[QUOTE=Frylock]
Is it okay if I think the first three (maybe four or five but definitely three) Xanth books are decent fun, though the rest are just silly and bad?
[/QUOTE]
No, I agree with you. Not great literature, by any measure, but they were fun and decent. I think he really started going downhill with them FAST when he started using the last few pages of the books for crediting readers who sent in the puns he used.
I once started a thread in the Pit about how I had no interest in the current crop of animated flicks (Finding Nemo, Shrek, etc.) and was roundly denounced. I compounded my heresy by saying that I had no interest in movies/shows about the mob (Godfather, Sopranos, etc.), which earned me a declaration that I had no right to enter a movie theater or watch any more movies at all. 
(I later saw a couple of animated flicks – under social pressure – did my best to watch them with an open mind, and found little to revise my original opinion. The jokes were all deriviative and not particularly funny, and that style of animation does nothing for me aesthetically. Wallace & Gromit, however, crack me right up.)
Sometimes, when Mr. S and I can’t decide where to dine, we go to Applebee’s or Olive Garden as our fallback. Hey, they have predictable food, good service, and plenty of booze. Kind of a sure thing.
I once rented Withnail and I because of the rave reviews it was getting on this board. I like Richard E. Grant, but we shut this one off after about half an hour. The characters did not engage us at all.
[QUOTE=Scarlett67]
I once rented Withnail and I because of the rave reviews it was getting on this board. I like Richard E. Grant, but we shut this one off after about half an hour. The characters did not engage us at all.
[/QUOTE]
Too bad. If you shut it off after only half an hour, you didn’t get to the really funny and interesting stuff. You just got the setup.
[QUOTE=Derleth]
Here’s something I bet a lot of Dopers think, but won’t admit: If cradle-to-grave medical care were instituted, with no exceptions, I would stop working and live off the government.
[/QUOTE]
How would one pay the rent, eat, get clothing, and so forth? 
They make more WWII films because WWII has clear and definate bad guys and good guys. You can demonize “Nazis and Japs” all you want, they were Evil.
In WWI, the Germans weren’t really evil.
[QUOTE=DrDeth]
How would one pay the rent, eat, get clothing, and so forth?
[/QUOTE]
Some people have enough money to live on were it not for unforeseeable future medical expenses, so they have to work to save up for those and to get employer’s medical insurance.
I think the SDMB consensus is that Tolkein is a bad writer, rather than the reverse. That was my opinion when I read the Trilogy in middle school, that it wasn’t the best-written stuff, but that it had a very engaging universe and plot.
However, upon rereading it I have reversed my previous opinion. Tolkein is a better writer than the SDMB gives him credit for. I don’t see any purple prose there that others have accused him of: I see some epic descriptions at times, and terse, to the point prose at others. It’s no Nabokov, but who is?
Now, I could have done without the hundreds of pages of drudgery through Mordor, and of course Tom Bombadil was superfluous and only stuck in there so the Professor would have a chance to use his favorite character, but those are plot issues rather than writing per se.
[QUOTE=Ludovic]
Some people have enough money to live on were it not for unforeseeable future medical expenses, so they have to work to save up for those and to get employer’s medical insurance.
[/QUOTE]
If by “some” you mean “very few” then okay, I see your point.
I personally don’t care if that very tiny set of people were to decide to stop working. They’ve got the money, they can do what they want with their life. There are already people in a position to not have to work. Do you begrudge them their right to not work if they don’t want to?
Really though, out of that small set of people who have enough money that they don’t have to work in order to maintain a decent standard of living, how many do you suppose actually don’t work?
-FrL-
[QUOTE=Ludovic]
However, upon rereading it I have reversed my previous opinion. Tolkein is a better writer than the SDMB gives him credit for. I don’t see any purple prose there that others have accused him of: I see some epic descriptions at times, and terse, to the point prose at others. It’s no Nabokov, but who is?
[/QUOTE]
Right, I don’t see how he could have kept my attention for over a thousand pages, and even caused viceral reactions in me, unless he were a decent writer of some sort.
-FrL-
[QUOTE=MrDibble]
That Johnny Cash’s cover of NIN’s Hurt sounds unlike the drunken, tuneless ravings of a toothless wino who’s pissed and shat himself in a rat-infested alleyway.
Yeah, and I don’t care what Trent says about it, either.
[/QUOTE]
I can’t tell if you are praising the song or damning it. Perhaps both?
[QUOTE=Quint]
I can’t tell if you are praising the song or damning it. Perhaps both?
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I couldn’t figure that one out either.
-FrL-
[QUOTE=OpalCat]
Too bad. If you shut it off after only half an hour, you didn’t get to the really funny and interesting stuff. You just got the setup.
[/QUOTE]
And I’ll forgive your misguided love of Pink Floyd since you stood up for Withnail. "We want the finest wines available to humanity, and we want them here, and we want them now. "
[QUOTE=Antinor01]
I actually enjoy reading Piers Anthony. I know the consensus is that he is a hack whose work isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on but I do like him. I own the Incarnations of Immortality series, several of the Xanth novels and read them fairly regularly.
sigh Well, there goes any cred I had in this forum.
[/QUOTE]
I read a lot of his stuff back in high school. And some a little later on. And there was a lot of it that I liked (and still do). But I think some of the problem is that his “bad” stuff ends up tainting everything. And part of his problem is that he doesn’t know when to END a series.
Original “Apprentice Adept” trilogy (where I started) – lots of interesting ideas, and quite enjoyable. Series should have ended there. Instead, all the fan mail convinced him to write more, and the next “trilogy” was boring and forgettable.
IMHO, first handful of Xanth books were good. The series soon became overly formulaic, and pun-factory books like “Golem in the Gears” should just be taken out back and shot.
Incarnations of Immortality – started out quite well. Loved “On a Pale Horse”. The ending? “And Eternity” was crap.
Seems to follow the same pattern, career-wise. Lots of interesting stories among his earlier published work – even some of the lesser known titles, like “Battle Circle”. Later, after he got popular (what might be termed the “Too Big For His Britches” Stage), he went back and got all his early stuff published – you know, the stuff that was rejected the first time around, before he got popular. Well, there was a reason it was rejected the first time around – because it sucked ass.
My god, why oh why did I read Mercycle? hangs head in shame
That’s okay, Monstre {pats arm consolingly}. We’ve all read things we wish we could delete from our brains (“Flowers in the Attic” - a house I was babysitting at when I was a teen had it.)
[QUOTE=Ludovic]
It’s no Nabokov, but who is?
[/QUOTE]
Well, um, Nabokov, presumably.
I, um . . . really, really like Mind of Mencia. I’ve been a big fan since I saw the office pimp sketch. I believe that puts me squarely in a minority of one on this board.
[QUOTE=MaxTheVool]
Whenever Saving Private Ryan comes up, someone invariably says that the D-Day scene is great, but that the rest of the movie is (pick one) mediocre/cliche/forgettable/bad.
I just rewatched it today, and I don’t see how people can think that. Did they see the same movie I did? It has a number of truly powerful moments, great acting, an excellent script, amazing scenery and cinematography and memorable characters. What’s not to like?
[/QUOTE]
I have to agree with that statement for one reason only: shaky-cam. I have only been able to watch SPR in segments because I get motion sickness from the unstable camera.
Damn Spielberg for that. If he had filmed it using steady-cam, I’d be singing SPR’s praises to the skies.
[QUOTE=Clothahump]
I have to agree with that statement for one reason only: shaky-cam. I have only been able to watch SPR in segments because I get motion sickness from the unstable camera.
Damn Spielberg for that. If he had filmed it using steady-cam, I’d be singing SPR’s praises to the skies.
[/QUOTE]
I have commented to my husband on occasion that I should take a gravol before watching BSG for just that reason, too. Enough with the shaky-cam!
[QUOTE=Linty Fresh]
I, um . . . really, really like Mind of Mencia. I’ve been a big fan since I saw the office pimp sketch. I believe that puts me squarely in a minority of one on this board.
[/QUOTE]
You are indeed truly brave.
I, for one, now despise you. 
-FrL-
For some reason I still go open threads about comics books, and what do I see? DC, DC, DC… I can’t for the life of me figure out why anyone would purposefully choose that universe to follow, let alone multiple people.
[QUOTE=GuanoLad]
The concensus here is that Quentin Tarantino makes great and powerful movies.
I say he is a disgusting sick scary dude who makes shit.
[/QUOTE]
Whoa, I really thought I was the only person on Earth who felt that way. Thanks.