Marty Sugar Posted January 18, 2015 Share Posted January 18, 2015 Watched Maleficent last night. I think the re-imagining that she's actually the good-guy was total bullshit...but they did do most of it pretty well. When Aurora is saved by true love's kiss was nicely done. But what is Hollywood's deal lately with taking "bad guys" (Maleficent, Dracula, etc.) and saying "No, they're really good people if you get past the killing and the wickedness!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuetsar Posted January 18, 2015 Share Posted January 18, 2015 Watched Maleficent last night. I think the re-imagining that she's actually the good-guy was total bullshit...but they did do most of it pretty well. When Aurora is saved by true love's kiss was nicely done. But what is Hollywood's deal lately with taking "bad guys" (Maleficent, Dracula, etc.) and saying "No, they're really good people if you get past the killing and the wickedness!" It started with Wicked(the book), then the musical was a hit, and in hollywood if one is a hit. . . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Fowler Posted January 18, 2015 Share Posted January 18, 2015 At least the new Cinderella movie isn't pushing Lady Tremaine as being not a villain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig H Posted January 18, 2015 Share Posted January 18, 2015 I liked Maleficent, but the ending felt very inspired by Frozen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted January 18, 2015 Share Posted January 18, 2015 Watched Maleficent last night. I think the re-imagining that she's actually the good-guy was total bullshit...but they did do most of it pretty well. When Aurora is saved by true love's kiss was nicely done. But what is Hollywood's deal lately with taking "bad guys" (Maleficent, Dracula, etc.) and saying "No, they're really good people if you get past the killing and the wickedness!" I would say it goes back at least as far as Silence of the Lambs. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reed Posted January 18, 2015 Share Posted January 18, 2015 LOTR reboot where Sauron is just a shy, misunderstood guy screwed over by kleptomaniac hobbits and wizards. Running time: 568 minutes. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eivion Posted January 18, 2015 Share Posted January 18, 2015 I liked Maleficent, but the ending felt very inspired by Frozen. I can't disagree, but I honestly bought into it a lot more in Maleficent than I did Frozen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimLivingston Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 Saw Maniac Cop 2 for the first time ever last night. Pretty awesome stuff. The stunts were absolutely nuts. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skeeball Wizard Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 Watched Maleficent last night. I think the re-imagining that she's actually the good-guy was total bullshit...but they did do most of it pretty well. When Aurora is saved by true love's kiss was nicely done. But what is Hollywood's deal lately with taking "bad guys" (Maleficent, Dracula, etc.) and saying "No, they're really good people if you get past the killing and the wickedness!"It started with Wicked(the book), then the musical was a hit, and in hollywood if one is a hit. . . . This. If they made a movie about a guy with fish falling out of his ass and it made $300 million, there would be 10 more next year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caley Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 Watched Maleficent last night. I think the re-imagining that she's actually the good-guy was total bullshit...but they did do most of it pretty well. When Aurora is saved by true love's kiss was nicely done. But what is Hollywood's deal lately with taking "bad guys" (Maleficent, Dracula, etc.) and saying "No, they're really good people if you get past the killing and the wickedness!"It started with Wicked(the book), then the musical was a hit, and in hollywood if one is a hit. . . . This. If they made a movie about a guy with fish falling out of his ass and it made $300 million, there would be 10 more next year. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2091427/ (I don't think fish actually fall out of his ass...but the title works so well!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Victator Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 Watched Maleficent last night. I think the re-imagining that she's actually the good-guy was total bullshit...but they did do most of it pretty well. When Aurora is saved by true love's kiss was nicely done. But what is Hollywood's deal lately with taking "bad guys" (Maleficent, Dracula, etc.) and saying "No, they're really good people if you get past the killing and the wickedness!" It works if you think of it as a bullshit story Maleficent was telling. Which explains why the king has no depth. Thing that killed me was them never even hinting her wings were still alive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tabe Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 Fun weekend for movies with an interesting bookend of titles: Selma - I don't like it when movies are called "important". It's such a pretentious description and feels like an attempt to add greater "weight" to a medium where it just really doesn't apply. Not to imply art can't "mean something", I just think it's a reach to call movies "important". This one? It's important. I grew up in a racially diverse neighborhood/school. At various times, my best friend was Japanese, Hispanic, black and white. My wife and nephew, who saw Selma with me, did not. They are both from lily-white backgrounds and I think that has distanced them a little bit from the importance of the civil rights movement. I don't mean that I've got some great insight or anything, just that I'm a little more familiar with it than they are. Anyway, this was a movie I felt they needed to see. Selma tells the story of the march from Selma to Mongtomery in early 1965 in protest of laws that prevented blacks from voting. And it tells that story extremely well. The cast is impeccable - David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King Jr is an absolute riveting, magnetic revelation. The pacing is generally terrific, though it could have been tightened up just a bit. While there are a couple gripes with its accuracy - LBJ is (as the producers have admitted) portrayed more negatively than the reality - the overall result is one of authenticity. We are given a full picture of the various groups at the time. MLK is portrayed as less than perfect (his extramarital affairs are mentioned) and there is conflict and infighting. But we still see the grand vision and passion of King and his incredible charisma. This is a knockout movie - really, really good. And you just might learn something from it, as my wife & nephew did. 9/10. Almost Famous - This has been on my "watch eventually" list for quite some time. For years, I've heard what a fabulous movie this, how Kate Hudson is amazing in it, and how watching it is some kind of transcendental experience. Uh, yeah, not so much. Set in the 1970s, William is a 15-year old aspiring rock journalist who worms his way backstage at a Stillwater concert. His maturity and insight persuades the band to invite him to come on tour with them. Incredibly, his mom agrees and he spends a few weeks touring with them. Along the way, he meets Penny Lane (Hudson), a teenage "band aide" (groupie) in love with the guitarist of Stillwater. William soon falls in love with her, loses his virginity to other groupies, and manages to write a story deemed worth of the cover of Rolling Stone. The movie is a semi-autobiographic retelling of the life of Cameron Crowe, the movie's director, who really did go on tour and write for Rolling Stone as a teen. While entertaining, I can't say this was particularly great. Reviewers called it funny. It's really not. Reviewers described Kate Hudson like some mystical creature putting in an out-of-this-world performance. She wasn't/didn't. Outside of one scene toward the end, she's really just your generic pretty face. So we're left with a pretty average movie that doesn't match the hype at all. 5/10. The Believer - Ryan Gosling is Danny, a young man born into the Jewish faith who has become a Nazi and wants to kill Jews. The story of the movie, then, is the conflict in Danny as he reflects on his upbringing balanced with his hatred. He is very obviously self-loathing. He rails against Jewish people, yet wears Jewish garments, protects sacred documents, and teaches his girlfriend to read Hebrew and learn the Torah. He desires to blow up a synagogue yet protects his friends from any harm. And so there's all this conflict going on, yet we're never given any insight as to the origin of Danny's hatred or self-loathing. WHY does he hate himself? We don't know. We're given some insights into his issues with the Jewish faith but not Danny himself. And that's a major hole in the movie. In addition, the actual structure of the movie is a little rough - odd flashback scenes and low production values. Gosling is fantastic in this, portraying the internal conflict in Danny extremely well. He is charismatic, vile, violent, the whole package. That's not really enough to save this though. 3/10. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrianS81177 Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 Spot on review of Almost Famous. One of my friends kept badgering me about how I HAD to see it, etc and it bored the hell out of me. Of course this is the same friend who raved to me about how funny Napoleon Dynamite was. I no longer trust his reccomendations for movies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Death From Above Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 LOTR reboot where Sauron is just a shy, misunderstood guy screwed over by kleptomaniac hobbits and wizards. Running time: 568 minutes. I actually like the Peter Jackson LoTR movies but I still thought it was so funny when I heard the joke "New scrap of paper discovered where JRR Tolkein wrote the word 'WITCHES!?', Jackson plans 5 new films". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tabe Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 Spot on review of Almost Famous. One of my friends kept badgering me about how I HAD to see it, etc and it bored the hell out of me. Of course this is the same friend who raved to me about how funny Napoleon Dynamite was. I no longer trust his reccomendations for movies.FWIW, I thought Napoleon Dynamite was hilarious. Took me awhile to get there though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Death From Above Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 I've tried watching it twice on TV and never made it out of the first half of the film. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrianS81177 Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 Maximum Overdrive ends with Lisa Simpson throwing up as AC/DC plays on the soundtrack. After several senseless, massive explosions. If that isn't reason enough to put the film in the Drive-In Hall of Fame I don't know what is. Meanwhile Pet Semetary remains completely and horribly depressing. EDIT: That's not to say I don't love the film, it's just hard to watch. Fred Gwynne is the man. I've often wished that whenever a hollywood executive gets an idea to reboot some old franchise, they would hear a knock at their door and open it to see Fred Gwynne standing there: "I know what you're thinking. I came to talk you out of it." 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bustronaut Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 I've tried watching it twice on TV and never made it out of the first half of the film. This probably belongs in the surprise casting thread, but Uncle Rico from NP is Lazlo mutherfucking Hollyfeld from Real Genius. When I found that out I dropped my sandwich in shock. ETA: He's also Roger Linus from LOST! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Fowler Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 Dude, Almost Famous is a basically perfect movie, top five Hollywood film of the 00's. You two are insane. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 I would ask which cut of the film you watched. I havent watched it in years, but i would certainly put it in a list of top films of the decade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig H Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 Yeah...5/10 for Almost Famous is one of the stranger opinions I've seen. I'm almost afraid to ask if Tabe likes Elizabethtown more... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caley Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 'Elizabethtown' is a better movie. I've never gotten the hype for 'Almost Famous'. Patrick Fugit is good, the bands are fine, the music's okay, Philip Seymour Hoffman is great, the Frances McDormand stuff is cringe-inducingly bad like just awful. Dialogue is often goofy. I'd maybe go as high as 6/10 myself. Susan Sarandon's performance alone, in 'Elizabethtown' is probably better than any single performance in 'Almost Famous'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig H Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tabe Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 I would ask which cut of the film you watched. I havent watched it in years, but i would certainly put it in a list of top films of the decade. I watched it on Netflix so probably the theatrical cut.There's a lot to like in the movie - Patrick Fugit was good, Jason Lee was really good, the music was good, etc, but the sum is less than its parts. It ends just being kinda "there". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tabe Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 Yeah...5/10 for Almost Famous is one of the stranger opinions I've seen. I'm almost afraid to ask if Tabe likes Elizabethtown more...Until this post had never heard of Elizabethtown.You've all heard why I thought it was "eh", how about saying why you liked it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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