Random Movie Talk That Probably Doesn't Deserve Its Own Thread (Page 5 of 29)

Please. However I am interested to see how Frakenweenie turns out. We had the trailer in front of Avengers, looks like it could be good....ish.

Sweeny Todd is worth a watch, if for nothing else than the music. Burton is mostly style over substance (obviously) but he's managed to make a few movies that were good enough to make you ignore how much he's bashing you over the head with visual design. Sweeny Todd, Beetlejuice and maybe his two batman movies, tho his batman flicks are teetering on the brink of falling into that pit as well. I think Ed Wood is the closest he's ever come to making a normal movie, and Edward Scissorhands is a very self-aware movie which combines with the visuals and ends up feeling more like a Jean-Pierre Jeunet film. I think Jeunet actually pulls off what Burton keeps trying and failing to do.

Also, if you've not seen it, check out Micmacs. All of Jeunet's films, actually. Just go watch them all.

Really? Huh. I like Mars Attacks, but I'd put them closer to even than anything.

Sweeney Todd is great because all Tim Burton had to do was be Tim Burton. The music and everything were already there, he just had to goth it up (Although if you know anything about the actual show...not much more than what was there) and make it. I love Sweeney Todd (The musical, not Burtons specifically), and the only reason I'll watch Burtons version over a broadway one is Johnny Depp and HBC. And the fact that it's wrapped up in a nice little package of a movie.

Although Squiggly, you forgot Big Fish, which is probably even closer to normal movie than Ed Wood. And just to get it out of the way, I love Big Fish with a passion. Easily my favourite Burton movie.

And although it's not perfect by a long shot, I did enjoy Corpse Bride.

Weird I thought that's one of the ones we loved.

I guess I'll just have to sit over here and love it all by myself.

I'm curious what your issue with it is.

And I think the guys like it...it's been a while for me too.

Independence Day (I refuse to call it ID4; that doesn't make any damn sense) has slowly grown on me. I didn't get why my friends like it at the time, but it has a kind of trashy, goofy charm that also makes me kind of like Starship Troopers and RoboCop, altho RoboCop is more solid.

I saw Battle: Los Angeles this weekend and also Fincher's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I agree with Trey that the former was not bad, considering that it's basically a first-person shooter video game about nameless, faceless aliens invading Los Angeles and needing a bad whipping by a squad of plucky Marines and professional streetwise tough gal Michelle Rodriguez.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was not what I was expecting. It was good, but I expected more of a thriller aspect, with some chases and a bit of action. Instead, it was kind of a straight up mystery and ended up leaving me with the feeling of an episode of Murder, She Wrote that had been rewritten for HBO and stylishly produced.

I can totally understand why people love ID4, but I can't. Almost every scene in that movie has something in it that makes me nerd rage so hard. The worst thing, for me, has to be the scene where they're looking for new pilots.

They're looking for pilots to go fight the aliens and doing impromptu interviews to see what everyone's flight experience is. They get to Russel K. (Kay?) and he's all "I flew in 'nam, but now I do crop dusting" and the guy's like "cool, that's useful I guess..." and he's about to ask the next guy when Russel says "Oh BTW I'm glad I'll get a chance to get some payback for the time they abducted me and did strange alien tests on me and shit".

Everyone in the group looks around at each other with these "Oh, this dude is fucking crazy" looks on their faces. The audience laughs and shit, cause Russel K's being oh so goofy right now. Problem:

YOU'RE RECRUITING GUYS TO GO FIGHT THE FUCKING ALIENS!

I saw that in the theater and even the audience was laughing like "LOL he's so stupid!" But he's not stupid. He totally got abducted. The roswell crash was real, aliens have been abducting people...  The president literally said that they were doing that a couple scenes ago. It's just a stupid joke in the movie, but their reaction should have been different. Maybe laughing at first, but then going "Oh...  wait..." and getting serious about it. Or have his kid literally say "why are you laughing at my dad? You're going to fight aliens!" That would have not only hung a lantern on it, but also been a little character relationship moment where you can see Miguel now has a totally different opinion of his dad, etc.

There's a thing like that in just about every scene for me. Some of the jokes work, some of the effects are amazing, but the little problems add up.

I was fine with Lisbeth being a cipher, so that didn't bother me. And I quite liked Mikael and Erika's relationship. I thought that was sketched out deftly; it just wasn't the main story.

My only problem was the twist.

In a way, it reminded me of Smilla's Sense of Snow...

I want Fincher to do a live-action remake of Perfect Blue.

The trailer does it no justice at all. It's a movie about a girl who goes from being in a mediocre group similar to the Spice Girls or something into acting. She ends up with a crazy stalker who basically terrorizes her for leaving the group. Meanwhile, in order to get noticed as an actor she decides to get her smallish role expanded to something much larger and darker and it fucks with her head. Then people start dying.

If you removed some of the weirder aspects of the film you could turn it into an amazing live-action flick. Rewrite it and focus on the themes of control (agents goals vs mima's goals, mima vs fans, self control, etc) and privacy (and rape...  literally and figuratively... kinda fits with the control theme) and you've got a bad-ass little thriller that would be pretty topical in today's cyber-stalky internet.

I think Statham is a great actor who needs to take more roles where he's not kicking the crap out of people. He was really good in both The Bank Heist and Snatch and there was nary a fist fight in either of those two flicks. Not with him, at least. If he does have to kick the crap out of people, it should be in a movie that is less martial arts and more brawl.

I have to mention The Horseman at this point because it's such a great friggin movie with good raw action scenes. Steven Kastrissios needs to write/direct more movies. Someone throw him some money, please.

Something like that with Statham in the lead role would be incredible.

Last edited by Squiggly_P (2012-05-15 03:15:43)

Indeed. I forgot about The Bank Job, he was really good in that, he needs to do more stuff like that. I remembered things like Snatch and Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, I should have said he needs to get back to actual acting. It's easy to forget he didn't always do kicking and punching films as that is mostly what he's remembered for.

Another two films he doesn't do much fighting in (but still some) are Blitz and The Killer Elite. Blitz has very little fighting in it but it's such an unlikeable film and not really worthy of having The Stath as the lead. In Killer Elite, he has a good fight scene with Clive Owen that is more brawl than martial arts-

So I decided to finally check out The Pacific. I just finished the first episode...and I know it sounds bad to say this about something like this, but I assure you I mean it purely in a filmic way...I don't give a shit.

I have no clue who any of these people are, barely understand why I'm supposed to care, and I'm just generally disinterested in everything that's happening. And let be clear, I fucking love Band Of Brothers, I usually love everything about that era of war (Strictly...you know in a historical, and appropriate way) but somehow The Pacific has managed to over ride all that and make me not give a shit.

Is it just me? Can someone please assure me that it does at least get better? I'm just sitting here in a pool of my own disappointment trying to make sense of it all.

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2012-05-19 05:18:30)