RIP Thread

[Deckard]

A real hero of mine - saw him live quite a few times in Ibiza back in the day and this track is one of my top ten of all time - see you in the sunset old buddy.

[KlaxonCow]

Bobby Ball - of Cannon and Ball - has died, seemingly from Covid-19:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-54731384

Rock on, Tommy. Rock on.

[gilesgoat]

Bond is gone ....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-54761824

[RedOktober]

Schame.

[rowan]

For me it felt a bit like when John Peel died, I sort of always thought Sean Connery'd be around.

I liked him in a lot of films
RIP

[gilesgoat]

The only movie I think it's really been "a total shame" to end a career for Connery been "The league of extraordinary gentlemen" ( Likewise Ford should have never ever done that Crystal Skulls Indiana thing - with the anti-atom-bomb-refrigerator ) .. there's worse, for Sean, but I keep it "as a small trasure" and I forgive him only because there's a goat named Gordon in it ( which does a sort of hero part ) but to respect the memory of Sean I should NOT mention that other thing he did work on ( reportedly having quite some fun while doing so )

[noodles]

The Hill and The Name of The Rose really stood out for me.

[KlaxonCow]

The only movie I think it's really been "a total shame" to end a career for Connery been "The league of extraordinary gentlemen"

Doubly so, as Alan Moore's original "vintage Avengers" concept was perfectly awesome and could have been so good, but Hollywood misses the point and fucks it up again.

The original comic book just had so many nice touches, such as the fake Victorian-era adverts, and a general Victorian / Edwardian style (albeit in full modern colour):



(But, of course, that sort of thing can't really be done in a movie. Though it would have been interesting to see Zack Snyder give it a go, as he is rather good at capturing style / atmosphere - like in 300 and Watchmen, which are visually spot-on, even if we could level criticisms at those otherwise. How would you make it look and feel Victorian-esque?)

As the Angry Video Game Nerd recently touched on, there is really a direct lineage from the old "classic monster movies" - Dracula, Jekyll and Hyde, the Invisible Man, etc. - to modern superhero movies:



And, like, Moore also saw this spiritual connection and then created his "vintage Avengers" team (well, actually, "the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" is probably more a riff on DC's "Justice League" but Marvel's the modern comparison, as the MCU is actually good). Like, take the modern superhero interpretation and then retroactively apply it backwards on the old "classic monsters".

There was plenty there, in the original source material, to have made it good. But it ended up rather shit and, fair play, I can see why Connery was pissed off at it all (and you can also see, as I'm touching on here, why Connery also likely signed up to it in the first place - because it's an idea that could have been brilliant, if done right. But it wasn't and, yeah, it was the straw that broke the camel's back, sending Connery into a silent retirement. "Silent" because he never actually announced it, but just, like, stopped acting and did other things).

[gilesgoat]

@KlaxonCow : it's a FACT that "Hollywood more than often COMPLETELY FUCKS UP very good source material".

It's a case where I am "totally againist" "americanisation/chinisation ( i.e. try to appeal to a STRANGE mass broad market ) of stories/novels/comics".

"This comic MAYBE it's not for everyone ?" yes that is PRECISELY what make it special because "it is what it is" you don't want to "adapt" a story to make it "mass market".

Yes it maybe makes "some commerical sense" in the sense "you sold it to a lot of people" but you also destroyed it for what it was.

Anyway IMHO "a lot of hollywood is DEAD" don't even care for what's coming out, I had lot more fun with "unusual low budget movies" than big blockbusters.

I love "the cinema experience" YET I SELDOM ( now NEVER until Covid is still here ) go to cinema because I don't feel it's anything really worth for me to go there.

It's not "the cinema" wrong, it's what they show that is wrong ( for me ) .

[Foozwah]

Yeah, League of Extraordinary Gentleman is literally the only comic in decades where I bought/collected every edition as it came out. From issue 1 it just ticked so many boxes for me, and was so well executed - all the things KlaxonCow said, basically.

Hell, subsequently bought the graphic novel collections as well, for re-reading convenience, and the Nemo trilogy as well. Loved them all to bits.

Despite all that, never saw the movie, doubt I ever will. I can absolutely deal with things changing to suit a different format, i.e. cinema vs comic book, but in world where there's invariably someone who will take a perverse pleasure in a bad adaptation, I am yet to meet anyone who liked that film.

Was extra-hard to resist on the Connery front too, cos I have always taken a guilty pleasure in Haggard's Quatermaine stories, and loved where Moore took the character in the comics, and Sean in the role could have been so fucking good, but when I read how much he hated it, I just... no.

[KlaxonCow]

I did look up a clip of the movie, to remind myself of it, to avoid any "false memory" potentially creeping into my assessment.

And, well, it's basically this, times the running length of the movie, minus the scenes where Mina is being a sexy vampire:



That annoying trend of fight scenes with super-fast cuts, so you can barely tell what the fuck is going on.

(Also, "I walk a different path" before he goes on to do the same old same old kung-fu shit you've seen a million times before, in every other movie ever. The only nice touch I'd give credit for - and it's probably the actor's interpretation, more than anything in the script - is how Dorian acts bored shitless throughout. Like, he can't die, so there's no jeopardy in any of it for him. Yawn.)

[gilesgoat]

... I have the DVD of Sir Billy ... ( with Gordon the goat that wears a yellow Bruce Lee suit and thinks he's a dog and pees in the house and does stunts ) ... .. ... ( not the mention the jokes about the smelly beaver ) .. oh dear and the horrendous graphics !!! ...

[Foozwah]

I did look up a clip of the movie, to remind myself of it, to avoid any "false memory" potentially creeping into my assessment.

And, well, it's basically this, times the running length of the movie, minus the scenes where Mina is being a sexy vampire:

<vid snipped>

That annoying trend of fight scenes with super-fast cuts, so you can barely tell what the fuck is going on.

(Also, "I walk a different path" before he goes on to do the same old same old kung-fu shit you've seen a million times before, in every other movie ever. The only nice touch I'd give credit for - and it's probably the actor's interpretation, more than anything in the script - is how Dorian acts bored shitless throughout. Like, he can't die, so there's no jeopardy in any of it for him. Yawn.)

JFC, that was... awful. That's now the most I've ever seen of the film... and I hope to never see more.

Somehow I'd never quite pictured Nemo as a kung-fu master before now. Can't imagine why... Seeing that I can understand why Moore would have wanted nothing to do with this shambles, even if he weren't already a grumpy old bugger who hates every adaptation of his work.

I agree with the positive assessment of Dorian there though - making him bored and sort of just wandering through the chaos quite unconcerned because he's actually immortal (rather than just unageing) is an interesting take on the character, at least.

Bringing it back to the RIP vibe, just seeing Connery dressed as Allan there though... sigh, it makes me wish there was a cinematic equivalent of the section of Lucien's library in the Dreaming where all the great unwritten novels are kept, cos I'd like to think that somewhere in the multiverse there's a reality where there is an absolutely fantastic League movie after all, with him still in that role. He would have been perfect.

[gilesgoat]

I did look up a clip of the movie, to remind myself of it, to avoid any "false *SNIP*

Wash your eyes with THIS



.. it's as awful at it looks .. actually MORE ..

[PFVA]

RIP Alex Trebek

I loved watching Jeopardy when I was living in the US

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54867011