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That was cool. So this was this big elaborate thing in the musical, like the chandelier in Phantom of the Opera? And apparently they didn't always do it?
Well, the musical's dangers usually involve the monkeys, who are doing acrobatics moves throughout the show... but considering it's a less permanent stage-set that has to be dissembled quickly, it's all basic stuff that looks cool, not nearly as dangerous for trained performers.
The tunnel in the film (in the Library) actually has revolving ladders and other obstacles in the tunnel that people are ducking in and out of, sliding around the outer wall on, etc. someone could actually get badly hurt if they slipped while doing a move, or something was slightly mistimed, or the contraption broke down. They nailed it when it was shot, but the director was kind of anxious about the whole thing and the studio was kinda edgy about it all.
Oh, I should clarify. I've read the original Wizard of Oz, by Frank L. Baum, not the novel Wicked, by Gregory Maguire . There are so many different versions of the story in play here. I don't know about water in the Wicked novel, but at the beginning of the film, we see a puddle of her water with Elphaba's hat on top. I'm assuming she becomes vulnerable to water at some particular point.
Welp, all I'll say is that the musical deconstructs (like the novel did) the events from Baum's novel and the familiar 1939 film. So .... you'll have to wait and see.
I also like what they did with the Wizard. In the original movie, this character is deceiving and frightening people the whole time, but insists he is "a good man" when unmasked, even though he was willing to send a teenage girl to what could have been her death. There are rather sinister implications to this character that Wicked explores more fully. I thought that was rather brilliant.
Yeah, I really like the take on the Wizard. It makes total sense. Even if you saw the inferior "Oz the Great and Powerful" film from what 10-15 years back, I really like how in that film the Wizard had no magic but used subterfuge to win. Welp, that's what is going on here -- and I thought it was brilliant about how Elphaba is brought to him under the guise of him maybe helping her (and granting her a wish) in a magical way, where really it was all about her helping him.
Because he has no magic and is entirely reliant on Madame Morrible, and she's very specialized in her magic, she seems really great with weather -- which will help when a tornado needs to bring Dorothy to Oz -- but not as much else. Elphaba is like another whole rank of power. I love how she casts the spell, and THEN she realizes -- "you have no power. That is why you needed me." And runs off with his book. She holds the magic cards, but unfortunately he holds the society and controls what they think because he's cultivating a kindly old magician image for himself. And Morrible takes on Galinda as a student but only as "second best" , a consolation prize, because Elphaba has rebelled.
And he really is about maintaining that image and his control, in part by slandering/villainizing the talking animals. So much of this kind of thing is what is happening today, powers that be using misdirection and villainizing innocent minorities in our culture to hide what they are doing being the scenes to maintain power as the common folk / munchkins react just as expected.
And he really is about maintaining that image and his control, in part by slandering/villainizing the talking animals. So much of this kind of thing is what is happening today, powers that be using misdirection and villainizing innocent minorities in our culture to hide what they are doing being the scenes to maintain power as the common folk / munchkins react just as expected.
I was thinking about the business with Nessarose, and:
Upon learning that Morrible specialized in weather, I wondered if she might be responsible for a certain tornado. I was thinking while trying to sleep, and I remembered the line from Glinda to Elphaba in the original film "Be off, before somebody drops a house on yo, too!" That's pretty clever. I never thought about that line very much before. I guess we'll see what Elphaba means by "I'm the only one who knows how to use them" which is probably true. Perhaps there is some magic involved with them in making Nessarose walk again?
The character of Nessarose was interestingly defined, too. Elphaba looks out for her, in part because of her guilt, but Nessarose is ashamed of her and isn't exactly appreciative.
It's a good week for animation. First, finishing Arcane up -- and now my Watchmen Part 2 4K disc arrived a week early!
I started it last night. There are some things that I think could have been done a bit better, but overall it's still pretty true to the book. The prison sequence, the flashbacks for Kovacs/Rorshach, Dan and Sally growing closer, Sally and Dr. Manhattan heading to Mars....
... and best of all, it looks like we're going to get the actual comic book "shock" moment versus what Snyder replaced it with in his film. It doesn't work easily in live-action films but for animation, it's no different than anything else. So this is a true adaptation here with all the main stuff. This will be great, lol!
I was thinking about the business with Nessarose, and:
Upon learning that Morrible specialized in weather, I wondered if she might be responsible for a certain tornado. I was thinking while trying to sleep, and I remembered the line from Glinda to Elphaba in the original film "Be off, before somebody drops a house on yo, too!" That's pretty clever. I never thought about that line very much before. I guess we'll see what Elphaba means by "I'm the only one who knows how to use them" which is probably true. Perhaps there is some magic involved with them in making Nessarose walk again?
The character of Nessarose was interestingly defined, too. Elphaba looks out for her, in part because of her guilt, but Nessarose is ashamed of her and isn't exactly appreciative.
You are thinking along the correct lines honestly, and drawing mostly the correct dots here. The Wicked story is rather elegant in playing off / incorporating those things in a sensible way. Even think back to the original conception of Elphaba, with the visiting stranger who seduced her mom with the green elixir. I assume you have figured out by now who that was.
But there's a number of lines scattered throughout the show that operate similarly Either Galinda or Elphaba mutters something about Fiyero in the first film that sound like throwaway comments but explicitly tease his arc.
I like how Nessarose is developed rationally and how she ends up in charge of Munchkinland since she takes over for her father who expires at the end of the first film over the shock of Elphaba's "coming out" lol. And her psychology as we've witnessed colors how she enacts that rule -- which sets her up as a parallel for the 1939 character she represents.
It's a good week for animation. First, finishing Arcane up -- and now my Watchmen Part 2 4K disc arrived a week early!
I started it last night. There are some things that I think could have been done a bit better, but overall it's still pretty true to the book. The prison sequence, the flashbacks for Kovacs/Rorshach, Dan and Sally growing closer, Sally and Dr. Manhattan heading to Mars....
... and best of all, it looks like we're going to get the actual comic book "shock" moment versus what Snyder replaced it with in his film. It doesn't work easily in live-action films but for animation, it's no different than anything else. So this is a true adaptation here with all the main stuff. This will be great, lol!
I'm not sure how I feel about it. I think I appreciate how closely it follows the book in many ways, but there were odd deviations (line changes, scene cuts, etc) which of course is allowable in an adaptation, but what we got in its place wasn't any better and in some cases felt less emotional/impactful than if they had just stuck with the original.
Also, I felt like it was a bit rushed. The first part breathed a little better. It's hard not to compare it to Arcane, but basically the latter let the scenes generally breathe and have their impact much of the time. Here things cut out a little too early. I was feeling more like it was a direction thing, where they were more focused on getting down scenes from the book without actually "feeling" them. The voice direction also felt a bit underwhelming at times too.
Just dumb stuff but for example;
In the book, when Adrian goes to Karnak in Antarctica, his facility surrounded by snow, there's this great scene where Adrian gives wine to his closest help there, his right-hand people, in his greenhouse while giving them a celebratory speech about what they have achieved today. After he's a ways into it, you realize when a butterfly alights on one man's face that they are dead and he must have just poisoned them -- right as Adrian says, "Today that conquest becomes assured in which your unquestioning assistance has proven invaluable. Do you comprehend the triumph to which you have contributed, the secret glory that it affords? Do you understand my shame at so inadequate a rewards?" He ponders their dead bodies sadly, before he leaves and exposes the greenhouse to the snow and ice, to basically provide a burial of sorts.
The shows changes that to him just giving them the bottle of poison wine and then sending them away so he can be alone to watch his monitors, and they die alone. I think it bugs me because it's not his character; he seems callous in the film, but the book he's a very rich character and despite the monstrous things he's about to do, you can feel his remorse drip off the page. He really feels shame over not being able to provide a better ending for them.
The best stories know how to humanize their villains (and roughen their heroes), and in that Watchmen is among the best of them.
There's another scene that got cut, which I'm okay with, but it's a Rorshach deepening moment -- when he goes back to get his spare diary and mask after Dan springs him and they're about to go to Antarctica, and he is interrupted by the landlady who has barged in to see who was there, with screaming brats hanging off her, and she's terrified when she realizes it's Rorshach because she badmouthed him on TV when he was captured -- and he calls her a whore and asks how much they paid her off to lie about him -- and she's mortified that he would say that in front of her kids. Normally Roshach doesn't have an ounce of mercy in him, but he looks down at the terrified children wordlessly and you know he is experiencing empathy for the first time in his life because he was once a child of a whore and he remembers how he felt, and he quietly excuses himself without saying anything else. I just love this scene so much, though. It gives him another layer of depth, not just the shallow uncompromising dickhead. (Fortunately they did keep the moment when Drieberg gets pissed at all of Rorshach's judgments and tells him it's really hard to be his friend -- and Rorshach actually apologizes... at least as best as he ever could.)
They nailed most of the end of book scenes, including Adrian saying goodbye to Doc Manhatten, and Laurie and Dan visiting her mom Sally in CA afterwards... but I really like how Sally seems chipper as they are leaving, then goes back inside and there's a shot of her crying and kissing Eddie's picture, after all of her emotions were stirred up again. it would have only taken a few seconds, I wish they would have kept it. People are such a convoluted mix of emotion and response, and it's a big emotional point for Laurie to realize that the man who beat and tried to rape her mother also was her father (from consensual sex) because her mom still actually loved him.
There's other stuff like that too. (like, Max the writer + the Indian artist are making out below deck -- you realize they've built a relationship with their time on the island and care for each other -- and then he sees the bomb with no time to do anything. So he pretends everything is okay and just holds her, so she won't be afraid in her last seconds of life, and then we see the ship explode from a distance. In the film, they just had them hanging down on deck and aren't even aware of the bomb. You know what I mean? It's like some of the color has been seeped out of the story -- the nuanced stuff that creates the feels.
Maybe i'll like it better on repeated viewings, as I learn to accept what it is.
I definitely liked it better than Snyder's version, which really bored me to tears and then deviated at the end from the story. But it still has some kind of disconnect in there, like it just wasn't quite attached to the pulsebeat of the book and doesn't feel quite as alive.
Now I'm looking at my book and just want to read that again. The art is even popping more, although the animated film wasn't done poorly.
Oh it's worth a watch (the Wachowski film, right?) Gershon and Tilly are so great. Pantoliano is doing ... Pantoliano things, of course.
For being a very inexpensive film ($6 million), it is shot really cleanly and nice and has some interesting composition and lighting.
They make it look simple to do.
A Criterion version (4k and bluray) just did come out and there was a nice Olive Signature release on blu-ray as well.
I'm kind of feeling critical of the last third of the film. I mean, it's an obvious turn of events and is deliciously off the rails, but it just feels pretty much on the nose and doesn't really contribute anything to the discussion versus just sticking in the knife and twisting it.... and twisting it... and twisting it... and...
I mean, it's all true, but I liked the fact that first two thirds of the film felt like an actual story with allegorical overtones. The final third feels like they just threw story aside and bludgeoned us over the head with the obvious allegory about the standards for women in the entertainment industry and even maybe in society in general. Amusing yes, but it kind of loses its uniqueness in the process.
Aside from all that, Moore is great, so is Margaret Qualley (she's Andie MacDowell's daughter, if you didn't know -- I think she's got more edge/verve to her acting than her mom), and I really like the distinctive branding of the film visually and audially. Very bold, minimal, distinctive.
I am primarily an INFP. Doing research I have found that William Shakespeare, J.K. Rowling and J.R.R. Tolkien are all INFP’s.
Shakespeare is regarded as the greatest author of all time. I can’t get into reading Shakespeare because of the old English. It’s like I have to translate his words.
Back to the movies. I have read Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings multiple times. In both the book and in the movies version The Two Towers is my favorite in this classic.
The Ent’s are mind blowing characters brought to the movie screen. I am so glad that cinema brought to the movie screen Tolkien’s writing.
In cinema The Lord Of The Rings and the Hobbit are beautifully brought to life unto the big screen. I believe the films were filmed in New Zealand.
J.R.R. Tolkien impressed me. He created languages for the Elf and other mythical beings.
His languages are so concise that his created fictional languages could actually be used as a working language in reality.
“The Substance,” one of the year’s best films, has become an indie success, and full credit should go to its visionary director, Coralie Fargeat. However, it turns out that the making of the film was absolutely CHAOTIC. There’s no other word to describe it.
Wait, a positive review for Kraven the Hunter? That trailer looked like shit; cliche after cliche.
It's a B- anyway. And the review has funny moments that remind me of the good old days of the AVClub. What motivated them to bring funny writers back on board, instead of writers trying to make everything "topical"?
I am primarily an INFP. Doing research I have found that William Shakespeare, J.K. Rowling and J.R.R. Tolkien are all INFP’s.
Shakespeare is regarded as the greatest author of all time. I can’t get into reading Shakespeare because of the old English. It’s like I have to translate his words.
Back to the movies. I have read Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings multiple times. In both the book and in the movies version The Two Towers is my favorite in this classic.
The Ent’s are mind blowing characters brought to the movie screen. I am so glad that cinema brought to the movie screen Tolkien’s writing.
In cinema The Lord Of The Rings and the Hobbit are beautifully brought to life unto the big screen. I believe the films were filmed in New Zealand.
J.R.R. Tolkien impressed me. He created languages for the Elf and other mythical beings.
His languages are so concise that his created fictional languages could actually be used as a working language in reality.
