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Ya the general consensus seems to be that Spiderman 1 and 2 are better than this reboot. I haven't seen it so I can't comment, but just from that Red-Letter-Media review I can see why that would be the case. I know you guys are out on the fringe as haters of Raimi's goofy take on spiderman, but at least Spidey 1 and 2 are consistent tonally. The movies exist in a kinda goofy/campy universe and that's just how they roll.
If the Amazing Spiderman starts out trying to be Batman Begins and then morphs into the 2nd half of Spiderman 1, I can see how that could be really problematic.
Prepare for dissapointment. We've been down this road far too many times (obscure, lesser known director given a remake of a beloved classic). Robocop is one of those things that's perfect in every way, I literally can't even imagine how you'd go about making a successful remake. The only way it would work is if they did something completely different with it and took it in a very different direction, but at that point it's not really Robocop, just call it something else. What I suspect will happen though is they'll stick pretty close to the original, but not go nearly as far in terms of violence/social-satire, and I just have zero interest in a half-assed Robocop.
Christopher Nolan screened Blade Runner for the crew before filming Batman Begins, to show them what they were going for visually, which makes sense with the emphasis on the city design in Begins. For Dark Knight, he showed them Heat (obviously).
I think the first half of Batman Begins is great, but once the actual batman storyline gets going it kinda loses steam. It also suffers from possibly the worst action film-making/editting I've ever seen.
It's actually quite amazing to see Nolan's progression as an action director from Begins -> Dark Knight -> Inception. It's a big step up in Dark Knight, with the longer takes and cutting across action, and Inception is even better.
The one thing that really pisses me off with Nolan though is he never uses bullet squibs at ALL. I realize these movies are PG-13, but things like the Bourne/Bond movies still get away with it, you just use smaller and darker bullet hits. In the batman movies and inception, characters just fall down without any visible hit at all, and it's kinda distracting to me. I noticed this in the Dark Knight Rises prologue as well.
Ya I tend to agree, the first one is still by far the best because it has such a serious, gritty tone to it.
I think Mission Impossible 4 is successful at the more playful "Incredibles-type" approach to a spy movie, but I also think it makes the movie feel way more throwaway. I mean at parts it almost plays like a comedic parody of a spy movie. I think 2-4 really could use a lot more of a feeling of paranoia and danger to them.
I saw The Raid when it first hit theaters, and that is to date the absolute best theatrical experience I've ever had. I've NEVER seen an audience THAT into a movie, guys were shadowboxing, audience was applauding all the kills and hits, cheering for the villain to get taken down. It's absolutely an action classic, I can't wait for the blu-ray, that movie is perfect for movie nights with a bunch of friends.
BTW, if you follow the director on Twitter, he is clearly very legit in his genre film knowledge. I hope he can cross over an inject some life into Hollywood without getting chewed out the way John Woo did.
Oh cool, didn't know Secret Cinema did one for Prometheus, looks like they went all out. I posted about them awhile back, they did an awesome screening of Blade Runner a couple years back.
Also, that girl looks distractingly a lot like Allison Brie.
I don't think it works like that. If a movie is totally shit, no amount of lowered expectations are going to save it. It's more that movies you have no expectations for or have heard nothing about, that are actually pretty decent or watchable, end up being really pleasant surprises, pushing your personal opinion higher than it otherwise would be.
That was my experience watching Pandorum, where I was like "woa, this is actually a pretty interestingly thought out sci-fi story, and the production design is awesome". Objectively, it's still not a very good movie because of the stupid monsters and terrible camera-work, but if you were channel surfing and stumbled onto it without hearing anything beforehand (like I did), you end up being really impressed.
Prometheus would absolutely fit that category I think, especially because of the gorgeous visuals.
Godfather and Godfather 2 are also some of the most easily rewatchable movies. The dialogue and performances are so great in basically every scene, that I can catch any given bit of it on TV and just enjoy watching it for awhile.
I don't get how people can dislike either of those movies, unless you were going in expecting some kind of Christopher Nolan twisty/convoluted storyline. They're good, straightforward stories executed perfectly. And for people who thought Godfather 1 was too conventional, I really recommend trying the 2nd one, because the storyline is pretty intricate in that (I actually was pretty confused the 1st time I watched it), as Corleone basically has to double bluff his way towards figuring out who's trying to kill him.
Ya biggest thing I can suggest is prioritize work/projects above education, people want to see what you've done, they don't particularly care where you went to school. This is always the toughest one starting out when you don't have any real work experience, so I always tell people starting out, do a project, any project. Try to find an unpaid internship, talk to local businesses, look at craigslist. If you can't do that, then do a project yourself, anything to get real work experience up at the top of your resume.
And like Paulou said, strip out any non-relevant bullshit. No "works well with others", no "played 10 years in an orchestra", the only non-work-relevant thing you might include is if you know a foreign language (and I mean "know", not "studied it for a year in high school"), you should include that as some companies might have out-of-country teams working on part/all of a project and might be interested in someone who can coordinate with those teams.
Even with Brave being a dissapointment, I give them credit for trying an original idea again. That being said, I have to concur I really worry about their future at this point. They've never had 3 misses in a row to date, but with Cars 2, this, and Monster's University next year, you really have to wonder if the brand even means anything anymore, especially given the increase in quality on Dreamwork's side (How to Train Your Dragon is very close to Top-Tier Pixar quality in my opinion).
I can't imagine Monster's University is going to be a good upper tier Pixar film. Going the prequel route just seems like such a cash grab and so un-necessary. And the concept itself sounds so much like some lesser Dreamworks movie, or even one of those Direct-To-Video sequels like "Planes". It could easily just be a whole series of Monster versions of College movie tropes, and I just have no interest in that.
Quite Frankly, I don't understand the mentality at all. It's not like Pixar non-sequels have ever done poorly, they've all been hugely profitable. Why not stick to original ideas going forward for awhile, especially given all the shit they got over Cars 2.
Man this summer is turning out to be a tidal wave of dissapointment. I think I've finally reached the point where I look forward much more to movies coming out in Fall and Winter, than in Summer.
Ya, I'd be curious to hear that, cause I'm not seeing "terrible" anywhere near there. It's an excellently made adaptation of not very good or super interesting source material. Zodiac is basically the same movie, but with good source material and none of the weaknesses, so it's maybe a bit disappointing, in that it's like an artist making a not as good cover of a song they've already perfected, but a bad movie it isn't, not by a long-shot.
I've heard it's pretty bad actually (see the Slashfilmcast review), just political violence porn "lets kill all the people who vaguely annoy us", with no real repercussions, emotional depth, or social message.
Verhoeven has been dearly missed from Hollywood. Maybe this will be a gateway into him working more in the US again. God what I wouldn't give for him to make King Conan now with an older Schwarzenegger.
To each his own. My problem was that I just thought that ultimately the protagonist was horribly unlikeable, and came off like a creep and borderline-serial-killer, and the movie didn't seem to know this, and thought he was heroic. I don't buy that she would have any interest in this guy what-soever. Music's great though.
I really need to grab a copy of Stalker and give it a watch, I really liked Solaris. Similarly I'd like to see Andrei Rublev at some point. Tarkovsky requires the proper mindset/environment/block-of-time though, so it's tough.
Also, to Dave - Don't watch The Graduate, unless purely for historical reasons. I'm baffled that that was a huge thing back in the 60s, because man does that one not work at all nowadays, as well as being pretty unpleasant to watch.
Picked up the Keoma/The Grand Duel double-feature blu-ray for 5 bucks. Damned good deal, 2 pretty interesting lesser known Westerns for the price of one.
The Grand Duel - Pretty interesting story for a Western, there's a bit of a Who-dunnit aspect to the story which is a cool twist on the usual formula, though it still gets a bit muddled like a lot of these Westerns tend to get. Lee Van Cleef is awesome as always, and the score is excellent (so obviously it was "borrowed" by Tarantino).
Keoma - Pretty strange and out-there in places Western, though Franco Nero is really awesome and grizzled looking with a sawn-off shotgun. This one is worth seeing for the damned excellent set-piece shootout near the end, the body-count goes so high it started to remind me of John Woo's hong kong flicks, and there's lots of cool slow-motion use. On the down-side, the movie has some really weird choices, including a kinda weak ending, and a really unfortunate soundtrack. The whole movie is scored by kinda grating folk singers who narrate in song what is going on in the story and what the main character is feeling, and boy, that does not work.
Still, if you like Westerns, the double-feature is a damned steal for 5 bucks.
That would be really cool actually. I'm a big fan of the whole war/martial-arts/westerns genres, and it might be cool to get a more analytical perspective of what makes genre movies like this work/not-work.
But maybe I'm crazy, I loved the Hurt Locker and Full Metal Jacket commentaries
This is the only good thing about Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance:
I have to concur that I really fucking hate Neveldine/Taylor, it mystefies me that guys like that can get multi-million dollar projects like this. Not only do they actively not give a shit about telling a story, to the point where they're openly willing to sabotage a scene's story-progression/emotional-impact for stupid cheap gags, but their visual style is just this side of borderline unwatchable. Filming every fucking scene with the camera at ground level pointing up towards the sky gets grating after about 5 minutes, and they proceed to do it through the whole fucking movie.
Hmmm, well it's different at least. Choral part does seem like an odd choice, and overall the lack of a clear spider-man melody kinda bums me out when compared with the first 3, but I think it really needs to be seen in context to judge it one way or the other. I'm a Horner apologist though so my opinion may be kinda invalid on this one regardless.
Slowly filling in my older cinema knowledge. Watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid, and it is indeed an excellent Western. Really sharp script, beautiful cinematography, Newman and Redford kill it. Thematically, it reminds me a lot of the Wild Bunch. In fact, I would say this is in many ways a better, more streamlined version of the Wild Bunch (though Peckinpah can't be beat when it comes to the actual shoot-outs).
