JFC.
Well, fortunately the adult me knows people die from the shock waaaayyyy before most of the heinous shit even occurs.
Their faith was strong, you heathen!
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Matrix 4 scheduled to be released end of 2021, maybe they can retroactively save the so-so ending of the series.
One of my favorite movie scenes of all time:
I saw Dragged Across Concrete the other day. Not sure I’d recommend it to everyone as it seems to be a love it or hate it kind of deal, but I enjoyed it despite its various flaws and I think the villains are very memorable. It’s certainly not the standard Hollywood formula by any means.
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Never heard of this movie. Is it worth watching?
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Oops wrong thread lol.
Thanks. Gonna check it out. Can’t find anything interesting to watch these days. And Jennifer Carpenter’s in it. I have no idea why I find her such a turn on given her looks.
I’m skeptical after what they’ve done after the Matrix movies. Jupiter Ascending was so horrible it looked like a parody like Spaceballs. I would have more confidence if they gave it to someone with good credentials and not the original filmmakers.
Watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind again tonight at a drive-in. I watched it way back when it came out on DVD, but I was hammered. Interesting movie. Good cast. Not many movies that I really like when NONE of the characters are even remotely likable. 8/10
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Kirsten Dunst was pretty cute.
Excellent boobs. So very perky.
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Wag The Dog (1997)
Still holds up today as one of the best political satires ever made with hilarious yet thought provoking dialogue written by David Mamet the way only David Mamet can because he’s David Fucking Mamet, and directed by the criminally underrated Barry Levinson.
Yes, you’re going to have to suspend a sizable amount of disbelief but it’s a wonderfully entertaining experience with a great payoff as a whole if you just let it take you along for the ride…
…oops, I mean spin. 8.5/10
Speaking of underrated directors, I also rewatched 3/4 of The Count of Monte Cristo (2002) by Kevin Reynolds(Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves).
I’ve always loved this movie because it feels like one of those old school swash buckling movies that focused on characters and storytelling, just updated for a modern audience with regards to settings, attention to detail and cinematic realism(to an extent).
The latter is one of it’s strong points since Kevin Reynolds is one of the few directors able to pull something like this off effectively without having to resort to self aware bits of comedy just to remind the audience they are actually required to suspend disbelief.
Jesus Christ, dudes. We know when we’re watching a fucking a popcorn period action flick. You don’t have to implicitly tell us weird shit can happen and ask for our permission when introducing over-the-top characters and taking certain liberties with historical events. We’re not that stupid.
And this movie is a hell of a lot smarter and delivers way more than a standard popcorn flick. In fact, it’d be pretty fucking awesome but for the following:
It’s flaws also stem from it’s updating for a modern audience because of the faster pacing, leading to abrupt changes in tone with the later part of the movie feeling rushed, with events not given enough time to escalate to build up to a satisfying climax and payoff.
I, however, blame the producers for this since it’s obvious several unrequired cuts were made to keep it’s running time lower and to maintain its pace.
7.5/10
So, yeah, I’d love to see more movies from people like Barry Levinson, Kevin Reynolds and Cameron Crowe provided they’re given ample budgets, full creative freedom and complete say in the final cut.
And quit with the shit like crying for the “Snyder Cut” from hacks like Zack Snyder. And if there’s anyone you really want to keep locked out of the editing room, it’s fuckheads like the dude who made the Blade Runner sequel.
Fuck, I love this movie. I first watched it as a young teen, and even then I was blown away by it.
Think I’m gonna watch it this weekend.
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I fucking love that movie, grossly underrated. When swashbuckling movies weren’t dumb, self concious and ironic.
Agree, but the book itself is pretty drawn out - there was a French miniseries with Gerard Depardieu from the late 90ies that omitted a lot of superfluous parts but still ended up with the running time of almost seven hours.
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Well, the thing is I never read the book but the first half of the move had me totally hooked to the screen, The thing is during the second half, it felt completely rushed and the climax just happened without any real build up to it. But boy, was it well executed action wise. I was expecting some kind of 4th act like The Untouchables or the first 2 Terminator movies but that didn’t happen.
What I really appreciated were brief scenes like the dude sleeping on the floor beside his bigass bed even after he was rich cos he had gotten so used to sleeping on concrete during his incarceration. I don’t know if that was in the book or inspired by Jackie Chan, but even small things like this add so much to character.
I don’t even care if they’re part comedies like some of the best Hongkong period dramas. You just need to respect your fucking characters. You can’t do that when you’re trying to be ironic and self conscious.
Hongkong movies could do ludicrous things and still have the audience willing to go along with them because they loved the characters. This was from Once Upon A Time In China 2:
Look at the sheer absurdity and almost complete disregard for physics but it works because the director makes you WANT to believe this shit can happen.
I can’t find any versions with subtitles but Jet Li’s character is actually lecturing his opponent on morality with really clever dialogue like saying something like “you’re not being down to earth” while he’s attacking his legs.
This was what the genius Tsui Hark was capable of in his heyday before he went nuts and started making shitty Van Damme movies like Double Team.
This was about a fictional cult during the Boxer Rebellion which was killing all the “evil Westerners” in the area. The objective here was to discredit the bad guy as a “living god” who was supposed to be “immune” to even “Western bullets”.
Jet Li is metaphorically “destroying” the dude’s “altar”(the raised platform) to expose him as a normal human, which is why the dude’s feet can’t touch the ground and Jet Li’s trying to make that happen.
Seriously, anyone who wants to see the greatest movies HK has to offer has to watch Once Upon A Time in China 1 and 2. Great screenwriting that actually had multiple layers critiquing culture and politics without sacrificing storytelling, along with memorable characters and bad ass, overpowered main heroes which was done so deliberately so they could focus on making them question and overcome moral and ethical conflicts unlike one dimensional “super heroes” like Ip Man.
Seriously guys, you wanna know part of where The Matrix and the John Wick movies originated from, go watch the first 2 parts of this series at least. The rest of the series( I think it went up to 5 parts and part 4 kinda sucked relative to the standard of the series) were better than average and are fantastic when watched as pure action flicks and more than deliver if you just want to see some amazing fight choreography.
They also show you how you need a great director to let even the best fight choreography shine, unlike shitty movies like Birds of Prey and to a much lessor extent, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, where it’s wasted because the directors completely suck at filmmaking but at least Ang Lee had some experience and knew the Golden Rule in HK filmmaking - let the action director take over during the filming of action scenes if you know you can’t handle this shit.
But they weren’t multi-layered masterpieces like the 2 movies that managed to tackle so many themes, half of which will resonate with almost anyone in the world.
For anyone interested in more, Yuen Chung Yan, who did the fight choreography for Once Upon a Time in China 1 also did it for The Matrix 1 and his brother, Yuen Woo Ping did it for part 2 and the Matrix sequels and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.
Yuen Chung Yan was even in Once Upon A Time in China. He played the skinny guy who got killed in this scene:
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Started getting into “friends” (the sitcom)
Yes… I’m aware it’s old, but it’s timeless dammit
I watched (Alien) Prometheus and Convenant.
I’m not sure if they were complicated and mysterious or just hurriedly and sloppily put together.
Both movies were pretty cool, visually.
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