Awfull Movie - Pandaemonium (2001) Discussion

Perhaps you would be better suited to something with explosions and flashing colors?

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[–] Deschanel 19 years ago

Not at all.

I just prefer my films to be much less tedious than this.

Pandaemonium doesn't have explosions or bright colours - that is true.

It also doesn't have a plot that remotely interesting or characters that you want to watch for 90 minutes.

Linus Roache should have been sat on fire and buried arrive for his performance in this constantly awful film.

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[–] ilovemyshotgun 19 years ago

That, at least, is true.

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[–] lestatelives 19 years ago

I thought this movie was wonderful. I am a Coleridge fan (that is one of my screen names btw)and even though this film isn't exactly "historical" in regards to Wordsworth and Coleridge's friendship it was still facinating. With the voice overs of Coleridge verse and the modern elements this fime was stylish and anything but conventional. I was completly drawn into Coleridge's world and ideas, but like I said I read his and Wordsworth's poetry...have you ever read them? Try it sometime and you will prob. understand this movie better.

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[–] treednls 16 years ago

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/wordswor.htm

Wordsworth was appointed official distributor of stamps for Westmoreland. From the age of 50 his creative began to decline, but tree female assistants took care of him, and filled his life with admiration. Wordsworth abandoned his radical faith and became a patriotic, conservative public man. In 1843 he succeeded Robert Southgey (1774-1843) as England's poet laureate. Wordsworth died on April 23, 1850. The second generation of Romantics, Byron and Shelley, considered him 'dull.' Later the philosopher Bertrand Russell summed up the poet's career: "In his youth Wordsworth sympathized with the French Revolution, went to France, wrote good poetry, and had a natural daughter. At this period he was called a 'bad' man. Then he became 'good,' abandoned his daughter, adopted correct principles, and wrote bad poetry."

- If that's who he was (and I would argue with Bertrand Russell? yeah, right.), I'm more than just a little happy Temple lampooned the *beep* out of him.

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[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] larrydmgreen 16 years ago

how can a poem about a sex dream make you cry?

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[–] kate_halprin 19 years ago

You're kidding. This is an appalling film but it is compulsively watchable and laugh-out-loud funny, which is more than can be said for most bad films.

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[–] sonicdeath10 19 years ago

I love Coleridge and Wordsworth and I found this an absolutely appaling "film". First of all, Doroth Wordsworth did go crazy at the end of her life: but not from opium, and she was intellgible, not at all like in this movie. And Wordsworth was named poet laureate, the idea that he wasn't is ridiculous: this was a movie done by a huge Coleridge fan, as nobody comes off looking good but him. Wordsworth is portrayed as stodgy, conservative, and in the end cruel. This is ridiculous. Coleride and Wordsworth did break off their friendship for a period, only to become friends again later. Even if it's not a direct biography, and some dramatic license was taken with their lives, it's absolutely horrible movie: the imagery is idiotic and hit you over the head obvious. Do not rent, do not buy, do not watch.

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[–] brian_james-1 19 years ago

Wordsworth was the laureate after Southey, so his losing to Southey makes sense.

I agree he was unfairly portrayed in this movie. He had all the depth of a Disney villain, which is silly. He had some counter-liberal ideas (read his "Ode to Duty"), but making him therefore "evil" is silly.

Kubla Khan is an alright poem, but that's no reason to downplay the value of Wordsworth's criticism of much of Coleridge's verse.

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[–] ellextreme 17 years ago

Brian_James-1

- Sure hope you get notifications from IMDB because I am replying to your post of 05/29/05 (long time back!). I just watched this film tonight for the first time, hence my reply being late to your older post.

What a trip - I completely agree with your vision of Wordsworth being unfairly portrayed in this movie. The reason I'm writing this on the board and to you is because I actually thought John Hannah (in portrayal of Wordsworth) looked a lot like and reminded me of the bad guy in "Beauty and the Beast" - the actual Disney cartoon... LMAO!

Although I agree with the plot synopsis of most here - I did enjoy the beautiful scenery / countryside. Other than that - this movie was pretty awful. :o)

"Speak softly, and carry a big stick." Teddy Roosevelt

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[–] jouler500-art 16 years ago

Just stopped trying to watch this thing! Normally I enjoy John Hannah but the film is just another deconstruction job. Must we continue to interject modern ideas and sensibilities into every period of history and rewrite it in our own image? A bust!

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[–] rakista 10 years ago

This movie was not a documentary, your points are absurd.

The movie is lush with visual and auditory treats, along with some bizarre personalities to liven things up.

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[–] Owlwise 10 years ago

rakista, you seem to be one of the few in this thread to get it. Indeed, the movie isn't a documentary, but a poetic interpolation of the lives -- and more importantly, the worldviews -- of the two poets. As one reviewer once said, Coleridge is the hippie, Wordsworth is the yuppie. Just as the Romantic poets themselves used myth, legend, and history to their own very personal ends, rewriting them as expressions of their own vision, so too does this film take the basic material of the poets' lives & build a work of art that comments on the present as much as the past. Hence the jet planes, the modern structures in the background, the sounds of cellphones mingling with the period noise. The movie itself is Poetry, not biopic Prose, and is to be experienced on the symbolic level, not the literal.

In short, it's not merely a film about the Romantics, it is itself an embodiment & expression of the Romantic sensibility & worldview.

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[–] AssetsonFire 8 years ago

The fact that you're complaining about the absence of events that took place decades after the film ended doesn't exactly lend your criticisms much credibility.

~.~
There were three of us in this marriage
http://www.imdb.com/list/ze4EduNaQ-s/

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[–] beth563 16 years ago

Oh, bite me. How can it be boring? Even if you don't like the poetry, the cinematography is astounding. Or are you one of those people whose favorite movies are things like "Scream" and "American Pie"?

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[–] Doje 15 years ago

The cinematography? It looked like a TV costume drama and nothing more. I don't know what the budget for this was but there were quite a lot of low production values, like the camera merely turning upside down to convey the sense that they were high, and the baby stopping crying at the point where the shot changes

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[–] on3gin 14 years ago

This movie could have been 15 or 20 minutes shorter if the characters had worn their names on signs around their necks. "I say, here is my good friend George Gordon, Lord Byron, and just behind him is William Wordsworth, soon to be Poet Laureate, and his sister Dorothy, and unless I'm very much mistaken that is Sir Humphrey Davy flying around in his balloon. Look out, Humphrey, there's a jet plane flying around up there, even if it is only 1798. An hour into this silly dreary movie I groaned, "Why am I watching this silly talk fest!" and turned it off.

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