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AUGUST 2015 MOVIE THREAD


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I thought American Ultra was boring, for the most part.  It's literally The Bourne Identity if the Bourne films only had a budget of $12 million and was filmed in rural Louisiana, so they didn't have any money for big explosions or shootouts involving dozen of mooks until the very end of the film.  

  

Too much emphasis on drama, I went in expecting "Mr. and Mr. Smith with 20ish stoners" and got lots of talking...and more talking...and a brief fight...and then more talking.

 

Buy hey:

 

Bill Pullman

 

in a movie in 2015!  I thought he was dead or in prison.

 

And poor John Leguizamo.  He must be really hard up for money.  He keeps talking about how he hates playing stereotypes, and then he does another stereotype role.

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I thought American Ultra was boring, for the most part.  It's literally The Bourne Identity if the Bourne films only had a budget of $12 million and was filmed in rural Louisiana, so they didn't have any money for big explosions or shootouts involving dozen of mooks until the very end of the film.  

  

Too much emphasis on drama, I went in expecting "Mr. and Mr. Smith with 20ish stoners" and got lots of talking...and more talking...and a brief fight...and then more talking.

 

Buy hey:

 

Bill Pullman

 

in a movie in 2015!  I thought he was dead or in prison.

 

And poor John Leguizamo.  He must be really hard up for money.  He keeps talking about how he hates playing stereotypes, and then he does another stereotype role.

We might be the only two people in America who saw it lol.

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Speaking of...went to see it tonight and HOLY FUCK WAS STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON SO FUCKING GOOD! Like, two and a half hours flew by. Performances were perfect, like I kept forgetting that it was Ice Cube's kid. It kept tripping me out how good Cube looked for a dude pushing 50. Snoop looked like Dave Chappelle, but it must be hard to cast such a distinct looking dude.

 

There will be a huge opportunity missed if there isn't a spin-off series, The Erotic Adventures of DJ Yella.

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Saw it last night. It was indeed whitewashed over pretty badly, and the utter lack of anything from It's On Dr. Dre 187 Um Killa really sucked (did Sony not allow E's solo stuff/Bone Thugs stuff?) but otherwise it was fucking great.

And who the hell was that near clone of Tupac?!?

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They put over Bone Thugs pretty well without playing their music.  Yella talking about how their tape was great and the camera focusing on what I think was E. 1999 Eternal was a good look.  I'm guessing they left out the back and forth Ruthless/Death Row tracks because maybe they thought it'd take away from "No Vaseline"?  I don't know.  Although we do hear "What Would U Do?" from DPG playing which was in part a diss to Ruthless/BG Knocc Out/Dresta

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Since Henry specifically mentioned USA Today Sports (and someone being petty) - I am thinking it was this

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/08/straight-outta-compton-white-sox-hat-error-eazy-e-dr-dre

Yeah, they blew it with that logo. They also had Dre wearing a Majestic Dodgers jersey, which didn't come out until like 15 years later. And they had somebody wearing a throwback Cooperstown Collection Majestic jersey that also didn't come out until 15 years later. And roughly 8000 other things they messed up with the sports jerseys/hats.
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Saw Straight Outta Compton over the weekend. I worked in a music store when that album came out and it was on FIRE. Just FLEW off the shelves. And, yeah, like the movie shows - but doesn't discuss - a huge number of those went to white folks. And that's living/working in a city (Pontiac) that was roughly 70% black at the time. I wasn't an NWA fan at the time - still not, really. Some of their stuff just doesn't age well, IMHO. But I digress. Took my wife and nephew and we all loved the movie. Yeah, they definitely whitewashed stuff and portrayed Cube & Dre (and even Eazy) in a much better light than reality would suggest they should have been. But the story is well told and it's very compelling. It's a great story that deserves to be told.

Having said that, I found the movie to be a weird combination of both too long and too short. It felt like stuff was left out and yet...150 minutes felt too long at times. I think it could have benefited from a re-edit down to 135 or the inclusion of different material to keep it at 150.

The acting was top notch. All the guys were great. It's scary how much Cube's son looks like him. It was like they got 25-year old Cube out of a time machine to play himself in the movie. Awesome! Giamatti as Jerry Heller and the rest of the guys were great, too. And, as Fowler mentioned, holy cow, the Tupac clone at the end! My nephew and I walked out saying "Did you SEE that Tupac guy at the end?!!?!" Wow.

All in all, terrific movie. 8/10.

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I wonder why they chose "Hail Mary" seeing as that was recorded in '96 right before Pac's death and way before All Eyez on Me.  But it worked because the audience popped huge for it anyway. 

 

I'm not bothered by the jerseys and hats stuff.  All they needed to get right were the Compton hats, Raiders 'script' snapback and Kings 'script' snapback.

 

The 2Pac and Snoop/Dogg Pound rumor appears to have come from Daz and even though TMZ reported it he likes to tell stories.  I am not sure if there's any truth to it.

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I'm not bothered by the jerseys and hats stuff. All they needed to get right were the Compton hats, Raiders 'script' snapback and Kings 'script' snapback.

They messed up the Kings hat, too, having it worn a couple years too early.
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Black Moon Rising- 1986 cheapie written by John Carpenter, starring Tommy Lee Jones as a former CIA agent blackmailed by the Justice Department into stealing a computer disk with information on a mob controlled business.  When mob hitmen (led by Lee Ving, Mr. Boddy in Clue) get too close, he hides the disk in the "Black Moon" an experimental race car that can hit 300 MPH.

 

Of course, the car is promptly stolen by a car thief played by Linda Hamilton, in all her 80's big hair glory.  After turning the car over to her boss (Robert Vaughn), Linda is promptly seduced by Jones and the sex is so good that she switches sides and joins Jones in his efforts to retrieve the computer disk and turn it over to a sleazy FBI agent played by Bubba "Hightower" Smith of all people.

 

This is pretty much the bottom of the barrell for all involved.  Jones, limping away from the mega bomb that was Nate & Hayes gives it the old college try, but eventually even he gives up about halfway thru the film and starts phoning it in.  Hamilton shows her boobs, but not much acting range, while even Robert Vaughn, one of those charactor actors who can usually be relied upon to deliver a quality performance no matter how bad the material, joins his other castmates in sleepwalking through the film.  He had just finished The A-Team, so I think at this point he couldn't be bothered to give a crap.

 

The real reason to see this film is Bubba Smith and his attempts at actual acting.  It's obvious to see why the Police Academy producers limited his dialogue, though if you ever wanted to hear Hightower threaten to rip a man's nuts off and curse like a sailor, than this is the film for you.

 

You can watch it for free on Youtube.  FOX owns the rights, but even they haven't shown much concern in having it taken down.

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