Rhymes With Mitty
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Movies like this are the kind that make me reevaluate my life and make me believe I should be doing something more with it. But then again I also have a boring, humdrum job that isn't very fulfilling and leaves me with a lot of time to think. I don't know, maybe Bob's just not the kind of guy to want more out of life.
I get kind of disappointed when I hear that a movie like this doesn't work. I kind of wanted to think it might be an underrated classic that maybe only I would get, but the amount of Product Placement (Which I think is still reserved for Adam Sandler, and the classic example I can think of is Little Nicky and its obvious placement) within the movie makes me sick to my stomach.
I suppose if there was a tactful way of employing product placement, I'd see it and go, "Well, it's not that bad, I suppose." On the other hand, when the movie is trying to give Eharmony a little support, I just get angry (Time to Admit Bias, I was actually told by Eharmony that their algorithm wouldn't work for me and couldn't 'match me with anybody'. I can't decide whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, but if Walter Mitty can get an account while just being 'average', What does that make me?).
I will still see this movie, but now not without a large bit of doubt filling me with the inevitable 'It's okay for what it is', which, for a movie like this and for a development hell history this movie has had, That's not okay.
Great review, Moviebob.
I suppose if there was a tactful way of employing product placement, I'd see it and go, "Well, it's not that bad, I suppose." On the other hand, when the movie is trying to give Eharmony a little support, I just get angry (Time to Admit Bias, I was actually told by Eharmony that their algorithm wouldn't work for me and couldn't 'match me with anybody'. I can't decide whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, but if Walter Mitty can get an account while just being 'average', What does that make me?).
I will still see this movie, but now not without a large bit of doubt filling me with the inevitable 'It's okay for what it is', which, for a movie like this and for a development hell history this movie has had, That's not okay.
Great review, Moviebob.
It's an odd story to make into a big-budget movie, considering the whole point in the original short story is that nothing is happening - it's just Walter escaping in his mind from a boring day out with his wife. It seems almost more like you'd want to play it as a kind of slow-motion tragedy, with Walter escaping into his fantasies while his marriage and life are falling apart. You could even throw in job instability in there, just to further the contrast between the more mundane disappointments that characterize his life versus the fantasies he escapes to.
Can't wait to go see Her, looks promising.
I am disappointed that Ben Stiller's directorial debut wasn't that great, this could've been something interesting, but sadly Mitty sits in they grey area between good and bad movies.
I am disappointed that Ben Stiller's directorial debut wasn't that great, this could've been something interesting, but sadly Mitty sits in they grey area between good and bad movies.
Pretty shitty so huh Bob?
It's a shame I enjoyed the original story by Thurber and the movie starring Danny Kaye was a childhood favourite when it popped up on weekend daytime TV.
It's a shame I enjoyed the original story by Thurber and the movie starring Danny Kaye was a childhood favourite when it popped up on weekend daytime TV.
I'm not a big fan of the Stiller movies where he just takes abuse. Seriously though, Bob, come on with the Papa Johns thing. It was founded 30 years ago. Stiller's age doesn't matter, Mitty's does. Apparently there's enough wrong here that you don't need to stretch that far to come up with something.
One reason why movies with product placement don't really bother me is that its already present so much in every day life I don't actively notice or look for it in movies except for a minor "meh"-induced shrug or a "I passed that on the way here, kinda" thought. I think we scream so much about product placement that really we ignore the fact that it is always around us and it creeping into movies is just a by-product of a consumerist society. We pay to be entertained by stories that might take place in a semi-real life setting then complain when real life actually makes its banal appearance.
Sure I like Kevin Smith's world of "my own branding", and Seinfeld's track record for non-consumerist products, but in the end its not a huge concern for me and really shouldn't be a breaking point on whether or not a movie is good or bad.
Hell I worked at Papa Johns as a teenager up through my 20's so I could relate to that very easily as well as moving on to a humdrum shit job in an office with daily fantasies akin to the Family Guy cut-away gags. So a movie that emulates this to any degree would sit well with me. Sorry Bob, we don't all get to live a life of watching movies for a fucking living and have to get our fantastical kicks some other way, especially when most of us have shit jobs that we'd love to ditch for something more exciting, fan-fucking-tastic or even noteworthy.
"We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't." - Tyler Durden, Fight Club
An apt quote detailing how a lot of us grew up thinking we might be something great, and turned out to be mundane as hell. Thats part of life, I'm not pissed off about it though. Just disappointed I'd never be an astronaut, see the moon first-hand or even experience zero-g for a few moments without benefit of a roller-coaster.
Sure I like Kevin Smith's world of "my own branding", and Seinfeld's track record for non-consumerist products, but in the end its not a huge concern for me and really shouldn't be a breaking point on whether or not a movie is good or bad.
Hell I worked at Papa Johns as a teenager up through my 20's so I could relate to that very easily as well as moving on to a humdrum shit job in an office with daily fantasies akin to the Family Guy cut-away gags. So a movie that emulates this to any degree would sit well with me. Sorry Bob, we don't all get to live a life of watching movies for a fucking living and have to get our fantastical kicks some other way, especially when most of us have shit jobs that we'd love to ditch for something more exciting, fan-fucking-tastic or even noteworthy.
"We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't." - Tyler Durden, Fight Club
An apt quote detailing how a lot of us grew up thinking we might be something great, and turned out to be mundane as hell. Thats part of life, I'm not pissed off about it though. Just disappointed I'd never be an astronaut, see the moon first-hand or even experience zero-g for a few moments without benefit of a roller-coaster.
So it's a FUCK YOU, IT'S JANUARY! movie [http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewstclair/8337067711/?rb=1], but released in December?
I remember reading the original short story and watching the original 1947 version of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty back in high school. It was a fun movie that I enjoyed and it was my first introduction to actor/comedian Danny Kaye. Fast forward a couple years and I read reports that Jim Carrey would be doing a remake of the movie (this was back when he was the toast of Hollywood). I was more interested in seeing that then Ben Stiller's version. between the lack luster trailers and Bob's review, the whole idea feels completely wasted. It could have been something better, something that could be compared to the 1947 version. Sadly, looks like nobody even put in the effort to give two shits about this version. -_-
Well while I love the Danny Kaye adaptation, James Thurber didn't. He was annoyed that Samuel Goldwyn had the story altered to better fit with Kaye's known comedic strengths. With the Stiller adaptation I was hoping they'd try to stick closer to the short story but sadly it sounds like they did the same thing as the Danny Kaye version, only with far less satisfactory results.Mr. Q said:
Hell. Since instant ego gratification is just a button click away for most people these days I'm not sure how the Walter Mitty "daydreamer" persona scans with modern audiences anyway.
2013-1984 = 29
If Ben Stiller is 48 years old that means he was at least 17. That's okay isn't it? (Just being a maths pedant)
If Ben Stiller is 48 years old that means he was at least 17. That's okay isn't it? (Just being a maths pedant)
Well that shows my own ignorance.Xelanath said:
Thanks for pointing it out though, it will prevent me looking like a right wally later down the line.
Ben Stiller's age doesn't matter. How many twenty-something actors play high school students in movies? Mitty couldn't be 40 with stiller playing him?BrotherRool said:
Is it bad I can't tell if that is a parody of those movies or a legitimate movie poster?AntiChrist said:
We might be operating under the special actor age rules where you can play a freshmen in high school well into your mid-thirties.BrotherRool said:
OT: So, it's a movie that is desperately trying to be good, but is hamstrung by pretty much everything else about it. Well, at least they tried. I mean, I'm still not going to see it (there's a Keanu Reeves movie with FUCKING DRAGONS AND SAMURAI [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1335975/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_3] that got released this week), but it's nice to see a production team try to put some effort into polishing a movie into something better, even if they fail.
Actually, that pretty much sums up a lot of the movie this year: production teams trying to make something shitty into something better and failing, sometimes miserably. Star Trek tried to make itself about the dangerous temptation of militarization. Superman tried to give the character a back story that went beyond "he just is that good of a guy." Anchorman 2 tried to point out the obvious nature of modern cable news as pandering to the lowest common denominator. The Worlds End tackled the psychosis of nostalgia for a time that no longer exists. Machete 2 was... okay, that was a devolution into standard Robert Rodregez fair but you see what I'm getting at.
This is not going to be a highlight year unless your parent company is Disney, but it is a time where the big failures at least tried to go beyond flash, even if they failed in their execution.
That only really makes for about the first third of the movie. The rest of the movie is the character actually living his dreams.King Whurdler said:
Personally, I actually really liked this film. I'm a daydreamer, but I'm also someone fortunate enough to actually travel and get to do amazing, out-of-this-world things from time to time. There weren't any spectacularly funny jokes, but I wasn't watching it as a comedy I guess. Yeah, the Life Magazine metaphor wasn't exactly subtle, but it seemed like a pretty accurate one from where I was sitting.
As for the Papa Johns thing, I'm pretty sure the movie starts on Mitty's 42nd birthday. Mitty would have been 13 when it first opened, by Bob's own numbers. That's... completely plausible.
I also didn't really notice the product placement, aside from the eHarmony bits (and even then, I felt more like the movie was showing me an eHarmony employee trying to sell a character on the service, rather than the movie trying to sell me on it). Part of that might be because I don't think I've ever seen a Papa John's in my life. I actually just assumed it was a fictional fast food place through the entire movie.
Yeah definitely, and if he were playing someone who was 40 (which really isn't much of a stretch right?) then that means he there would have been Papa John's around since he was 9. Which is definitely enough for him to work there.SecondPrize said:
I think it's one of those things which sounds like an amusing impossibility but actually the numbers are fine