TV/Movies Megathread

[Kleves]

The Raid: Redemption. Awesome. 

[CountDeMoney]

"And I looked, and behold a trailer: and his name that sat on him was Stupid, and Stupidity followed with him...."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl8WlbSL0AU

[Barrister]

"And I looked, and behold a trailer: and his name that sat on him was Stupid, and Stupidity followed with him...."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl8WlbSL0AU

Indeed - mighty stupid.

[Sophie Scholl]

Love and Other Drugs.  Not a bad flick.  Anne Hathaway being topless all over certainly didn't hurt it either.

[Syt]

"And I looked, and behold a trailer: and his name that sat on him was Stupid, and Stupidity followed with him...."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl8WlbSL0AU

Might be the fun side of stupid, though. I'll probably go watch it, but with little to no expectations.

Also, I have a mancrush on Chris Hemsworth.

[11B4V]

"And I looked, and behold a trailer: and his name that sat on him was Stupid, and Stupidity followed with him...."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl8WlbSL0AU

They're killing Chinks. So what's stupid about it.  I'll watch it just for that.

[Duque de Bragança]

"And I looked, and behold a trailer: and his name that sat on him was Stupid, and Stupidity followed with him...."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl8WlbSL0AU

Might be the fun side of stupid, though. I'll probably go watch it, but with little to no expectations.

My only hope, a decent so-bad-it's-good movie.
Most probably, I'll miss the original one and won't say bad things about it anymore.

[Darth Wagtaros]

"And I looked, and behold a trailer: and his name that sat on him was Stupid, and Stupidity followed with him...."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl8WlbSL0AU

Might be the fun side of stupid, though. I'll probably go watch it, but with little to no expectations.

My only hope, a decent so-bad-it's-good movie.
Most probably, I'll miss the original one and won't say bad things about it anymore.

Kind of like Solarbabies.

[Neil]

The nice thing about that movie is that it legitimizes the killing of American soldiers by the Taliban.

[Ideologue]

The violent proletarian revolution that's supposed to be occurring is less important than the fact it's snowing, and that's a kind of failure.

Aside from the career criminals and the gangs the revolution didn't seem to have any widespread support.

Correct and this makes sense since Bane is just using populist rhetoric as a fig leaf to distract Gotham and the outside world from his master plan to destroy Gotham.

The only revolution happening in Gotham was that of the criminal elite taking the place of the previous elite. There was nothing popular or proletarian about it.

Yeah, and that's what made it come off as limp.  The marketing sold the movie as a story of villains riding a wave of revenge against rich people; the film seemed to be trying to build up to a class war--half of Catwoman's lines are politically radical, Bane was drawing his army from the underclass, rich people were dragged from their houses.  It was pretty promising.

And then, halfway through, it just stops, and it's just about a bomb.  That's weak.

[Neil]

I think that speaks to the intellectual sterility of extremist politics.  You can't tell a good story about penny-ante revolutionaries.

Besides, the bomb was a necessary plot point to explain why the US Army didn't just show up and shoot Bane in his mask.  They could have run a subplot about how the Air Force friendly-firing everybody (the USAF being proverbially incompetent), but that doesn't give Gordon anything to do.

[Ideologue]

Raiders >>>>> Crusade >>> Temple > Skull. 

Nah, they're all good to great.  Skull is the worst, but it's still really decent.

My theory on Skull is that everyone went into it with a bad attitude.  After the Star Wars Prequels, I can't say I really blame them, but I still don't think the film got a truly fair shake.  It has a couple of truly stupid scenes--the fridge isn't that bad in the context of a fucking Indiana Jones movie (known widely for their scientific accuracy and physical plausibility ) but, yeah, it's kinda bad, and I'll concede Mutt swinging through the jungle is retarded.  And, yes, the replacement of practical effects by CGI robs some scenes of immediacy and weight, as it'll do, but some of the higher-level criticisms people levy against the movie, like the idea that Indiana Jones shouldn't be dealing with aliens or shouldn't have a son, aren't really criticisms at all and largely bound up with close-mindedness about what an Indiana Jones movie should be.

I liked it a lot.  I'm buying it with the rest in the collection when it comes out later this month.

***

Speaking of Lucasfilm movies, I got the Star Wars original trilogy on BD and watched it all this weekend.  I hadn't seen it in a while.  I have, however, watched the prequels relatively recently (for the Rifftrax).  It shouldn't surprise me, I guess, but it's like a punch to the face how much better the OT is.  Real sets, better cinematography, better direction, and so much better acting and dialogue and plot it's fucking ridiculous.

That said, of course latterday Lucas can fuck up anything, and he fucked up the end of Return of the Jedi.  You think I'm talking about the Vader "No!" bullshit, and, yeah, that's pointless, but I knew about that, I was prepared for that, and ultimately it's not that terrible.  It's a logical place to shout "No" I guess.  It's not better, but it's fine.  I also knew Hayden Christiansen's ghost was going to appear.

But when did that son of a bitch take out the Yub-Nub song?  Fucking shit!  Replaced it with a shitty instrumental version of Toto's "Africa" I think.  This isn't Dune, assholes!

***
Also:

Duel (1971).  Dennis Weaver is stalked by a faceless trucker in an evil truck.  Afaik, Steven Spielberg's first film.  I think I like it better than Jaws, but I was never a huge fan of Jaws.  Maybe it's because I live in the interior, instead of coastal New England or whatever, so my first thought when confronted with the prospect of a great white shark is "I live in the interior, instead of coastal New England or whatever."  But an evil asshole with a truck is a credible threat.  A

The Thing From Another World (1951).  As good as I remembered.  Father or at least uncle of the alien-based horror film.  I really liked the part where they form a circle around the ship they can see in the ice, revealing its origins to the audience indirectly and creepily; and the part where they risked the lives of like twenty people to do the fire scene.  Holy cats! is evidently a thing people really said back then, and not just the invention of Action Comics writers.  Did they really say "Great guns!" too?  A

Zontar, The Thing From Venus (1966).  Ugh.  A remake of the Roger Corman classic (no shit), It Conquered the World (1956).  John Agar, I'm afraid to say, is competent but is wasted in the role of Peter Graves.  And the guy playing Lee Van Cleef is completely fucking terrible.  I only watched half of this.  It's bad.  Oh, John, how do you go from The Brain From Planet Arous to this? F.

It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955).  A giant octopus attacks ships and, eventually, San Francisco.  Really beautiful Ray Harryhausen special effects, except for one bit near the end, where the submarine tasked with firing an electronically-controlled torpedo into the octopus' brain looks like a toy.  Otherwise, one of the best movies of its kind.  It has Ruth from This Island Earth in it, and she's pretty cool here, as a proto-feminist action heroine.  Fun fact from the IMDB: male lead Kenneth Tobey, who was also the male lead in The Thing From Another World, and effectively the same character, was almost a lawyer, but he dodged a bullet and, much like Nikki Rhodes a half century later, made neat movies instead.  B+

[CountDeMoney]

Hey Ide, you and a couple others here enjoy taking in a good, old fashioned Japanese monster movie from time to time;  ever see the Daimajin Trilogy?

[Ideologue]

I think that speaks to the intellectual sterility of extremist politics.  You can't tell a good story about penny-ante revolutionaries.

Besides, the bomb was a necessary plot point to explain why the US Army didn't just show up and shoot Bane in his mask.  They could have run a subplot about how the Air Force friendly-firing everybody (the USAF being proverbially incompetent), but that doesn't give Gordon anything to do.

I should add that "It's just about a bomb, but it has all the pomp and pretense of a film that isn't the 21st century version of a Republic serial."

Actually, that's the structural weakness in all the NolanBat movies.  I'm not surprised, just disappointed.  I'm glad he can move on to other things.  I'm also glad he's not actually doing the new Superman franchise.  He may make successful superhero movies, even enjoyable ones, but they've all left a bitter taste in my mouth.

I forget if I ever mentioned that I really liked Tom Hardy's Bane.  If I didn't, I meant to.  All that stuff, the acting, the voice, is great.  The motivation... eh. : /

[Ideologue]

Hey Ide, you and a couple others here enjoy taking in a good, old fashioned Japanese monster movie from time to time;  ever see the Daimajin Trilogy?

I have not.  Apparently takes place in the past (I mean like the 19th century, not the 1960s)?