Quote:

---

Originally posted by Howard:
Same with all Paltrow esque movie culture
one is meant to buy it as "deep" and "really
thoughtful" but of course it is a big NOT!

---

Quote:

---

"All you people up there, in city hall,
Your f***ing it up for the people that's in the streets"
Tim Tim Timmy!

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by liminalosity:
I can hardly wait to see Narnia
for a little brain candy!
oh goody oh

Limi

Shiny Trees! Yavanna made Shiny Trees!

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Howard:
BUT...

if you has said...

Anything staring Gweneth Paltrow for your
cinema

and

Clinton for your politics

that would be not just stupid

but truly sinister.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SevenPercent:

Quote:

---

...It takes special skills to piss off Citizen and Auraptor in the same thread, but he managed. On several occasions.

---

...butbutbuttabuttabutt...

..he pee'd me off, too


...oh yeah: he pissed me off (I forgot):

the blighter

HOHOHO

I'm having 'mood swings ...of a sort...' because "my friends think I'm a stupid, inbred stack of meat"

Quote:

---

Originally posted by chrisisall:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Unsardonic:
Okay...

I'll start:

Here's one: speaking as a film maker (writer/producer), I THINK 'SERENITY' IS ONE OF THE BEST MOVIES EVER MADE.

Now, who'll 'second' me on this commotion?

---

Qualification: 'Best movies ever made' meaning a cross section to include musicals, drama, science-fiction, and comedy.....
Then DAMN RIGHT Serenity's one of the BEST movies EVER MADE!!!!!

You are seconded!

Chrisisall!

---

Quote:

---

Here's one: speaking as a film maker (writer/producer), I THINK 'SERENITY' IS ONE OF THE BEST MOVIES EVER MADE.

And, By GAWD, I can go on for MONTHS about the bajillion reasons why. I agree with all the lists on this thread - many are movies that I consider "perfect - very many...

Now, who'll 'second' me on this commotion?

As to the lists: I notice none of you mentioned Piero Pasolini and I ...welll... if ya wanna intense cinema experience, just check out 'Salo' some time... this movie is soo Friggin' Intense, most people simply can't make it through a half hour, well... any amount of it. It stunned me so much that I was able to watch the entire thing, well... it was like, kinda, a trainwreck... or Meatloaf or Wendy O. & the Plasmatics in concert: you can't avert your eyes; you must look... because it's truly unbelievable. So after it finished, I watched it all over again, just 'cause I couldn't believe I'd seen it all the way through once.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by TheSomnambulist:
Here's one: speaking as a film maker (writer/producer), I THINK 'SERENITY' IS ONE OF THE BEST MOVIES EVER MADE.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by liminalosity:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by TheSomnambulist:
Here's one: speaking as a film maker (writer/producer), I THINK 'SERENITY' IS ONE OF THE BEST MOVIES EVER MADE.

---

Yes, me too. I think it beats a few things on the lists above as well.

Shiny Trees! Yavanna made Shiny Trees!

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Howard:



The problem with the likes of THE TERMINATOR
is that giving your money for that crap just
encourages the studios.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by RiveR6213:


Terminator and Terminator 2 were very good movies, especially Terminator II. I can't understand why anyone would think it wasnt very good.

enuff said

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Storymark:
I have to join up with the camp that thinks SERENITY is a great movie, a new sci-fi classic.

I also consider THE TERMINATOR to be a modern sci-fi classic.

As the saying goes, 90% of everything is crap. Including foreign films. Artsy pretentiouse crap is still crap.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by InsanityLater:
When the Delorean hit 88 MPH it traveled in time not space so it appeared in the field where the mall was eventually to be built.. wrong. It would have popped into deep space and it would have taken 30 years for the Earth to get to where the Delorean and its frozen occupant would be waiting. To arrive in the same spot as you left but in a different time you would need to plot the movement of the Earth and the movement of the Solar System, Galaxy and Universe to have a correct exit point.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Bobster:
And, on occasion, works that are designed to be "just entertaining" achieve a kind of grace that turns them into something that is very much like a work of art.

Is it a "great" movie in the same way the "Citizen Kane" or "Weekend" or "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp" or "Rear Window" or "The Gold Rush" is "great"? Maybe not. Maybe so. Maybe in 20 years people will think so, more likely not quite.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by TheSomnambulist:
...I say this not coz I was shocked, I'm not the shockable kinda fellow, no just that for me 'shocking' cinema is a one trick pony. I also find that it is so easy to render a viewer shocked, that it falls into the catagory of 'easy' cinema and really ultimately little is achieved.

Hi there, ya sleepwalker

Well, it took me a bit to get back to you due to the work schedule. Lessee... Sir Henry (Rawlinson) would have said, "I've just spent the last 10 hours buried up the backsides of the filth hounds of Hades!" ...so, trying to get past my nitrogen narcosis & readjust to regular atmospheric pressure...

s'anyway... you make a bunch of excellent points about 'Salo.' And I agree with many of them and, also, I agree with you in that I'm also not that particularly 'shockable.' I think had I taken some Evangelical Christian aquaintance of mine, well...THEY might well have been shocked. However, I have to tell you, I can't remember what my shockability was back around, I'm thinking, 1972, when I first saw it. If you can imagine the zeitgeist back then, even I might have been quite appalled in '72... I don't think I was but... I WAS shocked.

Now, I don't believe Pasolini shot it specifically for the point of "shocking" people. I believe he was making a political satire that was aimed at various political figures/events in Italian politics around the late 1960's or so... trying to imply that, if you were a member of such-&-such political party (Pasolini was a Communist, himself) then you were just beginning to dip your toes into the pond wherein, after a couple of good dips, you'd be incapable of avoiding ...raping & killing your own children, for example... I believe he was trying to make allegorical finger-pointing statements at whoever he despised. ....and trying to translate those kinds of ideas (whatever he was trying to say) into our CURrent sensibilities is about as seamless as trying to get the humor in a Python gag from 1969 that is specific to local-town-council-politics in some village in England back THEN... doesn't translate so well to the general populace.

So I don't really think Pasolini shot it to be secifically 'shocking' as you've interpreted; I believe he was extremely angry about political points of view that he disagreed with & was saying, "See! See how you bastards are?! THIS... is how you are!" He was being accusatory. ...ummm... my opinion... could be wrong.

Now to conclude my "Salo-ivations", a few years ago, I had a lovely conversation with a fellow who's a film composer & it was about art we both respected &, I dunno how we both arrived at this but, the conversation was about Prokofiev & Pasolini. He had just about the same take on "Salo" that I did but, he had a very interesting additional point. He pointed out that what it succeeds in doing is to "resensitize" the viewer to screen violence. His point was (& this was around 8 years ago), that all us movie-lovers are now so innured to screen violence that it falls off us like water off a duck's back. And he thought that this was a sad state of affairs... take your own perspective, for example: you can't even be affected by the awful horror depicted within "Salo" as, I'm guessing, you've already seen a whole lotta screen violence (not a criticism, BTW).

He & I had both been so strongly affected by it that, well... it just plain made us think hard about people who might behave this way or, well... it can't be denied that, throughout history, various human beings (even whole nations) have, in fact, behaved that way... and worse, even MUCH worse so... whether or not it worked on you, it certainly worked on me: I believe there is some cultural value in "resentizing" the average filmgoer to the (often) horrible events they see depicted on screen FOR THEIR AMUSEMENT. I mean, for what it's worth...

QUOTE Secondly: I see you're a write and producer.....
hmmmm wanna collaborate on something? I'm a cartoonist.

And I second what you said about SERENITY. It is a cracking film.

Well, the most completely precise answer to this is:
"Yes... and no..."

To explain myself: "Yes" because sure, absolutely, 'd love to, based on the presumption that we at least have Serenity'verse in common - & I like a whole lotta comics. Besides... if there's one job-skill required of a producer, it's collaboration, eh? I mean, the whole of the Industry is one, giant collaboration or... that movie didn't get made...

...and "No" because, well... I'm not a producer by choice or, because I went out & had enough skill in the Art to get hired by some company (well... I did... but, besides the point). I'm a producer out of necessity: it's the only way I could see to get my original creative output (& that of my production partner) shot & released while, simultaneously, retaining some modicum of freakin' control over it. THERE'S the rub... "creative control"....

So I don't work for some big studio or such, wherein my daily routine is somewhat predictable and maybe there'd be some downtime, OH no-ooo... nothing that normal... We have a dinkly, li'l, indie movie production house whose only purpose is creating these original works of cinematic art. There's several dozen of them already and only one has been completely shot - and immediately shelved (as inferior, by our own outrageously exacting standards).

My typical workweek is 80, 90, 100 hours... EVERY week... for the last two years. I've had exactly two days off in that time: one was Christmas last year - & even then, we had to have a morning buiness meeting before we wrapped for the afternoon; the other was because my immune system gave out and whatever bug I had laid me down too sick to move. ...just sayin'... there is no more complex, detail oriented, knowledge-intensive work one can take on than independent feature film production. None... not one, I gurantee... it'd be easier to be the President... at least he has an adequate staff and budget... and he can manage to find time for his family so, it's a good thing I don't have one... whew... sorry... was I ranting? ...hmmm...

Now... I'll tell you something else that, perhaps, people don't think about: Have you ever heard the phraselet, "Unsolicited Material?" Many producers - not all, but many... cannot accept (even categorically refuse to accept) "Unsolicitied Material." That means, something they didn't specifically ask a writer for or, I should say, have their agent ask the writer's agent for - in other words, some spec work a writer is approaching them with.

In the case of my company, it has a blanket policy saying that we won't do it; it's just simpler that way. I mean, first off, there's already enough distractions from our prime focus that, well... unsolicited projects would simply serve to diffuse that focus even further but, moreover... well, you might read in the paper that such-n-such producer/production company has just been sued because their highly-successful film that just grossed $250-megabucks domestic theatrical had ripped off ideas that, so-n-so prospective screenwriter submitted to that producer/company in a spec script he'd sent them ...15-ish years before... and if you're Amblin Entertainment or Lucasfilm & people send you, fully, 2,000 scripts a week, all you do is stack 'em up against the wall because there, for SURE, is nobody around there that has time to sort through any of it, much less read it... much LESS, "rip it off" for one of their OWN projects.

Anyway, we're for sure, not Steven Spielberg or George Lucas and, if we ever got hit by such a lawsuit, it'd sink us, pure and simple... therefore the company preempts that and says, "No accepting unsolicited material, period."

Now, that doesn't mean, I wouldn't want to see your stuff but, it DOES mean that the easiest way for me to see it is, if it's in print somewhere & I can go out & buy a copy which, I'd love to do.

Do you have any other work you like to compare it to that I might have an idea what it's like. I mean, I like a lot of comics, but not necessary all... some just don't grab me, eh? Or do you refer to any particular influences?

Sorry to go on so lonbg, so...

...if you made it his far, then you couldn't possible "be a stupid, inbred stack of meat"

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Howard:
... I would just like to thank
everyone for building up 70 replies to this
thread...
Most appreciated.

H.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Storymark:

I also believe in a division between "films" and "movies". And I believe that just because a film/movie is in a foreign language, it is not automatically of higher quality. As the saying goes, 90% of everything is crap. Including foreign films. Artsy pretentiouse crap is still crap.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by chrisisall:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by InsanityLater:
Hey.. why not do the whole thing in Mandarin

---

I wanna see a version all in Greedo's language!!!

Mal: " Oooh la schulpa!"
Operative: "Yah, kappa tool tuk!"

Them's fightin' words!

Chrisisall, interpreter

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Howard:


The films of James Cameron are precisely the
kind of stalwarts that are used to block any
kind of enlightened cinema from the mainstream
and the paradox is that the more money a movie
of that type has got behind it the more the
corporate mass media gives it massive free
publicity. To studios who can well afford their
own PR. While indie and medium budget films
with more thoughtful and challenging content
and very small PR budgets receive no such
generosity from the corporate mass media.

---