Last Movie Watched

[Damien]

But he says it is part of series, so who knows how things work together. I have found the films so far to be average but also think it is too early to write them off if in fact it is building to something.

Again, though, a bad movie is a bad movie. If the complaints about Avatar were that it was confusing or was missing certain character motivations or something -- there is an argument that you need to look at the whole before judging because you -can- retroactively explain that stuff, or otherwise do things to mitigate the issue.
But that's not the problem here. Avatar isn't bad because it lacks some context that could be added in a final film. The best ending in the universe won't make Avatar a good movie. I can't think of a single other film franchise where a bad first film is -made good- by a better final film.

I think you can make a good Hobbit adaptation, or a good prequel about the time leading up to LotR from the appendices, but I think trying to do both tonally does not work. I agree there were other problems with the films - I genuinely dislike them and felt they were disappointing to say the least - but I think it was kneecapped from the start by the decision of how to approach it

I would push back on that and say it wasn't kneecapped by the decision, but it was -complicated- by that decision for sure. That's more to my own point; The Hobbit was a difficult project. And PJ, on his own, was just not up for it. Contrast that with LotR - a book that the creator himself and basically every writer/director ever had said was basically impossible to adapt. No way on earth anyone can argue that was not a difficult project. But PJ did it. Look around him at who was there for LotR that wasn't there for The Hobbit and it makes a lot more sense why The Hobbit turned out like it did.

I think PJ deserves a ton of credit for LotR. The problem is that he gets too much of the credit and because of that, he has managed to escape a lot of the blame for The Hobbit. "He made X, so Y couldn't possibly be his fault." And people making that argument ignore all the inane bullshit PJ did or tried to do in LotR. It takes a team and his team deserves way more credit than they'll ever get.

I just find it to be a narrative that went from being "lots of great people made Star Wars happen and Lucas needed them" to "Lucas was always a hack and got lucky and shouldn't get any credit". Not saying that is what was the basis of the comments here but you do see that in the fandom.

I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. That is to say, Lucas wasn't a hack deserving of no credit, but also it goes a lot deeper than just 'it was a team effort.' Because Lucas is legitimately bad at a lot of things, as evidenced by the prequels. And the OT would absolutely have been a lot worse, possibly bad enough for the prequels to not even exist, if Lucas had been left to his own devices there.

I liked them when released and still like them...not perfect but neither were the OT films.

I'm not making perfect the enemy of good. The OT films are good, but had a lot of issues. I've talked about them a lot myself, because I think the OT is overly coddled by fans. But the PT is fucking -terrible- on virtually every level. Its only strengths are the visuals (for the time), the score (c'mon, right?) and -most- of the casting*. The story is bad. It's just bad. I don't think anyone wants to read it, but I can go on for pages about how asinine the entire PT story actually is. It's nonsense followed by nonsense. I've said many times that the PT only works if every character involved in this story wants Anakin to turn to the dark side. Anakin becomes Vader because he's supposed to. And every character acts in just such a way to ensure it happens.
The dialogue is fucking terrible. The character motivations are terrible. The characters themselves are often incredibly stupid because the plot needs them to be. Midichlorians are easily the worst thing to happen to Star Wars (it's fucking Eugenics, by the way).

*The most obvious problem with the casting being directly chosen by Lucas

And to be clear; it's not a matter of -taste-. I don't care about that. I genuinely like a lot of shitty movies. I'm fine with it. I don't feel the need to defend a bad movie as a good movie just becasue I like it. Nor do I feel the need to say a movie is bad because I don't like it. In this case, I will argue with my dying breath that the PT is just -bad-. And it's entirely the fault of George Lucas because he wrote it all and directed it. And all the people involved in the OT weren't there to smack his stupid face and tell him to stop doing things like having a woman fuck the kid she used to babysit when he was a small child and she was a teenager. Because to any sane person, that is gross.

 

[AceofKnaves]

That said, Lucas's strong suits are not writing or directing, and pretty much everyone who has worked with him will confirm that. Saying the film was saved in the edit isn't taking away what he did do, it's saying he couldn't land that plane on his own, and I do believe that.

Well stated.

 

[Chooch555]

I saw The Running Man today.

Spoiler: Spoilers

It was uneven in tone, plot, and character. At times it was legitimately funny, but not as a catharsis to the drama. Was Ben the angriest person to ever apply or the nicest? Was the story about teaching his daughter that being good is possible in a bad world or venegeance? I think this could have worked well if they picked a direction for each and stuck with it.

One thing for sure coming out of this is that Glen Powell is a movie star. He should get lots of ongoing work as a leading man, but that worked against him here. He's a movie star whether he's dressed as a bum or a priest. Dirt is not believable on him.

 

[Red Ogre]

The family went out tonight and we watched Now You See Me: Now You Don't. The popcorn was really good tonight. Like they had someone new on the machine that wasn't skimping on the the seasoning. I got an orange cream slushie. It threatened to activate my acid reflux, but I think it was a false alarm. The movie was fine.

 

[Chooch555]

@Red Ogre your post makes me think of Elaine in Seinfeld yadda yaddaing her date, but when confronted about it says she talked about the bisque.

 

[TheSameIdiot]

Is it, or is it just another one? It's an object people want, but the film gives basically no thought to it otherwise. That seems just like an example of a McGuffin. I'm sure Tarantino would say it's a commentary because he thinks very highly of his own writing, but in order to be that there has to be a comment made somewhere in the work and I don't see that from Pulp Fiction. Tarantino can make commentary. Inglourious Basterds, Hateful 8 and D'Jango all make commentary on the ideas of how to fight racism and fascism and the notion of justified violence (Quentin is very pro 'justified' violence if we're taking his filmography as his POV).

I think it's commentary because 1) the briefcase emits an unnatural gold light, and 2) Tarantino never bothers to explain it. At the very least, it's played for laughs. That's enough for me to say it's deliberate audience subversion.

I'll have to take your word for it, I guess. I've never been famous and wealthy. But it certainly seems like plenty of famous/wealthy people have still managed to make compelling art.

Some people lose the creative spark. It's particularly evident with musicians. I know I'd be perfectly happy in my Malibu mansion, not lifting another finger.

One thing for sure coming out of this is that Glen Powell is a movie star.

People keep saying this. What does that mean these days? He's charismatic? He puts asses in seats? There's very little evidence of the latter. The Running Man made $28 million on a $110 million budget. Given the audience reception, it won't make its money back.

 

[Chooch555]

He's a movie star in that he doesn't blend in to his roles. He shines bright as anything, but is lovable doing it.