Buffista Movies 4: Straight to Video
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 pleased that they included The Singing Detective on that list even though it's not actually a movie.
First time I ever saw it was in a theater though. They showed the whole thing in one sitting (with dinner break) at the San Francisco Film Festival before it ran on PBS.
Ooo. That would be... intense. It still seems like cheating, but I approve of the result, so it's okay. I'm sure they're relieved.
Hey, there was no Lynch on that list, was there? That seems Wrong.
I should look at the list.
Hmm. Someone Nilly my lazy ass the link?
ET is on it? Shudder. Twitch. Gag.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
(Signed, walked out of it in the theatre. I was not quite 6. Manipulative tripe.)
Have you ever seen it in a theater? LoA is one of those where big screen is the only way to go (see also 2001).
It improves muchly on big screen (I saw it when the Cinerama reopened), but that was, I think, the 4th or 5th time I saw it. It's so beautifully acted and filmed, though, that I think it's worth it on any screen, including the little 13" one I used in college.
If I were superuberrich, I think I'd have a private cinema built just to put that on heavy rotation.
Ooo. That would be... intense.
It was. But cool too because the producers were there and answered questions afterwards about casting. The boy was not a professional actor and they had to look a long time to find a kid with the right vibe and accent. The dad was an actor who had mostly played heavies. The lead role, of course, had been written with Gambon in mind.
It still seems like cheating, but I approve of the result, so it's okay.
I think it's actually best absorbed in a weekly increments. It's such rich material.
First time I ever saw it was in a theater though. They showed the whole thing in one sitting (with dinner break) at the San Francisco Film Festival before it ran on PBS.
Wow.
The first time I saw it, I watched it over the course of three nights and that was even a little rushed.
I'm pleased that they included The Singing Detective on that list even though it's not actually a movie.
Oh, I kind of assumed they did mean the movie. (The adaptation of the tv series that came out last year, or maybe the year before.) But obviously I wasn't paying attention to the release date.
The first time I saw it, I watched it over the course of three nights and that was even a little rushed.
That's about how I saw it too. It was one of those "It's really late...should we watch another one? YES YES WE SHOULD RIGHT NOW" situations.
I never saw the movie. It's on my Netflix queue, but it's pretty far down there. Y'know, I love the Steve Martin version of Pennies From Heaven, but it pales next to the original. I sorta hate to see them do anything like that to The Singing Detective.
That's about how I saw it too. It was one of those "It's really late...should we watch another one? YES YES WE SHOULD RIGHT NOW" situations.
That was exactly it. I've watched a few other series that way, but of those, only the Office Season Two affected me more than The Singing Detective.
It was...okay. It worked better than I expected it to, but it's still incredibly slight compared to the original. There's just no way to condense that material down to two hours and have it work the same way. The only specific thing I really remember is that Adrien Brody was adorable.
which featured psychedelic elements in its adaptation, this latest screenplay sticks closely to what Dahl wrote in the novel
Um, I kinda thought the book was pretty damn pyschadelic.
I watched
Labyrinth
last night, for the first time in about 20 years. Scarily, I could still pretty much do the dialogue. I loved that movie in high school, although I knew it was flawed, and hated Jennifer Connelly's acting. I was expecting, on re-watch, to find out that it really sucked, which is what happened when I rewatched
Dark Crystal.
But actually there was a lot of good in
Labyrinth.
I still think that they must've originally been trying to make a slightly darker film, and that whatever the Goblin King was an allegory for got a little lost, but a couple parts are really good. A couple should be cut, ripped up into pieces, fed to the pigs, the pigs slaughtered and their innards fed to the dogs. But whatever.
One thing - a running joke is to call the dwarf Hogwart instead of Hoggle. Is "hogwart" a British thing to say, or did Rowling kipe it from here?