Thursday, July 10, 2014

Labyrinth: First impressions

Roomie and Lacy are seeming very pleased with themselves about something, and I'm hoping it's not this movie, because last time one of them was very pleased with herself about a movie I had a night straight from Hell. Let's hope this is nothing like that.

Obligatory I don't know anything about this movie preamble: I'm guessing there's a maze and people either exploring it or trying to escape from it. Which probably means there will be a minotaur. I'm down for some Theseus, so let's get to it. Also what is the difference between a maze and a labyrinth? Or are they just synonyms? Anyway.

Better synthesizer music and a bird and a mirrored maze that's invisible. Not a bad start. Bird's obvious computer graphics I LIKE THAT LOGO

Owl. Well Owl do you do, sir?

Oh it's an actual song!

Kind of light pop. Guy's got a decent voice though.

Nice-ish fantasy sort of place.

I don't have the child, lady.

 Doubt that, I've got like +10 on my Will save.

Sounds like rain. Think we're getting rain today tooh hey it's a book. This is yyyeah okay. There are the jeans. Should have seen it coming.

The rain's not fair? Odd position on weather.

Allo Sarah. Wow you're whiny. Am I supposed to sympathize with this?

 Well, you know stepmothers. Has there ever been a wicked stepFATHER? Just curious

Someone's a fantasy buff. Fantasist? Fantasist sounds good. OH WOULD YOU SHUT UP?

"Someone has been in my room again. I HATE THAT!" You know I can tell what you're feeling without you spelling it out to me, right? Annnnd ytou're blaming the baby

I'm with you, Tiny. I'm sad she's in this movie too

WHAT

Guys those are goblins

"Free to wear pirate hats"

Poor kid. Your sister's a dink.

HEHEEH loving the goblins already

Nothing happened "Where'd she learn that rubbish" heheheh thanks guys

HAHA loving the big one "did she say it?"

Well that was ominous. Go check

GO CHECK

 No, Toby's not alright, you wished goblins would kidnap him. And if I heard you right they'll turn him into another one. Which might not be so bad, they;re more fun than youTHAT is kind of creepy

Did they already transform him?

OWL YOU DOING?

The music is working against how STRESS this actually is

SHADOW

WELL HELLO THERE PERSON

The Goblin King! And his AWESOME HAIR

And he's got a badass cape too. You're right fucked now.

That is a fantastic trick, how is he doing that? That looks like a real thing how is he even doing that

Literally just trying to trade a baby for a glass ballTHAT IS ALSO a snake

Man don't throw snakes at people. It's rude.

WHOOSH I FOUND A LABYRINTH YOU GUYS

Turn back where? You sort of vanished her bedroom, man

His eyes are fascinating and I don't know why. Also the guy's got a 13 hour clock. That's kind of awesome in a weird way.

Which means apparently the Goblin King has EXTRA TIME FOR YOUR SHIT.

Annnnnd that guy's pissing. WHOA that's not a pretty face. Did he just zap a fairy? S'rude

Okay I guess I read that wha"Shows what you know, don't it?"

Hello Hoggle. "That's what I thought" how does he know?

Is it like a puppet head on a small actor? Can't be a whole puppet.

Okay the assholes upstairs are doing I don't even know what but it sounds like their pet elephant is tap-dancing.

 Don't try to play the You Should Feel Bad card, Sarah, YOU should feel bad. This is your fault after alWELL THEN BEHOLDER BABIES ON THE WALL

Ohhh she gets a clue. And then keeps doing the same damn thing. Check the walls for secret doors or something, why don't you?

Useless screaming. Creative of you.

Oh hey worm!

"No, I said ALLO!" hehehehe this movie has a fun sense of humor sometimes.

"Naw, I'm just a worm"

More beholder babies. I see no opening either. How is she supposed to come inside, anyway?

There's o opening

There's that line again OH IT'S AN ILLUSION that's pretty cool

WELL THEN. Helpful worm screws it upHANDS FROM A WALL. This place looks interesting.

Hey Toby. How goes?

Ah, the court of the Goblin King?

SONG?

Kid seems happy with the idea

SONG!

This is indrectible, these are all puppets just dancing aren't they?

PUNT

"Slap that baby, make him pee?"

AAAAAAHAHAHAHA "your mother is a fraggin' ardvark!"

They're flipping rhe tiles on her, well crap

Was this guy some sort of wacky whwateveryear sex symbol because HOLY CRAP THE PANTS AREA is very

I'ma say "visible"

DANCE MAGIC DANCE

JUMP MAGIC JUMP

Scottish double-headed goats?

Truth lie puzzle, isn't it

But if that's true then you always tell the truth

VOOOP never tempt fate like thWHAT THE HELL hands?

HAHAHA they're faces that's amazing

All the different faces too

That may have been the wrong choice. Guess the lie puzzle doesn't work when the two are both morons

"Well? Laugh?"

Oh hey Hoggle.

So then how did you get in?

This is a pretty excellent kind of dungeon crawl. :D

"That's why it would be particularly nice of you" heh

I like the door trick, that's pretty cool

Ominous giant faces

"Sorry just doing my job" HAHAHA

"Aw please, I haven't said it for sooch a long time"

Ohoho it hurts to laugh

WELL HELLO SIR

It's Hoggle, come on that's easy to rememWOW with the crotch zone and whatnot someone get that man some looser pants

THE BOG OF ETERNAL STENTH man don't come face to face with that thing THAT is a creepy leer YOU just provoked the man with the mutated hockey haircut

OH TOLD. FUCKING TOLD. Your basis of comparison indeed

Well that doesn't look good

STRESS IS COMING

STRESS IS HERE IN THE FORMER OF A LOCKED DOOR

and it's just a goblin on a bike two goblins on a bike

Jerith? Is that the king's name?

"Is that all it does is smell?" Man you don't know about the THAT IS a really creative sort of punishment, that YOU will eternally stink

Wait hold the farm they just  climbed out of a pot

"I've got no pride" amused

 Oh someone's learning about fair now

Hello old fella with a bird for a hat

A talking bird for a hat. Well then. Also that's a pretty good puppet

Hehehe banter between a man and his hat

"It's so stimulating being your hat" that gets a chuckle.

HAHA guard fail

OH WHAT'S COMING NOW

Hoggle you're just sort of the worst, aren't you

Hey look, it's a that thing that tried to eat Luke

well a brown one. And that was a very convenient rock arrival

Second convenient rock, what gives

HAHAHA HAVE I MENTIONED HOW MUCH I ENJOY SLAPXTICK COMEDY BECAUSE I VERU DO :D

Use the force and get your lightsaber, that's how you get down

Hello Loodo THINGS AREN'T ALWAYS WHAT THEY SEEM. That may not have been the best way to do that

Friend? Annnd the party gains an ogre.

This is the Labyrinth, it just changeWell that's just rude, they're doors not HAHAHAHAA YESSSSSSSS

HEhehe what isn't improved with a couple of big knockers

Had to do it. Had to do it. You never get that opportunity.

Crafty trick, Sarah. You're learning!

Although you could have taken it back out of his mouth afterward, you know.

Well this place looks very friendly.

So wait is he trying to kidnap an heir? Another Jerith?

Don't say theVOOP and there he goes WOULD YOU LEARN NOT TO DO THAT

THAT is the King's face in the stone. EerTHAT is the King's King on that stone. Eerie.

Still just a basass costuime he's got

Always with the crs it's a fruit? GET SOME LOOSER PANTS MAN

Sense Motive: max ranks

AHAHAHAHAHA I like him he's got a bent sense of humor

THE HELL are you oh there's a lot of you

Song time. Clothes are niWHAT THE HELL

This is just terriblEYES EWHAYT THE HELL keep those in your head annnnnd now that's bouncing around too okay I officially hate the se guys

I'm on board with this solution Sarah

You make everything worse Sarah

Oh hey it's a place!

That sounds like fart

It just looks like elemental sewer

LOODO hehehehe

SMELLLLLLL

Oh hey fella. Pirate fella.

SMELLL BAD

This guy's a pest

Greatrclub him, Loodo

LOODO GET BROTHER I'm on board with this

Easy resolution

WHY DOES EVERYONE TEMPT FATE IN THIS PLACE

wait HE SUMMONS ROCKS

hehehe SURE. ROCKS FRIENDS. This movie has a Fezzik too. :D

DOG

Looks a lot like her dog, actually

why does the dog make horse sounds

He's everywhere isn't he

Yeah it's poison.

 Is it Jerid or Jerith?

Now that is an AWESOME trick. What are those going to do? The music's kind of... easy listening again

Ohhh he's sending dreams

She's got awesome hair, I tell you what

Is he trying to seduce her? VASTLY INAPPROPRIATE that man's got like 10 years on you

This is a decent song. It's hiding the meter well with syncopateion

If he hadn't left the clock he might have won there

Also if his masquerade wasn't so creepy

SHE KNOWS annnnd now she's in a big pile of junk?

GROSS okay no thank you

Nope that's wrong

Thats her bedroom

I feel like a point is being made. Real subtle like. Like a hammer to the face kind of subtle

Yuuuup. "everything you've ever cared about is here"

The collector's been sent by the Goblin King too

The Goblin City!

Move Silently: negative ranks. Don't even know how that works but he did it

Yeah that seems like a trap WHAT THE GOLEM

STRESS SPEARS

Seriously the dog makes horse sounds

Sup Hoggle

Hehehe eHoggle in the mechanical man

it's considered polite to CATCH people diving out of a high space

I don't think he does call himself Jerith, I've only heard you call him that

Okay so... architects they are not.

WHY DO YOU SAY THAT STOP DESCRIBING THINGS AS CAKE

BNTOHTING IS CAKE. IF YOU SEE CAKE, IT'S NOT CAKE. THE VERY IDEA OF CAKE IS A BLATANT LIE AND FALSEHOOD

Boy it's a good thing goblins are utter morons, eH?


Thqat did it. What are the golbins riding?

Wait the cannonballs are goblins?

BALLY HO

That's how :D

They're holding the fort pretty well

Hehehe "Alright, throw down your weapons" he's fun.

NEXT TIME, SURRENDER!

Do you have enough boulders there?

"I TAKE IT ?BACK, RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!"

Well someone's unimpressed with it all

HEy, I JUST FIRED YOU

NOW WE HAVE YOU BWONG

Boulder's got NO TIME FOR YOUR SHIT hey no problem hehehehe

The castle! :D

It's on now

Oh where's he off to

He's absconded is what he's done

 Sure let's go face the sorcerer alone and MC ESCHER HOW DO YOU DO THEN

Whoa defying gravity annnd he's a-teleporting now

HEr eyes can be so cruel, eh?

I found a baby!

He seems defeated. WHOA hanging baby

He's always on a different axis from her

LEAP OF FAITH and now the castle's breaking apart trippy

That's a new outfit BUT THE SAME PANTS COME ON

He's blurring. He's vanishing. He's weak, isn't he?

He's also not entirely wrong here, she DID ask

"Just let me rule you" well no that's not a small price

No that one does not add up sir.

And the world comes back.

So was it all a dream?

Well at any rate she's much less completely annoying

DANCE MAGIC DANCE Hehe THE OLD GUY and even one of those fucking red things

THE GOATS

And off he flies.

Groovy end credits song heralds me gotta gotta getting out of here and taking a nice nap. Thanks for the movie pick! :D

29 comments:

  1. I believe a maze is something that can have dead ends and branching passages where it's easy to get lost, but, officially, a proper labyrinth is traditionally something that has a single passage that just twists and turns on itself in elaborate ways. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinth)

    Though in practice, the two terms have come to be used interchangeably.

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    1. Oh hey cool, there's an actual definition :D

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    2. But if that was true, why would Theseus have needed a ball of string to find his way out of the Minotaur's Labyrinth?

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    3. The term Labyrinth and Maze were used interchangeably for most of the medieval to modern periods. Only in modern reference has the term Labyrinth come to signify unicursal path used for meditation, and that only in context.

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  2. Oh, and I definitely hope The Dark Crystal is on your list, too! It's...similar, but different. (And, I think, far better.) :)

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    1. Do make sure you see Dark Crystal. The concept artist on it, was the same as Labyrinth. That is, the remarkable Brian Froud. It was made before Labyrinth. In fact, while filming it, he met a woman on the Henson crew, who had been a sculptor on Yoda in Star Wars. They married, Wendy Froud, and she and Brian collaborated extensively on the puppetry in Labyrinth. When auditioning babies for the part of in the film, they need a toddler, not scared of goblin puppets, so they used their son, Toby Froud. Toby is in his late twenties now and is following in his parents footsteps and creating amazing films.

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    2. And you should see Mirrormask too

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    3. I told Lacy to catch the recommendations for the Big List. :D

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  3. "Was this guy some sort of wacky whwateveryear sex symbol"

    Yeah, I'd say so. :)

    The Goblin King is David Bowie, one of the all-time great rock 'n' rollers. At this point he was pretty much past his golden age musically, though he has produced some interesting stuff in recent years. But since you were asking about music, Jeremy, check out some of his early-70s stuff...Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, Diamond Dogs, Young Americans, Station to Station, almost everything he did in the 70s is brilliant, though his work got more esoteric and challenging as the decade went on. The early stuff ROCKS HARD though. I bet even you have heard some of it, some of it is classic-rock staples.

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    1. Also, you're not wrong about Bowie's eyes. They are... unusual.

      As for the crystal ball juggling, that is indeed a real trick. For the close-ups, Bowie stood with his hands behind his back while an expert juggler reached up into frame. And yes, that means that the expert juggler couldn't actually see what he was doing.

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    2. I wouldn't be surprised if they did for the juggler what they've always done for the Muppets -- hide a monitor somewhere out of the frame so the performer can watch himself and make sure he's getting it right.

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    3. But imagine how many times he must have dropped that crystal ball on his head!

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    4. The form of juggling is called "kinetic juggling" and was developed by Michael Motion the performer in question. Amazing stuff by him, which has gone on to become a major performance technique in the Flow Play community.

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    5. The ball is slippery exactly when it needs to be? I don't understand. :3

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    6. That's an incredible trick. I'd love to see more of that.

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    7. Some more contact juggling for you:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtztrcGkCBw
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di07QKwZQlI
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WO5kjPSZGo

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  4. Yay! I love this movie and it's one I feel comfortable talking at length about.

    First, the thing you've come to expect from me: "Jareth", "Ludo", "Didymus"

    The songs were sung, and the part of Jareth played, by David Bowie, who's a pretty brilliant musician, we'll have to show you some of his stuff soon.

    And yes, Jareth is a pretty major sex symbol. Folks love The Area.

    Hoggle is indeed a puppet head on a little person-- a woman, in fact. This was the second project by The Creature Shop (and the first under the Creature Shop name), Jim Henson's other big puppet-based enterprise. And it was produced by your old friend George Lucas.

    Did you notice that Sarah has toys that resemble Ludo, Didymus, Hoggle, and the Fireys (the red detachable guys)? Or a picture of her mom with her new husband, also played by David Bowie?

    ...Jeremy, are you sure you haven't played Portal already?

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    1. The songs were generally good, yes, except for the stupid red things. I didn't notice anything about the room; I should go back and look.

      No, I haven't played any video game yet. Want to get a mike or something so I can comment live as I play. Why?

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    2. Sounds like a good use of that pizza fund.

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    3. Hahahah if you really havent played Portal, after you do (because its the best) you'll have to come check out something you said in this one. Well pointed out Rachel.

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    4. Arguable best David Bowie album:

      http://youtu.be/HZj-ibB1ivA

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    5. Even if he hasn't played Portal he might have absorbed the meme from his friends. (Loving this blog by the way!)

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  5. @Jeremy - if people suggest 'The Man Who Fell to Earth' to see more Bowie, be warned it has an 'eyes' scene. :^)
    GP

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    1. At this point I'm ready to believe that every movie in existence has an "eyes" scene and we just keep forgetting.

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  6. I love that you recognized the tribute to Escher's "Relativity". One of my favorite bits.

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    1. The two artists I know are Escher and Salvatore Dali, because I had two teachers who liked their art and kept a lot of pictures in their classrooms.

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  7. David Bowie is an intergenerational sex symbol, has been for decades. He's apparently ageless, always at the cutting edge of fashion, has done a lot of amazing rock and roll, some of his more recent collaborations are IMO his best, or at least most accessible to modern ears. And his eyes are odd, he has heterochromia courtesy of a "blown pupil" from an eye injury that happened in primary school I believe.

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  8. It's simple, really. David Bowie actually IS the Goblin King. Like, in real life. It's the only explanation for his ageless sex appeal, otherworldly nature, and amazing talent. I mean, he's clearly at least half fae.

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  9. This is one of my favorite movies, so glad you enjoyed it. To this day I am referred to as Sawa, Fwiend by many many people :)

    The saying of win from this one is :"Which means apparently the Goblin King has EXTRA TIME FOR YOUR SHIT." keep em coming

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