The Ohio Sci-Fi and Horror Marathons

Your opinion of quality is obviously not to be trusted.

I've been trying to figure something in my head, and maybe you can help me out, yeah? When a person is insane, as you clearly are, do you know that you're insane? Maybe you're just sitting around, reading "Guns and Ammo", masturbating in your own feces, do you just stop and go, "Wow! It is amazing how ****ing crazy I really am!"?

Split from previous topic. -Admin

I know I shouldn't wade into these waters, but I'm really curious.

If Brian De Palma is the equivalent of Michael Bay, then who is the equivalent of Uwe Boll? Stanley Kubrick? Akira Kurosawa? David Lean? Truffaut, maybe?

Funny, I've never heard of Michael Bay being accused of ripping off Hitchcock... But then, why would I watch a Michael Bay film when he's just a poor copy of De Palma?

I challenge you to name a single watchable movie directed by Michael Bay. Feature film - music videos do not count.

I guess we cannot forget the cinematic masterpieces that were Pearl Harbor, Bad Boys and Pain and Gain…

The First Transformers movie. Proof

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/transformers-2007

The late Roger Ebert gave the movie three out of four stars.

Here is another one The Rock three and a half out of four stars.

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-rock-1996

The Rock is great. Maybe the only time I'll agree with will, but The Rock is a definite winner in my book.

Doesn't mean the DePalma-Bay comparison was a good one. I still vehemently disagree with that.

Well if Roger Ebert said it, it has to be true....

The Rock is the only one I'll agree with. Transformers?!?! really?!?! Look, I'm as big a Transformers fan as there is but that movie was terrible. Children will find it watchable. Maybe a box office success but that movie was grotesque failure.

The late Roger Ebert is very respectable. I'll trust his reviews. It is an contradiction in terms that saying that Transformers is a highly successful and a failure at the same time. Plus anytime that Transformers pop up on the EPG it have three stars.

I'd be the first to champion Ebert (he did work with Russ Meyer!), BUT even people we respect get it wrong from time to time...

A Clockwork Orange (2 stars)
Fight Club (2 star)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1 star)
Blue Velvet (1 star)
Full Metal Jacket (2.5 stars)
Harold and Maude (1.5 stars)
Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1 Star)

Other movies that ranked well below Transformers:
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Straw Dogs (original)
Leon: The Professional
Reservoir Dogs
The Frighteners

Any of these movies are better than Transformers (and I'm a huge fan, but when Prime is the only transformer that I can make out and has any sort of personality, there's an issue).

Watchable doesn't mean it is a neccessary a good movie. In my opinion those type of movies are effencient time killers.

Now there are such thing as overrated movies out there deserve their initial ratings. Full Metal Jacket lacks a real plot. It doesn't go anywhere.

Now when I was growing up I perfer the Marvel Comic Transformers over the animated series. Due to it have better storytelling. The people who wrote Transformers also was involed with Fringe. Now I do wish the storylines of Transformers Prime was the storylines of the Bayformers films.

And let's not forget probably my favorite "Ebert got it wrong" review... he loved Junior (yes, the Arnold Schwartzenegger pregnant movie )


Really - Ebert and the EPG's? Those are your definitions of quality? I guess I mistook you for an original thinker - one who had a brain of his own, and could evaluate the merits, or lack thereof, of a film without falling back on, "he said so."

But, ok - I guess you're happy sitting in that box, defined by someone ELSE's opinions.

Oh wait... but, Ebert did NOT like The Untouchables, but, you said - just a few posts up in the original thread - that it IS one of the few good DePalma films. So, I guess you DON'T always agree with Ebert, huh? I guess with so much going on in that brain of yours, it must be difficult to separate one sweeping generalization from the next, eh?


Also, I guess it must be as difficult for you to understand other people, as it is for you to express yourself, so perhaps I can shed a little light on Worldsfinest's comment for you. He meant to point out that box office success is not necessarily an indicator of quality. But I guess you only saw the words "success" and "failure" in the same sentence, and some kind of 3rd grade grammar fire alarm went off in your brain, so the rest of his words just looked like "blah blah blah?"

Or did you really mean to state that you DO equate quality with box office success?


Also - PS. for the moderators - sorry to have let the original thread derail so far! Thanks for splitting this off into a new topic!

I've only seen a few of De Palma's films (Sisters, Phantom of the Paradise, Carrie, The Fury, Dressed to Kill, Mission: Impossible), and while I know that later in his career he made some movies that were by and large panned by critics, I'd never call him a bad director. I suppose there are some that might fuss about how he borrowed liberally from Hitchcock, but if I were to fault him for that, I'd have to do the same to a great many that were inspired by or borrowed from others.

But I'd certainly recommend ignoring critics - yes, even the esteemed Roger Ebert - when making a determination about what movies you'll like or (even worse) when determining which movies to see. I'll freely admit I'd generally prefer watching the movies of Jack Hill, Roger Corman, Russ Meyer or Ed Wood (except perhaps Orgy of the Dead) before quite a few titles that are today considered part of the almighty film canon.

Boy, I'm really gonna wade into this aren't I.....

I hated De Palma for the longest time. Some of you might not believe this, but I despised DRESSED TO KILL the first time I saw it. Hell, CARRIE was about all I could stand.

So it was with great interest that I looked forward to seeing DRESSED again three years ago...when I was the one who pushed to book it for the 2nd SHOCK AROUND THE CLOCK. And if you read my review of that event, you know that I totally dug it that time around.

See, for years I bought the standard line about De Palma as Hitchcock ripoff artist. And yeah, he definitely cribs from Hitch's oeuvre. But in so many ways, he's more like the American Argento, crafting sleek thrillers that oftentimes dispense with logic in favor of style and visceral thrills and horrors. Of course, I could also credit my new appreciation to the great Chris Stults (who does the Lord's work as the Associate Curator of the Film and Video program at the Wexner Center), a guy with impeccable taste who highly recommended FEMME FATALE to me way back in 2003. That little stylefest ended up being my gateway into De Palma land. And I haven't been back since.

The short story? I would show BLOW OUT at the Marathon in a heartbeat. Now, my partner in Marathon crime would probably have quite the different opinion. But hey, didn't he book AUTOMATONS?

Aw screw it, I'm looking at the excellent Criterion Blu-Ray of BLOW OUT as I'm writing this. Maybe I'll just go watch it instead.

OK, my keyboard seems to be working now, so I'm going to edit this. I just don't understand the basic statement that compares Brian De Palma to Michael Bay in the first place. The two directors are not comparable in any way. It's like saying "Rob Reiner is the Federico Fellini of the 80's", or "Penny Marshall is the Sergio Leone of the 90's". It makes no sense. It shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the work of either director. I know that may seem like semantics to some, but to those of us who actually have a working knowledge of film, it's just mind-boggling.

Here's something I have never understood: why does everyone think they are an expert on film these days, even those who have no knowledge of it whatsoever? It wasn't always like this. Let me put it this way: I have very little knowledge of quantum physics. Next to none, in fact. So I don't talk to people who DO have that knowledge as if my opinion is just as valid as theirs. Because... it isn't. Never will be. Maybe if I actually studied the subject for about a decade or so, then I could talk to them that way. But until then, I would never dare. I couldn't pretend to keep up with their conversations. I would sound like a complete idiot. So I don't do that.

For those of us who have actually studied film and have a working knowledge of it, it's very easy to tell who knows their stuff and who doesn't. I don't mean to offend anyone by saying this, but if you don't know what you're talking about, the rest of us KNOW you don't know what you're talking about. I can tell that Joe knows his stuff very easily. Scott clearly can hold his own. Several others here can do the same. Certain individuals, on the other hand... you're not fooling anybody. So just stop pretending, OK? You're just embarrassing yourselves.

Also, many directors have been inspired by Hitchcock, including Argento, Chabrol, William Castle and even Spielberg (Duel, Jaws). De Palma is just one of the guys who has used that inspiration most often in his own work. Some people love what he does, some don't. But let's not pretend that he's the only one. That's far from the truth.

So Joe, any possibility of getting De Palma's Passion as a local premiere? Or has it already played Columbus?

I will say that I personally think of De Palma's films as "thrillers" more than horror films in general. But there's kind of a fine line between the two that could be crossed and has been crossed before. Argento's films are basically thrillers with bloody and gory murders. Which doesn't stop many horror fans from enjoying them.

Have we now exhausted this topic? Let me just ask this - does anyone hate John Carpenter because his films are heavily influenced by Howard Hawks? No? OK then. Does anyone hate Wes Craven's Last House on the Left because it was inspired by Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring? No? Does anyone hate Joe Dante because his films often contain visual references to Looney Tunes cartoons? How about George Lucas taking inspiration for Star Wars from old sci-fi serials and Akira Kurosawa samurai films? Need I go on? Because I could...

I assume most of you get my point by now. ALL filmmakers are influenced by what came before them. Some are more obvious about it than others, sure, but there is ALWAYS something being pulled from somewhere else and turned into something new. That's just how the medium works. To believe otherwise is naive at best. To hate Brian De Palma, or any filmmaker, for doing something that storytellers have been doing since the beginning of time, is ridiculous. Everybody takes SOMETHING from SOMEWHERE and makes it their own. Get over it.