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Fri 8 Jan, 2021 04:40 pm
I just saw Chinatown with my son, properly this time, I’d seen bits before, but not the whole thing. It is a very good film, but even though Chinatown is mentioned lots, it doesn’t actually appear until the last five minutes of the film.
It wasn’t what I expected at all. And I did feel a slight disappointment that it wasn’t a film about Chinatown at all, but about corrupt land dealing and incest.
Having said that it’s a brilliant film, I enjoyed it a lot.
It made me think of Dumbo, when I was a kid I thought it was a film about a flying elephant and the adventures that ensued. I thought the infamous racist scene with the crows was at the beginning of the film. Then I saw it, and like Chinatown Dumbo only started flying in the last five minutes of the film.
And I liked Dumbo, still do, but still feel a mild sense of disappointment that it wasn’t the film I thought it was.
So, after that rather disjointed rambling narrative with no discernible point whatsoever I open the thread to anyone who wants to talk about films that weren’t what they thought or anything really.
@izzythepush,
Jurassic Park was both excellent entertainment and a bit of a scientific let down. They got all the dino species incorrect by a 100 million years and didnt have Allosaurus or Monolophosaurus
@izzythepush,
Who the heck is Roger Mellie??
And I'm glad you're not completely poohpoohing on Chinatown (which I kneejerkishly thought with the title as I wasn't reading Dumbo as the literal Disney film at first thought).
A good (and quite brief) explanation about the title.
Chinatown What's Up With the Title?
That said, give me a bit to figure what movies I'll mention that actually fit the topic you for this thread.
Quote:So, after that rather disjointed rambling narrative with no discernible point whatsoever I open the thread to anyone who wants to talk about films that weren’t what they thought or anything really.
@farmerman,
farmerman wrote:
Jurassic Park was both excellent entertainment and a bit of a scientific let down. They got all the dino species incorrect by a 100 million years and didnt have Allosaurus or Monolophosaurus
After a bit of cynical growing up (for me and Jurassic Park), I got two words: Steven Spielberg. Okay, make it four words. Steven Spielberg; Michael Crichton: both populist creators of fiction who will severely bend or break science to fantasy levels to spice up a given story.
@tsarstepan,
Roger Mellie is my avatar.
Don’t you have bloody google?
@tsarstepan,
I liked Jurassic Park for what it was, I didn’t expect anything other than a perilous race through dinosaur territory with a happy ending.
I wasn’t expecting anything particularly erudite.
I’m breaking my own rules, but V for Vendetta was quite disappointing. This wasn’t a film where I had childish misconceptions about the story, this is a story I knew very well.
I first started reading V for Vendetta when it was serialised in the ow defunct Warrior magazine. The magazine folded before the serial ended and I had to wait some time before the graphic novel came out.
The film is nothing like the book, a real disappointment.
@izzythepush,
Its like a movie about Nikola Tesla and having him invent an e-SUV
@farmerman,
I’m sorry I don’t know what that is.
I know who Tesla was.
I think it’s because it’s your area. You’re a geologist who knowsagreat deal about palaeontology, mistakes grate, but I wouldn’t spot them.
I’m the same with Shakespeare, casting Russell Brand in The Tempest really pissed me off. I’m getting angry just thinking about it.
So I’m saying I get you being pissed off with Jurassic Park even though I’m unaffected.
@izzythepush,
izzythepush wrote:
And I did feel a slight disappointment that it wasn’t a film about Chinatown at all, but about corrupt land dealing and incest.
As an aside, if you really want a film depicting life in [a] Chinatown? Try the tiny-budgeted indie drama
Chan Is Missing (1982).
Quote:Two cabbies search San Francisco's Chinatown for a mysterious character who has disappeared with their $4000. Their quest leads them on a humorous, if mundane, journey which illuminates the many problems experienced by Chinese-Americans trying to assimilate into contemporary American society.
@tsarstepan,
Im only being slightly over focused just to match izzies points. nobody called me and said "hey Vladz-did we get these dinosaurs right?". Any incorrect science is Chrichton's fault There were many, even more wonderful dinosaurs actually in the Jurassic. The Cretaceous was the beginning of senescence and the number of species of wonkey mammals and birds was more interesting.
Im probably older than Izzy-is and in my time as an 8 year old in 1958, I saw Dumbo on the Disneyland TV Show. I actually never thought about the Crows as being anything more than what everyone back then talked like in doing black folks, I never knew that Amos n Andy were WHITE GUYS ,I didnt accede to my better angels till I was in my teens . When I learned about the rather unseemly "comedic: careers of Freeman Gosden and Charles Carrell I became more critical about humor and its often ddirtier history . I then transferred this to my science interests an became quite critical of the BS we are often fed
@farmerman,
You are older than me. I wasn’t even born in 1958, I’m a child of the 60s.
@farmerman,
I didn’t think the crows were racist when I saw them on Disneytime in the late 60s earl6 70s, I was a kid. That came later.
I’t’s Friday night and I’ve been drinking Belgian beer so forgive me if I’m talking bollocks, but I meant to explore the concept of preconceptions spoiling one’s appreciation of a perfectly good film.
Don’t get me wrong, despite slight a disappointment I think both Chinatown and Dumbo are really good films, just not quite what I expected. To be honest I don’t know if I’m angry with myself for getting it wrong, or with the film for getting it right.
I have felt this about a lot of films but because I’ve had a lot of beer I can only remember one, and that’s Rambo. Alright, I wasn’t expecting much, it’s a Stallone shoot ‘em up, but because it was set in Vietnam I was expecting a prequel, not a sequel.
I know, it’s petty and wrong, but it’s still something I feel.
.
@izzythepush,
hmmm, yeh, it must be the beer. Youre talking RAMBO ,FIRST BLOOD II??
I stopped at the title it was totally crap.
@izzythepush,
Im only pissed at Crichton because MOST ALL of his book are riddled with BS science just like that.
@izzythepush,
Quote: sorry I don’t know what that is.
e-SUV = an electric SPORTS UTILITY VEHICLE (What you guys call a ROVER)
@farmerman,
It was, but sometimes all you want to see is crap.
@izzythepush,
izzythepush wrote:
I just saw Chinatown with my son, properly this time, I’d seen bits before, but not the whole thing. It is a very good film, but even though Chinatown is mentioned lots, it doesn’t actually appear until the last five minutes of the film.
It wasn’t what I expected at all. And I did feel a slight disappointment that it wasn’t a film about Chinatown at all, but about corrupt land dealing and incest.
Having said that it’s a brilliant film, I enjoyed it a lot.
It made me think of Dumbo, when I was a kid I thought it was a film about a flying elephant and the adventures that ensued. I thought the infamous racist scene with the crows was at the beginning of the film. Then I saw it, and like Chinatown Dumbo only started flying in the last five minutes of the film.
And I liked Dumbo, still do, but still feel a mild sense of disappointment that it wasn’t the film I thought it was.
So, after that rather disjointed rambling narrative with no discernible point whatsoever I open the thread to anyone who wants to talk about films that weren’t what they thought or anything really.
"She's my sister, she's my daughter. She's my sister and my daughter."
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