I think Teague has way more of a point than Emerson ever did in his essay for what it's worth. In the age of terrible action movie staging that we live in, he goes and picks one of the only director's who still shoots action intelligibly and in long takes to make his point about bad editing/camerawork. Pick Quantum of Solace or The A-Team, or most Michael Bay movies.

^ Seconded. I'm really happy that Reznor won the oscar for best score, there's so many interesting musical ideas being explored (though I will say a part of me still wishes How to Train Your Dragon won it, because that is a classic John Williams level adventure movie score).

Oh cool, that's a good selection. Tropic Thunder I think could've been great but is waaay too broad for my taste, if someone took that premise and made a more low-key comedy out of it I think it could've been amazing, though Downey Jr is pretty brilliant in it.

Social Network is truly excellent, and especially as someone in the software field, I can tell you that it not only  nails all the technical details of programming (down to proper linux commands and server architecture) in a way I never see in movies, but also captures the whole general "vibe" of sitting around in college coding and working on startup ideas (complete with whiteboard diagrams, being "plugged in" and coding for hours, the late night drinking).

Speaking of enjoyably bad Van Damme movies, I feel the need to reiterate that you guys should rent Universal Soldier: Regeneration. You think its going to be this shitty DTV movie, but you put it on and its got this gritty, serious tone, and a really cool John Carpenter sounding score, and before you know it Van Damme is kicking ass in extended Children of Men style long-takes. I can't reiterate enough how much of a hidden gem this is (despite how it looks from the trailer).

Looking into it, turns out the cinematographer is Peter Hyams (Outland, 2010), and the director is his son, which might explain why everyone was actually trying to make a good movie on this one.

I hadn't seen this, so I'm really glad DIF got me to check it out. I think this is an excellent movie, I just love the aesthetic and the low-key 70s vibe through the whole thing. I put this up with The Thing as an example of horror movies done right.

"See that over there, that was your Dad's old light-cycle, still the fastest thing on the grid"

Next scene

Sam gives it away to a random homeless guy and its never seen or used again

I'm just saying, based purely off the movie, it feels like a giant prologue to a much more interesting sequel. Its not like Fellowship of the Ring, which has an interesting story in its own right while also setting lots of future things in motion. This is a case where I think it would have benefited from combining two books into one, which would also help keep our minds off all the plausibility issues with the story. Obviously this doesn't make sense for every series out there, but I think it makes sense here.

And regarding Terra Nova.......jesus don't get me started on that piece of crap. Talk about having protagonists you want to see eaten as soon as possible.

I disagree, and I personally really dislike the trend of making movies that "just lead up to the really good part" so we can have a great sequel someday maybe. There's no reason you can't use the story as a jumping off point and just make something more cinematic and interesting, or just find a different book to adapt. This is one reason I really like James Cameron, he always delivers the epic climax instead of hinting at it for future sequels. If anyone else made Avatar, it would end just before the big battle, with a big "to be continued style ending", but he'll go and make a 3 hour movie and give the audience what it wants to see (don't get me wrong, I think it's his weakest film, but it at least tells a complete story).

Trey, I think the ultimate goal should be a middle-ground. I definitely don't want 100,000 dollar budget features to be the only thing that comes out, but there's also no fucking reason for movies to cost 200 million. I would argue 20-40 million dollar features are the sweet spot, and unfortunately that's the exact area that's pretty much died out. This is also a reason why everything is gutless and PG-13-ified now, with movies costing 100 mil+, studios have to appeal to the broadest possible demographic, so they'll force Die Hard and Alien movies to be fucking PG-13, which is insane. This particularly pisses me off, because you look at a movie like Aliens, which was made for 18 million. Even with inflation, that's at most 40 million in today's dollars, and yet its so much bigger in terms of scope and action than most blockbusters made today. Almost all of the beloved movies from the last 30-40 years fall into this category, and I think its deeply wrong that budgets have skyrocketed the way they have. This is what we need to get back to, the mid-budgeted, R-rated genre movie. When the bubble bursts, my hope is that we'll get 5 robocops, aliens, or district 9s instead of another one of these goddamn Transformers movies.

Trey, I just want you to know I was having a depressing evening and you just completely cheered me up.

I dunno, I just can't get invested in a movie that's trying to be so goofy all the time. Which is weird, because I love the Evil Dead movies, so I'm not really sure what's different about something like Army of Darkness vs Planet Terror, and why I can love one and dislike the other. I love individual bits of Planet Terror, like the hospital knife attack sequence and the running over zombies with a big-rig, but I can't help but think "man, I wish these sequences were in a movie that was taking itself more seriously so I could care about these characters"