I, for one, welcome my zombie master.
Bart: Dad, you killed Zombie Polter-Cow!
Homer: Polter-Cow was a zombie?
Mal ,'Serenity'
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, for one, welcome my zombie master.
Bart: Dad, you killed Zombie Polter-Cow!
Homer: Polter-Cow was a zombie?
So WotW has been getting pretty good reviews, except for the review in Salon ( Stephanie Zacharek hated it): [link]
Does Stephanie Zacharek have a bug up her butt? Or does she have some Spielberg-related childhood trauma? Or is she right?
She doesn't like the current trend for very gloomy self-consciously serious blockbusters (see her Batman review).
Yeah, I fucking hate it when blockbusters actually try to be good movies too.
Yeah, I fucking hate it when blockbusters actually try to be good movies too.
How DARE they!
I have a working theory that it's almost impossible for a blockbuster-type action movie (i.e., big budget) to balance the serious with the whizbang, and the best that one can hope for is a mixture of both, so that the one causes amnesia for the lack of the other, in tandem, depending on which is onscreen at any given moment. I originated this theory to explain why the 1980s Bond movies failed, and why the Jason Bourne movies are so manic in tone, but I think it applies well to more than just the spy genre.
There's a crucial distinction between "good" and "glum". To some extent I agree with her; I think Batman Begins would have been a better film if it had leavened its dourness with a bit more exhilaration. I think there's a trend, of late, towards pomposity in SF/fantasy/comic movies; as if the makers are so keen to avoid campness and triviality that they forget that blockbuster movies are supposed to be fun.
I have a working theory that it's almost impossible for a blockbuster-type action movie (i.e., big budget) to balance the serious with the whizbang, and the best that one can hope for is a mixture of both, so that the one causes amnesia for the lack of the other, in tandem, depending on which is onscreen at any given moment.
Hmm. I'd argue that both XMen and both Spiderman films managed it near-perfectly, but I think you've put your finger on the problem with so many blockbusters.
I think Batman Begins would have been a better film if it had leavened its dourness with a bit more exhilaration.
Agreed. I don't remember Batman having much fun, just looking cool.
Campy tv aside, Batman and dour tend to go together like milk and cookies. You could have people around the Bat experiencing the exhilaration, but I'd argue that the scenes in BB where Gordon was in the Batmobile brought a bit of that. I suppose there could have been more. I'd need to watch it again and think about it a bit.