TV/Movies Megathread

[celedhring]

That is true. The first Cap had some nice action though, but Johnston is probably the director with the best action pedigree they got so far.
Another great choice that was, giving $100m+ to the guy that made Rocketeer to make another WWII superhero flick.

I suppose Marvel keeps a tighter control of the expensive bits - biggest part of the action scenes is done in the SFX labs than in the set nowadays, afterall.

[jimmy olsen]

The action in Cap II was much more tight and realistic than most marvel movies. It had real weight.

[Ideologue]

I saw their Captain America movie.  Which aspect of their work on Arrested Development prepared the Russos to direct a $200mm action film?

I guess pretty much the same that prepared Brannagh to direct a 100m+ action film. Or Jon Favreau. Or James Gunn. That's how they work, they give big bad action films to people that nobody would think are in the business of making big bad action films. And they have scored pretty well in doing so. At least you can't deny that there's a pretty solid style and uniqueness to Marvel films, whether they are completely successful or not.

What those guys had was a visual sensibility suited to film, though--certainly Brannagh, who does have some action experience (Frankenstein, though I think I'm the only person who loves that movie, and a big part of the reason is the kineticism of the birth scenes and the destruction of the castle, though the biggest part is Brannagh's balls-out performance).  They didn't have to make a quantum leap into huge-budget spectacle.

The Russos were thrown into the deep end.  I said this in my review, but it's not actually (or, at least, solely) their directing choices--that is, their camera and staging choices--that fuck Cap 2 up.  The only scene that seems radically misconceived is the shootout with Nick Fury that takes its cues from starship battles from The Next Generation with his SUV's failing shield integrity, and then turns into Star Wars when it turns out Sam Jackson kept his lightsaber.  That scene's awful.

But what kills all the action beats isn't the directing--and it certainly isn't the choreography, which is wicked good and involves a lot more real stuntwork than you'd have any right to expect--but the atrocious editing.  They just decided to copy Paul Greengrass (or bad Tony Scott or bad Michael Bay), which is what any hack would do.  And, yeah, it's a taste thing.  I think Greengrass is a hack too--the king of action hacks.  (Scott's not half as spastic as some people make out, and Bay just bores easily, something we can all relate to in regards to the Transformers movies.  That said, I think TF4 will demonstrate whether or not he's really matured.)  And, seriously, how people give a pass to the Russos' work on Cap 2 and deride Marc Forster on Quantum of Solace--which isn't well-edited, but outside of the car chase not as badly--I will never understand.

N.B. there are some TV directors that I think could make that leap, since the gap's closed.  The directors on Hannibal and Breaking Bad are clearly capable of big projects, including action projects, if someone gave them the chance--the final shot of Gus is as good as just about any moment in any movie (other than Gravity) I've seen in my whole life.

And again, you should see the Community paintball eps. You *do* need to be able to shoot action in order to spoof it as well as they did there.

Is it edited spastically without a sense of spatial continuity or the power of iconic imagery?

I suppose Marvel keeps a tighter control of the expensive bits - biggest part of the action scenes is done in the SFX labs than in the set nowadays, afterall.

That was my hypothesis for how Thor 2 came alive visually, suddenly and for the first time, in the final battle.

I think we're not giving "Dutch" Brannagh a fair shake on how he influenced the action scenes in Thor 1, though.  And I really see a lot of differences in the action sequences between Iron Man, Thor, the Avengers, and Cap 2.

Iron Man was competent hackery (Favreau, as noted, isn't an action director) with a few flourishes here and there (I liked the part where he blew up the tank--that was one continuous shot, wasn't it?).  I also remember digging the first Whiplash scene in Iron Man 2.  I think it had slow motion; I might be confusing it with Driven.

Thor is heavily weighted toward much more personalized action, reflecting the personalized conflict--many close-ups, a lot of talking, shots that hold long enough to acknowledge the reticence on the part of both parties' to actually hurt the other, all done with a great utilization of the actors' as actors rather than composited-in props.

The Avengers is practically the opposite: heavily depersonalized, low angle shots that (attempt to) emphasize the scale of the threat; easy-to-follow, businesslike sequences with little emotional weight to them (this itself strikes me as a Whedonism, though ideally he'd punctuate it with sudden high emotion, e.g., in Firefly, when somebody suddenly eats it); and a digitally-stitched long take so that every hero gets a chance to pose and be spectacularly superhuman, even if he has no business participating in the first place (Hawkeye).  Thor 2 seemed to take its cues from Whedon, which is fine.

Iron Man 3's final battle just plain sucks on a conceptual level, being a long and tensionless exercise in waiting for Pepper to get superpowers, so I was pretty checked out and I wasn't noticing the finer points of how it was put together.

And then there's the edited-the-fuck-to-death choreography of Cap 2, which has no precursor in the Marvel films, unless I'm misremembering how the fight between Stark and Stane worked.

[The Larch]

Ide, if you're not getting a paycheck out of this then you're taking these things way too seriously.

[celedhring]

I admit my defeat by wall of text.

[mongers]

'The Great Gatsby' - I liked it, Di Caprio was excellent.

[Ed Anger]

The Longest Day.

Rating: John has a long mustache.

[frunk]

(this itself strikes me as a Whedonism, though ideally he'd punctuate it with sudden high emotion, e.g., in Firefly, when somebody suddenly eats it);

What, did you forget [spoiler]Agent Coulson[/spoiler] (spoilered for those who haven't seen Avengers).

[FunkMonk]

Saw Kramer vs. Kramer for the first time last night. Really, really good movie.

[Ideologue]

I admit my defeat by wall of text.

I wasn't trying to "beat" you.

[Ideologue]

(this itself strikes me as a Whedonism, though ideally he'd punctuate it with sudden high emotion, e.g., in Firefly, when somebody suddenly eats it);

What, did you forget [spoiler]Agent Coulson[/spoiler] (spoilered for those who haven't seen Avengers).

Yes.  I did.  Shit.

[Savonarola]

Thundering Hoofs (1924)

Trouble in the old west as Fred Thomson loves Senorita Ann May; but she is betrothed to villainous William Lowery.  Things look bleak as Thomson is imprisoned in a Mexican jail, Ann is about to be married and Fred's horse is about to be gored in the bullfighting ring; yet somehow true love wins in the end.

Thomson is able to use his considerable athletic ability to good use outrunning the Mexican army, sneaking past Ann's father and stopping runaway stagecoaches; but even so this would be just a cliche b oater were it not for Fred's horse Silver King.  Silver King arranges romantic rendezvous, races to save his jailed master, and apparently buries Fred's father.  The most convincing dramatic scene in the film is his; where he must choose between love and duty.  Short of rolling his own cigarettes there's nothing Silver King can't do.

[Syt]

(this itself strikes me as a Whedonism, though ideally he'd punctuate it with sudden high emotion, e.g., in Firefly, when somebody suddenly eats it);

No major character in Firefly suddenly "eats it". In Serenity, though ...

[Ideologue]

I'm like a leaf on the wind, dude.

[frunk]

No major character in Firefly suddenly "eats it". In Serenity, though ...

The show didn't have enough time.  He usually saves the first big death for the end of the first season.