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Post by Nalkarj on Feb 5, 2019 4:10:10 GMT
God, this golden mask—wowzer, that thing’s pretty damn creepy. And this forest of bodies! Wow! Somewhat reminiscent of The Company of Wolves (forest) and The Kiss of the Vampire (mask). I love it. Highlight of the movie so far, along with the screenwriting decision about Morgan’s seduction. Williamson and especially Helen Mirren are the star players so far. Young Mordred has the creepy smile down pat. Don’t drink, Percival, unless you want to end up like the rich Nazi guy at the end of Last Crusade! All of this stuff with Morgan and Mordred having a connection with the Grail and Percival is intriguing and original.
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Post by Nalkarj on Feb 5, 2019 4:12:11 GMT
Admittedly, I probably wouldn’t have been allowed to see this at 7 or 8, for, well, yeah. But I’m just surprised its existence never registered with me until you started telling me about it. yeah, we caught it on cable, so i was probably 12, otherwise i wouldn't have been able to see it either! we were all in, though ( fantasy was pretty hot at the time ) On the other hand, I did watch the [very similar!] Sam Neill Merlin miniseries at about that age, and that did have sex in it, I think, and I know it had a fair amount of violence and bloodshed.
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Post by President Ackbar™ on Feb 5, 2019 4:14:24 GMT
yeah, we caught it on cable, so i was probably 12, otherwise i wouldn't have been able to see it either! we were all in, though ( fantasy was pretty hot at the time ) On the other hand, I did watch the [very similar!] Sam Neill Merlin miniseries at about that age, and that did have sex in it, I think, and I know it had a fair amount of violence and bloodshed. Never seen it.
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Post by Nalkarj on Feb 5, 2019 4:19:40 GMT
“He chose…wisely.”
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Post by Nalkarj on Feb 5, 2019 4:21:05 GMT
On the other hand, I did watch the [very similar!] Sam Neill Merlin miniseries at about that age, and that did have sex in it, I think, and I know it had a fair amount of violence and bloodshed. Never seen it. You’d probably get déjà vu, it’s so similar. You must have loved this at 12… This is great stuff.
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Post by President Ackbar™ on Feb 5, 2019 4:25:28 GMT
You’d probably get déjà vu, it’s so similar. You must have loved this at 12… This is great stuff.
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Post by President Ackbar™ on Feb 5, 2019 5:04:54 GMT
God, this golden mask—wowzer, that thing’s pretty damn creepy. And this forest of bodies! Wow! Somewhat reminiscent of The Company of Wolves (forest) and The Kiss of the Vampire (mask). I love it. Highlight of the movie so far, along with the screenwriting decision about Morgan’s seduction. the mask! the laugh! super creepy!
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Post by Nalkarj on Feb 5, 2019 5:05:29 GMT
So I finished it. Here we go with a summary. ____________________________
First, the bad stuff:
It’s really confusing—just all over-the-place, with random scenes inserted in seemingly no cohesive order. It seems like it was plotted scene-by-scene, rather than as a whole, thus making some scenes work beautifully and others flop.
I didn’t like this Arthur at all. He’s just kind of dull. Lancelot, Percival, Uther, and especially Merlin and Morgana are all more interesting.
After all the build-up to Mordred, he was in it for about 10 mins. Compare this with the (again, very similar) miniseries, where Mordred’s villainy is complex, and he is on-screen for a long while.
Some of the images are confusing as well. If I didn’t know anything about Avalon or the Ladies (plural!) of the Lake, I would have thought that ending came out of nowhere. It’s still confusing, in fact, because they don’t explain anything about Avalon or the Ladies of the Lake (we see one Lady who hands Arthur back Excalibur, but she’s never explained to us).
It must have been 3/4 of the movie in this one forest, to the extent that until we finally get to Camelot it seemed like they didn’t have enough money to build sets—when clearly there must have been an enormous budget!
Characters appear and disappear randomly, without any cohesion. Again, plot-wise it’s really a mess. Story-lines go nowhere. Lord only knows what happened to Lancelot. ____________________________
The good:
A very young Helen Mirren is wonderful in this. She’s clearly having a ball as an all-out villainess, but she’s also not unsympathetic. The witchcraft is intriguing and clever.
Nicol Williamson, as Merlin, is fun as well, always ready with a witticism. I somewhat wish the whole movie had been about these two.
Many of the scenes look great—bizarrely, surreally great, as if they’re taking place in Carroll’s Wonderland or something.
There are some brilliant plot-twists that come, intentionally or not, from trying to make sense out of confusing mythological building-blocks:
Making Excalibur and the Sword of the Stone the same is de rigueur, but it’s how they do it that’s clever: when Arthur breaks the first sword in fighting Lancelot (the Black Knight in the original), the Lady of the Lake magically fixes it and gives it back to him, leading to the indelible image of the hand, grasping the sword, rising from the water.
The sequence with the corpses and the golden masks is creepy and surprising.
And mirroring Uther’s seduction of Igraine with Morgan’s of Arthur is nothing short of brilliant. ____________________________
For better or worse, I can’t say it’s exactly a good movie. There are long doldrums and even longer sequences that just confused me. But then there are touches of brilliance, fun and funny performances from Williamson and Mirren, a rousing score, and, of course, just the sheer Boys’ Own adventurous spirit of Arthur and the Round Table. I probably would have loved this as a kid. As is, I prefer the Merlin miniseries, for which I’m nostalgic and which I think managed to be a bit more “magical” (and certainly had more heart), but this is a worthy adaptation all the same.
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Post by President Ackbar™ on Feb 5, 2019 21:44:31 GMT
nice write up
i guess ST:TMP is next in line?
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Post by Nalkarj on Feb 5, 2019 22:00:12 GMT
nice write up i guess ST:TMP is next in line? Thanks. I’ll order it from the library. I’d like to take another look at Superman II (some version) tonight, especially as I now have it out of the library, but for a number of reasons I have to watch the entirety of the State of the Union tonight, so I’m not sure if I’m going to get to it.
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Post by Nalkarj on Feb 7, 2019 17:38:15 GMT
OK, so I did see Superman II (the theatrical cut—Eiffel Tower, memory-erasing kiss at end) yesterday, and I was surprised that there was less Lester-esque humor than I’d expected; in fact, unless I’m misremembering, I saw more of that sort of humor in the Donner version. I think I prefer the theatrical version, much to my surprise, though there are many elements I like about the Donner cut (Brando’s material in particular).
With all that said, I’m still not a big fan of Superman II, unfortunately. There are some very good parts, but it never lives up to the heights of the first film (but, then again, what could?), and all the intriguing possibilities the script raises—Superman losing his powers and starting a normal life, Superman fighting a villain whose powers are equal to his—are only cursory. The whole Superman losing his powers arc, which could take up a whole film (and was used brilliantly in Spider-Man II, one of the best superhero films), takes about 15 minutes, and then we move on to the next thing. Lois figuring out Clark’s identity is made irrelevant in both endings (the Donner cut’s even more so, though).
My biggest problem with it remains that Zod and his entourage, who are excellent villains, aren’t given much of an opportunity to wreak destruction. These power-crazed beings from outer space escape their prison and come to Earth, and—they destroy one midwestern town? (The same problem occurs in Branagh’s Thor.) Presumably, they destroy more before arriving at the White House (“God.” “No, Zod”), but we don’t see any of it. Zod and the Zodlings (a new Kryptonian band) are at their most threatening on the Moon, and everything else doesn’t come close. It’s very rare that I find something to praise in Man of Steel, but at least that picture’s Zod is continually a serious threat, and we see him get to be threatening.
Still, it’s lightyears better than III and IV.
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Post by Nalkarj on Feb 12, 2019 5:36:52 GMT
I’m watching Batman: The Killing Joke now… I read the comic book a few months ago and was mixed on it. I don’t think I really like this adaptation so far: it’s just kinda weird, especially with the relationship between Batman and Batgirl (isn’t he old enough to be her father? And, anyway, Conroy’s Batman never seemed like he’d have a sex life, anyway) and how it has nothing to do with the comic so far. Also, the animation is stiff, and some of the voice-acting, especially that of the actress playing Batgirl, is off. I hope it improves when they actually start adapting the story.
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Post by Nalkarj on Feb 12, 2019 6:36:08 GMT
It wasn’t very good. The comic book was better, in fact. The biggest problem is, in addition to the flat and stiff animation, Conroy, whose Batman I usually love, had no emotion in his voice when he should have, and Hamill’s Joker voice kept slipping. And the whole story feels unfinished: the scenes of the Joker trying to drive Gordon mad, for example, should have been wild and over-the-top, but nothing ever gets to that level. The whole first half, too, is utterly extraneous, never mentioned again, and inexplicable. The Joker, on whom the story is supposed to center, gets the short end of the stick on this one. (And all the dialogue is spoken far too fast, and… Gah! So many things wrong with this.) Pretty much a “nothing” movie—as for animated Batman flicks, try Mask of the Phantasm or Gotham by Gaslight. I don’t think I mentioned this when I wrote some comments on the comic book a while back, but I think (as others have mentioned, according to the Wikipedia page) that it’s intended to be the last Batman story, with Batman killing the Joker and ending this battle between them once and for all. All the stuff with Batman talking about ending with one killing the other would be irrelevant if it were otherwise, and the Joker’s laugh stopping is a clear hint in this direction, too. (Why would the Joker, of all people, stop laughing at that point? His laugh would, as usual, just get wilder and wilder.) It’s interesting how they go in that direction, though I suppose they could never keep with that; you can’t really do a Batman story and keep up “canon” after he breaks his “no killing” rule.
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Post by Prime etc. on Feb 12, 2019 7:25:27 GMT
Excalibur: It's amazing how much a movie is boosted by Wagner music. That's an interesting observation about Arthur. I have to admit--he is the one character I remembered least from previous watching. With all the more memorable actors out there, I assume that was no accident. I noticed a group of naked children standing around in a scene of people gathered in a grove.
Superman 2: Yeah, wrecking a small town isn't very exciting, however they probably felt they needed to keep them out of a city because in the old days aliens usually end up in small towns--and they had to save something for the finale when they do arrive in Metropolis.
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Post by Nalkarj on Feb 15, 2019 2:21:40 GMT
Tells ya how great my Valentine’s Day is that I’m watching the rest of Watchmen. God only knows why—it’s such a stupid, brutish movie. The scene in which the guy slices through the other guy’s arms is like something written by and for morons (apologies to anyone who likes the movie…that scene was just horrible). It’s worse than horror films. And the costumes on Owlman and the gal are some of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen. Why did I start this back up?
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Post by Nalkarj on Feb 15, 2019 2:23:09 GMT
On the other hand, Rorschach’s escape from the jail cell is pretty clever, a bit like Hannibal Lecter’s escape—weirdly, as the other stuff is not intelligent at all.
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Post by Nalkarj on Feb 15, 2019 2:31:34 GMT
So, the rich guy is the bad guy? Well, that was obvious.
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Post by Nalkarj on Feb 15, 2019 3:07:24 GMT
Where are mother and daughter talking here, if New York were destroyed? Weren’t they living in NYC?
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Post by Nalkarj on Feb 15, 2019 3:12:25 GMT
What an awful movie. It’s a dumb movie pretending to be smart, but its philosophy isn’t any more complicated than Thanos’s in the last MCU movie. And it’s all grim and disgusting, boring for long stretches, unsurprising, and just dumb. Have I mentioned dumb? Yuck.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 15, 2019 3:41:21 GMT
If it makes you feel less lonely I'm spending the evening watching "It came from beneath the sea".
I'm rooting for the giant octopus btw.
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