"Wild Wild West'' is so bad, it violates not one but two rules from Ebert's Bigger Little Movie Glossary. By casting M. Emmet Walsh as the train engineer, it invalidates the Stanton-Walsh Rule, which states that no movie with Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh can be altogether bad. And by featuring Kevin Kline without facial hair, it violates the Kevin Kline Mustache Principle, which observes that Kline wears a mustache in comedies but is cleanshaven in serious roles. Of course, Kline can always appeal on the grounds that although he is cleanshaven in his main role here, he sports facial hair in several of the other roles he plays in the movie. Or perhaps he could use the defense that ``Wild Wild West'' is not a comedy.
Uh ebert is wrong in this case. WWW is a beautiful mix of MiB and all the wild west tropes you can throw at something. I.love it. I have to say on a more recent watching, Will Smith is not playing a convincingly heterosexual man, to which I started to ask myself, has he ever?
Uh ebert is wrong in this case. WWW is a beautiful mix of MiB and all the wild west tropes you can throw at something. I.love it. I have to say on a more recent watching, Will Smith is not playing a convincingly heterosexual man, to which I started to ask myself, has he ever?
"Wild Wild West'' is a comedy dead zone. You stare in disbelief as scenes flop and die. The movie is all concept and no content; the elaborate special effects are like watching money burn on the screen. You know something has gone wrong when a story is about two heroes in the Old West, and the last shot is of a mechanical spider riding off into the sunset.
...
Smith and Kline have so little chemistry, they seem to be acting in front of rear-projections of each other.
...
There are moments when all artifice fails, and you realize you are regarding desperate actors, trapped on the screen, fully aware they've been left hanging out to dry.
AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
I like Wild Wild West quite a bit. It's not a perfect movie by any means, but it is super inventive for a big budget comedy. Also, prior to Django Unchained it was probably the biggest Hollywood movie to actually in some way address the role of slavery during the time period--which to be fair speaks more to the state of our society than the quality of this silly Will Smith movie. But still, I think it's pretty fun. It's indicative of a time when big action movies didn't have to be so boringly uncinematic or self-serious.
Saw Spiderman: Homecoming tonight. That was a lot of fun and Tom Holland and Keaton were both fucking fantastic and Keaton's Vulture is a great villain and I'd say one of the best in the Marvel movies but let's be serious that's fucking pathetic competition. It's funny and it does funny I think really well. A great aspect of the film that feels right for the character. I loved a lot of the visual design aspects of the film and the Vulture is just ... amazing. I just love everything about the way the suit looks and feels. The fights were .. ok. There's really very few action sequences honestly. And the big one at the end is a visual fucking mess and kinda screws the pooch on having a great action climax. Overall, I enjoyed it.
But you know I thought about it a bunch on the ride home and I was reading that Film Crit Hulk article on it that someone linked awhile back and I'd bookmarked for later consumption and I just keep coming back to Stranger Things. Specifically, Astaereth and his sort of review of it. Because it gave me a lot of the same feelings as that show and said review really helped me articulate what that was to myself if no one else.
Spiderman: Homecoming is a really fun movie for a most part and I enjoyed it and it's got some great bits but it just isn't about anything. It's got something it so desperately wants to be about and it does a great job of laying the groundwork for Spiderman's journey towards maturity but there's ultimately no journey there. There's no there there. There's nothing that connects what happens at the end with any sort of character growth for Peter. The movie just kind of assumes it did happen because it's what we expect is supposed to happen at the end of a movie like this. There's a whole ending sequence that has so many great beats to it (and then so many moments that are a complete visual clusterfuck that make it impossible to tell wtf is even going on) but it just doesn't actually mean anything for the movie. There's nothing there that motivates or demonstrates his growth.
That doesn't mean it wasn't fun and that I didn't have a good time. But it's just kinda there at the end of the day. It's insubstantial.
You know those cheap CGI knockoffs of big name movies that are basically designed to fool dumb people into buying them?
There was one of those for King Arthur today and I nearly bought it just to see if it was better than what Guy
Ritchie shat onto his hard drive.
If that's King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table then that's The Asylum, who are infamous ("EVEN MORE THAN FAMOUS!") for their mockbusters. They're two ex-Village Roadshow (Aussie company that often co-finances Warner Bros pics) execs who decided to go into movie production for themselves.
The story goes, they produced a film called H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds the same year as the Tom Cruise/Steven Spielberg War of the Worlds and were shocked when Blockbuster ordered 100,000 copies. Since swapping to the "Almost identical, but legally distinct" business model they've apparently never lost money on a film, currently churning out around a dozen movies per year.
God knows how they did in 2014, where there were at least 3 Hercules films all released around the same time - The Asylum one, The Rock one, and the Twilight alumni one.
In many ways, I vastly prefer this Spiderman to the two previous ones, even if Spiderman 2 arguably got the thematic bit much more right. (I never warmed to Spiderman 2.) I like the world the film evokes, I like how small-scale it is compared to the overblown but empty threats of most MCU films. I like that Peter actually kinda sucks at what he does. I like that he's unhealthily obsessed with the idea of being an Avenger, which to me rang absolutely true for an overenthusiastic teen trying to find out who he is and what he can be. And I especially like Keaton's villain, his motivations and how he finally acts. But pretty much everything Film Crit Hulk writes about the film's shortcomings is true. If the MCU were to marry their IMO almost always strong character work to actual themes that aren't just window dressing, their films would benefit greatly.
It's a shame that (at least IMO) they learnt a lesson about characterisation during Whedon's tenure, but they completely lack the thematic work that Whedon did on Buffy. Not that he was perfect at doing so, and the series (like pretty much any series that has 20+ episode seasons) wasn't constantly engaged in thematic storytelling, but more often than not Buffy was about something, and its quippy, often character-driven material was made into much more by having story arcs going beyond defeating the Big Bad. Sometimes it failed, but it at least tried, and that elevated it beyond its cheesy premise.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
"But which Spidey is going to help you change for the better?"
Which shows we have polar opposites to say the least about how to watch movies. By that logic movies could make you WORSE and you should not be watching movies to start with.
With the news of AMC trying to find a legal way to get out of their deal with MoviePass, I'm wondering how is this not a win-win for them. As far as I know, MoviePass people are still paying AMC the same amount of money as before and, with the larger number of people going to their cinemas, this should at least theoretically translate into more overpriced popcorn, drinks and candies sold at their concession stands.
Unless the tickets sold to MoviePass are way under normal price and AMC were stupid enough not to set a limit on how many they can buy.
On that note, in the UK, the first or second of the Rami Spider-Man films is responsible for the creation of a whole new rating category. The content in the film would have given it a "12" rating, ie nobody under the age of 12 would be allowed in, even accompanied. The sudio was either unwilling or unable to make the cuts necessary to bring it down to a "PG" (Parental Guidance) rating, where anyone could go as long they had a guardian with them. So they negotiated a compromise, in the form of "12A" where 12 and up could go and see it just fine on their own, as they could have done with a 12 or a PG, but if your 10 year or really really really wanted to go, you could take them along.
Current MCU offerings usually land on a hard 12 so it's not totally supplanted by the 12A, but it's an interesting result of studio negotiation on our stricter and more granular ratings system compared to the US.
Wait wait wait.
In the UK, if a film is any edgier than an MCU flick, nobody under 18 gets to see it in theaters, no matter what? Like, "Sorry dude, you're 17 and your parents are right here, but we cannot allow you to see bloodless comic book violence or hear two uses of the word 'fuck'"?
In theory yes, but in practice I struggle to believe that its really policed all that much, unless someone is really trying their luck (e.g. a 13 year old trying to get into an 18).
I can't recall a single time I've seen someone ID'd when buying a movie ticket, unless it is to prove they are eligable for being a student discount.
That said, my brother in-law worked at Odeon while he was a student for a few years and reached a minor management role of some kind; I might ask him next time I see him.
When I was like 16 I got denied an R action film even though my father was right there saying it was fine (he wasn't seeing it). So I'm sure some jackasses out there enforce all these stupid rules.
I grew up with age ratings and never had an issue with them, but then I also got into films I was interested in even though I was supposedly too young - and let me tell you, The Name of the Rose was quite... educational at the age of 12.
I admit to having been massively annoyed at parents taking young kids to the cinema for films that were very much not suitable, e.g. the kid who looked perhaps 6 or 7 who was taken to see Princess Mononoke by his parents. It was hard to miss that the kid was very much not into the sometimes pretty graphic violence of that particular movie.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Ratings are (at least theoretically) useful because people are dumb as rocks and would take five year-olds in to see Alien or Saw if there wasn't a rule to stop them.
The way ratings are applied is often daft, but that's not an argument against them existing at all.
With the news of AMC trying to find a legal way to get out of their deal with MoviePass, I'm wondering how is this not a win-win for them. As far as I know, MoviePass people are still paying AMC the same amount of money as before and, with the larger number of people going to their cinemas, this should at least theoretically translate into more overpriced popcorn, drinks and candies sold at their concession stands.
Unless the tickets sold to MoviePass are way under normal price and AMC were stupid enough not to set a limit on how many they can buy.
They could be against just because it hurts the perceived value of going to the cinema
AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
The opening of Ghostbusters scared me until I was about 10, but then again the United Artists titles used to scare the shit out of young Atomika so maybe I was just soft
With the news of AMC trying to find a legal way to get out of their deal with MoviePass, I'm wondering how is this not a win-win for them. As far as I know, MoviePass people are still paying AMC the same amount of money as before and, with the larger number of people going to their cinemas, this should at least theoretically translate into more overpriced popcorn, drinks and candies sold at their concession stands.
Unless the tickets sold to MoviePass are way under normal price and AMC were stupid enough not to set a limit on how many they can buy.
They could be against just because it hurts the perceived value of going to the cinema
You mean the same way concert hall managers were railing against common people going to see the opera? :P
"But which Spidey is going to help you change for the better?"
Which shows we have polar opposites to say the least about how to watch movies. By that logic movies could make you WORSE and you should not be watching movies to start with.
At least he got rid of the all caps thing.
I mean, you could focus on that line I guess, but it would be like missing the entire point of both things he's saying in that write-up to just complain about the phrasing of his attempt at a big ending. Hell, even if you don't buy his ideas about the intentionality of how the film is written (I certainly don't), neither it nor the ending really have anything to do with his criticisms of the film on a structural level.
I think he sees far too much deliberate action in what occurs to an MCU script as it's made. The answer is just bad writing.
The 30 minute advertising hellscape before you get to watch the movie deters me from watching movies in theaters just as much as the price and that's not going anywhere
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
"But which Spidey is going to help you change for the better?"
Which shows we have polar opposites to say the least about how to watch movies. By that logic movies could make you WORSE and you should not be watching movies to start with.
At least he got rid of the all caps thing.
I mean, you could focus on that line I guess, but it would be like missing the entire point of both things he's saying in that write-up to just complain about the phrasing of his attempt at a big ending. Hell, even if you don't buy his ideas about the intentionality of how the film is written (I certainly don't), neither it nor the ending really have anything to do with his criticisms of the film on a structural level.
I think he sees far too much deliberate action in what occurs to an MCU script as it's made. The answer is just bad writing.
Well, FCH knows a lot about that!
Swish!
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
The 30 minute advertising hellscape before you get to watch the movie deters me from watching movies in theaters just as much as the price and that's not going anywhere
Yeah, but at least it allows for you to be a little late, which is a good thing for people who have kids and stuff
Also, you get to see trailers on the big screen, which can be p cool
Netflix suggested I would enjoy watching Wild Wild West. I remember watching it on HBO or something many moons ago, and I liked it. I watched it again last night and I still liked it.
I have nothing to offer in my defense.
I mean it has both will smith and Salma Hayeks butts
Netflix suggested I would enjoy watching Wild Wild West. I remember watching it on HBO or something many moons ago, and I liked it. I watched it again last night and I still liked it.
I have nothing to offer in my defense.
I mean it has both will smith and Salma Hayeks butts
The 30 minute advertising hellscape before you get to watch the movie deters me from watching movies in theaters just as much as the price and that's not going anywhere
Yeah, but at least it allows for you to be a little late, which is a good thing for people who have kids and stuff
Also, you get to see trailers on the big screen, which can be p cool
For me, the biggest draw for seeing something in the theater is that I'm much, much less likely to get distracted by children or electronics during the film.
The 30 minute advertising hellscape before you get to watch the movie deters me from watching movies in theaters just as much as the price and that's not going anywhere
Yeah, but at least it allows for you to be a little late, which is a good thing for people who have kids and stuff
Also, you get to see trailers on the big screen, which can be p cool
At least around me, most of the time is filled with nonsensical Coke ads, bank ads, cinema ads, and car ads. And 1-3 actual trailers. The trailers are nice though.
PSN: Gumbotron88 3DS FC: 0018-3695-0013 (Devon)
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
The 30 minute advertising hellscape before you get to watch the movie deters me from watching movies in theaters just as much as the price and that's not going anywhere
Yeah, but at least it allows for you to be a little late, which is a good thing for people who have kids and stuff
Also, you get to see trailers on the big screen, which can be p cool
At least around me, most of the time is filled with nonsensical Coke ads, bank ads, cinema ads, and car ads. And 1-3 actual trailers. The trailers are nice though.
Advertisements cannot play after the posted start time of the movie, at least in the US
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BlackDragon480Bluster KerfuffleMaster of Windy ImportRegistered Userregular
The 30 minute advertising hellscape before you get to watch the movie deters me from watching movies in theaters just as much as the price and that's not going anywhere
Yeah, but at least it allows for you to be a little late, which is a good thing for people who have kids and stuff
Also, you get to see trailers on the big screen, which can be p cool
At least around me, most of the time is filled with nonsensical Coke ads, bank ads, cinema ads, and car ads. And 1-3 actual trailers. The trailers are nice though.
Advertisements cannot play after the posted start time of the movie, at least in the US
I'm in the northern hellscape of Canada, where no such rules exist, to my knowledge.
The opening of Ghostbusters scared me until I was about 10, but then again the United Artists titles used to scare the shit out of young Atomika so maybe I was just soft
Parts of Ghostbusters scared me as a wee child, but I still loved the hell out of that movie. I think the fact that the Ghostbusters got scared too really helped.
The 30 minute advertising hellscape before you get to watch the movie deters me from watching movies in theaters just as much as the price and that's not going anywhere
Yeah, but at least it allows for you to be a little late, which is a good thing for people who have kids and stuff
Also, you get to see trailers on the big screen, which can be p cool
At least around me, most of the time is filled with nonsensical Coke ads, bank ads, cinema ads, and car ads. And 1-3 actual trailers. The trailers are nice though.
Advertisements cannot play after the posted start time of the movie, at least in the US
I'm in the northern hellscape of Canada, where no such rules exist, to my knowledge.
Our people are niced in theatres from any stories I've heard though, so it evens out.
The start time of movies up here is when they dim the lights and switch to the couple of important big budget adds that appear before the trailers. Before start time is for endless other cheaper ads and various time fillers the theatre has created. At least the game thing gives you free points towards movies.
shryke on
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ObiFettUse the ForceAs You WishRegistered Userregular
I now expect @Atomika and @Astaereth to review every movie that comes out. Cost should no longer be an issue
My parents, mostly for lack of babysitter, took me to at least two "inappropriate" movies - Animal House and Wizards. My mother was apparently particularly mortified at exposing her wee son to the former (and the latter, despite being a cartoon, is very much not for kids), but my memories of both were fragmentary at best. It took seeing them again as an adult to give the bits I retained any sort of coherence or context.
$10 a month lets me see every movie I would ever want to see :eek:
The catch(es) being that it doesn't work for IMAX or 3D and they will definitely be selling your movie watching habits off to some third party.
AMC said this morning that they're going to opt out if there's any legal way to do it (since they've already been in a contract with them), so hurry up all of you close to AMC theaters . . . . including me :sad:
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
Unfortunately it's time that's the limiting factor there, not cost.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
Posts
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
But you know I thought about it a bunch on the ride home and I was reading that Film Crit Hulk article on it that someone linked awhile back and I'd bookmarked for later consumption and I just keep coming back to Stranger Things. Specifically, Astaereth and his sort of review of it. Because it gave me a lot of the same feelings as that show and said review really helped me articulate what that was to myself if no one else.
Spiderman: Homecoming is a really fun movie for a most part and I enjoyed it and it's got some great bits but it just isn't about anything. It's got something it so desperately wants to be about and it does a great job of laying the groundwork for Spiderman's journey towards maturity but there's ultimately no journey there. There's no there there. There's nothing that connects what happens at the end with any sort of character growth for Peter. The movie just kind of assumes it did happen because it's what we expect is supposed to happen at the end of a movie like this. There's a whole ending sequence that has so many great beats to it (and then so many moments that are a complete visual clusterfuck that make it impossible to tell wtf is even going on) but it just doesn't actually mean anything for the movie. There's nothing there that motivates or demonstrates his growth.
That doesn't mean it wasn't fun and that I didn't have a good time. But it's just kinda there at the end of the day. It's insubstantial.
The story goes, they produced a film called H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds the same year as the Tom Cruise/Steven Spielberg War of the Worlds and were shocked when Blockbuster ordered 100,000 copies. Since swapping to the "Almost identical, but legally distinct" business model they've apparently never lost money on a film, currently churning out around a dozen movies per year.
God knows how they did in 2014, where there were at least 3 Hercules films all released around the same time - The Asylum one, The Rock one, and the Twilight alumni one.
It's a shame that (at least IMO) they learnt a lesson about characterisation during Whedon's tenure, but they completely lack the thematic work that Whedon did on Buffy. Not that he was perfect at doing so, and the series (like pretty much any series that has 20+ episode seasons) wasn't constantly engaged in thematic storytelling, but more often than not Buffy was about something, and its quippy, often character-driven material was made into much more by having story arcs going beyond defeating the Big Bad. Sometimes it failed, but it at least tried, and that elevated it beyond its cheesy premise.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
"But which Spidey is going to help you change for the better?"
Which shows we have polar opposites to say the least about how to watch movies. By that logic movies could make you WORSE and you should not be watching movies to start with.
At least he got rid of the all caps thing.
Unless the tickets sold to MoviePass are way under normal price and AMC were stupid enough not to set a limit on how many they can buy.
In theory yes, but in practice I struggle to believe that its really policed all that much, unless someone is really trying their luck (e.g. a 13 year old trying to get into an 18).
I can't recall a single time I've seen someone ID'd when buying a movie ticket, unless it is to prove they are eligable for being a student discount.
That said, my brother in-law worked at Odeon while he was a student for a few years and reached a minor management role of some kind; I might ask him next time I see him.
U, PG, 12A, 15, 18
Of those only two set hard limits. You can take a seven year old child to see a 12A if you want
Personally I'd get rid of them all but whatever
I admit to having been massively annoyed at parents taking young kids to the cinema for films that were very much not suitable, e.g. the kid who looked perhaps 6 or 7 who was taken to see Princess Mononoke by his parents. It was hard to miss that the kid was very much not into the sometimes pretty graphic violence of that particular movie.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
The way ratings are applied is often daft, but that's not an argument against them existing at all.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
You mean the same way concert hall managers were railing against common people going to see the opera? :P
I mean, you could focus on that line I guess, but it would be like missing the entire point of both things he's saying in that write-up to just complain about the phrasing of his attempt at a big ending. Hell, even if you don't buy his ideas about the intentionality of how the film is written (I certainly don't), neither it nor the ending really have anything to do with his criticisms of the film on a structural level.
I think he sees far too much deliberate action in what occurs to an MCU script as it's made. The answer is just bad writing.
Well, FCH knows a lot about that!
Swish!
Yeah, but at least it allows for you to be a little late, which is a good thing for people who have kids and stuff
Also, you get to see trailers on the big screen, which can be p cool
I mean it has both will smith and Salma Hayeks butts
This is a remarkably strong argument.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
For me, the biggest draw for seeing something in the theater is that I'm much, much less likely to get distracted by children or electronics during the film.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
At least around me, most of the time is filled with nonsensical Coke ads, bank ads, cinema ads, and car ads. And 1-3 actual trailers. The trailers are nice though.
Advertisements cannot play after the posted start time of the movie, at least in the US
Damn it, not at the Kansas City location.
But there will be showings of Monster Squad and Chaplin's The Great Dictator there this weekend, so I'll be going to at least one of those.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
I'm in the northern hellscape of Canada, where no such rules exist, to my knowledge.
Parts of Ghostbusters scared me as a wee child, but I still loved the hell out of that movie. I think the fact that the Ghostbusters got scared too really helped.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Our people are niced in theatres from any stories I've heard though, so it evens out.
The start time of movies up here is when they dim the lights and switch to the couple of important big budget adds that appear before the trailers. Before start time is for endless other cheaper ads and various time fillers the theatre has created. At least the game thing gives you free points towards movies.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2017/08/16/moviepass-netflix-cofounder-slashes-price-9-95-month-app-crashes/571781001/
The catch(es) being that it doesn't work for IMAX or 3D and they will definitely be selling your movie watching habits off to some third party.
Edit: Ah, looking at the details it looks like it have been R now!
AMC said this morning that they're going to opt out if there's any legal way to do it (since they've already been in a contract with them), so hurry up all of you close to AMC theaters . . . . including me :sad:
No kidding
I still gotta come up with $25,000 by year's end for surgeries