You got all kinds of learnin' and you made me look the fool without tryin', and yet here I am with a gun to your head. That's 'cause I got people with me. People who trust each other, who do for each other, and ain't always lookin' for the advantage.

Mal ,'Our Mrs. Reynolds'


Buffista Movies 6: lies and videotape  

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.


tommyrot - Oct 22, 2007 5:09:07 am PDT #1823 of 10000
Sir, it's not an offence to let your cat eat your bacon. Okay? And we don't arrest cats, I'm very sorry.

Huh, I had the same reaction for the opposite reason. Shelob, to me, looked like a giant spider would actually look, and wasn't all that scary.

Maybe I shouldn't have said "non-realistic" as much as "not at all like the real-world versions, on account of the huge size."

I don't even remember what the Chamber of Secrets ones were like.

Actually, I might have skipped that movie....


tommyrot - Oct 22, 2007 5:12:17 am PDT #1824 of 10000
Sir, it's not an offence to let your cat eat your bacon. Okay? And we don't arrest cats, I'm very sorry.

I saw the original Wicker Man about 8-ish years ago. I dunno - the whole singing naked chick trying to seduce the cop just seemed silly to me, and kind of took me out of the scary for a while. I kinda' remember liking it more as it got towards the end. I should watch it again, but I don't have a VCR anymore. (You know, those things with the analog signals magnetically encoded into "tape"?)


bon bon - Oct 22, 2007 6:11:18 am PDT #1825 of 10000
It's five thousand for kissing, ten thousand for snuggling... End of list.

We saw Michael Clayton last night. It's good for what it is, though the stakes seem a little small. The overall plot and BIGLAW framework was pleasingly thought-out. Lots of fun performances to watch.


tommyrot - Oct 22, 2007 6:16:44 am PDT #1826 of 10000
Sir, it's not an offence to let your cat eat your bacon. Okay? And we don't arrest cats, I'm very sorry.

wrong thread.


Scrappy - Oct 22, 2007 7:16:06 am PDT #1827 of 10000
Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

I saw it too, Bon. Liked all the erformances very much, and the script did a couple of unexpected things I liked a lot. First, i thought it was refreshing that Clayton's son was not in danger from the bad guys. He was a well-written kid--articulate when talking about the book he loved, being to ooverwhelmed to talk about his feelings toward his uncle.

I also dug that when Clayton told Marty that uNorth was evil, Marty already knew and his reaction was, "so?"


Sean K - Oct 22, 2007 7:16:27 am PDT #1828 of 10000
You can't leave me to my own devices; my devices are Nap and Eat. -Zenkitty

The original Wicker Man is one of my favorite movies. It is very good, and as Hec says, an early expression of paganism in film.

I dunno - the whole singing naked chick trying to seduce the cop just seemed silly to me,

Take it in context, though tommy. It was not scary to you, but at the time it came out, paganism in general, and sexy singing naked chicks in particular, were pretty darn scary (just by sheer fact of being way outside the norm) to a lot of people back then. Especially the devoutly religious, like Edward Woodward's character was.

Plus the Hippie movement proper had just ended, and there were still raw wounds around the world from that experience. People who weren't themselves Hippies were not generally found of Hippies, so they were scary/hate-worthy.


tommyrot - Oct 22, 2007 7:24:23 am PDT #1829 of 10000
Sir, it's not an offence to let your cat eat your bacon. Okay? And we don't arrest cats, I'm very sorry.

at the time it came out, paganism in general, and sexy singing naked chicks in particular, were pretty darn scary

Point taken.


Matt the Bruins fan - Oct 22, 2007 7:26:01 am PDT #1830 of 10000
"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 saw 30 Days of Night yesterday. While I appreciate the more animalistic, predatory take on vampires, I was thrown out of the movie when it occurred to me that people with the light coats and clothing we saw would have frozen to death in their attic by day 3 without electric heat or the ability to safely have a fire burning. And by an airport closing down for a month because it got dark, as if the planes were solar powered. And by people choosing to stay through the long night with senile parents and small children .


§ ita § - Oct 22, 2007 7:30:22 am PDT #1831 of 10000
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.

The Departed twisted more than its source material did, and I don't think the extra back and forth added anything.


bon bon - Oct 22, 2007 8:00:28 am PDT #1832 of 10000
It's five thousand for kissing, ten thousand for snuggling... End of list.

Yeah, that scene with Marty -- really all the scenes with Marty-- rang true even though it shouldn't.

In defense work like this there's generally something shady, so I'm surprised that Clayton had to be told, particularly given his job. But the fact that Marty was pretty sanguine about it, even though he is a good guy, rang true to his character.

I couldn't sleep last night-- stupid coffee ice cream, never again-- so I thought a lot about the movie and whether a job like Clayton's could exist, even though it really doesn't in a typical firm. And I realized that it is a leap of faith to buy into his job, but it's not a bad idea. He does what big firms do-- take care of smaller problems for firm clients-- only centralized in one person. If you hired someone with his contacts, it wouldn't be a bad idea to employ him in that role. I thought throughout that someone with his special skills wouldn't be quite as debased as he made himself out to be-- and Marty points that out later, which pleased me. (Though, with his background, he could be billing at least a million five a year, so it doesn't quite ring true that Marty considers litigators a dime a dozen.)