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An early look at LAKE PLACID
Hey there, all you folkerinos, Harry here. It looks like LAKE PLACID test screened a couple of nights ago, and I really wish I had more feed back on the film, cause I think this guy... kinda missed the point of the film. This is supposed to be a Horror/Comedy... not just a 'creature under the sea' film. I have heard they were aiming more for the TREMORS angle than JAWS. Also, he complains about the effects, but.. ya know the film isn't supposed to come out till June 25th (as of now) so... my bet is that the effects aren't done, so there's no point in criticizing them. So, take this review with a grain of salt and realize... there's still a long ways to go, and this is just the opinion of one person, who doesn't seem to like Steve Miner.... but... ya know I kinda liked Halloween H20... but hey... I suck. There are some spoilers here... so be careful.
Lake Placid
Last night, I had the pleasure of sitting down at the Winnetka 20 in the San Fernando Valley to
witness the latest incarnation of the 'Creature Under the Sea' flick called Lake Placid. Now
going in to the flick, I was thinking to myself, "Good cast, Bridget Fonda, Bill Pullman,
Oliver Platt, and Brendan Glesson, the red headed guy from Braveheart." Heck, the film is even
written by TV 'wonderkid' David E. Kelley, who has in my opinion written some of television's
finest shows of the 1990s, namely The Practice, Picket Fences and Northern Exposure. Also, a
little show called Ally McBeal but that ones overrated. But, when the credits started to role
and I saw the name Directed by Steve Miner, I thought to myself, "Oh no, not the guy who did
Friday, The 13th Parts 2 & 3." I knew I was in for a long night.
The flick opens with Glesson, an over weight Sheriff who's helping out some nameless Fish and
Game warden who's tracking beavers for scientific purposes. Before you know it, the Fish and
Game guy is ripped into two and Glesson stands there dumb-founded. What surprised me was that
the scene was extremely gory, but then again Miner, who's a talent-less hack feels he needs to
show you everything to get a rise out of the audience. So once the corpse is brought back to
shore, they discover a tooth, hence we need to call in some out-of-towner city girl to come up
to Maine and have a look for herself. So Bridget shows up, recently dumped by her boyfriend,
Adam Arkin of Kelley's Chicago Hope, in a cameo.
Once she's in Maine she meets up with Pullman, another Fish and Game Warden who is
investigating the death on the lake. Now they don't really know with what they're dealing with
but the do know that the tooth pulled out of the body was of a crocodile origin. So they all
scratch their collective heads at the same time saying, "How can a can a croc live in these
cold waters?" From there, they investigate an old lady living on the lake played by "Golden
Girl" herself Betty White. White, who looks about 100 years old, lives up to the typical old
lady role. Meaning whenever she has the chance to cuss and not act like an old she lady, she
does. Miner gets a lot of cheap laughs out her character.
The film then introduces Oliver Platt, playing this croc aficionado. You see, he has swum with
crocodiles all over the world and they have never attacked him, even the deadliest. Platt plays
this character as a boisterous thrill seeker, who says whatever is on his mind, whether he's
commenting on Glesson's fat ass or Meredith Salenger's big tits. He becomes tiresome after
awhile and you begin to wonder when the creature is going to eat him. Which to my dismay never
happens.
In fact, you see the creature about 40 minutes into the film, giving away a lot of the
suspense. The reason why the first Jaws worked so well was the fact that you did not see the
Shark until 2/3 of the film was over. Once the secret is out that the creature is really a big
crocodile and no special sea monster, I felt let down, down right disappointed. But I'm sure
the marketing campaign will give it away because those Hollywood types are stupid anyway and
don't know how to market films anymore.
Lake Placid is a tired film. I've seen this genre done a lot better, hell Jaws 3-D was better
then this. At least that had a gimmick and a creature you could kind of believe in. Stan
Winston has re-opened his floppy drive and rehashed the lame alligator effects from Eraser. Now
I know this was a work print but when the crocodile attacked a bear it was a CGI tug-of-war,
really fake looking and totally unbelievable. I've seen more realism on my Old School Commodore
64.
The acting is sub-par with zero chemistry between Fonda and Pullman. Now they have had good
scenes in the past, look at Singles and you'll know what I'm talking about. But here, they
don't even allow flirtation between the two, I think they have maybe three scenes together and
they all fall flat. The main problem with the film is that it feels like a bloated TV show,
the thing runs a scant 80 minutes long. It made me wonder what the hell they cut out because
they only have a two-act movie. It has a beginning and an end with no sign of middle anywhere.
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...TREMORS kicked ass! For all those who think that i only love high art, eat me! TREMORS is one of my favorite movies of the decade and i cant think of anyhting arty about it. "Pardon my French!"
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I also loved Tremors; it kicked major ass...and L'Auteur, you're right, there's very little connection between Tremors and "high" art. Hmmm...it's useful to a six-degrees of Kevin Bacon game...but that's about it. I know, let's try a six degrees type game on it, let's see how many steps Tremors is from high art. Let's see...it has Fred Ward in it, who was also in "The Right Stuff"...I think that counts as high art (it's an incredible movie, at least). If that's not enough, the "The Right Stuff" was based on the book by Tom Wolfe, who also wrote "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test", high art about the sixties...and if that isn't high enough for you, that book is about Ken Kesey, who wrote "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"...that book is definitely high art, as is the movie. (And if that still isn't enough, we can use Jack Nicholson to get to Stanley Kubrick, and Kubrick is about as "high art" as you can get). Okay...so I got it a maximum of seven tries...now it's your turn. -Loki
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Kevin Bacon was in SLEEPERS with Robert DeNiro and Dustin Hoffman who have both been in plenty of artistic pictures. Fred Ward was in THE PLAYER which was an Altman film which i consider high art (also, it helps that THE PLAYER made fun of how Hollywood doesnt even know what art is). Kevin Bacon was also in A FEW GOOD MEN with Demi Moore who was in STRIPTEASE, GI JANE, and THE SCARLET LETTER--if you dont call that high art, you must be high.
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I totally agree, Tremors is an awesome film that I never get tired of watching. This Lake Placid movie, however, sounds a lot like an X-Files episode I saw a long time ago. It had a similar plot with a large alligator or crocodile terrorizing a lake in Maine.
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Well, I didn't care much for "The Scarlet Letter" (the movie, at least), but other than that, you've got good connections to high art...not that it really matters, since Tremors is cool enough so I don't care about whether it's high or low art. And the X-Files episode called "Quagmire", and was pretty good. The episode managed to have a lot of character development and relationships going on, during a time of high stress with a monster killing people off...and it managed to do this all within the space of 44 minutes (the actual length of a TV show with commercials involved)...Lake Placid doesn't sound like it can do half that in twice the time. I'll be skipping this one...probably won't even watch it on cable if it comes on to that paragon of cable crap channels: USA (just about the only channel that carries tripe like this). -Loki
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L'Auteur, it was kind of cheap for you to go through Kevin Bacon...I was looking for something more like "The director once slept with such-and-such", or "The style of cinematography (sp?) used when one of the creatures exploded is such-and-such, which was used in Jaws when Bruce the shark bought it" or something obscure like that...you almost disappointed me, but you redeemed yourself with "The Player". -Loki. ps...hmmm, feels like something is missing on this Talkback...what is it? Ah-ha, I've got it. FUCK YOU L'AUTEUR! ALL YOU RIGHT HANDED PEOPLE SHOULD BE SHOT! Yep, the threatening hate mail was what was missing.
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*laugh*my god I couldn't belive it...a civil and actually fun discussion in Talkback...I can't belive it...oh well I'm being silly...tremors..kicks ass...The Kevin Bacon movie that is good for 6 degrees is the Air Up there...but I don't ask me how I know this
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Whoa! Indeed, it has been a long and strange journey for Natty Gann.
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