Excerpted from a comment by Randy Matthews on HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE related to a Biden-drops-out, Hillary-ascendant post:
Trump could seriously be a candidate for President. Just as I can't believe that Schwarzenegger was Governor. This really does feel like "Back to the Future II" day.
Showing posts with label HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Blog commenter on today's gun violence tragedy.
Turning the floor over to HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE commenter "DukeSavoy" re today's killings of a TV reporter and camera person in Virginia:
Of course even the most restrictive gun control won't completely stop some criminals from getting guns some times. But reducing the torrent of handgun weapons to a meandering stream would cut down on the general pool of guns that are lost, stolen or purchased from shady sources willing to look the other way. By reducing that pool, black market hand guns become more expensive and thus harder to get. Hell, we pay some farmers not to farm, we can pay hand gun manufacturers to manufacture fewer weapons.
The title of the HE thread: Ain't That America?
Of course even the most restrictive gun control won't completely stop some criminals from getting guns some times. But reducing the torrent of handgun weapons to a meandering stream would cut down on the general pool of guns that are lost, stolen or purchased from shady sources willing to look the other way. By reducing that pool, black market hand guns become more expensive and thus harder to get. Hell, we pay some farmers not to farm, we can pay hand gun manufacturers to manufacture fewer weapons.
The title of the HE thread: Ain't That America?
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Perceptive blog commenter dialogue re summer blockbusters.
Comments below taken from HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE thread re director Joe Wright's latest attempt to intersect with mainstream audiences (Peter Pan adaptation PAN, following the teen spy thriller HANNA and the intended-as-Academy-contender THE SOLOIST):
Orson Welles on working at a film studio: “This is the biggest electric train set a boy ever had!”
And there is no bigger electric train set than a summer blockbuster.--commenter Dakkar
Summer blockbusters are like playing with a train set while your dad tells you what you can and can't do.--commenter Magga
Orson Welles on working at a film studio: “This is the biggest electric train set a boy ever had!”
And there is no bigger electric train set than a summer blockbuster.--commenter Dakkar
Summer blockbusters are like playing with a train set while your dad tells you what you can and can't do.--commenter Magga
Friday, June 14, 2013
HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE commenter on superhero comics vs. their movie adaptations.
Turning the floor over to Jay Shooke--context is a HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE website commenter discussion re Joe Queenan's dismissal of the superhero film genre in THE GUARDIAN:
This is the kind of whining that comes from having no awareness of the comics industry at all. Like its already been mentioned, comics haven't been "cheap" or disposable for 25 years, or since they changed the distribution model to the direct market. Comics are now niche collectibles, printed on extremely high quality paper, cost 3 to 4 bucks a pop, and only available at small specialty stores. But that's besides the point...
The problem with superhero movies (and I want to make this distinguished, comics are a vast medium that tell many, very disparate types of stories) is not the source material being vapid or inferior, but in the poor adaptation of them. Comics, even superhero comics, have been home for some of the most out-there, cerebral and and almost inaccessibly dense genre stories being published. Writers like Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis, and Jonathan Hickman are pushing incredibly daring and literary ideas, they just happen to be illustrated by some intensely eye-popping illustrative and graphic design work. Its the studios dumbing down the source material to hit all four quadrants [meaning every age level of moviegoer], and that's when you get repetitive narratives and senseless violence.
I get the complaints against the assault of cape movies every summer, but there's a reason they keep getting made. People love em, and its certainly not just geeks keeping them afloat. The most popular comic books are lucky if they sell 90k copies every month. Man of Steel is going to make around 300 million dollars domestic, so obviously its not just the basement dweller set making them happen. Average people want to see grand spectacle and larger than life characters when they plop down 12 bucks, and this is the type of movie that delivers that.
This is the kind of whining that comes from having no awareness of the comics industry at all. Like its already been mentioned, comics haven't been "cheap" or disposable for 25 years, or since they changed the distribution model to the direct market. Comics are now niche collectibles, printed on extremely high quality paper, cost 3 to 4 bucks a pop, and only available at small specialty stores. But that's besides the point...
The problem with superhero movies (and I want to make this distinguished, comics are a vast medium that tell many, very disparate types of stories) is not the source material being vapid or inferior, but in the poor adaptation of them. Comics, even superhero comics, have been home for some of the most out-there, cerebral and and almost inaccessibly dense genre stories being published. Writers like Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis, and Jonathan Hickman are pushing incredibly daring and literary ideas, they just happen to be illustrated by some intensely eye-popping illustrative and graphic design work. Its the studios dumbing down the source material to hit all four quadrants [meaning every age level of moviegoer], and that's when you get repetitive narratives and senseless violence.
I get the complaints against the assault of cape movies every summer, but there's a reason they keep getting made. People love em, and its certainly not just geeks keeping them afloat. The most popular comic books are lucky if they sell 90k copies every month. Man of Steel is going to make around 300 million dollars domestic, so obviously its not just the basement dweller set making them happen. Average people want to see grand spectacle and larger than life characters when they plop down 12 bucks, and this is the type of movie that delivers that.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Critic Erik Childress on the continuing trainwreck of AT THE MOVIES.
Thanks again to Jeffrey Wells' HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE for providing this link to an article by Erik Childress, which, while a bit long, comments on Ben Lyons (the smarmy one) and Ben Mankiewicz's (the smarter one) sitdown with an Associated Press TV scribe to spin AT THE MOVIES as turning the corner and heading towards success: http://www.efilmcritic.com/feature.php?feature=2689
The article also reminds readers of Ben Lyons' Greatest Hits during his critical career for E! and Disney, including his "One of the Greatest Films Ever" blurb about the Will Smith remake of I AM LEGEND.
After having my head explode and my stomach turn from witnessing young Lyons' terminal glibness, I quit watching AT THE MOVIES months ago.
One final comment about the Childress article:
Apparently, Lyons father, hack critic Jeffrey Lyons (who still has a TV show carried by NBC affiliates), once called Roger Ebert a "putz."
The mind boggles when you consider what Ebert has achieved vs. what Lyons and his nonillustrious son don't even try for.
The article also reminds readers of Ben Lyons' Greatest Hits during his critical career for E! and Disney, including his "One of the Greatest Films Ever" blurb about the Will Smith remake of I AM LEGEND.
After having my head explode and my stomach turn from witnessing young Lyons' terminal glibness, I quit watching AT THE MOVIES months ago.
One final comment about the Childress article:
Apparently, Lyons father, hack critic Jeffrey Lyons (who still has a TV show carried by NBC affiliates), once called Roger Ebert a "putz."
The mind boggles when you consider what Ebert has achieved vs. what Lyons and his nonillustrious son don't even try for.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Roger Ebert on film criticism making way for more celeb gossip.
Thanks to Jeffrey Wells' HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE blog for alerting me to the following blog entry from Roger Ebert about the latest blow to film criticism--the Associated Press wanting its film-related articles to be no longer than 500 words: http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/11/death_to_film_critics_long_liv.html
Maybe another death blow was dealt recently when Kenneth Turan, the LOS ANGELES TIMES film critic who angered James Cameron by essentially evaluating TITANIC as mediocre schlock which lowered the standards of mainstream Hollywood filmmaking, gave a pass to the current girl-loves-vampire film TWILIGHT (come to think of it, so did Richard Corliss, who once in FILM COMMENT had his issues with Ebert and the late Gene Siskel about the SISKEL AND EBERT TV show's effects on the criticism profession).
The future of mainstream film criticism will increasingly be inherited by get-along-by-going-along careerists like the AP's Christy LeMire and Ben "I love going to junkets" Lyons. And most younger people won't mourn this because they don't have the time to read more than 500 words at one sitting.
Maybe another death blow was dealt recently when Kenneth Turan, the LOS ANGELES TIMES film critic who angered James Cameron by essentially evaluating TITANIC as mediocre schlock which lowered the standards of mainstream Hollywood filmmaking, gave a pass to the current girl-loves-vampire film TWILIGHT (come to think of it, so did Richard Corliss, who once in FILM COMMENT had his issues with Ebert and the late Gene Siskel about the SISKEL AND EBERT TV show's effects on the criticism profession).
The future of mainstream film criticism will increasingly be inherited by get-along-by-going-along careerists like the AP's Christy LeMire and Ben "I love going to junkets" Lyons. And most younger people won't mourn this because they don't have the time to read more than 500 words at one sitting.
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