Time Bandits

[Dillinger]

Going to watch this in about a 1/2 hour... I've seen it before - can't wait to see it on DVD - its such a great movie!!!

http://web.media.mit.edu/~stefan/movies/timebandits.html

"A young boy's wardrobe contains a time hole. Through this hole an assortment of short people (i.e. dwarfs) come while escaping from their master, the supreme being. They take Kevin with them on their adventures through time from Napoleonic times to the Middle Ages to the early 1900s, to the time of Legends and the Fortress of Ultimate Darkness where they confront Evil.

 

[Guest]

hilarious film, its become a cult classic. I like the ogre and the cage near the maze.

 

[Cozen.rm]

Thumbs up on that one.

 

[flawed_ethics]

I saw a part of this when I was younger. I don't remember much, but then again I saw a part of Adventures of Baron Muchausen around the same time and didn't like it either.

Now I love Baron Muchausen. Are they on par with each other (i.e., does it have the same warm yet fantastic imagination driving it?)

 

[nitelite33]

I love the George Harrison song in the end titles...

Took a while to track it down on Kazaa ;p

 

[bknight2602]

It was a great film.

 

[medjay]

Are they on par with each other (i.e., does it have the same warm yet fantastic imagination driving it?)

Yes. It's time for you to take a trip to the video store.

 

[Nora]

Mum! Dad! Don't touch it! It's eeeeeeevil.

It's also on my top 5 favorite movies.

 

[nitelite33]

It could help that Munchausen and Time Bandits were directed by the same gentleman Mr. Terry Gilliam (the American Python)...

However my favourite Gilliam is still The Fisher King.

If you haven't seen that one you are missing a real treat.

 

[medjay]

However my favourite Gilliam is still The Fisher King.

If you haven't seen that one you are missing a real treat.

I'd have to go with 12 Monkeys or Brazil. Both classics.

 

[Dillinger]

I love the George Harrison song in the end titles...

Took a while to track it down on Kazaa ;p

I agree - its a great song. Do you know the name of it so I can track it down myself?

 

[Dillinger]

12 Monkeys
Brazil
The Fisher King

Yes - all excellent!

 

[rosco rathbone]

These movies are all great, but Brazil stands head and shoulders above the rest. I've heard his new Don Quixote movie is good too.

 

[Ice Cold]

I remember that movie Sean Connery was in it, and the bad guy was the guy who played Sark in Tron... Cool movie.

"I'm sorry I killed you Fidget."

 

[nitelite33]

I agree - its a great song. Do you know the name of it so I can track it down myself?

It's called "Only A Dream Away" by George Harrison

R.I.P. George

If you have trouble finding it, PM me and I'll email it to ya. (I hope noone from Metallica reads that or I'll get sued ;p)

 

[Bogey77]

Funny shit

John Cleese as Robin Hood is damned funny.

 

[nitelite33]

I remember that movie Sean Connery was in it, and the bad guy was the guy who played Sark in Tron... Cool movie.

David Warner is a fantastic character actor... Also see him in a great little SF picture called 'Time After Time', where he plays Jack The Ripper, and uses H.G. Wells' time machine to travel forward to modern San Francisco and wreak havok. Of course Wells has to go after him and try to set things right...

 

[Guest]

12 Monkeys
Brazil
The Fisher King

Yes - all excellent!

They are good, even though I haven't watched Brazil.

I remember holding the VHS box in a video rental shop. I must have been 13 or 14. I checked it up because Brazil is the best footballing nation. I put the box back as it was nothing to do with footy.

 

[nimbus9]

Time Bandits is one of my top ten all time movies.

I recommend a sifi spoof called Ice Pirates. So funny

 

[nimbus9]

Found a pic of the Ice Pirates cast.

Robert Urich, Anjelica Huston, Ron Pearlman etc.

well since I can't deleat the post or now post from my hard drive I can't fix the X because everything is right. So I guess you can look at the X.

Unreal you can't delete posts here

 

[patient1]

Re: Funny shit

John Cleese as Robin Hood is damned funny.

My favorite scene!

"Must he do that?"

 

[Dillinger]

It's called "Only A Dream Away" by George Harrison

R.I.P. George

If you have trouble finding it, PM me and I'll email it to ya. (I hope noone from Metallica reads that or I'll get sued ;p)

Thanks - I will have to hunt for it...

And yes... David Warner was wonderfully Evil - and yet still managed to get laughs.

 

[funspirit]

favorite Terry Gilliam movie besides Time Bandits...... Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas

Ice Pirates was excellent also

 

[nitelite33]

Speaking of Fear and Loathing...

The Criterion Collection releases an uber 2-disc collection this Tues. that DVDfile.com calls:

...a cult film lover's wet dream - commentary after commentary and tons of making-of material. Like Criterion's edition of Gilliam's Brazil, this is not just a nice DVD, it is a definitive portrait of a strikingly important film Whether you like it or not....

If you are a DVD fan, and are not already familiar with the Criterion Collection, they far and away make the most stacked special editions since the late 80's and the advent of laserdiscs (an earlier afficiando format that was superior to VHS).

 

[medjay]

I've heard his new Don Quixote movie is good too.

Unfortunately, the Don Quixote production folded after six days. They actually made a documentary out of it. Here's the story if anyone wants to read it:


__________________________________________


Gilliam's Quixote movie really was an impossible dream

By Erik Lundegaard
Special to The Seattle Times



Throughout "Lost in La Mancha," a documentary detailing Terry Gilliam's failed attempt to make a movie out of the Don Quixote story, almost everyone behind the scenes compares Gilliam, the maverick filmmaker responsible for "Brazil," with Cervantes' Quixote. Both are romantics tilting at windmills.

Yet it's elucidating to contrast the two men as well. Quixote, after all, was mad and Gilliam isn't, and by that I don't mean to be flip. Madness has been a part of Gilliam's oeuvre from the beginning — think of his insane animations for "Monty Python's Flying Circus" and Robin Williams' mad dash in "The Fisher King."

More to the point: The best documentaries on disastrous filmmaking focus on directors close to the brink. There's Francis Ford Coppola with a gun to his head in "Hearts of Darkness" and Werner Herzog with his thousand-yard stare in "Burden of Dreams." Gilliam, in contrast, is surprisingly subdued as his movie falls apart around him. One expects bangs out of him and gets only whimpers.

In September 2000, Gilliam's crew met in Spain to begin production on "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote," about a modern-day ad executive who finds himself magically transported to Cervantes' universe to become Quixote's Sancho Panza.

It was already a troubled project (are there other kinds?), but Gilliam had reason to be hopeful. He had his Don Quixote (the French actor Jean Rochefort), he had a major star (Johnny Depp as the ad exec) and, because he was financed solely with European money, he had creative control.

But six weeks before production, Phil Patterson, the first assistant director, said the film was in "complete disarray." The principal actors arrived late from other projects, and the sound stage was not soundproofed. Plus the shooting schedule was tight and left no margin for error.

Error happened. The first day of shooting occurred next to a NATO bombing range, and fighter planes periodically roared overhead, ruining scenes. On the second day, the skies darkened, then dumped rain and hail, and the tarp-covered equipment began to float away in a flash flood. Afterward, the blond desert had darkened and grown vegetation, rendering it useless for Gilliam's purposes.

The death knell came on the fifth day when Rochefort fell ill with an enlarged prostate and returned to France. Word came back he wouldn't be able to work for a week, then a month.

Interestingly, the previously mentioned "making of ... " documentaries had similar star problems. Coppola fired Harvey Keitel two weeks into filming "Apocalypse Now" and replaced him with Martin Sheen, who subsequently suffered a heart attack. Herzog's original "Fitzcarraldo," Jason Robards, fell ill and was replaced by Klaus Kinski.

But Gilliam refused to replace his Quixote and thus doomed his vision.

"Lost in La Mancha" is funny and instructive, but less operatic than "Hearts of Darkness" and "Burden of Dreams" because the subjects of the other documentaries were actually completed. Here we're left with only a few scenes — low-browed giants snarling and skipping — and thoughts of what might have been had Gilliam been as crazy as Coppola or Herzog ... or Quixote.