I don't understand why it got such bad reviews?

If you're fortunate enough to live in an area where there is an independently owned second run house, you might get to see movies that received luke warm to slammed reviews by the main stream critics which are really gems.

For some of us, mainstream movies are so incredibly dumb that we can't bear to watch them. I was dragged to Speed, AI, Face Off, Waterland, etc., movies I would have avoided if broadcast on television. Festivals of boredom, all.

Sometimes, people who become movie critics lose it. They go nuts after a year or two of watching everything that comes down the pike, including the above mentioned films and end up screaming at their keyboards.

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I'm just joshin', too, eoe -- I'm sure you keep your toilets in good repair.

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I don't understand how so many Adam Sandler movies get bad reveiws. their usually funny and feelgood, never meanspireted, unlike many othe reveiws.

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I've read reviews that were lukewarm over the how funny or feel good a certain Sandler film may be but can't remember a mean spirited review. He has been in some respectably good movies, most recently "Spanglish." At least the critics thought it was a good movie 'cause you couldn't tell by the box office. I think we forget that the cineplex is populated mostly by teenagers and daters who go for something to do, not especially something to enrich their lives. Their demands seem to be met and frivolous, tacky comedies seem to be among the most popular with mindless thrillers also bringing in the same crowd. If I've seen some Sandler films that were suppose to be feel good, that feeling lasted approximately sixty seconds.

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Sandler gets bad reviews because many people dislike what they call "silly" humor. Some of his stuff is sophomoric.

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I have to say about AI, that my boyfriend and i watched it, and it just seemed to go on, and on, and ON and ON (even with Jude Law to look at)... and then in the scene when the kid is underwater staring at the "blue fairy", the voice-over says, "2,000 years passed..." I said, "that's how it feels, all right," and now whenever something is really boring, we turn to each other and say, "2,000 years passed..." So at least i guess we got a little in-joke out of it Smile

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dora17 wrote:

I have to say about AI, that my boyfriend and i watched it, and it just seemed to go on, and on, and ON and ON (even with Jude Law to look at)... and then in the scene when the kid is underwater staring at the "blue fairy", the voice-over says, "2,000 years passed..." I said, "that's how it feels, all right," and now whenever something is really boring, we turn to each other and say, "2,000 years passed..." So at least i guess we got a little in-joke out of it

I really didn't feel that way at all. I found it to be an interesting negative utopia story, and about the only bad feeling it engendered in me was sadness, which was what it was trying to do.

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It was "interesting" and if that were the criteria of all movies, or novels for that matter, we'd all be dozing off. I didn't get the "sadness" and it certainly wasn't profound sadness but a kind of maudlin sentimentality that didn't fit with the rest of the picture -- it left me out-to-sea (sic). Too much of the middle section resembled a Mad Max future and, in fact, looked and felt borrowed. It's parable to Pinnochio came dangerously close to being silly. Not a bad film and watchable the first time but not one I'd return to as great sci-fi. Maybe Kubrick sluffed off this project because the core of the idea was too superficial for him. I still regret he didn't finish "Nostromo."

However, again it received mixed reviews and is shown on cable with a three star rating.

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okay, here's one: I Am Sam. I really liked that movie, and if i'm remembering right it got pretty blah reviews. I thought Sean Penn did a really good job, and Dakota Fanning always impresses me.

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So, Dora, I can't help but ask, is your avatar a wild boar?
I know, totally off subject...

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Ya, osso, it is, i dunno why... it appealed to me somehow. When i was choosing an avatar and looking at all the cute bunnies and puppies, etc., i felt that he represented me more accurately
draw your own conclusions Smile

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A I

Lightwizard wrote:

It was "interesting" and if that were the criteria of all movies, or novels for that matter, we'd all be dozing off. I didn't get the "sadness" and it certainly wasn't profound sadness but a kind of maudlin sentimentality that didn't fit with the rest of the picture -- it left me out-to-sea (sic). Too much of the middle section resembled a Mad Max future and, in fact, looked and felt borrowed. It's parable to Pinnochio came dangerously close to being silly. Not a bad film and watchable the first time but not one I'd return to as great sci-fi. Maybe Kubrick sluffed off this project because the core of the idea was too superficial for him. I still regret he didn't finish "Nostromo."

However, again it received mixed reviews and is shown on cable with a three star rating.

For me what was sad was that we had created robots that were conscious and self-aware, and we then proceeded to treat them as if they weren't. One example was the poor, hapless robots penned up at the rally, waiting to be destroyed for the amusement of the crowd. It might strike one as farfetched, but, then, we once found it psychologically possible to treat human slaves as though they weren't really human, so who is to say?

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A thematic point that was made in the 60's on "The Twilight Zone" in one-half hour. There was something more in the core of the idea behind the movie and it got lost somewhere in the shuffle. I was dazzled by special effects and cryptic future shock but left unimpressed.

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Lightwizard wrote:

A thematic point that was made in the 60's on "The Twilight Zone" in one-half hour. There was something more in the core of the idea behind the movie and it got lost somewhere in the shuffle. I was dazzled by special effects and cryptic future shock but left unimpressed.

<Off topic>
I'm not sure which TZ you mean, although there was an interesting one abour a convict (Jack Warden) consigned to an asteroid, who was given a robot simulation of a woman.
</Off topic>

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It may have been one of the others -- perhaps "The Outer Limits" or even "Alfred Hitchcock Presents." There was another short lived sci-fi series that may have shown that episode. "AI" is not a bad film but it has enough pretensions that it doesn't completely work.
Perhaps it's because I was so wrapped up in sci-fi in the 50's and 60's to the extent of being involved with the World Science Fiction Convention and there's just too much great sci-fi written to allow me to imagine there is a great deal of profound substance to "AI."

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Lightwizard wrote:

It may have been one of the others -- perhaps "The Outer Limits" or even "Alfred Hitchcock Presents." There was another short lived sci-fi series that may have shown that episode. "AI" is not a bad film but it has enough pretensions that it doesn't completely work.
Perhaps it's because I was so wrapped up in sci-fi in the 50's and 60's to the extent of being involved with the World Science Fiction Convention and there's just too much great sci-fi written to allow me to imagine there is a great deal of profound substance to "AI."

<Very Off Topic>
I didn't know that about you. I was too. I was at the world's first "Trek Convention."
</Very Off Topic>

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I was the art director at two of the World Sci-Fi conventions, one of them right here in the LA area. I was also a long standing member of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society and a close friend of Forry Ackerman (I still speak with him on occasion). I knew, among others, Ray Bradbury, John W. Campbell (editor of Astounding, later Analog, Science Fiction) and Isaac Azimov. I was also involved in the production of several sci-fi films of the 50's and 60's -- the set lighting for "The Day the Earth Stood Still, " for one. I do admire Spielberg, and again, I don't think "AI" was reviewed that badly so anyone who appreciate the film more than I do should never be admonished.

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Lightwizard wrote:

I was the art director at two of the World Sci-Fi conventions, one of them right here in the LA area. I was also a long standing member of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society and a close friend of Forry Ackerman (I still speak with him on occasion). I knew, among others, Ray Bradbury, John W. Campbell (editor of Astounding, later Analog, Science Fiction) and Isaac Azimov. I was also involved in the production of several sci-fi films of the 50's and 60's -- the set lighting for "The Day the Earth Stood Still, " for one. I do admire Spielberg, and again, I don't think "AI" was reviewed that badly so anyone who appreciate the film more than I do should never be admonished.

Very, very interesting. I find all of those very impresive, but if I absolutely had to choose which ones impress me the most, I'd pick Campbell and lights on "The Day the Earth Stood Still."

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Well, actually Campbell was my favorite of all of them and even though he was getting involved with Dianetics (of all things!), I respected his affinity for the genre more than anyone else's. Working with Robert Wise was always the big memory in my life in Hollywood -- the lighting crew which I was a part of worked for days on those lighting effects inside the spaceship. I saw it again the other night in hi-def and my nephew whose now staying with us watched it for the first time -- for black-and-white it's still a great film. I had left that part of the industry by the time Wise did "The Haunting," which also utilized some outstanding lighting effects for black-and-white.

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I didn't know you worked with Wise, Glight. My dad did, but much earlier than you.

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I don't understand why it got such bad reviews?

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