Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Movie....

Sam Rockwell as Zaphod Beeblebrox

i totally agree. the casting is good, but i'm still not convinced it is appropriate for HG...

Probably one day only.

i've come to loathe the DYSisms of trailers lately (that end bit was rubbish), but i'm still sort of looking forward to seeing this - this is the first i've seen anything of it...but why no scene with 'Marvin' talking?

Heh slight x-post with Kyle! Variation is a good thing -- it's just a pity that this will be the first version without DNA himself around. :-(

Looks a bit like Sam Rockwell as Gary Oldman playing Zaphod Beeblebrox.

I dunno. From that trailer it looks like they really aren't going to capture the humor...

That rake slapping scene is hilarious, even if was already done to perfect effect on the Simpsons

I'm quite excited for this now...

Vogon poetry (Arthur and Ford strapped down, Vogon leaning over them)

Deep Thought (the big crowd scene with the gold thing in the distance -- at one point you see someone with one of those sports-events foam hands but the slogan on the hand is "Think Deep.")

Magrathea factory floor (Arthur and Slartibartfast moving down a tunnel into a vast space)

...and various other familiar bits. Slightly more unfamiliar:

Marvin walking through laser fire on a green lawn with a picket fence (back at Arthur's house?)

Zaphod doing some sort of rock and roll singer moves bathed in green light (Heart of Gold launch? Disaster Area?)

Heart of Gold's shuttle moving through a huge cityscape somewhere.

Etc. etc.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the music exchange with Zaphod and Marvin on the Magrathea surface is left in - Zaphod babbles about going where "no one has gone these 3000 years" and Marvin starts humming "Also Sprach Zarathustra."

"Aw can it Marvin"

(though in the original radio broadcast, Marvin initially hums "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" and Arthur explains "has anyone noticed that Marvin is humming Pink Floyd?")

Agreed! As was said up a bit, change and difference will mean a new experience rather than simply going redux.

I was always annoyed they could never keep in the Pink Floyd part in the official release of the radio show, bah! Arthur follows up by asking if Marvin knows anything else, Marvin says plaintively, "Rock and roll?" And a really tinny version of the Beatles' "Rock and Roll Music" kicks in.

Seeing more of the design of Marvin, I think the look is perfect. Those downbeat eyes!

new trailer up (I think, I didn't get to watch the one above)

looks GREAT. Marvin RULES (and I can't even listen to the sound here at work).

2005 already looks like a much better year for films that 2004 (though that is like saying cilantro is a much better seasoning for guacamole than ground-up gorilla shit)

I mean the whole acting issue I don't have a problem with because really the only person who is supposed to be behaving remotely like a normal person is Dent, and I think Freeman nails him.

^^^^^^^otm

I didn't think this movie was much cop, but I've just sat thru Next and it makes this look like Battleship Potemkin.

the few things that were vaguely funny were funny in the same way that you get a tiny bit of amusement out of someone making the umpteenth iteration of a holy grail joke despite yourself

xposts ok editing might be more of an issue than im giving it credit for

I think Rockwell could've stood to make his reading of Zaphod as George W. less heavy handed.

it was crap

now STFU all of you

It was so weirdly emasculated. This is the original exchange between Arthur and the foreman who's demolishing his house:

"But Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine month."

"Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything."

"But the plans were on display ..."

"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."

"That's the display department."

"With a flashlight."

"Ah, well the lights had probably gone."

"So had the stairs."

"But look, you found the notice didn't you?"

"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'."

In the film, that ended with the bit about the cellar. No flashlight, no missing stairs, no filing cabinet or lavatory or leopard - in short, no lols.

xpost yer arse

Also the vogons trying to sneak around the back at the end and being foiled by mos def with a towel + a locked waist-high fence gate was very python

yeah this was great "he's got a towel! run away, run away!"

I think Rockwell could've stood to make his reading of Zaphod as George W. less heavy handed.

wow @ this

If you can sit through all of "I Accidentally Domed Your Son" but not make it through "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", you might be crazy.

Also turning it off after 40 minutes misses a lot of the bits that were actually funny IIRC.

wow because it's rong or wow because you don't think it was obvious or too heavy-handed?

I liked Hitchhiker's Guide as a kid, but I don't care now so I feel like I watched the movie with few preconceptions and it just felt like one of those films that would be pointless if you didn't know the source material: not very funny, in need of a sequel it might well not get, visually pleasant enough but just kind of somewhere between wtf and meh. I'll watch Malkovich in anything tho.

Could've been funnier, yeah, but really it was fine.

-- Jordan (Jordan), Monday, September 26, 2005 10:08 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Link

I can't see a subtle GWB pisstake working at all, ever.

yeah I don't necessarily mean he should've done it that way but less, maybe just that he shouldn't have done it that way at all.

I can't see a subtle GWB pisstake working at all, ever.

But let's what Oliver Stone does with...oh.

I mean even Depp was a little more ambiguous about Jack Sparrow-as-Keith Richards. (xpost)

I definitely figured he was going for Bill Clinton anyway. I mean he scores in his first scene, how can that be dubya?

plus gwb talks at about 10 wpm, if he's really trying to do texas he's way off the mark

the few things that were vaguely funny were funny in the same way that you get a tiny bit of amusement out of someone making the umpteenth iteration of a holy grail joke despite yourself

deja vu

The problem with it was someone went "Douglas Adams funny and wacky and zany etc etc" and totally ignored how bleak the whole thing is.

I mean the Earth gets rebuilt and he gets the girl.....

^^^^ I agree with that, actually.

^^^pretty much this

(i still thought it was ok)

x-post

I liked the addition of the anna chancellor character with the zaphod crush

and somebody needs to do something interstin w/ Rockwell. dude totally has it in him (cf Confessions of a Dangerous Mind)

i always think of rockwell as the dude from heist

dude totally has it in him (cf Confessions of a Dangerous Mind)

Yeah, that's my favorite performance of his still.

he's extraordinary in Snow Angels. that's one should be bleak enough for all the bleaksters out there

he was funny in Stella as the fake mustache dealer ("nah man, i never use my own product").

stella was not funny ever

so rong

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiNIpOPhCNA

I thought the movie was pleasant enough with some parts that were pretty hilarious, but I couldn't help but notice the missing bits I expected (for example the cellar/leopard part described upthread)

I saw it with someone who had never read the books and they thought it was terrific. Maybe that's the audience then?

Yeah I think it helps if you've never read the books - my friends who've never read them love it too. I still don't think it's great but definitely thinks it gets funnier on the second or third rewatch. <3 Vogon planet and Mos Def and Bill Nighy. The effects are weird though – some bits are charmingly retro-looking (I know that they specifically did not want to use CGI unless absolutely necessary, hence lots of actual models and puppets and stop-motion and all that.) and other bits seem TOO well-done, like when they first see new Earth. Still... want more bleakness, as mentioned upthread, and more Marvin but overall, it's a pretty good if not great adaptation.

my wife never read the books and promptly fell asleep about 20 minutes into this (in the theater!). she tried to watch it on cable one day and said to me "that is one fucking unfunny awful movie"

has anyone seen the new hammer and tongs film yet?

I think you might be on one of those threads where nobody else gives a fuck what you or your possibly mythical spouse has to say

I might be trying a little bit to enjoy it, but the scene where SLARTIBARTFAST sez "WELCOME TO OUR FACTORY FLOOR" is more impressive in so many ways than anything else since silent running - something about putting a recognizable piece of earth stuff (tree, everest) next to your nonsense fantasy makes it that little bit more IMAX, even at home

SLARTIBARTFAST: Welcome to our factory floor!

It is next to impossible to do that line justice, from one end to the other, in context, on any size of film

1) still mad they fucked up zaphod so badly, seemed to completely miss the point of a two-headed character

2) sam rockwell fans should see the badly-named but great "snow angels," he's really good in it

3) son of rambow (new h&t movie) is really good, really funny and likeable, you should see it. just transcribed an interview i did with them last fall... will post when it's published next week i guess?

and 4) despite thinking they missed this up a bit, kinda wanna see it again

(hhg)

thought this, saw it again, still thought this

thought what?

this

and 4) despite thinking they missed this up a bit, kinda wanna see it again

-- s1ocki, Sunday, 4 May 2008 03:36 (5 hours ago) Bookmark Link