Ya, when I say cut it down, I don't mean changing the whole idea and meaning. Malick is a very spiritual guy, and I don't mind the "we'll all be reunited one day" stuff. It doesn't push any specific theology at all, nor does some form of afterlife imply a god-figure pulling the strings. The best thing about the movie is the way it suggests that either a creator doesn't exist, or if he does, he doesn't give a fuck about you as he's kinda busy creating and shaping the universe and all of space-time.

I would keep the intent and meaning the same, just trim out 20-30 minutes throughout.

Sidenote - I hope his IMAX documentary assembled from all this footage happens at some point, cause it's probably the best-looking representation of the creation of the universe and life on earth that's ever been put together

I think there's a masterpiece buried inside Tree of Life, if you were to completely strip out all the fucking narration and cut out 25 minutes. But ya, as much as I love a lot of what it's doing, it's just too self-indulgent for it's own good. You should give his earlier stuff a chance though, he started out with much more straightforward, mainstream storytelling.

Regarding True Lies - I fully acknowledge the problems, but the high points of that movie are so jaw-droppingly good they completely erase any 2nd act problems for me. It's got possibly Cameron's best pure action sequences, it's got Schwarzeneggar's best performance, it's got Tom Arnold in the best movie of his career. I can't call any movie bad when it delivers like 4 different all-time-great action set-pieces.

Interestingly, it's also clearly the blue-print for Michael Bay's movies in a lot of ways (the misogynistic comedy, the glorifying of american military hardware), which just goes to show how shit Michael Bay is as a filmmaker, when he isn't even able to get close to Cameron's weakest movie.

You know what everyone wants to see from a movie about vegas magicians? Blatantly CGI magic tricks of course!

I think it holds up. For an 8 year old at the time, it was practically earth-shattering, so I completely understand the cultural impact. Viewed in retrospect now, it's rougher around the edges and somewhat dated (all the stupid goth leather costume stuff), but I still think it's an extremely well structured and executed action movie. It does that thing which it feels like modern hollywood is almost incapable of, where the entire 2nd half of the movie is just an exponential curve of rising tension, stakes, and action set-pieces, assaulting the viewer.

It's smart enough to take it's time during the 1st half to setup all the rules and character dynamics needed for when the action kicks in, and then delivers on that action.

I think a lot of people's re-evaluation of it now has been the hatred of the sequels somewhat poisoning the original, but I think if you put those out of your mind, it's very successful.

So Disney's totally rushing this thing you guys: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/s … ney-651482

Any movie you really like, there's someone out there who hates it. Best to get used to it and ignore it.

Just as an off-hand observation, I would say that my generation seems way more obsessed with "plot" and way less interested in "theme" or "story". If I had to speculate, I'd say the rise of long-arc highly-plot driven television (I'm thinking Lost/24) has really shifted people's perceptions of what storytelling should be. A "good" story for a lot of people now seems to be something that's got a lot of plot-points, which would explain why so many movies are overly convoluted and have to have 3 different villains and multiple twists. It's why something like Drive, which would be considered a well paced, well-told action film 30 years ago, can be considered "slow and boring" by a lot of mainstream viewers today.

I just think it's more than a bit premature to make that kind of statement, Scorcese has 20 years of movies on Cuaron, and he's still had some really good ones the last decade. If in 20 years Cuaron has still had nothing but hits, then we can talk, but statistically speaking he's probably going to have some bad movies down the line, it's just what happens. It's just way too early to make this kind of comparison one way or the other.

For what it's worth, it sounded like the clip they showed at comic-con was exactly this, so fingers crossed

I remain skeptical that you can make a serious approach to a movie like this work (though I'm glad they're trying). At the end of the day, so much of the concept and appeal, at least from the fanboys, IS the destruction porn, and yet that is kind of exactly the stuff that drags the material down and makes it not work.

I know there's no way they'd do this for an actual Godzilla movie, but I would so much rather watch a version of this where it's just following the scientists and first-responders trying to figure out what to do with the situation, and Godzilla is only really ever glimpsed as a towering thing in the background and on monitors. It'd be similar to Cloverfield,  but from the POV of the scientists and without the shaky found-footage approach.

Unfortunately, there's a large segment of the fanbase that just wants monsters fighting, and would complain like crazy if this was the studio's approach to it, but I think fundamentally it's the most interesting way to handle the material, and I hope Gareth Edwards and WB have the guts to try something like this.

Curse you iJim, you beat me to it. Though it should really be

Tyler Perry's What Are You Doing, Malaria? Based on the Novel Push By Sapphire

Return of the Jedi sucks. The pacing is bad, the story is lazy, the characters (Han in particular) aren't consistent with what's come before, it's the worst looking of the first 3 by a long-shot (hate the cinematography), ewoks, and that awful ending music. A handful of moments keep it from being out and out terrible, but for my money it's almost as bad as the prequels.

deadline/hollywoodreporter have the budget as 100 mil, and I'm pretty sure that's accurate.

It opens in China on Nov 20'th: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/s … -20-648892

For reference, China has 13000 screens (?!!!!!!), which would explain why every US movie desperately tries to break into that market. Avatar made over 200 mil just in China, so I think Gravity will do at least 100 there.