but only because one of the other teams had cheated and got disqualified. In the second round there was some teamwork by the OK team, but you don't get to see what happened to the losing frat team except that they got ejected by the librarian. It was because of the "incident" at the ROR frat house that Mike and Sully team up and work their frat towards winning as opposed to avoiding losing, so the story began to be a bit more enjoyable (although missing a lot of details).
The finals in the Scare Contest between ROR and OK has one glaring problem. Somehow Sully sabotages the controls of the scare bed for OK even though the actions of the participants are being shown on TV to the audience inside the Monster U stadium. I guess that Sully manages to do that before the final contest begins (yeah, like that would happen in such a situation involving rival fraternities, especially since the rest of the movie shows how much monster university life is almost exactly like human university life).
The remainder of the movie is actually closer to Monsters, Inc., in structure although overall disappointing. C'mon--Mike the student knows something about the principles of scaring that Dean Hardscrabble doesn't know?--so the entire sub-story where Mike and Sully rescue themselves from the human kids' summer camp is somewhat off.
Again: Monster University suffers greatly in comparison with Monsters, Inc. The prequel seemed to have been designed only to fill in (badly) the backstory of the first movie. The viewers learn that the rivalry between Sully and Randall/Randy began at Monsters U but personally I could have gone without this (and other) detail(s). Grading this movie on pass/fail, I would give Monsters University a VERY marginal pass with a strong warning that perhaps the student should consider other fields of study.
I had started watching it about a week ago but I gave up at the point where Mike and Sully and the rest of the OK fraternity go to the party at the ROR frat house. While there were certainly some laughs in the first part of this movie up to this point, overall I thought the story was rather flat and uninspired. It was especially disappointing for being the prequel to Monster, Inc. (which I loved). I even erased it from my PVR.
But...well, this movie wasn't costing me anything more except for some time, so I found it again to be recorded, then watched the rest of the movie last night. Still disappointing overall, but not THAT bad. As it happened I had stopped watching previously at the point where the OK frat was just squeaking by the other frat teams in the Scare Contest. In the first round the OK'ers didn't win by guile or sheer effort but only because one of the other teams had cheated and got disqualified. In the second round there was some teamwork by the OK team, but you don't get to see what happened to the losing frat team except that they got ejected by the librarian. It was because of the "incident" at the ROR frat house that Mike and Sully team up and work their frat towards winning as opposed to avoiding losing, so the story began to be a bit more enjoyable (although missing a lot of details).
The finals in the Scare Contest between ROR and OK has one glaring problem. Somehow Sully sabotages the controls of the scare bed for OK even though the actions of the participants are being shown on TV to the audience inside the Monster U stadium. I guess that Sully manages to do that before the final contest begins (yeah, like that would happen in such a situation involving rival fraternities, especially since the rest of the movie shows how much monster university life is almost exactly like human university life).
The remainder of the movie is actually closer to Monsters, Inc., in structure although overall disappointing. C'mon--Mike the student knows something about the principles of scaring that Dean Hardscrabble doesn't know?--so the entire sub-story where Mike and Sully rescue themselves from the human kids' summer camp is somewhat off.
Again: Monster University suffers greatly in comparison with Monsters, Inc. The prequel seemed to have been designed only to fill in (badly) the backstory of the first movie. The viewers learn that the rivalry between Sully and Randall/Randy began at Monsters U but personally I could have gone without this (and other) detail(s). Grading this movie on pass/fail, I would give Monsters University a VERY marginal pass with a strong warning that perhaps the student should consider other fields of study.
True Detective. Two days to see it in its entirety. Excellent, while not a movie, it plays like one.
Extremely disturbing, and it has echoes of why I so dislike Louisiana.
Extremely disturbing, and it has echoes of why I so dislike Louisiana.
sturner posted:True Detective. Two days to see it in its entirety. Excellent, while not a movie, it plays like one.
Extremely disturbing, and it has echoes of why I so dislike Louisiana.
justine posted:sturner posted:True Detective. Two days to see it in its entirety. Excellent, while not a movie, it plays like one.
Extremely disturbing, and it has echoes of why I so dislike Louisiana.
DEyncourt posted:Pariah posted:I have never been able to figure out the Disney mystique. Talk about a company that produces nothing but bland, lowest common denominator, focus group refined swill.
[snip]
Really? Have you never been affected by the universality of the themes in most Disney movies? Sure, in case of Frozen the literal supernatural power that Elsa has is NOT universal, but have you never felt left out by friends and family (albeit for "good" reasons according to someone's judgment that you learned about later)? Maybe it was an insignificant event like a surprise party for YOU so naturally people avoided talking about it to you beforehand, or maybe it was something much more serious like the critical and eventually fatal illness that a relative or a friend had, or something somewhere in between: you have never felt like Anna in this way? If not, then you have had a truly blessed--or perhaps an extremely boring (um, this for Pariah? I am certain NOT)--life
But that's what Pariah means by lowest common denominator. Disney has mastered the art of highlighting the common emotional experience of growing up. But it all feels like something they ticked off a list.
Metacell posted:DEyncourt posted:Pariah posted:I have never been able to figure out the Disney mystique. Talk about a company that produces nothing but bland, lowest common denominator, focus group refined swill.
[snip]
Really? Have you never been affected by the universality of the themes in most Disney movies? Sure, in case of Frozen the literal supernatural power that Elsa has is NOT universal, but have you never felt left out by friends and family (albeit for "good" reasons according to someone's judgment that you learned about later)? Maybe it was an insignificant event like a surprise party for YOU so naturally people avoided talking about it to you beforehand, or maybe it was something much more serious like the critical and eventually fatal illness that a relative or a friend had, or something somewhere in between: you have never felt like Anna in this way? If not, then you have had a truly blessed--or perhaps an extremely boring (um, this for Pariah? I am certain NOT)--life
But that's what Pariah means by lowest common denominator. Disney has mastered the art of highlighting the common emotional experience of growing up. But it all feels like something they ticked off a list.
And yet Disney's still miles ahead of the stuff that Dreamworks craps out. The whole genre's got problems.
I tend to prefer Dreamworks because they tend to focus on pure entertainment without trying to teach us any life lessons. Although I've avoided kids CGI movies for a long time now, my neighbors kid was just hypnotized by Cars while I thought, "meh, corny." I prefer stuff by other companies, like Coraline. That was great (yeah, yeah, not CGI)
Anyway, speaking of Louisiana, last movie I saw was Bad Country with Willem DaFoe as a police detective who allies with a felon to expose a white supremacist crime ring. Would have loved to see more Louisana culture and more light on the Nazi prison culture. It's interesting that an entire cultural movement exists primarily within prisons and bleeds out into the populace. Sadly, the interesting setup devolves into a typical Hollywood action flick, predictable and trite.
Anyway, speaking of Louisiana, last movie I saw was Bad Country with Willem DaFoe as a police detective who allies with a felon to expose a white supremacist crime ring. Would have loved to see more Louisana culture and more light on the Nazi prison culture. It's interesting that an entire cultural movement exists primarily within prisons and bleeds out into the populace. Sadly, the interesting setup devolves into a typical Hollywood action flick, predictable and trite.
Metacell posted:DEyncourt posted:Pariah posted:I have never been able to figure out the Disney mystique. Talk about a company that produces nothing but bland, lowest common denominator, focus group refined swill.
[snip]
Really? Have you never been affected by the universality of the themes in most Disney movies? Sure, in case of Frozen the literal supernatural power that Elsa has is NOT universal, but have you never felt left out by friends and family (albeit for "good" reasons according to someone's judgment that you learned about later)? Maybe it was an insignificant event like a surprise party for YOU so naturally people avoided talking about it to you beforehand, or maybe it was something much more serious like the critical and eventually fatal illness that a relative or a friend had, or something somewhere in between: you have never felt like Anna in this way? If not, then you have had a truly blessed--or perhaps an extremely boring (um, this for Pariah? I am certain NOT)--life
But that's what Pariah means by lowest common denominator. Disney has mastered the art of highlighting the common emotional experience of growing up. But it all feels like something they ticked off a list.
Seriously: this makes Disney different from any other film studio...how? Can you not take practically ANY romance-comedy movie and summarize it as "highlighting the common emotional experience of" falling in and/or out of love? Or practically ANY war movie as "highlighting the common emotional experience of" being in battle for your life? Or practically ANY family drama as "highlighting the common emotional experience of" being in a family?
Basically: why pick on Disney?
Let me put this out: for whatever reasons I find that TV situation comedies are intolerable. You might think with my science-bent that I might find "The Big Bang Theory" more to my liking, but I have tried watching it and didn't enjoy it much. I have spent the last 25 years or so NOT watching the popular sit-coms like "Seinfeld" and such--occasionally dipping into them but not liking them enough to continue watching (mind you: I do like Seinfeld's stand-up routines so his show's opening and closing tags were my only watchable parts). Here is a hint: I have taken a look via "Nick at Nite" at the 1970's sit-coms like "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "Newhart"--shows that I recall with much fondness and with the memory of absolutely literally rolling on the floor with laughter. Even if I happen on a particular episode I remember with much detail, I might smile a bit with that fondness but I do not "feel" that laughter at all. This pretty much knocks out the theory that some of friends have had that my problem is that I simply am unfamiliar with the characters in the recent sit-coms. After much thought I have figured out that basically the formula for sit-coms just does not work for me anymore. I cannot pin down any particular reasons why this has become so.
What I have not done--well, since my insight above--is condemn the current crop of sit-coms as stupid and insufferable (well, they are to me). I do not call them "nothing but bland, lowest common denominator, focus group refined swill" to explain their mass appeal.
Sometimes the difference is (in) you.
Blue Jasmine.
Again with the foreigners doing American accents. Cate Blanchett and Sally Hawkins own that film and are solidly backed by Alec Baldwin, Bobby Canavale and Andrew Dice Clay. Louis CK has a small role.
Again with the foreigners doing American accents. Cate Blanchett and Sally Hawkins own that film and are solidly backed by Alec Baldwin, Bobby Canavale and Andrew Dice Clay. Louis CK has a small role.
DEyncourt posted:Frozen (2013).
[snip]
Now excuse me. I watched "Frozen" via Starz but now I want to pick up the DVD to watch peripheral videos (and maybe watch it again).
[snip]
I did get the DVD. Kinda disappointing because the only additional material directly related to "Frozen" were its theater trailer and four music video versions of "Let It Go" each sung in different languages (and the Demi Lovato version in English was off to me because she sings with something of a defiant snarl as opposed to with happiness and confidence. BTW: the audio of the Lovato music video is the version of the song that is played at the start of the end credits. ADD--I just watched the other versions and the other three versions are somewhat off but for different reasons, plus the selected scenes from the movie were sometimes odd choices). No behind-the-scene sequences, no videos of the actors singing the songs, nothing else.
The DVD did have "Get a Horse", the short that played before "Frozen" in the theaters, and that was amusing.
And...yes, I did.
DEyncourt posted:Seriously: this makes Disney different from any other film studio...how? Can you not take practically ANY romance-comedy movie and summarize it as "highlighting the common emotional experience of" falling in and/or out of love? Or practically ANY war movie as "highlighting the common emotional experience of" being in battle for your life? Or practically ANY family drama as "highlighting the common emotional experience of" being in a family?
Basically: why pick on Disney?
I think that Disney is, while not deserving the kind of utter dismissal Pariah would stamp it with, as worthy as anything in our culture to be dissected and analyzed for flaws. For one thing, they are usually among the first thing we show our kids and they tend to idolize Disney everything as something straight from God. Disney certainly knows this and rakes in a lot of dough through endless merchandising, recycling, sequeling, spinoffing, and making sure kids can stay in a cash spending dream-state for as long as they can get the parents to acquiesce.
I think there is plenty of valid social criticism of the type of fantasy Disney deals in. There is the dreaded princess syndrome, the heroic destiny syndrome, and scores of other cliches (which to be fair are) lifted from popular mythology. It's also worth remarking that most of the source material, while often presented as children's entertainment in the past, was usually much more dark and grisly. There might be a case to be made that Polyanna Disneyfication has an enabling effect on the increased infantilization of our society. I can appreciate that there are entertainment choices that sort of have a kid-safe guarantee for the sake of easy parenting, but I wonder if it really just promotes lazy parenting by shielding children from anything too complicated that they might need an adult to explain it to them.
Anyway, I don't hate Disney. I think most of their movies are entertaining and some are fantastic. I think they do maintain a very high degree of quality control in their output, but I also think that a great deal of that is to maintain a cash flow worthy rep as opposed to regularly opening outlets for inspired artists.
Quote:Let me put this out: for whatever reasons I find that TV situation comedies are intolerable. You might think with my science-bent that I might find "The Big Bang Theory" more to my liking, but I have tried watching it and didn't enjoy it much. I have spent the last 25 years or so NOT watching the popular sit-coms like "Seinfeld" and such--occasionally dipping into them but not liking them enough to continue watching (mind you: I do like Seinfeld's stand-up routines so his show's opening and closing tags were my only watchable parts). Here is a hint: I have taken a look via "Nick at Nite" at the 1970's sit-coms like "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "Newhart"--shows that I recall with much fondness and with the memory of absolutely literally rolling on the floor with laughter. Even if I happen on a particular episode I remember with much detail, I might smile a bit with that fondness but I do not "feel" that laughter at all. This pretty much knocks out the theory that some of friends have had that my problem is that I simply am unfamiliar with the characters in the recent sit-coms. After much thought I have figured out that basically the formula for sit-coms just does not work for me anymore. I cannot pin down any particular reasons why this has become so.
What I have not done--well, since my insight above--is condemn the current crop of sit-coms as stupid and insufferable (well, they are to me). I do not call them "nothing but bland, lowest common denominator, focus group refined swill" to explain their mass appeal.
Sometimes the difference is (in) you.
I understand all this too well. Most television is unwatchable for me, but I used to watch the same (often mediocre) "classics" over and over again as a child. If you have a capacity for greater artistic appreciation, you just eventually outgrow this type of theater. It no longer can produce a new or meaningful experience for you. The same thing can happen if you work in music or theater where you can't enjoy other performances as much because all you can focus on are the technical aspects or consider how you would have done things differently and it starts to become like watching people at work.
I think a lot of stuff today is much funnier and better produced than stuff I grew up on (but not more insightful than Bob Newhart), but the format really lacks the scope to keep me watching any more.
But I'm over 40 and they don't really care if I'm watching anyway.
[edited for major grammatical surgical reconstruction]
Last edited by Metacell on Wed Jul 23, 2014 5:18 am.
I really tried to not buy Disney stuff for my niece at Xmas, but it got so hard I said the hell with it.
She's a princess anyway.
She's a princess anyway.
user posted:I really tried to not buy Disney stuff for my niece at Xmas, but it got so hard I said the hell with it.
She's a princess anyway.
DukeofNuke posted:DEyncourt posted:
... And...yes, I did.
What? Get a Horse, or Let it Go ?
DEyncourt posted:
Ender's Game.
Well, it has been almost a couple of decades since I read the book, and, yes, I am aware of the controversy surrounding its author, Orson Scott Card, and--indirectly--this movie. Partly because of that controversy, I had started this movie prepared to not like it much....
But, y'know: it wasn't bad. As far as I could recall the novel it was a decent treatment (understanding that any rendering of any book--much less a complicated one like "Ender's Game"--would require something of the HBO treatment of "Game of Thrones" to be anywhere close to thorough). The movie went VERY quickly through Ender's training at the orbital Battle School with little (no?) explanation that the battle games were NOT training for Ender and his classmates to become actual ground-pounding soldiers but as exercises in part to build esprit de corps between them as battle tacticians and in part to get them to thinking about situations different from everyday life (although I think that the book also didn't stress these points much either). As a result I'm not sure how well this movie works as an independent entity since much of my understanding of the movie was from what I can still recall from the book. I guess someone who hasn't read "Ender's Game" will have to give the analysis of how much one needs the novel to understand the movie.
Because this movie was less than two hours long, the viewer is given only brief glimpses into Ender's thinking--am I wrong to recall pages of such self-analysis in the book?--and so his transition from a device to revenge the previous invasion of Earth to "you must know your opponent well enough to love him" is also given rather short-shrift and (I think) handled rather ham-handedly. Although much more time is implied, Ender and his fellow cadets are given very little screen time showing them training in Formics tactics.
Still, all-in-all, I can recommend the movie, especially to anyone who has read the book. I think I will have to take it down off my bookshelf and re-read it.
Well, it has been almost a couple of decades since I read the book, and, yes, I am aware of the controversy surrounding its author, Orson Scott Card, and--indirectly--this movie. Partly because of that controversy, I had started this movie prepared to not like it much....
But, y'know: it wasn't bad. As far as I could recall the novel it was a decent treatment (understanding that any rendering of any book--much less a complicated one like "Ender's Game"--would require something of the HBO treatment of "Game of Thrones" to be anywhere close to thorough). The movie went VERY quickly through Ender's training at the orbital Battle School with little (no?) explanation that the battle games were NOT training for Ender and his classmates to become actual ground-pounding soldiers but as exercises in part to build esprit de corps between them as battle tacticians and in part to get them to thinking about situations different from everyday life (although I think that the book also didn't stress these points much either). As a result I'm not sure how well this movie works as an independent entity since much of my understanding of the movie was from what I can still recall from the book. I guess someone who hasn't read "Ender's Game" will have to give the analysis of how much one needs the novel to understand the movie.
Because this movie was less than two hours long, the viewer is given only brief glimpses into Ender's thinking--am I wrong to recall pages of such self-analysis in the book?--and so his transition from a device to revenge the previous invasion of Earth to "you must know your opponent well enough to love him" is also given rather short-shrift and (I think) handled rather ham-handedly. Although much more time is implied, Ender and his fellow cadets are given very little screen time showing them training in Formics tactics.
Still, all-in-all, I can recommend the movie, especially to anyone who has read the book. I think I will have to take it down off my bookshelf and re-read it.
Total Recall (2012).
So I had to laugh mere seconds after this movie started. Why? Because the production company for this movie is Original Film.
So this movie takes place about 100 years in the future. The Earth has been overpopulated by humanity such that those parts which haven't been depopulated by pollution/a biological agent/radioactivity are very crowded. The action takes place in The Colony (Australia) and the United Federation of Britain which are connected by an elevator-like system called The Fall (which is highly problematic for a number of reasons: the huge cars which can hold up to 50,000 passengers each take 17 minutes to make this trip, but any such system would take 45 minutes [less any acceleration required to overcome any inherent friction] to go from end to end, AND such a system would be in freefall for the entire trip and not just around the turnover at/near the core--which in itself has the problem in that at one point in the story no one except the hero expects the minutes of freefall at the turnover in a system which thousands use everyday and which earlier in movie had an automatic announcement which warns the passengers about the freefall period at turnover EXCEPT during this climatic battle--and in order to work at all The Fall must operate in a vacuum otherwise air friction would all but cancel the advantages of gravity acceleration, but was clearly not in a vacuum because of the actions of the characters in movie).
Jeez, I've spent all of this time writing about a minor--though important in the plot--part of this movie, and I haven't even gotten to the main plot. Is it already obvious that I didn't care for this movie?
There are numerous science and plot holes throughout the movie, but, y'know: this was also a problem with the 1990 version. The true biggest problem with the 2012 movie is that I simply didn't care about anything in this movie: not the hero, not the female anti-hero lead, not the female sub-lead heroine, not the people who potentially would be massacred. No amount of Kate Beckinsale running around in panties or acting the female dominant that she does so well (yum! Oops--did I write that?) can compensate for the problem that I simply had no interest what happened to anyone in this movie.
So: not a complete waste of time, but I wouldn't bother to make any effort to see this movie.
So I had to laugh mere seconds after this movie started. Why? Because the production company for this movie is Original Film.
So this movie takes place about 100 years in the future. The Earth has been overpopulated by humanity such that those parts which haven't been depopulated by pollution/a biological agent/radioactivity are very crowded. The action takes place in The Colony (Australia) and the United Federation of Britain which are connected by an elevator-like system called The Fall (which is highly problematic for a number of reasons: the huge cars which can hold up to 50,000 passengers each take 17 minutes to make this trip, but any such system would take 45 minutes [less any acceleration required to overcome any inherent friction] to go from end to end, AND such a system would be in freefall for the entire trip and not just around the turnover at/near the core--which in itself has the problem in that at one point in the story no one except the hero expects the minutes of freefall at the turnover in a system which thousands use everyday and which earlier in movie had an automatic announcement which warns the passengers about the freefall period at turnover EXCEPT during this climatic battle--and in order to work at all The Fall must operate in a vacuum otherwise air friction would all but cancel the advantages of gravity acceleration, but was clearly not in a vacuum because of the actions of the characters in movie).
Jeez, I've spent all of this time writing about a minor--though important in the plot--part of this movie, and I haven't even gotten to the main plot. Is it already obvious that I didn't care for this movie?
There are numerous science and plot holes throughout the movie, but, y'know: this was also a problem with the 1990 version. The true biggest problem with the 2012 movie is that I simply didn't care about anything in this movie: not the hero, not the female anti-hero lead, not the female sub-lead heroine, not the people who potentially would be massacred. No amount of Kate Beckinsale running around in panties or acting the female dominant that she does so well (yum! Oops--did I write that?) can compensate for the problem that I simply had no interest what happened to anyone in this movie.
So: not a complete waste of time, but I wouldn't bother to make any effort to see this movie.
At least you associated Kate Beckinsale with "yum!", that saved you. But when talking about Total Recall, you can never forget: "3 breasted prostitute"
The first Total Recall was an action comedy. It wasn't meant to be taken entirely seriously. I would have thought the Johnny Cab, the three-breasted prostitute, the Buddha-like mutant, etc. would have given it away. Then, in the end, you are given plenty of clues that the whole thing was a dream anyway.
Homefront. Written by Sylvester Stallone, starring Jason Statham. Enough said.
godzilla (the new one)
at home, not the big screem
great opening, the rest was a letdown
at home, not the big screem
great opening, the rest was a letdown
radarman posted:The first Total Recall was an action comedy. It wasn't meant to be taken entirely seriously. I would have thought the Johnny Cab, the three-breasted prostitute, the Buddha-like mutant, etc. would have given it away. Then, in the end, you are given plenty of clues that the whole thing was a dream anyway.
The original Total Recall is f'ing awesome. Paul Verhoven always puts at least 75% effort into whatever film he's working on (except Showgirls which--unfortunately for everyone involved--got 110%).
bratboy posted:radarman posted:The first Total Recall was an action comedy. It wasn't meant to be taken entirely seriously. I would have thought the Johnny Cab, the three-breasted prostitute, the Buddha-like mutant, etc. would have given it away. Then, in the end, you are given plenty of clues that the whole thing was a dream anyway.
The original Total Recall is f'ing awesome. Paul Verhoven always puts at least 75% effort into whatever film he's working on (except Showgirls which--unfortunately for everyone involved--got 110%).
Totally agree. I loved that movie.