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[MOVIE] MARCH 2016 DISCUSSION


RIPPA

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18 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

What was everyone laughing about there that Jones was no-selling?

It was at the 2013 Golden Globes.

Jones looked decidedly grumpy while “Saturday Night Live” veterans Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig did a bit before presenting the award for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical.

The crowd erupted in laughter as Ferrell and Wiig attempted to describe the films starring each of the five nominees, but it soon became clear neither had watched any. They messed up plots and names, saying “Mariole Streep” must’ve played a great “Sassy Sheriff” in “Hope Springs.”

But when the camera panned onto the “Lincoln” star during the hilarious skit, it was clear Jones wasn’t amused.

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47 minutes ago, CSC said:

TOMMY-LEE-JONES.gif

 

Yep - that seems about right.

I would judge Tommy but, tbh, if I was at the Golden Globes, I'd be sad too.

These are the same people who gave Madonna an acting award.

No wonder he looks so sad. 

 

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Just now, Reed said:

I would judge Tommy but, tbh, if I was at the Golden Globes, I'd be sad too.

These are the same people who gave Madonna an acting award.

No wonder he looks so sad. 

 

Lady Gaga too. . . 

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Just watched "The End Of The Tour", and it was outstanding . Jason Segal totally blew me away. I had heard good things about it and I wasn't disappointed. I never read any of Wallace's books , the early to mid nineties for me were full of Dead shows and getting married . I wasn't doing a lot of reading outside of comic books. But now I'm very intrigued to check his stuff out. But what really works in this film is that you don't have to be knowledgeable of his work to enjoy it. Jesse Eisenberg is terrific as well. If you enjoy movies that are pretty much just about conversations, which I do, check this out. 

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The Mrs. and I had our first "date night" to ourselves since shortly before our daughter was born -- that was in 2011. We went to the movies, where the Mrs. wanted to see MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING 2. I'm in a good mood, so I oblige.

I saw the original in a Virginia art theater one late Friday morning after all of my co-workers insisted I go see it. I frankly didn't care for it.

The sequel is more of the same -- it's predictable (you can see the "twists" coming a mile away) and feels more like a 90-minute sitcom than an actual film (at the very least, the sequel suggests that the inane TV spinoff never existed).  Nia Vardalos also tries to cram about eight different subplots into the film, a problem she also had in the first film (she obviously has a lot of ideas to throw out, but it's okay to cut a few between here and now)..

But the cast gives it their all throughout the film, and you can tell they are genuinely having fun. God bless 88-year-old Michael Constantine, who plows through playing patriarch Gus with plenty of energy to spare. He and Lainie Kazan have great chemistry, and you wish they were a bit younger so they could have a TV spinoff all to themselves.  And the audience was pretty much roaring at everything that was being thrown at them.

Spoiler

One scene that did crack me up was an homage to the 80s musical montage, with the woman beginning their preparations for the big wedding. In the background, you can hear a Greek-language version of Billy Idol's "White Wedding".  I also got a hearty laugh at the actual wedding, complete with "last-minute" tuxedos and an odd way to get to the church on time.

It's a critic-proof movie that's worth a matinee, particularly if you're going with people who just want to turn off their brains and have fun.

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2 Guns: Zero Tolerance is beyond bad.  Watch it and you will ask yourself how a B grade action movie featuring Dustin Nguyen, Scott Adkins, Gary Daniels, and Kane Kosugi could go so horribly wrong.

How can you have guys like that in your cast and manage to not have a single, solitary, quality fight scene?  HOW~!?

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Movies I'm Watching For The First Time, And Am Having Great Difficulty Forcing Myself To Finish: why hello there, Sylvester Stallone's Cobra!  This could count as a parody of ultraviolent 80s action flicks, if it didn't take itself so goddamn seriously.  I mean, the basic plot of "Sly is a rogue cop who plays by his own rules, and he's going up against an organized army of serial killers" pretty much begs for you to laugh at it.  The villains have less motivation than Jason Voorhees, they kill people because... uh... because... well it's really never explained at all.  Some kind of apocalyptic religious terrorism bullshit.  Of course, this is flatly ignoring the fact that serial killers and terrorists aren't the same thing and have completely different methods and motivations; this dumbass movie blithely assumes that, hey, criminals are criminals, amirite? The mechanics of HOW they do any of this (recruitment, funding, planning, anything ever) are all totally ignored.  Also not helping is a shitload of terrible acting: rarely has This Is The Director's Girlfriend been indicated more clearly than the laughably awful line readings from Bridgette Nielsen here (and god-damn but is her "electrocuted poodle" haircut a thing to behold with shock and awe).  

It might be tolerable if it either treated this material with a wink and a smirk (like Tango & Cash) or at least provided a lot of fun mindless carnage (like Rambo: First Blood Part 2, from the same director as Cobra).  But it does neither.  All the action scenes are so small and boring, involving only two or three guys going through the apathetic motions, that it feels more like action scenes from any given episode of a cheap cop show from the 70s.  And worst of all is how it's clearly meant to be SERIOUS SOCIAL COMMENTARY.  Stallone's script just keeps hammering the point of "stupid liberal laws protect criminals and prevent good people from doing anything... so FUCK THE LAW!!!" over and over again.  The character of Cobra is a sociopathic creep, a violent fascist who routinely breaks the law whenever he feels like it, bullying and vandalizing and assaulting people for his own amusement.  In any realistic movie, he'd be a villain.  He only looks mildly "heroic" here because his opposition is so cartoonishly loathesome.  

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I really wish they'd at least release a version with all the violence cut out of the film. It kind of has sentimental value to me because my dad put it on one morning after a sleepover I had with another kid (I think he was still drunk from the previous night, haha) and I got to see the beginning which was like getting to see porn or something at the time because it was all violent and shit. And Stallone cuts up a pizza with a pair of scissors. 

Read how much of an asshole Stallone was in the making of this movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_(1986_film)

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1 hour ago, Curt McGirt said:

I really wish they'd at least release a version with all the violence cut out of the film. It kind of has sentimental value to me because my dad put it on one morning after a sleepover I had with another kid (I think he was still drunk from the previous night, haha) and I got to see the beginning which was like getting to see porn or something at the time because it was all violent and shit. And Stallone cuts up a pizza with a pair of scissors. 

Read how much of an asshole Stallone was in the making of this movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_(1986_film)

The most disturbing thing about Cobra is that it is exactly how Beverly Hills Cop would've turned out if Paramount had yielded to Sly's ego.  Yuck...

Stallone still came out smelling like a rose as Cobra went on to make a ton of money despite being savaged by critics.... not unlike Batman vs. Superman.  He still got to make his vanity project and it made a profit.

Now that he is Hollywood action movie royalty, I wonder if he will ever try to reboot Cobra?

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2 hours ago, J.T. said:

Stallone still came out smelling like a rose as Cobra went on to make a ton of money despite being savaged by critics.... not unlike Batman vs. Superman.  He still got to make his vanity project and it made a profit.

Actually, it was a relative failure compared to his other films at that time.  It made less than half of what Rambo 2 and Rocky 4 did right beforehand.  Heck, adjusted for inflation, it made less than First Blood or Staying Alive.  Except for Rhinestone, it was his lowest-drawing movie in five years.  (It didn't keep that record for long, Over the Top and Lock Up made even less.)  And it seemingly assassinated Sly's ability to have a movie cross the hundred-million mark in domestic sales; he'd done it four times before this, but Cobra started a losing streak in that area which wasn't broken until, of all things, Spy Kids 3.  

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12 hours ago, Jingus said:

 Stallone's script just keeps hammering the point of "stupid liberal laws protect criminals and prevent good people from doing anything... so FUCK THE LAW!!!" over and over again.  

"YOU GOTTA TAKE ME IN, PIG!"

 

 

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The most annoying part is, there's ways to do that intelligently.  Look at High Noon or The Untouchables or even the first Dirty Harry or the first Death Wish, which all actually DEALT WITH the issues brought up by the idea of unlawful violence.  Those movies all made it very clear that vigilantism is never 100% justified, that there's always a legitimate argument against it, that the act of engaging in such violence will tarnish the soul of even the most heroic do-gooder.  Cobra does none of the above.  It tells subtlety and nuance and complexity and ambiguity to all go fuck themselves, while setting up a conga-line of strawmen to knock down.  Hell, even First Blood seemed to ultimately preach a message of tolerance, leniency, and pacifism which Cobra actively shits all over.  The movie's entire moral argument can be summed up as "The answer to ALL crime is to get some big guy with a big gun to go execute whomever he feels like shooting."  

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10 hours ago, (BP) said:

If you really want a treat watch Black Cobra, the Italian "remake" starring Fred "The Hammer" Williamson. It's hysterical. 

 

Note:. Get a Roku. All the Black Cobra franchise (oh it's a franchise) are In rotation on B Movie TV. 

 

They are amazing in part for how bad Fred Williamson is at investigating or protecting anything or anyone. His basic plan is to sit around while all his family gets killed so he feels motivation to go blow up three syndicate in their warehouse. 

 

I mean it works as a plan for what it is.  

 

All of the Black Cobra movies are also great examples of the "every warehouse is filled with giant stacks of empty boxes" school of action choreography.  I've never seen somany empty boxes tumble onto so many bad men before.  If you are like into empty boxes, then damn man.

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