Posted by Lucifer Lyndon Razoodock at spider-wd022.proxy.aol.com on July 21, 2000 at 15:32:26:
In Reply to: I second the "suck!" posted by Darth Dobbin on July 21, 2000 at 08:21:17:
: For reasons too numerous, voluminous, and other adjectives that end in "oom-i-nus", I will concur that NINTH GATE sits at the Right Hand of the Platonic Ideal form of Suckiness..(And at the sinister position sits EYE OF THE BEHOLDER).
I'll not dispute your take on "Eye of the Beholder." You've compared a Polanski-opus to THAT!?! Chez confusion....
: Here's just ONE of the reasons why it will be played on a loop in Purgatory:
: Watching NINTH GATE was like being forced to watch someone play a very badly written and poorly executed computer horror-adventure game, and suffer through their every misstep. (Oh, I fogot the item in Cairo; now I have to go back through the clodgy interface and..)
Um, what are you talking about? Again, it sounds like you were bored by the pace. If you're referring to Corso's hop back to Toledo at the finale which, in turn, leads him back to France, consider the depth of his obsession at this point (as the phallic gas pump suggests, Corso's experiences on this rock, north of Hell, now leave him as an empty shell) and consider how FINAL these trips are for him...
: Beyond that, it seemed that Roman P. must have fallen asleep at the editing table-there were so many long and pointless lingering camera shots...; if the Depp character arrived some place in a car, we seemed to see his entire road trip (wordless, of course) and were given the visual treat of seeing him unbuckle his seat, unlock his door, exit the car, and walk to his destination...Heaven forbid a movie might let us "fill in those blanks" with artful editing..There's one scene where he is hitchhiking, and we see a logging truck pull up and stop. Okay, you'd think the scene would then cut, right? WRONG. We see him enter the truck. The camera remains fixed. We wait. A few seconds pass. The truck pulls away. Camera remains. The truck is going down the road. And going and going. It is off at the vanishing point of the perspective. Camera remains? Has the editor *died* at the table?
This is a completely inaccurate appraisal of the sequence in which Corso hitchhikes back to Balkan's chateu. At this point, Corso still possesses some excited trepidation about what he's doing.
Consider what train-of-thought caused him to turn back after Balken led him into the river (he could've certainly kept going). He was still doubtful that he wanted to follow to the extent to remain involved. He approaches the chateu (which, he merely suspects is at the end of that road, not having seen the sight), and he is more obsessed than anything else. He really doesn't know exactly what he wants to do when he catches up to Balkan.
I personally found the scene to be perfectly paced, following Corso's resolve to take part in whatever events were to unfold.
: DOGMA was a fun, peppy movie that MOVED.. If I have a complaint at all with it it was that there was so much crammed so tightly that it was a lot to digest.. NINTH GATE was a travesty crawled along at a retarded snails pace.
Except for that sequence on the train, right? You've accused "The Ninth Gate" of crawling like a retard snail and in the same line of text, you've described "DOGMA" as peppy?
Hm, I probably shouldn't say more considering just which film this board celebrates, but I don't even think that Kevin (or Vincent though I pause at the idea of speaking for Mr. P.) would presume that they've created a finer film than Polanski's thriller.
C'mon, man. If you were to abstractly throw out the term "paced like a retarded snail" out to any given film critic and then offer the possibilities that said-witticism applied to either "DOGMA" or "The Ninth Gate," heh, if the critic really thought this through, their knee-jerk response might not please you.
: What do you expect from an exiled baby raper though?
Cheap, uninformed and untrue....and the word you're searching for is rapist, is it not?
--tom
Snootch to the motherfuckin' nootch, indeed...