Hannibal: Leave the ending the way it was in the book. Oh, and case Jodie Foster as Starling.
Hannibal: Leave the ending the way it was in the book. Oh, and cast Jodie Foster as Starling.
War of the Worlds - Tom Cruise gets killed, bloddily, before the starting credits roll. The rest of the movie is humans and Martians toasting each other over his mangled corpse.
[denial river]
I don’t know what you’re talking about. No such book was ever published; no such movie was ever produced. Thomas Harris was killed in a a wine-tasting contest in Tuscany not long after the Lambs adaptation swept the Oscars.
[/denial river]
Remember when Spielberg had balls? I mean, the second victim in Jaws was a kid on a raft. Got chomped right down, great big fountain of blood. And goddammit, it made sense and made the movie work on a visceral level. Twenty years later, he’s digitally replacing guns with walkie-talkies, because God forbid a law enforcement agency should carry firearms. No children shall be harmed in Unca Steve’s new utopia!
If the Spielberg of today made Jaws, it’d be about a largeish carp that bumps into people.
I disagree. Having those cops holding shotguns while trying to stop **unarmed kids ** on bikes has bugged me since 1982. I’m glad he finally changed it.
Eve and I could produce a better Algonquin Group movie than Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle out of old SDMB posts and a Mad Libs game pad.
I loved WOTW and found Robbies survival to be no more implausible than Cruise/Fanning’s - hell, all they did was run down the hill to the farmhouse that was about to be hit by the approaching battle line and hide in the cellar. :rolleyes:
However, I think the film could’ve been the all-time great science fiction tragedies…
Imagine, everything in the movie is the same up to the moment where Cruise leaves Robbie, grabs Fanning, and runs to the farmhouse. However, in the events following, Fanning dies… maybe as the result of Cruise’s action (the stunt with the grenade kills her as she impales herself on a tree), maybe as a result of Cruise’s inaction (he falls asleep, aliens grab her). Somehow, it’s in a manner in which he blames himself.
Grabbing the last vestige of manhood about him, he stumbles off to Boston to tell his wife that he lost both of his children, despite his best efforts. He finally makes it onto their unswept street only to see… Robbie, alive and in good health.
In leaving his father, his son saved his own life. By staying with her father, his daughter condemned herself to death. Cruise had failed in the most basic way a father can, his failure highlighted every day by his son’s living presence.
You see all this played on Cruise’s face (and I believe he could pull it off: Tom Cruise can act when he wants to) before he turns, his back towards his ex-family as he strides off, trailing failure in his wake.
FADE TO BLACK
Okay, Jagged Edge. In what you think is the ending, the lawyer (Glenn Close?) gets the charming rogue off for the murder rap because of her skill and because, well, she believes in his innocence–in fact he’s charmed her right out of her pants. So she gets him off. He’s free. A certain bit of the plot relied on somebody sending notes typed on a typewriter with some kind of distinctive quirk (as all the old manual typewriters used to have).
So she’s gotten him off, and she’s messing around in the closet and their place for some reason and she finds this typewriter. She pulls it out, sets it on the bed, types something–and sure enough, it’s the typewriter that sent the notes, and the presence of this typewriter means that…he was guilty…of killing his girlfriend… and now she’s his girlfriend…and he’s in the next room…
I thoought, “Great ending!” But alas, it was not the ending. It was merely the second-act climax. The movie went on, I guess because he had to be brought to justice. But I thought the typewriter was the perfect ending. I would have stopped it there.
Sometimes they just go too damned far with the whole “character arc” thing.
X3–Do Dark Phoenix as #3, save the “cure” storyline for #4. Don’t have all the brotherhood look like they just came from Gothic/Industrial night at a San Fransisco dance club. Don’t have every single mutant ever created and give each of them 5 seconds of screen time. Hire a better director.
My bold.
Storm lost her powers?
I agree with everything Larry just said.
As to Superman Returns?
Less Lois, more Clark. Different Luthor. That’ll do for starts.
Skald
Actually, I’d make Legolas a lot less of an Xtreeeem superhero. He just looks silly. Sillier, I mean. Gayest gay elf that ever nanced down the pike. But more Eowyn would be cool - extended Houses of Healing sequence, even.
But you touch the Smeagol/Deagol intro at your peril.
You mean “the gayest gay elf in all of middle-earth.” But that’s all right. Legolas has no character arc, and needs none; his function is to be improbably competent. He’s the fellowship’s freaking elf member. Of course he does impossible shit.
laughs How right it is. And I don’t know when he changed. He was a good director, and he scared the crap out of you. Now I don’t even want to nudge him out of the way as I bound to bigger, better directors.
MrDibble, I’m sorry, I mean Mystique. All them mutant females look alike to me. 
I rather think Jagged Metal Jacket could have stopped after the training. I never watch the war part…but it’s a bit too gritty even for me, and I know the war part and not that awesome Seargent (Lee Emery, right? I think that’s his name) is the real point of the movie.
Anybody who knows me knows I generally hate romance or sex in my movies but I do think Batman Returns would have been vastly improved by a good roll iin the hay. I mean, there was so much unfulfilled sexual tension there.
On the same note, I think that The Bourne Identity (or whichever was first) didn’t need that silly French girl at all. WHy can’t a spy movie just be a spy movie?
Back later when I think of more.
:smack: FULL Metal Jacket. What the hell is a Jagged Metal Jacket?
[QUOTE=Anaamika awesome Seargent (Lee Emery, right? I think that’s his name) is the real point of the movie.[/QUOTE]
Close. It’s R. Lee Ermey.
THAT IS SEARGANT R. LEE ERMY TO YOU, YOU PUKE!!! WHAT DOES THE “R.” STAND FOR?- YOU ASK. “RIGHT UP YOUR ASS” WHICH IS WHERE I’M GONNA PUT MY FOOT IF YOU MESS UP MY NAME ONE MORE TIME! YOU GOT THAT, PRIVATE?
takes a bow Thank you!
I knew there was an ‘R’ in there somewhere. I loved his show, Mail Call.
That’s what Joseph’s brothers got. No wonder they sold him into slavery.
Very well done, sir! applauds
bows