while I will admit I thought the movie was atrocious when I saw it in
the theatres, I have the dvd and have watched it a few times
it is what I call "an entertaining movie"
however it was filled with so much claptrap I couldn't enjoy it when
I first saw it.
you really have to leave your previous knowledge of the book and the
1953 movie behind because this film has almost nothing to do with those.
there are also some things that were truly ridiculous
for instance, the machines buried for a million years underground -
specifically underneath the cities - and no one knew they were there?
Not even from underground digs for the subway, utilities, deep
foundations for buildings etc. It was a laughable concoction as was
the aliens jet beamed into the machines through the ground with no
particular rupture to the ground.
Tim Robbins' role was ridiculous and the basic premise of the film:
gotta get to Boston to your mother where miraculously there is no
damage from the machines.. Oh c'mon Spielberg.. couldn't you get a
better screenplay than that???
on a scale of 10 I rated the movie a 5 when I first saw it.. I still
rate it a 5. However I'm certain that those under 35 who have never
read the book or seen the 1953 movie (which is also a concoction
compared to the book) would rate it a 9..
there's the difference in generational viewing for ya!!
Rich
At 12:48 PM 7/13/2009, Dave Rosen wrote:
Never mind the son. The daughter has to have been one of the most
annoying child characters ever to have graced the screen...and I
include Baby Leroy in that.
Her whiny, high-pitched screaming was one of the many things that
marred the movie, along with Tim Robbins extended over-the-top
nutbar performance.
I liked the first half of the film but found most parts of the
second half laughably bad. On the other hand, there were some
remarkable set-pieces that are almost worth re-watching the movie
for: the car-jacking scene, the ferry scene and the walk through the
debris from the crashed airliner. Too bad they weren't in a better movie.
Dave
----- Original Message ----- From: "James Richard"
<jrl...@mediabearonline.com>
To: <MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU>
Sent: Monday, July 13, 2009 3:35 PM
Subject: Re: [MOPO] FAVORITE FILM THAT YOU HAVE TO DEFEND
I agree that Spielberg's War of the Words and the original
theatrical release of Dune are both worthy of defense. I still like
the original release of Dune better than the subsequent "director's
cuts". It was clean, it was direct, it flowed well and it let
people who had never read the book understand what the heck was going on.
As for War of the Worlds... sure, it's flawed in a lot of ways, but
still one great ride and so very different from the 1953 film that
they are two completely different things. By the way, the reason
Tom Cruise's car was the only one that ran was because it was an
older model that did not have any computer chips in the ignition
system or motor -- the computer chips in all the other vehicles had
been fried by the big electro-magnetic pulse the Martians put out.
A nice way to get him a car when no one else had one, I thought,
although Spielberg did a bad job of explaining it. Some people
think it was because the garage guy had fixed the car (replaced the
computer chip) after the pulse, but that doesn't fly because the
replacement computer chip would have been fried when it was sitting
on the garage shelf and so when the mechanic put in it still
wouldn't have worked.
I second the motion that Tom's idiot teenage son should have stayed
toast at the end.
-- JR
aaroncba...@fuse.net wrote:
I am enjoying this discussion. I always feel the need to defend
War of the Worlds (Spielberg's). I think it is a better and more
interesting film than most people give it credit for. I firmly
believe that the entire film is a dream (e.g. Invaders from Mars)-
Tom Cruise's dream. He falls asleep and then everything starts
happening. The entire film is an exaggerated nightmare- his worst
nightmare- his parental abilities are tested to the extreme. The
very beginning of the film lays out the fact that he is a
questionable parent at best. Then, throughout the nightmare, he
is faced with parents' worst fears realized (best e.g. is the
scene where Cruise is simultaneously dealing with strangers trying
to take his daughter and his son being pulled inexplicably towards
the military- both primal parental fears). By film's end he
proves his parental prowess and in one of the most maligned scenes
in the film (the last scene) he hand delivers his children back
to his wife safe with his judgmental in-laws th!
er!
e to lay witness. To me this was absolutely Spielberg's intent.
Throughout, the film works more in the realm of dream logic (e.g.
Cruise's car is the ONLY one that works). If you are still
reading, I also find myself defending Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut
for one very specific and unique reason: I firmly believe that
the film is one big cosmic joke- a black comedy -that even the
critics, as far as I could tell, missed entirely. In the
simplest of terms it is a story of a husband who get's so jealous
about his wife having an imaginary tryst that he spends the rest
of the film trying to get laid and he CAN'T!
Mr.Tom-universal-sex-symbol-Cruise cannot get laid! And the most
exaggerated case in point is that he ends up going to a super
deluxe orgy and he STILL can't get laid. I think Kubrick threw a
curve ball at us before he died. A very funny curve ball.
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