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Thread: Controversial Cinema-Related Opinions

  1. #61
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    and while i love the first film, it doesn't compare to the violence and grit of the novel. i remember hearing in another thread (maybe the old board) that they may reboot the series and make it more true to the book, so here's hoping...

  2. #62
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    Quote Originally Posted by marodi View Post
    Natural Born Killers is boring. No matter how I've tried, I can't watch the whole thing because I fall asleep during it. And I'm the biggest RDJ fangirl on the planet.
    maybe something is lost in the transition from theater to small screen, or possibly the director's cut, but natural born killers was many things, but i'd never say it was boring. if anything it was complete sensory overload.

    Quote Originally Posted by hellospaceboy View Post
    My ass! Jurassic Park is full of dinosaurs, and it has the great bonus that even when you're not looking at the prehistoric reptiles you are at least watching some pretty amazing actors. I mean, Jeff Goldblum, Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and even freaking Richard Attenborough! It doesn't get much better than this.

    It's probably the best dinosaur movie ever made.
    jurassic park was a really good movie, classic payoff of the dino's at the end and an admittedly slow buildup throughout the film. as mentioned great cast as well.

    i remember reading something about the film the dino's were really expensive to produce and the effects budget dictated less dinosaurs, however i think that really works in the film.

  3. #63
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    Quote Originally Posted by hellospaceboy View Post
    ^^^
    A always hated JP2: The Lost World, simply because the story didn't live up to the high standards the first one set. It looked great, had some nice set pieces and was also loaded with a good cast, but it just didn't click.
    The sequels are crap... I find it amazing that the second one is a Spielberg.

    However the book which the lost world is based on is great, really scary and gory. There's a spooky bit where a bloke goes out for a cigarette at night, and notices a bunch of theropods with chameleonic skin watching him from a distance, so he goes back inside, and can hear them slowly creeping towards the building... Brr

  4. #64
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    I fucking hate Sweeney Todd. I fucking love A Good Old Fashioned Orgy. I have such bad taste.

  5. #65
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    Quote Originally Posted by wizfan View Post
    I have such bad taste.
    I love that scene in BAD where the single mother complains about baby killers staying in the house and Carroll Baker turns on her and says "Those girls only do what they are paid to do and you don't have enough money to pay them to kill your baby".

    Carroll Baker is the best. I need to watch BABY DOLL again.
    Last edited by Lutz; 09-18-2012 at 10:45 PM.

  6. #66
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    Quote Originally Posted by frankieteardrop View Post
    and while i love the first film, it doesn't compare to the violence and grit of the novel.

    I love the first film, too. Though I've never read the book, it's very interesting to hear you mention the violence of the novel because of this recent story: Jimmy Cameron was apparently going to go for that gritty, "much nastier" tone. I find that to be a fascinating bit of trivia, and it makes me want to dig into some Chrichton. I hope it's not controversial to love James Cameron, because I do.

  7. #67
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    Quote Originally Posted by Deadpool View Post
    I hope it's not controversial to love James Cameron, because I do.
    Probably not if you're taking Terminator through True Lies James Cameron. Probably so if you're talking about Titanic and Dances With Wolves In Space James Cameron.

  8. #68
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    Quote Originally Posted by Leman Russ View Post
    Probably not if you're taking Terminator through True Lies James Cameron. Probably so if you're talking about Titanic and Dances With Wolves In Space James Cameron.
    Well, say what you will about his bland, overly general, catch-all writing style, but the guy puts 110% into the creation of his movies. Every one of them is an unashamed Big Event Film, he's never trying to make just a movie but more like capture a certain spirit of grandiosity. And he was the first one, and still really the only one, to make a viable argument for 3D.

    Titanic is my #1 film of all time. Probably always will be. I like that the writing and characterization are broadly painted, not filled with too many nuances - there's no time. A grand love story has to be built up and fully told in 3 days and by God he's going to tell it! The set pieces are incredible too, and he makes the most of showcasing them and then destroying them. He captures the cultural obsession we have with this particular tragedy, humanizes it and makes it work. It's not a deep thinker movie, it's all heart. And the level of detail is insane.

  9. #69
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    Oh I'm not saying that he doesn't produce visually stunning films. He does. Both Titanic and Avatar were visual feasts, and Cameron has made the best use of 3D I've ever seen. But the movies themselves were just that: visually great and subpar everywhere else. My favorite part of Titanic? When the guy falls off and bounces off the propeller. I laughed my ass off in the theater when that happened, while everyone else was crying because of 'the love story'. And I will be the first to admit, I couldn't sit through Avatar. I still don't think I've made it through more than 15 minutes of it.

  10. #70
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    Leman Russ, I hate to break it to you but you may very well be a cynic. It's probably a consequence of living so close to the Eye of Terror.

  11. #71
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    Quote Originally Posted by Vertigo View Post
    Leman Russ, I hate to break it to you but you may very well be a cynic. It's probably a consequence of living so close to the Eye of Terror.
    You win, sir, you win.

  12. #72
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    I think it's pretty controversial to say Titanic isn't the shit film critics insist it is. It's not great but it's not awful.

    but technically, it's a beast. The sheer scale of endeavour is mind boggling. Speaking as a lifelong titanic nerd, I can tell you I had an apocalyptic bonk-on throughout the film

  13. #73
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    Titanic is a fun film. Whatever it lacks in substance, it makes up in abundance in style, silliness and breathless romance which is basically a lot to get out of a night at the movies.
    I'm pretty fed up with people reducing quality cinema to cinematic art. Not every novel is War and Peace, some of it is Pride & Prejudice or The Decamerone.

    Maybe that's a controversial opinion to have, but I'm willing to trade every single Bergman, Von Trier and Almodovar movie for one The Lord of the Rings or one Finding Nemo. Telling a simple but compelling story in such a way that people who normally like their entertainment in bitesized pieces are willing to sit down for hours on end to see it, isn't necessarily low brow either.

  14. #74
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    Quote Originally Posted by carpenoctem View Post
    And he was the first one, and still really the only one, to make a viable argument for 3D.
    Bullshit. This is repeated about Avatar ad nauseam. This is repeated so often that it's become like this common, accepted knee-jerk sort of response to the issue of 3-D, and fuck that right to hell: there's nothing in Avatar in 3-D that isn't there and just as visually awesome or whatever without that gimmick. In fact, the action sequences toward the end sort of emphasize one of the big current shortcomings of the technology, that rapid action becomes very muddled and garbagey. Cameron's utilization could be called adequate at best, but what we're then doing is promoting a mediocre example of a generally worthless and over-sold piece of studio marketing.

    No, nothing out of Hollywood has yet made a good case for 3-D.


    Quote Originally Posted by Sutekh View Post
    I think it's pretty controversial to say Titanic isn't the shit film critics insist it is.
    What critics?
    http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/titanic/
    http://www.metacritic.com/movie/titanic

  15. #75
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    Trust me, it was not a universally adored film, I find it odd you find that hard to believe!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanic...ical_reception 4th paragraph

    I seem to remember Mark Kermode slagging it off

  16. #76
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    But your above citation says:

    Critical reception

    Titanic garnered mostly positive reviews from film critics. Review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes reports the film as holding an overall 87% "Certified Fresh" approval rating based on 163 reviews, with a rating average of 7.7 out of 10. The site's general consensus is that the film is "[a] mostly unqualified triumph for Cameron, who offers a dizzying blend of spectacular visuals and old-fashioned melodrama".[82] At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 0–100 reviews from film critics, the film has a rating score of 74 based on 34 reviews, classified as a generally favorably reviewed film.[94]

    With regard to the film's overall design, Roger Ebert stated, "It is flawlessly crafted, intelligently constructed, strongly acted, and spellbinding... Movies like this are not merely difficult to make at all, but almost impossible to make well." He credited the "technical difficulties" with being "so daunting that it's a wonder when the filmmakers are also able to bring the drama and history into proportion" and "found [himself] convinced by both the story and the sad saga".[95] He named it as his ninth best film of 1997.[96] On the television program Siskel & Ebert, the film received "two thumbs up" and was praised for its accuracy in recreating the ship's sinking; Ebert described the film as "a glorious Hollywood epic, well-crafted and well worth the wait" and Gene Siskel found Leonardo DiCaprio "captivating".[97]James Berardinelli stated, "Meticulous in detail, yet vast in scope and intent, Titanic is the kind of epic motion picture event that has become a rarity. You don't just watch Titanic, you experience it."[98] It was named his second best film of 1997.[99] Almar Haflidason of the BBC wrote that "[t]he sinking of the great ship is no secret, yet for many exceeded expectations in sheer scale and tragedy" and that "when you consider that [the film] tops a bum-numbing three-hour running time, then you have a truly impressive feat of entertainment achieved by Cameron".[100] Joseph McBride of Boxoffice Magazine concluded, "To describe Titanic as the greatest disaster movie ever made is to sell it short. James Cameron's recreation of the 1912 sinking of the 'unsinkable' liner is one of the most magnificent pieces of serious popular entertainment ever to emanate from Hollywood."[101]

    The romantic and emotionally-charged aspects of the film were equally praised. Andrew L. Urban of Urban Cinefile said, "You will walk out of Titanic not talking about budget or running time, but of its enormous emotive power, big as the engines of the ship itself, determined as its giant propellers to gouge into your heart, and as lasting as the love story that propels it."[102]Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly described the film as, "A lush and terrifying spectacle of romantic doom. Writer-director James Cameron has restaged the defining catastrophe of the early 20th century on a human scale of such purified yearning and dread that he touches the deepest levels of popular moviemaking."[101]Janet Maslin of The New York Times commented that "Cameron's magnificent Titanic is the first spectacle in decades that honestly invites comparison to Gone With the Wind."[101]Richard Corliss of Time magazine, on the other hand, wrote a mostly negative review, criticizing the lack of interesting emotional elements.[103]

    Some reviewers felt that the story and dialogue were weak, while the visuals were spectacular. Kenneth Turan's review in the Los Angeles Times was particularly scathing. Dismissing the emotive elements, he stated, "What really brings on the tears is Cameron's insistence that writing this kind of movie is within his abilities. Not only is it not, it is not even close.",[104] and later claimed that the only reason that the film won Oscars was because of its box office total.[105] Barbara Shulgasser of The San Francisco Examiner gave Titanic one star out of four, citing a friend as saying, "The number of times in this unbelievably badly-written script that the two [lead characters] refer to each other by name was an indication of just how dramatically the script lacked anything more interesting for the actors to say."[106] Also, filmmaker Robert Altman called it "the most dreadful piece of work I've ever seen in my entire life".[107] In his 2012 study of the lives of the passengers on the Titanic, historian Richard Davenport-Hines says "Cameron's film diabolized rich Americans and educated English, anathematizing their emotional restraint, good tailoring, punctilious manners and grammatical training, while it made romantic heroes of the poor Irish and the unlettered".[108]

  17. #77
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    I think it was Steve Harvey who said, in his critique of Titanic, "Three hours about a damn ship. We all know what happens, bring on the water!". That pretty much sums it up

  18. #78
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    Quote Originally Posted by Leman Russ View Post
    I think it was Steve Harvey who said, in his critique of Titanic, "Three hours about a damn ship. We all know what happens, bring on the water!". That pretty much sums it up
    I'm not a huge fan of Titanic, but still, I heard this argument -"we know how it ends!"- many times and I don't buy it. I can enjoy a WWII movie even if I know who wins, or a biopic (Buddy Holly dies at the end! So does Jim Morrison!) even when I'm fairly familiar with the events being covered. And then let's talk about movies that are based on well known fiction, like Lord of the Rings, I already KNEW how the third movie would end during the opening credits of the first one, and I still managed to enjoy the hell out of all three!

    Titanic wasn't about the sinking ship but a young couple who fall in love and a tragedy that ends their romance.

  19. #79
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    Quote Originally Posted by allegro View Post
    But your above citation says:

    The chap above said "what critics", within that citation are some critics who didn't like it. It wasn't universally adored & outside of popular reviews (specifically, within chinstroker circles), it doesn't get much respect

  20. #80
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    Quote Originally Posted by hellospaceboy View Post
    I'm not a huge fan of Titanic, but still, I heard this argument -"we know how it ends!"- many times and I don't buy it. I can enjoy a WWII movie even if I know who wins, or a biopic (Buddy Holly dies at the end! So does Jim Morrison!) even when I'm fairly familiar with the events being covered. And then let's talk about movies that are based on well known fiction, like Lord of the Rings, I already KNEW how the third movie would end during the opening credits of the first one, and I still managed to enjoy the hell out of all three!

    Titanic wasn't about the sinking ship but a young couple who fall in love and a tragedy that ends their romance.
    I know that, I just find the quote funny. There are many movies that I know the ending of, yet enjoy immensely. Knowing the boat was going to sink didn't make me like the movie less, it was pretty much everything else. And omg how awful was it hearing Celine Dion's song EVERYWHERE when it came out?

  21. #81
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    You fuckin people are crazy, Titanic blew unwashed mountain goats. So did the Abyss, and almost everything else Cameron's created.

    But don't mind me, my satisfaction is kind of unobtainium.

  22. #82
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    Quote Originally Posted by Corvus T. Cosmonaut View Post
    Bullshit. This is repeated about Avatar ad nauseam. This is repeated so often that it's become like this common, accepted knee-jerk sort of response to the issue of 3-D, and fuck that right to hell: there's nothing in Avatar in 3-D that isn't there and just as visually awesome or whatever without that gimmick. In fact, the action sequences toward the end sort of emphasize one of the big current shortcomings of the technology, that rapid action becomes very muddled and garbagey. Cameron's utilization could be called adequate at best, but what we're then doing is promoting a mediocre example of a generally worthless and over-sold piece of studio marketing.
    Personally, I enjoyed it. I'm not parroting what I've heard from others. It was the only movie in 3D I've seen that hasn't given me a constant headache and that made me feel, by the end of the movie, "Why aren't more people doing it like this?" It seemed so natural and made the world of Pandora really come alive. I've watched it on DVD since, in 2D, and felt the film really lacking in the wonder that I felt when watching it in theaters.

  23. #83
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    ^ Really? And that's just one rather shambolic list.

  24. #84
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    Just reading that BFI lineup is making me want to re-watch the Powell & Pressburger films. It'd be interesting to see what would make the cut were that list updated to 2012.

    Quote Originally Posted by carpenoctem View Post
    I've watched it on DVD since, in 2D, and felt the film really lacking in the wonder that I felt when watching it in theaters.
    Cool, next try watching it in 3-D on DVD and in 2-D on the big movie theater screen and then tell me how you feel about it. I watched the original Straw Dogs on DVD a few times but seeing it in the theater was a new, different experience.
    Last edited by Corvus T. Cosmonaut; 09-21-2012 at 02:53 AM.

  25. #85
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    Keanu Reeves is a very decent actor. And Godzilla (1998) is not as bad as everyone thinks.

  26. #86
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    Quote Originally Posted by marodi View Post
    Keanu Reeves is a very decent actor. And Godzilla (1998) is not as bad as everyone thinks.
    Ditto to the Keanu opinion.
    Fuck Eraserhead. Couldn't bother going further than 20 minutes in.
    Also, seeing The Big Lebowski very late... didn't live up to the hype at all. Dumb movie.
    Looking back...fuck Terminator 2. Special effects were AWESOME and still are, T-1000 was bad ass, but the actual Terminator? Turned into a little PG bitch who spouts cheesy nonsense. Boo I say to that.

  27. #87
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    Legend by Ridley Scott is better than Gladiator.

  28. #88
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    The Boondock Saints is overrated.

    The Dark Knight Rises shouldn't have been what it was.

  29. #89
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    TV opinions count? Because Game of Thrones does nothing for me. My wife is a massive fan of the novels and show, but neither really interest me.

  30. #90
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    Taxi Driver didn't blow me away. I liked it, but I got the impression I was supposed to fall to my knees and start weeping at how good it was. 7/10.

    the dark knight... I liked it, but I do honestly believe a kind of hysteria surrounds the film, whoch will eventually die down. I really think that in the future, aggregated reviews of the film will come in around 70%. It's just too busy - I'm not criticising it for having some depth, rather I take issue with trying to cram so much into a couple of hours - it starts to feel hurried. The scenes clipped and trimmed to micro length so the film doesn't end up too long for a blockbuster. I'm sure some will feel this instills some kind of dynamism, but to me it feels like a big rush - observe the more lesiurely pacing and reflective tone of the first.tdk feels like a 90s mtv video, it gives me a headache

    TBH i think the ideal situation would have been a 3+ hour batman begins, with joker instead of scarecrow. Love the comics but still never been that taken with any onscreen adaptations.

    omen 2 > omen 1

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