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Saw Chronicle a few days ago
saint:
--- Quote from: shmokes on July 13, 2012, 09:11:29 am ---
--- Quote from: saint on July 13, 2012, 12:25:35 am ---I saw 5 seconds, literally about 5 seconds of Blair Witch, and almost threw up. Can't watch movies with that kind of camera work (see my rant elsewhere about some other movie recently) as I get nastily motion sick for hours. Didn't see Cloverfield because I was warned, or Paranormal Activity, and now Chronicle goes in that pile. Sucks.
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This is such a shame. The film gains absolutely nothing from the found-footage gimmick. As lame as Blair Witch was, the gimmick worked for it. It was part of the story. The whole point was to present this thing to the audience as though it were a real thing that really happened. Here it's just, a movie. It's not like when you watch a normal movie you're thinking the whole time, "WTF? Why is all of this being caught on camera? Why are these people's lives set to music?" Doing found-footage just for the sake of it, as though it is a technique on equal footing with traditional cinematography . . . that's just crazy. And like I said, it's a shame. I'm sure you'd love this film. So much so that I almost recommend at least giving it a shot. It's probably not so shaky and amateurish as Blair Witch (though I haven't seen Blair Witch since it was in theaters so I have no idea what I'm basing that statement on). Maybe swallow a Dramamine before watching it.
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Yeah, it sucks because I do want to see it. Did you see Hunger Games? Was it better or worse than the camera angles there? I gritted my teeth through Hunger Games (http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=119078.msg1261788#msg1261788) but felt icky for the rest of the evening. Anything worse than that I can't watch. Can't play FPS games either. I can play driving games but can't watch other people play them.
SNAAKE:
--- Quote from: shmokes on July 13, 2012, 09:03:35 am ---
--- Quote from: saint on July 13, 2012, 12:26:35 am ---(Gladiator was good)
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The Roman emperor personally goes into the arena to fight a slave in one-on-one hand-to-hand combat in front of thousands of his subjects. You can't win this one, Saint. :cheers:
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yeah thats why it was a bad movie ::)
shmokes:
--- Quote from: saint on July 13, 2012, 10:35:37 am ---78%/85% on Rotten Tomatoes, 8.4 on IMDB, $187 mill at the box office, 5 Oscars -- I didn't say it was intellectually stimulating, I said it was good as in entertaining. :)
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Never mind that 78% is not a high tomato rating. And don't make me start quoting Jusin Beiber sales figures at you. Or McDonald's sales figures. Or Grim Fandango/Psychonauts sales figures. Commercial success and quality are often not directly correlated. In fact, they're often inversely correlated.
As for the awards, I have one word for you: Titanic. Also Avatar if we're including nominations. Anyway, of the Oscars Gladiator received I'd say it was probably perfectly deserving of at least three, maybe even four of them. I mean, that piece of garbage Phantom Menace was nominated for three Oscars, and in a year where The Matrix wasn't released probably would have won (and deserved to win) all of them. There are plenty of Oscars that can be legitimately awarded to a film that is overall a piece of crap.
I think you're wrong. A movie does have to be intellectually stimulating to be good. It doesn't have to be educational, mind you. But it has to make sense. It has to pull you into its world and keep you there until the credits roll. And in order to do that, its story has to follow rules. Events and behavior have to be true, in the sense they they must conform to what reasonably could happen in a given situation. They don't have to follow real-world rules (obviously . . . this thread was created by me to promote an excellent movie about supernatural powers), but the movie has to establish its world and then work within its own logical confines. Otherwise the audience is repeatedly yanked out of the movie and back into their seats to roll their eyes at some event or behavior that makes no sense. This is where Gladiator fails.
saint:
For a movie to be good, it simply has to be enjoyable, even if there are flaws. I very much enjoyed Avatar for instance, and it was a horrible plot. Probably one of the only movies I enjoyed for eye candy alone. I'll never watch it again, but I was satisfied that I'd gotten my money's worth. There are plenty of movies I've walked out of unhappy I wasted my time and money on. Gladiator wasn't one of those, and the pertinent # on Rotten Tomatoes is the 85% happy fan rating. That's a successful movie even if it wasn't one you liked :)
shmokes:
Oh, wouldn't begin to argue that Gladiator wasn't successful. No more than I'd level that criticism against Justin Beiber. I go no further than saying that they suck. :P
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