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I once read that the average New Zealander sees, on average, seven films a year. [Citation required]
The latest NZ figures I have are: Annual cinema trips per capita are 2007: 8.6 (calculated from 36.5m total visits) and 2008: 9.4 (39.9m).
Like all averages, such figures don't account for significant deviations (eg Craig's 48 or Robyn's 100) but, on the whole, they are pretty healthy averages.
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There were a whole lot jokes I don't think young children would get, like the humans talking to each other via their screens despite the fact that they're sitting side by side, or WALL-E's bizarre collection of nostalgia, or even the uber-context, that relying on too many servants/servos can make you atrophy to physical and mental weakness.
I'd have to argue with that -- my half-arsed focus group seemed to get that it was a lot like Mum always telling big sister to get off the computer and not to bring her cell out at meals, and that sitting around on your fat arse all day makes you fat and stupid and that's not OK. Nor do you have to have the slightest idea what Hello Dolly -- or who Michael Crawford -- is, for 'Put On Your Sunday Clothes' to register. It doesn't work in exactly the same way as it does for adults, but it does.
Here's another example: There's a very film geeky in-joke going on in The Incredibles with Edna Mode, the couturier to the superhero community. Very much doubt it's a coincidence that she looks a hell of a lot like legendary costume designer Edith Head -- another diminutive woman, blunt to the point of rudeness, whose glasses were as big as her talent and attitude.
But if you don't get it, that's OK; you can just register that she's mad as a meat-axe but twice as fabulous. (Just don't ask for a cape...)
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When has it ever been any different, seriously? 1939 wasn't all Gone With The Wind, Wizard of Oz, Ninotchka and Mr Smith Goes to Washington. But that's what is remembered, just as I have my doubts anyone in 2079 s going to be watching the newly restored interactive holodeck transfer of Couples Retreat with any enthusiasm.
I think you'd be hard pressed to look at the thirties as a decade, and the noughties as a decade, and conclude that we have had as many good directors or films now than they did back then. But I was more commenting on the pervasiveness of spectacles that have no aspiration to meaningful innovation - Avatar if anything is likely to be the exception there. My gripe isn't that we make a lot of superhero movies or Tolkien adaptations, it's how pedestrian they are - it's a perverse fantasy realism which I hope will die soon.
Philip has a useful list of the best of the decade in film and music.
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Saw Avatar last night in 3d and loved it. More vibrant and terrifying and interesting than the middle part of King Kong, more realistic than the dreamy puppet flora and fauna of the Dark Crystal, the plot clearer and pacier than Dances With Wolves, but with elements of all of these. Only a few moments of cheese - Michelle Rodriguez' line "I didn't sign up for this shit" could have appeared in any number of military blockbusters.
To me, it's exactly what an effects movie should be - you don't get bounced out of the story to think omg how did they do that, you just think "god, that's so beautiful" - human creativity is the only limit, rather than the technology at our hands. The difference between Avatar and District 9 is that the former prioritises spectacle, the latter story and character.
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I'm sitting on five movies seen at the cinema this year - had been hoping to sneak Avatar in there as well, but might wait until the new year for full digital 3D maaadness.
Of course, many, many more movies on DVD, but none of which were as satisfying as "The Wire", which we devoured all four seasons of in November.
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Sam, I don't know how to break it to you so I'll just come right out and say it. There are five seasons of The Wire.
Oh, and I probably saw seven or eight movies this year. I'm so average.
edit: Actually that's not right. I saw a few at the Film Festival, including the Jim Jarmusch soundtrack debacle. I forgot about that.
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Beat me to it Jake... Plus there is Generation Kill. Now, there's something they didn't have in the Thirties: great television.
Suckers.
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In an average year I probably see, at the movies, about 3 kids and 3 grown ups movies. Before kids it was usually one or two a week (but sometimes the same one multiple times).
We say Avatar 3D last night - it was stunningly gorgeous and very real feeling. The first half where we were learning the Na've culture was definitely more enjoyable than the battly bits later on though I am a hippy and not mad on action films in general. I would have liked there to have been a more subtle solution to dealing with the evil colonists than out and out warfare or at least an acknowledgment of what choosing to fight would have cost the Na've but if your hero is a military man you've gotta expect he's going to go for the military option.
My mild astigmatism was fine - it was a little fuzzy at the edges but suspect that was mostly due to being seated to the far left of the screen. I went to an 8.45pm screening on a day when I'd been up since 5am which I'm sure contributed to how utterly wrung out I was by the end.
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Ta Jake and Gio, please excuse the brain implosion - I meant to say, all four seasons of the Wire that we could get hold of from the videostore, anyway. Is Season 5 even available on DVD in New Zealand yet?
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Sam, your Friends in America will help you out here, I'm sure.
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3410,
Now, there's something they didn't have in the Thirties: great television.
I don't know; they probably had some great television then.
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The first half where we were learning the Na've culture was definitely more enjoyable than the battly bits later on though I am a hippy and not mad on action films in general.
I thought that as Really Big Fights At The End go, it was outstanding -- as my older boy put it, "exhilarating". The action was visceral and convincing, and the way it eventually scaled down to a final confrontation was hugely skillful.
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As cinema it was stunning and I was impressed with how easy it was to follow the action. Fight scenes just always bring up a lot of uncomfortable questions for me (hippy, see).
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My gripe isn't that we make a lot of superhero movies or Tolkien adaptations, it's how pedestrian they are - it's a perverse fantasy realism which I hope will die soon.
I find this very interesting. What do you call "true" insightful realism? Is it something like" high modality"? A dimly remembered term for an interesting concept where South Park can be more realistic than Saving Private Ryan??
What do you think of Peter Jackson as a director?
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I find this very interesting. What do you call "true" insightful realism? Is it something like" high modality"? A dimly remembered term for an interesting concept where South Park can be more realistic than Saving Private Ryan??
I meant realism in the transfer from the source to screen. What's the point of adapting the Lord of the Rings if you draw everything exactly as Tolkien had described it? With superhero comics it's even more discomfiting, since it's already a visual medium. I'm not saying that it would be impossible to make good or relevant films by adapting from Tolkien or Stan Lee, but not that way it's been done over the last decade. Hopefully Del Toro will apply some imagination to The Hobbit.
What do you think of Peter Jackson as a director?
I think what Craig says from time to time about Van Sant's obsessive remake of Psycho applies here too. Nothing against Jackson, I just don't like to see his talent go to waste. Than again, the LOTR trilogy was obviously so much more than an ordinary film - it revolutionised the local industry and we should forever appreciate that.
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What's the point of adapting the Lord of the Rings if you draw everything exactly as Tolkien had described it?
You clearly haven't read Kyle's big list of 50 changes from the books to the movies which didn't work out.
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You clearly haven't read Kyle's big list of 50 changes from the books to the movies which didn't work out.
Did you find anything in the films that didn't look just like you thought in your head that it would look when you were reading the books?
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Come on. On the ranked list of books that have obssessive fans, LOTR would be number three after the Koran and the Bible. As it was, many people howled at how the script deviated from the book. If things hadn't looked more or less as the book described them, can you imagine the howls of outrage? Peter Jackson would have had to go into hiding.
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Then I'd question why make the bloody film in the first place. And besides, they made Jesus Christ Superstar, didn't they - I don't recall Andrew Lloyd Webber having to spend the rest of his life in an undisclosed cave.
Regrettably.
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Goddamnit, now I'm imagining Andrew Lloyd Webber's Frodo!
(The exclamation mark is part of the name of the work, not an expression of horror on my part, although the thought does horrify me.)
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Let's close off the Internet and delete all traces of this last post of yours before a Broadway producer comes across it, or we shall all be d00med.
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Andrew Lloyd Webber's Frodo!
didn't 'flight of the conchords' already write most of the tunes?
Frodo, don't wear the ring.
The magical bling bling.
One ring to rule them AAAALLLLLL!!!! -
Then I'd question why make the bloody film in the first place.
I think this comes down to the question of whether a director chooses to try and create a faithful rendition of the original book (which I think PJ did as well as he could for LOTR - and I agree that he would have been lynched if he had not done that) or whether he/she decides to use the book as an inspiration for a somewhat different story.
The film adaptations of The Vintner's Luck and The Color Purple spring to mind immediately - neither of which were received particularly well by the authors of said books because (as it happens) the gay relationship that is the core of each book was virtually ignored by the director of both those movies in favour of a more "mainstream" approach.
Neither movie was received particularly well by audience members who had read and loved the books either, because at least part of what they loved in the story did not appear in the film.
In both those cases I would ask exactly the same question as you did Gio - "why make the bloody film in the first place" - but for exactly the opposite reason. To my way of thinking, if you're going to make a film called The Vintner's Luck I would prefer it if you try and make it as true to the original book as possible, not mess about with it. Otherwise, what's the point?
If you're going to alter fundamentals of the book when you write the screenplay, call it "inspired by The Vintner's Luck" or something, but don't pretend you're making a film of the book, because you're clearly not.
Of course, this argument doesn't really relate back very well to Avatar because that's based on James Cameron's imagination, not on an original book - although as has been pointed out, the themes are somewhat universal and have been explored before in other stories.
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Did you find anything in the films that didn't look just like you thought in your head that it would look when you were reading the books?
Pretty much all the locations except Hobbiton, Moria and Mordor. And The Dead were awfully done in the movie. The Elves remained pansies.
Then I'd question why make the bloody film in the first place.
Because a movie is something completely different than the book. That's like "why write a song when it's already a poem". You're adding entirely new elements to it.
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And purely by chance I came across this. Are we all looking forward to a 3D prequel any time soon?
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