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Iconic films that have disappointed me include just about every “iconic” film I have seen that was made during the last 20 years. I’m sure there are exceptions, but I can’t think of one at the moment.
There’s a good reason why people who know a lot about film call the 1930s thru the 1950s the golden age, and why the 70s into the early 80s is called the renaissance.
Art forms have high points and low points, and we’re at the lowest point in the history of cinema. Even the late 60s—a low point in film outside the continent—seems like paradise compared to now.
There’s a good reason why people who know a lot about film call the 1930s thru the 1950s the golden age, and why the 70s into the early 80s is called the renaissance.
Art forms have high points and low points, and we’re at the lowest point in the history of cinema. Even the late 60s—a low point in film outside the continent—seems like paradise compared to now.
“The Wild Bunch”!
Lots of late 60s films I wouldn’t put in low point, but I’m partial to late 30s to early 60s from most sources.
Personally I’m not a fan of the wild bunch, but I agree there are a lot of great films from that period. It only seems to me like a low point when I compare it to the 30s or 40s or 50s—or to the 70s. I’m talking Hollywood mainly.
I agree completely. Bogey is a great actor for film noir and I enjoy everything I've seen him in.
I have a tough time thinking of a film less than fifty years or so old as iconic. Critics be damned! A movie must have "legs" before I'd even begin to think of such as "Iconic."
I'm a librarian and you might be surprised to hear that I whole-heartedly agree with you. Comparing books and movies is an utterly useless waste of time. You might as well try and compare a song with a cake. They're just too different. Many a fine movie has been ruined because of reading the book first and then being disappointed at the movie. But if you liked the movie and read the book, there's just more of what you loved - more details, more character development, etc. And the visuals from the movie can make your reading experience richer.
I'm always in the minority, but continue to advocate for movie first, then book. That way you have a greater possibility of enjoying both. I think I realized this in high school after I watched The Hunt for Red October, loved it, and then read the Tom Clancy book. Not yet learning the lesson I'd read other Clancy books first and then the movies were always completely ridiculous by comparison. Just my .02
I agree that books and movies rarely have much to do with each other. Often it's the book, which can and does go into far greater detail, which win out for me. Tom Clancy is a great example. Hunter for Red October, for example. The movie tells a simple story and tells it well. The book does the same thing amidst the incredible amount of technical information. If you watch the movie, you walk away with a good story and some quotable lines. After reading the book, you walk away knowing exactly how a nuclear submarine works.
Other times, a good movie fixes the bad writing of the book. Steven King can get kind of confusing, and lots of people say they couldn't understand It until the movie came out. Or Thank You for Smoking, delightful movie but the book was so badly written that it was painful to read. Or some of Mario Puzo's works. There's just so much going on that keeping track of faces rather than names is such a help.
Well Braveheart didn't stack up to the hype IMO. I watched it for the first time last month after the whole family pressured me. Maybe I let the goading jade my view on the film.
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Gimlet
Guest
One of the most historically inaccurate films ever. Romaticised Hollywood tosh. They started badly with the title. "Braveheart" was a poetic sobriquet given to Robert the Bruce, not William Wallace and it just gets worse from there.
The Stand is actually one of my favorite King books as well, the expanded edition is great BUT the TV adaptations of it were big ole steaming mugs of hot trash. The original one, filmed in the early 90s, has a star studded cat, but even then they took huge liberties with the story and the new one, was well, so chocked full of social justice subliminal messages I couldn't even watch it past the second episode.
There has only been one movie that I have ever seen that actually stayed true to the source material, and that was the Grapes Of Wrath with Henry Fonda, and even then, there are several scenes that were truncated to get it to fit in a watchable run time.
My wife is a huge Harry Potter fan, so naturally, I have seen the entire series of movies, multiple times over with her, but it wasn't until we visited The Wizarding World at Universal Orlando, did I have any interest in reading the books. The world there was so immersive, it pushed me to look beyond the books. I devoured those books over about a month, and they are actually really well written stories, but now, I can't stand watching the movies, because the directors left out entire characters and plot lines, made other characters do things that they would never had in the books, etc. But that seems to be the way it goes for every movie that grew out of a book. Almost every cult classic movie mentioned here came from a book whose story is 100 times better, but due to money and attention spans, is cut down to fit in a specific box.
I read Fairy Tale a couple of months ago, and your statement actually makes so much sense to me now. The first part of the book had a King-ish feel to it, while the second part did not feel like any of the novels he had written before, and I've 38 of his novels on my bookshelf currently.
I think you make a great, and very important point. SO many of the things we participate in whether it's watching a movie, television show, or reading a book, are dependent upon when we do it, and how we came to do it. What I mean is - imagine being bored and flipping through the channels mindlessly and landing on a particular movie. You watch it with zero expectations and enjoy the heck out of it. Yet, if someone had goaded you into watching it and told you 50+ times how much you'd love it, you might be unimpressed with it, or downright hate it. Our experiences are colored by our expectations to a much greater degree than we realize.
Dylan Thomas frequently visited the village where I grew up. His great aunt and uncle lived in my old house. So he may have visited, you never know.
The older I get and the higher my Lifetime Movie Total gets, the more I like well made "small" films that don't try to be everything for everybody, but drill into a single subject or idea. It doesn't even have to be "groundbreakingly original" yadda yadda... a well done version of an old idea is fine with me.
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Gimlet
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I love Thomas's work. Particularly his short stories. My favourite is The Burning Baby, which is disturbing and hilarious at the same time. Full of occult references and Welsh Druidic imagery.
It predates Under Milk Wood and Llareggub appeared in this story for the first time.
He seems more popular in the US than he is here.
I know one or two older people who knew him and to them he was just some drunk who owed people money.
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HRPufnstuf
Guest
I can only watch 2 of the nine Star Wars films, A New Hope (iv) and Empire (v). There really is no storyline after that. In literary circles Star Wars is generally classified as "Space opera" and Joseph Campbell likens the films to a Greek epic, which I also find gnawingly tedious.
I actually saw Empire first, for my 10th birthday. It had already been in theatres 54 weeks!
Jedi, crushed the franchise. The CGI rereleases were the coffin nail.
On the flip side, Rogue One and Solo I found engaging as independent stories relative to A New Hope.
My edit may have changed your view Ashdigger.
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I love Peter Jackson and LOTR and I couldn't finish any of the movies.
in the 70's the business felt that artists do what they do and the studios job isn't to tell the artists what to do but sell their product. And then Heavens Gate was made.