2014 MOVIE OMNIBUS THREAD

[Elsalvajeloco]

I believe the tide started to turn on Ali during the first Frazier fight (Frazier won that title tournament on ABC nobody wanted), but Foreman was when it was clear Ali was pretty much the people's champion. But stopping at the Foreman fight was just weird in the same vein The Fighter ending with Ward-Neary was very weird. They went with the bullshit "guy wins world title" ending even though the Neary fight was for some Z-level British belt. Most boxing fans don't even remember that fight.  Ward's legacy, more or less, is the Gatti fights. The Rumble in the Jungle is legendary (it also gave us the awesome Soul Power/Zaire 74 concert), but the first and third Frazier fights are way more important (especially culturally and what they mean for Ali's legacy) when it comes to what needs to be covered. You can do a whole movie on those two fights alone.

[S.K.o.S.]

Saw the world premiere of The Drop last night.  Tom Hardy, James Gandolfini, and the screenplay was written by the guy who wrote Mystic River.  Hardy and Gandolfini run a bar in New York that doubles as a drop-off point for Chechen gangsters to launder money; the bar gets robbed, gangster money is taken, and trouble begins.  Hardy is a bartender, and he plays the character totally different from anything I've ever seen him in.  Brooklyn accent, pretty simple (as in, not too bright), sometimes robotically polite, sometimes awkward and stammering, and I didn't know it was possible for a blank stare to be amazing, but he pulls it off.  He said in the post-movie Q&A that he used Droopy Dawg as an inspiration.  I was getting some Rocky Balboa vibes.  Mattias Schoenaerts kills it here too... Anyway, it might be a little too swervy to be truly great, but it's really good and a hell of a lot of fun.  It's opening in limited release on the 12th, go see it if you can. I'm pretty sure this is Gandolfini's absolute last movie, and it's an excellent cap-off to his career.

[Curt McGirt]

They've been playing a bunch of commercials for that and I'm pretty well chomping at the bit for it. As I recall somebody posted the trailer for it here way back when and the same result occurred.

[Bustronaut]

Finally saw Edge of Tomorrow.  It was a fine movie, BUT I couldn't help but slot different actors in for Tom Cruise during the entire thing.  McConaughey, Damon, etc.  Then toward the end, I realized that Vince [bleeping] Vaughn probably would have made the best pick for the role, and I cannot stand the guy.  I doubt it would have had anywhere near the budget, though.

[Tabe]

Had a 75-cent coupon for Redbox so I rented a couple comedies that ultimately didn't deliver on their premise/promise:

 

Grudge Match - Stallone and De Niro are a couple 60-something retired boxers who split two fights back in the 70s and never had a third.  They have a personal feud and it gets reignited when they show up to do motion capture for a boxing video game.  That leads to a third fight.  There are some decent laughs in the movie but ultimately the movie just never really delivers.  They do some CGI and other wizardry to try and make the two guys look younger or whatever and sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't.  There's a funny bit that refers back to Rocky.  I'm sure there's a similar moment for Raging Bull but, since I haven't seen that movie, I can't confirm it.  Anyway, this ends up mildly amusing, occasionally funny and ultimately not great but not terrible either.  6/10.

 

Bad Words - Jason Bateman is a foul-mouthed warranty proofreader who apparently never finished 8th grade.  For reasons unknown, he decides to enter a national spelling bee for 8th graders.  He's attracted the attention of a reporter who's writing his story (and sponsoring him - and screwing him) and the ire of parents.  He makes friends with a competitor and, in-between racist insults and jokes, shows him the ways of the world a la Bad Grandpa.  In the end, what could have been a really funny premise ends up being just wasted potential.  There's some funny lines but the payoff at the end is weak and goes nowhere.  There aren't enough laughs and it just ends up disappointing.  I was bummed - really wanted to like this one.  4/10.

 

And then a Netflix documentary:

 

Hitler's GI Death Camps - An untold aspect of WW2 - American POWs being tossed into the same concentration camps as European Jews.  This documentary uses the (really detailed) diary of one survivor and interviews with him and other survivors to tell a horrific tale.  It's all stuff we've heard before, except the victims this time are American soldiers which perhaps was not known or realized previously.  Regardless, this is really compelling stuff.  Heartbreaking moment when one soldier revisits one of the sites and relates how his father didn't believe him regarding his torture.  Another heartbreaking moment at the end when one soldier recounts how he sat down his family and told them he'd answer any and all of their questions - but only that one time and after that to please not ask him about it.  His family respected his wishes and didn't speak of the war to him except his father, who would send him a birthday card every April 20.  The day of his liberation.  Excellent documentary and well-worth checking out.  10/10.

[Lacelle]

Stop watching shitty movies & watch Raging Bull.

[Tabe]

Stop watching shitty movies & watch Raging Bull.

That thought did cross my mind.  

[SovietShooter]

Ali is such a strange subject for a movie. Ali is probably the single most polarizing athlete of all time, except no one remembers that the vast majority of the country hated him. Seriously, there is not a single athlete who ever rubbed people the wrong way more than Ali, yet somehow he became the most beloved American athlete. He was hated as the loudmouth kid who beat Liston. He was hated when he joined the Nation of Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Ali. He was even more hated when he refused to go to the draft. He was probably the most hated athlete in the United States until he beat Foreman. There are probably ten different movies that could be made about him that are more accurate/interesting than the one that was made, but all ten of them would make a whole lot of people very uncomfortable.

I think that "Ali" did an inferior job of telling the story as compared to "When We Were Kings", a documentary from around the same time frame. I thought it did a vastly superior job of illustrating what Ali meant to the people of Zaire/Africa.

As far as Ali being hated... he was definitely hated by white America,but to Black Americans and internationally, he was beloved for standing up to the establishment. The Foreman fight was his baby face turn in a lot of ways, because Ali an the fight with his brain, and he did it in front of a crowd that he was already a hero to. Americans love a winner, and it was getting hard for white America not to admit he was the best. The Greatest even!

[supremebve]

 

Ali is such a strange subject for a movie. Ali is probably the single most polarizing athlete of all time, except no one remembers that the vast majority of the country hated him. Seriously, there is not a single athlete who ever rubbed people the wrong way more than Ali, yet somehow he became the most beloved American athlete. He was hated as the loudmouth kid who beat Liston. He was hated when he joined the Nation of Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Ali. He was even more hated when he refused to go to the draft. He was probably the most hated athlete in the United States until he beat Foreman. There are probably ten different movies that could be made about him that are more accurate/interesting than the one that was made, but all ten of them would make a whole lot of people very uncomfortable.

I think that "Ali" did an inferior job of telling the story as compared to "When We Were Kings", a documentary from around the same time frame. I thought it did a vastly superior job of illustrating what Ali meant to the people of Zaire/Africa.

As far as Ali being hated... he was definitely hated by white America,but to Black Americans and internationally, he was beloved for standing up to the establishment. The Foreman fight was his baby face turn in a lot of ways, because Ali an the fight with his brain, and he did it in front of a crowd that he was already a hero to. Americans love a winner, and it was getting hard for white America not to admit he was the best. The Greatest even!

 

I think you are underestimating the amount of black people who found his comments about other black people reprehensible.  There was a large group of black people who did love him because he fought the system, but there was also a lot of black people who hated the fact that he disparaged every black fighter with the same type of racist comments that he claimed to be fighting against more than a little problematic.

[Elsalvajeloco]

 

 

Ali is such a strange subject for a movie. Ali is probably the single most polarizing athlete of all time, except no one remembers that the vast majority of the country hated him. Seriously, there is not a single athlete who ever rubbed people the wrong way more than Ali, yet somehow he became the most beloved American athlete. He was hated as the loudmouth kid who beat Liston. He was hated when he joined the Nation of Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Ali. He was even more hated when he refused to go to the draft. He was probably the most hated athlete in the United States until he beat Foreman. There are probably ten different movies that could be made about him that are more accurate/interesting than the one that was made, but all ten of them would make a whole lot of people very uncomfortable.

I think that "Ali" did an inferior job of telling the story as compared to "When We Were Kings", a documentary from around the same time frame. I thought it did a vastly superior job of illustrating what Ali meant to the people of Zaire/Africa.

As far as Ali being hated... he was definitely hated by white America,but to Black Americans and internationally, he was beloved for standing up to the establishment. The Foreman fight was his baby face turn in a lot of ways, because Ali an the fight with his brain, and he did it in front of a crowd that he was already a hero to. Americans love a winner, and it was getting hard for white America not to admit he was the best. The Greatest even!

 

I think you are underestimating the amount of black people who found his comments about other black people reprehensible.  There was a large group of black people who did love him because he fought the system, but there was also a lot of black people who hated the fact that he disparaged every black fighter with the same type of racist comments that he claimed to be fighting against more than a little problematic.

 

 

I think a bit revisionist history (created by HBO, ESPN and the like) has created the ideal ending and doesn't like to look at that dichotomy. It's easy to look at Ali-Holmes and say everyone was pissed at Holmes for beating Ali because Ali was this black demi-god. However, that doesn't account for the fact Ali came out of retirement, needed the money badly in an era when guaranteed purses were getting bigger at the advent of PPV, and they tried several times to set that fight up over 2 years at least in exotic locations. The black bathroom attendant story gets tossed around like that's how every black person felt, and it was Marciano-Louis all over again for the black race (like the first Spinks fight didn't happen). I believe that's one reason they didn't go past the Foreman fight in Ali. Because there is no resolution to the story arc. Ali kept on talking shit even when he was physically deteriorating in front of everyone's eyes and making the same vicious comments. Watch him try to cut promos during Holmes vs. LeDoux and jump on the ring apron after the fight. It cannot be described as anything but incredibly sad to watch. But what you saw on Muhammad and Larry is sad, pitiful, and innocent Ali and Holmes with a chip on his shoulder. You did not see the guys from Holmes' era (the Spinks brothers, Berbick, etc.) and Ali's own era (Frazier, Foreman, Norton, etc) who also had something to prove. The amount of vitriol he had was returned in spades in the form of all the fights from Frazier 3 (Thrilla in Manila) to his final fight with Trevor Berbick.

 

The one thing from all those documentaries that wasn't put through the revisionist filter is Ferdie Pacheco saying he shouldn't have been in the ring after the third Frazier fight. However, Ali fancied himself a business man and boxing is a business. By the time Ali fought Holmes (mind you w/ six extra years of his brain getting rattled violently in sparring and live fights), black America had changed dramatically from when he won it from Liston and when he won it back from Foreman. Sure there was an attachment with older black people who remember prime Ali, but there was a good percentage who saw it as what happens in boxing. People get the shit kicked out of them at some point. It was the exact same way for someone like Sugar Ray Leonard, who came in at the end of that "pro-black" era. He was a black hero when he won Olympic gold in 76. By the time Terry Norris beat the holy hell out of him, black people (and everyone else) didn't give a single shit. The attachment to the sport and black athletes had changed. Plus, we already saw through the facade of an iconic boxer having multiple retirements and coming back with Muhammad Ali. Boxing was all about pilfering black and white dollars together by then (see: Holmes vs. Cooney).

[J.T.]

Richard Kiel aka iconic Biond villain, Jaws, has passed away at the age of 74.

[Lawful Metal]

So, is Lifeforce (1985) one of the most batshit insane high budget (for its time) of all time? I loved every minute. How is that not getting remade?

[Bustronaut]

Beneath the skin is kinda-sorta a remake? 

 

It's more MoS to Lifeforce's Donner Superman

[Reed]

So The Maze Runner is basically another teen dystopia movie only, with, you know, mazes?

[Niners Fan in CT]

So The Maze Runner is basically another teen dystopia movie only, with, you know, mazes?

Yes but I'm reading the first book so no spoilers please!

[Bustronaut]

The werewolf dies

[Brian Fowler]

What is that, the third YA adult adaptation about a dystopia so far this year?  And with Hunger Games 3 still to come.

[Tabe]

Another from the Netflix queue:

 

Frozen Ground - Nicolas Cage is a detective who locks onto the scent of a possible serial killer in Alaska.  John Cusack - spoiler alert - is that serial killer.  Vanessa Hudgens is the prostitute victim who got away and brings the whole thing to light.  Cage, Cusack & Hudgens are all fine in their roles but the movies ends up being nothing special.  There's not a lot of tension or drama.  Instead it kind of just lurches forward from one example of Hudgens' character running away from safety to some other dangerous situation for no apparent reason.  Speaking of Hudgens, it's pretty obvious she took this role to show how grown up she is.  Look, she's a hooker who smokes, does drugs, and says the f-word a lot!  This is all based on the real story of serial killer Robert Hansen.  In the end, it's pretty good but never rises up.  6/10.

[Brian Fowler]

That also does not appear to be Raging Bull...

[Tabe]

That also does not appear to be Raging Bull...

Send me the blu ray, I'll watch it ASAP.

[piranesi]

Everything abut that screams out for "how did this get made?"

[Reed]

The teen dystopia genre peaked with Battle Royale, let's face it.

[JRGoldman]

I think ill end up seeing Maze Runner because Effie from Skins is my one celebrity creepy stalker crush, and I guess she's in it? I know this will be a bad move on my part. The whole thing looks mind numbingly terrible. Hasn't it been pushed back a bunch too? It could be epically bad.

[Reed]

I really like the premise...but coming after all the other teen dystopia films and with its pretty, CW Network-approved cast, it just looks sort of mediocre.

 

It is weird how they tried to get a Battle Royale remake off the ground in the early '00s but it never happened due to all the school shootings, fear of encouraging more criminal acts, etc.

 

Fast forward a few years later and teens in movies fighting and killing each other is all the rage. Granted they're all PG13 and you don't see nearly as much gore, but still. It's the same idea. Why is one OK and not the other?

[caley]

My week in viewing

 

Freaks: The whole family got together for a dinner then argued about what movie to watch.  Me and my brother suggested 'The Thing', my sister wanted 'The Way Way Back', we settled on 'Freaks'.  It was pretty off-putting in a completely exploitative way.  That said, I'm pretty sure we're going to do the "Gooble Gobble, Gooble Gobble, one of us! One of us!" chant at Thanksgiving this year.  I'm still bummed that we didn't know it at the time to do it at my sister's wedding.

 

Lucy: Perfectly acceptable little action movie.  There was a lot of stuff you had to basically overlook ("Wait, why did she let that guy live?") but the visuals were pretty fantastic.  I saw an article the other day that talked about Scarlett Johanssen and how she'd finally become confident in her own voice and I can actually see that.  A couple years back, I referred to her as 'the worst working actor in the world' but I no longer feel that way (Is it Lindsay Lohan?  I think it's Lindsay Lohan) and she's actually been quite good over the last couple years (Her, Don Jon, this, The Winter Soldier and I've heard good things about 'Under the Skin').

 

Guardians of the Galaxy: Again!  I thought my Dad would like this so I took him.  He did.  A lot.  He's been wandering around saying different versions of "I am Groot" all week.  I'm pretty happy about that.

 

Smokey and the Bandit 2: Confession: I'd never seen the first 'Smokey' until last year and I LOVED it, so, not able to think of anything else to ask for for my birthday this year, I asked for the 'Smokey and the Bandit' collection (Including such seminal classics as 'Bandit Goes Country' and 'Bandit: Bandit Bandit').  So, I finally got around to watching this one and it was....DREADFUL.  Burt Reynolds is supposed to be playing the Bandit as kind of burnt out, but he comes across like neither he, nor the Bandit, even wants to be in the movie.  Sally Field has a terrible pun/joke to make in every damn scene.  And, for some reason, after people enjoyed the stunts and wackiness last time, they go full-bore wackiness (He has to drive an elephant across the country! The elephant is jealous of Sally Field! Dom DeLuise is an Italian gynecologist!) and ignore most of the stunts and driving until the last twenty minutes by which point I was too annoyed to care as various stuntmen endangered their lives.  The less said about Jackie Gleason playing Buford T. Justice and his Canadian mountie brother and his effeminate homosexual brother Gaylord, the better.  I hated this movie.

 

Smokey and the Bandit Part 3: God help me, I actually kinda liked this movie.  I mean, it's dumb.  Oh man is it dumb.  Like, if the movie was a person, it would be the kind who sits in the corner, eating paste.  But it embraced its stupidity, and everyone seemed to be having a good time in a way no one in 'Smokey 2' seemed to be.  It's also totally fascinating in that it's rumored that the film was originally supposed to be 'Smokey Is the Bandit' with Gleason playing both the Smokey and the Bandit, but that test audiences hated the idea, so mid-way you're supposed to go from sort-of/not really rooting for Buford to rooting against him when The Snowman shows up.  BTW, the point where The Snowman shows up is pretty much one of the most fascinating looks at deep-rooted depression ever set out on film.  You see, the two Enoses call up Snowman and ask him to mess with Buford, at which point the Snowman begins to cheer and shout "I get to be the Bandit!" then goes home and dresses up like Burt Reynolds (Complete with fake mustache) and runs around yelling "I get to be the Bandit!" then tells jokes to his dog that he laughs at, then drives around reveling in attention he gets from people who think he's the Bandit.  It's really sad.  There were some big stunts, totally unnecessary nudity, and a couple really good songs by John Stewart (Whom I had no idea about before but am kinda liking in a sounds like Johnny Cash with a drum machine and keyboard kind of way).