Nick1Ø66

@Andy, have you seen Hawk the Slayer? If not, given you’ve already worked your way through Sword & the Sorcerer & Deathstalker, it needs to be next on your list. Dwarfs! Giants! Magic swords! And yes, that’s Jack Palance as Darth Vader.

No Palicki? Well damn. She’s…fantastic. But I’ll take more Orville no matter what. Make it so, Seth.

After Basterds, Hateful Eight is my favourite Tarantino. Though I was disappointed with Django.

Absolutely phenomenal film, and my personal Nolan favourite (even if the denouement falls into a bit of Spielbergian sentimentality). Highly recommended in IMAX.

The problem with her is the screaming.

That's what Spielberg said.

Indeed. I know certainly there are Indians who may not have appreciated the portrayal (notably the Indian government at the time), and, well, fair enough. But frankly, most of the people I've seen take great offence at this film haven't been Indians, but rather the usual sort who are eager to take offence on behalf of someone else. I think it's just as silly to expect that Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom be a complete, and accurate portrayal of Indians as it is to expect The Godfather to be a complete and accurate portrayal of Italians. I grew up watching wuxia films but I never thought every Chinese person was a martial arts expert who spent their days fighting. The great Amrish Puri (Mola Ram), put it best... "It's based on an ancient cult that existed in India and was recreated like a fantasy. If you recall those imaginary places like Pankot Palace, starting with Shanghai, where the plane breaks down and the passengers use a raft to jump over it, slide down a hill and reach India, can this ever happen? But fantasies are fantasies, like our Panchatantra and folklore. I know we are sensitive about our cultural identity, but we do this to ourselves in our own films. It's only when some foreign directors do it that we start cribbing."

To George's credit (words which have never passed Chen's lips), he did the same with the Prequels. Love them or hate them, he didn't simply try to remake Star Wars.

Temple of Doom has really grown on me. I've come to appreciate it more over the years, and judge it on its own terms rather than as a sequel to Raiders. The opening musical number, and the entire opening scene in fact leading up to the plane escape in particular, is fantastic. It's certainly not in the same league as Raiders, and while I personally prefer Crusade, I'll give TOD points for originality and taking a risk. It's also one of those instances where a reappraisal makes the film look better in comparison to more recent entries in the series. I've also come to like Willie Scott more, and now actually find her less annoying than Marion. As to whatever sensitivities people may have developed regarding this fun flick over the years, to paraphrase the brilliant Stephen Fry, "You're offended? Well so f*cking what"?

Hmmmm. This is the type of UFO story I can see later-day Spielberg telling...he's often spoken about how, when he made CE3K, that version of himself would have flown away on the Mothership, but later in life, as a husband and father, he said he wouldn't. So I always thought it would be interesting to see a film about Roy Neary returning to Earth after decades away with the CE3K aliens (i.e. ET). I mean, the guy had a wife and kids and essentially abandoned them, and it would be interesting to see how he, and they'd, react to his homecoming and how he'd adjust to life on a completely unrecognizable Earth. Dreyfuss is probably too old for the part, but you could recast for a younger Roy Neary (proving Einstein right).

Featuring another excellent performance by Karen Allen!

Er…Karen Allen in The Perfect Storm?

Phenomenal film. Not only does Hollywood not make films like this any more, I've pretty much resigned myself that they never will again.

But even if that's true, there's still nothing to be gained, and certainly something to be lost, by watching The Hobbit first.

I get your point indeed. Those scenes in the various prequels tend to rob the original scenes of much of their power, especially, I imagine for a first time viewer who foolishly chose to watch the films in in-universe "chronological" order. Of course, the same can be said for The Hobbit trilogy, which has many callbacks to images and sequences to those done (better) in The Lord of the Rings. Seeing dark Gandalf say "I am not trying to rob you" isn't as powerful and shocking once you've seen the same bit done with the "If I say Bilbo Baggins is a burglar..." in the prequel. Anyone who watches Star Wars or Middle-Earth for the first time in "sequence" is robbing themselves of something very special that they can never get back.

Sure. Kids make up their own mind on what they like. If the kid doesn't like Star Wars '77, not much to be done about it. But just because a kid prefers McDonalds doesn't mean I'm not making them eat their vegetables.

Well that's just bad parenting.

The simple truth is that, in every case, release order is the preferred order for watching a film series for the first time.

TSWLM, Marvin Hamlisch & Bond ‘77 have entered the room.

But that’s exactly right…every generation interprets art differently, viewed through their own lens and informed by their own values. Look how differently productions of Shakespeare have varied over the years. There have been productions with different spins on race, class, sex, etc. Countless interpretations. For example, I’ve seen Othello probably a dozen times, and every production had its own take on the same text. Ditto for Hamlet. Henry V had been staged as a British Nationalist piece during WWII and anti-war during the Iraq War. Those varying interpretations are part of what makes art, well…art. It’s also art of what makes great art timeless. I’ll also add that what an artist intends to do isn’t always what they end up creating. If people think art is telling them X, and the artist says “no, no, you’ve got it all wrong, I’m saying Y”, well, whose problem is that? Is it a failure of comprehension on the part of the viewer, or listener, or a failure of the artist in not fully conveying their intention? Some see Verhoven’s Starship Troopers as promoting fascism. Others (including me) see it as satire. Verhoven will tell you it’s the latter, but so what? I certainly agree that an artist’s intent with their own work is something that can inform an interpretation and opinion of it, but it’s only one component, and while important, it’s not a defining one. IMO this is a view most good artists share.

To me it’s not a question of ambiguity. Of course some artists (usually the better ones) are more ambiguous in what they’re trying to say than others. But once art is in the world, it’s open to interpretation, no matter how clear, or ambiguous, the artist’s intentions. The fact that people have taken so many different messages from Barbie is a credit, in my judgment, to Gerwing as an artist, and it would be a lesser film, again IMO, if she was just trying to preach. Part of its power, like most great art, is that so many take different things from it…e.g Shakira had a different take on the film than some here have. Is her take “wrong”? All this gives Barbie a universal appeal, and made it so successful, where so many “message” film’s fail.

What a film is “trying to say” isn’t as important as what a person hears. Once art is released into the world, all that matters is how people interpret it. I’m not sure about declaring what’s the right or wrong message from Barbie. It’s a Rorschach test. The director’s intentions are largely irrelevant. If Barbie’s not open to interpretation, then it’s just sermonising, and if it is, then people are free to interpret it as they wish.

“What do you mean I’m funny? Funny how”?

All the MCU films are made this way. I mean, maybe there was a bit more freedom on the first few, but by and large they're all very tightly controlled, producer-driven films. Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that, it's worked very well for Marvel, and there wouldn't be the continuity they've had without it. There's a reason it's the only truly successful shard universe. They just used to be a lot better at it.