I'm preparing to find "Rapebear" highly disappointing.
I've never got used to the idea that "high concept" means "stupid as shit". And I have no idea what Klosterman think's he's talking about. Hollywood could get worse?
Comments good.
And while it's not like blockbuster movies aren't already pieces of overmarketed crap already, I have to say I kind of liked the article (even though I still want to see Snakes on a Plane.) C'mon, this is funny:
the mischievous law student yelled, "Snakes on a plane!" presumably to amuse and unify the other patrons. Unfortunately, this turned out to be a trailer for United 93
I am a law student, and the first time I saw the trailer for United 93, I thought it was the trailer for Snakes on a Plane. But I didn't yell that, becuase I stopped thinking yelling things in movie theatres was clever some time in high school.
Speaking of Snakes on a Plane, when we took PK to see Pirates last week, there was a big poster for Snakes up, and PK (having never heard of the movie) said, "look, mama! Snakes on a plane!"
Obviously the marketing is working so far.
(Oh, and has anyone seen The Long Kiss Goodnight? Another Samuel L. Jackson action-movie-as-self-parodying-comedy thing. Totally successful, too, in being both action-packed and filled with delicious bits of completely over-the-top action-movie cliches pushed to the point of absurdity. One of my favorites. Also, surprisingly feminist.)
B, you're breaking my heart. That column is good only as a satire of Atrios' idea of a political columnist. ("These webloggers and their...profanity!") I mean, he's talking about a movie that was designed to be a cognitive vacuum; it's not like we're focus-grouping Citizen Kane. The movie's aspiration to irony-laden hipness now gives it a slightly better chance of making some money and a slightly better chance at having a single redeeming feature. All this whining about
this brand of participatory, choose-your-own-adventure filmmaking is going to become a model. And that model will be terrible
is so much "kids today!" moaning that manifests the discomforting sense that a part of culture is moving in ways the author doesn't quite understand. What brand of filmmaking would he prefer? The one that gave us a wholly straightforward movie about some snakes on a plane?
From the article: "My wife is a rum-guzzling whore."
While I've heard this expression before, it certainly wasn't rum that was being guzzled.
I mostly agree with Klosterman, except on this:
this brand of participatory, choose-your-own-adventure filmmaking is going to become a model.
It already is.
Taking suggestions from people on how to make a good movie good (a reasonable endeavor) is not the same as taking suggestions on how to make an intentionally bad movie more funny-bad. He writes very well about how a movie that aspires to be a movie that people love because it's bad (see "find[ing] poorly written films hilarious" is "is based on the premise that the bad movie aspired to be good") is stupid.
I
Should only be one is. And I don't know where that I came from.
I took the crack about United 93 to be a way of saying that ironic detachment and the knowing smirk had polluted our sacred shrines, etc. etc., which is a tiresome load of crap best left for Jed Purdy to wallow in.
The people kibitzing on the internet weren't populists anyway, they were the irony branch of the film buff world. And Klosterman's whole schtick is tiptoing around near the irony / snobbery / populism intersection.
Klosterman is a jackass and the very definition of a hipster doofus, and The Long Kiss Goodnight is a much better movie than people are willing to credit. That is all.
The Long Kiss Goodnight is a terrible, terrible, terrible film. I would use more terribles in that sentence but you've all convinced me that it is better than I used to be willing to credit.
6: That movie rules. Also, Geena Davis: hott.
The Long Kiss Goodnight?
I know you hate it when I do this, B., but I totally agree. The Long Kiss Goodnight is a really fun movie.
I have the Long Kiss Goodnight on DVD entirely for the one-liners, both the one's that are purposefully funny and the times when the regular dialogue is bizarrely bad, (e.g., "Sometimes I stand in front of the mirror naked and guess how old I am.").
Anyone want to help me write the screenplay for Bees on a Spaceship?
14: "I hope the terrorists win," is more succinct.
11: I think you're reading too much into it, Labs.
Actually, the jist of your comments upthread is valid. But that kind of "popular movies are so terrible!" snobbery isn't exactly new, is it? Nor is it exactly untrue? I enjoy a crap blockbuster as much as most people, but still.
Although I agree with you about the whole "choose your own ending will be the death of film!" thing. I'm always interested in formal innovation, and actually I find the idea of shifting production to reflect audience responses to production rumors interesting and kind of hilarious. Potentially the whole changing-stuff-to-make-people-happy thing is disasterous, but the idea of recognizing good ideas from unusual sources and capitalizing on them is cool.
Okay, never mind. Even though I found the writing funny, I've now talked myself around into completely disagreeing with the premise of the article.
Bees on a Spaceship
E. coli on a Cruise Liner. Kinda lacks the action of the others, but based on a true story!
18: Today is a somber day at work and I am hurting myself trying not to laugh aloud. The tears stand in my eyes.
It's been fairly common, for a while, for movie makers working on adaptations of much-loved books and comics to 'interact' with the fan community. In part because they want to head off criticism and fan-hostility -- the current hostility to Daniel Craig as Bond is a good example -- but also, some of the directors have admitted borrowing fan suggestions or trying to match fan expectations.
14: eb, you really have to watch it again. She ice skates across a frozen pond while shooting at the bad guys? The hilariously exaggerated contrast between her homey home life and her bad-ass life as a professional assassain? The scene where the truck crashes right at the Canadian/American border under a big ol' lit up go USA! American flag? The final scene where, washed in golden light on a hillside, the reunited family picnics and feeds goats? (That scene totally looks like a douche ad, I swear to god.) The way she rips off the baby doll's head and then makes it pee gasoline? The totally exaggerated wholesomeness with which, as Mrs. Claus, she responds to the sexist taunts from the local teen boys with an indulgent boys-will-be-boys wave of her hands? The line, "chefs do that"? The way she snaps the deer's neck? That movie is stuffed to the gills with brilliance, I'm telling you.
Long Kiss Goodnight very good. But I missed Kiss Kiss Bang Bang by the same writer, Shane Black, who wrote the first Lethal Weapon. Anybody seen KKBB (or was it Bang Bang Kiss Kiss?). Got Downey in it.
Geena Davis was so hott, and then she was blond for a while, too. When Samuel Jackson turned her down, I thought he was out of his fucking mind.
Also, I liked his comparison to the song "Peaches" (although it ignores the rest of the PotUSA oeuvre, which is uniformly undeconstructable), but in such a way that it makes me think, "Actually, Snakes on a Plane is going to be fantastic." Given the stuff I've seen bloggers embrace and come up with, I'd rather have that guiding entertainment trends rather than halfwitted focus groups who say things like "BORING! More explosions! Less dialogue! More misogyny!"
What would we call a movie featuring a luxurious space-cruisliner infested by killer bees, bears, e. colli, and raptors? It doesn't much matter because, regardless, that movie would rule!
26: Saw it. First twenty minutes or so made me so happy I wanted to weep. It got weaker from there. But it was still very good.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is great.
Great one-liners, a lot of "aren't I clever" tricksy stuff happening with flashbacks and 1st person addresses to camera that somehow manages not to be annoying. Val Kilmer is genuinely good in it.
21: B. it's also the case that formally soliciting the opinions of a target audience are not new. There have been screenings for a long time where audience members are asked to review a film and sometimes comment on alternate endings. I went to one once. It was about a guy who found his amazing New York townhouse haunted by a fueding ghost couple. He proceeded to heal their relationship rift. The fact that the house was haunted was what made it semi-affordable. It would have been kind iof funny, if he' dmanaged to make a killing by selling the nouse once there were no more freak rattlings. It was one of the worst movies I've ever seen.
Perhaps, I shouldpermanently shorten my handle. It probably goes without saying that 31 was I. And that movie wa never released, probably, because everyone in the audience said that they would never tell their friends to see it.
Shane Black also, of course, wrote The Last Boy Scout. "Chefs do that" is a classic. I really like, right before she snaps the deer's neck, this exchange:
Drunk old guy: How often do you and [husband's name], you know (makes hand gesture to indicate fucking)?
Samantha: Stick our fingers in our hands and pull them out again? Every chance we get.
28:
Every Kind Of Horrible Scary Shit On A Cruise Ship
All of the Lord of the Rings movies were vetted by fans, to minimize the risk that New Line would lose $300 million because the geek squad hated it. I'm not going to claim that they're high art (or that we couldn't have cut one of the endings), but it probably helped to have thousands of eyes nitpicking the details.
"I want this motherfucking e. coli off this moth-- uh, hang on, gotta go poo."
25: I remember all of those scenes. A bad over the top movie is still a bad movie.
I'm holding out for Walrus on a Conveyor Belt.
Actually, I only remember some of those scenes. The escape from the station was pretty absurd, too.
(Not exactly related, but not exactly not, either.)
Tarantulas in a Women's Prison
Crocodiles on a Cruise Ship
Sidewinders on a Satellite
Skunks in a Stuck Elevator
44: Once you get the error message, just click in the url field and hit return. The host is just blocking direct links.
31: Okay, okay! I was wrong! don't rape me in the face!
33: Yes, that's brilliant.
37: Made me laugh. Still laughing.
38: No, no, there's a difference between "bad and over the top" and "exaggerated in order to transform generic conventions into an entirely new form." Specifically, in this case, the generic conventions of the action movie into comic metaaction. Or something like that.
Oh dear god. 41. If you haven't clicked it, scroll back and do so immediately.
Just make sure, when clicking on 41, that your manager isn't walking into your office.
Right, and if you work for or with some kind of uber-Christian, be careful.
I don't expect "snakes on a plane" to be any good. But, it doesn't take the internet to make a movie about snakes on a plane bad.
Anaconda is brilliant. If SOAP is half as good, I'll be thrilled.
re: 41
So, is that the cross-walk-a-fixion?
Hey, other people liked Long Kiss Goodnight. The problem with Geena Davis is that LKG was pretty much her ideal role -- comic action hero -- and they don't write a lot of those for women.
Am I a total wuss for being willing to admit that, as I am genuinely terrified of both snakes and flying, I am actually afraid to see SOaP because I think it'll leave me a gibbering wreck?
If it had zombies, I think I'd be fine. They'd be a balancing factor.
It certainly puts an asterisk on your internet handle.
55: Yes, but me too. Except just snakes. Flying gives me no trouble. But snakes, eeeesh.
My rankings of movies whose titles contain the words "The", "Long", and "Good" in that order are:
1. The Long Good Friday
2. The Long Goodbye
3. The Long Kiss Goodnight
41: If I go to hell for that one, it's probably worth it.
56 is wrong. You're not a total wuss for being willing to admit it; you're a total wuss for feeling that way in the first place. Admitting it is the manliest part of 55.
63 is wrong. The zombies are the manliest part of 55.
My nancy ways have made me butch.
My mother will be so proud!
Also, 59: some of us are tapping our feet and waiting for more on your trip. Unless you updated today and I just haven't gotten there yet, in which case I am preemptively self-pwned.
64 is right, but only as a correction to the central point of 63.
"Anyone want to help me write the screenplay for Bees on a Spaceship?"
What explanation do you plan to use for not having the protagonist(s) put on a space suit and vent the ship to space?
"The problem with Geena Davis is that LKG was pretty much her ideal role -- comic action hero -- and they don't write a lot of those for women."
See also Cutthroat Island.
What explanation do you plan to use for not having the protagonist(s) put on a space suit and vent the ship to space?
The bees have seen, and learned from, Alien? The first things the bees do when they take over is puncture all the space suits? When you're in space no one can hear you get stung by a bee?
The bees need to be intelligent collectively, but not individually. The exposition of this odd fact should come after the first major action sequence. Then there should be another action sequence, and then a break where the characters figure out how to use the collective nature of the bees intelligence against them.
The main problem with action movies like this is that they don't have enough sex. Any ideas about how to get more sex in this one?
The Swarm was on TV last week. Bees are scary. Nuclear power plant failures are scary. But suprisingly, bees causing a nuclear power plant failure is not so scary.
Any ideas about how to get more sex in this one?
You really wouldn't want more in the e.coli film.
I, completely non-sequituring, get immensely sucky personal news. (Though not as bad as cancer, to be sure.)
It really, really does. Damn, I'm sorry.
Gary, if you can't straighten things out, make sure you leave behind some milk chicken bombs.
That does suck. Here's hoping the landlord sees some reason.
"Gary, if you can't straighten things out, make sure you leave behind some milk chicken bombs."
Well, aside from the fact that I have a deposit -- I never place much faith on getting deposits back, anyway, and as well, I have to say that I've not been kind to the carpet here, and since I'm a lousy cleaner, I doubt I'll get the surfaces perfectly clean when I leave, either -- I don't see how it would be helpful to make the next tenant suffer. It's not as if the landlord would personally suffer if I stank up the place.
Presumably I'll know more on the 19th; if I am evicted, I'm afraid I'm going to be pleading desperately for donations from any kind and generous souls (even more than usual, that is), because there's no possible way I'll be able to come up a deposit, let alone and-last-month's rent, and money to pay someone to help me move (no car), and whatever else might be necessary to get into a new place. (Lord save me from having to deal with roommates/housemates again, please!)
But, man, I really don't want to move. Nor have to deal with higher rent. I gots enough problems.
"Here's hoping the landlord sees some reason."
I really don't know what he'll do. He's certainly not been the worst landlord I've ever had -- but, then, I've had a few unbelievable scum-suckers, so that's not saying much. I'll go so far as to say that he's been more or less okay: just indifferent as regards stuff he doesn't want to deal with, and a pain about refusing to renew my lease.
But demand for apartments is high here, and he can find someone to put in here without the faintest problem, and get higher rent on top of it, so he has a mild incentive to toss me out, and no particular reason not to, other than that I'm otherwise a no problem tenant who pays on time and is quiet and such. So if he wants to toss me on whim, there's not much reason for him not to, either.
But, man, I never asked this temp guy to complain to the landlord for me, and from my POV it's a little stunning to have him show up and tell me I'm being evicted because I mentioned that the pool wasn't heated. (This is what I get for living in Colorado, instead of NY or MA; on the other hand, I wouldn't have a nice, if teeny-tiny, studio in those states for $475, electricity and water included, very easily, either.)
I sure wish I had some good drugs right now, though.
And, oh, look, the weather report for tomorrow says 99, and 100 on Saturday. Lovely.
Oh, well. I could be living in Iraq. Or in the hospital. Or a peasant in innumerable poor countries. All sorts of things could be far worse. I know that.
Condolences to Gary.
I loved almost everything about Long Kiss Goodnight, except near the climax when she did the Hollywood cliché "suck my dick" line. The whole movie up to that point was about showing that someone could be a seriously cool macho badass action star without owning a penis, and that line deflated that for me. (Same problem with GI Jane, but that movie sucked in so many other ways that I could ignore it.) Geena Davis was wizard cocksucker in that movie precisely because she didn't have a dick to be sucked. Or am I reading too much into this?
Don't they have to give you 60 days notice?
No, that line jars. But on the other hand, it's very much part of the genre, and thus very much part of the send up. I could also get into the whole argument about the "dick" being really just a metaphorical vessel of badassery (um, ahem) rather than, you know, literally a penis, but I'm making that argument (or something like that) in the Gadamer thread instead.
The milk chicken bomb goes in the landlord's home, silly.
I hope he doesn't evict you. And meanwhile you've got the worry hanging over you. Condolences. If he does evict, I'm confident a fundraiser can be organized, throughout the mineshaft and beyond, even without offering donors cool mix tapes by someone cool (I can't remember if it was Ala/meida or Be-Wa who did that, but it was cool). Keep us posted.
Geena Davis was wizard cocksucker in that movie precisely because she didn't have a dick to be sucked.
In fact, she was beyond wizard cocksucker. She was cancer sausage.
"Don't they have to give you 60 days notice?"
Nope. As I said, in Colorado, tenants have pretty much no rights. Ten days notice. Same ten days if he wants to raise the rent to any amount whatever.
Of course, were I moving out, I'd have to give thirty days notice.
"The milk chicken bomb goes in the landlord's home, silly."
Ah. I don't even know where he lives; nowhere near these three buildings; somewhere elsewhere in town or outside of it.
"I can't remember if it was Ala/meida"
Mysterious One and Ogged: together they fight crime! I always wondered what those tapes were like; she never got around to sending me one. :-) (Although I don't even have a working tape player, and, to be sure: money vastly more valuable and necessary and appreciated.)
I'm kinda sorry that the last episode of Commander-in-Chief didn't feature Geena Davis-as-President suddenly hitting her head and remembering that she was Charlie-the-assassin and start cursing and killing people. Wouldn't that have been a good way to go out?
Yeah, I read that. What a damn fool law.
Jesus, Gary, that's horrible. I'm sorry.
I'm kinda sorry that the last episode of Commander-in-Chief didn't feature Geena Davis-as-President suddenly hitting her head and remembering that she was Charlie-the-assassin and start cursing and killing people. Wouldn't that have been a good way to go out?
Woot, Thelma and Louise fuck up America! Yes!
Well, "horrible" is more like losing a leg, or maybe a kidney. Or getting a fatal diagnosis (been there, done that, turned out they were wrong). Or any of a number of other things. This is more like "extremely lousy and depressing and aggravating."
Not that I mean to be critical of your American Freedom To Choose Adjectives!, or your choice. (If you're who I think you are, strasmangelo, my impression is that your health and computer and lack of wealth, and such, hasn't been great, either, of late or more, although you never write, you never call, and it's possible I'm working under an erroneous impression; regardless, I'm sure you've got tribbles, too, just as everyone does.)
And, heck, right now sympathy is entirely welcome (also, donations!); I'm not in the most chipper of moods (as I mentioned, I was already pretty depressed over friends of more than thirty years standing dying). (At least now the sun is going down, so it will be cooler 'til morning.)
Eh. This, too, shall pass.
Wish I could think of something fun to do, though. (Which would have to include not costing much of anything, and little walking, so options are limited.)
Back from grocery shopping (where I, in my preoccupation, spaced out giving them the "$10 off for spending $50" coupon they currently have going; I sure hope they'll credit me next time I go, and show them my receipt).
On the way, I chatted with my neighbors; turns out that Curley, a 55-ish hippie who has lived in this building (it's small, 12 units) for 30 years, also got an eviction notice a few days ago. Why? The landlord said he didn't like his attitude.
