That guy has an opinion, just like me. Just because he reviews for a website, that doesn't mean he knows anything. Just like me- I've reviewed for a website, but that doesn't qualify me as a film critic, does it? Almost anyone can get a gig as an online critic of almost anything. His very first comments on the review tell me that he is reviewing the film with a narrow mindset- he doesn't want to like the film, so he doesn't. Anyone with an objective eye can tell he is a biased critic. Surely you must see that. It's not a concession to my arguments, it's just plainly observable fact that they guy was not going to write a favorable review. he dismisses any re-make; he admits it. I'm supposed to agree with that pre-disposition to judge on the merits of his personal bias? Not me Without even going into the content of each film, the editting flaws in the original-easily avoidable, film school mistakes like flopping frames- is a telling aspect. In the re-make, those production problems must exist, but they are oh so much better hidden. The filmcraft in the first is very poor. The movie-making technique and execution in the re-make is so superior it's telling. Has here anyone besides me even seen both films? I am curious. I've said it before and I will say it again: I love many crummy films. Big Trouble in Little China? LOVE that film. But it's not great cinema. A fun time? yes. A great movie? No way. I really feel that most folks who are defending the original aren't reading half of my arguments and reasoning, and if you are, you're primed against the re-make on general principles. There have been good re-makes. Robin Hood Prince of Theives was a well-received movie by the public. That movie was a remake of a remake of a remake of a remake that has been re-made a hundred times. The Magnificent Seven is a remake that in itself is a great film- but it is simply an Occidental Seven Samurai. Personally, I find the original Vanishing Point a film with some very good aspects that suffers intolerably from many, many poor aspects. I find that the re-make cleaning the story up, focused the plot, and reinforced Kowalski's character and motives. Now, when I saw this film, this might be hard to beleive, but I said to more than a few people- "This nobody with the weird name is going to be a huge star" and nobody, not one, beleived me. I can see and even agree with some of the points being rasied about the re-make. But I still haven't read a single argument beyond personal preference that the original is anything more than "fun" and "cool". Those I will not argue with, because that is taste. But can anyone tell me the film's merits in terms of production, dialogue, cinematography, editting, ect, ect, ect? These are the areas that the original really falls short on. I also don't feel any inanimate object or phenomenon can be a movie's star (Twister comes to mind- ugh!). Without the human element, what is supposed to connect me to the people in the film? In the original, I really don't care about Kowalski one bit- I just cringe whenever he abuses the car :laugh:
Well that's it right there, the original movie was all about the car and a little about an "out there" driver.
We can boil my dissatisfaction with the film's plot down to that one item. The car may as well drive itself. The driver is given this crazy chaotic character that could have been intriguing and even tragically compelling- if the character had any development at all beyond the bare info we know about him. He's more two dimensional than the car. I don't care for it. I cannot connect with him. He doesn't have a redeeming feature I can associate with besides the fact he's driving a cool car. The original film is essentially about a car for most people, it seems. :3gears: that's fun and all...but what makes me care about the characters? Even the Dukes of Hazard offered more character development and feeling :laugh: Heck, I was mad when they changed Crazy Cooter's character from a wildman gearhead to a humble-ish mechanic
I thought my post made that obvious. Yes. I'd say the remake changed the plot and the motives. In the original, Kowalski was just trying to get to San Francisco in a minimal amount of time. He didn't have a specific reason; he just wanted to do it. His efforts to evade the police were not part of any epic struggle. They just wanted him because he was driving too darn fast and he didn't want to stop. As I pointed out in my earlier post, the changes made to Kowalski's character made the remake elgible for touchy-feely points as opposed to the original with it's gritty portrayal of a guy with a black cloud following him.
Sorry Jim, didn't see your original post, I haven't looked in a couple of days and I had read a few replies on e-mail notification. I guess I didn't read yours I agree, the plot change in the remake made it a whole different film- that's why I like this version. While you may characterise the plot as 'touchy-feely' you'd have to be made of stone to not be able to connect with the very basic emotions the remake centers on. The utter futility of what Kowalski's actions become in the remake is also good stuff as far as film goes- the viewer knows, long before the end of the film, that the happy ending he is trying so hard to reach can't ever in a million years be the ending he gets- but he doesn't let up. He knows that what's going to happen to him will very likely be very bad, but he hurries to meet whatever that is with all his might, with the faint hope of acheiving his goal getting dimmer and dimmer. At the end he's a man with no options who fulfills the made-up profile of who he is as far as Authority goes- Authority becomes ultimately justified in killing him, at least as far as they are officially concerned. His wife was his drug in this version. Anti-heroes are great leading characters in film. Also, I think that not enough main characters in film are killed. A hero story should be Tragedy more often
Chris, I been flying combat and regular sims for ALONG time. I go to Sim HQ to find out info about the upcoming PF patch. I saw your name and figured, there can't be to many "462cid" guys running around, especially when you mentioned you were interested in Warbirds. Are you in a squad? I have been apart of the 251st Kokutai since 1999. We're a Japanese naval squad. Back in the beginning we thought we'd do something different since everyone wanted to be Pappy Boyington. We started out flying in the CFS series but moved over to FB-AE-PF. We run a dedicated server called "Kokutai 251" over on Hyper Lobby if your ever interested in flying. :beer
I don't fly online. I did once in hyperlobby. I'm fairly well known over at the IL2 website and i couldn't get a single person at HL to help me out. I read all the stuff about HL when I d/l'd it, but you know how it is- you don't remember everything. One guy helped eventually and we flew a little, but he abruptly had to leave the game to do real world stuff, and that was that. It was a big waste of time. I have a dial-up, but you know, i don't buy that dial-ups are as big a deal as folks say. I used to play a racing sim online with my dial-up, it was fine if all the settings were right, but the problem was the people- they acted pretty much the same as the HL crowd did. All 'stfu noob' garbage that these brave souls wouldn't ever say to someone's face. I got pretty fed up with the whole thing; I was good at it and was accused of cheating very often and it got old real quick. My efforts in the sim are almost exclusively offline historical and semi-historical scenarios. I am trying to scrape the money together to buy some rudder pedals- I use an X-45 and the rocker rudder is OK for now, but with the new FM coming out, I think it will be rudder pedals or incredible frustration o No: trouble is, I also need to buy a new front suspension for the convertible...and the Buick always wins over PC sims, as cool as they may be, the car's still a real thing I can hop in a drive. Well, I can often drive it :grin: 251st Kokutai...Hinomarus are usually my targets :grin: Although I do have a soft spot for the Ki-61. Gorgeous cockpit and the plane is pleasant to fly, gives you a lot of confidence. I'm more into 8th AF scenarios or really obscure stuff- I would like to do a historical campaign on the Aluetian Islands campaign the US Army undertook. but, the good weather is here, I probably spent 100 hours on just the mission building in the AVG campaign I did, and the research was probably another couple hundred hours, easy. It takes a lot of time and I don't have it right now
I think maybe you are being too strict-aren't many fun films great just because they are fun? And I would disagree about Thunderbolt and Lightfoot-it's pretty great. Sure there are deficiences in it's overall makeup, but as an action film-it is great. One of my favorite movies. I think Bridges dies just because he does-injustice, bad luck, the expense of taking the risks they were taking. I don't know what my dad was thinking when he let me watch that movie with him back when I was a kid in the 70's, but it's OK, I loved it. He did too. Of course he was a gigantic fan of Clint, probably seen all his movies. He still watches the "Any Which Way" movies. o No:
I was not intended to be a great film. It was anti-establishment and appealed to free-spirit types. I have the Collectors Edition DVD and the Director's Commentary is very cool, having been shot 20 + years after the fact. The girl? I was 11... :jd: :jd: :beer :beer Frank
Chris- I mean 'great' as in milestones of film. For instance, Raiders of the Lost Ark was a very well made, and fun film, but it's not a 'great' film. It's not as good as say, Jaws, as a film. Shawshank Redemption- that's a great film. The original release of Star Wars (the reissue was bad because of the very poorly animated CGI Jabba the Hutt- it totoally destroys the suspension of disbeleif). Let's see...what's a good example...Taxi Driver The shots that Scorcese made in Taxi Driver...great shots. Not just because of their composition, wich was very well done, but because of what he does and how he does it. For example- when travis takes the Cab driving job, and he walks into the garage. The camera pans right past the main character, and leaves him completely out of the shot, which continues to pan and take in the entire garage until it comes back on De Niro as he gets into a cab. The Director had a vision of how the viewer would see the film, he didn't just shoot the action, centering the camera on the lead character. And De Niro made the character so strong, Scorcese could leave him out of a character development shot for the most part, and still build up the chracter without anyone saying a word Blade Runner does that a little, but in the Director's Cut. In the theatrical release, the narration takes away from that a lot and I never really cared for it because it wasn't needed and it became a little heavy-handed
Yes. Wasn't Stacy Keach the truck driver? Or am I thinking of another film? I liked Sugarland Express better, though :TU: A Perfect World was pretty good too
Missed that. I saw the remake before I saw the original. The original is the version you watch with your friends after a long day of racing, the remake is the version you watch with your girlfriend/wife.
The director (of VP), Richard C. Sarafian, has an impressive resume. Busby Berkeley inspired both Sarafian and Scorcese. Frank
I understand your feelings about Hyper Lobby. Alot of jerko**s like to troll there. Having come from FS and CFS which always had a very friendly community it was kind of a shock to see all the rotten attitudes in there. I also do this as a winter deal, since Buicks, bicycling and fishing take up the rest of my time during the warm months. The X45 is a great HOTAS, I also use that flight stick, it did take some time to get used to the rudder, but otherwise it's a great setup, especially for the price. If you ever want to get the feel of online flying in an arena that isn't filled with buttholes join our server one night. We have pretty strict rules about people with bad attitudes and they usually end up getting banned quickly. My squad name is 251_Akira_IJN. I have never gotten into offline flying because the AI gets so predictable and the missions always seemed so sterile, where as flying against human opponents is always something new.
Chris... we now agree on alot ..Shawshank,Jaws,Blade Runner..in my little 6 or 7 dvd "collection" those are in it,and watched a whole lot. On the flyin sim tip,I rented the fighter combat 5 and did fine ,got stuck on the stupid shuttle launch,tank drop thing that I didnt buy it,50 bucks goes a long way. I just have dialup so I dont even think about the online fighter sims,but I'll be changing that soon,sounds like a good enuf winter hoddy to me...fish :beer
:laugh: Flight sim talk. hotas= Hands On Throttle And Stick- a type of joystick that has multiple functions including control stick, throttle, and many rotary knobs and switches so that literally, your hands are always on the throttle and stick. Term comes from real world military aviation X45- type of hotas AI= artificial intelligence CFS= Combat Flight Simulator from microsoft FS= Flight Simulator from Misrosoft IL2= Il2:Sturmovik (another combat flight sim, better than CFS and it's family in my opinion) hyperlobby=online lobby for arranging contests between human players
That's why I and a fair number of offline players have made our own campaigns and missions. You might be surprised by how much better some offline user-made campaigns are compared to the stock ones that shipped with the sim Try this one: http://www.simhq.com/simhq3/sims/boards/bbs/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=127;t=001720 Even if I do say so myself, it's a nice little campaign. Four movie tracks, many custom skins, and anything but sterile missions :TU:
