You went to Pixar guy Andrew Stanton's first live action film, an adaptation of Edgar Rice Burrough's Barsoom pulp adventure novels, full of four armed, green martians, expecting a film on par with David Lean's epic, Lawrence of Arabia?

No, of course not. Kids today don't have the guts or smarts enough to do anything like what people used to do all the time fifty years ago.

Horror films don't look as good as they once did. Or compare the 1st Indiana Jones to the 4th (ignore the stories, just look at them). It's not necessary, but I think there's too much of an obsession with technological capability over aesthetics. I think a reflection of this is the director as business manager more than artist. Once we had Lean commanding a lot of money, now we have Favreau and Bay. They can get the job done on time and it'll make a profit. But their films look like shit or are just functional at best.

We've all come to expect a pretty high standard for CGI effects. Even something as fanciful as Shrek's figure is supposed to have a real feeling of weight, show light source, textures, have nuanced expressions. Of course there's different styles employed, for instance the new Green Lantern CGI cartoon, I really hate how he is depicted. He looks more like a barrel chested manikin or another alien than something human. Sometimes CGI is most successful when it's not noticed as a special effect. I'm thinking of the '30's New York City-scapes in Peter Jackson's King Kong. To me, they came across as very real, but to actually create them it would've been cost prohibitive or even impossible. Was Jackson's King Kong as good as the original? Not by a long shot. I'd blame his bad sense of pacing, possibly casting, and that it was too long by half though, not the CGI. It can be the most versatile tool available to film makers or a poorly constructed crutch. I'm curious to hear what some of us would call the best CGI or the best use of it. For me, I'll say the Jurassic Park dinosaurs, although I wonder if they'd look as perfect now after seeing more first class CGI as they did the first time.

In those two example, though, it seems like it's more about who is making them than the technology being used. Horror films used to be made by real filmmakers who just happened to be working in that genre instead of fanboys who grew up never wanting to do anything but imitate what they've seen. And Spielberg? 'Nuff said.

Mike

MQ, Jackson can make some decent looking films without the CGI, so I don't disagree with you about King Kong.

Mike, I think Spielberg is a pretty amazing as a filmmaker, so it's a big drag for me to see the difference in those 2 films. War of the Worlds was great, though. I quite enjoyed Munich, too.

Another comparison: Bladerunner vs. Gladiator. I'm hoping the new Alien prequel will be more like the old Ridley than the more recent one.

Egads. I didn't realize that's what that is supposed to be.

David Letterman's Top Ten List topic tonight: Things Overheard on a Disappointing Spring Break. #8, "Two for John Carter, please."

Out on DVD the first week of June.

Picked up the DVD yesterday. Watched it again last night. Fun movie. Just wanted to take the opportunity to say, FUCK YOU ALLEN!