What grinds my gears!

[dactylopus]

Napoleon Dynamite (or "Nappy D" as my friends call it) is a fantastic movie.  I can understand how some people don't like it.  I found it to be hilarious, and somewhat reminiscent of my favorite television show The Office.  I guess it's the awkward humor and quotability that I enjoy.

I have heard from many sources now that Holmes & Watson was not a good movie.  Shame, I was hoping for a success.

[Mandle]

Just from the poster alone I knew I was never going to watch it.

Yeah, from the DVD cover I was 90% sure it was going to be pretty bad, but even that turned out to be misleading.

As Maggie Smith so wonderfully stated in The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel "I went with no expectations and came away disappointed."

I was hoping that the advertising material was misleading in the extreme. I found this to be the case with the movie "Downsizing" recently.

The previews made it look like it was going to be a one-joke mess about tiny people using normal sized stuff, like the "giant" vodka bottle they show at the BBQ scene, which isn't even in the movie. And there was a bunch of this kind of visual "jokes" in the preview, whereas, in the movie, there is only one such joke and even that is a character playing a silly prank.

The movie itself is SO different from the preview that I think either the advertising team never even saw the movie or were told to deliberately troll the audience.

"Downsizing" is one of the most touching and wonderful films I have seen in years, with unforgettable characters, a unique but perfectly-done story structure, and deeply philosophical while never being preachy. It presents several moral choices and shows the choices the characters make but never suggests these were the right ones, leaving a lot of room for thought and discussion afterwards.

So, yeah, I was hoping this kind of misleading advertising might be the case with Holmes And Watson but immediately, from the opening quote at the start, I could tell this was not going to be the case.

And then it got worse... Much worse... Brrrrrrrrrr...

[Stupot]

I never really got the Will Ferrel thing. I missed that boat. I mean I saw Anchorman and a couple others but they never struck me as being as funny as people made out. I think people mistake quotable for funny.

I have the same thing with most of Judd Apatow's output. I haven't really watch any of them but my friends would all sit there quoting lines from Knocked Up or something and it didn't make me want to watch it. I'm not saying Knocked Up isn't a great film. But I just haven't felt compelled to watch it yet, just so that I can join in with quote sessions.

I think it's like Adam Sandler's “downfall”. People say his films got shit. Looking back I think they were always a bit shit (with a few exceptions). My mum knew they were shit. She would say “why are you watching this shit?” as I cracked up at the next “You can do iiit!” which was somehow funny at the time.

What I'm saying is I think I just realised I don't much like American Comedy films...

huh...

[milkanannan]

+1 on Will Ferrel. No idea what everyone was on about. Even in his SNL days he wasn't funny. I guess the joke was that he physically looks like a stable, middle-aged dude but would randomly yell out something like 'I drive a Dodge Stratus!' (or whatever) at moments when it's awkward to do so. It's half funny the first time I guess, but I would have never guessed a person could build a successful comedic career around that one joke. I think he was part of that SNL era where the show seemed to confuse nonsensical randomness with comedy.

[dactylopus]

To each their own.  I find Ferrel funny in a lot of things, but it can be a bit much at times.  As for Adam Sandler, Billy Madison is one of my all time favorite movies but I don't care much for anything post-Wedding Singer.

[Mandle]

the show seemed to confuse nonsensical randomness with comedy.

Monty Python: ARE WE A JOKE TO YOU?!

(I think I misused that meme... What is that called? A misdememeor?)

[Mouth for war]

Monty python...K.I.N.G.S It doesn't matter how many times I watch the biggus d#ckus scene in life of Brian. I still laugh like the first time I watched it. Just a footnote

[Blondbraid]

To each their own.  I find Ferrel funny in a lot of things, but it can be a bit much at times.  As for Adam Sandler, Billy Madison is one of my all time favorite movies but I don't care much for anything post-Wedding Singer.

Yeah, pretty much all his later movies only exist because they were a form of paid vacation for Sandler and his friends, no one put any effort into anything and everything is financed by enough
product placements to put even Michel Bay to shame.

Regarding the Holmes and Watson movie, I never saw it, but I did see some YouTube reviews of it and it seems spectacularly bad.

Apparently, the big climax of the movie show the two "heroes" finding a bomb on board the Titanic and their hijinks end up destroying the ship. It just sounds like remarkably bad taste,
though sadly I've seen even more inappropriate uses of the Titanic catastrophe in bad kid's movies. Seriously, it's insane how many kid's movies featuring the sinking of Titanic there are!

[Mandle]

Seriously, it's insane how many kid's movies featuring the sinking of Titanic there are!

Nostalgia Critic fan?

[Blondbraid]

Seriously, it's insane how many kid's movies featuring the sinking of Titanic there are!

Nostalgia Critic fan?

Yep, though the worst depiction of Titanic in a kid's movie I've ever seen wasn't even reviewed by him!

It's a Danish film called Samson and Sally, and there's a big musical number where two comedy relief characters
build a human centipede out of the skeletons of the dead crew members and use it as a xylophone! 

I've found a clip from that movie on YouTube, if you skip to about two minutes in you can see the scene for yourself:

Seriously, anyone else thinking that movie was messed up?

[Mandle]

Seriously, anyone else thinking that movie was messed up?

I'm not that sure about it being messed up.

The Titanic disaster happened a long time ago and few are around today to be traumatized by such content.

For kids it's about the same as pirate skeletons lurking in the wrecks of their ships.

I say let them build all the fictional xylophones they like from the bones of unnamed 100 year old disaster victims.

It's just creepy good fun by now and we might be getting a bit too sensitive these days about such stuff.

Pretty soon, if we take this approach, we won't be able to tell any creepy stories based on real life events.

I would draw the line at making the same kind of humor based on victims of intentional, human-made atrocities, but accidents that happened over 100 years ago...

Fair game in my opinion!

If I had died in such a way I would think it awesome that was remembered still in some way 100+ years later.

[milkanannan]

Jeez I wonder what's going to happen next...

[Blondbraid]

I would draw the line at making the same kind of humor based on victims of intentional, human-made atrocities, but accidents that happened over 100 years ago...

That is a good point, though the problem with the movie is that it also features a "humorous" depiction of the ghosts of the trans atlantic slave trade
right in the same musical number (look for yourselves at about 1:50 in the video), plus they insert a great deal of random WW2 weaponry at the end of the song.

But probably the worst part for me is that I saw this movie as a kid, and knowing the context of the scene is that those two walruses are supposed to be the cutesy comedy relief!
I mean, the hyenas from Lion King used a random animal rib-cage as a xylophone, but they were supposed to be the creepy and evil villains, whereas the walruses in Sampson and Sally
practically wades in weird inappropriate imagery for no reason and kills a whole school of fish in the process and kid's are meant to laugh at them. 

I don't remember much of the actual story, but I do remember thinking that whole segment had no business in a kids movie even when I was a kid watching it.
I do think there is a place for dark humor in animation aimed at older audiences like The Simpsons or Family Guy, but for kids who haven't yet learned satire or
what half of the tragedis referenced  in that song were about and only see "funny" characters laughing at dead people and destruction? Just nope. 

[Danvzare]

"Downsizing" is one of the most touching and wonderful films I have seen in years, with unforgettable characters, a unique but perfectly-done story structure, and deeply philosophical while never being preachy. It presents several moral choices and shows the choices the characters make but never suggests these were the right ones, leaving a lot of room for thought and discussion afterwards.

Wait... you liked Downsizing?
You could remove the whole shrinking aspect, and you'd only change the first fifteen minutes of the film!
It's like they combined two half finished film scripts into one.
Here I was waiting for the whole shrinking thing to completely blow up in everyone's face (of which there was plenty of signs pointing to that), and suddenly, the film changed tone and started treating it as set dressing.
There's all sorts of ways they could've handled the film. From big people no longer supporting little people, and rats breaking in, and so on. To a full on apocalypse outside, with the little people all slowly realizing that they depended on big people to survive. So on, and so on. But no, instead they used it as an excuse for the main guy to have a divorce.

I could easily describe the ENTIRE PLOT of that film, without once mentioning the shrinking aspect. Shrinking should not be the least important part of a film, which has shrinking in it!

But let's take a look at it without the fact that they shoe-horned shrinking into it, just to sell tickets. And instead just look at it as the film it is.
In that case... meh. It's alright I guess. If you like that type of film. Personally I've seen it done better.

+1 on Will Ferrel. No idea what everyone was on about.

Same here. I can't think of one film he's been in, that I've liked.

[Mandle]

Danzare,

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD

Spoiler

The point for me of the shrinking was to create a Utopia for humanity and save us from our excess waste of resources.

But, it turned into just a way to "cheat" your way into an extravagant lifestyle so the new Utopia was full of the nouveau riche who had suddenly all the wealth they would ever need and nothing to do.

Enter our smuggler character, played amazingly by Christopher Waltz... He is there to provide the suddenly rudderless society with endless drugs, booze, and whatever else is being controlled by the corporation that runs Leisureland.

He doesn't care about size. In fact he let his own brother remain big as his contact on the outside. He only cares about the opportunities there are in this new "wild west" as he describes it. That being said, he turns out to be one of the most likeable characters in the movie.

Then we see the dark side of the utopia: They still need someone to come in and clean up their messes after that day's party is over.

We go to the poor-town outside the walls where the laborers live and see the moral choice the Vietnamese refugee lady makes when it comes to her dying friend.

Then we go to the original little-people settlement in Sweden and it seems at first that they have a true utopia until we start to see that they are a cult like any other.

The smuggler says it best when the choice comes to survive underground or face the environmental disaster to come: "They'll be at each other's throats killing one another within 50 years and we'll still be here for at least the next 300."

Our main character, who has always been drawn towards helping others, goes back to Leisureland and becomes a permanent helper in the Vietnamese lady's "meals-on-wheels" effort.

He hasn't helped save the entire future of the world like he briefly wanted to, but he is taking care of the living for now. He has found peace... And then she honks the horn for him to hurry up... The end.

I thought it was an excellent movie mostly because it didn't focus on the point of people being shrunk.

It was more like, the more things change the more they stay the same.

I was so glad it wasn't just a movie-long episode of Land Of The Giants.

[close]

[Danvzare]

Danzare,

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD

Spoiler

The point for me of the shrinking was to create a Utopia for humanity and save us from our excess waste of resources.

But, it turned into just a way to "cheat" your way into an extravagant lifestyle so the new Utopia was full of the nouveau riche who had suddenly all the wealth they would ever need and nothing to do.

Enter our smuggler character, played amazingly by Christopher Waltz... He is there to provide the suddenly rudderless society with endless drugs, booze, and whatever else is being controlled by the corporation that runs Leisureland.

He doesn't care about size. In fact he let his own brother remain big as his contact on the outside. He only cares about the opportunities there are in this new "wild west" as he describes it. That being said, he turns out to be one of the most likeable characters in the movie.

Then we see the dark side of the utopia: They still need someone to come in and clean up their messes after that day's party is over.

We go to the poor-town outside the walls where the laborers live and see the moral choice the Vietnamese refugee lady makes when it comes to her dying friend.

Then we go to the original little-people settlement in Sweden and it seems at first that they have a true utopia until we start to see that they are a cult like any other.

The smuggler says it best when the choice comes to survive underground or face the environmental disaster to come: "They'll be at each other's throats killing one another within 50 years and we'll still be here for at least the next 300."

Our main character, who has always been drawn towards helping others, goes back to Leisureland and becomes a permanent helper in the Vietnamese lady's "meals-on-wheels" effort.

He hasn't helped save the entire future of the world like he briefly wanted to, but he is taking care of the living for now. He has found peace... And then she honks the horn for him to hurry up... The end.

I thought it was an excellent movie mostly because it didn't focus on the point of people being shrunk.

It was more like, the more things change the more they stay the same.

I was so glad it wasn't just a movie-long episode of Land Of The Giants.

[close]

I'll hide this part, so as to not spoil it for anyone who wants to watch the film.

Spoiler

Now that's you've described the movie by including the shrinking, let me explain it to you without the shrinking.

Guy divorces his wife and then meets a smuggler in his apartment building who uses illegal immigrants as hired help. He then sees the dark side of the world when he gets to know one of these people. The smuggler turns out to be a pretty decent guy. He then gets invited to go to this place which is supposedly a paradise, only to find out that they're a bit of a cult who has an underground bunker, because they think the world is going to end.
You can literally have the exact same film play out (minus the first fifteen minutes) without having shrinking in it.
(As a matter of fact, I wouldn't be surprised if that film has already been made.)

[close]

I hated the movie, because it didn't focus on what people were clearly sacrificing by being shrunk down. They were literally selling their freedom and security, for money. They were all relying heavily upon big people to accommodate them, and it was clear at the start, that some people had a problem with that.
I wanted to see the inevitable conclusion of it all. The sad ending where it all falls apart for our main character as the shrinking fad inevitably dies!
I wanted to see the passage of time, the lack of maintenance on Leisureland, the increased prices of miniature products. The people who were shrunk and got lots of money as a result, suddenly ending up on the bottom of the food chain. Rats and cockroaches breaking in. Perhaps even a psychopath (who is big) breaking in early on in the movie, screaming about how he hates little people, and smashing half the city under his foot.
I wanted to see them be abandoned, as you got to see the true dark side of reality, when the inevitable bubble pops. And how greed had fueled it all.
You can't tell me that would've made a worse movie.

You said you like how it was a movie about how the more things change, the more they stay the same. Which proves my point exactly, as it is just a fancy way of saying, the shrinking added nothing. You could have just as easily replaced shrinking with anything else (going to Mars for example) and had the same film. Or as I have said multiple times already, you could've easily removed it entirely!
I believe if you are going to add something major into the story, it should be integral to the story. Any film can say "Oh, and it's set on mars in the future", but it doesn't instantly make it better. Could you imagine if they did that to The Usual Suspects or Pulp Fiction? Would it have made those films better or worse? In my opinion, worse. 

That being said, I'm also glad it wasn't just a movie-long episode of Land of the Giants. Or a remake of Honey I Shrunk the Kids. But come on, if you're going to introduce the social changes caused by people shrinking themselves, you've got to follow through with it. Don't just have it as a backdrop.

[Snarky]

I haven't seen Downsizing, but Danvzare's complaints reminds me of what really rubbed me the wrong way about Stranger Than Fiction. It takes a high-concept premise, and then never follows through on it. It doesn't ask the obvious questions about the potential of the fantastic thing it has introduced, just uses it as a the backdrop for a run-of-the-mill love story.

That's what makes Charlie Kaufman's scripts so great: he'll start from some wacky idea, but then he'll push them further, really work them out to their ultimate implications. There's a tunnel that puts your mind into John Malkovich's body? Well, what happens if John Malkovich goes through the tunnel? We're in a movie written by one of the characters in the movie? Well, what happens if his hack brother takes over the writing? A lot of other writers who try to work in that surreal vein don't seem to have either the imagination or the courage to actually follow through on their setup.

[Blondbraid]

I haven't seen Downsizing, but this whole discussion makes it sound like it's basically Bioshock but with a miniature city instead of an underwater city,
which is completely different from the first impression I got from the marketing, which was basically just Matt Damon messing around with giant props.

It grinds my gears when marketing and trailers completely fail to convey the tone or themes of a film or series. One example I experienced was with
the German TV-series Babylon Berlin, where the trailer I saw made it look like an awful attempt at doing "Game of Thrones, but with nazis", and relying on
edgy imagery of sex and violence paired with super cliche film noir tropes, and I probably would have skipped it entirely if it wasn't for the recommendation
of an acquaintance as well as a review praising the series for avoiding exactly that sort of stuff.

I actually wound up loving the series for it's great visuals and nuanced and complex characters and how it gave a captivating portrait of an interesting historical era,
and how it could deal with mature topics without fetishizing them or reveling in shock imagery and featured marginalized characters without killing them off or reducing
them to tragic victims. Basically, it was the stark opposite of what I saw presented in the trailer, and if that trailer had been all I'd heard of it, I probably would have
missed out on Babylon Berlin entirely, which is kind of the opposite of what marketing is supposed to do.

[Mandle]

which is completely different from the first impression I got from the marketing, which was basically just Matt Damon messing around with giant props.

Yup... It's not that. It's much better than that.

[Frodo]

I hate it when I'm bidding for something on Ebay... and I'm winning.
But then someone scoops in at the very last second, so no-one else has a chance to bid again. 

If you're interested in an item, just bid on it!  Don't wait for the last second.  That's a low move!