Stylistically Connected

[KenK]

The Wachowski's lifted quite a few things from "Dark City" for "The Matrix", some more blatant than others. It was no coincidence that their film was so stylistically similar to "Dark City".

jag

To say nothing of the fact that sets used in Dark City were subsequently used in The Matrix. A lot of building interiors.

 

[da creole kid]

(Star Wars / Sin City) + Far From Heaven = Pleasantville

Syriana = Goodfellas / Traffic

The Third Man + The Killing Fields = The Constant Gardener

The Quiet American / The Third Man = Syriana

Schindler's List = (1984)Hotel Rwanda

The Matrix = Dark City + Johnny Mneumonic

 

[jaguarr]

To say nothing of the fact that sets used in Dark City were subsequently used in The Matrix. A lot of building interiors.

Yeah, there is that factor as well. The Wachowski's do great things with other people's ideas.

jag

 

[da creole kid]

Everybody steal's everyone's ideas. It wouldn't be art otherwise.

 

[PLAS]

okay, are we talking about real stylistic similarities or just opinionated comparisons?

becuase I was thinking about Matando Cabos and Snatch, both movies have similar editing and storytelling styles, both are convoluted crime noir type comedies and neither are american made

Lost In Transaltion and The Woodsman both share that claustrophobic sense of alienation, and depict different sides to familiar stories, coincidentially, both were directed by women

Pointbreak was clearly ripped off by The Fast And The Furious

and now that we're talkng about Kathryn Bigelow movies, Strange Days shares a lot of elements with The Running Man and Blade Runner, specially in thematic elements, but SD has a far superior soundtrack

has anyone here watched any of these movies?

how about Videodrome?

 

[jaguarr]

Everybody steal's everyone's ideas. It wouldn't be art otherwise.

I could not disagree more that it wouldn't be art, otherwise.

jag

 

[Movies205]

Inspiration and stealing are two different things... It's cool if you take one aspect of the idea, and then change everything else, like perhaps you like the end sword fight at the end of "Count of Monte Cristo" so you change everything else and even add your own changes to the sword fight, then it's cool but when you just lift things it's different.

 

[Kevin Roegele]

-Spilerberg's "War of the Worlds" = "Independence Day" meets "Signs"

Independence Day = the original War of the Worlds

 

[Kevin Roegele]

I could not disagree more that it wouldn't be art, otherwise.

jag

All ideas come from somewhere else. Nothing is made in a vacuum.

It's just the difference between inspiration and imitation.

 

[jaguarr]

All ideas come from somewhere else. Nothing is made in a vacuum.

It's just the difference between inspiration and imitation.

Agreed. Creativity and the artist stamping their own personality and individuality on something is what makes it art to me. Blatantly copying something and not even trying to do at least that goes against the grain and spirit of art as far as I'm concerned.

jag

 

[PLAS]

Agreed. Creativity and the artist stamping their own personality and individuality on something is what makes it art to me. Blatantly copying something and not even trying to do at least that goes against the grain and spirit of art as far as I'm concerned.

jag

which is what I've been trying to point out on my posts

 

[jaguarr]

which is what I've been trying to point out on my posts

You weren't creative enough about it, so I had to do it for you.

jag

 

[PLAS]

You weren't creative enough about it, so I had to do it for you.

jag

I'm gonna slit my wrists

am I the only one who thinks Mean Girls could have been a movie on par with Heathers had it not been so watered down?

 

[Movies205]

which is what I've been trying to point out on my posts

Plas... not getting any respect since the fire of '02

 

[jaguarr]

I'm gonna slit my wrists

am I the only one who thinks Mean Girls could have been a movie on par with Heathers had it not been so watered down?

You may be the only person who has actually seen both of those movies.

jag

 

[da creole kid]

inspiration is a thought process

imitation is practice

"Dark City" and "The Matrix" stole idea from Plato.

All they are "Allegory of the Cave" tales. However, "Dark City" is affected by Gen-X culture while "The Matrix" is the same culture except sightly further away from the source. There is far more internet-culture know-how in "The Matrix" than in "Dark City" which is just "1984" meets the "X-Files".

Stealing may be a cynical way of saying borrowing, but it still the act of taking away what is before you. Everything evolves in subtle brush strokes.

 

[jaguarr]

Everything evolves in subtle brush strokes.

Or doesn't evolve, as the case may be.

jag

 

[da creole kid]

Refering to what?

 

[jaguarr]

Refering to what?

Works that "borrow" heavily from other works without really bothering to evolve them all that much.

jag

 

[PLAS]

You may be the only person who has actually seen both of those movies.

jag

hey!!! Heathers is one of the best 80's movies ever, it's a sardonic satire of the lame and superficial youth culture of the mid 80's

I went to see Mean Girls just because the trailers gave me false hopes that it could be a modern version of the first, but sadly, they didn't go all the way through with it

 

[da creole kid]

Well- jaguarr. Your being a critic. Which is not necessarily the point of this thread nor is it fair a parameter to define art.

It maybe bad or low-end but is still art.

The Rivals, Seinfeld, Married With Children, and films by W.C. Fields are the same "point out the cultural foilbles of us all through charming lowlifes" stories.

Except one is a Restoration play, two are TV shows, the others are films centered around the same character. There the same but different and one can criticize which is better till the cows come home.

 

[jaguarr]

I'm being a critic of what constitutes art in my eyes. That's the way it is.

jag

 

[da creole kid]

Yeah, but that argument has as much sophistication as Intelligent Design- which is pefectly legitimate if "that's the way you see it".

Art is simply man imitating nature.

Nature is the complex relationship of environment and life.

 

[jaguarr]

But you're spouting your interpretation of what art is by saying it's simply man imitating nature, which is just as subjective as anything I have said thus far, thereby illustrating my underlying point that what is "art" is defined on individual and personal levels, not universal ones.

Cheers,
jag

 

[Truthteller]

Flight Plan is more like The Lady Vanishes (early Hitchcock) than it is Red Eye.

In fact they use one of the same plot devices (the drawing on a breath steamed window) in Flight Plan and Vanishes. This was an obvious direct reference to The Lady Vanishes (and nicely done as well). Vanishes takes place on a train rather than a jet.

Red Eye is more like 24 maybe.