It’s coming in about a week. I’m looking forward to it, but it’s getting to the point where I’m not sure what I’m looking forward to more - seeing the movie, or this thread finally dying.
I realize that linking to it is only going to bump up the page rank and lead to even more “insightful” comments, but oh well.
Amazing.
Personally, I believe this latest adaptation of a Frank Miller story takes the techniques used in the previous one (Sin City) to new heights. It uses the pictures to tell as much (or more) of the story as the dialog does - cinematography at its best, and an unapologetic tribute to the original medium the story was told in.
As for the battle scenes, this movie trumps all others as far as I’m concerned (at least that I can remember). Previous attempts (ala Braveheart, Gladiator, etc.) pale in comparison.
The only downside was a generous dose of gratuitous upper body female nudity in some parts, but then again I’d bet that most people who would like this film wouldn’t really consider that much of a negative.
All in all, I thought it was great. Thanks to Dan for saving me a seat when the theater was packed out.
I almost forgot to mention that I got a bit screwed up when going to see the movie on Thursday, because of an error in the Google show times listings for the movie.
The mighty Google said there was a 8:50 show at the Century 16, and I figured I might as well go to that one instead of the downtown @ 9:25, and catch a few more minutes of sleep afterwards. So I head down to the theater and arrive right at 8:50. I walk up to the ticket counter and order “1 for Ghost Rider”. I receive my ticket, walk in, buy a diet coke, and then head into the theater. That’s when I notice the lights are completely out and the movie is already going. I had already figured I was cutting it close and might miss the previews, but I could tell from the scene that this was not anywhere near the beginning of the story.
I walked back out and examined my ticket, and found that it said “10:30″ on it. I then went and rechecked the showtimes at the theater, and in fact they had a 7:50 show, not 8:50, as Google had listed. I explained the situation to the cashier, and they were pretty understanding and gave me a refund when I explained that I didn’t want to wait for the 10:30, and was going to head downtown and catch the 9:25.
I should have taken this opportunity to express my disapproval of what I like to call the Movie Times Conspiracy. I don’t know whether this is a local phenomena, but in our general area we have quite a lot of theaters within easy driving distance. For some reason unknown to me, all the theaters run their showtimes on pretty much the same schedule. This really sucks if you’d rather not plan your evening’s activities around a schedule that all the theaters have apparently agreed to stick by. If it might be convenient for you to see a particular show at 8:30-8:45ish, you are usually out of luck - you’ll have to either go for 7:30ish or 10:30ish, unless it’s a pretty popular movie.
It just doesn’t make sense when you look at the times and see multiple theaters within 10 minutes drive of each other all showing the same movie in the same time slots. You’d think that one of the theaters would want to capitalize on that and shift their schedule, in order to get the business of all the people who would be interested in those off times, but I haven’t seen this happen. And, yes, before anyone comments, I’m sure it’s probably all based on some logical formula about prime show times, and doesn’t involve any collaboration between theaters to screw the consumer, but it’s certainly more fun to think about it that way.
I saw Ghost Rider on Thursday night. No extended review, just a quick note that it was a fun take on the character, and Nicholas Cage’s usual Elvis impersonation acting method (and Elvis was no great actor either BTW - sorry Kristi) didn’t get in the way of enjoying it; it actually kind of fit in well.
That being said, I was almost happier to see the previews for FF 2 and Spider-man 3. I know both these trailers have been out for a while, but this was the first time I’d seen either of them, and I’m glad I waited and saw them in the theater. Here’s my updated take on both:
FF: Looks like they’re really doing the Silver Surfer well (from the little the preview revealed), and I just hope that his story is true to the original comic (in general, at least), and if so that the reveal of the big G is impressively huge, and not cheesy. This is one area where I’m nervous that it will be a difficult piece of CGI work to pull off. I also hope (assuming this happens) that they don’t leak anything at all about it in any previews, so the general audience can be surprised.
Spider-man 3: Contrary to the ongoing predictions, it looks very much like it’s going to be Sandman and the Goblin as the primary villains, despite all the black costume related Venom speculation. My best guess is that IF Venom shows up in this one, it will be at the very end (possibly even an after-credits deal, which are common in the Marvel movies). Peter will probably get rid of the costume towards the end, and there will be a short lead in segment to set up the next movie, which would have to have Venom as the villain. This would be fine with me, since I always thought it was too much to try and squeeze in to one movie, and Sandman and Harry have complex enough stories to fill up the movie on their own.
Also, 300 is coming up, which will join the ranks of comic book based movies that most people won’t know are based on comic books, among others like Constantine, Hellboy, History of Violence, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, V for Vendetta, Sin City, etc. (OK, I guess a lot of people probably know about Sin City, since it’s even presented in a very comic book -ish style).
BTW, if you’re in the mood for a funny British humor take on comic book movies in general, check out the recent Geek Syndicate podcast’s 3 part episode (#20), in which they review many comic book based movies past and present, including the Superman and Batman series. They give a good rip on the ones that deserve it, including touching on the Smallville TV series.
Enough with all this tech talk lately; let’s talk about a subject that’s more accessible to the wider reading audience: the upcoming Ghost Rider movie!
The conflict mentioned in the title of this post stems from two opposing movie watching rules that so far I’ve been pretty good at sticking with, but are now clashing with each other.
I’ll probably end up seeing it anyway, but it’s a close call.
This post on Jason’s blog got me thinking about how I’ve had my current Netflix rental sitting at home for almost a whole month and still haven’t watched it - they are really loving me as a customer.
Why? Because I’ve got a continually growing backlog of stuff I want to watch that’s ready to go, whenever I find / make the time to watch something, but that list is growing a lot faster than I’m knocking stuff off of it. I haven’t even watched last night’s Lost episode yet, which I think is the first time I haven’t seen the episode the same day it aired since I started watching the show (mid season 2).
I have a feeling that I could easily go without having Netflix at all, but it is still nice to have when an occasional movie reference pops up and reminds me of something I want to see, and it’s just so convenient. I think for now I might clear out my queue and give my spot to either Martha or the kids’ queues, until I find something I really want to see again.
Following on the conversation about Spider-man 3 over on Dan’s blog, I think I’ve stumbled onto a suggestion that I think would work for pretty much every super-hero comic book based movie that I can think of.
The basic idea is that the movie (or at least sequels) should always open with a fight scene during which the primary hero is fighting a second string villain that they would be unlikely to use as a “main” villain in future movies. Right off the bat, scene #1, should be this battle, after which the defeated villain is carted away and never seen again for the rest of the movie, and the primary plot gets kicked off from there. The example in this case would be how I described my opinion of the role Sandman should play in SM3 (see Dan’s post for more specifics on that).
This would give you the following benefits:
Another acceptable way of including additional characters (other than the opening fight scene idea described above) is like they’ve done (well) with the goblin storyline throughout the Spider-man movies so far - Harry’s story is a subplot that continues to develop and tie the movies together while still allowing each one to be fairly self-contained.
An Inconvenient Truth - tonight @9:35, downtown - free thanks to this site.
Thanks to Nathan for the link. Dan is in too, I believe.
Anyone else?