MOVIE COMMENT CATCH-ALL THREAD

[piranesi]

Poor guy died of cancer after Johnny B Good finished filming. 

Anthony Michael Hall was so distraught he vowed to never make another movie.

 

Everyone always forgets A GNOME CALLED GNORM.

[Reed]

OK, so watching Eraser. One of Arnie's better movies, but...

 

Is the reason they don't do an Arnie/Vanessa Williams romance a race thing? Or is it more a "leave it to the imagination" type deal?

[J.T.]

OK, so watching Eraser. One of Arnie's better movies, but...

 

Is the reason they don't do an Arnie/Vanessa Williams romance a race thing? Or is it more a "leave it to the imagination" type deal?

 

It's always been my understanding that there was supposed to be a romantic angle but it was shot down by the producers and the studio as being unneccessary to the plot.

 

Same dealie with Virtuosity and Man On Fire.  There were love scenes filmed between Denzel Washington and his respective leading ladies (Kelly Lynch, Radha Mitchell) but those scenes ended up on the cutting room floor at Denzel's request because he did not feel that casual audiences would accept him in an interracial angle.

[assfax]

I've now seen two Peckinpah movies that I thought stank. Cross of Iron and Killer Elite. Cross of Iron really suffers because it's one of those movies with accents all over the place. It's also just kind of uninteresting and scatterbrained. Killer Elite is way lamer than a movie that has Duvall along with James Caan and Paulie fighting ninjas on a battleship ought to be.

So far Don Siegel is ahead because I've only hated Black Windmill so far.

[S.K.o.S.]

Holy shit I might be in ABCs of Death 2.  I did three hours of unpaid work ("work") as an extra today.  It'll probably end up being like the back of my head or a half-second shot or something if any of me even makes it into the movie at all, but rest assured I will be freeze-framing every second of the appropriate short trying to catch a glimpse of myself.  Marking outtttt.

[J.T.]

FUCK YEAH~!  Do we get tickets to the premier?

[Reed]

 

OK, so watching Eraser. One of Arnie's better movies, but...

 

Is the reason they don't do an Arnie/Vanessa Williams romance a race thing? Or is it more a "leave it to the imagination" type deal?

 

It's always been my understanding that there was supposed to be a romantic angle but it was shot down by the producers and the studio as being unneccessary to the plot.

 

Same dealie with Virtuosity and Man On Fire.  There were love scenes filmed between Denzel Washington and his respective leading ladies (Kelly Lynch, Radha Mitchell) but those scenes ended up on the cutting room floor at Denzel's request because he did not feel that casual audiences would accept him in an interracial angle.

 

 

 

Yeah, but they do seem to hint a lot at it throughout the movie, so it seems odd when it ultimately goes nowhere.

 

Kinda the same in Commando. There clearly is something going on between Matrix and Rae Dawn Chong, and Alyssa seems to have no problem accepting her as her new mommy, but we never get the big kiss or anything that makes it obvious.

[S.K.o.S.]

 

FUCK YEAH~!  Do we get tickets to the premier?

 

 

There's no way.  I'm sure if I actually read all the release forms I signed, it'd say that in writing somewhere.  "Clause 31A: You can forget about getting tickets."

 

For the record, Vincenzo Natali was directing it, and it was for the letter "U".

[piranesi]

Another installment in...

 

SWANK ASS OLD-TIMEY SUITS I WISH I COULD PULL OFF (but probably can't):

 

Bud Abbott in ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN:

 

 

Everyone remembers the iconic delivery-man uniforms from the opening, and everyone forgets that Abbott spends all of Acts II and III in this SWEEEEEET combination of a fairly slim, light-colored coat without vest, wide lapels, noticeable but not exaggerated shoulder pads, much tighter than the giant cartoon suits all the fake swingers like to associate with the era today, but still way longer than you could get away with today.  It's like if you took the stereotypical "zoot suit" and dialed it down six notches to "I'm not a trend setter...I'm just a guy who might get lucky tonight" The kind of thing an unsuccessful charlatan would wear on a date night or on the night he has to look tough to make his one big score.

 

But what gets me is the combo of black cotton shirt and heavy white tie.  Fantastic.

 

Add in a bold white fedora with a black band (inverting the shirt/tie relationship) and goddamn you've got something.

 

 

 

And if you still aren't on the Bud Abbott train, here is the suit he wore the year before playing a slick salesman in ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE WISTFUL WIDOW OF WAGON GAP.

 

 

I could never...but God do I wanna. Yeah, it's supposed to be a throwback to a turn-of-the-century suit with waistcoat and puff tie and, like, a pocket watch or something.

 

But I really wish I had the nuts to wear this well.

[J.T.]

I took my daughter to go and see Frozen today before I had to go to work.  It was a perfectly acceptable if not somewhat calculated kid flick.  I think that the best part was that neither of the princesses were the usual wallflowers waiting to be saved and the story takes quite the left turn on you near the end.. 

 

Still, this movie is no Beauty & the Beast, much less Aladdin.  The musical numbers are kinda forgettable and we've seen all of the archaetypes before in Disney classics.

 

The short that plays before the movie, however, is FUCKING BRILLIANT~! and the trailer for Maleficent is on point!

[Brian Fowler]

It's a new Mickey short, isn't it?

[J.T.]

It's a new Mickey short, isn't it?

 

Yeah, and it is GREAT~!

[TimLivingston]

MORE BLU-RAY:

 

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN is still awesome. A lot of people aren't fans of the pace, but I love how deliberate it is. Lets the characters tell a better story and raises the tension. Great piece of filmmaking.

 

SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION has been talked about ad naseum. Only thing I'll add is that the ending is still one of my favorites in the history of film.

 

TAXI DRIVER might be my favorite Scorsese film. DeNiro is incredible in it. Some of the most unsettling parts in a movie I've ever seen still to this day, and I've seen it half a dozen times.

 

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES is awesome. Fight scenes were actually pretty cool, as I thought they might be the parts that didn't hold up the much outside of the finale.

 

THIS IS SPINAL TAP is brilliant. Not much more that can be said about it. Dragon Gate should run an angle about them trying to play a concert at Kobe Hall the same night as one of their shows.

[Tele-Viper]

All Is Lost is the best performance of Redford's career.

[J.T.]

I caught a matinee of the Oldboy remake before coming to work.  It is pretty much a shot for shot remake with a few bits rearranged.

 

Lee does me the favor of taking out the stupid hypnotism = magic crap out of the original but it leads to a rather blah ending.  After "Joe" finds out that he's slept with his daughter, he pays his former captors to put him back into his little room, where it is understood that he will hide from society until he dies.

 

It is the same movie you saw back in the day but watered down and disapointingly safe.

 

Even Spike Lee was unhappy with the final edits.  So much that Spike's directors credit reads "A Spike Lee Film" rather than "A Spike Lee Joint."

 

You can skip this one unless you are morbidly curious.

 

If there was an upside to this movie, it was the hotness of Pom Klementieff.

 

Whoa!

[Antacular]

Thanks, but I got enough of that Oedipus-like shit my senior year of high school.

[Burgundy LaRue]

What I watched over the Thanksgiving holiday:

 

1.  THE AVENGERS:  it was a fun romp.  A bit long, but entertaining.  Mark Ruffalo came across really well as Bruce Banner.  His first transformation into the Hulk was perfect.  Tom Hiddleston has the time of his life playing Loki.  That said, I thought Thor and Hawkeye were almost unnecessary.  Thor was only there because of his brother, and Hawkeye was treated like a throwaway character, just there to be brainwashed and beat up by Black Widow.  I wasn't sold on Stark's interaction with Captain America, either.  But all in all, an enjoyable movie.

 

2.  CAPTAIN AMERICA:  one of the best comic-based origin movies ever.  It really strikes at what makes Steven Rogers the perfect guy to become the ultimate solider.  He has heart and good intentions, with moxie to spare.  He simply didn't have the body.  I really like nearly everything about this film, and all the actors are great.  Chris Evans has the earnestness needed for Cap.  Hayley Atwell kicks tail as Peggy Carter, Tommy Lee Jones is having a blast as Col. Phillips, and Hugo Weaving plays a mean Red Skull.  Love it, and can't wait to see CA: The Winter Soldier next year.

 

3.  DREDD:  what a kick-ass action flick.  Just raw and rough and to the point.  No extra filler, it gets to the gritty fast.  Very entertaining.  Karl Urban was king-sized as the title character, and Olivia Thirlby was very good as his rookie partner.  Lena Headey was fantastic as the evil Ma-Ma.  She looked, sounded, and acted just like a drugged-out killer.  Pitch perfect performance.  I actually liked the slo-mo drug sequences; it allowed for some neat camera tricks.  The Level 76 shootout was crazy. The small budget betrays the film at times, but everything else is great.

 

4:  EVOCATEUR: THE MORTON DOWNEY JR. STORY: very interesting insight into one of 1980s most infamous figures.  I didn't watch his show--I'm not even sure it was available in my area--but I remember seeing clips with him on TV.  Downey scared me.  His face was cartoonish in design and looked like it could be molded into strange shapes, like Play-Doh.  The constant cigarette dangling from his mouth didn't help.  He was so loud and aggressive.  I can be somewhat tolerant of that sort of behavior, and I realized that what Downey did was just an act, but it was really a lot to handle.  He deserved his downfall.  He was so abusive toward women, clearly because of being taken away from his mother during his parents' divorce.  He fell into the abyss of his own hype and it consumed him.  It would be a sad tale if he hadn't been such a jerk.  He came around a bit, but it was too little and too late. I had forgotten that Al Sharpton and Gloria Allred got their 'start' with Downey.  What a vile person. Interesting, though.  He actually had a good singing voice, but didn't stand a chance because of the comparisons to his father.

[Antacular]

Captain America was by far the worst Marvel movie to date not directed by the Crouching Tiger guy. It's not even so-bad-it's-good, it's a guy with only a shield fighting Nazis with frickin' lasers. If Normandy had played out with the same weaponry in the climax for CA we'd all be speaking German right now.

[Brian Fowler]

I find it amazing how polarizing a fucking perfect movie like Cap is.

[Antacular]

Please enumerate its merits.

[Brian Fowler]

It captures three character perfectly, it has the single best scene in any comic movie ever ("I don't like bullies"), a love storyline that holds up and works, several brilliantly constructed action scenes, and a never ending sense of fun and wonder.

[Fat Spanish Waiter]

Best scene? Fuck that, the bloodbath was way, way better.

[RandomAct]

I hate everything, and even I loved Cap.

[Brian Fowler]

One of those two scenes made Mark Waid cry tears of joy. It was not a blood bath.

[Antacular]

The "How It Should've Ended" episode for Cap sums up many of my greviances. "You're not out of fuel...."