edit: And I just saw the cast list for Django. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Christopher Waltz and Kurt Russell oh man oh man oh man.
I read the script for it a while back. Tarantino cast Waltz and Jackson in the roles I pictured them in while I read, so I'm very happy about that.
On the other hand, I am very unhappy with the casting of Foxx.
On the other hand, there's so many others around him, I think it'll come out well.
RZA might be in this? I wonder how Samuel L Jsackson will feel about that. Once refused a movie because 50 Cent signed onto it. Dude does not seem to be a fan of musicians becoming actors. Then again, RZA and Tarantino are allegedly good friends. Hmm.
What I never cared for about Cloverfield was how clingy the protagonist was. It never felt like they loved each other, he loved her. And that he was going to save her so I guess she'd stay with him for a bit after they got out alive out of pity and thanks for saving her.
and then they get nuked and he keeps telling her he loves her as though he's some obsessed stalker
I don't know, that was the one thing that kept drawing me out of the movie. Not the shaky cam stuff, or the guinea pig startles.
Just came across this on Youtube. It's an outstanding and hilarious summary of my all-time favorite Godzilla movie. By the Angry Video Game Nerd, of all people!
It's just all kind of filtered through the lens of this sweet-natured sort of Jules Verne petit-bourgeois optimism and sentimentality.
Yeah. Except for Wolff, the astronaut/scientist who sacrifices himself(they were running out of oxygen) by opening the airlock and floating into space. That sort of harsh reality really disturbed me as a child. It's probably because as you said, there's a common optimistic lighthearted tone, so when events like that occur it's fairly jarring(in a good way).
Just came across this on Youtube. It's an outstanding and hilarious summary of my all-time favorite Godzilla movie. By the Angry Video Game Nerd, of all people!
Godzilla vs King Ghidorah is probably my favorite Heisei series movie, and the scene with Shindo and Godzilla is likely the best moment in the entire franchise.
BTW, I just started a Godzilla thread for anyone who cares.
god... Dragon Wars... It's like taking three bad movies and stapling them together with power ranger clips.
You'd think that would at least be funny bad, but no such luck.
I did admittedly like the half-second shot of the serpentine dragon slithering at a blistering pace down a city street, knocking exploding cars out of its path.
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
Disappointed that Django Unchained isn't a sequel to the mediocre Sukiyaki Western Django. The gimmick would be that instead of casting only Japanese actors and forcing them to speak English dialogue without actually knowing any English, he'd hire only Western actors and force them to speak Japanese without knowing any Japanese.
It's part of the long standing tradition of Django films that are only barely or not at all related to the original film.
I don't know, Cera seems like a charming guy in real life so I can imagine him being able to bag some pretty hot women.
Not with that body, no. Women as hot as Dennings or Winstead don't usually go for men smaller than them. Unless there's hot hipster girls who date based on irony or something.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I don't know, Cera seems like a charming guy in real life so I can imagine him being able to bag some pretty hot women.
Not with that body, no. Women as hot as Dennings or Winstead don't usually go for men smaller than them. Unless there's hot hipster girls who date based on irony or something.
Anecdotal data:
One of the hottest girls in my high school had this very peculiar habit of exclusively dating the oddest guys. Not "mysterious bad boy" odd, but "captain of the chess club/drum major/lingually-challenged exchange student" odd. And then years later, she became obsessed with dating the popular jocks and homecoming kings, despite the fact she had already graduated years before, meaning she was dating 17 year olds when she was 21.
So I just watched Ridley Scott's Alien for the first time. I'd never seen it before because I've never been too interested in horror/monster/action movies, but I realized that maybe I'd miscategorized it mentally. It's Ridley Scott sci-fi, considered a classic, and also the coming Prometheus made me curious about it. So I watched it, and man, what a waste of a movie. I say waste because the art design, directing, cinematography, and acting are all fantastic. But it's just a shitty monster movie complete with all the shitty monster movie tropes. I mean, I gather that maybe that was the point - to take the shitty monster movie formula and try to make everything around it as high quality as possible. Which I guess was a great success, but to me it sort of seems like setting out to deliberately make a cake that tastes awful, except hire a world-class cake decorator to make it beautiful.
You say everything about it is fantastic, but that it's a terrible monster movie. Do you think it's possible to make a good monster movie?
I didn't say everything about the movie is fantastic. I'm saying everything around the shitty monster movie core is fantastic.
Do I think it's possible to make a good monster movie? I have to imagine that it is. I mean, this could have been it if they didn't for some reason insist on having the characters do all the stupid braindead things characters always do in shitty monster movies.
Now, Dallas just turns around and what happens? The Alien just stretches out its arms and holds them there, like it's saying "Boo!" That's it, it just holds its arms out as if preparing to give him a hug. It looks ridiculous and really turned me off. If an alien is scampering around in the air duct and hunting Dallas, wouldn't it actually leap or lunge at him? Instead, it just holds out its arms and looks at him. I don't get it, how is this any good? I mean, it just feels like the sort of thing you'd see in a haunted house, where things jump out at you to scare you, but without any intention of actually harming you. They just jump out and scream Boo and you're supposed to scream in terror. It sure is strange of an alien to stick out its arms as if trying to receive the blessing of Jesus Christ or something.
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
Thanks to American Dad, every time I see a flamethrower I think of the Ace of Base's "the sign"
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
Also, consider that many of the tropes didn't exist when Alien was made.
That's not really true, and some critics bashed it when it came out for being a 'monster movie', or a 'body count' movie, using some of the same points This just made.
I could see how those aspects would look even worse now, though, which is of course a shame.
Grislo on
This post was sponsored by Tom Cruise.
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
All this Alien talk recently made me look up Alien 3, and how the original idea for Alien 3 & 4 was so much better than what we got. The idea of making Hicks the main character for 3 to establish a military vs. W-Y battle would have worked a lot better than what we got, which was religious zealots copying the first movie.
I hadn't heard about the Hicks being the main character for 3 idea. What I'd read was that the religious zealots idea came from this earlier script where there were a bunch of monks living on a planet or space station made completely out of wood. Which sounds absolutely crazy.
All this Alien talk recently made me look up Alien 3, and how the original idea for Alien 3 & 4 was so much better than what we got. The idea of making Hicks the main character for 3 to establish a military vs. W-Y battle would have worked a lot better than what we got, which was religious zealots copying the first movie.
If you've got the Anthology you should watch all the bonus features about 3, it's really interesting. Michael Biehn basically sued the studio for killing off his character in the first few minutes and they had to pay him off AND change the script. They interview him and a ton of other people involved in the making of it.
Also the idea of the "wooden planet" was pretty awesome, where it was just inhabited by these strange monks who shunned Earth to settle this planet and live like simple farmers. I still like Alien3 for what it is but the ideas that went into it were sadly tossed when the suits got involved and turned it into their tentpole film of the summer. It's cool to watch those interviews with the people involved now 20+ years later and see how disappointed they still are that the film they wanted to make never got made.
Dunno why, but I never minded Newt and Hicks dying in between movies. Probably because I enjoyed Aliens for its action, but I wasn't the biggest fan of its larger-than-life '80s action heroes. Yes, the film kicks ass, but in the long run I prefer the more 'real' characters of Alien and Alien 3. And Newt did a good enough job, but she still got on my nerves half the time.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
How were the cast in Alien braindead? It's a ludicrous complaint. Faced with a virtually invincible killing machine, the drew of scientists and truckers were almost all killed. They weren't killed because they were morons, they were killed because the alien was incredibly good at killing people and changed shape from a tiny thing to a massive monster without them realising.
It's a great monster movie.
EDIT: I think it's also one of those movies whereby I judge people's taste to be lacking if they don't like it (Aliens too). Like Midnight Run, or Miller's Crossing, or Die Hard: if you don't like them, I will probably stop listening to you.
How were the cast in Alien braindead? It's a ludicrous complaint. Faced with a virtually invincible killing machine, the drew of scientists and truckers were almost all killed. They weren't killed because they were morons, they were killed because the alien was incredibly good at killing people and changed shape from a tiny thing to a massive monster without them realising.
It's a great monster movie.
EDIT: I think it's also one of those movies whereby I judge people's taste to be lacking if they don't like it (Aliens too). Like Midnight Run, or Miller's Crossing, or Die Hard: if you don't like them, I will probably stop listening to you.
Actually... they were morons. Just think back to its final two kills, the black guy and the girl with the bad haircut. The black guy's got his flamethrower, but doesn't use it on the Alien cause the girl's right next to it. That's just moronic. It's a fight to stay alive, I'd have used that flamethrower the moment I saw the alien. Instead, he runs in, gets the flamethrower knocked out of his hands, and gets killed. It's really, really moronic. I don't care if that girl was a hot piece of ass (which she wasn't), I'm using that flamethrower. No ifs, ands, or buts. That alien's already killed off half the crew. Sorry if that chick gets burned, but it's for the greater good.
Of course, the problem with the finale of the film is that the alien is the one who ends up being a complete moron. Here we've established that the alien is "the perfect organism" and incredibly good at killing people and being fast and everything, and what happens? It somehow starts moving incredibly slowly in this tight, confined space with Ripley, who's only armed with a small hook gun, and somehow gets its ass kicked. What changed? Why is this alien suddenly incredibly bad at killing people now? It makes no sense.
Also, the gratuitous shots of Ripley in her freaking panties were just embarrassing. They were incredibly distracting and unnecessary. Here Scott's been building up all this tension and suspense and now... all of a sudden, he what... wants us to pull our pants down and start jerking it? Unbelievable. I'm no prude, but this just felt cheap and exploitative.
How were the cast in Alien braindead? It's a ludicrous complaint. Faced with a virtually invincible killing machine, the drew of scientists and truckers were almost all killed. They weren't killed because they were morons, they were killed because the alien was incredibly good at killing people and changed shape from a tiny thing to a massive monster without them realising.
It's a great monster movie.
EDIT: I think it's also one of those movies whereby I judge people's taste to be lacking if they don't like it (Aliens too). Like Midnight Run, or Miller's Crossing, or Die Hard: if you don't like them, I will probably stop listening to you.
I had to explain to about 20 of my students one day that, yes, Die Hard is a Very Good movie. Was a little dismayed that none of them had seen it. Will try not to let it affect their grades.
While I think Alien is fantastic, I can sympathise with the slight disappointment. I felt the same way about Aliens. Hearing it lauded as a tense and exciting action film and feeling let down because it was "just a Nam movie". It's not an entirely fair criticism (as is reducing Alien to "just a monster movie"), but it does somewhat describe how the reputation of a movie can sometimes lead to people expecting something more and "deeper" than what they get.
I quite enjoy Aliens, but Alien is still by far my favourite. Not least of all, because while it does have the basic trappings of a "monster movie", I feel it becomes much more when you sit down to watch it. I'd wager many people feel similarly about Aliens.
AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
Got a chanice to see The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo today, and I really don't have much too offer on criticism that hasn't already been said tenfold over about this film. It's a well-acted, well-shot, moody piece of overlong fluff that isn't interesting in the slightest and which has a plot less novel or salacious than your average Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode.
The contrivances and happenstance that the film depends on border on ludicrous. Yet another sterile and empty flick from David Fincher. He's on notice with me.
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VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
what exactly is the list of sterile and empty flicks from Fincher?
I caught Sherlock 2 this weekend. I thought it was fun but not quite as good as the first. Was going to see Dragon Tattoo yesterday but at the last minute decided to wait, probably for video.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I've only seen two of those but I either disagree or I like sterile and empty
since I'm not sure which it is it's fine if you don't respond :P
I would argue that at times, "Sterile" has its place. It works well in spacey, esoteric films like 2001 and Solaris, or anytime you're trying to show an objective POV in a narrative. Fincher isn't always sterile, and I'd use Fight Club or Benjamin Button as an example of his characters projecting warmth or being engaging and giving the audience an outright protagonist to root for.
"Empty," however, has no place I feel, and Fincher has hit that note enough times already that I feel that it may not be somehow purposeful.
While I think Alien is fantastic, I can sympathise with the slight disappointment. I felt the same way about Aliens. Hearing it lauded as a tense and exciting action film and feeling let down because it was "just a Nam movie". It's not an entirely fair criticism (as is reducing Alien to "just a monster movie"), but it does somewhat describe how the reputation of a movie can sometimes lead to people expecting something more and "deeper" than what they get.
I quite enjoy Aliens, but Alien is still by far my favourite. Not least of all, because while it does have the basic trappings of a "monster movie", I feel it becomes much more when you sit down to watch it. I'd wager many people feel similarly about Aliens.
I feel the same way. Aliens was certainly fun to watch, but having first watched it well after it came out (and after playing Starcraft) it wasn't the masterpiece I expected.
I refuse to watch Firefly for that exact reason. It's basically impossible for me not to be disappointed. I certainly was by Serenity.
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
I'd heard great things about Zodiac and finally watched it recently. Don't know why but it just didn't grab me.
Man Social Network and Zodiac made me put Fincher on a pedastal next to Kurosawa and Nolan. The guy has one of the most unique styles I've seen, and is the only director I know of besides Lynch to use the length of a movie as a storytelling device. If you watched Zodiac and feel drained, its because that's how every character in the film feels. Obsession has no payoff, and neither does the film. Brilliant!
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On the other hand, there's so many others around him, I think it'll come out well.
RZA might be in this? I wonder how Samuel L Jsackson will feel about that. Once refused a movie because 50 Cent signed onto it. Dude does not seem to be a fan of musicians becoming actors. Then again, RZA and Tarantino are allegedly good friends. Hmm.
I always thought that was the point personally.
Godzilla vs King Ghidorah is probably my favorite Heisei series movie, and the scene with Shindo and Godzilla is likely the best moment in the entire franchise.
BTW, I just started a Godzilla thread for anyone who cares.
I did admittedly like the half-second shot of the serpentine dragon slithering at a blistering pace down a city street, knocking exploding cars out of its path.
It's part of the long standing tradition of Django films that are only barely or not at all related to the original film.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
Not with that body, no. Women as hot as Dennings or Winstead don't usually go for men smaller than them. Unless there's hot hipster girls who date based on irony or something.
Anecdotal data:
One of the hottest girls in my high school had this very peculiar habit of exclusively dating the oddest guys. Not "mysterious bad boy" odd, but "captain of the chess club/drum major/lingually-challenged exchange student" odd. And then years later, she became obsessed with dating the popular jocks and homecoming kings, despite the fact she had already graduated years before, meaning she was dating 17 year olds when she was 21.
She was a strange girl.
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I didn't say everything about the movie is fantastic. I'm saying everything around the shitty monster movie core is fantastic.
Do I think it's possible to make a good monster movie? I have to imagine that it is. I mean, this could have been it if they didn't for some reason insist on having the characters do all the stupid braindead things characters always do in shitty monster movies.
Now, Dallas just turns around and what happens? The Alien just stretches out its arms and holds them there, like it's saying "Boo!" That's it, it just holds its arms out as if preparing to give him a hug. It looks ridiculous and really turned me off. If an alien is scampering around in the air duct and hunting Dallas, wouldn't it actually leap or lunge at him? Instead, it just holds out its arms and looks at him. I don't get it, how is this any good? I mean, it just feels like the sort of thing you'd see in a haunted house, where things jump out at you to scare you, but without any intention of actually harming you. They just jump out and scream Boo and you're supposed to scream in terror. It sure is strange of an alien to stick out its arms as if trying to receive the blessing of Jesus Christ or something.
Yeah, it's kinda like ragging on The Matrix for using the played-out trope of Bullet Time.
That's not really true, and some critics bashed it when it came out for being a 'monster movie', or a 'body count' movie, using some of the same points This just made.
I could see how those aspects would look even worse now, though, which is of course a shame.
If you've got the Anthology you should watch all the bonus features about 3, it's really interesting. Michael Biehn basically sued the studio for killing off his character in the first few minutes and they had to pay him off AND change the script. They interview him and a ton of other people involved in the making of it.
Also the idea of the "wooden planet" was pretty awesome, where it was just inhabited by these strange monks who shunned Earth to settle this planet and live like simple farmers. I still like Alien3 for what it is but the ideas that went into it were sadly tossed when the suits got involved and turned it into their tentpole film of the summer. It's cool to watch those interviews with the people involved now 20+ years later and see how disappointed they still are that the film they wanted to make never got made.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
It's a great monster movie.
EDIT: I think it's also one of those movies whereby I judge people's taste to be lacking if they don't like it (Aliens too). Like Midnight Run, or Miller's Crossing, or Die Hard: if you don't like them, I will probably stop listening to you.
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YES! Nothing like melancholy 90s pop music.
Actually... they were morons. Just think back to its final two kills, the black guy and the girl with the bad haircut. The black guy's got his flamethrower, but doesn't use it on the Alien cause the girl's right next to it. That's just moronic. It's a fight to stay alive, I'd have used that flamethrower the moment I saw the alien. Instead, he runs in, gets the flamethrower knocked out of his hands, and gets killed. It's really, really moronic. I don't care if that girl was a hot piece of ass (which she wasn't), I'm using that flamethrower. No ifs, ands, or buts. That alien's already killed off half the crew. Sorry if that chick gets burned, but it's for the greater good.
Of course, the problem with the finale of the film is that the alien is the one who ends up being a complete moron. Here we've established that the alien is "the perfect organism" and incredibly good at killing people and being fast and everything, and what happens? It somehow starts moving incredibly slowly in this tight, confined space with Ripley, who's only armed with a small hook gun, and somehow gets its ass kicked. What changed? Why is this alien suddenly incredibly bad at killing people now? It makes no sense.
Also, the gratuitous shots of Ripley in her freaking panties were just embarrassing. They were incredibly distracting and unnecessary. Here Scott's been building up all this tension and suspense and now... all of a sudden, he what... wants us to pull our pants down and start jerking it? Unbelievable. I'm no prude, but this just felt cheap and exploitative.
I had to explain to about 20 of my students one day that, yes, Die Hard is a Very Good movie. Was a little dismayed that none of them had seen it. Will try not to let it affect their grades.
I quite enjoy Aliens, but Alien is still by far my favourite. Not least of all, because while it does have the basic trappings of a "monster movie", I feel it becomes much more when you sit down to watch it. I'd wager many people feel similarly about Aliens.
The contrivances and happenstance that the film depends on border on ludicrous. Yet another sterile and empty flick from David Fincher. He's on notice with me.
Sterile and/or empty films by Fincher:
- Alien 3
- Zodiac
- Panic Room
- Benjamin Button
- The Social Network
since I'm not sure which it is it's fine if you don't respond :P
I would argue that at times, "Sterile" has its place. It works well in spacey, esoteric films like 2001 and Solaris, or anytime you're trying to show an objective POV in a narrative. Fincher isn't always sterile, and I'd use Fight Club or Benjamin Button as an example of his characters projecting warmth or being engaging and giving the audience an outright protagonist to root for.
"Empty," however, has no place I feel, and Fincher has hit that note enough times already that I feel that it may not be somehow purposeful.
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I feel the same way. Aliens was certainly fun to watch, but having first watched it well after it came out (and after playing Starcraft) it wasn't the masterpiece I expected.
I refuse to watch Firefly for that exact reason. It's basically impossible for me not to be disappointed. I certainly was by Serenity.
Yeah, kinda the same way here. It's obviously well-crafted, but it left me cold and disengaged.
It's kind of like a large and intricate wood carving that could only be made by a master, but ultimately leaves my mind the minute I turn away.
Bogey, tell me why you love it so. You're not the first I've heard say this, but I just don't get it. What am I missing?