I don't think it's rational to disregard all movies just because you don't like a particular actor--in your case, ALL Gwyneth Paltrow movies. That's as bad as saying you like all movies with Dustin Hoffman, and he's been in some stinkers (think "Sphere").
I also don't agree with comparing the quality of books with the quality of movies (Emma). Apples and oranges-each try to accomplish different things using completely different methods.
I do agree with your assessment that "Forrest Gump" is overrated. But I'll have to agree with the first commentator that it's message is not "dumb people are better".
Certainly the Oscars have a history of overlooking certain films, but was "Pulp Fiction" REALLY the best film that year?
I've basically been burnt out on Gwyneth Paltrow as well. I just don't see what the fuss is about (and I didn't like Emma either). However, I did like Sliding Doors. You might consider giving that one a try. As for Forrest Gump, I wouldn't say that it was the best movie ever, but I don't think it was saying that dumb people are better or worse. It was simply a well written story about an ordinary man living an extraordinary life.
OKAY PEOPLE, IT SEEMS TO ME I'M GIVING YOU THE WRONG IDEA OF WHAT THIS LIST IS ABOUT. SPIRITUAL ORGASM FOR ME MEANS THE FEELING OF ENORMOUS SPIRITUAL SATISFACTION, A VERY PURE FEELING OF JOY...IT HAS A BIT LESS TO DO WITH HAVING SEX... (THOUGH I SEE THE CONNECTION).
MY SEXUAL ORGASM LIST WOULD PROBABLY INCLUDE A LOT OF MIKE OLDFIELD AND MASSIVE ATTACK STUFF...
Ah, sorry to hear that about Dream Hunters. I'll probably still check it out, just to complete the set. But at least now you've made waiting tolerable. :)
I do intend to check out the rest of his stuff one of these days.
I think you can safely take my word for it that Relic is a waste of time and money. Just put an "according to Jim" parenthetical note after the list item. :) I checked, and both came out in 1997.
Too bad the rule isn't no more than two years apart. Lake Placid and Anaconda are practically the same movie, except that Lake Placid was mediocre, while Anaconda was worse-than-mediocre.
You've brought to light a difficulty with this list: you have to have seen both movies, and one of them might be real excrement. I've seen MIMIC, and I concur with your opinion - quite good: some really spine-tingling moments. Now, in order to assess this pair, I'm going to have to watch RELIC, which you've made sound less than inviting.
And, yes, no more than a year apart I should think. Damn! - now I'm going to have to check release dates.
Jim, I just know I shouldn't try to brainify a no-brainer pure entertainment movie, but...astronaut-wise, the guys were just passengers; all they had to learn was how to use their spacesuits (do their drilling in spacesuits) which is what we see them training for - we don't see them training to be pilots.
What the hell does it mean? It means that unless you think DI is a has-brainer movie, and so should be judged by different criteria, ARMAGEDDON is the better movie.
I actually wasn't overly impressed by it. I think the Sandman stuff works better as short pieces. This one wasn't terribly long, but longer than a short story.
As for other Gaiman, I've liked all of them. Good Omens, Star Dust and Neverwhere. All 3 had different feels and were all quite separate of the Sandman books. His books of short pieces (stories, poems, etc) are also worth checking out.
Jim, we're all saving our effusive congratulations until we see how well the new beast works. Looks good so far. Oops! nearly got effusive. If you messed up, it'll just be effu.
No, no, no, Jim! ENTRAPMENT wasn't lousy, just absurdly cast - Sean Connery's getting a bit long in the tooth to play romantic leads. Other than that it was engaging and had an exciting action climax - mind you, the romantic climax was disappointing, but that was only appropriate, I thought.
DANTE'S PEAK had excellent fx - did you see it on the big screen? But DEEP IMPACT? - surely you jest! - ARMAGEDDON is one of the most underrated movies of recent times. Much more entertaining (watched in no-brainer mode) than DI. "Daddy..."...surf's up, daddy...
I'm not generalizing really. These are the Gwyneth Paltrow movies I've seen: Shakespeare in Love, A Perfect Murder, Emma, Sliding Doors. I thought all of those were overrated. I have not seen "Hard Eight" but probably will though I don't consider it a Paltrow movie in the same sense. To me, a Gwyneth Paltrow movie is one in which she has a major role or is considered a selling point. As to the book to movie thing. There are MANY MANY MANY books to movies I love, including "A Room With A View", "Howards End", the "Pride and Prejudice" mini-series, "Persuasion", "Fight Club", "Out of Africa", the list goes on and on. I think in this case the adaptation sucked. Even if Pulp Fiction wasn't, Shawshank should've taken Forrest out. Isn't it like everyone's favorite film?
I didn't think that much of "Sliding Doors" either. I thought the concept was interesting, but could have been executed so much better. I'm picky, aren't I?
As to the "Forrest Gump" thing... I guess what I'm trying to say is that the virtue of the character in that movie seems to be his cluelessness and simplicity in an era of confusion and political drama. Sort of saying that not being aware of the 60's and 70's serves you better. I don't know. It's worth a discussion, certainly.
That's interesting. My wife and I really liked it, liked it enough to rent it twice, even though neither of us is much of a Mamet fan.
It sounds like we were assuming a slightly different premise when we watched it, which made it really enjoyable for us. We were assuming that whatever "the process" was, it was so unbelievably valuable that even an extremely intricate con, with intense psychological profiling of the victim, would have been cost-effective. And so, anytime the victim did something that seemed random, or that played into their hands, they either 1) knew, based on his personality, exactly how he would act, or 2) had backup plans to handle that contingency.
From that perspective, it became a fun "conspiracy theory" exercise. ("Hey, that guy just made a casual, off-hand comment that furthered the con! He must be in on it!")
I have created a way for you to include spoilers in your posts without ruining anything for folks that like surprises. All you have to do is enclose the spoiler in <SPOILER></SPOILER> tags. So if you wanted to ruin Citizen Kane (not really), you could type:
"Can you believe that <SPOILER>poppyseed was the name of his monkey</SPOILER>? What a shocker!"
. . . and it would appear to everyone else:
"Can you believe that poppyseed was the name of his monkey? What a shocker!"
If you are the sort of person that reads the last page first, all you have to do is swipe your mouse over the "blank" space between the spoiler tags to see what's there.
i enjoyed Stardust, although i have to say i enjoyed Neverwhere infinitely more. i tend to like his darker mystical stuff, so Stardust felt light in comparison. but i did enjoy it--and it was a superquick read...
My votes: Dante's Peak, Deep Impact (squeaked by - both were pretty bad), and A Bug's Life. I haven't seen Entrapment (which was lousy by all accounts), and I didn't care for The Thomas Crown Affair.
I'll have to think of what else I can come up with.
I'm personally eagerly awaiting the new Sandman book in trade paperback edition. But I'll have to check those out too. Gaiman is getting ahead of me . . .
Yeah, I can see where if you would approach it from a slightly different angle, the con would be more enjoyable. I found it interesting that you mentioned "intense psychological profiling" as a possibility for explaining some of the plot contrivances. Indeed, that was the only thing I could think of to explain the tenuous dependencies of the con. If I had been able to buy into that premise, it would have worked. But I wanted something meatier than "they know this guy soooo well" as an explanation. For me, The Game worked much better in that regard.
Microsoft is notorious for many things, but that's probably not one of them. It was an educated guess: I'm using Netscape Navigator, and it doesn't break them up, so I figured unless you belonged to the tiny neither-Microsoft-nor-Netscape camp, it was an IE problem. And I bet they fix it real soon. ;-)
Sound of bertie slapping himself on the forehead. No, not swatting a mosquito, but asking himself how he could forget the Great insect ANimation Tussle [GiANT]. He agrees with you, by the way.
Jim, bertie's found a BUG! The new version's put him into third-person mode. [Chuckle..."found a bug"...oh, that bertie is so droll...]
I don't think it's rational to disregard all movies just because you don't like a particular actor--in your case, ALL Gwyneth Paltrow movies. That's as bad as saying you like all movies with Dustin Hoffman, and he's been in some stinkers (think "Sphere").
I also don't agree with comparing the quality of books with the quality of movies (Emma). Apples and oranges-each try to accomplish different things using completely different methods.
I do agree with your assessment that "Forrest Gump" is overrated. But I'll have to agree with the first commentator that it's message is not "dumb people are better".
Certainly the Oscars have a history of overlooking certain films, but was "Pulp Fiction" REALLY the best film that year?
I've basically been burnt out on Gwyneth Paltrow as well. I just don't see what the fuss is about (and I didn't like Emma either). However, I did like Sliding Doors. You might consider giving that one a try. As for Forrest Gump, I wouldn't say that it was the best movie ever, but I don't think it was saying that dumb people are better or worse. It was simply a well written story about an ordinary man living an extraordinary life.
Don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad by any means. It just wasn't as good as a lot of his other work.
OKAY PEOPLE, IT SEEMS TO ME I'M GIVING YOU THE WRONG IDEA OF WHAT THIS LIST IS ABOUT. SPIRITUAL ORGASM FOR ME MEANS THE FEELING OF ENORMOUS SPIRITUAL SATISFACTION, A VERY PURE FEELING OF JOY...IT HAS A BIT LESS TO DO WITH HAVING SEX... (THOUGH I SEE THE CONNECTION).
MY SEXUAL ORGASM LIST WOULD PROBABLY INCLUDE A LOT OF MIKE OLDFIELD AND MASSIVE ATTACK STUFF...
Ah, sorry to hear that about Dream Hunters. I'll probably still check it out, just to complete the set. But at least now you've made waiting tolerable. :)
I do intend to check out the rest of his stuff one of these days.
I think you can safely take my word for it that Relic is a waste of time and money. Just put an "according to Jim" parenthetical note after the list item. :) I checked, and both came out in 1997.
Too bad the rule isn't no more than two years apart. Lake Placid and Anaconda are practically the same movie, except that Lake Placid was mediocre, while Anaconda was worse-than-mediocre.
Okay, you win. Armageddon was better. I was just being crotchety.
You've brought to light a difficulty with this list: you have to have seen both movies, and one of them might be real excrement. I've seen MIMIC, and I concur with your opinion - quite good: some really spine-tingling moments. Now, in order to assess this pair, I'm going to have to watch RELIC, which you've made sound less than inviting.
And, yes, no more than a year apart I should think. Damn! - now I'm going to have to check release dates.
Jim, I just know I shouldn't try to brainify a no-brainer pure entertainment movie, but...astronaut-wise, the guys were just passengers; all they had to learn was how to use their spacesuits (do their drilling in spacesuits) which is what we see them training for - we don't see them training to be pilots.
What the hell does it mean? It means that unless you think DI is a has-brainer movie, and so should be judged by different criteria, ARMAGEDDON is the better movie.
Warped in a good way or warped in a bad way? (I've read all of those by the way.)
I actually wasn't overly impressed by it. I think the Sandman stuff works better as short pieces. This one wasn't terribly long, but longer than a short story.
As for other Gaiman, I've liked all of them. Good Omens, Star Dust and Neverwhere. All 3 had different feels and were all quite separate of the Sandman books. His books of short pieces (stories, poems, etc) are also worth checking out.
Jim, we're all saving our effusive congratulations until we see how well the new beast works. Looks good so far. Oops! nearly got effusive. If you messed up, it'll just be effu.
No, no, no, Jim! ENTRAPMENT wasn't lousy, just absurdly cast - Sean Connery's getting a bit long in the tooth to play romantic leads. Other than that it was engaging and had an exciting action climax - mind you, the romantic climax was disappointing, but that was only appropriate, I thought.
DANTE'S PEAK had excellent fx - did you see it on the big screen? But DEEP IMPACT? - surely you jest! - ARMAGEDDON is one of the most underrated movies of recent times. Much more entertaining (watched in no-brainer mode) than DI. "Daddy..."...surf's up, daddy...
I'm not generalizing really. These are the Gwyneth Paltrow movies I've seen: Shakespeare in Love, A Perfect Murder, Emma, Sliding Doors. I thought all of those were overrated. I have not seen "Hard Eight" but probably will though I don't consider it a Paltrow movie in the same sense. To me, a Gwyneth Paltrow movie is one in which she has a major role or is considered a selling point. As to the book to movie thing. There are MANY MANY MANY books to movies I love, including "A Room With A View", "Howards End", the "Pride and Prejudice" mini-series, "Persuasion", "Fight Club", "Out of Africa", the list goes on and on. I think in this case the adaptation sucked. Even if Pulp Fiction wasn't, Shawshank should've taken Forrest out. Isn't it like everyone's favorite film?
I didn't think that much of "Sliding Doors" either. I thought the concept was interesting, but could have been executed so much better. I'm picky, aren't I?
As to the "Forrest Gump" thing... I guess what I'm trying to say is that the virtue of the character in that movie seems to be his cluelessness and simplicity in an era of confusion and political drama. Sort of saying that not being aware of the 60's and 70's serves you better. I don't know. It's worth a discussion, certainly.
That's interesting. My wife and I really liked it, liked it enough to rent it twice, even though neither of us is much of a Mamet fan.
It sounds like we were assuming a slightly different premise when we watched it, which made it really enjoyable for us. We were assuming that whatever "the process" was, it was so unbelievably valuable that even an extremely intricate con, with intense psychological profiling of the victim, would have been cost-effective. And so, anytime the victim did something that seemed random, or that played into their hands, they either 1) knew, based on his personality, exactly how he would act, or 2) had backup plans to handle that contingency.
From that perspective, it became a fun "conspiracy theory" exercise. ("Hey, that guy just made a casual, off-hand comment that furthered the con! He must be in on it!")
YMMV, of course.
I have created a way for you to include spoilers in your posts without ruining anything for folks that like surprises. All you have to do is enclose the spoiler in <SPOILER></SPOILER> tags. So if you wanted to ruin Citizen Kane (not really), you could type:
"Can you believe that <SPOILER>poppyseed was the name of his monkey</SPOILER>? What a shocker!"
. . . and it would appear to everyone else:
"Can you believe that poppyseed was the name of his monkey? What a shocker!"
If you are the sort of person that reads the last page first, all you have to do is swipe your mouse over the "blank" space between the spoiler tags to see what's there.
I would definately recommend Paul's Boutique. Classic Beasties.
i don't know much about them, but perhaps i'll have to look into it upon your suggestion...
i enjoyed Stardust, although i have to say i enjoyed Neverwhere infinitely more. i tend to like his darker mystical stuff, so Stardust felt light in comparison. but i did enjoy it--and it was a superquick read...
My votes: Dante's Peak, Deep Impact (squeaked by - both were pretty bad), and A Bug's Life. I haven't seen Entrapment (which was lousy by all accounts), and I didn't care for The Thomas Crown Affair.
I'll have to think of what else I can come up with.
I'm personally eagerly awaiting the new Sandman book in trade paperback edition. But I'll have to check those out too. Gaiman is getting ahead of me . . .
Yeah, I can see where if you would approach it from a slightly different angle, the con would be more enjoyable. I found it interesting that you mentioned "intense psychological profiling" as a possibility for explaining some of the plot contrivances. Indeed, that was the only thing I could think of to explain the tenuous dependencies of the con. If I had been able to buy into that premise, it would have worked. But I wanted something meatier than "they know this guy soooo well" as an explanation. For me, The Game worked much better in that regard.
Microsoft is notorious for many things, but that's probably not one of them. It was an educated guess: I'm using Netscape Navigator, and it doesn't break them up, so I figured unless you belonged to the tiny neither-Microsoft-nor-Netscape camp, it was an IE problem. And I bet they fix it real soon. ;-)
Sound of bertie slapping himself on the forehead. No, not swatting a mosquito, but asking himself how he could forget the Great insect ANimation Tussle [GiANT]. He agrees with you, by the way.
Jim, bertie's found a BUG! The new version's put him into third-person mode. [Chuckle..."found a bug"...oh, that bertie is so droll...]