> Frankenstein and Death by Lightning were two standout successes recently.
IMHO Frankenstein" was pretty terrible. The makeup was awful, the effects were cheap, the monster... wasn't a monster! The entire premise depends on him being a monster, not some sort of misunderstood, sympathetic EMO.
> The entire premise depends on him being a monster, not some sort of misunderstood, sympathetic EMO.
This is a misconception on a similar level to thinking the monster's name is Frankenstein: "As depicted by Shelley, the creature is a sensitive, emotional person whose only aim is to share his life with another sentient being like himself."
Thanks for stating the obvious and I assure you I know the story well. In order for the entire premise to work, there needs to be this conflict or tension between the perception of the "monster" and the true reality of his humanity. This movie failed at effectively portraying this conflict by humanizing the monster too much. Just my 2 cents.
Ah, I understand what you mean. I don't think the viewer necessarily needs to experience the dissonance personally for the premise to work. That said, I agree that it could have afforded being less black and white, it at times felt like a children's movie with how plainly the message is communicated.
Completely agree. The movie ruined Dr. Frankenstein's motives by adding his benefactor, and ruined his monster by removing the inner rage he felt and expressed towards the world the shunned him. A very, very odd decision by GDT. Similar to Spike Lee remaking High & Low, but removing the critique of capitalism and the complicity of the wealthy so he could make Denzel the true protagonist.
I disagree that it's a misconception. Yes, the premise is that the true 'monster' was the creator, but the monster itself is intentionally grotesque and disfigured to teach us the beauty on the inside lesson.
He is unsettling but definitely not simply grotesque and disfigured:
> His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.
The creature was always supposed to be a mix of sympathetic and monstrous. He becomes a monster by turning himself implacably toward revenge, but we can sympathize with him for what sets him on that path. The entire premise rests more on Victor being a monster. I thought the movie handled both of those fairly well. There's really no living director who gets the Gothic sensibility quite as well as del Toro.
>His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.
As I said, the contrast between "pretty" or "human" traits vs "monster" just wasn't there.
Eh, I like an interesting spin on a classic. I’ve seen/heard the Frankenstein plot and small variations on it many times, taking a different direction is a good way to keep in a general universe but develop something new. If you’re not going to come up with new interesting content, at least don’t rehash the exact story I’ve heard many times. But that’s just my preference—I really enjoyed it and have become a fan of Guillermo del Toro works recently (due to exposure on Netflix). I’m not huge critic really so I won’t speak to artistic merit but I can at least say I really enjoyed it.
Netflix has always had one or three stand-out projects over a year, but is that what we want from studios? It is like the tech model: 1 big success for 10+ duds (the VC show) or another superhero installment (the Google/Meta cash cow movie).
HBO is expensive and most people don't have it. Ergo most people never see or hear about their lower quality content. Only the good stuff that their rich friends rave about.
You not recognizing their shows doesnt mean they are bad. Ive seen most of those and the overwhelming majority are at least solid. I understand netflix's business model, Im just annoyed that theyre buying HBO because they will likely make it worse. Maybe netflix wants more prestige content and will let HBO be HBO but I doubt it.
> If WB was any good, would they have been snatched up by Netflix?
Yes because the situation of WB has nothing to do with their performance.
In 1990s they merged with TIME publishing right before the internet killed all magazines. In 2000s with AOL right before th dot com bubble. In 2010s with AT&T who realised they needed a shit ton of money to roll out 5G so they took a massive loan and charged it to Warner debt.
So WARNER keeps performing and the business side keeps adding debt from horrible decisions
Honestly Warner would have been fine if they hadn't been saddled with the debt that AT&T used to buy them. It wasn't an issue of Warner's business performance.
It's about all the other projects that would have had great quality but did not secure funding because Netflix prefers to fund mass-produced mediocrity.
In Germany we have a saying "Even a blind hen sometimes finds a grain of corn".
> It's about all the other projects that would have had great quality but did not secure funding because Netflix prefers to fund mass-produced mediocrity. In Germany we have a saying "Even a blind hen sometimes finds a grain of corn".
In parallel, they're also starting to downgrade their quality. In the latest season of Stranger Things there's a wild amount of in-scene exposition, where the characters explain what's happening while it's happening. I did some digging and learned that they may be dumbing down their shows because they know users typically look at their phones while watching Netflix and users are more likely to drop off of a show if they don't know what's going on.
Frankenstein looks oddly cheap and fake with really bad lighting in many scenes. You can tell they used the volume virtual production to shoot scenes and it doesn't look great.
That said, I'm more uncomfortable with the continued consolidation of media ownership and more outsize influence of FAANG tech over media.