Terry Gilliam - C/D, S/D

Jjjusten says "the first time I was blinded with rage"

You mean blind to the dark truths, haha.

I think what the film does well is viewing a strange situation with a fresh (even if you might call it distorted) eye. "Truth" doesn't really matter, it's just a way of viewing of things that is a bit different or refreshing and that gives you a springboard to try and look at the events in the film or anything else a bit differently, whether for intellectual reasons or just for pleasure.
In terms of Gilliam talking about the film, I think the most interesting thing he said is that the main girl might grow up and look back at that time as the best week of her life or it might be viewed more traumatically.

As I recall it is a 4 hour movie about a corpse farting. Hilarious.

Shit movie is good example of why artists need constraints.

In terms of Gilliam talking about the film, I think the most interesting thing he said is that the main girl might grow up and look back at that time as the best week of her life or it might be viewed more traumatically

so true xxxxx

So true of any moment ever in anyone's life. Vaguely profound.

yeah, was wondering how to read that. If Gilliam meant he'd intended that "the main girl *would* grow up and look back at that time as the best week of her life, or (else filmgoers) might be view (the events) more traumatically (than they should)", I would find it interesting.

Great movie is an example of why Gilliam doesn't need constraints. I don't know what the circumstances of Brothers Grimm was but it seemed calculatedly conventional in many ways but I guess that doesn't necessarily say that constraints do him bad or good.

There was a short film he did that was an advertisement or something and some people called him a sell out for it, especially considering his previous critiques of big business (according to them, I don't know much about his political statements).
The product placement in Parnassus bothered me a lot but I assumed that maybe that was used to get the film finished but I can't remember if it was in the Ledger scenes.

still haven't watched this because so many people thought it was so terrible and offensive and bad. I do have it though, sitting on my hard drive. Too bad about Zero Theorem sounding not good, because it sounded good when I first heard about it. I quite liked Parnassus.

i thought parnassus patchy but really great in places

yeah it was too long but it was much better than I expected it to be

re: Zero Theorem, LOL

A later iteration of the project, starring Billy Bob Thornton, Jessica Biel and Al Pacino and directed by Terry Gilliam, was set to begin production in 2009, but Thornton vetoed filming in London because of his phobia of antiques

Hamfisted is the kindest thing i can think of to describe gilliams insistence that a childhood of chaotic squalor leads to a quirky no-nonsense magical outlook maaaaan. Dude's clumsy as anything in his hammering home of his limited thematic range, and the boundary pushing desperation in tideland didnt strike me as anything more profound than that.

Kid was great tho. As was teengimp.

co-sign all points

I'm not sure how much Kermode counts for around here, but I was eager to see Tideland in the first place because he said it was possibly Gilliam's best film. One critic I love was a big fan of it too but I don't think he has enough of a name to mention.

ok, watching Tideland again, and yeah this is pretty tedious. Firstly (and I may be the only one here to find this annoying), but the fake southern US accents are grating (I grew up in TX, and this happens often or me w/movies). Also, whether or not this is supposed to be from a child's point of view, in what reality is any of this supposed to exist? Heartland America, present day? Why so much mystical hippie imagery? And why do Terry Gilliam movies always involve someone with goggles surrounded by dusty old, mechanical junk? He seems to have an eye-wear fetish in general.

I guess that's the feeling I get from this movie -- it's a collection of its creator's fetishes. Or Burning Man crossed with Dickens crossed with (haha) Monty Python.

For a second I thought you were going to say the fake farting sounds bothered you because that was the only thing that bothered me. I know they can't rely on actors to produce a fart that is audible enough but the stock computer fart sounds are incredibly fake. I watched Sopranos recently and it stuck out really bad.

I have often thought to myself where oh where is the film that will achieve verisimilitudinous farting. truly technology has failed us.

the oculus rift will save us all

Ghost World is another film that springs to mind, suffering from terribly fake fart sounds.

I smell a poll

Wasnt me

I was once thinking of making a thread for bad cgi but the majority is so bad that thinking of good examples might be more interesting. Parnassus and Brothers Grimm suffered from bad cgi. And the sad thing is that I imagine even a lot of the bad stuff was really hard work.

Zero Theorem was better than I'd heard. It wasn't great (the ending in particular just kind of falls apart) but bits of it were ... alright. It's not as good as Parnassus by a long shot though.

Just watched Zero Theorem. I'm not surprised it wasn't a success but I was puzzled just how near non-existent the response was. It must have been expensive so the flop might have hit quite hard.

I felt like I just barely heard half the dialogue so I was confused a lot of the time and even if I understood the ending I really doubt it would have been very satisfying (I have doubts that Gilliam knew how to end it).
But even considering those flaws I still enjoyed this a lot. The design work is amazing, it's the prettiest shitty looking cyberpunk future I've ever seen. The main scene with the vortex looked great. I liked watching the characters. Even though it doesn't seem the proceedings added up to much, I'm surprisingly satisfied.

critics were muted and fairly negative. it never got a wide theatrical showing (in the us) or, seemingly, any promotional push. throw in a bleak and sometimes cryptic story, and its failure isn't too surprising. agree that the production design is marvelous, and christoph waltz was quite good in the lead. i enjoyed it, for the most part, but can't say i was satisfied.

I've seen Brazil, Time Bandits, Fisher King, & Baron Munschausen. I may have seen some portion of the Grimm movie, too, but who can remember? I cannot say I truly hated any of them. But after each of them I felt to some degree marked by muddy paw prints and assailed by the aroma of wet dog.

Yeah I've got quite warm feelings about Zero Theorem so I guess it exceeded my cautious expectations. I could see how some people would feel it's a weak retread of films like Brazil or doesn't have new things to "say".
But I think it has its own flavour.
Although Matt Damon is obviously kind of the villain, he doesn't seem nearly as powerful or sinister as I thought they would make him. There doesn't seem to be any grand menace or specific target to blame everything on. More realistic I guess.

Meantime he has a cameo in Jupiter Ascending, I gather.

A part in a western film too.

I assumed Zero Theorem was scripted by Gilliam but it isn't.

I could see how some people would feel it's a weak retread of films like Brazil...

...Although Matt Damon is obviously kind of the villain, he doesn't seem nearly as powerful or sinister as I thought they would make him. There doesn't seem to be any grand menace or specific target to blame everything on. More realistic I guess.

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Sunday, February 8, 2015 7:22 AM (2 hours ago)

yes to the former, though much more intimate. as for the latter, i saw qohen as his own villain.

Just watched a Gilliam interview and he said this was his cheapest film since the Python films. Really doesn't look like it but good for him.

even if I understood the ending I really doubt it would have been very satisfying

This was the only glaring flaw with it really, I liked it quite a bit overall.

Some other things he mentioned in interview.
He said it was largely about him wanting people to disconnect more and try to enjoy their isolation again because many of us are losing that. Learn to distance ourselves from the nonstop buzz of needing to be connected all the time.
The script had extra longer endings that were written to get the studios interested then Gilliam cut them out. I think he might have said the extra alternate endings would be on a DVD as extras but maybe he was joking because I don't know why he'd film them if he didn't like them from the beginning.

I felt like I just barely heard half the dialogue so I was confused a lot of the time and even if I understood the ending I really doubt it would have been very satisfying (I have doubts that Gilliam knew how to end it).

I got very frustrated by this and kept having to rewind. Gave up on it in the end.

This has lingered in my mind like few films have in the past year. I liked it better than Dr Parnassus.

Adam Driver is joining Michael Palin in Terry Gilliam‘s Don Quixote, “the film that has been in the pipeline for nearly 20 years,” reports Geoffrey Macnab for Screen. Shooting is slated for the fall.

http://www.screendaily.com/festivals/cannes/adam-driver-set-to-star-in-terry-gilliams-don-quixote/5103724.article

kinda more excited to learn Driver's in the new Jarmusch movie tbh

Filmed in my hometown! Jarmusch sure likes his faded industrial cities.

still may not happen...

http://theplaylist.net/adam-driver-confirms-terry-gilliams-man-killed-don-quixote-still-delayed-20161207/

Palin as Quixote? Huh.

the casting of rochefort was one of the very few things the original production had going for it, even with the thickly french-accented manchegan thing. Lack of depp can only be a good thing tho

like I said in the time bandits thread, this looked fucking horrible in 2000, it has pretty much no chance of being good in 2018

Gilliam hasn't felt worth watching for a long time which is sad to me because his early films are so great flaws and all

I couldn't bring myself to watch that last one about the guy with the magical computer program or whatever it was

although I was surprised that The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus was not actually as terrible as I expected

12 Monkeys was my last in fact

but i love Don Quixote so much i dunno i would be torn

it would not be the same as don quixote, so maybe that's the deciding factor for you

I'm just finishing up my first ever read of it, inspired by the ilb thread - it's so so so great and I would be interested in seeing quixotic attempts to film it whose synopses don't begin "an advertising executive called toby from our world"

I loved Tideland, reading back over this thread it looks like it was more divisive than I would have guessed?

I haven't seen 12 Monkeys in forever, all I really remember about it was finding Brad Pitt unbearable as the nervous tics asylum guy.

actually, isn't there a whole crew of awful wacky asylum inmate types in that film?

12 Monkeys is p dire, idk what ppl see in it

strangely, Chris Marker liked it