What films have you been watching? (XII/IB) - CFC's Dirty Dozen

[Synobun]

I watched two movies last night.

Red Dawn. Homefront on the movie screen, I guess? Pretty good movie but Josh Peck is an idiot.

The Titan. New Netflix original. If you liked Arrival and Annihilation, you'll like this. For me it suffers from the same thing every other 'makes u think :thinking-emoji:' sci-fi movie suffers from: the story unravels and goes into "the writing crew did LSD for this part" territory after the midway point. It wasn't a bad movie, I guess I'd recommend it, but for once I just wish the original premise of one of these sci-fi movies would hold up until the end. I'm tired of the latest onslaught of would-be intellectuals patting themselves on the back for concocting an indecipherable movie climax. Arrival did it. Annihilation did it. Now The Titan did it.

Maybe I'm just too dumb to wrap my head around their abstract ideas.

 

[Takhisis]

Red Dawn. Homefront on the movie screen, I guess? Pretty good movie but Josh Peck is an idiot.

Did it feature the mandatory Ammu-Nation ads?

 

[Synobun]

I don't understand the GTA reference here.

 

[Takhisis]

It's… it's V-Rock.

 

[Synobun]

It's… it's V-Rock.

Ah, that must be why. V-Rock sucks!

I liked Flash FM, Wave 103, and Fever 105 most.

 

[Takhisis]

V-Rock sucks!

You damned Fleming, this is not the last you hear from me. I'm off to watch anime until I am calm enough to plot your re-education.

 

[Broken_Erika]

The Original Red Dawn was a Masterpiece, the remake left me feeling like i needed a loooooong shower, with concentrated chlorine bleach and a steel scrubbie.

 

[Synobun]

I could say the same about you!

 

[rah]

The Original Red Dawn was a Masterpiece,

A slight exaggeration, but your critique of the later wasn't.

 

[EgonSpengler]

[...]a loooooong shower, with concentrated chlorine bleach and a steel scrubbie.

Wasn't that a scene in Silkwood?

 

[EgonSpengler]

That is a great movie, but I saw it back in November/December so it is still relatively fresh in the old memory banks. I'm trying to get a refresher on the movies I haven't seen in a while or at all in preparation for Infinity War. The current candidates are Thor 1 & 2 (Infinity Stones) Dr Strange (Probable Infinity Stone) Hulk & Spiderman (Haven't seen).

Coincidentally, Collider has published a look back at The Incredible Hulk (I'm assuming you're referring to Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk and not Ang Lee's Hulk): "'The Incredible Hulk' Revisited: 'Leave Me Alone'"

Incredible Hulk came out only two months after Iron Man, and the two couldn’t be further apart. Iron Man relishes everything it does; Incredible Hulk loves its action scenes and hangs its head at nearly every other moment (I think there are less than five jokes in the entire movie). Iron Man has perfect casting; no one feels right for Incredible Hulk except for Tim Blake Nelson. Iron Man relishes its origin story; Incredible Hulk buries it in the opening credits. Not a single actor who debuts in Incredible Hulk is in any other Marvel movie until Hurt shows up in Captain America: Civil War. (the studio considered bringing Norton along for The Avengers, but felt there would be too much friction and ended up with a far superior choice in Mark Ruffalo). It’s not even from the same studio (Hulk is the only Marvel movie distributed by Universal). But above all: Incredible Hulk is rarely a fun movie.


Image via Marvel Studios

It’s not a bad movie either. No one in the cast is particularly bad, the action scenes are fairly well done, and it’s an important evolution in the Hulk as a character. There’s a lot more personality to this Hulk than in Ang Lee’s version. Part of that is due to advancements in CGI, but you can see that Leterrier worked hard to make Hulk more relatable this time and even give him moments of creativity like when he turns a police car into boxing gloves. The development of Hulk is just as important as Bruce Banner. Banner has a solid arc where he learns that he can’t cure himself of being the Hulk and that he can actually do some good if he can “aim” the beast. He learns that he can only control it, and that notion of control kind of pops up in The Avengers with “I’m always angry,” but even Joss Whedon’s movie ignores the character development in Incredible Hulk by having Banner admit that he attempted suicide. That admission doesn’t make a lot of sense if you look at the grinning Banner at the end of Incredible Hulk, a look that shows he’s come to peace with Hulk.

 

[Takhisis]

I could say the same about you!

Whom were you addressing with this post? Me, or Erika?

 

[Synobun]

Whom were you addressing with this post? Me, or Erika?

Anime is gross, so Erika.

 

[Synobun]

Never Back Down. A fighting movie I hadn't seen yet. Beginning is kind of rough but it gets progressively better. Ending was decent. I kept thinking, "Jeez, these guys are using dated music for a recent movie" but it's from 2008.

 

[Cutlass]

Captain America: Civil War - The premise of the movie, that the Avengers are somehow recklessly destructive and need oversight, is very suspect. Also the bad guy's plan required an awful lot of clairvoyance to pull off. Otherwise it was a very enjoyable watch.

That's actually a common premise. You had the Mutant Registration Act on the X-Men side. But it makes more sense on the Avengers side, since you have this extremely dangerous bunch of non-state actors wrecking havoc everywhere they go. Now while it's true that their havoc is in response to super villains, it's still massively dangerous to people and property. By what right do these people act in my country?

The flip side of this, of course, is that they can't trust anyone to be their boss, since SHIELD was infiltrated and taken down. And SHIELD itself was out of control and a loose cannon.

It's a fundamental conflict in the system that it is both true that no one can be trusted to control these people, and that they cannot be trusted to control themselves.

_______________________________

I broke down and bought the disk for Thor: Ragnarok. So just saw that one again.

 

[BenitoChavez]

That's actually a common premise. You had the Mutant Registration Act on the X-Men side. But it makes more sense on the Avengers side, since you have this extremely dangerous bunch of non-state actors wrecking havoc everywhere they go. Now while it's true that their havoc is in response to super villains, it's still massively dangerous to people and property. By what right do these people act in my country?

If you look at the specific reasons that were given in the movie it doesn't really hold up. The events of The Avengers, Age of Ultron, Winter Soldier, and a early scene in Civil War were cited as evidence that the Avengers were reckless and dangerous. In all of those cases there was destruction of property and a loss of life. However the Avengers weren't responsible for causing those events* and they were there trying to prevent a far greater amount of destruction and death. They literally saved the world in two of those cases and prevented thousands/millions from dying in the other two.

Besides, say that the UN passed the accords and the Avengers are now subject to oversight. Would anyone realistically tell the Avengers not to act in any of those situations? Do people really want the human race to go extinct or become enslaved? Besides, now you have a bureaucracy that needs hash it out Jean-Luc Picard style before anything gets done. It's an unnecessary step that would only waste time resulting in more death and destruction before the Avengers can save the day.

*You could argue Tony Stark and Bruce Banner were ultimately responsible for Sokovia because they had created Ultron. To this I would say 1) They were dealing with an infinity stone, something nobody on Earth really understands or has any qualifications to handle. 2) They created a true AI which is far more noble goal that what the other other people have done when they got their hands on an Infinity stone. Yes it turned into a murderbot but it could have just as easily been the benevolent Vision. Anyone else using the stone would probably result is worse results.

 

[civvver]

That is a great movie, but I saw it back in November/December so it is still relatively fresh in the old memory banks. I'm trying to get a refresher on the movies I haven't seen in a while or at all in preparation for Infinity War. The current candidates are Thor 1 & 2 (Infinity Stones) Dr Strange (Probable Infinity Stone) Hulk & Spiderman (Haven't seen).

Yeah what everyone else said, hulk sucks and is totally unnecessary for the mcu story line. Thor is ok, thor 2 sucks and I would only watch it if you are on a completionist trip and want to see all the mcu films because yes there is an infinity stone in it. But it's very boring, not funny, no cross over characters, and most of the action takes place on this rocky terrain dark world which is quite drab.

Out of those, I'd do Spiderman. The first two Thor movies are forgettable. Hulk is canon, I think, but uses a different actor and wasn't really a part of the MCU. I hated Dr. Strange.

Really? I thought strange was funny. It's a middle of the pack mcu movie but it's fine. A little more light than some others I think. Although I know, comics and all strange is american, it's such a shame to see benedict cumberbatch's accent covered up.

Spiderman homecoming is the best of your list though. Very funny, a really great villian and acting performance by michael keaton, cameos from some other awesome marvel characters, and it's a well contained story so you don't lose yourself in the messy plot lines of the rest of the universe.

 

[civvver]

Besides, say that the UN passed the accords and the Avengers are now subject to oversight. Would anyone realistically tell the Avengers not to act in any of those situations? Do people really want the human race to go extinct or become enslaved? Besides, now you have a bureaucracy that needs hash it out Jean-Luc Picard style before anything gets done. It's an unnecessary step that would only waste time resulting in more death and destruction before the Avengers can save the day.

Yes they would still need to act, but basically it's about collateral damage. Like when the US takes out terrorists but kills civilians in the blast. Hulk destroys entire cities when he fights. There's always goign to be someone saying they could've had less casualties.

Also thanos and all the other bad guys are somehow drawn to the infinity stones and these meta humans power. So I could see many people blaming them for the bad guys in the first place.

But I think ultimately it may just be about power. They don't want the avengers to become a political tool, an army for one nation (which would probably be the us I guess? They're all american except black widow and scarlet witch). It seems very normal that the UN would want to maintain authority over them imo.

 

[Synobun]

Really? I thought strange was funny. It's a middle of the pack mcu movie but it's fine. A little more light than some others I think. Although I know, comics and all strange is american, it's such a shame to see benedict cumberbatch's accent covered up.

I think my distaste of it is because I typically don't enjoy any of the major actors in the movie. I don't get why people like Benedict Cumberbatch.

It also bothered me that the new characters they're introducing into the MCU have ridiculously overpowered backstories that call the rest of the MCU into question. Wakanda and the whole sorcerer's thing makes everything else obsolete. Ant-Man wasn't a great movie but I thought it was fine because the character itself doesn't really change much. A simple addition to the cast. Black Panther and Dr. Strange unravel that concept and, to me, break the universe's consistency.

 

[rah]

Yeah, DR. Strange should be stand alone and not sucked into the whole other mess. Haven't seen BP yet but assuming the same.