Re-watched Cloverfield tonight in preparation for Godzilla, and I've walked back on it big-time. The idea is still cool I suppose, but I'm utterly over the found-footage aesthetic. All it does is distance you from the action and remind you that you're watching something fake. I think a story like this could work if it was shot in the vein of something like Gravity, but as is, it just throws the movie off-balance (any time there's a CG effects shot embedded into the footage, it jumps out at you because it clashes with the aesthetic).

On top of that, it really jumped out at me how un-interesting this group of people is and how shallow the characterization is. If you're not going to focus on the spectacle, you should take that opportunity to make me care about these bystanders, and it never really does. Doesn't help that their objective is incredibly stupid, no way these guys would tag along with Rob into the middle of a warzone, especially Marlena who barely knows them.

I think the more you watch movies, the more your appreciation of Nolan declines. Not that he's bad or anything, but I think post-Dark-Knight, he became this go-to "great" filmmaker for 20 year-olds who don't watch a lot of movies. I admire a lot about him and his approach, particularly when it comes to using old-school practical effects whenever possible (from a technical standpoint he's one of the absolute best in the business), but on re-watch, most of his movies suffer from being ridiculously plot-driven and hollow. 

We've replaced an appreciation for complexity of character and emotion with a complexity of plot mechanics, and I think this is a major problem with movies today in general, and Nolan's work in particular.

Biggest ones I can think of:

Inception is one of the best 1st time viewing experiences I've ever had, but it definitely dropped a notch for me on subsequent viewings when I was really able to pick apart the logic and structure.

Star Wars original trilogy have definitely dropped down a lot for me as I've grown up (especially Jedi, which is largely terrible to be honest), while the Star Trek original 6 films have grown a lot in my estimation.

Others have mentioned Blade Runner, and I strongly think that's a movie that demands multiple viewings. I remember seeing some of it on cable as a kid and thinking it was terrible, and now it's easily in my top 10-20 favorites. The older you get, the more the underlying themes resonate, and every time I notice some new details in the atmosphere and world-building.

I also for the longest time thought Aliens was better than Alien, and I think I've finally come to the point where I've flipped on the two and enjoy the ominous dread and atmosphere more than the all-out-action of Cameron's film.

Fantastic Mr Fox was the movie that finally turned me around on Wes Anderson and made me fall in love with his style. It's one of the best animated movies in years

Ya, only problem is none of them will be "genuinely good". Lets be honest here, it's a stupid fucking genre targeted at 12 year old boys. They reach for "mildly diverting but meaningless" and that's as high as they're gonna hit. Even something like Dark Knight, which strives for a certain degree of legitimacy and partially gets there, is held back by its comic-book elements and would work better as a pure crime-drama. We've gotten to the point where acclaimed directors and writers are forced to try to smuggle in bits of their themes and personality into these superhero frameworks because it's the only way they can get a movie funded anymore.

I'm not too torn up about Transcendence, because it's apparently garbage, and on top of that blatantly misrepresents my field of study, but I'd rather they make 5 of those and hit 1 out of the park than 5 marvel movies, 3 of which are mildly decent but utterly forgettable.

You weren't kidding, if you ignore the score/acting and focus on just the stunt driving and the shots they're getting, that's a more impressive action sequence than most stuff I've seen out of hollywood in recent years.
I'd love to see someone re-score that with music from Ronin or something and see how it plays

EDIT: I was bored so I did this as an experiment. If you turn the latter down to about 15% it works: http://youtubedoubler.com/?video1=http% … uthorName=

I think the difference is between playing a sport and watching a sport. I completely understand the appeal of the former and how beneficial that can be. Just watching however, while it can be kinda entertaining in a primal way, provides no deeper meaning in my opinion.

The level of casual brutality does bother me a lot though. It's not the sarcastic "fun" ultraviolence of a Verhoeven movie or Kill Bill, it's playing everything dead serious, but getting extremely detailed with people's heads getting caved in, people getting carved up, mutilated, burned, etc.

John Woo's HK flicks were really violent too, but they go for a certain operatic over-the-top approach that works, where the violence feels in service of the heightened story of the characters. These Raid movies feel like they want to play in a "gritty" Paul Greengrassy universe, but then within that tone they still push the brutality up at 11.

Especially in this sequel, Rama is flat out a psychopathic killing machine, but the movie seems to think this is alright and doesn't really acknowledge it. Why am I rooting for this guy? In the 1st movie it works because he's established as kind of the nice-guy cop in a bad spot, so you want to see him make it out alive.
In this, he's deliberately putting himself in these situations for reasons that are not very well established, and going out of his way to murder people in extremely horrific ways, and the story just moves along like it's just another action scene.

And at the end of the day, it does all feel very pointless and hollow, and at 2.5 hours it really wears you down.

What's beyond debate in my opinion is that every big-budget action director in Hollywood needs to be forced to watch Raid 2 and learn how to shoot action scenes properly.

Also, the crazy shot you talked about is even crazier than you think. There's a camera operator inside the 2nd car disguised as a car seat, and the shot involves about 2 different hand-offs, with 1 of the dps lying down next to the underside of the moving car. You can see them doing the shot here at 1:50 :

Very hard to pick specific ones out at this point with so much to choose from.

That being said, the novelty of the Trey behind-the-scenes episodes is probably the most fun, with The Abyss being my personal favorite that I come back to a lot.

Aside from that, any of the intermissions about hollywood and filmmaking. Setiquette is amazing, the screenwriting one, the "don't move to LA" episode.

I still maintain the sitcom version pitched on the show would make an outstanding HBO half-hour series.
It'd be a 90s period piece