Movies

[alla]

Thanks, Kathy... now I just wish I had money ... lol. I want Erik's cape. That would be really cool. I'll just keep an eye out for patterns or something and make it . It would be really cool if I had the money to buy some of that stuff.. oh well...

I went and saw Hostage yesterday. I thought it was good for the type of movie that it was. My friend and I had a good laugh at the beginning because it was filmed in the same town as Dante's Peak was filmed in. We sat there for the first few minutes just pointing out all the little buildings and that that we had seen get ... destroyed in it .

Theres a trailer for Howl's... cool I will have to go and watch that when I can get on the computer that will actually play stuff

Alla

[Kathy Li]

Links to the English-language trailer for Howl's Moving Castle can be found at Ain't It Cool News article: http://aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=19966

[Peter Murray]

Originally posted by kli6:
And, btw, you will note that the big pod-race in Episode I is a boiled-down version of the big chariot race in BEN-HUR (the 1950's color one with Charlton Heston, not the B&W silent one with Ramon Novarro). It even ends the same way.... except that in the '50s you had the patience to sit through nine laps around the coliseum, while these days, you can only sit through three.

I thought the race was supposed to have been copied from the original anyway? I mean, staged as closely as possible to the original (with omissions), not copied and colourised.

I've never seen the colour remake of Ben-Hur, only the Novarro version.

[Birdhead]

I did manage to catch this chickflick, Under the Tuscan Sun, which was a lot of fun. It was about an American woman who impulse buys a villa in Tuscany while on vacation. Kind of like Enchanted April, only modern and American. So, not really much like...

*acerbic* Yeah, and it wasn't much like the book it was based on, either, which was non-fiction, about a married couple buying a house in Tuscany. It was also about the couple's marriage, so the apparent fact that in the movie Lane was a divorcee strikes me as less than cool.

I never saw it, I'll admit. Maybe it was fabulous. But... these kind of changes are not really my thing, you know? And I'm usually quite generous with my adaptations.

Also, Ben Hur: great movie, best car race of all time. Only, er, obviously not in cars. But still great.

[Crazy Carl]

i got a good idea. dd when or if she makes the yw movie know tha she should mail a vhs or dvd copy to a few members here to get feedback about it before it's released to the general public that way she can either make some changes to the movie or explain why she did what she did with it.

[Cress]

Oooh, we could be like her own personal screening audience! MAJORLY FUN! Except for the minor hitch of ya know the producers and other people that would have bought rights. I seriously doubt they would let her do that. Butts.

[Kathy Li]

Originally posted by Peter Murray:
I thought the race was supposed to have been copied from the original anyway? I mean, staged as closely as possible to the original (with omissions), not copied and colourised.

I've never seen the colour remake of Ben-Hur, only the Novarro version.

Figures you'd know Frances X. Bushman's Masala. But why was Episode I's pod race supposed to be copied from Ben-Hur?

Originally posted by Birdhead:
*acerbic* Yeah, and it wasn't much like the book it was based on, either, which was non-fiction, about a married couple buying a house in Tuscany. It was also about the couple's marriage, so the apparent fact that in the movie Lane was a divorcee strikes me as less than cool.

Oh dear. It was supposed to be like A Year in Provence? Bummer.

I never saw it, I'll admit. Maybe it was fabulous. But... these kind of changes are not really my thing, you know? And I'm usually quite generous with my adaptations.

For me, it depends on how much I like the original. The more I like the book, the less I want to see an adaptation stray. This is why I have absolutely no problems with the completely-off-the-beam Elizabeth George "Inspector Lynley" BBC adaptations, because the books are less than deathless prose. And don't worry, while UtTS was fun, it wasn't by any stretch of the imagination fabulous. Even with Sandra Oh.

Original posted by Crazy Carl:
i got a good idea. dd when or if she makes the yw movie know tha she should mail a vhs or dvd copy to a few members here to get feedback about it before it's released to the general public that way she can either make some changes to the movie or explain why she did what she did with it.

Er... I'd just settle for DD tipping us off on which malls to go to to get tix for a sneak screening as a test audience. Screeners you save for Academy voters.

[Peter Murray]

Originally posted by kli6:
Figures you'd know Frances X. Bushman's Masala. But why was Episode I's pod race supposed to be copied from Ben-Hur?

I don't know, you said it was copied.
What I meant was that the colour remake of Ben-Hur copied its chariot race from the original version with Novarro. And then you said Episode I boiled down the copy for its pod race... this is beginning to sound like an nth-generation photocopy.

And there still doesn't seem to be a DVD of that old Ben-Hur, only remakes .

[Birdhead]

Re: the movie: I'll settle for it being screened at all in New Zealand. (I'm starting to have concerns in that direction about Mirrormask, have I mentioned?) Meh.

*is relieved* Well, I'm glad I can be sufficiently unkind about the movie without having to worry about talking rubbish.

[Crazy Carl]

darn well it was a good idea.
heh or maybe i just wanted some mail for once

still it would've been cool. though with the yw movie if she's making it uhh she's gonna have to change alot of the book to make it able to be a movie.

[Kathy Li]

PM: ah. I see. My strange and twisted sentence structure once again stands in the way of my meaning. Here in the states the cable channel TCM (Turner Classic Movies) has silent Sundays, and they've shown the Ramon Novarro Ben-Hur a bunch of times. They've even shown us the silent Roman Novarro Scaramouche (I sometimes wonder if my suggestion on their website is what did it ). Makes you realize how many of the good color adventure flicks of the '50s are remakes of silent movies.

Tui: Oh, I'm unkind to movies all the time. The trick is never to be rude about it. I've generally found that throwing in a "for me" and a explanation of where your opinion comes from generally works, because then you're not telling someone that if they did like it, they must be completely lacking in taste or judgement, as flat "____ sucks!"-type statements tend to do.

<STRIKE>Lord of</STRIKE> <STRIKE>Crazyman</STRIKE> Carl: Well, of course she's gonna have to change a lot of the book to make it into a movie. What would be the point of seeing the movie if it was exactly the same as reading the book? Why wouldn't you just read the book instead? Movies are so that you can see how someone else visualized the book when they were reading it. I mean the LoTR films were not the books and changed a huge heaping amount, but they're still fun!

[meteorite]

Ha! I just went to see The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Funny, funny, funny stuff. There are a number of in-jokes that make no sense to anyone who has not read the book, but are almost painfully overplayed for someone who has read it. Nonetheless, not a waste of money by any stretch, even at full price (not matinee.)

Best scene (slight spoiler) is Slartbartifast, showing Arthur around: "Welcome to our factory floor." Impressive.

The dedication at the end simply said "For Douglas." Couldn't get much more appropriate. And stick through the credits for the easter egg.

[Kathy Li]

Hee hee hee. I saw it at the El Capitan. They had about a half dozen Vogons on display around the theatre and in the display area basement. People brought towels.

What I loved about the film was that even if you had got H2G2 memorized and could mouth all the lines along with the guys on screen, you still didn't know exactly how it was going to end. And I really loved that they managed to get Simon Jones in there anyhoo. I now need to see if that "So Long and Thanks For All the Fish" opening number is on the Apple iTunes store (I got a coupon for a free download during the Tiger promo).

And I gotta say it's even more fun to go see a movie at the El Capitan, now, since they've installed a Mighty Wurlitzer, and the guy playing it knows every SF movie theme and Disney song ever written.

[Cress]

I've seen it twice already! I missed the beginning the first time, so I wasn't singing the dolphin song, but I've been singing it and driving everyone absolutely crazy since then. I LOVE IT! Although now I'm sad because I didn't stick around for the easter egg either time. Petty annoyances. I'll have to go see it again. Personally I like the mice the best. And the line about "It won't work on me, I'm already a woman".
Hehe. Dolphins. "The world's about to be destroyed, no sense in getting all annoyed!"

[worlebird]

I enjoyed Hitchhiker's immensely.
Some thoughts:
In my head, Zaphod was always, well, British.
Kudos for the use of the Eagle's "Journey of the Sorcerer" in the soundtrack - a direct nod to the old BBC television show.
Kudos again for the use of the old TV Marvin costume in the queue on planet Vogshpere.
More kudos for the use of "Belgium" as a curse word.
Thumbs down on the American accent for Trillian. What's up with that?
Thumbs up for the throwaway scene "Zaphod's just this guy, you know?". That was perfect.
Thumbs down also for the joke "The restaurant's at the other end of the universe". They're talking about completely the wrong dimension, and they should have known that.

I would have liked to see Arthur obsess about his tea a little more. I also thought the Infinite Imporbablility Drive wasn't really explained well enough. I'm not sure people who hadn't read the book would have caught that.

Oh, and double kudos for the whale and the bowl of petunias.

That is all.