You could read something interesting into it. Taken as an allegory of the morally relativistic cynicism of Hollywood subsuming and destroying the idealistic spirit of the properties it seeks to reboot, however shallow they may be, serving to further deaden the souls and feeding the mindless blood lust of the popcorn munching general audience, I think it works.
Any changes to the original mythos is irrelevant to the majority of the audience.
That's sort of my point.
The Lone Ranger is kind of like Superman in that he was envisioned as a clear cut idealistic Good Guy who literally wears a white hat while fighting the inequities of Bad Guys who wear black hats and dropped into a modern movie with an audience that likes violence and ambiguity.
While the characterization of the Lone Ranger and the bush-wacking cannibal bad guy are true to the old ways...
they are both stomped down by the rest of the movie. The villian's "kill/eat the good guys and get all the silver" plan is overshadowed by his grey hat brother's "provoke the genocide of the comanche so I can become the chairman of a railroad and move America towards the future" plan.
It's also incredibly brutal and tonally dissonant. There are probably half a dozen on screen or implied massacres in a movie that also features a goofy magic horse.
This dissonance is what I think makes the movie sort of interesting if not immensely enjoyable. Instead of updating the entire character, like how they made Superman a violent asshole to go along with his violent asshole movie, they take this character out of his own time (Saturday morning serials and radio shows for kids) and put him in a modern movie that doesn't have any place for his brand of black and white morality.
The Lone Ranger keeps to his naive code, yet the movie constantly ridicules the character and undermines his code to make the more cynical audience happy: he doesn't kill anyone but circumstances repeatedly does. Even the comic multiple ricochet into log-in-in-the-face gag is followed up with a shot that explicitly shows that the two victims of this slapstick hit have had their heads smashed to paste. Or when he shoots the gun out of the hand of the principal villain at the end, who is then drowned / crushed by his own silver shipment.
Much as the way "nature is out of balance" in the movie (characterized by the cannibal rabbits), nature is out of balance in the theatre seats; we demand blood and death, even in the most old fashioned and idealistic properties.
Not to mention the fact that every time they invoke one of property's corny traditions, like the "Hi-ho Silver... AWAY!", the movie, through Tonto, has to slap him down for this transgression.
In the end, even though he wins, the Lone Ranger, one of the original and most formative white hat Good Guys there ever was, is forced to wear a mask and go out into the wilderness by the grey moral morass of the movie he's in.
You could read something interesting into it. Taken as an allegory of the morally relativistic cynicism of Hollywood subsuming and destroying the idealistic spirit of the properties it seeks to reboot, however shallow they may be, serving to further deaden the souls and feeding the mindless blood lust of the popcorn munching general audience, I think it works.
Any changes to the original mythos is irrelevant to the majority of the audience.
That's sort of my point.
The Lone Ranger is kind of like Superman in that he was envisioned as a clear cut idealistic Good Guy who literally wears a white hat while fighting the inequities of Bad Guys who wear black hats and dropped into a modern movie with an audience that likes violence and ambiguity.
While the characterization of the Lone Ranger and the bush-wacking cannibal bad guy are true to the old ways...
they are both stomped down by the rest of the movie. The villian's "kill/eat the good guys and get all the silver" plan is overshadowed by his grey hat brother's "provoke the genocide of the comanche so I can become the chairman of a railroad and move America towards the future" plan.
It's also incredibly brutal and tonally dissonant. There are probably half a dozen on screen or implied massacres in a movie that also features a goofy magic horse.
This dissonance is what I think makes the movie sort of interesting if not immensely enjoyable. Instead of updating the entire character, like how they made Superman a violent asshole to go along with his violent asshole movie, they take this character out of his own time (Saturday morning serials and radio shows for kids) and put him in a modern movie that doesn't have any place for his brand of black and white morality.
The Lone Ranger keeps to his naive code, yet the movie constantly ridicules the character and undermines his code to make the more cynical audience happy: he doesn't kill anyone but circumstances repeatedly does. Even the comic multiple ricochet into log-in-in-the-face gag is followed up with a shot that explicitly shows that the two victims of this slapstick hit have had their heads smashed to paste. Or when he shoots the gun out of the hand of the principal villain at the end, who is then drowned / crushed by his own silver shipment.
Much as the way "nature is out of balance" in the movie (characterized by the cannibal rabbits), nature is out of balance in the theatre seats; we demand blood and death, even in the most old fashioned and idealistic properties.
Not to mention the fact that every time they invoke one of property's corny traditions, like the "Hi-ho Silver... AWAY!", the movie, through Tonto, has to slap him down for this transgression.
In the end, even though he wins, the Lone Ranger, one of the original and most formative white hat Good Guys there ever was, is forced to wear a mask and go out into the wilderness by the grey moral morass of the movie he's in.
Well spoken and well analyzed. I personally didn't read too much into it, and just turned my brain off at the door. There were very few things that bugged me (Old Tonto and the kid didn't really need to be there), but I watched it as something fun to watch, and didn't expect much out of it. I also made the decision to see it in the theater as something to go do with my Dad.
Most movies I see in the theater usually don't have a lot of depth to them and are popcorn flicks, but the theater is the best place to watch action and explosions. I plan on watching R.E.D. 2 pretty soon.
I saw Ninja Assassin last night for the first time, after hearing a couple of people at work say how awesome it was. I have to agree. It is full of wanton violence and awesome ninja action. The fairly simple plot was feasible too. Warning, there is lots and lots of blood, so viewer beware.
Took my little brother to see The Wolverine. It was actually pretty entertaining. It's kind of a shame that it came out now instead of five years ago. Back then it wouls have seemed a lot better, but now that we have stuff like The Avengers coming out, it seems a little underwhelming.
I'd still recommend it to someone looking for a decent old school action movie. Hugh Jackman does a good job, and you can play "Obligatory Japan Stereotype Bingo". Seriously, they crammed it all in there; Pachinko parlors, Love hotels, Yakuza, Ninja, Samurai, you name it.
Not exactly a movie, but I saw Commonwealth Shakespeare on the Common's production of Two Mentlegen of Verona. It was very good. There was Sinatra music and a dog.
Olympus has Fallen was pretty dumb. (Watched it on the plane).
1. The scenario is more ridiculous than it needed to be. If you want me to believe that the head of security for the South Korean government is an NK spy, don't ALSO make me believe that a heavily armed prop cargo plane could make it that far into the capital without being shot down AND that there are hundreds of heavily armed NK operatives in the US capital ready to rock in a highly coordinated fashion AND that the Secret Service would let the foreign security team have that much access to the president during a siege AND that highly placed US agents were ALSO traitors/spies for North Korea.
The movie went overboard in presenting its "perfect storm" to allow the White House to fall. I'm surprised kaiju didn't join in by the end of that opening scene.
2. The Acting President negotiates with the terrorists, and agrees to pull ALL US troops out of South Korea and recall our fleet there effective as soon as practicable. The Pentagon complies and this happens. The negotiation scene lasts maybe a couple minutes, and the fleet is shown actively steaming away from the Korean peninsula within hours.
There is no way in the world the US government, in any scenario, would comply with such a ridiculous demand in the first place, nevermind simply to save the lives of the president and a handful of cabinet members. The whole scene comes off as ludicrous. If the Pentagon and Acting President had ignored the terrorists' demands, they would have basically trumped the evil plot from the start.
3. The scene in Die Hard with the unloaded gun and the incognito bad guy occurs almost beat for beat in this movie. It comes off badly.
4. Is this movie seriously telling me that the ultra-secret computer system that has the ability to disable any US ICBM has ALL of these flaws:
a. It requires three simple passwords.
b. It has zero protection against brute force attacks.
c. It doesn't just disable the ICBM or alter its trajectory, it destroys the warhead in an explosion.
d. It doesn't just destroy the warhead in an explosion, it DETONATES THE FUCKING WARHEAD.
e. It will detonate said warhead even in an unlaunched ICBM.
5. North Korea has a super hacker lady who can hack everything with GUIs?
6. The movie comes off as popcorn, but doesn't have any iconic one-liners or other associated popcorn fluff. Simultaneously, the movie tries to be super serious, but also goes over the top in stupid ways.
7. The main character can headshot anyone from a significant distance with nothing but a pistol. He's apparently a better shot than any other human being in the entire military regardless of what weapon they're using.
8. There's a SECOND ULTRA-SECRET weapon? The bad guys somehow have it? The movie goes out of its way to lampshade this fact? OH, AND THEY IGNORE THAT IT'S THERE AND CONTINUE WITH THE MILITARY RAID ANYWAY.
This leads to that scene in The Rock where all the Navy SEALs die while heroic music plays. Except this time, they knew it was a trap and went anyway for no good reason.
9. A character says the name of the movie dramatically in a ridiculous "Snakes on a Plane" fashion.
Olympus has Fallen is a terrible movie. It tries to take itself seriously, but simultaneously is extremely sloppy in its execution. It's far too brutal to be taken as a popcorn action movie. It's like a bad rehash of Air Force One but without the charm.
Thus, I am once again reminded of one simple fact. Any time you think you want to see a US military summer thriller movie, just watch The Rock and forget about whatever other movie you thought you wanted to see.
Olympus has Fallen and White House Down share the same problem - If your entire plot could be solved by a single well aimed bunker-buster, your plot fucking sucks.
Olympus has Fallen and White House Down share the same problem - If your entire plot could be solved by a single well aimed bunker-buster, your plot fucking sucks.
This is also true of Romantic comedies.
But the sexual tension between Jamie Foxx and Channing Tatum makes White House Down such a better movie.
Saw Pulp Fiction again after a four year interim. Not gonna say much more about it other than...sometimes...I forget how genius both that movie and Quentin Tarantino are.
Edit; Also it should be worth noting that I now see movies in a totally different way since that filmmaking course (which is now over). I now see every little technical detail in a movie as a result of doing it for six weeks (i.e. camera movements/angles, shot types, cuts, etc.) If nothing else, it has enriched the way I see movies, but it also kills something inside me as well. Fortunately, it only happens with movies I've seen before.
Speaking from the experience of knowing programming and game design and playing games, no, it will affect your experience of everything going forward, old and new. It doesn't soil my ability to enjoy something. It is, I admit, different. But it is not a bad different. It is a deeply understanding different.
Speaking from the experience of knowing programming and game design and playing games, no, it will affect your experience of everything going forward, old and new.
To some extent I agree with this, but I find, more often than not, I am more involved with a movie in terms of story & characters if I haven't seen it before. Although, there are times during a first viewing where I will notice something on a technical level if it is either especially well done or stands out in a unique way.
I finished watching the only Tarantino I had never seen up until this point today: Jackie Brown. It is the most different out of any movie he has ever made to date. Out of anything he has ever made, it is the most subdued, least flashy, most mature, and is the only adaptation of a pre-existing work (in this case: Elmore Leonard's Rum Punch) he has ever done. It also has one of the weirdest Robert De Niro roles ever: as a associate of the main villain who doesn't talk a whole bunch or seem all that engaged with the main story.
Jackie Brown is about the eponymous flight attendant (played by Pam Grier) who is money runner in a firearms crime ring headed by Ordell Robbie (played by Sam Jackson) and unwittingly gets sent to jail after one of the runs accidentally places drugs on her. Luckily, she gets released by Ordell...but is not grateful about it due to her harboring resentment towards him. She now gets caught up in a sting led by the police to catch Ordell so she can place his ass in jail...however all is not what it seems.
One thing abut Jackie Brown is that it has a lot of style to it, but not the style we usually associate Tarantino with. Although Tarantino's sublime dialogue is here in full-force, it is something of a letdown because Tarantino's visual trademarks are not on display here. As such, I was a tiny bit bit let down by it, but overall thought it was a very good and interesting addition to Tarantino's canon. If you want to see something different than what you're used to with Tarantino, definitely check this one out.
I finished watching the only Tarantino I had never seen up until this point today: Jackie Brown. It is the most different out of any movie he has ever made to date. Out of anything he has ever made, it is the most subdued, least flashy, most mature, and is the only adaptation of a pre-existing work (in this case: Elmore Leonard's Rum Punch) he has ever done. It also has one of the weirdest Robert De Niro roles ever: as a associate of the main villain who doesn't talk a whole bunch or seem all that engaged with the main story.
Jackie Brown is about the eponymous flight attendant (played by Pam Grier) who is money runner in a firearms crime ring headed by Ordell Robbie (played by Sam Jackson) and unwittingly gets sent to jail after one of the runs accidentally places drugs on her. Luckily, she gets released by Ordell...but is not grateful about it due to her harboring resentment towards him. She now gets caught up in a sting led by the police to catch Ordell so she can place his ass in jail...however all is not what it seems.
One thing abut Jackie Brown is that it has a lot of style to it, but not the style we usually associate Tarantino with. Although Tarantino's sublime dialogue is here in full-force, it is something of a letdown because Tarantino's visual trademarks are not on display here. As such, I was a tiny bit bit let down by it, but overall thought it was a very good and interesting addition to Tarantino's canon. If you want to see something different than what you're used to with Tarantino, definitely check this one out.
I absolutely love that movie. The final scene is amazing.
So The Act of Killing is... Wow, I have not had an experience like that with a movie in a long time. That was... That was something. Very powerful filmmaking. It's definitely going to be counted among the all-time greats of documentary.
To give you an idea of what I got out of this movie: I didn't realize just how many deep breaths I had taken and how shaky my limbs had gotten until I tried to get up after it was over. After going to sit in the bathroom, it felt like my throat was collapsing in on my gut. Though I had shed a couple tears in the movie, I shed several more afterward letting it all sink in on me in the stall. Even with all that real-world horror, though, I felt a sense of hope too -- hope that the power of film can still make an impact on people, even those we might consider the most evil.
I don't even really want to get into specifics. You should all just see it. Don't watch the trailer, read the summary blurb if you have to, but otherwise, just go. It's important. It's gorgeous. It's wonderful. See it.
I feel about The Wolverine similar to how I felt about Amazing Spiderman last year. I don't see the appeal here because aside from Hugh Jackman, this movie does so many things wrong in terms of the plot, character development, and dialogue. (I haven't seen X-Men Origins, but this movie was so resonated of X-Men 3: The Last Stand)
For the positives, Hugh Jackman is still good as Wolverine and can deliver lines like no one's business. I really like the introduction of the Viper as an intimidating villain. The scenery and score is great. However, it is not a good movie and I only had fun at the most pivotal fight scenes. For the most part, it's pretty bad due to incredibly sloppy execution. The PG-13 rating really hurt a lot of the impact of what this film could have done.
I have to say, most of the Japanese characters had poor actors and had this really annoying trend to give very ominous dialogue. Logan is dragged along for this convoluted plot involving Yakuza and a corporation that has an incredibly unsatisfying ending due to the scale and size of everything. There are so many moments where things could have been solved by talking things out or using different tactics. I feel like the action wants to mask the plot, but because they couldn't show any direct violence or bloodshed, it makes the whole process feel weak and unsatisfying. (By an irritating camera that shows any scene a foot too high)
It was a movie I couldn't help but nitpick because it keeps taunting you with explanation, but by the time it reaches it's final, insipid twist, I wanted to walk out. The ending made me feel like why did I waste my time watching it when I shouldn't have cared for any of these characters who had such incredibly poor, ill-concieved motivations. I would have written the movie off completely if the stinger at the end didn't make me feel excited for the next X-men movie.
I think Wolverine at this point should stop being regarded as this badass superhero who kills people. He's clearly not the best at what he does. Find another one or stop pussyfooting with this character.
The other night I finally took the time to see Sasha Baron Cohen in The Dictator. Are all of his movies this good?
I admit that going into it I was expecting a lame movie about a dictator who dictates everything and kills everyone that does not agree with him. The entire 'democracy' plot was a surprise to me and the way it was presented more as a way to exploit the country than to free the people was very poignant.
I found the movie very satirical but in a 'truthiness' sort of way. Both his opening speech and the one at the end about Democracy to be very topical and honest.
Comments
The Lone Ranger is kind of like Superman in that he was envisioned as a clear cut idealistic Good Guy who literally wears a white hat while fighting the inequities of Bad Guys who wear black hats and dropped into a modern movie with an audience that likes violence and ambiguity.
While the characterization of the Lone Ranger and the bush-wacking cannibal bad guy are true to the old ways...
It's also incredibly brutal and tonally dissonant. There are probably half a dozen on screen or implied massacres in a movie that also features a goofy magic horse.
This dissonance is what I think makes the movie sort of interesting if not immensely enjoyable. Instead of updating the entire character, like how they made Superman a violent asshole to go along with his violent asshole movie, they take this character out of his own time (Saturday morning serials and radio shows for kids) and put him in a modern movie that doesn't have any place for his brand of black and white morality.
The Lone Ranger keeps to his naive code, yet the movie constantly ridicules the character and undermines his code to make the more cynical audience happy: he doesn't kill anyone but circumstances repeatedly does. Even the comic multiple ricochet into log-in-in-the-face gag is followed up with a shot that explicitly shows that the two victims of this slapstick hit have had their heads smashed to paste. Or when he shoots the gun out of the hand of the principal villain at the end, who is then drowned / crushed by his own silver shipment.
Much as the way "nature is out of balance" in the movie (characterized by the cannibal rabbits), nature is out of balance in the theatre seats; we demand blood and death, even in the most old fashioned and idealistic properties.
Not to mention the fact that every time they invoke one of property's corny traditions, like the "Hi-ho Silver... AWAY!", the movie, through Tonto, has to slap him down for this transgression.
In the end, even though he wins, the Lone Ranger, one of the original and most formative white hat Good Guys there ever was, is forced to wear a mask and go out into the wilderness by the grey moral morass of the movie he's in.
Most movies I see in the theater usually don't have a lot of depth to them and are popcorn flicks, but the theater is the best place to watch action and explosions. I plan on watching R.E.D. 2 pretty soon.
I'd still recommend it to someone looking for a decent old school action movie. Hugh Jackman does a good job, and you can play "Obligatory Japan Stereotype Bingo". Seriously, they crammed it all in there; Pachinko parlors, Love hotels, Yakuza, Ninja, Samurai, you name it.
1. The scenario is more ridiculous than it needed to be. If you want me to believe that the head of security for the South Korean government is an NK spy, don't ALSO make me believe that a heavily armed prop cargo plane could make it that far into the capital without being shot down AND that there are hundreds of heavily armed NK operatives in the US capital ready to rock in a highly coordinated fashion AND that the Secret Service would let the foreign security team have that much access to the president during a siege AND that highly placed US agents were ALSO traitors/spies for North Korea.
The movie went overboard in presenting its "perfect storm" to allow the White House to fall. I'm surprised kaiju didn't join in by the end of that opening scene.
2. The Acting President negotiates with the terrorists, and agrees to pull ALL US troops out of South Korea and recall our fleet there effective as soon as practicable. The Pentagon complies and this happens. The negotiation scene lasts maybe a couple minutes, and the fleet is shown actively steaming away from the Korean peninsula within hours.
There is no way in the world the US government, in any scenario, would comply with such a ridiculous demand in the first place, nevermind simply to save the lives of the president and a handful of cabinet members. The whole scene comes off as ludicrous. If the Pentagon and Acting President had ignored the terrorists' demands, they would have basically trumped the evil plot from the start.
3. The scene in Die Hard with the unloaded gun and the incognito bad guy occurs almost beat for beat in this movie. It comes off badly.
4. Is this movie seriously telling me that the ultra-secret computer system that has the ability to disable any US ICBM has ALL of these flaws:
a. It requires three simple passwords.
b. It has zero protection against brute force attacks.
c. It doesn't just disable the ICBM or alter its trajectory, it destroys the warhead in an explosion.
d. It doesn't just destroy the warhead in an explosion, it DETONATES THE FUCKING WARHEAD.
e. It will detonate said warhead even in an unlaunched ICBM.
5. North Korea has a super hacker lady who can hack everything with GUIs?
6. The movie comes off as popcorn, but doesn't have any iconic one-liners or other associated popcorn fluff. Simultaneously, the movie tries to be super serious, but also goes over the top in stupid ways.
7. The main character can headshot anyone from a significant distance with nothing but a pistol. He's apparently a better shot than any other human being in the entire military regardless of what weapon they're using.
8. There's a SECOND ULTRA-SECRET weapon? The bad guys somehow have it? The movie goes out of its way to lampshade this fact? OH, AND THEY IGNORE THAT IT'S THERE AND CONTINUE WITH THE MILITARY RAID ANYWAY.
This leads to that scene in The Rock where all the Navy SEALs die while heroic music plays. Except this time, they knew it was a trap and went anyway for no good reason.
9. A character says the name of the movie dramatically in a ridiculous "Snakes on a Plane" fashion.
Olympus has Fallen is a terrible movie. It tries to take itself seriously, but simultaneously is extremely sloppy in its execution. It's far too brutal to be taken as a popcorn action movie. It's like a bad rehash of Air Force One but without the charm.
Thus, I am once again reminded of one simple fact. Any time you think you want to see a US military summer thriller movie, just watch The Rock and forget about whatever other movie you thought you wanted to see.
This is also true of Romantic comedies.
Braveheart? Check.
Philadelphia?
Edit; Also it should be worth noting that I now see movies in a totally different way since that filmmaking course (which is now over). I now see every little technical detail in a movie as a result of doing it for six weeks (i.e. camera movements/angles, shot types, cuts, etc.) If nothing else, it has enriched the way I see movies, but it also kills something inside me as well. Fortunately, it only happens with movies I've seen before.
It doesn't soil my ability to enjoy something. It is, I admit, different. But it is not a bad different. It is a deeply understanding different.
Jackie Brown is about the eponymous flight attendant (played by Pam Grier) who is money runner in a firearms crime ring headed by Ordell Robbie (played by Sam Jackson) and unwittingly gets sent to jail after one of the runs accidentally places drugs on her. Luckily, she gets released by Ordell...but is not grateful about it due to her harboring resentment towards him. She now gets caught up in a sting led by the police to catch Ordell so she can place his ass in jail...however all is not what it seems.
One thing abut Jackie Brown is that it has a lot of style to it, but not the style we usually associate Tarantino with. Although Tarantino's sublime dialogue is here in full-force, it is something of a letdown because Tarantino's visual trademarks are not on display here. As such, I was a tiny bit bit let down by it, but overall thought it was a very good and interesting addition to Tarantino's canon. If you want to see something different than what you're used to with Tarantino, definitely check this one out.
I saw Pitch Perfect. I liked it. It was charming.
To give you an idea of what I got out of this movie: I didn't realize just how many deep breaths I had taken and how shaky my limbs had gotten until I tried to get up after it was over. After going to sit in the bathroom, it felt like my throat was collapsing in on my gut. Though I had shed a couple tears in the movie, I shed several more afterward letting it all sink in on me in the stall. Even with all that real-world horror, though, I felt a sense of hope too -- hope that the power of film can still make an impact on people, even those we might consider the most evil.
I don't even really want to get into specifics. You should all just see it. Don't watch the trailer, read the summary blurb if you have to, but otherwise, just go. It's important. It's gorgeous. It's wonderful. See it.
For the positives, Hugh Jackman is still good as Wolverine and can deliver lines like no one's business. I really like the introduction of the Viper as an intimidating villain. The scenery and score is great. However, it is not a good movie and I only had fun at the most pivotal fight scenes. For the most part, it's pretty bad due to incredibly sloppy execution.
The PG-13 rating really hurt a lot of the impact of what this film could have done.
I have to say, most of the Japanese characters had poor actors and had this really annoying trend to give very ominous dialogue. Logan is dragged along for this convoluted plot involving Yakuza and a corporation that has an incredibly unsatisfying ending due to the scale and size of everything. There are so many moments where things could have been solved by talking things out or using different tactics. I feel like the action wants to mask the plot, but because they couldn't show any direct violence or bloodshed, it makes the whole process feel weak and unsatisfying. (By an irritating camera that shows any scene a foot too high)
It was a movie I couldn't help but nitpick because it keeps taunting you with explanation, but by the time it reaches it's final, insipid twist, I wanted to walk out. The ending made me feel like why did I waste my time watching it when I shouldn't have cared for any of these characters who had such incredibly poor, ill-concieved motivations. I would have written the movie off completely if the stinger at the end didn't make me feel excited for the next X-men movie.
I think Wolverine at this point should stop being regarded as this badass superhero who kills people. He's clearly not the best at what he does. Find another one or stop pussyfooting with this character.
I admit that going into it I was expecting a lame movie about a dictator who dictates everything and kills everyone that does not agree with him. The entire 'democracy' plot was a surprise to me and the way it was presented more as a way to exploit the country than to free the people was very poignant.
I found the movie very satirical but in a 'truthiness' sort of way. Both his opening speech and the one at the end about Democracy to be very topical and honest.