Post by Dale on Aug 16, 2009 2:55:26 GMT -5
Sanders vs. Toberts
To start with, I’m just gonna say it was Ok. Then I’m gonna list a bunch of technical errors because if it’s good enough for Jomo’s reviews, it’s good enough for me.
Firstly, the use of onomatopoeia as dialogue sucks ass. It’s something I’ve never liked and it just looks kinda childish. “Hehe” is fine if you’re posting on a forum, in a chat box conversation or whatever, but in a script, when “he emits a high pitch giggle of excitement” could be used; it just seems silly. Also On page 5, there was a lack of space between the words “of” and “course”; it’s called proof reading man. Come on.
There was also odd word use, like “sadistic” to describe the look on Toberts face as he stares at the game packaging. Now he’s a geek, who loves his games and maybe he really did want to sexually or emotionally gratify himself by inflicting pain with extreme cruelty on the game packaging, who knows. But it seemed like an odd choice of word to use to me, and totally threw me out of the story, so much so I almost felt compelled to look up the word in case there was some definition of sadistic I wasn’t aware of.
Ok, I’m just messing with the above “errors”. I mean, they’re serious things, but they’re minor and not enough to ruin my enjoyment of the script.
I enjoyed the introduction to Glenn, within the opening few pages we learn that he’s an avid wrestling fan, enjoys comic books and video games to obsessive levels and he and his friends enjoy pulling off the John Bender pose from The Breakfast Club (who doesn’t?). He’s a geek, we understand that implicitly and it sets up for Roberts his rival to be introduced as the complete opposite. Which isn’t exactly what we got, because Sanders is really just like Glenn albeit lessopen about his geekhood.
The actual catalyst to the story was rather ingenious, a code spelling “World is Over” in a video game, that only a video game nerd would take seriously. But soon after that, you have other people start believing him. His sister’s reaction seems like the natural one everyone would take but then his parents start believing the theory; going as far to announce it on the news. Now I enjoy the idea of Toberts parents being as geeky as he is, but the tone and dialogue such as “everything will be
fine by tomorrow, guaranteed.” seemed to have a re-assuring tone to it, as if the character of Sanders actually kinda bought into Toberts theory and to be honest it kind of killed the humour of the situation; at least for me.
I believe the movie was set in the eighties, and some of the dialogue seemed a little out of place. I’m not entirely sure we’d have heard the phrase “gravity is my homeboy”. The dialogue, whilst good at times didn’t really have a flow to it. It’s a really hard thing to try and explain. I’d read a line and have to re-read it because for some reason it didn’t sound right in my head. It was overly bad, or even bad at all for that matter. It just didn’t “flow” as stated.
The movie is set in 1988 I believe, but this doesn’t really add anything to the proceedings other than make a few pop culture references easier to maker. But had the film been set in the present day, the pop culture references would have been even more obscure and only increased the geeky characteristics of the main characters.
Overall Sanders vs. Toberts wasn’t quite what I expected. But nevertheless, it’s a good film. It wasn’t bad, it wasn’t great but it was solid. For a comedy it really didn’t make me laugh as much as I would have hoped. Sure there was an odd smile or that “Ha ... that was good” but the only thing that really made me laugh was the Huey Lewis discussion and the line “They’re early work was a little new wave for my taste.” Which contained one of the biggest grammatical errors of the script, anachronically referenced a book/movie that hadn’t been released during the time period the film as set, yet was still bloody hilarious. Other than that there were few laugh out loud moments, but the characters were fairly fun. It’s not a bad way to spend an hour or so.
** ½ out of ****
To start with, I’m just gonna say it was Ok. Then I’m gonna list a bunch of technical errors because if it’s good enough for Jomo’s reviews, it’s good enough for me.
Firstly, the use of onomatopoeia as dialogue sucks ass. It’s something I’ve never liked and it just looks kinda childish. “Hehe” is fine if you’re posting on a forum, in a chat box conversation or whatever, but in a script, when “he emits a high pitch giggle of excitement” could be used; it just seems silly. Also On page 5, there was a lack of space between the words “of” and “course”; it’s called proof reading man. Come on.
There was also odd word use, like “sadistic” to describe the look on Toberts face as he stares at the game packaging. Now he’s a geek, who loves his games and maybe he really did want to sexually or emotionally gratify himself by inflicting pain with extreme cruelty on the game packaging, who knows. But it seemed like an odd choice of word to use to me, and totally threw me out of the story, so much so I almost felt compelled to look up the word in case there was some definition of sadistic I wasn’t aware of.
Ok, I’m just messing with the above “errors”. I mean, they’re serious things, but they’re minor and not enough to ruin my enjoyment of the script.
I enjoyed the introduction to Glenn, within the opening few pages we learn that he’s an avid wrestling fan, enjoys comic books and video games to obsessive levels and he and his friends enjoy pulling off the John Bender pose from The Breakfast Club (who doesn’t?). He’s a geek, we understand that implicitly and it sets up for Roberts his rival to be introduced as the complete opposite. Which isn’t exactly what we got, because Sanders is really just like Glenn albeit lessopen about his geekhood.
The actual catalyst to the story was rather ingenious, a code spelling “World is Over” in a video game, that only a video game nerd would take seriously. But soon after that, you have other people start believing him. His sister’s reaction seems like the natural one everyone would take but then his parents start believing the theory; going as far to announce it on the news. Now I enjoy the idea of Toberts parents being as geeky as he is, but the tone and dialogue such as “everything will be
fine by tomorrow, guaranteed.” seemed to have a re-assuring tone to it, as if the character of Sanders actually kinda bought into Toberts theory and to be honest it kind of killed the humour of the situation; at least for me.
I believe the movie was set in the eighties, and some of the dialogue seemed a little out of place. I’m not entirely sure we’d have heard the phrase “gravity is my homeboy”. The dialogue, whilst good at times didn’t really have a flow to it. It’s a really hard thing to try and explain. I’d read a line and have to re-read it because for some reason it didn’t sound right in my head. It was overly bad, or even bad at all for that matter. It just didn’t “flow” as stated.
The movie is set in 1988 I believe, but this doesn’t really add anything to the proceedings other than make a few pop culture references easier to maker. But had the film been set in the present day, the pop culture references would have been even more obscure and only increased the geeky characteristics of the main characters.
Overall Sanders vs. Toberts wasn’t quite what I expected. But nevertheless, it’s a good film. It wasn’t bad, it wasn’t great but it was solid. For a comedy it really didn’t make me laugh as much as I would have hoped. Sure there was an odd smile or that “Ha ... that was good” but the only thing that really made me laugh was the Huey Lewis discussion and the line “They’re early work was a little new wave for my taste.” Which contained one of the biggest grammatical errors of the script, anachronically referenced a book/movie that hadn’t been released during the time period the film as set, yet was still bloody hilarious. Other than that there were few laugh out loud moments, but the characters were fairly fun. It’s not a bad way to spend an hour or so.
** ½ out of ****
