Craning your neck
October 26th 2007 15:28
While we were travelling from Barcelona to Valencia on the train yesterday, we were treated to a movie via the innumerable monitors, each hung from a tv mount fitted to the ceiling of the train. Every two rows or so there was a monitor, some with good colour, some not. Unfortunately the movie was Elizabethtown, one of my least favourite movies. In spite of its cast, Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst and Susan Sarandon, to name just a few, it never quite gets off the ground. (And even less so when it’s broadcast with Spanish dubbing!)
Bloom, Dunst and Sarandon work their butts off to no avail. The script just doesn’t cut it, and there are two long stretches in the movie when you wonder what the heck the director thought he was making. One section seems to be an ad for the use of cellphones and the other seems to be a travelogue in disguise.
When you think of the amount of work that a director - and all the other people involved - must put into a movie, you have to wonder why they’d spend so much time on something that fails to come off. If you know the movie is a piece of fluff, then don’t fill it up with big names; treat it off-handedly and get some people in who won’t cost you much. That way at least you’ll make something out of it. Fill it up with people whose pay packets will be one of the more substantial parts of the budget, and you’ve got problems.
And then you won’t have big names looking somewhat embarrassed at what they’re having to try and dredge up to make the thing work. Small time actors will just do a job of work and leave it at that. It will go straight to video and everyone will be happy!
Bloom, Dunst and Sarandon work their butts off to no avail. The script just doesn’t cut it, and there are two long stretches in the movie when you wonder what the heck the director thought he was making. One section seems to be an ad for the use of cellphones and the other seems to be a travelogue in disguise.
When you think of the amount of work that a director - and all the other people involved - must put into a movie, you have to wonder why they’d spend so much time on something that fails to come off. If you know the movie is a piece of fluff, then don’t fill it up with big names; treat it off-handedly and get some people in who won’t cost you much. That way at least you’ll make something out of it. Fill it up with people whose pay packets will be one of the more substantial parts of the budget, and you’ve got problems.
And then you won’t have big names looking somewhat embarrassed at what they’re having to try and dredge up to make the thing work. Small time actors will just do a job of work and leave it at that. It will go straight to video and everyone will be happy!
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Comment by Tracy
Movies and Life
Yes, I agree:
I haven't seen this film and it's never occured to me to see it.
Sounds like another Spanish adventure!!
Tracy
Comment by Mike Crowl
Webitz
Work Report