TV/Movies Megathread

[Eddie Teach]

Moonstruck. Super cheesy, one of those "so bad it's good" movies. Kinda surprising considering it won Oscars.

[Admiral Yi]

I thought Moonstruck was OK when I saw it.  If nothing else, nice to see Cher with some carbon-based matter still on her face.

[The Brain]

I thought Moonstruck was OK when I saw it.  If nothing else, nice to see Cher with some carbon-based matter still on her face.

OK Ide.

[CountDeMoney]

Moonstruck. Super cheesy, one of those "so bad it's good" movies. Kinda surprising considering it won Oscars.

I saw it in high school when it was in theaters.  The only thing I remember about it was getting laid afterwards.

[Eddie Teach]

Were you dating a 30-something widow at the time?

[mongers]

'Michael Clayton' - Good, nice concluding resolution scene. A solid A+

[katmai]

Okay English Ide

[mongers]

Okay English Ide

Hey that was my best shot, longest review I'll ever write.   

[CountDeMoney]

Okay English Ide

Michael Clayton is an A+, so don't give him any shit, shitburger. 

[katmai]

Okay English Ide

Michael Clayton is an A+, so don't give him any shit, shitburger.

It is a good film yes.

[Sophie Scholl]

Turn.

It's a story about the first american spy network, well, the first american spy from what I see.  The colonial army doesn't want to hear anything about spies so far, but I'm guessing they change their mind, otherwise, there'd be no series

Haven't finished the episode yet.  But Roger's Rangers with a scottish accent?  The guy was an american frontiersman from what I know, the Loyalist's equivalent of Daniel Boone.   And the British seem just as bad as the nazis, with the colonials, so far, being portrayed as noble heroes.  Meh.  The Patriot meets Braveheart?  Will see tonight.

Bleh.  I was afraid of that.  I'd love a series or a movie from the Loyalist perspective, or at the least a balanced perspective.

[Ideologue]

Iron Man 2 5th best? 

Above both Cap movies?

Sure.  Iron Man 2 comes together, Cap 1 falls apart, Cap 2 is a tepid and poorly shot exercise in doing obvious things.

Iron Man 2 comes together about as well as your ideology. It's a bloated mess of a movie in which nothing of import happens.

Sam Rockwell happens.  Whiplash happens.  It's pointless, but it's fun.

Cap 2 is shot brilliantly, it's not its fault that your inner ear canals are as narrow as that of the ancestral ape that spawned the hominids. If the tiny amount of shaking used in this movie rendered you unable to comprehend the beauty of the action scenes therein then one shudders to think what you thought of the Bourne trilogy. The fight scenes in this movie blow any of Thor's out of the water and are the best in MCU. It's not just the fight choreography, although it's excellent, it's that Cap is fighting real people instead of green screen illusions which lend the fights real weight.

OK, like I said, I should've said "cut."  The individual shots, such as they are, are often quite good (I even mention that in my review).  However, it is edited nearly as badly as the car chases in Getaway.  To quote myself, it's edited the fuck to death.

Which actually suggests that what looks like excellent choreography--and I concede it looks like it--wasn't.  But let's assume it was; that makes it worse.

I'm assuming you've seen The Raid?  I just watched it.  Or Old Boy.  "Day and night" doesn't do it justice; the contrast could not be starker than between the heart of the sun and intergalactic space.  And it's not just that.  It's also awfully derivative.

I cannot be the only one who saw that elevator fight and, while entertained by it, knew deep in my heart it was a pale shadow of the nearly identical, but well-cut scenes from Drive or--especially--New World.  The broad street shootouts are a sort of mash-up between Heat and The Matrix Reloaded.

Riffing isn't bad, of course, but Cap 2 doesn't even rival its influences.

Obvious? Sure the movie follows comic book conventions, but all of Marvel's movies do.

Disagree.  Thor 2 followed Marvel convention--and still held surprises (even if it botched them).  There are literally no surprises in Cap 2 except for the shocking degree of lazy writing.  Nick Fury can't get out of a shootout?  Tech tech.  Robert Redford has the upper hand?  Tech tech.  [spoiler]Nick Fury needs to pretend to be dead?  Go to the Apothecary and get some tech tech (and not even Life Model Decoy).[/spoiler]  Was this written by Stephen McFeely and Chris Markus or Brannon Braga and Rick Berman?

It wants to be a conspiracy thriller.  Where are the thrills, let alone spills and chills?

Hell, The Raid is actually a better conspiracy thriller.  That probably shouldn't be the case.

The Winter Soldier does it in a way that is more grounded than most however, making it more realistic and visceral by harkening back to the spy thrillers of the 70s. And unlike Iron Man 2, the events in the movie actually matter. [spoiler]SHIELD is disbanded and it's secrets are dumped on the internet. Nick Fury is on the run! Hydra is revealed to have infiltrated the government to a staggering extent and is behind who knows how much of government/SHIELD policy over the last few decades. They were behind the killing of Howard Stark, and Stane was almost certainly a member. The destruction of SHIELD will surely be the catalyst for building Ultron.[/spoiler] There will be vast repercussions to these events in the TV shows and future movies

And that's well and good.  I'm not saying it was a piece of crap.

On the other hand, you don't think it hollows out its own themes when the fact is, [spoiler]the gray area represented by SHIELD was never the issue, but rather that they failed to spy hard enough to prevent HYDRA from overtaking them?[/spoiler]

Also, you're blind if you don't think this movie was about The Winter Soldier. But the winter soldier is not Bucky,

Oh come on.

it's Captain America, for no sunshine patriot is he who will in this crisis shrink away from the service of his country. Nor will he shrink from telling the Truth about the crimes carried out by his government.

I am familiar with the two Winter Soldier investigations (presumably so was Brubaker, and thought it would be a fun double entendre or something).  And that's great.

But I'm just as if not more interested in Steve Rogers as I am what he represents.  He's a Goddamned goldmine--a fallow goldmine--of a character.  There's so much more about him that's interesting than "the man from the 1940s doesn't like spying" that gets left on the table.  There's also a lot more interesting about his relationship with Bucky Barnes that taking a shot from his robot arm.

I mean, there's still Cap 3.  It's not like I've turned on the whole concept of Marvel movies.  Every franchise has got its ups and downs.

[Ideologue]

Anyway, The Raid (2012).  Holy shit is this what I'm talking about when I say "good action."  Dredd, oh Dredd... you're still prettier.  (Tim, in case you don't hate my guts now, I very much wanted to see this first before doing a formal review of Dredd.  And yes, they really are about 80% exactly the same movie.)  Fun fact: it has shaky cam on occasion, uses it well (mostly).  Takes during the fight scenes--about eighty minutes of this hundred minute movie--are usually around ten-twelve seconds, and often even longer, even with intense super-karate, gun-firing and knife-burying action.

Raid 2's out this weekend iirc.  Fuck yeah, that's entertainment.

A+

[CountDeMoney]

I'd love a series or a movie from the Loyalist perspective, or at the least a balanced perspective.

Fuck that.  What are you, some kind of Benedict Arnold?

[Scipio]

I'd love a series or a movie from the Loyalist perspective, or at the least a balanced perspective.

Fuck that.  What are you, some kind of Benedict Arnold?

It exists. It's called John Adams.