Why these insults to our intelligence?

Re: Why these insults to our intelligence?

Paaskynen wrote:

I recently saw two adventure movies, a la Indiana Jones dash Tomb Raider, namely the TV film The Librarian and the blockbuster Sahara (The latter being by far the more amusing and action packed).

Although I will allow for reality to be stretched in amusing adventure movies, these ones went rather overboard: In Sahara the heroes take off in a small boat from Lagos (in Nigeria) to go to Mali via the river Niger.
FYI the mouths of the river Niger are well over 200 miles of ocean from Lagos, the Niger river delta is a pirate infested maze of swamp and from there all the way to Gao is over 1000 miles including stretches of rapids that are not navigable and at least one hydroelectric dam. And they had to be back in 72 hours. Yeah right!

Also in that film: Tuaregs do not ride horses, but camels, and do not live in adobe hill villages but in tents or huts since they are nomads. The men would not show their face in the presence of a foreign woman.

I wonder if at least the book on which this story is based explain what the hell the ironclad was doing in Africa in the first place?

The Librian is possibly even more insipid: The supposedly best protected place (The Library) gets broken into immediately. People jump from the front of a passenger jet and are NOT sucked into the engines. Baddies find the heroes in the middle of the Amazon rain forest (saying they have a good tracker does not do the trick since you don't know where they came down after they jumped from the plane). A bridge across a chasm is destroyed after the heroes, but the baddies are not even slowed down by this. Countless rounds are fired from automatic weapons during the film, but nobody ever gets hurt. Maya priests have alledgedly travelled all the way from Guatemala to the middle of the Amazon rainforest to build a huge temple that is in mint condition and not even overgrown after centuries of abandonment, etc etc. etc. I understand that it is just a story, but couldn't they have made just a little bit of an effort to make it a little more believable. These things are a definite turn off for me.

Truly, Paaskynen!

I had the exact same feeling when I watched Peter Pan. Really now, a little boy and girl flying? And Fairies? Unbelievable!

ops sorry there Tinker Bell, I really do believe, I do!

btw I am sure the A2K resident gun nut omsigdavid would agree but most most of the sounds of gunfire you hear in movies is dead wrong, too.

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Don't give me that! I accept the premiss of a fantasy adventure, but even fantasy worlds work along their own logical lines (even in fantasy films things fall down and not up). It contributes nothing to the movie Sahara to have the boat travel 1200 miles of sea and river off-screen. It would have been much more believable if they had airlifted the boat (would allow for some nice shots à la Apocalypse Now), or had said they had airlifted the boat. You see what I mean?

Indiana Jones and Lara Croft, in their film adventures, also enter ancient buildings which contain traps that miraculously still work after ages of disuse, but at least the buildings look like they are age-old. Would it have cost the makers of the Librarian extra to have a CGI of an overgrown Maya ruin, instead of a pyramid that looked like the builders had just left? Would it have cost extra to have the heroes jump from the back of the plane instead of right in front of the jet engines? I maintain that a small dose of common sense can greatly improve even the most fantastic story.

For example, in the horror film Forest of the Damned a couple enters a derelict house and find that it is inhabited by a deranged serial killer... and then they decide to split up. Sorry, but that totally ruins it for me. Nobody in their right mind would do that. The film would be much scarier if the couple reacts like normal people would, sticking together and proceeding with the utmost stealth (only to be overcome by the killer anyway).

I maintain that a fantasy film must obey the laws of its own universe to be believable.

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xguymontagx wrote:

I absolutely loathed The Perfect Storm.

Also remeber all of those hyped up, yet incredibly horrible Batman films? (though the most recent one and the very first one were both decent.)

I am SO with you on The Perfect Storm.

Talk about insults to our intelligence... which one of the guys that died was it, that wrote this true story.... ?

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Paaskynen wrote:

And in The Rundown which was otherwise an amusing film, they had (African) baboons "inconveniencing" the hero in the Amazonian rain forest (apparently the new world monkeys weren't scary enough for the job). The huge pit goldmine displayed in the film was undoubtedly based on the one that featured so prominently in Powaqatsi.

Did you like Powaqatsi?

Godfrey used to be Brother Godfrey here in Santa Fe. He lent my Fender guitar (not electric) to a meth adict who hocked it. Darn it.

I liked the first one in the series.

I'm a bit scattered here, sorry.

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That's good, ConsiderThis, but sometimes, with extreme provocation, you can go ahead and say Damn IT. But don't say 'damn you' to another member.

Welcome, by the way.

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Hi Roger, thanks!

At the time I was more upset than now. (It happened before I moved to London in the 70s, where I lived for 9 years.) So Darn it! works at this point.

Thanks for the welcome, and thanks for explaining acceptable usage. Appreciate it!

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Roger, you're in Farmington?

Wow!

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ConsiderThis wrote:

Paaskynen wrote:
And in The Rundown which was otherwise an amusing film, they had (African) baboons "inconveniencing" the hero in the Amazonian rain forest (apparently the new world monkeys weren't scary enough for the job). The huge pit goldmine displayed in the film was undoubtedly based on the one that featured so prominently in Powaqatsi.

Did you like Powaqatsi?

Godfrey used to be Brother Godfrey here in Santa Fe. He lent my Fender guitar (not electric) to a meth adict who hocked it. Darn it.

I liked the first one in the series.

I'm a bit scattered here, sorry.

Yes I liked both Koyaanisquatsi and Powaquatsi a lot. Both present a mesmerising combination of sound and image. I liked the first better as a whole, but my favourite sequences are from the second (like the poor people crawling like ants into and out of the aforementioned mine pit, or the ladies graciously separating the chaff from the grain with large fans and the little boy passed by a monstrous truck on a dust road).

I don't know brother Godfrey, but if I did I'm sure I wouldn't like him for his frivolous attitude to other people's prized possessions.

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Paaskynen wrote:

ConsiderThis wrote:
Paaskynen wrote:
And in The Rundown which was otherwise an amusing film, they had (African) baboons "inconveniencing" the hero in the Amazonian rain forest (apparently the new world monkeys weren't scary enough for the job). The huge pit goldmine displayed in the film was undoubtedly based on the one that featured so prominently in Powaqatsi.

Did you like Powaqatsi?

Godfrey used to be Brother Godfrey here in Santa Fe. He lent my Fender guitar (not electric) to a meth adict who hocked it. Darn it.

I liked the first one in the series.

I'm a bit scattered here, sorry.

Yes I liked both Koyaanisquatsi and Powaquatsi a lot. Both present a mesmerising combination of sound and image. I liked the first better as a whole, but my favourite sequences are from the second (like the poor people crawling like ants into and out of the aforementioned mine pit, or the ladies graciously separating the chaff from the grain with large fans and the little boy passed by a monstrous truck on a dust road).

I don't know brother Godfrey, but if I did I'm sure I wouldn't like him for his frivolous attitude to other people's prized possessions.

Hmmm, I think I'll rent it then. Thank you.

I already ordered the first one, Koyaanisquatsi. (NetFlix)

You are very nice to be sympathetic. thank you.

I can see how he did it, now that I'm not so upset. The fellow he lent it to, and I can't remember at all how he happened to have it to lend (I could have told him the story about the poet Snodgrass playing it)

anyway, the fellow was a rather tragic character who had switched from heroine to methadone, and it had deteriorated his bones. Godfrey was an advisor or counselor or something. I met him through Belle Carpenter whom he was going with at the time.

I think he thought the guitar would do some good with the fellow.

Thank you for giving me a chance to release this. Smile

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Oh, Paaskynen,
I Googled Godfrey and found this:
http://www.koyaanisqatsi.org/aboutus/godfrey.php

I can see from what he did, which were really good things, how it was he came to give away my guitar.

Smile

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A candidate for the most stupid film ever must be Skeleton Man (2004). It is so full of errors and plain silliness that it is not even funny any more.

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@Lightwizard,

Ah, Lightwizard,

I used to play Cinemascope films at the community theatre I worked at when I was young. The one "scope" film I remember vividly was "Onibaba" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058430/?ref_=nv_sr_1 such a world apart from the crap turned out nowadays, like, duh, everything produced by the Asylum (I get that they, perhaps, like to make movies, but the crappiness should not be a goal).

As insults to intelligence go, IMDB is nowadays full of such lowest-denominator fare. I long for people who act against all common sense in films to perish in unutterably finite ways. That would educate the populace NOT to run towards the dinosaur (read "danger of any kind") unarmed and unarmoured. Why is it that producers must appeal to the stupidest audience? What happened to elevating the masses form their ignorance...? Don't tell me: market forces...

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@Lightwizard,

LIGHTWIZARD, a much loved member of the A2k "old guard" died in late summer 5 years ago. He was knowledgeable about prints and printmaking, commercial and film lighting, as well as dsign.
A real loss.

You can click on his page by clicking onto his name above

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@farmerman,

Farmerman, I am sad to hear it. I have been away from the site for too long...

It is strange to think that after we pass away we will live on in our comments, blogs, etc. on-line.

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@Paaskynen,

I think I sent a note to the hamster king a few years ago to , at least, put a word of finality onto each of our members who have died. e have quite a few .

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@farmerman,

He also was sharp on architecture and art in general and was a painter himself.
He personally helped me (talking on the phone) re lighting for the gallery my business partner and I had up in northern california.

He was also good to argue with - I remember a rollicking argument back on abuzz about a proposed building in Rome featuring him and Paola L and me rumbling back and forth. I'm sorry I missed meeting him back in 2009, my last trip to California.

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