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Quasar Sniffer

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Posts posted by Quasar Sniffer

  4. Posted

    29 minutes ago, tomspanks said:

    I enjoyed the soundtrack more than the movie overall. If the movie was a series of music montages I would’ve been ok with that. The band seemed to have a lot of fun performing and they were more charming on stage than off. 

     

    I agree, but I think I had trouble even connect me with some of the on-stage performances because, honestly, the singer was such a juvenile asshole offstage. I could barely look at his face without wanted to smack his dumb fat cheeks. So that limited my ability to have my faith restored in the characters with their musicianship. So maybe if he had more redeeming qualities, perhaps just a glimpse earlier in the movie, I'd be more into what they were doing musically.

    • Like 3

  6. Posted

    5 hours ago, Cam Bert said:

    I will jump on the bandwagon and say this movie charmed and delighted me. Otters are some of the cutest animals and their muppet equivalents are equally cute as well. I liked the song and I do like how it uses the Gift of the Magi but does a good twist on it. Also that him and his mom are stronger together is a good message on top of the other messages as well.

    Here is my one nitpick though. As much as I liked The Riverbottom Nightmare Band they just seem a bit out of place for me. Emmett and his town seem old fashion and as a result a bit timeless, and then Swampy Black Sabbath comes in and is very modern and of their time. Their song as well is a bit more of the moment. For whatever reason this just sort of bothered me a bit. I can't explain why. Look I get the argument that that's what they're suppose to be. They're chaos in this quaint little town and the fact they are so polar to everybody and everything sells that fact. I get that and understand that but don't like it. It also bothers me that these clearly semi-professional or professional musicians enter a talent contest for amateurs and win. Well, duh. If they had lost to that the "Barbecue" guy I think it would have been more tragic.

    I think I do agree with your nitpick. They seem like a band that would be more suited to battle the Electric Mayhem as an antagonist. So, if I were to make an Origin Back Story for the first Muppet Movie, maybe the Mayhem were recently decimated by the Nightmare Band in a Battle of the Bands and were so eager for a change of pace, they joined up with Kermit.

    ANYWAY, I think the river community around Emmet and his mom is so wholesome and supporting, to get an antagonist with any sort of intimidation factor, the story needed an outsider of some sort. And since this is a Christmas special kids would be watching, you didn't want anything too nefarious or threatening (like an evil developer or someone looking to skin an otter for its fur the way a psycho was looking to eat Kermit's legs in the Muppet Movie). So the solution was a semi-menacing (but still very catchy!) rock band. You know they're villains because they wear sunglasses indoors! Quality growls though🤘

    • Like 4

  7. Posted

    There's just something so comforting and warm about Emmet and his mother rowing on the river, having a conversation. It's the kind of quit, sincere moment that Jim Henson excelled at, and it makes you root for the Otters so fervently (even if their opposite number in the battle of the bands was basically Swampy Black Sabbath, something a given-to-grimness metalhead like myself might be more inclined to root for).

    • Like 2
    • Haha 1

  11. Posted

    OK, so there are a couple truly magical musical Christmas movies that I adore (Nightmare Before Christmas and Muppet Christmas Carol) that are perennial favorites of mine, but I have also seen those, you know, 8,000 times. Because they are great. SO, if the group is amenable, I will keep us in the Jim Hensoniverse and go with a Christmas special that I have only seen once, years ago.....

    image.jpg?w=1920&h=1080

    • Like 7

  15. Posted

    *late additional thoughts*

    I do really like this Greatest Showman, but I am also fascinated by how intensely some people love it. I ended up revisiting it for Musical Mondays with the friend I saw it with in the theaters. It was the first time I had seen it since then, but it would have been at least the 10th time for my friend, which to me, who doesn't re-watch films that often anymore, seems almost insane. But whatever. It was cool to revisit a film with somebody who really loves it.

    I think some of the shakey foundations in certain relationshipsis are not helped by the very arbitrary use of time in this film. Zac Efron just kind of shows up with an invitation from the Queen of England, then everyone decides that the invitation extends to the whole show, then the next scene they've made their way across the goddamn Atlantic. It's as if, in the course of two days, an invitation was sent to an entire cadre of performers, who then made travel arrangements, sailed to England, and made their way to Buckingham Palace at a time when a transatlantic trip actually took weeks. And all the business of how long it takes for Barnum to raise money, then build and rebuild his circus seems to be done over the course of a couple days as well. I think we're just supposed to intuit that all that is happening over weeks or months. All this is happening in the background as our characters are falling in and out of love with one another, so it makes it harder to track the emotional arcs of these relationships.

    But then again, a lot of big historical musicals that we've covered in the past get into the details like this and, as a result, are bloated, slow, and have a running time approaching three hours. That would definitely not have worked for something like this.

    • Like 2

  16. Posted

    On 11/17/2019 at 9:44 PM, theworstbuddhist said:

    Not to invite myself, but I would totally do that with you. Or you could basically have a guest each time who picks a different apocalypse movie and then talks about it. I can already think of at least a few.

    @theworstbuddhistUPDATE ON THIS! I actually pitched this to one of my friends so it might actually happen! At least for one episode of a podcast. If it ends up happening, I will let you know!

    • Like 3

  17. Posted

    Yeah, it almost is using Barum's show business ideas and practices against him to tell this story. The movie is selling a totally fictitious depiction of a real man in a setting that resembles the real 19th Century America about as much Lawnmower Man was an accurate portrayal of virtual reality technology. Just like the Fiji Mermaid, we, the audience, know it's a sham, but we are here for it because it fascinating and beautiful and we get lost on those Zac Efron eyes and Hugh Jackman smile.

    • Like 2

  18. Posted

    Thinking about it more, there are an awful lot of movies from the 1990s with a similar aesthetic. You know, future dystopias taking influences from the same movies (the aforementioned The Warriors and Escape From New York and the like), often adaptations, that take comic book, cartoon, and/or video game imagery and utilize a very literal interpretation in formulating its imagery. I'm thinking this film, Super Mario Bros., Tank Girl, Johnny Mnemonic, and the like. We could do a limited series podcast on these kind of movies; call it "Pixelated Dystopia" or "Four Color Apocalypse."

    • Like 3

  19. Posted

    So I definitely watch this movie as a kid, probably rented it on VHS a couple times (my parents were very patient), but I probably haven't seen it in close to 25 years. If I tried to watch this 15 years ago, as a Very Smart 20 Year Old (uuuuggghhhh), I would most likely have seen it as a pile of garbage. But I'm like 20 minutes in and... I'm really enjoying it? I'm all-in for this "The Warriors-meets-Escape-From-New-York" world they have going. I mean, it's not good, but I can DEFINITELY see why this appealed to a 10-year-old-me. What boy 6-12 in 1994 wouldn't love this bullshit? I'm sure I did! High kicks and mohawks and weird cars with flames! Weeeeeee!

    • Like 3

  20. Posted

    Well, I loved The Revenant and I thought Di Caprio's performance was Oscar-worthy. Granted, every year there are a dozen performances that are Oscar-worthy, and awarding any artistic achievement a golden statue in some sort of attempt at quantifying the "best" in a particular year is reductive and foolish at best, but I'm glad he got his statue.

    • Like 2

  21. Posted

    The more I think about it, the more I like it. Ewan is, of course, amazing in the film, but one thing I really liked is casting Henry fucking Thomas to act opposite Danny Torrence. I know he's a frequent collaborator of Flanagan's (Haunting of Hill House is magnificent horror storytelling), but it just seems so perfect to have the "kid from ET" to play the ghost version of the father of the other most famous child role of the last 40 years.

    • Like 2
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