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Originally Posted by Gillianren
Personally, I got a great deal out of my childhood viewings of Siskel and Ebert. Not, almost assuredly, for their movie reviews, though they did help me be a more discerning movie-goer, which I didn't and don't think is a bad thing. However, by listening to other people who know more than I about film, I have learned more myself.
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Seriously and sincerely, you should take some film courses at a local college. In addition to them being an absolute joy, they may actually surprise you. Almost every professor I had while earning my degrees(even the dottering one who continually confused Janet and Vivien Leigh) would tell you that, while you can deconstruct IKIRU or OPEN CITY to the Nth degree or argy-bargy over the mise-en-scene in CUL-DE-SAC and have some cerebral fun doing it(and it is!), you can be just as satisfied being blown out of your seat at a spectacle for which the only requirement is to be a simple audience member. They're two halves of the same coin. My definition of a film buff involves very little snobbery. Surely you must have, over those early Sneak Preview years(I'm guesstimating your age), noticed that Gene often felt fondness for films that may not have been AFI listers. Even Roger Ebert has shown a decided soft-spot for sincerity over sophistication in many instances. I followed those guys on to their other shows, Jeffery Lyons and Michael Medved(ugh!) just didn't do it for me. Considering our vastly different takes on film appreciation, I think it's pretty...I don't know...weird...that you and I are most likely the only people in this forum (and perhaps that either of us know at all) who have actually seen MIND WALK.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gillianren
That's a cheap excuse, in my opinion. "Who cares if it's bad, because it looks cool and your inner child would dig it?" Feh. My inner child was bored senseless at the recent King Kong. Yes, it looked cool. Also Adrien Brody isn't hard on the eyes. But there was, as Gertrude Stein said of Oakland, no there there. Also, I have to say, it didn't look all that cool. I was much more impressed by the overhead shots of Tudor London in The Other Boleyn Girl or Imperial Rome in Gladiator than the giant bugs of King Kong. The best visual of that movie, so far as I was concerned, was the beauty of the dawn sky toward the end. And Gone with the Wind had a better one--with no CGI needed. (No, it wasn't a matte painting, either.)
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Well,
"Who cares if it's bad, because it looks cool and your inner child would dig it?"is probably the most cynical way to put it, but yeah...sure. Why not? I guess as jaded as I thought this often grossly ignorant culture had made me, I'm really not as far around the bend as others. I still enjoy a good spectacle. (Which is fortunate in light of the upcoming election season!)
As for effects...TITANIC had every possible advantage in budget and special effects technology, and boy did it look incredible, yet A NIGHT TO REMEMBER trounces it in a number of key aspects; questionable boat models and all. Despite dated and black-comically garish(think Hammer Films with an Ealing twist) gore effects, Vincent Price's THEATER OF BLOOD still casts an inescapable shadow over the what-are-supposed-to-be 'horror films' churned out monthly now. Great effects? Sure. Any soul? Pffft.
I can buy your boredom with the remake of KONG(though not with swooning over Brody). Jackson's film was just too long. He spent much too much time celebrating his affection for the original for most folks to patiently appreciate. While it was interesting to see, only cinema cultists would have lamented the spider pit concept missing again this time around....nevermind the bronto chase. And, more interesting to me, aesthetically, the end of the second act was much more moving and heartrending than the climax at the Empire State Building. GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD suffers similarly, as raising Lazarus from the dead is a tough act for
anyone to follow.
ps STAR WARS was not a 'word-of-mouth' film for anyone I knew as kid.