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What MOVIE(s) have you been....seeing? watching?
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- ChristopherMD
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- Road Warrior
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Watched Five Armies extended edition. I know, I know, most of you are haters. For what little its worth I thought the battle was much improved as it seemed like we only got half of the scenes before. Dwarven cavalry charge (that's where the rams come in) and arrow blocking ballista were cool.
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Hex Sinister wrote: But it's like that time you caught your parents having sex. You want to forget, but you can't.
They were wrestling! WRESTLING!
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Experimenter is about the life and work of Stanley Milgram. It covers several of his psychological experiments, but spends the most time on the obedience tests, especially the one where he would have people think they were shocking someone. It showed that 65% of people would continue to do it even to the point where the person they were shocking might be dead, just because someone in authority was telling them to continue. As a film, it was fine, but the subject was fascinating to me, so it was particularly compelling. Peter Sarsgaard is good as Milgram, despite having one of the worst beards ever at one point, and I liked Winona Ryder as his wife. I still associate her as an apathetic teen in things like Heathers and Beetlejuice, but she was great in this role as a more straightforward mature lady.
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- Erik Twice
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- D8
- Needs explosions
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This film has a terrible reputation. Back when it was released critics were largely dimissive of it, citing "archetypical" characters, cliché dialogue and the shallowness of the plot. They considered it an exercise in stylishness and a failure of substance. Well, I think that in this case style was the substance and they were judging the film for something it was not.
Consider this: When you see films like Alien, The Avengers or James Bond how much do you care about the plot? Is it a important part of those movies, or it a conduct for something else? How important is plot for an action film? How important is plot and deep characters to a film that defines itself as a rock and roll fable?
Every single line in this movie is one-liner, a brake-less cliché or both and it's all delivered in such a honest manner that you can't help but root for the characters while you laugh. Streets of Fire makes clear early on that it's going to romp through every narrative expectation with its tongue firm in its check so you either love it or you better jump ship because it has no intention to stop.
It's a film that is at its best when it blends its subversive elements with the inherent fun of playing something straight. It's not a dumb meta film like Machete, Planet Terror or other self-congratulatory Robert Rodriguez films, there are no pop culture references, nothing is taken to the extreme and despite its violence nobody gets seriously injured or dies. It's the good kind of fun and the art direction, editing and photography are top-notch because being cheeky doesn't mean it has to be a joke as an actual film.
I think the real problem with the film is that it cannot sustain the strenght of its opening. The first 50 minutes are amazing, full of fun fights, cool characters and lots of lots of style. The next 20 minutes are much softer, with barely any action and a heavier focus on dialogue. At this point the movie is still entertaining but cheeky drama is significantly less interesting than cheeky action. The remaining 20 are just anticlimatic because a cool fight takes 5 minutes of them and tired drama elements and two different musical numbers make up the rest. It's the kind of dragged-on finale that is normally fixed after revising the script, but for some reason it's still here. It's a really big problem and I think it brings down the film at least one or two notches.
Still, I think you guys should check it out because if there's someone who might like it's you. I know you love other Walter Hill films (The Warriors), I know you love this kind of tongue-in-check humour and I know you can appreciate a movie that is well-made fun. At worst, I think you may regard it as a bad film, but of the interesting kind.
I admit I feel like a weirdo for defending this film, though.
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- Disgustipater
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- D8
- Dapper Deep One
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And the red outfit she's wearing in all the promo material? Not in the movie.
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- Cranberries
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- D10
- Don't give up.
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articles.latimes.com/2010/aug/12/enterta...-gary-kurtz-20100812
Han Solo was supposed to DIE in Return of the Jedi.
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Disgustipater wrote: Mockingjay Part 2
And the red outfit she's wearing in all the promo material? Not in the movie.
For some reason that makes me laugh. That's the only thing that made me notice this movie.
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