Originally posted by MildPossession
Smoker4 - REC has a remake, there is a teaser going around I believe, yet to see REC. Looks good.Jason Bateman was in Teen Wolf? I soooooo can't remember that, I use to love that movie, need to check it out.
The version i watched was spanish, lots of rapido followed by screams and gore!
Just watched Serenity, much better than i thought it would be.
Re: Movies that surprised you
Originally posted by moneyhoney
Any movies that you saw this year that you thought were going to suck and didn't or vice versa?There will be blood-Sucked
27 dresses- didnt suck
Walk Hard-Sucked
There will be Blood- Awesome ( but I knew it would be so I guess that does not count)
Sweeny Todd- Though it would be decent, but surpased my expectations.
Um . . . . I think you . . . . . what did you . . . . . nevermind. Okay, you posted two different opinions on There Will Be Blood in the same post. What is this about?
Re: Re: Movies that surprised you
Originally posted by =Tired Hiker=
Um . . . . I think you . . . . . what did you . . . . . nevermind. Okay, you posted two different opinions on There Will Be Blood in the same post. What is this about?
Your right, i screwed up. I meant to say that there will be blood was good. Sorry about that. My brain was somewhere else.
Originally posted by exanda kane
Distracting, perhaps, but tacky? In the words of GOB: COME ON.
I agree. It was annoying, but not tacky. At least in 27 dresses, I expected to have some cheesy love talk. But Juno was written so well. I thought that was the one thing that took away credit form the film.
Originally posted by MildPossession
How was the language lazy and tacky in Juno?
Lazy because they used some very obvious and generic references to be 'quirky', - "Okay, something witty needs to be here, how about a ham-fisted thundercats reference, people will buy that as witty and clever, right?" It was just way too 'hipster' and it didn't really do a good job at being hip or cool. They tried, and you can't try, it just happens.
And tacky because they tried way too hard, and it made it seem gaudy and annoying and very very obvious. Like they said to the audience "HEY HEY LOOK HOW COOL OUR CHARACTER IS, LISTEN TO THAT SLANG, SHE'S COOL! "OH MY BLOG!" HAHAHAHAHA! What? How is a 15 year old familiar with Thundercats? She's just that cool, gimme an award"
The movie was decent outside of the poor dialogue, but it did not deserve any awards or nominations, except maybe Ellen Page, who did well. Diablo Cody should not have won for her screenplay. Lars and the Real Girl was infinitely more well written and more original to boot.
Originally posted by BackFire
Lazy because they used some very obvious and generic references to be 'quirky', - "Okay, something witty needs to be here, how about a ham-fisted thundercats reference, people will buy that as witty and clever, right?" It was just way too 'hipster' and it didn't really do a good job at being hip or cool. They tried, and you can't try, it just happens.And tacky because they tried way too hard, and it made it seem gaudy and annoying and very very obvious. Like they said to the audience "HEY HEY LOOK HOW COOL OUR CHARACTER IS, LISTEN TO THAT SLANG, SHE'S COOL! "OH MY BLOG!" HAHAHAHAHA! What? How is a 15 year old familiar with Thundercats? She's just that cool, gimme an award"
The movie was decent outside of the poor dialogue, but it did not deserve any awards or nominations, except maybe Ellen Page, who did well. Diablo Cody should not have won for her screenplay. Lars and the Real Girl was infinitely more well written and more original to boot.
Stole the words right out of my mouth.
I didn't like the movie as a whole, but the dialogue bugged me especially.
Originally posted by BackFire
Lazy because they used some very obvious and generic references to be 'quirky', - "Okay, something witty needs to be here, how about a ham-fisted thundercats reference, people will buy that as witty and clever, right?" It was just way too 'hipster' and it didn't really do a good job at being hip or cool. They tried, and you can't try, it just happens.And tacky because they tried way too hard, and it made it seem gaudy and annoying and very very obvious. Like they said to the audience "HEY HEY LOOK HOW COOL OUR CHARACTER IS, LISTEN TO THAT SLANG, SHE'S COOL! "OH MY BLOG!" HAHAHAHAHA! What? How is a 15 year old familiar with Thundercats? She's just that cool, gimme an award"
The movie was decent outside of the poor dialogue, but it did not deserve any awards or nominations, except maybe Ellen Page, who did well. Diablo Cody should not have won for her screenplay. Lars and the Real Girl was infinitely more well written and more original to boot.
No.
Ellen Page shouldn't have won over the others for the acting, screenplay I am happy won. It's just tacky to you. Definitely not poor dialogue.
When I heard her say the Thunderbirds part, I absolutely adored that part, brought a smile on my face to be reminded of that cartoon series that I use to watch.
And it's just not poor to you. We can only speak for ourselves here, and that's all I'm doing.
The movie really isn't all that well written. None of the characters outside of Juno were developed all that well, which is unfortunate because they were all interesting characters. The dialogue was quirky just for the sake of it, and as I said, ended up distracting from an otherwise decent story.
Objectively speaking, Lars was infinitely better in every single department as far as the writing went. The characters were all defined and developed much more wholly, the story was infinitely more original, and the plot moved along at a better pace and just flowed more fluidly. I think Cody only won because of her hype and her "interesting" backstory and the press she had been getting, nothing more. I could tell that Cody was relatively inexperienced while watching the movie, it showed. The writing was merely competent, not extraordinary. Lars' writing was extraordinary.
I thought "Spider-Man" would be like the god awful FOX cartoon. Ended up being one of personal favorite movies of all time.
Also, I expected "Dragon Wars" to blow my mind and be nonstop epic, but it turned out to be really terrible, and only delivering one memorable scene(when the Dragon descends from Heaven, which was indeed a fantastic moment). The rest of the movie? Poorly paced, poorly characterized, and poorly made action.
"Looney Tunes: Back In Action" I thought was going to be good, but ended up being a terrible stinker.
I didn't expect "The Professional" to be anything but time taking, but ended up being one of my favorite movies ever.
Originally posted by BackFire
The movie really isn't all that well written. None of the characters outside of Juno were developed all that well, which is unfortunate because they were all interesting characters. The dialogue was quirky just for the sake of it, and as I said, ended up distracting from an otherwise decent story.
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Objectively speaking, the players in Juno are considerably better penned than those in Lars and the Real Girl. None of the "Lars" characters are able to transcend their blatant neccessity for the plot. None of those characters have the charm and depth that Juno can bring from the page. They are considerably well drawn and defined characters, with nuances to them that a lesser script like Lars cannot afford. "Dialogue quirky for the sake of being quirky"? What kind of a criticism is that? To analogise that, that is saying something like "Ghandi is being philosophical for the sake of being philosophical" or "Ben-Hur being dramatic for the sake of being dramatic." As far as pacing goes, it does get stuck in some places but they are resolved with little distraction to the overall successes of the screenplay, I thought that would be obvious to someone who is critiquing Juno on the basis of the undue hype thrown in its direction, rather than any failing of the script.
Personally I thought ALL the characters in Lars were more charming and had way way wayyyy more depth than Juno. The character was about as deep as a wading pool.
Lars had depth, he had a backstory that was absolutely essential to the plot, he felt like a real person; like someone you could see existing. I didn't feel that with Juno, she felt like someone made her after watching an episode of Freaks and Geeks. Her reaction to getting pregnant was just silly. She acted like it was a small, trivial event. Like "Oops, I forgot to feed the dog". Oh, but she cried at the end - complex character, obviously.
And the supporting characters, honestly, I have seen supporting characters in some amateur scripts that had been more developed and were more rounded than the ones in Juno.
The criticism of quirky for the sake of being quirky simply means that they didn't make that aspect feel organic. You could always tell that they were trying, they were constantly putting out the effort and they always failed to hide that. It felt like they did it just for the hell of it, not because it was necessary or because it added anything to the film. A film can have quirky characters that still feel real and believable, like Little Miss Sunshine. That film went beyond making weird characters and made them feel alive and real, I never got the impression that they were made with that intent, even though they obviously were, they felt like real people.
The difference between Juno and Ben Hur and Ghadi is that the two aspects you mentioned about those films were absolutely essential to the story and the plot. Ben Hur was a drama, so it had to be dramatic. Ghandi dealt with philosophy because the real person did as well. Juno's "quirkiness' was not necessary - the plot would have worked just as well, if not better, without it. No awkward, randomly strewn reference to blogging or thunderbirds helped the plot along. It took away from the plot, I felt, because it distracted.
The writing of Juno WAS the basis for the undue hype. We had Diablo Cody being plastered as some amazing prodigy. I had never before seen such publicity for a screen writer, hence why I bring up the writing. It wasn't nearly as good as the hype and the press would lead you to believe. Prior to watching it, I suspected that the hype wasn't because of her talent, but because she used to take her clothes off. After watching the film, I'm now positive that that's the case.
The actors pretty much saved the movie. It would have been extraordinarily easy for the dialogue to go over the top, because reading it from the page, without being worded by good actors, that's how it felt to me. The actors took the dialogue and made it workable. Particularly the actors playing the supporting characters. In the hands of lesser actors they would have felt like caricatures, rather than round, real, involving characters.
Honestly, I felt that this film winning for best original screenplay was as unjustified as Gladiator winning for best picture in 2000.