On The Precipice of Mediocrity, Teetering
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| I Am John's Stomach Pains. On The Precipice of Mediocrity, Teetering |
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Thursday, December 18, 2003 A Sweet Foreign Film on Jewelry and Royalty For anyone who has not heard, there's this great flick from New Zealand that came out this week. I was one of the privileged few who knew about some early showings... very very early. Tuesday night, I attended the midnight showing of Lord of the Rings: Return of the King - Your Bladder and Ass Will Never Forgive You (LotR: RotK - YBaAWNFY for short). My bud Mark and I got there a couple minutes after 10:30, and the theater was already allowing people in, so that was damn kind of them. Our seats were fucking amazing, in probably my second favorite theater to view an event movie (the IMAX at the Metreon bein' number one). If I had one complaint, it was that they brought the house lights down quite a bit around 11, and it was hard to read a magazine to pass the time. Anyway, onto the movie. To say it rocked my fucking socks off like a gymnastic prostitute with Tourette's would not do the film justice. I left the film in awe, almost speechless on how to articulate my feelings. That lasted about 5 minutes until we got to Denny's, where the two of us played verbal tennis on everything that made the flick probably the most amazing epic we'd ever seen on-screen. I think one of the first compliments I have to give is that I sat there for 3 and half hours after drinking a 32 oz soda and an ICEE, and didn't check my watch once, didn't yawn, didn't look around bored for a second... and I only remember seeing one person in the sold out theater get up and go to the bathroom. Maybe it's because I never read the books that I find the movie flawless. My friend's complaints centered around "oh, this wasn't included" or "you may not have understood this part, because..." Thankfully, none of that really bothers me. But, before I get to the best things of the flick, let my give some parts I didn't enjoy (I'll try and keep the spoilers to a minimum): 1) Previews: I've never seen a more pathetic teaser than for The Mask 2. Utterly pathetic. You know your in trouble when your preview gets a shitload of boos, and an Ashton Kutcher drama gets a smattering of applause. Plus, no big screen Spiderman 2 teaser. I understand why, but still annoying. 2) The picture got fucked up for about 2 seconds during the Elrond/Aragorn tent scene. You could almost hear a thousand geek's hearts begin to crack. 3) Not enough Gimli. No Saruman. Too much Arwen... Liv's hot and all, but her's is the one story that never interested me. 4) Where the hell was a White Wizard vs. Witch King fight?!? Do I gotta wait a year to see that on the extended edition, b/c I was sure we saw an inkling of it in the previews. That's basically it... two complaints that Peter Jackson had not control over, and two more that were probably time-constraint driven.. Now, onto just a few things that what fucking rocks in this movie: 1) Merry and Pippin fuckin' own this picture, Billy Boyd as Pippin in particular. My biggest problem with Two Towers (my least favorite of the three) centered around these two and their seemingly useless story arc, but in RotK they bring their A-game. Pippin's song to Denethor intercut with Faramir's doomed charge is probably the best directed scene of the trilogy 2) Sean Astin. Samwise... YOU GOONIE!!!! The best acting of the flick, hands down. Gotta respect the one character who was only tempted by The Ring once. Sure, some of his dialogue was a tad cheesy, but really, that's who the character is. 3) Battle scenes during the day. Helm's Deep was a sight to behold, of course, but I appreciated The battle of Minas Tirith (sp?) much more this time. The catapult barrage seemed thoroughly real. The initial charge by Theodon's forces was like watching a hundred bowling balls smashing through a field of pins. The coming of the Oliphaunts, and their defeat was an awesome homage to Empire Strikes Back. Plus, we get an awesome Legolas surfing shot, and Gimli's priceless, "You know that's still only one." 4) Shelob. Initially I was afraid this was gonna come off too Eight Legged Freaks-y, but thankfully I was proved mistaken. While I found the cave confrontation to be over too quick, the subsequent stalking had me with my breath held for what seemed like an eternity. 5) The endings. Sure, I may have been laughing a little bit, each time a new ending started up, but you know what, Harry was right, every single one of them was needed. This is the end of the story. This. Is. It. We've all grown to know these characters so well, to simply end the story on a single Star Wars-up note would not do it justice. There's far too much, and I'm sure I'll bring up more later. Suffice to say, I cannot recommend this movie enough. I think it may even supplant The Rundown on my Best of 2003 list... still have two weeks to decide... posted by Holz | 3:48 PM | Rant & Rave, Bitches! (0) 0 Comments: |
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"Let a man get away with fuckin' you once, you stay bent over so's he can fuck you again whenever he damn well pleases. An' if one man can do it? Another will too. An' another, an' another still. So's being fucked, that's yer life. 'Til who you were, you ain't. 'Cause all you are is an asshole." 100 Bullets #42 | |||||
