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Thread: A Million Ways to Die in the West (Seth MacFarlane)

  1. #1
    Moderator TGM's Avatar
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    A Million Ways to Die in the West (Seth MacFarlane)

    A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST

    Director: Seth MacFarlane

    imdb


  2. #2
    Moderator TGM's Avatar
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    Sooooooooooooooo much better than Ted.

  3. #3
    Replacing Luck Since 1984 Dukefrukem's Avatar
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    This movie has both the worst and best cameos I've seen in a while.
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    Quote Quoting D_Davis (view post)
    Uwe Boll movies > all Marvel U movies
    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    I work in grocery. I have not gotten sick. My fellow employees have not gotten sick. If the virus were even remotely as contagious as its being presented as, why haven’t entire store staffs who come into contact with hundreds of people per day, thousands per week, all falling ill in mass nationwide?

  4. #4
    Moderator TGM's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Dukefrukem (view post)
    This movie has both the worst and best cameos I've seen in a while.
    Which and which?

  5. #5
    Replacing Luck Since 1984 Dukefrukem's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    Which and which?
    [
    ]
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    Quote Quoting D_Davis (view post)
    Uwe Boll movies > all Marvel U movies
    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    I work in grocery. I have not gotten sick. My fellow employees have not gotten sick. If the virus were even remotely as contagious as its being presented as, why haven’t entire store staffs who come into contact with hundreds of people per day, thousands per week, all falling ill in mass nationwide?

  6. #6
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    Quote Quoting Dukefrukem (view post)
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    Heh, I actually got a huge kick out of both of those. :P

  7. #7
    Replacing Luck Since 1984 Dukefrukem's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    Heh, I actually got a huge kick out of both of those. :P
    The former was so improperly used. I didn't get it.
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    Quote Quoting D_Davis (view post)
    Uwe Boll movies > all Marvel U movies
    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    I work in grocery. I have not gotten sick. My fellow employees have not gotten sick. If the virus were even remotely as contagious as its being presented as, why haven’t entire store staffs who come into contact with hundreds of people per day, thousands per week, all falling ill in mass nationwide?

  8. #8
    Moderator TGM's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Dukefrukem (view post)
    The former was so improperly used. I didn't get it.
    [
    ]

  9. #9
    Replacing Luck Since 1984 Dukefrukem's Avatar
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    Oh yehhhhh. I forgot about that.
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    Quote Quoting D_Davis (view post)
    Uwe Boll movies > all Marvel U movies
    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    I work in grocery. I have not gotten sick. My fellow employees have not gotten sick. If the virus were even remotely as contagious as its being presented as, why haven’t entire store staffs who come into contact with hundreds of people per day, thousands per week, all falling ill in mass nationwide?

  10. #10
    Alone again, naturally eternity's Avatar
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    This movie feels like its pissed that it has to be a comedy.

  11. #11
    Replacing Luck Since 1984 Dukefrukem's Avatar
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    Who's got a bigger fascination with poop? Seth? The South Park guys? Or Howard Stern?

    Also, best original song:

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    Quote Quoting D_Davis (view post)
    Uwe Boll movies > all Marvel U movies
    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    I work in grocery. I have not gotten sick. My fellow employees have not gotten sick. If the virus were even remotely as contagious as its being presented as, why haven’t entire store staffs who come into contact with hundreds of people per day, thousands per week, all falling ill in mass nationwide?

  12. #12
    Quote Quoting eternity (view post)
    This movie feels like its pissed that it has to be a comedy.
    How so? Just curious.

  13. #13
    In the belly of a whale Henry Gale's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Mitty (view post)
    How so? Just curious.
    Haven't seen it, but going by Ted and a couple of impressions reviews have given me for this, I'm going to assume MacFarlane's sentimentality and overestimating of the weight of his love story and other relationships completely overtake the movie's final act, and jibe with the sardonic and brash two-thirds before it.

    Seth, you cannot do sincerity. You've made a whole career honing how to be offensively boundary-pushing and smug in a way that strikes a chord with audiences, and building previous projects to fit that, why do you think that people suddenly want to see your movies play as if they strive to be Zucker/Abrahams or Mel Brooks spiritual descendants that suddenly flip the switch to resolve themselves like bad romantic comedies?
    Last 11 things I really enjoyed:

    Speed Racer (Wachowski/Wachowski, 2008)
    Safe (Haynes, 1995)
    South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (Parker, 1999)
    Beastie Boys Story (Jonze, 2020)
    Bad Trip (Sakurai, 2020)
    What's Up Doc? (Bogdanovich, 1972)
    Diva (Beineix, 1981)
    Delicatessen (Caro/Jeunet, 1991)
    The Hunger (Scott, 1983)
    Pineapple Express (Green, 2008)
    Chungking Express (Wong, 1994)

  14. #14
    Replacing Luck Since 1984 Dukefrukem's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Henry Gale (view post)
    Haven't seen it, but going by Ted and a couple of impressions reviews have given me for this, I'm going to assume MacFarlane's sentimentality and overestimating of the weight of his love story and other relationships completely overtake the movie's final act, and just gibe with the sardonic and brash two thirds before it.

    Seth, you cannot do sincerity. You'd made a whole career honing just how to be ironic and smug to striking a chord with audiences, and building projects to fit that, why do you think that people want to see movies that play like strive to be Zucker/Abrahams or Mel Brooks spiritual descendants that suddenly flip the switch to resolve themselves like bad romantic comedies?
    You know what this post reminds me of, SCRUBS. There were a ton of episodes that follow this exact formula, and towards the end actually boil down to either a) the moral of the episode or b) the sincerity that you mentioned above. Where did the directors of those episodes go? Just thinking out loud.
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    Quote Quoting D_Davis (view post)
    Uwe Boll movies > all Marvel U movies
    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    I work in grocery. I have not gotten sick. My fellow employees have not gotten sick. If the virus were even remotely as contagious as its being presented as, why haven’t entire store staffs who come into contact with hundreds of people per day, thousands per week, all falling ill in mass nationwide?

  15. #15
    Alone again, naturally eternity's Avatar
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    Much of the humor beyond the fact that every character speaks like it's 2014 seems tacked on to what is otherwise a conventional, completely earnest Western. It seems like Seth MacFarlane wanted to make an honest Western first and foremost, but it just isn't good enough on that level to make up for the fact that there just aren't very many jokes in this movie. For the jokes that are there, very few of them are all that funny. I'm used to (and a big fan) of the rapid fire onslaught of jokes that MacFarlane's work are known for; even if most of them miss, they just keep coming. That is not the case in A Million Ways to Die in the West, and it ultimately suffers for it.

  16. #16
    Alone again, naturally eternity's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Henry Gale (view post)
    Haven't seen it, but going by Ted and a couple of impressions reviews have given me for this, I'm going to assume MacFarlane's sentimentality and overestimating of the weight of his love story and other relationships completely overtake the movie's final act, and just gibe with the sardonic and brash two thirds before it.

    Seth, you cannot do sincerity. You'd made a whole career honing just how to be ironic and smug to striking a chord with audiences, and building projects to fit that, why do you think that people want to see movies that play like strive to be Zucker/Abrahams or Mel Brooks spiritual descendants that suddenly flip the switch to resolve themselves like bad romantic comedies?
    More or less this.

  17. #17
    In the belly of a whale Henry Gale's Avatar
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    Just realizing now how unintelligible a lot of what I wrote was. But thanks, guys! :lol: (Had to edit it for future reading...)

    Quote Quoting Dukefrukem (view post)
    You know what this post reminds me of, SCRUBS. There were a ton of episodes that follow this exact formula, and towards the end actually boil down to either a) the moral of the episode or b) the sincerity that you mentioned above. Where did the directors of those episodes go? Just thinking out loud.
    At least that show had characters that felt generally relatable and intermittently real enough to earn your affection over time, and were set in a daily situation that warranted pulling of heartstrings now and again. It's a whole other deal when something plays as one-dimensionally and ironically as MacFarlane's stuff that then decides to suddenly do the same, expecting you to actually care about the caricatures involved.
    Last 11 things I really enjoyed:

    Speed Racer (Wachowski/Wachowski, 2008)
    Safe (Haynes, 1995)
    South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (Parker, 1999)
    Beastie Boys Story (Jonze, 2020)
    Bad Trip (Sakurai, 2020)
    What's Up Doc? (Bogdanovich, 1972)
    Diva (Beineix, 1981)
    Delicatessen (Caro/Jeunet, 1991)
    The Hunger (Scott, 1983)
    Pineapple Express (Green, 2008)
    Chungking Express (Wong, 1994)

  18. #18
    It Makes Me Feel Alone Sxottlan's Avatar
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    I think this was even less funny than Ted and I wasn't all that crazy about that film either. The trailer again had all the laughs and incorrectly gave you impression that the film would feature a lot of hilarious slapstick deaths. No. This is more like A Dozen Ways to Die in the West. I think if the film were about 15 minutes shorter, it could have been better.

    I agree with the statements above. I don't know why MacFarlane tries to go all Woody Allen rom-com with his feature films. His character is such a whiny brat the entire time.

    I did like the mustache song.
    Out of 4 stars:
    The Guest: ***1/2
    Furious 7: ***
    The Tale of Princess Kaguya: ***
    It Follows: ***1/2

  19. #19
    A Platypus Grouchy's Avatar
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    I agree with y'all about the sentimentality being Seth's big failure as a feature film director... but this was way better than Ted in that and every other aspect. I enjoyed it.

  20. #20
    Thanks for clarifying. Your replies reminded me of Community, which delivered a lot of poor, incongruous sentimentality.

  21. #21
    In the belly of a whale Henry Gale's Avatar
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    Wow, what the hell was this even trying to be?

    Everything eternity said in this thread it sums it up to a tee. It's just a really bland western intermittently deciding it wants to force half-heartedly satirical flourishes into itself. And even then it doesn't seem all that interested with the whole "trying to make funny things happen" thing so many other comedies burden themselves with. There's scenes that go on for minutes without a single subversive gesture, gag or even a strikingly original bit of dialogue worth remembering, let alone laughing at in the moment.

    It's not a bulletproof test, but you think of any great genre send-ups and consider how successful they would still be as movies if all the irony and outright jokes were taken out of them, and in the case of say, anything Edgar Wright's done with his Cornetto Trilogy, you still have pretty great zombie, cop and apocalypse movies. And yet, the humour of those is still so deeply ingrained in the DNA of them that it's a tough thing to even dissect where one bit would end and another would begin. With A Million Ways To Die In The West, there's simply the plot points, the jokes (most of which you've probably seen, really), love interest scenes, villain scenes, Ribisi / Silverman scenes, aaand that's about it, with none of them really overlapping or intersecting in gratifying ways.

    Even if the majority of Ted's jokes and attempts at sentimentality with its characters fell flat for me, at least it had a both of them in spades and found ways of tying together into something of a cohesive and original story. This feels like a first pass of MacFarlane and co. rewriting someone else's decades-old spec script, yet dusted their hands off and decided it was what the finished product should be.

    It's likely I'll see a worse movie by the end of this year, but I hope I don't see one with so much inherent potential that ends up feeling as disappointingly lazy as this.

    *½ / 3.4
    Last 11 things I really enjoyed:

    Speed Racer (Wachowski/Wachowski, 2008)
    Safe (Haynes, 1995)
    South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (Parker, 1999)
    Beastie Boys Story (Jonze, 2020)
    Bad Trip (Sakurai, 2020)
    What's Up Doc? (Bogdanovich, 1972)
    Diva (Beineix, 1981)
    Delicatessen (Caro/Jeunet, 1991)
    The Hunger (Scott, 1983)
    Pineapple Express (Green, 2008)
    Chungking Express (Wong, 1994)

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