What are you watching right now? : The Huffy Flounce

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

Yeah. It never quite figures out what it wants to be. And there's some incredibly dumb humor in it. And it's hard to care about anybody in it. And they do some weird things with the William Tell Overture.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

I don't think I ever sat down and wrote up my thoughts on the new Lone Ranger movie, so I won't be able to do a copy/paste for you. It's been too long since I saw it to go in to any detail. It also turns out that it wasn't memorable enough for me to recall much of what was in it.

I remember that Helena Bonham Carter was wasted (by which I mean she wasn't used well, though for all I know just being in the movie might have driven her to drink), and I remember feeling at times that you could have removed Reid's love interest without it impacting the movie in any real way. I remember Fichtner's Cavendish being almost as useless and underwritten as Christopher Lloyd's Cavendish.

I remember them basically turning Silver into a dog.

The tonal shifts were what really stood out the most, though. They didn't work. Verbinski pulled off some major tonal shifts with Pirates of the Caribbean. That movie manages to be a comedy and a horror film and an action movie and a drama--sometimes in turn, sometimes all at once. Verbinski tries to do this again with The Lone Ranger, but it feels off this time around.

[Dalty]

Yeah, one recurring thought all the way through was how Curse Of The Black Pearl managed to balance this shit perfectly and Lone Ranger kept just missing.

I thought it was OK though. Don't think Disney deserved to take a bath on it quite as badly as they did. It looked great. Depp was strangely watchable in it.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

They probably should have just had him speaking without any kind of goofy syntax or accent.

[Mal Shot First]

blah blah blah...

Over all, the video feels like an apologist's equivocation. It focuses on the length of the movie and acts like that's it's only problem. I'm sure there are people whose major/only gripe is the length, but there are others who feel the movie suffers for other reasons.

blah blah blah...

My major gripe with Goiter's post is its length.

[Mal Shot First]

My major gripe with Goiter's penis, also, is its length.

[neglet]

My main problem with the first Hobbit movie was one of tone. In the beginning it had more of the feel of a children's book, what with the dwarf invasion of Bag End and flying dishes and ha ha ha ha. Then it transformed into full-on action movie with people snicking off the heads of orcs, and it just felt weird. If you're going to bring in a lot of lore from the Silmarillion and make it an epic action movie, that's fine, but it didn't match the opening of the film. I also agree with Goiter that the encounter with Gollum was extremely well done and the best part of the movie.

That said, I enjoyed the first movie better than the second one. While the second one didn't have the first one's problem with tone, it was just interminably long, one action sequence leading into another, and then there was hardly any payoff. Sure, you got the encounter with Smaug (and I lurrrrrrved Cumberbatch's voice as Smaug), but there was no resolution to the conflict. At least in Two Towers we got the end of the Helm's Deep battle, and then just the hint of Shelob to tease the next movie. Hobbit 2 was like stopping Helm's Deep before Gandalf showed up.

I still have hope for the third, though, as long as they keep the run time under 2:30.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

I don't remember it drawing much of anything from The Silmarillion. I was under the impression that they couldn't. Some rights issue. I think the same may be true of the Unfinished Tales. I thought everything involving the Necromancer came to us by way of Walsh and Jackson expanding and embellishing on things barely mentioned in Tolkien's The Hobbit.

I could be wrong. They may have resolved whatever rights issues there were. Just because I can't remember seeing anything from The Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales in the first two movies, it doesn't mean there wasn't anything there. I wasn't a very attentive reader when it came to either of those. My mind wandered a lot, and I did a fair amount of skimming and skipping.

* * *

Some time between two and two-and-a-half hours really does seem to be the sweet spot for epic summer cinema. The Avengers hits it. Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi all fall in between these times. On the other hand, so do the prequels. You can't win 'em all, I guess.

The first two Indiana Jones movies fall just short of two hours. The third one is just over. So's the fourth one.

Most of James Cameron's post-Terminator movies exceed two-and-a-half hours (I'm excluding his deep sea dive documentaries, here, and focusing on his big budget action fare), but that dude's an anomaly. He always seems to have his fingers on the pulse of what audiences want. I think True Lies is the one exception. It comes in at 141 minutes.

I started out feeling like I had a point, but it slowly became apparent to me that I didn't.

[Dalty]

The third Indy has not aged well. It is also over-rated and tiresome. Temple Of Doom is a freakin' masterpiece!!

Could you make an argument that True Lies was the last Cameron movie that wasn't a bit of a flabby bore-a-thon?

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

True Lies is the last Cameron movie I really liked. The ones he's made since have helped me to realize that I am out of touch with the American public.

[Dalty]

It's only Titanic and Avatar isn't it? He's hardly prolific.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

He doesn't have to be.

[Dalty]

Episode III on TV right now. So inept. Effects look dated already, the plot is silly, Anakin's turn happens in ten minutes flat and makes no sense. It's worse than I remember.

[Space Tycoon]

I just finished Poltergeist on TCM. Still freaky as hell.

You can kinda tell the Spielberg scenes vs those directed by Hooper. I have a feeling the ending is all Spielberg.

During one particularly tense, mysto-crypto poltergeist scene, a badly-attached duct tube thing in my basement just happened to fall to the concrete floor with a loud clatter.


The phrase "heart lept into my throat" comes to mind.

[Space Tycoon]

You can kinda tell the Spielberg scenes vs those directed by Hooper. I have a feeling the ending is all Spielberg.

Actually, that's probably far too simplistic. Much more was going on there, apparently.

There's a good piece on the subject here: http://www.poltergeist.poltergeistiii.com/really.html

[Dalty]

Episode IV - A New Hope.

It's on TV now. Watching this 24hrs after EpIII make you realise it's not an irrational hatred of the prequels. This is just at a completely different level.

[Space Tycoon]

Mean people suck.

[neglet]

Watching "The Talented Mr Ripley," which is turning pretty dark. I like it.

[scarletregina]

Orphan Black.

If you haven't yet seen it you should be ashamed of yourself.

Also watched the first episode of In the Flesh last night. It had a good mix of comedy and drama going on.

[Space Tycoon]

I've uh, seen the commercials for Orphan Black.

[Dalty]

I have Penny Dreadful on the Sky Box. Worth the time investment?

[neglet]

I want to see Orphan Black, but I don't have cable.

[Dalty]

It's Monday night, it's 9pm......

.....bring on THE THRONES!!!!!!!!!

[Dalty]

It's on baby!!!!!

[Dalty]

Oh God, is this really going to go the way I think it is going to go?