[Predator Goose]

Edit: That contained a bunch of spoilers that I didn't feel like covering up. So basically I felt that the motivation supplied at the beginning didn't stand up to the sense of ambiguity that the movie tried to promote. That's where a lot of things fell apart for me and I lost interest. Either reinforce the motivations or cut the ambiguity and the movie would be much more enjoyable to someone like me.
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I can no longer shop happily.

[shrugtheironteacup]

[Predator Goose]

[shrugtheironteacup]

\(^__^)/
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[boojiboy7]

[boojiboy7]

[Tulpa]

[Rud31]

I'm glad selectbutton allows dissenting opinions.
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My Hawt Blog Vita Games

THERE ARE DEFINITELY WORSE VIDEO GAME PODCASTS

[evnvnv]

[Rud31]

Stop being shitty.
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My Hawt Blog Vita Games

THERE ARE DEFINITELY WORSE VIDEO GAME PODCASTS

[shrugtheironteacup]

Dragon Eyes is not as good as Universal Soldier Regeneration :(
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[CubaLibre]

In an action movis, the action scenes compose character and create motivation. What's boring is a movie (most movies) where an action scene is set up by a bunch of boring dialogue scenes which carefully lay out all the stakes and present each character's motivation to engage those stakes. That renders the action scene a mere explication, a void of kinecticism whose entire emotional content can be represented by the single phrase construction "[character x] [wins/loses]". The win or loss of character x completes the process of stakes-laying and gives the plot a conclusion. A well-done action scene in this mold can still be viscerally exciting, but only briefly. It can't actually engage you emotionally because all that matters is the end result, but the point of action isn't the end result, it's every moment of shattering graceful movement. But who can really care about that when the movie has preestablished a binary scenario where the only relevant input is who wins the fight?

If anything, The Raid had too much talking. Easily the most embarrassing and boring thing in the movie is the very beginning where he's kissing his pregnant wife goodbye and they are dewy-eyed and totally in love or whatever. A wallet picture and a line could've given us the same information.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[boojiboy7]

That's all great if the "shattering graceful movement" isn't monotonous and boringly filmed.

A wallet picture would've worked a lot better, yes, because that whole opening scene is entirely forgotten about for the rest of the movie, aside from a brief mention in the brother scene.

[notbov]

The opening scene works because it helps establish the character's relative naivete/innate goodness, which helps make when he helps the one good resident of the building not some arbitrary decision out of the blue (which is how it appears to the sergeant, who just thinks he's being a dumb rookie), but a believable, logically consistent decision. It also reveals he has an ulterior motive for the raid and that he's a crazy badass martial artist guy, two things that what have been left as surprises if we went wallet-picture route. I also get the feeling he wouldn't have taken his wallet with him anyways; seems like kind of odd thing to take for a SWAT raid.

So, the Ace Attorney/Gyakuten Saiban movie. It is the best kind of retarded. Miike manages to deftly switch from serious courtroom melodrama (with a bit of CSI craziness) to full on live-action comedy anime mode (literally; at three points in courtroom scenes, someone says something stupid and everyone, everyone does a faceplant) to straight-up "this shit is ridiculous" comedy (spoilers:when Phoenix calls a parrot to the witness stand, Miike mines the initial shot of the bird sitting on a perch in the middle of the courtroom for all its worth). At the same time, once things get rolling, everything seems believable, seemingly in spite of itself.

Also, shoutouts to the poor projectionist who handled my screening; since the screen was being used all day by this particular film festival (Filmfest DC) and the setup time between films was probably half an hour, the movie was seemingly shown off of alternating projectors instead of being spliced together, which meant every reel change, the movie died for a few seconds. I get why they did it and it probably was the best solution for a print that was only getting used twice and getting shipped back home immediately, but I doubt anyone else in the audience shares my sympathies. Oh, and Capcom probably translated the movie themselves, as they managed to misspell 'trial" once.
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[ghost_dinosaur]

saw Immortals.

one more to the list of things cuba and i agree on. liked it enough that i am tempted to see Mirror Mirror (prob won't, though)

[Tulpa]

I saw Mirror Mirror a few days ago, it's pretty ok. Costumes are great, one particular character had incoherent characterization and there were too many 'sound effects'. Kind of wish the movie was a 4 hour song and dance bollywood film like the music video credits sequence but you know that would have failed in america.
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[costel]

I was spewing so much hype while seeing The Raid, it was unbelievable. Afterwards, I walked back outside into the lobby and after days of anticipation finally quenched by the cinematic orgy of nihlistic violence, I just started a full fledged choreographed brutal fight scene with everyone in the lobby.

Six are dead.
Four will never walk again.



Nah in all seriousness, I absolutely adored the film and need some actual time to work out my feelings about the film and it's impact.
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[CubaLibre]

[ghost_dinosaur]

i was bored and procrastinating on hw so i went and saw cabin in the woods and the raid. both started out pretty great, then kinda limped their way to the finish line.

i don't know if i've ever seen a movie before that had a bunch of both gunplay and martial arts where i preferred the gunplay, but man, the raid handled those gun fights like a champ and then dried up the well on the hand to hand. loved the shotgun lighting up the hallway, all the creepy tension of the cops trying to sneak around before the shit went down, the fridge deal, but the cqc really could have used some more creative environmental interaction. i liked some of the big fights involving dudes getting knifed across the thighs, but the finale is a dull square room and it honestly did feel like it just went on forever. also couldn't figure out why sarge seemed like he came fairly close to winning the fight with mad dog but got wore out before he could finish it, while supercop and bro couldn't beat him working together without basically kinda cheating at the end. also after the really successful tension at the beginning i can't believe the movie tried to pull a "menacing dude is so close to finding the hiding heroes then gets distracted and leaves" bit. i mean, technically they pulled it twice but the machete in the wall one was kinda okay.

[boojiboy7]

[Mikey]

Lockout wasn't really the overlooked gem I was hoping it was going to be.

[Jam]

I wanted to like it as an cheap & easy popcorn flick. And a lot of it works in exactly that fashion. But dear jesus the plot editing is pushing the point of incoherence. Points for very little shaky cam though.
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The King of America

[notbov]

Is it at least good enough to carry the mantle of "dumb, little action movie"? I can get behind that at a minimum.

The Darkest Hour is not as bad as critics said, but is exactly as stupid as I thought it was going to be, which is "mostly". It starts out pretty survival horror-y, a sort of realistic "aliens are fucking our shit up" sort of thing, then microwave guns, then horses covered in metal and tin foil, then Speed Racer kills an alien by throwing a part of another alien at it, which was a pretty good point to stop giving a shit, since it was at the end. The aliens were cool, as they were mostly invisible and could only be sighted by subtle visual touches or by their powering up stuff like cars or lightbulbs, until you see what they actually look like, which is a Lost Soul from DooM (you know, the floating, flaming skulls) surrounded by 360 degrees of woodchipper (so, if you've seen previews or stuff, no, people aren't getting zapped to death, they're actually getting cut up). It also has the audacity to suggest there be a sequel.

I would also like to amend my Ace Attorney opinion with that it is more likely than not the best video game movie yet, probably because it buys into the idea that the game and its concepts were a bit unhinged to begin with and adds on to it.
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[Mikey]

[CubaLibre]

[Predator Goose]

[boojiboy7]

[CubaLibre]

(-_- )7
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Let's Play, starring me.

[Mikey]

[Cossix]

My only real issue with The Raid is that I feel like it had a sort of Reverse Escalation problem, in that it starts off with a bunch of interesting gun fights, moves over to some ridiculously awesome knife fights, and then moves into some initially awesome but eventually excessive (and not in terms of violence, but in a way I'm currently incapable of articulating) fist fights. Some of the fist fights were awesome (Main Dude vs. Machete Bros), some of them I thought were kind of dull (Duo vs. Mad Dog) in a way that earlier fights weren't (Sarge vs. Mad Dog).

[shrugtheironteacup]

Safe is better than I thought it would be.

Stathams very Stathamy in what tries to be real movie.

The action is good when it's trying to sell some moment/gag/gimmick but can get a bit spastic when its just shoot shoot shoot.

Someone actually says "he's a ghost" during the How Badass Is He speech.

Casually gay opposing ex spec-ops badass in glasses is cool.

Subversion of Final Fight Expectations is alright.
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[RobotRocker]

Man Joss Whedon has decided this year is the year of "Fuck you Dracko"

Avengers is just straight up unpretentious fun. Not a lot of Whedony dialogue, the set pieces are fun, it flows really well, Ruffalo absolutely kills it as Bruce Banner (Much better than Edward Norton) and Hiddleston is constantly threatening to grab the movie, shove it in a bag labelled SWAG and shuffle off into the night.

And the third act is just 45 minutes of pure comic book lunacy that gives no fucks.

The main complaint I'd level against it is that it just seems an advert for Avengers 2 (Especially the post credit scene which caused the assembled nerds at the back freak the fuck out) and there maybe is too much Whedony tropes in it but it's solid and unpretentious about what it is, which is just fun.

Your move, Dark Knight Rises.
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[Predator Goose]

Just saw the new Pirates cartoon. Joyless petty assholes in a very tiny story. It's placid and meandering when the animation had me expecting manic and enormous. Why animate something if you're not going to have fun with the fact that you don't have to play by the rules?

Still, I guess the animation is good enough that a kid would like it, even if it doesn't leave an impression.
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I can no longer shop happily.

[parker]

[boojiboy7]

[evnvnv]

I accidentally watched "Do the Right Thing" for the first time on what happened to be the eve of the 20th anniversary of the la riots and I have been having, like, SUPER complicated thoughts for the last couple days

help me SB
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The text will not live forever. The cup are small

[Take It Sleazy]

man i got way too happy about the five second almost stephen j cannell logo at the end of 21 jump street the movie. that was a great end credits sequence. whole thing was funny as hell. i will follow miller and lord to the ends of the earth

[allensmithee]

SO THERE I WAS AT THE AVENGERS MIDNIGHT PREMIERE

THOR PUNCHES IRON MAN

IRON MAN'S SUIT GAUGES FIZZLE AND GO BLACK

SO DOES THE ENTIRE CINEMA

so an hour into the movie there's a black-out ! imagine that !

it was really far out and cool and i'm happy it happened because it was a brand new experience and it is great !
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[Ronk]

scattered thoughts about the avengers.

originally i wanted to go into the movie without much hope of it being anything more than a fun mess. then i did something fucking stupid and read about it on the internet, hearing all sorts of things like "great characterization" and "great action" and being "ultra whedon-esque", and that lead me to being more disappointed than i thought i was going to be.

this whole movie feels rushed, which is pretty lame considering how long it's been supposedly "planned out". all the tension between the heroes and them not getting along feels like it got maybe 20 minutes of screen time, and then everything seemed to be fine. its actually kind of interesting that the 4 main heroes screen time seemed to mirror how i felt about their individual movies. (With Robert Downy Jr. being the most fun everytime he's on screen.)

i think the most disappointing thing was the hulk. i liked ruffalo and i loved how he treated him hulking out as sort of a bad thing, alluding to how even though he can control it, it's best not to find out how far he could go. the idea of the hulk being a wild card element for their team was kind of neat. he could attack the aliens but then he could turn on the team at any moment. but by the end it was like, "nah dude, i'm cool", and he hulked out and seemed fine and was mostly used for cartoon slapstick jokes. (some of which were kind of funny, sure.) there are like so many little things in this movie that could've been their own separate movie (hulk, captain america's fish out of water in the future, stark vs. shield and each one's hypocrisy, etc.) but everything had to sort of just be shoved in there before they get to the third act, which just became an all out bro-op videogame mess (with a weak fucking ending. (except for the very end post-credits scene, which was easily the best part of the whole fucking movie and made me wish the whole film was only like 10 minutes long and mostly stuff like that.))

the movie is quite whedon-esque, but i guess maybe not the kind i was hoping for? there are "hilarious quips" sure, and there's definitely a scene where my favorite character was fucking killed suddenly for no other reason than to be dramatic (Coulson ;_;), but i was kind of hoping for a little bit better characterization on some of these guys. i mean yeah they had a scene where black widow is all cool and chill and kicks dudes asses but then she's just kind of there for the rest of the time, and they still had scenes where it was obvious we were supposed to look at her ass in a jumpsuit. also isn't she just supposed to be a kick ass spy or something? she was videogame jumping around with the rest of the costumed freaks and seemingly not getting hurt?

i guess i'm not as familiar with marvel canon so it was kind of hard to get into some of these characters being evil then not being evil then randomly aliens and hypercubes and whatever. i felt like a crotchety old man watching the first act being like, "uh what is this? who's that? whatever." i never saw the Thor or Captain America movies so i'm not really all that familiar with what they can or cannot do. i might have been a little naive in thinking that this was going to be more of a stand-alone thing, so whatever.

basically what i'm saying is i can't wait for Prometheus.
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[Ronk]

[Take It Sleazy]

Man that's kind of hilarious about Avengers considering The Coulson dude specifically asked Joss Whedon if he was going to be killed because people warned him that Whedon kills off people for fun. He told the internet he would live! Also kind of funny since Marvel has Coulson fever and put him in cartoons and regular Marvel comics now. hahahaha