odessasteps Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 If only this leads to Darkman II. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Fowler Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 Didn't they make a second and third Darkman film? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(BP) Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 The Return of Durant and Die Darkman Die, both starring Arnold Vosloo. Staples of late night 90s HBO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burgundy LaRue Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 Doing arm chair analysis here, but I feel like ever since his wife died, he just stopped wanting to do serious work. Watching Neeson talk about his late wife in interviews can be tough. He stays composed, but you can see the incredible sadness behind his eyes. I suspect he took a number of these action roles to keep himself occupied, because he would be swallowed by despair if he sat at home with too much time on his hands. He can do those films in his sleep and pull a good paycheck for him and his children while doing so. It's 100% understandable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 Forest Whitaker kinda already went this route; go watch Ghost Dog. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burgundy LaRue Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 To be fair, Denzel is already doing this with his recent work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JRGoldman Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 I would say no because I don't think Bronson ever sailed as high, at least not critically, as Neeson. They could both be seen to be cashing checks at this point, But Bronson really never had any better options. Neeson is Nic Cage minus the style. I'm trying to decide which would be more awesome: Neeson in Death Wish and Once Upon a Time in the West, or Bronson in Love Actually and Schindler's List. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuetsar Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 I would say no because I don't think Bronson ever sailed as high, at least not critically, as Neeson. They could both be seen to be cashing checks at this point, But Bronson really never had any better options. Neeson is Nic Cage minus the style. I'm trying to decide which would be more awesome: Neeson in Death Wish and Once Upon a Time in the West, or Bronson in Love Actually and Schindler's List. Well Neeson in the Dirty Dozen would likely be the best. . . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 Didn't they make a second and third Darkman film? Only if you thought they made more than one Highlander movie too. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Fowler Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 Fair enough. I've never seen any Darkman movies Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EVA Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 HOMIE WAS STRAIGHT FACE CHANGING. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caley Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 Forest Whitaker kinda already went this route; go watch Ghost Dog. I don't really consider 'Ghost Dog' an action movie, though. I mean, it's directed by Jim Jarmusch! To be fair, Denzel is already doing this with his recent work. And you'll find that I had 'The Equalizer' higher than most sane people on my Best of 2014 list! How long til he gets a cameo in the Fast and Furious series? It would be great if he was Jason Statham's Irish cousin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 FOWLER. GET ON IT. At least the first one, the initial sequel is amusing because of Larry Drake, but otherwise both are skippable. Darkman should have been a huge hit IMO but I am particular as I saw it in the theater as a kid and it still resonates to me as the lost superhero film that was just too dark (pun not intended) to be successful, in an era where there were no superhero films and CGI was still yet to explode. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reed Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 Doing arm chair analysis here, but I feel like ever since his wife died, he just stopped wanting to do serious work. It's also possible she was the one in his life who read the scripts he got sent and said "Don't do this film, it's crap." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.T. Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 Forest Whitaker kinda already went this route; go watch Ghost Dog. Yes, by all means GO WATCH GHOST DOG~! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 I used to say Darkmsn was the best Batman movie (Until mask of the phantasm ruined that gag). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S.K.o.S. Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 Tom Hanks is a divorced father who meets-cute with Meg Ryan, then figures out she's actually a member of a sleeper cell of Islamic militant terrorists and has to save his family from her. Shit man, Shoot-Out In Seattle needs to happen now. There's an Indian movie called Fanaa (part of my 2013 world cup thread) that's kind of like that. Obviously it doesn't have Hanks and Ryan, but the reveal is something like over an hour into the movie (with still over an hour left to go) and is a huge WTF moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 I just remember reading about a Japanese Darkman ripoff that was super gory in some horror mag back in the day. Anybody remember the title of the film by any chance? I know that's not much to go on but hey. Also, was the Darkman Nintendo game any good? I don't remember ever playing it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bustronaut Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 Black Mask? Black Mask 2: City of Masks? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tabe Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 Wife was gone, rented a couple movies with remarkably similar issues: Whiplash - This is a movie full of great performances in search of a great movie to put them in. JK Simmons is Terence Fletcher, a ruthless, maniacal jazz instructor at the top music school in the country. Miles Teller is Andrew, his newest student. What follows is something of a rehash of An Officer and a Gentleman with Fletcher berating Andrew, throwing stuff at him, throwing gay insults at his classmates, and generally just being a jackass. Then there's a conflict and a resolution. The end. Oh yeah, along the way we get a throwaway diversion with the girl at the movie theater, some wasted scenes with Andrew's father, a "My music is as important as your sports" scene with Andrew's family, and a whole lot of drumming. Simmons here is off-the-charts. Incredibly great. Intense, angry, maniacal, instructive, the whole nine yards. Unfortunately, the movie itself is really just a rehash of stuff we've seen before, told in a not-particularly-unique way. It's a good movie but nowhere near the tour de force it's been hyped as. 7/10. Foxcatcher - Steve Carrell is John DuPont, the crazy DuPont heir who murdered wrestler Dave Schultz. Channing Tatum is Mark Schultz, Dave's brother and author of the book on which the movie is based. The casting here is very solid and Carrell, in particular, shines in his role. Unfortunately, the movie itself is a mess. There's so many factual distortions, changes, and flat-out creations that it's hard to take the movie seriously. And I don't mean stuff you'd only know if you knew the story intimately. I mean stuff like having the wrestlers in the movie (in 1988) watching a UFC fight from 1996. And then you get the bigger things - creating scenes with DuPont shooting a gun inside the gym, having Mark & Dave training together at Foxcatcher (they didn't), and a million other things. And, like the book, the movie suffers from too much Mark Schultz. It's essentially the story of him when it really needed to focus more on DuPont and Dave Schultz. In the end, this is a pretty good movie with some terrific performances but some really, really glaring issues, too. 7/10. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EVA Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 I thought the scenes with Andrew's girlfriend and family were essential to understanding him as a character and hardly throwaway at all. You needed to contrast him with "normal" people to illustrate just how far removed from them he'd have to become in order to be as great as he wanted to be at his art. The scene where he breaks up with his girlfriend is brilliant in the way that it neatly takes what would be the whole plot of another movie ("this is going to happen, and then this is going to happen, and this...") and cuts through it all to get to The Point in 1/20th of the time. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S.K.o.S. Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 Elite level trolling by Tabe! But seriously, I have heard the "we've seen this story before" criticism from one other person. He didn't elaborate on where exactly (I mean, I know "demanding mentor" stories are common, but not like this). I would've thought he was referencing something like Full Metal Jacket. Makes me want to watch An Officer and a Gentleman just to get a better understanding of where you're coming from. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EVA Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 I think what sets WHIPLASH apart from other demanding mentor stories is that there isn't anything inherently noble, or even necessary, about the goal the protagonist is suffering to achieve. When you think about drill instructor movies (such as the two aforementioned movies), what's the drill instructor's goal? To develop soldiers fit to serve and weed out the unfit. Politics and philosophical debates aside, we as a society generally regard being a soldier as a noble pursuit. And so if a degree of suffering and even abuse is required to transform a person into the ideal of a soldier, we accept it. In AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN, the suffering is even positioned as necessary for the protagonist, as when Richard Gere famously says "I GOT NO PLACE ELSE TO GO!" That's not really how it is in WHIPLASH. There is nothing inherently noble about being a jazz drummer, at least in the sense that it doesn't provide a tangible benefit to society in the way being a soldier or a fireman does. Nor is it a necessary goal for Andrew to achieve. Though Schaefer is set up as the top music school in the country and Fletcher's band as the best of the best there, it isn't a prerequisite to take Fletcher's abuse to have a career in jazz. And Andrew isn't exactly living on the streets with this gig as his One Chance to make it. He comes from a solidly middle class family of some means (tuition at a premier music school ain't cheap!). Andrew has other options in life. This is pretty much a self-centered pursuit driven by Andrew's own ego. He suffers because he's decided that he has to suffer. He's as much his own enemy as Fletcher. That's what sets it apart, that ambiguity as to whether or not we should actually be cheering for Andrew to succeed. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tabe Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 Elite level trolling by Tabe! I don't troll with my movies reviews. They may not be accurate to other people, their ratings may make no sense to people with an IQ over 3.7, but they are most definitely my legit opinions at the time I post them. No trolling involved Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tabe Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 To expand on my thoughts on the "throwaway" scenes with the girlfriend: I say "throwaway" because the movie would lose nothing without them. The one scene where he breaks up with her is well-done and it definitely shows him being ruthless in his pursuit of his goals. But...the relationship is incredibly new at that point and no foundation has been laid to show that this relationship matters all that much to him. She's not particularly important to him yet. So you could delete all those scenes and not lose much/anything, IMHO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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