Not signed in (Sign In)

Culturegasm: At the Movies - Juno July and August

Bottom of Page

81 to 100 of 275

  1. <
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. 7
  9. 8
  10. ...
  11. 14
  12. >
  1.  (10691.1)
    Hearing that the DVD of Prometheus will have an alternative beginning and ending on it.
    •  
      CommentAuthorjohnjones
    • CommentTimeJun 23rd 2012 edited
     (10691.2)
    Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is beautifully silly and gloriously stupid. It takes a little while to get to the actual vampire hunting, but once it's there the film finds its strength, specifically in lovely action set pieces featuring "action hero physics" at its least believable. Of particular note is a chase/battle between Lincoln and a vampire atop a stampede of horses. Of course, historical accuracy isn't precisely a concern here. At one point the plot has "
    Mary Todd Lincoln and Harriet Tubman using the Underground Railroad to help win the Battle of Gettysburg by shipping silver weapons to kill the vampires fighting in the Southern ranks.
    " That's pretty well up there with Mark Twain and Skeletor winning the Battle of Norway by dropping an atomic bomb on St. Louis. In 1780. You have both vampires and humans accomplishing ridiculously unlikely feats of strength and acrobatics during their various conflicts, but screw it. You pretty much had to know what you were getting when you dropped your money for a ticket to this thing. Was I educated by this movie? Hell no. Was I entertained by it? Hell, yes.

    And for the record, I'm looking for the next permutation of Graham-Smith's concept of mixing well-known stories with supernatural bullcrap. Let's go present day. I want to see Barack Obama: Demon Slayer.
  3.  (10691.3)
    i just saw prometheus and loved it.
    didn't understand why everyone said it was so confusing.
    •  
      CommentAuthorTF
    • CommentTimeJun 24th 2012
     (10691.4)
    Hearing that the DVD of Prometheus will have an alternative beginning and ending on it


    It will need a lot more than that to plug the plot holes.
  5.  (10691.5)
    why all the hate for prometheus?
    you are confusing plot holes with mystery.
    not all movies have to spell out every detail.
    the good movies are what keep you thinking afterward
  6.  (10691.6)
    I just got done watching Brave with my girlfriend this morning and had as great a time as one would expect from a new Pixar movie. It's very atypical Pixar, but still loaded with all sorts of wonderful Pixar-ish moments. I went in mostly ignorant of the plot, as is only right and proper for this kind of thing, so I'm not going to go into too much detail, but it was really refreshing to see a movie that's about a mother/daughter relationship.
    • CommentAuthorSolario
    • CommentTimeJun 24th 2012
     (10691.7)
    Nobody thought Prometheus was confusing in that sense - they thought the characters were poorly motivated, their actions inconsistent with their character and background, the structure and rules of the universe as contradictive or nonsensical, and it's themes are boilerplate Chariot of the Gods creationism and the hubris of man. It's only a challenging piece of art because it's so poorly crafted.

    People hate Prometheus because it confuses illegibility and incompletion with mystery. A piece of fiction doesn't need to spell everything out, but it needs to be coherent and smart. Taking motivationsless moronic stereotypes from two-bit slasher movies and tossing them into space does not consistute mystery.

    Good movies don't necessarily keep you thinking afterwards; Interesting movies are what keep you thinking afterwards. And while I think "interesting" is a good property to have as a piece of fiction, it's not the sole qualifier for quality. I think a movie like Manos: Hands of Fate is interesting, but I hardly think it's any good.


    Anyway, Film Crit Hulk said it better: "SO OF COURSE PROMETHEUS TAKES AIM AT THOSE IDEAS, BUT EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM IS GIVEN A BRIEF WHISPER OF MENTIONING AND... NOT MUCH MORE THAN THAT. SERIOUSLY, IT'S JUST LIP SERVICE. AND WORSE, NONE OF THESE THEMES ACTUALLY PLAY INTO ANYONE'S STORY.... THINK ABOUT THAT. THESE CRITICAL NOTIONS IN A MOVIE ABOUT CREATION ARE PRETTY MUCH LEFT TO BEING A BRIEF, UNREFERENCED OBSTACLE OR JUST A MATTER OF DISCUSSION ALONE... WHICH IS A FUNDAMENTAL VIOLATION OF "SHOW DON'T TELL." BUT FAR MORE PROBLEMATIC THAN THE FACT THAT THESE THEMES ARE BOILED DOWN TO VERBAL DISCUSSIONS, IT'S THAT THE CONVERSATION THAT TAKES SHAPE IS NOT ONE THAT FEATURES NUANCE OR UNDERSTANDING ON THE GRAY SCALE. IN FACT, THE ENTIRE THEMATIC APPROACH OF THE FILM IS BOILED DOWN TO A LONG SERIOUS OF EXCHANGES THAT LOOK EXACTLY LIKE THIS:

    PERSON A: "I want to know the answers!"

    PERSON B: "You can't know the answers!"
    •  
      CommentAuthorTF
    • CommentTimeJun 24th 2012
     (10691.8)
    didn't understand why everyone said it was so confusing

    you are confusing plot holes with mystery


    I don't think anyone here has said they found Prometheus confusing. I've heard other people describe it that way but only because they were expecting a straight Alien prequel and - I believe - the elements of that story that remained from the original script (pre-D.L. draft) gave them signposts they couldn't reconcile.

    THE ENTIRE THEMATIC APPROACH OF THE FILM IS BOILED DOWN TO A LONG SERIOUS OF EXCHANGES THAT LOOK EXACTLY LIKE THIS:

    PERSON A: "I want to know the answers!"

    PERSON B: "You can't know the answers


    I agree with Hulk but for me it went beyond how poorly the theme was handled and the weakness of the character's discourse. As Hulk demonstrates the mystery wasn't really a mystery - consequently I understood everything given and all I had left to think about was the conceited effort of the writer and director to create a franchise at the expense of telling a whole story. That genuinely bugs me. Michael Bay doesn't even do that.

    Anyway.

    This weekend I saw Ken Loach's latest The Angels' Share - and it is wonderful! A basic heist flick at heart but it's very funny, has well drawn characters and demonstrates the personal stakes of the characters in a very engaging way.
    • CommentAuthorStefanJ
    • CommentTimeJun 24th 2012
     (10691.9)
    I thoroughly enjoyed Prometheus as an action-adventure. We're in a time where film makers can get away with intriguing and complex ideas. Source Code and Inception come to mind. Prometheus really doesn't challenge in that way.

    Am I the only one who noticed the parallels to Warren's Ocean graphic novel?

    * * *
    I saw Brave this morning, and liked it a lot. I don't understand the critics' complaints about the story. It moved along nicely, was funny often, scary and exciting in a few places, and moving where it needed to be. We're not talking top-tier Pixar, but it is still a great movie.
    * * *
    Moonrise Kingdom is playing in at least one suburban metroplex near me. I'm tempted to see it again, but I think I'll save the money and get the Blu-Ray after it is discounted. I would love to watch the movie with the pause button handy.
  10.  (10691.10)
    sorry, about prometheus again
    i think it may seem like a jumbled mess but there is order in that jumble.
    i heard alot of people (not necessarily on here ) talk about how the black goop did to many different things, but i think the only thing it did in all the circumstances was to act as a dna accelerant
    for instance when holloway looked into the mirror and saw a little monster, it was probably just a demodox that fed off holloways infected skin cells and hormones mutating it like the worms.
  11.  (10691.11)
    @Solario: "Manos" is such an interesting film! Have you heard of the "Manos" In HD project? It's always intriguing to me to see what good qualities exist within what is otherwise a total wreck of a film.
    • CommentAuthorCrusherJoe
    • CommentTimeJun 24th 2012
     (10691.12)
    BRAVE was wonderful, and a worthy addition to the PIXAR catalog. The short before it though, LA LUNA, was simply beautiful, but as I'm on a Lord Dunsany kick right now, it sort of falls right in with that. Perhaps it's the serendipity that makes that one glow so much.
    •  
      CommentAuthorStoto
    • CommentTimeJun 24th 2012
     (10691.13)
    Prometheus Unbound: What The Movie Was Actually About

    Heard about this on Kermode and Mayo's Film Review. Mark Kermode seemed to think it was pretty astute.
  14.  (10691.14)
    I don't agree with the 'mood-slime' theory at all. It's reaching a lot and isn't really supported by any of the text of the film.
  15.  (10691.15)
    yeah i think it makes more sense that it is just a dna accelerant
    •  
      CommentAuthorStoto
    • CommentTimeJun 24th 2012
     (10691.16)
    Yep, David. I agree with you.
  17.  (10691.17)
    Most of the Prometheus explanations and analyses feel like the writers are glossing over and apologizing the poor writing of the piece, and they aren't really supported by what the filmmakers themselves have said about the background of the movie. Films don't need to spell out answers to every question they raise, but in case of Prometheus there was no sense of mystery for me, just a sense of a patchwork story that tried to go several directions at once, and be at least three different films at the same time.
    •  
      CommentAuthorTF
    • CommentTimeJun 25th 2012
     (10691.18)
    The funny thing about the article that Stoto linked to is how the author couldn't get around the hackyness of the film in his anaysis: "silly death", "On the face of it, it seems absurd...", "It seems equally insane..."
  19.  (10691.19)
    The one complaint about Prometheus I find easiest to argue against is the "Why did all these scientists sign up for a mission when they didn't know what they were getting into?"
    One word answer - Money.
    Longer answer - "We want you for a secret deep sapce mission where your skills may be needed. You will be briefed on arrival. If that is acceptable to you, take this large briefcase filled with more money than you will make in ten years and we'll see you at the launchpad."
    • CommentAuthorThe Brad
    • CommentTimeJun 25th 2012 edited
     (10691.20)
    The subtext and hidden motivations and grand master scheme of the engineers in PROMETHEUS don't interest me at all because every single character was poorly written and defiantly stupid, with not one clear and sensible action or believable motivation in that whole thing. Real shame to, because the individual set-peices in and of themselves were impressive, as was the sfx and the photography.

    I imagine if that med-pod scene were imbedded in a much more sobering, sensible, and speculative movie it would be just as effective and iconic as the original chest-burster scene. By far my favorite part of the film and almost worth the ten dollar admission in and of itself.

81 to 100 of 275

  1. <
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. 7
  9. 8
  10. ...
  11. 14
  12. >