Movies of varying degrees of cheesiness
Aug. 21st, 2008 01:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alonewiththemoonStargate Continuum: Stargate is one of those things that I don't think is very good per se, but I enjoy it. I started watching when Ben Browder joined the cast (and also when Claudia Black joined as a regular), and I'm sure his input had an effect on the writing and character development. I think that the infusion of his and Claudia's fresh blood really perked up what had to me been a rather stale military sci fi show. Anyway, the second straight-to-DVD movie is a standalone story that basically feels like a big episode, but a very satisfying episode. For the most part it hung together pretty well, and I definitely respect the producers' thoughtful approach to the science part of science fiction--they take it seriously. Definitely watch the extra on the theory of time travel to help wrap up any lingering questions you might have. The extra on how they ended up filming in the Arctic is very sweet as well, if one can describe military personnel who run Arctic research stations as sweet. Knowing that they filmed in genuine extreme conditions gave me respect for the actors as well--none of that "about to get frostbite" look was make up!
The Lost Boys: Tribe We were expecting this movie to be terrible, and our expectations were more than amply met. For the most part the vampires were stupid, the plot was wtf, the boobs were highly gratuitous, the effects were wretched, and it's a sad thing when you can say that the best thing about a movie is the performance by Corey Feldman. That said, though, Corey Feldman was actually pretty funny as Edgar Frog, the kid brother from the first movie all grown up and become a professional vampire hunter. If the rest of the film had followed his campy lead, it could have been a decent B film, but I don't think anybody ever decided quite what they wanted this film to be, real horror, teen exploitation, black comedy or what, so it just sort of wandered all over the place for an hour and a half and then stopped. The surfer vampires were ridiculous, though the lead vampire had some good vampiric screen presence. The lead character was a whiny twerp. His sister was a Hayden Panettiere wanna-be. The dialogue sounded painfully like bad writers trying to emulate Joss Whedon. I could go on, but you are probably getting the point. All that said, though, it's satisfying movie to drink during and make fun of. There are not one but two alternate endings featuring mostly Corey Feldman.
possible spoiler, not that it really matters: one unforgivable thing about the movie is that throughout the final fight scene, you can see a carousel unicorn in the background of the vampires' tastefully decorated lair. There is simply no excuse at all for having a wooden unicorn in the frame and not impaling a vampire on it. Absolutely none at all.
The Band's Visit: The Band's Visit was a very good movie. It's not particularly about anything, in terms of plot, but is rather a collection of character sketches in collision with one another when an Egyptian police band is stranded in the middle of nowhere in Israel, and the band members and various Israelis stay up all night talking to each other. Although the movie sounds like it could be quite heavy handed and message driven, it isn't at all. Of course the history of Israeli/Arab relations hangs over the characters' interactions, but they interact as human beings, not embodied metaphors or tropes. The acting is superb and never anything but utterly convincing. It was almost a shock in the "making of" feature to see and hear the actors as themselves. I highly recommend the movie--it's the sort of movie that isn't life changing or anything, but I find moments haunting me still days after seeing it.
As a side note, it helps to know early on in the movie that Arabic doesn't really have a letter that sounds like "p," while Hebrew does, as this is the source of an important misunderstanding.
With all the current mix-ups at Netflix, they sent us back Lost Boys after I returned it! It is stinky cheese that lingers on and on!
The Lost Boys: Tribe We were expecting this movie to be terrible, and our expectations were more than amply met. For the most part the vampires were stupid, the plot was wtf, the boobs were highly gratuitous, the effects were wretched, and it's a sad thing when you can say that the best thing about a movie is the performance by Corey Feldman. That said, though, Corey Feldman was actually pretty funny as Edgar Frog, the kid brother from the first movie all grown up and become a professional vampire hunter. If the rest of the film had followed his campy lead, it could have been a decent B film, but I don't think anybody ever decided quite what they wanted this film to be, real horror, teen exploitation, black comedy or what, so it just sort of wandered all over the place for an hour and a half and then stopped. The surfer vampires were ridiculous, though the lead vampire had some good vampiric screen presence. The lead character was a whiny twerp. His sister was a Hayden Panettiere wanna-be. The dialogue sounded painfully like bad writers trying to emulate Joss Whedon. I could go on, but you are probably getting the point. All that said, though, it's satisfying movie to drink during and make fun of. There are not one but two alternate endings featuring mostly Corey Feldman.
possible spoiler, not that it really matters: one unforgivable thing about the movie is that throughout the final fight scene, you can see a carousel unicorn in the background of the vampires' tastefully decorated lair. There is simply no excuse at all for having a wooden unicorn in the frame and not impaling a vampire on it. Absolutely none at all.
The Band's Visit: The Band's Visit was a very good movie. It's not particularly about anything, in terms of plot, but is rather a collection of character sketches in collision with one another when an Egyptian police band is stranded in the middle of nowhere in Israel, and the band members and various Israelis stay up all night talking to each other. Although the movie sounds like it could be quite heavy handed and message driven, it isn't at all. Of course the history of Israeli/Arab relations hangs over the characters' interactions, but they interact as human beings, not embodied metaphors or tropes. The acting is superb and never anything but utterly convincing. It was almost a shock in the "making of" feature to see and hear the actors as themselves. I highly recommend the movie--it's the sort of movie that isn't life changing or anything, but I find moments haunting me still days after seeing it.
As a side note, it helps to know early on in the movie that Arabic doesn't really have a letter that sounds like "p," while Hebrew does, as this is the source of an important misunderstanding.
With all the current mix-ups at Netflix, they sent us back Lost Boys after I returned it! It is stinky cheese that lingers on and on!
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no subject
Date: 2008-08-21 06:11 pm (UTC)THIS explains why my nametapes done in Arabic are Barsall ... but not them forgetting there IS a "sh" sound.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-21 06:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-21 06:21 pm (UTC)Don't you mean Bebsi?
Yeah, the name tape thing - do they have an "H" sound?
I could see Bars-hall, if they do, and they didn't know that sh is a phoneme in english.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-21 06:50 pm (UTC)There's a variety of "h" sounds, so that could be part of the problem. I *think* that in Arabic they do not have phonemes per se, but rather individual letters that represent common phonemes. So "sh" for example is one letter in Arabic.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-21 06:54 pm (UTC)Ah, well, the only difference, lettering-wise, was that the shin letter is the same as the sin letter, but with a dot over it.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-22 01:40 am (UTC)