May. 26th, 2004

remindmeofthe: (Default)
Whee, Betsey is home! We went to see Troy yesterday, which, like Van Helsing, was a movie I was surprised to find myself at 'cos I never would have gone on my own. When making plans, Betsey announced rather cheerfully that she had heard it was "steadfastly mediocre." After the movie, we decided that she had heard correctly. Here's why:

* Inexplicable, stupid changes. What, the original story wasn't good enough?

* As someone else pointed out, though I can't remember who, theyout all the mythological aspects and made it look historical instead. This is pretty funny when it comes to Achilles, because it has the result of making him look like the best fighter ever instead of, you know, invincible, plus they carefully muddied his death so it looked like it wasn't the arrow through his heel that killed him so much as the seventeen arrows that Paris shot through him seconds later, and if that was a spoiler for you then that's too damn bad because you should be a little more familiar with your classical mythology, savvy?

* Worst score EVER. Everever. Look, I know that the warbling lady was supposed to sound all ancient and historical and traditional and crap, I do understand that much, and perhaps it was even based on real ancient Greek music, but a) she reminded me of every untra-serious episode of Xena I've ever seen, and b) she didn't sound historical and ancient and traditional so much as she just sounded like she was trying to find the right note. And she never did. And the parts where she shut up weren't any better because they were either annoying or poorly matched to the scene.

* Not enough slash, goddammit. I won't get into that Sailor Moon-esque "cousins" nonsense (besides, this is Greek mythology we're talking about; for all I can remember, Achilles and Patroclus were cousins). I mean in general. Come on! Oiled men in skirts! It should positively dripping with homoeroticism, dammit! The best I got was a lingering need to slash Paris and Hector.

* The best thing I got out of the whole movie was my new favourite insult: "You sack of wine!"

At least Betsey is a blast to watch steadfastly mediocre movies with. We can happily riff together for hours.

Then we went to a nearby movie store that I'd never gone into before called Falmouth Films. And they? Had the two movies I'd given up on ever finding: The original Willard and Rubin & Ed. SCORE. And I called this morning, and they even have Ben, the sequel to Willard. DOUBLE SCORE. Even Videoport doesn't have those movies. (I called them first to find Ben and left the guy who answered in shock, like the discovery that they didn't have it shifted his entire universe slightly to the left. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I hadn't been able to find the original Willard there, either.)

I have to say that the original Willard wasn't that great, even when I put aside my Crispin!Willard love and the fact that the movie was made back in the era where crazily overblown soundtracks were still in vogue. It was closer to the story in Rat-Man's Notebooks, the novel that both movies are based on, but it turns out that the stuff that happens in the book is way more interesting to read about than to watch. Or maybe it would have worked better if Bruce Davison had gone with "sociopath," which the Rat-Man (who is not named in the book) clearly is, instead of "whiny eight-year-old," which just makes the whole thing silly. His Willard comes off as more of a young boy playing pranks than the disturbed, overwhelmed young man that he's supposed to be and that Crispin captured so much more clearly. (Of course, it doesn't help that Davison had a cute little baby face thirty years ago, either. You don't want to run from his Willard so much as you want to coo and pinch his sweet widdle cheeks.)

Obviously I'm still going to see the sequel. It's where the song came from! Plus, since I got this far with the Willard love I may as well take it all the way.

Profile

remindmeofthe: (Default)
Cathryn (formerly catslash)

May 2015

S M T W T F S
     12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
2425262728 2930
31      

Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 23rd, 2025 11:05 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios