OT: Thoughts on recent DVD rentals
Apr. 26th, 2008 10:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lazypadawanI just watched Cloverfield. It's basically an urban version of The Blair Witch Project on a bigger budget, with borrowing from the Japanese monster movie oeuvre and the Alien films, served up on a platter of post-September 11 angst.
First of all, where it's derivative, it's obviously derivative. Even the ending shots of the film remind me of the end of Blair Witch Project, only with explosions and without bloody handprints. And like BWP, you keep wondering, "Why the hell do they keep running the film?" I'm sorry, but if monsters or ghostly witches were after me, I'd drop the damn thing and run. Notice batteries never seem to run out in either film!
Like BWP, where it's effective, it's really effective. Cloverfield is at its best when chaos reigns. If you've ever been in the situation where something frightening is happening but you have no idea why or what's going to happen next, both films capture that feeling really well.
But I hated the consciously shaky-jake camera, especially when they were at the boring yuppie party. It was trying a little too hard to look amateur. Spend a few minutes on YouTube and there are all kinds of amateur video shot by 12-year-olds on their cell phones and the picture doesn't shake all that much, if at all.
And, like most horror movies, the entire film is predicated upon the actions of stupid people. Hey, if you want to go back into monster territory to save your girlfriend in a collapsing building, you're on your own, dude! Bonus points for the idiot helicopter pilot flying too close to the monster at the end. Extra bonus points for plucking the girlfriend from an iron rod right through her chest and keeping her alive for the rest of the film. (Note to the filmmakers: I do not have "moron" printed on my forehead.)
See, here's how I would've done the film: it's the raw footage from a news crew covering the attack. A news crew would have a logical reason to be out in the field where all of the action is taking place and would have an interest in getting as much footage as possible. Intersperse the "footage" with interviews with people on the street who are on the run from the creature and with the military guys trying to fight it. Best of all, a professional videographer would know how to keep the camera steady most of the time!
Some Hollywood type would point out that people hate journalists and wouldn't warm up to the characters. Well, people hate 20-something, navel-gazing, razor-challenged Manhattan yuppies even more. Especially if they are as dumb as the ones in this film.
Last weekend, I rented In The Name Of The King. When I was a kid in the '80s, anything produced by Golan & Globus was worth watching at least once. It was the Good Housekeeping seal of excellence in B-movie cheese. Well, anything directed by Uwe Boll, quite possibly the most hated filmmaker on the internet, holds the same allure. Like just about all of Boll's films, this one was based on some video game. It's a total LOTR ripoff, down to casting John Rhys Davies as a wizard. Speaking of the cast, it's a sad collection of actors who have been in better films: Davies, Leelee Sobieski, Ray Liotta as a hammy evil wizard, Ron Perelman, even Jason Stratham. The kicker is Burt Reynolds playing the king. That's right, the '70s hunk, the former Bandit, the man who brought dinner theater to Jupiter, FL, cast as king of some mythical medieval kingdom. There are bad guys who look like Orcs, dungeons, magic, babes who live in trees (including Boll's favorite muse, Kristanna Loken), and best of all, NINJAS! I bet Peter Jackson is pulling his beard out, wishing to God he'd thought of putting Ninjas in LOTR. Perhaps it's an idea he can pass along to Guillermo Del Toro. The part that made me laugh the hardest was during one battle scene, an "Orc" volunteers to climb into a catapult. His fellow "Orcs" set him on fire and lob him into the fray. But he hits a tree and falls to the ground without doing much harm. No wonder the Ewoks didn't do the same thing while fighting the Empire! The music is a howler unto itself, as is the psycho editing. Seriously, it was the best bad movie I've seen in a long time.
First of all, where it's derivative, it's obviously derivative. Even the ending shots of the film remind me of the end of Blair Witch Project, only with explosions and without bloody handprints. And like BWP, you keep wondering, "Why the hell do they keep running the film?" I'm sorry, but if monsters or ghostly witches were after me, I'd drop the damn thing and run. Notice batteries never seem to run out in either film!
Like BWP, where it's effective, it's really effective. Cloverfield is at its best when chaos reigns. If you've ever been in the situation where something frightening is happening but you have no idea why or what's going to happen next, both films capture that feeling really well.
But I hated the consciously shaky-jake camera, especially when they were at the boring yuppie party. It was trying a little too hard to look amateur. Spend a few minutes on YouTube and there are all kinds of amateur video shot by 12-year-olds on their cell phones and the picture doesn't shake all that much, if at all.
And, like most horror movies, the entire film is predicated upon the actions of stupid people. Hey, if you want to go back into monster territory to save your girlfriend in a collapsing building, you're on your own, dude! Bonus points for the idiot helicopter pilot flying too close to the monster at the end. Extra bonus points for plucking the girlfriend from an iron rod right through her chest and keeping her alive for the rest of the film. (Note to the filmmakers: I do not have "moron" printed on my forehead.)
See, here's how I would've done the film: it's the raw footage from a news crew covering the attack. A news crew would have a logical reason to be out in the field where all of the action is taking place and would have an interest in getting as much footage as possible. Intersperse the "footage" with interviews with people on the street who are on the run from the creature and with the military guys trying to fight it. Best of all, a professional videographer would know how to keep the camera steady most of the time!
Some Hollywood type would point out that people hate journalists and wouldn't warm up to the characters. Well, people hate 20-something, navel-gazing, razor-challenged Manhattan yuppies even more. Especially if they are as dumb as the ones in this film.
Last weekend, I rented In The Name Of The King. When I was a kid in the '80s, anything produced by Golan & Globus was worth watching at least once. It was the Good Housekeeping seal of excellence in B-movie cheese. Well, anything directed by Uwe Boll, quite possibly the most hated filmmaker on the internet, holds the same allure. Like just about all of Boll's films, this one was based on some video game. It's a total LOTR ripoff, down to casting John Rhys Davies as a wizard. Speaking of the cast, it's a sad collection of actors who have been in better films: Davies, Leelee Sobieski, Ray Liotta as a hammy evil wizard, Ron Perelman, even Jason Stratham. The kicker is Burt Reynolds playing the king. That's right, the '70s hunk, the former Bandit, the man who brought dinner theater to Jupiter, FL, cast as king of some mythical medieval kingdom. There are bad guys who look like Orcs, dungeons, magic, babes who live in trees (including Boll's favorite muse, Kristanna Loken), and best of all, NINJAS! I bet Peter Jackson is pulling his beard out, wishing to God he'd thought of putting Ninjas in LOTR. Perhaps it's an idea he can pass along to Guillermo Del Toro. The part that made me laugh the hardest was during one battle scene, an "Orc" volunteers to climb into a catapult. His fellow "Orcs" set him on fire and lob him into the fray. But he hits a tree and falls to the ground without doing much harm. No wonder the Ewoks didn't do the same thing while fighting the Empire! The music is a howler unto itself, as is the psycho editing. Seriously, it was the best bad movie I've seen in a long time.
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no subject
Date: 2008-04-27 12:56 pm (UTC)I'm not especially familiar with monster movies or even scary movies, but was actually kind of surprised to hear the comparison to The Blair Witch Project. I haven't seen that movie either, though... which is probably a product of it being the hundred thousandth film among the approximately one million ostentatiously proclaimed to completely show up and humiliate The Phantom Menace.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-28 01:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-28 02:34 am (UTC)The BWP filmmakers, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez (yes, I looked them up) were smart to get out while the getting was good -- that is, they sold the sequel rights, then literally took the money and ran.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-28 03:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-29 01:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-29 02:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-27 01:42 pm (UTC)But still, I enjoyed it. Actually I think that watching it on the big screen may be why I enjoyed it more than you did apparently... I think you must have lost the whole real feeling there was to the movie. When I got out of the theater I thought I was going to be attacked by a monster or something... It really felt... real for lack of a better word. TW I didn't want to watch the movie again because I knew I would've lost the most interesting thing of the movie on my TV... BTW I didn't really enjoy the Blair Witch Project and didn't see a lot in common apart from the filming thing... *shrugs* Maybe I don't remember the movie that much.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-28 01:30 am (UTC)