Books, music, films, movies, TV shows, etc. - this is the place for it! A & E topics related to Taiwan or China should be posted in the Culture & History Forum.
cubewarrior wrote:I shall be attempting to go and watch the John Carter movie, I am curious about how the Edgar Rice Burroughs books have been translated to the big screen
I never read any of the books, and many of those reviews aren't promising. But perhaps I'll see this anyway because Michael Chabon is among its screenwriters. He's a fine novelist who was also involved in Spiderman 2, which I thought was terrific.
It's flawed, as concerns storyline, and the ending is somewhat irritating. But this one did have me on edge at times and did have me jump at others. A nasty piece of work, well wrought.
If you are afraid of water, falling, tight spaces, other people, accidents, or the dark - don't watch this.
It's seldom that both ThreadKiller and spouse-ThreadKiller say "Mmmm". Not a great movie. But an interesting one.
"Sell crazy someplace else. We're all stocked up here." (Melvin Udall)
That movie scared me! And the ending - total despair! I've done a little bit of amateur spelunking as a young man, and it's very easy to get freaked out underground. It happened to me twice, and just thinking about those times gets my heart beating faster.
cubewarrior wrote:I shall be attempting to go and watch the John Carter movie, I am curious about how the Edgar Rice Burroughs books have been translated to the big screen
I never read any of the books, and many of those reviews aren't promising. But perhaps I'll see this anyway because Michael Chabon is among its screenwriters. He's a fine novelist who was also involved in Spiderman 2, which I thought was terrific.
Saw John Carter today, and enjoyed it. Not great by any stretch of the imagination, but fun - and then promptly downloaded the first three John Carter books for .99 cents on my Kindle. I read them all as a child, but remembered very little: Tars Tarkas was tall and green and had six limbs, and the book Dejah Thoris was mostly naked (with a minor joke in the movie about that, when she complains about the "vulgar" but not particularly revealing clothes she needs to wear for a wedding). Weird half-memories as well: when the guy who played Mark Antony on Rome came on as Kantos Kan (playing essentially the same character to the extent that Disney would allow him!), I had this instinctive, "Oh yeah! I used to love this character!" reaction, but I have absolutely no idea why I felt that way or recollection of who that character actually was.
I gather the film bombed in North America (it seems so silly that they can now say that after only a week), and the ad campaign is being blamed for it: the people at the heart of the film believed "John Carter" was an iconic figure that needed no more explanation than the Batman silhouette. They got that sadly wrong. You can see their attitude at a couple of points in the film: the first time he introduces himself, the audience is almost supposed to gasp "It's him!", but of course most people have little idea who this character even is.
I like Chabon too, to the extent that I know him (Yiddish Policemen Union), but nothing about the film seemed particularly his style.
(I'm known as lostinasia over at that other online place.)
Hannibal wrote:Also watched The Warrior. Meh...a UFC The Wrestler or batman boxes picture.
I liked it. It was a pleasant diversion.
The mma stuff was more SPARTAAAAAA than mma. And don't think that if a dude had his shoulder dislocated the could go on, one armed. NN had one good scene, the drunk hotel MD rant.
Hannibal, he was a MARINE. A dislocated shoulder is nothing to those guys. Yeah, NN's rant was pretty good.
Hannibal wrote:Also watched The Warrior. Meh...a UFC The Wrestler or batman boxes picture.
I liked it. It was a pleasant diversion.
The mma stuff was more SPARTAAAAAA than mma. And don't think that if a dude had his shoulder dislocated the could go on, one armed. NN had one good scene, the drunk hotel MD rant.
Hannibal, he was a MARINE. A dislocated shoulder is nothing to those guys.
True, naturally, but it should have been something to ref and the State Athletic Commission.
It's getting some flak here, but I kinda liked Warrior. Not Oscar material, maybe, but those movies aren't all that either. Oscar winners are insider political stuff half the time. I enjoyed it, thought the story was decent and although the fights scenes were over the top, it was fairly well done. But as to the fight scenes, anyone who has ever been in a half real fight will know that a solid hit to the jaw, let alone three or four will floor most anyone, and you're not getting up from that. Especially not from guys of this caliber. But all fight movies are like that. Even the Rocky ones were Rocky and whoever are trading solid face shots round after round, or any movie where blows are traded where guys (and girls) get up and continue to fight after head kicks even.
It's a movie. Not reality.
So ja, I enjoyed it. Pity the trailer above gives about the entire story away, though (what is it with trailers these days where they deem it necessary to give away the entire movie in 2 minutes or less?).
Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash. Sir Winston Churchill
Heathen filth, the lot of you. Dr Kurt Langstrom
I am the last son of Krypton. My name is Kal El, and it is time to fulfill my destiny. - Clark, Smallville
Bridesmaids is a cut above your average comedy. Some truly memorable scenes that had me shaking my head and thinking “this is so wrong”.
It was nominated for an Oscar for best original screenplay.
Lillian: You remember my cousin, Rita. Annie: Rita! Rita: [hugs Annie] Annie, I haven't seen you since you graduated high school. Lillian: She has three kids now. Rita: Three boys. Lillian: They're so cute. Rita: They are cute, but when they reach that age, ugh. Disgusting. They smell, they're sticky, they say things that are horrible, and there is semen all over everything. Disgusting. I cracked a BLANKET in half. Do you get where I'm going with this? Annie: I do, yeah. Rita: [gesturing] I cracked it in HALF.
"Sell crazy someplace else. We're all stocked up here." (Melvin Udall)
I hope that Guillermo del Toro feels ashamed. Katie Holmes and Guy Pearce should join him. Don’t watch Don’t be Afraid of the Dark.
Little monsters who take teeth and leave coins?
There are one or two shocks at the start, but then the villains just seem to look like rats. No horror movie stone unturned here – buy an old house, renovate it, don’t believe your troubled daughter or the gardener who tells you not to tear down the basement wall, go to the library to find archival material. Truly sad, in the worst way.
"Sell crazy someplace else. We're all stocked up here." (Melvin Udall)
I've done a little bit of amateur spelunking as a young man, and it's very easy to get freaked out underground. It happened to me twice, and just thinking about those times gets my heart beating faster.
Yeah, NN's rant was pretty good.