Spotlight.
In Cabin in the Woods, I’d get rid of the scene showing the eagle crashing into the (Forcefield? Hologram?) at the beginning of the movie. It would make the Athlete’s demise more, umm… impactful later on.
Kirk Douglas was perfect as McMurphy on Broadway in 1962, but he had aged out of the role by 1975.
I had seen an off-Broadway version of the play circa 1971. I don’t recall who play McMurphy (no one now famous, I don’t think), but he was more to the description given than Nicholson was a few years later.
Added – It looks as if it might have been William Devane, who IS sorta famous. I also see that Danny Devito was in it, too, although I don’t recall him. He later played the same part in the Nicholson film.
Wikipedia mentions, “the play has had two revivals: first off-Broadway in 1971, directed by Lee Sankowich with Danny DeVito as Martini and William Devane as McMurphy.” So possibly William Devane?
Scenes often are cut for time.
You wrote this while I was adding my extra note, so it’s not as if I’m not acknowledging you. Our info seems to corroborate each other. (I looked it up on off-Broadway databases and the Wikipedia page on Devane).
The very last line of Miracle on 34th Street (1947) has always bothered me; the way the line is delivered, along with John Payne’s expression, says (to me) I single-handedly released Godzilla on an unsuspecting NYC, instead of being a self deprecating Shit! I did nothing; Kringle staged the whole thing! He didn’t need my help! Or something like that.
I quite like Cloud Atlas, but it could use some merciless excision in several of the lengthy action sequences, which interrupt the film with a bunch of superfluous nonsense.
You’re not the only one! i asked:
And ZonexandScout said:
So it’s not just me! Do you think it would have played better if neither Doris nor Fred had said anything and just had big WTF? looks on their faces? Let the audience figure it out. Or not.
That’s always bugged me, too.
I would, first, want to leave the end ambiguous. Like Santa said in Elf, you can’t be shown, you have to believe! Was he the one, true Santa, or not? Well, we may never know.
And I’d make Fred’s line more wonder, not “he released Godzilla on an unsuspecting NY!” (love that!), just leave it something like Fred: “No!” Doris “You don’t think…??” Fred “He can’t be!” and then drop it. The end
Except written by a real screenwriter!
I did say “pretty much” - what actually happens, at the end, a cabinet door opens to reveal the slippers.
Like that scene in Love Actually where Keira Knightley, while watching the wedding tape, delivers about 20 lines of dialog without saying a word?
Lucas’ response to the criticism on this is practically Soviet in style. It looks to me that he was stung by people calling it out as stupid and responded by refusing to concede that there was even an issue. To even acknowledge it, much less FIX it, would give the criticism validity. Maybe someone laughed at it to his face and so it became personal.
Not a specific movie, but:
If your movie is set before modern science and technology,
and you consider it vitally important that a character have blonde hair,
and you cast a dark-haired actor in a blonde wig,
then bleach the eyebrows, dammit!
I haven’t seen that movie, but maybe there’s a YouTube clip of that scene. It’s research time; I’ll keep you posted.
Ahnold’s accent in Conan the Barbarian would have been just fine if any of the other people in his village had had the same accent. Wouln’t have taken a scholar of the works of Nietche to figure that out, either.
Since others have mentioned Back to the Future, one thing that always bugged me was: instead of the whole hook on the car hitting the cable at the exact moment solution, why not just have a reasonably long cable connected directly to the car ? Then the car just needs to be going 88 mph before the time the lightning is going to hit. Removes the whole (unbelievable) timing to have the hook hit the cable at the exact time the lightning hits. (it also bugged me that they only knew the time the lightning would hit down to hours and minutes - no finer granularity. Which of course, the long cable idea totally solves).