Last movie watched...

[Professor Bear]

The trick is finding a good werewolf film.  I watched Curse of the Werewolf the other day and it was just as good as ever, as long as you don't mind the usual "you're a monster ARE YOU SURE? Yes.  THEN I WILL KILL MYSELF IMMEDIATELY" exchanges where people sure are quick to take crazy notions at face value and then demand to be hanged by naturally incredulous coppers.  I think the wolfman makeup is great, but mileage may vary for others.

Oblivion.  At some point you have to accept that all the big sci-fi ideas have been done somewhere or other and just sit back and enjoy something for being well-made rather than being original, and Oblivion is a well-made film.  There only seems to be about five sets and the rest is cgi, and figuring out the twist about three minutes in wasn't ideal for me as a viewer, but it looks and sounds purdy and passed the time pretty pleasantly.  The Cruiser is on good form here, though his character comes off as a bit thick now and then, but there's some decent callbacks in the final scenes even if some of the clunkier dialogue lowers the averages a bit, while Melissa Leo brings in just the right mix of smarm and menace to what should be a pretty small role.

Argo is also a well-made film, pulling off a trick most sci-fi tries these days and fails miserably to do, in that it takes something destined for a light-hearted treatment and puts a very po face on it and succeeds in creating a serious work rather than one that seems ashamed of its unoriginality and is thus determined to disguise it.  I am reasonably sure some of the stuff in here didn't happen in actual human history, like Jack Kirby working for the CIA or Iranian police trying to shoot down a plane while it's still on the runway, but it's pretty entertaining stuff and I liked the little callback at the end to how and why Affleck's character comes up with his whacky plan.  An unfortunate consequence of this being good is that I now want to read Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light which is what the real fake movie was based upon, but I fear this might be a decision I will later regret.

[Theblazeuk]

Hmm I have Lord of Light on my ereader by complete coincidence. Interestingly Jack Kirby did do the storyboards but not for the CIA.

Comic book illustrator Jack Kirby did not do his storyboard work for the fabricated CIA film production. There had been an authentic attempt to produce Lord of Light a few years before the Iranian hostage situation, which was when Kirby created the storyboards

[radiator]

Further to an earlier discussion on (I think) this thread about the state of ever more convoluted modern blockbusters, I've just been having a read of this, and I could not agree more.

http://badassdigest.com/2013/06/12/film-crit-hulk-smash-the-age-of-the-convoluted-blockbuster/

Hulk's latest target of smashing: blockbusters that get so so convoluted, so byzantine in their reveals that they alienate story-seeking audiences.

[JamesC]

Further to an earlier discussion on (I think) this thread about the state of ever more convoluted modern blockbusters, I've just been having a read of this, and I could not agree more.

http://badassdigest.com/2013/06/12/film-crit-hulk-smash-the-age-of-the-convoluted-blockbuster/

Hulk's latest target of smashing: blockbusters that get so so convoluted, so byzantine in their reveals that they alienate story-seeking audiences.

Heh - was just reading that last week! I agree with what Hulk has to say too.
Something else that gets my goat - particularly with super-hero type films - is the cliche of having a large mechanical beam shooting device in the middle of a city that has to be stopped. Off the top of my head this happens in:

Man of Steel,
X-Men,
Batman Begins,
Transformers (2 or 3?),
The Amazing Spider-Man,
The Avengers

and probably loads more that I haven't thought of. It's getting very boring!

[shaolin_monkey]

Or in the middle of space.  Like Star Wars.  TWICE!!!

[Jim_Campbell]

Further to an earlier discussion on (I think) this thread about the state of ever more convoluted modern blockbusters, I've just been having a read of this, and I could not agree more.

It's probably a marvellous article, but I'll be fucked if I'm reading that much text all in caps.

Cheers

Jim

[Spikes]

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Good old fashioned fun, that maybe doesnt quite hit all the spots like The Sting does, but still, these two stars should have made more films together - and that's a fact.

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

I see the comments section of that article brings up the now all too common cliche of the Villain Getting Caught on Purpose Because it's All Part of his Nefarious and Convoluted Scheme, which seems to have  replaced the old cliche of the Villain Captures the Hero And Has him at his Mercy But Instead of Just Killing him, he Explains his Entire Nefarious and Convoluted Scheme. I think Austin Powers pretty much killed that one.

Cliched as these things may be, I think it can be good to have a scene where the hero and villain can have a conversation without having to fight each other. It can help explain their respective motivations or why they oppose one another. Some of my favourite movies manage to do this without resorting to the aforementioned cliches. Wrath Kahn, for example, has Kirk and Kahn having several perfectly civilised exchanges using the viewscreens and communicators. Similarly in Die Hard with the walkie talkies, and then Rickman poses as an innocent civilian who's been caught up in all the madness.

[Professor Bear]

It's the same article linked to before by (I think) Sauchie when he first brought up the convoluted blockbuster discussion, and I kind of agree with it in theory, but my takeaway is that films are just too long these days and I prefer my blockbusters in three acts and ninety minutes long.
My personal theory is what I like to call the Sticky Biccy Theory: everyone wants on board the next big blockbuster so they all try to make their mark and get a producer credit on it, so the script for the average blockbuster is basically a biscuit the producers all gather around before the film is to be made and they take turns to jizz plot elements, cameos, or product placements onto it, regardless of what this does to the story structure or running time of the eventual biscuit-film.  Eventually, the biscuit is released to the cinemas and we all go and have bite, maybe we like it, maybe we are repulsed and get on the internet complaining that it tastes like shit and why can't anyone else notice this, but we at least talk about it and give the producers the publicity they want, even if it's just them blaming us for the biscuit's poor taste.  Meanwhile, they've been jizzing like crazy over a few other biscuits - possibly the other two biscuits in the trilogy - and laughing at how we'll eventually bite down on them like the gaylords we are.

Something else that gets my goat - particularly with super-hero type films - is the cliche of having a large mechanical beam shooting device in the middle of a city that has to be stopped. Off the top of my head this happens in:

Man of Steel,
X-Men,
Batman Begins,
Transformers (2 or 3?),
The Amazing Spider-Man,
The Avengers

and probably loads more that I haven't thought of. It's getting very boring!

The phallic symbolism is amusing, though.

[Recrewt]

I think some of this is also related to the recent fascination that hollywood has with comic-book movies.  I have seen more than once on the extras documentarys where they say "the first thing we did was sit down and read lots of xxx".  So, after taking in several decades of some comic character they then struggle to come up with a succint story?  Beats me why!

[NapalmKev]

Zack and Miri make a porno!

Not highbrow in any shape or form, but very funny.

Cheers

[JamesC]

I think some of this is also related to the recent fascination that hollywood has with comic-book movies.  I have seen more than once on the extras documentarys where they say "the first thing we did was sit down and read lots of xxx".  So, after taking in several decades of some comic character they then struggle to come up with a succint story?  Beats me why!

I think it's often because they go with the origin story and for almost all popular superhero characters there are at least two or three versions of the origin so they go with a kind of amalgamated version.
An origin story in itself isn't enough though - once that's done they need a convenient villain with a doomsday device that needs to be stopped in the final act.
This means that they usually have to stick the villain's origin in too - and to make things easier they tend to tie this in with the heroes origin in some way so that they're kind of mutually created nemeses.
Many super hero origins don't have much in the way of romantic interest so they have to chuck that in too.

[radiator]

I think there's two distinct but related discussions getting a bit confused here.

Regarding cliches, it's all in the execution. While they were broadly similar scenarios, I thought The Avengers had a thrilling ending, whereas Man of Steel bored me to tears. The difference of course is that I cared about the characters in The Avengers so I was really rooting for them and it struck a great balance between humour and spectacle.

Part of the problem comes from the abundance of remakes, reboots and adaptations. Man of Steel and Star Trek Into Darkness both leaned heavily on the fact that pretty much everyone already knows Kirk, Spock, Superman, Lois Lane etc - even down to tertiary characters like Perry White - so they seemed to think they could get away with not bothering to establish or develop them effectively. As a result both films felt hollow and left me completely cold. As the article points out - at least Star Trek (2009), while itself very convoluted plotwise, was carried along by the central premise of the crew coming together and was a more character driven film.

think it's often because they go with the origin story and for almost all popular superhero characters there are at least two or three versions of the origin so they go with a kind of amalgamated version.

I disagree - I think it's often the origin film that works best because it lends itself to a satisfying arc (witness Iron Man being - imo - a considerably better film than either of its sequels). It's in subsequent films where they seem to panic, run out of ideas and overcompensate with too many villains or just make a movie that is based entirely around conflict (boring).

[Frank]

Meanwhile, they've been jizzing like crazy over a few other biscuits - possibly the other two biscuits in the trilogy - and laughing at how we'll eventually bite down on them like the gaylords we are.

Powerful metaphor, Prof.

[JamesC]

I think there's two distinct but related discussions getting a bit confused here.

Regarding cliches, it's all in the execution. While they were broadly similar scenarios, I thought The Avengers had a thrilling ending, whereas Man of Steel bored me to tears. The difference of course is that I cared about the characters in The Avengers so I was really rooting for them and it struck a great balance between humour and spectacle.

Part of the problem comes from the abundance of remakes, reboots and adaptations. Man of Steel and Star Trek Into Darkness both leaned heavily on the fact that pretty much everyone already knows Kirk, Spock, Superman, Lois Lane etc - even down to tertiary characters like Perry White - so they seemed to think they could get away with not bothering to establish or develop them effectively. As a result both films felt hollow and left me completely cold. As the article points out - at least Star Trek (2009), while itself very convoluted plotwise, was carried along by the central premise of the crew coming together and was a more character driven film.

think it's often because they go with the origin story and for almost all popular superhero characters there are at least two or three versions of the origin so they go with a kind of amalgamated version.

I disagree - I think it's often the origin film that works best because it lends itself to a satisfying arc (witness Iron Man being - imo - a considerably better film than either of its sequels). It's in subsequent films where they seem to panic, run out of ideas and overcompensate with too many villains or just make a movie that is based entirely around conflict (boring).

Iron Man 1 is undoubtably the best of the three but it does suffer in the last act with the fight with the Iron Monger and the Arc Reactor meltdown ( another beam shooting doomsday device).

I'd say Spider-Man 2, X- Men 2, The Dark Knight and arguably Superman 2 are all examples of superhero sequels that are better than the origin films. Of course, in most cases they're better if you've seen part 1!
The Avengers could potentially be added to this list as it serves as a sort of sequel to all the 'phase 1' films.