We had a bad movie night on Saturday - cookies and wine (thanks, Marc!) and movies. We started with Sky High (which was obtained as a palate cleanser, but the group demanded to watch first). It was surprisingly good. I mean, I didn't expect it to suck, but I was still surprised by how clever and funny it was.
Dungeons & Dragons, however, lived up to expectations. I can't decide what was the worst part. The one-dimensional characters? The really bad overacting (including Jeremy Irons gnawing the scenery to sawdust and Thora Birch looking like she had never acted before in her life and had only seen the script for the first time five minutes ago)? The fact the plot felt like it was lifted straight from one of the more boring modules? The incredibly tacky badness of the key prop? The bad CGI? The fact that they apparently cut all scenes with actual character development in favor of paying for the bad CGI? The tendency of accents to shift mid-sentence? The inherent silliness of trying to have a bad guy be menacing when he has tentacles coming out of his ears?
Wait, no - it was the incredibly painful performance of Marlon Waynes as Snails the bumbling, incompetent, cowardly thief. Within the first five minutes,
ivy03 turned to
chuckro and asked if he was going to die because he was the only black character. And what do you know? He did. But first he turned in a performance worthy of Stepin Fetchit. I swear, he was one step away from rolling his eyes in fear. It was horrific. We were cringing.
We actually watched a little of the beginning again with the director's commentary. We were hoping that maybe the director would break down in tears and beg our forgiveness. Instead, we had the director and the lead actor talking about how so-and-so is really talented, and the director is a hard taskmaster and how without the chemistry between these characters, the scene wouldn't work. They were talking as if the scene did work. Only - it didn't. Not even a little. These people were convinced they'd made a good movie! What, were they blind? Aaaauuugghh!
But the MST-ing was hysterical, which was the point.
Dungeons & Dragons, however, lived up to expectations. I can't decide what was the worst part. The one-dimensional characters? The really bad overacting (including Jeremy Irons gnawing the scenery to sawdust and Thora Birch looking like she had never acted before in her life and had only seen the script for the first time five minutes ago)? The fact the plot felt like it was lifted straight from one of the more boring modules? The incredibly tacky badness of the key prop? The bad CGI? The fact that they apparently cut all scenes with actual character development in favor of paying for the bad CGI? The tendency of accents to shift mid-sentence? The inherent silliness of trying to have a bad guy be menacing when he has tentacles coming out of his ears?
Wait, no - it was the incredibly painful performance of Marlon Waynes as Snails the bumbling, incompetent, cowardly thief. Within the first five minutes,
We actually watched a little of the beginning again with the director's commentary. We were hoping that maybe the director would break down in tears and beg our forgiveness. Instead, we had the director and the lead actor talking about how so-and-so is really talented, and the director is a hard taskmaster and how without the chemistry between these characters, the scene wouldn't work. They were talking as if the scene did work. Only - it didn't. Not even a little. These people were convinced they'd made a good movie! What, were they blind? Aaaauuugghh!
But the MST-ing was hysterical, which was the point.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-19 08:34 pm (UTC)From:Oh, and I was helping my cousin clean out her parents attic on Saturday and she uncovered a gift from her high school boyfriend - a framed and mounted 8x10 glossy of The Crow with two of the trading cards. Know anyone interested? I told her to eBay it.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-19 08:41 pm (UTC)From:And please, don't waste your time on the sequels. The Crow: City of Angels wasn't worth trying to decipher the lead's accent, The Crow: Salvation did something slightly different and made itself almost political before ruining the movie with ridiculous plotting and Kirsten Dunst, and The Crow: Wicked Prayer belongs in the bowels of hell.
Oh, and on a completely unrelated note, I got Battlestar Galactica's first season for Christmas. You want to borrow it, don't you?
no subject
Date: 2005-12-19 09:23 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2005-12-19 09:26 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2005-12-19 10:27 pm (UTC)From:I can ferry Pretender to you if you like. I only have season 1 at the moment, but I'm working on getting the others.
And soon I will have seaQuest. Soon.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-19 10:43 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2005-12-20 12:21 am (UTC)From: