Jump to content
DVDVR Message Board

MARCH 2017 MOVIE THREAD


RIPPA

Recommended Posts

2 hours ago, J.T. said:

Wow, what the fuck Triple 9 (now on heavy rotation on the Showtime movie networks)?  You had an awesome cast, awesome characters, and an awesome director but as a movie, you were only average.

Kate Winslet deserves another crack at playing a racist Russian mafia boss because she was pretty fucking awesome. 

Hillcoat doesn't have a good track record recently. Lawless had a great cast, and that movie was pretty average to me.  

Triple 9 was the blandest "gritty" action thriller that I can remember. I remember Woody being good. That's about it. I thought the material that they had was awful.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In the Heart of the Sea - terrific movie that tells the true story that inspired Moby Dick. A whaling ship gets attacked by a whale and things go south from there. Well made with only a brief hint of terrible CGI. My only beef is they needlessly altered elements of the true story. Why mess with an already remarkable tale? 

the Captive - Ryan Reynolds is the father of a kidnapped young girl. We learn she's alive and being held by a child exploitation ring. The movie hops around its timeline to show the investigation, aftermath, and current mess. Good movie and super creepy without ever actually coming close to "showing" anything. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

Jason Momoa, former Conan, as... Aquaman! 

Clearly he has more similarities to Roman Reigns than just physical appearance. 

He was offered the role of Drax the Destroyer in Guardians of the Galaxy. Turned it down. Thought he'd already done enough of those type roles.

I mean, obviously Bautista has been fantastic as Drax and really should have been first choice, but it does make Momoa look like a bit of an idiot. Although he is married to Lisa Bonet, so swings and roundabouts.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, AxB said:

He was offered the role of Drax the Destroyer in Guardians of the Galaxy. Turned it down. Thought he'd already done enough of those type roles.

I mean, obviously Bautista has been fantastic as Drax and really should have been first choice, but it does make Momoa look like a bit of an idiot. Although he is married to Lisa Bonet, so swings and roundabouts.

Didn't Gunn kind of debunk this years ago?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How is Momoa an idiot in this?  GOTG was a huge hit, but it hasn't exactly been a springboard to the next level of stardom for Batista.  He's still just doing direct-to-DVD/streaming action junk with the occasional role as a heavy in bigger movies sprinkled in...which is exactly the sort of pigeonhole Momoa said he was trying to get out of.  I don't think playing Drax would've improved his prospects.

Instead, he bet on himself, landed a lead role as Aquaman, and if that's a hit, then he IS going to be a big star.

Granted, it probably won't be, but those shitty Batista roles are still going to be there for him.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Additionally, Momoa can get a TV gig with relative ease if the movies he's offered aren't good.  He's got a current Netflix series.  Not sure if Batista has enough pull for that right now.

EVA's right. Even if Aquaman fails, Momoa just goes back to middle of the road action films. Which is Batista's current career trajectory, so Momoa isn't worse off for that choice.  It was the sensible one for him to make if he wants a real chance to be a superstar.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just watched most of Smoke (1995) and that is really an unheralded film. Harold Perrineau Jr. must've been the exact age of his character then and I did a double-take seeing him. Some of the one-liners Harvey Keitel spouts makes me wish he was a regular voiceover artist for video games and TV. But beyond that, the stories and their weaving together, and just how everything wrapped up was great. The last part makes it an Xmas movie that never gets mentioned. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What I've been watching:

Carriers (2009) is sort of a Zombie apocalypse movie only without the Zombies. There's been a pandemic and most of the population is wiped out, the infrastructure is gone and everyone's living off looting, but the dead aren't coming back to life. But other than that, it's basically all the story beats from a Zombie apocalypse film. Chris Pine is good in it - usually he's a bit too earnest and he comes across in that Roman Reigns way (the film-makers have decided that he's the hero and so they've decided you like him, but you're like, "Fuck you film-makers, I think he's a dick!"), but here he's the arsehole of the group, but in a way where he knows he has to be the arsehole to allow the others to be the nice one... like if we were all the nice ones, we'd be dead, but I don't want to see you nice kids turn to evil, so I have to be the bastard here. He's good at that.

The Taking of Pelham 123 (also 2009) is one of those movies that Hollywood likes to make where you get two charismatic leading man actors and have them play antagonistically against each other, in a powerful display of powerful acting. Only they messed up because although Denzel is absolutely a powerhouse capable of holding his end up, he's playing against John Travolta, who whilst charismatic isn't really the acting heavyweight that this kind of film needs. See that hostage negotiator movie from the 90s, where they had Samuel L Jackson and Kevin Spacey? That's a strong top two who can spark off each other. Either one of them two, or someone else on that level playing against Denzel in this would have been great. Travolta, he's OK. He's alright. But for this movie concept to work, you need someone better than pretty good.

Savages  (2012) also had John Travolta in it. But he wasn't really the main guy at all. It had a lot of great actors in it, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Benicio Del Toro, Salma Hayek, Blake Lively was good in it. Taylor Kitsch was the second lead after Aaron Johnson, but he stayed within his limitations. It reminded me of The Counsellor (legendary director (Oliver Stone in this case) assembles all-star cast to make movie about repercussions of Mexican drug war), only it wasn't anywhere near as bad as the Counsellor. It was odd how the first 15 minutes implied it was going to be full of really hardcore sex and violence, but then there wasn't actually much gore or nudity at all after that though, just the implied threat of some. But if you watch it thinking it's going to be like The Counsellor, it will seem incredibly awesome and fantastic

I also watched The Expendables 2. It was OK. Kind of closer to what people were expecting Expendables 1 to be like. Not sure why Jet Li's role was basically reduced to a cameo though. It's the problem with massive superstar ensemble casts, to give everyone a chance to get their shit in, you'd have to make a movie ten hours long. So Terry Crews and Randy Couture get to play 'Guy standing in background not really paying attention' for most of their scenes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Saw Ghostbusters 16 and enjoyed it.

Paul Feig is not good at shooting action scenes. He makes everything look mundane.

Villain could have been better developed. We never learn anything about him or his hate. When Vigo appeared he had this build up. Same with the Gozer avatar.

I really liked the garage band aspect. Struggling for money and respect. The use of the bullshit ghost hunting shows,

Melissa McCarthy was great. She held it together.

Leslie Jones was at times great and at others not feeling it. Which comes from the bad script. I wish they gave her a purpose for being there.

Kate McKinnon was good but under developed.

Kristen Wiig's character got the most development and story time. She performed to her strengths as a put upon straight lady.

Liam Hemsworth was great and I thought the final act was a wonderful visual spectacle. Really enjoyed Slimer stealing the car.
The downer ending felt right.

In some ways this felt like a movie version of the old cartoon.

In all I would like them to get a second chance with a better directer.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Kundo: Age of the Rampant (2014) This is such a kick ass movie. It's like 47 Ronin meets Magnificent 7 (yup, with the clear spaghetti western slant to things). The action is bitchin, the motivations are believable, the story is shockingly solid. Man, the action... minimum use of CG, wirefu at it's best, and brutal visceral impacts.

(Why the fuck haven't I seen this until now? Oh yeah, because I was lured into utter complete boredom by the so called epic wuxia movies coming out of HK. I blame it on the incredible bad taste of my friends who think lining up a billion mooks in the same uniform in an elaborate circle the wagon formation is somehow cool.)

This movie was so good, I started researching other Korean wuxia movies that I might have missed. If anyone knows of any good ones, please feel free to recommend.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Beauty and the Beast (2017) I recently saw again the 1991 animation in anticipation. 2017 is essentially a live action adaptation of the animation; they ironed out the flaws and inconsistencies and filled in the gaps. The production was excellent and the cast did great.

With Cinderella (2015) and this, it's a great two for two in my book. I'm very anxious to see how they will handle the upcoming Little Mermaid adaptation, I think it's probably the most problematic. The Mulan adaptation is pretty much straightforward.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I loved the "live" Jungle Book. 

 

But it what I really want is someone to do a "live" Riki Tiki Tavi. 

The best thing I've done as an Uncle is show my six year old nephew the Chuck Jones cartoon. He loves it as much as I did. 

The top other things he loves because of me are

1.  The Three Stooges

2. Tom and Jerry

3. Tiny Toons and Animaniacs

4. The "Who's On First" routine

I'm babysitting tomorrow night, and Droopy Dog is my endgame for another awesome educational evening.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 3/18/2017 at 0:56 AM, Johnny Sorrow said:

The best thing I've done as an Uncle is show my six year old nephew the Chuck Jones cartoon. He loves it as much as I did. 

The top other things he loves because of me are

1.  The Three Stooges

2. Tom and Jerry

3. Tiny Toons and Animaniacs

4. The "Who's On First" routine

I'm babysitting tomorrow night, and Droopy Dog is my endgame for another awesome educational evening.

All and everyone of the classic WB toons are can't miss. It's just too bad it's not widely shown anymore.

Show him these too if you haven't: Popey, Ducktales/Darkwing Duck, Ghostbusters. Man, we really had a glut of awesome stuff when we were younger.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Great Wall (2016) Okay, so it's not terrible... just really forgettable. High production, lots of troop formations, pretty colors. Yet by the end, I wanted badly to see a series of movies around the misadventures of the bromance. Really, the two Europeans have a fantastic bromance. They're almost Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser in balance.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 3/19/2017 at 7:05 AM, turk128 said:

All and everyone of the classic WB toons are can't miss. It's just too bad it's not widely shown anymore.

Show him these too if you haven't: Popey, Ducktales/Darkwing Duck, Ghostbusters. Man, we really had a glut of awesome stuff when we were younger.

I'd lay off Ghostbusters for a time, some of those episodes are pretty creepy. . . . .

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...