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Jun. 22nd, 2013 09:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatDesperate to lose weight - and not wanting to spend money again, I discovered via my flist, MyFitnessPal.com. It's a free dietary/calorie counter, without the expenditure and marketing annoyances of weight watchers.
Granted it is sort of hard to do - with a broken foot.
Watching Tim Burton's Dark Shadows at the moment, and I can't help but wonder if all the people in the cast watched the Twilight films and decided for some reason or other to copy the acting style? They all seem deeply stoned. With placid expressions. And no reactions. I understand being restrained...but my attention is wandering, obviously.
I love this line: "Maybe we are getting too worked up about this Angie..."
Yeah, except, you all seem sort of bored, Angie's the only one who is really showing any emotion what-so-ever. I blame the director, not the actors. Tim Burton should stick to animation - his stick figures are more animated.
This is all style and no substance. Lots of shout-outs to old 1970s pop songs, 1970s sytle,
and clothing. But, it's telling, that the television versions of "Dark Shadows" were far more entertaining, both the 1990s version and the 1960s/1970s version.
Granted it is sort of hard to do - with a broken foot.
Watching Tim Burton's Dark Shadows at the moment, and I can't help but wonder if all the people in the cast watched the Twilight films and decided for some reason or other to copy the acting style? They all seem deeply stoned. With placid expressions. And no reactions. I understand being restrained...but my attention is wandering, obviously.
I love this line: "Maybe we are getting too worked up about this Angie..."
Yeah, except, you all seem sort of bored, Angie's the only one who is really showing any emotion what-so-ever. I blame the director, not the actors. Tim Burton should stick to animation - his stick figures are more animated.
This is all style and no substance. Lots of shout-outs to old 1970s pop songs, 1970s sytle,
and clothing. But, it's telling, that the television versions of "Dark Shadows" were far more entertaining, both the 1990s version and the 1960s/1970s version.
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Date: 2013-06-23 04:43 am (UTC)Of course the studios all seem to be making one huge failed big budget movie after another...
I enjoyed Iron Man 3 and the Star Trek Into Darkness... but Man of Steel has a terrible rating at Rotten Tomatoes, and WWZ doesn't look to be much better...
After Earth was a huge expensive failure, and GI Joe and Oblivion aren't going to break even....
I just am amazed that they make these enormous films with giant special effects, but with such terrible scripts/premise/total lack of story.
Sorry for the rant.
I hope your foot is feeling okay, that you aren't in pain....
I just caught up on Burn Notice, and I'm still a huge fan of Fiona!
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Date: 2013-06-23 01:59 pm (UTC)Burton hasn't done a good live-action flick since Batman in my opinion.
Ed Wood and Alice weren't bad. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, however, was simply awful.
Hollywood apparently will greenlight director's works based on the name of the director and if they've brought in money in the past. Similar to what they used to do and occasionally still do with actors. Will Smith has the clout to get anything made based on his box office successes, same with Tim Burton - who took in millions with Alice, and Chris Nolan who took in millions with Dark Knight.
I remember when I was in undergrad, we had Sidney Pollack (the director of Tootsie) speak to our Cinema class one day. A Q&A session.
Apparently his niece or daughter was attending the college. At any rate, what he said back in 1986, sticks with me to this day: "You are only as good as your last picture. It doesn't matter if you won an Oscar on a movie or made millions, unless that movie was your last picture. If it was two-or three films ago, and your last picture was a stinker, you have prove yourself all over again. Or you won't get a greenlight."
It's all about how much money it makes. A 100 million dollar movie must bring in three times that. Quality? Who cares. If people pay to see it? Doesn't matter. The Twilight films are amongst the worst films I've ever seen in my life - the first movie is thisclose to unwatchable (although I actually think Dark Shadows may be worse), yet they made billions. As a result a whole slew of similarly themed films has gotten greenlit and produced, regardless of how good they are - because hey, Twilight made millions.
Critically acclaimed or well-written films get made, but it is harder to market them. Because movies are getting more expensive now - cheapest in my area are $11 for an early showing. So people are only willing to spend their money on "big event" movies or blockbusters, something you have to see on the big screen - which often cost 100-400 million to make. Heck the Veronica Mars Film is already over-budget.
The best stuff as a result is on tv or the via the internet.
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Date: 2013-06-23 02:27 pm (UTC)I've gotten so I'm hesitant to go to the big budget blockbuster films, too often they are 3 hours long, expensive to see (however I have given up on 3D films), and bore me to death... (explosions and car chases don't impress me).
But then I don't always go to the smaller films either: they don't get into the theaters close to me, so I have to drive as much as 100 miles to see them (which means I almost never do go see them until they are on DVD). I know I'd enjoy some of these low budget independent films, but I cannot drive four hours round trip just to go see it!
So I agree, there is so much great writing on TV... I just started watching a show called The Killing which is incredibly well written and acted (dark topic, but I'm hooked now). It kind of amazes me that these shows manage to get picked up, but it is so wonderful to have such high quality story telling coming to me conveniently on my TV!
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Date: 2013-06-23 05:00 pm (UTC)I tried it in its initial run, the first year...and got bored. This season is touted as being slightly better. Although I'm in an "anti-serial killer" mood at the moment. Anything featuring "serial killers" tends to turn me off for some reason with few exceptions. I think I may have burned out on the genre? (shrugs)
There's three other dark dramas popping up soon that I'm keeping an eye out for this summer: Low Down Sun (on AMC about police corruption in Detroit), and The Bridge (on F/X based on a Netherlands series, except it is about two cops solving a case that happened on the border of El Paso, New Mexico and Juarex, Mexico. One cop, female has ausperger's syndrom and the other is a male cop from Mexico. Has gotten great press, I think it starts in July. Then there's the International series - French and American entitled Crossing Lines on Sunday on NBC, I think. Starring Donald Sutherland and a cast of character actors.
I don't have high expectations for the VM film...I think it really will be more like S3 than the first season.
Agree on movies. I rarely see them in the theaters. I had plans to see Star Trek Into Darkness and Man of Steel these past two weekends with friends, but alas, I broke my foot. Oh well, apparently they are fine to see on DVD or HBO. Iron Man 3 got the best reviews of the bunch.
Just saw another truly bad movie via HBO, entitled This Means War - it had two funny moments in it, but most of it was just...too ludicrous to be taken seriously. Too many of these movies are just over-the-top.
Dear Hollywood? Less is more!!
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Date: 2013-06-23 07:24 pm (UTC)Take care of yourself!
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Date: 2013-06-23 08:47 pm (UTC)Right there with you on both Hannibal and The Following - didn't want either in my head. It gets to be a bit much after a while. Felt the same way about The Cult - which was a tv series about the fandom of a violent serial killer tv series and bizarre re-enactments of that tv series killings. Ugh.
I can deal with Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, and Elementary - but the others are sort of over-kill.
Thanks. Climbing the walls. Been in apartment one too many days now.
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Date: 2013-06-23 11:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-23 02:00 pm (UTC)