Re: What was the last movie you watched?

Tobias wrote:

What's this Star War you are speaking of?

Its funny. There are only really two wars in the course of six films (The Clone Wars, and whole Rebels vs Empire affair), and both wars are fought by a variety of humanoid races - not stars. I do find it strangethat the Rebels have various minority groups fighting the all-white-male Empire, yet the Trade Federation is literally entirely made of minority groups. (Yay! I've just invented another reason to hate the prequels...not that it needs any more...)

Then again, I could harp on non-stop about everyone in the Empire being English, and how Hollywood thinks that the English are the most evil people in the world. I still joke that if I'd carried on acting, I would have eventually ended up typecast as a cloaked villan in a crappy summer blockbuster.

Pulp Fiction

Quentin Tarantino is not very good at plotting. Aside from a rather genius sequence towards the climax, Jackie Brown was criminally forgettable, and by far Tarantino's worst. Kill Bill Vol.2 felt like a middle-chapter to a trilogy that never happened. Inglorious !@#$%^&* suffered from a scattered pace which hindered its occasional moments of excellence, and Django Unchained was like There Will Be Blood in that the buildup was at times excruciatingly slow, but the payoff is incredible (the "I drink your milkshake" scene becomes even more awesome if you sit through the entire film) Also, I haven't seen Death Proof, but I haven't heard great things about that films plotting either.

Pulp Fiction's plot itself is pretty poor. The film would have suffered greatly if it was a linear narrative, as the whole thing lacks depth. Everyone's motivation is one-dimensional, and Tarantino does not use the language of film to breathe any real insight.

But - Quentin Tarantino is AMAZING at dialogue, and Pulp Fiction is by far his best film because he goes mad with his dialogue skills and it is glorious. Whilst I still like Inglorious !@#$%^&* and Django Unchained because they both have a similar "we have a massive budget and a ton of great actors - lets go crazy" tone - both those films cannot hope to have this amount of memorable characters and this many quotable lines.

I've always defined an auteur not as an artist but as a person whose art would be awful if it was made by anyone else. I can't imagine anyone other than Tarantino making this, because the film would have sucked if someone like Nolan and his super-serious-dull-as-hell characters tried this.

Last edited by Max Butcher (February 23, 2014 (11:25am))

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Re: What was the last movie you watched?

On an unrelated note, with The Wind Rises coming up, I'd at least like to watch Studio Ghibli's previous film, From Up on Poppy Hill, first. I've looked at the Movie House (and even Redbox!) and they don't seem to have a DVD copy available there. Does anyone know where I could obtain a copy?

Have you seen a big-chinned boy?

Re: What was the last movie you watched?

PushOverProductions wrote:

"I dunno, people wanted to know where Darth Vader comes came or something like that."

I don't really think that we needed the prequels. It just kind of takes the mystery out of the villains (one of the things that make them scary).

It was always suppose to be that way. The reason George Lucas did them out of order was he did not have the equipment to do 1,2 and 3.

Re: What was the last movie you watched?

Max Butcher wrote:

Then again, I could harp on non-stop about everyone in the Empire being English, and how Hollywood thinks that the English are the most evil people in the world..

English actors do make remarkably good villains, though.  I'd usually rather have an English villain than an American villain.
(Or course, typically given the choice I would usually rather any character be portrayed by an English actor)

Re: What was the last movie you watched?

Squid wrote:
Max Butcher wrote:

Then again, I could harp on non-stop about everyone in the Empire being English, and how Hollywood thinks that the English are the most evil people in the world..

English actors do make remarkably good villains, though.  I'd usually rather have an English villain than an American villain.
(Or course, typically given the choice I would usually rather any character be portrayed by an English actor)

Every live-action script I've written has an English villain because they're set in the UK, like my life. Well, there was one Japanese villain, but he doesn't count 'coz he's not actually human.

Squid, you English?

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Re: What was the last movie you watched?

The Great Gatsby (2013)
Beautiful.
I've heard that some people don't like Baz Luhrmann films because if the excess, but I absolutely adored the extravagance and the addictive doses of luxury in this movie. That party at Gatsby's palace is something I'll never forget. I mean, it felt like one of my own parties except that it was... you know, real. (well almost..)

I was skeptical about the use of contemporary music at first, but I then I heard it, and I loved it.

A good movie.

Re: What was the last movie you watched?

jampot wrote:

Squid, you English?

I wish.

Re: What was the last movie you watched?

I would psionically transfer some of my Englishness to you, but I've got too much American and Italian in me to risk it. I could accidentally unEnglish myself, which wouldn't be very useful.

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"Nothing goes down 'less I'm involved. No nuggets. No onion rings. No nothin'. A cheeseburger gets sold in the park, I want in! You got fat while we starved on the streets...now it's my turn!" -Harley Morenstein

Re: What was the last movie you watched?

Can a Scottish/Irish/Italian/American/Native-American man like me even become an Englishman?
I sure hope so, one day.

Re: What was the last movie you watched?

Squid wrote:

Can a Scottish/Irish/Italian/American/Native-American man like me even become an Englishman?
I sure hope so, one day.

Its very possible Squid, just believe in yourself, and you can achieve.

Re: What was the last movie you watched?

Can a Scottish/Irish/Italian/American/Native-American man like me even become an Englishman?
I sure hope so, one day.

You certainly have come from a lot of places.

Then again, I'm a German-Canadian who's lived in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the UK, and is apparently originally descended from Ukrainians/Russians (or Scandinavians, depending on whom ask)....

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Re: What was the last movie you watched?

Squid wrote:

Can a Scottish/Irish/Italian/American/Native-American man like me even become an Englishman?
I sure hope so, one day.

You do a convincing accent, so you pretty much pass the test. All you need now is a deep unspoken understand of self-deprecating humour, and then you're there.

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"Nothing goes down 'less I'm involved. No nuggets. No onion rings. No nothin'. A cheeseburger gets sold in the park, I want in! You got fat while we starved on the streets...now it's my turn!" -Harley Morenstein

Re: What was the last movie you watched?

Max Butcher wrote:

I do find it strangethat the Rebels have various minority groups fighting the all-white-male Empire, yet the Trade Federation is literally entirely made of minority groups.

max u are the best

i'm going to Continue defending Binks' worth as a character because I feel like it and I found a super duper quote by Mr. Lucas

George Lucas wrote:

There is a group of fans for the films that doesn't like comic sidekicks. They want the films to be tough like Terminator, and they get very upset and opinionated about anything that has anything to do with being childlike. The movies are for children but they don't want to admit that. In the first film they absolutely hated R2 and C3-PO. In the second film they didn't like Yoda and in the third one they hated the Ewoks... and now Jar Jar is getting accused of the same thing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/394542.stm
Now I don't agree with a lot of Lucas' points of view but for this I do agree. Like realize that the original Star Wars was meant for the target audience of children. My mom saw Star Wars when it first came out, she was twelve years old. Probably because of the 16 year gap between the trilogies is why all the fans expected the prequels to be "sophisticated" or whatever but honestly none of the films were supposed to be for an adult audience.That's why I think it's ok for Jar Jar to be there
and now for films I actually watched

Outsourced
The first part of this movie is absolutely hilarious, when Toad goes to India and basically has to deal with all these awkward cultural differences, and I feel that after goin to Pakistan this summer I can relate more to all the awkward situations (esp. the lack of toilet paper but I won't go into that). As soon as it goes into the romance though the film slows down noticeably! Like whoa that just came out of nowhere. But I don't really ever pick up on sexual tension or whatever between characters so maybe that's just me (like in The Breakfast Club I liked it all up till they all hooked up with each other at the end... It seemed really contrived and last-minute. And I didn't pick up on the relationships between Ron, Hermione and Harry, Ginny until they actuallywent and said it and then it was rather unexpected but I think i'm just abnormally oblivious to have not noticed anything between the characters for 7 books and 8 movies)


Guess Who's Coming To Dinner

TBH this is maybe one of my new favorite films because wow! it was hilarious but also spoke about important issues in a more relevant way than most films of today! And throughout the whole film I was fearing they'd pull what I call the "Hank Hill effect". I was very glad they did not do that.
I and many other people thought it would be cool if they would remake this film about a gay couple because a lot of the points GWCTD made also apply today to prejudices towards homosexuals. If something like this has been done before please let me know because I want to want to watch it and if not mayb I"ll write it

Spoiler (click to read)

The Hank Hill Effect is basically the main character(s) do something transgressive and in the end the parents are portrayed to having been right all along. I think is a way for filmmakers of older generations to appear edgy or something but they are actually just preaching old values. I call it that from an episode of King of the Hill where Bobby becomes a fashion model and Hank doesn't want him to and in the end they contrive it to make it look like Hank was right all along. Ugh. Similarly in Tomboy, the mother character establishes that Mikaël is essentially lying by calling himself a boy and should go back to being called Laure. That film was transphobia concealed under a guise of progressiveness. And I was really glad GWCTD diddn't do that not that I thought they would.

Re: What was the last movie you watched?

topitmunkeydog wrote:

Now I don't agree with a lot of Lucas' points of view but for this I do agree. Like realize that the original Star Wars was meant for the target audience of children. My mom saw Star Wars when it first came out, she was twelve years old. Probably because of the 16 year gap between the trilogies is why all the fans expected the prequels to be "sophisticated" or whatever but honestly none of the films were supposed to be for an adult audience.That's why I think it's ok for Jar Jar to be there
and now for films I actually watched

But even if the target audience is children - it still doesn't need to be so bad, and since when would a child care about trade federation? It's a stupid defense against the prequels and it can't even be used for Revenge of the Sith (the first Star Wars movie to be rated PG-13).

Re: What was the last movie you watched?

Lucas wrote:
topitmunkeydog wrote:

Now I don't agree with a lot of Lucas' points of view but for this I do agree. Like realize that the original Star Wars was meant for the target audience of children. My mom saw Star Wars when it first came out, she was twelve years old. Probably because of the 16 year gap between the trilogies is why all the fans expected the prequels to be "sophisticated" or whatever but honestly none of the films were supposed to be for an adult audience.That's why I think it's ok for Jar Jar to be there
and now for films I actually watched

But even if the target audience is children - it still doesn't need to be so bad, and since when would a child care about trade federation? It's a stupid defense against the prequels and it can't even be used for Revenge of the Sith (the first Star Wars movie to be rated PG-13).

I agree that all the political crap was really bad in that film and in that someone definitely made a mistake. I am arguing that Jar Jar's presence was justified and everyone thinks he is so bad because they forgot the films are for children. And I think the overkill on RotS is in part a response to everyone's complaints about the first two.

Re: What was the last movie you watched?

Frozen Really a fantastic film.

Spoiler (click to read)

When the Hans turned evil it felt un-built up,

  but overall the story was well written and the animation was fantastic.  9/10

Re: What was the last movie you watched?

Mickey wrote:

It might be true that '89 is a little slower-paced and darker than '66, and even Nolan's set.

Batman was dark, but it wasn't even as dark as Batman Returns, let alone Nolan's trilogy.

jampot wrote:

That's the thing. I love Jar Jar and always have. It's just media hype about the 'racist' element that lead people to unthinkingly defame him.

I don't understand your train of thought. I've never heard or seen anyone who thought there was a 'racist' element to Jar Jar.

Max Butcher wrote:

Then again, I could harp on non-stop about everyone in the Empire being English, and how Hollywood thinks that the English are the most evil people in the world.

Usually (As is a common generalization), Americans tend to be more emotional and aggressive, while the English are usually more logical and have a due process of things. This is what makes us Americans to have an English villain whose intentions are straightforward, with the young, cocky, brash hero being American.

Most villains in American movies tend to be American, though.

topitmunkeydog wrote:

I agree that all the political crap was really bad in that film and in that someone definitely made a mistake. I am arguing that Jar Jar's presence was justified and everyone thinks he is so bad because they forgot the films are for children. And I think the overkill on RotS is in part a response to everyone's complaints about the first two.

I  think that the politics did serve a purpose in the prequels; it just could have been written better. It's sometimes cringing to watch Ep. 1 because of the horrendous acting by the Queen of Naboo. Never the less, Jar Jar also has his place - without him, the chancellor would have never gained emergency powers, leaving him without control of an entire clone army.

Speaking of Star Wars...

Episodes 3, 5-6
3 is not nearly as poor as everyone makes it out to be. Sure, Christensen's acting was poor in many situations, as was Portman's, but overall I felt satisfied after watching this.
7/10

5 is still the best movie in the saga, and it's really not close.
9.5/10

I have quite a few gripes with 6, mostly being the ewoks. How in the Sam heck can these primitive creatures take out the empire's best division of troops? Throughout the entire movie, the stormtroopers are relegated to being wimpy, slow fighters who do nothing but run around in fear. The rest of the movie is great though, so it balances out.
6.5/10

American Hustle
Saw this a while back. A fantastic movie with a fantastic conclusion. Great writing and acting as well.

9/10

Good Fellas
Another great Scorsese movie. Terrifically written and brilliantly acted. Still holds up well after 24 years.

9.5/10

The Internship
It wasn't that great, but it had some enjoyable moments. Nice to watch with a group of friends at a hangout.

6/10

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Re: What was the last movie you watched?

Juggernaut Pictures wrote:

I don't understand your train of thought. I've never heard or seen anyone who thought there was a 'racist' element to Jar Jar.

Actually, there were several allegations of Jar Jar being a racial caricature at the time TPM was released. It got to the point that George Lucas himself had to respond to the allegations - denying it, of course.

The controversy seemed to go away fairly quickly but I bet a Google search would reveal that this, at one time, was a real point of contention.

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Re: What was the last movie you watched?

I don't hate Jar Jar because he's a comedy sidekick - I hate him because he's a bad comedy sidekick. I know people complain about Jar Jar being useless when C3PO and R2-D2 had just as much impact on the plot, but C3PO and R2-D2 were funny. Jar Jar is not funny. The London Metropolitan Crematorium is funnier than Jar Jar Binks.

Juggernaut Pictures wrote:

Usually (As is a common generalization), Americans tend to be more emotional and aggressive, while the English are usually more logical and have a due process of things.

Hmmm. I don't feel like I know enough Americans to judge them all as a whole, but I've certainly met many English people who are emotional and agressive. Just as America is split into various states containing a diverse range of cultures within, England is just as mixed.

Then again, I'm not breaking any stereotypes here. I'm well spoken, I live in an incredibly conservative town, and I'm a bit of a fop with a fondness for Shakesperean villans.

Last edited by Max Butcher (February 27, 2014 (02:23pm))

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Re: What was the last movie you watched?

Sorry for the double post, BUT:

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Oh my god. I wasn't expecting much. I didn't even want to see this.

My knowledge of The Hunger Games extends to the first book - and thats it. I didn't want to read the book, but I was forced to as part of my university degree. I didn't realise how mch I was enjoying the book until I got to the actual games, read the first chapter, tried to go to sleep, and couldn't because I wanted to know what happened next. I've been a bookworm ever since I learnt how to read, and this has never happened to me. I know Katniss kinda has mental issues, and its political messages are so heavy-handed its pinkie-finger could level an entire city - but...its just such a well crafted story. The constant suspense of the games and how the narrative is playfully toyed with is something I haven't ever seen. And yes, I've seen Battle Royale.

So naturally, because I liked the book, I avoided the film adaptation. And I wanted to avoid its sequel - but it was movie night and I was outvoted 3 to 1. I sat down expecting dissapointment, just like when I sat down to read the first novel. I need to start learning from my mistakes...

This film riveted me just as much as the first book did. Again, its political themes are obvious and in-your-face...but its just so well told. It feels more intelligent than other Blockbusters, and thats just because it has a care for tension and character.

Even though Katniss is kind of an idiot for completely messing up everything no matter what side she's on, she's a brilliant protagonist - because she's flawed. Female action-heroes are always indestructible iron women who also dress in the most revealling costume possible. In their larger-than-life strength they become one-dimensional. Their only character trait is being a female who is strong. Not to be snarky, but Katniss actually has...you know...emotion. And not in a damsel-in-distress kind of way. I've always said how depressing it is that there are so few well-written female protagonists in Blockbusters, so its great that now I can just point to Katniss and say "more of that, please"

Actually, I think I'll just point to the entire film and say "more of that, please." This film reminded me of why I still think there is a place in the world for Blockbusters despite there being so many richer, more obscure films. Because Blockbusters can be rich, just in a different way.

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