The Crow (Page 1 of 2)

Shit yeah. Love this movie. How can anyone hate on this:

Ok, that pic is going to get annoying on my slow connection

Fun commentary. At first I thought all the references you guys made to "Nightmare" were to Nightmare on Elm Street, as that's the movie I think of when I hear it, which naturally led to some confusion. Then you mentioned your commentary for "Nightmare", and I'm like, "What?" You probably should do Elm Street at some point.

I am surprised nobody jumped on the critic quote on the DVD case comparing the movie to the "original Batman". Funny, it looked nothing like the 1960's movie...

I've got a weird mental block with "The Crow." I've seen it several times, including in the theater when it came out originally. I like it just fine; it's a good movie. But every single time it comes up, I'm all, "Oh yeah, I forgot about that."

It's like I lack the ability to remember from one day to the next that this movie exists.

Cloe didn't say half as much as Jake, I'm curious how you got that vibe. What was awkward?

It's possible. I think I got up to make a sandwich at some point I remember the quote being mentioned, and they themselves comparing the movie to Tim Burton's Batman, but don't remember linking it to the "original" Batman movie. With luck if they did I'll catch it on a second listen.

Apollo 13 and Monsters, Inc. had three people.

I agree the show has a different chemistry to it than usual, but I think that's mostly that the panel is only two people, who you rarely hear on the show, who have never been on the show together before. They're a little less comfortable leaping into the hardcore analysis and structure stuff than the seventy-episode veterans.

Anyway. I like this episode.

It's not bad.  Jason Scott Lee trained with Jerry Poteet for the film, who was one of Bruce's original students at the Oakland school, so there is solid lineage there.  The fight scenes, were not pure JKD though.  They use Lop Sau, Pak Sau, and a bunch of other techniques that Bruce carried over from Wing Chun into JKD, along with his similar mannerisms, but at the end of the day the fights are choreographed accordingly.  It should be noted that when Bruce was choreographing Enter the Dragon he used a number of techniques that you wouldn't see many JKD parctitioners using (jump kicks, wheel kicks, etc).

It should be noted that in theory at least, JKD should look different from fighter to fighter.  If you go into most JKD schools these days, you learn the same mix of Wing Chun, Kali, Silat, and boxing that Bruce Lee and Dan Inosanto practiced all those years ago.  But the spirit of what Bruce taught was reduction, not addition of techniques.  He always made the analogy that a sculpter doesnt add stone to make the limbs of a statute, he chisels away the unnecessary until the true form is revealed.  Bruce was about REDUCING the techniques in all styles until you were left with what worked for you.  It sounds simple, but in the martial arts world at the time this was revolutionary.

Last edited by Eddie (2010-08-03 19:47:47)

Bruce did fight a guy in his school in order to teach white students.  This is true.  The fight was NOTHING like the movie though and the guy did not take a cheap shot and paralize Bruce.  Bruce was trying to power squat too much and hurt his back, and while he was healing (only a matter of weeks) he wrote the bulk of The Tao of Jeet Kune Do.  On the set of The Big Boss, a local Thai Boxer did challenge Bruce, and Bruce beat the shit out of him.  It wasn't the same guy from the challenge though, as the movie states. 

And while Bruce's influence cannot be overstated, lets not be hasty and say he created Modern MMA.  You can argue he set the stage for it, but the Gracie family of Brazil is singularly responsible for creating the UFC and pitting styles against styles.  Bruce Lee's overarching philosophy of utilizing what works and abandoning what doesn't was ultimately proven in the UFC.  In other words, Bruce created a hypothesis and 25 years later the experiment that was the UFC proved him right.  I can tell you that I have been personally affected by the works of both Bruce Lee and the Gracie family equally. 

BTW, why no one has made a movie about the life of Helio Gracie is beyond me.

Do not even get me fucking started on the Spawn movie.

The animated series did about as best as you could do with that source material.

Slight tangent, I loved the hell out of Supreme because you had Alan Moore writing a character that was essentially his view of Superman, and you had Rob fucking LIEFELD drawing it.  Meaning, you had fascinatingly insane writing drawn by an artist who cannot draw hands or feet and every face is scrunched up or flashing teeth.

I've never dressed up as Indiana Jones for Halloween, by the way.

Thanks for bringing back the love to this movie and comic. They were a huge influence on me in high school. I remember being deeply affected by the experience of reading the comic, to the point of feeling physically ill. It tries so hard to create despair and rage, and at the time I was completely taken with it. I wish the movie had been able to capture that more, but I agree that a straight adaptation wouldn't have worked.

Douchey-nerd footnote: The electrical tape on his arms came from the comic. In that version, he had to stay focused on his rage or he would lose his power and become vulnerable or "die" again. So there's a scene in the comic in which he's reminiscing about his girlfriend/fiancee/wife while he's slicing his arms with a straight razor to amplify and focus the pain. Those wounds wouldn't heal though, because they were self-inflicted. Hence the tape. (It's been a while, but I don't think I made all that up...)