You wouldn't hold Before Midnight to a higher standard than White House Down? I mean, I get where you're coming from, but we have to draw a line.

Honestly, I would.

Now I'm not talking like, they both need to be cinematic expressions of the inner most thoughts and desires of the repressed subconscious mind here. But I'm not going to give a movie a free pass on not even trying to include a story or make sense, or insert X quality here, because it's a movie that has a release date between June and September. That's not how this works.

A bad movie is a bad movie. And you can like it if you want, I don't care, but at least call it what it is and not try to put some thin veiled smoke screen over top of it to try to excuse yourself.

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2013-07-01 01:09:42)

Man I could not have cared less at that moment. I SHOULDVE been engaged. I wanted to be. But man was I bored.

The only time I remember really having that "awesome" feeling in the entire movie was he nails the guy and starts punching the shit out of him - "Dont you dare touch my mother!" (or something of that sort) - only moment where I kinda got that chill. and its because we dont need ANY sort of story to understand that feeling of someone threatening your mom. It's an immediate human understanding even for those who hate their parents. So they COULDNT screw it up. I will say that being someone who was never really a "punch em up" kind of hero it was just a fun little moment to see him go all Mike Tyson.

I agree with you Doc - but there's a point to be made that some "summer popcorn" movies are still expected to be something more than that. When you have a character as ingrained in our society and hearts as Superman - the "fun dumb movie" will never suffice.

Last edited by Jake Lloyd (2013-07-01 05:19:39)

You are misunderstanding me, the standard that I am holding all movies to is not that they "Be great movies", the standard I hold all movies to is, "They at least tried."

And if they tried and failed, then it's a bad movie (Alright, that's a simplification, but generally, if the core of the movie doesn't work, the rest is just flash), if it has a solid core structure that works and is engaging, good! That's what we (I) want and need.

The problem is that these "Everything blows up and the hot chick kisses the guy so-called-movies are becoming...whats the word I'm looking for...blase, not really...but, common place. When you go to theater and see one of these you are greeted with "Well, what did you expect?" not, "WTF was that, they didn't even try to actually to make it good." There is not even an expectation of good story anymore.

Is it really THAT insane of me to think that every movie should at least...TRY?!?

And if you really insist that it is, can we please come up with something else to call these things...like action-porn or explositits or something. Cause then yes, if I go to the theater and ask to see the new Explositits By Michael Bay, then I know exactly what I paying for, and you can berate me for complaining it doesn't have a story.

In the meantime I'm still going to keep believing that a movie should at least bother to try a little bit, and that this idea we have that it's okay to hand wave it away when it doesn't is absolutely nuts.

EDIT: Or, let me try putting it this way.

I do have a bar that I will (AM trying to at least) judge all movies by. This paticular bar is set so low on the high jump stand, it's basically touching the mat, if the runner just bunny hops a little bit, they'll clear it.

That's literally all I ask, as the bare minimum for every movie I watch. Just that little jump of actually putting in some effort to tell a cohesive, structurally sound, maybe even emotionally cogent story underneath everything else. (And as the guys have said several times through the years, it doesn't need to be revolutionary or profound, it can be lifted from somewhere else wholesale for all I care. Note: This is why I don't seethe with anger at Avatar anymore, it might be lifted from somewhere, but at least it's there and it works.)

But when I hear someone say "Just turn your brain off an enjoy it." or "What did you expect from a summer movie?" when I try to say I didn't like something because it didn't even try to make that basic bunny hop of a jump over the bar, all I see is you walking up to high jump pad, looking at the bar and going, "Why do we even need this here? Let's just get rid of it and bounce on the mat."

Which, yeah sure, that's fun too, but I think we're kinda missing the point of why we all started putting the bar there in the first place now.

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2013-07-01 07:19:57)

http://hollywoodandswine.com/al-qaeda-u … ing-video/

INCEPTION was a July release.   Summer and fun, yes.  Dumb, not particularly.   

Unfortunately, there just aren't a lot of similar examples in recent years.

EDIT:  The Dumb Summer Fun movie has been around as long as kids have had summer off from school. 

However, it used to mean movies like this:

I'd classify This is The End as one of this year's Dumb Summer Fun movies.  Probably The Heat as well. 

Meanwhile, Star Trek Into Darkness is just a dumb movie that came out in the summer.  The problem is that it was actually trying to be smart.

I think it is smarter than it is given credit for, but that is just me

Yeah, but you liked Die Hard 5, so.......

Yes but you claim Star Trek Into Darkness is smart. Which it is not.

Last edited by Jimmy B (2013-07-06 14:11:21)

Ha. I don't even see where it is smart in places

Pfffft, been there, done that