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Post by Joyce on Jun 25, 2018 16:20:48 GMT
It's been too quiet around here! I realize that this might be a better subject for the "TV and Movies" part of the forum but I was just hoping to goose things up a bit here.
I've been reading a new biography about Robin Williams by Dave Itzkoff. Well, actually listening to the audiobook (which I highly recommend, by the way). And it got me thinking...
Of all the films that Robin Williams was in, what were your favorites?
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Post by Joyce on Jun 25, 2018 16:29:29 GMT
Of all his films, my favorites are:
Hook
Aladdin
Mrs. Doubtfire
Jumanji
The Birdcage
Jack
Bicentennial Man
And the ones I've not seen yet but would like to soon are:
Moscow on the Hudson
Toys
The Angriest Man in Brooklyn
The the ones I'll probably NEVER see are:
One Hour Photo
Insomnia
(Both of which he plays the bad guy.)
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Post by Scott on Jun 26, 2018 0:31:55 GMT
He was in more movies than I realized.
I've seen:
Popeye
The World According to Garp
The Survivors (I think saw it---if I did I didn't like it. No, wait---I did see it. Didn't like it.)
The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen
Awakenings
The Birdcage
Deconsructing Harry
Good Will Hunting (Hated that movie!)
One Hour Photo
Insomnia
World's Greatest Dad
I like Awakenings, The World According to Garp and World's Greatest Dad. I liked Popeye but I only saw it once in the theater almost 40 years ago.
I liked the original Norwegian version of Insomnia better. Hated Good Will Hunting.
One Hour Photo was interesting. I don't remember him in Deconstructing Harry and I don't really remember the movie that well except how they treated about the only Black character to appear in a Woody Allen movie.
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Post by cheryl on Jun 26, 2018 3:43:07 GMT
I enjoyed The Birdcage, but I LOVED Good Will Hunting. Scott, you made me gasp. Why do you hate that movie?! Only friendly banter here, of course!
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Post by Joyce on Jun 26, 2018 10:05:43 GMT
I’ve actually seen more of his movies then I listed: Popeye, Awakenings, etc. I only listed the ones I liked best.
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Post by Shane on Jun 26, 2018 13:01:48 GMT
I'd list my favourites as Awakenings, Dead Poets Society, and Good Morning, Vietnam. One Hour Photo was...interesting.
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Post by cheryl on Jun 26, 2018 23:11:39 GMT
Oh yes- Dead Poet’s Society was excellent.
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Post by Nancy on Jun 27, 2018 0:00:52 GMT
The Birdcage is my favourite.
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Post by JD on Jun 28, 2018 3:15:05 GMT
I've not actually seen all that many, I guess, as most of the titles in the list don't mean anything. I liked Mrs. Doubtfire, I liked Aladdin, I liked all the Night at the Museum movies -- at least I liked Robin Williams as Teddy Roosevelt, although I didn't always like the movies that much -- and I am not sure I ever saw anything else he did. Movies, that is; I did see him in Mork & Mindy, way back in the Dark Ages.
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Post by Scott on Jun 28, 2018 16:16:53 GMT
In reply to Cheryl, about why I hated Good Will Hunting, here's a quote from a review of a different movie--All Fall Down, 1962, a movie I liked--but it sort of applies here:
"There is one fatal flaw in the arrangement of the elements in this film that makes it implausible, unnatural and extremely hard to take. It is the essential arrangement that everyone in the story is madly in love with a disgusting young man who is virtually a cretin."
Everyone was obsessed with Matt Damon's horrible Mary Sue-like character. There's a scene where Robin Williams explains how he was up all night thinking obsessively about Matt Damon, trying not to be so awed by his super-intellect. Matt Damon had too easy a time impressing people.
The dialog all sounded like it was written by Matt Damon. A lot of it was terribly offensive and not plausible or amusing. Much like the scene in Saving Private Ryan which Damon obviously wrote himself---he tells a "funny" story that involves a girl being knocked unconscious. He tells it to explain why he's unhappy about his brothers being horribly killed.
And you know the scene were he says "How do you like them apples"? Damon says he took that line from Chinatown. He still doesn't know it's a common idiom.
I understand why people like the movie. Sitting in the theater, I liked it at first, then I started resisting.
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Post by Joyce on Jun 28, 2018 16:43:59 GMT
The dialog all sounded like it was written by Matt Damon.
The movie WAS written by Matt Damon! And Ben Affleck. And it won an Oscar for them for the screenplay. |
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Post by cheryl on Jun 29, 2018 0:46:37 GMT
Thanks for the explanation about Good Will Hunting. I just didn’t see it that way at all. I don’t see Damon’s character as bad or Mary-Sue like. I saw him as I see so many people... tragically flawed and hiding his pain behind sarcasm and a front; in this case, the front was flaunting his intelligence. The beauty, to me, was that Robin William’s character saw it too and didn’t give up on him, and that Minnie Driver’s character also saw something behind the bad boy facade worth pursuing. You know that scene where Damon and Williams both are laughing a lot, and Damon is laughing so hard that he’s almost crying? That was real. Williams ad-libbed and the director left it in. The lessons Williams gave we’re real and heartfelt, and Damon said that he and Affleck did in fact write the script with Williams in mind for the role. They weren’t sure what they’d do if he declined. Anyway... I loved it, but I do thank you for your respectful disagreement!  |
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Post by Shane on Jun 29, 2018 16:15:26 GMT
He was a brilliant ad-libber. I've seen behind-the-scenes footage from Good Morning, Vietnam where he's ad-libbing during takes for the broadcast scenes. I think those were entirely ad-libbed. The director, Barry Levinson, said that that was largely due to the fact that DJs work like that. They don't plan the whole show out in advance, but make things up as they go along. Of course, when the person making things up is Robin Williams...
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Post by Joyce on Jun 29, 2018 16:34:01 GMT
He was a brilliant ad-libber. I've seen behind-the-scenes footage from Good Morning, Vietnam where he's ad-libbing during takes for the broadcast scenes. I think those were entirely ad-libbed. The director, Barry Levinson, said that that was largely due to the fact that DJs work like that. They don't plan the whole show out in advance, but make things up as they go along. Of course, when the person making things up is Robin Williams... One of his idols growing up was Jonathan Winters who was brilliant at improv. When Mork and Mindy was on, Winters was a guest star playing Mindy's uncle. (Later he was a regular in the series as Merth.) At one point the uncle eats some Orken food and goes nuts. Williams and Winters did a completely improvised riff that lasted over 20 minutes and that had to be cut down to about 5 minutes for the show. Comic geniuses! |
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Post by Scott on Jul 8, 2018 4:52:09 GMT
Marc Maron has a long interview with Jonathan Winters available on YouTube. Jonathan Winters discusses his terrible, terrible parents, his time in World War Two, how he got into comedy, his psychiatric problems. It's from Maron's WTF podcast and some of you might first minute or two objectionable. www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq5bAHL8a8U |
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