No.
YES.
The only word for this level of commitment to The Bit is: GLORIOUS. — These people did more historical research than the History-Channel. — And this is not even a distant COUSIN, to the Buffy-Fluff you think it is.
SYMPHONY.
This is what happens when you remove the chains from a team of truly skilled screenwriters.
This is both a masterfully layered execution of every plot mechanism that had the endurance to step forth from Greek Mythology, and the final proof that in the hands of a great composer, they can play in harmony.
This is what a perfect screenplay looks like without the rules. — And this is what your screenwriting teachers mean when they say, “You must first learn the rules, in order to understand how to break them.”
…And if you look really close… you’ll see some of Hollywood’s best work, take a moment of pause, on the location where Heath Ledger hung his head out the window of that great big semi truck for the very last time… right before a little scene that’s known through out screenwriting as, “The Tragic Hero”. — And that he was. — So since no words can really express what seeing that moment meant to some of us out here in the audience, I’ll just say ‘well met and, thank you Nolan brothers’… and that, some of us understand.
You just took an award nobody knew existed. — Bravo.
Obviously I could eulogize the fact that “some men just want to watch the world burn” here… but you know what??? The worst thing that can happen to a terrorist is to go unnoticed.
#PAY_NO_ATTENTION_TO_THE_MAN_BEHIND_THE_CURTAIN
*CTRL ALT DEL! CTRL ALT DEL*
THIS… is Quvenzhané Wallis. — (pronounced: Kwa-ven-Jenn-ay).
- She was 7 years old when she shot *BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD* And she will BLOW… YOU… AWAY. I kid you not. — This is the kind of talent & execution that makes us cry & remember what art is for… AND I HAVE NEVER FOUND MYSELF ROOTING SO HARD FOR A LITTLE ACTOR TO MAKE IT IN MY LIFE. – So if you only see one movie this year… make it hers.
PERFECTION. 🙂
Yes. — but with the one modest reservation that: WHEN WE SAID WE LOVED VOLDEMORT, HANIBAL LECTER, HOOK, & THE JOKER… AND THEN PRETTY MUCH GAVE YOU A WRITTEN SET OF COMMANDMENTS THAT DECLARED IN A UNIVERSAL AND UNDYING VOICE THAT, “WE WANTED A VILLAIN MORE COMPELLING THAN VADER…” WELL… BASICALLY, *SOME RANDOM BEAR* IS ABOUT A FUCKIN ‘TARD’S MILE FROM THE TARGET. #FROWNY_FACE !!!
But you are Pixar Fantasy so here’s your free pass. — Oh, and um… Pixar??? — It puts the villain in the film, or else it gets the hose again.
GOODER.
DUDE!!! STOP! I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD I WILL CALL THE POLICE.
This is outside of somebody’s box somewhere,
but nobody knows which box or who the fuck would leave such a box lying around in the first place,
so they can’t put it back.
So my recommendation is not so much, “watch it” as “keep an eye on it”. :/
– The following movies have stopped being “alone time” movies where Grandma drops you off at the building with stripes on it, and have started being plastic DVD movies for at home, which is ok because there are juice boxes at home. –
(Even if you have a big computer like Doug Johnson, you should NOT steal at home DVD movies, like Doug Johnson. <– who steals DVD movies. If you do then you probably don’t even understand what at home movie time is all about, and don’t deserve juice boxes anyway.)
… … … *shove*
YAY!
Meh.
HOLY COLOSTOMY-CIRCUS YES!!!
EXACTLY 3 TIMES AS GOOD AS THE ORIGINAL POOP IT WAS SCULPTED FROM. — Your call.
Yes, BUT… with a caveat that says: You must be the guy who liked both PI, and PRIMER. (And NO. NO GIRLS LIKED PI & PRIMER. NERDS ARE SINGLE FOR A REASON.)
The baseline against which all future measurements of averageness will be unnoticeably measured.
Yeah… here’s the thing. — Being the TRUE story, is not the same as being a GOOD story. — Watch the far less accurate: Flyboys instead. You’ll thank me.
NEXT THING OF GREATNESS HEADING YOUR WAY:
*
“Go forth and witness unbounded works… to see your own lives in them.
And let them bring you together… in their victories and woes.
For we’ve just one fleeting purpose… in the maelstrom together.
And it is this. This; Our calling, Our reason, Our bliss. Only this:
To feel the throes.”
- Synthian Sharp is the singer for the human rights rock band: Exit Ophelia, a children’s author, and member of Occupy Orange County. His latest film is: How I Became An Elephant, and his one-word film reviews appear on the Orange Juice Blog on a regular basis. If you DO take issue with any of them, challenge him in the comments section and he will respond with more than one word. Tweet @synthian.
Almost took my wife to see “Beasts of the Southern Wild” for her birthday, but when I showed her the preview she was having trouble with the accents, so we’ll wait for a version with subtitles. Went to see “The Dark Knight Rises” instead. I forgot to look for the tribute scene you mentioned — or rather I tried to look for it but missed it.
Bane is such an interesting villain; he’s probably the least gimmicky of all of the villains. (I didn’t know what to make of the “John Huston meets Sean Connery” voice, though.) One thing that struck me from the movie is how very well they recreated the famous “Broken Bat” frame from the comic book. I think that I’m not spoiling anything with the above.
Right. The voice was a little strange, but I took a second to see if I could think of another way to do it that wouldn’t be drenched in Vader echoes and I really couldn’t aside from making him either 1) a cajun or southern card shark tonality like Val Kilmer in Tombstone, or 2) A dutch Pirate like Jason Statham in, well, anything. <– Those are the two I would've aurally accepted. Niether of which suited his prison origins. Barring of course, that it would only take one line of dialogue to express that Dutch and Australian criminals can be found in almost every maximum security prison in the world.
What he naturally would have been in a Yakuza / Cloud-of-Sparrows "I am a tool of my Empress" type… and he honestly was… but I don't think the Japanese voice that goes with that is accepted as a legitimate character in America… possibly because we've just spent 40 years making sure anything that involves martial arts is comedy. — So since he had to be ethnically androgynous, this role AUTOMATICALLY belonged to Vin Diesel… only problem being that: Vin Diesel already starred and successfully branded his body & face onto the American public's mind so well that he would never be able to be seen as anything BUT, Vin Diesel. <– And I would've given the part to him anyway, crossed my fingers, and hoped he could hide himself… to my own detriment I'm sure. But I have unapologetic faith in Vin. And the next person to push him to really re-define is going to be pleasantly surprised. <– You see how political everything really is? 🙂 Insane right?
So in the end all you can do is hope that your instincts are right… die as little as you can along the way… and set your targets on building a tower so high, that even if you miss a couple stories along the way, you're still a couple miles above the rest. 🙂
Hey Synthian! Brilliant stuff here. Lotsa people are reading it, despite the dearth of comments so far.
I thought that Thomas Hardy was excellent in the role of Bain. It was hard to believe that it was the same romantic guy from Tinker, Tailer, Soldier, Spy.
I hadn’t realized until now just how much of the main cast was recycled from Nolan’s Inception. Pretty cool!
Synthian, your review of “Beasts of the Southern Wild” has me inspired to try and see it this weekend.
“The Intouchables” is much better than the trailers would lead you to believe. Didn’t really want to see it because of personal baggage, but it was excellent…and very funny.
I was going to use the word “brilliant” before another person commented that this post is “brilliant,” so I apologize for being trite. But this post is … truly … exceptional. I will heed your recommendations and check out the films you recommend because your descriptions and critiques are … in a word … brilliant. Great, great post!