0022: AAA's Gut Speaks Out On Upcoming Films
Submitted by AAA on Thu, 09/18/2003 - 06:39
Tags:
- I can't wait...
- The Bad Education
- Closer
- Slight reservations...
- The Life Aquatic
- Meet the Fockers
- Out to Sea
- Spanglish
- A Very Long Engagement
- Hmmmm...
- Alexander
- The Aviator
- Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events
- I've got a bad feeling...
- Million Dollar Baby
- The Phantom of the Opera
Author Comments:
I decided to do my own version of this list...but I had to add a tier.
I'll be filling this up with plenty of 2004 movies.
Cloned From:
I like these lists; thanks for kicking one in! The only one on here that surprises me is that you have The Last Samurai so low. Worse than The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, you predict? I'd give you pretty good odds on that bet.
Well, I just plain don't think that The Last Samurai is gonna be worthwhile. I have a feeling that it's gonna end up being one of those misguided epics that ends up boring me for a good 2 1/2 hours. However, I expect great visuals.
As for TCSM, I expect a scary, stylish film...so, we'll see if it lives up to the trailer.
Good call on "Love Actually." I saw a preview for it the other day. It does look pretty good.
Not so sure about "Big Fish" though. Besides his "Ed Wood", I'm not a big Tim Burton fan. I admit I haven't seen "Edward Scissorhands" though.
Mmm, I love Tim Burton. Recently, he's been off, but I think with the cast and ideas of Big Fish, he'll be able to get back on track.
Well, AAA, it's been good to talk to you about movies tonight, and it would've been pretty boring if I was the only one around Listology tonight. But now I have to go do some homework or go to bed, or both. If you keep updating your lists, I'll read 'em tomorrow.
Sounds like a plan my man. I'm glad to be able to converse with you about the cinema. Yeah, that was meant to sound bad.
Have fun sleeping and doing calculus.
Where would you put
The Matrix Revolutions, and you have a bad feeling about The Last Samurai?? I saw mystic river last night and it had the final (?) trailer for the last samurai attached to it and the movie looks phenomenal.
Alrighty, the trailer for Matrix Revolutions looks interesting, but I really didn't like Reloaded, so I don't expect much. You can check out my capsule review on my Movies I've Seen list.
As for The Last Samurai, I'm not a huge fan of the modern-day epic (minus The Lord of the Rings, which seems to escape the problems I have with the genre). I'm a huge fan of Lawrence of Arabia and Seven Samurai, but the problem with today's epics is that they're far more interested in the setting, time period, and grand action than they are in character or soul. I don't have big expectations for the film, and I might see it just so that I can take a side critically, but I am not looking forward to it at all.
I like the idea of this list and feel I have to put my two sense in on how your predictions turned out for some of these movies (in my humble opinion of course)...(based on scale of ten)
Harry Potter - 6
Spider Man 2 - 6
Chronicles of Riddick - 6
The Day After Tomorrow - 2
Troy - 6
Shrek 2 - 7
Van Helsing - 4
All in all, pretty good instincts...except for Shrek 2, but I had my reservations about that before I saw it as well
Naw, I didn't like it. I think I had that categorized right for me.
What slight reservations do you have about Incredibles, Life Aquatic, and Sky Captain?
Well, it seems that my reservations over The Incredibles were unfounded. I was just worried that Pixar was falling into patterns, and I was absolutely dreading any sort of Shrekian topical humor. However, I read an article right before The Incredibles' release, and it seems that Pixar was afraid of the exact same things, and they brought in new talent (Brad Bird) in order to prevent their films from becoming stale. That is just one exmple of why Pixar may be the best film studio working today, animated or otherwise.
As for Sky Captain, I enjoyed the film, but it did fall into the traps I was worried about. It was almost impossible for the actors (Angelina Jolie's wonderful cameo excluded) to act with entirely imagined sets and villians. Also, frankly, it was overlong and exhausting at times.
My reservations for The Life Aquatic were just based on the trailer. My love for The Royal Tenenbaums is so great that I feel like this one can only be a letdown.
I think Cars is another example of how they don't want to fall into patterns, but in this case, it's an example that falls directly opposed to my tastes. At this point, I MIGHT be tempted to rent the DVD eventually if it scores an 80 or above on RT (whereas any movie with Pixar behind it previously warranted opening weekend theater viewing).
I almost never like the early ads for Pixar films. The only early ad I liked at all was The Incredibles.
But, I didn't like the later ads for it, so I guess it's a toss-up.
Yeah, Pixar is kinda the opposite of most shops: with others you get all the best parts in the trailer. With Pixar, you get all the worst. Hopefully Cars is yet another example of this, as it the trailer did nothing for me. Still, betting against them at this point looks contrarian at best, and at worst, foolish.
Yeah, Cars' trailer doesn't really intrigue me all that much.
BUT, I think part of Pixar's genius is that even though they take interesting premises, the fun is the execution. Usually, especially with animated films, studios focus more on the gimmick, while Pixar takes the idea and runs in wonderful directions.
Perhaps that explains their trailer problem. It's hard to show the true genius of their films in 2 minutes.
I'll go another step. I thought the trailer for Cars looked horrible.
But, as you said, it is Pixar...
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
AAA, good theory on the impossibility of accurately representing a Pixar movie in 2 minutes or less.
LBangs, I'm inclined to agree with you about the trailer but I don't say so publicly 'cause I will be crushed if the Paul Newman/Pixar pairing results in their first dud. And because I would have bet against Michael Jordan in his last three championships so now I know, as Crash Davis would say, you don't f__k with a winning streak.