Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-03-08 (Saturday)

On 3/10/2025 8:57 AM, Arthur Lipscomb wrote:

On 3/10/2025 7:49 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:

On 3/9/25 10:47 PM, Arthur Lipscomb wrote:
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On 3/9/2025 7:43 PM, anim8rfsk wrote:

Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

On 3/9/2025 6:39 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
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'Quantum of Solace'.  Bond blows up a hotel for astronomers because some
guy wants all the water in the driest desert on Earth.

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The real villain is the director. Has to be the movie with the shortest
average shot length I've ever seen. It made it impossible to tell what
was happening during any of the major set pieces.
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I despise this movie.

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Well, it is the shortest of the Bond films so far.  Every other film has
been ~2hr 10min while this was about 1hr 40min IIRC.

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It only feels like it’s an hour longer

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I don't hate the movie the way others do.  But one thing I learned recently was the movie was made during a writer's strike.  That obviously doesn't make the movie any better, but it may help explain why certain obvious problems may not have been fixed.
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https://pagesix.com/2024/12/02/entertainment/daniel-craig-says-this- james-bond-was-a-f-king-nightmare-with-a-terrible-script/
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Right before the last writer's strike someone posted a list of all the movies and show that came out during the one before and suddenly a lot started to click.  "Quantum of Solace" was on that list.

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Do you still have that list handy? Might be fun to take a look...
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  Unfortunately not.  But I found some articles that talk about it:
 https://www.unilad.com/film-and-tv/news/oscars-rules-movies-must-follow- nominations-132368-20250225
 https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/writers- strike-2007-2008-wga-change-tv-breaking-bad-the-office-friday-night- lights-1234727839/
 https://collider.com/writers-strike-movies-ruined-explained/
  I just recall seeing both "Heroes" and "Lost" on the list and thinking the strike murdered "Heroes" because it had been a great show then suddenly it was horrible, then canceled.  I also made note that "Transformers" Revenge of the Fallen" was on the list because that movie was particularly bad for no good reason.  When you look at the list, things just start to click, hey there's X-Men Origins, and so many other shows and movies that started out good then were suddenly awful.
 I don't think I paid much attention to the 2008 strike beyond a vague awareness.  So when the quality of shows started to dip, I didn't put two and two together.  But this time around, the writers and actors made sure everyone knew what was up thanks to social media.  I was also going to conventions which had actors and writers talking about the strike so it was so much more in the forefront of my mind this time around.

So, does this revelation mean we can no longer automatically blame the writers for bad shows and movies?
--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky dirty old man.