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Titanic Grill a Movie

#16 User is offline   civilian_number_two Icon

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Posted 13 May 2004 - 02:56 AM

QUOTE (barend @ May 13 2004, 01:39 AM)
I hate films that give guys false hope yell.gif

Brahm Stokers Dracula: girl is torn between guy with steady Real Estate Job and cool evil goth dude... (she chooses the cool guy in the film, but we all know it would have been captain boring AKA Johnathon Harker)

REality Bites: same girl... is torn between cool musician who loves her and Executive guy who wants to exploit her work and suck the "atisticness" out of it... (she chooses the cool guy in the film, but that's not what happened to me)

Titanic: another girl chooses between Rich guy who is abusive to her and poor guy who likes her (agian, another totally way of conclusion)

it's just creuwel!!!! sad.gif yell.gif

It's a tradition in American cinema that can trace its modern incarnation back to THE GRADUATE.

I mean, you're way out with DRACULA, because that seduction is played as the "bad" thing, but those other movies actually championed the annoying loser.

There's an odd dichotomy in the American mindset: success and wealth are good, they are goals to be worked for, but actually having them is always bad. In movies, at least: look at the succes of IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, a warm and folksy American film that has at its heart a genuine and warm message of communism. It's okay, the film argues, for your business to struggle along, so long as it is important and it helps people.

--------------------------------

Anyway:

I watched TITANIC the other day, and I didn't get it. There were these treasure seekers swimming around in the ocean in 1997. It was all so foreign to me, their lifestyles, their hair, their clothes. And when they flashed back to 1912, I couldn't connect. Maybe if the treasure seekers had been from somewhere closer to our own time, like last month at most, it would have been less alienating.

So too SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. I tried to watch it, but those people were walking around in a cemetary in 1998! I can't relate to their lives and their world!


(For those who need the explanation of this dull sarcasm, I really hate frame narratives that serve no purpose. And TITANIC was the worst: we spent 20 minutes on the opening, with some ridiculous McGuffin about sunken treasure. What rubbish. Deep-sea explorers are excited by gadgets to use in deep-sea exploration, not by dreams of pirate gold. Mr. Cameron could should have picked up on that in his research.)

Overall commentary: I liked watching the boat sink, and nothing else. Substandard plot, cutesy "English = Bad, American = Good; Rich = Stuffy, Poor = Vital" bullshit trotted out with all the panache of a shovel full of shit poured on the face of a retarded child. I saw people crying in the theatre, and we booked it time and again in the little second-run I co-managed for a while there, and we made a fortune at $3 a head. What can I say? It pulled in a billion dollars, making it the most profitable film ever made. There was genuine talk of a sequel (!!!) , where Jack somehow lived and signed up for WWI, but the talk was brief. Which is too bad: nothing would have put TITANIC in perspective like a shit-sucking sell-out.
"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
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#17 User is offline   Just your average movie goer Icon

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Posted 13 May 2004 - 03:42 AM

QUOTE
For those who need the explanation of this dull sarcasm, I really hate frame narratives that serve no purpose. And TITANIC was the worst: we spent 20 minutes on the opening, with some ridiculous McGuffin about sunken treasure. What rubbish. Deep-sea explorers are excited by gadgets to use in deep-sea exploration, not by dreams of pirate gold. Mr. Cameron could should have picked up on that in his research.)


That approach to the story really irked me. It's bad enough that they made a soppy unrealistic love story the subject of such an enormous expensive film... but to weave that stupid plot about the guys looking for that 'jewel of the sea' was kicking the thinking audience when they were down.

It was completely unnecessary and as you said, added 20 minutes of boredom to an already too-long movie.

I have a very big problem with the use of time-wasting plot devices that slow movies down when they are already very long to begin with -

See my comments about Return of the King under Oscar for example.

And Barend, I understand you completely about the way most girls choose. They don't generally make the right choices with guys. Given the choice between a gentleman who'll treat them they way they should and an obnoxious mysoginist, many women choose the latter.

But I'm sure you'll eventually find that rare girl who wants a nice guy instead of a jerk. They're out there - I know.

With regards to the Dracula analogy, it is strange. So many silly girls out there would go for Keanu Reeves in real life if they were given the chance.

Now, I'm not saying that Keanu Reeves is an obnoxious mysoginist... just a dull plank of wood. I'm sure most girls could do better than a plank of wood if they tried.

I liked Keanu Reeves in only one role - Ted (from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure). That is the only type character that he can play with any credibility.
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#18 User is offline   barend Icon

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Posted 13 May 2004 - 09:05 PM

QUOTE
But I'm sure you'll eventually find that rare girl who wants a nice guy instead of a jerk. They're out there - I know.


dry.gif

i've found several, that's the problem. it is statisticaly improbable that i will find more... there's nothing wrong on this end. It's a mathamatical impossibility not a social one.

sad.gif
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#19 User is offline   Just your average movie goer Icon

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Posted 14 May 2004 - 12:15 AM

Ah.... I see....
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#20 User is offline   barend Icon

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Posted 14 May 2004 - 02:57 AM

besides which, girls love a bad boy, not an evil genius!
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#21 User is offline   Jordan Icon

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Posted 14 May 2004 - 04:17 AM

Hey JYAMG

Can you post a 'grill a movie' on GANGS OF NEWYORK. I would start the post, but it's your thing so I want to leave it up to you.

Be sure to add how utterly useless Cameron Diaz's role was. You could edit her out and the movie would not be hurt or even slightly affected.

That is if you hated the movie as much as I did.
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#22 User is offline   Laura Icon

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Posted 14 May 2004 - 08:13 AM

Hey man, lay off. Girls aren't here to defend themself. Despite this being the Titanic thread.

QUOTE
i've found several, that's the problem. it is statisticaly improbable that i will find more...


You know from your own experience that there are plenty of girls not interested in material wealth or whatever else it is you're upset about. It's not a statistic impossibility that you'll find more; girls aren't arranged randomly. Look at your friends, their friends, friends of friends, and the kinds of groups that attract the kind of girls you like. Sure, if you say "How am I going to find a cool person in the midst of all these shallow losers?" it seems impossible, but that's really not how it works. There are many, many areas where you don't even have to look (the local Tiffany's, for example).

If there's two things upon which I can't abide people pinning willy-nilly blame, it's (a.) the fickle nature of Woman and (b.) mathematics!
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#23 User is offline   Just your average movie goer Icon

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Posted 14 May 2004 - 09:27 AM

Look overseas, Barend. That's what I did. My girlfriend is Korean. She is the nicest girl in the world. In my previous experience, I found that most western girls (no offence to the few nice ones out there) are cold and hostile to nice guys.

Jordan, I would love to do a grill a movie on Gangs of New York but unfortunately (or more probably fortunately, I haven't seen it).

But anyone is welcome to start a Grill a Movie topic. The only thing I request people to do is put the name of the movie in the Topic Heading and write Grill a Movie in the Topic Description so that after a few of these things are up, it looks like there is a system.

Other than that, there are NO rules... cool.gif
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#24 User is offline   civilian_number_two Icon

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Posted 14 May 2004 - 11:23 AM

This "girls only dig bad boys" shit is so two-faced. Because invariably the girls who only dig the bad boys are the low-riding tube-topped skanks with the cheap dye jobs and the too much makeup that all the guys chase all around the room. I've never met a girl who could go ten minutes on the dearth of topical references in Jane Austen who would do more than look across the room at the whigger with the chain on his wallet loudly gabbing about what a shitty sellout the second Nickleback album was.

It's mathematically improbable that you'll find that intelligent girl of your dreams standing around in a pack of Stepfords with a cell phone glued to her ear. Shouldn't upset you she only wants the bad boy. Good for her, good for him. Fuck off to the both of them. I'll take the gormless nerd with the great taste in movies/comics/steak any day.

Oh, and GANGS OF NEW YORK. Pales in comparison to THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, a rare film that shows the power of a strong director. Winona Ryder even looks like a character, not just some Hollywood party girl in a corset. However: Daniel Day Lewis is a comet of acting. He only flies by once every few years, but you have to come out and watch.
"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
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#25 User is offline   Just your average movie goer Icon

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Posted 14 May 2004 - 11:27 AM

QUOTE
It's mathematically improbable that you'll find that intelligent girl of your dreams standing around in a pack of Stepfords with a cell phone glued to her ear. Shouldn't upset you she only wants the bad boy. Good for her, good for him. Fuck off to the both of them. I'll take the gormless nerd with the great taste in movies/comics/steak any day.


You are right, Civilian. I guess I probably should have guessed what type of girls Barend had been chasing... the so-called "hotties", no doubt.

QUOTE
Oh, and GANGS OF NEW YORK. Pales in comparison to THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, a rare film that shows the power of a strong director. Winona Ryder even looks like a character, not just some Hollywood party girl in a corset. However: Daniel Day Lewis is a comet of acting. He only flies by once every few years, but you have to come out and watch.


That is a beautiful paragraph, Civilian. You have a gift with words. smile.gif
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#26 User is offline   civilian_number_two Icon

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Posted 17 May 2004 - 12:11 PM

QUOTE (Just your average movie goer @ May 14 2004, 11:27 AM)
That is a beautiful paragraph, Civilian. You have a gift with words. smile.gif

All right you sick mother fucker. I don't have to take that kind of shit from you.

You think I can't get to you? I can get to you.

You watch your back, mang. I am serious as a car crash.

sad.gif yell.gif yell.gif yell.gif

(In case you didn't get that, the first one is you, and the last three are me. That's how much hating I can bring if you don't look out) :angry:
"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
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#27 User is offline   civilian_number_two Icon

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Posted 17 May 2004 - 12:15 PM

By the way, before my rant about good girls and bad boys, Laura had made the exact same point, only better. So props to Laura. i admit i had skipped over it in my haste to poste what I thought was a pretty funny reply.

Hooray Laura smile.gif

Grr jyamg, mortal enemy. :angry:
"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
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#28 User is offline   Just your average movie goer Icon

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Posted 17 May 2004 - 07:18 PM

Bring it on, Civilian! Bring it on! cool.gif
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#29 User is offline   barend Icon

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Posted 18 May 2004 - 09:57 PM

okay, firstly... the "bad Boy" remark was just a cheap excuse to mention that i'm an evil genius...

secondly, i know hundreds of cool girls... and i'm also really good friends with thier boyfriends. all the cool girls in sydney are either taken, out of the country, have already gone out with me, not as cool as they pretended to be (after close inspection), insane, married, or are statistcley unlikley to cross paths with me, or worst of all have already gone out with some asshole who srewed they over so badly that they've become paranoid freaks who run away almost as soon as they've started dating you.

and this has everything to do with titanic! because that movie gives the wrong impression about rich girls.

more importantly those girls can easily find this place to defend them selves. if that GWBush lover could find us to complain about our attack on the pres. I'm sure that same path will lead all the cool girls offended by a guy drowing in a sea of bimbos!
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