Australia

[Pozer]

bomb

[MacGuffin]

New Trailer

[MacGuffin]

New Trailer

[Fernando]

bomb

yeah, this will tank.

am I the only one sad at what happened to kidman's face? why did she even do that? she looked great, she just turned 40 last year! I can't understand why some actors keep doing that, did't they see what happened to meg ryan?

[modage]

bomb

yeah, this will tank.

BIG TIME.  everything about this looks like the worst movie ever.



sorry baz!  i will still see this, but it will be bad.  and make $0.

[Pwaybloe]

bomb

yeah, this will tank.

BIG TIME.  everything about this looks like the worst movie ever.

Really?  I guess I was looking at it too optimistically.  It looks like a perfect romantic epic a la "Out of Africa" that should appeal to middle-aged women (and their reluctant husbands).  They're not the best market to go after, but didn't they at least give the "Sex And The City" movie a fighting chance ($152 mil box office)?  I guess we'll see how the reviews pan out.

[Gold Trumpet]

Wait, what? We're deciding how good movies are before they are released?

I'm not sure if this movie will become a blockbuster (but I do remember scant publicity for Titanic before it was released) but Australia looks like a real Baz Luhrmann film. For me, he's in his element when dealing with stories that are explorations of age old genres. Moulin Rouge was an exciting take on the musical in a post dancer-as-actor world. Luhrmann's imagination made the viewer forget the leads were not trained at all to do the numbers they did. Chicago failed in that regard.

Luhrmann annoys me when he tries to implant his style into serious works. Romeo+Juliet may be one of the worst films I've ever seen. Then when word came out that he was going to do an Alexander the Great film, I was equally depressed about what the vision would turn out to be. If I had to take Romeo+Juliet as an example, all ideas of the historical figure Alexander the Great represented would be thrown away for the latest and greatest in cinematography. Boo! At least in his updates of genre films the stories are generic enough where the cinematography is a true compliment.

[Alexandro]

i have to ask gt...that last line about the stories being generic enough for cinematography to be a true compliment. what exactly do you mean?

about australia, it looks really bad. i hope i'm wrong because i like everyone involved.

[Gold Trumpet]

i have to ask gt...that last line about the stories being generic enough for cinematography to be a true compliment. what exactly do you mean?

Generic meaning genre. The story is so basic to an established genre that it offers no philosophical or dramatic content that is worthwhile. To add those qualities would mean to bend the rules of the genre enough where the story didn't even exist within the bounds of the genre anymore. But if you add good cinematography then you at least make the story enjoyable. The Godfather is a prime example of that. It has respectable actors and good cinematography, but if you remove those qualities then the story is just a mild mafia romance story. The cinematography hides all the shortcomings of the story.

[pete]

yes, if you make a movie without actors and a camera, then it's just a story.  that is true.

[matt35mm]

I like Romeo + Juliet.

[Alexandro]

so, is it that "dumb" movies are the ones who deserve more style and "intelligent, important works" deserve less...? so it's ok so a minor literary work like "the godfather" novel to get a stylish treatment but romeo and juliet should be...what, really ? i'm just trying to understand here because you usually have issues with stylish filmmakers (except with oliver stone)....

[Gold Trumpet]

so, is it that "dumb" movies are the ones who deserve more style and "intelligent, important works" deserve less...? so it's ok so a minor literary work like "the godfather" novel to get a stylish treatment but romeo and juliet should be...what, really ? i'm just trying to understand here because you usually have issues with stylish filmmakers (except with oliver stone)....

There is definitely some miscommunication here.

The Godfather is based on a pulp novel, but one that mirrored a dramatic work. The problem is that the film adaptation had little chance to be anything but enjoyable unless it changed around the entire story. At least the cinematography made it something nice to look at.

Romeo and Juliet is a different kind of literary source. A film adaptation begged for introspective and detailed filmmaking to marry a good source of literature to film. The choices Lurhmann made with odd camera angles, desperate dramatic shots everywhere and a full litany of stylistic shots reduced the film to cinematic slosh. If Shakespeare's dialogue wasn't left in there would be little to hide all the awfulness. The actors helped very little with making most of the dramatic scenes laughable. It isn't just coincidence that when I watched Smokin' Aces I saw a lot of similar techniques run side to side with what Lurhmann did in Romeo and Juliet. At least Carnahan knew what kind of story you had to have to run with the style.

I have issues with stylistic filmmakers because most of them get it wrong, but I am not against stylistic filmmakers at all. In fact my favorite filmmakers are stylistic, including not just Oliver Stone, but Sam Peckinpah, Richard Lester and Federico Fellini. I will argue that all of those filmmakers, when at their best, understood that a great style had to be united with a great source of writing, acting and production. All the intangibles that made a film philosophically and aesthetically sound had to come together.

When I slam stylistic films I usually do so because the filmmaking hides all the other bad aspects of the film. That happens in the Godfather and Romeo and Juliet, but my problem with a lot of people is that they focus too much on things like direction and cinematography. I believe writing it still the most important part about a film. There are still other parts about a film to keep in mind, but writing is the main essential.

I hold up that example that the 39 Steps is likely Alfred Hitchcock's best film. It isn't his best film because his direction was much better. Hitchcock had the same filmmaking tendencies his entire career so you can't really separate one film from another for his filmmaking decisions. But I think what separates his films is the quality of writing from film to film.

[Alexandro]

Well, I think the acting in the godfather films is fantastic. I give more credit to the acting than anything for the way that film works and becomes more than a pulpy novel.

I wouldn't argue about Romeo and Juliet because I felt it was more concerned with being hip and appeal to young people than anything.

I used to feel the way you feel about writing, but not anymore.

[Gold Trumpet]

Well, I think the acting in the godfather films is fantastic. I give more credit to the acting than anything for the way that film works and becomes more than a pulpy novel.

The acting in The Godfather is horrible. Starting with Marlon Brando, his performance is a ham job. He does the necessary things to get the aged look and touch of the Don, but after that he uses none of his emotional talents to dig at the heart of the character. His performance is based on the physical recreation of the Don, but that has more to do with make up. The whole of his performance is just acting orderly and professional the way a respectable mafioso would. Only one scene (when he hears about Caan's death) really shows Marlon Brando the actor. The rest is caricature.

As goes with the other characters. The one thing you can say Al Pacino does in the first film is transition from naivety to deceitfulness, but the tones of his character's change are too simplistic. Even when he loses his first wife to an unfortunate explosion there are no scenes that dig at the essence of his character. All you get is a later scene that shows him more hollow and emotionally distant. To play those scenes all you need is a tone to your voice and a look. Nothing more. Robert Duvall has two nice scenes that show him wanting to be a true member of the family, but yet again, he's a supporting character who has more orderly things to do. The film follows mafioso protocol.

The character with the most emotional range is with Jimmy Caan's character. He goes between more extremes and has more intimate moments that show his character defeats, but Caan isn't the actor that the other ones are. Godfather Part III actually has a story that allows for the most emotional range between the characters, but the first two films have stories that are too weak to allow for really good acting. All it can be is competent at best.

I used to feel the way you feel about writing, but not anymore.

What changed? How do you feel now? What interests you most in cinema? I ask because we have a lot of discussions on here, but it seems we come from different levels of thought. Sometimes we argue until we are blue in the face when we arguing on two different levels of intent. It would be good for me to know more about you.