Serious Movie Discussion XXXIII

[Ricky13]

Will do. Thanks.

Gotta love the Av.

 

[aquamanpunch]

Glad to hear you dug The Grey, Buillitt. Or as I call it the greatest modern movie to be released in January.

But Looper....meh. Movie was solid but pacing was off and the action was pretty weak; wasted potential imo. Why didn't they just teleport/time travel the marks into the middle of the ocean to drown instead of a freakin' corn field?

BTW, Marked For Death on AMC right now. IM A JAMAICAN COP MAHN AND SCREWFACE IS MAI CAREER!

Also, gotta love that music in the GETTING WEAPONS READY YEAGGHHHH montage.

 

[Flemmy Stardust]

Why didn't they just teleport/time travel the marks into the middle of the ocean to drown instead of a freakin' corn field?

because that movie would suck ass.

looks like Looper is on Starz late friday/early saturday. Gonna DVR it, and keep it DVR'd forever.

 

[Shot]

because that movie would suck ass.

looks like Looper is on Starz late friday/early saturday. Gonna DVR it, where it will stay forever.

The movie never covers the physics of how the time travel machines work too. Maybe it can't transport people to an ocean.

 

[Ricky13]

GODDAMIT FLEM!

I'm going to be stuck on this classic run for a bit, I'm guessing. The Third Man put The Maltese Falcon to shame for me.

That's not to say the latter didn't rule. The Third Man was just... perfect. I could never do an all-time list but it would be very very high up.

OK. What next? The Big Sleep, M or The Killers?

I'm not sure I'll want to watch a film in colour again if they're all anywhere near as good as The Third Man.

That's a joke of course, but DAMN if that wasn't one of the best things I've ever seen.

 

[Flemmy Stardust]

GODDAMIT FLEM!

I'm going to be stuck on this classic run for a bit, I'm guessing. The Third Man put The Maltese Falcon to shame for me.

That's not to say the latter didn't rule. The Third Man was just... perfect. I could never do an all-time list but it would be very very high up.

OK. What next? The Big Sleep, M or The Killers?

I'm not sure I'll want to watch a film in colour again if they're all anywhere near as good as The Third Man.

That's a joke of course, but DAMN if that wasn't one of the best things I've ever seen.

The Killers is the best of the bunch. My 2nd favorite classic film next to 12 Angry Men. As far as modern vs classic, The Killers has the best of both worlds.

The Big Sleep is a lot like The Maltese Falcon, with Bogey as the leading man. I think it's got a little more edge to it, but I'm not sure which i like more between the two. I haven't seen The Maltese Falcon since i first got netflix in 2006.

M is from the 30s (it's also in German), and you're gonna notice...but that being said, there's a lot of super innovative shit going on for the time. The editing is really ambitious. The story is cool and the end puts you in a tough spot intellectually. It also stars Peter Lorre from The Maltese Falcon, only he's younger, fatter, and has bad teeth.

Definitely watch M before Fury, because Fury is a very similar story from a different perspective. A lot more Hollywood, which is a good thing, particularly in classic discussion.

Testament of Dr. Mabuse is the best Fritz Lang film IMO. Same style as M but the characters have a lot more life, the aesthetic is improved, and i liked the story more. Just a more refined film on the whole.

 

[Sigh GunRanger]

If we're talking about unsung noirs, Scandal Sheet is fantastic. Also check out Dark City (with Heston). It's on Netflix Instant.

 

[Flemmy Stardust]

If we're talking about unsung noirs, Scandal Sheet is fantastic. Also check out Dark City (with Heston). It's on Netflix Instant.

did you play uncharted 3 yet?

 

[Sigh GunRanger]

did you play uncharted 3 yet?

No, haven't had the money to any games lately. Will by next week though.

 

[theskza]

did you play uncharted 3 yet?

2>>1>>>>>>>>>>>>3

3 sucked when compared to the others. I can't wait for a fourth, though.

 

[Sigh GunRanger]

2>>1>>>>>>>>>>>>3

3 sucked when compared to the others. I can't wait for a fourth, though.

2 wasn't even better than 1

 

[Flemmy Stardust]

2>>1>>>>>>>>>>>>3

3 sucked when compared to the others. I can't wait for a fourth, though.

a lot of people say that, but they're all grossly mistaken.

3 is the best by far. the first two sequences alone blow the first two games away. do you not remember being able to play through stuff like this?

Spoiler

or this?

 

[theskza]

2 wasn't even better than 1

I'm pretty sure you are the only one on Sherdog that says this.

 

[theskza]

a lot of people say that, but they're all grossly mistaken.

3 is the best by far. the first two sequences alone blow the first two games away. do you not remember being able to play through stuff like this?

Spoiler

or this?

About halfway through the game stops being fun.

 

[Flemmy Stardust]

About halfway through the game stops being fun.

if you're weird, maybe. The shit i posted is all in the 2nd half.

i think 1 & 2 are a lot closer than people make it out to be. Uncharted 2 is the only one that didn't live up to its reputation for me.

 

[theskza]

I hated the second half. Less adventure and more random shootouts.

Have you played Tomb Raider?

 

[Flemmy Stardust]

not yet. never played the tomb raider series. the controls were always too much of a nightmare for me, but i'm definitely getting this new one at some point.

 

[theskza]

Neither have I, but I want to get it.

What about The Last of Us?

 

[Flemmy Stardust]

i mean, after the Uncharted games i have a lot of faith in Naughty Dog, but it doesn't look like my kind of game. Looks like the gameplay is very tame for the sake of realism, and i prefer games where i get to do crazy action hero shit.

 

[Bullitt68]

I don't mind a little TV talk every now and then, even wrestling, but video games? Come on, boys.

Anyway, between yesterday and today I watched three movie challenge picks plus one non-movie challenge pick that's at least kind of related, plus I've been told to watch it like 500 times.

First off, I watched The Tree of Life and didn't really like it that much. I thought maybe I would since it seemed pretty straightforward by Malick standards, but like almost all of his shit, it takes forever to start moving and by the end you still don't go anywhere. I've called him a wannabe Kubrick a million times, and this was him at his most wannabe, and by the same token, this was his biggest failure at being Kubrick. None of the 2001 Earth-forming space crap made any sense, it didn't fit, and even all of his cosmic shit about grace and nature doesn't even go anywhere and he just ends it with that dumb ass beach walking scene.

The family stuff was okay, but the stuff with Sean Penn was dumb as fuck and totally pointless, and to be perfectly honest, I didn't even know which kid he was, the older one and the younger brother is the one that died or the younger one and the older brother is the one who died. And Malick didn't seem to give a shit, either.

I thought I would like it a lot based on the potential I knew it had, but I didn't like it very much because of the potential it wasted.

Then I moved on to Dredd, which was a super bad ass movie. I got about ten minutes in when I realized I had no idea what the actual plot was. I don't know why, but I just assumed it would be a remake, but then once the movie was going, I finally realized that it was probably going to be a whole different movie, and it sure as fuck was. The first thing I liked was how ballsy it was to never show Dredd without his helment. The second thing I liked was the psychic thing. The third thing I liked was the Die Hard-style confined location thing.

But the main thing I didn't like was that fucking Slo-Mo shit. As soon as they introduced it, I knew it would end up playing a big role in the aesthetic, and I didn't like that. That scene where they burst into the room and it is changing back-and-forth from the Slo-Mo perspective to the Judges shooting them all was terrible, not just because they were using the Slo-Mo at all but because they were integrating it into a regular aesthetic very poorly.

However, that's my only complaint. Everything else kicked ass, from the characters to the writing to the acting and especially the action. My favorite scene: After Ma-Ma levels that one floor with those three machine gun things and then through the dust she sees Dredd launch that guy over the ledge and then he just walks back. I also don't know if this was intentional, and it probably wasn't, but I loved the Stallone connection beyond Judge Dredd to Rambo: First Blood Part II with Dredd telling Ma-Ma over the intercom that he was coming after her just like Rambo tells Murdock.

It made me want to see Stallone's version again so I can decide which is better. In all honesty, Shot, I pretty much wrote Dredd off and totally expected Judge Dredd to be much better, but Dredd was so good that I need to revisit Judge Dredd and make a real comparison before either making your day or pissing you off with a decision. Either way, Dredd kicked ass.

Which leads me to the non-movie challenge pick I watched. After watching Dredd, I was reading up on it and someone on IMDb said it was just a shitty ripoff of The Raid, which I've been told to watch a million times on here and which I just so happened to spot at the library this last go-round, and as soon as I read that, I knew what was up next, and subsequent to my viewing, I had only one question: Why was this recommended to me so much?

Stupid writing, a plot I still don't understand, shitty acting, a bland lead, boring shootouts, and a ton of overchoreographed windmilling fights with far too little regard for the laws of physics which was made all the more egregious considering how realistic it thought it was.

There were flashes of cool here and there, but overall, I was supremely unimpressed and am genuinely curious as to A) Why everyone loved it so much and B) Why everyone thought I would love it so much.

And then tonight, back to the movie challenge picks, I watched Moneyball and absolutely loved it. A few parts dragged and I fucking hated the ending because I hated Pitt's character and was so fucking pissed about what a moron that guy was, but the whole development of the team and the backstage battles and then the streak, all fantastic. Never been the biggest Pitt fan, but he did a pretty good job here, and ditto for Mr. Hill, who unquestionably deserved that Oscar nomination.

My favorite scene was the walkoff homer at win 20. That was flawless filmmaking, from the slow motion to the sound drowning out to the sound of the ball cracking off the bat to Pitt whipping his head up after immediately identifying the sound of a home run connection and the sound fading back in as all hell broke loose. That's the movies right there. I rewound it like ten times, that's how you fucking do it. Perfection.

To extend a baseball analogy, you're batting a thousand so far, Shot. 3-for-3 with The Grey, Dredd, and Moneyball, though Pan's Labyrinth is a hell of a knuckleball :redface:

How JGL mimicked Willis's mannerisms was impressive. You could tell that hes studied him and dove his homework. Speech patterns were spot on too

Yep. When he told that gat man to be careful or he'd shoot off his foot, that was pure Willis, plus, like I said, those smirks were dead on.

the first like 25 minutes or so is literally just imagery of the earth forming.

This was misleading. I was waiting for a hell of a long time for the Earth-forming shit, which actually doesn't happen for a while. But yeah, it was pretty stupid.

i think the visuals are cool as hell

Malick is an even better candidate for the criticism I used to level at Tarkovsky, that of a director who would've made a hell of a cinematographer :icon_lol:

if i had to guess, i'd say you'll hate it.

I didn't hate it, at least, but I didn't love it.

it's a cool spin on "if i knew then what i know now." with JGL proving to see things more clearly and Willis being the one with blinders on.

I don't know why, but it was a foregone conclusion in my mind that they would hook up and battle the bad guys together. I thought they'd be buddies, not enemies, and that threw me in a way I don't think I ever really recovered from. A second viewing will actually likely increase my esteem, since I was wishing for most of the movie for that moment of reconciliation where Willis and JGL would be on the same side, and when it didn't happen, it left me hanging a bit.

However, I expected and wanted at least a little antagonism, which made that diner scene fucking outstanding. They really clicked in that one, and I loved Willis even throwing in the French before getting the drop on him.

how do you reconcile the time traveling paradoxes?

I didn't notice any because the film didn't call my attention to any. Explain to me what you were seeing that wasn't jiving, because I seriously have given it zero thought.

a lot of the stuff i liked most was just the mythology they established. my favorite is how the blunderbusses have no range and gats are for the more accurate shooters. i fucking love how that comes into play when JGL and Kid Blue get in their shoot out.

My favorite part was the relationship that developed between JGL and the kid. Totally unexpected but it really brought everything together.

shit i need to watch looper again. i'm going to the library. peace.

Hehe, sounds like Looper for you is like The Dark Knight Rises for me. That movie fucking took over my life. I've watched it so many times, hell, I'll still catch myself randomly thinking about it, thinking about the characters, the thematic implications, the ethics. From the first second it got into my head, it not only hasn't left, it's fucking moved in and I don't think it's moving out any time soon.

That's the shit I fucking live for :icon_chee