October 2007 - Old Movies

Old Movies

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Old Movies - October 2007

Comic Book Movies - I've had enough

October 22nd 2007 13:21

Fantastic Four... more like Fantastic BORE

I'm finding myself becoming increasingly bored with the Marvel Movie Miracle Machine and all it's ilk. Prior to the late 90s, the only big 'comic book' films had been the flagship Superman franchise and the sporadic Batman series. Then the rise of the Internetz happened and the rapid conglomeration of nerds and geeks worldwide alerted filmmakers to the existence of a previously silent majority who had been pining away in their rooms waiting for the silicon revolution to happen. And yay, the Internetz gave them voice, and they did start their piteous moaning and fanboy gushiness. And dollars glittered in the eyes of the Executive Producers.

At first, it seemed great. X-Men and Spiderman seemed right on the money, and the respective sequels to each of these movies upped things up a notch, and everyone got spoiled. Then the sludge started seeping up through the cracks, unworthy adaptations spearheaded by hack directors and hack actors... yeah I'm talking about Daredevil, Elecktra and Catwoman. Fine, I figured, you take the good with the bad.

But then the next and most recent wave of films came... X-Men 3 and Spiderman 3 were two of the worst movies I've seen in recent times, both of the Fantastic Four films scaled brave new heights of mediocrity, and Superman Returns made me wish he didn't. Return, that is. The only good recent comic book film I can think of is Batman Begins... I'm excited about the follow-up, The Dark Knight, if only because of the inspired casting of Heath Ledger as the Joker (and all you naysayers can shut up, Ledger is gonna blow everyone out of the water the way Tom Cruise did with 'Interview with the Vampire'). Ghost Rider looks incredibly pants, and Iron Man doesn't really inspire me with confidence. Things are starting to get a little predictable.

Here's how the bulk of these films seem to be turning out...

1. Whizzbang credits sequences utilising cartoonish CGI and/or comic-book style panels.
2. An older and well-known character actor in a nice-guy supporting role.
3. If it's a sequel, there's usually some kind of piss-poor subplot that would be better suited to a soap opera.
4. Stan Lee has a hugely annoying cameo where he delivers a annoyingly significant single line of dialogue, and winks annoyingly at the camera.
5. Two to three arch-villains improbably team up to do away with the hero.
6. Action sequences become so obsessed with outdoing other sequences in comic book movies that you can barely tell what's even going on.
7. Film ends with a big cliffhanger that will form the basis of the next film, though the next film will somehow manage to be inconsistent with what's already established.

To sum up, I'm over it.

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Posted By: Luke - Category: Profiles, Trivia and Talking Crap

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Roman Holiday

October 10th 2007 02:36

It's hard not to feel nostalgic for those long-gone days when all the women were princesses and all the men were honourable bastards. Roman Holiday introduced American audiences to Audrey Hepburn, who would go on and capture their imaginations for years to come. Pairing Hepburn with Gregory Peck, it's one of the most loved romantic comedies to come out of America.

Hepburn plays a princess from an unspecified country, who visits Rome on an official function. As part of her title, she has a responsibility to be seen in public gracefully, and answer questions from the media with tact.

Peck is a dastardly journalist that's looking for a scoop that'll get him out of the deep rut he's dug himself in. Things go his way when he learns that the Princess has escaped from her hotel and is in Rome, pretending to be an everyday stranger.

Sure, it's whimsical and flighty, but the story captures something that audiences love to see... tow people from different backgrounds, meeting coincidentally and falling in love. While it was crafted as a light, entertaining comedy, the movie has had a deep cultural impact and was selected for archiving in the National Film Registry for being 'culturally significant'.

Romantic comedies can be irritatingly predictable, with a formulaic plot and a horrendously inevitable ending. After all, audiences want to see romance, despite the indifferent cruelty of reality. Roman Holiday, in contrast, has a heartwrenching, painful ending. As a friend of mine once said

"Everytime I see it, I hope that the end will turn out differently!"

Hepburn captured the eyes of American viewers with her performance: cute, elegant, playful. She's an absolute delight to watch and she carries the entire movie with poise and grace, a perfect foil to Peck, the rough-edged gentleman that goes soft around the princess.

It's a lovely movie and one that'll hit harder when seen in a cinema, on some suitably grey and dismal Sunday afternoon.

* this image is from this favourite movies page.

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Posted By: Cibbuano - Category: Comedy

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