God, don’t get defensive…
As portrayed in the movie, yes. I suppose a better way to say it is the movie didn’t do a very good job in making me feel the war. Other films have done a much better job.
Now who’s being naïve?
I didn’t mean to sound defensive. I thought maybe you’d just missed something.
Event Horizon. I was expecting hard sci-fi, and I got *the Exorcist * cum *Flatliners * in space. To top it off, I took a friend who was in a bit of a rough spot in life to cheer him up. Boy, did that work.
I worked at Barbara’s Bookstore in Chicago when this came out. It was a publishing sensation: the buzz I heard constantly was pretty much in line with the post you graciously object to, VCO3.
When I finally read it I was pretty disappointed. It was good for pseudoliterary pulp, but for me the “pseudo” outweighed the “literary” and even the “pulp”: it read, to me, like an exercise in–almost a parody of–pretension.
Needles to say, mileage varied widely on this one.
You never seen some of the power-tripped high school students in real life.
I came into this thread to post this one. It really pissed me off, because when I saw the wacky comedy trailers, made entirely with scenes from the first fifteen minutes of the film, I thought it was going to be a rather insipid Robin Williams comedy. So I didn’t bother to see it in the theater.
Many years later, I just happened to see it on cable and realized that 1) it’s not a comedy (there are almost no laughs in the last two hours of the movie), 2) it is in fact a rather touching drama about a robot’s quest to become human, and 3) it’s based on a short story by Isaac Asimov, of whom I’ve been a lifelong fan. And it’s a pretty damn good adaptation, too.
So this stupid marketing campaign a) suckered in people looking for a comedy and gave them a drama, and b) failed to attract Asimov fans and others who might have been interested in a serious and thoughtful science fiction film. I suspect the studio cynically calculated that the latter group was smaller than the former, and that a few people might demand a refund on their ticket price, but that otherwise there was little downside in the long run to the bait and switch. Damn them.
That’s what puzzles me about these deceptive marketing campaigns. The people who went in expecting the comedy that was advertised are going to leave spitting and fuming and bad-mouthing the movie left and right. The people who WOULD have liked it based on its actual content, and who presumably would have praised it to all the friends, do not go see it.
It looks like a lose-lose proposition in terms of word-of-mouth advertising, which is frequently described as “all important” in terms of movies’ success.
I can sort of understand deceptive advertising for movies that are in fact stinkers, but why do it with a good movie?
I think you’re making a false assumption here: That studio marketing people can tell the difference between a good movie and a stinkeroo. Given the number of stinkeroos that seem to get made, I’m not sure that they can tell the difference.
Excuse me, how is it possible to be a lifelong fan of Asimov, and NOT know about his story The Bicentennial Man? It’s one of his most famous.
Hmm. :dubious: Well, lets just say that I haven’t seen any *better *films based on an Asimov story.
Yeah, and I even have the book of the same name on my shelf. :smack: What can I say? I’m getting old.
In my defense, I’ll just say that although I consider myself a “lifelong fan” of Asimov, that doesn’t mean I spend every waking minute reading his stuff. I read most of the Asimov stories in my twenties, nearly three decades ago. And I’d mildly challenge the assertion that The Bicentennial Man is all that famous. Now, if it had been called Nightfall or Foundation I would have figured it out almost immediately. (Probably.)
Well, I liked it. But maybe I should have said that it was a pretty accurate adaptation. I re-read the story after seeing the film and thought it captured the spirit and tone of the story. (Or at least that’s how I recall it now, several years later.)
Speaking of bait and switch, there was a recent film called I, Robot that I thought would be based on the Asimov stories, but AFAICT it bore absolutely no relation to them at all. Well, there was a character named Susan Calvert, but she was played by a hot young supermodel who was nothing at all like the dowdy, middle-aged character written by Asmiov. So I suppose it was just a coincidence.
*Blair Witch Project * is still, hands-down, the worst film for whatever reason you want to debate except “Waste of time and money” or “Film that made me most want to kick somebody’s ass”.
Then of course, it wins.
Yeah, but the only people who can really complain of “Blair Witch Project” as being a bait and switch were the folks who bought the notion that an actual supernatural phenomenon was involved, and I somehow doubt that you were one of them, Gatopescado.
In fact, I’ll defend Blair Witch as being scarier because of its goofy, student-film nature. The film was advertised as being the actual images recorded by film students goofing around in the backwoods who caught hold of something they couldn’t handle. It’s goofy, student-film quality actually ADDED to its authenticity and made it scarier. A slicker film have immediately given itself away because of its very slickness. Blair Witch did look kinda like what you’d expect of a bunch of film students stumbling around the backwoods in search of a story, adding to the authenticity of the story. A nice, subtle touch, that.
You didn’t find Election funny? I found it hilarious. Dark comedy, sure, but one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen.
I did hate high school, though. Hmm…that could have something to do with it.
There is a new Ben Stiller movie coming out where he goes to his ex-gal’s wedding and realizes he needs to settle down, so he decides to get married.
Now, I swear I’ve seen two very different previews for this movie. The first version, Stiller is afraid of commitment, but meets that very special someone who makes him change his tune by the end of the movie. Based on this information, I decided the movie would suck, and hoped someone would get fired over it.
The second preview, on the other hand, makes it look like old Ben is sad about his ex getting hitched, and quickly meets and marries some other gal all in the first act. Then, they go down to Mexico, and he realizes she’s crazy, and all sorts of funny hijinx go down. So, at first, the movie looked like Sweet Home Alabama, now it’s more Something About Mary.
Zoggie:
Maybe. Maybe it would have been funnier to me if I’d been in a high school environment like that. All I saw in the movie was the dramatic elements. Not at all a bad story about the price of obsession, but darned if I actually laughed at all.
I do generally find dark comedy funny. Death to Smoochy. for example, was hilarious. Maybe Election was one of those “you had to be there” things.
Thats the nicest thing anybody’s ever said to me. :teary eye:
Well, I got sucked in by some fake “documentary” long before the film came out about the whole legend. (It was actually pretty entertaining!) They went into the whole origin of the legend and the meaning of the “signs” and why the kids vanished and why they ended up standing in the corner. It wa some good, mindless TV watchin’! I knew it was BS from the get-go, but the half-hour show on cable was compelling and made you think you were going to see some neat, fake, scary shit when you shelled out the cash at the theater. Instead, you got an hour and a half of shakey camcorder footage. Of nothing. Worse than a cousin’s home movies of a trip to Branson.
The whole experience left me with the distinct impression of being duped, totally and utterly. (And that is what really steams me!) The visitation to the theater was mearly a way of collecting money. And maybe sucking a little bit extra out of us for popcorn or watery Coke. Zero payoff. Like the old museum at Niagra Falls, you can come in and look for free, but you gotta pay to get out!
I swear I could hear people laughing in the projection room. Dammit! I still want my money back!
I remember they had an awful remake of Pinocchio when Jonathan Taylor Thomas was the Tiger Beat guy du jour. He was the headliner…and had probably at MOST 3 minutes of screen time as he appeared only when Pinocchio became a “real boy.”
…or so my dad lamented after coming home from it with my sister.
JLH movie, huh? I’ve rented a lot of them and they can be disappointing, especially if Jennifer Love Hewitt is actually in the movie. I find her attractive in that girl-that-will-never-go-out-with-me-and-that-makes-me-want-her-more way. What makes it even worseis she knows shes attractive.
It did deliver Very Bad Things however.