May meme - Movies

[brigdh]

I'm doing that old December talking meme, but for May! Feel free to ask me something; I have lots of empty days.

May 3rd - "movies! Which are your favourite films, which do you loathe with a passion, what movies would you wish into existence if you could" for somebraveapollo. Oh my God, May 3rd, I am so far behind already.

I am, in general, not as into movies as I am into other media; I tend to have problems focusing on visual media. I always get distracted in the middle and wander off and start doing something else instead of paying attention. This is not a problem in theaters! Because it's nice and dark and very focused. But alas, movies are so expensive these days. I used to see a movie every single Friday with a group of friends; we had this whole routine where we'd always see something, just to hang out and have something to talk about, even if all the movies available that week were dumb or not our favored genres. But tickets have more than doubled in price (almost tripled, actually) since then, though it's been less than ten years. That seems... an inordinate amount of inflation. I wonder if it's because of the rise of piracy? Surely higher ticket prices only drive more people toward piracy? Anyway, I'm not an economist, so who knows why it is. But it does mean I see less movies than I used to!

I don't think I have a single favorite movie, in a general sense. It depends on what mood I'm in. I love to watch Drop Dead Gorgeous when I'm sick or not feeling well; it's a mockumentary about a small town high school beauty pageant, and it's so silly and over-the-top and just ridiculous that it always makes me feel better. I love The Fall for sheer visuals, the Pirates of the Caribbean series for action and PIRATE KINGS YES, Boondock Saints for its incredibly blatant twincest and visuals (though, uh, terrible ethics. It's definitely a movie I have to not think too hard about). I absolutely adore Baz Luhrman's Romeo + Juliet, in all its crazy modern-AU weirdness. The movie I've probably seen the most times is The Christmas Story, as my dad is obsessed with it, and we watch the 24-hour marathon (or, well, less "watch" and more "have on in the background") of it that's on TNT every Christmas. I went through an intense obsession for a while with Silence of the Lambs (alas, back when it had no fandom. I should be into it now!) and have loved some obvious ones: Dogma, The Little Mermaid, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Unbreakable, The Exorcist, The Blair Witch Project.

There's definitely some movies I've seen that were not worth the time it took to watch them: Splice (incest rape by mutant baby!), Battlefield Earth (John Travolta with alien dreads!), the Saw movies (okay, I've only seen Saw 2, but it was so terrible I wanted to leave the theater; I don't think I've ever seen another movie that so despised its audience), but I can't think of any movie I've really loathed. Okay, maybe Saw 2.

For which movies I would make, OBVIOUSLY A BEN JANUARY MOVIE. Though no, clearly it should be an HBO series, so you could do one book per season and have lots of time to do worldbuilding and character moments. I think Swordspoint would make a pretty good movie! It's short and self-contained enough that I don't think you'd have to cut too much, and the clothes and setting could really do with the big budget of a movie, so they could be as lovely as should be.

Ha, I feel like this has been a boring answer. I don't think a lot about movies, unfortunately! I do really like to listen when other people can discuss interesting topics, like color schemes and angles and framing shots, but alas, I don't know enough myself about those details to do so.

Comments

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

Yay, Dogma! It's one of my favourite movies.

I'd like to know more about "movie that so despised its audience", if that's pkay, because I don't understand what you mean.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Dogma is really great!

So, the Saw series is a horror series (preemptive apologies if you already know any of this), which are linked not so much by shared characters (though there are some) as by a shared set-up: normal people find themselves in some sort of puzzle set up by a evil killer from which they can escape alive only by doing something terrible, either to themselves or to someone else. The most well-known example is from the first movie, where a man was left chained up and could escape only by sawing off his own leg.

So, Saw 2 uses this same format with a group of strangers trapped in a house full of video cameras and booby-traps set up by the killer, from which they have only a few hours to escape before... I don't remember, something terrible happens. Maybe poison gas fills the house? Over the course of the movie it's revealed that each of the characters is a terrible person who (at least according to the killer and, you get the sense, the directors) "deserves" to have this torture visited upon them. And it is torture, lots of bloody injuries via various means, always accompanied with lingering close-ups (Saw is the series for which the term "torture porn" was coined). There's a lot of angry shouting from the characters to the killer about how "you're an evil psychopath for wanting to watch this!"... except, of course, the audience also wants to watch it (or at least bought a ticket, even if they are now regretting it).

In addition, it's also revealed that the killer had previously nearly died of cancer, and this experience is what inspired him to appreciate life again, and punish people who do not appreciate it adequately, with those who survive his puzzles portrayed as now finding new meaning in life. The film not just portrays this, but seems to endorse it: the characters are such horrible caricatures of human beings that you can't help but feel that the director wants you to agree with the killer that they should die, and that you should revel in every bit of the gore thereof, and yet also it feels like the directors are judging you for doing so, because they're just so much more insightful and aware of how things really are than any of the audience could be.

It's just... nasty and gleefully disgusting and thinks it's very clever while really being incredibly shallowly nihilistic and basically about as immoral as I think it's possible for a fictional story to be.

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

I love Dogma, I rewatch it pretty much every year since I discovered it.

That sounds terrible on so many level.

[just-ann-now.livejournal.com]

Though I would dearly, dearly love a Swordspoint movie, I think TPOTS would be more "filmable" and accessible to an audience. Also, TPOTS Alec, whom I absolutely adore.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I agree, but that's not a problem because I would be very happy to get a TPOTS movie as well! Hmmm, I suppose especially with Hunger Games and Divergent and other similar movies, there really is a market right now for "YA with female fighters". Maybe we will see a TPOTS movie!

[just-ann-now.livejournal.com]

We live in hope! Swordspoint was on that recent list of "Fantasy Novels That Would Make Great TV Series" (http://io9.com/10-book-series-that-would-make-excellent-tv-shows-1535363606), and EK says her agent has gotten some inquiries, so, who knows?

[hamsterwoman]

I would fully endorse a Swordspoint movie! Or a Privilege of the Sword movie, as mentioned above.

Also, yay PotC movies! I don't think I was ever so pleasantly surprised by a movie as by the first Pirates (Johnny Depp tends to be hugely hit or miss for me, I don't like Orlando Bloom's acting, and I figured a movie based on an amusement park ride was bound to be terrible, so I was expecting "so bad it's good" at best, and ended up loving it of course)

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Me too! I love pirates, so I was sure to see the movies, but I did not have particularly high expectations for all the reasons you say, and because pirate movies tend to be fairly terrible in general. But it was so great and so fun!

[somebraveapollo.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the post!

Saw was so, so bad, like, it made me want to throw up BUT ALSO made me extremely bored, how is that even possible? But tell me more about why it despised its audience! Like, was there metatext-y things in it that I missed?

I have never watched all of PotC, though I really want to! I adore Jack, he is very much my kind of character.

A SWORDSPOINT MOVIE, YESSSSS. Yes. Like, yes. Who would you cast in it? I can't think of anyone who could play Alec.

[somebraveapollo.livejournal.com]

Oh, never mind, I found it - " There's a lot of angry shouting from the characters to the killer about how "you're an evil psychopath for wanting to watch this!"... except, of course, the audience also wants to watch it (or at least bought a ticket, even if they are now regretting it)"

EUGH EUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH I hate that kind of guilt-baiting bullshit. It's kind of like Dollhouse. I mean, I loved some aspects of Dollhouse, but the self-and-audience-flagellation was awful.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

IT IS SUCH A TERRIBLE MOVIE. I've never seen Saw 1 or any of the post-2 Saws because it made me so angry, though I think from reading reviews that I got lucky and Saw 2 is the worst and the others are not quite so offense.

I also have not seen Dollhouse, though I keep meaning to! I usually like Joss Whedon's stuff, though not audience-flagellation, hmmm.

You should totally see all of PotC! (Well, maybe not the fourth one.) But I quite like the second and third ones, though they're not as popular as the first. Elizabeth becomes the pirate king!

I quite like a younger Jonathan Rhys Meyers (like, maybe 10-15 years ago) for Alec. He has the right sort of sharp/weird looks. Cillian Murphy is good too, though he looks a bit too... nice. For Richard, I really like Billy Crudup, especially as he was in Stage Beauty (which, hey, is another movie I love!).

[somebraveapollo.livejournal.com]

Dollhouse is breathtakingly exciting and grand and thematically complex, but kinda hard to watch because
a. much less humor and warmth than in Whedon's other shows
b. I feel it's kind of... uncomfortably self-reflective, or something, or, basically, like it's Whedon's Creative Crisis Hour; like, there is a self-insert-feeling character who is all creative and punny and feminist and in Charge, and he's... evil, and not in a nice way, for participating in an industry that objectifies women. Which! I mean! I don't know, it was kind of awkward to watch.
c. In fact, most of the cast is evil. The rest of the cast is literally without personality. So, like, if you're like me and need to like characters in order to like the show, it's kinda a challenge! But probably worth it.

OOH, Rhys Meyers and Billy Crudup, yessss. You're right about Cillian Murphy - he CAN look cruel, but only in a, like, very cold detached serial killer way (ie. that movie where he played a cold detached serial killer), which is not Alec at all. My only suggestion is "OOOH LENA HEADEY FOR GENDERBENT ALEC" but of course we'd need a genderbent Richard too and I have no ideas there at all.

ALSO ALSO - I watched Drop Dead Gorgeous last night! It randomly appeared on hbo and I was ooooooooh. I loved it but ended up falling asleep after Amber came in second on the pageant. What happens after that? Are there more grisly murders? Do Amber's mom and Loretta finally get married? I really loved Loretta.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

That is all... not very encouraging. I think I will put it very low on my to-watch list.

LENA HEADEY IS AN AMAZING IDEA, but yeah I have no genderbent Richard ideas. Actually Natalie Dormer would be great– she can do that "polite and warm but secretly capable of killing you" thing very well– but there's too much of an age difference between her and Lena.

EXCELLENT. Ha, okay. So there's a parade for the celebrate the pageant, and Rebecca (the winner) has to ride in this giant swan float. It was built by her dad, who explicitly built it as cheaply and unsafely as possible, so it catches on fire and Rebecca dies. Her mom then goes into screaming hysterics of the "I should have killed you all!" sort and confesses about rigging the pageant and murdering the other contestants, so she gets arrested. So by default, Amber becomes the winner and gets sent to the state pageant. There, a massive food-poisoning outbreak occurs and Amber is again declared winner by default because she is the only person not vomiting in the hospital. So then she goes to the national pageant, but when she and the other contestants arrive, they find out that it's been cancelled because the make-up company that sponsors it has closed for bankruptcy. So, Amber goes back home. One day a news reporter is shot on live TV and Amber jumps out of the audience, grabs the mike, and starts to reporting. So she gets to become a news anchor after all because she does such a good job they hire her to replace the original reporter.

[somebraveapollo.livejournal.com]

Hah, yes, no, like, a life lived without watching Dollhouse is still a perfectly well-lived life. [that said, there's a lot of weird misaimed criticism about it being audience-pandering or regressive or a Nikita ripoff or something - nah, it's very systematic and intentional and feminism is one of its Themes. It's just... weird. Anyway, Orphan Black is a much more humane take on the same themes, so Orphan Black is much better.]

Hmmm, maybe Gina Torres for Richard? I mean, presumably she can play polite and warm! She can definitely play capable of killing you.

Ohhh, poor Rebecca, she never stood a chance. Thank you for the summary, it's just as grisly and entertaining and karmically valid as I'd hoped for.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Ha, yes, I do need to watch Orphan Black. I hear the second season is very good!

Oo, Gina Torres is an excellent idea! I really like that.

And yes, I forgot to say: Loretta and Amber's mom should TOTALLY get married.

[somebraveapollo.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, also possibly Amber / "I love New York and my brother is gay" girl. I mean, the whole undressing + joyful kissing scene was pretty great!!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Ooo, yes, that would be awesome. Actually I've never checked for fic of this movie! Doing so now, apparently there's only 2 on AO3, which is way too few.