28 Film Discussion Threads Later

[transmogrifier]

I'm gonna choose option (c), none of the above.

[Spinal]

People are talking about Boll and talking about Marvel and even talking about Resident Evil.

How come no one is talking about movies featuring a retarded vizard in the forest?

[MadMan]

This entire discussion resulted in me rep-ing Wats. This site I tell yah...there outta be a head shaking smiley.

[Spun Lepton]

[D_Davis]

That dude rules.

[D_Davis]

I was super tired last night, and about ready to hit the sack, but I decided to watch the first few minutes of The Road Warrior just because I haven't seen it in so long.

An hour and a half later, I finally went to bed.

Goddamn that's a great movie.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Rewatched it too, recently, and yeah. Near immaculate. I forgot how intense the chases leading up to the final chase are. That one is the standout, but I was tense while he was trying to bring the rig back, and I've seen the film quite a few times.

[Spun Lepton]

If I'm being honest, I didn't have much interest in the Mad Max movies when they were being released. I did see Thunderdome in the theater and enjoyed it, but I never considered myself a fan. Time to review.

[Dead & Messed Up]

While Free Willy swindles a populace all too eager for back-patting environmental treacle, Flipper swims its way toward sophisticated satire. It offers the same strain of eco-terror, but this time with a single-faced villain in veteran Jonathan Banks, years before his tedious video game antiheroism in the nihilistic Breaking Bad. It offers a sly consistent product placement, from Hogan's Porter cooking Spaghettios with a butane torch (commerce cooked with the facsimile of whimsy) to Flipper himself juggling a Pepsi can, making clear the film's interest in Greenpeace theatrics as just another commodity in a saturated marketplace. By efficiently cutting out character arcs, director Rupert Wainwright reveals Snyder's Save-the-Catisms as pop nonsense, always at risk of becoming little more than the dead fish slopped over the side of the boat to Flipper, who eats as unblinkingly as the audience. Consider Flipper a savvy inverse to the sturdy sincerity of Spielberg's ET and Robbins' Blank Check.

[megladon8]

Anyone seen Slow West?

[Morris Schæffer]

The action thriller Brake with Stephen Dorff is a one-location movie, namely the trunk of car. A prerequisite of a one location movie is that the lead actor brings his A game and Dorff really does as a secret service agent under extreme duress. What is really cool is that we get all the clichés of the action genre, except we can't see them, only hear them which makes everything even more tense. So we get shootouts, chases and crashes and it's all pretty engaging.

And then we get two twist endings which, ah, well, which make me wonder for the overall sanity of Hollywood folks. Stunningly incompetent, monumentally dumb, horribly unnecessary.

[Morris Schæffer]

Spielberg's Duel never ceases to amaze me. The framing is incredible, every single shot of the truck is used to amplify its monstrous, massive nature. If one were to say Duel is his best movie, I couldn't argue with it. And the Blu-Ray presents Duel like I've never seen it before.

[transmogrifier]

No one would say that though because Jaws is a thing that exists.

[Morris Schæffer]

No one would say that though because Jaws is a thing that exists.

And I can't argue with that either.

[baby doll]

Everybody knows that Duel is superior to Jaws. For one thing, the pacing is better; it's wonderful how the screenwriter, Richard Matheson (a much better writer than Peter Benchley), escalates the conflict from not letting him pass to actually trying to run him down in the phone booth to an out-and-out duel in the final sequence. On the other hand, in Jaws, after the shark eats the girl in the opening sequence, there's really nowhere to go from there; it just keeps eating people. Also, Duel is the more economical film: here, it only takes the movie one phone call home to establish that the hero is a wimp, after which we never hear of his wife again, and since it's only one guy in the car, we don't have to sit through any boring male bonding crap.

[transmogrifier]

Seeing as I agree with 0% of that analysis, I think I'll just doff my hat and say "Good day."

[Dukefrukem]

I love both. But yeh, Jaws is way better.

If I agree with trans on one more thing the universe will collapse on itself. That's like 4 times in the past month.

[Winston*]

Seeing as I agree with 0% of that analysis, I think I'll just doff my hat and say "Good day."

I agree that Matheson is a better writer than Benchley, but that doesn't really mean anything for Jaws the movie.

[transmogrifier]

I agree that Matheson is a better writer than Benchley, but that doesn't really mean anything for Jaws the movie.

Eh, he parenthesized it, so I stand by my original hyperbole. 0%!

[baby doll]

As long as we all agree that Richard Matheson rules, I'm happy.

[transmogrifier]

I love both. But yeh, Jaws is way better.

If I agree with trans on one more thing the universe will collapse on itself. That's like 4 times in the past month.

Don't worry, we still have Age of Ultron and pretty much all Christopher Nolan movies to ward off disaster.

[Morris Schæffer]

Also, Duel is the more economical film: here, it only takes the movie one phone call home to establish that the hero is a wimp, after which we never hear of his wife again, and since it's only one guy in the car, we don't have to sit through any boring male bonding crap.

I love David's reaction when he overtakes the truck the second time by blasting into a piece of side road. His violent outburst of laughter indicates a man who's becoming alive again, who is rediscovering himself.

[Dukefrukem]

Don't worry, we still have Age of Ultron and pretty much all Christopher Nolan movies to ward off disaster.

Speaking of which, Nolan hasn't announced his next movie has he?

[baby doll]

I love David's reaction when he overtakes the truck the second time by blasting into a piece of side road. His violent outburst of laughter indicates a man who's becoming alive again, who is rediscovering himself.

Denis Weaver's the man.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Everybody knows that Duel is superior to Jaws.

You're adorable.

But you're right that Duel and Matheson are awesome, so let's call this a push.