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

[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.