quote:

Originally posted by mark f:
Ishtar was actually written and directed by Elaine May. I realize it always ranks as a fiasco, but I kinda like it, especially the songs. No, I'm not telling anybody to run out and watch it, and I haven't seen it for years, but I don't think it deserves to have such a horrible reputation. I agree that Bob and Bing did it much better.

Thanks for the correction on directing. Its been a while since I've seen it,and doubt I'll ever see it again.

quote:

Originally posted by Brian:
Oceans 12- very surprisingly average
Stepford Wives- wow that movie was bad
I Heart Huckabees- wow this movie is retarded

Ah! I loved I Heart Huckabees.
Anyway, mine are
*Panic Room - Fincher, Foster
*Intollerable Cruelty - Coen Bros., Clooney

...so I guess the trick is to avoid alliteration in the director and lead actor.

quote:

Brian posted

Oceans 12- very surprisingly average
Stepford Wives- wow that movie was bad
I Heart Huckabees- wow this movie is retarded

Ever since

quote:

The Stepford Wives

(1975) starring Katherine Ross came out, I had been hoping that some day some movie would come out to replace or update or remake it. I went to see the 2004 version starring the well respected actress Nicole Kidman, accompanied by recognized Matthew Broderick, and Christopher Walken, and directed by Frank Oz whose directorial history might not rise to the level intended for this thread as "good" director.

I can't agree with the premise that this movie constitutes worst for the fact that the updated remake signficantly improves on the original standard horror movie. The interplay of power relations in the marriage between Nicole and Matthew are a nice addition to the movie, the underlying entertainment, implicit lighter, comic tone from the original offers its audience a more watchable movie, along with an ending that is more politically correct (perhaps its just the sign of the times - the 70s with its backlash of the feminist movement in decline to today's supposed emancipation of women confirmed in the new century). I enjoyed watching this "worst movie" and believed that the lead actors did a nice, playful job.

quote:

Originally posted by briggsjazzgroup:

Ah! I loved I Heart Huckabees.
Anyway, mine are
*Panic Room - Fincher, Foster
*Intollerable Cruelty - Coen Bros., Clooney

I thought about "Intolerable Cruelty", but I don't think it's a horrible film. It's just not up to the level of most Coen Brothers films, but I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that it's the first film they directed that they didn't also write. There are a few redeeming qualities in the movie though, namely Billy Bob Thorton (who, as always, is a comic genius), and Cedric the Entertainer.

quote:

Originally posted by Brian:
I Heart Huckabees- wow this movie is retarded

*GASP* But--but werent you won over by David O. Russel's crazed direction and--and didn't you smile every time Mark Wahlberg said anything at all---Oh, whats the use even attempting a conversion...


I liked it alot, but I was expecting to LOVE "Bad Santa". It was refreshing, but I really hoped that Zwigoff and Co. wouldn't have stretch the jokes as thin as they had.

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by Brian:
I Heart Huckabees- wow this movie is retarded

EccentricSam posted in response:


*GASP* But--but werent you won over by David O. Russel's crazed direction and--and didn't you smile every time Mark Wahlberg said anything at all---Oh, whats the use even attempting a conversion...


I liked it alot, but I was expecting to LOVE "Bad Santa". It was refreshing, but I really hoped that Zwigoff and Co. wouldn't have stretch the jokes as thin as they had.

Retarded isn't the word for this film but it's cleverness and off the wall quirkiness made for a somewhat uneven and psychologically twisted movie in existentialism. Russell's short directorial history suggests that this movie is another attempt at Flirting with Disaster (1995) and Spanking the Monkey (1994) that I've only read about. It seems that Russell still needs to find a way to provide more control and sense of pacing in this movie unlike is more developed Three Kings (1999) personal military movie.

I did find this movie entertaining, cerebrally cute, and daringly bold enough to try to make a statement. Having a particular interest in existentialism, I could see glimpses of the more metaphysical suggestions implied in the movie making it a more enjoyable experience.

quote:

MJmovieluver88 Posted 01 December 2005 11:53 AM :
i don't know about you, but i was kind of dissapointed by the mediocrity of Stephen Speilbergs "A.I". i didnt hate it, not at all. but it didn't work for me, it was a let-down, i expected more from such a great director and a fairly talanted cast. ( Jude Law, Haley Jole Osment) .

I enjoyed A.I. (2001) and really loved the stark Stanley Kubrick style of photography used in the movie directed by Speilberg. William Hurt's role was on of the more amazing character twists adding to the surrealistic nature of the movie. The fairy ending was gorgeous, a lasting futuristic tribute to children's movies. The blending of light and dark, innocence and sin, love and betrayal are all important symbolic metaphors that were strongly incorporated into the film.

quote:

I enjoyed A.I. (2001) and really loved the stark Stanley Kubrick style of photography used in the movie directed by Speilberg. William Hurt's role was on of the more amazing character twists adding to the surrealistic nature of the movie.

Hmm, if you don't mind my asking, who did william hurt play in AI?

As for the movie, I think it was pretty good. It was origianl and had some good acting, but the tone of the whole movie was pretty melancholy, which probably didn't strike a huge chord with audiences

I can't believe nobody's mentioned Titanic!

William Hurt played the scientist who created the A.I. kid, played by Haley Joel Osment, in the image of his dead son. I think the film is a very good examination of its subject, but it's just TOO COOL to bash Spielberg now.

quote:

Originally posted by Bobthespirit:
I can't believe nobody's mentioned Titanic!

When I think of great actors, DeCaprio usually doesn't come up. I'm pretty lukewarm about Kate Winslet as well (although I really liked her in "Eternal Sunshine..."). And James Cameron is obviously capable of making great films, he just hasn't done it in a while (in my opinion since T2 in '91).

quote:

Bobthespirit Posted 02 December 2005 07:57 PM

I can't believe nobody's mentioned Titanic! Of course, I could be wrong.

and

quote:

briggsjazzgroup posted

When I think of great actors, DeCaprio usually doesn't come up. I'm pretty lukewarm about Kate Winslet as well (although I really liked her in "Eternal Sunshine..."). And James Cameron is obviously capable of making great films, he just hasn't done it in a while (in my opinion since T2 in '91).

I don't think it can be argued well that Titanic (1997) was the most profitable, hugely successful movie of all time, it was a long epic movie about one of the most bewildering contemporary mysteries of our time, along with incorporating the universal love story that capture the imagination of both sexes. Just the titanic undertaking and the big screen melodrama, the sweeping music all contributed to a once in a lifetime event that may never be repeated.

Several assumptions need to made here regarding Bobthespirit's comments - are the director and cast in the movie good? Or is the movie really bad? Or both? briggsjazzgroup's observations implies that its the director and cast that aren't necessarily good and thus the movie regardless of its rating is irrelevant. Making this discussion even more convoluted, when it comes to DeCaprio, can one consider him as a good or bad actor in a moment in time or changing over time, has he become better as in The Aviator (2004).

With all that said, in its microcosm of acting performances Titanic isn't so much about the heightened, elevated performances but the culmination of an assemblage of ensemble scenes, the melodramatic staging of stereotypes, bigger than life experiences brought to the big screen. Interestingly enough, brilliant, Oscar-award winning performances might have actually detracted from this 1997 Best Picture/Director awarded Oscar movie. The movie wasn't so much about the people, but about the play, like Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet that is played hundreds of times a year by thousands of different players, in literally unthinkable approaches and ways.

quote:

Originally posted by tabuno:
The movie wasn't so much about the people, but about the play, like Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet that is played hundreds of times a year by thousands of different players, in literally unthinkable approaches and ways.

Tabuno, I get where you're coming from here, I think there's some truth to it - certainly Titanic is designed to be more about traditional Hollywood stereotypes than it is about any kind of realism, and that old-Hollywood/CGI synthesis did indeed work to its advantage - but please, please, please don't compare it to Romeo And Juliet. I read that and started bleeding from the eye-sockets.

I think Titanic has a couple of quite strong lead performances, and is skilfully and occasionally artfully directed. But the script is... words fail me, as they obviously did Cameron. It's just awful. Yes, it's reminiscent of old-Hollywood - of bad old Hollywood B-pictures that you see at one in the afternoon on a Sunday. But there were old-Hollywood films that used stereotypical characters and were still witty and sad and intelligent and moving; it's not a prerequisite to be so unremittingly cliched.

By comparison, the text of Romeo And Juliet has lasted for hundreds of years because of the layers of emotion and intention, because there are many different ways in which the characters' actions can be interpreted, and because the words are beautiful. Generally, if a cliche pops up in the text, it's because it's the origin of the cliche. However, if in 2300 someone is going to be hankering to recreate the Bill Paxton treasure-hunter character, we might be better off giving it all up now and getting out into the healthy open air and planting geraniums.

And when it comes to the Oscars, I'm as avid a watcher as anybody, but don't forget that they're primarily about money. Titanic won because it made a billion dollars, and nothing warms the heart of Hollywood like a financial success story. Hey, it came out and lots of people went to see it and it made lots of money! Triumph over adversity! Yay! Best Picture! Such decisions have little to do with the quality or otherwise of the film in question. See also: Rocky over Taxi Driver, All The President's Men, Network in 1976; Forrest Gump over Pulp Fiction in 1994; The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King in 2003 (of course, that one was for the trilogy as a whole), and so on and so forth, really all the way back to Gone With The Wind and beyond.

Finally, please: it was a film. It wasn't a "once-in-a-lifetime event"; that was what the publicity said, but it turns out that a once-in-a-lifetime event is, like, your first child being born and stuff like that. Titanic was a film.

When the movie[ B]Titanic[/B] (1997) establishes itself as the biggest box office movie of all time with over $600 million U.S. alone, where it took Star Wars two releases to manage $460 million, there is something about the movie that impacted the average human individual in a way that sends a message of universality that even Romeo and Juliet tapped into hundreds of years ago and still does today. Yes in hundreds of years from now, the media will have changed, whether or not they will still have plays staged is debatable, whether Romeo and Juliet will be created via some direct mind to mind experiences while Titanic is replayed in virtual reality is unknown. I think to compare rock art, to musical Indian rituals around a campfire, to silent movies, to MTV, and video games, what will come out of all the millions of mass media/human experiences is pure speculation. However, something happened when Titanic came out and as to its being a "worst" movie with a good director and cast is far from certainty. Can a bad movie actually bring out the crowds, the females forcing their boyfriends to return again and again to the same movie? The rentals alone from produced nearly a billion dollars. Just like Romeo and Juliet, people who return again and again to the same movie or play, such sustained interest, suggests that the movie and play have tapped into something bigger than just performances, just adventure, there is something universal that moves people and captivates them. It's very difficult for me to believe that Titanic could even be suggested to be a bad or worst movie. How we judge a play, how we judge acting, judge the response by critics or the lay public, something about this movie moves the entire discussion into a different set of evaluation criteria.

quote:

Originally posted by tabuno:
How we judge a play, how we judge acting, judge the response by critics or the lay public, something about this movie moves the entire discussion into a different set of evaluation criteria.

Tabuno, we gotta agree to disagree there, amigo. Bad screenwriting doesn't instantly become good screenwriting because it makes a lot of money - I mean, I'm sure it does to Fox and Paramount, and I think it's terrific that a lot of people enjoyed Titanic, and you are clearly in the majority of folks who did. I know what you're talking about with respect to it being an 'event' - really, I do, I went to the damn thing twice I think - but it doesn't magically transcend elementary film criticism as a result, and the fact remains that the dialogue is awful in that film. The film itself is OK, I think; the attractive lead performances and reasonably sharp direction are enough to keep it moving along.

But attempting to prove the worth of a film by its box-office takings is an enterprise fraught with danger, for a couple of reasons.
(1) The price of tickets goes up every year. Adjusted for inflation, Titanic is in fact the sixth-highest grossing film of all time in the U.S. - not quite as once-in-a-lifetime an experience as you may have previously been led to believe. Above it, in ascending order: The Ten Commandments (1956), E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), The Sound Of Music (1965), Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) and - still way up there at the top like the mack daddy - Gone With The Wind (1939).

(2) More importantly, the quality of a film is not directly proportionate to its box-office takings: the general public are notoriously not that discriminating. Now, you might instantly label me a snob, but if it prevents me from concluding that "Revenge Of The Sith" is this year's best, label me up, buddy. Here are the best films of each of the last ten years, as voted by the U.S. public in the time-honoured fashion of ticket-buying:

2005 Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith (though Harry lurks)
2004 Shrek 2
2003 The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King
2002 Spider-Man
2001 Shrek
2000 Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas
1999 Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace
1998 Saving Private Ryan
1997 Titanic
1996 Independence Day

Hmmm... if these were the best ten films of each of the last ten years, then it'd be back to the geranium field again for all of us, I think; but, of course, they weren't. Not remotely. And why's that? Because big box office does not equal quality.

I think big BO is normally a sign of simplicity; you remove as much complexity from the plot as possible in order to attract as wide an audience as possible, and you don't want anyone to be confused by characters with more than two dimensions. Nothing wrong with a simple movie, but there's nothing magically 'right' about it either. (Kids' films are often simple by necessity, and teenage fantasy/comic-book pictures are normally pretty cut-and-dried in their good-guy/bad-guy assignations, and there you go, all of the films on the list are either one or the other - with the exception of the first half of Saving Private Ryan, and they really had to give that the big sell to get it up there, 'hard news' stories and all.)

You may say "Hey, I don't appreciate being a straw man, let me answer in my own voice," and I can dig it, but in addition to that you might say "well, Titanic's not a kids' film or a teenage fantasy picture". But of course it is; it's a female teenage fantasy picture, which Hollywood normally doesn't do on such a grand scale (being the inherently patriarchal environment that it is). Plus, effects and cool stuff and Kate Winslet topless! Plus, it's Based On Real Life Events! Have we left anybody out? <scans room desperately>

And now, though readily sick of your continuing straw man assignation, you dutifully say "Well, what's wrong with trying to please everybody?" and the answer is: nothing. Nothing at all. But there's nothing right about it either. It doesn't mean that the film couldn't possibly be considered as someone's "worst film with a good cast and director", especially if they felt that the film treated them like idiots - that, through hamfisted writing, the film made too transparent its efforts to provide "something for the girls" and "something for the guys" and "something for Mum and Dad" and ended up being "here, this is the kind of Moment that Your Type likes" - a bombastic exercise in pigeonholing condescension.

That's just a stab in the dark, of course. I thought it was OK.

My worst films with a good director and cast are "Pret A Porter", "A.I." and "Mystic River". Fire away!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: maxwelledison,

quote:

maxwelledison posted by:

My worst films with a good director and cast are "Pret A Porter", "A.I." and "Mystic River". Fire away!

Could you do me a favor and do what you did for Titanic and do one for A.I. that I thought was georgeously directed and retained Kubrick's sharp, clear camera style, along with a surrealistic Speilberg slant.

There was something off about Mystic River after I watched it this past summer after holding off watching it just because I didn't see what the fuss was all about. I still don't. I didn't feel all that impressed and I didn't get involved with the characters or the plot as many have.

quote:

Originally posted by tabuno:

Could you do me a favor and do what you did for Titanic and do one for A.I. that I thought was georgeously directed and retained Kubrick's sharp, clear camera style, along with a surrealistic Speilberg slant.

Hehe... actually, of those three, I hesitated about putting A.I. on the most, partly because it's one good director 'doing' another good director and so kinda stands outside the Spielberg oeuvre. It is beautifully shot, certainly, and the performances are good. I just didn't believe it. I didn't believe that Frances O'Connor's character would be so variable in her affections, and given that that's really what sets the whole thing off, I couldn't get on board with it.

SPOILER I understand why the film says her affection for the robot is 'disposable' to her when her real child's back, really, I get it intellectually, I just didn't believe it emotionally. I guess you could say that's a problem with the acting, but I thought it was too implausible in the first place, and so kind of unplayable. In a film which is largely about the notion of belonging and being loved, I thought it rigged the deck at the outset.

And yeah, I thought Mystic River was like a bad 1970s telemovie. Incredibly overrated, and though the cast has done excellent work, it wasn't in that film - Penn and Robbins in particular were guilty of Acting, and Bacon just makes me laugh most of the time. And it sure was a good Old-Fashioned Film, wasn't it - women are so evil! They either sell you out or they're the cold hard power behind the throne! Thanks, Clint!

quote:

maxwelledison posted:

Hehe... actually, of those three, I hesitated about putting A.I. on the most, partly because it's one good director 'doing' another good director and so kinda stands outside the Spielberg oeuvre. It is beautifully shot, certainly, and the performances are good. I just didn't believe it. I didn't believe that Frances O'Connor's character would be so variable in her affections, and given that that's really what sets the whole thing off, I couldn't get on board with it.

SPOILER I understand why the film says her affection for the robot is 'disposable' to her when her real child's back, really, I get it intellectually, I just didn't believe it emotionally. I guess you could say that's a problem with the acting, but I thought it was too implausible in the first place, and so kind of unplayable. In a film which is largely about the notion of belonging and being loved, I thought it rigged the deck at the outset.

And yeah, I thought Mystic River was like a bad 1970s telemovie. Incredibly overrated, and though the cast has done excellent work, it wasn't in that film - Penn and Robbins in particular were guilty of Acting, and Bacon just makes me laugh most of the time. And it sure was a good Old-Fashioned Film, wasn't it - women are so evil! They either sell you out or they're the cold hard power behind the throne! Thanks, Clint!

Just wanted to let you know that your post was duly noted and that, in brief, you hit your points well and that there's really is not anything I could really attempt to dispute, though with A.I. your subjective disbelief in this "one" point seems to be similar to my "one" point regarding Gladiator and the poor articial specical effect of the tiger in the coliseum in the trailer that spoiled a lot of the rest of the movie for me even before I had seen the movie.