Before watching the movie:
This just sounds odd. It doesn’t help that all the summaries I’ve seen are one sentence long. As I recall, it runs something like Erik starts Ragnarok because he’s bored. That sounds like a two minute sketch. I don’t see how it can last as long as it does. But it’s Pythonesque, so I have to trust that it’s fun.
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Before watching the movie:
The more I dig around the edges to get a bearing on what to expect, the more excited I get. This is described on the box as a very witty and literate show, and while I don’t think I’ve heard any of the songs before, the titles I’ve come across sound lovely.
I’m not sure if Vanessa Redgrave had a career renaissance recently or if it’s one of those cases where I just didn’t start noticing her until I noticed her. Still, it’s going to be rather different to see her as a young lady and a love interest, and I don’t think I’ve heard her sing before either. I know Richard Harris both as a singer and an actor. I think. He’s still muddled in my mind with Richard Attenborough, but I’m fairly certain I’ve now got them straight.
For the most part, I’m ready to be swept away, but there’s a voice in the back of my mind going “on second thought, let’s not go to Camelot. Tis a very silly place.”
Before watching the movie:
Well, we’re out of a stealth theme month. First person to send their guess as to what December’s theme was to me via Astral Projection wins a genuine No-Prize.
Here’s another selection from the “how did you miss that one?” files. As I think I’ve discussed previously, I avoided horror movies for years because I didn’t like being scared, and then when I started catching up on them in my 20s, I found myself at best unaffected, and at worst cringing at the cheese. This one seems to be mostly psychological horror, so it should be better than the classic slashers I saw previously.
Thanks to pop cultural osmosis, I know more about the movie than I’d prefer to be going in with, but that’s usually the case when The Simpsons parodies a movie wholesale.
Before watching the movie:
It’s easy to forget that Tom Hanks is in this movie because he’s overshadowed by two big stories: “Disney creates the Touchstone label to distance its core brand from edgier stuff like Splash“, and “Daryl Hannah is gorgeous”.
I think that before The Little Mermaid, it was a common assumption that mermaids were blonde, but I understand that there was a point when this movie owned the image of what a mermaid looked like to the extent that mermaids were blondes because Madison was a blonde, instead of the other way around.
I expect that 28 years later, this movie will look like a soft PG that you might see on Nickelodeon in the afternoon.
Before watching the movie:
As I think about what to write about my preconceptions, I realize that I know a lot about this movie, more than I remember at first glance, but I still don’t reallyknow about it. It’s just a thing that’s been there, and at the same time it makes perfect sense and is completely alien.
Johnny Depp’s character is a Frankenstein-type monster, I guess? That or an automaton. What’s important is that through a quirk of fate, he has vicious blades instead of hands, which is ironic because he’s actually very gentle. But somehow, that doesn’t seem powerful enough for such a popular movie.
Before watching the movie:
I’ve heard this movie talked up a lot, but I’m not sure exactly how much of it I know. Sometimes it sounds like the most famous development doesn’t have much to do with it, sometimes it sounds like the whole movie.
The theme of glasses or other visual devices showing the true nature of things is a common one in literature, though I can’t think of any notable ones right now, except I think I remember something about a Seeing Stone in The Spiderwick Chronicles, but I haven’t seen that.
I’m going to pretend I chose this movie this week in honor of Google’s announcement of Project Glass.
Before watching the movie:
While I know the basics of the Highlander series, I’ve never seen the television series or movies. I know the fact that there are movies plural is bad, but this is the good one.
I guess the plot is just a bad Immortal hunting a good Immortal, which as I understand it is pretty much the television show boiled down into a one-installment plot.
Sean Connery mentors the centuries-old main character, because he needs training for some reason.
It sounds like an excellent example of modern fantasy or magical realism, depending on how much the Immortals’ magic is involved.
Before watching the movie:
This is one of the films that college students flip out over, and any “true film buff” needs to have in their top ten. We’ll see about that.
Tarantino is perhaps held in too high of regard, but this is early days, and a good example of his talent. I’m prepared for the non-Euclidean timeline, which is usually considered good, unorthodox storytelling.
Because of the way it’s formatted, the large cast shouldn’t be as indicative of an over-reaching, complicated plot. Or it may be more indicative than most. Or both at the same time.
Before watching the movie:
I was originally attracted to this movie for the time travel, but I don’t expect it to be my favorite kind of time travel story. Peggy Sue goes back in time by Macguffinal means and fixes her life. No paradoxes, no knotty time loops, just an opportunity to do it again. The period nostalgia should be fun, though.
I’m very surprised to learn that Nicholas Cage (before he was a joke, if there was ever such a time) plays a lead role in this film.
Before watching the movie:
I don’t remember where I first heard of this film, but I liked the idea immediately. I like metafictional stories, and I don’t see them often applied to movies, especially as straightforwardly as this seems to be doing.
Action movies may not be my favorite, but I usually enjoy them, and they’re certainly ripe for parody, which is another thing I’m drawn to, if my blog history doesn’t show that.
The main thing that I keep forgetting when looking forward to this movie is that he’s a contemporary hero, a Die Hard, Rambo, or Schwarzenegger/Van Damme (big surprise) type. I always picture a more fantasy-style action hero, probably because there was a dragon movie right next to it on whatever page I first heard about this.
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