Scrivener

I really liked the Village. It was an excellent character driven drama about the impossibility of escaping reality. I plan on seein Hide and Seek later today - and I've been hearing tons of mixed things about it. All I really know is that it's rated R, and that's reason enough for me.

You hand out 9's like candy at Halloween, SC Truthfully, though, it's not half bad. I only went to see it after reading an interview with John Carpenter. His only real quibble was that there were "too damn many closeups." On that account I wholeheartedly agree - but Hollywood uses too damn many closeups on everything any more. Lots of people die. That always makes me happy. Unfortunately the usual suspects get away scott free. But it's rated R, and counts for a lot. Other than that, go for the action, the death, and the wonton and gratuitous violence. It's worth your money and it's chicken soup for the sadists soul 7/10

Except that Microsoft never had anything remotely resembling a monopoly. That was complete rubbish. WalMart needs to die. They need to die fast and die hard. Believe me, my new job has me spending about 24hrs a month in WalMarts. I hated them before - but now I absolutely LOATHE them. They are filthy, disorganized, and run and operated by the retarded and the inept. Today alone I discovered that the department lead had lost the key to the game cases (I'm a Sony Merchandising Rep), meaning I couldn't repair the PS2 or get all the GameCube garbage out of my cases (It had litterally filled two of my three displays cases). I tried to find the manager after that, and after an hour of paging and searching with other employees, I gave up. That store was a mess, and it was one of the better ones.

So who else watches this? I only recently discovered Season 1 on DVD compliments of netflix - after the first two episodes I ran out, bought the box set, and watched the entire first season in a weekend. What wonderful, magical, television this is! I mean, most movies never achieve half of what Carnivale has. Thanks to this friggin fantastic TV show, HBO has a loyal new subscriber. Basically the premise is this: A young man is picked up by a traveling Carnival in the 1930s. Most of the country is ravaged by the dust bowl at this point and WW1 is still a very recent memory. The Carnival itself has it's fair share of freaks, but there's something odd about this new kid. Needless to say each episode is a little stranger, darker, and more mystical than the last. Absolutely required viewing for everyone who loves a great character-driven story. And boy howdy does this have character.

You know what, I was tickled giddy by that trailer. It's the perfect example of the impact sound design has on a piece of film. The music and the video just works perfectly. Watch it without audio and the footage is actually kinda silly - but damn I want to see this movie now - and I've totally been snubbing it up to this point. Lets hope the actual film is as fun as the trailer.

In some ways, I was more upset by scifi's Taken and Dune than I was by I, Robot. Taken, while well done, totally botched up it's facts all over the place... but that's another story. My problem with SciFi Channel is that they are no longer the truth-seekers they used to be - now they are merely capitalizing on the entire paranormal subculture, I don't like like it. It's like having a 'Catholic' channel that makes action movies with Jesus as the main character. It's absurd. And DUNE... don't even get me started. They needed actors passionate about the material (and all from the same country), and they needed to borrow some of Lynch's costume designs. As it ended up, the costumes looked they were designed by a high school cheerleading team and the accents were as varied and annoying as the colors of the butterflies on Irulian's dress. The special effects were so far beyond amateur that border on complete ineptitude (and don't blame it on budget, I would have done infinately better for a fraction of whatever they paid)... and they STILL screwed up the Ornithopters. For heavens sakes - did anyone designing these things ever read the books? I promise you all with God as my witness, some day I will remake Dune the way it has always deserved. ...I've been doing storyboards for my version for years. Eventually I'll edit the storyboards like a movie with music and everything. If storyboards can entertain an executive, just imagine a real movie. Children of Dune, on the other hand, that wasn't half bad. As for Babylon 5, I totally forgot about that! I loved that show as a kid - the political and social intrigue, it was great. The 'action' always irritated me, tho. Silly early-CG spaceships and all. And this is me as a kid. But then again, I was that kid who was always pissed that they would never release a 'normal' Batman action figure. When I make movies, it'll be like they were made in the golden days of filmaking. The way Star Wars was done. Low budget, plenty of model kits and greenscreen. As little CG and as much character as possible.

2010 will be about the time that independant filmakers will have the resources/technology to make professional-quality scifi productions. At the moment those types of projects cost tens of millions of dollars - by 2010 they will cost 'mere' thousands or tens of thousands. What this means is that the real artists will be able to translate their full vision to screen on their own budget... without having greedy studios chopping up their work. Having a major studio finance your film is like asking for a favor from the Godfather (Or selling your soul to the devil). Somewhere down the line they're gonna show up and screw you on exactly that thing they were 'helping' you with. SC can tell you from his own experience... the game industry is the same way. But that's why I say 2010. It's simple matter of what is technically possible on an independant (sub $1m) budget. The only time you will ever get a great movie is when the studio has kept their dirty hands completely off the project. That will only happen when they havn't forked out any dough (Because then they won't see the need to make it more 'marketable' to 'protect' their investment). 2010. That's the number, and the year we make contact... with more great scifi. Hopefully by then we'll also have the new Blade Runner DVD (maybe). I don't hold much hope for the 5-hour Dune, however.

And what people would that be? The Democratic National Party? Bah, the awards were a total joke. Not a single deserving win (save Johnny Depp). And Farenheit 9/11 for best picture? wtf? Eternal Sunshine was INFINATELY better - like, they're not even in the same galaxy. I'm a disgruntled filmschool dropout and I make better movies than Micheal Moore. Aside from being totally and blatantly innaccurate, it was done with all the skill and merit of a Jay Leno Jaywalking skit. It's sad when awards are given based on politics instead of quality and artistic mastery. The Hollywood elite are not but traitors to the art.

I actually think that the late 70s/early 80's began to usher in a new type of science fiction - politics dominant. As of right now, we have entered a kind of 'action dominant' phase. Take a look at I, Robot. It was a bloody action movie, with not a shred of substance to be found. This wave will last at least until 2010, at which point special effects and CG will have become cheap enough and advanced enough for indie filmakers to start churning out stories with a little depth. The problem with scifi is the same problem that plagues the film industry as a whole. The studios don't give a rats ass whether a film is good or not. They want the big bucks - whatever will get the largest possible audience. That means dumbing it down, shortening it up, and editing it for content. The more expensive the movie, the more formulaic it must be - to protect the investment. That's why cheap movies can afford to be daring, they require a much smaller turnout to turn a profit. What this means is that big expensive scifi movies cannot and will not be anything short of box office brain-rot until the cost of production on these types of films comes way down. Worse yet, the few films that would be able to revitalize the genre are being held back by big studios. I'm talking about the original cuts of Blade Runner and David Lynch's Dune. These two pictures are considered among the pinnacle of modern scifi, and both are only available as chopshop releases at best. The Blade Runner DVD we have today is very different than the version that played in theatres some years ago. The 'Director's Cut' is actually missing content - including full narraration by Harrisson Ford. A special 3-disc DVD set was created with a new 3rd version, which incorporated not only the voice-over but tons of new footage once thought missing. The way it looks now, messy legal issues have tied up this special DVD set in cinema-Hell indefinately. Dune is basically the story of Brazil if the studios had won. Frank Herbert was a consultant at every step of the film process and was excited that Lynch had completed what was to be a 5-hour epic with intermission. The studio, however, was not interested in scifi epics of any kind and decided to make the movie more palpable to the mainstream Star Wars audience. They cut Herbert and Lynch out of the picture, and cut the 5-hour epic down to just over 2 hours. The 2hr 17min theatrical version is what is currently available on DVD. A few years ago a television channel managed to get their hands on some of the extra footage and cut together an extended 3.5hr version of the film (fullscreen only). Neither that version nor the original 5+hr cut have ever surfaced on any kind of VHS, Laserdisc, or DVD. Noone knows what has become of the original footage. My point is, scifi is already dead. Even while the two above films are considered the pinnacle of their art, they have already been bereft of their souls. How much greater could they have been if the studios hadn't meddled then? It's stories like these that break my heart. Reflecting on the Dune scenario alone will leave me depressed for the rest of the week. Shoot, even Kill Bill was censored for US audiences. The point is (if I havn't made it clear enough) that scifi movies currently require larger budgets to pull off properly. Studios wont take risks when larger budgets are involved, so they must conform to a certain formula. Only low-budget indy films have total freedom, but they dont have the money to envision the fantastic worlds of tomorrow without surrendering to the studios guidelines of conformity. Scifi is dead indeed. Like all film, it will remain dead until the studios are deposed and the artists are given complete control. We are only just entering a period when movies are cheap enough that they can be made by poor artists with great vision. Before now, only the big guys could afford it. Still, it will be many years before indy filmakers will have the resources to duplicate big hollywood effects on their own meager budgets.

So has anyone seen this yet? I'm curious... but you all know how I feel about PG13 horror flicks, so I'm a little wary (I was actually going off on an explosive rant about that very topic just this morning). Then there's also the fact that I am loathe to encourage more PG13 horror films by throwing money at one. Neverhteless - I'll see it if it's good. Someone give me some info here.

I'd like to restore your faith but I don't have much myself any more. There are less than a handful of american directors (still living) that I manage to inspire and drive the imagination. Terry Gilliam - With the exception of 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' (which I didn't much care for) his films are always daring and inventive. Look at Baron Munchausen, 12 Monkeys, Brazil, Time Bandits, Fischer King, and Life of Brian. Great movies all. Unfortunately Hollywood had labeled him as box office poison after Fear & Loathing, so he's been out of work for a very long time (Not counting the complete disaster that was The Man Who Killed Don Quixote). David Fincher - While he's done a lot of bad movies, it's obviously not been the fault of his directing, but the fault of the lousy scripts he's been forced to work with. Se7en,Fight Club, and Alien 3 (watch HIS version on the Quadrilogy DVD, far better than the studio-edited chopshop theatrical version). He's got talent, he just needs to get some more good scripts. This, unfortunately, may not happen - unlike Gilliam, Fincher seems to take whatever he's given. Gilliam fights tooth and nail to get his way or he just dosn't work. On another note, Eli Roth (Cabin Fever) and Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko) are both talented up-and-comers. Interestingly, they are collaberating on a new project called 'The Box'... about a little box that, when opened, grants your wishes - but kills someone at random whenever you do. Heheheh, I can't wait.

Hmm. Maybe I'll wait for the DVD...

About bloody time. I always wondered how those companies got away with that since noone will take back an open item. Now there's a way to fight back - especially against 1-machine licenses. IMO, we should have 1 household licenses as a rule. Greedy corporate bastards all. Nice to see some right being done with the courts for a change.

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: quote:Originally posted by Scrivener: Later this week: Phantom of the Opera, and Darkness Wot? No Aviator? As much as I love Martin Scorsese The Aviator just isn't calling out to me right now. I have enough movies to catch up on as it is - so maybe if I have time I'll catch a showing later this week... but it's just not on my priority list at the moment.

Just got out of the theatre and as of right now I havn't decided specifically how I feel about it. Numb maybe. It's pretty typical Wes Anderson stuff - very very very dry... with occassional sparks of genious. The problem is (as with other Wes Anderson films, like Royal Tenenbaums) that you really have to wait for the good stuff. The first hour of the movie is slow and uninteresting setup, eventually leading up to some kind of startling and, apparently, meaningful conclusion. I like the look of the film... and I don't mean the shocking amateurishness of the cinematography or the [intentional?] ineptitude of the editing... I'm refering to the sets and creatures and concepts. Wes Anderson has a great imagination - but just dosn't seem capable of qualitatively translating his ideas to film. The problem is how sloppy the storytelling is. It's like a prime cut of kobe beef that has been poorly trimmed, overseasoned, and overcooked. While tighter editing would have made worlds of difference, I fear that if the movie had been properly cut there would be about 45 mins worth of actual content... hardly enough to call it a feature film. But as is, there is so much dead air and wasted time (and some odd soundtrack choices, especially earlier in the film) that you reach a point where you simply stop caring and begin to wish you were doing something more interesting. Furthermore, a large number of the jokes fall absolutely flat. I could liken it the the fellow who tosses in his twopence at the end of a joke, trying to top it with his own - but succeeds only in killing the mood and making everyone feel awkward. It's the comedian who opens with the infamously unfunny lines "I just flew in..." and then waits vainly for laughs at the end. Having worked all this out of my system in the course of this review, I think I have come to this numerical conclusion: 5/10 There's a good movie in there somewhere - you just have to sift through a whole lot of worthlessness to get to it. I think this could be a worthy remix project when the DVD is released. I could definately make it better - much better... and much shorter. If only the studios would support indy film remixing... such as with music... the world of cinema would be a much better, more rewarding place (George Lucas, I'm talking to you). Later this week: Phantom of the Opera, and Darkness [ 12-26-2004, 04:17 AM: Message edited by: Scrivener ]

Beat me to it, Race. I wanted to break the news about Dead Like Me being... dead. Yeah, they cancel pretty much everything right away. Thank God Carnivale and LOST weren't picked up by Showtime during the pitches. But then the same is true of USA. These two channels have prematurely cancelled more great shows than all other networks combined will ever have.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/miramax/sin_city.html oh man. That trailer fills me with a giddy excitement I havn't felt since I first heard they were making a movie out of Carl Sagan's Contact. This could very well be high-art film making at its best... and, finally, the literal interpretation of graphic-novel-to-film that I've been swearing to since the comic craze started. Use the novel as your storyboard, don't try to reinvent it. I cannot WAIT for this movie. *shudders*

No sympathy for stupid game ideas - however, she should have considered the reprecussions before waving her funbags in front of hundreds of horny guys with cameras. In Scrivener-World, jail-time and fines around the table for all involved; stupid topless girl inclusive.

Duke Whatsanow? *natch* Wasn't that supposed to be out, like, a DECADE ago?

Wow - I absolutely *loved* this movie. It reminded me of everything I loved in movies as a kid. Adventure, invention, and (something I thought all modern movies have forgotten) MENACE. Yeah, Lemony Snicket's wasn't at all what I was expecting. You figure it's going to be a campy silly Grinch-like turd of a movie and, hey, there's some real magic in there. It's like this generation's Wizard of Oz (or more accurately, Walter Murch's Return to Oz). It's actually pretty dark - akin to the last Hary Potter movie - and while Jim Carrey's Count Olaf is a bit silly - it's more of a crazy, eccentric, sinister silly. Fortunately the kids in the movie are bright, inventive, and self-sufficient... something the grown-ups don't notice or care about. It's a typical childrens fairy tale translated to screen. If you want to see a movie about happy little elves, this is not it. This is cinema for kids who aren't retarded - the kind of movie you thought they didn't make any more - the kind of movie YOU loved as a kid. What's more - this reminds that you were once a kid - and this is exactly how you saw the world - and it helps you sympathize all the more. Take the entire family with you - we have a new timeless classic that everyone is sure to love. 10/10 P.S. On critics and the ending (minor spoilers ahead) - I've heard critics reeming the ending as being a bit creepy (not in the scary sense) but I feel it's perfectly proper in terms of the fairy tale being told. Think about it - how many stories have you read/heard/been told where the old creepy villain wants to marry the young beautiful princess to gain the kingdom? A MILLION TIMES. It's nothing new or shocking at all. The reactions are a result of a twisted overconscientious adult society having their minds persistently in the gutter. A society polluted by it's own perverse tendencies. Stop twisting things around you perverted saps. These are the same people who banned Harry Potter from libraries because it "promoted witchcraft". I thought the ending was great and the movie handles the subject deftly, wisely, and with the skill of an expert childrens storyteller. You people just need to grow up. Good God, what on earth is this world coming to? (See thread on anticensorship)

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: quote:Originally posted by Scrivener: The new teaser trailer for War of the Worlds is now online at http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/waroftheworlds/ . I must say, it's pretty chilling to watch. Definately has that dark and foreboding feel - which has given a little hope to this man's tortured soul. Spielberg may deliver on this one after all... definately upper-end PG13 material. I still doubt it will come anywhere near touching on my own vision of the property, but it may nevertheless be the dark and sinister movie it needs to be. I think that someday I will still do it. 20 years from now if it needs to be. The book gave me nightmares for weeks as a kid - and the images in my head still scare me today. The trailer is but a tiny glimpse of that terror - and yet, I am VERY glad to have actually seen it; even if Spielberg does wimp out on the rest. I guess we'll have to wait and see... but War of the Worlds has officially skyrocketed to the top of my anticipated movies list. Every director has their dream project - War of the Worlds is mine. Spielbergs war movie experience may help on this - but the war against earth... it's not about military. The martians were at war against HUMANITY - innocent people - we're not even talking nazis - we're talking creatures who land on earth in overwhelming numbers with only one goal: destroy every human without grief, hesitation, or politics. A truely terrifying concept, even to me. Will Spielberg deliver the fear, paranoia, and hopelessness - or will he wimp out and give us another Minority Report? Only time will tell us which he chooses. All I know is that in my version... earth loses. Scriv, you're insane. You got ALL that from that stupid and UN-IMPRESSIVE trailer? Man, you're really lowering the bar for expectations. Whats going on there bud? Puberty or old age? It was the imagery of the fighting just over the hill yonder. People coming out not knowing what is going on. I've seen that - in my dreams - in my head. That very scene - I've seen it before. That's what gives me hope... at least, a small hope. A hope of hope. There is a tiny, infinitesimal chance that it might not suck. That is the straw at which I grasp. Don't bring me down - there's too many bad movies on the slate right now and I'm having a tough time containing my utter disgust at all the cinematic refuse and miscellaneous gobbledygook being pushed (Did someone say "Racing Stripes"? OMG *VOMIT*).

quote:Originally posted by LostInSpace: quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: Man, you guys are hardcore insane. You got that right. Imagine, if you will, spending one's hard earned money to go and see Lord Of the Rings only to find out that alot of the violent bits have been cut out (including the numerous times Frodo got stabbed) and that all magic refrences and uses had been cut out due to concerns of violence and religious sensibilities of some movie goers. Or one takes the wife or a girfriend to see a romantic chick flick and all you get is a few platonic meetings and a few pecks on the cheek and everything else has been edited (by the powers that be) to meet the need of some sexually sensitive movie goers. I'd say to all those "sensitive" movie goers "STAY HOME and just wait for the next pixar or disney flick!" You illustrate the point beautifully! A-friggin-men.

How's this for a trip - maybe they're all unwitting participants in the latest reality TV game show? Just a thought.

Only played a tiny bit so far, but moreso than any other game it reminds me of Kohan quite a bit. Especially the way bases are built. While I really love Kohan and everything - I'm actually pretty bummed by how BFME turned out - it's just nothing like TW, which is what the devs kept billing it as. The non-negotiable 45 degree angle view is also a gargantuan put-off, especially with TW giving complete freedom - and early previews & actual current in-game cinematics showing a camera with an adjustable angle... it's just infuriating. Yeah, it's pretty much standard fare. Obviously noone went above or beyond to make the game really special. It's the same old formula with a little LOTR flare.

If there is one thin the Blade series excels at, it's being fantastically mediocre. Trinity just happens to up the ante by throwing in some absurd dialogue, silly gadgets, a dash of stupidity, a hint of retardation, and about ten minutes worth of blatant Apple prostitution. While it had it's fun bits - Trinity seemed to not only cross the fine line of suspended belief, but happily did so and danced merrily on the other side. It's like some talented writer/director filmed some random footage for the next Blade movie but then ultimately got bored and turned the rest of the project over to Stephen 'Fing' Sommers. It's pretty much a great big episode of Buffy the Vampire slayer - complete with talentless and irritating actors made only worse by a contemptible excuse for a script. It's as if Goyer started with a great idea - the vampires are going to use human politics to bring down Blade - get the law and the public on his back. But then, about 30 minutes into the movie, Stephen Sommers must have taken over. The rest of the movie is a parade of stereotypical, yet unusually irritating, character archetypes - a high body [ash?] count - and more campy one liners than Bruce Campbell could shake a stick at. *sigh* I might have been glad to pay $2.50 for the film... I'm sure Apple would be glad to pick up the rest of the bill... but it was not worth my $7.50. If only I had something better to do while waiting for The Life Aquatic and A Very Long Engagement. Oh yeah - and there's a vampire Pomeranian dog. Uh-huh... just one step shy of flying vampire babies. Further itemized list of grievances: 1) Blade is chasing Dracula when Drake steals a black woman's baby during the chase. Obviously Blade saves said baby... but when we see the baby, it is as white as clean sheets drying in a summer breeze. Oops. 2) Why do all all the security guards wear heavy, restrictive body armor when they don't cary guns and only fight kung fu? 3) Blind + Computer programing/bioenginering does not work. What was the point of that? 4) Couldn't help but think that the devil guy from LEGEND could kick Dracula's ass. The makeup at the end was just terrible - no wonder they made him a Calvin Klein model. And what's with the split jaw thing? PLEASE - stop. 5) Vampire dogs with Predator-jaw... it was stupid in Blade 2, so why not use it some more? And on dogs as well as dracula. In Blade 4, expect to see vampire toaster ovens and geese. 6) Ryan Reynolds and Jessica Beil suck, and they suck hardcore. Beil's just plain aweful in this - like a kid in an action figure commercial pretending to be a hero. Really, she dosn't belong anywhere but sitcom-land where sucking dosn't matter because it's not believable anyway. Reynolds, on the other hand, may have just had a bad script. Every word out of his mouth was a punchline to joke we never heard, didn't care about, and would not have laughed at anyway. FINAL SCORE: 5/10 (Ultimate Meh)