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MARCH 2015 MOVIE THREAD


RIPPA

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Doing arm chair analysis here, but I feel like ever since his wife died, he just stopped wanting to do serious work.

That actually makes a ton of sense.  It always slips my mind that his wife died.  I think The Grey was probably his last non-killing everyone in sight role.

 

 

Unless you're a wolf.  In which case that shit is like RED DAWN.

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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.

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Thread needs more Harry Brown. Michael Caine is such a badass.

Loved his little heel turn in Kingsman. Anytime such a classy guy turns nasty and starts dropping F bombs and spewing venom it's great.

Run All Night actually looks pretty good. Im totally ok with Neeson going all out in this genre.

How long til he gets a cameo in the Fast and Furious series?

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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.

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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. . . .

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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.

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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.

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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."

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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. . . .

Oh man... Now I want to fantasy cast a Dirty Dozen remake AND a Magnificent Seven remake.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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