Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 40 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Ricochet Moving Pictures Club: 19th Reel
Bajan delivery this week, I’m on vacation. Congratulations to the 18th Reel winner, LC! LC provided an excellent question for our 19th Reel: What is the most ambitious film that actually worked?
Wish you were here!
A few ground rules (as before, very much based on the Ricochet Movie Fight Club rules – feel free to suggest any alterations):
- As with RMFC, post your answer as a comment, making it clear whether it is your official answer – one per member. (You can of course have as many comments as you like, but only one official answer.)
- Defend your answer in the comments, duelling back and forth with other member answers across the week.
- Whoever gets the most likes on their official answer comment (and only that comment) by the following week wins that week’s reel…
- … and the honour of posing the question for the next reel.
- In the case of a tie, the member who posed the question will decide the winner.
Notes:
- Please note, this is a family thread. Keep it seemly please, ladies and gentlemen. We have a standing arrangement with the ACME company as well as local bakeries for custard pies, spring-loaded orange throwers, and the like.
And if you must tread near the mark, at least do so gently please, and with humour. (Thank you. – The Management.) - As with RMFC, don’t worry if your answer may seem off the wall, eccentric, or otherwise curious; it’s yours to defend and win people over to.
As ever, great thanks to @andrewmiller .
Published in Culture
The Lord of the Rings. An absurd undertaking guaranteed to be nitpicked by a hundred million fanboys with every failure to adhere to the text blared across the universe in fifty point type. Peter Jackson might have been revered for centuries if he had never done the Hobbit films.
Agreed.
Thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread, as Bilbo Baggins might have put it.
I find Inception a fascinating movie. The dream within a dream within a dream plot lines are both confusing and engrossing. The special effects are pretty fantastic. And the depictions of human frailty are interesting in the best way.
Final answer.
Christopher Nolan’s Memento.
A man with anterograde amnesia is searching for his wife’s killer, employing unusual means to keep track of the timeline. The film is told in dual timelines and is highly ambitious.
2001: A Space Odyssey
At a time when space was full of monsters and radiation, Kubrick’s visuals, storytelling, and soundtrack took it into an entirely new direction.
I just watched A Bridge Too Far a couple of days ago, and the scope is awe-inspiring. No CGI, of course; all authentic battle gear. And a cast of thousands. They could never even attempt something like that again. Final answer.
Dune Part Two. It was amazing that they could so accurately recreate the novel.
Final answer.
I was there, two months ago! Well, maybe not that exact beach, but surely close. Ambas Bajas, as Mexicans don’t call ’em but should, were very nice.
Well you snagged my pick…
Totally agree. The Lord of the Rings. An epic achievement, in at least two senses of the phrase.
It was an epically imperfect rendering of the original, but one which treated the original epic with respect. I gave up on the first Hobbit movie about ten minutes in, because I was already tired of the fart jokes…
Well, actually, Bajan refers to the people of Barbados. Darn hot here and I’ve just had a flying fish sandwich for dinner.
Bajans is pronounced like “bay-gens,” and they are very nice.
Sunset in Speightstown, Barbados.
Apologies for interrupting the thread.
I’m kind of thinking any Terry Gilliam film?
“Forbidden Planet” was pretty ambitious for the time.
I guess it all depends on what you mean by “worked” . . .
LOTR has already been taken, so it gets my vote . . .
That the movie didn’t fail from all the ambitions, whether structurally or story wise. So a good movie at the end of the day.
“Napoleon vu park Abel Vance”, a 1927 film by M Gance. Ground breaking camera use, split screen techniques, underwater photography and more. Truly amazing for 1927. My final answer.
I like A Bridge too Far, The Longest Day, the new Dune, and the Ten Commandments also in this category. 2001 was so diffuse and baffling that I had to explain the ending to my adults. Even the ones that stayed awake through the end. Which is to say I utterly love it but it is flawed in its presentation in a way these others are not. And I am mad at Kubrick that I ended up with a 2001 that in no way resembled his. (Go Elon, go!)
I found a trailer for le Napoleon that is intriguing, is there a good print I can obtain?
The novel 2001 has a lot more information that just wasn’t in the movie, but should have been.
Well, since the book was written after the movie came out and written in collaboration with Stanley Kubrick, I guess they figured they needed to explain things.
I had read Clarke’s Childhood’s End, and made the connection between the star baby at the end of the film and human transcendence. He had done a bunch of transcendence stories as I recall.
Do you think it’s possible to glean the things that were explained in the book, just from watching the movie?
If so, I would sure like to know HOW.
I am sure they could have just made stuff up since they wrote the book with the movie in the can.
Sort of like the story about how Raymond Chandler didn’t know who killed the chauffer in The Big Sleep. The question came from the directors but Chandler said, more or less, “I have no idea.” So the answer needed to be made up later (if it even was).
Clarke and Kubrick co-wrote the script, Clarke wrote the book, I’m sure if there were any differences in their views that the novel takes Clarke’s side.
It really wasn’t. It was left hanging in both the book and the movie.
Maybe the written version would have been impossible to film even at that time, or simply too expensive. But I do know that what Clarke describes in the novel at the end is not at all conveyed by the colored lights etc flashing across Bowman’s face.
I absolutely agree. That stretch needed exposition. Kubrick was meticulous about the details but in reaching to portray the transcendent, he failed to bring his audience with him. The irony has always been that 2001 is universally recognized as great art, and 2010 as the better movie. An entire movie to explain what Kubrick never quite got to.
In a way, I suppose. But 2010 never covered the “space parking lot” seen by Bowman in 2001, nor the details of his experiences in what appeared to be the “hotel suite,” nor the full expositions on HAL…
I have always taken the significance of the hotel suite to be that he had become a guest of a higher order being. I found the explanation of Hal’s behavior satisfactory in a limited 1970’s era understanding of AI and psychology. I liked that HAL was granted a redemption arc. There are intentional mysteries in the films, they neighbor the higher order beings for proper effect. Like the original theater version of Close Encounters which ends as the humans board the alien ship, leaving the expensive shots of the ship’s interior on the editing room floor to protect the mystery. That said, movies can be quite successful artistically in spite of, or even because of, loose ends. Unless David Lynch is involved, of course.
Nah I think they should have shown more details of the trip through the Star Gate. As well as the explication of what came after. And of course, the idea of just showing the apes at the start, with no description at all… feh.