'Beneath You'
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
I have the same problem with Grease;
Yes! Only the movie though. The original play was fine, music-wise. "Grease is the Word" on the other hand...
With Dirty Dancing, it's mostly the Big Giant Emotionally Sweeping And Completely Anachronistic Finale that has me rolling my eyes so far back that I end up looking forward again.
At least (as far as I remember), aside from the finale, all of the music in the movie (as opposed to soundtracked over) is OK.
I've never seen the play Grease. I will turn a blind eye to "There Are Worse Things I Could Do" because it isn't completely anachronistic (I could see, say, Judy Garland perform it), it's a hell of a song, and Stockard Channing presents the hell out of it (even if she does a worse job of passing for a high school student than Olivia Newton-John).
I saw Cloverfield! I really enjoyed it, but I tend to love those suspense thrillers where the characters are killed off one by one. I'd say Cloverfield was as good as, or maybe even better than Danny Boyle's Sunshine. Just enough time is spent introducing the characters so that you'll care about them when the attack begins. They do do some stupid things, but that's common in the genre and otherwise there wouldn't be much of a plot. You never really get a good look at the monster, but the design isn't disappointing (neither is it amazing).
For those concerned with the camera shakiness: If you can watch a chase sequence from The Shield without getting dizzy, you'll be fine.
aside from the finale,
For me, that made it worse. If the anachronicity had existed throughout the film, it would have been easier to just go with the flow. As it was, I was completely befuddled.
Oh, inconsistant movie geography! Say Anything, I'm looking at you. The Big Emotional Scene of the first time in the car? Will send people who grew up in the Seattle/Shoreline area into fits of laughter, because the cops did drive-bys of that spot every 15-20 minutes, specifically looking for hormonal teens in cars.
If you're setting your movie in the '80s, your soundtrack shouldn't include "Baby Got Back."
I think that rule should apply to all movies no matter what decade they're set in.
But then we wouldn't get the silly joy of A Knight's Tale!
I just screened Mad Money. I gotta say it wasn't that bad for a movie I chose to watch on account of it was five minutes shorter than 27 Dresses. Silly plot with great big holes but Keaton, Latifah and Holmes play off each other well with Keaton as the criminal mastermind, Latifah as the serious one with the serious face and Katie Holmes as the crazy silly one. The interstitial scenes were set in a blues bar which provided a cool musical interlude between acts and the supporting players were strong as well. Silly, yeah, but entertaining, funny and above all: shorter than two hours.
But then we wouldn't get the silly joy of A Knight's Tale!
Thank you, Sean! I was trying to remember the name of that movie earlier when I said I didn't mind if the anachronicity took place throughout the film.
Let me join the Knight's Tale bandwagon. When the anachronisms are gleefully deliberate I can relax and enjoy them. And I was reluctantly dragged to Knight's Tale but I clapped and cried with the rest of the audience at the end.
more fun with Geography: in When Harry Met Sally they drive South on Lake Shore Drive to get to New York from the University of Chicago.