2014 MOVIE OMNIBUS THREAD

[Tabe]

Tabe, I'm more bothered by your complete lack of "Monsters, Inc." Not "Monsters University." The first one. Edges Wall-E for my favorite, but not by much. When Wall-E sticks to the love story, it's awesome, but when it starts preaching at us for being consumers, it starts lagging. God, the first few minutes of "Up" are heartbreaking. Cried like a baby. In the theater. But I'm a sucker for true love. No way the rest of the movie could hold to that, but the very end got close..

Monsters, Inc was OK but not good enough for the top 10.

[Johnny Sorrow]

Monsters University is amazingly good. It's funny, touching, and a great prequel.

[Reed]

http://variety.com/2014/film/news/x-men-director-accused-of-sexually-abusing-teenage-boy-1201158645/

 

Oh, dear.

[J.T.]

Oculus was pretty good. 

 

Trailers make it look like a horror film when it is more of a psychological / supernatural thriller not terribly unlike Mike Flanagan's 2011 somewhat convoluted yet effective thriller, Absentia.

 

Oculus is a very slow burn and it is extremely unsettling in all of the good ways, but it would've been even more chilling had some of the supernatural elements remained subdued.  Obviously someone from WWE films said, "Y'know.  This film needs a lot more ghosts in it!" and the blatant reveal blunts the third act... 

 

Flanaigan then shoots himself in the foot in the same manner as he did with Absentia and leaves you with an ending so ambiguous that you spend a good ten minutes trying to piece together what you just saw.  A conclusion too clever for its own good but still far more substantial than the end of Absentia.

 

I'd still check this out as it is liable to be the best "horror" film you'll see in a while and arguably the best offering from WWE Studios to date.  I hope that Oculus makes a profit because WWE Studios has told Flanagan they they will help distribute his next movie, Somnia, if Oculus pays dividends.

 

I will definitely get this on DVD if it comes bundled with the Flanagan's short that the long form movie is based on:  Oculus Chapter 3 - The Man With The Plan.

[odessasteps]

How did you review this movie and never mention Karen Gillan once?

[J.T.]

I thought is was a given that Karen Gillian is cute..  No one will recognize her as Nebula when GoTG comes out.

[odessasteps]

I was actually wondering if her acting was decent or not, evem for a horror movie.

[J.T.]

I was actually wondering if her acting was decent or not, evem for a horror movie.

 

Everyone does well enough to push the plot along.  If you have seen Absentia, Flanagan's direction is very story focused, but Karen does a lot with the smidge of a character she's been given.  She projects her vulnurability and frailty so well that you are very fearful for her as evil starts to go batshit insane in the movie.

[J.T.]

I am not a big fan of crazy Scientologist Tom Cruise, but his new joint, Edge of Tomorrow, is based on Hiroshi Sakurazaka's ultra phat military sci-fi novelette , All You Need Is Kill, which did not get the love in 2004 that it deserved.

 

I will probably check this out now. I'd have preferred an animated version of the novel / manga with Yoshitoshi ABe's illustration style kept in place, but this may have to do.

[S.K.o.S.]

I am not a big fan of crazy Scientologist Tom Cruise, but his new joint, Edge of Tomorrow, is based on Hiroshi Sakurazaka's ultra phat military sci-fi novelette , All You Need Is Kill, which did not get the love in 2004 that it deserved.

 

"All You Need Is Kill" was the working title for the movie.  I thought it sounded a little inappropriate for something starring Tom Cruise.  Makes sense now.

[J.T.]

I was under the impression that they changed the title to avoid mis-association with the Beatle's song, All You Need Is Love, and to avoid the shitstorm or "race-casting" criticisms once everyone figures out this is based on Japanese work. 

 

I had no problems with the working title because I hoped using it would bring more attention to Sakurazaka's work but people would indeed bitch about the movie not being set in Japan or featuring a Japanese cast..

[caley]

I think 'All You Need Is Kill' is a better title because at least it gets you talking ("That is a stupid title!" "That title is awesome!") and 'Edge of Tomorrow' is really generic.

 

The preview set to the song 'This is Not the End' is one of my favourite previews I've seen in some time.

 

I think Tom Cruise gets a bad rap.  I loved 'Oblivion' and was watching it one night and switched over to the commentary and it was like five minutes of Tom Cruise thanking/complimenting everyone: "Joe, you've done such a great job.  It was a pleasure to work with a director like you! Olga was great! Morgan and Melissa were great! [The production designer] was amazing.  Thanks to [production company]! Thanks to [producer]! Great job [Another producer]!" and I thought 
"Wow, Tom Cruise is the nicest dude."

[Newb82]

So, my rinky-dink local theatre had an early screening of TRASCENDENCE that I just got back from.

 

SHORT-FORM REVIEW: It's a completely schizophrenic movie that can't decide what it wants to be, and only succeeds in going out of its way to be even more illogical than the premise would suggest.

[piranesi]

Just watched MAN OF STEEL.  It's directed by Zach Snyder who I hate.  But I liked it.  I'm not a big superhero movie fan and I've skipped a lot of them, so maybe I'm not the authority on this but I was pulled in by the look and tempo of the early parts and liked the toned-down blandness of how a lot of it was filmed.  

I didn't neven like Zhyder's DAWN OF THE DEAD, which a lot of people did like.  But there are some early shots in that when everything is first turning to chaos and you see it from a distance that are really impressive and he basically took that idea and made a meal of it here.  I really liked how often he let us see big intense action things from way far away.

I get that the movie did a lot of things people are getting sick of (hello, lens flares!!!) and there were some moments and scene cuts that were really hilariously inept.  And the Costner stuff was pretty intolerable...but, that's as much a Superman issue as a Snyder issue and it was a nice touch to contain all that in his character and leave Clark Kent to be a little adrift.  It was actually glad they ramped up the hokey Americana as I feared early on that they were going to veer into dark outsider territory.  But it ended up being a good mix.  Just enough of young drifter Superman to establish his difficulty figuring out what he's supposed to, like, do...and just enough Norman Rockwell to keep him from becoming another Dark Knight.  Superman is a problematic character in the post Dark Knight/Avengers world and they needed to do something to give him a psychological component.  They could have gone way too far with it, and kind of did at times with the Christ imagery.  But that was just at a few points.

It did suffer from rubble overkill, but so do all of these movies now.  Like, when they show him going to work at the Daily Planet at the end...like, how is that supposed to happen?  The largest city in America was literally flattened to ash.  You don't get to do that and then do that happy ending.  There's like 30 or 40 thousand dead people minimum and about a million refugees wandering around.  You can't just re-set for the next movie and have it still be set in "our world" where some guy is crowing about having court side seats.  THERE'S NO COURT!!!! IT'S BEEN OBLITERATED!  It's not the same world anymore after an event like that.

 

That's one thing I give Nolan credit for in the Dark Knight series.  He never went so far as to make it unbelievable that Gotham could recover.  There was damage but not entire stretches of the city flattened.  Even in Dark Knight Rises it was contained. There was still, like, a city where the city used to be.

 

But all in all, I went in expecting it to be a low 6.7 on the Tabedoza meter.  But I think it comes around at a really impressive 7.349

[Johnny Sorrow]

Maybe Superman helped rebuild Metropolis. It's pretty much what he would have done in the comics.

I'm a HUGE Superman fan, and have been since I was a toddler. And I enjoyed the movie even though there were more than a few parts I thought stunk. But I can overlook that stuff and still fucking dig me some Superman especially one that makes a point to show that despite it all he's a guy from Kansas at heart.

But boy did they not show Pa Kent as he should be. And I thought Costner was great in the role being that character that this movie showed, but man, that wasn't Jonathan Kent from the comics at all.

And young Clark running around with a red towel pretending to be Superman was probably the stupidest and most illogical thing ever that did look good. But made no sense . All I'd need is a quick shot of Toddler Clark looking at an old Captain Marvel comic or watching a caped hero on an old black and white TV and then throwing on a towel as a cape and then , fine. I'll accept the towel was red by chance , even.

[EVA]

Just watched MAN OF STEEL. It's directed by Zach Snyder who I hate. But I liked it.

PREPARE THY ANUS.

[Raziel]

Just watched MAN OF STEEL. It's directed by Zach Snyder who I hate. But I liked it.

PREPARE THY ANUS.

Snyder, not Singer.

[Reed]

I miss when Bryan Singer's most disturbing secret was that he made Superman Returns.

[piranesi]

 

 

Just watched MAN OF STEEL. It's directed by Zach Snyder who I hate. But I liked it.

PREPARE THY ANUS.

Snyder, not Singer.

 

 

Eva's just working on a new catch phrase.  Problem is they all have the same basic structure:

 

UNFURL THOU'ST URETERIUM.

MAKE READY THOU SPHINCTA.

GIRD THINE FALLOPIA.

 

That last one earned a cease and desist letter from the RNC.

[Reed]

Random thoughts: Which actors do you think could pull off a "McConaughey" in the future? Who gets largely dismissed but does have some hidden talent?

[Elsalvajeloco]

Random thoughts: Which actors do you think could pull off a "McConaughey" in the future? Who gets largely dismissed but does have some hidden talent?

 

He isn't on my list, but Nic Cage just tried to do his own version of Mud with Joe (which has gotten good reviews it seems). I fear that a lot of people are going to try to prove their versatility and fail miserably in the long run. There are several factors that went his success. Hell, look at Woody. He belongs in gritty, underworld type stuff. The writing was great in True Detective, and he pulled it off. In something like Out of the Furnace, the writing was middling and his performance suffered because of it. Another person can pull it off but you need all the right pieces to fall into place.

[Burgundy LaRue]

Random thoughts: Which actors do you think could pull off a "McConaughey" in the future? Who gets largely dismissed but does have some hidden talent?

 

I think Johnny Depp is someone who, if he focused on smaller films for 4-5 years, could reset his career beyond the makeup and costume persona he currently has.

[Elsalvajeloco]

 

Random thoughts: Which actors do you think could pull off a "McConaughey" in the future? Who gets largely dismissed but does have some hidden talent?

 

I think Johnny Depp is someone who, if he focused on smaller films for 4-5 years, could reset his career beyond the makeup and costume persona he currently has.

 

Just based on the trailers for Transcendence, he may be legitimately half asleep and no one else on the cast knows it. We're a long way from Donnie Brasco Johnny Depp. It's over for him.

 

With McConaughey, if you put him in Reign of Fire now w/ the same character, it's still going to suck tremendously. Hell, most of the stuff he was awful in is films I'll never watch. He doesn't need to be reeled in with any of the projects he currently does. With Depp, he always will be in zany films with Helena Bonham Carter til he no longer can speak. He only gives a fuck in those movies.

[Brian Fowler]

Yeah, Depp more pulled a reverse of it.  Massively respected actor who shied away from blockbusters who then found out that "hey, this making ALL the money thing is nice" on Pirates (which, for the record, his performance in was literally the only thing I liked about the first movie) and has just fallen into doing terrible big budget roles and make-up parts and such.

 

Him and Burton need to take a break from each other, as well.

[Burgundy LaRue]

 

 

Random thoughts: Which actors do you think could pull off a "McConaughey" in the future? Who gets largely dismissed but does have some hidden talent?

 

I think Johnny Depp is someone who, if he focused on smaller films for 4-5 years, could reset his career beyond the makeup and costume persona he currently has.

 

Just based on the trailers for Transcendence, he may be legitimately half asleep and no one else on the cast knows it. We're a long way from Donnie Brasco Johnny Depp. It's over for him.

 

 

Could be.  I suppose I should have added the caveat of 'if he can be pulled from his current schtick.' He's hidden behind the makeup so long, I'm not entirely sure if Depp even realizes how mundane it's become for him.