Ignatiy has a great piece out at the AV-Club http://www.avclub.com/articles/todays-b … ll,104394/

It basically encapsulates everything I've been saying about the DTV action genre. Really nice to see a mainstream critic shining a spotlight on Universal Soldier: Regeneration and Day of Reckoning.

Speaking of Noah, I have 0 interest in biblical movies, but now that I've been spoiled on what the 3rd act of Aranofsky's movie is about, dammit, I may have to see it

No, it's far better than the Transformerses, which are complete and utter garbage. Honestly, as much as I hate to say it, the closest analogue in that respect is probably Pearl Harbor, which is full of awful characterization and dialogue, but the hour-long mid-movie attack sequence is the best thing Michael Bay's ever directed and pretty goddamned impressive. Pacific Rim is still better, if only for being 40 min shorter, but if I was to stack it up to any  one movie in Bay's filmography, it would be that one. Similar strengths, similar weaknesses, similar structure (boring melodrama for an hour, amazing mid-movie setpiece, kinda forgettable conclusion with cheesy ending), though Pearl Harbor is much more in bad taste since it's exploiting a national tragedy.

Sidenote: There's a really damn good 1.5 hour fan-edit of Pearl Harbor to be made, if you cut down the melodrama and end it right after the attack

I think it's just the dialogue in the car specifically feels really unnatural and on-the-nose. I like the cross-cutting and what they're going for, but if him and his wife drove to the airport in silence, it would play much better.

I maintain Pacific Rim is terrible and the internet is crazy for trying to defend it. The writing is awful and the action isn't good enough or frequent enough to make up for it.

I pretty much agree with everything you said, and love the movie.

However, was it just me or was the opening scene with Hanks just terrible?
The whole bit where he's talking with his wife in the car, and the dialogue, the accent, and the acting are all really bad. It's really bizarre, like it was inserted out of a different movie or something. I distinctly remember being worried for about 2 minutes, and then the movie turns around and is great for the rest of it. 
You don't need it in the movie really either (though I understand the hesitation at cutting Catherine Keener out of your movie).

Outside of that, Hanks is great though, and the end of the movie is an amazing piece of acting.

Ya, but what good Sandra roles have there been in the last decade? She hasn't had a Panic Room or a King Kong like the others you mentioned do. Outside of Speed and Demolition Man, she's mostly done crap, so ya, it's a bit of a surprise when she's in an awesome movie all of a sudden and totally nails the part. Not an indictment of her as an actress, she's just been stuck with bad material.

If you're looking for more stuff to trim, you're welcome to cut my 3-sec part. Doesn't really add anything, I don't like how I shot it, plus we've already got Gregory representing Seattle.

I didn't think hating Glee was unpopular, but if it is, I'll chime in and say that Glee is some of the worst, most unwatchable garbage I've ever seen in my life.

As far as mainstream unpopular....hmmm.

Whedon is massively over-rated. There I said it. Almost everything he writes, outside of some of Buffy and most of Firefly, is written like a sitcom. It's near-constant bland jokes and safe references, the kind of stuff you would expect a laugh-track to run over. Characters being constantly snarky != good writing, and it just irritates the shit out of me. He really is a poor-man's Shane Black, with the distinction being that Shane Black brings a dark edge to his material, there's an under-current of anger and personality that comes through in his writing, whereas Whedon just goes for the safe vanilla version of everything. Is he terrible? No, not by a long shot, but this internet hero-worship really needs to stop.

Damn, I completely forgot that came out this year (That tells you how forgettable and disappointing it was). Ya, if there's any noms that are locks I would think it'd be Gravity and Elysium, the others are kinda up in the air. Hobbit/Pacific Rim/Oblivion could all get noms, but I could just as easily see each of them getting snubbed, so who knows. Man of Steel/Star Trek might be in the mix too, but I kinda think those 2 will fall by the wayside as they both feel very "been there done that".

I think we might wanna move this stuff to a seperate thread as this is turning into the bake-off prediction thread all of a sudden.

Replace Iron Man 3 with Oblivion and you'd likely be correct