DVDVR Best of 2013 Pimping/Discussion Thread

[J.T.]

Fruitvale Station was very solid and simple.  Michael B. Jordan turns in a helluva performance portraying the late Oscar Grant as neither sinner nor saint, but just as a guy trying to do right by his family while trying to throw off the shackles of thug life.

 

There is no love lost between me and the One Time, but the over-vilification of the police in these sorts of movies bothers me.  I think you can still indict an institution while not making all of the members of that institution act like the fucking devil.  I think that Oscar Grant deserves justice and never received it, but I can also believe that the events of Fruitvale Station were a tragic toxic stew of lots of good people making extremely poor decisions.

 

I thought I would've been angry about Fruitvale Station not receiving the Oscar buzz it deserved but in retrospect, there are a lot of strong contenders this year.

[Jingus]

I probably won't be voting, considering that I haven't even seen 25 movies from 2013 in the first place.  But I'll chime in on a few: 

 

 

Her: Incredible.  Quite possibly my favourite film of the year.  Everything is perfect, everyone is perfect.  And it was shocking to see a film that is so big-hearted and honest about everything.  There's little to no irony/sarcasm to be found.  It's just this extraordinary film about love and relationships and technology and life.

 

That's basically how I felt.  I was quite stoned and don't remember all of it, but what I do remember hit me just as hard as Adaptation did (which is VERY fucking hard).  I'm shocked Jonze could make a masterpiece like this without Charlie Kaufman writing the script, but oh man did he prove me wrong.  

 

 

On the other hand: 

 

 

 

A Good Day to Die Hard: Perfectly acceptable little action flick.  

 

What.  

 

Uh... I disagreed.  

 

A Good Day to Die Hard: 3/10
There is precisely one moment in A Good Day to Die Hard that this barely-even-trying sequel stops cosplaying its vastly superior predecessors and feels like a for-real Die Hard movie: when the effects department manages to craft a truly memorable explosion. Stop and think about that for a minute. What’s the last time you remembered an explosion? Since you’ve seen one spectacular enough, creative enough to be worth noting? Because lord knows, explosions is one area where we are swamped with quantity over quality. Movie after movie after movie has big damn explosions in it even where it doesn’t make sense, like romantic comedies or swashbuckling period pieces. Hollywood knows that we LOVE seeing shit blow up, and so we are constantly bombarded with a never-ending wave of imagery of stuff going boom. It’s become such a stupidly common trope that Aqua Teen Hunger Force cleverly made it into a joke, where any inanimate object thrown in this universe automatically explodes on contact with the ground.

One of the reasons people like the original Die Hard movies is because they had MEMORABLE explosions. Do you remember that feeling of holy shit! you felt when you first saw John McClane take out a couple of missile-launching baddies with an improvised bomb, blowing up an entire floor of the building? Of course you do, because that explosion was important to the plot and visually spectacular as well as being something that we simply hadn’t seen before. And then the movie tops ITSELF with the gargantuan rooftop hellstorm, cleverly edited similar to the ending of Bonnie & Clyde where a single instant in time is dragged out to last a perfect forever. Die Hard 2 had various smaller explosions which worked but were unmemorable, yet the one we all remember is the iconic trailer moment where McClane blasts out of harm’s way in a pilot’s ejector seat, face-first into an extreeeeeeeeme closeup wide-angle lens. The sensible and pragmatic Die Hard 3 didn’t even try to top the previous films, and with good reason; this movie takes place mostly in thickly inhabited areas, where massive explosions would logically lead to piles of corpses, and so it limited its kabooms to a few sullenly-contained fireworks that felt rather prosaic and perfunctory. (Rushing water was the most powerful force of nature in part 3, not flame.) Live Free or Die Hard didn’t have any explosions that I remember at all; though I know McClane manages to somehow knock down both a helicopter AND a freaking Harrier jet, without using guns. The fact that I remember the ludicrosity of the setup yet not the orange-hued money shot indicates just how poorly THAT one measured up to the Die Hard standard.

So it’s rather amazing that part 5 manages to get at least one Real Die Hard Explosion in; because in every other way, A Good Day to Die Hard is the Batman and Robin to Live Free or Die Hard’s Batman Forever. It completely ignores all the stuff you kinda sorta liked in this new-but-not-perfect fourth installment, and focuses entirely on the parts nobody liked: in this case, John McClane trading quips with a younger sidekick. In part 4, at least Justin Long could be relied upon for genuinely funny lines like “Can I get you anything? …maybe a warrant?” Part 5 cannot ever claim to come within shouting distance of being that witty. Buckle up kids, it’s a long ride and the destination ain’t worth it.

The fact that I’ve spent THREE paragraphs stalling on my usually-in-the-second-paragraph plot description is a fairly succinct commentary in of itself towards the insulting empty-headedness of this screenplay. John McClane (Bruce Willis) is once again called out of retirement to take on one more case, this time because his son Jack (Jai Courtney, the sort of actor who’s probably done very good work on some underwatched cable television show, but is absolutely lost in the footlights when attempting to stand next to Willis as if he’s a real movie star). This is all happening in Russia, for some reason… basically because the scriptwriters couldn’t figure out anything better for John McClane to do.

Time out. Is it REALLY that hard to think of interesting new twists on favorite old ideas? Alternate idea for Die Hard 5 that I came up with just sitting here: John never knew that there was a third Gruber brother. Hans and Simon are dead, but young Wolfgang Gruber (Christoph Waltz) was really the genius of the family anyway. He advised his brothers against the silliness that got them killed, but they were much too egotistical to listen. Now, this calm, patient, utterly soulless criminal mastermind has had DECADES to stew in his hatred for John McClane. He comes up with an ultimate plan of torture and revenge against the man who killed his brothers, and it involves making McClane relive his victorious past: the showdown takes place in the abandoned Nakatomi Tower, left empty and bankrupt since the economic downturn. Emergency power only, all the windows broken, the wind rustling through the high stories, various graffiti and garbage covering the elegant boardrooms that we all know so well.  McClane is left helpless and alone in the tower, trying to fight against a small army of returning goons from previous movies (anyone that just got knocked out instead of getting killed) and relatives and loved ones of the dead victims. It’s The Most Dangerous Game in an environment which is hauntingly familiar yet strange and alien seeing it again in these same circumstances.  And then, the legendarily insane FATHER GRUBER (Werner Herzog) gets involved... There, presto, ain’t that better than the actual movie?

Sadly, A Good Day to Die Hard doesn’t understand what made the previous movies work. It thinks it understands, but this is one of those cases where all the most highly-paid Hollywood talent can’t seem to notice some huge problems that any twelve-year-old audience member will inevitably spot. The franchise is inordinately obsessed with John’s family life, giving each member at least one entire movie where each individual gets to play the damsel in distress. That’s never been the point; the point is that, for a good Die Hard movie, John has to become emotionally involved beyond “I am a hero, stopping terrorists and saving hostages because it’s the right thing to do!” John’s fighting for the lives of himself and his wife in the first film, which is what gives him the all-night-long adrenaline rush that powered him through a dozen armed men. When he jumps off the roof, his parting words are: “Oh God, please don’t let me die” on a night when the building has seen quite a few deaths. In part 2, the wife was put in jeopardy again; but we could tell that felt forced, that she just-so-happened to end up on this one plane (and sitting next to Walter Peck, of all people!). The third one, aka “the other really good Die Hard movie besides the first one”, had the intelligence to see the problem from a different angle; this time McClane was shorn from his family, saying that the trauma from those incidents ended up ruining his marriage beyond repair and splitting the family as if they were the Starks of Westeros, rarely if ever to see each other again. That time, all the family McClane needed was a brother: Samuel L. Jackson (in the middle of his prime-best period as an actor) provided all the Everyman sincerity that made us care about more than Bruce’s steroid-injected ass, all by itself. The fourth movie was a nervous, hesitant, self-guessing yet genuinely introspective and self-aware wallflower (the climax basically took place in a big empty room, for pete’s sake, boring!) and thus showed its ambiguity by splitting the difference: McClane’s daughter was in physical danger, plus McClane with a new comedy sidekick to provide an escort-mission helpless damsel that he has to bring along so they can crawl down the airshaft and start the generator; but as Samuel L. Jackson is to Justin Long, so thus is Die Hard With a Vengeance to Live Free or Die Hard.

That leaves part 5, with funereal inevitability, to focus on the only storyline which has thus far been left unexplored: that between John McClane and his own son. Well, the problem is, he treats his son like everyone else he’s ever partnered with: like shit. He constantly orders them around, rejects offers of affection, responds to heartfelt sincerity with unfunny wisecracks, repeatedly makes problems worse, cause unholy amounts of property damage which would have left these poor kids known as “the children of that maniac who people keep suing because he blows everything up”. Bruce’s personal problems have started to infect his career, which hasn’t really been an issue since he split up with Demi; the tabloids had left him alone. Back in the day, all you could mock Bruce Willis for were his frequent shitty movies (which he himself laughs off), his shitty rock band (because how dare a person who is inordinately talented in one area even dream of expressing their voice through another different medium of art! You People need to learn to keep your place…), or the fact that Planet Hollywood was a poorly-run disaster from the start. Ah, I long for the days when the worst I could say about Bruce Willis was that the dirty cocksucker actually expected me to pay ten dollars for a goddamn cheeseburger.

No, Willis has now been publicly exposed through his dealings with Kevin Smith, Sylvester Stallone, and myriad others as a check-cashing phony who is perfectly willing to sell out and phone it in, as long as the price is right and the assignment is easy. Speaking of which: notice how Bruce’s parts have been getting smaller and smaller in recent years? How he’s taking fewer and fewer roles which require him to do the vast majority of the work. Half the time, he’s not the lead. The words “…and Bruce Willis” are becoming more frequently common in those ensemble thrillers where the after-parties were probably more fun than the movie. And you don’t spot Bruce walking barefoot all over New Zealand in these pictures either; they all take place right here in Big City America, or anything you can shoot on set. I feel compelled to paraphrase a quote from Michael Caine’s brilliant book On Acting: “Nowadays, if I open a script and it begins with “the hero trudges forward through the Arctic wastes”, that script goes right in the bin.” Like Sinatra in the 80s, Bruce is to the point where he’s not sure why he should care anymore. He just wants to have a good time; and hey, if they happen to make Looper while that happens, then that’s a bonus.

But the Bruce from Pulp Fiction? The Bruce who, when Terry Gilliam asks “alright, what I imagine is, you’re lying pale and naked in the mud. (Game of Thrones will rip off a lot of our careful framing here.) You’re surrounded by thousands of people running past you on all sides, and it’s smoky and rainy and cannon shells are exploding all around you. In this cold apocalyptic field of mud and knives, your soft mildly oversized weiner will be totally exposed and vulnerable, and we’re going to TAKE PICTURES of the entire process. Is that alright?”, responded with: “If it’s what the scene needs”. That guy? He seems dead and gone. And that’s a tragedy for all the great movies he could be making, instead of leaping like Nicholas Cage for anyone who is willing to wave a paycheck with (what Bruce considers to be) a fair amount.

Bruce and his damn boring son, looking like a lost extra brother from Prison Break, join forces together in A Good Day to Die Hard to blow up half of Moscow and kill a whole shitload of Russians. Although I couldn’t begin to tell you exactly who these people he’s killing are. The typically European goons: this was always carefully established before. We know that the Grubers worked for money, that the guys in part 2 did it for both money and cult-like jingoistic loyalty to their leaders, that the guy in part four… uh, what did that guy want, again? Same problem again, we’ve got incredibly boring villains with absolutely no character or depth. The fact that the McClanes end up fighting another father-child duo feels like the kind of artsy shit the producer in Barton Fink would throw into the movies to make the critics happy. That’s their only characteristic, otherwise their characters are essentially total ciphers, subject to flip on a dime at the whims of the writer.

Some of the action scenes feel like they should be more exciting than they are. You know what I mean, right? That umpteenth time you see Legolas hit an increasingly-impossible trick arrow shot, you start to respect the action more than you like it. In Die Hard 5, there’s a huge giant goddamn chase scene where various large vehicles are all Mario Karting each other and treating anything else in the way like so much scenery in Twisted Metal. The stunts and effects are huge, and practical; this ain’t no CGI bullshit, it’s a huge fucking truck that runs over entire streets as if the whole world were its own personal demolition derby. It reminded me of a similar Big Damn Truck Chase scene in Terminator 3 (another sequel where the star returned solely for the ridiculously paycheck they would receive) which was big and cool and awesome and definitely what the movie needed… and yet, I wasn’t emotionally involved. This isn’t like Indiana Jones chasing a truck in order to stop the Nazis from murdering Marion. This is Bruce chasing his son because his son is involved in deep-cover political shenanigans and his son is running from other bad guys in another Big Damn Truck (they have the biggest, the son has the midsize, and Bruce naturally gets the underdog smallest vehicle so it makes his victory look that much more impressive) all about chasing down a key to vault with a file about something mumble mumble Don’t Talk About Fight Club macguffin. Who cares? If McClane doesn’t catch up with his son now, he’ll just use his superpower of predicting where the villains are going to be so he can always drive up just in time to sneak in and massacre them all.

Bruce seriously doesn’t want to do any heavy lifting this time. He’s not feeling it, brotha. When a hundred bad guys ambush he and his son, what does Bruce do? Does he engage in a battle which is long, intense, thrilling, suspenseful, comedic, and wherein the end is in doubt? You know, like he did during the opera massacre in The Fifth Element? No, this time McClane Just So Happens to be standing right next to a fully-loaded, ready-to-fire heavy machine gun. It’s coincidentally sitting on the table, right next to him, when the goons rappel in through the windows. And does he pick up that big phallic gun and lazily massacre all the bad guys right then and there?  You bet he does!  It's as if the barefooted intelligent human from Nakatomi Towers has devolved all the way down the evolutionary ladder to Rambo, who simply whips out a bigger gun and macho-man guns down the huge crowd of helpless anonymous victims.  Where's his vulnerability?  Where's the glass in his feet?  

Shit, even the character travels in style this time. In every other Die Hard movie, John gets abruptly dropped into the action without his consent. That’s the entire point of these movies, he doesn’t WANT to do this. He’s like the reluctant combat veteran, who can’t stop himself from getting drafted for one more tour of the hurt locker. If Schwarzenegger suddenly burst through the door and started killing all the terrorists, John McClane would (the opposite of how super-macho version of Bruce let Arnold do in their last interaction in The Expendables) totally sit on his ass with a sigh of relief and let Arnie take care of his fellow Prussian and Teutonic maniacs. That would make him happy. John McClane doesn’t go looking for the shit. The shit finds him. But in A Good Day to Die Hard, he goes looking for the shit! He’s told about his son getting in trouble. He’s in America, the trouble is thousands of miles away; he could say no, fuck off. What are they gonna do to a guy like John McClane to make him do what he really doesn’t want to do? But John caves shockingly easy, and then flies to Russia in first class, reading a classified military file. He’s then picked up by a broke-down cab. Yes, this is the mirror opposite of what happened at the beginning of the very first Die Hard, where John McClane flew into town on an early morning coach ticket, and was so inexperienced with airplanes that he needed to be told to make fists with his toes. The contrast is not to A Good Day to Die Hard’s benefit. The character has been lessened, turned from a weary everyday cop to a catchphrase-spouting ass-kicking death machine. The entire point of Bruce Willis as an action hero was that he wasn’t the kind of Uberman that Stallone or Schwarzenegger embodied.  He was not Hercules, he was Everyman.  We could never be Rambo; but we could be John McClean.

Hell, the craziest thing he does in the first movie is, essentially, bungee-jumping. Now, he stows away on escaping helicopters like Bruce has been powered all the way up to Alien level. What’s Bruce’s problem? Why is he getting to be, like Steven Segal, the all-powerful never-bested Boring Invincible Hero who is the toughest, coolest, most morally credulous person in the whole movie and never ever makes a mistake and swings in to save the day (even if he needs a Big Damn Truck/Machine Gun/Trunk Full Of Guns to magically appear in front of him like a Grand Theft Auto item)? Is the combination of age and increasing loneliness as he alienates long-term friends making him so insecure that he can’t stand for his real view to match his reel view?

In the end, it all adds up to a forgettable, boring clunker of a movie. This is a definite case of Franchise Failure. If this were some little obscure movie that Bruce made randomly, without the Die Hard label attached, it would end up falling off the face of the planet just like so many of Bruce’s movies have. When’s the last time you eagerly popped The Jackal or Last Man Standing or North into the ol’ DVD player? They’re relegated to the bottom of the bargain bin, as they should be. Just because of its name, a mediocrity like Die Hard 5 will live on forever in boxed-set glory. Thanks, assholes. Try not to make the next one suck so bad. 

[Brian Fowler]

Die Hard 5 has a really fucking great car chase near the beginning, and I could watch Willis play that character every single year if he wanted to, but there wasn't much else about it I liked.

 

And, to be honest, I don't recall the explosion you mention, and I just watched the movie three or four days ago

[Jingus]

And now, a few others I liked: 

 

-Gravity has already been pimped so much, I need not do so further.  But I will say: Sandra Bullock is GOOD, goddammit.  Always has been.  Too bad people only seem to realize that like once per decade.  

 

-The World's End might honestly be my favorite of the Pegg/Frost/Wright Cornetto trilogy.  It's certainly got the most adult and mature plot; the other two movies were about men who regressed to childhood and had fun, but this one's about a man-child who is ruining the lives of himself and everyone he knows with his endless pursuit of juvenile shenanigans.  It's got a few scenes which are SO well done that I literally couldn't believe what I was seeing (the "Alabama Song" montage, especially) and it's just an awesome, awesome movie overall.  

 

-Anchorman 2 was just as funny as the first one.  Yeah, it did repeat a LOT of jokes from the first one, but it came up with plenty of original material as well.  And this time it's really Saying Something with an utterly scathing satirical critique of modern televised news, as opposed to the first Anchorman which was essentially just a broad comedy without anything really on its mind.  

 

-Iron Man 3 is, in my opinion, the best one in the series (and the second-best extended Avengers movie, after Captain America).  This flick is in the odd position of necessarily being smaller and less spectacular than The Avengers was; Iron Man 3 makes this into an asset by really making this movie about Tony's mind, and how traumatized he is now after all his various crazy adventures.  It even does the impossible and makes Pepper Potts really interesting for once, something I've certainly never seen done before (which is the fault of the character, not the actor; Gwyneth has always been sadly underrated by most).  And who the hell saw where they were going with The Mandarin's character?!  The reveal with Ben Kingsley is one of the funniest moments of the year.  

 

-Crystal Lake Memories is a great documentary about the Friday the 13th series.  It's done by the Never Sleep Again guys, and that's exactly how good it is.  HOURS AND HOURS OF PRICELESS INTERVIEWS can be summed up as "literally every single thing you ever could have possibly wanted to know about Jason Voorhees".  

 

-Why the hell did absolutely nobody go see Machete Kills?  I know, the first Machete was hardly the stuff of legends.  But this superior sequel has to be seen to be believed.  It's almost like watching a cartoon performed with live actors.  It does similar things that Gremlins 2 did; it's simultaneously a comment on the first movie, on sequels, on the nature of filmmaking and storytelling, all kinds of shit.  Plus we've finally got Mel Gibson back to being his hilarious violent self rather than his sad old political racist violent self.  

 

-This Is the End is hardly a masterpiece; having a bunch of Jewish characters never saying a theological word about this blatantly Christian apocalypse is awfully goddamn weird.  But I'm a sucker for celebrities playing mean-spirited self-deprecating parodies of themselves, and that basically described this entire movie.  I could damn near watch an entire film of Franco and McBride arguing with each other over cum-soiled porno mags.  

 

-Hatchet III is only gonna appeal to fans of the first two movies.  That being said, "only going to appeal to fans of the greatest modern slasher franchise in existence today" is hardly a vile epithet.  Victor Crowley and Marybeth both get their stories wrapped up, and we're also given a lot more explanation about how all this impossible immortal-serial-killer stuff is supposed to work.  

 

-Ender's Game is probably pretty damn mindblowing... if you haven't read the book.  This is one of those Harry Potter-type deals where the film adaptation is basically just an illustrated version of the book, translating stuff directly to the screen without changing much (for good or ill).  The source material is SO great that I could see this becoming a cult classic, even if it does leave out several key moments from the book which kinda bugged me.  

 

 

 

 

And finally, the single most unfairly underrated film of the entire year: 

 

Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013): 7/10

Sometimes I wonder if I saw the same movie that everyone else did.  This has something like a 13% rating on Rottentomatos.  I still have yet to meet another person who liked it.  I’ve repeatedly heard different people in different places, in complete sincerity, that the new Texas Chainsaw 3D was actually a worse film than The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation.  Yeah, that unwatchable sack-of-crap one with Zelwigger and McConaghy, which still remains one of the very worst motion pictures I’ve ever seen in my life.  What?  This new Chainsaw is a tightly-made film that does a lot of very interesting new things with a franchise that never sees any new ideas, and it seemed like some bad theatrical 3D ended up poisoning the experience for most of the critics.  Seen on home video, the film works much better than it must’ve in the theater.  

 

The film opens in proud Texas Chainsaw Sequel tradition by immediately ignoring all of the previous sequels.  Nice to see some things never change.  In this new retcontinuity, the Sawyer family of cannibals were all counter-massacred by local rednecks in a vigilante response to the events of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre.   In fact, the film begins with a barrage of in-jokes for longtime fans of the series: the original house has been painstakingly reconstructed in its entirety, and we’ve got Bill Mosely and Gunnar Hansen playing family members along with Dan Yeager playing the new Leatherface (and the dude who played Grandpa reprising the role, with even the original 1974 chainsaw returning to play itself).  And then they all get killed real dead and the house is burned down, but ah, it was nice to even get that much respect from a series which sometimes has little respect for coherent canon.  

 

Here’s one part too many people couldn’t get over: the film plays fast and loose with the real-world chronology.  To make the plot work, we need a newborn baby at the massacre (which happened theoretically in 1974 or thereabouts) to now be a young woman.  Obviously the years don’t add up.  But, well… does it matter?  Can we just roll with it?  How many years has it been since Batman’s parents were killed, anyway?  If we stop to nitpick at stuff like that, then eventually every single series falls apart.  Hell, this looks like the paragon of hole-free timelines compared to the shit going on over in the Friday the 13th franchise.  

 

Anyway, the plot eventually centers on Heather Miller (the ravishing Alexandra Daddario) who just now discovers that she’s adopted, and her only relative just died back in the town of Newt, TX… the site of the massacres.  She goes to inspect her inherited property, along with her friends: boyfriend Ryan (rapper Trey Songz), who is secretly lusted after by bff Nikki (Tania Raymonde, aka Alex from Lost) along with a solo bachelor and a non-creepy hitchhiker.  They arrive to the town to find that the original house has been replaced by a huge elegant mansion, creepily designed in a similar framework to the old home but all attired with clean upscale furnishings.  That is, except for that creepy hidden door in the kitchen which leads down to a dirty basement that just keeps going, and going, and then there’s Death himself with a leather mask and a chainsaw.  

 

The plot keeps twisting and turning after that, but what’s remarkable to me is what this Texas Chainsaw film does NOT contain.  There is NO scene where the final girl is forced to have dinner with the howling cannibal family!  There are NO long sequences of people being tortured!  There is NO stalk-the-women, shock-the-men whatsoever!  Sex = death is ignored pretty arbitrarily!  People can actually die at unexpected times in unexpected manners!  The action breaks out of secluded areas and right into tightly-populated public spaces!  The cops get heavily involved!  The chainsaw usually has a real damn chain on it, seriously chewing up the scenery and threatening all the actors’ lives!  (Well, that last one’s questionable, but it produced some pretty damn neat footage.)  There is NO lazy overreliance on shitty CGI, the digital effects are either minimal or invisible and most of the gore is handled practically.  And lord knows there is NO PG-13 rating here.  Texas Chainsaw 3D handily sidesteps the vast majority of the worst problems that commonly plague modern horror films.  

 

As the leading lady, Alexandra Daddario is a neat find and a heck of a scream queen.  Hypnotic eyes, slithery midriff, giant chest, and a nice ability to visibly project a variety of different levels of “how scared I am right now”.  She’s a little harder to buy later on as a quippy asskicker, but she does have some nice crazy-eyes moment (the knife in the car) which let us see different sides of the character.  Dan Yeager is a pretty damn good Leatherface, playing a more pained and human interpretation of the character than usual.  This guy still limps from the wound at the end of the original Chainsaw, a detail that most sequels left out.  And the rest of the cast is perfectly tolerable, even if a couple of them were rather hammy, it’s clear they were all professional actors and not just bum-off-the-street extras like in some horror flicks.  

 

Yes, of course there are flaws.  There’s one don’t-go-in-there sequence which is stretched out for a ludicrously long amount of time (although it does have several excellent moments, and in fact directly addresses my complaint that Scream 4 didn’t DO anything with its omnipresent streaming video), and sometimes the local conspiracy angle is hard to swallow.  Some people beomoaned the lack of gore; I didn’t mind it, Chainsaw has never really been a series where the gory ones are the good ones, but apparently the MPAA was oddly strict with some of the bloodier moments here.  And: why?!  After goddamn Saw 7 got an R, what’s left?!  Ah well.  I’m just glad that we got a decent slasher which gave a much-needed reboot to an ailing series, and was one long love-letter to the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  

[Jingus]

And, to be honest, I don't recall the explosion you mention, and I just watched the movie three or four days ago

 

Where the gigantic helicopter blows up at the end.  The FX guys really had a ball with that one, painstakingly animated the snapped-off rotors and all the other little details that most lazy CGI programmers just hide behind a big ball of fire.  

[Brian Fowler]

Ah.  Okay, yeah, that didn't strike me as anything special.

 

But I goddamn loved the car chase at the beginning. 

 

I can't decide if Jai Courtney's charisma vacuum was better or worse than Justin Long in the last one.  On one hand, he delivered a lot less.  On the other, he also was never so god fucking obnoxious.

 

As far as big dumb 2013 action movies starring 80's icons go, it was no The Last Stand.

[caley]

I probably won't be voting, considering that I haven't even seen 25 movies from 2013 in the first place.  But I'll chime in on a few: 

 

 

Hey, that's no excuse!

 

You've got 20 more days to watch...and you really only need to put together a Top 10 anyways (Or less if you're so inclined).  I have no problems with someone seeing 25 films and submitting a ballot, so i fully expect one.  

 

Even if you did, you know...*sniff*, crap all over my 'Die Hard 5'

 

Also, just watched Only God Forgives and that is SO going on my list for being an insane, dark-as-all-get-out violent, red-hued nightmare put down on film.  Amazing cinematography, amazing music, and so much over-the-top violence that it's impossible to not have an opinion on it (Even if it's outright HATE, which I've seen a lot of, too).

[caley]

 

 

As far as big dumb 2013 action movies starring 80's icons go, it was no The Last Stand.

That was probably going to be a Top 10 selection from me, but I think 'Pacific Rim' just bumped it out.

[Brian Fowler]

Last Stand was such a jumbled bag tonally that it shouldn't have worked, but dammit, it did anyway.  Shame it bombed so hard.

[Jingus]

Ah.  Okay, yeah, that didn't strike me as anything special.

 

I might just be Aspergering out on this one moment, I do that sometimes.  Recently I've been rewinding particularly grabbing single-shots of action or acting: like, a Kate Winslet reaction shot from Eternal Sunshine where she changes expressions literally eight times in four seconds.  Or that astounding bit of physical acting when Superman thinks he's "shot" in the Richard Donner cut of part 2; and before your very eyes, somehow, Christopher Reeves just morphs from being Clark Kent into being Superman and does it with nothing but body language.  

 

 

But I goddamn loved the car chase at the beginning. 

 

 

Yeah, I mentioned it, the Big Damn Truck Chase, and praised it.  The stuntwork was top-notch, the effects were mostly practical without visible CG, and the collateral damage was pretty spectacular.  Like I said in the review, my only problem was with the Big Damn Truck Chase's motivation... which, admittedly, I might be the only person to ever consider.  

 

 

I probably won't be voting, considering that I haven't even seen 25 movies from 2013 in the first place.  But I'll chime in on a few: 

 

Hey, that's no excuse!

 

You've got 20 more days to watch...and you really only need to put together a Top 10 anyways (Or less if you're so inclined).  I have no problems with someone seeing 25 films and submitting a ballot, so i fully expect one.  

 

 

My Flickchart says I've seen 16 for the year.  I wouldn't be comfortable putting the bottom half-dozen on any kind of Best Of list which doesn't involve golden raspberries.  So whatta I gotta do to catch up?  

 

 

Even if you did, you know...*sniff*, crap all over my 'Die Hard 5'

Sorrrrrry.  To be fair, you gotta know you're in the minority on this one, pretty much everyone seemed to hate it for similar reasons that I did.  I know the pain of seeming to see a different movie than the rest of the planet, as I mentioned it happened to me on Texas Chainsaw 3D this year.  

[Brian Fowler]

The motivation seemed pretty clear and solid to me.  Jack wanted to get to his rendezvous point, and then to his safe house, and do his job.  The generic bad guys wanted to prevent that and get the macguffin.  John wanted to protect/talk to his son.  Everybody had pretty clear motivations for why they were driving/shooting/etc.  And it didn't look like the editors were on crack!

[Jingus]

Ah.  Well.  Goalpost move: the chase's motivations didn't suck for not existing, the movie sucked for not getting me to remember all that crap afterwards.  Kinda like how I couldn't explain what the hell happened in I Know What You Did Last Summer, even though I'm pretty sure they did tell us everything at one point or another.  

 

 

Back to pimping, I still can't decide if I really liked Warm Bodies or not.  Reading the far-superior book version didn't help.  The movie's still got some interesting stuff there, especially with the legitimately creepy superzombie villains, but it sometimes goes out of its way to sand all the rough edges off this story.  Similar feelings towards Red 2: Malkovich and Mary-Louise Parker were having a ball and provided me with many a legitimate LOL, but everyone else was in paycheck mode and the action scenes were mostly three-quarter-hearted retreads of all the stuff we've seen a million times before.  

[Brian Fowler]

Christ, I Know What You Did Last Summer is just fucking terrible. 

 

Seriously, with the exception of two blatant kill count padding murders in the middle, it would have worked better if it the pov had been reversed and it was a revenge flick.

[Chaos]

I probably won't be voting, considering that I haven't even seen 25 movies from 2013 in the first place.  But I'll chime in on a few: 

 

 

 

I know what you mean here. I did a count off of Letterboxd to see what I had rated this year (I'm sure I missed a film or two).

 

I think I had gotten about 34 films from 2013, which is not a lot by my standards, but I thankfully mostly watched stuff that I knew stood a chance of making a year end list.

 

I really only have about five or six films that I still really need/want to see from the year, and I should confidently be able to throw together a serviceable top 15.

[J.T.]

I have come to accept Iron Man 3 for what it was and don't really mind Shane Black's poetic license.  Still, The Mandarin as disposable villain was dumb.  Justin Hammer got more on screen respect.

 

The justification concerning the exclusion of the extraterrestrial origin of the ten rings (ie not realistic) was fucking obliterated by aliens shooting up New York in The Avengers.

 

If IM3 is to be applauded for anything, it is that the Special Guest Villain wasn't disposed off or rendered useless in less than ten minutes.

[Chaos]

I have come to accept Iron Man 3 for what it was and don't really mind Shane Black's poetic license.  Still, The Mandarin as disposable villain was dumb.  Justin Hammer got more on screen respect.

 

The justification concerning the exclusion of the extraterrestrial origin of the ten rings (ie not realistic) was fucking obliterated by aliens shooting up New York in The Avengers.

 

If IM3 is to be applauded for anything, it is that the Special Guest Villain wasn't disposed off or rendered useless in less than ten minutes.

 

 

My biggest issue with it is the clumsiness of the film's big reveal regarding Ben Kingsley's Mandarin. The big scene where we discover the truth is very fun and might be one of my favorite individual scenes of the year, but it really leaves so many issues with the plot leading up to it especially since:

 

The Mandarin kills a guy on camera, and they try to pass it off as a camera trick. Also, the scene coincides with forcing a phone call and it actually ringing.

[Fat Spanish Waiter]

Caley my lad, please PM me when this gets going I don't want to miss out. I've actually seen proper movies this year, not just brainless actioners. I got a few more to go.

[caley]

Caley my lad, please PM me when this gets going I don't want to miss out. I've actually seen proper movies this year, not just brainless actioners. I got a few more to go.

I'm setting February 22nd as the date, but I was still going to PM you, even if you didn't post in the thread!

[Brian Fowler]

Anybody see Bullet to the Head?  It's On Demand, but I haven't decided if it's worth taking a look or not.

[caley]

Anybody see Bullet to the Head?  It's On Demand, but I haven't decided if it's worth taking a look or not.

I don't want to say "Yes" but I'd give it a firm "Maybe?"  Jason Momoa is much better here as charismaless giant bad guy than he was as charismaless giant good guy in 'Conan' and there's some good gunplay.  The story is your basic buddy cop "You're an old man, you don't understand technology" "Yeah, well you're a young man but I'm tougher" flick.  Plus Christian Slater and Adebisi from 'Oz' are in it.

[Swift]

Taking out all the shitball movies I've seen this year (Iron Man, Superman, Wolverine, Fast 6, etc) I've only got 7 films I'd consider voting for. I need to step up my watching if I want to participate in this.

[S.K.o.S.]

FYI, last I checked, The Spectacular Now is at 92% on RT and Short Term 12 is at 99%, both with a decent amount of reviews, and they're both out on DVD.

[Chaos]

FYI, last I checked, The Spectacular Now is at 92% on RT and Short Term 12 is at 99%, both with a decent amount of reviews, and they're both out on DVD.

 

 

The Spectacular Now has a strong chance of making my list. I still need to see Short Term 12 and Gimme the Loot for the big buzz of 2013 films.

[J.T.]

 

Anybody see Bullet to the Head?  It's On Demand, but I haven't decided if it's worth taking a look or not.

I don't want to say "Yes" but I'd give it a firm "Maybe?"  Jason Momoa is much better here as charismaless giant bad guy than he was as charismaless giant good guy in 'Conan' and there's some good gunplay.  The story is your basic buddy cop "You're an old man, you don't understand technology" "Yeah, well you're a young man but I'm tougher" flick.  Plus Christian Slater and Adebisi from 'Oz' are in it.

 

 

Yeah, by the numbers mediocre buddy action movie that does not allow Sung Kang or Jason Momoa to be awesome. 

 

Momoa's got a little range in him and I wish he woiuld do more stuff like The Red Road television series, but I guess Jason and his agent realize that the dumb hulk roles in action movies help pay the bills.

 

Adebisi from OZ chewing scenery as an evil West African businessman is fucking great.  What a waste of a king-sized villain.

[Niners Fan in CT]

 

  

 

-Iron Man 3 is, in my opinion, the best one in the series (and the second-best extended Avengers movie, after Captain America).  This flick is in the odd position of necessarily being smaller and less spectacular than The Avengers was; Iron Man 3 makes this into an asset by really making this movie about Tony's mind, and how traumatized he is now after all his various crazy adventures.  It even does the impossible and makes Pepper Potts really interesting for once, something I've certainly never seen done before (which is the fault of the character, not the actor; Gwyneth has always been sadly underrated by most).  And who the hell saw where they were going with The Mandarin's character?!  The reveal with Ben Kingsley is one of the funniest moments of the year.  

 

 

 

 

I went to see this opening week and I actually saw it again in theaters about a week later with someone else. The first time I saw it, I mean the air was completely taken out of the room like a pierced balloon. I don't think anyone necessarily knew who The Mandarin was as a character but what happened was... after the reveal.. a "cool villain" was replaced with a much inferior villain who was all too similar to the villains we had seen in the previous movies..  It's something that all of the Iron Man films lack. His rogue's gallery is shit and just when you think maybe The Mandarin will pose a legitimate threat.. well, no.. we're stuck with the nerdy tech guy in a suit who was pissed because Stark didn't give him the time of day at a random outing. The second time I saw it the reaction was much better and I tried to find a silver lining but it just wasn't happening for me. I don't even want to get into the Pepper garbage at the end.