'Why We Fight'
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.
What does Mike Judge have to do to get a movie released and marketed? He could stop making satires as merciless and spot-on as this one, for one thing. His second film in seven years, "Idiocracy," was completed nearly two years ago and dumped on Friday, reviewless and unmarketed, in six markets not including New York and San Francisco.
I will never see "The Wicker Man" because I read the reviews. But now I have to ask: *** Why would Cage's character be in a bear costume? The only thing I can come up with is that Cage lost some sort of bet with the director, refused to pay, and this was his punishment. I'm thinking that's not the official explanation though. ***
We saw The Illusionist tonight. It was beautiful done and well acted. My only problem with it was that I figured out the major plot twist halfway through. Has anyone else seen it yet?
But now I have to ask:
Narrator, I don't know from the remake, but IIRC, it's a scene straight from the original, which involves everyone in the pagan community on the island getting dressed up as animals and such for a festival leading up to the burning of the Wicker Man.
Not yet, sj. I considered going to it this weekend, but ended up doing other things. How did you like it otherwise?
I really loved it. The costuming and the look of it was beautiful. The actors were all very good. Jessica Biel, who I have really never seen in a film was surprisingly good. Plus, it is the kinds of movie that kept Teacup Guy and I talking about it all through dinner, which I always like.
That's great, as long as you don't fight.
No, no fighting. Just theorizing.
Sean is correct regarding the bear suit. Somehow, it's not a laugh-out-loud funny scene in the original the way it is here...
sj, I had the same issue with The Illusionist -- since offscreen death = not really dead, I spent the last hour of the film waiting for Paul Giamatti to figure it out and wondering what the hell Ed Norton was still doing in town, since if she's not dead, the prince didn't murder her, and he has no reason to want revenge! I guess we were supposed to think that he was also really opposed to him ever becoming emperor, but...meh. There just didn't seem to be any motivation for his actions after Sophie "died" that weren't directly tied to misleading the audience.
[Ironically, DH and I saw both the same day and were surprised to find that The Wicker Man was the one generating more conversation. The Illusionist, we both thought was fine, kind of disappointing, and very predictable, so not much to talk about. But The Wicker Man sucked in all sorts of fascinating ways.]
Jessica, I assumed he stuck around because the prince had it in for him and, therefore, it was better to do a big disappearing act. Plus it brought the story back around to the beginning.