Films

Oliver, you rule out Alien and its ilk on the grounds that the script is sparse and 'vacant'. Surely it's plain to see that (or not, if you haven't seen it) Aien is all about tension and atmosphere? If it had reams of dialogue it'd be blown completely.

Why should a film be 'all about' just one aspect? For instance, a film with terrible acting, terrible direction, etc., but a grrreat script? 'Josh, you haven't got this film, it's all about the script!' :)

I remember speaking to someone once who worked as an architect on the Lloyd's Building. I said that I didn't like it (my views on architecture are pretty boring). She said that 'the architecture was all in the joints'. Mind you, I don't know what she was referring to by 'joints' but I just had to ask why it should all be in the joints and not equally as well somewhere else. Of course, achieving absolute perfection is impossible, but why make something so unbalanced that it's good in only one aspect and crap in all the others? (I'm not saying that's the case with the Lloyd's Building, that was just her way of defending it.)

In fact, for such a film, saying you've not seen the film but have read the script is like saying you've not listened to 'Brown Sugar' by The Rolling Stones but you have analysed the arrangement. In other words, perhaps you've missed the point?

I most assuredly haven't. :) I didn't say 'I've not seen the film but have read the script'. I said that, apart from having read the screenplay, I was disinterested in one of its major claims to fame, which is its visuals--and I've seen plenty of pictures of those. I don't have to see them in motion. So, as you say above, that leaves one aspect, tension and atmosphere (or make that two, if you will)--but this/those is/are probably the one/two aspect(s) of moviemaking that interest(s) me the least, and that quality in itself to me is not any attraction. I'm quite generally not interested in one-dimensional films, or gimmicky things like the longest tracking shot, or whatever it might be. I've seen too many of them for them to still interest me. And 'Brown Sugar' is considerably better as songs go than 'Alien' as films go. Shit arrangement, though. ;)

Disclaimer: I don't normally analyse films much, I just enjoy them (or not), despite coming over all boring and analytical here.