Just Watched

More of it come through? The fights were about half of the content or less in a 2 1/2 length movie. You know there needs to be action in a comic book movie, right?

Yes, but a lot of the rest of it was stuff that did next to nothing to show his humanity or were build-up or preparing you for action scenes. I guess it says something about the film that the thing I most took away from it was the action scenes and very little good characterization for my nickname counterpart. :[ And I was incredibly optimistic about the film because of Nolan's involvement.

Yes, but a lot of the rest of it was stuff that did next to nothing to show his humanity or were build-up or preparing you for action scenes. I guess it says something about the film that the thing I most took away from it was the action scenes and very little good characterization for my nickname counterpart. :[ And I was incredibly optimistic about the film because of Nolan's involvement.

I thought they did what they could in the time they had. Again, I think the problems that the movie had (lack of better characterization and awkward pacing) came from trying to put a whole condensed story into one movie in case they didn't do anymore.

I think it was great for what I expected it to be. And it's the first time I ever really liked Superman so yay.

Well, that's good then. :]

Haven't seen Man of Steel yet, but I'm already disappointed they used Zod instead of a villain that hadn't been in the movies before. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they avoided the obvious choice of Lex Luthor (who is potentially an awesome villain, as in 52, but is generally used poorly in the films and probably deserves a break from such abuse) but why not go for broke and pick someone like Darkseid? If, as rooster suggested, the people behind the film are concerned that they might not get a sequel, why not bring a "new" villain into the mix?

Haven't seen Man of Steel yet, but I'm already disappointed they used Zod instead of a villain that hadn't been in the movies before. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they avoided the obvious choice of Lex Luthor (who is potentially an awesome villain, as in 52, but is generally used poorly in the films and probably deserves a break from such abuse) but why not go for broke and pick someone like Darkseid? If, as rooster suggested, the people behind the film are concerned that they might not get a sequel, why not bring a "new" villain into the mix?

Possibly since they wanted a Krypton relevant story. The plot made sense in that it focused on Jor-El and Zod at the beginning and just followed through with that conflict. The movie really focuses on Krypton and the Kryptonians' future. They could have gone a different route, but then it wouldn't have been a very good origin story.

Quote from: Crudblud on June 18, 2013, 07:30:43 AM

Haven't seen Man of Steel yet, but I'm already disappointed they used Zod instead of a villain that hadn't been in the movies before. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they avoided the obvious choice of Lex Luthor (who is potentially an awesome villain, as in 52, but is generally used poorly in the films and probably deserves a break from such abuse) but why not go for broke and pick someone like Darkseid? If, as rooster suggested, the people behind the film are concerned that they might not get a sequel, why not bring a "new" villain into the mix?

Possibly since they wanted a Krypton relevant story. The plot made sense in that it focused on Jor-El and Zod at the beginning and just followed through with that conflict. The movie really focuses on Krypton and the Kryptonians' future. They could have gone a different route, but then it wouldn't have been a very good origin story.

That makes me curious to see it, since it sounds like the plot actually justifies yet another retelling of the origin story by way of going into Kryptonian history, though by now I think we should just be able to get down to Superman kicking ass in the name of justice, all five of the people in the audience who don't know the origin story already will not be too greatly inconvenienced by this, I'm sure. Again, if the plot justifies telling the origin again, fair enough, it's just that comic book movies keep rebooting things and repeating what we already know when they could be telling interesting new stories.

The Incridible Hulk did this pretty well, I think. Even though it's not a sequel to the Eric Bana movie, but rather more like a reboot, it's not an origin story. The scenes during the opening credits explained the origin well enough.

Also, Avengers Hulk is best Hulk ever.

I just watched the entire Police Squad! series (which is admittedly only 6 25-minute-long episodes) yesterday with my 13-year old nephew. our ribs

Seriously, it is so purposely campy and "bad" that it's just amazing, and the amount of jokes and visual puns and background things you won't even notice is stunning. Apparently they cancelled it because the joke density was so high that they couldn't possibly find a way to fit in a laugh track so that audiences back then would know when to laugh. It was just too quick-fire and packed with entendres and subtle things for them to keep up with at the time. The show was ahead of its time. :[

But seriously, I'm going to be watching these again for sure, probably several times. I very much recommend them to anyone who likes humour (give a few episodes a chance, they get better as you go along IMO), particularly more absurd humour or just general rapid-fire and visual jokes. Not to mention that episode 5 has the greatest fight scene I've seen in my life

Also, it stars Leslie Nielsen when he was still amazing. What more reason do you need?

If you like Police Squad, then you should check out Airplane! and Top Secret (assuming that you haven't already).  Both are earlier movies by the same Zucker/Abrams/Zucker team that did the Naked Gun series.  It also pays to actually read the credits because they usually slip in a few gags there too.

If you like Police Squad, then you should check out Airplane! and Top Secret! (assuming that you haven't already).  Both are earlier movies by the same Zucker/Abrams/Zucker team that did the Naked Gun series.  It also pays to actually read the credits because they usually slip in a few gags there too.

I really can't second this enough for both movies, and I would add the less well-known but utterly hilarious Kentucky Fried Movie to the mix.  Also, fix'd.

Don't forget the great Movie series!  Date Movie, Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans, Disaster Movie, etc.

Shut up Moobs.

I actually have seen Airplane! multiple times, I love that movie. I haven't heard of Top Secret!, though, interestingly. My gut tells me to be immediately skeptical because Leslie Nielsen isn't in it. :[ But I will check those movies out after I watch the Naked Gun series!

Leslie Nielsen was in Spy Hard.

Leslie Nielsen was in Spy Hard.

It's true.  Nobody but the Zuckers could actually make him funny.

The best thing that came out of Spy Hard was #ws" class="bbc_link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the theme song.

And I just got back from seeing World War Z. I've never read the book, so judge accordingly. The best things about it were Mireille Einos and Daniella Kertesz, in my opinion. Mireille is just an amazing actress who I think is generally terribly underrated and should get more screentime in things, and I've never seen Daniella before but she was a brilliant actress emotionally and was just awesome overall. I hope she goes on to do more movies.

Otherwise, the movie was...alright, I guess. It didn't bring anything new to the zombie genre, it was pretty much a standard zombie flick. I'd mostly say it's average because the first half or two-thirds was kind of below average, while the last third was pretty good. Basically, a bit after Daniella comes in it starts to pick up.

Brad Pitt was...Brad Pitt, I guess. He can be good, but he tends to play the same character (perhaps himself) a lot and I think he's kind of overrated a lot of the time. He was basically pretty standard action movie fare.

So yeah, it was alright, wish the whole thing had been as good as the last third was.

Just downloaded and watched Warm Bodies. Cue emotional in-tears Supes.

Seriously, though, that was a really good movie. For those who don't know, it's about a zombie that's just a little bit more human than the others, in that he can consciously think (albeit not having much control over his actions), who falls in love with a human that he sees. I'm not going to say any more, in the off-chance that any one of you actually does see it, but it's basically a romance film with comedy (and arguably horror). I was a bit skeptical but also excited by the concept, so I went in with pretty high expectations, and it pretty much met and possibly exceeded them for me.

It's just a really sweet, emotional movie. It's not perfect, there are several "funny" parts that are painfully unfunny and/or very out of place, but then there were plenty of parts that genuinely made me laugh out loud, which I never really do when I'm alone. The most important part about it was the romance, though, and as a romance film I just love it. It's not exactly mind-blowing, I know, but I left the film in tears and teared up at various parts of it. It was just really heartwarming, sad at parts, and overall good.

I kind of want to read the novel now.

Huh, forgot to update last week apparently.

Last week I saw The Heat. It wasn't very good. It had its funny moments and it had its "I'm trying really hard to be funny so I'm going to run this joke into the ground" moments. It was pretty meh, basically.

Just got back from The Lone Ranger. I've not seen much of the old series, so I can't speak for that, but this wasn't very great either. I've got extremely mixed feelings about it, because the parts that were bad were excruciatingly painfully bad. But the parts that were good were very, very good. For example, I loved the final showdown honestly, but plenty of parts had incredibly forced and stupid attempts at humour (like Tonto putting a bird cage on his head because his "bird" is scared of cats). Silver was weird, but his inexplicable randomness grew on me a little and by the end I was laughing at some of his parts. Depp didn't do horrible as Tonto, but their shoehorned attempts at making him silly were incredibly tiresome. If he'd played it straight with some funny moments that would've been pretty cool. He wasn't like Captain Jack like a lot of people are trying to pin on him, but he did have that same constant need to be somewhat funny. Armie Hammer (manliest name evar) was alright as The Lone Ranger, but I guess it says something that I really don't have anything good or bad to say about him. He was nothing special.

Basically, meh. I'll give them credit in that they didn't make it a John Depp film—The Lone Ranger was still the focus of the film, maybe Tonto was almost equally so. It's hard to say, since I kept going from groaning to laughing to enjoying it to groaning again. If you like good parts in-between bad parts, then go ahead.

But again, I'm not very familiar with the original series. Only familiar enough to have gotten incredibly excited and pumped up when William Tell Overture played.

I just saw Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.  I heartily enjoyed it.  I was expecting something with its tongue more in its cheek; I really wasn't expecting a straight-up modern action movie twisted with a costume drama, which was what this essentially was (there was humor, but no more than in your average Lethal Weapon or Die Hard film).  In the end I think it was to its benefit that it took itself so seriously.  Benjamin Walker was good in the title role; you'll be saying "Daniel Day Who?"  I also enjoyed that that one McPoyle brother who was also Mary on Psych played one of Lincoln's closest friends (turns out his real name is Jimmi Simpson; who knew?)  Now, like a lot of these costume dramas, and come to think of it a fair number of action films, it does get a bit slow in the middle, but it was always interesting to me.  I just enjoyed the way they added all these vampire elements to the well-known story of Abraham Lincoln's life.  The movie climaxes in a long and dazzling and magnificently improbable final action scene aboard a train on its way to Gettysburg that is worth the price of admission alone (protip - I watched it free on HBO On Demand so I mean that metaphorically).

My grade: B+

Yes! I didn't understand the terrible reviews, I enjoyed it exactly as you did. It was a weird situation where playing such an absurd premise straight just worked out fantastically for it. It was just ridiculous fun.

Just watched What's Eating Gilbert Grape This movie's got a weird place in my heart, since I'd seen bits and pieces as a child and my mom always talked about how it was her favourite movie. So I've had this weird place for it in me where it was a bit of a childhood legend, but I didn't fully understand what it was about. Finally decided to give it go and sit down and watch the whole thing now that I'm older.

Just...wow. It was amazing. So depressing, but at the same time pretty uplifting and just...good. At the end I wasn't sure if I should be crying or if I should be smiling. A bit of both, I guess. John Depp was really good but Leonardo DiCaprio was amazing. Wow. Just...wow, I guess. It's a weird movie to try to sum up. It's nothing huge, no big spectacle, just a small story about a small, troubled family in a small neighbourhood. And it was brilliant.

The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)
Anderson's follow up to the magnificent There Will Be Blood is definitely a bizarre experience, and I'll need to see it again, possibly more than once, before I really get it, but it is a beautiful film. Overall impression good.

Tideland (Terry Gilliam)
Like many who have negative opinions of this film on first viewing, I was told "it's a different film the second time you see it." Well, that's entirely true, the world of Tideland is so baffling, jarring and uncomfortable on a first viewing that a lot of the allusions and thematic links are indecipherable, if indeed they are noticed at all. I did not find it to be a masterpiece, and certainly not among Gilliam's best work, but it does a very good job of maintaining the seemingly impossible tonal balance it strives for and is impressive on that level alone.

The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton)
I have mixed feelings about this, but my overall impression is good due in no small part to Robert Mitchum's incredible performance as the insidious Harry Powell. For a film made in the 1950s it's actually quite surprising to me just how dark it gets, but the many cheesy parts do show its age and it's not such a comfortable fit for me.

I actually have seen Airplane! multiple times, I love that movie. I haven't heard of Top Secret!, though, interestingly. My gut tells me to be immediately skeptical because Leslie Nielsen isn't in it. :[ But I will check those movies out after I watch the Naked Gun series!

Top Secret! is an early Val Kilmer movie.  Omar Sharif does a good cameo as well.

Feeding Frenzy by Red Letter Media. It wasn't a bad movie for a bunch of hack/frauds that film with local actors and limited budgets/sets. Had a good amount of their brand of humour, although you didn't need to be someone that has watched everything Plinkett to get it. The movie proves that they know how to construct a movie competently.

Feeding Frenzy by Red Letter Media. It wasn't a bad movie for a bunch of hack/frauds that film with local actors and limited budgets/sets. Had a good amount of their brand of humour, although you didn't need to be someone that has watched everything Plinkett to get it. The movie proves that they know how to construct a movie competently.

As opposed to the idiots from That Guy with the Glasses.

the idiots from That Guy with the Glasses.

Some (i.e.: two or three) of them have talent, unfortunately they are being directed by Doug Walker, a man who can't write dialogue or narrative, direct, act, tell a joke, construct a likeable persona, analyse narrative with any intelligence or logic and many other things, but he has somehow developed a devoted cult of idiot followers who go out of their way to praise him every time he takes a shit. That community presents quite a bizarre situation, and their response to any criticism is "it's free entertainment so you can't complain about it."

I don't think he's too bad when it comes to his straightforward (albeit lighthearted) reviewing or critiquing, as I do think that he raises some good points, and I can almost always understand his reasoning, even if I don't agree with it.  The bigger problems start when he goes more and more into his own fictional little universe, such as the skits, the storylines, the long meandering jokes, etc.  In short, I guess you could say that I like to hear his opinions.  I don't like to see his comedy routines.

Watched Pacific Rim on Sunday. I thought it was pretty awesome. It had hints of mecha anime in it, mostly certain wide shots of the Jaegers that looked very stylized somehow. It was mostly its own kind of movie, though, and it was great. It was a big robot action movie that wasn't necessarily dumb. They sacrificed as little physics as they could (though they still obviously sacrificed quite a bit) and it was about as realistic as it could be without becoming boring.

Now, this is proof that you can have a movie with giant robot fights without being big, explosive, and stupid like, for example, Michael Bay's Transformers films. It had a pretty interesting and original plot, concepts, characters, and so forth. And quite importantly, the funny bits weren't obnoxiously stupid and predictable one-liners. They were funny, thought-out, and—while not necessarily complex—original or not overdone. It also had the first two "nerd" characters that I've liked in quite a while.

So, long story short, I liked it a lot. :] Would love to see again.

It had a pretty interesting and original plot

lol

Just kidding, I'm sure it's fine.  I'll watch it sometime.