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I think part of the reason it hit me so hard is that Ridley seemed to still be on top of his game as of a couple years ago, I didn't see him as a director who was over the hill or seemed to be on a real downslide. I've loved most of his 2000's output, Black Hawk Down was great, Kingdom of Heaven was great, even as recently as American Gangster I thought he was doing really good work, and that was only 5 years ago. These are movies with strong thru-lines that effectively juggle large casts, so to see him suddenly make such a vast mis-step (in a genre he largely defined as we think of today) just seems so out of the blue, like WTF?
I guess Body of Lies and Robin Hood should've been warning signs, but the former was still decent, and the latter had a troubled production and started out as a much more interesting movie, so those never jumped out as failures to me particularly.
Yes, please do an original Conan the Barbarian commentary, that movie is pure film-making brilliance at its finest. The music, the minimalism, the Oliver Stone/Milius screenplay.
The remake is garbage though, honestly don't think its even worth the effort.
I would suggest giving it 2-3 episodes before you give up. I originally had a similar feeling, pilot didn't really grab me and I didn't bother following up, but I fell in love when I gave it another shot a few months later.
That's one of the best things about Game of Thrones actually, the series deceptively starts off as a semi-traditional fantasy story, with clear characters the audience categorizes as "good guys" and "bad guys", then proceeds to gradually reveal and grow them until the categories are flipped. One of the things I'm most looking forward to in Season 3 is seeing how some of the villains from Season 1 redeem themselves and become heroic protagonists.
I will just say that the back half of Season 4, and the entirety of Season 5 ramp things up like crazy and the show becomes amazing, but I can understand not "enjoying" it. It can hit the same problem for people that House of Cards does, where the characters are such bad people and the material is so grim that it's just depressing to watch.
As an unabashed fan of the first Gi Joe movie (which I maintain is exactly the approach these dumb toy movies should be taking, and a bloody masterpiece compared with Transformers and Battleship), I'm looking forward to seeing this one, but ya, the 1 year delay is worrying. Also, it's funny to see them trying to add Channing Tatum back in, as he was easily the worst thing about that first film. I don't know what the hell happened to the guy that he went from being completely terrible in that to charismatic and hilarious in 21 Jump Street within the span of like 2 years.
Well, I happened to finally get a new microphone and portable recorder setup this week, and this thread inspired me to get off my ass and test the equipment out. I ended up recording a vocal track for "Shadows" just to learn how to do it (I've been trying out different mixing software). It's not as cool as Owen's (and way more mellow), but I figure I might as well post it: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22474792/shadowscover.mp3
I've heard multiple people say this plays like a disney remake of Army of Darkness, which made me kinda want to see it, but I guess it's not really worth it (Franco is no Bruce Campbell).
Ehh, I dunno, I felt Sally's absence. Just a few certain bits and pieces here and there that felt off to me (I think especially the lead up to right before the ride to candyland). I still think the second half of the film is way shakier than the first (which is outstanding), and think it's one of the weaker Tarantino entries, though still a ton of fun. Will see if my opinion changes when the blu-ray comes out.
In a nutshell, it brings a level of scale and production value to a Fantasy series that has never been attempted on TV before, which lets it tell a vastly more nuanced and elaborate story than a more traditional fantasy series like LOTR. I can understand it not being your cup of tea necessarily, but you have to admire that this show is even able to exist.
Like, this thing should be completely un-filmable, and by god they've found a way to do it. Show me another show with large-scale army battles, elaborate sets and dozens of locations spread across 2 continents, with near flawless VFX work throughout. This, while also juggling over 3 dozen characters, and about 10 different sub-plots, keeping actors on schedule when some characters vanish from the story for episodes (or even seasons) at a time, and dealing with both animals and child actors.
I rewatched season 2 on Blu-ray and I was stunned by just the level of craft in the production design alone. Something like LOTR relies a lot on just giant landscapes, while Game of Thrones is all about intricately detailed rooms. It's crazy to just take a look at the amount of random, immaculately designed stuff lying around in the background of a given scene.
It's the Wire in a fully realized fantasy universe, that's the appeal, that's why people go crazy for it.
I mostly agree with Gzarra's take on it. The doc seemed very biased towards digital and didn't make a strong case against it. They only had like 2-3 vocal anti-digital people in the doc, and they got maybe a combined 5 minutes. That bugs me, because there are legitimate arguments there about the look of one vs the other. You look at the 2 biggest film and digital movies just this year, Dark Knight Rises and Avengers, and Dark Knight completely blows away Avengers visually, like it's not even close. Yes digital can look great (Skyfall, any Fincher movie post 2000), but there's an aesthetic look that I'm not certain can be reproduced.
That's the biggest issue with it to me, at a certain point, it won't be about "quality", because yes, we'll have 8k, and 12k, and 16k. The issue is the specific look you get in a Lawrence of Arabia or an Apocalypse Now or a Dirty Harry. Nothing coming out these days looks like that anymore, and it really bugs me. Everything is just super, super clean and flat.
What I'd really like is to learn about what can be done in terms of faking that look. Obviously you can do stuff with filters, but I'm not convinced you can get it close enough to look right. The argument that one vs the other is now going to be just an "aesthetic" choice is all well and good, but I think Nolan is completely right to question whether that choice will even be available to film-makers in 10-20 years. When the entire production pipeline for film breaks down, guess what, you won't be able to shoot/develop/process film whether you want to or not, and that will be a real shame.
I come here to tell you a tale of 2 of the best movies you've probably never seen, possibly never heard of. And I'm not talking good in a "so bad it's good way", I'm talking good in a "arguably the most original, exciting, and best-shot American action films of the last few years" good. In a time when garbage like A Good Day to Die Hard is what passes for blockbuster R-rated movies, in a little quiet corner, John Hyams has been putting his heart and soul into making kickass action films that also break new ground and push the genre forward. If you liked Dredd and were shocked by how good it was despite the marketing, these 2 films are worth giving a shot.
It's especially relevant now as the most recent of the two, Universal Soldier Day of Reckoning, is on Netflix Streaming, where I highly recommend you seek it out and give it a watch.
Still with me? Good, in that case, we need to start at the beginning.
The original Universal Soldier was an early 90s sci-fi action film starring Jean Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren, about a military program that uses regenerated dead bodies as unstoppable soldiers. Truth be told, it was a cheesy, lame rip-off of The Terminator, and does not hold up particularly well at all.
The theatrical sequel Universal Soldier: The Return, in 1999, was so terrible that it effectively ended Van Damme's theatrical movie career.
It seemed destined to be a series that would fade into obscurity, until 2008, when a young director named John Hyams came along to breathe new life into the series. John Hyams, son of Peter Hyams (B-movie director of 2010: A Space Odyssey, TimeCop, and Outland) clearly felt he had something to prove, because what he ended up making was not only the best direct-to-video action movie ever made, but one of the best action movies of that year PERIOD:
Universal Soldier Regeneration
Effectively a reboot of the series, it takes the concept of re-animated soldiers and grounds it in a very bleak realism with a simple plot. Terrorists kidnap the Ukranian presidents children and take over Chernobyl, threatening to blow up the reactor and the kids. They have a rogue scientist who has brought along stolen US military tech: 2 functioning Universal Soldier models (Andrei Arlovski and Dolph Lundgren), which the rebels will use to stop any attempt at taking back the reactor. The military, as a last result, has to re-activate the original Universal Soldier model (Van Damme) to rescue the kids and take out the rebels.
More than anything, this movie feels like a B-action movie filtered through the Children of Men aesthetic by way of John Carpenter. The cinematography (DP'd by Peter Hyams) is cold, atmospheric, gloom. The film is mostly set at the Chernobyl power reactor and you absolutely feel the cold, oppressive isolation of the location. The score is an excellent ambient drone, reminiscent of 80s John Carpenter films and the first Terminator.
Gone is any semblance of humour or cheesiness. These re-animated soldiers are treated as terrifying murder machines, who will run right at you and bludgeon you to death by punching you in the face repeatedly. More interestingly, the movie actual manages to strike a tragic, somber tone. These soldiers are Frankenstein monsters, no sense of their past, no sense of purpose, simply following orders. Old worn out weapons of war duking it out. Dolph Lundgren gets a chilling monologue as he struggles with the faintest of memories, and realizes that him and Van Damme are just re-fighting decades old battles. "We've been over this all before" he says, in a bit reminiscent of the ending of Blade Runner.
This more sophisticated tone and thematic content is coupled with bone-crunching, extremely effective action sequences. Van Damme in particular gets some of the best action of his career here, including sequences shot in long extended takes, heavily influenced by Children of Men:
As an objective viewer, Universal Soldier Regeneration is an impressive B action movie and a hell of a feature debut for a talented rookie director. As a Direct-To-Video sequel to a poorly received, largely forgotten action series, it's a fucking miracle.
So now, after making his mark, one might expect Mr. Hyams to try to reproduce his success. Well, in 2012 he defied expectations again, releasing Universal Soldier Day of Reckoning, and instead of playing it safe, he went absolutely fucking crazy with it:
This time out, all continuity is thrown out the window yet again, and the series is effectively reset from scratch, as a bizarre, hypnotic, David-Lynchian fever-dream, punctuated with absolutely brutal and amazing action sequences.
This time, Van Damme is the bad guy, having gone rogue and started building an army of Universal Soldiers out in the Louisiana wilderness. In a clear riff on Col. Kurtz from Apocalypse Now, he is only glimpsed in small bits and pieces throughout the film, often in strobing, hallucinatory dream sequences, and our hero will have to travel up river to confront him.
In the opening sequence, the protagonist of the film, John (played by rising martial arts badass Scott Adkins), is woken in the middle of the night by intruders in his house and forced to watch his wife and daughter executed in front of him. Van Damme is one of the perpetrators. This happens in an extremely unnerving extended take POV sequence reminiscent of Enter the Void and the rape scene in Strange Days. Next thing we know, its 9 months later, and John has woken from a coma, with most of his memory missing. The rest of the film plays very strange and off balance, as John struggles with his memory and keeps running across people who know more about what's going on than he does. Gradually, he will piece together what has been going on (there is still a sci-fi element in play), engage in car chases and battles with a mysterious psychopath known only as "The Plumber", and travel up river to confront Van Damme and settle his fate.
This film continues the Frankenstein approach to the Universal Soldiers, exploring how these re-animated weapons try to find purpose and meaning. Van Damme (and his right hand man this time Lundgren) preach enlightenment to their newly recruited army, but are they really just another puppet-master for these disillusioned souls? John is pitted between Van Damme's faction and the Government, and he will ultimately have to choose his own path in life. It's interesting thematically, but thankfully for us, that path also involves a 25 minute blood-bath massacre that will knock you on your ass.
That's the great thing about Day of Reckoning, it's a weird, experimental art film, and also a balls-to-the-wall exploitation action film, and the combination of the two mixed together feels totally original. I can't guarantee you'll like it, but I guarantee you won't see anything like it.
Like I said, it's up on Netflix and worth giving a shot just for the crazy action that kicks in throughout the second half, though be warned, the movie is extremely violent, brutal, and full of strobing flashes, so epileptics stay away. Hate it/Love it, report back what you think.
Sorry, I guess the more accurate statement would've been "Western" action film. The main distinction was versus Asia, where they know how to stage great action scenes and do it on a regular basis. It's only in the West that its unique lately for an action movie to actually have good "action" you can follow in it.
I dug it when I watched it on video, because it's very much about "oh shit you're in the chase and things are coming at you and you have 0.5 seconds to react...WATCH OUT THERES A TRUCK COMING".
But on re-watches it really falls apart for me and feels week. Especially if you go back and look at the history of bond and movie car chases, it feels so small scale and forgettable. Its so short, there's very little actual stunt work (like 1 spin and 2 crashes), but they use the editing to fabricate an intensity that isn't really there. They also squander what seems like it might be a good location, because you can barely even tell where the hell they're driving through.
I dunno, when you stack it up against Ronin, To Live and Die in LA, or even the Casino Royale and Skyfall openings, it feels really weak for what is a 200 million dollar movie.
Casino Royale really might be the best american action film of the 2000s forward. The airport chase is also outstanding, clear geography but very intense.
The editing rhythm is part of that, I think another thing that really makes it is the way the sequences are allowed to build. That Parkour sequence is probably close to 10 minutes, which is very long by modern movie standards. A fight or chase scene in the Bourne mold tends to be very short, the Quantum car chase is 2 minutes. The added length lets the action scene breathe and have its own 3 act structure, and makes it a memorable set-piece that stands out in your mind. This is something that Speilberg absolutely mastered with the Indiana Jones series, every action set-piece is memorable and stands out in your memory.
A movie like Quantum, or the Transformers flicks, has tons of action in volume, but it tends to be lots and lots of short sequences. Quantum probably has like 10 different action scenes, maybe more, and they're all under 3 minutes, whereas Casino Royale has maybe 4, but more in the 6-10 minute range.
I think this is why a lot of modern action films feel monotonous, none of the action stands out or is memorable enough to make an impression, so all you end up remembering is kind of a fog of explosions. That's certainly my experience with the Transformers series.
The reason for that is the sound is literally the only reason you have an idea what is going on in those scenes. The image is so incoherent, they are forced to use the audio to try to convey what is even happening. Seriously, try watching the Quantum chase with no sound. There was a video essay about this about a year back.
Ya I've gotten as far as Tarkovsky on that chart, haven't heard of anyone blow that. Considering how amazing so many of Tarkovsky's films are, it's comforting to know there's dozens of potentially great directors who's work I haven't seen or heard of yet.
Yeah, they introduced it and did nothing with it. Makes me wonder if they'll pick up that thread going forward, or if they're going to use brand new villains. The next 2 movies are said to be closely tied together, so perhaps they do something where bond has to take Quantum down over 2 movies, bringing things full circle to Casino Royale.
Believe she was tied up. That is probably the weak point for a lot of people though, because Bond's and the movie's reaction to what happens to her feels really weird and off. The movie literally almost immediately forgets about her the second she's dead, and we're playing triumphant music of the villain being captured, while she's slumped over dead in the background.
I don't mind it just because all of Cameron's movies pretty much look that way, so if he wants to grade it in that direction to make it consistent, more power to him, it'd be different if he was doing that just to be trendy. Also, grading aside, it's visually a phenomenal blu-ray transfer, crazy detailed without losing the film grain. It looks amazing.
Ya you can argue plot nitpicks, but everything about it aesthetically as well as camera placement and editing, is outstanding.
QOS....if you think that movie makes more sense story-wise...I dunno, I honestly remember so little about it that I'm in no position to argue the point. It felt mostly like a total mess at the time, not standing on its own as a good bond story, and failing miserably as an epilogue to Casino Royale by having bond get side-tracked into some stupid water economics storyline instead of chasing the people responsible for Vesper's death.
And it's practically a war-crime against action staging and geography, so there's that. I don't HATE that one, but it's really weak.
