To call the characters 'cardboard' is to insult a useful packing material...

[annwfyn]

Yes, I saw 'The Spirit' last night.

Ginnie liked it. I considered walking out on a number of occasions, and found myself dreaming of a nice quiet sitting room with Viva Pinata on the XboX. It was very much a Frank Miller film, which is to say that it would probably have been better off without the sound. It was pretty (if very stylized) to look at, but the dialogue barely managed to haul itself upwards to 'pastiche', the story was ropey as all hell, and the characters barely functioned as cardboard cut outs. I never thought I'd yearn for the depth and realism exhibited by 'Sin City', until I saw 'The Spirit'.

I also felt that the back story offered by the film, in which the Spirit managed to come back from the dead (after being shot as a hero cop), put on a very small domino mask, and then romance his fiancee without her knowing who he was was dubious in the extreme. I mean, we all know that most comic book heroines are dumb, but this woman was apparently about to marry Denny Colt, and is now boinking the Spirit. She's seen the Spirit wearing nothing but the domino mask, and apparently she's never thought 'gee, this guy who I'm shagging looks an awful lot like this other guy that I used to shag, who died mysteriously just before the Spirit turned up. What an odd coincidence.'

Still, at least the film was short, and I was home by 10.30 to play with my strange multi-coloured animals. And today, I'm in work with very little to do, and hopefully I'll have a nice quiet day and get off home around 4.30 pm.

Go me!

Comments

[adze.livejournal.com]

I'd heard it was bad, and I hope that it does badly enough to put Fran Miller off being involved in the Buck Rogers movie they're talking about...

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

Aww, got to confess I enjoyed it - but then, I went in expecting it to be thoroughly noir-tastic - and flimsy rationales do sometimes seem to be part of the genre.

I suppose one could argue that being both a doctor & a close mourner, she'd have had both the opportunity to see his body, and be very certain that he WAS dead having done so - and therefore any lurking later suspicions would have been stomped down in a "no, no, I'm projecting, it CAN'T be him" fashion.

It's the old Lois Lane problem really, isn't it?

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Yes - it really is. It's why I've always enjoyed Superman so much more when Lois knows the Clark/Superman secret - a la the later TV series or comics. It makes sense at that point, instead of the weirdness of 'you're a top investigative reporter, and you've not noticed that your boyfriend sometimes turns up with a pair of glasses and claims to be your partner'.

Tho it actually kinda made sense the way Christopher Reed played it - he just acted SO differently as the two characters, and made it as much about the dif body language/mannerisms as the glasses.

[ginasketch.livejournal.com]

I have a feeling I won't be seeing that.

[pmp.livejournal.com]

I'm curious, why does the heroine's inability to recognise her deceased but resurrected boyfriend make it a bad film? As long as the movie is internally consistant (e.g. no one, not even his fiancee recognises they're the same person until they've done some extraordinary digging), then all is good IMO.

You've actually piqued my interest in the film now, because I'm curious to see whether or not I find it as bad as you did.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I suppose because for me it makes it an unbelievable film. Either we're being asked to believe that the heroine, plus a lot of other people, are very stupid or we're being asked to believe that a tiny domino mask does change one's appearance that much.

It just doesn't make sense to me at all.

[pmp.livejournal.com]

You're right, it does make for an unbelievable film, however so does the fact that someone returns from the dead and gets magical superpowers is no more or less plausible in our world than people simply failing to recognise someone because of their mask.


I wonder whether it's similiar to the Uncanny Valley effect (http://www.psy.herts.ac.uk/pub/sjcowley/docs/humanlikeness.pdf) experienced in robotics, where people are disturbed by the appearance of a nearly human android, but accept quite happily the same behavour from an obviously robotic construct.

Nothing to do with your post but...

[stormie.livejournal.com]

I saw this as i was drooling at various other pretties on the site and thought you would like it http://www.victoriantrading.com/store/catalogimages/23x/i1583.html.

x

Re: Nothing to do with your post but...

[dainul.livejournal.com]

What the hell? I'm getting a picture in the text field obscuring what I'm typing, and the title above was not typed by me. And is somehow appropriate.

I am confused.

Anyway, I've sent you a few emails recently and not received a reply to any of them. Now, if this is because you're busy, that's absolutely fine, but if you've not got them I'll have to try something else. I sent you a few with questions about the new character from my uni account (which may repeat themselves, I got a little lost on what I'd asked already) and a two-line pseudo-downtime from the yahoo one. I was hoping to get to ask you this earlier but... well, see the post I'm about to put up. If you could let me know, I'll pm you on lj or something if you haven't got any of them, and be patient if you have :P

Re: Nothing to do with your post but...

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I have got e mails from you outstanding, so it may well be that. I'll aim to get everything garou related replied to tonight/tomorrow morning, so if you've not got a reply by midday Saturday, it means I've not received anything.

Re: Nothing to do with your post but...

[dainul.livejournal.com]

Cool, that should be it then. Cheers.

[melsner.livejournal.com]

Apparently, the more you know about Will Eisner's original comics, the more there is to hate about Frank Miller's movie.

I think I read once that in the comics, the Octopus is only ever shown as a pair of gloves. He's not invisible or anything; that's all that's ever seen of him in the panel. Just checked Wikipedia; apparently the Octopus is a master of disguise. So they never show his true face.

In the comics, Danny Colt is seemingly killed but kept alive accidentally by Dr. Cobra's suspended animation doohickey, until he awakens and then becomes the Spirit. Nothing supernatural and he has no powers.

Frank Miller has done a lot of great work, but mostly when someone reigns him in a bit. The movie seems less about Eisner's stuff and more about what Miller thinks is Super Cool (mostly, Fetishes). So it's like DK2, his sequel to Dark Knight Returns. Or his All Star Batman and Robin.