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Topic:
101 Movies to Avoid Watching Before You Die: "Mars Attacks"
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Zaz
Title: Manager, The Ampitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
6/5 7:13pm
Subject:
101 Movies to Avoid Watching Before You Die: "Mars Attacks"
- Date Edited:
10/18 9:17pm (33 edits total)
Edited By:
Zaz
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WARNING: THIS THREAD CONTAINS SPOILERS. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK.
"101 Movies to avoid watching before you die."
Posted by Harry Brighouse
"This should be Kieran’s thread really, since he came up with the concept. But, having made that acknowledgment, I’ll jump in. His first nomination is the truly awful Chasing Amy: I watched 15 minutes before deciding that there was a perfectly good toilet to clean in the other room. henry (not the famous one) proposes You’ve Got Mail, which sounds plausible. But my nomination is more serious: The House of Sand and Fog. I rarely dislike a movie enough to warn people against it, but this is one of the worst, and most unpleasant, movies I’ve watched. (I see that someone has vandalised the wikipedia entry on this one, saying, hilariously, that it and some of its actors were nominated for awards!)
The premise is implausible. A woman has her house taken from her, by mistake, for failure to pay a business tax that she did not genuinely owe. She had 8 months to correct the mistake and did nothing. Now, the only possible explanation in the circumstances is that she was severely depressed. Whatever plausibility that explanation has is undermined by the fact that, on screen, the actress has no sign at all of being, or ever having been, depressed. She seems bratty, to be sure, but not ill. Now, an exiled Iranian general purchases the house at a steal at an auction from the County. He is, unfortunately, played by Ben Kingsley, who seems to be the only actor in the movie who can act, thus unwittingly preventing it from being hilarious (up to the point at which it turns gratuitously nasty). He is also, understandably given his own circumstances, unwilling to give up the house and the bounty that it represents, so a battle of wills ensues, in which Jennifer Connelly is assisted by the most wooden actor I’ve ever seen in a big movie (he makes Arnold, on a bad day, look like Olivier by comparison�Dolph Lundgren territory), a rogue cop who leaves his happy family for a depressed alcoholic (Connelly) – that part of the story seeming plausible only because Connelly is manifestly not a depressed alcoholic, but looks healthy, happy, and well-made up every time she appears onscreen.
Why did I watch to the end? Well, the box promised a surprising ending, and the only morally acceptable ending seemed to me to be one in which the general kept the house and Jennifer Connelly and her beau descended into the pits of daytime TV. Below the fold is a short spoiler that will save you from wasting your time:
Connelly tries to commit suicide with a gun just outside the house (she can’t even manage that), and Kingsley saves her, and tries to nurse her to health with his wife. She tries again, this time with pills in the bath, and while they are dragging her around, the cop comes back with a gun, and locks them in the bathroom. Next day he takes Kingsley and his son to the courthouse so they can get $45,000 for the house and give it to Connelly and cop to start their new life together. Kingsley breaks free of the cop, his son picks up the gun, and another cop kills him (the son). Kingsley goes home, poisons his wife and suffocates himself. Cop goes to jail, Connelly survives, seemingly unscathed. The end. Badly acted, poorly written, gratuitously unpleasant. Don’t bother."
This sounds like a story that can work quite well in a book, and loses all its subtlety when acted out.
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Zaz
Title: Manager, The Ampitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
6/6 8:55pm
Subject:
RE: 101 Movies to Avoid Watching Before You Die: "The House of Sand and Fog"
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Poster on the "Crooked Timber" blog:
"One of the worst movies I’ve ever seen: The Lake House.
It makes no sense and has both Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves.
Ugh." --Kathryn
Well, those are three powerful points against...
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packerfansam
Registered:
Feb '07
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Date Posted:
6/7 9:01am
Subject:
RE: 101 Movies to Avoid Watching Before You Die: "The Lake House"
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I actually liked The Lake House, and so did a lot of other people I know. No, it's not the greatest of all time, but I thought it was good.
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Zaz
Title: Manager, The Ampitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
6/7 9:04am
Subject:
RE: 101 Movies to Avoid Watching Before You Die: "The Lake House"
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But Keanu is not the most expressive actor. Bullock's good in comedy, though.
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Zaz
Title: Manager, The Ampitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
6/7 2:24pm
Subject:
RE: 101 Movies to Avoid Watching Before You Die: "The Lake House"
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Another "Crooked Timbers" poster:
"I know it’s an oldie, and it’s a long time since I’ve seen it, but ‘Going Places (French: Les Valseuses)’ by Bertrand Blier sticks in my mind as a truly reprehensible, vicious, heartless awful movie.
In terms of Hollywood, ‘Contact’ was pretty bad. As the guy says in South Park: ‘I wait two hours for the alien and it’s her goddammned father!’.
Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes also deserves some kind of award for simple relentless incomprehensibility, including a twist ending that negates the rest of the movie and can only be explained if the cocaine which drives LA is now regularly cut with angel dust.
‘Signs’ is terrible too. Mind you it has Mel Gibson in it, so you probably didn’t need me to tell you that."
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jangoisadrunk
Registered:
Mar '05
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Date Posted:
6/7 2:40pm
Subject:
RE: 101 Movies to Avoid Watching Before You Die: "Planet of the Apes", "Contact" & "Signs"
- Date Edited:
6/7 2:42pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
jangoisadrunk
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Signs was good until the crap "twist" ending where *gasp* asthma is a good thing.
Planet of the Apes is a perfect example of a movie that never needed to be made. It's as if the makers thought is was simply the apes with guns that made the old one a classic.
I liked Contact, however. Yes, I was disappointed that the alien was her father (and one of my all time least favorite actors, to boot), but the rest of the movie was enjoyable.
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DarthBoba
Registered:
Jun '00
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Date Posted:
6/7 2:45pm
Subject:
RE: 101 Movies to Avoid Watching Before You Die: "Planet of the Apes", "Contact" & "Signs"
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I thought Contact was great. 
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StarDude
Registered:
Nov '01
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Date Posted:
6/7 3:19pm
Subject:
RE: 101 Movies to Avoid Watching Before You Die: "Planet of the Apes", "Contact" & "Signs"
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I resent that he acts as though Mel Gibson's presence in a movie means you should avoid it. He gives a damn good performance in Signs.
And Signs is a great movie, and a fun theater experience. It's the flick that made me a die hard M. Night fan.
And it wasn't saying asthma was a good thing. It was how all of these things had meaning--the girl's tick with water, the boy's asthma, "swing away, Merill", etc. They all lead to Graham resolving his crisis of faith. And yet it's an alien invasion flick. To me, it still feels fresh.
And it has some great moments of suspense and apprehension. I love the scenes where Graham goes out into the cornfields at night, and how quiet yet tense it is. And then we see a glimpse of an alien. FREAKED me out when I first saw it. Or the scene where Merill is bringing wood to the house and he stops and listens to the wind and stares out into the cornfield. That's when I realized Shyamalan was a master of suspense--he can get tension out of anything.
There I go gushing on Shyamalan again.
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Jango10
Registered:
Sep '02
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Date Posted:
6/7 3:43pm
Subject:
RE: 101 Movies to Avoid Watching Before You Die: "Planet of the Apes", "Contact" & "Signs"
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Signs is a great film.
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McCain/Palin '08
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The2ndQuest
Title: :
-LACWAC
-Lit Mod of Death
-Games
Registered:
Jan '00
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Date Posted:
6/7 5:48pm
Subject:
RE: 101 Movies to Avoid Watching Before You Die: "Planet of the Apes", "Contact" & "Signs"
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I rather enjoyed Contact as well- the alien thing was a disappointment (and greatly spoofed on Venture Bros) but doesn't kill the movie.
Signs is the second best movie MNS has made (afetr Unbreakable). One of the few movies to ever scare me, so it's due eternal credit and respect for accomplishing that.
The ending to POTA actually freaked me out as a kid too (along with the memory erasure scene in Flash gordon  ). I'm not a huge fan of it overall though. Better than the remake, of course.
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KnightWriter
Title:
Administrator Emeritus
Registered:
Nov '01
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Date Posted:
6/7 6:59pm
Subject:
RE: 101 Movies to Avoid Watching Before You Die: "Planet of the Apes", "Contact" & "Signs"
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In terms of Hollywood, ‘Contact’ was pretty bad. As the guy says in South Park: ‘I wait two hours for the alien and it’s her goddammned father!’.
I think that pretty much misses the point. The point it made better in the book, however, which is a classic in every sense of the word. The adaptation leaves out a great deal from the book, mostly out of necessity. It was a very good film made from an outstanding novel.
What I've wanted to know for some time now is whether Sagan was in any way inspired by the WOW signal in writing the book.
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Zaz
Title: Manager, The Ampitheatre
Registered:
Oct '98
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Date Posted:
6/7 7:14pm
Subject:
RE: 101 Movies to Avoid Watching Before You Die: "Planet of the Apes", "Contact" & "Signs"
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I rather suspect they missed the point of "Going Places" as well...
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dp4m
Registered:
Nov '01
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Date Posted:
6/7 9:32pm
Subject:
RE: 101 Movies to Avoid Watching Before You Die: "Planet of the Apes", "Contact" & "Signs"
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I never understood the Signs hate. I mean, I understood some of the individual complaints, but those weren't things that bothered me. But some people HATED the film and I don't get it. I really liked it.
And Contact was excellent.
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EvilFishy
Registered:
Apr '08
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Date Posted:
6/9 4:41pm
Subject:
RE: 101 Movies to Avoid Watching Before You Die: "Planet of the Apes", "Contact" & "Signs"
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Signs was ok until you saw what the aliens looked like. After that, the movie was terrible.
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VadersLaMent
Registered:
Apr '02
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Date Posted:
6/9 5:15pm
Subject:
RE: 101 Movies to Avoid Watching Before You Die: "Planet of the Apes", "Contact" & "Signs"
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KnightWriter posted:
In terms of Hollywood, ‘Contact’ was pretty bad. As the guy says in South Park: ‘I wait two hours for the alien and it’s her goddammned father!’.
I think that pretty much misses the point. The point it made better in the book, however, which is a classic in every sense of the word. The adaptation leaves out a great deal from the book, mostly out of necessity. It was a very good film made from an outstanding novel.
What I've wanted to know for some time now is whether Sagan was in any way inspired by the WOW signal in writing the book.
Indirectly. The astronomer who discovered the WOW! signal, Jill Tarter, is his inspiration for Ellie.
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Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God--Michael Shermer
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KnightWriter
Title:
Administrator Emeritus
Registered:
Nov '01
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Date Posted:
6/9 5:41pm
Subject:
RE: 101 Movies to Avoid Watching Before You Die: "Planet of the Apes", "Contact" & "Signs"
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VadersLaMent posted:
KnightWriter posted:
In terms of Hollywood, ‘Contact’ was pretty bad. As the guy says in South Park: ‘I wait two hours for the alien and it’s her goddammned father!’.
I think that pretty much misses the point. The point it made better in the book, however, which is a classic in every sense of the word. The adaptation leaves out a great deal from the book, mostly out of necessity. It was a very good film made from an outstanding novel.
What I've wanted to know for some time now is whether Sagan was in any way inspired by the WOW signal in writing the book.
Indirectly. The astronomer who discovered the WOW! signal, Jill Tarter, is his inspiration for Ellie.
Eh? I'd like that to be true, but based on what I know, it isn't. Rather, Jerry Ehman discovered it.
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