I don’t know about Crunchy, but I’d love to read this. Do you know where it can be found?
I would have enjoyed Gladiator more in retrospect if I hadn’t viewed the outtakes. At least one of the outtakes seemed important to the plot (Oliver Reed telling Maximus that he is an “entertainer”–why else would Maximus be shouting to the crowd in the final version that “I am not an entertainer”!) and one or two that would have really added to Commodus’s character development (especially one where he confronts a statue of his father, begins by attacking it with a sword and ends by embracing it and weeping much as he had when he murdered the old guy at the beginning of the movie). I wish that those scenes had been left in.
Back to the Future: The crypto-racist scene where Marvin Berry calls his cousin Chuck. “Isn’t it great that white kid went back in time so the black folks could have their music?” **
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I didn’t think that had any thing to do with that. I thought it was just a joke about how Marty was playing a song that wouldn’t be recorded for 2(?) more years, and the guy was telling his cousin about this guy’s great sound. Black R&B music had already been around since the late 40’s and was pretty popular in 1955. Don’t take everything so seriously, it’ll give you an ulcer! (HA HA!)
I know that the subject is old, but I have a few comments to make on the whole Blair Witch thing. I disagree with several of Cervaise’s comments. I thought the movie was much ado about nothing. I don’t think that my dislike of it was the result of years of dumbing-down storytelling. In order to believe that they were more than lost, you had to believe in the Blair Witch, and the power of the Blair Witch, and I didn’t. I kept coming up with rational explanations for the strange events. There was no suspension of disbelief on my part, which makes the whole movie about a bunch of jerks losing their way in the woods and freaking out. And the whole shaky camera thing made me quite ill. I also thought it was an excellent example of how hype can really build a movie up. Original? Yes, it gets points for that. I did understand the feelings that the movie was trying to invoke, I just didn’t experience them. It’s not that I couldn’t figure out that they were supposed to be led by the Blair Witch, and she was the cause of the odd events. I got that. I just didn’t believe it.
I can buy almost any number of things as long as I am caught up in the story. I can excuse mistakes, I can make up my own explanations. This story just didn’t capture me on any level.
I will second your opinion. For me, the true failure of the film was that I never thought the three idiots would have been able to find their way out of the forest even if they weren’t being supernaturally tormented. At no point did any of them seem even remotely competent. The movie hinges on you believing that only supernatural forces could be confusing their progress, and I never believed that.
It makes me furious when people tell me I didn’t “get” the Blair Witch Project. Please, it’s not as subtle and cerebral as you’ve been led to believe. It’s like the film “Time Code” - a good experiment that used a lousy film to experiment on. I was actually looking forwards to the umpty-jillion BWP rip-offs I assumed the market would be flooded with because I figured eventually someone would use the technique effectively. But the whole fad died off pretty quickly.
See, the part I LOVED about that ending was when Truman left his “world” which was really the TV show, it was the end of the show! So that was the end of the movie!
I do agree that it would have been interesting to see Truman in our world, but then again, that wasn’t really what the movie was about. It was about Truman (a TRUE MAN) finding himself…not just finding another world or existence. LOVE that movie.
???!!! Guess I am gonna have to rent this one again…for the life of me I don’t remember any lines about alien sex!!
I used to wonder about this, but at that time, submarines were far more efficient on the surface. They would cruise to wherever they were going and then submerge to attack. They couldn’t stay submerged all that long without running out of battery power. So the U-Boat would have stayed on the surface the whole time, especially since this was prior to the war, and thus there was no reason to hide from anyone.
Sorry I didn’t respond to your question sooner, but I just saw it today. I read something along the same lines in a magazine a while back, but I can’t recall who wrote it. I remember reading it thinking how much I agreed with the assesment of the film and how stupid it was that Captian Miller didn’t just order Ryan to go back with them. I remember thinking at the time how stupid it was that it was Ryan having the flashback, but the article really pointed out how overly sentimental the bookends were, something I just found extraneous at the time.
The author also panned Shakespeare in Love in the same article, is that the one you were talking about?
BTW - am I the only person here, upon seeing William Goldman’s name, to think of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid first and not The Princess Bride?
Just curious.
Crunchy, I certainly think “The Princess Bride” first, but then, I’m the kind of person who tends to think of an artist’s best work, like “The Princess Bride”, first, and the mediocre dreck–like “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”–last.
Everything after the first 25 minutes or so of Final Destination. It is at about the 25 minute mark that the movie makes the move from slightly cheesy to over-the-top cheeseville.
Aaron Ackerson
What about the animated bits of Run Lola Run? Kinda cool movie, but the cheesy cartoons made me squirm.
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Sorry, I just had to bang my head against the keyboard after reading that. You realize he won an Oscar for that piece of dreck (not that that really means anything, just look at Gladiator). It’s all a matter of personal preference I guess.
I’m not saying one film is better than the other, as they are completely different genres (and I have both on DVD) but I’d hardly call it mediocre dreck. Maybe it helps if you watch Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as a character study instead of as a Western. If you want mediocre dreck from William Goldman, rent Maverick.
Now, just so my post isn’t a complete hijack (sorry everyone) I’d also like to mention the film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which was ruined for me by Kate Capshaw’s whiny, clinging character. The other two films in the trilogy seemed better to me (besides having Connery in the 3rd one) because they had stronger female leads who could take care of themselves.
A cracker, but spoiled just a little by the alien growing far too quickly in a short space of time.
I mean, one minute it is small enough to inhabit John Hurt’s stomach and the next time you see it, it’s towering above Harry Dean Stanton.
I just thought of another one. I love the film Excalibur, but how exactly does Uther Pendragon manage to have sex wearing all that armor?
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I swear that I remember a scene when I first saw the movie where he wrapped his whip around the periscope while water was rising on the deck.
No, I don’t use drugs, but I might have been drinking a little at the time.
I don’t feel like thumbing through all my Callanhan Tales books, but some character in them mentioned that if Charles Foster Kane died alone, who was there to hear him say “Rosebud” as his final words. I haven’t seen it in too many years myself, so I don’t remember that scene very well.
Crunchy Heh. Thought that would get a rise out of you. I don’t really think Butch is dreck, but I can’t resist the opportunity to bait its fans. I do the same thing with those who worship Fight Club and The Usual Suspects.
Having read the book The Princess Bride, I think it’s a pretty safe bet that what ends up on the screen is what Goldman wrote.
I know that I’m in the minority in thinking Butch Cassidy is an average movie. I don’t know how much of what is on the screen in Butch Cassidy comes from Goldman’s script, so my judgement has to come from the movie itself. I find “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” to be an above average movie in most aspects. Were it not for one particular sequence, I’d say it’s a pretty good movie. It isn’t often that a single scene, no matter how bad, can ruin an otherwise good movie for me (except for deus ex machina endings), but the “Raindrops Keep Fallin on My Head” sequence stops the movie dead. It is so jarring, so out of place, that it makes it nearly impossible for me to reattach to the movie after it is over. Without this scene, I’d call it a good movie. With it, it’s mediocre. Goldman is probably not responsible for this moment, but, even given the benefit of the doubt, I still think that “The Princess Bride” is his best screen work.
And don’t bring up the Academy Awards. Forget last year and look at 1941. In the year that produced Citizen Kane, The Maltese Falcon, Dumbo and Suspicion, the best picture was How Green Was My Valley? Please.
But while we’re at it, 2000 was a spectactularly bad year for the Academy. They were 0 for 6 in the top six categories (Picture, director, the four acting categories), only one of the nominated films for best picture was one of the five best of the year, and “The Cell” doesn’t get a nomination for visual effects? Again, please.
So that this isn’t a total hijack, consider “Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid” my new nomination, with the sequence described above being the stupid part.
And I have a hard time enjoying that movie, because for me it’s divided up into three parts: the part where you dread the coming of the Billy Crystal scene, the Billy Crystal scene, and the part where you fume about the Billy Crystal scene.
To me that scene is just abyssmal. A similar scene is in “Dead Poets Society”, which I don’t think is a great movie, but which I think is sorely hampered by the one scene where Robin Williams completely breaks character and starts riffing as Robin Williams. It isn’t funny and it completely breaks the mood. It would break the mood if it WAS funny, as well.