Speaking of "Romancing the Stone": when Cannon remade "King Solomon's Mines," Golan and/or Globus said he wanted "the Stone lady" in the movie. But when he saw the dailies he was confused about why Sharon Stone was in it. It turned out that when he said "the Stone lady" he meant Kathleen Turner.
And it is weird how that movie has kind of been erased from existence, despite making Robert Zemeckis an A-list director and boosting Michael Douglas to leading man status. ("The Jewel of the Nile," on the other hand, *that* one I understand nobody remembering.)
Is it just me, or does "Argylle" give off strong "Mortdecai" vibes? I found "Mortdecai" amusing, but it didn't work overall.
"Romancing the Stone" is an 80s favorite of mine. Extra points if you remember the Eddy Grant title song (yeah, yeah - everybody remembers the Billy Ocean song from "Jewel of the Nile"). It's true though how it's really not talked about anymore unless someone's doing a Zemekis retrospective - it was his first hit, but man do I love "Used Cars" - had no idea it bombed.
My friend collected 45s quite obsessively back then: so, yes, I remember all hit singles from 1982-1984 very clearly. The way I remember it, the song didn't even appear in the movie [or only very briefly], and it was awkward. So the producers made an extra effort to make up for it by giving Eddy Grant the opportunity to write another song for the next movie, and this time it would actually be featured.
Except that's not how it happened, not at all! Maybe Billy Ocean got extra exposure, and support for his music video, as a reaction to the previous treatment of Eddy Grant. But how does that help Eddy? Not at all!
It's actual use (and yeah, I did once catch a snippet of it in a scene - the video kept getting airplay on MTV, so I was familiar with the song by the time it was on HBO) in the movie reminded me of one of the songs on the 1984 Ghostbusters soundtrack. It's a song by Air Supply called "I Can Wait Forever." It's sappy, but I always liked it. However, it's only in the movie for a split second and it doesn't make a lot of sense; when the Ghostbusters lose their job at the university, one of the guys clearing out their office is wearing a walkman. He appears to be bopping along to a song, but the snippet you overhear playing as he walks by is a slow Air Supply ballad. Not exactly bop-worthy.
Does modern cinema make its money the same way YouTube creators do? I can't think of any other reason to justify these bloated run times? 90 minutes is pretty much perfect and three hours should only be reserved for "epics."
I rewatched the original evil dead trilogy and was caught off guard by how short they felt at a lean 90 mins a pop. 3.5 Hour "epic" blockbusters have become expected ever since studios decided that ever movie with a budget north of 30 million has to be an "event". It's exhausting, and very few movie benefit. Most just fell hopeless bloated with pointless secondary plots or twists that don't add anything.
We can kind of see this with The Little Mermaid remake. The original version is a nice taut 83 minutes, but the live action remake stretches it to 2 hours and 15 minutes. All that bloat, and it’s nowhere near as visually appealing.
My understanding is that it's at least in part to justify inflated ticket prices. If the audience is going to pay more money they demand more movie, damn it.
I also have a strong suspicion that some actuary in every production office has an Excel sheet with the top 50 grossing movies or something, and they averaged the length to find 2 hrs 20 mins, and concluded that's like the "optimum" movie length.
It's hilarious you mention that as I have a friend who IS an actuary and who, yes, firmly believes long movies=good movies essentially based on what you said.
Sometimes it feels like the producers pitched the concept as either an 8-episode limited series or as a 2.5 hour movie. They can be flexible about it, and either pad out the series with even more subplots [maybe a bottle episode!], or release it as an entirely too-long movie. Either one "works". They can decide on which direction to go relatively late in the process.
And both options "work" only because so many other projects seem to develop this way that none of them stand out any more as being a surprisingly padded series or an unusually long movie.
I have to disagree here—I liked ARGYLLE a lot despite it being on the long side, and I think Henry Cavill is very good at sending up his square-jawed male model good looks. I don't understand why the audience is rejecting it so utterly, because it's really fun (if sometimes too much in that Matthew Vaughn kind of way), I love how they integrate the cat into the action, and I do agree with you about Sam Rockwell (who I mistakenly thought was Owen Wilson because he does that Owen Wilson affable stoner character so well). Catherine O'Hara reminds us here why she was such a revelation on SCTV, as does Bryan Cranston's going from supervillain to middle-class middle-aged guy and back.
If I think the film has a weakness it's Bryce Dallas Howard, who is far better in the first part of the movie than in the back half. But it's not enough to destroy the tongue-in-cheek but with real stakes spy comedy-thriller, which takes the piss out of everything from ROMANCING THE STONE to THE BOURNE IDENTITY to MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE.
> I don't understand why the audience is rejecting it so utterly
My only guess is that they tried to market it as a "4 quadrant movie" but made it appear to be a film that has something for members in each of the 4 quadrants to reject as unacceptable.
"Get that middle-aged woman and her cat out of my violent action movie!"
"Get all of those potty-mouthed criminals out of my romantic thriller!"
For me, there was something very off about the tone of the "Kingsman" movies [what I saw of them]. It's that connection specifically, and the very [intentionally] unreal look of things in this trailer in general, that's what convinced me quickly that I would pass this one up. I'm frankly surprised that audiences seem determined to PUNISH this film. I thought the general public kinda liked The Kingsman? Did the last one go very wrong, or something?
The contrarian in me is suddenly intrigued about the idea of watching this one. In a theater? Maybe!
Much like Roger Ebert, Nathan's best reviews are when he doesn't like a movie. I don't want him to suffer but this article made me laugh out loud a lot..
I thought this was going to be a spy movie staring Henry Cavill but he only has a small part that goes no where. The twist is Bryce Dallas Howard is the tough all action star not Cavill as Argylle. False promotion of a film that suggests Henry Cavill was going to be some sort of action super agent or bond type character. This would have to be one of the worst films I've watch in years, don't wast your time or money.
I really liked "Romancing the Stone" (1984), but when I saw it (in theaters!) I was a much younger person and also that was a very long time ago.
They brought back the same cast for "The Jewel of the Nile" (1985) and there was no way I was going to miss that one, but it wasn't nearly as fun. What went wrong? Rushed into production, and it's impossible to replicate that kind of magic, maybe? Or "Directed by Lewis Teague", perhaps that had something to do with it.
I saw the trailer for "Argylle" only once [apparently I am deeply withdrawn from society] and I laughed but I am fully willing to believe that the movie is terrible / a bad investment / wouldn't make most people laugh much at all. Maybe not even me, after the first few minutes.
Speaking of "Romancing the Stone": when Cannon remade "King Solomon's Mines," Golan and/or Globus said he wanted "the Stone lady" in the movie. But when he saw the dailies he was confused about why Sharon Stone was in it. It turned out that when he said "the Stone lady" he meant Kathleen Turner.
And it is weird how that movie has kind of been erased from existence, despite making Robert Zemeckis an A-list director and boosting Michael Douglas to leading man status. ("The Jewel of the Nile," on the other hand, *that* one I understand nobody remembering.)
Is it just me, or does "Argylle" give off strong "Mortdecai" vibes? I found "Mortdecai" amusing, but it didn't work overall.
"Romancing the Stone" is an 80s favorite of mine. Extra points if you remember the Eddy Grant title song (yeah, yeah - everybody remembers the Billy Ocean song from "Jewel of the Nile"). It's true though how it's really not talked about anymore unless someone's doing a Zemekis retrospective - it was his first hit, but man do I love "Used Cars" - had no idea it bombed.
My friend collected 45s quite obsessively back then: so, yes, I remember all hit singles from 1982-1984 very clearly. The way I remember it, the song didn't even appear in the movie [or only very briefly], and it was awkward. So the producers made an extra effort to make up for it by giving Eddy Grant the opportunity to write another song for the next movie, and this time it would actually be featured.
Except that's not how it happened, not at all! Maybe Billy Ocean got extra exposure, and support for his music video, as a reaction to the previous treatment of Eddy Grant. But how does that help Eddy? Not at all!
It's actual use (and yeah, I did once catch a snippet of it in a scene - the video kept getting airplay on MTV, so I was familiar with the song by the time it was on HBO) in the movie reminded me of one of the songs on the 1984 Ghostbusters soundtrack. It's a song by Air Supply called "I Can Wait Forever." It's sappy, but I always liked it. However, it's only in the movie for a split second and it doesn't make a lot of sense; when the Ghostbusters lose their job at the university, one of the guys clearing out their office is wearing a walkman. He appears to be bopping along to a song, but the snippet you overhear playing as he walks by is a slow Air Supply ballad. Not exactly bop-worthy.
Does modern cinema make its money the same way YouTube creators do? I can't think of any other reason to justify these bloated run times? 90 minutes is pretty much perfect and three hours should only be reserved for "epics."
I rewatched the original evil dead trilogy and was caught off guard by how short they felt at a lean 90 mins a pop. 3.5 Hour "epic" blockbusters have become expected ever since studios decided that ever movie with a budget north of 30 million has to be an "event". It's exhausting, and very few movie benefit. Most just fell hopeless bloated with pointless secondary plots or twists that don't add anything.
We can kind of see this with The Little Mermaid remake. The original version is a nice taut 83 minutes, but the live action remake stretches it to 2 hours and 15 minutes. All that bloat, and it’s nowhere near as visually appealing.
My understanding is that it's at least in part to justify inflated ticket prices. If the audience is going to pay more money they demand more movie, damn it.
I also have a strong suspicion that some actuary in every production office has an Excel sheet with the top 50 grossing movies or something, and they averaged the length to find 2 hrs 20 mins, and concluded that's like the "optimum" movie length.
It's hilarious you mention that as I have a friend who IS an actuary and who, yes, firmly believes long movies=good movies essentially based on what you said.
Sometimes it feels like the producers pitched the concept as either an 8-episode limited series or as a 2.5 hour movie. They can be flexible about it, and either pad out the series with even more subplots [maybe a bottle episode!], or release it as an entirely too-long movie. Either one "works". They can decide on which direction to go relatively late in the process.
And both options "work" only because so many other projects seem to develop this way that none of them stand out any more as being a surprisingly padded series or an unusually long movie.
I have to disagree here—I liked ARGYLLE a lot despite it being on the long side, and I think Henry Cavill is very good at sending up his square-jawed male model good looks. I don't understand why the audience is rejecting it so utterly, because it's really fun (if sometimes too much in that Matthew Vaughn kind of way), I love how they integrate the cat into the action, and I do agree with you about Sam Rockwell (who I mistakenly thought was Owen Wilson because he does that Owen Wilson affable stoner character so well). Catherine O'Hara reminds us here why she was such a revelation on SCTV, as does Bryan Cranston's going from supervillain to middle-class middle-aged guy and back.
If I think the film has a weakness it's Bryce Dallas Howard, who is far better in the first part of the movie than in the back half. But it's not enough to destroy the tongue-in-cheek but with real stakes spy comedy-thriller, which takes the piss out of everything from ROMANCING THE STONE to THE BOURNE IDENTITY to MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE.
> I don't understand why the audience is rejecting it so utterly
My only guess is that they tried to market it as a "4 quadrant movie" but made it appear to be a film that has something for members in each of the 4 quadrants to reject as unacceptable.
"Get that middle-aged woman and her cat out of my violent action movie!"
"Get all of those potty-mouthed criminals out of my romantic thriller!"
"Those actors are SO OLD"
etc.
For me, there was something very off about the tone of the "Kingsman" movies [what I saw of them]. It's that connection specifically, and the very [intentionally] unreal look of things in this trailer in general, that's what convinced me quickly that I would pass this one up. I'm frankly surprised that audiences seem determined to PUNISH this film. I thought the general public kinda liked The Kingsman? Did the last one go very wrong, or something?
The contrarian in me is suddenly intrigued about the idea of watching this one. In a theater? Maybe!
Much like Roger Ebert, Nathan's best reviews are when he doesn't like a movie. I don't want him to suffer but this article made me laugh out loud a lot..
This is NOT Nathan’s best review
Regardless of how bad the movie is, why does every Rabin review start from Fuck You All and finish with Nuke the World levels of hostility?
And weirdly, the middle section doesn't make it sound all that terrible.
I thought this was going to be a spy movie staring Henry Cavill but he only has a small part that goes no where. The twist is Bryce Dallas Howard is the tough all action star not Cavill as Argylle. False promotion of a film that suggests Henry Cavill was going to be some sort of action super agent or bond type character. This would have to be one of the worst films I've watch in years, don't wast your time or money.
surely screenwriter/producer Jason Fuchs deserves SOME blame for this?
Samsung makes tablets that self destruct, Tesla currently puts out cars that do. For Apple it’s tent pole franchises
I really liked "Romancing the Stone" (1984), but when I saw it (in theaters!) I was a much younger person and also that was a very long time ago.
They brought back the same cast for "The Jewel of the Nile" (1985) and there was no way I was going to miss that one, but it wasn't nearly as fun. What went wrong? Rushed into production, and it's impossible to replicate that kind of magic, maybe? Or "Directed by Lewis Teague", perhaps that had something to do with it.
I saw the trailer for "Argylle" only once [apparently I am deeply withdrawn from society] and I laughed but I am fully willing to believe that the movie is terrible / a bad investment / wouldn't make most people laugh much at all. Maybe not even me, after the first few minutes.
I remembered being quite fond of Romancing the Stone, but when I re-watched it fairly recently, it really did not hold up well.