From: psperson1@ix.netcom.invalid
On Thu, 07 Oct 2021 08:22:52 -0700, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
wrote:
>Paul S Person wrote in
>news:7f3ulgt38kbbn6j668sv1mrn276h85i89j@4ax.com:
>
>> On Wed, 06 Oct 2021 15:37:27 -0700, Jibini Kula Tumbili
>> Kujisalimisha wrote:
>>
>>>Your Name wrote in
>>>news:sjl4ql$lob$1@gioia.aioe.org:
>>>
>>>> On 2021-10-06 16:01:08 +0000, novaste...@gmail.com said:
>>>>> On Friday, September 24, 2021 at 9:15:42 AM UTC-6, Paul S
>>>>> Person wrote:
>>>>>> On Thu, 23 Sep 2021 20:05:12 -0600, Joe Pfeiffer
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>> Paul S Person writes:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I finally rented this from Amazon and saw it last night.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> It is a well-done film and would be worth four stars
>>>>>>>> except for one small problem: it is as dull as dishwater.
>>>>>>>> Three stars, then.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> This may not be apparent unless you view it, as I did, as
>>>>>>>> being in the same "realistic space movie" category as
>>>>>>>> /Apollo 13/. Comparing the two shows the difference
>>>>>>>> between a really good movie and one that is well-done but
>>>>>>>> ... dispensible.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> IMHO, of course.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> And not a HO I share in the slightest. I had the same sense
>>>>>>> of constant tension in the Martian as I did in Apollo 13.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> There is no need for you to share my HO. You are entitled to
>>>>>> your own.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I had the blahs all too much of the time.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> And, the moment they skipped the pre-launch tests because
>>>>>> "they only catch a problem one time in twenty" I /knew/ the
>>>>>> rocket was going to explode. It was cinematically
>>>>>> inevitable.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I will concede that the climax was a bit exciting, although,
>>>>>> again, it was cinematically impossible for the attempt to
>>>>>> fail. So any tension was of the "how do they manage it"
>>>>>> rather than "will they manage it" variety.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Just as, when I watched /The Bad Seed/, I shortly found I
>>>>>> could tell when someone would be knocking at the door: the
>>>>>> conversation was heading toward a point where two characters
>>>>>> would be able to compare notes and figure what was going on,
>>>>>> and /that/ couldn't be allowed. The knock at the door
>>>>>> stopped the conversation every time -- and it never resumed
>>>>>> from the point of interruption.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The climax, while quite rushed, was, however, a suprise.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The child abuse at the end was ... well, I am old enough to
>>>>>> recognize that it was amusing to the audience, but I no
>>>>>> longer find it so.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I'll say having any tension at all in Apollo 13 is a *real*
>>>>>>> tribute to everyone involved in the film, since we all know
>>>>>>> how it came out decades before the movie was made.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Which is what makes it a /much/ better movie.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> And /2001/ did it better as well.
>>>>
>>>> The only thing "2001" did 'well' was put people to sleep ...
>>>> it's a great cure for insomnia. :-\
>>>
>>>That's not the *only* thing it did. The ending also confused the
>>>hell out of me. Even after reading the book, I have no idea what
>>>was supposed to be happening. Best I can figure, it was a film
>>>representation of an acid trip.
>>
>> It can certainly be argued that it had much the same effect.
>>
>> Well, except that most acid trips don't end up with the Star
>> Child at the end, looking at the Earth as if it were a shiny new
>> toy.
>
>There's no reason they couldn't, what with the hallucinations and
>all.
>>
>> IIRC, some of the trip at the end was regarded, by reviewers, as
>> very advanced and very cool. /Star Trek -- The Motion Picture/
>> did something like it, although whether that was deliberate or
>> not I have no idea.
>
>"Now that we have them just where they want us."
>
>And that sums up the high points of that turkey of a movie.
>>
>>>Only movie I've ever seen mroe confusing was the one with Van
>>>Damme tied down in the desert, killing a vulture with his teeth.
>>
>> That one I missed, God be praised.
>
>The first time I saw it, it was chopped up for television, as
>movies often are.
>
>It made *more* sense that way.
>
>(I'm not sure, but I *think* it was "Cyborg.")
>>
>> Despite buying a "Van Damme 4-Pack" (4 films, 2 per side of a
>> DVD) to get a /letterboxed/ version of /Timecop/.
>
>Timecop had it's charm.
It is the /only/ Van Damme film whose reviews impressed me enough to
go watch it in a theatre. As with Nick Nolte and /Mother Night/, this
may be Van Damme's One Good Film.
>> The others looked, to me, like three different lessons in how
>> /not/ to make a movie.
>
>Starting with "Starring Jean-Claude Van Damme." Or "With Jean-
>Claude Van Damme in a cameo role." Or "Jean-Claude Van Damme has
>heard this movie eixsts."
It was the /Quadruple Feature Van Damme Action Pack/, containing:
Time Cop
The Quest
Hard Target
Street Fighter
Each of the last three seemed to me, as I watched them, to be a
completely different way to make a bad movie.
I was wrong about the packaging: it contains two DVDs, each with two
films on it. This, of course, greatly increases the chances of
actually getting the side with the film you want face-down in the
player, something entirely likely with two-sided disks unless you are
paying strict attention.
Particularly since while, in most cases, the lable around the center
hole refers to the /other/ side (so you put that lable up to play the
desired side), it worked the opposite for some of them. Of course, the
position in the case can be used help "remember" which side goes down.
BDs, as I understand it, simply avoided the problem from the
beginning. This was very useful in looking for long films on one side
of one disk: if the "number of disks" was 1 and it was a BD, then
there was only one side for the film to be on.
For some reason, commercial BD-Rs were dropped and MoD ("Manufactured
on Demand") BDs were used instead for the market pioneered by the
commercial DVD-Rs. All in all, this stuff just gets wierder and
wierder as time goes on.
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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