I feel that Charade (the one with Grant and Hepburn) kind of flailed around until the last ten or so minutes. I know it's constructed to have the Big Reveal be earth-shattering and all that, but I had almost zero interest in the characters - despite the excellent acting - up until the end. It succeeds in saving itself, though, and when I look back on the film after seeing the end I realise that the whole thing was awesome and I conveniently missed it.
The 2005 Hitchhiker's Guide, in my opinion, was ruined by its last couple of scenes. I was totally cool with the adaptation until it went all shmoopy and let's-tack-on-some-romance. I know further along in the written in the series Arthur and Trillian end up kind of together but not really, but still. Excessive feel-good smarm is excessive. (It seems silly to nitpick about that, since the series is one of the most re-adapted pieces of fiction in the past fifty years...)
1972's Horror Express, a ridiculously bad B-movie with two excellent actors (Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing) has an almost nonsensical beginning. After everyone's on the train Victorian pseudo-science starts getting pulled out of everyone's asses, however, dinosaurs, laser eyeballs, whorish jewel thieves and Russian zombie Jesus-impersonators make sterling appearances and it becomes the most cracktastically awesome thing in the universe. Also, despite the viewer's initial skepticism about the fear-worthiness of the monster, it's really rather hair-raising in a number of scenes.
I salute you, sir, for having seen The Spanish Prisoner. I've never met someone else who's seen it! Am I the only one who thinks that Rebecca Pidgeon's character was a seething pile of awkward creepiness? My skin was definitely crawling during all of her scenes.
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Date: 2009-07-24 02:42 pm (UTC)The 2005 Hitchhiker's Guide, in my opinion, was ruined by its last couple of scenes. I was totally cool with the adaptation until it went all shmoopy and let's-tack-on-some-romance. I know further along in the written in the series Arthur and Trillian end up kind of together but not really, but still. Excessive feel-good smarm is excessive.
(It seems silly to nitpick about that, since the series is one of the most re-adapted pieces of fiction in the past fifty years...)
1972's Horror Express, a ridiculously bad B-movie with two excellent actors (Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing) has an almost nonsensical beginning. After everyone's on the train Victorian pseudo-science starts getting pulled out of everyone's asses, however, dinosaurs, laser eyeballs, whorish jewel thieves and Russian zombie Jesus-impersonators make sterling appearances and it becomes the most cracktastically awesome thing in the universe. Also, despite the viewer's initial skepticism about the fear-worthiness of the monster, it's really rather hair-raising in a number of scenes.
I salute you, sir, for having seen The Spanish Prisoner. I've never met someone else who's seen it! Am I the only one who thinks that Rebecca Pidgeon's character was a seething pile of awkward creepiness? My skin was definitely crawling during all of her scenes.