No Illusions...

[annuin]

Roger Ebert has no illusions about today's movie audiences...

"I would have liked to see deeper characterizations and more complex dialogue, as in movies like "Braveheart" or "Rob Roy," but today's multiplex audience, once it has digested a word like Sarmatia, feels its day's work is done."

"They [actors] even keep straight faces in the last shot, as the camera audaciously pulls back to reveal Stonehenge. That gives audience members a choice; they can think (a) "A-ha! So that explains Stonehenge!" or (b) "What a cheap shot to use Stonehenge as a location when it has nothing to do with anything," or (c) "What's that?""

-- Roger Ebert, reviewing King Arthur

Comments

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

My reaction was c). And Stonehenge is on a big old plain, not on a cliff by the sea. I still don't know what the "common cause" is that the British people are henceforth united in, but there you are.

[tanthe.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but you're one of the people who actually knows stuff. I'm not sure too many people really know that they changed the setting of Stonehenge.

Though why they'd change the location is absolutely beyond me. It seems like such a frivolous thing to do.