ysbreker

Movie/TV recommendations

Recommended Posts

In fairness, they have to make it about a character that even people who aren't super familiar with the Batman universe will recognize. With them going for something aimed more at the justice system in Gotham, and not about Batman himself, that kind of only leaves them with Gordon.

 

A bit off topic, but I kind of hate the doggerelization of fictional works that something like this represents. There seems to be the assumption that a preexisting setting needs to collapse its characters down to a few universally recognizable characters in order to be viable for a large audience, like people aren't meeting new people all the time. It just reminds me of the Assassin's Creed games, where all the famous figures of a given period all live next door to each other and are friends because we can't be bothered to have a Renaissance-era inventor who's not Leonardo da Vinci.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

A bit off topic, but I kind of hate the doggerelization of fictional works that something like this represents. There seems to be the assumption that a preexisting setting needs to collapse its characters down to a few universally recognizable characters in order to be viable for a large audience, like people aren't meeting new people all the time. It just reminds me of the Assassin's Creed games, where all the famous figures of a given period all live next door to each other and are friends because we can't be bothered to have a Renaissance-era inventor who's not Leonardo da Vinci.

 

That is true, but in this case it's a show being sold on it's relation to Batman.  If you don't have Batman's supporting cast, then there's no point in setting it in Gotham at all.  It could take place anywhere because without Batman and co., Gotham is basically just another city.  Assassin's Creed would have done just as well without da Vinci, but Gotham won't work without some kind of relation to the Bat family.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

That is true, but in this case it's a show being sold on it's relation to Batman.  If you don't have Batman's supporting cast, then there's no point in setting it in Gotham at all.  It could take place anywhere because without Batman and co., Gotham is basically just another city.  Assassin's Creed would have done just as well without da Vinci, but Gotham won't work without some kind of relation to the Bat family.

 

You're right, but that says to me, why does this show need to be made at all, if there's nothing particularly "Batman" about the setting without changing stuff around. I know the answer is spelled out in dollar signs, but it still bothers me on some abstract level.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

You're right, but that says to me, why does this show need to be made at all, if there's nothing particularly "Batman" about the setting without changing stuff around. I know the answer is spelled out in dollar signs, but it still bothers me on some abstract level.

 

I'm with ya.  I'm not arguing that the show should be made, just trying to explain it maybe?  I like Batman as much as anybody, but this is getting ridiculous.  There are WAY too many Batmans.  Enough with Batman.  I want a live action show about The Question.  Added bonus, it would be a legit way to could get Renee Montoya like Teg wanted.

 

Question03.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm with ya.  I'm not arguing that the show should be made, just trying to explain it maybe?  I like Batman as much as anybody, but this is getting ridiculous.  There are WAY too many Batmans.  Enough with Batman.  I want a live action show about The Question.  Added bonus, it would be a legit way to could get Renee Montoya like Teg wanted.

 

Hah, I don't think we're arguing, just spitballing. I know that my corner of Facebook went nuts over the trailer, so maybe Batman somehow still has some magic for people, unlike most other DC superheroes? I thought The Dark Knight Rises would be the tipping point, like with Spiderman 3 or X-Men 3, but people seem to have just forgot about it instead.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Despite all of this, I am looking forward to Gotham. DKR was a low point for me, but the Nolan thing has ended and Batman has always excelled at reinvention. Who knows how Gotham will play out? It's entirely possible that they're playing up the inclusion of bad guys and Bats for the marketing, to rope people in, much like how Sean Bean was the main attraction in Game of Thrones since at that point, no one would give a toss about Peter Dinklage.

 

On the other hand, be careful what you wish for: Agents of Shield went with all new people and I'd much rather would've had old faces there.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Weird! I rented that Joss Whedon movie on Vimeo and as a thank you they just sent me a copy of the screenplay "signed by Joss Whedon on the set of The Avengers"..
 
Coooooooooool...?
 
:blink:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

That is true, but in this case it's a show being sold on it's relation to Batman.  If you don't have Batman's supporting cast, then there's no point in setting it in Gotham at all.  It could take place anywhere because without Batman and co., Gotham is basically just another city.  Assassin's Creed would have done just as well without da Vinci, but Gotham won't work without some kind of relation to the Bat family.

Well the thing that the show is being based on didn't really have Batman, except in the abstract sense that he existed in the world.  He was a big part of the series, but in the sense that the show was about the cops at GCPD and when you are a cop in a city where Batman exists there's a complicated relationship, especially because at this point Gordon is retired so no one on the force is buddies with Batman.  Basically to the public when things go right Batman gets the credit, and when they don't it's because the police are incompetent and so most of the detectives resent him.  He's still not that big of a deal though, the focus is much more on regular cop drama and then having cops deal with villains like Two-Face and the Joker as opposed to normal people committing crimes.  The series didn't use any particularly famous characters outside of the villains, who showed up very rarely, it didn't even have Gordon or Bullock who are probably the most famous people at the GCPD.  The only "well known" characters in the series are Renee Montoya, Maggie Sawyer, and I guess Jim Corrigan.

 

Oh well, I guess I should just accept that if the series got cancelled despite all the critical acclaim and awards it got then the chances of it getting made into a TV show are basically zero.  I'm still bitter though because Gotham Central is so good and when they first announced it was being made into a show I got my hopes up.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I saw the documentary Jodorowsky's Dune this past weekend. I've always been mildly fascinated by this film because of its connection to Alien (Dan O'Bannon and HR Giger both worked on Dune together and then went one to make Alien), but before seeing the doc, I knew very little about the history of this movie. Alejandro Jodorowsky and the team of artists and producers he had assembled to make the movie, really want you to believe that had this Dune been made, not only would it have been bigger than Star Wars, it would have fundamentally changed the direction of sci-fi movies. It's such a bold, unprovable claim, but Jodorowsky is so magnetic even at 84 that you almost believe he could have pulled it off. Then you think about what a movie with Mick Jagger, Orson Welles, and Salvador Dali as your cast would look like and the whole illusion starts to crumble.

 

The doc was fairly even handed in its portrayal of this nonexistent movie; it never felt to me that the movie wanted you to feel sad or angry that this film was never made. Sure, everyone who worked on Dune is cast in a mostly sympathetic, sometimes overly reverent light, but the doc doesn't shy away from showing how far Jodorowsky's obsession has taken him. Possibly one of my favorite scenes in the whole film is when

 

Jodorowsky describes how adapting Dune is like raping your bride on her wedding night.

 

It's a moment where Jodorowsky's charisma turns sinister and I'm so glad that the filmmakers included it in the final cut.

 

I'm not sure how much longer this movie will be in theaters, so see it soon if you can. The whole experience has led me to start reading Dune for the first time, which so far has been really enjoyable.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The doc was fairly even handed in its portrayal of this nonexistent movie; it never felt to me that the movie wanted you to feel sad or angry that this film was never made. Sure, everyone who worked on Dune is cast in a mostly sympathetic, sometimes overly reverent light, but the doc doesn't shy away from showing how far Jodorowsky's obsession has taken him. Possibly one of my favorite scenes in the whole film is when

 

Jodorowsky describes how adapting Dune is like raping your bride on her wedding night.

 

It's a moment where Jodorowsky's charisma turns sinister and I'm so glad that the filmmakers included it in the final cut.

 

I love that scene, because it's the moment where Jodorowsky suddenly stops being a sci-fi Willy Wonka for just a split second. I was shocked in a way that I haven't really been by a movie in some time. It's just a bizarre thing to hear from someone who, like you said, is never bitter or angry, except occasionally at the injustice of a world in which his movie could not exist. “I wanted to do something like that, why not? Why could it not be made?" It's really something.

 

I also enjoy that, of all the learned and literate men involved with the project, Amanda Lear was the only one who'd actually read the book, and she was just thrown a part for being Dali's girlfriend. Jeez, what a movie.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I was worried going in that it would be a Jodorowsky love fest, and it certainly starts that way with all the talking heads whispering their accolades about meeting him at a party, etc.

 

But as the film goes on, I noticed that the filmmakers weren't editing him entirely positively.  It felt like a true capture of a man and his project.  The more we find out about the project, the more impossible it sounds.

 

The amount of pure optimism was astounding.  "We're going to make a film that replicates the effects of an acid trip."  The gigantic script, the all-star cast and crew that basically amounted to a 17-year-olds wishlist of who would make the coolest movie ever.

 

So there was something in me that cheered at the fact that it didn't get made.  It revealed an ugly part of myself that quietly believes that we're not capable of affecting the kind of massive-scale positive change through art that Jodorowsky prescribes.  I'm also the kind of guy whose wife calls stifling because I ask questions about when she thinks she'll have time to make a pie crust when we already have a busy evening planned.  So as the movie unfolds his growing ambitions, I'm the guy going "You're crazy. There's no way you can pull this off and stay true to your vision."  So I left the theater with an ugly feeling of self-satisfaction.

 

But then again, someone more optimistic than me could leave the movie feeling bummed that it didn't get made.  Awed by Jodorowsky's ambitions.  The filmmakers did a great job of presenting as much of a neutral palate as they could (while still telling a story).

 

The music is fantastic.  Spacey krautrock makes everything amazing.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Finally saw Pacific Rim.

 

Man, that is a really fantastic action movie. Not sure what was up with people praising the writing as if it wasn't just a bunch of cheesey action movie tropes, but purely on the action movie metric it is really good. And fucking pretty as hell. Though the kaiju were a bit to obviously CG relative to the rest of the CG. Didn't bother me too much, though.

 

THOROUGHLY ENTERTAINED.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think they were praising the writing as an action movie, obviously it's very very silly but all the stuff it needed to get right, like the pilots, it nailed.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Nah I distinctly remember people praising it as like a super great example of storytelling. Not here, maybe, but definitely somewhere.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Nah I distinctly remember people praising it as like a super great example of storytelling. Not here, maybe, but definitely somewhere.

 

Were those people in a looney bin, and also drunk?  ^_^

 

Regardless, see I found Pacific Rim just as dumb as Godzilla, but thought the ending was just a stupid wash while Godzilla at least had a right and proper finale type ending. Ohwell, regardless of opinion it is a fact that none of these really dumb disaster/monster/thing movies will ever stand up to the king of the genre :Independence Day, winner in terms of awesomeness!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Pacific Rim and Godzilla are incomparable as movies beyond the fact that they both feature giant monsters. Comparing them favorably is the greatest sin any one person could commit.

 

Independence Day is okay. But also not really the same kind of movie so I don't understand the comparison.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Pacific Rim and Godzilla are incomparable as movies beyond the fact that they both feature giant monsters. Comparing them favorably is the greatest sin any one person could commit.

 

Independence Day is okay. But also not really the same kind of movie so I don't understand the comparison.

 

The plot is kind of the same, and so are the reasons people watch these movies. "Boffin yells about giant alien/monster/thing that will destroy the earth." then "giant monster/alien/whatever" comes and destroys the earth, then "generic handsome dude goes to try and stop giant monster from destroying the earth" with the real thing people are actually watching it all for is "Ultra gratuitous destruction porn from some crazy sci-fantasy monster thing" and hopefully some stupid one liners (really the kind of main thing Godzilla was lacking here). So I personally consider them pretty much the same genre, along with Michael Bay's Transformers (which is missing the boffin but what do you expect from Michael Bay).

 

Point is "sci-fantasy montster thing wrecks world, it looks cool and gets defeated" is the entire plot of all these movies, and people seem to love them. I grant you it's a "loose" genre, but I'd still say it's more specific than just "action movie" or something. Besides, I'd take another look at ID4. It's basically a better Pacific Rim because unlike Pacific Rim it has Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum with enough cheesy charm for two movies put together, let alone one. While PR is just the blond dude looking stupid while his would be girlfriend also fails at acting.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The difference is Pacific Rim has characters and Godzilla has piles of slightly different shades of grey goo.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The difference is Pacific Rim has characters and Godzilla has piles of slightly different shades of grey goo.

 

See that's what I'm saying. Pacific Rim DOESN'T have characters. I found the two leads about as totally worthless as Godzilla's vaguely human shaped goo. I wanted them to shut the hell up so the giant robots punching stuff could come back, just like I wanted the "humans" (Heisenberg aside...) in Godzilla to shut the hell up so the giant monsters wrecking stuff could come back.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Oh man, Godzilla was so bad. I loved it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I considered responding to Frenetic Pony but then remembered all the other times Frenetic Pony has had opinions, and decided to do something more productive with my day.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I considered responding to Frenetic Pony but then remembered all the other times Frenetic Pony has had opinions, and decided to do something more productive with my day.

Mmmm I fell for it again didn't I? ):

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

But as the film goes on, I noticed that the filmmakers weren't editing him entirely positively.  It felt like a true capture of a man and his project.  The more we find out about the project, the more impossible it sounds.

 

I agree it sounds grand and maybe preposterous, but he did a pretty good job getting some of that on the screen already. Not to mention just about everything he put together got put into practice in some pretty legendary fashion: team, design, and effects.

 

The 'what if' version that exists in our minds is more likely to be fulfilling because earth shattering works are enormously rare, and imagination is cheap. I appreciate his intensity and that he hasn't backed down from his claims though. It would be easy to say 40 years on "ahh, that would have been ridiculous." 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Mmmm I fell for it again didn't I? ):

 

Christ you people. Ya'll losers give up arguments way too easily, and here I thought there was another good one going :wacko:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

That, that right there, that is the attitude that makes talking about anything with you torture. And that's the last I'll say on that.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now