Christopher King
Baconbitserverage
Plex Pass
14sleduje
14sledujících
Přidal se: 2013
Ecuador
- Monster House
As told by Rob Schrab and Dan Harmon on the legendary Harmontown Podcast, they were going to be with producers for a pitch meeting,, at the last second Schrab just said the words, "monster...house" as a throw-away idea. And despite the 10 other developed pitches, the producers were only interested in Monster House. THEN, Harmon and Schrab had to reverse engineer the plot and figure out: how the heck does a house become a monster? Overall, I think they did pretty well despite the obvious problems with some of the plot holes. There are some particular things about the movie that are completely Dan Harmon, and Harmon's deep fans will know them when they see them. For example, just as everyone knows Quinton has a thing for feet, Harmon has a thing for redheads. One can also infer a lot of DNA that would end up in Harmon's Community. Dan Harmon spoke a lot about how each of the seven community characters represented a piece of his own personality split up into these essential, yet broken characters. You can see that same thing happening with these characters, but on a smaller scale. The two boys represent one who is self-conscious and intelligent and the other who is comfortable in their own skin yet reckless and awkward in the world. Both of them are oddities to the smart cute girl in their neighborhood from a different part of town who is strategically targeting the area for sales. Anyway.... The point is if you pay attention, you can see something personality traits in each of the three main characters, including the five supporting characters, that would be features of the characters in Community. Ultimately Rob and Dan only get story credit, so I wonder what their version of the script was like before it was rewritten and credit given to a third person. I don't know the story behind that, so I wonder how much the harmonian/schrabian signature humor was in the original version.Monster House - Bitter Lake
First of all, I must highly recommend watching "The Power of Nightmares" as an accompanying piece with this one. While this is another excellent presentation from Adam Curtis, with haunting images taken from the vast BBC archives and his signature voice over, I'm not sure why it was decided to make it a 2+hour 'movie' rather than a multi-part mini-series. My supposition from some of the choices was that he wasn't given enough time to edit a multi-part series together. For example, there are several sections without voice-over, rather information is delivered via text on the screen. This could be a dramatic choice, but it was most likely because it was easier/faster/cheaper to do it like like that. Other than that, I love the historical gaps about Afghanistan that this fills for me!Bitter Lake - Sorcerer
Wow! What a film! I had no idea of what it was about nor what to expect from it, and that is probably the best way to see it. If I had known what I was getting into, I probably would never have started it. These kinds of movies simply are not made anymore for a lot of reasons, but to be specific, there are very few movies that are such a meditation on doom in the face an indifferent universe. It is shot like a documentary in that there are shaky camera shots and the feeling like we're seeing a real place in which the cameras are simply rolling on real life in hell. It is a sweaty, dirty, filthy, grimey movie that encapsulates suffering and that should make you grateful for your life and remember that no situation is ever so bad that it can't get worse in an instant. I found myself audibly vocalizing my discomfort several times during certain scenes. The growing anxiousness throughout the second hour had my breathing elevated to a full on heaving to which one succumbs when desperately in pain. The resolution does not actually resolve the tension, just provides a momentary respite from the inevitable. The look on Roy Schneider's face at the end is so *real* -- I literally broke down crying. Yes. This movie broke me.Sorcerer - S.F.W.
This film has gotten better and more prescient with the rise of internet virality and cancel culture; it could be re-adapted for the 2020s very easily. The soundtrack is pretty good and pretty cutting edge at the time. I'd love to read the novel it was based on, but the only place I can find it is on Amazon for over $450! As for the production of the film, there are good and bad things. I think there are very interesting use of televisual imagery and the satire of mid 90's TV sensationalism. I LOVE the fact they have John Roark playing like six different guys on TV; the symbolism and deeper meaning of that remains even as the direct references to Larry King, Phil Donahue, Tom Brokaw, and others are lost to time. While I liked most of it, there was something not quite right about the representation of life of 20-somethings at that moment...while it hits on the media parody, it misses on the development of Cliff's real interior thoughts. Dorff is good in the role, but maybe his white teeth grin threw something off with the actual reality of the kind of guy Spab was supposed to be. We've all known guys like that, but Spab's disconnections from his own parents and homelife seemed contrived and came off more as a lampooning than developing his chracter. Overall, I've always liked this film despite its flaws and bleak themes. Dorff and Witherspoon's youth make them both beautiful to look at and the attitude and soundtrack really evokes memories of the time in ways that are hard to create with exposition or set design. I really hope the intellectual property gets rediscovered and re-optioned into a new adaptation. If given to the right filmmaker, and if deliberately aimed at lampooning modern audiences rather than playing to their bigotry, then I believe S.F.W. would still have a really good message today. Sometimes it is important to answer the bad news of the fucked up world with a loud, "Oh Well!" and go about your business of life.S.F.W. - Tracey Takes On...
Tracey Ullman is one the most talented people in the last 40 years of comedy and the USA was lucky to have had her living here for 25 of them. This show was very popular and I watched it often as it aired frequently as a part of HBO's comedy lineup in the 90s. The writers were some of the most talented women in Hollywood at the time and some, like Jenji Kohan and Gail Parent would go on to create some of the most popular show of the 2010s. It is a criminal shame that Tracey Takes On... isn't available to stream on any platform and has basically fallen out of pop culture memory. When I started looking for it online, not only was I disappointed because there its not offered by HBO/MAX, there aren't any even full torrents posted anywhere. The episodes I could find, I downloaded and eventually I bought all the DVDs from Amazon. Some of the later season eps have been cut down as some of the material from the original show didn't get included. From what I can tell, the show may have been an early victim of cancel culture; looking online, I found some 'tumblr' type posts from 20 years ago decrying her Asian character and especially her black lady airport security guard character. Actually.... I suppose that's why it has been memory holed now. So called "modern audiences" would turn themselves inside out with being offended by this show. The reason why this show isn't on any streaming service is because post-modern audiences are too stupid to appreciate it and when they do discover it, there will be crying and moaning so loudly, it's going to make the Russiagate Hoax look like Bigfoot's Dick.Tracey Takes On... - Bunheads
This show wouldn't have been at the top of the list, but it definitely has a place on the list of shows that were "Brilliant but Cancelled." Not necessarily a show that hits all four quadrants, Bunheads is still a delightful comedy that simply was lost in the shuffle of cable shows when it deserved a full season on network television. The show started off pretty ambitiously, there are numerous story lines that are obviously trying to plant seeds for future seasons, however they never fully materialize into something to which we could have looked forward. There was also a lot of potential with the multi-generational layering to the plots with the young girls, the adult protagonist, and the older mother-in-law, however I would have liked to have seen a bit more of the boys in the dance class. Perhaps one of the boys in the class could have been antagonistic to the girls yet his single father was a possible love interest for the teacher. Outside of the episodic plots, the show features some WONDERFUL dance numbers that are presented as both part of the narrative and as interpretations that enhance the narrative. One of the blurbs I read mentioned that it was meant to do for dancers what Glee did for annoying choir people, and thus my original point, it deserved a shot at prime time on ABC's real network, not their cable "Family" channel. It really deserved a chance at a wider audience.Bunheads
- Omnidirectional is a direction that goes in all ways, like the Omni Hotel chain. Do you want to go get some business center work done? Maybe you want to go to your room. Perhaps you want to go to a weird small gym with just one NordicTrack and a couple of free weights and an older man who is trying to keep his muscles in order so that he can [hook up with] a hooker. Who knows? It’s such a long life to live unless you die young, and all the good ones do—like George Burns, Joan Rivers, Paul Giamatti—all die before their time. But you think about the sons and the daughters and the Mamas and the Papas and other ’70s bands that live by a different moral code. I could tell you my code, and it’s to be omnidirectional. And some of us are omnidirectional, and some of us are Mitt Romney-directional, ’cause they crazy-ass Mormon people who don’t drink Coca-Cola.
Omnidirectional
