|
|
This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
|
|
Author
|
Topic: Deja Vu >>> OFF TOPIC
|
Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
|
posted 12-19-2006 08:34 PM
quote: Mike Schindler
Personally I've never seen anything like DOMINO. At least, not to that extent. Bay, Woo, and Scott all have very distinct styles, and I see very little of them in each other.
Um, no. No they do not have very distinct styles. Tony Scott. Michael Bay. Simon West. McG. Louis Leteirrier, etc. They are all cut from the same school of bullshit film-making.
The only filmmakers that seem somewhat immune to that kind of thing are Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. Those guys are still best served if they would bother to drop the really tired bullshit John Woo camera moves and do their own thing. They have more talent than any of the guys I previously mentioned. Why copy a lesser filmmaker if that is the case?
The whole Tony Scott/John Woo/Michael Bay school of movie making seems to be: let's just make the shot look pretty and screw how implausible the whole scene and movie on the whole may be.
At least Tony Scott's brother, Ridley at least tries to some limited extent to keep the story grounded enough in reality to suspend disbelief.
Tony Scott has largely been a bad second act to his far more talented brother Ridley. At least Ridley Scott knows enough how to balance style to story in order to allow any talented actor to show his/her talents on screen. Even still, he got overlooked for the Best Director Oscar for Gladiator in favor of Steven Soderbergh back in 2000. How many movie theaters are currently showing Ridley's current work A Good Year (starring Russell Crowe)? Any?
Sorry to say this, but that whole Toyota car commercial style of filmmaking has become very very old hat. It is a cliché and a very very bad one at that.
quote: Mike Schindler
I somewhat agree with you in regards to Bay and Woo. But I don't think they're trying to hide a bad story. It's more of a case of the story being a means to do all of the cool shit that they want to do.
I take it you never saw the train wreck known as Windtalkers. Very painful to watch. Even more painful than some of the worst Karaoke I've seen. The part where Christian Slater gets decapitated has to be one of the most goofily bad parts in a movie I have ever seen in my life.
quote: Mike Schindler
I think the idea is that by dropping the framework of story we'll free ourselves up to finding an even greater level of substance somewhere down the line.
Greater level of substance? Or just an excuse to "phone in" the job and jerk off the audience with an absolutely absurd excuse of a movie?
quote: Mike Schindler
I don't think this is a problem based on the fact that the type of movie you're describing generally has a really large audience.
Again, Domino, the so-called "masterpiece" you mention had a mere 17% rating on Rotten Tomatoes' website and racked up a rather dismal earnings total in box office receipts. Deja Vu (the original subject of this thread) is not doing very much better either.
Overall, I think guys like Tony Scott, Michael Bay, McG and others that subscribe to this over-ballyhooed form of bullshit jerk off film making are only kept employed by pure good ol boy network crony ism. It's who you know, right? There's filmmakers out there who have 100,000,000 times the talent of any Michael Bay or Tony Scott but can't get their shot over the bullshit politics involved in Hollywood.
So ultimately, I have no sympathy for Hollywood if it gets steamrolled by British cinema, French Cinema. Bollywood or anything else. They have run a non-competitive network of crony ism for so long already they deserve to get their heads served to them on a plate.
[ 12-20-2006, 09:06 AM: Message edited by: Bobby Henderson ]
| IP: Logged
|
|
Mike Schindler
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1039
From: Oak Park, IL, USA
Registered: Jun 2002
|
posted 12-20-2006 01:15 AM
This discussion has taken a really weird turn, but it's still interesting.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Um, no. No they do not have very distinct styles. Tony Scott. Michael Bay. Simon West. McG. Louis Leteirrier, etc. They are all cut from the same school of bullshit film-making.
The only filmmakers that seem somewhat immune to that kind of thing are Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez.
That's a really broad group of people to lump together into the same style of filmmaking, and two really weird exceptions. I guess you could say that they're similar in the sense that they all make action movies, but each of the people you mention are very unique in relation to each other. And Tarantino and Rodriguez? Is Tarantino even an action filmmaker? How did they get thrown into this?
quote: Bobby Henderson
Those guys are still best served if they would bother to drop the really tired bullshit John Woo camera moves and do their own thing.
I guess Rodriguez and Woo both use slow motion, so they're similar in that sense, but any shared aesthetic they might have is negated by the fact that their editing styles couldn't be more different. And I can't see any similarity in the camera work of Woo's movies and Tarantino's.
quote: Bobby Henderson
They have more talent than any of the guys I previously mentioned.
Agreed.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Why fucking copy a lesser filmmaker if that is the case?
Tarantino, who quite likely is the best filmmaker in the world right now, is great at adaptation. He watches a lot of movies and knows what works and what doesn't. He then takes what he learns from all those different lesser filmmakers and fuses the elements that work into one big giant supermovie.
quote: Bobby Henderson
The whole Tony Scott/John Woo/Michael Bay school of movie making seems to be: let's just make the shot look pretty and screw how implausible the whole scene and movie on the whole may be.
I guess I sort of see what you're saying, but I don't think this is an indicator of style, and I think context has a lot to do with whether or not this level of implausibility is warrented. Take Scott, for example. In ENEMY OF THE STATE, there's the whole video surveillance camera thing, which is dumb as all hell. It's a stupid plot device used to get the writers out of a corner they painted themselves into. DEJA VU has that shit too. But DOMINO is a fairly broad comedy, and the implausible elements in that movie are done because they're funny. In that movie, it's appropriate. KILL BILL is filled to the brim with stuff like that, and it wouldn't work without it.
quote: Bobby Henderson
At least Tony Scott's brother, Ridley at least tries to some limited extent to keep the story grounded enough in reality to suspend disbelief.
I think it's way more than limited. He's like James Cameron. Generally, his movies are completely grounded in reality.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Tony Scott has largely been a bad second act to his far more talented brother Ridley.
What's interesting about their careers is how one has gotten better while the other has gotten worse. ALIEN is a fracking masterpiece (and don't ask me to explain why, or we'll be here for another week), while shit like DAYS OF THUNDER is unwatchable. But nowadays, Ridley is getting super-formulaic. A GOOD YEAR? Not for Ridley. Meanwhile, Tony continues to grow with each new movie (except for DEJA VU, of course).
quote: Bobby Henderson
At least Ridley Scott knows enough how to balance style to story in order to allow any talented actor to show his/her talents on screen.
Meanwhile, the people behind the camera are getting the short end of the stick with this standard "over, over, two-shot" bullshit.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Even still, he got overlooked for the Best Director Oscar for Gladiator in favor of Steven Soderbergh back in 2000.
That, to me, is justice at its finest.
quote: Bobby Henderson
How many movie theaters are currently showing Ridley's current work A Good Year (starring Russell Crowe)? Any?
I'm missing your point, but I think the reason behind that is that the movie's crap.
quote: Bobby Henderson
I take it you never saw the train wreck known as Windtalkers.
Sure, there are exceptions. Sometimes these guys do want to tell stories. And like you say, they aren't very good at it (although I liked WINDTALKERS). But the other thing that happens is, in an attempt to put content first, they tone down their style. That's one of the reasons why WINDTALKERS didn't work as well as it could have. It was the least John Woo movie John Woo has ever made. Then again, McG has WE ARE MARSHALL coming out on Friday, and that's a movie which is all about the story. It's very stylistically reserved, and I think that was the right choice. And it's not bad.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Greater level of substance? Or just an excuse to "phone in" the job and jerk off the audience with an absolutely absurd, bullshit excuse of a movie?
I'm not denying that this happens. The result is crap like DEJA VU. But those aren't the movies that I'm talking about.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Overall, I think guys like Tony Scott, Michael Bay, McG and others that subscribe to this over-ballyhooed form of bullshit jerk off film making are only kept employed by pure good ol boy network crony ism. It's who you know, right? There's filmmakers out there who have 100,000,000 times the talent of any Michael Bay or Tony Scott but can't get their shot over the bullshit politics involved in Hollywood.'
Generally, I think that Hollywood couldn't care less about talent. They're more interested in money. And there's no denying that the filmmakers you mention make money. Yeah, DOMINO flopped, but that's an anomoly in Scott's career.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
|
posted 12-20-2006 09:34 AM
quote: Mike Schindler
I guess you could say that they're similar in the sense that they all make action movies, but each of the people you mention are very unique in relation to each other. And Tarantino and Rodriguez? Is Tarantino even an action filmmaker? How did they get thrown into this?
Outside of the exceptions of Tarantino and Rodriguez, the others I mentioned are not very unique at all.
I throw Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez both into the mix since they have derived a significant level of influence from John Woo and have publicly stated they are big fans of Woo's films. To Tarantino's credit he tones the John Woo copying down quite a bit and pretty much does his own thing. I also think Tarantino's directing talents are far superior to that of Woo.
Rodriquez is more shamelessly obvious in copying the style of John Woo. Watch one of Woo's movies and then watch El Mariachi or Desperado and you'll see the similarities. It's only in recent years that Robert Rodriguez has started stepping away from the John Woo style. Thankfully he didn't try using much of that crap at all in making Sin City, preferring to be extremely faithful to the style of Frank Miller's graphic novels instead.
quote: Mike Schindler
DEJA VU has that shit too. But DOMINO is a fairly broad comedy, and the implausible elements in that movie are done because they're funny. In that movie, it's appropriate. KILL BILL is filled to the brim with stuff like that, and it wouldn't work without it.
The exception with Kill Bill is that the characters are fleshed out to provide some reason why they can do the otherwise impossible things they do. The Matrix provided the same sort of thing. But in movies like The Transporter and its sequel nothing is done to explain the implausible things that happen. The events just happen because the folks making the movie thought it would look cool on screen.
quote: Mike Schindler
I'm missing your point, but I think the reason behind that is that the movie's crap.
Yes, it A Good Year isn't any good. But my point is even Ridley Scott isn't able to earn the acclaim of directors like Steven Soderbergh because he sometimes allows style to get too much in the way of the story. I think that happened with Gladiator to a certain degree. The movie still won some Oscars (including Best Picture). But Soderbergh did a more compelling job in directing Traffic, and honestly that movie overall was actually more deserving of the Best Picture Oscar.
A lot of actors don't like over blown style either. All the rapid cuts, flashy camera moves and other nonsense gets in the way of a good acting performance. Some of the best movies of all time allow the camera shot run for a considerable amount of time uncut in order to allow an actor to fully express what's going on with the character. That's not something you see very much in action movies these days.
quote: Mike Schindler
Then again, McG has WE ARE MARSHALL coming out on Friday, and that's a movie which is all about the story. It's very stylistically reserved, and I think that was the right choice. And it's not bad.
Early reviews don't look very good for We Are Marshall. While it may not have as many camera and editing spasms as a Charlie's Angels installment, critics are saying McG has basically assembled every football movie cliché together as if it were clip art and then added some emotional flailing.
A lot of these action movie directors are coming from backgrounds of shooting TV commercials and music videos. That spastic style seems to work okay in those mediums. Any more than small bits of it in full length movies comes off as pretty silly.
| IP: Logged
|
|
Mike Schindler
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1039
From: Oak Park, IL, USA
Registered: Jun 2002
|
posted 12-20-2006 04:04 PM
Carl, thank you very much for the support. I was starting to think that I might be as crazy as everyone thinks I am. ![[thumbsup]](graemlins/thumbsup.gif)
quote: Bobby Henderson
Outside of the exceptions of Tarantino and Rodriguez, the others I mentioned are not very unique at all.
Cosmically speaking, Mr. Pibb tastes like Pibb Xtra. But you won't find me drinking Pibb Xtra anytime soon, and I LOVED Mr. Pibb. What I'm trying to say is that it seems more and more that your problems are not so much with filmmakers in the genre as the genre itself. That's cool. Just because I like action movies doesn't mean you have to.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Rodriquez is more shamelessly obvious in copying the style of John Woo. Watch one of Woo's movies and then watch El Mariachi or Desperado and you'll see the similarities.
Like I said before, I think they shoot things similarly, but cut things differently. That makes all the difference in the world.
quote:
Thankfully he didn't try using much of that crap at all in making Sin City, preferring to be extremely faithful to the style of Frank Miller's graphic novels instead.
So in other words, it was OK for him to copy Miller's style because Miller is worthy of being copied?
quote: Bobby Henderson
But in movies like The Transporter and its sequel nothing is done to explain the implausible things that happen. The events just happen because the folks making the movie thought it would look cool on screen.
But again, the Transporter movies were comedies, and that stuff did look cool on screen, so they were able to get away with it.
quote: Bobby Henderson
But my point is even Ridley Scott isn't able to earn the acclaim of directors like Steven Soderbergh because he sometimes allows style to get too much in the way of the story. I think that happened with Gladiator to a certain degree.
As much as I couldn't care less about GLADIATOR, I have to disagree. I never noticed style getting in the way of story. I didn't really notice style at all. Or story, for that matter, which I think is why Soderbergh is more deserving of the Oscar. Gladiator could have benefitted from style. And style is why Soderbergh won the Oscar.
quote:
But Soderbergh did a more compelling job in directing Traffic, and honestly that movie overall was actually more deserving of the Best Picture Oscar.
Truer words were never spoken.
quote: Bobby Henderson
A lot of actors don't like over blown style either. All the rapid cuts, flashy camera moves and other nonsense gets in the way of a good acting performance. Some of the best movies of all time allow the camera shot run for a considerable amount of time uncut in order to allow an actor to fully express what's going on with the character.
The counter-argument to this is that many great performances were crafted in the editing room. That's what Vittorio de Sica was all about. I have a friend who's an editor, and she always gets mad about how Oscar-winning actors never thank their editors in their acceptance speeches.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Early reviews don't look very good for We Are Marshall. While it may not have as many camera and editing spasms as a Charlie's Angels installment, critics are saying McG has basically assembled every football movie cliché together as if it were clip art and then added some emotional flailing.
I'm not gonna defend WE ARE MARSHALL, because ultimately, it's not really worth defending all that much. But my point still stands that when a filmmaker wants to tell a story, he adapts with varying degrees of success.
quote: Bobby Henderson
A lot of these action movie directors are coming from backgrounds of shooting TV commercials and music videos. That spastic style seems to work okay in those mediums. Any more than small bits of it in full length movies comes off as pretty silly.
I agree with you, but I think the reason is that they're still figuring out how to do it. If you look at Joseph Kahn's work, his music videos are "off the hook," if you will. TORQUE, not so much. But he just said, "Frack it!" and decided to go the whole nine, and the result is a very silly, and very interesting experiment.
On the other hand you have someone like McG, who toned down his shit just enough to make it work in long form, and the result is some really good stuff. The Charlie's Angels movies are very silly. So is FASTLANE. But McG's a silly guy. His name's McG. And silly is what those movies and that TV show needed.
The next step, which is really hard, is to take that style, and get rid of the silly. When SCHINDLER'S LIST gets remade using the McG aesthetic and people are calling it better than the original, that's when we know the medium has reached a new level of awesomeness.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
|
posted 12-20-2006 08:52 PM
quote: Mike Schindler
What I'm trying to say is that it seems more and more that your problems are not so much with filmmakers in the genre as the genre itself. That's cool. Just because I like action movies doesn't mean you have to.
Nice try, but wrong. I like action movies. I just happen to like action movies that are at least somewhat believable and have camera angles that don't resemble a grand mal epileptic seizure for the film's duration.
quote: Mike Schindler
Like I said before, I think they shoot things similarly, but cut things differently. That makes all the difference in the world.
John Woo has his signature camera moves, the biggest one being something to overly glorify a character's entrance or exit in a scene in super slo motion fashion -with two or three dissolves to add more "sizzle" to the shot. Rodriguez has copied that exactly in more than a couple films. A lot of other directors have lifted that camera shot as well. One would have to be severely mentally retarded not to pick up on the fact that sort of thing is being shamelessly copied.
quote: Mike Schindler
So in other words, it was OK for him to copy Miller's style because Miller is worthy of being copied?
???
Sin City was a graphic novel written and illustrated by Frank Miller. It's Frank Miller's freaking idea in the form of an already published work. Why shouldn't Rodriguez try to stay faithful to that? Rodriguez and John Woo didn't invent Sin City!.
quote: Mike Schindler
When SCHINDLER'S LIST gets remade using the McG aesthetic and people are calling it better than the original, that's when we know the medium has reached a new level of awesomeness.
WTF?
JFC, I can just see it now. Oskar Schindler and concentration camp commander Amon Goeth get suspended on wires and have a fight to the death up in the sky over the camp. Nothing is done to explain why they can now fly. Fight choreography is done by Yuen Wo Ping and the wires are removed in post.
More likely, this type of hyper-absurd film making will be looked upon 10 years from now as being just as stupidly silly as the spandex covered hair bands like White Lion, Slaughter and Steelhouse from the late 1980s.
Just give it another 10 years and you'll probably be embarrassed that you liked this sort of shit at one time.
| IP: Logged
|
|
Mike Schindler
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1039
From: Oak Park, IL, USA
Registered: Jun 2002
|
posted 12-21-2006 09:42 AM
quote: Bobby Henderson
Nice try, but wrong. I like action movies. I just happen to like action movies that are at least somewhat believable and have camera angles that don't resemble a grand mal epileptic seizure for the film's duration.
Specifically, what action movies do you like?
quote: Bobby Henderson
John Woo has his signature camera moves, the biggest one being something to overly glorify a character's entrance or exit in a scene in super slo motion fashion -with two or three dissolves to add more "sizzle" to the shot. Rodriguez has copied that exactly in more than a couple films.
I see your point, but I was thinking more in terms of Rodriguez' action sequences, which are like Woo action scenes with rhythm.
quote:
Sin City was a graphic novel written and illustrated by Frank Miller. It's Frank Miller's freaking idea in the form of an already published work. Why shouldn't Rodriguez try to stay faithful to that? Rodriguez and John Woo didn't invent Sin City!.
I don't have any problem with that. My point is, what's wrong with Rodriguez copying Woo too?
quote: Bobby Henderson
JFC, I can just see it now. Oskar Schindler and concentration camp commander Amon Goeth get suspended on wires and have a fight to the death up in the sky over the camp. Nothing is done to explain why they can now fly. Fight choreography is done by Yuen Wo Ping and the wires are removed in post.
That's not exactly the style I was talking about. But even if it were, the movie you describe sounds very silly (although I do know some people who would call it better than the original). My whole point is that the next step is to get rid of the silly. I don't know how to do that, and I'm not sure anyone else really does either. It's all theoretical at this point. But who's to say that it can't happen?
You talk about how these styles have elements which people can't relate to in the real world. The same can be said of cuts. But somehow, people accept them. That was a big deal back in the day. It was a highly experimental concept, and there was nothing to suggest that it would work. But it did. So why can't this stuff work?
| IP: Logged
|
|
Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
|
posted 12-21-2006 06:58 PM
quote: Mike Schindler
Specifically, what action movies do you like?
Casino Royale is the best action movie I've seen this year. I'll probably get the DVD when it is released.
Some of my more recent action movie DVD purchases:
A History of Violence
Apocalypse Now: The Secret Dossier
Batman Begins: Deluxe Edition
Sin City: Recut, Extended, Unrated
Collateral
I have lots of other action movies in my DVD collection. I just haven't been buying very many DVDs at all over the last couple of years. A good number of the action movies I have in my collection are older or somewhat older films. Out of younger directors who have pretty obvious visual styles, I like David Fincher quite a bit. Luc Besson and a few others are pretty good too.
quote: Mike Schindler
I don't have any problem with that. My point is, what's wrong with Rodriguez copying Woo too?
The camera/editing shtick is bad enough when Woo is doing it himself. It's one of the things which makes Broken Arrow and M:I:2 unbearable to watch. Then it just gets silly when other people copy the same moves. They're repetitive, we've seen it a thousand times before already, it's time for them to do something else. The only way I could see anyone justifying continued copying of that sort is if it were done in an outright parody.
quote: Mike Schindler
You talk about how these styles have elements which people can't relate to in the real world. The same can be said of cuts. But somehow, people accept them.
Film editing has been around as long as movies have been shown to audiences. Blatant ignorance of the laws of gravity, physics and a lot of other shit in recent action movies is a fairly new thing. It's silly. Some of the fault for this rests in CGI and various producers wanting to copy crap out of The Matrix. Then they try to blind the audience with all sorts of seizure cam action and editing -either to try to make the implausible not so silly or to just cover up a really weak story. In many cases they're doing both.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
Michael Coate
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1904
From: Los Angeles, California
Registered: Feb 2001
|
posted 12-22-2006 02:49 AM
quote: Carl Martin
mike schindler is about the only one who consistently says interesting, intelligent things in the review forum.
I agree, and that's one of the reasons why Bill Kallay and I chose to post his Top 10 of 2005 list on our website. It shouldn't come as a surprise to find that he included "Domino."
quote:
9. "Domino" by Tony Scott
Scott perfects the ideas he had in "Man On Fire." The result is a groundbreaking barrage of non-narrative imagery which works on a purely visceral level. The best edited film in years. In terms of form, this is where I've always hoped the medium would eventually get to.
Now, Schindler and I have gotten into it over whether or not "Superman" (1978) is a great movie. Not quite as intensely as this debate over the merits of "Domino," but we've gone head-to-head over it nonetheless. This, of course, is the one instance where his critique was wrong. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif) All will be forgiven if he writes a Best of '06 for me. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
quote: Bobby Henderson
Film editing has been around as long as movies have been shown to audiences.
Actually, it hasn't. Early "films" were single-take deals because, well, the concept of editing (or "montage" as the Soviets defined it) hadn't been thought of yet. The use of editing, once introduced and embraced, pushed the medium to new levels, and this sort of thing is what I believe Schindler is getting at when he discusses films like "Domino" and how the medium of film should be explored in such a fashion whereby filmmakers push it to new and different levels and use the medium in a way that cannot be done in other storytelling mediums.
I have to state that this thread (even if drifting off topic) has got to be one of the most interesting in a long time. A couple of the postings have bordered on unnecessary ridicule (such as Adam's posting of Schindler's profile) but at this point it's pretty much a Henderson vs. Schindler thing. And, thankfully, both are extremely articulate and passionate in their ability to communicate. Can you imagine if this were Bill Gabel vs. Gordon McLeod?!
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
All times are Central (GMT -6:00)
|
This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
|
Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM
6.3.1.2
The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion
and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.
|
Home
![[sleep]](graemlins/sleep.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic