Okay, so I've had a little time to think about this whole Ben Affleck being Batman thing. I'm sure you've heard by now...the whole internet exploded when it was announced...seriously, it really interrupted my fangirl on Tumblr time, and I don't have a lot of that right now...
Anyway, I think everyone's being a little harsh. Has he made some bad films? Sure. Is he who I would have pictured? Not at all...but I thought the same thing about Toby Maguire being Spiderman and look how that turned out. I think there's some things that people forget- like how actors have no control over how a movie is produced if they aren't one of the producers. Or how Affleck has made decent movies. And how he's directed some good ones too- that bodes well for the script. And don't point out Gigli to me. That was all JLo and you know it. You throw the first stone on that one if you've never done something seriously stupid because of the very hot person you were dating. Yeah. Mostly, I think everyone forgets that people make mistakes. Even actors choosing movies.
Look at Meryl Streep- she's amazing, right? But she's got The Ant Bully, Mamma Mia, The River Wild and A.I. on her acting credits. Its almost enough to make you forget how great she can be.
Or how about Johnny Depp? Did you see The Lone Ranger? Or how about Alice in Wonderland (which he's filming the sequel to) or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, or The Secret Window. All horrible movies. And just think, if he hadn't made so many great films before and these were all you'd ever seen, there would be no Captain Jack Sparrow, no Corpse Bride or Sweeney Todd.
Yeah, Yeah, I hear you saying. But those two weren't given iconic superhero roles. They aren't risking ruining years of great actors and cannon....they aren't destroying a franchise. First- the Batman franchise is rife with horrible Batmans- hell its rife with horrible casting decisions. Its the truth and you know it. Come on, Val Kilmer? He's pretty, but he was an awful caped crusader. Uma Thurman, Alicia Silverstone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger should come to mind for you too. Terrible. And look at the actresses who have mangled Cat Woman...Michelle Pfeiffer, Halle Berry and Anne Hathaway. All amazing actresses. All shitty Cat Women. Honestly, I don't think anyone will ever do it as well as Julie Newmar did in the sixties...but that's just me. Point is, sometimes it takes more than being a great actor to portray a great part. Otherwise I wouldn't weep every time I think of George Clooney and his batnipples. You think he picked those out? Yeah, neither do I. Hell, if acting ability was the only criterion for getting an iconic part we'd have never seen Terry Hatcher as Lois Lane..... For that matter we'd have never seen Jim Carry as the Riddler or Danny Devito as The Penguin (and both were great) if their crimes against film had been the criterion by which they were given their roles.
And for the record, I would like to offer you the following in defense of great actors who played iconic superhero/supervillain roles but have shady pasts. Imagine if we had judged the following based on their bad movies alone:
Before American Beauty we loved Kevin Spacey for Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and The Usual Suspects. But let's face it, if we judged him based on A Bug's Life and L.A. Confidential, we'd have never seen him as Lex Luthor.
Outside of To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar has Wesley Snipes made a decent film? Outside of the Blade movies, for which , of course, he would not have been cast....
Remember Alfred Molina's riveting performance as Doc Oc in Spiderman? We'd have never seen it if the internet had been the judge, because all he had done prior was crappy television shows and Chocolat (another Johnny Depp crime, I might add).
And believe me when I say The Avengers cast wouldn't exist. Tom Hiddleston was a relatively unknown television actor, much like Molina. Look at him now....Can you think of anyone else being Loki? There would be no Iron Man because (face the music kids) RDJ didn't make anything decent post Chaplin (1992) until around 2005. He did, however, make an appearance in that god awful Halle Berry film Gothicka and he contributed to the further degeneration of an entire generation of yuppies by doing a 25 episode stint on Ally McBeal. But we worship him as Iron Man (and Sherlock Holmes). Lucky the internet wasn't there for those casting decisions. If you thought Mark Ruffalo was a way better Hulk than Edward Norton congratulations. Remember, though, Norton is a spectacular actor who had tons of great films to his name before he bombed as Hulk. Ruffalo had Just Like Heaven and 13 Going on 30 to his name....Chris Evans can't be Captain America anymore because Fantastic Four was a crime against humanity, I'm pretty sure there's a UN council still debating whether or not that movie violates the Geneva Conventions....Oh, and no Black Widow, because Scarlett Johansson still needs to be punished for The Other Boleyn Girl and The Nanny Diaries.
I think I made my point.
You know, I don't even really care for Affleck as an actor. He's okay, but I don't think he's done anything groundbreaking. What I do know is that he deserves a chance before we say how much he sucks. A year or two from now, maybe I'll be eating my words...but if I am, I'll let you tell me that you told me so. Honestly, I'm sick of the people on the internet, and fan bases and other groups of, oh say, non-film people, thinking they know better than Hollywood on how to entertain us. I think it contributes to all the bad films we see, and bad television too- there's too much pandering to what they think people want. The loud and vocal majority of morons are ruining entertainment for the rest of us.
Let it go. Its just a movie.
If you hate him that much, don't go see it.
My two cents.
AGxx
Showing posts with label the internet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the internet. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Na Na Na Na Na Na YEAH!
Anyone who knows me well knows that I am a huge fan of Jane Austen. I've got copies, sometimes multiple ones, of all her works. I own all the DVD adaptations. I even have some of the fan work and mashups like Seth Graham Smith's "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies." If there's something out there that smacks of Austen, I've probably got it in my house somewhere.
Naturally, I'm a huge fan of Pride and Prejudice. Its my favorite work of hers, and I think its a brilliantly written novel. For me, there isn't much in this world that's as fun as cracking open my incredibly dog-eared copy of P&P and rereading the exploits of Elizabeth Bennet. I love her humor and wit. I love her mistakes and her ability to learn with humility. She's a great character.
About two or three months ago Sakura came over, and knowing I am a huge fan, he asked me if I had seen the new YouTube series based on P&P. I hadn't. Naturally, I was a little leery of an online adaptation of my favorite book. I thought there was no way that anyone could make the book as engaging on screen as it is in print. I love the movie adaptations, but none of them, up until now, really spoke to me.
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries has changed all of that.
This is Lizzie Bennet, and I'm a little bit in love.
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries is one of the most wonderful adaptations of any book I've ever seen. And I've seen plenty of them. Its part of why I am so critical of movie/screen adaptations of great books. They normally ruin the original. I loved Jurassic Park before I read the book. Gone with the Wind is a great movie, but it will never compare to the original writing. Even the recent adaptations of books like Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden) and The Hunger Games (Susanne Collins), while wonderful, and really close to the original story, leave a sense of wanting when it comes to viewing versus reading. Not so with the fabulous LBD.
The whole premise of this adaptation is that Lizzie is a graduate student in Mass Communications and is doing a vlog about her life as part of her final project. I love this premise, because it gives the viewer, immediately, a solid reason as to why Lizzie would be recording the craziness of her life and family for all of mankind to view. After you deal with that idea (and its used well throughout the storyline- not just as a set-up for the series) you can dive right in to the awesomeness that is LBD.
The characters are amazing. I love how the creators of the show Bernie Su and Hank Green have managed to keep the show, despite the pantings of the fandom (and there's a surprisingly huge fandom) focused on Lizzie and in a more peripheral way, her family. This isn't about Lizzie and Darcy or about Jane and Bing Lee (great name, right?). The creators got it right- this video series is all about the girl making it. And as an added benefit, you get to see a wonderful cast pf characters, the ones you loved so much in the book, come to life in ways you never imagined.
I won't spoil what happens in the series for you, because I know you're going to trust my judgement of all things Austen and go check it out. You should, really. Even if you go on a marathon watch, you've only lost six hours, and really, that's like watching Lord of the Rings in its entirety. You can do it. But I will say this- it is seriously addictive. When I first picked up the channel on You Tube (you can click here to go there when you're done reading here) I watched the first few episodes, decided it was too much fun for the girls to miss out, so I stopped, waited for them to get home from work, and then spent the evening in front of the computer with them watching the series up until we ran out of videos. We skipped dinner, ordered pizza and ate in front of the television. That's huge in our house. The only other time we've done that was when we streamed election results this last November. From then on, the girls and I watch the newest updates as soon as we can. When the girls started missing some because life gets you busy sometimes, I started watching on my own. And then I discovered what geniuses the creators of the show really are.
There are tumblr accounts. There are twitter accounts. (Go to this page to get them all) Lydia has her own channel on YouTube. Charlotte's little sister has her own channel, too. Heck- Lydia's cat Kitty Bennet (see what they did there?) has its own Twitter account. Weeks before you even see some characters they start popping up on tumblr and twitter, they follow Lizzie's videos. Its amazing and intricate and smart. Pemberley has its own channel, twitter feed. It blows my mind the amount of time that they creators of the show spend working these little trans-media tidbits into the show. Last week there was a fandom explosion. I won't tell you what its about, I'll let you catch up on the series, but there were rumblings of what was going on in the comments on Lydia's channel days before the video that dropped the bomb was released. But if you don't read YouTube comments, you wouldn't know. I didn't. Until I heard. Until I went to find them myself. And I was mind-blown again. So mind-blown, in fact, that I immediately called Sakura to see if he had seen/heard it yet.
This is a series made to be enjoyed by an internet savvy generation. Can you just watch the LBD videos and enjoy the series? Oh, absolutely. They write it with those people in mind. But when you get down to brass tacks, there is so much more there for a person who lives on their computer. Like me. Like most of my friends. I've never experienced something like this- a form of entertainment that is so interactive and exciting. As an experience, its incredible. I get up every day and like the fan geek that I am, I check the channels, I check YouTube, twitter and tumblr. I check it throughout the day to see what's happening. I subscribed on Facebook. I'm obsessed- something no other adaptation has been able to do to me. Do I love the Hunger Games? Sure, but I don't check the fan sites. I lost the obsession with Potter like that days after it started. But for me, LBD is going about this the right way. I can't get enough.
What's even more amazing to me, is that the show's creators, the actors, the producers are all so open about what they do and why they do it. There's hangouts on YouTube and live chats via twitter and Facebook. The people who created the show listen to the playlists that fans make, they look at the fan art. They listen to the joys and sorrows of the fans. They think of things I would never have thought of...when Darcy asks Lizzie to the theater they actually know what's playing in SF at the moment of the airing, what's on in neighboring cities and they even have head cannon answers that make sense within the storyline, even if they aren't playing. The crazy thing is, you'll never know...it never comes up in the story. But they have that answer for you, just because you might ask. I love that.
Even if you don't care how revolutionary and wonderful the adaptation is, the story itself is enough to keep you happy. The execution is amazing. In a vlog, we know we won't see everyone...so how do you deal with that in an adaptation?
Meet Mrs and Mr. Bennet, as portrayed by Lizzie and her bff Charlotte. Its genius, right? The use of costume theater is an amazing idea, and one they use to great effect. Especially with Bing Lee, Darcy and Caroline, who you don't see on camera until much later in the series.
The dialog is fun. The lines are witty. And there is still an amazing amount of original Austen left in there, just in case you're a Janeite. The way the characters are developed and adapted for modern times is great. They're completely believable. The actors inhabit those characters completely. I've even seen on a behind the scenes video somewhere that the actors, for the most part, use their own clothes for the shoots. They are the character they play.
I can't recommend this series enough. I truly can't. But if you don't want to take my word for it, check out these articles about the series:
The Guardian calling it the best adaptation ever. Seriously.
Buzzfeed calling the series YouTube's hidden Masterpiece Theater
Mrs. Magazine discusses how great it is that the series is Lizzie centered here
Those are just a sampling from new sources (The Wall Street Journal even covered the show in January!)
Beyond my trying to convince all of you there's nothing better to watch than this series, I have to express the joy and admiration I feel every time I interact with this series. Yeah, yeah...maybe its just lonely housewife talk. Maybe I'm a huge geek. But in a world where I am increasingly irritated every time I open Facebook or Twitter or whatever social media platform I'm on it is simply wonderful to have something to look forward to. I like knowing that even though the war (its not a debate anymore) about gun control still rages online, even though I still get spammed with Jesus posts on Facebook, despite the fact that I can't get through a day without seeing some stupid, cryptic, passive aggressive post somewhere I can count on Lizzie and her world to make me smile. Even when the series gets dramatic (believe me, it does) there's something sadly real about it, something human, and it makes me relate a lot more than I do when I'm looking at my friends posting about how they need (another) new iPhone but are too broke to get it yet. Is that sad? Yeah, probably. But the truth is that the LBD has managed to create a show that taps in to the essence of what makes us human, fallible and ultimately lovable.
Have you ran into the LBD yet? What did you think? If you haven't, go check it out. Let me know how you feel. Even if you aren't an Austen fan, you'll thank me.
AGxx
Note- the title for this post is the last line of the outtro to Lydia's videos.
Second note- obviously I don't own any of the articles, photos or people I've mentioned. I do not work for the news sources I cited. My opinions are the only thing I possess.
Naturally, I'm a huge fan of Pride and Prejudice. Its my favorite work of hers, and I think its a brilliantly written novel. For me, there isn't much in this world that's as fun as cracking open my incredibly dog-eared copy of P&P and rereading the exploits of Elizabeth Bennet. I love her humor and wit. I love her mistakes and her ability to learn with humility. She's a great character.
About two or three months ago Sakura came over, and knowing I am a huge fan, he asked me if I had seen the new YouTube series based on P&P. I hadn't. Naturally, I was a little leery of an online adaptation of my favorite book. I thought there was no way that anyone could make the book as engaging on screen as it is in print. I love the movie adaptations, but none of them, up until now, really spoke to me.
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries has changed all of that.
This is Lizzie Bennet, and I'm a little bit in love.
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries is one of the most wonderful adaptations of any book I've ever seen. And I've seen plenty of them. Its part of why I am so critical of movie/screen adaptations of great books. They normally ruin the original. I loved Jurassic Park before I read the book. Gone with the Wind is a great movie, but it will never compare to the original writing. Even the recent adaptations of books like Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden) and The Hunger Games (Susanne Collins), while wonderful, and really close to the original story, leave a sense of wanting when it comes to viewing versus reading. Not so with the fabulous LBD.
The whole premise of this adaptation is that Lizzie is a graduate student in Mass Communications and is doing a vlog about her life as part of her final project. I love this premise, because it gives the viewer, immediately, a solid reason as to why Lizzie would be recording the craziness of her life and family for all of mankind to view. After you deal with that idea (and its used well throughout the storyline- not just as a set-up for the series) you can dive right in to the awesomeness that is LBD.
The characters are amazing. I love how the creators of the show Bernie Su and Hank Green have managed to keep the show, despite the pantings of the fandom (and there's a surprisingly huge fandom) focused on Lizzie and in a more peripheral way, her family. This isn't about Lizzie and Darcy or about Jane and Bing Lee (great name, right?). The creators got it right- this video series is all about the girl making it. And as an added benefit, you get to see a wonderful cast pf characters, the ones you loved so much in the book, come to life in ways you never imagined.
I won't spoil what happens in the series for you, because I know you're going to trust my judgement of all things Austen and go check it out. You should, really. Even if you go on a marathon watch, you've only lost six hours, and really, that's like watching Lord of the Rings in its entirety. You can do it. But I will say this- it is seriously addictive. When I first picked up the channel on You Tube (you can click here to go there when you're done reading here) I watched the first few episodes, decided it was too much fun for the girls to miss out, so I stopped, waited for them to get home from work, and then spent the evening in front of the computer with them watching the series up until we ran out of videos. We skipped dinner, ordered pizza and ate in front of the television. That's huge in our house. The only other time we've done that was when we streamed election results this last November. From then on, the girls and I watch the newest updates as soon as we can. When the girls started missing some because life gets you busy sometimes, I started watching on my own. And then I discovered what geniuses the creators of the show really are.
There are tumblr accounts. There are twitter accounts. (Go to this page to get them all) Lydia has her own channel on YouTube. Charlotte's little sister has her own channel, too. Heck- Lydia's cat Kitty Bennet (see what they did there?) has its own Twitter account. Weeks before you even see some characters they start popping up on tumblr and twitter, they follow Lizzie's videos. Its amazing and intricate and smart. Pemberley has its own channel, twitter feed. It blows my mind the amount of time that they creators of the show spend working these little trans-media tidbits into the show. Last week there was a fandom explosion. I won't tell you what its about, I'll let you catch up on the series, but there were rumblings of what was going on in the comments on Lydia's channel days before the video that dropped the bomb was released. But if you don't read YouTube comments, you wouldn't know. I didn't. Until I heard. Until I went to find them myself. And I was mind-blown again. So mind-blown, in fact, that I immediately called Sakura to see if he had seen/heard it yet.
This is a series made to be enjoyed by an internet savvy generation. Can you just watch the LBD videos and enjoy the series? Oh, absolutely. They write it with those people in mind. But when you get down to brass tacks, there is so much more there for a person who lives on their computer. Like me. Like most of my friends. I've never experienced something like this- a form of entertainment that is so interactive and exciting. As an experience, its incredible. I get up every day and like the fan geek that I am, I check the channels, I check YouTube, twitter and tumblr. I check it throughout the day to see what's happening. I subscribed on Facebook. I'm obsessed- something no other adaptation has been able to do to me. Do I love the Hunger Games? Sure, but I don't check the fan sites. I lost the obsession with Potter like that days after it started. But for me, LBD is going about this the right way. I can't get enough.
What's even more amazing to me, is that the show's creators, the actors, the producers are all so open about what they do and why they do it. There's hangouts on YouTube and live chats via twitter and Facebook. The people who created the show listen to the playlists that fans make, they look at the fan art. They listen to the joys and sorrows of the fans. They think of things I would never have thought of...when Darcy asks Lizzie to the theater they actually know what's playing in SF at the moment of the airing, what's on in neighboring cities and they even have head cannon answers that make sense within the storyline, even if they aren't playing. The crazy thing is, you'll never know...it never comes up in the story. But they have that answer for you, just because you might ask. I love that.
Even if you don't care how revolutionary and wonderful the adaptation is, the story itself is enough to keep you happy. The execution is amazing. In a vlog, we know we won't see everyone...so how do you deal with that in an adaptation?
Meet Mrs and Mr. Bennet, as portrayed by Lizzie and her bff Charlotte. Its genius, right? The use of costume theater is an amazing idea, and one they use to great effect. Especially with Bing Lee, Darcy and Caroline, who you don't see on camera until much later in the series.
The dialog is fun. The lines are witty. And there is still an amazing amount of original Austen left in there, just in case you're a Janeite. The way the characters are developed and adapted for modern times is great. They're completely believable. The actors inhabit those characters completely. I've even seen on a behind the scenes video somewhere that the actors, for the most part, use their own clothes for the shoots. They are the character they play.
I can't recommend this series enough. I truly can't. But if you don't want to take my word for it, check out these articles about the series:
The Guardian calling it the best adaptation ever. Seriously.
Buzzfeed calling the series YouTube's hidden Masterpiece Theater
Mrs. Magazine discusses how great it is that the series is Lizzie centered here
Those are just a sampling from new sources (The Wall Street Journal even covered the show in January!)
Beyond my trying to convince all of you there's nothing better to watch than this series, I have to express the joy and admiration I feel every time I interact with this series. Yeah, yeah...maybe its just lonely housewife talk. Maybe I'm a huge geek. But in a world where I am increasingly irritated every time I open Facebook or Twitter or whatever social media platform I'm on it is simply wonderful to have something to look forward to. I like knowing that even though the war (its not a debate anymore) about gun control still rages online, even though I still get spammed with Jesus posts on Facebook, despite the fact that I can't get through a day without seeing some stupid, cryptic, passive aggressive post somewhere I can count on Lizzie and her world to make me smile. Even when the series gets dramatic (believe me, it does) there's something sadly real about it, something human, and it makes me relate a lot more than I do when I'm looking at my friends posting about how they need (another) new iPhone but are too broke to get it yet. Is that sad? Yeah, probably. But the truth is that the LBD has managed to create a show that taps in to the essence of what makes us human, fallible and ultimately lovable.
Have you ran into the LBD yet? What did you think? If you haven't, go check it out. Let me know how you feel. Even if you aren't an Austen fan, you'll thank me.
AGxx
Note- the title for this post is the last line of the outtro to Lydia's videos.
Second note- obviously I don't own any of the articles, photos or people I've mentioned. I do not work for the news sources I cited. My opinions are the only thing I possess.
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