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Post by ECM on May 18, 2014 12:46:40 GMT -5
Jack Reacher: this movie is fucking awesome! I don't even care that Cruise doesn't remotely resemble the novel version of Reacher* and, in fact, I think Cruise's lack of similarity actually works in the film's favor by making the confrontations he finds himself in actually threatening, whereas nobody in their right mind would so much as look askance at the literary version.
Dare I say that with this and (the super awesome Brad Bird-directed) Ghost Protocol, Cruise is having something of a career Renaissance? Looks like I just did!
*Typically I'm "that guy" when it comes to messing w/ source material--see turning Khan white in Star Trek ID--but in this case, it works out for the better.
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Post by ECM on May 18, 2014 12:48:01 GMT -5
Oh, and on Cap, I think you were wondering this a while back: As for why Black Widow is somewhat needlessly in the movie, I think it was essentially a back-door pilot for her own film down the line. They needed a couple allies for Cap, so might as well use one that can helm her own movie eventually. Still doesn't explain the lack of Hawkeye, I'll give you that. They did manage the best portrayal of Falcon that I've ever seen, but that bar was so low that it was on the ground. Hawkeye would have made waaaay more sense than Falcon by a million miles and, again, the only reason I can think for his not being there was scheduling conflicts, because it makes no damn sense to include the utterly superfluous Mackie in lieu of him.
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Post by ECM on May 18, 2014 12:49:00 GMT -5
Pain and Gain: this is actually a lot of fun tempered, to some degree, by the fact that, while somewhat satirical, it is eerily close to the real-life case upon which it was based and is probably the best Michael Bay film (yes, yes, low bar) since, uh...The Rock??
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Post by Borsalio on May 18, 2014 12:57:34 GMT -5
I think you can speculate a few reasons:
1) Fear that including 3 Avengers would make it feel more like Avengers 1.5 instead of Captain America 2 (instead, it felt kind of like a Shield movie! Mission complete!)
2) Wanting to introduce new characters (more toy sales), specifically ones from Cap's comics
3) Diversity!
Really, I'd have no problem with it if they just paid the issue a little lip service. "Oh, Hawkeye's off in Japan fighting giant crabs" or something. One second of the movie's time. But I think you have to just accept that for any of the Marvel movies. There's always going to be some big dangerous event that would sensibly require all the Avengers, but it's only <dude on the movie poster> because it's their movie.
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Post by ECM on May 18, 2014 13:04:41 GMT -5
Yeah, but this is the problem that all post-Avengers movies ignore: that there's this team of heavyweights out there that NOBODY CALLS ON FOR HELP which is incredibly illogical and frustrates people like me to no end.
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Post by arcadehero on May 22, 2014 18:25:28 GMT -5
The last movie I saw in the theater was The Lego Movie. It was fun and amusing although as a business owner myself I'm not sure if I should have felt insulted by the way they characterize business people in the movie. But I don't want to be outraged over everything all of the time so better to just try and ignore it.
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Post by ECM on Jun 1, 2014 10:56:51 GMT -5
I, Franenstein: oh look, someone put a SyFy channel original movie on the big screen.
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Post by ECM on Jun 1, 2014 19:28:25 GMT -5
13 Assassins: I have a generally low opinion of Japanese cinema, but this is a great movie, with elements of adventure, horror (in a manner of speaking), and, of course, lots of killing, all backed up by a well-acted, understated, script, with not a hint of romance or other Hollywood, check box, film-making.
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Post by arcadehero on Aug 14, 2014 16:29:43 GMT -5
Guardians of the Galaxy: I was surprised by this. It combines humor and light-heartedness with the serious parts really well, the characters are fleshed out well and likable, along with a few surprises to find. The basic plot is fairly typical for space thief stuff but it feels fresh in the manner that it is all handled. I knew nothing about GotG prior to watching this and I really enjoyed it. More than any other movie I've gone to see this year.
TMNT: I haven't seen this one but I have yet to meet a friend or hear a soul tell a good thing about this one so if you have to see it, probably safer to wait for rental.
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Post by Borsalio on Aug 14, 2014 23:39:38 GMT -5
Yeah, I really enjoyed Guardians. Probably in my best of the year spot for now (followed by Cap 2 and Edge of Tomorrow). There's tons of great things about the movie I could highlight (like how well the soundtrack was woven into the story), but I think I'll just mention that I was surprised at how well Bautista did in the film. Drax is well within his range, but he even went beyond that when the script called for it (the "I wasn't listening" line was one of the funniest parts of the movie, and it was largely due to his delivery). After seeing him in Riddick I thought he might be the weak link here, but he nailed it (and really, I shouldn't fault him for Riddick, there's plenty of other problems with that movie).
Now that Marvel has found success with a movie featuring a talking raccoon, I hope we get some really unique films in the future. Everything from Doctor Strange to Squirrel Girl!
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Post by arcadehero on Sept 18, 2015 15:09:01 GMT -5
Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation - pretty good. I had seen virtually none of the trailers so I was pleasantly surprised.
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