Thursday, June 10, 2010

ET does puff piece on Thor, makes tentpole movie look stupid and cheap.


Leaving aside the obnoxious questions, all of which centered on how big, tall, and ripped star Chris Hemsworth has made himself in order to play a warrior God, I have to wonder what the hell Paramount was thinking. Yes, I've said before that Paramount should use its uncommonly hot cast as a selling point, but I wasn't referring to childish tittering. Everyone interviewed (Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, director Kenneth Branagh) came off like childish idiots, and the footage shown basically made the film look like a CW Roswell spin-off. Yes, you got a few brief glimpses of Hemsworth in his official Thor costume, as well as a momentary glance of Anthony Hopkins as Odin and Idris Elba as Heimdall. But the big chunk of footage basically had Chris Hemsworth running around in blue T-shirt and jeans and half-heartedly beating up black-suited men (Shield agents?). Your first live-action look at a bazillion-dollar Marvel comic book epic, and it's plainclothes Hemsworth, Portman, Kat Dennings (wearing a snow hat, as required by law for all movies featuring Kat Dennings), and I believe Stellan Skarsgard running down a random small-town street as if they were shooting a mid-season Smallville episode. When the best thing you can say about the film so far is that Natalie Portman looks awfully pretty as Jane Foster, that means it's not quite time to show off footage. First impressions people, they sting.

Scott Mendelson

7 comments:

Razorgeist said...

Yikes that was inane...your points are correct. Though I must admit the geek in me could only watch it and think Kirk's daddy and Luke Skywalker's mommie!.

Sabina E. said...

haha. dude, it's ET, did you think they were gonna act like a bunch of badass mofos?

Ed Powers said...

Your eulogy to Law and Order is the best written and most heartfelt piece I've seen so far about the end of that show, which I also loved. In addition, I appreciated learning from you that Dick Wolf is a Democrat, something I've often wondered about through the years, and that S. Epatha Merkerson had planned to leave L&O at the end of the 20th season anyway. I have a quibble about the content of your article, however. I think your characterization of "the lost decade" seems a little harsh. For example, the episode "Endurance" from season 11 was absolutely brilliant, with a surprise ending that I bet blindsided even you. True, most episodes were not nearly as good, but each season had at least several that could rank with the best of the last three seasons, at least in my opinion. Since you said they are possible, I'd like to recommend some edits to your piece. First, several names are misspelled, including Sam Waterston (not Watterston), Dianne Wiest (not Diane Weist), Milena (not Melina) Govich, and Elisabeth (not Elsabeth) Rohm. The only other thing that I would criticize is the misuse of hyphens in several places. Winston Churchill is cited in Fowler's "Modern English Usage" as saying that a hyphen between an -ly adverb and the adjective it modifies is not only unnecessary but wrong, and Fowler agrees. Thus, the hyphens in "politically-charged" and "emotionally-charged" are wrong, whether the phrases are adjectival or predicates. A different misuse of the hyphen occurs in the fifth paragraph, wherein the phrase "attempted murder" is simply a case of a noun preceded by a modifier, which of course requires no hyphen. Since your article is otherwise very well written, I would bet that the fault for whatever spelling and punctuation errors exist in your article can be attributed to someone at the Huffington Post rather than to you. In any event, thank you sincerely for giving Law and Order an eloquent and worthy sendoff.

Scott Mendelson said...

Thanks for the kind words Ed, as well as the clarification about my recent hypen-happy writing. Oddly, I literally googled most of the names and copied from elsewhere, so I can only take blame for a couple of the spelling errors, but all of that has more or less been corrected.

You're right, even during the off-years, there were a few terrific episodes hidden in the mix, as with any show in a slump (the later seasons of The Practice and Homicide, seasons 5-7 of Scrubs, seasons 10-15 of The Simpsons, etc). And even then, those shows (and Law & Order) were never less than entertaining and engaging.

Anonymous said...

Scott, I enjoyed your comments on the Thor, ET piece. I just found your site and I will be a frequent reader. I have always thought that the character of Thor should be handled in an epic, Lord of the Rings, manner. After all, he is a god; larger than life. Anything short of epic, in my opinion, will fall short.

David E.
Louisville, KY

Ed Powers said...

Your eulogy to Law and Order is the best written and most heartfelt piece I've seen so far about the end of that show, which I also loved. In addition, I appreciated learning from you that Dick Wolf is a Democrat, something I've often wondered about through the years, and that S. Epatha Merkerson had planned to leave L&O at the end of the 20th season anyway. I have a quibble about the content of your article, however. I think your characterization of "the lost decade" seems a little harsh. For example, the episode "Endurance" from season 11 was absolutely brilliant, with a surprise ending that I bet blindsided even you. True, most episodes were not nearly as good, but each season had at least several that could rank with the best of the last three seasons, at least in my opinion. Since you said they are possible, I'd like to recommend some edits to your piece. First, several names are misspelled, including Sam Waterston (not Watterston), Dianne Wiest (not Diane Weist), Milena (not Melina) Govich, and Elisabeth (not Elsabeth) Rohm. The only other thing that I would criticize is the misuse of hyphens in several places. Winston Churchill is cited in Fowler's "Modern English Usage" as saying that a hyphen between an -ly adverb and the adjective it modifies is not only unnecessary but wrong, and Fowler agrees. Thus, the hyphens in "politically-charged" and "emotionally-charged" are wrong, whether the phrases are adjectival or predicates. A different misuse of the hyphen occurs in the fifth paragraph, wherein the phrase "attempted murder" is simply a case of a noun preceded by a modifier, which of course requires no hyphen. Since your article is otherwise very well written, I would bet that the fault for whatever spelling and punctuation errors exist in your article can be attributed to someone at the Huffington Post rather than to you. In any event, thank you sincerely for giving Law and Order an eloquent and worthy sendoff.

Razorgeist said...

Yikes that was inane...your points are correct. Though I must admit the geek in me could only watch it and think Kirk's daddy and Luke Skywalker's mommie!.

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