What about the original nightmare on elm street?

^
This. Any film just as long as Eddie and Mike get to talk about movie fighting again. Even if it's a film with bad movie fighting. Also, I'm always holding out hope for a comm for Kickboxer or Bloodsport!

Although it was recently released, how about Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?

I was literally thinking just this morning how (Fincher's) GWDT is an example of -- objectively -- a brilliantly crafted movie which -- subjectively -- I don't much care for at all. I might still pick it up on Blu-Ray for the BTS content but I don't expect I'll ever actually feel the need to watch the film itself again. Though to be fair to Fincher, I think it's more that I don't find GWDT compelling in any medium (didn't see what the fuss was about when I read the book, either).

I would hope, then, that his next movie is one no sane studio would have greenlit without the bribe of GWDT.

You couldn't at least wait until we were on the next page?

And I, again, have to concur

Last edited by Jimmy B (2012-04-04 20:20:51)

Are you talking about in a cinematic context or just in general?  GIve me one other parameter to guide the conversation.

Fight sequences and shooting fights would be a cool subject.

^^This. All of this^^

I think it'd be awesome to get Eddie on a commentary about The Raid when that hits video. That's a text-book perfect example of fight choreography, staging (continuity of cuts/motion, movement of camera to accentuate impact while keeping the geography and fighting clear), and action-movie pacing. I can't think of a better movie to have all those discussions on.

As mentioned above I'd like to hear your thoughts in a commentary for something like Warrior or Bloodsport, where there's both an opportunity to discuss the principles of good and bad choreography as well as multiple martial art styles and how you personally feel about the training, discipline, philosophy and merits of each. Granted there's a bit of this already on the Crouching Monkey Hidden Crane and Karate Kid commentaries but more can't hurt, especially for arts such as panchak silat which you don't usually hear that much about.

Definitely choreography, as both you and Anthony agreed that Karate Kid didn't have very good choreography but I don't recall you elaborating very much on the specifics.

Personally speaking, the choreography I find the most appealling is combinations of blocks. Two dudes hitting each other is kinda boring. And one dude hitting another dude is really boring. But when you have two equally matched guys who are throwing all sorts of combinations at each other and nothing's going through, and it's getting faster and more elaborate and keeps going on and on, that just's cool. It's why some of the late 70s and 80s Kung fu films are so darn great, where you could have Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung in this complicated dance, sometimes up to 10 seconds of intense action before anyone actually gets hit. It's the highest form of 'movie fighting'. For the longest time, Western movies were the opposite. It wasn't so much about skill and speed but power, the hero need only have a single wide punch and their opponent would be down - which would very rarely be blocked or evaded.

Last edited by redxavier (2012-04-05 10:39:48)