Movie reviews
Posted By Kathleen David on August 29, 2004
I actually have seen movies on a movie screen this weekend. First time in a while so I am posting some reviews that I hope are not spoilers but I will put them behind cuts for the purists. The movies are “Hero”, “Aliens vs. Preditor”, and “Duel”
I am grateful for DVD technology. It is a heck of a lot easier to store DVDs than it is to store videotape.
HERO
While exiting the theater having seen the movie I overheard two gentlemen complain to each other that they didn
“Ariel commented that it would be hard to make it these days between cars being able to go faster and cell phones.”
She’s right. Boy, that’s one technology that has really ruined a lot of good horror movie plots. Either the protagonists have to be idiots (Blair Witch Project) or there has to be some lame explanation (“Gee, those power lines are really messing with the radio. Sure hope I don’t need to make a pahone call.”)
Or it has to be a situation where it doesn’t matter (“Hey Bill, it’s Tim. The dead are rising from their graves and devouring the living.” “Yep, same here.” “Ok, well talk to you later.”)
Tell Ariel that believe or not, there are some social throwbacks that don’t have cellphones and worse, there are some that actually let their batteries die down before they recharge them or buy new ones.
It could totally still work.
I recall reading an article a while back pointing out that Star Trek, particularly TNG, had anticipating the plot problems with cell phones. Given the communicators, particularly when they went on the badges and were voice activated, you had to write your Trek plot assuming that anytime a character needed to tell another character something, they’d be able to do so instantly unless a specific reason was given why they couldn’t. Same thing’s true for all current tvs and movies with cell phones.
I remember watching Duel when it was first shown, I believe as an ABC Movie of the Week (another bit of culture that’s gone away; either significant made for tv movies, or significant movies being shown on tv being a big deal). Scared the heck out of me back at age 10.
Or they could go the Buffy/Angel approach, and simply have the protagonist hate cell phones and refuse to carry one. 🙂
TWL
it s funny you should mention cell phones kathleen because that new movie cellular is coming out
which of course revolves around a guy on a cell phone trying to find a kidnapped woman whose kidnappers dont know she is talking to him on the phone this idea strecthes credibility to the max
i cant wait for your review of of THAT film!
thanks for the reviews and keep them coming
I’ve heard the “cell phone” argument concerning the Blair Witch Project many times, and I’m sort of skeptical of it. The film is about college students getting lost in the woods–in 1994. Now maybe I didn’t go to a trendy enough university, but I DID attend from 1994-1997, and I had a circle of about 8 or 10 friends–and none of them, as far as I can recall, had cell phones. I never saw one clipped to any of my friends’ belts, or in their pockets…never had one go off when I was talking with them…can’t recall seeing one on anybody’s desk in their dorm room. Cell phones just weren’t as ubiquitous in 1994 as they were when the movie was released; but apparently people thought, “They existed in 1994, and they exist now, and many college kids have them now, so therefore many college kids had them in 1994.” So watching the film, I didn’t think it strange that 4 college students from that year didn’t have a phone between them and didn’t think of borrowing one from somebody. ~shrug~ But whatever.