Edit: The military has traditionally cooperated quite often with movie makers when it came to filming things like aircraft and carriers and such, because it meant they could use that as leverage to ensure that the armed forces were always the good guys in the story. With the advent of CGI and budgets getting big enough that film crews can literally rent a squadron of jets for close ups and computer in the rest the military is losing it's grip on things and doesn't really know what to do.
Top Gun is the grand champion of this. They paid like $3 million for military equipment and had actual military personal do the navy stuff for them. It was all real, which is amazing.
If the US Military wants to sponsor your movie you're probably doing something wrong.
They fact that they pulled out of their deal with Marvel because Joss Whedon's Avengers script made them uncomfortable is a big point in The Avengers' favor:
The Pentagon halted its cooperation with Marvel Studios’ blockbuster movie The Avengers...“We couldn’t reconcile the unreality of this international organization and our place in it,” Phil Strub, the Defense Department’s Hollywood liaison, tells Danger Room. “To whom did S.H.I.E.L.D. answer? Did we work for S.H.I.E.L.D.? We hit that roadblock and decided we couldn’t do anything” with the film.
(my reading: the film's portrayal of its fictional military organization as shadowy, sinister, and willing to bomb innocent civilians at the drop of a hat hit a littttle too close to home)
The US Military has a dept set up just for movies
I really did try to find the video that is not crazy or really screwball about it but it talks about how movies that got too realistic like Hurt Locker did not get military backing and help compared to movies like Top Gun which got the full support of the Navy
Iron Man 1 had real military, too. There's even a deleted scene just showing of some exercising skills shot like a music video, It's really dumb and thankfully got cut.
Honestly the way they are marketing ID Army is creepy as fuck to me.
Out of curiosity, what do you find creepy?
Not to answer for Preacher, but the fact that the films advertising seems co-sponsored by the United States Air Force is weird.
And that, at least as of a month ago, the film website had a link to a recruitment page for the USAF.
Well that and they do fake recruitment ads for the future military that double as real recruitment ads for our military. Its just creepy when a movies marketing blends with literal recruitment for the US military.
That makes sense, though apparently I haven't seen any of those ads.
I saw When Marnie was there, the latest and possibly film from Studio Ghibli last week. It was a bit underwhelming to be honest. As ever, the animation is gorgeous, but I found the plot rather generic, slow and a bit predictable.
Honestly the way they are marketing ID Army is creepy as fuck to me.
Out of curiosity, what do you find creepy?
Not to answer for Preacher, but the fact that the films advertising seems co-sponsored by the United States Air Force is weird.
And that, at least as of a month ago, the film website had a link to a recruitment page for the USAF.
Well that and they do fake recruitment ads for the future military that double as real recruitment ads for our military. Its just creepy when a movies marketing blends with literal recruitment for the US military.
While agreed that it's creepy, a couple of those spots are some fine ass marketing.
There was one that came on real late that looked like an honest to goodness army recruitment ad featuring an interview with a veteran talking about how now his kids are enlisting and fighting to protect our freedom etc. Then like the very last 10 to 15 seconds it goes right off the deep end and this veteran is talking about how we need to be ready to fight the aliens, and the guy is playing it totally straight. Quick flash of the Earth Space Defense logo. No hint of Independence Day anywhere to be found.
My wife literally jumped out of her seat exclaiming "what the fuck?? what the fuck was that!?" believing that the real army was recruiting to fight real aliens.
Honestly the way they are marketing ID Army is creepy as fuck to me.
Out of curiosity, what do you find creepy?
Not to answer for Preacher, but the fact that the films advertising seems co-sponsored by the United States Air Force is weird.
And that, at least as of a month ago, the film website had a link to a recruitment page for the USAF.
Well that and they do fake recruitment ads for the future military that double as real recruitment ads for our military. Its just creepy when a movies marketing blends with literal recruitment for the US military.
While agreed that it's creepy, a couple of those spots are some fine ass marketing.
There was one that came on real late that looked like an honest to goodness army recruitment ad featuring an interview with a veteran talking about how now his kids are enlisting and fighting to protect our freedom etc. Then like the very last 10 to 15 seconds it goes right off the deep end and this veteran is talking about how we need to be ready to fight the aliens, and the guy is playing it totally straight. Quick flash of the Earth Space Defense logo. No hint of Independence Day anywhere to be found.
My wife literally jumped out of her seat exclaiming "what the fuck?? what the fuck was that!?" believing that the real army was recruiting to fight real aliens.
Now you're sure that both wasn't for EDF? Cuz I'm with the veteran on that one, someone's gotta protect our freedoms from those giant ants.
DanHibiki on
0
Options
AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
So I have sort of a question. It seems like we've weathered the shock gore style of horror movies recently. Prior to that it was a lot of found footage movies.
I can't really say I'm a huge fan of either of those things. What are some good, modern (traditional?) horror movies that are in line with something like Event Horizon or old Carpenter stuff? I recently watched The Forest and The Boy and they were both pretty disappointing.
Edit: interestingly it seems like horror games are kind of in a golden age right now. So I guess there is that.
There really is no such thing as a traditional horror movie. And the genre is never really stuck in one trend at a time (although there may be one that's the most visible, like torture porn or found footage). Instead there's always a bunch of stuff going on. Right now there's French Extreme, which is to torture porn what a Lars Von Trier movie is to actual porn; there's still a lot of haunted house/ghost/possesion films (generally not good, generally aimed at the crowd that actually believes in that stuff), there's the usual slate of indie darlings (which is always always always where horror gets new ideas, so look to those, not the copycats), there's some interesting stuff coming from a Middle East perspective...
I would say recent horror has moved away from the 90s/00s' focus on stylistic innovation and towards experimentation with theme and structure. I don't see a lot of films lately pushing the envelope visually or bending the edges of the genre, but I do see a lot of meta, a lot of chamber pieces, emphases on gender dynamics, partioned stories like Martyrs,quasi-horror like The Tall Man, etc. I find it a little bit boring, but there are some good films getting released. You'll probably find the best stuff on the festival circuit at places like Fantastic Fest.
i lost this thread because it wasn't linked from the old one but...
just got back from Finding Dory. It was a really fun movie for me and the family. It wasn't perfect and i'm not sure where it stands in the pantheon of Pixar movies, but it had me laughing out loud more than probably any other pixar movie in recent history.
AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
Goodfellas is a good movie but I feel like people fall into the same trap as Henry Hill, where Scorsese has made this very slick, entertaining film about gangsters who get to break all the rules and assert their social dominance and so on, and they idolize that ("go home and get your fucking shinebox!") and that excitement is what sticks, rather than all the work Scorsese does to curdle that excitement into anxiety, horror and disgust.
I don't know that this is necessarily Marty's fault, either. We just connect more strongly with "I always wanted to be a gangster," with idolizing certain lifestyles from afar, because that's what do in our lives, than with experiencing the fall that is very real to Hill but only hypothetical to us. Ie., I've felt that "man, people should give me the best table in the house" feeling but I've never experienced the stress of thinking helicopters are following me around trying to bust me for cocaine or is that just the cocaine talking who knows buy the guns stir the sauce hide the drugs.
I think The Godfather is a more classically excellent movie, but it also does a better job of giving you a little distance between you and the characters.
It's been a while since I've read any of Astareth's or Atomika's movie reviews.
It's like a pale reflection of a real life, this life of mine. Devoid of the joy that is afforded to a full living experience.
"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to give into it." - Oscar Wilde
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
0
Options
TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
It's a movie that does exactly what the mob would do to a kid; lures you in with trappings and power fantasies and instant cash monies, but unlike Henry we see how bad they truly are and how insulated they are. There's so many parts that show this, from Karen's reaction to the wives and her own account of being isolatedand being shunned while Henry's in jail to things like Tommy and Spider and even super subtle things like when they're in jail and the one guys asks for a steak medium rare and the guy acts like that's being an aristocrat, because well done and ketchup are the ways to go for real wise guys capice?
And I post that's why it's able to last so long and destroy every other movie ever ever, since as a youngster you go through the idolize phase while seeing the obvious results of the mob life as Henry lives it, then you get older and see how more and more of it is a messed up world to live in outside of the clearly marked screwups in his life and how the whole organization messes with everyone in its vicinity.
+1
Options
AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
But in the meantime, y'all should check out this fresh hot take from @Atomika on Hollywood's gender gap when it comes to creative talent. It's a really strong article that does good work connecting seemingly separate issues with the film industry, from the way Marvel won't even let their movies have female villains to the depressing fact that female directors don't get the same career boost from winning awards that male filmmakers do to the resulting dearth of female-directed movies on the usual top lists.
It's a movie that does exactly what the mob would do to a kid; lures you in with trappings and power fantasies and instant cash monies, but unlike Henry we see how bad they truly are and how insulated they are. There's so many parts that show this, from Karen's reaction to the wives and her own account of being isolatedand being shunned while Henry's in jail to things like Tommy and Spider and even super subtle things like when they're in jail and the one guys asks for a steak medium rare and the guy acts like that's being an aristocrat, because well done and ketchup are the ways to go for real wise guys capice?
And I post that's why it's able to last so long and destroy every other movie ever ever, since as a youngster you go through the idolize phase while seeing the obvious results of the mob life as Henry lives it, then you get older and see how more and more of it is a messed up world to live in outside of the clearly marked screwups in his life and how the whole organization messes with everyone in its vicinity.
This. They don't really show the downsides aside from Tommy getting killed because they killed Billy Batts.
Donnie Brasco does a better job, I think, of showing that association, and even being made but not an officer, isn't all it's cracked up to be. The organization is similar to a pyramid scheme (or a reverse funnel system depending on your preference), you are supposed to kick the majority of your earnings upstairs. There's a great disparity between the image of Henry Hill as an associate owning multiple nice houses and apartments, expensive suits, cars etc. and "Lefty" Ruggiero in a run down apartment eating Christmas dinner in his underwear as a made guy, and even how they are treated by those above them in the organization.
Having grown up around people who did criminal things, and knowing people who have done or still do criminal things, it's not nearly as glamorous as pop culture seems to think. In between stints in county or state real criminals struggle to make money, live on friends couches while selling dope, rob people for electronics, shop lift, commit burglaries, sell their few luxury items because they owe people money, leech off of and exploit others, and when they do try to go back to "normal" have a felony conviction following them around for the rest of their life preventing meaningful employment outside of manual labor and affecting even their personal lives.
Goodfellas is a good movie but I feel like people fall into the same trap as Henry Hill, where Scorsese has made this very slick, entertaining film about gangsters who get to break all the rules and assert their social dominance and so on, and they idolize that ("go home and get your fucking shinebox!") and that excitement is what sticks, rather than all the work Scorsese does to curdle that excitement into anxiety, horror and disgust.
I don't know that this is necessarily Marty's fault, either. We just connect more strongly with "I always wanted to be a gangster," with idolizing certain lifestyles from afar, because that's what do in our lives, than with experiencing the fall that is very real to Hill but only hypothetical to us. Ie., I've felt that "man, people should give me the best table in the house" feeling but I've never experienced the stress of thinking helicopters are following me around trying to bust me for cocaine or is that just the cocaine talking who knows buy the guns stir the sauce hide the drugs.
I think The Godfather is a more classically excellent movie, but it also does a better job of giving you a little distance between you and the characters.
As someone who's always found the american gangster thing boring because of it's seeming dependence on a shared idolization of the mafia (that comes in part from The Godfather, which is kinda amusing) I found that Goodfellas really worked well. I think because of that perspective.
Like, I understood the allure of the life but only from a distance. It didn't appeal to me at all personally. And so I really noticed the insane manchild shittiness of the people involved.
+2
Options
TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
Approaching The Unknown, a callback to a slower kind of movie. A classic drama that let's Marky Strongbad show that bald headed razzle dazzle he's always had.
You have Captain Pinbacker flying into space once more, to be the first man on Mars, thanks to an invention he made to pull water from soil, which allowed the rocket to actually get to Mars because payloads and velocity and stuff. It's a 270 day journey to Mars with another astronaut about 3 weeks behind him so they can set up a colony. It's a one way trip. And because he's Sinestro things don't go according to plan. Drama!
It borrows a bit from Sunshine and Moon in the mundane aspects of travel and isolation, something that works with the aesthetic here where it's done with practical effects and simple set layout. It takes place in modern times, but outside of some rocket footage that was likely borrowed from SpaceX or something, the space shots of the spacecraft is practical, up against whatever the modern version of matte backdrops would be. It's a little touch that works with the old space exploring aspect we've been denied so long in modern space stuff, so much that the credit font is an old 70's style block font. There's only one other main actor here in Luke Wilson, who is the NASA guy on Earth to talk about the maintenance stuff and status reports. The bulk of the movie is Mark Strong delivering a strong (ha!) performance that would have likely gotten award nominations had it been Clooney (and, I wager, better reviews than it's 47% RT right now). He's a man whose past is lightly touched upon but showing a guy who is willing and mentally sound to endure this voyage, looking at the problems that arise not as things to worry about but to make the journey more important. And the movie doesn't use any human shields or the feelz to make you sympathetic to the guy, he's just a competent guy who seems to realize at this stage in his life he can be the anchor to colonizing Mars. No hand holding here and all the doubt you feel (and other astronauts feel) is shown and not told, which I liked.
It's about 90 minutes and is definitely not one of those movies you just pop on and watch anytime, I've been sitting on it for a week myself. And it's not slow but methodical, which can be a problem for people, I totally get it. But it doesn't waste the ending (actually has some monologue that makes it more than a perfunctory ending) so any instances of feeling slow is worth it. A good film that's not as good as Sunshine or Moon, but one to rent if you like solid dramas or other solo movies like All Is Lost, and a perfect way to show how a small budget is all you need for this kind of movie. I wish it got more recognition than it did.
Goodfellas is a good movie but I feel like people fall into the same trap as Henry Hill, where Scorsese has made this very slick, entertaining film about gangsters who get to break all the rules and assert their social dominance and so on, and they idolize that ("go home and get your fucking shinebox!") and that excitement is what sticks, rather than all the work Scorsese does to curdle that excitement into anxiety, horror and disgust.
And for an even more pop culture-relevant example, Scarface.
Nothing works out well for him at all either, but the dude is still celebrated on the sheer force of Pacino's performance.
This has always confused me because I've always viewed gangster movies as morality plays where you know it will all come crashing down and you're watching how exactly it happens.
This has always confused me because I've always viewed gangster movies as morality plays where you know it will all come crashing down and you're watching how exactly it happens.
Goodfellas is a good movie but I feel like people fall into the same trap as Henry Hill, where Scorsese has made this very slick, entertaining film about gangsters who get to break all the rules and assert their social dominance and so on, and they idolize that ("go home and get your fucking shinebox!") and that excitement is what sticks, rather than all the work Scorsese does to curdle that excitement into anxiety, horror and disgust.
And for an even more pop culture-relevant example, Scarface.
Nothing works out well for him at all either, but the dude is still celebrated on the sheer force of Pacino's performance.
I've never really understood Tony Montana as a gangster idol.
I mean, yeah, he does go from a prisoner/dishwasher to a massive big shot, and his lifestyle is depicted as very glitzy. But his excess is over-the-top, insane, and garish, his personal life goes to utter shit (I don't want to deal with spoilers here, but you all that have seen the movie know what I mean), and it's made very clear throughout the movie that there are always much bigger fish cruising around in the background, people more powerful and dangerous than he could ever hope to be. His deranged macho braggadocio is both unfounded and obviously coke-fueled. It ends exactly how you'd expect.
The guy is definitely a BAMF, but even that is kind of subversive when you think about it, since the movie shows exactly how far that gets you in the end.
One of these days I'm going to do a statistical analysis on Rotten Tomatoes scores for movies from before the site actually started.
I suspect they get polarized as people who love certain movies take the effort to review them and people who hate certain movies take the effort to berate them. Everyone can think of examples of the first one and at a minimum I've seen the latter happen for The Phantom Menace
Frankly, I think they should have separate "At Release" and "In Retrospect" scores.
Goodfellas is a good movie but I feel like people fall into the same trap as Henry Hill, where Scorsese has made this very slick, entertaining film about gangsters who get to break all the rules and assert their social dominance and so on, and they idolize that ("go home and get your fucking shinebox!") and that excitement is what sticks, rather than all the work Scorsese does to curdle that excitement into anxiety, horror and disgust.
And for an even more pop culture-relevant example, Scarface.
Nothing works out well for him at all either, but the dude is still celebrated on the sheer force of Pacino's performance.
I've never really understood Tony Montana as a gangster idol.
I mean, yeah, he does go from a prisoner/dishwasher to a massive big shot, and his lifestyle is depicted as very glitzy. But his excess is over-the-top, insane, and garish, his personal life goes to utter shit (I don't want to deal with spoilers here, but you all that have seen the movie know what I mean), and it's made very clear throughout the movie that there are always much bigger fish cruising around in the background, people more powerful and dangerous than he could ever hope to be. His deranged macho braggadocio is both unfounded and obviously coke-fueled. It ends exactly how you'd expect.
The guy is definitely a BAMF, but even that is kind of subversive when you think about it, since the movie shows exactly how far that gets you in the end.
His macho bravado doesn't need to be founded to be appealing. That's why it's so appealing to, say, the hip hop circuit where that kind of thing is quite popular. Hell, for many groups even his downfall is "badass" and just the way it goes man.
Goodfellas is a good movie but I feel like people fall into the same trap as Henry Hill, where Scorsese has made this very slick, entertaining film about gangsters who get to break all the rules and assert their social dominance and so on, and they idolize that ("go home and get your fucking shinebox!") and that excitement is what sticks, rather than all the work Scorsese does to curdle that excitement into anxiety, horror and disgust.
And for an even more pop culture-relevant example, Scarface.
Nothing works out well for him at all either, but the dude is still celebrated on the sheer force of Pacino's performance.
I've never really understood Tony Montana as a gangster idol.
I mean, yeah, he does go from a prisoner/dishwasher to a massive big shot, and his lifestyle is depicted as very glitzy. But his excess is over-the-top, insane, and garish, his personal life goes to utter shit (I don't want to deal with spoilers here, but you all that have seen the movie know what I mean), and it's made very clear throughout the movie that there are always much bigger fish cruising around in the background, people more powerful and dangerous than he could ever hope to be. His deranged macho braggadocio is both unfounded and obviously coke-fueled. It ends exactly how you'd expect.
The guy is definitely a BAMF, but even that is kind of subversive when you think about it, since the movie shows exactly how far that gets you in the end.
His macho bravado doesn't need to be founded to be appealing. That's why it's so appealing to, say, the hip hop circuit where that kind of thing is quite popular. Hell, for many groups even his downfall is "badass" and just the way it goes man.
"I watch gangsta flicks and root for the bad guy
and turn it off before it end, ’cause the bad guy dies."
Goodfellas is a good movie but I feel like people fall into the same trap as Henry Hill, where Scorsese has made this very slick, entertaining film about gangsters who get to break all the rules and assert their social dominance and so on, and they idolize that ("go home and get your fucking shinebox!") and that excitement is what sticks, rather than all the work Scorsese does to curdle that excitement into anxiety, horror and disgust.
And for an even more pop culture-relevant example, Scarface.
Nothing works out well for him at all either, but the dude is still celebrated on the sheer force of Pacino's performance.
I've never really understood Tony Montana as a gangster idol.
I mean, yeah, he does go from a prisoner/dishwasher to a massive big shot, and his lifestyle is depicted as very glitzy. But his excess is over-the-top, insane, and garish, his personal life goes to utter shit (I don't want to deal with spoilers here, but you all that have seen the movie know what I mean), and it's made very clear throughout the movie that there are always much bigger fish cruising around in the background, people more powerful and dangerous than he could ever hope to be. His deranged macho braggadocio is both unfounded and obviously coke-fueled. It ends exactly how you'd expect.
The guy is definitely a BAMF, but even that is kind of subversive when you think about it, since the movie shows exactly how far that gets you in the end.
His macho bravado doesn't need to be founded to be appealing. That's why it's so appealing to, say, the hip hop circuit where that kind of thing is quite popular. Hell, for many groups even his downfall is "badass" and just the way it goes man.
Seriously. There is a reason the most iconic line from that movie is, "Say hello to my little friend"!
It took me a while to understand BAMF, thinking it was some kind of Latino male equivalent to a MILF.
I thought it was the sound Tony Montana makes when he teleports.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
Posts
Top Gun is the grand champion of this. They paid like $3 million for military equipment and had actual military personal do the navy stuff for them. It was all real, which is amazing.
The US Military has a dept set up just for movies
I really did try to find the video that is not crazy or really screwball about it but it talks about how movies that got too realistic like Hurt Locker did not get military backing and help compared to movies like Top Gun which got the full support of the Navy
Other than Iceman being a huge dick?
pleasepaypreacher.net
I doubt the military film dept. is so picky that they insist on every servicemember being portrayed as having a winning personality.
Iceman was a huge dick though, like he was every pilot stereotype right down to the obviously closeted sexuality.
pleasepaypreacher.net
The navy insisted at the beach volleyball scenes :bzz:
You're ruining my jokes jeep, just ruining them. You're like the astareth of ruining jokes.
pleasepaypreacher.net
While agreed that it's creepy, a couple of those spots are some fine ass marketing.
There was one that came on real late that looked like an honest to goodness army recruitment ad featuring an interview with a veteran talking about how now his kids are enlisting and fighting to protect our freedom etc. Then like the very last 10 to 15 seconds it goes right off the deep end and this veteran is talking about how we need to be ready to fight the aliens, and the guy is playing it totally straight. Quick flash of the Earth Space Defense logo. No hint of Independence Day anywhere to be found.
My wife literally jumped out of her seat exclaiming "what the fuck?? what the fuck was that!?" believing that the real army was recruiting to fight real aliens.
Now you're sure that both wasn't for EDF? Cuz I'm with the veteran on that one, someone's gotta protect our freedoms from those giant ants.
There really is no such thing as a traditional horror movie. And the genre is never really stuck in one trend at a time (although there may be one that's the most visible, like torture porn or found footage). Instead there's always a bunch of stuff going on. Right now there's French Extreme, which is to torture porn what a Lars Von Trier movie is to actual porn; there's still a lot of haunted house/ghost/possesion films (generally not good, generally aimed at the crowd that actually believes in that stuff), there's the usual slate of indie darlings (which is always always always where horror gets new ideas, so look to those, not the copycats), there's some interesting stuff coming from a Middle East perspective...
I would say recent horror has moved away from the 90s/00s' focus on stylistic innovation and towards experimentation with theme and structure. I don't see a lot of films lately pushing the envelope visually or bending the edges of the genre, but I do see a lot of meta, a lot of chamber pieces, emphases on gender dynamics, partioned stories like Martyrs,quasi-horror like The Tall Man, etc. I find it a little bit boring, but there are some good films getting released. You'll probably find the best stuff on the festival circuit at places like Fantastic Fest.
just got back from Finding Dory. It was a really fun movie for me and the family. It wasn't perfect and i'm not sure where it stands in the pantheon of Pixar movies, but it had me laughing out loud more than probably any other pixar movie in recent history.
Beckie was one of the highlights.
Blizzard: Pailryder#1101
GoG: https://www.gog.com/u/pailryder
I don't know that this is necessarily Marty's fault, either. We just connect more strongly with "I always wanted to be a gangster," with idolizing certain lifestyles from afar, because that's what do in our lives, than with experiencing the fall that is very real to Hill but only hypothetical to us. Ie., I've felt that "man, people should give me the best table in the house" feeling but I've never experienced the stress of thinking helicopters are following me around trying to bust me for cocaine or is that just the cocaine talking who knows buy the guns stir the sauce hide the drugs.
I think The Godfather is a more classically excellent movie, but it also does a better job of giving you a little distance between you and the characters.
It's like a pale reflection of a real life, this life of mine. Devoid of the joy that is afforded to a full living experience.
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
And I post that's why it's able to last so long and destroy every other movie ever ever, since as a youngster you go through the idolize phase while seeing the obvious results of the mob life as Henry lives it, then you get older and see how more and more of it is a messed up world to live in outside of the clearly marked screwups in his life and how the whole organization messes with everyone in its vicinity.
There's plenty available on the blog!
But in the meantime, y'all should check out this fresh hot take from @Atomika on Hollywood's gender gap when it comes to creative talent. It's a really strong article that does good work connecting seemingly separate issues with the film industry, from the way Marvel won't even let their movies have female villains to the depressing fact that female directors don't get the same career boost from winning awards that male filmmakers do to the resulting dearth of female-directed movies on the usual top lists.
This. They don't really show the downsides aside from Tommy getting killed because they killed Billy Batts.
Donnie Brasco does a better job, I think, of showing that association, and even being made but not an officer, isn't all it's cracked up to be. The organization is similar to a pyramid scheme (or a reverse funnel system depending on your preference), you are supposed to kick the majority of your earnings upstairs. There's a great disparity between the image of Henry Hill as an associate owning multiple nice houses and apartments, expensive suits, cars etc. and "Lefty" Ruggiero in a run down apartment eating Christmas dinner in his underwear as a made guy, and even how they are treated by those above them in the organization.
Having grown up around people who did criminal things, and knowing people who have done or still do criminal things, it's not nearly as glamorous as pop culture seems to think. In between stints in county or state real criminals struggle to make money, live on friends couches while selling dope, rob people for electronics, shop lift, commit burglaries, sell their few luxury items because they owe people money, leech off of and exploit others, and when they do try to go back to "normal" have a felony conviction following them around for the rest of their life preventing meaningful employment outside of manual labor and affecting even their personal lives.
As someone who's always found the american gangster thing boring because of it's seeming dependence on a shared idolization of the mafia (that comes in part from The Godfather, which is kinda amusing) I found that Goodfellas really worked well. I think because of that perspective.
Like, I understood the allure of the life but only from a distance. It didn't appeal to me at all personally. And so I really noticed the insane manchild shittiness of the people involved.
You have Captain Pinbacker flying into space once more, to be the first man on Mars, thanks to an invention he made to pull water from soil, which allowed the rocket to actually get to Mars because payloads and velocity and stuff. It's a 270 day journey to Mars with another astronaut about 3 weeks behind him so they can set up a colony. It's a one way trip. And because he's Sinestro things don't go according to plan. Drama!
It borrows a bit from Sunshine and Moon in the mundane aspects of travel and isolation, something that works with the aesthetic here where it's done with practical effects and simple set layout. It takes place in modern times, but outside of some rocket footage that was likely borrowed from SpaceX or something, the space shots of the spacecraft is practical, up against whatever the modern version of matte backdrops would be. It's a little touch that works with the old space exploring aspect we've been denied so long in modern space stuff, so much that the credit font is an old 70's style block font. There's only one other main actor here in Luke Wilson, who is the NASA guy on Earth to talk about the maintenance stuff and status reports. The bulk of the movie is Mark Strong delivering a strong (ha!) performance that would have likely gotten award nominations had it been Clooney (and, I wager, better reviews than it's 47% RT right now). He's a man whose past is lightly touched upon but showing a guy who is willing and mentally sound to endure this voyage, looking at the problems that arise not as things to worry about but to make the journey more important. And the movie doesn't use any human shields or the feelz to make you sympathetic to the guy, he's just a competent guy who seems to realize at this stage in his life he can be the anchor to colonizing Mars. No hand holding here and all the doubt you feel (and other astronauts feel) is shown and not told, which I liked.
It's about 90 minutes and is definitely not one of those movies you just pop on and watch anytime, I've been sitting on it for a week myself. And it's not slow but methodical, which can be a problem for people, I totally get it. But it doesn't waste the ending (actually has some monologue that makes it more than a perfunctory ending) so any instances of feeling slow is worth it. A good film that's not as good as Sunshine or Moon, but one to rent if you like solid dramas or other solo movies like All Is Lost, and a perfect way to show how a small budget is all you need for this kind of movie. I wish it got more recognition than it did.
Nothing works out well for him at all either, but the dude is still celebrated on the sheer force of Pacino's performance.
Gangster No.1 is superb with this.
NSFW - swearing
I've never really understood Tony Montana as a gangster idol.
I mean, yeah, he does go from a prisoner/dishwasher to a massive big shot, and his lifestyle is depicted as very glitzy. But his excess is over-the-top, insane, and garish, his personal life goes to utter shit (I don't want to deal with spoilers here, but you all that have seen the movie know what I mean), and it's made very clear throughout the movie that there are always much bigger fish cruising around in the background, people more powerful and dangerous than he could ever hope to be. His deranged macho braggadocio is both unfounded and obviously coke-fueled. It ends exactly how you'd expect.
The guy is definitely a BAMF, but even that is kind of subversive when you think about it, since the movie shows exactly how far that gets you in the end.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Close enough!
I suspect they get polarized as people who love certain movies take the effort to review them and people who hate certain movies take the effort to berate them. Everyone can think of examples of the first one and at a minimum I've seen the latter happen for The Phantom Menace
Frankly, I think they should have separate "At Release" and "In Retrospect" scores.
His macho bravado doesn't need to be founded to be appealing. That's why it's so appealing to, say, the hip hop circuit where that kind of thing is quite popular. Hell, for many groups even his downfall is "badass" and just the way it goes man.
pleasepaypreacher.net
"I watch gangsta flicks and root for the bad guy
and turn it off before it end, ’cause the bad guy dies."
-50 cent
Seriously. There is a reason the most iconic line from that movie is, "Say hello to my little friend"!
I thought it was the sound Tony Montana makes when he teleports.
Bad Ass Mother Fucker?
There is no gay subtext in that movie. Gay sub text maybe.