Posts Tagged ‘Hitchcock’
2 items.
Sorry I didn’t have another Grindhouse comic for you guys today. But I think I ran through all of my ideas last week! Didn’t get a chance to see it and it doesn’t look like that many of you guys did, either! A disappointing fourth place take this weekend at the box office. Surprising, for one of the most heavily-hyped films of the year. No so surprising within the context of a major Christian holiday weekend. Whoops!
If you saw Grindhouse this weekend, leave your comments after the blog. I’d love to hear what you thought! Sounds like people are really responding to the ending in Tarantino’s Death Proof. Don’t spoil it – but what did you think?
I’m sure Gordon, Joe and I will talking about Grindhouse and it’s impact (or lack thereof) up and down The Triple Feature talkcast tonight at 9:00 PM CST. If you have the druthers, join us over at TalkShoe while we take your calls and answer your questions. What went wrong? What went RIGHT?! Listen in tonight at 9:00 PM CST for the answers!
Disturbia starring Shia LaBeouf comes out this weekend and I know people who are genuinely excited to see it. To them I say “Good for you?”
Look, don’t kid yourselves. This is a total rip off of Rear Window. I’m not saying Hitchcock got their first with stories about voyeurs seeing things they aren’t supposed to see. But he did it best. CERTAINLY one of the best suspense films of all time, completely bastardized by filmmakers who are going to ratchet up the gore, throw in some lame T&A and occasionally have David Morse jump out of the shadows at you. This is Rear Window without a brain.
One of the best decisions Hitchcock ever made was to handicap Jimmy Stuart’s character with a broken leg. Smarter still, he doesn’t leave his apartment to confront the murderer until he absolutely has to – and even then, it’s for something like 5 minutes.
Disturbia tries to leverage something similar by putting their teenage protagonist under house arrest. They did this in a effort to make him edgy, I guess. Too far out of bounds and the cops come to haul our little punk to the pokey. Sure. Like that’s stopped anyone. Or like cops have nothing better to do than to patrol lazy suburban confines for the errant house arrest escapee.
Everything about the trailers for this movie make me want to retch. From the blood splatter across windows and torture implements in the basement, to the too-cute punny title, to the over-earnestness of Shia LeBeouf begging to be taken seriously as a dramatic actor, this film reeks of cheap tricks and imitation.
Do yourselves a favor – instead of seeing Disturbia this weekend, rent Rear Window and see how it’s done. You can keep your MTV and your fancy iPoo-poos! I’ll take the classics!
That is all!
[ No Comments ]
M. Night Shyamalan’s new movie The Happening is coming out today (Friday the 13th! Ooo! Spooky!) but you wouldn’t really know it since it’s staring down the green goliath known as The Incredible Hulk.
Where as Made of Honor might have been a clever bit of counter programming when Iron Man hit theaters in early May (to the tune of a $15 million opening weekend), I don’t know anyone who is all that conflicted about making The Happening their second choice in their weekend activities.
Personally, I’ve had it out for this movie since I heard the title of it. I mean, The Happening? You might as well call it “Something Happens” or “Plot Progession – The Movie.” The Happening? Can Shyamalan not predict the torrent of terrible headlines if this movie tanks – i.e. “The Happening – Isn’t.” Yuk! Yuk! Yuk!
A league of uninventive critics thanks you, Mr. Shyamalan.
There’s been a lot of talk about Shyamalan’s career being on the line with this movie. I don’t know if The Happening is really all that make-or-break for him, but he’s certainly not the wunderkind we all thought he was when The Sixth Sense came out almost a decade ago.
Morea and more, people are looking for the infamous Shyamalan twist ending. He’s painted himself into a corner with it, to a degree. Because if there isn’t some big awe-inspiring twist, people feel cheated. If there is a twist, audiences spend the whole time trying to spot it before the big reveal.
Personally, I think Shyamalan needs to step outside of himself and try adapting someone else’s material for a change. So far, all of his movies have been written by him. And don’t forget those clever cameos he give himself in every movie! I wouldn’t find it so narcissistic is Shyamalan didn’t believe his own hype. Famously, after the success of The Sixth Sense, Shyamalan declared himself the next Hitchcock with the visual flair of Spielberg. One could probably chalk a dunderheaded statement like that to youthful inexperience. Except he seems to be immune to the progressive decline of his film’s box office success. It’s not humbled him at all. Time to shake things up.
Incidentally, have you seen the commercials touting The Happening as Shyamalan’s FIRST “R” rated movie? As I illustrated in the comic, I have no idea why this is a selling point and they’ve really been pushing it hard. The red band trailer was certainly more graphic than I expected, but I don’t anticipate the film being a series of hangings, neck punctures and old men laying down in front of riding lawn mowers. If anything, that red band trailer is probably the “greatest hits” in the movie. The rest of it will be lingering shots of Mark Wahlberg looking confused.
Time will tell if The Happening will give Shyamalan’s career a lift. Early reviews appear encouraging. But for me, it’s a pass.
By the way, I went to a midnight showing of The Incredible Hulk last night. I didn’t get into bed until 2:30 in the morning and I’m dragging now. But as for the movie – it’s pretty good! I had read some reviews that said it was as good as Iron Man. I wouldn’t go that far. Iron Man had the good fortune of a bouncy and pithy Robert Downey Jr. so the dialogue had a lot more pop and swagger. There are LONG periods of time in The Incredible Hulk where no one says nuthin’!
Of course, if you are worried the movie will suck like the Ang Lee original, we’re in safe territory there. The movie features three great action sequences with the Hulk in full play and he shows up a lot earlier in this one than he does in the first movie. Director Louis Leterrier was smart to progressively show more and more of the Hulk and what he can do as the movie goes on.
The CG is good and the climatic battle at the end was expertly staged, but it felt like a cheat to have it take place at night. It obscured some of the action. Jeffery Wells had a good line about that last sequence although he called the fight “boring.” Said Wells, “Heavy-duty fights between powerful monsters are completely boring unless one of the combatants has some kind of advantage over the other. It’s like watching a battle of bad heavy-metal bands.”
But I happen to know that some people really, really like bad heavy metal bands. And if you do, you’re going to LOVE The Incredible Hulk.
That about does it for me. I hope everyone has a great weekend and I’ll see you here on Monday!
[ No Comments ]
