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ccr1633's Replies
This film is garbage independent of the original Rollerball, which itself was kind of interesting but not all that great. First on the list of what made the 2002 remake unbearable was the execrable, incessant use of shakeycam and rapidfire edits. Rollerball 2002 is one of the worst offenders of any film in these areas, which makes it nearly impossible to follow what's going on and makes every action scene dull and uninspired. It's a great way to avoid doing any real stunts or expending the slightest bit of brainpower on cinematography, but ultimately cheap and fake.
Should be easy pickins given all the little black kids abandoned by their fathers...
Mr. Incredible has been portrayed as a dull-witted meathead from the very beginning, just like every dad you see on every television sitcom for the last few decades. Now they've made him a stay-at-home meathead dad, even if a big ol' lovable lug, but the standard insult to dads/men in these films dates back to 2004.
Culburn wrote:
[quote]But, there is no plot, MF. Trying to rob a crook because he killed a crook is just thin.[/quote]
That's such an idiotic summary of the plot that I'll have to assume you're trolling. Luther's death only inspired the Lonnegan con. Everyone did it for the money. The revenge factor was icing on the cake. The build up and resolution of an elaborate con job doesn't qualify as a plot?
"when the chinese government gave the village the placebo vaccine, it was because they were not looking forward to more kidnappings of that nature. the spelled that out rather clearly."
The film didn't indicate whether the kidnappers were told they were given a placebo, or whether this was announced by the Chinese government to media sources. How then could this strategy have possibly been an effective deterrent? Even if they did make such an announcement, subsequent kidnappers would've upped the ante and demanded some sort of verification that they were given legitimate vaccine. Nothing about this made any sense.
I don't remember Outbreak all that well, having despised it for the most part. My last comment refers to the primary message of Contagion.
I agree with your sentiments, but lean toward being more merciful to this film. For starters, it's light years better than it's most known predecessor "Outbreak." Watching a washed up Dustin Hoffman battle it out with his angry ex Rene Russo was insufferable. The music in this film is pretty cool and sets an eerie, modern tone. I also liked how they saved the reveal of the contagion's initial spread until the very end, something it tipped off it would do by beginning with the Day 2 scene (it made me curious enough to watch to the bitter end). So far as cookie cutter Hollywood films go it was a passable 7/10 for me.
The main message I took from this film was this: if you have a cheating, lying scumbag of a wife who travels a lot, be sure not to touch the bitch under any circumstances.
What they need is their testosterone back.
"The visual effects were great and Vader was, of course, great but...that's it. If I can't invest in the characters in a story then the story is useless and boring to me."
This I pretty much agree with. But, at a minimum, I demand that the lead characters not be annoying or tarnished with the fake vibe of a writer's agenda beyond the story. Episodes VII-VIII fails that test spectacularly. There wasn't a single character in the last two Star Wars films that I gave a whit about, including our favorites from 1977 (except for Luke, I suppose). Rogue One met this criterion, allowing me to focus on its finer qualities, among which was its spectacular look, special effects, and expansive shots that allowed you to see at a distance what was going on in the action scenes.
For one thing, the kids would've been much less annoying.
Most definitely correct, you are. The feminist pandering annoyed me even back in 1993. Many are in denial about these undertones that JP was forcibly pushing. Why not just have a strong, capable, and intelligent female character without the preposterous sermonizing?
Not only is Jaws horror, but it's realistic. People actually do get attacked by sharks and sharks close to 25 feet in length have been observed. It could happen to you. JP is pure fantasy, and while occasionally scary doesn't generate anything remotely close to the frightening dread that Jaws did. I'll be surprised if I see another film in my lifetime that terrifies audiences the way that Jaws did (so I've read and have been told, anyway). My understanding is that The Exorcist chilled audiences to the bone similarly. As absurd as that story was, it preyed on our fears of the eternal and the dark realms within it that a great many believe to exist.
I agree that an attempt was made to give the numerous teens some distinct character, but even that suffers from having too many of them to keep track of. For me, anyway, it diminishes any emotional investment I might've had even with more engaging characterization. The highly entertaining banter between Brody, Quint, and Hooper was sorely missed. Jaws 2 perhaps would have been better off with just Mike, his brother, and a couple of close friends fending off the shark, with 1 or 2 of the friends treated to shocking and gruesome deaths.
Of course, the magical trio of characters and actors up to the task of fleshing them out that Spielberg was fortunate enough to work with is rarely reproducible. The only sequel I can think of at the moment that able to do that was Godfather II. There are probably others.
"The best scene is when the shark takes down a friggin' helicopter (!)."
The longer version of this scene that was cut was even better. Very creepy. You can find it on YouTube.
I agree, and actually said so on another thread here a number of years ago back in the day of IMDB forums. I was enthralled by this film as a kid. In retrospect, WoA loses quite a bit of steam when the focus shifts to the aliens obsession with tapping Charles's brain, and the back-projection effects look pretty bad compared to the first and last thirds of the movie that take place on the ship. Still, the adventurous spirit and the creepy vibe wrought by the creatures of the deep sea guarding Atlantis's treasures holds up very well, as do some of the special effects. The music is terrific. In my view, the streamlined CGI effects of today distract from good stories and characters, luring producers and filmmakers into spending far too much time on dull action sequences full of what are now pretty generic looking special effects (e.g. the Clash of the Titans reboot). Even worse, the lead actors in these roles today just don't have the gravitas and personality of even beloved second-raters like Doug McClure (a backhanded compliment to McClure, btw). Most just look a bit too pretty these days.
SnagsWolf wrote:
"Rocky won Best Picture, and it's a movie similar to Black Panther.
They both present a fictional situation as reality in order to tap into racial pride."
Nope. Stallone based his Rocky script on an actual human being - the white American boxer Chuck Wepner - who in 1975 lasted almost 15 rounds with the reigning heavyweight champ Muhammed Ali. Wepner knocked Ali to the canvas just as Rocky did to Creed. Wepner grew up poor in a tough, working class eastern city, just like Rocky. Rocky is a faithful biography compared to the comic book fantasyland junk of Black Panther.
John Carpenter got eviscerated by critics in 1982 for The Thing not having any females in it. Did Annihilation get the same treatment by mainstream movie critics? Nope. It's the double standards that fuel this particular complaint about this film.
Unless your fetish is specifically goat gods.
Maybe not the "best" by some measures, but RD is my favorite film of QT and the funniest. In my case, it's largely because RD riffs off earlier American cinema, not, for example, the kung fu films that inspired much of the absurdity in Kill Bill. The five minutes with Mr. Pink and Mr. Brown objecting to their names is my favorite scene among all his films. It's a great example of how QT pays homage to movies that influenced him (e.g. The Taking of Pelham 123) whilst adding an original, usually humorous twist.
If in 1992 you were old enough to get into R rated films without subterfuge, like I barely was, then you'd know that RD was one of those few films you'll see in which you're aware during the first viewing that you're seeing something new and genre defining. Sure enough, RD and Pulp Fiction spawned many imitations, some of them even good. In its own way it had an influence on the scale of Dirty Harry and The Matrix.
They live in a nice trailer park?