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Ebert Reviews 'Silent Hill'
Last week, along with attending an 'epic' debate, Ebert had the time to take in Silent Hill. Did he enjoy it? Not so much. From the article: "Now here's a funny thing. Although I did not understand the story, I would have appreciated a great deal less explanation. All through the movie, characters are pausing in order to offer arcane back-stories and historical perspectives and metaphysical insights and occult orientations. They talk and talk and somehow their words do not light up any synapses in my brain, if my brain has synapses and they're supposed to light up, and if it doesn't and they're not, then they still don't make any sense. Perhaps those who have played the game will understand the movie, and enjoy it. "
While there are plenty of critics out there who are a waste of print, Roger Ebert isn't one of them.
He is a serious student of film, he has seen almost everything ever made, and his opinions are well informed with details to back them up.
And yet, he's no stuffy academic either - he can enjoy a guilty pleasure as much as anybody.
Very, very rarely do I wind up disagreeing with him, and even when I do, I can usually see his point.
The man is a rarity: a great critic.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
I watch Ebert pretty much every week because he is intelligent and an insightful reviewer. Yes, his opinions differ from mine quite often, but he does a very good job of explaining why he doesn't like something, and sometimes suggests what type of audience would enjoy the film. He sees so many movies that I appreciate his point of view, even if I don't agree with him.
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying. - Woody Allen
I think that most critics are self-important bastards.
I believe you just criticized critics, thereby making yourself a self-important bastard as well.
Ack! Now I'm one too!
The thing is, the majority of people don't have the same background information that you do, and -- if they wish to recoup the costs of production, marketing, and so on, at least -- it's being marketed to the general public, not just the fans of the games.
Which, from what I've read, makes it look like it falls into a category of films that I consider failed as a movie. (Some of them I even like, but that's another story.) Basically, I'm of the opinion that if a film requires knowledge of the plot points of some other fictional source in order to understand the plot, then I feel it's failed as a coherent film.
(This doesn't include stuff that could be considered general knowledge -- such as, say, the general plot to Hamlet -- or information from other films in a series of films.)
In short, Ebert isn't the target audience. Those of us who've played through all the games and are eagerly hoping for a new one are.
Oh, so all 50,000 of you can go see the movie and it'll be a phenomenal failure. I hate movies that suck to someone who "doesn't get it" or who "hasn't read the book" or "hasn't played the game". We have a word for those kind of movies: crap.
The film is a different media. If the film can't stand on its own 2 feet, than as a film it's a horrible failure.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
From what I've seen, Ebert likes what he likes, regardless of genre or background. He's no snob. Generally, when he thinks a movie sucks, I agree.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
OK, lemme get this straight... we have a videogame based movie and anyone expects otherwise?!? Now that is the real story here.
Doom was without a doubt one of the worst videogame movies next to Alone in the Dark... next to well I could go on and on.
Slashdot should be a fairly intelligent bunch, yet most of the 20 comments so far read: "I know it will suck, but I'll be there opening night..." What is wrong with you people? Are your lives that devoid of quality that you actually anticipate going to see garbage and wasting your money?
How's bout this, send the $10-20.00 to me and then sit and think about getting a hobby or interest besides computers/videogames/movies/porn.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Ebert is great at reviewing from an artistic perspective (although slightly narrow-minded and elitist), but I truly dislike his complete lack of commentary on emotion. Silent hill is intended to be a horror movie. Yes, it was horrible (his opinion... I haven't seen it), but did it scare you? Was it a true horror flick, or as the trend has become in recent years, just a bloody mess, filled with gore, more gore and naked women. I understand that it was a confused mess of plot, filler and characterization, but could you suspend your disbelief?
The corner of a round room
Instructions on how to be a Karma Whore:
1) Don't read the article
2) Barely skim over the slashdot blurb and make some post that is intended to show anger, but pretending you're too cool to care by using an "ironic" posture
3) Get FP!
4) ????
5) Gloat in self satisfaction.
Anybody who read the article would see that Ebert didn't particularilly dislike the movie. He thought it was visually intriguing and had some interesting cinematographic effects. Yes, he did feel that the plot and dialogue were lacking. Actually, the complaints sound exactly like those aired over many anime films: style over substance. And sometimes that's what people want.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
So... it's not okay to make a movie that is only really enjoyable if you have learned the basic story and world from playing the videogame, but it is okay to make a movie that is only enjoyable if you have learned the basic story and world from reading a comic book, watching other movies or seeing some old play?
I believe you misunderstand me.
Reading a comic book (or any other book) or seeing some play? No, that's not alright. For example: I said the general plot to Hamlet, not the exact specifics of the plot. I consider this to be one of these things that people know, even if they've never read or seen the play. I mean, I can generally say "Claudius killed the king" without someone screaming at me about spoilers. Same goes for Moby Dick, the backstory of Superman, the identity of Darth Vader -- things that have achieved enough mass in the popular mindset that even people who've never read/seen the item itself know the basics of it. If you wanted to, you could consider this a form of obliteration phenomenon.
(As for why I used Hamlet as an example: it wasn't meant as snobbishness or "high art" or anything, I was merely thinking of Fifty Works of English and American Literature We Could Do Without, which is based around the idea that some works could disappear from the face of the earth, never to be read or performed again, and it wouldn't make a difference as they are so well known to the general public. At least, I think that's the book I want; I haven't had a copy of it in a while and am not certain on the title anymore.)
Watching another movie? Only if it's part of a series. For example: someone who jumped in to The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the King, or something like that and then complained that they didn't understand what was going on? They have no right to complain.
Video games in general may have reached a high level of awareness in popular culture, but it's arguable whether individual video games have achieved that same level of awareness. For example, I can refer to the XBox and expect people to understand what I mean. However, to refer to even a general plot point of, say, Halo, and expect the general public to understand it is a different matter, as outside of gamer culture the game hasn't quite acheived the same degree of penetration into the awareness of the general public.
Does that make any sense?
Probably, this has a lot to do with his low opinion of games in general. Since most movies based on games are in no way based on the games they are based on. Someone just buys a game's name, makes a movie and sticks the name on it. I wonder what he thought of the movie version of Super Mario Brothers for example.
I'd like to get him and explain this to him. "You know how American International Pictures would name movies after Edgar Allen Poe stories or poems and then use an H. P. Lovecraft story (see Haunted Palace for example) or some historical horror story from England (see Conqueror Worm for example, well actually in that case they just imported the movie and slapped on the name with some edits) for the actual plot? Well that's what video game movies are like."
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
...why video games have never made great movies. I think a big problem is that most game movies require that you've played the game to understand the movie. This doesn't make any sense, since the game stood on its own and didn't require any back story. Even sequals to video games are meant to stand on their own. I'm playing Metal Gear Solid 3 right now, never having played an MGS title in my life, and I'm loving it. But even the most obvious choices of games for the big screen fail in their ability to be self-contained.
The bottom line is that these are all cash cow titles. Noone makes a video game movie because they want to make great cinema or great art, they think that having an established fanbase will make the movie a sure success. Strangely, they're usually wrong, because catering to a small fanbase almost always means alienating everyone else, and that "everyone else" is most movie goers. The budgets for these films are too big to rely soully on small, pre-established fanbases. Serenity demonstrated that quite well, for the most part fans enjoyed it (I was a bit lukewarm to it, myself, however), but it didn't stand on its own, and was a total boxoffice flop.
I'm not convinced that movies made from video games can't be good, it's really no different from making a movie from a comicbook series, and that has become surprisingly refined as of late: two great Batman movies, two wonderful X-Men films, arguably a good Spiderman movie, and everyone seems to be raiving about V... it seems that comic book movies are on the rise and becoming more and more sophisticated, in their own rite. But when I saw Batman Begins, I didn't have to know anything about the history of the Batman franchise, and I didn't. I came out feeling like I'd just seen a great action movie, one of the best... and the fact that it was from a comic book was fairly irrelivant, and even pretty moot.
Maybe the percieved proximity of cinema to games tends to cause some laziness on the part of the writers and directors. Since modern video games are so cinematic in nature, directors make the mistake of simply directing the movie like the game was directed, which is a big mistake, since when it comes to pacing and lack of interactivity, the differences between even the most cinematic games and films are still quite different. Novels and graphic novels, on the other hand, are far enough removed that the flow of the narrative has to be completely recreated. And, as we've seen time and time again, a good adeptation is possible: anything from Brokeback Mountain to Sin City (though I, personally, was repulsed by the latter, I can't deny it's success for accomplishing what it set out to do). A good adeptation of a video game is possible, but it hasn't been demonstrated yet. And it has nothing to do with the cinematic nature of the original game. Silent Hill is one of the most "cinematic" games out there, and it seems that the movie has not lived up to expectation. The Metal Gear Solid series could be said to make a great movie... hell it's basically done by a film crew already, but I have no doubt that it could be ruined if not done in the right hands. The bottom line is, MGS has no better chance of making a great movie than Tetris; under the right guidence, practically any idea can be done thoughtfully.
I just hope to god John Woo doesn't follow through with doing a Metroid movie... he hasn't made a good film in years (if ever). The lack of dialog in the series would make it VERY hard to make a good movie, but if done right, with a really unique sense of artistic vision, could be amazing... and John Woo hasn't really proven himself to be much of a visionary.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.