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Last movie watched...

Started by SmallBlueThing, 04 February, 2011, 12:40:44 PM

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Hoagy

#1080
After reading all about them I picked The Goonies up from The Works for 2.50.

You know it still makes me laugh. The penis thing on the miniature David is outrageous comedy. Chunk's, " starting from the VERY beginning?" and it just begins to peter out and bore me just in time for the end to roll on.

Girl at The Works had to say how she enjoyed it as a KID to the whole shop. So I said, so did I and wasn't it on such a long time ago? YOU'RE REALLY SHOWING YOUR AGE NOW!!

It could've been a gift for all she knew. Anyway still enjoyable and anybody who can't define children in movies and the unscripted ones from real life really ought to get over themselves.
"bULLshit Mr Hand man!"
"Man, you come right out of a comic book. "
Previously Krombasher.

https://www.deviantart.com/fantasticabstract

mogzilla

"carriers"  starring chris "kirk" pine ...it wasnt great...

watchimg "jarhead" tomorrow.

MikeONeill

...was the Judge Stallone movie (don't hit me). I was morbidly curious to re-watch it after all this time and see what I thought of it.

To be fair on the movie, I must have been about 8 or 9 when I first saw it (I think we rented it on video) and I remember it being pretty cool. It had cool robots, guns that electrocuted people and had lots of different rounds, awesome futuristic cities with flying cars. I didn't really come away with much of the plot - but that was probably for the best. It was after seeing the movie that I started getting my parents to pick up the Megazine for me in our local newsagent and from there I started reading 2000AD. So no matter how bad the film is, I suppose I have to give it credit for getting me on to Dredd proper. A gateway movie if you will.

Re-watching it as an adult, it's of course not very good. I still enjoy the 'Block War' scene - silly version of the Judge uniform notwithstanding there's at least something recognisably 'Dredd' in that scene. Blasting into a block, blowing perps away with a variety of rounds, handing out an inordiately long sentence to the film's comic sidekick-to-be (Dredd clearly knew what was coming). It was cheesy and watered down, but at least there was something of the comics in it, however scarce.

Of course from that point on it just becomes a Stallone action flick. The specific problems have been gone over on these message boards enough, no doubt. Then of course there's the ending - which to me bears all the hallmarks of a hastily written conclusion trying to tie up all the loose ends the film has left dangling. One youtube comment I saw summed it up nicely:

'Wait... why is everyone cheering when nothing has been resolved?'

So in conclusion... I enjoyed it at the time, and I can watch it as a brainless action film now... but roll on 2012!

SmallBlueThing

Hatchet 2.

Same lot behind the camera, but a change of lead actress as she magically becomes Danielle Harris from the middle Halloween films. Tony Todd gets a proper go this time, and is joined by a cameoing John Carl Buechler (dir. F13pt7) who's actually better portraying a piss-drinking one eyed hick than he is at making movies. R A Mihailoff turns up (keen eyed viewers will know him as Leatherface in Texas Chainsaw 3) along with a bunch of other folk known to we Fangorians.

Kane Hodder gets to play both Victor Crowley and his dad again, only this time in scenes shot four years apart. It would be unkind to Hodder to point out that the interim time has resulted in massive physical changes in the man, as it could well be as a result of some illness- but he's basically grown an enormous flabby neck and this does rather detract from the carefully edited sequences somewhat.

Lots of splashy gore, some inventive use of powertools (sander, chainsaw, etc) and a man being strangled with his own intestines til his head comes off.

Basically, despite fewer overt references to other films (no one says 'do you want some candy, man?' to tony todd, which is a shame i feel) it's brilliant. Really liked that one. Hope they do a third.

Oh, and excellently, someone gets beheaded while fucking his not-fiance from behind. A lesson to us all there.

SBT
.

Professor Bear

Quote from: SmallBlueThing on 12 September, 2011, 10:36:07 PM(no one says 'do you want some candy, man?' to tony todd, which is a shame i feel)

Richard Roundtree in Steel while holding the main character's magic space hammer and commenting "just admiring (pause) THE SHAFT" remains the benchmark in stupid references in films.

Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
is an immensely stupid film, but my main complaint is that it just isn't as stupid as it could be.  The story is every plot from any 1980s/1990s low-budget kung-fu flick about a teenage protagonist learning fighting arts and then challenging the guy who kills his master at the end of the third act, except instead of martial arts, he learns drifting (briefly releasing the accelerate button on your controller when you hit a corner), which he has somehow never heard of despite being a race jock.  There's a bit in the second act where he even learns the secret technique of drifting on a remote Japanese mountain so I'm going to go ahead and assume the writers at some point were doing it on purpose, but somewhere along the way got lost in tropes left over from their days writing some sort of American teen drama, and that shit is just dull, overloads the ludicrous elements to the point they become obscured by emo whining and eventually drags the whole thing down by seeming to want to be seen as a sensible drama even though the plot is inescapably batshit insane and should be fast and funny and exciting rather than too long and full of dull races - there are some effective shots of the cars burning about, but otherwise the race sequences tend to drag on a bit.
The treatment of women also remains reliably problematic for a racing movie, with at least one girl who stars in every scene featuring the main characters new Japanese chums not having a single word of dialogue in the entire film, the first scene features a girl offering herself up as a prize to the winner of a car race and the main beef of the flick boiling down to who gets to possess a schoolgirl, but I'm reasonably sure that the misogyny is part and parcel of how these films are marketed towards boy racers first and foremost.

An okay third entry in the series, I guess, but like I said above, it's not overtly stupid enough to be really entertaining.

JOE SOAP

Quote from: Professah Byah on 13 September, 2011, 01:24:31 AMFast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift is an immensely stupid film,


You really are asking for it.

Beaky Smoochies

Quote from: MikeONeill on 12 September, 2011, 08:44:13 PM
Of course from that point on it just becomes a Stallone action flick. The specific problems have been gone over on these message boards enough, no doubt. Then of course there's the ending - which to me bears all the hallmarks of a hastily written conclusion trying to tie up all the loose ends the film has left dangling.

That wasn't the original ending, supposedly, Mike, what I heard was Stallone took over the show and demanded changes in the script, including the ending - whilst they were onset and about to shoot the thing - leading to Danny Cannon becoming so disdainful of the Stallone-mandated changes, he very nearly walked off the whole project, which he probably should have, and publicly let it be known what happened behind the scenes, not to mention have his name taken off the director credit, I know I would have...
"When the people fear the government there is tyranny, when the government fear the people there is LIBERTY!" - Thomas Jefferson.

"That government is best which governs least" - Thomas Jefferson.

MikeONeill

Quote from: Beaky Smoochies on 13 September, 2011, 04:29:32 AM
That wasn't the original ending, supposedly, Mike, what I heard was Stallone took over the show and demanded changes in the script, including the ending - whilst they were onset and about to shoot the thing - leading to Danny Cannon becoming so disdainful of the Stallone-mandated changes, he very nearly walked off the whole project, which he probably should have, and publicly let it be known what happened behind the scenes, not to mention have his name taken off the director credit, I know I would have...

Yeah you can tell that something wasn't right with the ending - even by the pretty low standards of the film up to that point. The culmination on the movie also relies on an event that wasn't foreshadowed before or explained afterwards - 'Central broadcast the Janus plan after Rico's death!' - why?! The film-makers have clearly realised that at no point have they given any reason for the other Judges to stop pursuing Dredd, so they just make something up to cover themselves.

Still, I console myself with the fact that by movie's end Rob Schneider is still guilty of having absconded from a prison shuttle, re-entered MC1 as a convict and murdered at least one SJS Judge while resisting arrest. So when he gets carted off on the stretcher you can rest safe in the knowledge that he was patched up and then sent to Aspen for a 40-year stretch.

And everyone lived happily ever after.  :D

James Stacey

Book Of Eli I'd heard vastly conflicting reports of it so thought I'd better make up my own mind. I actually really enjoyed it. The story is a bit bunkus but the imagery was beautiful. Makes me want to pick Fallout 3 back up again. Didn't see the twist coming and will have to watch it again to see how it works knowing it.

radiator

#1089
Quote
That wasn't the original ending, supposedly, Mike, what I heard was Stallone took over the show and demanded changes in the script, including the ending - whilst they were onset and about to shoot the thing - leading to Danny Cannon becoming so disdainful of the Stallone-mandated changes, he very nearly walked off the whole project, which he probably should have, and publicly let it be known what happened behind the scenes, not to mention have his name taken off the director credit, I know I would have...

Yeah, there are quite a few contradictions in the Ezquerra-drawn comic adaptation that came out at the time. For one, Fergee dies while reprogramming the ABC Warrior (as per the original script I believe). And I'm pretty sure that Hershey kisses Dredd on the cheek, instead of full-on snogging him. Still a crime against the comic, but at least it's a sign of friendship rather than romance between them, which as others have pointed out, seems to spring from nowhere at the end of the film - there's no obvious attraction between the two up until that point.

If you ask me it's all indicative of the schizophrenic tone of the finished film - it doesn't know whether it wants to be sci-fi adventure, R-rated action or crowd-pleasing blockbuster and so falls awkwardly somewhere between all of them.

The one thing that can be said of the new film is that the makers know exactly what sort of film they are making (and the lead actor this time seems to want to put the story in front of his own ego!).

Still, you have to feel sorry for Cannon - he was a very young man at the time - still in his twenties IIRC, and he was working on his dream project, which ended up getting totally compromised by studio inteference and Stallone's ego. There's no doubt in my mind that what made it onto the screen isn't the film he wanted to make.

Professor Bear

Quote from: James Stacey on 13 September, 2011, 10:34:02 AMDidn't see the twist coming and will have to watch it again to see how it works knowing it.

I rewatched it recently, and the main character is [spoiler]clearly looking at stuff and interacting accordingly during the film - the looter's boots, his ipod, and the contents of the pawn shop come to mind[/spoiler].

JOE SOAP

#1091
Quote from: Beaky Smoochies on 13 September, 2011, 04:29:32 AMThat wasn't the original ending, supposedly, Mike, what I heard was Stallone took over the show and demanded changes in the script, including the ending - whilst they were onset and about to shoot the thing - leading to Danny Cannon becoming so disdainful of the Stallone-mandated changes, he very nearly walked off the whole project, which he probably should have, and publicly let it be known what happened behind the scenes, not to mention have his name taken off the director credit, I know I would have...


I think the flaws were inherent in the script, it never really worked (clones being added/humour/romance? etc) and it became apparent on-set and in editing. I know there were some re-shoots/re-edits Stallone directed in Vancouver involving Fergie according to the studios wish to make it 'funnier' -the 'kiss' by that stage was trivial to the mess- but who really knows, blame can apportioned to all and according to celebrity status. It really comes down to one person being in charge which there clearly wasn't and it should've been the producer sticking to one vision and managing the relationship between Cannon & Stallone accroding to it as such.

Danny Cannon was never going to walk off the film, not at such an early point in his career, if he did he most definitely wouldn't have continued working in much, if any capacity in Hollywood again. At that stage no one knew if Dredd would be a success or not despite the quality of the end product so he as much as anyone else was hoping it'd at least bring 'em in at the box-office and his own name would be made. It's idealistic to suggest walking-off. It would've been career suicide for someone so young to shirk the responsibilty of such an expensive studio film so late in the day or even to take his name off afterwards, especially since Cannon had no real directors bio to fall back on.

Professor Bear

I wouldn't feel too sorry for Cannon given he went on to write, direct and produce a great chunk of CSI in all its various forms.  Apart from the cash and the pull it's given him in Hollywood, it's also a fair bet that more people have seen one of his many episodes of CSI than watched Judge Dredd.  From Cannon's point of view - and I suspect it is a point of view formed in a giant vault full of money through which he swims like Scrooge McDuck - Judge Dredd was a learning experience he probably needed and to some extent expected at the time, as regardless of his enthusiasm for the project he must surely have known there'd be interference given the money being spent, problematic main character and the average IQ of a Hollywood blockbuster.

Plus, y'know, the movie could easily have been much, much worse if someone else had been making it.  Imagine Tim Burton's take on Mega City One and the resultant knock-on effect it may have had on the comic "I see it as a city of hedonism and no rules, so everyone is no longer ashamed to be openly goth like I am, and the Judges are like the fashion and fun police, with glowing batons and neon badges and Dredd has frizzy hair and wears mascara" and so on.

JOE SOAP

Quoteregardless of his enthusiasm for the project he must surely have known there'd be interference given the money being spent, problematic main character and the average IQ of a Hollywood blockbuster.


Knowing and realising are different things especially for 25/27 year olds. It probably didn't really sink in for Cannon till he heard Stallone was directing re-shoots. He was more than likely badly advised in the first place...and cocky. He had to do it to learn it, there was nothing he could've done while shooting it and he was well in over his head but he's still a young man and may prove himself yet on the big-screen.

Beaky Smoochies

Quote from: JOE SOAP on 13 September, 2011, 01:52:10 PM
I know there were some re-shoots/re-edits Stallone directed in Vancouver involving Fergie according to the studios wish to make it 'funnier' -the 'kiss' by that stage was trivial to the mess- but who really knows, blame can apportioned to all and according to celebrity status.

Danny Cannon was never going to walk off the film, not at such an early point in his career, if he did he most definitely wouldn't have continued working in much, if any capacity in Hollywood again. At that stage no one knew if Dredd would be a success or not despite the quality of the end product so he as much as anyone else was hoping it'd at least bring 'em in at the box-office and his own name would be made. It's idealistic to suggest walking-off. It would've been career suicide for someone so young to shirk the responsibilty of such an expensive studio film so late in the day or even to take his name off afterwards, especially since Cannon had no real directors bio to fall back on.

I never said he was going to walk off the movie Joe, I said he very nearly  walked off, which he very nearly did, but you are right that his career would've been over if he bailed on an $80m mega-project, which is probably why he stayed to the bitter end - although he was very vocal about his utter disdain for the script changes at the time - as far as me saying he should've walked, that's just a bit of hyperbole on my part!  On the re-shoots in Vancouver, I NEVER heard about that, Joe dude, I always heard Stallone just took over principal photography and re-shot scenes while still at Shepperton studios, where the hell did they find time to re-shoot scenes in Vancouver, shooting on Judge Dredd wrapped in late January 1995 and the film was released in North America on June 30th that same year, where did you hear/read about re-shoots in Vancouver, would love to know...
"When the people fear the government there is tyranny, when the government fear the people there is LIBERTY!" - Thomas Jefferson.

"That government is best which governs least" - Thomas Jefferson.