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The [movie] Thread: 100 Pages of Summer
TexiKen
Dammit!That fish really got me!Registered User regular
Dammit!That fish really got me!Registered User regular
Just in time for the summer movie season, we say bye-di-bye to the old movie thread:
Instead, celebrate this new thread, full of life, cliches, and Prometheus talk.
Remember, great movie threads are born from great opportunity:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdmyoMe4iHM
And who you choose to be around you let's you know who you are:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3mFHHZ4CQ4
We're not goons, we're not bullies. No matter what other threads may say or do, we have to be ourselves. We're Team Movie Thread, gathered from all across America The World. And we're gonna stick together, because you know why? We're Ducks. And Ducks Fly Together
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyVF1glhAfk
Even if other threads beat us 99 times out of 100, that still leaves one time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khauvdb_f8A
Let's fight our way out of hell, claw our way back to the light:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSDhhZtRwFU
And give this thread the best of ya, you hear me clear enough?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27D4k3dCXPg
Instead, celebrate this new thread, full of life, cliches, and Prometheus talk.
Remember, great movie threads are born from great opportunity:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdmyoMe4iHMAnd who you choose to be around you let's you know who you are:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3mFHHZ4CQ4We're not goons, we're not bullies. No matter what other threads may say or do, we have to be ourselves. We're Team Movie Thread, gathered from all across America The World. And we're gonna stick together, because you know why? We're Ducks. And Ducks Fly Together
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyVF1glhAfkEven if other threads beat us 99 times out of 100, that still leaves one time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khauvdb_f8ALet's fight our way out of hell, claw our way back to the light:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSDhhZtRwFUAnd give this thread the best of ya, you hear me clear enough?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27D4k3dCXPgIrond Will on
+5
This discussion has been closed.
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Even without knowing the real story this was based on which is really not cool, it just falls flat in a lot of places. Eisenberg is fine but Ansari is trying way too hard and like his comedy is just him having a weird look and just talking loud and acting frail, and McBride and Swardson are just kind of there to laugh at for being one step up from rednecks. There's quite a few bits of the film where they let the comedians do ad lib and it is bad, like those were the A-cuts for the film? Michael Pena was the surprise of the film, he's much better here than he was in Observe & Report and made a memorable thug.
It really says something when the film ends like it did where it just doesn't give any real catharsis to the events as though they just went "yeah, we're done filming, wrap it up."
Snyder... I'm sorry, you have some sparks of talent and MoS wasn't terrible (damning with faint praise), but you've whiffed too often too recently for me to get excited over this. If this was 2006 and you were fresh off Dawn of the Dead and 300 back-to-back I might be looking forward to this, but now I'm just resigned to the inevitable sound and fury, signifying nothing.
It's so close to being good, but its subtly ends up making it half-formed. It's in this really weird place where it needs to be surprising, but there's no way anyone would see it without having the surprises spoiled.
Only after watching it did I find out it's based on a book. I am certain that I would have enjoyed that book, if I had read it without complete foreknowledge of the premise and the "twists," but now I'm not sure I could enjoy it at all. Which is unfortunate.
Still, I don't regret watching it, and I realize that Garfield can be a decent actor. Amazing Spider-Man is still dumb, though.
(Every time I see a sci-fi or concept movie with a twist given away in the marketing I'm reminded that I somehow managed to see 28 Days Later without knowing a single thing about the movie. Not what it was about, not who was in it, not who directed it. Nothing. That was an amazing experience that I'm sure I will never have again.)
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I'd have to go with Unbreakable as the best superhero origin film we've gotten to date. Chronicle is a good choice though.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
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I also thought the ending where
Now understand me when I say that I am not opposed to Superman killing Zod at this point in time. Its just that it was presented as Superman not having any choice. If they had presented it as Superman understanding that Zod is going to continue being a murderous dick and then have Superman decide to kill him deliberately.
I think Chronicle is the better movie because it's just a great movie without the superhero bit. The writing of the teen characters is so damn good it doesn't matter what the genre or rest of the thing is. That's what makes it basically a perfect use of the "superhero as metaphor for real life problems" thing. All the story beats are perfect for a non-superpower movie and written really well and so the fact that it also involves superpowers feels like a natural extension of the story without the feeling that they just exist to justify big action pieces.
Unbreakable feels like the best movie that slowly morphs into a superhero movie, but it so often feels like it exists solely for that reveal.
What you will get is the best possible trailers for each film. He is like the modern day siren luring unsuspected men, woman and children with beautifully constructed trailers.
Dunno about movies, but in comics, Gotham Central is a great "These heroes and villains are so much larger and more powerful than us, why can't we just go about our day?" And, for all its Garth Ennis-ness, The Boys deals explicitly with the destructiveness of superheroics--it opens with the main character's girlfriend getting innocent bystander'd by a superhero during a fight, and he then goes on to join a crew of people dedicated to killing the world's arrogant, reckless, overpowered jerks.
Well, it's M Night, so it probably does. :P
Once Zod has shown he's perfectly capable of heatvisioning everyone, Superman's hand is forced.
Also, the buildings wouldn't be packed. Given the city has been half-flattened by the Worldthingy Machine, evacuation - even once the machine is destroyed, since nearby buildings' structural integrity need to be checked - would have been going on for hours.
The World's End is perhaps the cleverest of the three and the one that is most thematically ambitious, but while I appreciated this I felt that the film relied to a large extent on the viewer being able to identify with the characters. Since I was never a Jack the Lad like Gary and his mates, I didn't particularly care about Gary's arrested development nor about his former mates' different degrees of midlife crises. If there was a character I could identify with, it was Rosamund Pike's, and she was underwritten at the best of times. I also felt that while the action scenes were well directed, after the first one or two they didn't really offer anything particularly new, so I got bored with them.
I like the ambivalent ending and how it questions the whole "We're human and that means we're entitled to the freedom of fucking up!" bit, but going forward I hope that Frost, Pegg and Frost do something different next, rather than sticking with the template. At this rate I think I'd just give another film in the same vein a miss.
Anyway, the best these guys have done is still the entirety of Spaced, which absolutely rules.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
That, plus:
I think they were trying a thematic thing with Zod but it wasn't portrayed very well.
However this is largely headcanon and poorly portrayed in the movie.
Except, you know, all of everything Zod has been saying to superman, and the vision of the mountains of skulls and promise of extinction. At least he didn't rely on cat woman showing up and shooting Zod to get him out of a sticky moral situation with no repercussions...
Also the city would have been empty, or evacuating, at least large buildings, since there has been a giant machine destroying most of it for hours, and a military operation is underway to stop it, so they would be at least trying to evacuate civilians. Either way, there has been a giant machine destroying the city!
Theres a lot wrong with man of steel, but I've always found the collateral damage argument dumb. The first thing superman is shown doing is protecting his mum, then soldiers, he's specifically shown rescuing them. The stakes were apocalyptic, the bad guy explicit in his intent on murdering every human on the planet, as a goal, And what, superman is supposed to ask Zod if he'd like to move the life or death fight to a depopulated area?
Anyway it's an old argument sorry for propelling it in the first page. At least no Prometheus!
I'm not even sure what to think of Amazing Spider-Man 2, except it being a misnomer.
Peter is full of angst in this even before the end, seeing ghostly apparitions of George Stacy and worrying about that promise, which the movie then constructs to prove George correct with the above spoiler. While he's not together with Gwen - she makes the reasonable decision to dump him if he's just going to agonise about that - he pulls an Edward Cullen and nobly stalks her, which she has much less of a problem with than you'd think. The other, arguably larger, source of angst is that very shoe-horned intrigue about his father. He finds Richard Parker's top secret lab and reveals the truth: Norman Osborne was in contact with a foreign military (which one is left unstated) to weaponise his research, and framed Richard so he looked like a traitor. And this was the important thing Richard was desperate to upload while the plane was crashing at the start, rather than, you know, evidence about Osborne's actions? Why couldn't he leave it uploading when he made the video? And the "twist" that the spliced spider's DNA contained Richard's doesn't really feel relevant, especially when it's eels that give Electro his powers. And after that revelation, it's forgotten as we have to move into the final part. It's really clumsy world building.
Why is Harry so desperate to get the cure for Soap Opera Disease immediately? Norman spent his life searching for a cure - along with finding the time to develop genetic research and cybernetics and weaponising them and so on - and he made it to 63. Harry seems to believe that as a 20 year old he has weeks to live, and the movie seems to reinforce this. The movie at least gets that he's clutching at straws, and that's why his hair brained scheme of just injecting Spider-Man's blood feels silly but he's too desperate to listen, and Peter fails to explain this or offer to have his blood screened and analysed so maybe they can reverse engineer what happened and deliver an effective treatment. Admittedly the slimy corporate guy's maneuvering would have scuppered this suggestion anyway to underline the tragedy in a better script, but this doesn't even occur to Peter, allowing to set up a weak rationalisation that Gwen's death is his fault, despite being more the victim of desperate happenstance and Gwen's conscious decision to help out, despite Peter's desperate pleas for her to stay away. Tangentially I was kinda hoping they'd spare Gwen and let her be Peter's Oracle, I thought she worked like that. I mean he doesn't always have to be with Mary Jane. Alas.
Where did Electro get that suit, with a styled lightning bolt and all? And I'll accept him converting his body into electricity and back, but the suit as well? Dude should be naked. Also Peter somehow senses something is wrong when Electro first appears in Times Square despite him being at least a mile away. I didn't think his Spider Sense was that strong. And depsite getting there at top speed, Gwen manages to turn up shortly after him?
How much does May know? Like original Spider-Man 2 I get the feeling she knows more than she lets on, but it feels inconsistent. And how was she able to get into Peter's room to look at his conspiracy wall chart thing when earlier they established Peter has a locking mechanism to prevent accidental Spidey sights. And then after talking about the FBI accusing Richard of being a traitor her next big scene is giving Peter advice to let go of Gwen which kinda feels odd.
And finally, to pluck from Cinema Sins, Discount Josef Mengele. You'll know who I'm talking about.
All in all, ehhhhhhhhh. The time before you hit fridge logic with this one seems unusually short, and especially in the same week in which I watched the Winter Soldier which was a much stronger presentation all round.
Besides, the collateral damage thing was done in the highly regarded Justice League Unlimited without too many eyebrows being raised.
He also very quickly got his ass kicked the second the clip stops, and Lex has to save him.
MoS ending: The Return:
The macro is (generally speaking) abstract; "Let the world burn.". The micro is This Is Real; "Let <insert the name of your loved one> burn".
And... uh... why does getting his ass kicked have anything to do with it? Darkseid isn't threatening to kill civilians. I'm just saying Superman regularly puts civilians in harms way in other media, but as soon as it's live action suddenly it becomes "SUPERMAN WOULD NEVER DO THAT!", even when Supes is a grand total of a week into this whole "flying hero" thing in MoS vs been doing it for years like the other examples.
Although I'll grant you I thought this was where the opening scene was going, when he was pushed out of the way of the falling fishing gear. I figured it would be echoed in an "awareness of environmental danger, so he saves people" moment in the finale, but apparently that was giving Snyder/Goyer too much credit.
"The longer this fight goes on, the more people will die."
"Clark knows that. He can't let it continue."
Or even easier, Zod just brags about it. "You can't beat me, Kal-El. And even if you do, what prison could hold me? Mwahahaha!"
I'm no David Goyer but there are ways to do it, and since that's arguably only important moment in the second half of the movie, they should have spent a little screentime setting up that decision so you could understand Superman's motivations.
Naturally a lot of the jokes are references to that era but there's still a good share that aren't. And man, I had forgotten how risque that movie is. Lots of sex jokes that just went over my head as a kid (not to mention I had forgotten the bare breasts in the screen for no reason). Hilarious that it's rated PG.
Also I think its main charm is all the main characters play it straight, and let that juxtapose with the surreal and absurd elements. Later spoof movies lost this.
also there are lots of examples of superman or whoever else getting knocked through buildings and so on; the fact that we see people get hurt only rarely and when it's narratively convenient is just artifice
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Also, I just watched the scene three more times and I still can't tell if those guys died. The editing made it ambiguous, though my initial assumption was that they survived. But then there was never a scene that showed them alive again, so maybe they're dead? Did Sups kill Zod as revenge for murdering humans, and that's why he was so upset? Or did he kill Zod to save them, and he was upset that he had to kill someone?
The scene was a mess and the film's message was too muddled to make it clear what happened, or what should've happened.
Well PG used to be a lot more risque than it is now, because PG-13 didn't exist.
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Now, of course they want to end the movie on an up beat, but Avengers managed to do that well. Of course, the destruction in Avengers was less severe overall and the filming didn't seem to focus on that aspect of the fight either (seriously, MoS's destruction freaked me out a little and I'm usually apathetic about such things). But at the end they chatted with witnesses, received reactions from citizens and from Fury, they didn't just completely ignore that a huge fight with aliens just happened.
I didn't really have any problem with the scene, but it might honestly have been more interesting if
Also, I caught The World's End over the weekend. It wasn't the funniest of the Cornetto trilogy (for me, that award goes to Hot Fuzz), but I think it might be my favorite, because it seems to be the most about something. It also manages to be hilarious while going to an incredibly dark place, seriously looking at the sort of arrested development often highlighted in dumb ex-frat-boy comedies (see: anything starring Vince Vaughn ever) in complete, naked bleakness. Gary King is a tragic figure, but he's also funny as hell, and these two things play perfectly against one another.
The World's End features some no-shit fantastic acting from Pegg and suitably nuanced performances from everyone else, and everyone sells their respective roles perfectly. It's not a realistic movie, per se - everyone seems to inexplicably be adept at MMA fighting, like the Western version of a standard Hong Kong kung fu flick, and the characters are less fully-fleshed humans than archetypes meant to embody the conflict between maturity and bland conformity - but it's a movie that feels realistic in the context of its own premises. I buy these characters in this world, and that's enough to get me to care about what's happening to them, to feel suitably sad or exhilarated as needed, to laugh when intended.
In short: it's a damned good movie, and I can't wait to see what the Wright/Pegg/Frost team do next.