Here's a still from 'Cowboys & Aliens' that serves as yet another example of The Principle of Evil Marksmanship aka The Stormtrooper Effect.
So... These aliens have advanced technology, can travel vast distances, possibly utilizing some kind of time-warp drive, find our planet in an obscure solar system in a nondescript galaxy on the other side of the universe, but they can't hit a horse at full gallop?
You know, you look at the still, they're not even close. They've missed the nearest rider by -- looks to me -- about 50 to 75 feet.
Why can't bad guys in movies shoot straight? Here's a clip from a documentary that sheds light on the subject:
A clip from Jeffrey Wells on 'Cowboys & Aliens' vs 'Attack the Block':
...Attack The Block is a smarter, more character-flavored, more tightly constructed entertainment than Cowboys, and I don't mean solely in terms of tension and thrills. Block is also about something -- i.e., community values and urban-jungle teens learning to take responsibility and fly straight and become men -- while Cowboys is...what? About kissing the behinds of ComicCon fanboys and their low, sloppy taste in comic-book movies? About wanting to make money?
As usual, Wells cuts to the core. Can't say I'd go that far re: 'Cowboys & Aliens' but, have to agree on 'Attack the Block'. From what I've seen 'Attack the Block' delivers a better experience and is something you'll remember, something you'd be glad you watched, whereas 'Cowboys & Aliens', while an effective popcorn flick, is probably pretty ephemeral.
There's just something, that rare quality that's hard to capture when making a movie but easy to spot when watching one, in every second of trailers and clips from Block that tells me the script is tight, the story delivers, and the movie is a lot of fun. Cowboys goes for it, stretches. It's sort of there, in a professional, mechanical way. They just don't quite deliver. I don't quite feel it. And, this hard-to-capture quality -- you don't see it you feel it.
I can see re-watching snippets of 'Attack the Block' over the years just because I want to relive it -- feel it again. I do that with some films -- watch for a certain camera technique, an edit, a line of dialogue, or even just a shot. I'll spin the DVD and review maybe as little as a minute or two, get that feeling, that uplift some movies provide, then move on to the next flick. 'Attack the Block' will be one of those. On the other hand, I'll probably watch 'Cowboys & Aliens' once to get it under my belt and review it maybe every ten years.
Weird. Myself, I didn't even notice. Who cares what kind of music plays over a 13th century battle with swords, arrows, and trebuchets? Besides, do they expect lutes plucking and panflutes tooting? Who'd want to hear that? 'Ironclad' isn't a period drama that happens to include battle sequences, it's an action-thriller with hard-core combat scenes that takes place in the 13th century. What difference does it make that it's set before The Rolling Stones landed? Rock covers a battle sequence nicely, even one set in merry old England.
When the first 'Cowboys & Aliens' trailer hit everyone, as expected, loved it.
Sure. Why not like it? Looks like fun. Back in April, though, we got this, which isn't subtle about the rock intro:
The anachronistic soundtrack was hardly noticed. In fact, the only comment I was able to find was positive. Movieline said:
The vibe in this trailer is energetic, fast-paced, tongue-in-cheek, even - and if the rollicking music heard here is any indication of the final film, Cowboys & Aliens could have a very mainstream-friendly, Pirates of the Caribbean-type appeal.
Now, we get a new trailer with music that, if anything, is even more throbbing, hard hitting. Still no protests. Is it that rock music in a medieval battle scene is more grating, or just seems more wrong, than the same type music in a western because one takes place in the 13th century, like 700 or 800 years before the advent of rock and the other takes place in the 1700s and early 1800s, which was just a few years ago by comparison? (Sure, that makes sense). Just how is one more anachronistic than the other? Or, is it that we understand Jon Favreau loves hard-rocking soundtracks, and this is the guy that gave us all that 'Iron Man' goodness, so nobody says anything for fear of disturbing the Favreau-ness of it all?
It's a funny thing. I remember 'A Knight's Tale' got ripped for using a rock soundtrack and that's a medieval setting as well. Go figure.
