2014 MOVIE OMNIBUS THREAD

[Gonzalez]

Anytime Face/Off is on TV I watch it just for the scenes featuring Gina Gershon. Shame she's really only in it for ten minutes, though. Yet somehow average looking Joan Allen spends most of the time on screen as the "eye-candy" of the movie.

[Antacular]

No Woo = No doves. No dice.

[Brian Fowler]

It's better than every single Michael Bay movie...

[Fat Spanish Waiter]

It's better than every single Michael Bay movie...

Don't bring your shitty opinions up from wherever I buried them!

[Brian Fowler]

When you praise Bay, you have ventured well past shitty opinions and into lunacy.

[Fat Spanish Waiter]

The Rock. Silence.

[Fat Spanish Waiter]

All is Lost might be the most ridiculous movie I've ever seen.

 

I watched Face/Off before it.

[piranesi]

Michael Bay directing Face/Off would have made it the best action film of the 90s. You cut out John Woo's terrible stupid shit and there's a legit great movie there. Travolta and Cage fucking own everyone ever.

 

 

Woo's operatic stuff and maudlin over-the-top family and spirituality themes make that movie so much better than it has any right to be.

[Fat Spanish Waiter]

 

Michael Bay directing Face/Off would have made it the best action film of the 90s. You cut out John Woo's terrible stupid shit and there's a legit great movie there. Travolta and Cage fucking own everyone ever.

 

Woo's operatic stuff and maudlin over-the-top family and spirituality themes make that movie so much better than it has any right to be.

 

 

Don't try to gif me, little man.

[piranesi]

 

 

Michael Bay directing Face/Off would have made it the best action film of the 90s. You cut out John Woo's terrible stupid shit and there's a legit great movie there. Travolta and Cage fucking own everyone ever.

 

Woo's operatic stuff and maudlin over-the-top family and spirituality themes make that movie so much better than it has any right to be.

 

 

 

Don't try to gif me, little man.

 

 

Don't come to a gif fight dressed in a white jumpsuit.

 

[Brian Fowler]

The Rock. Silence.

I'll take movies not as good as Face Off for 500, Alex

[piranesi]

Dammit, now I'm realizing I should have captioned that last gif like this:

 

 

 

Gus, don't be a guy in a white jump suit in a John Woo movie.

 

[J.H.]

Sorry FSW, Hard Boiled smokes The Rock on every level. Hell, I might even love Hard Target more than The Rock

(In the end its your opinion though and I gotta respect your unwavering dedication/belief in The Rock. Its not a bad movie by any means and fun as hell)

 

James

[jaedmc]

Hard Boiled is the real, bubba. Creative fire extinguishing techniques.

[Niners Fan in CT]

Face/Off didn't have Ed Harris, Sean Connery, John Spencer and William Forsythe.

 

Plus, you know, Vanessa Marcil.

[Kuetsar]

 

I once stumbled upon a "review" of Ken Burns' Civil War doc on a Civil War collector's forum and what you've written was basically what was said in a nutshell.

Anyone who tries to argue the conflict was over states rights is just doing mental gymnastics, plan and simple. It's not pure stupidity because the halfbreeds will attempt to recall the 10th amendment, and use that by masking it in the vernacular of property/individual rights to make the Souths position less despicable. I remember back in 7th grade (on Long Island, not exactly a bastion of the confederacy) hearing the "states rights" argument for the first time in Mr. Giachetto's social studies class, and immediately called bullshit. I think I literally said bullshit outloud, I got detention a lot as a kid.

 

There's a difference in motives depending on the economic class. For the rich, it was about maintaining their economic wealth, via slavery. For the soldiers, it was as much about state pride and and state's rights.  Remember the average person could not afford slaves, certainly not in plantation numbers. And the war began not because of a northern effort to end slavery(though that was the goal for abolitionists), but because of the movement to restrict its growth. That was going to lead to its inevitable death, but its not like the north was planning an invasion to free the slaves or anything. For the North, the war was NOT about slavery, it was about keeping the union together. The emanicipation proclamation was controversial at the time,as most of the union public was against a war to free the slaves, and most northerners were quite content to use racial slurs and worse. This is all generalities of course, but Lincoln would have done anything to win the war, with or without freeing slaves. So long version ,the war was about states rights, short and completely simplistic version you could say it was about slavery. . . 

[Kuetsar]

Hard Boiled is the real, bubba. Creative fire extinguishing techniques.

I like Hard Boiled, but man it could use a little comic relief or something. Its a brilliant action movie, but the gun play gets a bit numbing by the end.

[Gonzalez]

The scene where they're trying to get the door to the underground armory open for the first time slows the film to a crawl. 

 

 

 

I like Hard Boiled, but man it could use a little comic relief or something. 

 

Bullshit... The scenes with Chow Yun-Fat singing Hello by Lionel Richie are hilarious. 

[Burgundy LaRue]

No one but the most invalid of invalids needs to be reminded who won and lost the civil war.

 

My broad point is who gives a royal fuck about that group in general.

[Territorial]

I had no idea that Aaron Eckhart starred in "I, Frankenstein" until I read an article a bit ago about how hard the movie bombed.

 

I've seen that trailer dozens of times during commercials and never heard Eckhart's name mentioned.

 

How did he end up picking this project?  Is his career declining?  Haven't seen the movie, but the trailer makes it look awful (reviews I've seen agree).  Surely, Eckhart gets offered better scripts than this? 

 

And why wouldn't the movie promote the biggest name they have in the cast?

[Antacular]

I once stumbled upon a "review" of Ken Burns' Civil War doc on a Civil War collector's forum and what you've written was basically what was said in a nutshell.

Anyone who tries to argue the conflict was over states rights is just doing mental gymnastics, plan and simple. It's not pure stupidity because the halfbreeds will attempt to recall the 10th amendment, and use that by masking it in the vernacular of property/individual rights to make the Souths position less despicable. I remember back in 7th grade (on Long Island, not exactly a bastion of the confederacy) hearing the "states rights" argument for the first time in Mr. Giachetto's social studies class, and immediately called bullshit. I think I literally said bullshit outloud, I got detention a lot as a kid.

There's a difference in motives depending on the economic class. For the rich, it was about maintaining their economic wealth, via slavery. For the soldiers, it was as much about state pride and and state's rights. Remember the average person could not afford slaves, certainly not in plantation numbers. And the war began not because of a northern effort to end slavery(though that was the goal for abolitionists), but because of the movement to restrict its growth. That was going to lead to its inevitable death, but its not like the north was planning an invasion to free the slaves or anything. For the North, the war was NOT about slavery, it was about keeping the union together. The emanicipation proclamation was controversial at the time,as most of the union public was against a war to free the slaves, and most northerners were quite content to use racial slurs and worse. This is all generalities of course, but Lincoln would have done anything to win the war, with or without freeing slaves. So long version ,the war was about states rights, short and completely simplistic version you could say it was about slavery. . .

Again: the states' rights to do WHAT? The war started because with the election of Lincoln, the South saw that the status quo of slave system was seriously threatened, so it seceded preemptively. And yes, while only 25% of the Confederate population owned slaves (and a smaller number owned enough to run entire plantations), having one was a sign of wealth, it indicated a high socioeconomic status the way a BMW or Mercedes does today, being a slaveowner was something people ASPIRED to be.

If the South had seceded over taxation greviances, currency exchange rates, or basically ANY other conflict, you could try and argue that the war was for states rights. But none of those were at issue. Only one: The states' right to determine if a person could be considered chattel.

[EVA]

Eckhart has had kind of a weird career since TDK. He only did two small movies in the subsequent two years, when you would have expected him to be capitalizing on his TDK fame the most. Since he became more active two years ago, he's been doing stuff like BATTLE LOS ANGELES, OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN, and this.

He strikes me as a guy kinda like Jon Hamm and Kyle Chandler, they're not really "old" and they certainly don't look "old" for their relative ages but they all look like guys from an older time. They have this man-out-of-time quality about them and don't really fit the mold of what Hollywood is looking for in big movie stars.

Both of those other guys hit it big on TV, but even to this day still struggle to book topline roles. Maybe he should be looking into TV.

[Kuetsar]

 

 

 

I once stumbled upon a "review" of Ken Burns' Civil War doc on a Civil War collector's forum and what you've written was basically what was said in a nutshell.

Anyone who tries to argue the conflict was over states rights is just doing mental gymnastics, plan and simple. It's not pure stupidity because the halfbreeds will attempt to recall the 10th amendment, and use that by masking it in the vernacular of property/individual rights to make the Souths position less despicable. I remember back in 7th grade (on Long Island, not exactly a bastion of the confederacy) hearing the "states rights" argument for the first time in Mr. Giachetto's social studies class, and immediately called bullshit. I think I literally said bullshit outloud, I got detention a lot as a kid.

There's a difference in motives depending on the economic class. For the rich, it was about maintaining their economic wealth, via slavery. For the soldiers, it was as much about state pride and and state's rights. Remember the average person could not afford slaves, certainly not in plantation numbers. And the war began not because of a northern effort to end slavery(though that was the goal for abolitionists), but because of the movement to restrict its growth. That was going to lead to its inevitable death, but its not like the north was planning an invasion to free the slaves or anything. For the North, the war was NOT about slavery, it was about keeping the union together. The emanicipation proclamation was controversial at the time,as most of the union public was against a war to free the slaves, and most northerners were quite content to use racial slurs and worse. This is all generalities of course, but Lincoln would have done anything to win the war, with or without freeing slaves. So long version ,the war was about states rights, short and completely simplistic version you could say it was about slavery. . .

Again: the states' rights to do WHAT? The war started because with the election of Lincoln, the South saw that the status quo of slave system was seriously threatened, so it seceded preemptively. And yes, while only 25% of the Confederate population owned slaves (and a smaller number owned enough to run entire plantations), having one was a sign of wealth, it indicated a high socioeconomic status the way a BMW or Mercedes does today, being a slaveowner was something people ASPIRED to be.

If the South had seceded over taxation greviances, currency exchange rates, or basically ANY other conflict, you could try and argue that the war was for states rights. But none of those were at issue. Only one: The states' right to determine if a person could be considered chattel.

 

The States right to leave the union if it felt that the union was infringing on upon it's rights. The theory had been bandied about before, with the New England states making noise during the war of 1812, and South Carolina(among others) doing the same in the 1830's. Of course no one had the balls to secede while Jackson had breath in his body, so the crisis was paper mached over for a generation. The whole overriding mindset at the time, was anytime a state felt it "rights" were being violated (more or less the federal government made a ruling or had a law it disagreed with) secession was the remedy. Grossly put, they came into the union voluntarily, and could leave any time it liked. Slavery was the spark plug, an all be it big one, but hardly the first. If there was the be a war started by the North for slavery, it would not have happened for decades later, as the abolitionists were a minority, albeit a vocal and influential one. The North could not have a raised an army of ten thousand to liberate slaves, let alone the millions it did.  Although slavery was recognized as an evil, it was viewed as one that would eventually die out, and for most people that was fine enough, there were not going to send their sons to die for those (you fill in the blank for your favorite racial slur here). While the South may have been prompted to secede over the potential elimination of its way of life, the North fought to preserve the union.

Also  The whole concept of federalism was still not universally accepted, and the whole idea was a region would get angry when another region with more power in Washington would try to ride over their lifestyle and/or philosophy. Since the south had been in power for most of the country's history, it had been used to having things go their way. The introduction of the western states altered the balance and made the south's agenda precarious. 

 Another way to put it, is that the war was for what type of country the United States was/would be: a collection of states that had a common central government(which was the prevailing theory up until then, btw), and which a state could withdraw at its leisure, or a country divided into so many states.  Most people(in all regions of the country) would have said the former before Ft. Sumnter, after Appomattox Courthouse, the country was the later, outdated ten amendment be damned. . .

[Antacular]

The right to secede is never mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, it's a hypothetical right, whereas the right to human chattel is codified in various clauses, it's an explicit right. The right to secede was only asserted by the South once the other right (the more critical one), the right to classify people as property, was under direct threat due to Lincoln winning. You're correct, the North's rationale was to preserve the Union, not free the slaves, but again, the Union was only under duress because the South seceded on account to preserve the slave system. To claim that the war was fought/caused by a theoretical right, and not the one expressly granted within statutes, is silly.

[Brian Fowler]

Abolitionist viewpoints may have still been a minority view when Lincoln won, but they were growing fast in the North, and had been ever since Harper's Ferry (the extremist argument:  It was no longer radical to support abolition, now it was radical to kill for it) and a strong abolitionist from the party that back abolition did win the presidency.

 

The South could see the writing on the wall, that the *ahem* "peculiar institution" *ahem* was headed to the dustbin of history, and that is, beyond any historical debate, the main cause of the secession. 

 

Hell, the will of the Southern populace started to crack about the same time they started offering freedom to slaves who fought in the confederate army, undercutting the "it's their natural place and they are happy" bullshit argument.