RoR: Forum

Post 0

Friday, March 2, 2007 - 1:20pm

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That's why he turned to TV - poor bladder....;-)

Post 1

Friday, March 2, 2007 - 1:54pm

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That's why Gone With the Wind was originally shown in two portions with an hour-long intermission between them ... so the audience could go home for dinner and come back. Audiences weren't used to such long movies.

Post 2

Friday, March 2, 2007 - 4:29pm

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I think classroom lectures and political speeches ought to have the same limits.

Post 3

Friday, March 2, 2007 - 6:17pm

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With the pause button, who now cares about the bladder? I oppose movies that cause eruptions from the other end of the body. The directors of slasher flicks should train in their craft by serving first as the subjects of snuff films. Psycho was a travesty, and Rope was vilely decadent, although I generally love Hitchcock.

Ted

Post 4

Friday, March 2, 2007 - 7:45pm

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Hey, I loved Psycho and Cape Fear. :-P Only cause at least he left much to the imagination by comparison to today's 'slasher' films.

-- Bridget

Post 5

Friday, March 2, 2007 - 8:16pm

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Give me Ice Goddesses!

I didn't think he directed the original Cape Fear, which was good, but not something I'd watch again. I do like the Birds immensely, despite some of the gorier aspects. I simply found Psycho disturbing, while in the Birds there was no psychotic, just raw sexuality symbolized as an uncontrolable force of nature. In fact, as a youth I found the birds incomprehensibly maudlin. It was only uppon recently appreciating the amazing Tippi Hedren's "femme fatality" in a visceral manner (say no more) that I came to love the film.

Except for more violent films that I saw before my boyfriend's murder, I have a week stomach. Since 9-11, I have become downright intolerant. Experiencing murder and war tend to change one's point of view.

Ted
(Edited by Ted Keer
on 3/02, 8:23pm)

Post 6

Saturday, March 3, 2007 - 10:30am

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The problem is that most modern films that use murder, death, and gore as plot devices don't have much else to them. Look at just North by Northwest or Vertigo. There's always some strange subplot or series of subplots interwoven. Or even just look at the work of Rod Serling, who parallels Hitchcock in the field of science fiction [and general fiction]. It's like story telling today versus yesteryears is weak by comparison.

I've been tempted to write my own sort of 'horror' novel, but it wouldn't be considered one under the current climate since most the idea behind horror has been changed from fear to gore. >_<

-- Bridget

Post 7

Saturday, March 3, 2007 - 4:29pm

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I don't think that you can even dignify them as plot devices. In most cases, they are mere gimmicks. When the number of yearly major-release slasher pix jumped from 4 to 26 a few years back, a studio executive admitted that as long as the trailer was good enough, and the movie was within budget, writing did not matter. Enough males 18-34 would see it on the first weekend to guarantee a fourfold return, even if the movie flopped and disappeared by the following weekend. For this reason, I make it a policy never to watch new releases unless I know all the principals involved.

One thriller that I thought was most excellent was M. Night Shyamalan's "Signs" which also used minimal effects to maximum effect. The final alien scene was a bit disappointingly crude as CGI. I could almost wish that he would pull a George Lucas on the re-release. But overall, that is one of my favourite sci-fi thriller movies ever.

Oh, and I enjoyed the Alien series as well, in large part due to Ellen Ripley's character. IV was my favorite. The gore was again not driven by merely human pathology, but by the nature of the beast.

Ted Keer