Messages

Aye -- don't fly with the goddamn birds if you're supposed to swim like a bitchass turtle.

Barcik: The movie The Freshman was a total rip-off of the Godfather, except they turned the Godfather into a comedy.

I count parody as a total rip-off.

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As for Raiders, I do see it as a classic, and here's why:

* One of the most prolific directors (Spielberg) made it.

* Three of Hollywood's most talented writers (Lucas, Kaufman, and Kasdan) conceived it.

* It was nominated for eight Oscars in 1981, including Best Picture -- Not only that, it won four plus recieved a special award for sound effects editing (A category not introduced until 1988).

* It's ranked #16 in the top 250 films on IMDB.

* It's ranked #60 on the top 100 films for the American Film Institute.

* Indiana Jones was also ranked #2 in the AFI's top 50 Heros list (#1 was Atticus Finch from To Kill A Mockingbird).

* It's also ranked #10 on the AFI's top 100 Thrillers (Also Harrison Ford starred in 4 films in this list, as did Claude Rains).

* It's part of Roger Ebert's Great Movies list.

* The movie scored a 96% FRESH rating on www.rottentomatoes.com, which is a website that collects reviews from all critics and compiles an average rating (and an average of 96% is fucking good!)

* Indiana Jones's kangaroo-hide bullwhip was sold in December, 1999 at Christie's auction house in London for $43,000.

* The jacket and hat that 'Harrison Ford' wore throughout the series are on display at the Smithsonian.

* The films pays tribute to other classic films of the past -- For example, the final shot is actually a homage to one of the final shots in Citizen Kane.

* John Williams' theme song is one of the most recognisable theme songs ever and his music has been nominated in all three films -- plus the soundtrack has been given an average of 4/5 stars on filmtracks.com and a 5/5 on amazon.com

* Raiders of the Lost Ark spawned two successful sequels, a TV series based upon Indy's exploits as a child, two platform games, two adventure games, and two 3D actioners.

I think all the above (the talent, the awards, the top listings, the top reviews, the memorabilia, the homage to past films, the off-shoots, etc) proves Raiders of the Lost Ark is a classic film!

Aye -- As far as great directors who act in films, he's very below par.

Martin Scorsese can act in films.

So can Barry Levinson.

Tarintino can't.

That's says nothing though about his talent as director and screenwriter, which is very, very high!

Call his acting his Achilles Heel, if you will.

has anyone else seen four rooms?   no one  i've talked to has heard of it.  but it was cool.   plus madonna was in it.

I loathe Madonna.

QT's segment was watchable, but very sub par compared to his full length films.

The high point of Four Rooms was Robert Rodriguez's segment.

Average song lengths have increased too, though you ouldn't get an Inna Gadda Da Vida these days.

Or another Thick As A Brick.

like to say one thing: Quentin Tarantino is one of the worst actors I've ever seen.

Aye -- I thought Dusk 'Till Dawn was a great vampire film except for his performance.

It's like I say: opinions are like arseholes, everyone has got one.

I think that reviewer misunderstood the nature of Kill Bill -- It's a homage to schlock Hong Kong actioners.

Yes, it's main focus is style -- but so too were the films it was a homage too.

I don't think the movie lacked plot or characters either -- The plot is a simple revenge tale, and the film does go into character backgrounds a fair bit.

For example, the anime about O-ren Ishii's past.

And I am looking forward to Mystic River -- however, I at least am aware of some of the criticism against and faults within Eastwood's film, something this reviewer doesn't seem to acknowledge.

bspeers, I take your points well and there's a lot of truth in what you say.

However, despite all that, I still found nearly everything in the Matrix Reloaded dull.

The only two parts that I liked were the Agent Smith fight (which as I said pales compared to Kill Bill, which was my point in starting this thread) and the motorbike chase.

Seems a bit superficial of me? -- True, I admit that but here's why:

Although the philosophical 'banter' in MRL seems deep and thought provoking for an action film, it's still a rehash of the concepts stated in the first film (which I liked very much).

MRL presented nothing new in terms of insight, and I think that was my main problem with it.

I think the Wachowski Bros are trying to be very intellectual in MRL, but the whole film just feels like an excuse to make money (copy the first one cause that made squillions of dollars), rather than introducing new thought-provoking ideas.

As I said though, it did present something new in terms of eye-candy -- but that can only go so far.

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As a side note, I love how the hardcore Matrix geeks take it all very seriously -- Like making numerous comparisons between Neo and Jesus.

Yeap, I remember the part in Mark's gospel about Jesus running along the walls before pulling uzis out and blowing Pontius Pilot away.

Spoiler

Also, another subtle touch:

I saw it with my Dad and he said he saw in the huge fight Uma chop one guy's leg off but instead of blood spewing from the stump, blood was spewing from the limb.

Very subtle and very funny.

[close]

Aye, it's supposed to be a Dirty Dozen-style film.

I also heard at one stage Adam Sandler was going to be in it.

I don't know if it's going to be a tribute to 'Nam films, because it's set in WWII.

Find MacGyver in the Park.

Give Broom to MacGyver.

Give Coke Can to MacGyver.

Give Battery Acid to MacGyver.

Voila -- Macgyver turns it all into a Uzi Sub Machine Gun.

Granted, Full Throttle was a great game with a lot of basic puzzles.

However, there were still quite a number of puzzles that were very memorable.

For example, the puzzle where you have to get into the junkyard with the chain and the falling door -- That one screwed me around for a while, until I found out the REAL answer.

I think puzzles like that really separated it -- There are other great puzzles in FT, if you need more elaboration.

And I also agree that SMI and MI2 were great because of Ron -- I like to think of him as the Preston Sturges of the gaming world.

I could see where Ron was taking Guybrush, as he was developing the character more from SMI to MI2.

LucasArts post-Ron seem to be more focused on developing the gaming engine i.e. the SVGA graphics in CMI and the 3D world of EMI.

Notice how they just used Guybrush's physical make-up from SMI in EMI.

They should have kept the tougher, hard-arsed Guybrush from MI2 -- And made him tougher!!!

YARRRRR!!!

Remixor, we should team up and make our own version that doesn't suck donkey's balls!

I saw the first Matrix and enjoyed it, but the second one was a bloody bore.

It dragged on and the climax was so fucked -- Neo meets the Architect, the Architect says some crap, and Neo finds out the real world might not be the real world.

Big fucking deal.

The way I see it, Neo and the Architect should have fought with bigass samurai swords inside a giant, metalic vagina.

That would have been cool!

Also, the Bride would kick the shit out of Neo, even if he has his "wuss-ability" to change the Matrix world.

Let me put it in perspective:


So awesome, I want to flip out!



Ponce.

I thought Jackie Brown was great -- Forget Sam L Jackson, though, cause the guy's been doing the same "cool angry black man" crap since Pulp Fiction made him a name.

No, the thing that really made Jackie Brown was Robert Forster as Max Cherry -- He was totally in control and so damn smooth.

Speaking of Forster and Elmore Leonard adaptations, he's in that new series Karen Sisco, based on Leonard's Out of Sight.

bigbrother: I disagree -- Secret of Monkey Island and Escape from Monkey Island both are set in the same world, created by the same developer, but I believed in SMI's puzzles, yet I was not convinced of EMI one bit.

Especially that whole Ultimate Insult bullshit.

Fuck that.

Ali, you rock my world!

netmonkey, you're right on the money -- it was cheesy, but that's cause (IMHO) it was a big pisstake on all those cheesy Hong Kong action films.

And it's such a great pisstake that it's a piece of art.

Everything Tarantino loves about films is in Kill Bill.

In fact, I have this image in my mind of Hitchcock alive and dandy, watching that huge fight scene and laughing his chubby arse off.

And that's what I call REAL ULTIMATE POWER!

* DGMacphee watches Kill Bill, gets super pissed, flips out and headbutts the dog.

This is just a wild guess, but the only adventure game hotel I can remember with a "behind" part is in Night of the Hermit.

When I saw the Matrix Reloaded, there was one scene I really liked, which was the fight between Neo and all the Agent Smiths -- The rest of the movie was a bit of a yawn.

Anyway, I saw Kill Bill last night, and the fight between Uma and the Crazy 88 gang shat all over the Wachowskis' pissy fight scenes.

This movie was cool; and by cool, I mean totally sweet.

Ultimately I see a movie as fiction.  I liked Adaptation becasuse it didn't pretend to be realistic, just 'real'.  I didn't like (INSERT NAME OF HISTORICAL FICTION HERE) because it was just bad fiction mascurading as reality.

Aye, I saw Kill Bill last night and thought it rocked, mainly because it did away with any sense of logic or realism, but was 'real' enough in a fictional world.

And on the other hand, that US Civil War epic Gods and Generals was released in the last week as well -- It got panned in the US and it got panned here too.

I think you can do all kinds of crazy, unrealistic puzzles in adventure games, but my suspension of disbelief allows me to think 'that could happen', depsite the fact that the puzzles in, say, Day of the Tentacle could never happen in reality.

Use spaghetti for hair?? -- LucasArts are totally pulling my pud!!!

But it's believable enough.

Try this:

http://www.ryman-novel.com/



It's not a "game" per se, but I still classify it as an adventure.

It's a novel that focuses upon exploration of surroundings and people, not just a straight-line narrative.

It's an excellent use of hypertext.