oh come off it lulz and get off your high horse. you don't even mention the key word i had posted about and instead ignored it and focus on what i posted as a violence act. the key is the "threat" of a violent act would've sent her in a total panic. not the act, but a simple threat of hurting that little girl/neighbor or herself etc. a threat is a great motivator for suspense. and since you mention the silence of the lambs, which you dislike...when catherine martin gets buffalo bill's dog and he starts to freak out - what does he yell to her when she "threatens" to hurt the dog? "YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT PAIN IS!" Now that is a great motivation to me to give the freaking dog back without lifting a finger or violent act! if arkin or rambo's ex commander tells her "we will kill your neighbor if you don't give up the doll" is a sentence that puts fear into her without even hurting her. that's what i meant again! for the record, no im not a fan of bloody horror movies filled with violence like texas chainsaw massacre or crap like that or two savage attacks in death wish. not my style.
I was just having this discussion with my Mom and my wife yesterday. Wife and I watched "Marty" on Saturday night - no drugs/alcohol, no sex, no explosions, no car crashes. Just a slice of life story, the kind that are so few and far between today. Same thing with comedies - it's all over-the-top slapstick and sight gags and really no...I guess "cleverness" is what I'm looking for. The past week or so everyone was talking about how they couldn't wait to see "Let's Be Cops." Me? I saw a commercial for it and my thought was "I wouldn't sit through two hours of that if you paid me."
First, "Let's Be Cops" is an hour long, and features two of the funniest (and smartest) young comedians around. Making people laugh IS clever - regardless of how it's done. A slapstick gag that legitimately makes you laugh takes talent, timing, etc., that most people and actors will never achieve. Give it some thought, and you might see those moments differently. That said, I think you're seeing an incredibly narrow field, and viewing it quite cynically. There are some TREMENDOUS comedies out there, you just have to go find them. If you wait to see what trailer comes across your TV inbetween the extra point and the kickoff, you're going to be disappointed, especially with the way you seem to view comedy. Edit: I can't wait to go see "Let's Be Cops". If it's awful, I'll let you know, but I've gone to see ONE movie of my choosing that I was disappointed in (a French film. I should've known), and the two featured actors are great, so I'm looking forward to it. I agree with Catfish below - Hollywood is awful. They ran out of ideas YEARS ago, and now they're out of brain cells, as well. I'm done with them. That said, nuggets come along every now and then. Just don't get cynical about all the crap.
axe- i think today's movies are too focused on t & a (not complaining), loud sounds, explosions and very little dialogue, good acting and creativity. i mean they are releasing the annie remake with cameron diaz this winter. really? again? they released robocop, which wasn't bad, but still. i haven't seen a newer movie that was really good in years. same old crap. the 40's-70's were a golden age of movies for many reasons. you mentioned marty. stalag 17 is filmed mainly in 1 barracks - little action, but great dialogue and acting - great movie. the hustler - besides "pool action," mainly dialogue and great acting - great movie. The reason you don't see the shark in Jaws for the first hour according to Spielberg was the suspense and build up to Brody seeing it when he's tossing chum into the water! His famous line wasn't in the script and it's perfect. today's movies don't get it. i mean paul walker is dead and they finished the fast and furious 7 with his brothers to fill in for him and they're making ANOTHER ONE! Really? More bad acting from everyone and a $200 million grossing movie. great. make 10 more of them. my point to lulz was act of a threat could've helped the movie we were discussing and he took it as violence was needed in the movie.
It's listed running time is 1:49. No argument there...but I've heard they were unable to make much of anything in this. I really don't have the time to sift through the (mostly) detritus that's out there. But just to play along: what are some of these "TREMENDOUS" recent comedies out there that I'm missing?
That one's my fault - I saw "104" and interpreted it as an hour and four minutes. And on that note, I don't have too many recent comedies off the top of my head. Not only do I not get to watch many movies in general (maybe one a month), but that's especially true lately. I'll say that the movie "Kings of Summer" was hysterical, and if you start following that vein - whether it be the actors/actresses, writers, related movies, etc. - you'll start to come upon a ton of them. "Safety Not Guaranteed" was quality stuff, too. I'll have to sit down and come up with some more for you (again, not in that headspace), but most of the comedy I watch is TV - if you go that route, there's no end to the options. Edit: Take 30 minutes to comb through Hulu's movie trailer section, every now and then. Skip the ones you're not interested in (and don't get frustrated by them - again, it's no good being cynical), and check out the ones that seem interesting. I've come across most of the movies I've watched that way.
my favorite comedies are from 25 yrs ago or older: it's a mad, mad, mad, mad world mash animal house caddyshack easy money the last newer comedies i liked was there's something about mary and ace ventura pet detective. im sure they're others i can't recall. nothing stands out anymore to me and that's why those 5 movies above do ! they leave an everlasting impression on me that i still watch them and laugh. i have netflix and closing in on 650 dvds since 2007 and most of the crap i watch are dramas and they still suck.
Something about Mary is 15 years old. Ace Venura is 20 years old. This is kind'a the point I'm getting at.
the whole point of everything u apparently disliked, cat, was that they were trying to avoid being suspected of a crime. make the threat and that's out the window, because now they're obviously criminals, and that invites police involvement, which is what they didn't want. if this is me being on my high horse, i got a few horses YOU can get off of lol. and ya - i think silence of the lambs is ridiculously overrated. i could spend a week deconstructing it *WRITE*
in for a penny, in for a pound. might as well get my money's worth here. other overrrated movies: casablanca gone with the wind citizen kane the entire star wars series and at the top of the list, head and shoulders above the rest... the matrix go ahead, bring it, bitches
lulz--i would love to see your deconstructing of the silence of the lambs. as for the other movies you listed - everything but star wars i didn't like. star wars has it's flaws but when it came out and the timing of it was awesome. i see them now and see cheesy george lucas dialogue and bad acting. for 1977, 1980 and 1983 it was great. now only empire and the original are good. and for our movie...she's blind, she can't see them, so give her fake names and make the threats. how can she identify them to the cops?
lol. nah, i have wasted enough of my time in the past talking about silence of the lambs, not going to dignify it by further extended discussion so i guess we see a lot of things the same, tho. star wars bugs me on several levels - u nailed 2 of the major ones, dialog and acting. but my biggest issue with it is that it's space opera, not science fiction - and to me, it's mediocre space opera. if someone loves space opera, fine - but don't call it something it isn't. this group of movies deserves to be in the same discussion as things like heinlein's starship troopers, not alien/aliens. i understand young people loving them - but what i don't get is adults who still think they're some of the best films ever made. when i see anything star wars listed near the top of all time movie greats, that same vein in my forehead starts bulging - u know, the one that bulges in your forehead when people diss tiger woods oh, i forgot - add high noon to my list of overrated films. what a dog. i have no problem with the bad guys trying at first to use subterfuge to find what they're looking for. they don't even know she knows anything about it (and at first, she doesn't) - threatening her makes no sense. we're gonna have to agree to disagree on this one. sure, she can't identify them - but it gets the cops involved. to me, a far bigger flaw is killing someone else there and then leaving the body. but that pales in comparison to the presumption that a guy can cut someone else's face off and put it over his own, and no one will notice anything wrong
lulz--the thing about the face is easy to question but also easy to answer - bc lector was on the loose - there was chaos. the room the cop/lector was found in was dark so seeing how exactly the face looked was not high on their list. he was breathing and getting him to the hospital was more important than "hey his cheek doesn't look right." and lector sliced part of the forehead and cheeks up to avoid any suspicion there, so with everything else going on - it's not that hard to question it. now if he had to speak or talk - then the face doesn't work. the thing about star wars is lucas took the special effects to a new level compared to cheesy space movies before it. then he has lasers, light sabers and cool ass ships no one ever saw before. then he uses this mystical power called the force and people were hooked like crack. he also mentions the darth vader was good before and teases the audience with alec guinness telling their backstory together that you didn't see until episodes 2 and 3 20 yrs later. and finally the toys came out. a ton of kids had them. i had them. they were great. better than GI Joe and other toys bc you could make your own Star Wars movie with the toys on how you wanted it to go. brilliant move by Lucas and Kenner toys. Then Empire comes out and it's darker and sinister. Vader is pissed and has a kid. Yoda is introduced to us etc. Then Luke losing his hand and is Vader's kid and Han Solo gets frozen. For 1980 it was ahead of it's time. Ordinary People won best Picture that year and Empire was more captivating. Jedi comes out and the first half was decent. The rest sucked. With technology today, if these were made now - they would not be that big of a hit but for 1977, 1980 and 1983-it was huge. Just the right timing for Lucas. I do hope the new trilogy will be good. Crazy rumors of the storyline that I hope are not true! i diss tiger woods plenty myself lulz. believe me.
cat - sorry, but i've heard the defense of that scene countless times before, and i still completely reject it. human skin is not a hollywood latex mask. u cannot simply peel it off one person and put it on another and think the second person now looks like the first. it's a nonsensical scripting fantasy.
understood but if everyone used "nonsensical scripting fantasy" in all movies then no movies would be made? the racing scenes in any of the fast and furious movies? jaws being 25 feet and 3000 lbs when there has never been a shark over 20 feet? alien? aliens? aliens 3, 4 and 5? the terminator or 2,3 and 4? raiders of the lost ark? rambo 2, 3 and 4? i could go on and on. it's movie magic and that's what it is. take it for what it worth-real or not and enjoy the movies or not. and if you're going to bash silence - then you better bash FACE/OFF! Now that is downright silly lulz.
never seen any of the fast and furious movies. bash them all u want. i personally will content myself with bashing the people who WATCH those movies i don't call jaws one of the best movies ever made. it didn't win a best picture oscar. bash it all u want. but stating there has never been a shark over 20 feet is flat out false, and assuming there's nothing bigger in the oceans is just that - an assumption. the size of jaws is not nearly as farfetched as you've chosen to portray it. additionally, a quick look showed me that 3000 pounds is actually well under the heaviest shark ever weighed. alien and aliens are good movies. not sure which points u disapprove of in them, they are speculative, as all sci-fi is. alien 3 4 and 5? LOL, seriously? VERY bad movies one and all. terminator - see above. lots of speculation, because of the genre. never seen 3 and 4, perfectly willing to consider they sucked out loud. rambo anything - lol, i thought we were talking about movies that were supposed to be great. raiders is a feel good action story, not sure why u even lumped that one in. of course there's nonsense in it. i'd be happy to bash face/off, if i had actually been stupid enough to watch it but again - who calls face/off a great movie? how many oscars did it win? who puts it near the top of an all time best movie list?
since i'd like to move on from talking about silence of the lambs, i'll sum it up by repeating the only credible defense i've ever heard for it winning the best picture oscar. all of its competitors were even worse. it was the cream of the crap that year.
