Author Topic: Movies (Read 308719 times)

The Duck · « **Reply #2625 on:** May 12, 2016, 03:04:19 AM »

I burnt out badly on Avengers 2, which was kind of a pointless slog, but Civil War was better ("I was entertained"). It still didn't fully click with me. Part of it is that the disagreement became a lot more personal rather than ideological. It starts out as an ideological clash (with some interesting things built from the previous movies and from what I understand from the comics), but the arguments are pretty poorly articulated from both sides in a handful of scenes and then it's all about vendettas. CK put more thought behind the accords than the movie did, since they're essentially tossed to the wayside. When the big fight comes around, the sides are not drawn because each individual hero has a clearly delineated, character driven reason for fighting on the side that they're fighting on. They literally bring in dudes for no other reason than extra firepower.

Additionally, I just didn't buy that the conflict would result with any permanent or meaningful consequences, in part because the fight has trouble managing tone (it's quippy and ridiculous but they even comment on pulling punches) and because we know Marvel's next slate of movies so we know no one important is going to die. They'll never do this (until maybe the end), but one of these movies might need a Game of Thrones moment to make it seem like there are actual stakes for these conflicts.

The opening action sequence is pretty terrible visually. I do wish they would get a real action choreographer (like, get the dude who did the Raid movies). The airport sequence was done pretty well, but most of the other action sequences were almost completely forgettable.

I guess I'm still waiting for one of these movies to be something other than pretty good. Cap 2 did different things and was good about not sticking to the stock Marvel formula. Black Panther is going to be directed by Ryan Coogler and I hope he does something different. If it's about establishing Wakanda as a place and about the political climate of that nation and the philosophies of a different culture in the context of this weirdass world, that'd be cool as shit. It doesn't need a boring villain or a dumb setpiece fight finale to do something interesting. As for Spiderman, Tom Holland is really good and they'll hopefully skip the origin story but I do hope they'll make something interesting with him.

Also for the love of God just make Cap and Bucky explicitly gay.

Grefter · « **Reply #2626 on:** May 12, 2016, 04:21:13 AM »

Why you gotta be like that duckhead.

Two bisexual men can have a platonic bromance without it being sexual.

Captain K · « **Reply #2627 on:** May 12, 2016, 05:29:13 AM »

Yo Gref we sucking each other's dicks later? No homo.

Grefter · « **Reply #2628 on:** May 12, 2016, 05:39:55 AM »

Chooo chooo.

Shale · « **Reply #2629 on:** May 21, 2016, 10:02:40 PM »

The Nice Guys: Anybody who liked Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, go watch this immediately. It's great. More cartoony than KKBB but very definitely a spiritual successor to it (they're both comedy/noir written and directed by Shane Black, so that's not surprising, but still), with some LA Confidential thrown in around the edges. Plus it's got Russell Crowe fighting Keith David.

Anybody who didn't like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, watch Kiss Kiss Bang Bang again and reflect on how you reached this sorry state.

Hunter Sopko · « **Reply #2630 on:** May 24, 2016, 06:30:02 PM »

http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2016/05/24/civil-war-spider-man-2-and-the-dangers-of-assumed-empathy

Hulk helps me finally put my finger on why I have a waning enthusiasm for the MCU.

Cmdr_King · « **Reply #2631 on:** May 24, 2016, 08:13:28 PM »

Most of Phase 2 definitely has a fun-but-disposable vibe and I don't think I've seen it put into words nearly so well. Also explains why Ant-Man tends to be the most fondly discussed phase 2 movie; it took a miracle to get it up and running, but once they had it the foundation was solid enough to stick with people. It's new.

I find myself liking Civil War more than most of phase 2 and I think it's a weird personal quirk. I've been looking at all the Bucky stuff as... that standing up for the little guy they try to paint as Cap's ideological underpinning. He's a fairly regular guy from a working class (at best) background who got tossed into this horrible nightmare scenario where he's lost all agency and has to participate in atrocities. But dealing with him humanely would be inconvenient for the powers that be, so write him off as a willing terrorist, shoot the shit out of him, and try to pretend he never existed. His lack of personal character arc is something I can gloss over because somehow in my mind he's instead he's... the real world has child soldiers and conscripts to corrupt regimes, the Marvel universe has brainwashed super soldiers, but the basic moral quandary is the same.

At least I guess I haven't seen anyone else quite as hooked on that part of the movie as I was.

Captain K · « **Reply #2632 on:** May 24, 2016, 11:35:57 PM »

I agree with Hulk on some things and not others. He's right about neither Winter Soldier nor this movie making me give a fuck about Bucky. But Hulk wants every movie to have some massive conflict and massive loss and... you don't always need that. Sometimes a movie that just feels good is perfectly okay.

I agree with him that they need to give villains some more screentime. Zemo worked with little screentime in this particular scenario, but I don't want Thanos to just come out and yell "RAWR I EAT BABIES" and get punched.

Grefter · « **Reply #2633 on:** May 24, 2016, 11:38:23 PM »

I don't want that but I also want literally that.

Hunter Sopko · « **Reply #2634 on:** May 24, 2016, 11:44:06 PM »

Quote from: The Daleks on May 24, 2016, 11:35:57 PM

I agree with Hulk on some things and not others. He's right about neither Winter Soldier nor this movie making me give a fuck about Bucky. But Hulk wants every movie to have some massive conflict and massive loss and... you don't always need that. Sometimes a movie that just feels good is perfectly okay.

I think he means more that the movies need to start earning their dramatic moments again. That was my takeaway.

Captain K · « **Reply #2635 on:** May 25, 2016, 12:25:18 AM »

Quote from: Grefter on May 24, 2016, 11:38:23 PM

I don't want that but I also want literally that.

Done. Someone cut me a check.

That may be Amadeus Cho instead of Rick Jones but it doesn't really matter.

Grefter · « **Reply #2636 on:** May 25, 2016, 12:06:36 PM »

I probably would have cut to a Bendis Avengers Drinking Coffee scene for the last panel.

Grefter · « **Reply #2637 on:** June 02, 2016, 02:08:01 PM »

So. X-Men Apocalypse anyone?

I saw it tonight. It was good. Less mind boggling than First Class or Days of Future Past, but that is because it is about as good as those and happened after them.

The movie is okay.

The costuming is amaaaaaaaaaaazing. I love pretty much everyone's outfits except for Psylocke. Mohawk Storm as a teenager. Quicksilver as the same as Quicksilver from Days. Angel as Billy Idol with an 80s post post-punk Bouffant. Literally everything about Nightcrawler. The fact that Jubilee is literally Jubilee (now if only she had lines....).

So good you guys. Expect for the fact that Psylocke is literally Psylocke.

Cmdr_King · « **Reply #2638 on:** June 02, 2016, 06:54:11 PM »

It felt like franchise maintenance to me in a way that Days of Future Past did not. There's some really cool moments but... overall it felt like "oh hey I guess we're far enough in the timeline to introduce new Scott Summers and Jean Gray now". It really felt like all the returning cast except Fassbender were just kinda there for a paycheck. They also didn't do a great job of giving the disaster sequences or deaths much emotional weight, although I guess maybe that was a weakness in DoFP and I didn't pay as much attention since it was also a tactical nuclear nostalgia bomb.

Also a lot of the cool moments could have been a lot better with some more attention to pacing and setting them up more early in the movie. So yeah, just felt like everyone just wanted to get this shipped on time rather than making sure it was the best movie they could make from the material.

Damn if they didn't do a credible job of making Apocalypse himself make some semblance of sense in the movies, even if they really didn't give Oscar Isaac much to do.

Fenrir · « **Reply #2639 on:** June 02, 2016, 07:22:39 PM »

Yeah it completely felt like just another superhero movie to me. The villain was really uninteresting. His posse looked cool at first but as they embraced the dark side they also embraced worse and worse fashion sense.
Fassbender looked absolutely ridiculous with that goofy helmet on. (Probably still less ridiculous than Batman though) Sansa Stark was Sansa Stark. There was the Obligatory Wolverine Cameo.
Sweet dreams sequence was the only interesting part but it came too abruptly to really deliver.

If you like Fassbender you should watch Macbeth.

I also watched the Nice Guys and it was real bad, though I wonder how much of this was because of the movie and how much because of the dub (I normally never watch dubbed movies, but, you know)
It is a buddy cop comedy with Ryan Gosling as Inspector Gadget. The plot is completely inane and the movie is not saved by Gosling's uselessness.
92% on rotten tomatoes holy crap

Jo'ou Ranbu · « **Reply #2640 on:** June 02, 2016, 07:25:51 PM »

Also, since we're talking Apocalypse, my only memories of him came from the '90s cartoon, so I decided to do some reading on his backstory and a few sagas he's been in through wikipedia. Is his overarching plot even half as stupid as wikipedia makes it sound?

Shale · « **Reply #2641 on:** June 02, 2016, 07:36:19 PM »

Probably more stupid. Apocalypse is the ne plus ultra of supervillains who keep getting new power upgrades and secret backstories pulled out of their asses to stay "threatening" despite getting those same asses kicked by the heroes every time.

Jo'ou Ranbu · « **Reply #2642 on:** June 02, 2016, 09:38:58 PM »

Oh. Oh dear god.

Grefter · « **Reply #2643 on:** June 02, 2016, 11:01:25 PM »

I had the cool experience of going with people that know nothing much about X-Men. Sit for the post credits.

Essex Corp.

What's that?

Torn between "Well you see Mister Sinister is like an actual sentient virus that is attempting to systemically construct itself to the perfect body to infest via Science. It is actually a System rather than a who, but that is pretty recent he is kind of otherwise a weird dude that wants Jean and Cyclops to fuck real bad" and

Camp Disco Dracula with a voyeur fetish.

Captain K · « **Reply #2644 on:** June 02, 2016, 11:58:46 PM »

Yeah Apocalypse has always been pretty terrible. He came out of the X-Factor comics which were pointless in general until Peter David took over.

The Duck · « **Reply #2645 on:** June 03, 2016, 12:56:53 AM »

Quote from: Fenrir on June 02, 2016, 07:22:39 PM

I also watched the Nice Guys and it was real bad, though I wonder how much of this was because of the movie and how much because of the dub (I normally never watch dubbed movies, but, you know)
It is a buddy cop comedy with Ryan Gosling as Inspector Gadget. The plot is completely inane and the movie is not saved by Gosling's uselessness.
92% on rotten tomatoes holy crap

I am fairly sure you would like it more with the original line readings, since the comic timing basically makes the movie. Otherwise I agree, Shane Black can write dialogue exchanges and individual moments but it doesn't hold together in a larger sense and the plot is really dumb. I laughed but forgot about most of it as soon as I left.

I think Shane Black has potential to do something really great but I haven't seen it yet.

Fenrir · « **Reply #2646 on:** June 03, 2016, 10:01:17 AM »

Yeah it's the last time I watch a dubbed comedy!

I wonder if the plot being dumb is meant to be a throwback to 80's and 90's buddy cop comedies?
That doesn't really make it good though. The stupidity of the plot is vastly exaggerated even compared to those (Complete coincidences carry the plot constantly, the supposedly badass professional killer with a gun can't handle two 12 years old unharmed girls, there's that homeless mc guffin girl who appears in every scene just to run away and who always wears an impeccable dress and no shoes, etc etc)

Also Kim Basinger has two scenes in this movie and she acts like she's in a srs politics movie and her last scene is completely inappropriate.

Grefter · « **Reply #2647 on:** June 03, 2016, 11:32:16 AM »

Quote from: The Duck on June 03, 2016, 12:56:53 AM

I need to watch Kiss Kiss Bang Bang again.

The Duck · « **Reply #2648 on:** June 03, 2016, 03:29:35 PM »

Quote from: Fenrir on June 03, 2016, 10:01:17 AM

Yeah it's the last time I watch a dubbed comedy!

I wonder if the plot being dumb is meant to be a throwback to 80's and 90's buddy cop comedies?
That doesn't really make it good though. The stupidity of the plot is vastly exaggerated even compared to those (Complete coincidences carry the plot constantly, the supposedly badass professional killer with a gun can't handle two 12 years old unharmed girls, there's that homeless mc guffin girl who appears in every scene just to run away and who always wears an impeccable dress and no shoes, etc etc)

Also Kim Basinger has two scenes in this movie and she acts like she's in a srs politics movie and her last scene is completely inappropriate.

there's a shaggydog quality to the plot and it reminded me of the Big Lebowski occasionally except the meandering nature of that movie was the point. I don't think that's what they were going for in the Nice Guys.

I liked Kiss Kiss Bang Bang well enough but haven't seen it in a while.

Anthony Edward Stark · « **Reply #2649 on:** June 09, 2016, 07:11:06 AM »

Quote from: Captain K on June 02, 2016, 11:58:46 PM

Yeah Apocalypse has always been pretty terrible. He came out of the X-Factor comics which were pointless in general until Peter David took over.

He's an outgrowth of making Magneto an actual character. They introduced Apocalypse because they needed someone who didn't really have an ethos or any goal besides to destroy things. They didn't really think out his powers or anything, so they just said he had the power of "molecule manipulation" which is basically like wishing for infinite wishes. And his backstory is really dumb and he's not interesting in any way.

On the other hand when I was eight I saw the cartoon and his weird fucked up mouth and said to myself "Well he's got a sweet letter A belt buckle and a weird mouth so I guess his name must be Apoco Lips."

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Author Topic: Movies (Read 308719 times)