The last movie you saw...

[maxpayne2409]

this came before men in tights, which is a pale reflection to the satire involved in PB.

i know it came first, was jsut saying men in tights was a film with him in it lol, ive not seen princess bride tho, he might be good in it i dont know. also you say men in tights is a pale reflection on the satire of princess bride, but men in tights isnt that kinda film, its just slapstick comedy mostly which im guessing pb isnt, so not really a fair comparison

[spudthedestroyer]

from what i remember of robin hood men in tights, that film was incredibly bad.

[dinky]

oh yeah...the reason I came in: watched Amélie</i>. actually liked it more than children</i>. didn't realize it was the same director until I started it up. oh, and after having seen children</i>, spud, I can't see much of whedon in A4 at all...except the sadistic jokes between ron perlman and dominique whatever. they took an awful chance on him at all based on children</i>. it definitely wasn't something that made me think: wow, he could do a killer aliens</i> movie.

[spudthedestroyer]

@scriptwriting comment,
you say that but he wrote dreamcatcher ooops!

He seems to be in a rut, but his early filmography is great. A nice relection of the entire industry perhaps?

[dinky]

this came before men in tights, which is a pale reflection to the satire involved in PB.

also you say men in tights is a pale reflection on the satire of princess bride, but men in tights isnt that kinda film, its just slapstick comedy mostly which im guessing pb isnt, so not really a fair comparison

they both essentially satirize popular medieval/renaissance conceptions of love/honor/duty. I'm not sure if I'd call PB slapstick because it's all about posture and dialogue, but if you try to take it seriously, you'll hate me for recommending it (not that you could possibly take it seriously). so yeah, I'd say they're very comparable. oh! just go watch the fecking movie. it is good.

[maxpayne2409]

@scriptwriting comment,
you say that but he wrote dreamcatcher ooops!

lol you say robin hood men in tights was bad, i hope you dont actually like arsecatcher

[dinky]

@scriptwriting comment,
you say that but he wrote dreamcatcher ooops!

yeah, I'm not sure what the stephen king fixation is all about. but hearts in atlantis was decent. general's daughter was forgettable but good. absolute power was good. liked fierce creatures. maverick. ghost and darkness. misery. all the president's men. a bridge too far. stepford wives. and the coup d'etat: butch cassidy and the sundance kid. butch & princess are the only original works of his that I'm familiar with. he's kinda like david mamet in that I think he does a lot of stage writing too.

He seems to be in a rut, but his early filmography is great. A nice relection of the entire industry perhaps?

true enough, I guess.

edit: wow! I left out heat and memoirs. iunno. I think he's as close to a livining legend in popular screen writing as one can get.

[spudthedestroyer]

oh yeah...the reason I came in: watched Amélie</i>. actually liked it more than children</i>. didn't realize it was the same director until I started it up. oh, and after having seen children</i>, spud, I can't see much of whedon in A4 at all...except the sadistic jokes between ron perlman and dominique whatever. they took an awful chance on him at all based on children</i>. it definitely wasn't something that made me think: wow, he could do a killer aliens</i> movie.

Dellicatessen is his best film. i liked city of the lost chidlren. I hate alien4, and i've not seen amelie.

The shallow characters, the lame gun fights/action sequences, the dire plot, everything is screaming whedon. The visuals were very poor, and i think he's not responsible for the giant turd monster nor the 'sex scene'. I do think he's entirely responsible for the pathetic dialogue, the cliché ripley and the lack of originality, and tired movie. All the characters were utterly rubbish, I mean with the 'space pirates' oh come on, how more whedon can you get?
Then again Fincher had no script and he pulled off a far better movie, so I think blame must go to the director too. I'm not letting either off the hook, but i think scriptingm characters and plot are the worst things in Alien 4, and they all were whedon's responsibility, and quite clearly have his trade mark inadequcies.

Feel free to let him off the hook if you so desire and shift the blame, but I can't. Its quite clear to me, even on shallow viewing, where the wheedism in the movie lies.

I would be very much interested in him trying something different, he has yet to stray more than an inch from his templates though, and to be honest, I don't think they get any more appealing with repition, quite the opposite.

[maxpayne2409]

you forgot his best 2 storys "It!" and "The Langoliers", a rare instance of good book and even better 2 part mini series, dreamcatcher was so rubbish i actually took the cd out of my drive once i had watched it and simply snapped it in half in pure disgust

[spudthedestroyer]

oh and i'm sure we can do the alien thing to death, but as a director he works very visually and uniquely. I don't think it was a mistake to give him alien, I think it was a mistake not to give him a far more brutal horror script, he's yet to do something other than 'light content' and humour, and I think if he stretched himself to do a horror the results could be exceptional. Instead he had a weak script and a poorly thought out action movie (he calls it a comedy )

RIdley Scott mentioned again recently that he's in talks for directing Alien 5. I;ve not thought as much of his new films as his old ones so don't know what to think. I'd like Chris Cunningham to do one, he should have done alien 4 and he's not new to the franchise:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0192260/

He has yet to direct anything but music videos and shorts, which is a crying shame and I'd love to see him given the opportinity. Its the same background fincher had actually, except of course he didn't already work on 2 alien films.

[dinky]

lol poor max.

first of all, the director is usually most responsible for the movie. that said, I prefer a good script and incompetent direction (clerks) to vice versa (iunno - anything by michael bay?). that said(again), I'm not so much letting joss off the hook, but look at children then watch a4 immediately after. same dull green tint. same fecking actors. I guess what I meant to say is I didn't realize how thoroughly jeunet had shat all over the movie as well.

(btw: from what I'm able to gather, sigourney weaver took control of the movie as soon as she got on board, but that's just hear say, and I can't even remember where I read it)

[spudthedestroyer]

Langoliers, I liked it but only because it was so bad... i liked it in my insomniac days because it was droll and lasted for ages.

Wanted to punch that blind kid.

Someone mentioned something about flying penis' and underaged sex in the novel of IT... have you read it max? It sounds completely different to the movie, and the movie/series was heavily censored / changed.

[dinky]

@cunningham: ew.

whatcha think of rob zombie. I mean, you want gratuitousness, eh?

now scott is</s> becoming a tired routine. and this comes from a person who did like gladiator</i>.

I don't really care who directs A5 though. I care much more about AvP, and that got fuct so much more horrendously than the Alien</i> series that there isn't even a comparison.

[maxpayne2409]

lol poor max

lol why poor me? only thing bad it meant i wasted a cd and 2hours on it

[dinky]

yep. s'all. ok. we're posting a fecking irc chat here. I'm off.

[spudthedestroyer]

(btw: from what I'm able to gather, sigourney weaver took control of the movie as soon as she got on board, but that's just hear say, and I can't even remember where I read it)

I saw that too, ridley or cameron mentions she wanted to have sex with the alien. James Cameron said... "no I feel strong you need to..." and Fincher said "eer no" Looks like fox wanted her back bad. I don't think there was much more control she had, except over ripley and that doesn't really explain the big flaws in all the other characters, the setting and the plot. Does explain the shitness of her character for the most part.

IMO she died in alien 3, she should not have come back, that was the biggest mistake, I think Weaver even says this in the documentry for alien 4 (which is extremely poor, its a long promo ), or actually i think its more likely it was alien 3 about her dying. Either way she says very clearly it would have been better off without her, there wasn't much more to do with her character and i think that hits the nail on the head.

ps. nearly forgot, the most annoying thing in alien 4 is that stupid android btich... winge, winge, winge... what's the point of her other thatn to rip off ash and bishop in a fumbling, degrading way? I hate Winona Ryder, i hate her character, and i hate everything she says

[dinky]

ps. nearly forgot, the most annoying thing in alien 4 is that stupid android btich... winge, winge, winge... what's the point of her other thatn to rip off ash and bishop in a fumbling, degrading way? I hate Winona Ryder, i hate her character, and i hate everything she says

nah. it's a given that there's an android in these things now (especially if you think the guy in a3 is a toaster). I think she's cute. the role was silly. and she was a poor casting choice. I don't have any problem with the general conceit of the android though. I mean...bishop was just there because there was an ash, right? and then they made an obvious change where he's the hero now instead of the villain. similar gimmick in a4 with the now free, sentient android fugitives. didn't work. but not something to really blame them for trying.

what bothered me was how incredibly dumb, stupid, corny, and not even remotely scary the alien hybrid was, its existence in the first place, and the pregnant alien queen (in that order). those moments were just incredibly stupid to me. although not quite as stupid, mind you, as the premise for AvP, which just doesn't make any kind of sense in the alien mythology whatsoever (still get a rise when the preds 'n' aliens toe-to-toe for about 2 mins though).

[dinky]

brotherhood of the wolf</i>
as good as I remembered it. also half an hour longer.

[maxpayne2409]

whatcha think of rob zombie

god i hate rob zombie, i used to think he was slightly ok but now i jsut really really hate him, he should fade into obscurity because hes a dick, who makes crap songs and worse movies

[dinky]

heh. I think white zombie had some killer riffs, actually.

anyway...just watched superman</i> (1978). starts rather well. dated but well. obvious set-up for s2. but what a terrible fucking movie. everything with christopher reeve in it is just so hopelessly bad. from the ridiculous poem in lois lane's mind to the nose pinching glasses. to the utter destruction of lex luthor's character (including the ridiculousness of his nefarious plot and the jim carey-like way he was portrayed), and to cap it all off...the fecking reverse the spin of the earth thing. my gawd! sorry folks: daredevil, hulk, and maybe even punisher were better movies than this shlock. although it still far ahead of catwoman, elektra and the village.