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SEPT 2015 MOVIE THREAD


RIPPA

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Uh, no, I wanted her dead. Blood-on-the-ceiling, intestines-touching-all-four-walls dead. Or maybe receive that Dementor's Kiss thingy, that would be acceptable too (and we never really got to see it done to anyone and I always wanted a more thorough explanation of exactly what it did).

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01. Billy Madison

02. Happy Gilmore

03. The Wedding Singer

04. The Waterboy

05. Big Daddy

06. Little Nicky

07. Mr. Deeds

08. Anger Management

09. 50 First Dates

10. The Longest Yard

11. Click

12. I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry

13. You Don't Mess With the Zohan

14. Grown Ups

15. Just Go With It

16. Jack and Jill

17. That's My Boy

18. Grown Ups 2

19. Blended 

 

This list makes me realize I'm seen way too many Adam Sandler films in my life - and enjoyed virtually none of them.  Seriously, I loathe pretty much every movie on that list.  What is it with this guy?  I mean, I didn't particularly like Happy Gilmore or the Wedding Singer, but I get what he was going for then.  Those movies had their moments if you were into his particular vein of humor; I just wasn't.  Since "You Don't Mess with the Zohan" (which I thought was terrible but also kinda absurd in a "Buckaroo Banzai" kinda way), it's like he's just mailing it in.

 

I kinda liked Spanglish and, of course, Punch Drunk Love was great.  I don't even like Airheads.  If I've ever enjoyed another Sandler film, it was something from before he became famous, or he just had a small part.  Actually, looking at his filmography on Wikipediia, those are the only two Sandler films I enjoyed. 

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I watched Looper last night. It wasn't what I hoped it would be, it's got an interesting premise, but I don't think the actual story lives up to it. And it goes out of it's way to say "We're a time travel movie but we aren't going to talk about time paradoxes at all" and then the ending is a massive time paradox. And all that prosthetic make-up they stuck on Joe Levitt's face to make him look like a young Bruce Willis didn't make him look like a young Bruce Willis. They made him look like Joe Levitt with a bunch of crap stuck on his face.

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Uh, no, I wanted her dead. Blood-on-the-ceiling, intestines-touching-all-four-walls dead. Or maybe receive that Dementor's Kiss thingy, that would be acceptable too (and we never really got to see it done to anyone and I always wanted a more thorough explanation of exactly what it did).

You're way too much Old Testament Jingus.

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I watched Looper last night. It wasn't what I hoped it would be, it's got an interesting premise, but I don't think the actual story lives up to it. And it goes out of it's way to say "We're a time travel movie but we aren't going to talk about time paradoxes at all" and then the ending is a massive time paradox. And all that prosthetic make-up they stuck on Joe Levitt's face to make him look like a young Bruce Willis didn't make him look like a young Bruce Willis. They made him look like Joe Levitt with a bunch of crap stuck on his face.

I liked it but couldn't get over how white the future was. Obvious exception aside, there's not a lot of people of colour in that film. Like, even background characters. And given it was all supposed to be in low income neighborhoods in a major metropolitan city it actively became bizarre enough to take me out of the movie.

The gender politics are also actively terrible.

It's a good enough time travel movie though.

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Man, have Japanese filmmakers forgotten how to make a classic samurai movie? All the 21st century examples of the subgenre that I've seen have felt like cheap, pathetic imitations of the old classics. (Note: I still haven't gotten around to either 13 Assassins or Twilight Samurai, both said to be excellent.) I tried to watch one from just a few years ago called Ichi, a gender-swapped spinoff of the old Zatoichi flicks. And, well... it sucked. And not even in a so-bad-its-good way, or in a way that would be fun to mock; it's just disappointingly crude and inept. The acting is way too broad, the script relies on a lot of dumb contrivances and bad comedy, and the whole visual style just feels wrong with its shiny hi-def digital videography. And hey, I know we're making a movie starring an improbably beautiful woman as a handicapped protagonist in a medieval era, but could we maybe not make almost every man she ever meets into a would-be rapist?

But worst of all are the swordfights. I can forgive an action film almost anything, except shitty action scenes. And the ones here BLOW! They're framed all wrong, paced all wrong. Everything is a medium shot of flailing arms and torsos; the camera never pulls back far enough to let us see the footwork, or where people are in relation to each other, or any of those things that a great fight scene does. And there's no artistry to the fighting, no athleticism or skill; the hero in this movie isn't filmed doing anything that I couldn't recreate in front of a camera. It's always "a bunch of goons surround the blind swordswoman Ichi; they take turns charging her one at a time; she kills every one of them with one not-exactly-precise swipe of her cane-sword". Add in a lot of really phony-looking CGI blood (this dayglo-looking crap really makes you respect the digital blood's relative quality in stuff like The Walking Dead) and then cap it off with a Zack Snyder level of unnecessary slow-motion effects, and, and... AND FUCK ALL THIS.

(Jingus goes to watch the first Lone Wolf and Cub movie to wash the taste this nonsense out of his mouth. "Hey look, for-real red liquid spewing out of stuntmen! IT'S NOT THAT HARD!")

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I just watched THX 1138 and... well, I'm floored. Heard about this film since I was a kid and never watched it, but it was on TCM so I had to. Not regretting it one bit. George Orwell (along with Aldous Huxley) was the most prescient writer of our time and this is a stunning nod to him. So existential it hurts. The only beef I have is Lucas doing his CGI remaster work, though that was thankfully only two scenes at the end. No idea why this isn't talked about more. 

 

Heh. This is from the New York Times review in '71. 

 

 

 

"A few years back" might almost be a motto for "THX 1138," because whatever horror lies ahead, I don't think that anybody now seriously imagines that it will take the form of a de-emotionalized asexual society enslaved by its own models of technical efficiency. In this respect Mr. Lucas's film looks like a slightly old-fashioned anxiety dream—but if you can accept that (and you should), it becomes very potent material indeed.

 

Change asexual to hypersexual and you have what we live in now. They never knew the Internet was coming. At least we know Skynet is.

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I watched 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown with Dean Ambrose and it's. . . not bad.  Nothing special, but not a waste of 90 minutes. Ambrose does decently in his role.  The ending is just there, but the action scenes were solid and the movie is grittier than I had anticipated.  The heel had good heat throughout and you'll want to see him get his. With a better script and direction, Ambrose would make for a pretty good action film star, sort of a junior Bruce Willis in the Die Hard mold.  It suffers from a flimsy plot and precious few surprises, but Ambrose and Roger Cross carry it to a solid outing.

 

Kind of disappointed Ambrose didn't do a Dirty Deeds on anyone.

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Not that into the franchise but damn if Furious 7 doesn't have one of the most badass openings ever.

 

Now  that's how you introduce a villain.

 

Like, they did steal that idea from an obscure '90s Hong Kong action flick or something? 

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Not that into the franchise but damn if Furious 7 doesn't have one of the most badass openings ever.

Now that's how you introduce a villain.

Like, they did steal that idea from an obscure '90s Hong Kong action flick or something?

I'd like to think Rock gave them some a wrestling psych 101. When you debut your new top heel, you bring him in huge, and have him annihilate the babyfaces.

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The story of the Fast and Furious films is that of the most generic, superficial, willfully silly and ridiculous blockbuster franchise ever...but one that still manages to have these occasional touches of absolute creative genius. Oh, and due to the impressively diverse case, it's also the most progressive thing Hollywood has churned out in ages. It's all very weird. 

 

Anyway: I suspect Dom and his crew will be fighting aliens next. That's the only place left to go. 

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The story of the Fast and Furious films is that of the most generic, superficial, willfully silly and ridiculous blockbuster franchise ever...but one that still manages to have these occasional touches of absolute creative genius. Oh, and due to the impressively diverse case, it's also the most progressive thing Hollywood has churned out in ages. It's all very weird. 

 

Anyway: I suspect Dom and his crew will be fighting aliens next. That's the only place left to go. 

 

Vin Diesel's home planet finally invades.  I knew it was just a matter of time.

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