(no subject)

[trinityvixen]

It bothered my family all last week, and now it's finally gotten to me--The Phantom of the Opera music is now stuck in my head. We watched the movie version upstate, and, well, yours truly got lots of reaction to her opinions, so maybe this is the movie's vengeance, letting me hum random bits of ditties.

Well, fuck you, movie Phantom. Christine Daae was fugly, Raoul made a wonderful girl--you know, if you overlooked the muttonchops, Donna Reed wig, and absolutely awful acting, and the Phantom had about as much facial scarring as I do (granted, that isn't saying much, seeing as I lost that battle with a searing-hot cast iron skillet in a freak blacksmithing accident, but true, just the same). If I want to be sung at, I'll take the CDs, thank you. You and your Hollywood harlotry can go suck on the movie Phantom fandom (gah, say that five times fast, why don't you?). Seriously, they destroyed the story in trying to make it make sense. Honestly, if the Phantom has to actually cause the accidents onscreen, you're not trying hard enough.

*****

In other movie news, I rented Strange Days from Netflix. It's got a good premise, but the story falls apart in chunks and pieces, crumbling to bits along the way. Ways it could have been improved:
A) Let Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett be naked. No, there doesn't have to be a reason, they are just both really hot.
B) Never let Juliette Lewis sing. Ever. Period.
C) If you put Vincent D'Onofrio, William Fichtner, Tom Sizemore, and Michael Wincott together in the same movie, it is sleaze-character actor overload. Please remove at least two.

I liked the idea of re-living other people's memories--yet another question of what makes reality, done really well here as people aren't merely living other realities, but other real realities, complete with adrenaline rushes associated therewith. There are some disturbing possibilities that most other films don't go into--making a recorded memory of a rape and murder, for instance--which really puts the dangers of such technology to a better forefront than the 'us vs them' contrivances of sci-fi cinema.

But come on, Ralph Fiennes as a sleaze-bag? He does dirty, he does psycho, he does sociopath, but as a con-man drug hustler? Please. Oh, and the soundtrack sucked.

Comments

[cbreakr.livejournal.com]

Strange Days was a part of my youth and now you're tearing it down. The climax was drawn out way too far and it's not too hard to see that Mr. Sizemore is up to something... but that's all I'm going to give you. Lenny isn't a sleaze-bag, he's just a hopeless, obsessive, ineffective man who happens to sell "drugs" and Ralph pulls that off fine. I'm also prety sure that what we hear is the original P.J. Harvey recording and not Juliette Lewis singing. If you have issue with P.J. Harvey, however...

You hath tread on my movie nostalgia but movie Phantom is justice enough.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

DOn't really know PJ Harvey so much, so that could be it. But a lot of the music in it was just blah-rah rock. Not horribly impressed. I didn't hate the movie or anything, just wasn't all that blown away by it either.

[cbreakr.livejournal.com]

It's much more impressive to a 14-year-old

[umeyard.livejournal.com]

Agreed....I think maybe the reason i love this movie so much is that it totally blew my mind when i saw it...this may be the reason i like alot of odd movies...

and PJ Harvey kicks some tushy when she works with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

The guy playing the phantom was beautiful. Now, I have always hated Phantom of the Opera and Weber in general, so I was not thrilled by the film (especially the singing - take crappily written eighties music and add people who can't sing: yuck. Of course, I hate the cast recordings too because Sarah Brightman sounds like she's singing around a bubble - can you tell I hate this play?).

But it was worth it just for that guy. That's the only time I've seen a portrayal of the phantom where I could believe he was this embodiment of dark eroticism taht he is supposed to be. I mean, hell, I'd go with him. But everything else about that movie defied any attempt at logic.

[viridian.livejournal.com]

HEE.

"I'd go with him" sounds so delightfully high-school, and so much classier than "I'd fuck him", which is what I'd have said. Even though I'm fairly sure you meant it in the sense of going AWAY with, rather than "going with" as in the highschool slang for "dating".

I just cannot stop giggling. :D

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Oh the guy playing the Phantom is actually quite attractive (I've seen him in such "hit" movies as Lara Croft: Tomb Raider--The Cradle of Life and Reign of Fire), which was the whole problem. If they wanted to make the Phantom as truly hideous as possible, they might have started by not making it a surprise reveal that his impossibly beautiful face was also a mask. It's not only completely implausible for the time period, it was just stupid.

I like the music, generally, but the story is only so-so to beging with, and adding the WANGSTY background story for the Phantom just birthed a thousand annoying fangirls into existence and betrayed the Phantom as a slightly psychotic virtuoso by making him a TWAGIC figure. Gah, he was already tragic, Joel Schumacher!!! HATE.

[viridian.livejournal.com]

... surprise reveal? Did you get some kind of alternate ending version? In the one I saw, he just has a mask, and half of his face is impossibly beautiful, the other is vaguely messed up. No surprise anything.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Yes, this is exactly what my cousin and I were commenting on, in fact. So, throughout the movie, he progressively covers less of his face until, through the combination of masks he wears, we've pretty much seen all of his face around his right eye (where the scarring is) except for like the actual socket. We see the forehead above the mask being okay in one scene, and most of his cheek below is fine.

However, at the end end end of the movie, he rips off his mask and the dark hair goes with to reveal that the hair and forehead and a lot of the cheek that looked okay were really part and parcel of his mask. So, forget the time when Christine first rips off his mask and the dark hair stays on, because he was wearing OMG! two masks to make that effect. When the 'other' mask comes off, his hair is white, he has no upper eyelid (I know, what?), and he's scarred all the way to his ear.

So, yeah, the entire right part of his head is actually scarred, even though it would be nearly impossible to hide that with makeup today let alone in France in the 1800s...

[umeyard.livejournal.com]

Okay *rolls up sleeves*...liking the matrix is one thing, but slandering Strange Days is just something else entirely....Okay first of all, start REALLY thinking of the endless possibilities....put one of those squids on the president, lets see what he is really thinking and feeling when he makes decisions and see where his heart really lies...Then again i imagine we would get very little...after all it requires thought and feelings to work...i guess it would not work on GW. but i degress....

Okay first of all...Anegla. You finally get to see her put that damn well toned body to use in this movie. She kicks some serious ass in this movie. I love it. Screw you Stella, she got her groove back in this movie and lost it in an endless plethra of bad chick flicks.

Second of all, the music was not that bad if you take in consideration when it was done...I thought if fit the tone of the movie. Also keep in mind this movie was right after the LA riots, and at that time, it was not that implausible that LA would turn out like that...

His addiction with Faith (JL) got old quick. she is a cracked out whore. Get over it. (not a big fan of JL...)

And the concept, if nothing else was ORIGINAL. And provokes thought of what if. The little quirks, how it images diffrent for colorblind people, and I am a sucker for conspiracy theorys. But lets get back to Angela kicking some ass...

anyways
i am done with my rant.
and you have to admit, its alot more plausable then the Matrix :)

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Sheesh, I was not slandering Strange Days. I merely said it didn't impress me a whole bunch. The camera looking through the actor's eyes was interesting, technically, but a lot of the memories weren't all that interesting. Actually, the only part that really moved me was the rape squid because it raised all the hackles, especially when the killer jacked the victim into what he was feeling. It was the only video that squicked me as much as that should have.

The concept wasn't bad either, what I had trouble with was the confused plot lines. The rapper murder being entirely coincedental to Iris' murder? Wha-ha? The main question was who would rape and murder Iris, and yet it ended on the corrupt cops? Drawn out too long, too, which is a shame, because it was an idea whose time had come (evidenced by the three movies that came out four years later--eXistenZ, The Thirteenth Floor, and, of course, The Matrix--that all toyed with the same idea of memory/sensory authority versus contrived experience and false constructs).

And, if you notice, I did like Angela Basset. Hell, I watched Supernova for her and James Spader. Go and watch Supernova and tell me that's not love for my gal.

[umeyard.livejournal.com]

*giggles*
Hugs....okay
I guess.
and thank you
i dont know anybody else who saw the 13th Floor....i loved that movie, loved loved loved the costumes and sets....
I <3 you...again....still...whatever....your stil "the almighty mayo".

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I loved The Thirteenth Floor. Craig Bierko is really good in it, Vincent D'Onofrio managed to be a little less creepy than usual, and I liked the idea of artificial characters becoming self aware and rejecting the people who inhabit them.

I am still the mayo, yo. (Psst, happy early birthday!)

[umeyard.livejournal.com]

*grins* yeah!! Although i will have to say i know a heck of alot more actors then I do....do you just read IMDB like most people read the Times or something? Most of the time I am usually just like "you know that creepy guy that was in both blah blah and blah blah"...Thus you will always be the mayo.


I am turning 26 this year :)
I told my best friend that, and he agreed so it MUST be true
*grins*
this makes me happy
I think i am just going to celebrate my 26th ever year from now on :)

and thank you *HUGS*!!!!!

[arcane-the-sage.livejournal.com]

...when the killer jacked the victim into what he was feeling.

Ok it's been a while since I've seen it, but I thought it was the other way around. I've seen the topic of vampiric empathy come up occasional in sci-fi, but so rarely had I seen it as well done as in Strange Days (well if I'm remembering it correctly that is). I do recall Max have the sociopathic traits necessary to pull of vampiric empathy (but then again in a cyberpunk like setting such as Strange Days, who doesn't), though his approach to it was more of a addiction model than a comprehension model.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I think the killer was jacked into the victim such that there was mutual feedback. He fed her what he felt while raping her, which terrified her more, which got him off more. I think that was it. It was a bit fuzzily defined.