Toward the end of last year, I went on this massive binge downloading King movies, so I couldn't help myself with this one either... Honestly, I think The Stand is King's best work, hands down. I actually enjoyed every single bit of those 1,500 pages. I must have watched the mini-series at least ten times back in the 90s during my high school years, and every single day I found myself wishing something like that could actually happen in real life. 🙂
Larry Martin11 said:...no matter how bizarre it felt—given he’s been on NPR or something similar so many times before—watching him for the first time actually left me feeling a bit let down... it has its perks, sure (there's that lovely atmosphere built by the phenomenal music—the way the melodies contrast between scenes, specifically those with George versus the ones with her husband, I practically froze 🙂; there's the adorable little Anna Paquin and an unusually striking—if slightly unhinged—Robert De Niro; there's an overwhelming amount of beautiful—if occasionally over-the-top—symbolism; it has a gorgeous opening and a sooo beautiful ending...), but I still couldn't shake the feeling that I was watching a cookie-cutter exploitation flick. It exploits the setting and context just to pretend it has depth, and it exploits emotions just to squeeze out emotions. Then there's that tired, repetitive trope of the unloved man who can only ever become the "aggressor"—he's really just a catalyst for the other events, but he isn't even a caricature, let alone a fully realized character (and it's always been this way since Meat—well, even before that, but Baptiste's wife is the first person who comes to mind, and she was a much stronger "character" than this guy, since Neill's character doesn't truly exist—at least until Jane Campion arrived....)...I don't know, I spent the whole time thinking the film would be drastically better if it were "stripped down," taken out of its context and presented as a study of the "layers" between the characters. It would be fascinating to see how a slightly "grittier" director would handle it (my picks would be either Michel Chereau or Michael Haneke 🙂, though I suppose Arnold could do a good job too, but maybe I'm still just under the spell...) ...but even so, I have to admit, I was moved by 🙂
...but one thing occurred to me while watching—Matanović's "Fame" owes more to this than any other film 🙂 (some scenes are almost identical copies...)
ATTENTION! ATTENTION! We have a new Blue Eyes here!
A low-budget horror flick (Low-budget horror) A low-budget horror flick (Low-budget horror) That’s true, but we aren't really talking about genres here... "Trash film" isn't a genre itself...
First off, the movie title is GHOST RIDER, not Ghoast Rider...
Secondly, there’s already a thread about this topic...
Thirdly, it isn't exactly "great trash"—it’s just a bad movie. If we're talking about great trash, you'd look at something like Evil Dead or the second season of Lost...
Noah Harris50 said:I don't really care about the whole Princess Diana thing as some documentary piece either. Even if it's mostly fiction, there’s something gripping about it. Her character is what sticks—this woman totally disconnected from the real world, unable to wrap her head around why people obsess over someone they’ve never even met, or how they can be so loud with their feelings when she wouldn't even show emotion in front of her own grandkids. It's all about how her upbringing shaped her into that person. I think you completely missed the point of the movie. It didn't have to be about Princess Diana specifically, but they used her and Elizabeth as examples to make the impact hit harder. Personally, I couldn't care less about the British Royal Family. I never followed who Princess Diana was dating, who that guy was, or any of the drama involving the rest of the family. I'm watching this strictly as cinema, and as art, it’s actually high quality.
I can't quite grasp it either... Does that mean I'm interesting enough to have a movie made about me?
Noah Harris50 said:honestly, if you don't get what the movie is about, you just missed the point. It's not just for Americans. Look, I'm not even from here and I found it pretty gripping.
Hold on a second... It's not that I don't understand the plot, that's not the issue... It's more about why anyone outside of England would care. Honestly, who cares about the British Royal Family besides the British themselves? Who really cares about Princess Diana, King Charles III, their kids, and the rest of the clan? Why even make a movie about them? About their lives? What makes those few days so incredibly special? Princess Diana divorced King Charles III, so naturally, they didn't consider her part of the family anymore, regardless of the children... She had her issues with those guys from the Middle East—so of course she wasn't considered part of the inner circle anymore... And obviously, they weren't fond of her... I just don't see what the goal was by putting something like that on screen. Fair enough... There are other angles, like showing how the death of one person can impact an entire nation... To me, that seems a bit much, since nobody actually knew her personally, aside from what the media fed us... The film also touches on how much power the media holds over everything these days... But if that was the actual point of the movie, then man, it missed the mark. 🙂
Why is everyone raving about this movie? I just don't get it...
I mean, Helen Mirren is fantastic, and the rest of the cast is solid too—no arguments there—but does anyone actually care about these events? What was the point? The story feels way too niche (by which I mean it seems like something only an Englishman would find gripping) and it has that vibe of a Sunday afternoon TV movie...
I can see why it got nominated, though. Still, I’d have picked United 93 over this any day. But hey, to each their own... 🙂
I caught that new Film by Danny Boyle yesterday, and honestly, I wasn't impressed at all... The first 50 minutes or so were actually decent, but then our favorite Danny managed to mess everything up with those weird directorial "quirks" of his that only he seems to get. Plus, the screenplay just goes totally downhill once that killer captain shows up...
Watched a movie yesterday and I have to say, Leonardo DiCaprio and Djimon Hounsou were impressive, even if the directing felt a bit all over the place... The action sequences are brilliant, but looking at the film as a whole, there are just too many "ups and downs," if you know what I mean... The movie runs for 140 minutes and really earns the label of being somewhat epic; so much happens, so many people die, and it jumps through so many locations, all because of MONEY... Dammit...