I don't see the fact character arcs stopped as a totally bad thing, but maybe having them stop in the middle of the film and not in an interesting place isn't a good idea Ideally they'd have gone into the first film thinking about a franchise and brought the characters in that one to a nice state at the end from which they could go into the next movies without having to worry about much baggage.

What Switch said.

I actually watched the 2nd Pirates before the first. One of my friends dragged me to the theater.
At the end, I didn't understand who Barbossa was or why he was important. I didn't see the 1st until several months later.

Thanks for two fun commentaries on one-and-a-half good films!

that Keith Richards bit needs to be in the anniversary mash-up Ryan!

I'm curious, aside from the ending "twist" not having any impact, did the movie make sense to you? Could you engage with the characters and story? We were comparing it to the first, how was it for you going in cold?

And how did it affect your viewing of the first?

Aw, no. I like Zombieland

(haven't seen Mystery Men in years)

Too late.

It has kinda felt like a running theme of late.

Edit: This one is more targeted to specific panelists than the show as a whole, but I've been noticing a lot of "we hate what you love, now tell let us tell you why you're wrong."

But that one might just be me.

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2011-05-05 23:49:44)

I concur, the show needs to go back to the good ol' days of Fig bashing.

...That would be a great euphemism.

Mystery men. Holy fuckberries I love that film.

As long as they're actually good reasons, I don't much care if we do. I'd rather that than bad reasons for liking everything.

But I'm gonna have to disagree with the idea that this is becoming a running theme. Of the ten most recent posted commentaries (not including the anniversary show), fully 8 of them are positive, 3 of them are full-on lovefests, and one of the positive ones is even gawdam TWILIGHT.

Of the recordings we've done since then that I can recall, we were positive about WATERWORLD, PITCH BLACK, and PIRATES 1, and negative toward CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK and PIRATES 2, but negative is not the minority opinion on those.

So really, what we're talking about here is SCOTT PILGRIM, SPIDER-MAN 2, and to a lesser extent perhaps HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE. Before that I think you'd have to go clear back to PAN'S LABYRINTH to find a commentary that goes negatively against the grain, and we've had quite a few episodes where we've gone against the grain to give a positive view on movies most people have negative feelings toward.

It's not like we collude together just to be contrarian, we show up and give our honest opinions and try to articulate why we hold those opinions. You'll recall on both PILGRIM and SPIDER-MAN 2 we were in fact surprised to discover a lack of positive opinions on the panel.

The easy answer to the problem of DiF occasionally not liking the movies you do is to stop liking bad movies.

I will say that I recall loving MYSTERY MEN (but I said that about SPIDER-MAN 2 before revisiting it, so), and I haven't seen ZOMBIELAND but I loved the script and the reviews are overwhelmingly positive, so I've got a good feeling about it.

While we're on the subject, pre-emptive warning: if you don't want to fall in love with movies we don't speak well of, I don't recommend developing feelings for THOR.

It may be the accidental unanimous dislike that makes them stick out so much. For both the films mentioned above you could just as easily had a split viewpoint if different DIF regulars had been free that day. You guys have enough on your plate with regard to scheduling and such without taking that kind of thing into account, but maybe eventually it could be a tie breaker when you have more then 4 of you available.

Or what, we'll get Thor at you?