MOVIE COMMENT CATCH-ALL THREAD

[Curt McGirt]

Oh man, Appleseed. I saw that when I was a kid and it had totally vanished from my memory. Thanx for the remembrance, J.T.! I really should revisit ye olde anime of yore... never even saw Neo-Tokyo which I so badly wanted to back then...

[Ace]

So nothing happened with that signature campaign for a sequel? After reading about the plans for 2 to be an origin film and 3 to feature Judge Death, I'm gonna be so pissed if nothing happens with it.

 

Prepare to be pissed. Anybody expecting Dredd to be successful regardless of quality was living in a dream world.

[Victator]

 

Yeah, SHUT UP LITTLE MAN takes a very dark and dreary turn and everyone involved stops looking funny and just comes off as awful and sad and...yeah. I tried to listen to the actual clips after watching the documentary, and couldn't. It wasn't funny anymore.

For me, it stopped being funny real early on when they play the tape of the two roommates actually physically fighting.  At that point, it just stopped being funny and I found myself mad at the young guys for not calling the cops.  And then you get to the end and you've got third third roommate, Tony, asking where the one guy's grave is so he can go piss on it and the various filmmakers all just using and manipulating the old drunks...yeah.

 

So the old guys never got any money?

[caley]

Shut Up Little Man - In 1987, two friends moved from Wisconsin to San Francisco.  They ended up in a cheap apartment next to a couple of alcoholics who had screaming, profane fights with each other.  The fights had some humorous dialogue and the friends ended up recording them.  They shared the tapes with friends and something of a cottage industry sprung up as a result.  Comic books, magazine articles, a play, and some movie stuff all came out of it.  This documentary tracks the whole history of that, seeks out the fighting neighbors and talks to everyone involved (that's still alive).  Problem is, every single person involved is a scumbag.  You've got the alcoholic jackasses.  You've got the friends who, instead of calling the cops, record the fights - by taping a microphone to a ski pole and putting it outside the neighbors' window.  Knowing that the fights sometimes turn violent they naturally....make calls designed to provoke more fights and conflict.  Then, when it's all said and done, they set up a web site years later and sell the tapes and CDs profit off of the misery of the neighbors.  You've got the various artists, playwrights, and movie people who use the tapes as the basis for their own works, all without talking to the neighbors.  Or the movie guys who simply get the neighbors drunk and have them sign releases in return for $10.  The title of the documentary comes from words that one of the neighbors would yell at the other frequently.  Admittedly, a lot of the fights ARE pretty funny but, in the end, it's hard to get past the exploitive nature of the whole thing and not be disgusted by absolutely everyone.  5/10.

Now, granted I've never seen the movie and shouldn't really comment on this, BUT, have you ever lived next to obnoxious alcoholic jackasses who have loud, screaming fights all the time?  From the little I've read, I don't fault the guys for making money off their neighbours, because fuck them.  I've had people like this next to me before and calling the cops does nothing, because they act like there's nothing wrong when the cops show up (IF the cops show up within 2 hours)  and the cops tell them to go inside and be quiet, where they remain until five minutes after the cops leave when they resume their fighting.  When I was younger, we had asshole neighbours who would get drunk then have loud screaming fights ("Get out, fuck you! I hate you I don't love you anymore...I LOVE YOUUUUUUUU.  Don't leave me!") and there was nothng you could do about it.  Literally nothing.  If I'd figured out a way to make money off of them I would gladly have done so and not lost a minute of sleep over it.

[Victator]

Would you share the profits? Not sharing the money is when it becomes immoral. 

[piranesi]

Having also been through that, I'm with Caley.  I think having to see your neighbors make money off of your own shitty behavior is appropriate punishment for keeping people awake at 3:00 a.m. night after night.

[Tabe]

Yeah, SHUT UP LITTLE MAN takes a very dark and dreary turn and everyone involved stops looking funny and just comes off as awful and sad and...yeah. I tried to listen to the actual clips after watching the documentary, and couldn't. It wasn't funny anymore.

For me, it stopped being funny real early on when they play the tape of the two roommates actually physically fighting.  At that point, it just stopped being funny and I found myself mad at the young guys for not calling the cops.  And then you get to the end and you've got third third roommate, Tony, asking where the one guy's grave is so he can go piss on it and the various filmmakers all just using and manipulating the old drunks...yeah.

So the old guys never got any money?

They got like $100 and one of them got a six pack of beer too.

[Control]

Watching ROLLING THUNDER. What kind fucking idiots rob a guy in broad daylight--a famous guy at that--without wearing masks or anything?

[Tabe]

Here Comes the Boom - Kevin James plays a biology teacher who becomes an MMA fighter to raise money to save his school's music department. He trains with Bas Rutten. Obvious reality issues and money stupidity aside, this was really funny. The MMA stuff is handled pretty well, too. 90 minutes of light entertainment. 7/10.

[The Natural]

Here Comes the Boom - Kevin James plays a biology teacher who becomes an MMA fighter to raise money to save his school's music department. He trains with Bas Rutten. Obvious reality issues and money stupidity aside, this was really funny. The MMA stuff is handled pretty well, too. 90 minutes of light entertainment. 7/10.

 

I liked it as well, posted a review earlier in the thread.

[Bustronaut]

Here Comes The Boom & Grandma's Boy are the biggest surprises to come out of Happy Madison productions.  They almost make up for Rob Schneider's movies

[Fat Spanish Waiter]

If you haven't watched Black Hawk Down recently you are wasting your life. Best war movie ever.

[Curt McGirt]

Uhhh... Platoon is right there.

[elizium]

Let's not start a war movie thing, there's literally dozens of great war movies. Black Hawk Down is a solid choice, I'm partial to Apocalypse Now and Three Kings.

 

 

...and Platoon is right there. See, it's hard.

[TimLivingston]

SKYFALL is now on Netflix Instant. Awesome stuff. Really liked how they played up a lot of vintage Bond things like he was fighting time (near the end, there's a scene with M where you can visually see some of the gray hairs on Craig's head) and Bardem was pretty dang good, although didn't get as much screen time as I hoped he would.

[Fat Spanish Waiter]

Uhhh... Platoon is right there.

Nope

[caley]

Watched  

 

Spring Breakers which has amazing cinematography, amazing soundtrack and a completely engrossing James Franco performance and...well nothing else really.  Story is boring, goes nowhere.  Dialogue is dreadful.  Some lines are repeated, presumably for some effect or to show their depth, but they don't do anything except annoy.

 

R.I.P.D. which wasn't nearly as bad as its rep.  Ryan Reynolds is handsome and Jeff Bridges is funny.  The movie's probably way too complicated for a 90 minute summer action-comedy (I'm still not clear why everyone was doing what they were doing, how they were doing what they were doing and why they were doing what they were doing), but it's clear Bridges is hamming it up and having fun.  Plus, any time James Hong gets a paycheque, I'm pretty happy.

[Brian Fowler]

For me it's Apocalypse Now.

[EVA]

SKYFALL is now on Netflix Instant. Awesome stuff. Really liked how they played up a lot of vintage Bond things like he was fighting time (near the end, there's a scene with M where you can visually see some of the gray hairs on Craig's head) and Bardem was pretty dang good, although didn't get as much screen time as I hoped he would.

Craig looked frightfully old at certain points in that movie. Like, I was questioning how soon they'd have to replace him old.

[jaedmc]

Watched  

 

Spring Breakers which has amazing cinematography, amazing soundtrack and a completely engrossing James Franco performance and...well nothing else really.  Story is boring, goes nowhere.  Dialogue is dreadful.  Some lines are repeated, presumably for some effect or to show their depth, but they don't do anything except annoy.

I thought it was great. You make me sad. I thought it was complex in its treatment of female characters and what it means to be "empowered". Some times they looked in control, like the gun BJ scene with Franco. Sometimes they looked exploited  like they did early on with the frat bros in the motel. And it was difficult to see those lines, which I liked, because it challenged my own concepts of female behavior in film and when it's sexisty/misogynistic or empowering- those lines can be very thin. Thought it was hilarious that they were the only ones to really fire a gun and hit anything - when you look at it as a phallic symbol of male power, and all these badass dudes magically couldn't hit anything or even shoot them. There was also this complicated use of race that I thought was well done. They're okay when it's James Franco acting gangsta, but put them in a room with black people and all of a sudden something's wrong and they want to get out of there. I really dug it.

[Reed]

Daniel Craig is getting replaced as Bond as soon as Benedict Cumberbatch has an opening in his schedule. 

[Fat Spanish Waiter]

Daniel Craig is getting replaced as Bond as soon as Benedict Cumberbatch has an opening in his schedule. 

Jesus No.

[Burgundy LaRue]

Daniel Craig is getting replaced as Bond as soon as Benedict Cumberbatch has an opening in his schedule. 

 

I don't see it.  On screen, Craig looks like he'll actually fight someone.  Cumberbatch is likely to offer you crumpets.  Crumpets laced in arsenic, maybe, but not actually lay hands on someone.

[Lazlo Woodbine]

Craig didn't come across like that on before Casino Royale though, did he? Not that I'm endorsing Cumberbatch, Just I never saw Craig as a possible James Bond. I like it when actors surprise me.

[caley]

 

I thought it was great. You make me sad. I thought it was complex in its treatment of female characters and what it means to be "empowered". Some times they looked in control, like the gun BJ scene with Franco.

I don't want to say you're seeing things in it that aren't there, because it's just as likely that I'm NOT seeing things that are supposed to be in there, but...I'm not sure that what you took away from the scene (which is interesting) is something that was intentionally in the scene (For instance, IMDB trivia suggests that this scene was completely improvised, which leads me to feel like Harmony Korine thought it was cool and not fitting any general criticism/discussion of female empowerment).

 

 

Thought it was hilarious that they were the only ones to really fire a gun and hit anything - when you look at it as a phallic symbol of male power, and all these badass dudes magically couldn't hit anything or even shoot them.

I thought it was hilarious, but not in a "That's an interesting comment" way but in a "No, I can't buy that."-way.

 

There was also this complicated use of race that I thought was well done. They're okay when it's James Franco acting gangsta, but put them in a room with black people and all of a sudden something's wrong and they want to get out of there.

But they didn't really seem to object with being in the room with the black people until one of them got shot.  It was just like another stop on their Magical Mystery Tour. 

 

I really dug it.

You're not alone in that.  Despite it's crappy IMDB rating, there are some people who fervently defend it (Like best movie of the last ten years defend it!), but you're the first one to offer up actual reasons where I can go "Okay, I understand that" or "Okay, I can see where he's coming from".  I may not agree, but at least I understand it.