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Banjo's Replies
I don't know about Baldwin (Alec?) but as much as I enjoy Jack's Joker in this, I'd have *loved* Mark to have got a shot at a live action Joker.
That said, watch him in The Flash (1990's series) as "The Trickster" and you can pretty much see how he'd have played it. It's an awesome performance (predating his Joker voice work, AFAIK) and easily the standout high point of the whole series. Also, it's clearly where the idea for Harley Quinn came from, in the form of Trickster's sidekick "Prank". Although different to his later Joker vocal performances in many ways, Mark as The Trickster is the closest I feel we'll ever get to how he would have done Mister J in the late 80's-early 90's live action.
Now I'm totally imagining an Alpha vs Judith battle done like a Pokemon fight.
"Negan uses Blahblahblah. It's not very effective."
"Negan uses Lucille. It's super effective!"
I first saw the Alien movies when I was in high school in the 90's, when the Special Edition of Aliens came out (and gave the series a bit of a resurgence in popularity for awhile, including the Dark Horse comics run), so I watched all three for the first time within a few weeks of each other. I fell in love with the movies, characters and the franchise instantly!
I'd also read the novelizations and also bought a shooting script to Alien 3 not long after seeing it (along with the rejected William Gibson script; this was before the internet was a "thing" really, so scripts were things you bought in collectable shops or at sci-fi conventions!). The shooting script and novelization pretty much filled in the blanks to what was "cut" from the movie (they're both pretty close to what we got in the assembly edit many years later). So, what I consider the biggest issue with Alien 3 - the cutting of several characters and plotlines (Junior and Golic's arcs, most notably) - wasn't an issue for me.
Despite it being my least favorite of the original trilogy, Alien 3 is easily the 3rd best IMO and I like that it - for the most part - does it's own thing, when it would have been much easier to ride the success of Aliens and make another action movie. The characters are flawed and interesting, the art design gorgeously atmospheric, and I adore the score. I hated the killing off of Newt and Hicks (especially as a Dark Horse comics fan, where those characters spun off into their own post-Aliens story) but mostly because it was off-camera, and their deaths worked if this was the final film in the series, as it was closing the book anyway. The climax and ending still makes me emotional to this day.
Yeah, I like Alien 3. It's not perfect, but the assembly edit fixes most issues... back then, I never would have dreamed we'd get a proper release of that!
The opening sequence/chaos is not only better in the book but its IMO the best part of the book. Really strong, and the book is okay but never quite as good after they reach the field.
The opening airport stuff in the movie, on the other hand, I found the weakest part of the movie.
I felt the same as the OP, but for what its worth I tried again and while still shaky, the motion sickness inducing slow "waving" seems to stop once Sam Jackson appears. At least, I didn't really notice it after that and could watch the movie okay. My first attempt I felt so sick and had to turn it off kust after the credits, so totally get where the Op is coming from!
The only thing he's ever written that I liked was the episode Yes Virginia, There is a Hercules from the tv show Hercules the Legendary Journeys.
The episode is a meta 4th wall breaking comedic look at the crew who make the show, and features Alex Kurtzman and Bob Orci as characters who are prophetically terrible hacks and pathetic man-childdren, who only got their jobs through nepotism.
Anyone who've suffered through a Kurtzman and/or Orci script should honestly track down and watch that episode. Seriously.
The single problem I have with this show (aside from being so grimdark they literally have "black alert", black badges and a captain with a special condition that requires dark moody lighting on his ship) is that it beatrs the name Star Trek.
Ironically, The Orville has proved that you can make a show heavily based on/influenced by Star Trek and still create an original universe, so I wish Discovery had done that instead.
To be honest, it feels far more like the universe (and art direction) of Mass Effect or tone of NuBSG anyway. Making this an original universe would require only changing a few names and maybe giving the Vulcans a different hat to "logic" ("science", perhaps?).
Getting rid of the thin tie to Star Trek continuity, especially when they clearly don't want to honor it anyway (holodecks and holo-communications? Starburst replacing warp drive? Klingons at are nothing like Klingons? A dark and almost fascist Federation?), would solve almost every complaint directed at this show.
It's not amazing, but its a decent enough sci-fi show... but I keep getting distracted by the fact this is anything but Star Trek yet has these tiny references or names from it.
The problem is that the movie never really establishes her as a villain of any sort aside from a racist idiot. Django killing her unarmed and in cold blood just makes him seem like he's become a monster too, a far cry from the man who regretted shooting a convicted murderer in front of his son.
Had we seen Lara show *much* more contempt for the black slaves (maybe even making ot clear that she thinks even less of them than Calvin during his discussion?), shown her nastily gloating to Hilde that she was going to make her a whore after Django was sent to the mine, or even just a scene of her spitting vengeance on Django when he's captured to make it clear she *would* come after him if he spared her, him shooting her (in a manner that reminded me of Unforgiven's memorable "you just shot an unarmed man!" scene) would have been far more acceptable.
As it is, he just murders a grieving, terrified and unarmed woman because of her skin colour.
Just saw the movie and totally agree. I was concerned at the insane running time (almost three hours for a non-novel adaptation seems pretty self-indulgent) but I never once found the movie dragged and thoroughly enjoyed it... up until the big shootout scene.
Not only was it sparked by something more comedic than dramatic (there was no reason to shoot Candie and then commit suicide by just standing there) but it was the logical end to the movie, yet it staggered on for another twenty minutes of baffling padding.
Why were the mining guys (including Tarantino, with a dreadful accent) Aussies? Why kill the innocent sister and make Django into a villain himself? Heck, why would they let him live and risk any chance of revenge after he killed about thirty people in that shootout?! What were they going to do with his wife? Why was Zoe Bell in this film with a mask on when it had no payoff at all?
IMO, the film should either a) have ended with that gunfight, letting Django kill Steven and escape with his wife (since a tragic end wasn't in the cards, clearly) or b) have Candie kill Schultz in cold blood at the dinner table and have Django sent to the mine... so he escapes, returns to rescue Hilde and kills Candie and Steven in a similar epic gunfight and explosion as the finale.
What we got was an ending... then a bit of faffing around, then another ending.
Oh, and IMO the ending was quite tonally off from the rest of the film too, playing like a blaxploitation ending (fine by itself, as its a fun genre) when Django had previously been set up as a much more introspective, just man with a conscience rather than a "kill whitey like a badass" hero.
Easily the highlight of the movie, IMO, despite (or perhaps because) the tone was *totally* different from the rest of the movie.
I totally thought the same as the OP too... Tarantino often uses dark humour in his films, and certainly does in Django Unchained, but that lynch mob scene was straight out of Blazing Saddles!
I actually wish the film was more like that, to be honest, though I wouldn't be surprised if that once scene was even written or directed by someone else (as Tarantino has done for other directors in the past).
An argument that Tarantno is a "thief" could certainly be made, but not for the reason the OP claims.
Rather, compare Reservoir Dogs with City on Fire or The Hateful Eight with the episode Fair Game from the tv show The Rebel.
A lot of his work is a clearly-loving homage (Django's name, for one) and are openly acknowledged by him, but cases likw the two above examples are much more blatant "inspirations" that worryingly have never been acknowledged as far as I've known.
It's a shame IMO that moment isn't used once the machinegun starts firing... it would have been awesome timing had he burst in, shouted like an idiot and then immediately got gunned down!
Am I remembering right that we never see a vehicle get "possessed" while a driver was behind the wheel? Aside from the kid on the bike (which could equally be a legitimate crash rather than the bike flipping him on purpose)?
Although this isn't a movie where one should worry about logic, I think the best explanation is that whatever was taking remote control of machinery didn't want to "fight" a human operator, hence only vehicles that were unmanned became possessed.
It might be worth noting that even the electric carving knife "came to life" sitting on the bench, not in anyone's hands... Same for all the guns in the movie.
There's definitely a couple of shots in the movie that seem trimmed by a second or two to avoid gore, notably Pat Hingle's death (IIRC, we don't actually see him get hit?), and the preacher's death is very odd in that we see the kid react to his "body" but no shot of his face after he springs to life, and he dies completely off-camera making his whole prolonged survival seem rather pointless.
These felt like these were trims to me, even if only minimal, and it would be great to have an "uncut" version just for those to be restored. Ideally, I wish there were more scenes fleshing out the more minor characters (Leon Rippy's character, for example, or Giancarlo's!), but I don't know if anything more was shot on that front.
I'll have to go watch that now! Thanks for the recommendation.
CGI certainly has its place, doing things that would otherwise be plain impossible or just making models or compositing look much, much better (I'm old enough that I grew up with Star Wars having big matte lines around the ships). I also respect that it can save a stuntman from serious risk.
That said, watching new movies, big action and "stunt" scenes never excite me, as I know they are all CGI. Watching something like the bridge stunt in Man with the Golden Gun might seem small scale today, but it still impresses and excites. Knowing someone really jumped, drove, got set on fire, etc. not only makes it more thrilling, but always looks better, too, IMO.
The ice cream truck for me, though wish we got to see it be more of a threat. Glad it came back for the finale, though.
I know it had blood on the front, making it disturbing imagining who and how it had killed before we first see it, but was there also part of a kid's bike wedged in the grill too?
It's funny, when I first saw the plane buzz the kid, I thought "yeah, but to crash into someone you destroy the plane... so better make it count and not just kill one kid!"
Then at the end of the movie we see a plane (the same one perhaps even) had crashed into what we can assume was a bus full of kids. I laughed out loud because somehow it HAD made its kamikaze count as I jokingly thought!
Yet another example of why CGI making anything possible in today's films make them less entertaining for me. I'd rather a small scale tricky stint that looks amazing and that you know was done for real (see the early Bond films for amazing examples) than a giant ridiculous boatload of CGI that's meant to look impressive, but isn't since it took no real skill aside from animation skill.
There's just something for me that's way more exciting and real knowing a real car and driver were involved, or a real building blown up or a real stuntman leapt from a cliff. To me, nothing is impressive when you can just CGI anything you want.
I've never read the comic (nor intend to now!) but I seriously consider Wanted one of the top five worst movies I've ever seen. I've seen a LOT of "bad" movies, but even most of those had some redeeming element even if just unintentional comedy.
Wanted was just vile, dull, stupid, cliche, insulting and terribly written.
However, the description the OP gives for the comic somehow actually sounds MUCH WORSE than the movie, which I didn't think could be possible, so I guess there is something to be thankful for after all!
It's funny that a film which literally calls its audience pathetic made so many people consider it, the film-maker and the writer "pathetic" instead. :)