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The Perfect Storm was amazing. The solid interaction between the cast that you were talking about is exactly the point of the movie...It's about the need for one another in times of crisis. There was no way they were getting out alive and they all knew that, BUT they were all there for each other and tried, and that's what life is about. Trying.

Also, please don't badmouth my Ben Affleck. He's gotten some tough criticism, but I believe he's a very versatile and entertaining not to mention talented actor. Please don't bring up Gigli unless you've seen it. And Bounce wasn't TERRIBLE. Hope floats...okay. I'll give you that one. And I'm sorry I got defensive. I apologize considering that's not exactly what you were saying. Although I disagree with you about Mark Wahlberg...I think he's a good actor, but I don't think he's more comfortable than Ben Affleck.(Shakespeare in Love?)

Nicodemus wrote:

Tim Roth, Daniel Day-Lewis, Gary Sinise, David Morse and Tom Hanks, in that regard.

The only one I would disagree with here would be Day-Lewis, as I see him as somewhat of a showboat, though I admit I have purposely avoided some of what are his most acclaimed films.
Also, it quite seriously crushes me that Tim Roth isn't given more opportunities. I fell madly in love with his acting when I was 15 or 16 and happened across The Legend of 1900 on tv. I tracked it down when it showed again and I still have the video tape today. If you haven't seen the movie its absolutely stunning, it was written and directed by Giuseppe Tornatore who was behind Cinema Paradiso, so I'm sure you can imagine the depth of it, it is one of the very few movies that I cry during - no matter how many times i watch it, because it is just that freaking moving.

Point taken (about Mr. Day-Lewis). Russell Crowe, then.

I remain, as always...

Nico.

StnMan5 wrote:

Also, please don't badmouth my Ben Affleck. He's gotten some tough criticism, but I believe he's a very versatile and entertaining not to mention talented actor. Please don't bring up Gigli unless you've seen it. And Bounce wasn't TERRIBLE. Hope floats...okay. I'll give you that one. And I'm sorry I got defensive. I apologize considering that's not exactly what you were saying. Although I disagree with you about Mark Wahlberg...I think he's a good actor, but I don't think he's more comfortable than Ben Affleck.(Shakespeare in Love?)

StnMan5 - not sure what you are getting at, as Affleck wasn't in Hope Floats (maybe you mean Forces of Nature?), and his role in Shakespeare in Love is hardly worth noting.

Forces of Nature! Good call...I get all of those crappy late 90s romantic comedies starring sandra bullock confused.

I was just saying...Ben Affleck is an excellent (yes i will use that word) actor.

And as for his role in shakespeare in love not being noteworthy...watch it again right now. He always makes the most of his parts, and that's what makes him one of the best actors of our time.

Bless you Michael Bay. Armageddon is a masterpiece.

Oooooh, see, I really, really, really liked Spielberg's War of the Worlds, too. It wasn't perfect, in fact I would have to say that I'm slightly more fond of Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes, but I saw WotW four times in-theater, and it scared the bejeepers out of me, EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I even thought Cruise did a decent job -- at least, it got him whacking away at bug-eyed, aluminum alien pseudopods for awhile, instead of, you know, Brooke Shields -- though on the whole I liked him better in Mission: Impossible III. Though I wasn't quite so impressed by Dakota Fanning as everyone else seemed to be.

...Ever wonder why in the Hell you people listen to me, anyway? [Grin]

I remain, as always...

Nico.

P.S. :

I wanted the apes to kill Wahlberg already and everyone else just like I was praying for the tripods to kill Tom Cruise and his whiny kids.

[Snicker][gigglesnort] This reminds me of a marginally famous quote I contributed to another entertainment-industry Website, last year, regarding CBS's (then, new) series Jericho: "It's always a bad sign when I start rooting for the 'bad guys.' Come on, Cesium-135!"

I'm with you, Nico- Planet of the Apes is one of the worst movies of the last decade, and I have no faith in Burton's talent anymore (Charlie and the Crap Factory proved this).

War of the Worlds, on the other hand, is one of the best blockbusters of the last few years- sure, the ending was a bit lame (man, we really didn't have to try hard to beat those guys), but the action sequences were astoundingly directed. Spielberg can direct in his sleep, considering the film took 6 months from prep to post. And such memorable scenes- the ascent of the first "machine", the destruction of the (New Jersey?) turnpike, the flaming train, the crowd rush at the ferry, the probe in the house... all brilliant.

Makes me wish that Spielberg would direct all action movies, but didn't have final cut of the final 20 minutes.

Bless you Michael Bay. Armageddon is a masterpiece.

Gotta agree with Nico, I think Spielberg's War of the Worlds gets a bad shake by the general public sometimes. Too many people were either expecting more action because of the stupid commercials that highlighted combat-copters or they were just turned off by the silly antics of off-screen Tom Cruise. However, WotW does so many things so well.

For example, the initial invasion of the tripods? Holy crap, that had to have been one of the coldest, most intense movie-going experiences in my life. It wasn't like ID4 where it felt like a blockbuster/cartoon. Those tripods were VICIOUS. It was great to see the Cruise's character as an everyday guy who had no chance whatsoever of saving the day. The 360-degree camera that whizzed in and out of the car when his family was fleeing the city was a great moment of fear and panic. So was the scene the rowdy crowd tried to steal Cruise's car. That's a side of humanity you rarely see on-screen, that we can be selfish, paranoid people when it comes to survival. And how ballsy was Spielberg by not going up over that hill to show the destructo-feast of copters vs. tripods? He kept it completely true to the POV of the film, that we would only see what Cruise's character saw. Of course, the ending (like so many of Stevie's) was out of left field, but at least it was true to the book and kept with the idea that human beings aren't as in control of the world as we think. Anyway, that's just my two cents. Sorry to digress from the October movies...

Six: Sorry, maybe I suffered a stroke mid-digression and ended up saying something TOTALLY BARKING different from what I intended to, bu-uuuut, I like BOTH PotA AND WotW, which sound like an activist animal-rights organization and a local gymnastics franchise, actually.

I saw what Tim Burton was trying to accomplish with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; it was spectacular, it was imaginative, it was interesting. Meh. A combination of No Laughs and General Creepiness does not a hit kid's movie make, in my opnion. That's more in keeping with a stand-up act performed by Danny Bonaduce.

I defend Spielberg's War of the Worlds, or try to, all the time, to the point, actually, that I'm very nearly sick of trying to convince people. I do think it could have been better cast -- I frankly find it hard to imagine that a man who spends his free time and discretionary income worshipping the amalgamated-via-sperm-milkshake son of Magneto, Ming the Merciless and Dr. Phil...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/13/Xenu_BBC_Panorama.jpg

...would be so bleedin' distressed by the arrival of a fleet of giant mechanical dung beetles from the Delta Quadrant, who make pretty pretty music on space tubas and then systematically vaporize a sizeable portion of Earth's population and bad '60's architecture, thereby making way for the ascension of a Thetacracy, out of the Battlefield: Earth-like ruins. So what if his best friend, -- a mildly retarded Pep Boy, btw, and, gee, Dad, you WONDER why Mom didn't stick around for poker / WWE Slamfest! night and countless anniversaries with reservations for Hooters? -- turned into a talking sack of flour, like from Aqua Teen Hunger Force? If the college motto is, Rent a friend! Join a Frat, surely the Scientologist creed is, Ain't got friends? We'll convert 'em for ya! Go, Johnny, go! Ooh ooh AHH AHH! However, perhaps I digress.

Although the ending of WotW was a nice little tribute to the book's, I agree, it didn't work. And, honestly, I mean, I love the guy, but, come on. Morgan Freeman's portrayed God, The President and, now, The Voice of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galactic Green Zone. Wouldn't God, or Zeus, or Xenu, not be slurring his words quite so much, as if he'd gone on a bender and then decided to sober up by watching monster robot crickets obliterate the Earth to make way for a new hyperspace bypass? And didn't that water look dirty to you? Seriously, someone should upgrade Boston's public water supply. I mean, erm, once there IS a Boston again and all that. Here, God, have another. It's on the house. Matter of fact, it's pretty much all yours, anyway, right?

I agree: "Spielberg can direct in his sleep." And considering some of the perspectives I've run into (crashed into, actually) on this Forum, this week, some folks might think he actually DID, during production of The Terminal, anyway. [Shaking head] To each his own.

There are images from War of the Worlds I am quite simply never going to get out of my head. They've been burned into my brain, like a Martian death ray or Howard Dean's "I Have A Scream" speech a few years back. As you said, the initial emergence of the first Tripod... The scene overlooking the Hudson Ferry, as the family huddles watching the Tripods pluck survivors out of the water... and then, up come another phalanx of 'em, ZOT!ing the ones who made it to shore... The scenes of 'em sniffing and poking around the farmhouse basement, the Slug Eye from Hell, which ought to have made James Cameron (inventor of the original CGI Water Tentacle, in The Abyss) breathe, Oh, DAMN... The scene when Cruise stumbles out of the farmhouse looking for his daughter, to look upon a wasted crimson vista I have forever termed, Gone With the Solar Wind... The twitching, slurping, grasping Asshole of Doom (sorry, but didn't the Tripods' manner of eating bring the term, "ass-munch" into previously unimagined clarity?)... The River of Swollen Corpses... Oh, my, the Amtrak from Hell. Next stop, Purgatory! All aboard! For all that, it's what Spielberg refused to show us that was so damned scary... That's the diabolical brilliance of the man.

A friend of mine who's far wittier and more famous than I, and also does this for a living, summed up War of the World this way: THIS is what scares the Hell out of Steven Spielberg. This is what HIS nightmares look and feel and sound like. This is HIS version of Hell. And, man, that's the guy who painted the beautiful, benign, hopeful pictures of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. If this is what makes HIS head spin around and catch on fire... Man, am I glad I'm not inside the skull of Steven Spielberg. There's some seriously twisted sh!t going on in there, dude.

Makes me wish that Spielberg would direct all action movies...

Seriously, look at the influences Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jaws and Saving Private Ryan have had on modern film. Doesn't he?

tuan:

Woah, talk about disposable income.

Hey, that's nothing. I saw Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, The Matrix Reloaded, Titanic and Starship Troopers SIX times in theaters. And, with the IMAX relaunch, I'm up to five, already for Transformers. And I even pay bills once in awhile, too.

No I have to agree, the action scenes in War of the Worlds were amazingly directed, all the technical aspects including the sound effects and especially the visual effects, and the cinematography, simply amazing. I was pretty much on the edge of my seat once the first tripod popped out of the ground.

I held my breath for two hours straight. (Which may explain things, like my forecast for The Ass. of Jesse James... Hypoxia will do wonders for your higher functions...) The first time I saw WotW, it was like an amusement-park ride; I went straight back out to the ticket window and got in line again. And again. I saw it four times its first week. Scared me more than any other movie, ever, with the exception of John Carpenter's The Thing. And, erm, Barbarella, for different reasons.

I also quibble with the casting. Although I really really like Dakota Fanning -- [sigh] not in that way, stop it, you cretins -- for, for example, her work in Dreamer and Charlotte's Web and the like, I wasn't all that impressed by her in this film. I didn't get the whole Miranda Otto cameo, or that chick who used to play a loudmouthed lawyer on that long-gone sitcom, and while I loved certain elements of Tim Robbins' performance, on the whole I thought it was cheesy and over-the-top. The only person who I think perfectly captured his role was the kid who played Cruise's son, I forget his name and am frankly too lazy at the moment to look it up, and his character arc ought to have ended right there in the Connecticut countryside -- it would have made the ending SO, SO much more powerful, and, you know, everything would have meant something, and Cruise's family's loss would have been proportional to the rest of humanity, which lost one out of every six people to giant extraterrestrial Roombas.

I also think the film took itself a little too seriously. I could care less about Tom Cruise's ill relationship with his son. And the fact that I hate Tom Cruise as a person, so, yeah, maybe that had a lot to do with me hating the film. All hail Lord Xenu!

See, I think Spielberg was trying to make us give a damn about this family, to make it (by way of its strained and imperfect relationships) REAL to the audience (just like he did in Close Encounters and E.T., btw, and it's amazing how crass and cynical comparisons between the three films become when you break them down, scene-by-scene... the bastard), so we wouldn't quibble so much about having to watch The Apocalypse, instead of in HDTV, through this one man's narrow, truncated, somewhat small perspective instead. It worked, for me, and although I agree it probably could have been done "better," I for one am at a loss about how exactly to go about improving it. It these events had happened to the Waltons, or the Walshes, or the Simpsons, would we have necessarily had a better time? (Although... The Simpsons... Hmmm.)

I liked Tom in Minority Report well simply because that had a terrific script, when it all comes down to it, the script for War of the Worlds is very lacking.

[Nodding] I think I get what you're saying here. Yeah, the Minority Report -- great film, btw, and Colin Farrell's best performance, ever, not to mention his last watchable one -- script is pretty dense, and WotW's is, by comparison, pretty "thin." But, see, I think it works, because, sort of by necessity -- there are time constraints, after all -- Minority Report is rushing, rushing, rushing to its climax, while War takes the scenic route, which to my mind makes it all that much more unsettling. We're watching the world end in an almost morbidly leisurely fashion. Could be a commentary about our times, that, yeah?

I mean, it's not really a film where I'd like to go "Hey, let's watch War of the Worlds tonight so we can be thrilled."

Hell, I say exactly that. Though I must say, I'm enforcing a "break" from watching this film -- when I began mistaking water towers for Little Brown Men and a Third in my subdivision, and trying to research what the Hell a solenoid does and laying in spares, and making sure I had more than bread and condiments in my pantry at all times, I think I'd taken my War of the Worlds fetish just a smidge too far.

P.S. For that new War of the Worlds steelbook DVD coming out, if there is a bonus feature of Tom making fun of Lord Xenu or Elrond Hubbard, then my opinions on War of the Worlds are automatically reversed.

[Chuckling] Deal.

Vive:

...[T]he initial invasion of the tripods? Holy crap, that had to have been one of the coldest, most intense movie-going experiences in my life. It wasn't like ID4 where it felt like a blockbuster/cartoon. Those tripods were VICIOUS. It was great to see the Cruise's character as an everyday guy who had no chance whatsoever of saving the day. The 360-degree camera that whizzed in and out of the car when his family was fleeing the city was a great moment of fear and panic. So was the scene the rowdy crowd tried to steal Cruise's car. That's a side of humanity you rarely see on-screen, that we can be selfish, paranoid people when it comes to survival. And how ballsy was Spielberg by not going up over that hill to show the destructo-feast of copters vs. tripods? He kept it completely true to the POV of the film, that we would only see what Cruise's character saw. Of course, the ending (like so many of Stevie's) was out of left field, but at least it was true to the book and kept with the idea that human beings aren't as in control of the world as we think. Anyway, that's just my two cents. Sorry to digress from the October movies...

That quote is so perfect, you've left me with nothing to say. For once. Excellent work, my friend. Wait, I hear the Galactic Shift Whistle, time to get back to work. Everybody up into the spider-thingy!

I remain, as always... [BWARM BWAAAAARRRRRRRMMMMMMM...]

Nico. (Duck! It's a cement plant!)

Alright just have two things to say Tim Burton sucks he destroys everything he touches and Kevin Smith is the shit.

Bless you Michael Bay. Armageddon is a masterpiece.

Man, you should have been in charge of the script, because that would have made the film much better, and the ending much better.

[Bowing] You give me far, far too much credit. You can't get much better than Steven Spielberg, David Koepp (Carlito's Way, Panic Room, Spider-Man), Josh Friedman (The Black Dahlia) and, of course, H.G. Wells (you name it). Next to them, I am as a bug standing next to giants. (Hmmm, familiar analogy, there...) [Grin]

I remain, as always...

Nico.

I wouldn't say that. there wasn't a whole lot of genius in those movies. Spiderman wasn't anything like it should've been. Just like x-men. I liked the x-men movies. But could've been much better. Especially if ice man and colossus were adults, and rogue of course. Not too mention they haven't even hinted at gambit yet.WTF. Anyways. If you ask me what makes really good movies worth remembering. A great imagination and willingness to make something they won't make a whole lot of money. Just like Saw. Most won't agree with me there. But I really don't care. No Offense. But Panic Room and Spiderman doesn't really say much for those guys. I liked both movies. Panic Room was probably the only Foster movie I like. Even after seeing the brave one. BORING. and Lame. Anyways. I don't mean to pump up your ego Nico but they have no more chances of being "giants" much less legends. Than you or I. The next big Director/Producer/Writer is out there. All they need is an idea and an opportunity.

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