Jami Gertz in Twister
Bricklayer
Why was this character written into Twister. What a Joke.
When she was on her cell phone during the twisters, I almost croaked.
She did have nice breast though.
Eric Hansen
Breast? Singular? When Bill Paxton said the line about we got sisters, it
never occured to me that he was talking about those twin tornadoes.
Actually, she was written into the movie to be stupid. That way, the
characters could explain stuff to her so that we the equally-stupid audience
could understand some of the lingo.
I knew she was history from the start, however I didn't think she would be
written out so fast.
This is extremely common in movies: Character A leaves ideal Character B for
incredibly bad Character C. Character C always has some horrible flaw that
makes Character A say "what was I thinking", dump Character C, and return to
Character B, much to the delight of the audience.
Hey, I just wrote a movie. Say...this is easy.
Adam Tyner
She was the obligatory moron in the movie so they could clue in the viewer as
to what's going on without really cheesy exposition, like:
"Look Jo, a F-4! That means it must be 'eating', or destroying, quite a bit of
property!"
-Adam
In article <4n8p3t$t...@ralph.vnet.net>, al...@vnet.net says...
>
>Why was this character written into Twister. What a Joke.
>When she was on her cell phone during the twisters, I almost croaked.
>She did have nice breast though.
--
/----=========================================----\
Looking for He-Man, "Weird Al", Yoo-Hoo, and MST3K?
Then go to http://www.awod.com/gallery/rwav/ctyner/
cty...@awod.com O- MSTie #67,326
Adam Tyner
In article <4n8rpf$8...@mtinsc01-mgt.ops.worldnet.att.net>,
>Hey, I just wrote a movie. Say...this is easy.
Yeah, but do you have enough capital to get ILM to do the effects? :>
-Adam
Future
On 14 May 1996 01:54:05 GMT, Bricklayer <al...@vnet.net> wrote:
>Why was this character written into Twister. What a Joke.
>When she was on her cell phone during the twisters, I almost croaked.
I had to wonder about that cell phone - it looked like they were in
the middle of nowhere - I wonder which cellular carriers were
operating out there in Boondock, Oklahoma... :p'
>She did have nice breast though.
So you noticed her breasts in spite of all the hurricane special
effects.. they must have been REALLY nice (grin).
--
Who the heck is Janeane Garofalo? http://www.blarg.net/~future/garofalo.html
I'm a volunteer at the Win95 Help Site. Drop by if you need help with Win95.
http://www.isisnet.com/terrymo/index.html
Dan Day
cty...@awod.com (Adam Tyner) wrote:
>She was the obligatory moron in the movie so they could clue in the viewer as
>to what's going on without really cheesy exposition, like:
>"Look Jo, a F-4! That means it must be 'eating', or destroying, quite a bit of
>property!"
Exactly, and if that seems like a cheap plot device, I
challenge anyone to come up with something better. Writers
have been looking for other workable solutions for centuries,
and there aren't many good ones. Science fiction writers
face the same problem, wherein they often have to explain
an entirely new society/technology/whatever to the reader,
preferably without either having the characters blurt out
explanations of what to them is everyday life, as in your
example above, or stopping the story dead to have the narrator
pop in and start making like Marlin Perkins -- "The cheetah
is a fast animal..."
Sometimes you can make certain aspects obvious by just showing
them, but sometimes you can't, and you simply have to find
a way to work a few explanations into the story.
Ms. Gertz also serves as that other time-tested plot device,
the Audience Surrogate. It's one thing to watch daredevils
in action (or any cast in unusual circumstances) and think
to yourself, "boy, I'd be wetting my pants at that point".
There's even more impact in having an "ordinary person"
in the movie along for the ride, and having them do the
Ordinary Person's reaction ("oh my GOD!"). It's usually
more fun that way, as in a sense you're vicariously "in" the
movie, and the usual instinct of "I'd like to see what
Joe Average would have done in that situation" is satisfied.
And, it makes the activities of the daredevils more noticeable
by contrast -- we've come to see so many movie action characters
run towards danger without a second thought that we've become
somewhat blase -- showing them running forward while the Normal
Guy is running for his life reminds us that it takes a special
kind of person to run *towards* danger.
Before anyone tries to argue that the above plot devices are
cheap tricks used by lazy writers, think for a moment and you'll
see that they're quite common even in good movies -- Chief Brody
serves both functions in "Jaws", for example. There's an awful
lot of "let's explain this shark stuff to Brody" going on, and
he has a lot of the "we need a bigger boat" Average Guy reactions,
contrasted with Quint's and Hooper's more "I've seen sharks before"
attitudes.
In "Jurassic Park", Malcolm and the kids were the "please explain
this dinosaur stuff to me" roles, and the lawyer was usually the
Audience Surrogate part.
David Walton
>Before anyone tries to argue that the above plot devices are
>cheap tricks used by lazy writers, think for a moment and you'll
>see that they're quite common even in good movies -- Chief Brody
>serves both functions in "Jaws", for example. There's an awful
>lot of "let's explain this shark stuff to Brody" going on, and
>he has a lot of the "we need a bigger boat" Average Guy reactions,
>contrasted with Quint's and Hooper's more "I've seen sharks before"
>attitudes.
>In "Jurassic Park", Malcolm and the kids were the "please explain
>this dinosaur stuff to me" roles, and the lawyer was usually the
>Audience Surrogate part.
I have to disagree with this part of your post.
I would never compare the writing in "Jaws" to that in "Twister". While
they both use a simular device to convey information, "Jaws" does not bang
you over the head with the "tell me so the audience will know" syndrome.
Brody is the MAIN character of the story, not just some plot device to
convey information. From the begining of the shark attacks, Brody is
trying to learn about sharks just as he would try to learn about a felon
in NYC. While in "Twister", Gertz's character is so obviously placed in
the story to ask questions, she should be holding up cue cards for the
audience. And that's all I have to say about that.
David Walton
Mike D'Angelo
Dan Day (d...@firstnethou.com) wrote:
: cty...@awod.com (Adam Tyner) wrote:
: >She was the obligatory moron in the movie so they could clue in the
: >viewer as to what's going on without really cheesy exposition [...]
: Exactly, and if that seems like a cheap plot device, I challenge anyone
: to come up with something better.
I thought the writers of APOLLO 13 did an excellent job of making the
science relatively clear without the need for an outsider asking dumb
questions. In order to do this, of course, they had to cheat a bit; I
doubt that the real Gene Kranz spent much time drawing diagrams on
blackboards, for example. It's not terribly realistic, but it was written
so well and performed with such gusto that I didn't mind.
I wouldn't have minded the use of Melissa as an expository device so
much if they hadn't opted to make her so incredibly *stupid*. Not
ignorant, you understand, but downright brainless; she appeared to be
borderline retarded much of the time. (This may be due in part to the
casting of Ms. Gertz, who is perhaps the least appealing actor I have ever
seen; I freely admit that her presence in TWISTER went a long way toward
ruining the film for me. I was astonished to find that she actually has a
fan WWW page devoted to her. Chacun a son gout, I guess.) Have her make
reasonable but wrongheaded assumptions which Bill and Jo must correct, or
at the very least have her ask the necessary questions in a way that
doesn't make her sound brain-dead. She sounded like a six-year-old every
time she asked "Why?"
Mike "Because Daddy says so. Now run along and let Daddy work" D'Angelo
Tisch School of the Arts, NYU
http://pages.nyu.edu/~mqd8478
fetthead
>When she was on her cell phone during the twisters, I almost croaked.
Ha! I'm not the only one looking!! Naughty Naughty!
I noticed some nippular hardening action, did you?
FETTHEAD
Curt Siffert
>cty...@awod.com (Adam Tyner) wrote:
>
>>She was the obligatory moron in the movie so they could clue in the viewer as
>
>>"Look Jo, a F-4! That means it must be 'eating', or destroying, quite a bit of
>>property!"
To tell you the truth, I thought her "metaphor" line was the best part
of the whole movie. It took me a few seconds to stop laughing.
Curt
--
Curt Siffert, Network Administrator, Webmaster, Database Administrator
Composer, Pianist, Vocalist, Writer, Tibetan Monk (just kidding on that
last one). http://stripe.colorado.edu/~siffert/Home.html
Ookla the Mok
If your such a big fan answer me this. (and solve a bet between friends)
Has this actress (who peaked with Square Pegs) had a boob job, or what??
An expensive dinner rides on this.
Later...
--
"My only premise is that there are times when one must attack with
complete ruthlessness and fight with lethal fury. This fury and
ruthlessness must be harnessed and directed to the gravest possible
damage- to kill."
Andre-Christian Seguin
There is a lot of people who doesn't appreciate Jami Gertz's
performance in Twister.
Jami has not been working much lately. She's raising two young boys.
In fact, she had just given birth to her second son few months before
filming Twister las summer.
If you look in Jami's career, Twister is her only ACTION movie.
She's not used to do this kind of movie.
=======> Who am-I ?
Well, I'm her biggest fan and I'm the one has a WWW page
devoted to her.
=======> Why do I protect her ?
When people say that she is the "the obligatory moron in the movie" ,
or saying that she is "stupid", "brainless" or "retarded",
I don't accept that.
=======> Can you do better?
=======> Are you tornado-fearless?
Jan De Bont personaly requested Jami for the role two weeks after
she gave birth to her second son. She also did her own driving
(when the yellow Jeep fall in front of the Red Dodge truck).
I think she did a marvelous job here.
I'd really like to see you give birth and then try to avoid a falling truck.
Also I'd like to see your face after been hit by a tornado.
I've never been hit by a tornado or trying to dodge falling trucks
but I think that I will be much more traumatized than Melissa.
This is a movie folks! It is supposed to be entertaining.
If the movie didn't work for you. It's not my fault.
I saw the movie four times. And I'll see it again and again.
I don mind that people are expressing themselves,
BUT insulting an actor because of his or her part,
that is a line that doesn't have to be crossed.
If you had seen and read how it was to shoot that movie,
you'll probably raise your hat the the actors, not insulting them!
I'll be polite here, I won't write to who I'm writing these comments.
You'll probably regognize your insults!!
And finaly, someone (I'm not mentionning who) wrote:
>She sounded like a six-year-old everytime she asked "Why?"
Do you have a better voice than hers ?
Acey.
Drew
Adam Tyner (cty...@awod.com) wrote:
: She was the obligatory moron in the movie so they could clue in the viewer as
: "Look Jo, a F-4! That means it must be 'eating', or destroying, quite a bit of
: property!"
True, though imho she was the only character in the movie with an ounce
of common sense, in that she found a good opportunity to LEAVE and took
it.
Drew
--
If it smells, it's biology. "We're Starfleet officers. 'Weird'
If it blows up, it's chemistry. is part of the job."
If it doesn't work, it's PHYSICS! -Capt. Kathryn Janeway
http://www.unc.edu/~drewg
M.A.Yates
In article <4n8rpf$8...@mtinsc01-mgt.ops.worldnet.att.net>,
eric....@worldnet.att.net (Eric Hansen) wrote:
>In article <4n8p3t$t...@ralph.vnet.net>, Bricklayer <al...@vnet.net> wrote:
>>When she was on her cell phone during the twisters, I almost croaked.
>>She did have nice breast though.
>
>never occured to me that he was talking about those twin tornadoes.
>
>Actually, she was written into the movie to be stupid. That way, the
>characters could explain stuff to her so that we the equally-stupid audience
>could understand some of the lingo.
>
>I knew she was history from the start, however I didn't think she would be
>written out so fast.
>
>This is extremely common in movies: Character A leaves ideal Character B for
>incredibly bad Character C. Character C always has some horrible flaw that
>makes Character A say "what was I thinking", dump Character C, and return to
>Character B, much to the delight of the audience.
>
HEARD OF THE WORD "SPOILER" !!!
IGNORANT FOOL!
ARGH !!! :-(
M T Fish
In article <aceysoft-180...@serial25.vli.ca>, acey...@vli.ca
(Andre-Christian Seguin) writes:
>
>If you had seen and read how it was to shoot that movie,
>you'll probably raise your hat the the actors, not insulting them!
>
>
"????????????????????"
-Milo the Talking Fish,
Grand Rapids, MI USA
-----
Pooh: "Eeyore...would you mind not turning 'round like that? It muddles
me, rather."
Eeyore: "I like turnin'. 'Specially 'round."
Mike D'Angelo
Andre-Christian Seguin (acey...@vli.ca) wrote:
: When people say that she is the "the obligatory moron in the movie" ,
: or saying that she is "stupid", "brainless" or "retarded", I don't
: accept that.
:
: =======> Can you do better?
: =======> Are you tornado-fearless?
"Stupid" and "frightened" are two different things. I hated both Gertz
and her character, but not because she was scared of the tornadoes; it was
Melissa's moronic questions, and especially the particularly moronic way
in which she asked them, that I found annoying.
As for "can you do better?" -- this is a distressingly common response to
criticism, and a rather pointless one. You don't need to be able to cook
a better steak in order to justifiably complain about the one you're
eating; you only need to have tasted one. Maybe I couldn't do a better
job than Gertz (actually, I think that I could, but skip it), but I've
seen hundreds of actors who I think would have been able to make something
more of this admittedly insipid role.
: I'd really like to see you give birth and then try to avoid a falling
: truck.
Mike "I'll get back to you" D'Angelo
Michael Hanna
Mike D'Angelo (mqd...@is2.nyu.edu) wrote:
: Andre-Christian Seguin (acey...@vli.ca) wrote:
I personally think that you are being too hard on her. I think the mark
of a good actor is that you don't become aware that they are acting. And
with her role I was rarely conscious that she was playing a part. As for
the other roles, I can't really say much;they were acceptable, but barely.
"Twister" was good in the special effects dept. but beyond that I'd have
to say that it was too predictable in the typical Hollywood fashion.
Michael
--
M i c h a e l H a n n a
z...@freenet.hamilton.on.ca
http://www.freenet.hamilton.on.ca/~ad255/Profile.html
http://www2.apple.com/whymac/
P a i n i s L o v e n o t g i v e n a w a y