Gilliam destroys the world with awesomeness...
 

The Brothers Grimm doesn't count!

My...

Shouldn't this be in "Bits and pieces" ?

Why? It's a legitimate topic of discussion; the potential for the new movie and the greatness of his past ones.


It's too hard to tell from the trailer whether it will be any good. It certainly looks pretty, but it doesn't make me feel anything. Not even excited.

I utterly adore movies like this. All the sureal stuff.

You're wise not to get excited Nate. I find in general I like movies alot more when my expectations are low - which is why, unlike the rest of you, I didn't totally hate 9. :p

Gilliam is part of a dying breed of filmmakers that don't sell out or try to capitalize on a particular market; he makes films because he likes to, pure and simple.

This film will sell itself, it needs not the leg-up of Hot Topic that most films these days have. The fact that its Ledger's last film alone will rake in the masses (though that's not to say any of them will actually enjoy it).

A film's "time" is imperative to it's success. I've screened several films that were completely shat upon that weren't that bad because they were released at the wrong time. Parnassus, I predict, will be toe to toe in a sack race with Alice in Wonderland for surreal fantasy-film glory next year. Visuals aside, one thing is for sure; Gilliam's film will have twice the substance of Burton's. I like Burton's films, but they usually only deliver on the visual front, and not so much on the cerebral.

Gilliam has expressed interest in many projects including the Gorillaz animated feature film and an adaptation of Good Omens. But he's coming up on 70 (if he isn't already), and I sincerely hope he lives long enough to keep providing his spectacular scope to the world.

He needs to have one absolutely massive success to gain the trust of Hollywood investors so that he can afford to makeGood Omens (and whatever else he's had to put on the backburner over the years). Hopefully this one will do the trick.

I love this film already, I don't think it'll have much critical opposition against Alice in Wonderland, I remain fantastically underwhelmed at that film so far.

Alice in Wonderland has a four minute trailer.
Parnassus is two minutes.
And still, I feel more impressed (at least visually) with Parnassus.

Johnny Depp was in both of them. We should find out what he thinks.

I will see both, and probably be impressed by both, but there is much more wholesomeness to Gilliam's films. Burton and Zemeckis have Hollywood on their side and can churn out big budget films regardless of the flip-flopping critical acceptance of previous films. In a nutshell, Hollywood hates Gilliam and Gilliam hates Hollywood - but they desperately need each other.

The Alice in Wonderland trailer just seemed to me to be everything I'd expected, there was so much fantasy and awesome in it that it didn't even excite me.

Also, Depp was the only named actor in the trailer, though his character's role was quite small in the book and previous versions. That irked me a bit.

On the other hand, the trailer for Dr Parnassus had me smiling all the way through.

Well the Alice in Wonderland film is more of a sequel to the original canon in which Alice returns as a 19 year old. It's a completely non-canonical modern retelling of the story, and was written specifically to give the Mad Hatter a larger role.

I read the early treatment of the script which leaked over the net, and it was pretty epic. More like a more whimsical Narnia in the sense that theres a large battle between the Red Queen and the rebels (in this sense, it's also like American McGee's Alice).

Depp is admittedly the largest actor in the film. Coming in at close second is Christopher Lee and Alan Rickman, followed by Anne Hathaway and, of course, Helena Bonham Carter. The rest of the cast is a cache of interchangeable british actors we all recognize but can't be arsed to remember by name.

It...was....purposefully written to give Depp's character a larger role? Urgh.

I suppose I'll give it a shot, but I hear rumours that Burton is looking to make a 1984 film. I really hope that one is a big flop, otherwise it'll kill the story in a lovely chocolatey goop of dark fantastical wonderousness.

He expressed interest in producing it, but that's way out of Burton's league. Too political and thought-provoking for his taste.

After Alice he's in line to direct a stop-motion adaptation of his short film Frankenweenie, and an adaptation of the craptacularly corny 80's scifi/horror series Dark Shadows, much to Mat's chagrin.

The Alice in wonderland trailer was stupid and the visual designs are stupid and Tim Burton is stupid and I'd like to reiterate that the visual designs are stupid.

Imaginarium looks good.

IT'S FROM THE 60'S AND IT'S THE BEST SHOW EVER MADE AND IT'S A GOTHIC SOAP OPERA AND IT'S THE ONLY SHOW OF IT'S KIND EVER AND YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP.

I was really amped to see Tideland, and when I did I very very disappointed. :(

I succeeded in irking you.
I win.

Nobody wins when Tim Burton starts raping people's childhood.

Fucking hate Tim Burton and Danny Elfman and Johnny Depp.

Ohay new film!

Dude Danny Elfman is a genius. His association with Tim Burton has grossly mis-represented his awesomeness.

He did the music for The Frighteners, Leto. You know... the movie your DAD worked on?
He also did Men in Black, and ARMY OF FUCKING DARKNESS.

Most people aren't familiar with his shit outside of his normal "xylophones and spooky bells" crap that he does for Burton, but you have to understand that thats entirely Burton's influence. When Danny gets more freedom, he cranks out some seriously superb shit. Serenada Schizophrana is one of the most ball-busting pieces of contempo classic ever devised. Any modern musician that's familiar with the formula outside of fucking "guitar + bass + drums = musiclol" will tell you the same.

HANS ZIMMER WUT
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
BWUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUM
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUH

Danny Elfman used to be good, even with Tim Burton. Nowadays everything he does pretty much sounds the same.


I call it John Williams Complex.

lol ikr, i was mainly knocking by association. it's burton/johnny who i truly have the antiboner for.

i'm more for modern classical myself though. as petty as a difference in genre tags is, it is relevant. also lovely. less dooleedooleediddle and a lil more bwwwwooooaaaw if you catch my drift. :>

Mega lol. He's such a hack.

And yeah, I can see where you could get that impression. Thing is Elfman lost a good deal of his hearing not so long ago, and he admitted he's unfortunately had to stick to formulaic writing methods in order to compose since he no longer has the benefit of hearing all the nuances that once made his music so epic.

His music for Wanted was pretty damn nice and unique, even though the film itself gobbled big bags of cock. I have faith that he'll wow us again though, he's always managed to regain my admiration in times where it faltered. What I like about him is he's not content with just sitting back and taking on one project at a time to rake in the mud, he's still as wide-eyed as ever and loves to expand and create multiple things at once. Recently he's been writing music for a ballet.

Anyway weren't we talking about Gilliam?

You were, I was talking about how generic Burton's made dark fantasy and how I hope his Alice isn't especially spooky or creepy because it's been done a lot before.

Shut up, Joe. You am ruin my thread D:

I thought we had a film thread. Whatever, it's 2a.m. and I don't care.

But that's for movies that people have seen. o.o

And in all fairness Gilliam is awesome enough that he deserves his own thread.

I do like that Gilliam continues to cast Tom Waits in his films, he's a talented actor as well as a talented musician. It's even cooler that Gilliam handed him such a large role in this film as well.

Apologies for the double post, but there's some awesome stuff on the film here.

John Williams stuff all sounds the same because it's what's needed for the movie. He's quite capable of writing different, unfamiliar stuff. The Star Wars Cantina and The Terminal are nothing like Indiana Jones or Jurassic Park.

People take what Spielberg wants his blockbusters to sound like, and assume it's John Williams showing a lack of ability and talent. They don't stop to think that maybe he's doing what he's paid to do and give the director what he wants.

Partial truth. John Williams motifs are usually the same though and often use stolen melodies.

But yes, director influence plays a big part. This is partly why Elfman has a bad rep. Under Burton's direction, all of his stuff sounds like The Nightmare Before Christmas. Truthfully, TNBC is probably my least favorite Elfman score. Even though his scores for Batman Returns and Edward Scissorhands are along the same lines, I still prefer them to TNBC.

Danny: "So Tim, what motifs you want me to do this time?"
Tim: "Anything with xylophones, glockenspiels, celesta, tubular bells, and boys choir will be fine"
Danny: *sigh*

I just don't understand why John Williams is at the top of the ladder as far as film composers go. I assume it's because of his ability to create memorable "hummable" melodies that stick with you, and not so much for instrumentation. I just find him highly overrated, and even though his melodies are memorable, I don't really enjoy them.

Haven't you people ever heard of a little thing called "style"? John Williams's music varies in mood and depending on what he's writing for, but it all sounds like John Williams just like Elfman's scores for Beetlejuice and Black Beauty are different in mood and instrumentation, but if you listen to enough of his music you can recognize his style. Is this something to be mad about? Certainly not.

I'm not mad about it.
Though the fact that he is a pilferer of melodies/instrumentation bugs me.

Oh, wait. This thread had a topic once.

I just saw the film; it was indeed as awesome as it should have been. Christopher Plummer was fantastic. Heath Ledger, Colin Farrel and Jude Law all did their best best Johnny Depp impressions. And the bits within the Imaginarium itself were absolutely spectactular. I read a review that criticised them for being cheap and not photorealistic, but to me that was the charm of them. They were stylised and all the more beautiful for it.

I really, really hope this film becomes the success it so deserves to be.

Wait, its out?
No theatres around here are even showing it yet and you aussie bastards have it?

ffffffffffffffuckkkkk

EDIT: Apparently it's not released mainstream over here until the 25th of December.
Did I mention ffffffffffffffuckkkkk?

You can always steal Nate's eyes...

If he lived closed by I probably would.

If we lived close to each other, you'd have seen the film already.


Also, BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Finally we get to see a movie before the internet's gleaming masses.

Yeah... well... YOU CAN'T PLAY L4D2 >:C