BURN, Hollywood, BURN!!!!!!!!!!

The BBQ Pit
1

A few random minor complaints pertaining to the motion picture industry:

  1. I absolutely cannot fucking stand movies shot with shaky handheld cameras. Any Hollywood director that tries to pass off a film shot with a handheld camera should be shot. With a gun, not a camera that is. I mean is this a big budget movie . . .or “Cops”???

Whether it’s “Traffic”, “Dancer in the Dark”, “Blair Witch”, or “Best of Show”, it’s a minor league directing technique.

I don’t care that it is because the director wants to make it look like he’s shooting a “documentary”, or that it’s “art”- it is so fucking annoying that before I go see any movie, I actually do research on the Net to make sure the movie is not shot this way.

Unfortunately I forgot to do this with “Dancer”. After 12 minutes of Bjork shaking all over my TV screen, I shut down the tape. I’m not sure which was more ridiculous . .trying to watch this amateur hour slop or watching the lead singer of the Sugarcubes in her swan dress at the Academy Awards.

How can anyone STAND this shit? Your sitting in the theater trying to get into the movie . . .and into the scene. .and the friggin’ camera keeps moving around!!! I’m sorry I missed the disclaimer telling me to pop four Dramamines before going to see your turkey!

It’s been done for years, but some reason it seems an awful lot of movie directors do this right now. This is the biggest bullshit trend to hit Hollywood in years. Imagine you are a producer who shelled out $50 million so Steven Soderbergh could make “Traffic”, thinking he’s going to shoot a well-directed action movie, then he presents you with this garbage!!!

I can get my camcorder too, Steven, and shoot a few local actors, and put out about as good a movie as you, you fraud! I mean, you shot “Erin Brockovich” normally, why couldn’t you do the same here??? Unfortunately for me, I don’t have Michael Douglas, a reputation, and a million dollar ad and hype campaign behind me.

The fact that this Ahole won a “Best Director” Oscar for this disaster is the biggest joke in years, and is proof that no one in the movie business has the balls to stand up to the industry and point out what true garbage this is.

Stevie, I have three words for you: TRIPOD.

  1. Isn’t it enough that I have to pay $7.50 for your crummy handheld home movie and $2.50 for a bottle of water . . . then, before the movie starts you STILL have the nerve to show . . .COMMERCIALS??? If I see that stupid stunt man wrestling that alligator in that Coke commercial one more time, I’m going to puke up my Milk Duds!!! Where does it end? When will you stop raping your audience?

And I don’t care if it’s the movie theater or the movie company that is behind this . . .either way IT MUST END.

  1. Is it POSSIBLE to show a trailer to a movie . . .withOUT showing me the entire plotline of the entire fucking film???

First they show a trailer for “Glitter”, which looks like a piece of shit movie anyway with that annoying Mariah Carey. She is an unknown singer; gets discovered; falls in love with the guy that discovers her; a big record producer moves in and tries to steal her away; gee, will this affect their love affair??? Hey, at least the movie makes did one good thing: the trailer convinced me to stay far, far away from this garbage!!!

Then they show a promo for a kids movie “Tommy Neutron: Boy Genius” or something like that. Tommy is a boy genius geek who gets picked on by all the kids. Aliens come. Aliens steal parents. Said geekboy gets all the other little snot nosed brats to join him against the aliens. Gee, I wonder who wins at the end???

Between the commercials and the six fucking trailers ruining the plot to every bad movie coming out in the next eight months. . .well okay, 99% of the filth being produced by Hollywood has NO plot anyway . . . these movie theaters should get sued for false advertising.

In the newspaper it sez the movie time is 7:00 . . .and the credits don’t start rolling until 7:20??? You know, I DO have to get to bed by 12.

  1. Is it POSSIBLE anyone in the movie industry can build a promotional website … . withOUT 50 godammned intros??? Gee, I’m sorry if I’m just trying to find out who was in charge or art direction, and NOT try and figure out which of the thirty flashing images on your site gets me there!!! The reason I go on the Net is to get information QUICKLY. . not to be wowed for 15 minutes by the Flash 4.0 on your crummy site that is freezing up my browser.

Hey, Soderbergh, maybe if you spent ½ the time on your camera skills as your webmaster did on your website, I might have been able to watch “Traffic” without tasting my half-digested popcorn twice in three hours!

Burn . . burn . . BURN, HOLLYWOOD, BURN!!!

2

You need to settle your nerves with some classic cinematic masterpieces, like Citizen Kane, or possibly Ishtar

3

Blair Witch wasn’t a big budget movie, IIRC, it was originally a student film. It wasn’t “directed” in the typical sense of the word either, they gave the actors instructions about the basic plot structure each day in the movie. The actors filmed the movie and improvised all the dialogue.
Since it was supposed to be “rediscovered footage,” it would have looked pretty stupid if it was filmed with steady movie studio cameras, and they probably couldn’t have afforded them anyway. Besides, they ran a lot of commercials showing clips from the movie. Surely you saw one of them, right?

Best Picture - Titanic
'Nuff said.

Three?

Not all theaters care if you bring in outside food. The one I worked at didn’t.

SPOILER WARNING for 99.5% of all movies ever made
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The hero(es) win.

Movie theaters advertise?

The start time is when the previews start. This may be because usually many people are still showing up to see the film fifteen minutes after it’s listed start time. Or it may be something else. I don’t know.

Not many movies are four hours long. If those ten minutes are so important to you, show up at 7 for the 6:50 show. It probably won’t have started yet, and you’ll miss most of the previews you hate so much.

You might want to try the IMDB.

4

As a professional camera operator, I could get all huffy-puffy about this O.P. But, ya know what? Shaky-Cam is bullshit 90% of the time, I totally agree with you there. Now, the careful and artistic use of Steadicam, OTOH… :slight_smile:

More titles with very little camera movement in them:

  1. Picnic At Hanging Rock
  2. Woodstock :smiley:
  3. Lawrence of Arabia
  4. The Graduate
  5. The Sixth Sense
  6. Under The Volcano
  7. National Lampoon’s Vacation, known locally as iampuhna’s Vacation :wink:
  8. Behind The Green Door
  9. Sense and Sensibility
  10. Jaws <snicker>

And, IMHO, Citizen Kane shows some of the most innovative camera movement attempted to that point in cinematic history, frequently combined with opticals. For example, the opening sequence which is a matte painting/crane shot/dissolve. Greg Toland, A.S.C. was brilliant in his use of crane shots, low angle shots and extreme deep focus. Just cause it was shot decades ago, doesn’t mean it didn’t have movement.

Eve, where are you when I need you ???

Cartooniverse

5

Because, after all, a commercial establishment trying to sell you stuff is directly comparable to a brutal and dehumanizing sexual assault.

6

First, matt- my dictionary gives this alternate definition of “rape”
"Abusive or improper treatment; violation: a rape of justice. "

I believe that’s the context meant by the OP.

Second, kudos to the OP for using the term “Ahole”, which never ceases to crack me up. I always think of that scene in Risky Business where Guido says “Ahole? Ahole???”

Third, I agree with the shaky camera bitch and the entire plotline previews. Why didn’t I see Castaway? Because the movie trailer showed him GETTING OFF THE FUCKING ISLAND!! After that it was clear that he would return home, his wife would be screwing someone else, same old shit. Why would they show that in the preview??

Zette

7

They didn’t need to jiggle the camera in this movie for there to be jiggles on the screen :smiley:

8

Items 2, 3, and 4, fine.

item 1: Just because you find it difficult to watch doesn’t mean it is garbage. You may dislike it, but that’s simply your preference, not a proclamation of the meaning of real art.

stoid

9

To answer the popcorn question: because it’s the only thing between the theater and bankruptcy.

Seriously. Read http://moviegeek.homestead.com/files/featdeal.htm for the details.

10

Just a clarification: Movie trailers are now and always have been considered part of the “show.” Your local listings tell you what the showtimes are. Ergo, if you show up at the listed showtime, you will see trailers. Fifty or sixty years ago, you would have seen them after the feature (hence “trailer”). But before the feature, you would have seen a couple of cartoons, a newsreel, and maybe a short or two.

And as far as the “Best Director” Oscar, it encompasses a lot more than just camerawork. (That’s why there are cinematography awards.) Implicit in the award is acknowledement of not only camera use and placement, but how well the director used his cast, his writers, his editors, etc., to tell the story he was telling. In contrast to the by-the-numbers approach of Ridley Scott in Gladiator, Soderbergh handled a complicated story with more than 100 speaking parts and filmed it in a way which utilized interesting production design both to distinguish between interiors and exteriors and to give a sense of place to each component of the story.

As far as handheld camera work, I just saw Traffic recently and I don’t remember it being bogged down with handheld. Soderbergh always uses a variety of camera options (check out The Limey for some very interesting work). Maybe I’m used to seeing handheld work, so it was just transparent to me, but it doesn’t bug me unless it takes me out of the story. It often serves a very specific artistic purpose, e.g. the POV shot when Dave Bowman re-enters the Discovery in 2001, or the rape scene in Frenzy.

11

I partly concur with the OP, and will add the crowning jewel to any list of hand-held atrocities:

The Claim, just out on video, has to be the most annoying use of hand-held to ever come down the pike. The images jump around (there’s the actor, no, whoops, he’s gone again, wait, there he is), and the film (though it doesn’t deserve so dignified a title) is riddled with MTV-style quick-cuts. Swear to God, it was like watching The Real World: Sierra Nevada.

I can understand why Soderbergh used the technique in Traffic; he wanted to convey a documentary feel to the film. And it works there (for me, anyway). I like Traffic. For similar reasons, I don’t have a problem with use of the documentary-esque style of Best In Show. But Goddammit, nobody was making documentaries in 1870, and the use of the hand-held in The Claim doesn’t make any sense. Who was the Ahole who came up with the big idea to use the hand-held in a western??? (That last bit was for you, Zette.)

12

Ever see Angel Eyes? The most the trailers gave you was that something was weird with the guy she falls for. I was expecting he was a ghost or something, but its just a regular love story. And it wasn’t that good, but it didn’t suck monkey monkey smegma, either.

13

Handheld, steadicam, or tripod, I’m still waiting for cinematographers to realize that you can’t pan across a scene faster than a certain rate or you get “strobing.” It’s hideously annoying, it destroys the cinematic illusion, and every second-rate film student should know the effect and how to avoid it.

14

You are correct here, once it was picked up by the big studio (don’t recall offhand which one) for distribution.

On a side note, I am prolly one of the only people in the world who actually like watching this film over and over. I still get the creepy crawlies watching it.

15

I gotta confess, Cartooniverse, I have no idea what that means:) Want to explain?

Oh, and to the OP: tastes differ, dude. Some of us like the different feel that a hand-held camera (or a shot that produces that effect) gives, so long as it’s used properly:)

16

Do what I do. Get an evening job so you can go to early matinees in the middle of the week. Tickets are about half price, there are no lines, theatres are almost empty, and you can show up 20 minutes late so you miss the previews and ads and still get a good seat.

17

You should amend that to read “in America.” This is why I have a newfound respect for foreign films. In Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the hero dies.

Esprix

18

God DAMMIT, I haven’t seen that movie yet, and now you screwed it for me. Thanks one hell of a lot, you jerk. Put a specific SPOILER warning up for chrissakes!!

19

Macbeth as well. :wink:

I do wish people still did tragedy. Or rather, got to spend the sort of money on it that a Bruckheimer/Bay piece of crap can get. Imagine a good movie getting Pearl Harbor’s special effects. And by tragedy, I don’t mean something like Titanic, where, yeah, Leonardo Di Caprio dies, but it’s due to events outside his control. I would like to see a movie where we see the hero done in because of a certain character flaw (hamartia) despite being overall a decent and sympathetic character, following the classical formula. It is truly a deserving artform that has gone underappreciated for a while now.

As for the issues the OP raises, I say feh. Soderbergh, the Academy, most critics, and the millions who enjoyed Traffic are probably right, or at least are going to get their way.

Personally, I prefer movies to look like movies, as opposed to seeing the scene through someone’s eyes. While I liked it, the opening of Saving Private Ryan was not the way I would have done it. I would have rather seen the power of the scene interpreted through a movie camera than through Tom Hanks’s view. But that’s just personal opinion, and I’m certainly not going to demand that Spielberg change his artistic vision to suit my tastes.

As for advertisements, I agree that they’re a nuissance, but I view it as part of the cost of seeing a movie. I figure it’s better than charging more, and less disruptive of the movie experience than blatant product placement (I predict that James Bond films will eventually be possible to be entirely underwritten by advertisers, though the quality will probably decrease).

And when it comes to inflated prices at the concession, I simply don’t pay them (except sometimes soda, if I can get free refills). I appreciate those who do, as they keep the theater in the black without costing me anything. Much better than making us all pay $12 per ticket.

I’m going to go even farther. People who complain about food at movie theaters costing too much piss me off. I can understand complaining about being overcharged for things that might possibly be considered partially necessary. I generally disagree, but I can understand. However, when people whine that a goddam box of Milk Duds or Junior Mints cost $5 or whatever if they buy it at a movie theater, it sounds to me like “gimme! I want! mine!” Grow the fuck up. It’s not yours, and you have no moral right to demand cheap junk food while you watch a movie. Rolls Royce’s are overpriced as well. You don’t need one, so don’t buy one. How can this possibly be a difficult concept?

Fucking crybabies.

20

Soderbergh deserved the Oscar for Traffic, simply because he had all those people convinced that it was a great movie! :rolleyes: Seriously, that movie blew dino chunks. It was probably the most overtly racist movie to come out of Hollywood in years! (No, I haven’t been smoking crack. Stop and think about it, 90% of the minorities were presented as being involved in the drug trade. Then there was the “horror” of the Drug Czar nominee’s daughter being “ravished” by the African-American drug lord.) I could go on for hours about how shitty that movie was, and how incorrect it depected things. (Oh, don’t tell me that the Feds wouldn’t have Zeta-Jones’s cell phone tapped! When she said, “Shoot him!” that pretty much would have sealed her fate.)

Yeah, Gladiator was a by-the-numbers movie, but seeing as how most of Hollyshit’s productions these days can’t even get one of those right, it was pretty damn good.