State your unpopular film related opinion - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Part 32

Hand in your badge and gun.

Because...


Surely you must be joking?

 

He could be serious, and don't call him Shirley.

Come on, you were just waiting for someone to say that.

 

I'm an easy mark, yes.

 

100% serious, but that's not important right now

 

Is that because it's an entirely different type of flying, altogether.....

Or maybe when he had to choose between chicken and fish.....he had lasagna.

 

I recently watched The Sound of Music in full for the first time in my life and....I didn't think it was anything special. Sure, Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer give good performances, some of the shots of the countryside were impressive for the time, and some of the songs are memorable but besides that it's way too long, it really only gets interesting in the last half hour before ending abruptly, and a good deal of the choreography and shot composition around the songs are boring. Would I have liked it more had I seen it for the first time as a child like I did with other musicals of the time such as Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? Probably. But I feel that it takes too long to get to the point and there's virtually no conflict in the first half, unlike other movies of a similar length like Gone With The Wind, The Godfather, or Titanic which are engaging throughout.

 

I need someone to edit the opening sequence to The Sound of Music and put Julie Andrews’s Kraken monster from Aquaman in it, swinging its arms and belting out the title song. I don’t know why. I just need to see that.

 

I would watch that !

 

I'll rant a bit about tone of a story.

Real life... has no single tone. Your life crosses with that of other people, and there is variety to your experiences and character, so this "Doesn't match with the tone of the story" is one of the most obsolete complaints... EVER.

 

My friend, we do not often go to the cinema to see real life. Especially those who go to watch men who wear red and blue spandex and can climb buildings and shoot webs from their wrists, or who can use their black capes to glide like a bat.

We go to be entertained, and entertainment has certain conventions - one of which is consistancy of tone - it is predictable, unlike life, which is why many people enjoy it.

So, in short, I must respectfully disagree with you.

 

I can see both sides of that argument. I think it really comes down to how well a movie handles shifts in tone. You can move from drama to comedy to action seamlessly if you have a good script and good direction, or whatever it can feel like a jarring mess if it’s handled poorly.

 

Pearl Harbor is a better film than SPR by far. The directional aptitude displayed by Bay during the main Pearl Harbor attack was just a masterclass in mounting a large war scene, far far better and technically much more advanced and better directed than the overrated shaky cam ultra edge lord gritty angles and shots in SPR

 

But you’re only talking about two scenes as opposed to the whole movie. Sure, the attack scene in Pearl Harbor is a spectacle to watch but the rest of the movie is a combination of corny love story and historical inaccuracies. Saving Private Ryan on the other hand was praised by many WWII veterans for being so accurate.

 

The film’s central core love story combined with the idea of sacrifice and collision of hearts all spoke far more to me than SPR. I just got a huge headache with the latter. Pearl Harbor had much smoother cinematography and a touching character driven story. The performances could have been better but still it had a beautiful 50s aesthetic combined with the horrors of violence and solid patriotism to fight against evil. SPR was a decent film but distinctly lacked in so many areas such as heart. Pearl harbor spoke to me a lot more

 

I do think Saving Private Ryan is a little overrated. I don't think the rest of the movie lives up to the opening D-Day scene. Personally I think Band of Brothers is better.

 

Christopher Plummer didn't like it either. He called it "The Sound of Vomit" and could only get through his scenes by taking a few shots first.

 

I met William Shatner back in 2011, and asked him about his experiences playing Shakespeare, in Canada, and if he'd ever do it again.
He said that that was a door he'd closed to do other things and mentioned Plummer as someone he'd done Shakespeare with. He described Plummer as " Known as a great actor, not necessarily known as a great guy, but a great actor."

Coming from someone like Shatner, who was
not necessarily loved by his castmates, I drew the inference that Plummer was an A-hole.

About 12 years ago my wife and I did a Sound of Music tour in Salzburg ( her idea) and the guide made similar comments.

As such, perhaps he didn't enjoy SOM, not because it wasn't fun, but because he's a jerk!

 

I don't think the film is too well-regarded in Austria.

Unpopular opinion: The Nutcracker and the Four Realms is pretty good.

 

We were told that the Salzburg locals weren't too fond of it, for a bunch of reasons ( probably didn't want to be reminded about the whole nazi thing, not that long after the war, 1965).

 

Well... You can have an opinion.

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You actually bothered to see it.

 

To each their own...

...but this is the real truth. It just has the unfair advantage of being a 10 hour miniseries.

 

I watched Flags of Our Fathers nearly two years before watching Saving Private Ryan and was pretty amazed by Flags of Our Fathers and then pretty underwhelmed by its predecessor Saving Private Ryan.

 

Fun fact! Saving Private Ryan gave Vin Diesel his big break into movies.

So anytime you look back on how flawed and mediocre Saving Private Ryan was, just remember, it served its purpose. Had Spielberg never made that film, we may never have seen cinematic masterpieces like Bloodshot, XXX: The Return of Xander Cage, and The Last Witch Hunter.

 

Sadly, Vin Diesel in SPR was better than Vin Diesel in every other film he's done since.

 

Agreed when it comes to roles where we actually see him, but he's two for two in my book when it comes to voice work between Groot and the Iron Giant.