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Post by ZapRowsdower on May 28, 2008 12:14:36 GMT -5
Thank you, Heinekin.
You and I rate movies a little different though. I've seen reviews where you called a film one of your favorites, and it didn't get a "10" rating.
The "3" per year rule isn't to force me to pick 3 movies to become one of my all-time favorites, but actually so I don't keep handing out "10" ratings to every movie that comes out. It's more of an effort to keep my enthusiasm down. I make exceptions for certain films, usually franchise or documentary. And obviously, I love some "10" movies more than others.
I don't make it that coveted, though. To me, "10" doesn't mean that diamond in the rough, a flawless masterpiece (although those generally get "10" ratings as well), it means I loved the movie enough to consider it one of my favorites.
The reason Pirates 3 kept the rating is because I've seen it three times in theaters - two of which were within the same 48 Hour period, and it speaks much to a movie's strength (in my opinion) for it to be 3 hours long, and for me NOT to be bored with it after 3 viewings. And I still bought the DVD.
Bringing this threadjack back to Indy, I've already seen it twice - also within the same 48 hour period, and loved it as much the second time as I did the first time - in fact, I noticed a few more sight gags I missed the first time around.
And give me a little credit... this IS the first "10" I've given all year.
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Post by Quorthon on May 28, 2008 15:19:06 GMT -5
Many factors come into play when I give out a 10, but there's no set of rules. On average, I like to give only "3" per year, and I usually pick them when the year is over. Obviously, there are exceptions to both of those "rules". It's not based on whether or not the movie has flaws. All movies have flaws. The question is, how well does a movie play even with its flaws? Indy 4 had CGI that's subpar to what you know Spielberg and ILM are capable of. But I barely took notice. It's when I take notice that there's a problem. Once again (sorry for picking on this one so much, Pulp) there's The Golden Compass. So ill-conceived and poorly paced, it was only then I began to look at other things, like its visual effects. Sadly, with a stronger screenplay, I probably wouldn't have anything to complain about. Regarding my "10" rating for Indy 4, I've thought about bringing it down to a "9", where I leave most of the "10" candidates until the end of the year. But then I wonder... is that MY opinion, or everyone else's? I'm too young to have seen any of the Indiana Jones movies in theaters (except for the Last Crusade, but my parents didn't take me to the movies much), so this was my first time seeing Indy crack the whip on the big screen. If I had the luxury of being alive in 1981, maybe my opinion would be different. But I had to rely on VHS for my share of Indiana Jones. As high of an opinion I have on Raiders of the Lost Ark (Top 25 of all time for me), it's not enough for me to look down on Crystal Skull and think... this is crap by comparison. I love the Indiana Jones movies - I grew up with the Indiana Jones movies. And I don't see much of a problem ranking Crystal Skull up there with them. It's not the best of the lot by far, but I believe it belongs on the same playing field. Unlike Lucas' Star Wars prequels, which kinda felt like Star Wars except different, they managed to return to Indiana Jones and manage to make it feel like Indiana Jones. It's warm, it's familiar, and it's the most fun I've had this year (thus far). In fact, the only movie I can realistically see beating it this summer is The Dark Knight. What "10" means to me, is I'm putting it on a list of films I would consider among my all-time favorites. As of now, I believe there are 132 films on this list, and no year seems to dominate. '94 might have a couple more than the rest, but overall it's pretty well spread out. I do get what you're saying about some points vastly overshadowing others. There were moments in Indy 4 where I just couldn't, though. The less-than-stellar CG in some scenes and the exceedingly stupid monkeys swinging on vines moment. That was too much. Also, part of this comes from the big chunk of me that is a science nerd. There are jungle ants as terrifying as those showed in the film, but in Indy 4, they were exaggerated to a point that irked me a bit. For a film with flaws that could be overlooked, I'll give you Transformers. The plot had holes and there are moments of stupidity that simply confound all who see them (for instance, at one point Lebouf places the All Spark cube on a the tow truck that Bumblebee gets hooked to and the truck doesn't rumble to life), and let's not forget the total lack of character development on the Decepticons. There is a fun and complicated relationship between Megatron and Starscream and they missed it almost entirely (one sentence doesn't count). I still scored the film an 8 because the special effects were second to none, they didn't make any of the Transformers into some stupid Jar Jar-like obvious comic relief character*, and the transformation and action sequences not only looked cool but were fun and impressive. Big a Transformers fan as I am, I'm not kidding when I practically had tears in my eyes when Blackout transformed and wiped out the military base in Qatar. I was that fucking elated to finally be seeing Transformers in a live action film. I also went in knowing full well that Hollywood almost never does things of this nature (comic books, classic cartoons, video games) correctly. There is almost always something ruined. Ironically, the original Tranformers storyline would've been a much better fit for the film considering the oil crisis we seem to be having these days: The focus originally was that the Autobot Ark and Decepticon Nemesis fled Cybertron to find new energy resources and crashed on Earth only to be awakened 4 million years later. Apparently, they felt "fighting for energy" just wasn't realistic enough! I also grew up with Indiana Jones--not quite to the point I did with Star Wars because I discovered Indy later when Last Crusade hit and our parents forced us to go to the movie and it turned out we loved it. I do agree with the sentiment that Indy 4 did a better job of bringing back that "real" feeling of Indiana Jones than the Star Wars prequels did. Indy 4 was more genuinely "in tune" shall we say, with it's original trilogy than Star Wars Episodes I~III were with their respective original trilogy. *Frenzy came dangerously close to this, and was obnoxious at times, but at least didn't have the presence of Jar Jar. While I hated Jar Jar every step of the way, there were times where Frenzy didn't annoy me. |
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Post by Heineken Skywalker on May 29, 2008 1:30:12 GMT -5
You and I rate movies a little different though. I've seen reviews where you called a film one of your favorites, and it didn't get a "10" rating. Sure. To me, a favorite doesn't automatically mean it's a 10. I just try to look at everything about that movie when I'm scoring it, not just it's entertainment value. Maybe I liked it a lot, but something about the story or script bothered me. Maybe a bad performance stood out. The effects weren't up to par. It dragged at times. Lots of things could make me say, "Almost, but not quite.". Oh, and Q, that ant scene may not have been totally realistic in KOTCS, but I enjoyed the hell out of it. Almost made up for the monkeys and Shia swingin'. |
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Post by Quorthon on May 29, 2008 8:00:34 GMT -5
Oh, and Q, that ant scene may not have been totally realistic in KOTCS, but I enjoyed the hell out of it. Almost made up for the monkeys and Shia swingin'. The Ant scene was vastly superior, and like I said, more closely rooted in reality. Something like a line relating the hyper-active behavior of the ants to the Crystal Skull would've been nice--obviously they were at least somewhat affected by it. And like I said, there are massive, dangerous ants in the jungle that actually do crawl across the forest floor killing everything in their path. The difference is that they dismember everything they kill and only haul the pieces back. They do, actually, build living bridges of ants to move through areas. Having one monkey would've been preferable to having, oh, the thirty thousand that were in there. Then the vine swinging scene wouldn't have been so hard to swallow. |
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