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[nenjin]

Oh yeah. I'd forgotten about Mars Attacks.

That tracks though, it's a couple years after NBC. MA is a really good example of what started to bug me about his movies. What I remember most about it was the alien gibberish. A movie full of the kind of noises a hyperactive kid on too much sugar makes. That's what latter Tim Burton movies started to seem like to me: movies made by a kid on too much sugar with a multi-million dollar CGI budget.

Don't get me wrong, Tim Burton's a great filmmaker and has made some movies I really love (Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Edwards Scissorhands, Ed Wood, NBC.) And as I glanced over his filmography, there's some other things out there he's done I haven't seen that aren't what you typically think of when you think of a Tim Burton movie. He's done plenty of stuff that is soulful, well executed, quirky and visually distinct. It's just in the latter half of his career when he really became famous and worked with big IPs like Batman or Charlie & The Chocolate factory, only the last two really attributes really showed to me.

[Maximum™]

Uh, Beetlejuice? (second movie)

Batman? (third movie)

Batman Returns? (fifth movie)

All three are actually fantastic movies (and all made before Nightmare Before Christmas which was his sixth), and I never appreciated how great Pfeiffer was for Catwoman until recently.

She was actually doing the whip stuff! That bird that flew out of her mouth was a real bird, she went a little bonkers during shooting!

Oh, huh, Burton+Keaton seems to be a thread there, they're also in the early "before he realized he was Tim Fucking Burton" era.

Huh, Burton didn't even direct NBC, he wrote and produced it, and both of us here reflexively thought Coraline was him, but the only overlap is Gaiman+the guy who directed NBC made Coraline.
________________________________________________________
COMBO BREAKER: WHAT THE FUCKITY FUCKBATS DID I JUST DISCOVER?

So I'm looking to see who exactly this Selick guy who did NBC/Coraline is right?

I notice besides James and the Giant Peach there was a movie I didn't recognize: Monkeybone?

The hell is that? *click*

...is that... Brendan Fraser on the poster? Why does it say Bridget Fonda, Rose McGowan, John Turturro, and Whoopi Goldberg in the top blurb? 2001? What the fuck is going on am I having a stroke?

WHAT DOES IT HAVE TO DO WITH SOUTH PARK WHAT IS HAPPENING

EDGAR ALLEN POE IV? LIKE ACTUALLY HIS DESCENDANT?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkeybone

Oh god, how do you have that much clay to work with and sculpt a turd?

The synopsis does not do any justice to how awkward and weirdly bad it is in clips.

[nenjin]

Beetlejuice is great, forgot that one.

The other Batmans? Mmmmmmm not so much. Returns was decent but it's all kinda downhill from there.

His were better than Joel Schumacher's, I'll give Burton that.

And yes, Monkeybone is not good and borderline unhinged in its aims. I think I watched that one on a work trip as well. There is....a lot of shouting in that movie, particularly Brendon Fraser just yelling "Monkeybone!" in response to things happening.

[Laterigrade]

Watched Eraserhead a few days ago, in a cinema that was showing it.
It was fantastic — holds up very well, technically, other than arguably the last scene. Its use of soundscape to evoke horror and fear and anxiety was fantastic, and it was excellently acted — the father, I think, was a subtle standout; that grin, while the goo spurted out of the chicken and the mother seized up, was chilling.

And I loved how characters’ reactions to the horrible things we would see was used to characterise the world — the nasty things were treated as nasty, with characters reacting as such, but not as abnormal, giving the implication that none of this is one-off, none of these are hallucinations of Henry’s (unless of course all of it is), making the horror of the film even more pronounced; everyone lives like this, now. The evil and despair in Henry’s life is now the evil and despair in the world, supported by the beginning and final shots zooming in on and out from the grey, corrupted Earth.

Anyway, brilliant film. Brilliant showcase of human despair and suffering, terrifying both psychologically and immediately. I would wish the watching of it on my best friend and my worst enemy.

[King Zultan]

Eraserhead is some good stuff, I should watch that again at some point.

[Maximum™]

I think my biggest thing with that movie is, like, I dig Fraser, seeing a movie he was in that just appeared and vanished instantly is weird enough, but going through the list of names is like... howwwwww did they fuck this up so bad?

[hector13]

Sometimes money is a big motivator. Stanley Tucci is a brilliant actor, cannot make the Transformers movies he’s in anything more than glorified product placement ads.

Speaking of Stanley Tucci, watch The Impostors, brilliant film.

[nenjin]

I think my biggest thing with that movie is, like, I dig Fraser, seeing a movie he was in that just appeared and vanished instantly is weird enough, but going through the list of names is like... howwwwww did they fuck this up so bad?

It's an adaptation of a novel that sounds like a take on "Who Framed Roger Rabbit." I get the impression the original story is more adult so they probably reimagined it as a more kid friendly film. Doing that though you end up with a really obnoxious animated side kick, a lot of slapstick and Fraser hamming it up. It makes for a really frenetic movie with lots and lots of shouting.

[Maximum™]

Yeah, the plot looked like a mess, something about a death mecha and bodyswapping with coma patients, but it is still a trip to discover something just absolutely fly under the radar, I mean, I dug WFRR, I probably woulda checked this one out.

[Travis Bickle]

I watched the Ralph Bakshi Lord of the Rings movie recently. My only experience of the franchise prior to this was reading The Hobbit and viewing the theatrical cuts of the more well-known live-action films, and it's been well over a decade since I've done either. As for the live-action films, I have no intention of seeing any cut of them again, at least not until I've read the books. Viewing a lengthy and complete adaptation of a work is going to color one's impression of the source material when he actually tries to read it. Perhaps I've already risked coloring the way I imagine the scenes by watching the Bakshi version, but the film is abridged enough from the source material that I hope that I've kept my eyes mostly virgin.

The problems of the film are well-known enough, the most egregious of which are that it ends on a cliffhanger that will never be resolved. What movie is there, however, I enjoyed. I think it's the sort of movie you'll like at least a little bit as long as you don't watch it with the idea in you're head that it's going to be a bad movie, as I think many people do.

[Starver]

Well, it was intended to be Part One of Two (or Three, at the beginning, but the plot-split needed didn't support "a proper middle film"), only quite late dropping any dangled promise of the sequel/conclusion by the title.

The cuts (one of which is the perrenial "Tom Bombadil problem"; or "...solution", depending upon the reader's attitude!) are notable but the retention of dialogue characterisation is perhaps superior to Jackson's treatment.

But ask any three Tolkein fans and might end up with four opinions on it!.

Visually, as a pure rotascope project, I think it's probably stylistically superior to CGI-enhanced modern movies (I saw a large swathe of a Transformers movie again, the other day, definitely a case of"just because you can, doesn't mean you should"...), but a different time and doubtless they'd use "artification" algorithms these days, when any fool can redraw themselves as a cartoon dog in realtime.

My opinion, I don't think it spoils the books (or, because it is only partial, spoilering them). Maybe a niche 'historic' treatment for post-Jackson audiences (and non-readers, in particular), but for me (probaby didn't see it in the late '70s, but would have by the mid '80s, at a similar time to Tron from '82) it works well.

Yes, the Jackson trilogies are a visual tour-de-force (plot-rewriting aspects aside, and the resulting "green tide of ghosts" that... well, I admit I enjoyed the friendy rivalry of "that only counts as one!", at least, as I did the shield-surfing and barrel-hopping elsewhere, even if off-canon). But if you're determined to read (or reaquaint yourself with) the novels then Bakshi's work will definitely interfere less with that process. IMO, naturally.

(Caveat: I haven't seen the Bakshi for maybe 20 years. I think I last substantially read either Hobbit or LOTR perhaps around ten years ago. I've seen the Jackson sets (idly, in passing) at various times more recent than that, as well as upon release. So I may be differently rose-tinted, or otherwise. Not yet seen the Netflix/whoever ME-based mini-series at all.)

[scriver]

"Gandalf Storm-Crow" is etched into my mind but I can't remember if it is from the movies or the movie

[nenjin]

The Ralph Bakshi and the Rankin & Bass animated films forever colored my appreciation of the Lord of the Rings. It's why very little of the new trilogies work for me. Edginess was used tactically in the animated films. Everything in the new movies has that edge. The animated films feel cozy for lack of a better term. And that's undeniably my childhood nostalgia at play. But the low res and classic hand-drawn art makes it feel like fantasy and it has more tones and vibes than the live action ones IMO. The overblown, blockbuster effect of the new movies just makes me feel alienated from what's going on. Especially when the movies are like "we need a jovial scene" or "we need a sad scene" or "we need a fight scene."

Ironically Rankin & Bass did the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Return_of_the_King_(1980_film) animated film. It's super jarring going from Ralph Bakshi's more adult looking hybrid animated film back to the Hobbit's art style. Doubly so because the treatment and subject matter of RoT is dealing with bigger and headier moments than the Hobbit. But at least you can watch all of the Lord of the Rings animated films as a trilogy.

The animated films are what I'd always recommend someone start the series with. And it makes me a little sad knowing there's whole generations of people now that only know the two later trilogies. Liking them isn't a problem for me, there's plenty of things to like. I just think you're missing out if you haven't seen the way it was done in the 80s. Unlike say.....deciding to skip the Simarillion.

[Starver]

Noting, in passing, the jarringly similar theme music for LOTR and Start Trek IV. (Same composer, I believe, without looking it up right now, so maybe a bit of self-reuse.)

If anything, it ruins The Voyage Home's ending far more than LOTR's...

[anewaname]

Rankin & Bass had those wide-jawed orcs and goblins that were great, but those scrawny wood lfs greatly upset some people who self-identified as elves... those people squawk like angry crows about all the badness of those animated films.