Wednesday, March 18, 2015

F This Movie! - Alice in Wonderland (2010)

Hate your life with Patrick and Heath!



Download this episode here. (73.4 MB)

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Also discussed this episode: Big City Blues (1932), The Adventures of Errol Flynn (2005), Gun Crazy (1950), It's a Bikini World (1967), Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014), Messiah of Evil (1973), Massacre Mafia Style (1978), Shocking Dark (1989)

17 comments:

  1. I can't say I feel bad for you, Heath, in regard to your ill advised purchase of Transformers: Age of Extinction. They ALL have sucked in varying degrees, so what makes you think this one is going to be any different? Especially when they have been written and directed by the same guys for the past three installments. I truly don't understand how people can be such gluttons for punishment, as Patrick pointed out, with those movies

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    1. Because I love the Transformers and I feel a sense of loyalty to the Hasbro line. They're one of my favorite nostalgic properties, along with GI Joe and Marvel superheroes. Also because Peter Cullen is STILL the voice of Optimus Prime, after 30 years. Knowing there was a story out there that I hadn't seen was bothering me. Even though it was a bad movie and it still blows my mind that these '80s properties lose every single thing about them that made my generation love them in the first place, I'm still glad I saw it. It's no different from what Patrick said about giving up on directors, albeit with a different set of circumstances: I can lose my excitement about certain movies, but I'm never going to give up on them completely. Ultimately, it's almost always better to see a movie than to not see one, because now I know what that movie is and I can be in the conversations about it.

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    2. I see your point and agree to an extent, but with the invention of something like Netflix, which, granted you may or may not have the disc service, and the Transformers franchise might not be on streaming, I think the thing I have a problem with (I don't really have a problem with it, you can do what you want) is the idea of purchasing a DVD or buying a movie ticket for something you know going in has a pretty high probability of being bad, just for the sake of being able to talk about how bad it turned out to be. I don't know, call me closed-minded in this way, but I just think we should practice more logic and disgression in the DVDs we buy and movie tickets we purchase. If we don't give up on shitty movies, then shitty movies will continue to be made.

      With all of that said, I understand where you're coming from with your attachment to the property on which it is based, and being a cinephile on top of that. It's tough. You want to see it be successful.

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    3. Transformers Age of Extinction

      " It was not as bad as I thought it was going to be" Heath Holland, Fthismovie


      Put it on the poster :)

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    4. I finished listening to the podcast and Patrick made some good points on the subject of whether or not it's good to give up on a director. You can not give up on a director, but still be less excited about their work.

      At the same time, I know I am going to be extremely alone here, but this is the virtue of Rotten Tomatoes, in my view. With that service, you can clearly see that a lot of people aren't liking a movie, which could be seen as a warning that maybe the likes of Bay DIDN'T improve or learn from their wrong doings and you should probably save your money.

      I don't know, I just don't have enough time or money to invest in movies that I have a high probability of not liking. Again, call me closed-minded, but that's just how I feel.

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    5. Sometimes I agree with Rotten Tomatoes scores, but I disagree just as often. My second favorite movie of 2014, Stage Fright, currently has a 34% on the critics score and a 27% for the audience score, yet I adore it. Meanwhile, the last Hobbit movie has a 76% audience score, which I think is insane. Also, there's a big difference between saying "Everyone seems to think the new Transformers movie is disappointing" and saying "I watched the new Transformers movie and thought it was disappointing." I want to find out for myself, and I know what I'm inclined to enjoy. Honestly, I'm glad I watched it and I'm glad that I purchased it (for 8 bucks, which is cheaper than a movie ticket here). Its biggest crimes are that it's long and bland and doesn't really care about the characters. It should have been better, but I'm still glad I rolled the dice.

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    6. Hm, agreed to disagree on some points, but I guess it all boils down to I'm glad you're glad you saw something. I just still harbor the thought process of "well, if you've already been burned three times by the same property presented by the same people, what makes you think the fourth presentation by the same people is going to be any different?" But I guess that's just the pessimist in me.

      Again, glad you saw something you're glad you saw.

      Also, RT certainly isn't a perfect system by any means, I concede to that.

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  2. Heath's fear of a franchise being adapted by someone unfamiliar with the concept, having never seen the source material etc. J.J. Abrams' Star Trek films.

    F this Book! perhaps a new venture for Patrick.

    Lewis Carol's Jaberwocky.
    "Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
    Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
    All mimsy were the borogoves,
    And the mome raths outgrabe"
    Patrick: WTF those aren't even words! I don't have time for this.

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  3. I believe that the connection between Errol Flynn and Kubrick was that they both co-conspired to bring about the extinction of the dinosaurs. An obvious confession to this is a dialogue scene in Barry Lyndon in which a chair is behind Ryan O'Neal in one shot, but when the reversal shot comes back to him the chair is gone. It's easy to miss, but you can catch it if you're clever enough.

    I also lament the recent batch of reinvention going through Disney and have yet to see one that I think is justified. it makes me sad that my beloved Beauty and the Beast is next, and I almost wonder how far away we are from an updated Pinocchio horror film. I'm also baffled that the screenwriter for Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King, Linda Woolverton, has churned out the scripts for both Alice and Maleficent. What happened? Did she lose it, or were the previous triumphs all just made by committee and she got the credit?

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    1. You're assuming the producers would have allowed her to write better scripts for those movies - an assumption that's hardly ever fair to make when it comes to big-budget Hollywood movies. Often, the producers will draft out a movie's structure and set pieces, and then tell the multiple writers to make sense of it all.

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    2. You make a strong point El Gaith. I suppose that I'm just sad that the studio wouldn't have any faith in a story department that's as stacked with talent as Disney's is to work out some stuff on their own to deliver at least some segments that would work. But it sucks because the receipts for Alice and Maleficent prove that they don't have to. It doesn't seem like they have anything to prove anymore because no matter what they put out it still kills on opening weekend.

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  4. Let me just jump in with regards to Girl Crazy; that movie is a really, I think, under-appreciated bit of noir and that end sequence in the swamp (bayou?) has a nightmarish feel that always reminds me of Carnival of Souls.

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    1. Gun Crazy is just fantastic. I listened to the commentary today and learned even more about it. The swamp was on a sound stage, but you'd never know it. the claustrophobic effect of the fog was not a budgetary decision, but one intended to give the climax a claustrophobic feel. The commentary also points out some early examples of innovative cinematography that went right over my head when watching, such as when the camera follows a character getting out of one car, walking to another, and then somehow driving away from the scene we were just in via that second car, with the viewer "on the hood." Amazing stuff.

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    2. Oh man, now I'm going to have to watch it with the commentary. Thanks for the heads up!

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  5. "This movie can never stop fucking off" may be my favorite sentence ever uttered. Also sums up later-period Tim Burton pretty perfectly.

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  6. The only live-action Disney movie worse than this one is "Oz the Great and Powerful". What a steaming pile of garbage that was.

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  7. Hey, you guys didn't mention anything about the sequel. Do you think Through The Looking Glass will be any good since Burton isn't doing it?

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