Comments on: Cinecast Episode 141 – Something to Toy With

By: Rusty James

Rusty James — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:03:22 +0000

@ (What will your boiled down to two adjective description be in a few months…)

I like mine.

By: Kurt

Kurt — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:15:43 +0000

…And Dan, welcome to the land of the vocal, always nice to have another voice in the wilderness of Goon’s obsessions, Rusty’s American pragmatism, Henrik’s European Passive Agressiveness, Ross’s Bon Mots, and Ashley’s warm generosity…

(What will your boiled down to two adjective description be in a few months…)

By: Kurt

Kurt — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:11:57 +0000

Well, it is very good to see that Warners will be making their money back with WTWTHA, hopefully they will enable filmmakers like Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry and the odder projects of Chris Nolan to keep reasonable (60M or so) budgets if required. Good news, and I think that WTWTA will do pretty solid DVD business, because there will be a lot of adults buying it for themselves…

Paranormal Activity, in its now 5th week of releases, trounced the latest SAW sequel (a franchise that will hopefully end up in the DtV cycle which it probably belonged right after the first sequel) and thw Saw series usually makes more than 60% of its take in the first weekend; so that makes me happy in some small way (as per Jonathan: “I really don’t have much interest in Paranormal Activity, although its always neat to see something so small become some successful.”)

By: Goon

Goon — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 08:03:09 +0000

well know that you’ve emerged you may as well introduce yourself a tad.

By: dan

dan — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 05:56:36 +0000

Kurt: I haven’t seen Open Water in a while, but can say that PA is way worse. Open Water played on some pretty primal fears and the “how would I react in that situation” card, which worked for me. If I recall, it felt authentic as well. PA feels majorly contrived…and wasn’t even scary. Nothing about it felt real. The characters had zero personality, their house had zero personality, and the writing was laughably bad, especially the scenes where they bring in that paranormal psychologist (which were brutal) who tries to logically explain the creepy shit going on. This movie felt like a poor, manufactured attempt at the documentary-style horror. You don’t have to take my word for it. I’m just trying to save someone else from having the same bad experience I had. Just looking out.

Rusty: No offense taken, but I’m actually a long time listener of the cinecast and tend to lean towards Kurt’s tastes in film, thus thinking that I can tell what he’s going to like/not like. I don’t comment that often because there’s seems to be a tight-knit, predictable select number of commenters on here (i. e. the contributors to the site and like, two others). Where’s the lurker love?

By: Goon

Goon — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 05:49:13 +0000

looks like Paranormal Activity had a very strong second weekend. I think it actually made MORE than it did last week.. WTWTA dropped at least 50%

By: Jonathan B.

Jonathan B. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 04:14:09 +0000

Rusty, play nice. Veteran commenters and us writers are the only ones that should be bullied.

I really don’t have much interest in Paranormal Activity, although its always neat to see something so small become some successful. The wonders of internet hype, eh?

By: Rusty James

Rusty James — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 03:57:08 +0000

No offense Dan.

By: Rusty James

Rusty James — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 03:56:14 +0000

Kurt, do you expect some annonymous internet yahoo to predict whether you will like Paranormal Activity more than Open Water?

By: Kurt

Kurt — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 02:03:13 +0000

Dan: Better or Worse than “OPEN WATER”? I have a soft spot for open Water, because I have a love of watching cocky yuppies pay the price for showing arrogance in dangerous waters/cultures, but yea, really the characters in that one only exist to be stuck in their particular situation.

By: dan

dan — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:15:10 +0000

I caught WTWTA, in faux-IMAX no-less, and really enjoyed, but probably not to the extent that Kurt and Andrew seemingly enjoyed it. I was surprised how emotionally involved I was, especially with the romantic comedy moment that Kurt referred to. I’m surprised no one mentioned the phenomenal voice acting of James Gandolfini playing a bi-polar, borderline personality wild beast. He was funny, casual, and absolutely terrifying in the moments when he’s losing it. He stole the show for me and was a perfect, unexpected choice.

By: dan

dan — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:02:23 +0000

Kurt, you’re right into not wanting to rush out and see Paranormal Activity. It’s not very good and definitely over-hyped. It was a homeless man’s blair witch, really lacking any authenticity. I was seriously tempted to walk out, twice. It’s really bland, and the characters seem to only exist to have the shit in the movie happen to them. I didn’t know anything about the movie going in, except some vague rumblings of internet hype, but highly regret wasting my time on it.