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Troy
Really problematic, worth seeing film.
1. How this happens in visual mediums, I'm not sure, but Dear Troy, Show; Don't Tell.
2. Loreena McKennit should sue, as the theme song is a direct lift of one of her songs.
3. Orlando Bloom has one really really good scene, and a lot of really really bad ones.
4. Wow, Eric Bana's really talented. Also yummy. But seriously, the one true spark in the film.
5. Can I give Sean Bean a hug?
6. This movie is the poster child for Why Epics Are Difficult. I mean, how do you make it not evoke 1950s cheese?
7. Pick a style and stick with it. This movie could have used a lot of stronger choices and about twenty fewer influences.
8. Choose a color pallette, please? Christ -- one scene is lush, the next is washed out, sometimes it's gold, sometimes it's steel, and you can jump around like that if you keep it consistent to events or societies, but it was like the visual people had ADD.
9. Heh, Peter O'Toole rocks.
10. Choosing to tell the story completely linearly was probably a mistake. I'm seeing title sequence over initial battle, some backtracking and then moving forward -- certainly would have made the whiny boring parts of the story less whiny and boring.
11. Wow, could those chicks be less interesting?
12. Okay, I get that Brad Pitt is physically stunning in this film, and I was more than happy to drool, but every time there was a cheesy sound affect leading to "freeze. pan. arm close-up. pull back along sword." I wanted to scream.
13. The coins for the ferryman GO UNDER THE TONGUE!!!!!! Sorry, this drove me INSANE. Granted, I know there was a script meeting where a bunch of people sat around talking about all the ways shoving coins under people's tongues would translate badly and bizarrely on film, but still, this drove me realy nuts.
14. The Iliad is about the cruelty and tradgedy of war. It is about a mood, and about the inexorable collapse of all things great and small. It is not about Achilles' journey from being a smug asshole to a cool soldier you're sorry to see die. What the fuck?
15. Hey, let's give everyone different versions of British accents, that way everyone sounds foreign to the American audience, we convince people this is quality cinema, the Brits don't complain and the Americans sound less dorky on film. How 'bout not?
16. Um, people die who shouldn't. And um. Patrocles as the dumb pretty cousin? Dumb and pretty maybe... but... right... anyway... *exasperated sigh*
17. Hey, look, it's Brendon Gleeson (who I adore) playing a big Irish guy who likes to hit peopel with sticks again... wha... wait.
The film is worth seeing, and has many fine moments both visually and emotionally. But ultimately, it's an action movie, which assumes audience knowledge (or lack there of) in all the wrong places, and I happen to think that none of that is what an epic should be.
If the Illiad were a story I were more personally invested in, I would have been throwing shoes at the screen.
And I hardly got any good trailers, although Constantine looks not nearly as bad as it could be and seeing the Manchurian trailer on the big screen -- yeah, punching weird buttons I wish I didn't have.
1. How this happens in visual mediums, I'm not sure, but Dear Troy, Show; Don't Tell.
2. Loreena McKennit should sue, as the theme song is a direct lift of one of her songs.
3. Orlando Bloom has one really really good scene, and a lot of really really bad ones.
4. Wow, Eric Bana's really talented. Also yummy. But seriously, the one true spark in the film.
5. Can I give Sean Bean a hug?
6. This movie is the poster child for Why Epics Are Difficult. I mean, how do you make it not evoke 1950s cheese?
7. Pick a style and stick with it. This movie could have used a lot of stronger choices and about twenty fewer influences.
8. Choose a color pallette, please? Christ -- one scene is lush, the next is washed out, sometimes it's gold, sometimes it's steel, and you can jump around like that if you keep it consistent to events or societies, but it was like the visual people had ADD.
9. Heh, Peter O'Toole rocks.
10. Choosing to tell the story completely linearly was probably a mistake. I'm seeing title sequence over initial battle, some backtracking and then moving forward -- certainly would have made the whiny boring parts of the story less whiny and boring.
11. Wow, could those chicks be less interesting?
12. Okay, I get that Brad Pitt is physically stunning in this film, and I was more than happy to drool, but every time there was a cheesy sound affect leading to "freeze. pan. arm close-up. pull back along sword." I wanted to scream.
13. The coins for the ferryman GO UNDER THE TONGUE!!!!!! Sorry, this drove me INSANE. Granted, I know there was a script meeting where a bunch of people sat around talking about all the ways shoving coins under people's tongues would translate badly and bizarrely on film, but still, this drove me realy nuts.
14. The Iliad is about the cruelty and tradgedy of war. It is about a mood, and about the inexorable collapse of all things great and small. It is not about Achilles' journey from being a smug asshole to a cool soldier you're sorry to see die. What the fuck?
15. Hey, let's give everyone different versions of British accents, that way everyone sounds foreign to the American audience, we convince people this is quality cinema, the Brits don't complain and the Americans sound less dorky on film. How 'bout not?
16. Um, people die who shouldn't. And um. Patrocles as the dumb pretty cousin? Dumb and pretty maybe... but... right... anyway... *exasperated sigh*
17. Hey, look, it's Brendon Gleeson (who I adore) playing a big Irish guy who likes to hit peopel with sticks again... wha... wait.
The film is worth seeing, and has many fine moments both visually and emotionally. But ultimately, it's an action movie, which assumes audience knowledge (or lack there of) in all the wrong places, and I happen to think that none of that is what an epic should be.
If the Illiad were a story I were more personally invested in, I would have been throwing shoes at the screen.
And I hardly got any good trailers, although Constantine looks not nearly as bad as it could be and seeing the Manchurian trailer on the big screen -- yeah, punching weird buttons I wish I didn't have.
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It's really a mess.
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I'm still bitter about that. Constantine's British, dammit.
Oh, but....
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Anyway, if you're going to film The Iliad -- as opposed to making a movie about the Trojan War or other Southern California football rivalry -- it's going to focus on Achilles. Troy does seem to be from the Iliad, or at least the IMDb says Ομηρος has a writing credit.
It's gotta be better than the Oddesey TV movie NBC put on in 1997, with Derek Lea as Hector apparently trying to do an impression of Uncle Milty.
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I know you're trying to be helpful, and you should feel free to disagree with my analysis and the choices I would make were it _my_ film (and you'll note I've never written or directed shit, I just like to pretend), but the condescension on a subject I'm pretty knowledgeable about, is really annoying.
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(Oh, um, hi, Rach! Sorry for barging in on your blog. Kind of a pet peeve, heh.)
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