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NOV 2015 MOVIE DISCUSSION


RIPPA

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I watched Shanghai Noon yesterday and didn't mind it.  Jackie Chan is Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson is somewhat less annoying than you'd expect him to be.  But it actually made me laugh out loud a couple of times, mainly Chan's character being named "Chon Wang" ("John Wayne? That's a terrible name for a cowboy!") and the scene with the other Chinese guards practicing martial arts and the exchange between the two yokels "They don't look like no injuns I ever seen, Jedediah" followed by "I told you they ain't injuns, those are Jews."  I'm less stoked to see that the sequel takes place in England, because I enjoyed the martial arts/old West mash-up.  Also, apparently they're doing 'Shanghai Dawn' now?  So I guess I'd better get watching the sequel soon.

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The sequel is pretty much the very definition of "Second verse, same as the first; a little bit louder, and a little bit worse!" It's not bad, not really, it's just doing the exact same shit as the first movie except in a different location.

Random shit I've watched recently:

-Just Before Dawn is the millionth generic slasher with the basic plot of "a bunch of bad actors go on a camping trip and get slaughtered by a deformed hillbilly". But it at least tries to do one or two things to differentiate itself from the pack, and it's especially good at evoking the feeling of being set in a really isolated location which is long miles away from civilization. I'm starting to appreciate the very-early-80s installments in the slasher genre (1981 in this case), because those feel like they're still playing with "the rules" of how these movies are supposed to work and everything isn't so completely set in stone in terms of how the storyline is predestined to go. Just Before Dawn is particularly noteworthy in how little it even tries to explain WHY its killer kills; "inbred backwoods hillfolk just naturally want to kill outsiders" is pretty much the entire motivation.

-For some damn reason, I'd never actually sat down and watched all of Bloodsport in one go. Doing that now, it's pretty easy to see why Van Damme became such a big star. Despite being a laughably bad actor in any scene which doesn't involve martial arts, he certainly had charisma to spare; he tries harder and is infinitely more energetic than, say, the Chuck Norrises or Steven Seagals of the world. One weird thing is how relatively tame Bloodsport's plot is; maybe they had to tone it down because it was (allegedly, probably not truthfully) the real story of Frank Dux's life, but this has gotta be the cleanest and least shady Underground Pit-Fighting Tournament of all time. The movie's final body count is a grand total of one dead guy (a totally anonymous jobber, all the named characters survive) and the villain's dirtiest tactic is, as God as my witness, throwing powder in the hero's eyes at the end. Compare this to Enter the Dragon fifteen years earlier, which had the various fighters all killing the living shit out of each other. And finally, it's hilarious to watch a rookie-era Forest Whitaker putting way more effort into his supporting part than it really deserved.

-I'm aeons late to this particular zeitgeist; but allow me to belatedly climb aboard the beyond-overloaded bandwagon and agree that, yes, Frozen is fucking awesome. I'm not sure if I'd say that it's better than Tangled or Wreck-It Ralph (sheeyit, these movies are all telling such different stories in such different tones that I'm clueless how to even begin going about rating them compared to each other) but I'm absolutely unsurprised that it was such a huge box-office smash. Although the came-of-age protagonists are nominally "adult", this is still basically the story of two kids and the dynamics of how siblings relate to each other. That's practically unheard-of in major animated theatrical pictures (especially sisters), especially how hard the movie aims its focus on that main relationship while treating basically everything else as a distraction-at-best from the central familial relationship. It also makes things different that this the movie's real villain is truly HATEFUL; this isn't a delightfully-evil heel along the lines of Ursula or Scar who are so fun to watch in their cartoonish buffoonery, but an utter sociopath who is just the biggest piece of shit on the planet, someone with absolutely no redeeming value whatsoever and whose only charm is only part of their whole mask-of-sanity disguising their true nature. And goddamn but, once you know the context of the lyrics, "Let It Go" is legitimately every bit the show-stopping freight-train of lyrical and emotional wizardry that everyone has claimed it to be.

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-For some damn reason, I'd never actually sat down and watched all of Bloodsport in one go. Doing that now, it's pretty easy to see why Van Damme became such a big star. Despite being a laughably bad actor in any scene which doesn't involve martial arts, he certainly had charisma to spare; he tries harder and is infinitely more energetic than, say, the Chuck Norrises or Steven Seagals of the world. One weird thing is how relatively tame Bloodsport's plot is; maybe they had to tone it down because it was (allegedly, probably not truthfully) the real story of Frank Dux's life, but this has gotta be the cleanest and least shady Underground Pit-Fighting Tournament of all time. The movie's final body count is a grand total of one dead guy (a totally anonymous jobber, all the named characters survive) and the villain's dirtiest tactic is, as God as my witness, throwing powder in the hero's eyes at the end. Compare this to Enter the Dragon fifteen years earlier, which had the various fighters all killing the living shit out of each other. And finally, it's hilarious to watch a rookie-era Forest Whitaker putting way more effort into his supporting part than it really deserved.

 

It baffles me that the makers of the 'Street Fighter' didn't just watch 'Bloodsport' and go "Let's make that with cartoon-y characters"?!  Like why the need to make it an adventure story and have no tournament to speak of?!

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-For some damn reason, I'd never actually sat down and watched all of Bloodsport in one go. Doing that now, it's pretty easy to see why Van Damme became such a big star. Despite being a laughably bad actor in any scene which doesn't involve martial arts, he certainly had charisma to spare; he tries harder and is infinitely more energetic than, say, the Chuck Norrises or Steven Seagals of the world. One weird thing is how relatively tame Bloodsport's plot is; maybe they had to tone it down because it was (allegedly, probably not truthfully) the real story of Frank Dux's life, but this has gotta be the cleanest and least shady Underground Pit-Fighting Tournament of all time. The movie's final body count is a grand total of one dead guy (a totally anonymous jobber, all the named characters survive) and the villain's dirtiest tactic is, as God as my witness, throwing powder in the hero's eyes at the end. Compare this to Enter the Dragon fifteen years earlier, which had the various fighters all killing the living shit out of each other. And finally, it's hilarious to watch a rookie-era Forest Whitaker putting way more effort into his supporting part than it really deserved.

It baffles me that the makers of the 'Street Fighter' didn't just watch 'Bloodsport' and go "Let's make that with cartoon-y characters"?! Like why the need to make it an adventure story and have no tournament to speak of?!

Even more baffling they did 2 movies with no tournament!!

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-For some damn reason, I'd never actually sat down and watched all of Bloodsport in one go. Doing that now, it's pretty easy to see why Van Damme became such a big star. Despite being a laughably bad actor in any scene which doesn't involve martial arts, he certainly had charisma to spare; he tries harder and is infinitely more energetic than, say, the Chuck Norrises or Steven Seagals of the world. One weird thing is how relatively tame Bloodsport's plot is; maybe they had to tone it down because it was (allegedly, probably not truthfully) the real story of Frank Dux's life, but this has gotta be the cleanest and least shady Underground Pit-Fighting Tournament of all time. The movie's final body count is a grand total of one dead guy (a totally anonymous jobber, all the named characters survive) and the villain's dirtiest tactic is, as God as my witness, throwing powder in the hero's eyes at the end. Compare this to Enter the Dragon fifteen years earlier, which had the various fighters all killing the living shit out of each other. And finally, it's hilarious to watch a rookie-era Forest Whitaker putting way more effort into his supporting part than it really deserved.

 

It baffles me that the makers of the 'Street Fighter' didn't just watch 'Bloodsport' and go "Let's make that with cartoon-y characters"?!  Like why the need to make it an adventure story and have no tournament to speak of?!

 

 

the Reelz channel aired Bloodsport followed by Street Fighter this past weekend and I thought the same. The opening scene seemed like it was headed that way with Ryu and Vega then it goes elsewhere. Do appreciate the attempt to include most of the characters in though, enjoyable cast, I had forgotten T Hawk was in there at all. Still a fun watch.

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Bull-sheeyit. Mortal Kombat was actually about A MARTIAL ARTS TOURNAMENT; y'know, the entire storyline of the original games. And it didn't mutilate any of the original characters anywhere near the level of "Chun-Li is a reporter and E. Honda is her cameraman". Hell, it even pulled a much better overall level of acting out of a much worse overall cast of actors than Street Fighter had (yeah, Raul was great, but everyone else was phoning it right the fuck in) and had infinitely better fight choreography in its action scenes.

As for the now-decades-old question of "why the hell did Street Fighter invent this ridiculous Bond-film plot and not just be about street fighting?", my guess would be two simple words: development hell. This is what happens when you've got a conglomeration of corporations all fighting to make a motion picture wherein they assume that the franchise's name alone is enough to get all the fanboys to buy tickets, regardless of the movie's actual content. A million different producers and executives all have "notes" on what they think would improve the movie, and by the end you get something which is the cinematic equivalent of that time Homer Simpson designed his own new car. Sadly, it WORKED, the movie had a return of $99 million in worldwide theatrical sales on its original budget of $35 million.

...on the other hand, I've got NO freakin' idea what the fuck happened with The Legend of Chun Li, which was actually an even worse movie than the original Street Fighter. TLoCL has all the symptoms of being a fairly coherent vision of a limited number of creators; this is EXACTLY what they wanted it to be, which makes its gargantuan suckiness into a fairly inexplicable phenomenon.

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-For some damn reason, I'd never actually sat down and watched all of Bloodsport in one go. Doing that now, it's pretty easy to see why Van Damme became such a big star. Despite being a laughably bad actor in any scene which doesn't involve martial arts, he certainly had charisma to spare; he tries harder and is infinitely more energetic than, say, the Chuck Norrises or Steven Seagals of the world. One weird thing is how relatively tame Bloodsport's plot is; maybe they had to tone it down because it was (allegedly, probably not truthfully) the real story of Frank Dux's life, but this has gotta be the cleanest and least shady Underground Pit-Fighting Tournament of all time. The movie's final body count is a grand total of one dead guy (a totally anonymous jobber, all the named characters survive) and the villain's dirtiest tactic is, as God as my witness, throwing powder in the hero's eyes at the end. Compare this to Enter the Dragon fifteen years earlier, which had the various fighters all killing the living shit out of each other. And finally, it's hilarious to watch a rookie-era Forest Whitaker putting way more effort into his supporting part than it really deserved.

 

It baffles me that the makers of the 'Street Fighter' didn't just watch 'Bloodsport' and go "Let's make that with cartoon-y characters"?!  Like why the need to make it an adventure story and have no tournament to speak of?!

 

 

Have any of you guys watched the Kickboxer series? My friends and I always got a kick out of the scene where JCVD's brother is about to go up to his room with a hooker and says, "it's ok, she wants to make it with The Champ" after JCVD tells him he should save his energy. Just something about his delivery made us rewind that scene over and over again. In hindsight, he should've listened to his little brother. I loved the fact that after the first one, they couldn't get JCVD so they turned to Cody from Step by Step to carry the torch.

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Ironically enough the SF2 anime film also throws out the tournament aspect for the most part and has Bison as more of a superhuman warlord than a live action Hank Scorpio, and it's actually pretty good.  The Quest also featured JCVD and actually did a better job of holding a tournament featuring fighters from around the world all with unique styles.  Granted there was zero character development for any of them, but it was far from the worst thing I've seen.

 

On that topic, I remember trying to watch the live action Tekken movie once and not making it all the way.  They stuck to the tournament aspect and despite having a good cast of C-list action stars it was pretty forgettable.

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-For some damn reason, I'd never actually sat down and watched all of Bloodsport in one go. Doing that now, it's pretty easy to see why Van Damme became such a big star. Despite being a laughably bad actor in any scene which doesn't involve martial arts, he certainly had charisma to spare; he tries harder and is infinitely more energetic than, say, the Chuck Norrises or Steven Seagals of the world. One weird thing is how relatively tame Bloodsport's plot is; maybe they had to tone it down because it was (allegedly, probably not truthfully) the real story of Frank Dux's life, but this has gotta be the cleanest and least shady Underground Pit-Fighting Tournament of all time. The movie's final body count is a grand total of one dead guy (a totally anonymous jobber, all the named characters survive) and the villain's dirtiest tactic is, as God as my witness, throwing powder in the hero's eyes at the end. Compare this to Enter the Dragon fifteen years earlier, which had the various fighters all killing the living shit out of each other. And finally, it's hilarious to watch a rookie-era Forest Whitaker putting way more effort into his supporting part than it really deserved.

It baffles me that the makers of the 'Street Fighter' didn't just watch 'Bloodsport' and go "Let's make that with cartoon-y characters"?! Like why the need to make it an adventure story and have no tournament to speak of?!

Even more baffling they did 2 movies with no tournament!!

 

 

The sequels totally forgot that Frank Dux is an actual person.

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I will not hear a bad word about Street Fighter:The Movie.

Raul Julia chewing every bit of scenery, Kylie Minogue looking fit, Zangeif v Honda "Godzilla" style, "Quick change the channel" and that full team pose at the end...

That movie was awesome. So much better than Mortal Kombat anyway.

 

You shut your mouth because Johnny Cage vs. Scorpion is one of the finest brawls ever committed to film!

 

 

The best thing about SF was the scene where Chun-Li and Cammy are making fun of each other's choice of combat hairstyle.   It has taken a while, but I have learned to embrace the campiness of Street Fighter.

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I thought both Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat were pieces of shit when I saw them as a kid (me and my friend Aaron saw the latter in the theater and both agreed that it blew) and I've never had any interest in rewatching on the infinite amount of times they've been on TV since, so you guys debating the "merits" of them is pretty funny

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I thought both Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat were pieces of shit when I saw them as a kid (me and my friend Aaron saw the latter in the theater and both agreed that it blew) and I've never had any interest in rewatching on the infinite amount of times they've been on TV since, so you guys debating the "merits" of them is pretty funny

 

It is easy when you are a snob when it comes to really bad movies.  Suddenly low standards become high ones.

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Are you guys really arguing about Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat movies a page after nate and I were referencing Master Of The Flying Guillotine, which is pretty much the best possible Street Fighter/Mortal Kombat movie ever made, back in 1976~?

It's possible they're heathens who've never seen that greatness.

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