Giles ,'Lies My Parents Told Me'
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.
I'm not sure why I didn't pick up on the cheese right away. I think that what happened to me is that the style of the film fell into some equivalent of the "Uncanny Valley" where it hit just the wrong balance of seriousness and silliness for me to either take it seriously or sit back and enjoy the silly.
I did enjoy the whole Vatican as secret-service idea, lots.
I got that iot was cheesy, but it wasn't cheesy enough, IMO. It seemed that the CGI stuff was meant to be impressive (even when they really weren't) rather than cool and fun and so all the fight scenes changed the tone of the movie. In the Mummy, the tone of the film was consistently light throughout. When Brendan Fraser's character was being all earnest and noble we could kinda laugh at the over-the-topness at the same time that we were genuinely rooting for him. In this film, the whole brother subplot never seemed to have any ironic distance.
I did enjoy the whole Vatican as secret-service idea, lots.
Then did you ever see 'Hudson Hawk'? Most people I know have mixed feelings about it, but I love it.
Somebody shoulda cast Lauren Bacall and Charlotte Rambling as mother-daughter in something. They've got the same colt-lean body, the same slanty-eyed, husky-voiced, smoldering sexuality.
With Eliza Dusku as Charlotte's daughter. Because it's more than a two-generation thing.
Oh, I agree that Van Helsing didn't achieve anywhere near as well as The Mummy -- it was much more confused -- too much in it. I also think the heart didn't lie in the right place, with our protagonist.
hee!! Real Genius is on Comedy Central. i love this movie.
Hee:
"The Polar Express," a holiday fable featuring a computer-animated Tom Hanks as the train conductor, fell two places to No. 4 with $15.2 million, taking its total to $51 million after 12 days. The film cost a reported $270 million to make and market, prompting much speculation about its chances of turning a profit.
Oh, my God. Everyone should go see "Sideways" RIGHT NOW if you're lucky enough to have it play nearby. What a weird, funny, lovely, wise little film. It's sort of a spiritual cousin to Curtis Hanson's "Wonder Boys" (which I love), with more acute an ache in its center. I walked out of the theater with watery eyes, a bad case of over-identification with its sad-sack protagonist, and craving for that perfect bottle of Pinot Noir, nevermind I know next to nothing about wine.
Circuit City is selling the new Harry Potter DVD (Prisoner of Azkaban) for only $14.99, for two days only (Tuesday and Wednesday - Tuesday is also the release date).
The first two HP movies are aso $14.99 - that's the regular (not limited) price.
They are also releasing a box set of the first three movies on Tuesday, tomyrot, but I don't know if the box set is cheaper or not.