TV/Movies Megathread

[Ideologue]

I guess I'm not totally surprised it was a box office failure (I think Avatar sucked all the planetary romance dollars out of people for probably ten years, and a $230mm movie has to be preposterously successful to justify itself economically), but the lukewarm critical response just underscores how lame the critical establishment is.  It's way better than, say, Iron Man 3, and is -0.8 times as good as the other competitor for the month of March 2012, The Hunger Games.

[Kleves]

For Ide: http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/07/20/comic-con-godzilla-stomps-back-into-san-diego

I thought this was an interesting interview with the new Godzilla's director (though he's fairly circumspect with details).

[Ideologue]

Thanks, Kleves.

1)Is Gareth Edwards on ludes?

2)the "it's all about the '54 film" theme, "we're trying to take it very seriously" thing is kinda lame.  I dunno.  I like the 54 and Americanized 56 movies.  But maybe it's just me, but the cool part of the Godzilla franchise is the other twenty-odd films.  I just know that this is gonna be photographed in that blue-and-gray style I hate, and they're gonna September 11th all over this thing.  Man of Steel did it as good as it's likely to be done already.  Can't we just get beyond Thunderdome?

3)very nearly an admission that there will be other kaiju.  Ghidorah?  GHIDORAH?  JUST SAY GHIDORAH YOU MONSTER.  Or Gigan.  I like Gigan.  The question is whether it or they will be an important part of the narrative.  I'd like it very, very, very much if the destruction is the result of Godzilla fighting another monster, and that could still fit the tone Edwards seems to be unaccountably obsessed with.  I'm not holding out much hope that the aliens from Planet X are going to altruistically--but really in furtherance of their own nefarious schemes!--offer us Monster Zero to eliminate the Godzilla threat.

4)Counterintuitively, I liked that he liked Pacific Rim.  That means that the prospect is not foreclosed that there will be a fun element in Godzilla 2014.

5)Gareth Edwards says some wise things about handheld footage.  Even if it retreads the cosmic horror aspect, hopefully it's less wobbly than, say, Man of Steel.

6)Text has something about a scorpion kaiju.  Maybe Ebirah?  That's an odd choice.

[Ideologue]

I'm prepping for Getaway at the end of August.  It's my most anticipated movie of the year, at least now that Pacific Rim blew it.

Looks like a really bad Shelby commercial.

Yo:

I mean, let me be realistic. We didn't have $170 million to make our movie, but we went and made a crazy, fast and furious ride that basically starts from moment number one and goes 120 miles an hour until the end of the movie. We really did the stunts in the movie. Nothing you see in that movie is CG. Everything is actually done, which is part of the panel we're doing at Comic-Con tonight, to show some of the behind-the-scenes. We actually did it as sort of a throwback to Bullitt and the classic films because people really said, "Why don't they make movies like that anymore?" As an audience, you can tell the difference if it's CG or if it's real. There are some stakes to it. It's crazy, we killed 130 cars making this movie that are actually in the movie being destroyed as they go through this crazy ride.

This is what I've been waiting to here.  Getaway (2013).  A+

Though I assume he namechecks Bullitt for the name recognition, and it will not be profoundly dull.

I always wanted to see a car driving on a train that was exploding, but actually do it. And we did it in the movie. Literally, they're driving along. The whole movie takes place at night. It starts in the day and it ends in the morning so it's over one night, so we were always shooting through the nights and it was the winter. In Bulgaria, it was minus eight, minus nine Celsius in the winter so you would get black ice pretty much everywhere we were shooting and when you're doing those stunts at 60 miles an hour, where cars are really crashing.

The day we did the train, which was my crazy idea, we had two full trains and the car is driving across the train. Now the actual width of the cars on the train itself are not much wider than the actual width of the car itself. So the element of error for the stunt driver is miniscule. If he goes the wrong way right or left, he's going off the train and it's a real bad accident and wreck because he's going 60. We were salting the train because literally you couldn't even walk across it. I was walking across as we were setting up the shots, and you were slipping. On a metal train, black ice is no fun.

Meanwhile, as he's driving through it, there's gas bombs in these other train cars that were exploding that he's driving through. Literally, I would say he was going 50 and there's another train car exploding. He's driving straight through it with the gas bombs blowing up, riding this thing, covering his windshield and still keeping on. Back to your question, I always wanted to see a car driving across a train that was exploding. I didn't realize how dangerous it really was and how difficult it really was to make that happen. Maybe CG might have been easier in that particular instance but we actually did it.

Jesus Christ.

[CountDeMoney]

This is what I've been waiting to here.

Phail, Ebert.

[Ideologue]

I ain't gonna violate no TBR sanctity or nothing here, but you had a post the other day with with a misuse of "they're."  I LET IT SLIDE.

[CountDeMoney]

LIES

[Ideologue]

They are gotten, aren't they?

[11B4V]

I ain't gonna violate no TBR sanctity or nothing here, but you had a post the other day with with a misuse of "they're."  I LET IT SLIDE.

Have you ever given a movie a "D" of "F"?

[Eddie Teach]

He gave Hunger Games an F. 

[Admiral Yi]

Saw most of the new Bourne flick, the one with the guy from Hurt Locker.  An hour and a half chase scene with some nonsense about genetic blah blah tacked on at the beginning.

[Eddie Teach]

Yeah, definite letdown after the Damon Bournes. Still a watchable enough popcorn flick though.

[Admiral Yi]

The only really enjoyable part of the movie for me was trying to figure out if the chick was Rachal Weisz having a slightly bad day, or if she was an actress who makes a living out of looking a lot like Rachal Weisz.

I still don't which it was.

[Eddie Teach]

Weisz was in it.

[Ideologue]

I ain't gonna violate no TBR sanctity or nothing here, but you had a post the other day with with a misuse of "they're."  I LET IT SLIDE.

Have you ever given a movie a "D" of "F"?

Sure.  Zontar The Thing From Venus got an F; as did Battle Royale II.  Total Recall I believe I watched before I started the grading system, but that would've been a D.  Prometheus would've been on the border between D+ and C, but probably a C for being marginally entertaining to see unfold.

Anyway, I do try to reserve them for truly terrible movies.

And Eddie Teach can roll his eyes all he wants.  Hunger Games made me roll my eyes too.  Into the back of my head.  Right before I swallowed my own tongue.  It's one of the most massive pieces of garbage I have ever seen.