Due to concerns about how realistic a dragon in an IM movie is, Fin Fang Foom will now just be a topless man painted green in purple pants. With a tattoo of a dragon.
Up until the movie's release everyone will think he is the new Hulk and wondering why he got the wicked tattoo.
I think there's a joke about the last David Fincher movie in here somewhere, too.
Ben Kingsley confirmed for yet-to-be-named Iron Man 3 villain.
He'd make a good Mandarin, no?
Everyone and their mother attached to the production claim that he isn't playing The Mandarin and the plot centers around some sort of nanotechnology disease.
Ben Kingsley confirmed for yet-to-be-named Iron Man 3 villain.
He'd make a good Mandarin, no?
Everyone and their mother attached to the production claim that he isn't playing The Mandarin and the plot centers around some sort of nanotechnology disease.
"He's bitten by a spider, but maybe it's not a radioactive spider. Or maybe it is! You'll have to see. There are elements that we were very conscious of, but it all emanated from [the idea of] this kid who got left behind by his parents many, many years before. I thought that was interesting enough for me to explore."
Interesting developments. Sure, they alter the mythology a bit but I want to see where it leads.
Harry Dresden on
0
Options
AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
Ben Kingsley confirmed for yet-to-be-named Iron Man 3 villain.
He'd make a good Mandarin, no?
Everyone and their mother attached to the production claim that he isn't playing The Mandarin and the plot centers around some sort of nanotechnology disease.
I don't see why one thing would exclude the other.
Kingsley will play all the nanobots...much like Deep Roy playing all the Oompa Loompas in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Magical will not begin to describe it.
So I finally got around to watching the Cameron Titanic. The #-D wasn't aligned very well far from the point of focus, as I saw double frequently, but the movie is pretty firmly in the "pretty good, not great" category. I think the New Yorker has the right of it:
If you were writing a morality play about class privilege, you couldn’t do better than to dream up a glamorous ship of fools and load it with everyone from the A-list to immigrants coming to America for a better life. The class issue is one major reason the Titanic disaster has always been so ripe for dramatization. And yet the way we tell the story reveals more about us than it does about what happened. If the indignant depictions of the class system in so many Titanic dramas coexist uneasily with their adoring depictions of upper-crust privilege, that, too, is part of the appeal: it allows us to demonstrate our liberalism even as we indulge our consumerism. In Cameron’s movie, you root for the steerage passenger who improbably pauses, during a last dash for a boat, to make a sardonic comment about the band as it famously played on (“Music to drown by—now I know I’m in first class”), but you’re also happy to lounge with Kate Winslet on a sunbathed private promenade deck while a uniformed maid cleans up on her hands and knees after breakfast.
...
A short scene in which a group of Irish steerage passengers breaks through a metal gate as they make their way to the lifeboats—they suddenly find themselves in the first-class dining room, set for the next morning’s breakfast, and at first can barely bring themselves to penetrate this sacred space—tells you more about the class system than Cameron’s cruder populism does.
...
With its focus on feminine suffering and self-sacrifice, and, especially, in its presentation of an ill-fated romance between the unpretentious young man and the class-bound society girl, the 1953 “Titanic,” which won an Oscar for Best Story and Screenplay, anticipated Cameron’s 1997 movie, which won Oscars for just about everything. A lot of the dialogue that Cameron put in the mouth of his frustrated débutante, Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet), reminds you of Barbara Stanwyck’s lines: “I saw my whole life as if I’d already lived it,” Rose recalls, explaining her attraction to a carefree young artist named Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio). “An endless parade of parties, cotillions . . . the same mindless chatter.” But Cameron gave his film a feminist rather than a patriotic spin. Rose, of a “good” but impoverished Main Line family, is being married off to the loathsome Cal Hockley, who seals their engagement with the gift of a blue diamond that had belonged to Louis XVI. (“We are royalty,” he smugly tells her as he drapes the giant rock around her neck.) “It’s so unfair,” she sighs during a conversation with her odiously snobbish mother, who, in the same scene, is lacing Rose tightly into a corset. “Of course it’s unfair,” the mother retorts. “We’re women.” Small wonder that nearly half the female viewers under twenty-five who saw the movie went to see it a second time within two months of its release, and that three-quarters of those said that they’d see it again.
Rose isn’t the only troubled girl who’s being manhandled. Like all ships, the Titanic was a “she,” and Cameron went to some lengths to push the identification between the ship and the young woman. Both are, to all appearances, “maidens” who are en route to losing their virginity; both are presented as the beautiful objects of men’s possessive adoration, intended for the gratification of male egos. “She’s the largest moving object ever made by the hand of man in all of history,” a smug Ismay boasts to some appreciative tablemates at lunch. Later, as Rose goes in to dinner, one of Cal’s fat-cat friends commends him on his fiancée as if she, too, were a prized object: “Congratulations, Hockley—she’s splendid!”
Cameron underscored the parallels between the young woman and the liner in other ways. The scene in which Jack holds Rose by the waist as she stands at the prow, arms outstretched, heading into what will be the Titanic’s last sunset, has become an iconic moment in American cinema. (And indeed in life: a couple was married in a submersible parked near that very spot.) But far more haunting is the way the image of the speeding prow in this scene morphs, seconds afterward, into a by now equally famous image from real life—the same prow as it looks today, half buried in Atlantic mud under two and a half miles of seawater, drained of color, purpose, and life. In this movie, there’s only one other beautiful “she” that is transformed in this way: we see the flushed face of Kate Winslet, as the young Rose on the night she poses nude for Jack, suddenly wither into the wrinkled visage of Gloria Stuart, the actress whom Cameron cannily chose to play Rose in the modern-day sequences of the narrative. Stuart, a star of the nineteen-thirties, was less than a generation younger than Dorothy Gibson, the lead in the 1912 film.
Ben Kingsley confirmed for yet-to-be-named Iron Man 3 villain.
He'd make a good Mandarin, no?
Everyone and their mother attached to the production claim that he isn't playing The Mandarin and the plot centers around some sort of nanotechnology disease.
I don't see why one thing would exclude the other.
When asked about the Mandarin Black called the character a racist caricature.
"He's bitten by a spider, but maybe it's not a radioactive spider. Or maybe it is! You'll have to see. There are elements that we were very conscious of, but it all emanated from [the idea of] this kid who got left behind by his parents many, many years before. I thought that was interesting enough for me to explore."
Interesting developments. Sure, they alter the mythology a bit but I want to see where it leads.
"He's bitten by a spider, but maybe it's not a radioactive spider. Or maybe it is! You'll have to see. There are elements that we were very conscious of, but it all emanated from [the idea of] this kid who got left behind by his parents many, many years before. I thought that was interesting enough for me to explore."
Interesting developments. Sure, they alter the mythology a bit but I want to see where it leads.
Alien spider.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Spider
0
Options
Linespider5ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGERRegistered Userregular
"He's bitten by a spider, but maybe it's not a radioactive spider. Or maybe it is! You'll have to see. There are elements that we were very conscious of, but it all emanated from [the idea of] this kid who got left behind by his parents many, many years before. I thought that was interesting enough for me to explore."
Interesting developments. Sure, they alter the mythology a bit but I want to see where it leads.
Alien spider.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Spider
No, no.
You guys need to go deeper.
Peter Parker was modified with spider DNA by his secret scientist parents before he was born.
0
Options
Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
I rented The Darkest Hour and Immortals last night.
Darkest Hour had a good first half or 2/3rds or so, but the weird turn that the badguys took was really disappointing. The whole thing had a low-budget, first-time-director feel to it, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the rottentomatoes reviews seemed to imply. The acting wasn't great, but it kind of matched the bad directing asthetic. I felt like I was watching a really well done, 90-minute youtube video rather than a kind of crappy theatrical release. I guess I'd have been more disappointed in it had I gone to see it at the theater rather than watching it at home.
The aliens being physical creatures inside of some kind of spinning-tail-based-shield-thing was both lame and stupid-looking. The CGI for the semi-invisible energy monsters in the first 2/3rds of the movie was really pretty good but the aliens inside of the shield things just looked terrible.
Immortals was forgettable but not bad. Nice to look at with some neat action sections and slo-mo martial arts, but that's about it. Its lack of a Gerard Butler made me realize that he was really the thing that made 300 work. Mickey Rourke tried, but nobody in Immortals gave a sufficiently over-the-top performance to match the ridiculousness of the rest of the movie, which left all of the characters feeling subdued compared to the art and coreography. Also, the audio mixing was just awful. I had to adjust the volume every couple of minutes because the action and music were So Much Louder than the dialog. And half of it was delivered in a stage whisper, so that didn't help.
Saw Alien again last night. Goddamn that's a good movie. First half or so is literally flawless.
Whoever did the set design and such for that deserves a blow job along with their Oscar. Just a fucking amazing looking movie in almost every respect.
I had a few random maybe mildly-negative thoughts or points of discussion that stuck out to me:
(I guess I'll spoiler it, why the hell not)
1) The fight near the end where the Alien kills Lambart and Parker (the only 2 others left besides Ripley) just doesn't work very well. You can tell they are trying to struggle with the alien itself not being something they can show on camera moving around like that. As much as they try, the thin human looking silhouette when you see the thing in full view just doesn't work imo. Which is why I believe it's filmed the way it is.
This is only really notable because it's like the one single time in the whole damn movie where it feels like the special effects technology is holding them back. Which for a fucking 33 year old movie is goddamn impressive. Everything else just worked great imo.
2) The scene where Ash turns on them is just ... weird. The whole lead up to it is really. It's a great idea in abstract and many parts of it work, but there's something just rushed and off about the whole thing. Like there's a missing scene somewhere in here.
The captain dies, Ripley finds the instructions to capture the alien and that the crew is expendable. Then suddenly Ash is there next to her and she explodes on him, then cries and runs out. Good stuff, works, etc. Although it's odd he lets her get away here just to attack her literally 2 seconds later.
So next thing, Ash is trapping her in the main area. And he's just acting ... weird. And I can't figure out why. It bugged me the other times I've watched it too. It's like we're missing a scene where Ash gets damaged or something. He just suddenly behaves so completely and strangely different for this whole scene and it would work if it actually had some explanation but it's just weirdly there. His movements are all wrong, he's acting funny and not all together there and so on.
It ends up just being very odd and off and feels to me like some small but important scene got left on the cutting room floor. It still kinda works but it always stands out to me.
3) The scene where they rehook up Ash's head was great. Good practical effects, very creepy, good performance, etc, etc, etc.
I did find all his comments about the perfection of the alien to be odd though. I could kinda understand him feeling that way, but it seems like they want us (the audience) to buy it to and I just ... don't get that. Looking at this film as the first one with no other context, the alien just doesn't have that mystique about it. It's horrible and rapey and all that, but so far only it's method of procreation has really been notible.
Other then that, the damn thing isn't much of a "super predator" or some such. It's just a wild animal running around in the air ducts. The main tension comes from how unarmed and defenseless the very small crew is in this very large ship full of nooks and crannies for the thing to hide in and not from the alien being any sort of exceptionally vicious or intelligent or predatory or unkillable thing.
It just struck me as interesting that the alien came off as scary more due to the discomforting way it's birthed and the helplessness of the crew more then any sort of real inherent danger.
Word is that Iron Sky is slightly amusing at first, then derails into something rather not amusing - comedy on the level of 'hey, look, the president is a Sarah Palin look-alike! With a moose head hung in the oval office!'
One of those ideas that work better as a concept trailer. So basically a Finnish Robert Rodriquez movie.
I just got back from seeing it. It's really good actually. It can most easily be compared to Sky Captain in a lot of ways, but the movie knows the plot isn't very serious and the CGI actually looks good and believable. Or as believable as Space Zeppelins filled with Flying Saucers get. And the actors can actually act, even if it is a bit hammy.
The joke about Sarah Palin as president does get a little played out, but if you can accept Moon Nazis than I think that should be acceptable too.
There are some jabs at American Exceptionalism that I think might get a little grating on an American.
If you like subtle and not so subtle hints at other movies then I would say there are some really great meta-jokes that are worth seeing the movie for.
I think the one thing I was really impressed by was the CGI. This is a movie made for 7.5mil Euros. Maybe Disney should hire these guys as consultants for their next Sci-fi epic.
Oh, and it has Udo Kier as the Moon Führer. How can you not love that.
On fire
.
Island. Being on fire.
0
Options
AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
There are some jabs at American Exceptionalism that I think might get a little grating on an American.
Idk, you're talking about the country that produced and loved Team America...
There are some jabs at American Exceptionalism that I think might get a little grating on an American.
Idk, you're talking about the country that produced and loved Team America...
Are you sure they understood it was satire?
I'm fairly sure most people did, yes. The idea that all Americans are jingoistic beyond reason is a pretty stupid stereotype and is just as accurate as cowardly Frenchmen, prissy Brits, and sex crazed Italians.
Out of Sight: Will pretty but bland bank robber (George Clooney) be able to pull off a convoluted heist and win the heart of pretty but even blander FBI agent (Jennifer Lopez)?
Who cares?
I was able to sit through this one until the end though so I guess I'd rank it above The Limey.
"He's bitten by a spider, but maybe it's not a radioactive spider. Or maybe it is! You'll have to see. There are elements that we were very conscious of, but it all emanated from [the idea of] this kid who got left behind by his parents many, many years before. I thought that was interesting enough for me to explore."
Interesting developments. Sure, they alter the mythology a bit but I want to see where it leads.
Alien spider.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Spider
No, no.
You guys need to go deeper.
Peter Parker was modified with spider DNA by his secret scientist parents before he was born.
I have a bad feeling this one will turn out to be pretty close to what actually happens in the film.
Those poor French people. Hundreds of years of history and warfare overturned by a single epic douche move.
Finally saw the new Muppets movie. So much fun spending an hour and a half not being my usual cynical asshole self.
Didn't they do the same thing in WWII?
The same thing as what?
Sorry, WWI
In WWI France fought tooth and and nail and managed to keep the Germans from pushing into Paris. The "French surrender" thing arose out of WWII, and it was really just shitty, since they were barely recovered from the massive beating they had taken like twenty years earlier.
"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
If IM3 is just Kingsley using sock puppets I am watching it in IMAX, day 1.
0
Options
jakobaggerLO THY DREAD EMPIRE CHAOS IS RESTOREDRegistered Userregular
I'm pretty sure France has never done anything to/in Ethiopia. You're probably thinking of Fascist Italy, which is in fact a different thing.
But also, making fun of the nation of Napoleon for being cowardly surrender monkeys is certainly one of the more historically ignorant things one can do. Even if we're specifically speaking of WWII, the French Resistance were pretty bad ass.
Saw Alien again last night. Goddamn that's a good movie. First half or so is literally flawless.
Whoever did the set design and such for that deserves a blow job along with their Oscar. Just a fucking amazing looking movie in almost every respect.
I had a few random maybe mildly-negative thoughts or points of discussion that stuck out to me:
(I guess I'll spoiler it, why the hell not)
1) The fight near the end where the Alien kills Lambart and Parker (the only 2 others left besides Ripley) just doesn't work very well. You can tell they are trying to struggle with the alien itself not being something they can show on camera moving around like that. As much as they try, the thin human looking silhouette when you see the thing in full view just doesn't work imo. Which is why I believe it's filmed the way it is.
This is only really notable because it's like the one single time in the whole damn movie where it feels like the special effects technology is holding them back. Which for a fucking 33 year old movie is goddamn impressive. Everything else just worked great imo.
2) The scene where Ash turns on them is just ... weird. The whole lead up to it is really. It's a great idea in abstract and many parts of it work, but there's something just rushed and off about the whole thing. Like there's a missing scene somewhere in here.
The captain dies, Ripley finds the instructions to capture the alien and that the crew is expendable. Then suddenly Ash is there next to her and she explodes on him, then cries and runs out. Good stuff, works, etc. Although it's odd he lets her get away here just to attack her literally 2 seconds later.
So next thing, Ash is trapping her in the main area. And he's just acting ... weird. And I can't figure out why. It bugged me the other times I've watched it too. It's like we're missing a scene where Ash gets damaged or something. He just suddenly behaves so completely and strangely different for this whole scene and it would work if it actually had some explanation but it's just weirdly there. His movements are all wrong, he's acting funny and not all together there and so on.
It ends up just being very odd and off and feels to me like some small but important scene got left on the cutting room floor. It still kinda works but it always stands out to me.
3) The scene where they rehook up Ash's head was great. Good practical effects, very creepy, good performance, etc, etc, etc.
I did find all his comments about the perfection of the alien to be odd though. I could kinda understand him feeling that way, but it seems like they want us (the audience) to buy it to and I just ... don't get that. Looking at this film as the first one with no other context, the alien just doesn't have that mystique about it. It's horrible and rapey and all that, but so far only it's method of procreation has really been notible.
Other then that, the damn thing isn't much of a "super predator" or some such. It's just a wild animal running around in the air ducts. The main tension comes from how unarmed and defenseless the very small crew is in this very large ship full of nooks and crannies for the thing to hide in and not from the alien being any sort of exceptionally vicious or intelligent or predatory or unkillable thing.
It just struck me as interesting that the alien came off as scary more due to the discomforting way it's birthed and the helplessness of the crew more then any sort of real inherent danger.
Answer to 2:
I think you could look at it as what happens when he becomes completely unshackled from pretending to be human/follow protocol.
Answer to 3:
There was a cut scene when we would get to see how the Alien procreated with the Alien turning bodies into more eggs. If they had kept that, the procreating on its own, acid-blooded beastie would very nearly be a perfectly unstoppable thing.
I'm pretty sure France has never done anything to/in Ethiopia. You're probably thinking of Fascist Italy, which is in fact a different thing.
But also, making fun of the nation of Napoleon for being cowardly surrender monkeys is certainly one of the more historically ignorant things one can do. Even if we're specifically speaking of WWII, the French Resistance were pretty bad ass.
France was the one making sure Italy won (which makes Italy's failure even more hilarious). While most of the world started off with an embargo, France was the last hold out, and even started up a covert blockade to stop any aid or purchases (including arms and food) from actually making it into Ethiopia. When European refugees from Ethiopia brought reports of Italy using chemical and other banned weapons, the France blocked League of Nations investigations and the French head of the Red Cross covered up reports from its workers in the country. It was also the first to grant recognition of Italy's conquest of Ethiopia, despite Italy never actually gaining control of the country. The list of crap goes on, but it might suffice to say that France's reputation may have come from its pure desperation to appease Il Duce (I can't actually spell his name).
Saw Alien again last night. Goddamn that's a good movie. First half or so is literally flawless.
Whoever did the set design and such for that deserves a blow job along with their Oscar. Just a fucking amazing looking movie in almost every respect.
I had a few random maybe mildly-negative thoughts or points of discussion that stuck out to me:
(I guess I'll spoiler it, why the hell not)
1) The fight near the end where the Alien kills Lambart and Parker (the only 2 others left besides Ripley) just doesn't work very well. You can tell they are trying to struggle with the alien itself not being something they can show on camera moving around like that. As much as they try, the thin human looking silhouette when you see the thing in full view just doesn't work imo. Which is why I believe it's filmed the way it is.
This is only really notable because it's like the one single time in the whole damn movie where it feels like the special effects technology is holding them back. Which for a fucking 33 year old movie is goddamn impressive. Everything else just worked great imo.
2) The scene where Ash turns on them is just ... weird. The whole lead up to it is really. It's a great idea in abstract and many parts of it work, but there's something just rushed and off about the whole thing. Like there's a missing scene somewhere in here.
The captain dies, Ripley finds the instructions to capture the alien and that the crew is expendable. Then suddenly Ash is there next to her and she explodes on him, then cries and runs out. Good stuff, works, etc. Although it's odd he lets her get away here just to attack her literally 2 seconds later.
So next thing, Ash is trapping her in the main area. And he's just acting ... weird. And I can't figure out why. It bugged me the other times I've watched it too. It's like we're missing a scene where Ash gets damaged or something. He just suddenly behaves so completely and strangely different for this whole scene and it would work if it actually had some explanation but it's just weirdly there. His movements are all wrong, he's acting funny and not all together there and so on.
It ends up just being very odd and off and feels to me like some small but important scene got left on the cutting room floor. It still kinda works but it always stands out to me.
3) The scene where they rehook up Ash's head was great. Good practical effects, very creepy, good performance, etc, etc, etc.
I did find all his comments about the perfection of the alien to be odd though. I could kinda understand him feeling that way, but it seems like they want us (the audience) to buy it to and I just ... don't get that. Looking at this film as the first one with no other context, the alien just doesn't have that mystique about it. It's horrible and rapey and all that, but so far only it's method of procreation has really been notible.
Other then that, the damn thing isn't much of a "super predator" or some such. It's just a wild animal running around in the air ducts. The main tension comes from how unarmed and defenseless the very small crew is in this very large ship full of nooks and crannies for the thing to hide in and not from the alien being any sort of exceptionally vicious or intelligent or predatory or unkillable thing.
It just struck me as interesting that the alien came off as scary more due to the discomforting way it's birthed and the helplessness of the crew more then any sort of real inherent danger.
To this day I cannot figure out what Ash was doing with the
magazine
.
As far as the Alien is concerned. Yes, the crew is helpless and unarmed against "the beast", but would you not be just as helpless against a lion? Ash's admiration comes from knowledge of the Alien from another source; he knows more about it than the crew and audience knows. Hell, the cold vacuum of space isn't enough to kill it.
Watched transformers dark of the moon. It wasn't bad. Didn't realize spock was in it.
Also saw the muppets. I wasn't thrilled with the main song, but the movie was great.
0
Options
AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
Alfonso Cuaron's new sci-fi film, Gravity, an experimental movie that only stars two people who play stranded astronauts (George Clooney, Sandra Bullock), has been described by the director as only having 156 intact shots in the film, giving the film an average shot time of 45 seconds, with one single shot being confirmed as 17 minutes long.
For some reference, the average shot length for most films is 2-8 seconds. Meaning, Gravity will have fewer cuts than a music video.
0
Options
KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
I have seen a trailer for a new film starring Guy Pearce as a guy sent to rescue the President's daughter from a space prison. It looks like the kind of thing JCVD might have starred in fifteen years ago. Or Fortress.
Me and a buddy watched Scream 4, The Eagle and Season of the Witch last night.
That was a series of bad decisions. Like, on a level that actually ought to call for an intervention.
Scream seemed like it might just be slightly clever for a while, then it wasn't. Also, there were so many knife stabs to people's stomachs, it actually got a bit odd. I think Wes Craven might have a somewhat fucked up fetish.
The Eagle was pointless and dull.
Season of the Witch could have been kind of decent, as a concept, in the hands of better people. It wasn't, though. Really wasn't.
I did like that
the priest turned out to be a decent guy, and not a creep, or a coward, or a rapist, or whatever else he might have been. He did what he had to do in the face of a vicious bit of dodgy CGI, where I had suspected that he would try to flee.
I guess at this point Nicolas Cage doesn't have an agent as such, but just a guy who goes, 'his hair will look HOW bad? He's in!'
Posts
Yes.
Which probably means he'll be Fin Fang Foom.
Fuck it, I'm in.
Up until the movie's release everyone will think he is the new Hulk and wondering why he got the wicked tattoo.
I think there's a joke about the last David Fincher movie in here somewhere, too.
Extremis?
Naw, probably not.
http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/JoshWildingNewsAndReviews/news/?a=57691
Interesting developments. Sure, they alter the mythology a bit but I want to see where it leads.
I don't see why one thing would exclude the other.
When asked about the Mandarin Black called the character a racist caricature.
Mandarin will not be in Ironman 3.
Alien spider.
No, no.
You guys need to go deeper.
Still wonder what kind of crack Tim Burton uses.
Darkest Hour had a good first half or 2/3rds or so, but the weird turn that the badguys took was really disappointing. The whole thing had a low-budget, first-time-director feel to it, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the rottentomatoes reviews seemed to imply. The acting wasn't great, but it kind of matched the bad directing asthetic. I felt like I was watching a really well done, 90-minute youtube video rather than a kind of crappy theatrical release. I guess I'd have been more disappointed in it had I gone to see it at the theater rather than watching it at home.
Immortals was forgettable but not bad. Nice to look at with some neat action sections and slo-mo martial arts, but that's about it. Its lack of a Gerard Butler made me realize that he was really the thing that made 300 work. Mickey Rourke tried, but nobody in Immortals gave a sufficiently over-the-top performance to match the ridiculousness of the rest of the movie, which left all of the characters feeling subdued compared to the art and coreography. Also, the audio mixing was just awful. I had to adjust the volume every couple of minutes because the action and music were So Much Louder than the dialog. And half of it was delivered in a stage whisper, so that didn't help.
Whoever did the set design and such for that deserves a blow job along with their Oscar. Just a fucking amazing looking movie in almost every respect.
I had a few random maybe mildly-negative thoughts or points of discussion that stuck out to me:
(I guess I'll spoiler it, why the hell not)
This is only really notable because it's like the one single time in the whole damn movie where it feels like the special effects technology is holding them back. Which for a fucking 33 year old movie is goddamn impressive. Everything else just worked great imo.
2) The scene where Ash turns on them is just ... weird. The whole lead up to it is really. It's a great idea in abstract and many parts of it work, but there's something just rushed and off about the whole thing. Like there's a missing scene somewhere in here.
The captain dies, Ripley finds the instructions to capture the alien and that the crew is expendable. Then suddenly Ash is there next to her and she explodes on him, then cries and runs out. Good stuff, works, etc. Although it's odd he lets her get away here just to attack her literally 2 seconds later.
So next thing, Ash is trapping her in the main area. And he's just acting ... weird. And I can't figure out why. It bugged me the other times I've watched it too. It's like we're missing a scene where Ash gets damaged or something. He just suddenly behaves so completely and strangely different for this whole scene and it would work if it actually had some explanation but it's just weirdly there. His movements are all wrong, he's acting funny and not all together there and so on.
It ends up just being very odd and off and feels to me like some small but important scene got left on the cutting room floor. It still kinda works but it always stands out to me.
3) The scene where they rehook up Ash's head was great. Good practical effects, very creepy, good performance, etc, etc, etc.
I did find all his comments about the perfection of the alien to be odd though. I could kinda understand him feeling that way, but it seems like they want us (the audience) to buy it to and I just ... don't get that. Looking at this film as the first one with no other context, the alien just doesn't have that mystique about it. It's horrible and rapey and all that, but so far only it's method of procreation has really been notible.
Other then that, the damn thing isn't much of a "super predator" or some such. It's just a wild animal running around in the air ducts. The main tension comes from how unarmed and defenseless the very small crew is in this very large ship full of nooks and crannies for the thing to hide in and not from the alien being any sort of exceptionally vicious or intelligent or predatory or unkillable thing.
It just struck me as interesting that the alien came off as scary more due to the discomforting way it's birthed and the helplessness of the crew more then any sort of real inherent danger.
I just got back from seeing it. It's really good actually. It can most easily be compared to Sky Captain in a lot of ways, but the movie knows the plot isn't very serious and the CGI actually looks good and believable. Or as believable as Space Zeppelins filled with Flying Saucers get. And the actors can actually act, even if it is a bit hammy.
The joke about Sarah Palin as president does get a little played out, but if you can accept Moon Nazis than I think that should be acceptable too.
There are some jabs at American Exceptionalism that I think might get a little grating on an American.
If you like subtle and not so subtle hints at other movies then I would say there are some really great meta-jokes that are worth seeing the movie for.
I think the one thing I was really impressed by was the CGI. This is a movie made for 7.5mil Euros. Maybe Disney should hire these guys as consultants for their next Sci-fi epic.
Oh, and it has Udo Kier as the Moon Führer. How can you not love that.
.
Island. Being on fire.
Idk, you're talking about the country that produced and loved Team America...
Are you sure they understood it was satire?
I'm fairly sure most people did, yes. The idea that all Americans are jingoistic beyond reason is a pretty stupid stereotype and is just as accurate as cowardly Frenchmen, prissy Brits, and sex crazed Italians.
Ok, that last one might be true, but still.
Finally saw the new Muppets movie. So much fun spending an hour and a half not being my usual cynical asshole self.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
Didn't they do the same thing in WWII?
They were also huge dicks to Ethiopia, but that's unrelated.
The same thing as what?
Who cares?
I was able to sit through this one until the end though so I guess I'd rank it above The Limey.
I have a bad feeling this one will turn out to be pretty close to what actually happens in the film.
Sorry, WWI
In WWI France fought tooth and and nail and managed to keep the Germans from pushing into Paris. The "French surrender" thing arose out of WWII, and it was really just shitty, since they were barely recovered from the massive beating they had taken like twenty years earlier.
"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
But also, making fun of the nation of Napoleon for being cowardly surrender monkeys is certainly one of the more historically ignorant things one can do. Even if we're specifically speaking of WWII, the French Resistance were pretty bad ass.
Answer to 2:
Answer to 3:
France was the one making sure Italy won (which makes Italy's failure even more hilarious). While most of the world started off with an embargo, France was the last hold out, and even started up a covert blockade to stop any aid or purchases (including arms and food) from actually making it into Ethiopia. When European refugees from Ethiopia brought reports of Italy using chemical and other banned weapons, the France blocked League of Nations investigations and the French head of the Red Cross covered up reports from its workers in the country. It was also the first to grant recognition of Italy's conquest of Ethiopia, despite Italy never actually gaining control of the country. The list of crap goes on, but it might suffice to say that France's reputation may have come from its pure desperation to appease Il Duce (I can't actually spell his name).
To this day I cannot figure out what Ash was doing with the
As far as the Alien is concerned. Yes, the crew is helpless and unarmed against "the beast", but would you not be just as helpless against a lion? Ash's admiration comes from knowledge of the Alien from another source; he knows more about it than the crew and audience knows. Hell, the cold vacuum of space isn't enough to kill it.
Also saw the muppets. I wasn't thrilled with the main song, but the movie was great.
For some reference, the average shot length for most films is 2-8 seconds. Meaning, Gravity will have fewer cuts than a music video.
Cinemetrics!
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
That was a series of bad decisions. Like, on a level that actually ought to call for an intervention.
Scream seemed like it might just be slightly clever for a while, then it wasn't. Also, there were so many knife stabs to people's stomachs, it actually got a bit odd. I think Wes Craven might have a somewhat fucked up fetish.
The Eagle was pointless and dull.
Season of the Witch could have been kind of decent, as a concept, in the hands of better people. It wasn't, though. Really wasn't.
I did like that
I guess at this point Nicolas Cage doesn't have an agent as such, but just a guy who goes, 'his hair will look HOW bad? He's in!'