I may be love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it.

Spike ,'Sleeper'


Buffista Movies 3: Panned and Scanned  

A place to talk about movies--Old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.


Vonnie K - Jul 13, 2004 7:16:06 am PDT #344 of 10001
Kiss me, my girl, before I'm sick.

Liev. Hugh. The wardrobe. The poop-scoop scene. Using the remote control on the shock collar. Mr. Fancy-pants

I liked Liev Schreider's character but the romance was such a limp-noodle affair that it put me to sleep. Hugh's coat was v. shiny, as I recall.

Someone else in the Ryan role--someone with a real edge instead of a girlish pretention to one--might have improved the flick. Ah well.

My favorite time-travel universe is in Connie Willis's books.

Gah. Doomsday Book just about killed me. To Say Nothing of the Dog was delightful, but it didn't stay with me as long as Doomsday Book.


Jim - Jul 13, 2004 7:17:29 am PDT #345 of 10001
Ficht nicht mit Der Raketemensch!

Then again, what can you expect from a movie where the whole premise is that yes, people (police) can change the prophecied future, but people (murderers) can't.

that's the premise that the film demolishes - that's what Tom thinks at the start before he's framed.


Lyra Jane - Jul 13, 2004 7:18:19 am PDT #346 of 10001
Up with the sun

I think I like time travel better on TV (Quantum leap, Charmed) than in movies. The Butterfly Effect is fun if you watch it with low expectations.

(I think time travel is like vampires or aliens -- you just have to go with it if you're watching a movie/TV show with that as a component, because it's not really possible to make it logical.)

And as a mostly non-comics person, Beverly, I know where you're coming from. The first time I read Preludes & Nocturnes (vol. 1 of the Sandman), I spent most of the book just being turned off by the art. But I foundf I really appreciated Gaiman's use of language, so I kept going with the series, and by the time I had finished the second volume I really appreciated the way the art and text were integrated. I'm not sure what, if any, comics I'll read when I finish The Sandman, but I have two volumes to go before I have to decide.


Lilty Cash - Jul 13, 2004 7:19:09 am PDT #347 of 10001
"You see? THAT's what they want. Love, and a bit with a dog."

I just found out that my little brother thought that Anchorman was horrible, and he was actually ashamed to have seen it. What happened to the kid who used to watch Billy Madison with me, and quote Old School and its counterparts ad nauseum? Sniff. The kid's grown up. The student has surpassed the master. Wipes tear.


Nutty - Jul 13, 2004 7:24:48 am PDT #348 of 10001
"Mister Spock is on his fanny, sir. Reports heavy damage."

that's the premise that the film demolishes - that's what Tom thinks at the start before he's framed.

Right. The problem is, if I can figure that out in 20 minutes, how can jurisprudence, law enforcement and a panoply of nattily-suited people take months/years to figure it out? Do IQs drop sharply in the near future?

I mean, surely they've got Alan Dershowitz's head in a jar somewhere, yammering at them about the concept of reasonable doubt.


Vonnie K - Jul 13, 2004 7:31:56 am PDT #349 of 10001
Kiss me, my girl, before I'm sick.

I liked Minority Report. I'd have loved it if they went for the tragic inevitability angle (someone here had mentioned a possibility that the too-happy-an-ending could be interpreted as Anderton's hallucination/dream post-halo-ing, which I liked), but as it stood, it still had some beautiful visuals and neat ideas. I liked what they did with Colin Farrell's character, and Samantha Morton, as usual, astonished me speechless. I was genuinely moved in the scene where Agatha imagined Sean's futures, her face rapturous, her image backlit into a kind of incandescent suffering sainthood. It sort of went downhill from there, but I'm still glad to have had that scene as well as that terrific scene in the mall.


Polter-Cow - Jul 13, 2004 7:32:53 am PDT #350 of 10001
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!

I'm still glad to have had that scene as well as that terrific scene in the mall.

Oh man. Best. Chase scene. Ever.


Jim - Jul 13, 2004 7:34:28 am PDT #351 of 10001
Ficht nicht mit Der Raketemensch!

Right. The problem is, if I can figure that out in 20 minutes, how can jurisprudence, law enforcement and a panoply of nattily-suited people take months/years to figure it out? Do IQs drop sharply in the near future?

Because they want to - it's a useful method of social control. But the ending sucked ass, I agree.


§ ita § - Jul 13, 2004 7:35:29 am PDT #352 of 10001
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.

(someone here had mentioned a possibility that the too-happy-an-ending could be interpreted as Anderton's hallucination/dream post-halo-ing, which I liked)

I don't know if I was the only one who said that, but it was certainly how I interpreted it.


Matt the Bruins fan - Jul 13, 2004 7:36:50 am PDT #353 of 10001
"I remember when they eventually introduced that drug kingpin who murdered people and smuggled drugs inside snakes and I was like 'Finally. A normal person.'” —RahvinDragand

I still think the best movie treatment of time travel was in The Spy Who Shagged Me, when Basil Exposition turned to the camera and said "I suggest you don't worry about those things and just enjoy yourself."