Oh yeah. Except I was saying that the film is actually an old testement spin on the new testement values.

you know what they say about consistency Ross; it is the hobgoblin of small minds.

Or is it the Dr Octopus of small minds? Some superman villain.

Good to see you finally talking sense in this thread Kurt.

This was Gilliam as George Lucas. Surrounded by fans and Yes-Men when he worked up in Canada, producing the most self-indulgently bloated mess of his career. The films only strength is that it is vastly ugly with an attractive Manitoba back-drop. Like Lucas who gets all indulgent with his toys over attention to his actors, Gilliam loses the strands of his story with this film, draws terrible performances from his actors, and never gets the story to gel together in any satisfactory way. A mess in the worst sense of the word (Whereas Brazil is a mess in the best sense of the word).

haha, exactly! Great response. With a guy as talented and imaginative as Gilliam is I’ll take his style of filmmaking any way I can get it.

Here’s when that lack of consistency of opinion across the board rearing it’s ugly head again, like it did with Kurt a little while ago. What I said above about Gilliam should then apply to everyone else that I love – in this case I’m referring to Woody Allen. I love his style of filmmaking but I thought Match Point was one of the most pretentious and self-indulgent/important (add any similar word you wish…) films I’ve seen in quite a while.

Don’t get me wrong I don’t LOVE Tideland like I do most of Gilliam’s films I just like it. It’s not an easy watch and yes it’s a bit on the long side for what it should be but for the cinematogrpahy, the performance of Jodele Ferland (I thought she was great in it!), the imagination on display and of course the “can do no wrong” Dude himself Jeff Bridges – I like it.

You say this like it is a bad thing….

Basically the only thing good about the film was Jeff Bridges going on about Jutland and Vikings, and the Manitoba wheat-field cinematography.

To cap it all off, the ending rings so false and tacked on. I’m a huge Gilliam fan, and I think Tideland shows what happens to the vigourous director of Time Bandits after he has lost his talent and grip on things.

I do however weep for Don Quixote which will never be. And I’ll certainly be watching Dr. Pernassus when it arrives. But tideland’s little cult is baffling to me. The movie should have been 40 minutes shorter, at least.

And good to hear I’m not alone in my like of Tideland. I remember having a sort of eye opening experience watching that – there was so much meaning for me in some of the scenes yet, I haven’t revisited it since I originally saw it. Will have to re-visit at some point.

As to Gilliam himself, I dig quite a lot of his works. Brothers Grimm was terrible, but then you’ve got Brazil, 12 Monkeys, Fear and Loathing and Time Bandits. Good stuff. Even if the films aren’t to your liking, you’ve got to admit the guy’s stamina and insistence on doing his own thing – which I for one think is true art.

Fear & Loathing is his only good film.