Game Changer

Axolotl

New member
Feb 17, 2008
2,401
0
0
Epoetker said:
I'm all for Edgar Wright but he is not better than Terry Gilliam. Sure he helped make Spaced but Gilliam helped make Monty Python.
Gilliam is a much better artist than he is a director. Gilliam is to Wright as George Lucas is to Steven Spielberg. (ie: if Gilliam storyboarded and Wright directed, ALL WOULD BE WELL.)
I guess you're right. Althrough it is weird how similar Wright's career has been to Gilliam's.
 

Redlin5_v1legacy

Better Red than Dead
Aug 5, 2009
48,836
0
0
Spoiler warning adhered to, I will return and edit this post when I have seen the movie. Before then, however, I will say that it probably won't change cinema in the short term as Hollywood is most likely going to stick with the old tried and true techniques of making millions of dollars.

I shall return.
 

octafish

New member
Apr 23, 2010
5,137
0
0
AC10 said:
JaredXE said:
Sorry Bob, I just can't STAND Annie Hall. Hell, just about all of Woody Allen's films bore me. I don't find him funny, especially when my film class used that film as an example of comedy....I didn't crack a smile the whole movie.
I agree, like all Woody Allen movies, Annie Hall is just bland, unfunny and kind of boring.
Oh Max. Don't say that Max. Annie Hall is one of those perfect films that comes along very rarely Max.
 

sszebra

New member
Mar 20, 2010
15
0
0
Scott Pilgrim distilled down the rebirth/second chance, to it's simplest form, the extra life. Which is itself is a console replacement for the arcade gamer's next quarter. Which also, perhaps unintentionally, represented the life blood of the 7 Exes.

Despite which side of the unusually polarizing film you're on, two things are true. 1:pilgrim invoked a trope in a way that was unique and audacious. 2: It will never be duplicated in film. It's ballsy for a protagonist in a surreal, one of a kind film to come back to life thanks to an old NES gameplay device. But doing it twice would mean it's both silly and unoriginal.
 

MasterChief892039

New member
Jun 28, 2010
631
0
0
I highly doubt we'll see 1-UPs become a staple plot device in the movie world. Even in Scott Pilgrim it felt a little cheesy, and that was a expressly videogame-esque world. In a film that had nothing to do with video games, a 1-UP would be ridiculously out of place and intellectually offensive to the viewer. And in terms of the 1-UP being likened to "hammerspace" - perhaps hammerspace was once considered innovative, but you would never see it used in a serious movie. That's because it's corny and a cheap way of making things happen that, according to common sense, should not. Same with 1-UPs in films.

That's not to say I didn't enjoy Scott Pilgrim though.
 

Ironic Pirate

New member
May 21, 2009
5,544
0
0
It may have sucked, but the Max Payne movie did feature some game elements, notably the screen flashing red to indicate injury.

That said, it was based on a game anyway, and did horribly, but still.
 

Shoggoth2588

New member
Aug 31, 2009
10,250
0
0
In regards to the note: my interest in the film Annie Hall was peaked by the description of the few scenes outlined in the article. I shall find a copy as soon as I can

I am interested to see how many upcoming movies will use a graphic-novel template to show the past of certain characters.
 

Falseprophet

New member
Jan 13, 2009
1,381
0
0
vortexgods said:
I seem to recall that there was a Jason Statham film called Crank that deliberately aped an old school video game aesthetic, but perhaps I only dreamed it.
I'm not sure what aesthetic you're referring to for Crank, but I can think of another Jason Statham movie that incorporated video-game storytelling into its narrative: the remake of Death Race.

It was a pretty crappy movie, and had none of the joy or irreverence of the original Death Race 2000, but it did incorporate the power-up feature of almost every combat racing game. The cars in the film were armed, but the weapons were turned off until they drove over these lit icons on the road that would turn the specific weapons on (machine guns, rockets, smoke screen, etc.).

Much as I loved Scott Pilgrim (and hated The Expendables), I have to disagree with Bob on this essay. The video-game aesthetic of SP is clearly going to come across as a quirk of that particular story.

The comic was the same way. I got three-quarters of the way through Scott Pilgrim #1 getting used to this slice-of-life relationship indie comic story (ie, Questionable Content: the Book), when this NES/Bollywood brawl breaks out and blows me away. But I haven't seen a heck of a lot of other comics outside of the usual webcomic strips play with this device. And it's a lot easier to risk that sort of thing with an indie comic than a wide-release feature with an 8-figure budget.
 

bakonslayer

New member
Apr 15, 2009
235
0
0
Now, another good question to ask about Scott Pilgrim is how can the social-networking scene affect earnings? It may be something small, but at the same time, it may be just what the movie needs. From what I know, Scott Pilgrim has been trending on and off for the last week on Twitter and it is a very highly searched movie term. On top of that, it has only recently opened outside of Canada and the US.

Also of note, soundtracks, posters, t-shirts, and other film paraphernalia are going to be very highly bought (Much in the trend of Kick-Ass), especially compared to the currently competing movies.

I know that these sales aren't going to be seen since it already 'flopped' on opening weekend. But it may help what we're all looking for, that 'impact' on culture. That snowballing impact that starts with Annie Hall and ends at Ferris Bueller questioning why we are all sitting in that theatre still.
 

MercurySteam

Tastes Like Chicken!
Legacy
Apr 11, 2008
4,950
2
43
I feel really sorry for those in the UK who have yet to see it. I've already seen it twice and it was frickin' AWESOME!!!
 

Jesus Phish

New member
Jan 28, 2010
751
0
0
Noelveiga said:
Ehhh... maybe next time place the spoilers not in the immediate vicinity of the spoiler warning? Sheesh. I mean, the movie hasn't even opened where I live.

Actually, the movie's performance is absolutely to be expected. It is making exactly as much money as all other movies based on indie comic books. That is to say, not much. Not the audience's fault that they decided to throw a lot more money into the production, making it horribly overdone for a property that was niche to begin with, is it?
Two fine points made there, particularly the second one. To get 5th place for such a small target audience, is actually an achievement the more I think of it.
 

Kurokami

New member
Feb 23, 2009
2,352
0
0
SpiderJerusalem said:
First it was Avatar, now Scott Pilgrim, pretty soon there's going to be another pseudo-game changer, despite not being close to one. Pretty much everything that Scott Pilgrim did, Speed Racer did before, and neither were much successes, but enjoy a semi-cult following (or, in Pilgrim's case, will enjoy one).

A game changer requires much more than recycled game nostalgia and poorly acted stereotypes of characters.

Oh, and that whole; using a metaphor in a literal sense to communicate love, life and teen hardship? Already done (far better) by the likes of Burton and Whedon.
Movie Bob said something good about Avatar...?
 

Kurokami

New member
Feb 23, 2009
2,352
0
0
Crunchy English said:
The movie is nothing special, the ending is nothing special and this is the first time in a long time I've disagreed with Bob. What's weird is that I'm not dramatically opposed to Bob's take on it, I just think its wrong. I don't think Scott Pilgrim is a horrible movie made by horrible people, I think it's a boring movie made by boring people. I have a pretty good tolerance for satire, I seriously enjoy abstract or surreal elements in my movies. Scott Pilgrim was forgettable.

In fact, let me troll Bob for a moment. This is being said purely to infuriate Bob, but that doesn't mean it isn't completely true:

The Expendables will be more memorable ten years down the line, because it had an incredibly recognizable cast. Neither Pilgrim nor the Expendables was even remotely important, interesting or entertaining. But Expendables is more familiar, so people will remember it, likely as "that Stallone movie with all the action guys".
As you said, its not so much trolling as it is just absolutely true. I found a whole lot of Scott Pilgrim to just be plain boring, I enjoyed some of the comic style effects, but meh.
 

Axolotl

New member
Feb 17, 2008
2,401
0
0
SpiderJerusalem said:
Sorry, no, should have been clearer; Avatar was called a game changer and revolutionary leap in cinema evolution yada yada yada bruahaha.

It was a bag of hot air then, like Scott Pilgrim as Game Changer is now. So it made sense in my head.

Then again, flying elephants make sense in my head as well.
But Avatar was a game changer, it pretty much started the current 3D craze as well as raising the bar for CGI.
 

edladd

New member
Feb 25, 2010
8
0
0
Christ, that spoiler warning is not nearly noticeable enough. I thought it was an intro and skipped over it. Maybe if it was in BOLD instead of italics it might be visible. :mad: