Most boring movie
Most boring movie nomination: Eyes Wide Shut. Except for Nicole Kidman in her underwear. A bottle of Wild Turkey didn't help this one.
see, I liked Ishtar.
I have found the all time dumbest, most stupidly conceived movie thats an instant sedative
SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW.
Id rather watch the shopping network
THe problem with that film is it's sci-fi aimed at a target audience and it's not those who place films like "Bladerunner" at the top of the list. It flopped at the box office.
Im seeing a pattern in that many CGI bloated movies are mere video games with dialogue
They haven't done well so I'm not sure where it's going but remember that the majority of the audience going to movies are teenagers and you'd think they would like the "video game" oriented product. It probably does little good criticizing these films but for those who are adults and believe they are great films, I guess we have to consider the source. Then again, Ebert liked the movie for its innovation and if you rented this film and watched it on a small screen, I'm not sure it would come off very well. That's the other problem -- films designed to be watched on the big screen (and that's a technically best quality big screen like a THX certified theater of which there are only a small handful in the OC) will probably bore one on the small screen. It's a different form of entertainment and not to everyone's liking. I know when I avidly read sci-fi in the 50's and 60's, I didn't like space opera. Just compare "Sky Captain" to "Battlefield Earth" and it begins to look good.
I don't know, Phoenix, as your "doze off" reviews seem to pop up often. Lay of the Pinot Noir and you might get through a film. Well, unless it's "Sideways."
So what did hubby think? I called Forry Ackerman and, to be expected, he liked the movie.
(It does have a "Metropolis" look to it and that film puts a lot of people to sleep).
I agree the film appeals to a childlike fascination with sci-fi themes embodied in the ellusive "sense of wonder" which was highly debated in the 50's and 60's. Does all great sci-fi have to have this "sense of wonder?" I agree that "Spiderman II" is a great movie and agree with Ebert that it is the best of the superhero movies even over the original "Batman." The telling fact that it was shown on the big screen and didn't even bring in the teenage boy audience it was aimed at makes probably makes it a misfire. What exactly was wrong with it? A lukewarm and stilted script hung up on the old space operas, for one thing. It's an average film in every respect but technical as all of the acting was done before a blue screen. All of the environment was CGI. I can see where with a really good sci-fi story that this could be utilized quite well.
(It was definetely a drawback for the actors to have no sets to help them orient into an environment).
big creen, small screen, it didnt matter. We watched on a suitable big screen home theater with a nice sound system . THERE WAS NO PLOT, the actors phoned it in, and the CGI actually looked like looney toons, the matte work sucked and there was no sense of depth in the big vista scenes. I can judge the CGI on its own merits separate from the film story, but in this case it was all bad. I think itwas Ebert who disliked OPEN RANGE. Thatbwas one of the best vista rich movies since some of the old Jonny WAyne epics like Saerchers.
I'm not sure about boring, but I absolutely hate movies that I can't figure out what the heck they're about!
Here are 2 examples in my book:
"Picnic At Hanging Rock"
"Mulholland Drive"
I was also frustrated by "Picnic at Hanging Rock" because you never find out what happened to the missing girls. However, the movie was based on an actual incident. In mystery fiction we are accustomed to being given a clever solution at the end. In real life, many disappearances remain unsolved. That may have been the point of the film.
farmerman wrote:big creen, small screen, it didnt matter. We watched on a suitable big screen home theater with a nice sound system . THERE WAS NO PLOT, the actors phoned it in, and the CGI actually looked like looney toons, the matte work sucked and there was no sense of depth in the big vista scenes. I can judge the CGI on its own merits separate from the film story, but in this case it was all bad. I think itwas Ebert who disliked OPEN RANGE. Thatbwas one of the best vista rich movies since some of the old Jonny WAyne epics like Saerchers.
It wasn't Ebert who gave "Open Range" ***1/2:
EBERT REVIEW OF OPEN RANGE
EBERT'S REVIEW OF SKY CAPTAIN
It's obvious Ebert likes that kind of film in its genre but I don't agree it is a **** movie.
There was no matte work in "Sky Captain." Blue screen is a different technique, especially when utilitzing CGI as a background. I thought the CGI was flawless and the storyline was no more simplified than "Raiders of the Lost Ark" but that's a much better movie. I will always have a nostalgic love of the old serials as clunky as they were (I'm getting the image of the space ships with the whisps of smoke trailing out of their exhausts in "Flash Gordon.") This resembles the old Buck Rogers serials more than any I can think of. I did like the art deco 20's artistic concept -- it was made to look like it was created in the 30's but with modern technology.
It is hard to believe that Ebert would give "Sky Captain" four stars.
Generally, Ebert is one of the more credible critics. He consistently evaluates each movie within its specific genre only. This is a very reasonable approach. It allows him to give four stars to movies as diverse as "Schindler's List" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark".
In his review, he compares "Sky Captain" favorably to "Raiders," and I have some questions about his objectivity in that regard. I'm tempted to see the film again on DVD. Ebert's knowledge of filmmaking learned over his career is hardly rivaled by most major critics. If he saw this as a viable new direction that will spawn more innovations in filmmaking, I think it's lackluster performance at the box office will not be encouraging. The virtual reality CGI films have also not brought in the audiences and not pleased the film critics. It could be this film is misunderstood but I am still not impressed with the story telling. Space opera was relegated to the really pulpy sci-fi periodicals in the early days of sci-fi mania when there were so many titles on the newsstand. It's not something one would find in Astounding (Analog) Science Fiction, Galaxy nor The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Having met the editors of all three of those magazines in the 50's, I knew how serious they were about science fiction and how much they looked down on the gosh, wow school of space opera writing. L. Ron Hubbard was hardly a respected writer, for instance.
"Picnic at Hanging Rock" - if you want to read the last piece written about that, by the author Joan Lindsay called "The Secret of Hanging Rock", which was the 18th chapter removed and sold seperately, I recall it being released when I was young (maybe early teens).
I don't know why I am defending the movie... because I am an Australian?
perhaps a solution?
benconservato,
thanks for the link to the article about the novel. (i didn't realize that there was a novel.)
the article explains both the novel and the movie.
The explanation is not offered on a tray in the film -- there is a mysterious metaphysical aura and one can only imagine what it means. The same for "The Last Wave," but with the ominous shadow falling over the lead character at the end of the film it's less enigmatic.
