Summer 2007 Movie Thread (SPOILERS Warning SPOILERS)

[_Blixa]

I'm not sure I'm even cognizant of many summer releases. I missed the "live" version of Guy Maddin's Brand Upon the Brain! week before last because, get this irony, I was teaching a film class.

This was slightly made up for, though, by one of students giving me the most lovely present: he bought and refurbished a Pixelvision camera for me!

[_Coggins7]

Just wondering, is anybody but me getting tired of formatted, clichéd, CGI bloated summer blockbusters with little imagination outside of visual imagination and which all seem to look, walk, and quack alike and who's scores all sound like John Williams wrote them?

[_Coggins7]

I just watched a classic Sci Fi film last night that I hadn't seen in a while but which I have to pull out four or five times a year to savor. its X: The Unknown, about a gigantic blob of radioactive mud, imbued with an intelligence of pure energy that comes up from below the earth looking for food (energy of any kind).

Errie, atmospheric, and well crafted, and the fact that its black and white makes that atmosphere seem all the more menacing and heavy. The effects aren't bad for the time either, and a few of them are pretty explicit.

Great stuff.

[_silentkid]

Just wondering, is anybody but me getting tired of formatted, clichéd, CGI bloated summer blockbusters with little imagination outside of visual imagination and which all seem to look, walk, and quack alike and who's scores all sound like John Williams wrote them?

I'm with you on this, Coggins. It's hard to find a good movie during the summer season. Many movies have what I term "sensory overload"...too many quick cuts, CGI images galore, bombastic scores, etc. that leave me feeling like I need a xanax just to cope. That said, I do enjoy the Pirates movies. I just go to them prepared.

[_Coggins7]

I'm with you on this, Coggins. It's hard to find a good movie during the summer season. Many movies have what I term "sensory overload"...too many quick cuts, CGI images galore, bombastic scores, etc. that leave me feeling like I need a xanax just to cope. That said, I do enjoy the Pirates movies. I just go to them prepared.

Yup. There was an Arnold movie some years back called The Last Action Hero, which actually parodied the mega summer blockbuster action film, complete with physics defying car stunts and the classic flaming, loud mouth police chief.

Years ago many of the action scenes began looking more and more like video came action; hyper fast and with all the crazy moving angles and POVs. One of the negatives of CGI has always been, in my opinion, that since you can show just about anything with it, the temptation is to do just that. King Kong is a textbook case in point. The effects in Jackson's version were so overwrought and exaggerated that any other good points the film had were lost in the Bugs Bunny/Road Runner-like effects scenes (the fight with the several T.Rex for example).

[_Dr. Shades]

Years ago many of the action scenes began looking more and more like video came action; hyper fast and with all the crazy moving angles and POVs.

You make it sound like that's a bad thing.

One of the negatives of CGI has always been, in my opinion, that since you can show just about anything with it, the temptation is to do just that. King Kong is a textbook case in point. The effects in Jackson's version were so overwrought and exaggerated that any other good points the film had were lost in the Bugs Bunny/Road Runner-like effects scenes (the fight with the several T.Rex for example).

Are you kidding? When I see a movie, I want to see something that I can't see in real life. King Kong kicked butt for precisely the reasons you listed.

[_Runtu]

Just wondering, is anybody but me getting tired of formatted, clichéd, CGI bloated summer blockbusters with little imagination outside of visual imagination and which all seem to look, walk, and quack alike and who's scores all sound like John Williams wrote them?

Is someone taking my name in vain again? Remember, the film score hack is the other John Williams.

[_Coggins7]

Coggins7 wrote:
Years ago many of the action scenes began looking more and more like video came action; hyper fast and with all the crazy moving angles and POVs.

You make it sound like that's a bad thing.

It is in a number of cases, because the physics of the action are utterly unrealistic, and that, especially in fight scenes, takes much of the impact and drama away from the action. Things that happen too fast and with too much fast moving, shifting camera work, are a distraction from the action as much as an amplification of it. For example, much of the Pod race scene in one of the last Star Wars films was much too fast to follow; the brain just can't process the visual information fast enough to keep up with it. This creates the impression that one has actually missed much of the action (and one, indeed has). Compare that with the chase scene in through the forest inThe Empire Strikes Back Its very fast, but realistically fast. the mechanics of the movements of the vehicles look convincing and at more realistic speeds, the sensation of speed is felt much more intensely because its not all happening at too frenetic a pace to process.

The best I can say about Peter Jackson's version of King Kong is that he cartoonized it. He didn't rape it, like Dino DiLaurentis did, but he turned it into an outlandish cartoon, which it definitely wasn't meant to be. Its one thing to want to see things you can't see in real life, its quite another to utterly detach a film like King Kong from reality. There are no giant gorillas or Dinosaurs on lost islands, its true, but a film like that is not pure fantasy, and needs to still retain points of contact with reality to be effective. The fight with the Tyrannosaurus in the original Kong was not possible because no such creatures exist. But the physics and mechanics of it were realistic. The fight in the new King Kong was physically impossible, and indeed, ridiculous, and would have better been left to something like Final Fantasy than to a science fiction adventure film like Kong.

[_Mister Scratch]

Coggins7 wrote:
Years ago many of the action scenes began looking more and more like video came action; hyper fast and with all the crazy moving angles and POVs.

You make it sound like that's a bad thing.

It is in a number of cases, because the physics of the action are utterly unrealistic, and that, especially in fight scenes, takes much of the impact and drama away from the action.

Wow, Loran. I am literally staring at this post with my jaw on the floor. Are you really, legitimately this slow-witted?

Things that happen too fast and with too much fast moving, shifting camera work, are a distraction from the action as much as an amplification of it. For example, much of the Pod race scene in one of the last Star Wars films was much too fast to follow;

The "last" Star Wars film? The movie you are referring to came out in 1999!!! Are we supposed to take your opinions here as being "intellectually and philosophically serious", given the fact that you cannot keep track of very basic current events in pop culture (which, incidentally, you deride incessantly)?

the brain just can't process the visual information fast enough to keep up with it.

Well, maybe *your* brain can't! LOL!!!! You really should not offer up such sweet, cream-puff pitches, Loran.

This creates the impression that one has actually missed much of the action (and one, indeed has). Compare that with the chase scene in through the forest inThe Empire Strikes Back Its very fast, but realistically fast.

Oh, this is too rich. First of all, the film is called, Return of the Jedi. Second, I don't really remember the last time I witnessed a real life speeder bike chase. How you can call this "realistic" (especially given your penchant for demanding 'philosophical and intellectual seriousness' at every turn) is anyone's guess. Further, are you really this out of date? Are you really so much of a dinosaur that you cannot recognize the archaic nature of those special effects? You can practically see the green screen outline on the various characters in that scene! Granted, I think that those old Star Wars films hold up remarkably well, but you really demonstrate what a dusty old rube you are in these posts, Loran. You are much more convincing when you just issue your idiotic blanket statements condemning all pop culture. Then again, as is transparently obvious, the reason you hate the Left (and by extension popular culture) so much is because you feel that you have been left behind and abandoned by it. The rest of us can enjoy all sorts of fare. Meanwhile, you are stuck with reruns of "Davey and Goliath" and the Kirk Cameron-hosted "The Way of the Master," and old, dusty, cut-rate 1950s SciFi that is just barely above Ed Wood quality.

the mechanics of the movements of the vehicles look convincing and at more realistic speeds, the sensation of speed is felt much more intensely because its not all happening at too frenetic a pace to process.

Again, "too frenetic a pace to process" for whom? You, with your pickled brain?

The best I can say about Peter Jackson's version of King Kong is that he cartoonized it. He didn't rape it, like Dino DiLaurentis did, but he turned it into an outlandish cartoon, which it definitely wasn't meant to be.

And what, pray tell, was it "meant" to be?

Its one thing to want to see things you can't see in real life, its quite another to utterly detach a film like King Kong from reality. There are no giant gorillas or Dinosaurs on lost islands, its true, but a film like that is not pure fantasy, and needs to still retain points of contact with reality to be effective. The fight with the Tyrannosaurus in the original Kong was not possible because no such creatures exist.

Yes, you're right. Dinosaurs are merely a fantasy meant to test our faith.

But the physics and mechanics of it were realistic.

You have to be out of your mind making a comment such as this. You think that the stop-frame, claymation T-rex fight from the original King Kong is realistic???? Yeah, okay. And the films of Buster Keaton are noteworthy because of their ample demonstration of the laws of probability. You really are a rube, Loran. For your next trick, are you going to tell us about how Bugs Bunny is a tool of communist Jews?

The fight in the new King Kong was physically impossible, and indeed, ridiculous, and would have better been left to something like Final Fantasy than to a science fiction adventure film like Kong.

You seem not to understand basic differences about genres, Loran. Why on earth you would think King Kong is even remotely classifiable as SciFi is anybody's guess.

[_Gazelam]

I personally loved King Kong. I thought the fight with the three T-Rexs was one of the coolest things I had ever seen. The original black and white was going to be very hard to beat, but I think they suceeded.

Now for a re-make of Son of Kong! C'mon Jackson, the original was great, "you cahn doo eeet!"