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PhoenixVanguard's Replies
Everything in GTAV seems counter-productive. Missions don't net you much money at all, and breaking the law or getting killed can wind up costing more than you gain. I would spend money on guns, ammo, and body armour, and then get busted or die, losing everything along with a big chunk of money and not even get any reward out of it. I would wind up worse off than when I started. I find Red Dead Redemption to be the same.
In comparison, San Andreas has some great game play loops where every activity you do can be fun and profitable, regardless of whether you get busted or die. The vigilante missions in particular can net you a lot of money and guns while you're just having fun playing the game. I think they forgot how to reward you for in game activities and ignore the fact that they're supposed to encourage you to do criminal behaviour.
Do the Shark Cards give you money in the single player component? I have always though that's why they reduced the amount of money you got from missions.
I like films by the Coen Brothers, but they have a habit of sticking some really vague WTF moments at the end of their films. It's an interesting tactic, as you keep thinking about the final scene long after you have watched the movie, but I honestly don't think there's a lot behind these moments and one is liable to spend more time analysing the final scenes then the Coen Brothers did writing it.
Examples include:
Blood Simple - M Emmettt Walsh lying on his back, watching the water drip from the pipe under the sink.
Barton Fink - John Turturro spotting a woman on the beach that is the spitting image of the painting in his hotel room, right before a seagull plunges into the water.
The Man Who Wasn't There - The preoccupation with UFOs throughout that culminates in Billy Bob watching a UFO outside of the jail.
No Country For Old Men - Tommy Lee Jones' recollection of the two dreams he had.
If you can explain the significance of these scenes, I'd be surprised, because I don't even think the Coen Brothers could. Muddy waters are not always as deep as they appear to be.
I agree that everyone misinterprets Daniel as an evil sociopath, especially in regards to HW. Often I find people just regurgitate someone else's analysis of a film because that is the common conception, rather than looking for evidence they see within the film to support their argument.
When looking for meaning in films, it's often important to take note of scenes and situations which have parallels to other scenes and situations in the film, as these often show change within the story and characters between those moments. For example, one situation that is repeated in the film is Daniel sitting in the train with HW.
Early on, when HW is still a baby, we see them sitting in a train together. HW is tugging on Daniel's moustache and Daniel smiles happily. They are about to start a new life together. Later on, when HW is being sent off to a school for the deaf, Daniel tells HW he is going to see the conductor, and we can clearly see tears of sadness coming from his eyes when he leaves him. Their bond is about to be broken.
These two moments of genuine emotion show a side of Daniel that a lot of viewers tend to ignore when trying to paint him as a sociopath. Given his emotional reaction, it's clear he feels upset and guilty at sending HW off without him, and this is not something a sociopath would do.
I was thinking the same thing when watching this movie, and I think it just had terrible cinematography. The compositions were bad and the cinematographer had no concept of framing.
I came here to comment on the same thing. That squeaky door noise is one of my top three most hated stock sound effects, the other two being the squeaky sounding metal impact, which is often used in car crashes, and the Wilhelm scream. I wish the crew members responsible for recording sound actually did their jobs and recorded sounds, rather than reusing them. It's a terrible practice that is no different than using stock footage. It makes the whole production feel cheap and lazy.
I was keeping a tally of the squeaky door sound effect while watching this film, and I counted it being used 19 times. For an 82 minute film, including credits, it was used on average once every 4 minutes. Worse yet, sometimes it is used mere seconds apart. At 35 minutes in, it was used 3 times in 34 seconds. At 49 minutes in, it was used twice in 7 seconds. That is absolutely pathetic.
The strange thing was, on two occasions, they used a different sound effect which was not repeated at all in the film. Why not reuse some of them to mix it up a bit? Ridiculous.
I wondered that for years. My best guess is that it's an air horn, but it does sound like a cat.
That was a problem with the animated OVAs as well, and I imagine that's how those chapters in the manga ended. However, the animated OVAs didn't have that character up in Zarem, so considering the movie just teased him at the end, I think his inclusion was a mistake.
The thing is, most manga series are like television series that exist to perpetuate themselves, rather than telling a story with a beginning, middle, and end. As a result, the adaptations of the manga often lack closure as they're only telling you a few chapters of a story, that in all likelihood, is still ongoing and may never have a conclusion.
I remember waiting years for them to continue the cliffhanger ending of the Berserk animated series, only for them to reboot it 20 years later and start telling the story again from the start. When they finally got into the new material, I lost interest as the story line went downhill. The manga has been going for 30 years and still seems no closer to actually ending the story.
What are you talking about? First of all, there are no martians in this movie; "martians" come from Mars. Secondly, if you are talking about the xenomorph, there's nothing in the film to indicate that it is smart. Thirdly, if you are talking about the thing fused to the spacecraft, obviously it could build a craft to fly into space, but it and the rest of the crew got killed by the xenomorph who used them to gestate a new generation.
I saw Mortal Kombat and Batman Forever about 6 times each in 1995. I used to sneak into the movies a lot back then, and Batman Forever was probably playing in half the cinemas at the Hoyts 6.
James Horner's scores for Commando, 48 Hrs and Another 48 Hrs. I'm not sure if these were recorded separately or not, but to me it sounds like he recorded a whole bunch of music and just arranged different parts for these films. It's an interesting mix of a synthesised bed with an orchestra, steel drums, saxophone, and a bamboo flute playing over the top. Very unique. I listen to them on a regular basis.
The headlines in many of these articles claim he punched her in the face, but the actual quote mentions nothing about being punched or hit and just says "Val Kilmer picked me up and shaked me, throwing me down to the floor".
The accusers (Wade Robson and James Safechuck) are dishonest and not deserving of your sympathy. In court, as adults under oath, they said they were not molested, but now they say they were. Either they were lying before or they are lying now, as they could not possibly be telling the truth on both of those occasions. Furthermore, they have been attempting to sue Jackson's estate, so there's definitely a financial motivation for them to make these claims. I personally think they're full of shit.
However, I do agree with you that Jackson made some poor choices in having children sleep in his bed, especially after he was previously accused of sexual abuse in 1993.
There's some good suggestions on here. I'd add:
Where Eagles Dare (1968)
Marathon Man (1976)
Cruising (1980)
The Thing (1982)
First Blood (1982)
Conan The Barbarian (1982)
Scarface (1983)
The Star Chamber (1983)
The Hitcher (1986)
52 Pick-Up (1986)
Robocop (1987)
Predator (1987)
Total Recall (1990)
Point Break (1991)
Basic Instinct (1992)
Under Siege (1992)
Thunderheart (1992)
Carlito's Way (1993)
The Crow (1994)
Leon: The Professional (1994)
Clear And Present Danger (1994)
Heat (1995)
Copycat (1995)
Crimson Tide (1995)
Seven (1995)
Bound (1996)
The Game (1997)
Face/Off (1997)
U Turn (1997)
Breakdown (1997)
Dark City (1998)
Ronin (1998)
Payback (1999)
The Way Of The Gun (2000)
A.I. (2001)
Collateral (2004)
Primer (2004)
Inside Man (2006)
Beowulf (2007)
No Country For Old Men (2007)
Dredd (2012)
Get The Gringo (2012)
Nightcrawler (2014)
Animation:
Aeon Flux [The Series] (1991-1995)
Akira (1988)
Ninja Scroll (1993)
Patlabor 2 (1993)
Ghost In The Shell (1995)
Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2000)
Waking Life (2001)
If you're interested in Hong Kong action films about gangsters, I'd recommend looking up films directed by Johnnie To. I'd suggest:
The Mission (1999)
Fulltime Killer (2001)
PTU (2003)
Throw Down (2004)
Breaking News (2004)
Election (2005)
Election 2 (2006)
Exiled (2006)
Vengeance (2009)
Drug War (2012)
Three (2016)
He also produced a great film called:
Accident (2009)
Exactly. They show a close up of the nurse's face when she says that, almost as if she is implanting him with a subconscious suggestion. It was all part of the plan.
There's also a Marsellus in both films, but with different last names. I think Tarantino just likes using the same names over again.
Vincent is great; probably the best character Tom Cruise has played. It's because of him that I like Collateral just as much as Heat. However, I'd have to say his best performance is Ron Kovic in Born On The Fourth Of July, especially during the argument he has with Willem Dafoe's character in the desert. Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder is also pretty memorable.
Kids died in Schindler’s List. Also, I seem to remember in Munich that the main characters kill one of their targets with a bomb in his house, but the target’s kids are also killed in the explosion. Even Tony Montana didn’t do that in Scarface. Obviously, Spielberg likes using kids to pull on the audience’s heart strings, but I don’t think he’s afraid to have them killed if it serves the story.
Prometheus [2012]
I both love and hate this film and cannot watch it without oscillating between those two extremes. For every cool part in it (amazing visual design, the scene where Charlize Theron burns the crew member alive, and the alien extraction scene - very memorable), there's some real stupid stuff in there (a "scientist" embarking on a mission because of faith, scientists taking their helmets off on an unknown planet only to get infected, and demystifying the "Space Jockey" alien by making him humanoid - such a lack of imagination).
The Matrix Reloaded [2003]
I hated it at first but now it is one of my favourite films of all time. I still have problems with it, being that the Wachowskis have trouble merging the action and exposition, and the way they disguise monologues as dialogue by having other characters say "what?", "why?", and "how?", to give you the illusion that it is a conversation rather than a speech. But the action is unparalleled, there is depth in the world and story, and it just gets right into it without having to spend an hour explaining what the matrix is before they can start telling a story within it (which is a problem I have with the original on repeated viewings).
I think the polarising reviews these movies have gotten demonstrate that people often love them or hate them. I have just learned to take the bad with the good and appreciate them for what they are, rather then criticise them for what they could have been.
I always figured it was because he was slowing Dutch down and therefore preventing the Predator from engaging him in combat. The Predator wanted to face off with Dutch unencumbered with caring for his injured teammate.
The three major eras of westerns are the Classical, Spaghetti, and Revisionist Westerns.
Classical Westerns roughly span from the birth of the genre to the early 1960's, and is where actors like John Wayne and directors like John Ford made their mark. Some examples I'd recommend are:
- Stagecoach (1939) starring John Wayne & directed by John Ford.
- High Noon (1952) starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly & directed by Fred Zinnemann.
- The Searchers (1956) starring John Wayne & directed by John Ford.
- Rio Bravo (1959) starring John Wayne and Dean Martin & directed by Howard Hawks.
- The Man Who Shot The Liberty Valance (1962) starring James Stewart and John Wayne & directed by John Ford.
Spaghetti Westerns get their name from being filmed in Italy, and started getting released in the mid-1960's. The westerns directed by Sergio Leone are all great, and have great scores by Ennio Morricone. If you watch one and like it, you'll probably like them all as they all share a similar style. I'd recommend:
- A Fistful Of Dollars (1964) starring Clint Eastwood.
- For A Few Dollars More (1965) starring Clint Eastwood.
- The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (1966) starring Clint Eastwood.
- Once Upon A Time In The West (1968) starring Charles Bronson & Henry Fonda.
- Duck You Sucker! [aka A Fistful Of Dynamite] (1971) starring James Coburn & Rod Stieger.
As you may have noticed, Clint Eastwood stars in a few of these, and he made quite a name for himself with the western genre, even going on to direct some of the best of them. It's in this era where the Revisionist Westerns came to be, which started coming out around the 1970's. I'd recommend:
- The Wild Bunch (1969) starring William Holden and Ernest Borgnine & directed by Sam Peckinpah
- High Plains Drifter (1973) starring & directed by Clint Eastwood
- The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) starring & directed by Clint Eastwood
- Pale Rider (1985) starring & directed by Clint Eastwood
- The Unforgiven (1992) starring & directed by Clint Eastwood