If it was directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, I might say "you know what, that was watchable, at least the man is trying".

For Blomkamp to be given over 100 million budget to make an original R-rated sci-fi action movie (first time since, what, Matrix 2/3?) with 2 bankable stars, and to proceed to thoroughly waste that opportunity on a generic, forgettable, blockbuster is just tragic. "You are the chosen one" flashbacks, a story that doesn't make much sense, really sloppy and uninteresting action (outside of like 1-2 cool shots). It's not terrible, but considering this is the kind of project that never gets funded anymore, it's incredibly disappointing, since it could be another decade before a studio commits 100 mil to an R-rated action movie again.

To be honest, I like Edgar Wright's movies less and less the more time goes by. I love Attack the Block more than all of Wright's films combined. I think the whole self-referential  thing has reached critical levels culturally and I kind of hate that stuff at this point. I wish he would just make a movie and tell a good story, instead of feeling the need to show me how much he loves X/Y/Z. This is why Tarantino is successful, he homages things, but still plays the stories he's making straight, tells good stories, and when he does rip things off, he tends to re-contextualize them in interesting ways.

Shaun of the Dead seemed fresh in the sense of "this is neat, I can't wait to see what this guy does when he makes a REAL movie", but he seems to be kinda stuck in that zone. Maybe Antman will be good for him.

Arg, that kinda bums me out as I was working on a kinda similar story for a feature. Glad more stories about the singularity are starting to happen though.

Long Kiss Goodnight is a Christmas favorite for me. Die Hard and Lethal Weapon 1/2 are also good christmas movies.

I'm pretty sure In Bruges takes place at Christmas-time too. That would be an excellent christmas flick.

Bourne Supremacy car-chase works great for me, though the fight sequence does not. Most of Bourne Ultimatum works for me, except for the car chase (weird huh?). Greengrass' Captain Phillips this year does it really well too.

Kathryn Bigelow is a master at the shaky style (probably because she had already mastered shooting action traditionally before she adopted the documentary style), so both Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty do it exceptionally well.

And of course, one of the movies that popularized the style in the first place was Saving Private Ryan, where Spielberg also does an amazing job at conveying the geography of all the battles despite all the chaos on screen.

The thing is that as soon as you adopt that style, you're losing tons of visual information right off the bat, so the rest of your filmmaking and editing needs to be EXTREMELY precise for it to work, with a very small margin of error. This is why 90% of movies adopting this style fail at it.

No, there's definitely a massive disrespect for IP in this generation. You see it all over the place with the casual use of Piratebay, expecting everything available for free on youtube, or streamed through a music service (that you don't have to pay for).

Barry Lyndon

Finally watched this, one of the few Kubrick films I've never gotten around to. Similar narrative issues to a lot of his films, but fuck me if this isn't one of the most beautiful movies ever made. Like, literally every single shot is amazing. I put it in the 2001 camp, where it's less about story and more about conveying an experience, in this case instead of space it's 18th century england. Liked it a lot.

Assuming he sticks the landing with The Raid 2 (which apparently is 2.5 hours long, holy fucking shit), Gareth Evans for sure.

John Carpenter is another one, as he's probably the filmmaker who's movies I've consistently liked the most, with a better track record than pretty much any of the "bigger" names.

John Woo - Fell off the list after Paycheck, completely redeemed himself with Red Cliff.

You are a terrible person and you should feel bad

Think you're reading too much into it. That being said, if nothing else, you should give it points for doing something new as a piece of marketing. That Inception teaser you mentioned was the start of the "BRAWWWWM" trend in trailers we've been suffering through for like 3 years since everyone started copying it.

It would be so, so, easy for this teaser to have that same approach "Nolan"...brawm...space ship shot....brawm...."fate of mankind"...brawm....November 2014.

But no, they go completely 180 the other direction and do something original. Market based on the theme, and try to uplift the audience with a positive message instead of bludgeoning them with noise and images.

I think this is outstanding. Remember when Teaser trailers could convey the theme of the movie without giving away the whole plot?

Also, this speaks so hard to me thematically. If this is the tone/theme of the movie, how we've lost our exploratory spirit as a society and need to get it back, it could really be an important film culturally.

Bring it Nolan

There is definitely a strange irony to it. Horror typically works best at it's most restrained, but sequels almost by definition need to up the ante, which is almost always less effective.

On the flip-side, horror sequels are cheap to make and bring a reliable return on investment, which is why that genre in particular tends to get sequelized more than others, despite being one of the least suitable for sequels.