Weekend Estimates by Wimpy Klady
So… the estimates on Wimpy Kid 2 are a couple of million (about 10%) more than the original. Win. Not a mega-win, but a win.
Sucker Punch beat the opening of The Owls Of Schmoogity Doogity, so it’s not McZ’s worst opening. But $60m domestic is looking to be a long ways away right about now. Much as I am looking forward to Lois Lane in stilettos and a push-up, one must be concerned about the shallowness of the director’s Rolodex at WB these days. If Visionary S is going to be Nolan’s puppet – which I find to be an unlikely scenario, in spite of WB’s attempts to bolster the project by using Nolan as a front man – why not just hire someone who can deliver what Nolan can deliver visually?
Oh well…
The happy story of the weekend is two indies doing some business with Limitless and The Lincoln Lawyer (perhaps in the Top 50 of the worst movie titles ever… unless the movie is a biopic). They aren’t world beaters, but in a weak year (so far) for the indies, nice to see a spark of life.
On the other hand, after a great box office triumph with Black Swan, Searchlight seems in the weeds with two good films, Cedar Rapids and Win Win. Both were at Sundance this year and Win Win was probably my favorite movie at the festival. Giamatti is, as ever, great. Amy Ryan is in her best role (albeit somewhat conventional), and this new kid, Alex Shaffer. Plus really nice supporting turns from Bobby Cannavale, Melanie Lynskey, and Burt Young. It’s still just on 23 screens, but slow rollouts outside of the awards season can be brutal. Really nice, accessible movie from Tom McCarthy. It needs some media heroes.
Music Box has done nicely with Potiche, a solid comedy of roles and manners from Ozon. And the one-man publicity machine that is Julian Schnabel is getting where he can with Miral. It’s tough to sell a movie that is not as controversial as it seems to be intended to be, yet also pisses hair-trigger reactionary Zionists off simply by existing. I look forward to Julian’s cut landing on DVD some day.
“Lincoln Lawyer’ is a confusing title, especially for folks who know there’s a movie coming this month about a lawyer fighting on behalf of a Lincoln assassination conspirator. But it is the title of a best-selling book, so I disagree about it being in the top 50. “Limitless” strikes me as much worse, actually.
Welcome back Fox. Great to see the holds for “Limitless” and “Lincoln Lawyer.” Great to see “Jane Eyre” and “Win Win” thriving in limited release.
But when is the time to admit there is a real box office downturn? Of the big studios, only Paramount and Sony can claim to have had a successful first quarter. Maybe the summer really will be a bailout but 2011 is already in a 500 million hole domestically.
If nothing else, Snyder is going to make a VISUALLY DYNAMIC Superman movie, something that really has NEVER happened before. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — if it wasn’t going to be Bay to realize Supes for the big screen, then Snyder is a worthy back-up.
I revere the Dick Donner original and there’s a place in my childhood heart for all of the silly sequels as I grew up on those films in the VHS era, but I am SO EXCITED to have a truly visionary filmmaker like Snyder — one who is clearly obsessed with creating stunning action sequences — taking on the Superman property. I have a feeling that we’ll FINALLY actually believe that a man can really fly. At least I hope so.
As for Sucker Punch, it’s Snyder’s weakest overall effort but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t an incredible cinematic experience.
“If Visionary S is going to be Nolan’s puppet – which I find to be an unlikely scenario, in spite of WB’s attempts to bolster the project by using Nolan as a front man – why not just hire someone who can deliver what Nolan can deliver visually? ”
What does this even mean??? That last sentence is nonsensical.
Snyder does have vision, that’s not the problem. All the man needs is a script. The fact that he worked on Legend of the Guardians in parallel proves he can restrain himself. Again, it all comes down to a script.
P.S. A 19.5 million opening for an 80something movie is not unheard of.
if it wasn’t going to be Bay to realize Supes for the big screen, then Snyder is a worthy back-up.
This marks the first time that anybody’s ever been called a second-rate Michael Bay where it was meant as a compliment.
Who else other than Bay (with the hopefull exception of Snyder) is going to give us FLAWLESS special effects, making you believe something that you know can’t be real (a man flying)? I question even The Beard sometimes with his use of visual FX.
Cameron seems to be the obvious answer to actionman’s rhetorical question. I have no dog in the fight, having missed 300, failing to make it through WATCHMEN (though I will try again) and having no immediate interest in SUCKER PUNCH. I am interested in a visually exciting SUPERMAN, but only if it’s in service of a good script. That’s where these things usually fall apart.
Amy Adams as Lois Lane at least makes part of that pairing awesome.
ETA: You don’t need a visually exciting Superman film. You simply need someone who can convey two characters fighting in mid-air. You need someone who can make you feel that pain and there are few directors out there that can pull off the visceral nature a Superman film needs. One of those folks who can do it, is doing TDK-R, and that’s a problem.
In pure box office terms, I find it interesting that the above analysis acts like a 20 million dollar opening for an eighty-ish million dollar movie is some kind of a disaster, one that should lead to the director being replaced on his next project, especially when the MARS NEEDS MOMS calamity (single digit opening on a 150 mil) was pushed aside as just a minor loss and not worth discussion…Especially when SP, whatever one thinks of it, is off-beat and different, whereas MNM was pure pandering and a 100 percent commercial product prepackaged to be easily sold.
JKill, David doesn’t get everything, and this is just another example of him making hay about something that’s not there.
BROWNING LOOK AT HER.
More like EMILY? BOWING. Sucker Punch = greatest movie of 2011, greatest porno EVER. I had a boner almost the entire two hours. Almost every single fetish I have on the GIANT SCREEN with five or six SMOOOOOOKING HOT actresses. Nonstop LITTLE OUTFITS and LAYING AROUND and BEING GIRLY and showing their feet and closeups of FETISH HEELS and women first being LITTLE ENEMIES then becoming LITTLE FRIENDS and did I mention Browning is showing her feet from the first scene, plus METAL and more HEELS and ARMPITS and SEXY HAIR and RUNNING MAKEUP and LOTS OF HOT CRYING AND WHIMPERING.
SO HOT, SO SO SO SO HOT. MASTERPIECE. It’s basically a two-hour EVEN MORE AWESOME version of the Janie’s Got a Gun video.
And for everyone bagging on it? Really, is it ANY goofier or more fetishy than BLACK SWAN? I’m seriously asking that question.
1. I am amused than anyone believes that $80m figure. Good marketing.
2. Snyder has a visual style, but it’s not based on any connection to human emotion. That hasn’t been evident in any film of his since DotD. Ironic.
3. IO is dead on… you need to care about the characters. (See #2)
4. The number on Sucker Punch is not a financial disaster, even based on the real budget, if the foreign is strong. My point is, WB is handing this guy, whose films for WB have consistently underperformed and lost money – save the first one – with their 2nd most valued ongoing franchise.
When the numbers just keep going down, doesn’t it worry anyone… regardless of what the movie cost? You do understand that Bryan Singer failed with a Superman that grossed $400 million, right? And that Snyder’s THREE movies for WB before Superman will not have grossed $400 million combined, right?
5. Glad you all are so hopeful. It’s not like 300 was a good movie. It was a cool effect that we hadn’t really seen before. (Don’t tell Rodriguez.) Watchman was a reasonable facsimile of the graphic novel, but was not ever really a movie for more than a second here or there. I haven’t watched the owl movie. And I pray there is something more to Sucker Punch than the punches pulled by even the more positive reviews (most of them, at least).
As someone said in here the other day, money is money and art is art. McZ hasn’t succeeded at either since 300.
But it also sounds like you are so uninterested in Superman that you couldn’t care less. “Maybe he’s make it look cooler!”
At least we know that Harry Knowles will love it and that it will have a great ComicCon panel!
Really, I would like to see the musical version of Sucker Punch. Maybe it would give me hope that McZ has an idea more interesting than Lex’s boners. But then again, I’m still waiting on the musical version of I’ll Do Anything.
6. Proman… good theory. So you think McZ is Tony Scott. I guess we’ll see.
I went in TEAM HUDGENS but now it’s a tossup between TEAM BROWNING (LOOK AT HER IN HER LITTLE SAILOR COSTUME with her little ABS! YAY!) and ABBIE CORNISH. MMMMMMMM!
I guess I disagree about the human connection thing. First of all, I don’t think that is neccessarily the very first thing a filmmaker needs to go for, intending on their prorities. It’s a traditional narrative expectation but not a given. I don’t think Gilliam or Ridley Scott or Lynch (with the exception of ELEPHANT MAN) are cheifly concenred with that, as they are all world builders primarly. But I did find myself caring for the characters in all 5 of Synyder’s movies, to varying degrees. The characters in SP are all archetypes, precisely because it’s a movie about dreams and archetypes and bent reality. I’m in complete agreement with anyone saying the script was a weak point. I would’ve liked a little more development for the girls. Someone other than Snyder and his co-writer probably should’ve taken a pass on it. But visually and thematically, it’s one of the more fascinating movies to come around in a good, long while. It’s an action movie engaged with ideas, not unlike INCEPTION. It’s messy and a little choppy but it’s personal and unusual, and deserves to be applauded.
In terms of SUPERMAN, as others have said, it’s about the script. Plain and simple. So far I dig the casting. Love Adams as Lois Lane. But it’s not just that Snyder “will make it look cooler”. It’s that he will imbue the film with an energy and drive completely missing from SUPERMAN RETURNS. I’m not bagging on Singer’s movie, which has its strengths, but I think Synder has the potential to shoot new blood into Supes in a similar, but very different way, to what Nolan did with Batman. And obviously a director who is great with action, particularly of the stylized variety that Superman will contain, would be well suited. Wanting SUPERMAN to be visually stunning isn’t being disinterested. It’s just one element, yes, but an important one.
(Sorry for how long that was. Had trouble keeping it concise.)
see “the owl movie” …. Snyder used an excellent color scheme that went from evil dark night colors (moon blink) to Maxfield Parrish inspired daylight scenes … the 3D was used well and the CGI feathers ruffled at all the right moments, what more does anyone want in a movie?
March Zack Snyder opening weekends:
Dawn of the Dead – $26.7 million.
300 – $70.8 million.
Watchmen – $55.2 million.
Granted Sucker Punch is not a remake or based on previously published material, but are some people really suggesting that an opening weekend of $19 million against a combined budget/P&A spend of about $150 million is good? Maybe it isn’t a total disaster, but I don’t see how it’s not pretty damn weak.
It’s an original property. An original property opening to that much, with the absolute horrible ad campaign that Sucker Punch has, is pretty good. It will also make some sheckles over sea, sell DVDs/BDs, and so on and so forth.
Could it be better? Sure. However, for what it is, opening up to this much is not that bad.
Zack Synder talks Suckerpunch / Superman / 3D
8 minute video
http://www.g4tv.com/videos/51987/Zack-Snyder-Talks-Sucker-Punch-Superman–Going-3D/
Yes it’s an original property without any movie stars, but it’s a big-budget PG-13 flick from a “visionary” director backed by a huge ad campaign. All things considered, $19 million seems far closer to weak than pretty good.
It rules. That is all that matters.
Why DOES FS roll shit out that slowly? We’ve talked several times about the Cedar Rapids (Falls? Can NEVER remember) roll being slow… but, man, still in under 400 theaters after what seems like two full months? It’s not gonna happen, seriously. And WIN WIN has the same deal where, a week into its release it already seems like some total also-ran even in a big city where it actually is playing. How is that gonna catch on eight weeks from now in Idaho? For all their genius once in a blue moon with a Juno, Slumdog or Swan, way more often than not that SLOOOOOW roll out just gives the movies this sad-sack, “eh, this thing?” vibe where the movies feel like homework even where they’re actually good– Cyrus, 127 Hours, Never Let Me Go, Cedar. And like the rest of the world, even hardcore film geeks opt for whatever the week’s shiny new releases are, because you know you’ll catch it at SOME point but there’s no water-cooler urgency.
At some point even as a devoted moviegoer, with 9 out of 10 Searchlight movies, their stuff always gets back-burnered to the point I barely care, then go out of grinding obligation, only to really LIKE the movie. But if they created an instant MUST-SEE vibe with a wider release, it would cut down on that grudging feel.
Win Win is the best movie of the year so far. Loved it.
Conversely, Sucker Punch is the worst movie of the year. I want to like it more considering 5 pretty girls in the cast, but the movie is so insufferable to sit through. I can’t imagine it getting a huge audience in the following weeks. Snyder just doesn’t know how to create a real character that a human being can related to. And he is going to direct the next Superman?
JKill- Don’t forget Lynch’s “The Straight Story;” possibly his most atypical film, and still one of his finest.
How far does sucker punch fall next weekend?
The bidding starts at 60%
Sucker Punch starts RISING next week. It’ll be UP 75%.
Just like I was while watching it.
CHUNG POWER. MALONE POWER. CORNISH POWER. HUDGENS POWER.
BROWNING = HOTTEST THING SINCE K-STEW OH MY GOD LOOK AT HER.
FWIW re: next weekend, I have a feeling that even though “Source Code” is the “big” mainstream release from a studio with a name male lead, that “Insidious” thing is going to DESTROY.
N0 WAY “Insidious” is opening to less than 30 mil next weekend. “Source Code” will probably do Adj. Bureau numbers.
Peter, it’s that sort of hyperbole that blows my mind. If I can relate to it, then someone else can relate to it. Seriously, it doesn’t work for you but that does not mean everyone. The fact that some people in this very thread associate that sort of hyperbole with me, again, is MIND BLOWING! Now excuse me while I start singing the NAPA KNOW HOW song.
60 usually doesn’t happen anymore, so 40 something seems sensible. It just depends on how people feel about it compared to the critics, who pulled their hateful group-think bullshit, and that alone requires David writing a post about it.
The Insidious marketing feels a bit murky to me. I’m a huge horror fan and didn’t even realize the movie was coming out until I randomly saw a commercial this past week. Never saw a trailer. I did read a few blogger remarks about it when it was screening last month. I was genuinely surprised it was coming out this soon, though.
The commercials also have that weird low-resolution look to them, like someone recorded a streaming internet version of the ad for broadcast. The Collector had the same thing, but I assume that was a much much lower budgeted film.
BTW, re: Sucker Punch. I thought it was a fairly vile film with great visuals(and as LexG pointed out, BOW-worthy female stars). However has any movie ever been as ready for a porn parody? I mean seriously, the film could have been planned as a porno, then given $80mil(until Poland reveals, for once, what he heard the actual budget was, I’m going to disregard his usual anti-WB, anti-Paramount attack points – he does the “that’s not the REAL budget!” thing with nearly every movie of theirs he particularly wants to trash, like Star Trek & Inception) and dropped all the hardcore sex but kept every other idea. Snyder’s film, as bad as it was for a legit film, would’ve made for the best porn film ever.
After all, apparently the R-Rated version makes it clear Emily Browning was being raped repeatedly(hooray female empowerment!) Just replace the actresses with porn stars, have the actual sex, and you’re probably a lot closer to his real intent.
Sucker Punch’s Cinemascore rating is a B-, “troubling” according to Boxofficeguru. Plus Source Code and Insidious will eat some of its audience next weekend. A 60% drop seems very likely.
Is “hateful group-think bullshit” another way of saying expressing an opinion?
PastePotPete, the LA Times has the SP budget at $82 million.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2011/03/box-office-sucker-punch-no-match-for-wimpy-kid.html
They must have fallen for WB’s lies as well, Paul MD.
If SUPER is getting ANY kind of a wide release next weekend, I’d imagine that has something like 95% audience overlap with Sucker Punch.*
Speaking of LA Times, Betsy Sharkey’s RAVE of SP, wholesale buying the female empowerment angle, is interesting.
*Allow me to register my trademark “I work 60 hours a week and see all movies on my own dime” whine about what an ASTONISHING CLUSTERFUCK April is– three or four big-time releases every weekend, so many movies that Universal’s even doing their BEWILDERING “two movies on one weekend” deal on the 8th with “Hanna” and “Your Highness.”
To say nothing of the 15th’s LEXATHON of “Scream 4,” “Soul Surfer,” and CONSPIRATOR POWER (AKA SOFT FOCUS: THE MOVIE) all on one day.
Amazes me when I see movie fans on message boards say they only see a handful of movies/year in theaters. I’ll see like 30 in April alone.
It’s hard to see a ton of movies when you’re not in LA or NY, Lex. Almost none of the limited release stuff plays outside the major cities, and when they do, it’s for a week in a shoebox arthouse theater populated mainly by hacking and coughing 75 year old women who gasp when there’s sex or violence in a movie.
When I lived in LA I saw *everything*. Now because of my job where I work at night, I have to fit everything into a narrow sliver of time on weekend afternoons, timing it around family commitments and errands I couldn’t do during the week.
I still end up seeing 50 or so movies theatrically a year, though.
Paul, seriously, when they all get together and have the same opinion, it’s not expressing an opinion. It’s group-think. David has been going off against this for years. Sorry for agreeing with him. According to you I should be beaten daily and attacked by beavers, so I am wrong for having an opinion. Schucks.
ETA: Lex, that’s because they really aren’t movie fans. Read some of the folks on here and outside of some horror film (Sucker Punch is not vile especially when you consider some horror films that you probably love. Also, I don’t get your interpretation of how she’s getting raped, when clearly she’s doing the dancing bit on stage we see Sweet Pea recovering from at the beginning of the movie), something like the Source Code does nothing for them.
So does the same thing apply to Beastly and Red Riding Hood?
Yes every day here I call for you to be beaten and attacked. Thank you for not being overly dramatic.
Movieman, I didn’t include that because that’s the Lynch I haven’t watched. Thanks for bringing it up because it reminds me to change that!
I don’t see everything, like Lex does, but I see most of movies I want to see theatrically. I don’t know how many I see in a year but I probably go once a week on average, and yeah, it gets crazy when there’s two or three or sometimes four movies that pique my interest on the same date. But I geuss that’s what weekdays are for. 🙂
I don’t really need to beat this movie to death. The film was greenlit at $80 million… and was waaaay over schedule and budget.
But believe what you like, gang.
And for the record, I liked both Star Trek and Inception… just felt the response was over the top. And the budgets on Inception was not a secret. They started backing away shortly before release. And Star Trek had two different budgets acknowledged by Paramount before the film re-shot, re-cut, re-scored, etc, all in a late and very expensive fashion.
Setting a budget lower than reality is part of the publicity effort on many films.
And I have expressed shock at the budget on many films I have liked. Spinning it into something personal is a weak play.
I remain anxious to see Sucker Punch and my contrarian side would love to be surprised with how good it is.
Paul, there’s a clear difference between Sucker Punch, Red Riding Hood, and Beastly. To quote James Hoffa; “DON’T PUT (Sucker Punch) IN THAT COMPANY!” Stating they are the same misses the point, which is: RRH and Beastly suck ass. Sucker Punch does something different and in return, all of the critics lash out at it. Critics are prone to doing this and you give me shit for breathing. FACE!
So when Red Riding Hood and Beastly are panned by critics, they are expressing opinions. When Sucker Punch is panned, critics are not expressing their opinions but engaging in “hateful group-think bullshit.” Makes perfect sense. Totally logical.
I don’t think there’s a cabal against SUCKER PUNCH but from what I’ve seen of the negative reviews, many of them could have been written just by watching the trailer.
What separates SUCKER PUNCH from those others movies, which I admittedly haven’t seen, is that it is a movie of genuine ambition, passion and personal filmmaking (regardless of whether you do or do not think it has worth). It contains ideas and images that should and can provoke a productive discussion, and not snarky, easy dismissive reviews.
“It contains ideas and images that should and can provoke a productive discussion, and not snarky, easy dismissive reviews.”
jkill, just because you like a movie doesn’t mean it’s automatically deserving of productive discussion and unworthy of snark or being dismissed as drivel by others. eye of the beholder.
And ambition and passion does not always equal quality. The reviews I have read, the good and the bad, are well-reasoned. I haven’t come across anything I’d consider easily dismissive. Just people who don’t like it.
My experience, IO, goes the other direction. Critics bend over backwards to be nice to something original because, a) they are so sick of the same old shit, and b) they don’t want to look uncool and out of touch.
Thus, the many passes handed to 300.
Still haven’t seen the film. Maybe they are out of touch. But I often find that what passes for weighty in GeekLand is some guy CG splooging the screen.
This is why I was so exercised over Avatar slams, re: the story. Just because it was overwhelming visually doesn’t mean that there were not some very interesting, well considered ideas in there.
In McZ’s case, he’s gotten good opening weekend samplings in the past… and massive drops. So the public would seem to lean to where the critics are on his work. We’ll see.
Poland — u gotta see Sucker Punch. And Battle: LA. I gotta see ’em both again.
I don’t get the McZ thing. How are Snyder and McG that similar?
McG is a (probably unfairly derrided) director for hire on big studio movies, along the same lines as Ratner or John Moore. Snyder, regardless of what you think of him, is more along the lines of Bay, in that he has a consistent style and thematic concerns.
Is it just because McG almost did SUPERMAN and now Synder is? Is it just a pot shot? Maybe I missed something…
Paul, again, what’s logical to some is not logical to others. I think groupthink is going on. If my fucking opinion pisses you off so fucking much. Tell me where you want me to meet and we can fight. If not, I must ask: why can’t I have an opinion?
Leah, there is a clear difference between those two films and Sucker Punch. If critics are treating them all the same, that’s some bullshit. The eye of the beholder thing only goes so far before you get to the whole calling a spade a spade thing.
David wrote; “Still haven’t seen the film. Maybe they are out of touch. But I often find that what passes for weighty in GeekLand is some guy CG splooging the screen.
This is why I was so exercised over Avatar slams, re: the story. Just because it was overwhelming visually doesn’t mean that there were not some very interesting, well considered ideas in there.”
You do know that the story in Avatar is as thin as a sheet of tissue paper and it’s based around a bunch of cgi splooiging on the screen. You get that, right :P?
Jesus man. Nowhere did I say you can’t have an opinion, and nothing you say is pissing me off. I am expressing my opinion, one that happens to be different from yours. I don’t know how to have a discussion with you when you take every single thing as a vicious personal attack when it’s anything but.
but io, critics (ideally) judge movies on what they are, not on a curve. i wouldn’t think most go in thinking, “i need to judge this not on its own merits but compared to ‘red riding hood’ and ‘beastly’ as well”
“Insidious” is doomed, Lex. Laugh-out-loud horrible AND they screened it for critics, which seems like an odd decision. Obviously, this one was never going to be critic-driven but I suspect word of mouth is already seeping out from last week’s screenings.
Paul, I have no idea how to have a discussion with anyone so passive aggressive. You are not stating an opinion as much as stating that I cannot have one. I believe it’s group think and you keep going on about it being illogical and so on. Excuse me for having a problem with you attacking me and not my point.
Leah, certain films get them all excited and get them all pissed off. Sucker Punch, for whatever reason, seems to have gotten them pissed off. Maybe they hate the casting of a British Superman as much as I do (HOW ARE YA?), or maybe they have a problem with Snyder? Whateverthecase, the film has a lot going on that those reviews are not touching and it just seems weird to me.
David – “I haven’t watched the owl movie.”
Too bad. It’s Snyder’s best movie by far. And I like the guy.
I enjoyed both Beastly and Red Riding Hood. Along with The Roommate they have provided 2011 with a hat-trick of MIND-BLOWINGLY, insanely terrible movies that nonethless are eminently watchable (and feature hot squack.)
I think Snyder’s getting unfairly snubbed because his latest movies haven’t been making huge box office…but let me ask, motherfuckers…what can you expect?
Watchmen was a hard-R superhero violent movie where the villain wins. And Sucker Punch looks like a deranged artist making the movie he wants and would appeal to NO ONE.
Maybe WB thought these movies would do well, but they’re stupid. These are the nichiest of the niche.
I thought DOTD was okay. Loved 300. Liked Watchmen. Haven’t seen this one. But I like Snyder. He could be making easier, simpler action movies (like The Dark Knight!) and doing much better for himself. But he’s making the movies he wants to make and getting a studio to way overpay for them. That’s fucking awesome.
Yeah that 300 opening weekend didn’t do him any favors in the expectations game, but surely Snyder will find a way to carry on. He has passionate fans, (as you mentioned) he gets to make the movies he wants to make on a studio’s dime, and he’s directing the Superman reboot.
I just don’t see why everyone dumps on a movie just for being what it is, and having no weight to it. It’s like a lot of losers on the net don’t have their own lives so they have to have their movies mean so so so much. This is why Hitchcock wasn’t thought of as an artist until the French brought around people’s way of thinking. What would we think of Rio Bravo if it were released today?
Snyder is like Hitchcock?
Who knows, was Hitchcock Hitchcock after like four movies?
SP defenders are so eager to assert that its critics are totally unreasonable losers engaging in hateful group-think. It’s entirely possible that the majority of critics didn’t like it for perfectly legitimate and carefully explained reasons. Seems a little premature to compare Snyder to Hitchcock.
I’m not even an SP defender, I haven’t seen it. But I’ll be a Zack Snyder defender.
I’m not making a 1-1 connection that Snyder is exactly like Hitchcock and a great artist and blah blah…BUT Snyder is clearly making movies which interest him and working with themes that interest him, and I think a lot of critics tend to simply dismiss him as some CG action director without a thought in his head. Can’t agree with that. The guy is building a style of movies that are looked in disreputible genre for mouth breathers, but in 30 years (assuming he keeps making movies) could be looked at as a whole and possibly given credit as an artist…like Hitchcock.
Shit, if we can give Russ Meyer credit as an artist (and I do) then why not Snyder?
Sure anything is possible. Can’t predict the future. And I’m sure some critics casually dismiss him as a thoughtless CG director and don’t give him a fair shake. Doesn’t mean their opinions aren’t legitimate. Different strokes. As someone who despises 300 and Watchmen, I’m not entirely unsympathetic to that argument.
A LOT of critics dismiss Snyder as such. And nerds too, it seems like anything with CG is treated like a child molester. Because a lot of these critics tend to be 40 or older and still pine for stop motion or matte paintings.
Ah the old “critics are old and lame” charge. That one seems to get played a lot these days. Isn’t the opposite true as well, that many nerds can hardly contain their Snyder praise? That the 40 and under crowd cream their pants at the very thought of seeing the next Snyder pic on the big screen, cause he’s a visionary?
It’s played a lot because it seems to be true. Even at somewhere like AICN where people seem to be young because they write like retards, they’ll drop something like “when I was a kid and watched Dragonslayer…”
I don’t know, Snyder tends to get a lot of heat from nerds. He takes a KILLING on AICN, although who doesn’t except for the Coen Brothers, I guess.
Maybe Snyder isn’t exactly a “visionary,” but he does have a vision.
I don’t think anything with CG is treated like a child molester. There’s a lot of shitty CG out there, and I’d say much of the criticism of it is warranted (I’m under 40 so the old and lame card can’t be played yet). SP got some love on AICN and many there seem to be big fans of his.
While there’s a lot of shitty CG, there’s always been a lot of shitty effects, period. And back in the day you’d see the worst effects even in big releases. Were there ever worse bluescreens than Temple of Doom?
So you think critics unfairly target poor CG in ways that they never targeted pre-CG effects? Maybe that’s just the inevitable result of living in an age of effects-driven event movies.
Not saying unfair or not, really. I’d rather not see shitty CG effects. But I think in this day, especially if you read nerd sites like AICN (and I mean the talkbacks more than the actual writers of the site) there’s a real kneejerk hatred of anything CG. NOT just poor CG, but any CG. Like how the second a PG-13 is mentioned in relation to a horror movie, horror nerds go ballistic, even though many of the best horror movies ever made could be a PG-13.
“anything with CG is treated like a child molester.”
Uh… bullshit.
I get what you are saying in principle. Yeah… new tech, including faster editing, gets slammed.
But there are plenty of CG-heavy films that are embraced by critics and audiences. McZ has suffered from a pretty basic form of response to his work… audiences do get sucked in by the ads and go see the films… and then the word-of-mouth has pushed away. Only The Owls has managed 3x opening weekend. That is, in part, about heavy must-see interest. But it is also about a lack of excitement after the movies have opened.
Critics have slapped his films… but the others still opened better.
His vision is visual… but so far, he’s been a gimmick filmmaker.
And the reason why Temple of Doom and many clearly inferior effects films are still beloved is because they connect with humanity, not just the visual. People suspend disbelief… if they want to… if the filmmaker is skilled enough to get them there.
Will 40 beautiful still frames per movie make Snyder into Hitchcock? Dubious.
That’s certainly true regarding horror fans going ballistic about PG-13 horror. I avoid the talkbacks at AICN. I hear they get particularly nasty and never felt compelled to check them out for myself.
Sure there are plenty of CG films embraced, but don’t even tell me that a vocal group of people (generally on fansites) hate CG no matter what. That’s not bullshit.
Also, connecting to humanity is weak too…there are plenty of filmmakers who aren’t interested in easy connections to humanity and are more interested in creating interesting worlds. You could say Lynch, you could say Kubrick, you could say Godard, you could say Jodorowsky. I’m talking about guys who are interested in experimenting.
Now the next response will be “so you’re saying Zack Snyder is like Kubrick?”
NO.
And again DP…Snyder is four films in. Look at Hitch’s first four and tell me what a genius he was.
Snyder is now Meyer, Hitchcock & Kubrick. Got it.
DOTD could have been made by Marcus Nispel or any A level music vid director.
OWLS could have been made by Andrew Adamson’s PA
WATCHMEN could have been directed by an autistic manchild and it was.
SUCKER PUNCH however could only have been made by Snyder and it is absolutely unwatchable on every conceivable level as a film.
Maya, Massive, flame, inferno don’t = An Auteur.
Yeah, I gave up AICN sometime around mid-00s, and never looked back. Avoid it like the plague the last few years. Had a lot of loyalty to it as a reader way back in the day because I knew and liked “Moriarty,” Harry’s good for a laugh, Mr Beaks and Vern were fun to read… but the talkbacks make that place kind of a quicksand of irritation and addictive frustration, where you KNOW EXACTLY what the company line is going to be (the stuff Perm outlined plus much more), you KNOW how annoying every groupthink TBer will be… yet you feel compelled to read anyway, then hate yourself for the spike in blood pressure.
The distaff TV equivalent is Television Without Pity, where the fan-shipping cat lady commenters are just as predictable and monolithic… and wrong about EVERYTHING EVER.
An auteur means a director with a vision, style and thematic concerns that carry on from film to film right?
I don’t think the definition has anything to do with whether or not you like that vision/style/theme…
Paul, read the talkbacks and comments on other boards and you’ll get more of a sense what I’m talking about. I’m not talking about reasonable guys…real, actual writers, like Beaks or Moriarty on Hitfix. I’m talking about those guys.
You know why else I like Snyder? I’m a guy who loves action movies. And a lot of them these days are horseshit. Another thing talkbacks hate with a passion is shakicam, and I’m sort of with them on that one. I miss seeing good clean action…and Snyder knows how to deliver that. You always get a sense of where everyone is, what the stakes are, and all of that jazz. That’s partially why I like him and not a guy like Michael Bay. Bay would be shit for Superman but i think Snyder may do well.
Will he do well with the regular, character stuff? Don’t know for sure, but with the right actors I think so.
Hey Jeffrey Boam’s Doctor, did you like how I had discounted your argument before you even made it? Did you read my whole post and then make yours anyway?
Sorry JBD, I see a HUGE connection between Snyder and Meyer. You could easily EASILY discount Myers’ work as just a guy who likes big titties. That’s all there is to him, he’s not an artist, he just likes tits.
Also, Vern is the greatest writer on the internet.
I don’t doubt what you’re saying about the talkbacks and comments is true at all Big Perm. Also a big fan of Vern.
Snyder is too enamored with slow-mo for my taste. It’s like with every movie he makes, he sets out to make sure that there is at least twice as much slow-motion as there is in Hard Target, which would be 15 minutes long without slow-mo. I think he’s an OK action director, not remarkable.
I could do with about 65% less slo-mo, I agree with you. But in DOTD he’s cooking even if it gets dumb (every single shot in a perfect headshot that kills a zombie). Watchmen had good hand to hand combat. I thought it got overdone in 300 but that was the style of the movie, so what are you gonna do.
Big Perm. I dare you to find a more idiotic comment than comparing Meyer to Snyder on the web. Don’t bother, its fucking impossible to top.
Oh hold on .. you just said Vern is the greatest writer on the web.
You are on a roll dude.
[walking away]
“DOTD could have been made by Marcus Nispel or any A level music vid director.”
nonsense. even the critical response to DOTD was largely praise.
(“every single shot in a perfect headshot that kills a zombie”…what does that mean?)
the truth is, most cgi you don’t even notice. where were all the cgi whingers having a moan about the compositing in ‘black swan’?
big movies may have reached a such a generally homogeneous, bland state that anyone with the least bit of style – even if their character/storytelling ability is suspect – is suddenly ‘a visionary!’ and an auteur. not even
I.E., it’s different so it must be good.
Perm… Hitchcock made almost 60 feature films. Snyder, even if he works for a long time, is unlikely to make half that number, probably fewer than 20.
In 1927, Hitchcock made 2 features, as he would in ’29. ’24, “36, ’40, and ’41. These years also often included short films and/or docs. In 1928, he made 3 features, as he would in ’28 and ’31.
His first generally agreed upon masterpieces were in 1934 and ’35, his 18th and 19th features. He was 35 and 36 years of age. McZ is now 45.
By the time Hitch was 45, he had made, amongst 31 features and many other shorts and docs, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes, Rebbecca, Foreign Correspondent, Suspicion, and Lifeboat. And I am sure that the heavy cineastes amongst us would add other titles as more important than these.
Do you still see a comparison?
I won’t roast you for the other silly comparisons, except to say that Snyder shows no serious interest in breaking form. He’s using new tools to do ramp up the heat… which is what McG did and others have done. He’s not even bending stuff like Luhrmann.
Obviously, he has skills. But he’d been given a lot of room by WB and so far, no magic… just more pretty pictures.
And Kubrick’s first 4 included The Killing and Paths of Glory. By the time he was 45, he’d also done Spartacus, Lolita, Strangelove, 2001, and Clockwork.
I think Fincher, as a for instance, is a great artist who may or may not ever grow a warmer side. But I don’t expect him to change significantly as he continues along.
At 45, you are pretty much who you are. McZ may get better, more sophisticated, less hyper, get better scripts, etc. But Scorsese doing Age of Innocence or After Hours still reads as Scorsese, no matter how off his norm the material is. I’m sure this will be the same for Hugo Cabaret. Spielberg is not going to suddenly become a cynic as a director.
Bay is one year older than Snyder.
Amused that in all the hours you guys have spent kicking this movie back and forth sight unseen, Poland or Perm could’ve ducked out to a 12 o’clock matinee and just seen the damn thing by now.
Leah… some people were irritated by the digital work on Black Swan. But the reason is works for most people who like the film is that it has a voice, the way the actors, writers, directors and others have in the film. There is a purpose that can be felt.
I think that when people talk about the emptiness of effects, it is because the film is empty and all that is left is the effects.
I have a baby here, Lex. I got home late Friday. I was away shooting for hours yesterday. Not so easy.
I am currently thinking that I will see the film in Vegas tomorrow night while I am not seeing the CinemaCon indie showcase, which is showcasing 4 films I have already seen.
That said, I think that you can discuss the bigger picture without it being specific to the film. I know that people like IO want to attach every idea to a specific – as in, you just hate geek films… or you just hate Netflix – but even if I LOVE Sucker Punch, it doesn’t change some of the other issues. Yes, a turn of artistic genius would make me more sympathetic to Snyder’s future projects. But the fact is, he remains on a commercial decline and is then being handed the keys to the WB candy store. Failing upwards is rarely pretty. There have been exceptions though.
Agree with that Lex. I’d like to talk about the movie in more depth here, but it doesn’t seem like that many people here have actually seen it.
Also, Jesus the McZ thing is annoying. I don’t get how the two are similar. As I said earlier, McG is like Ratner or John Moore, whereas Snyder is more like Bay or even Shaymalan, in that they’re large scale filmmakers with specfic visions/interests.
I would also disagree that what Synder is doing is that different from Luhrman. In terms of the hyper active editing, purposeful artificiality, and pop cultural interests, they’re doing similar things it’s just that Luhrman riffs on old Hollywood and theater whereas Synder is all about comic books/video games/action and sci fi. I’m a fan of both filmmakers for similar reasons. I get why they’re both divisive. They’re doing extreme, almost confrontational works but it appeals to me and many others. The fact that so many people (even without seeing the movie) are hostile towards Synder shows that he’s doing something right.
DP: yes i agree, i think (tho i didn’t hear a lot of controversy specifically over the vis. effects in black swan but maybe i wasn’t really paying attention), cgi is the whipping boy for instances when movies are bereft of heart and soul and brains, as if the effects are to blame for the film-maker’s lack of skill in telling a good story.
cgi isn’t the problem – when it’s used well, with artistic integrity and purpose to serve the story rather than ‘cool effects’ that are an end unto themselves as they so often are these days, the tech is an indispensable tool in modern film-making with endless potential as yet virtually untapped.
it’s the eggs using cgi to try to cover up poor storytelling skills as an endgame to makes stuff look ‘cool’ rather than a means to an end to tell a better story, that need to be ‘corrected’, as grady would say, and soon.
Having seen Sucker Punch, I would put Snyder well above Bay (who reduces everything he does to Michael Bay’s Weird Hang-Ups… if those hang-ups weren’t so boring and/or racist and/or elementary-school level, he might be a fascinating auteur and not just a fasincatingly inept one) and Ratner (whose utter lack of style is just depressing). But he doesn’t have the big-picture ease with storytelling and tension of, say, Nolan, and doesn’t have the unpretentious skill with action and suspense of, say, Nimrod Antal. He’s one of dozens of pros who can’t direct their way out of a lame script.
But my big thing about Snyder now is how weird (though not unpredictable) it is that he’s getting slammed for THIS movie, which tries some interesting stuff even though you can feel the director sabotaging himself, especially with his terrible writing. Dawn of the Dead has a great first 20-30 minute and a humdrum remainder; 300 has some great images and enjoyable silliness but isn’t really much of a movie; Watchmen is interesting because of source material and some good performances that honor that material, and secondarily for the way Snyder seems to actively misunderstand large chunks of it. In some ways, Sucker Punch — which I really think could’ve been terrific instead of pretty good with a better writer, or more clear-headed direction, or any number of qualities; it almost excited and disappointed me simultaneously — is his best movie. It’s sort of like the first Transformers: I went into it hoping the absolute wheelhouse nature of the project and director combined with the lack of source material to be ruined with tics (I know Transformers is an established property that some people apparently care about, but it’s one I could not give less of a shit about) would result in the best version of a limited director’s “vision.” But as with Transformers, the director’s shortfalls are an even bigger part of him than I realized, and still undermines the material even when it’s not ruining a great book or an amazing premise or something (yet at the same time may be the best and least annoying realization of his work so far).
So the review I actually wrote of Sucker Punch on Thursday night was a thumbs-up with reservations, but I find myself defending the movie more now because some of the pans have been pretty over-the-top, and don’t seem to consider much about the movie itself. At worst, it’s some interesting ideas mishandled by their creator. Is that really the WORST thing anyone can think of?! Maybe it’s more frustrating than something you knew was going to be crap, but I dunno, I’d rather tear into Snyder for 300 or Watchmen or even that silly Owls movie than this entertaining misfire.
Also: I really have no concerns about whether his opening weekend means WB should take this movie away from him because clearly it won’t make money. I’m not even sure if that’s true. His movies have trended down in grosses, which means, what, his Superman movie is going to open to $14 million?
Or is that idea that because of word-of-mouth, it’ll open huge and fall off hard? The latter is probably going to happen almost no matter what. Is there really a “safe” bet when you’re talking about a movie that needs to make that much money to turn a profit? I can see this argument against doing Superman at all, but lining up the numbers is just arguing against Snyder in favor of nothing in particular. Again, I’m not even a huge Snyder fan. I’m sure you could find a BETTER director to do Superman. But with Nolan producing, Goyer writing, and Snyder’s visual/tech sense, it doesn’t seem like a creative or financial disaster in the making to me.
Then again, I really liked Superman Returns, for the most part, and don’t much care if Warner Brothers loses some money on the way to an interesting movie. Especially when those losses have a lot more to do with cost than they do with a movie actually flopping hard.
David, it’s not that you hate comic book films. It’s just that they seem to bug the shit out of you. This is not an impression I have received from the last few years. This goes back almost 10 years, where you just seem pissed that COMIC BOOK MOVIES have become so important to the industry.
Again, it’s an impression and I am more than willing to cut you some slack, but you just put up a blog post about actresses and comic book movies that displays your absolute weirdness with comic book films.
Also, you are super fucking bothered by the way Netflix does things. Don’t hide it, go read that rambling mess you posted last night, and just accept it.
Again, you have problems with things but you refuse to accept you have problems with things. It’s pretty freaking hilarious but that’s what makes you… you.
Oh yeah, Lex is right. GO SEE THE MOVIE and then COME BACK AND MAKE YOUR WILD CLAIMS!
leahnz, what I mean by every shot being a headshot in DOTD is that even when people are running away from zombies, they can sort of turn and fire off a shot behind them at full speed and always manage to get one right in the forehead of a zombie, also running at full speed. That’s retarded.
I like how JBD gets mad about me comparing Snyder to Russ Myers instead of pointing out exactly why I’m wrong or anything. Yeah JBD, you’re so smart, and wise. I’m sure it’s just not worth your time. Not that it boils down to “I like Myers and I don’t like Snyder.”
Lex, I’m fucking busy! I’m corraling two movies right now. I still have some time to jack off on the internet from time to time but that’s it for a little while for me.
Poland…you mentioned Spielberg, but back in the day when he was making Jaws and Raiders and Close Encounters, would anyone have pegged him for making Schindler’s List?
But so what if Snyder doesn’t make Schindler’s List. He doesn’t have to. He’s doing his own thing. And if you don’t like it, oh well…he’s making the movies he wants to make.
But I can’t see why you’re baffled that he got handed Superman simply because his movies have been making less and less…as his subject matter got weirder and darker.
By that logic, Raimi shouldn’t have directed Spiderman, what huge hits did he have?
Scorsese should never be given a big budget, his movies can make decent money but don’t finance any epics.
Nolan directing Batman? All he’d done was a couple of small dramas with a teeny tiny bit of action.
So, box office numbers are bullshit. WB obviously likes the guy and he turns in a slick production. His Superman is going to be different take and might actually be exciting. He directs action well. Why NOT give it to him? He’s probably about the best guy out there who’d actually want to do it.
“leahnz, what I mean by every shot being a headshot in DOTD is that even when people are running away from zombies, they can sort of turn and fire off a shot behind them at full speed and always manage to get one right in the forehead of a zombie, also running at full speed. That’s retarded.”
que? that’s horespucky, perm. i know that movie like the back of my hand, and i can think of only one scene where michael and andre are retreating to the door after going outside the mall walls to see about the truck, and andre is a bit of a crim and a crack shot w/his own gun and has to save michael’s ass with a few fairly close-range head-shots as the fast-dead run up, but michael and andre are retreating at close range to the door, facing the undead when the gun is fired, not running fast and having to turn and shoot, it’s perfectly reasonable gunplay (or as reasonable as shooting the fast-dead in the face can be). goodness knows there are plenty of other headshots in the movie, but as far as the scenario you describe there’s only two sequences with any significant gunplay where the gang is actually out in the open amidst the zombie throng and having to run away, neither is lengthy and the ‘impossible certain headshots’ scenario you describe as they try to escape is most certainly not glaring or indicative of the general gunplay in the movie (did you actually see DOTD? bizarre)
“…than this entertaining misfire.”
and there’s where your entire argument falls apart, jesse, because it’s based on the anecdotal assumption that because you were ‘entertained’, everyone was and the movie somehow deserves a pass for entertainment value. but apparently, this is not the case. i haven’t seen SP yet but i know 3 people who’ve seen it now and shared their take on it (two men, one woman), and three out of three of them thought it was just silly.
one fell asleep (granted, he’s a sleeper the minute he gets bored, narcolepsy central, v. embarrassing); one thought it was an absurdest bit of juvenile, simplistic faux feminist/female empowerment drivel dreamed up by a thickie who’s thinks he’s actually being subversive; and my girl in LA thought somewhat similarly that it was just a derivative, annoying mess desperate to be somehow relevant — something more than just titillation and the inane girls-get-raped-but-they’re-not-victims-because-they-wear-sexy-costumes-to-kick-men’s-asses! cliche dressed up as social commentary — and failing miserably (tho she mentioned she liked cornish, so there’s that). none of them thought it was ‘entertaining’ at all. i’m sure some people do, but this is not a universal truism onto which critique of the film must be based.
(the weirdest thing about ‘superman’ is, what’s the thinking? nolan is the savvy, rather clinical, slightly grim englishman who plays it fairly close to the vest, who then hires on – or did he? who knows whose call it was at the end of the day – snyder, the goofy balls-out american who probably doesn’t even own a vest and wears his highly-stylised (and i dare say now verging on fetishist) heart on his sleeve, who engages in about as much subtlety as a bazooka at a fencing duel — kinda the antithesis of nolan, the ‘anti-nolan’…so is the rationale that they’ll cancel each other out and come up with some moderated action sensibility perfect for the man of steel? it sounds like a bit of a disaster waiting to happen, but i guess you never know, here’s hoping for something special. i still say K-BIG should have done the honours with the man of steel – she’s capable of both clear, concise, bad-ass action AND compelling characters to serve a story – not that she would have said yes but still, a damn shame)
Leah: Always rooting for women.
Perm his name is MEYER not Myer. You’re getting mixed up with the killer from Halloween movies. Understandable.
Come on man. Do you really want me to point out the differences between Snyder and Meyer? Why would I bother when you state that Meyer was simply a guy obsessed with big titties.
Fuck me, is that really all you get from his films? If you think Snyder’s faux female empowerment and video game fetishism in SP is the equivalent of Meyer’s inadvertent feminism and wry satirical base then I’m not going to get anywhere with you. His works have been studied and analysed for decades and his lampooning of American social mores and moral stereotypes are well noted everywhere.
I think you approach everything in film from a very pedestrian point of view. There’s nothing interesting about Snyder or his films. They operate in a vacuum. People who enjoy them aren’t approaching them from any intellectual level. They operate as visceral eye candy. Sure there’s a place for that type of flick but for the love of Melies, please don’t keep mentioning Snyder is the same sentence as (are we all keeping count) Hitchcock, Kubrick, Spielberg, Godard – as all that does it make you appear to be a troll.
Call me when Cahiers Du Cinema devotes an issue to Snyder or when his filmography has 40 books devoted to it or when his very aesthetic becomes part of the lexicon of cinema.
I did a podcast on film threat today where Mark and I talked about how this younger group of huge cinema buffs want SOOOooooo badly to equate every new(ish) director with an older, well thought of one. This Snyder fanfare reeks of that badly. Just the mere auteur “discussion” proves that.
In the end Mark and I decided that younger film fans need to feel justified that their peer group or peer director group is something special rather than just waiting for that to happen. The instantaneousness of the internet also plays into that I think.
I may like Snyder but he’s no Duncan Jones… yo.
Poland, your comments on Miral are dumb and uncalled for. You drop loaded words for effect so often by now that your brain has become unaccostomed to actually process what it’s saying. If indeed, it ever did. Congratulations on trivializing another situation.
You are every bit as glib and dumb as you appear to be.
Sheeshus Dr., it’s like you can’t even process what I write. I never said Meyer was just a titty director. I said he could easily be…and has been…dimissed as such. It’s like you’re not even trying, dude. I LOVE disruputible directors, many of which were dismissed in their own times. When I compare Snyder to Hitchcock it’s just that Hitch was also misunderstood and was only given serious weight later on…not that Snyder is just as good.
And I’m not saying that Snyder will ever be a major director worthy of serious discussion…but shit, I think a guy like Tim Burton deserves it, and I think Snyder’s sort of in that mold.
And you may hate it, JBD…but yeah, in 40 years there may be a bunch of books about him. Not NECESSARILY about Snyder per se, but a lot of these guys are coming in and yeah, they’re changing movies. How many times since 300 have you seen speed rampng? How many of these newer directors are abandoning sets and going all digital, and making movies that look fully artificial? This is part of a movement, and you may hate it…but too bad, it exists.
But then again you said Cliffhanger shames Die Hard so I know you’re wrong about everything. Even if you say that racism is wrong and Hitler was evil, you’re wrong.
I’m sure Poland is right and WB is crazy to give Snyder Superman, and it will make only 35 million at the box office, if you keep following Snyder’s downward trend.
“and there’s where your entire argument falls apart, jesse, because it’s based on the anecdotal assumption that because you were ‘entertained’, everyone was and the movie somehow deserves a pass for entertainment value.”
That’s not really my point, Leah. I’m saying that to ME (do I really need to add “in my opinion” to everything, a la Bad Writing 101), 300 strikes ME as a worse movie in a lot of ways, and I just couldn’t see the awfulness of Sucker Punch that people were pitching.
Also, does it need to be said that similarly, just because you have THREE TIMES the anecdotal evidence, doesn’t make it less anecdotal or more indicative of a “truer” reaction to the movie? I saw it with my wife, and she also liked it, maybe more than I did. A friend of ours also saw it and liked it. None of us were over the moon, but it wasn’t the kind of blind hatred that I’m just not understanding (nor, for that matter, were your friends’ reactions, from the sound of it).
Obviously I’m not saying that people who hated the movie need to “admit” that it was entertaining. It’s just a case of me being flabbergasted that out of all of Snyder’s movies, THIS is the one that isn’t getting as many easy passes. I can only explain why I thought it was a better movie than Dawn of the Dead and 300; I guess I’m just surprised that so few people agree. Because, you know, I kinda think I’m right. As I usually do. Kind of how opinions work, eh?
SUCKER PUNCH is by a MILE Snyder’s best movie. It rules all, and will go on to be a Fight Club-level rewatch masterwork for a generation, and for any guy who likes getting a BONER.
It’s like a two-hour, super-hot and depressing remake of the JANIE’S GOT A GUN video.
jesse, I know a scientist who thought Sucker Punch was great, so that should help your case. Anecdotally, a scientist is worth about ten regular people, I think.
Depending on the type of scientist, could be 10 regular people.
Scientists do like numbers.
no need to be a bit of a condescending dick, eh, jesse
no shit you thought 300 was worse than ‘sucker punch’ and you can’t see the awfulness in ‘SP’ – and that’s your opinion – you already said as much. repeating yourself doesn’t clear anything up, and you obviously missed my point: that since your entire viewpoint is predicated on having found SP entertaining, not being able to understand how others could dislike the movie is hardly surprising, is it.
the simple fact: many others DON’T like it at all or find it entertaining, and that is why they are giving it poor marks. basically you’re saying, “how can people like snyder’s other movies better than this one?” because YOU liked it better than the others. the short answer: because they do, regardless of whether you did or not. but apparently you’re quite certain you’re opinion is right, so i can see how this might be confusing.
also, ftr where did i imply my anecdotal evidence was “truer” than yours? you referred to SP as an “entertaining misfire” (how you can give a ‘thumbs-up’ to what you admit is a misfire is baffling, but that’s another kettle of fish), and i commented that the movie is NOT considered “entertaining” by what would appear to be a great many people and then quoted examples of people i personally knew who were of that same opinion, since i haven’t seen it but have been privy to a few strong opinions from people i know. it was a very simple assertion in no way implying that my anecdotal evidence is superior by simpling offering up examples of a differnt reaction from yours. how you interpret this as me saying my people know better than you is a big defensive leap, but in view of your response today this is understandable, seeing as your opinion is the righteous one.
and fwiw, yes, my three friends thought the movie was INANE (or extremely boring, as evidenced by mr. narcolepsy). if i didn’t make that clear before, hopefully i have now. from what i’ve been told and read a bit of here and there, the main issue would appear to be snyder’s goal of supposed ‘female empowerment’ with his film, which is being largely ridiculed as faux female empowerment conceived by a strikingly literal director who wouldn’t know how to subtly subvert a genre if his life depended on it; a director who doesn’t comprehend that by depending on portraying the very sexist cliches and stereotypes for titillation that he is supposedly attempting to subvert in the most simplistic, pandering way, he fails. ineptitude tends to inspire dismissal and even loathing sometimes.
(and if i ever bother to see ‘sucker punch’, i’d LOVE to debate with you how it’s a better movie than what i consider snyder’s only great movie so far – again i haven’t seen SP but from what i hear it’s not looking good to measure up – the bad-ass pop-art concoction that actually does achieve a degree of social commentary interwoven with the gruesome action/comedy/horror, the hard case DOTD – particularly the director’s cut. we shall see)
edited t/a: i’ve noticed that when debating the relative merits of snyder’s action/horror version of DOTD with people, it becomes apparent along the way that they haven’t actually SEEN the movie. funny how that so often happens.
My favorite part of Dawn of the Dead remake is when the guy is getting dragged through a dark and bumpy sewer, holding a pistol in each hand, and, while just sort of aiming, manages to get a perfect headshot on four zombies running after him at full speed.
aw perm, so cute how you’ve changed it from ‘people running from running zombies and turning and shooting with perfect head shots which is impossible’ to the above, and yet, still wrong.
the scene in question at about the 3 minute mark, i ff’d to find it and forgot to write it down exactly (terrible footage but all that i could find quickly that hadn’t been removed by ytube). ken the cop and CJ the ex-military professional gun toters do almost every head shot in the sewer retreat, while tucker the trucker – who’s good with a shotgun – after being given the handguns as he’s being dragged misses just as many shots if not more than he fires; he looks to take out two of the advancing hoard before being overwhelmed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GwHLDDwhKE&feature=related
maybe you should actually WATCH this movie before just firing off arbitrary nonsense and further embarrassing yourself, perm
Luckily I don’t need Youtube, because my computer just happens to have a very nice 720p digital copy of the movie right on it. And leah, when the trucker is given the guns, we mainly see him fire four shots…and three of them kill zombies. Okay, he missed ONE! Ha ha, what a dumb movie but I still like it.
I like that even the nurse and wussy kid are crack shots in Dawn of the Dead. Shit, they missed more in the original when zombies weren’t rapidly moving targets.
you’re hilarious perm, how can you have it wrong when you’ve just watched it? me and four other people just checked it out on a fairly big screen here at work since the footage on the tube is murky – tucker fires 7 times in total, 3 guys fall over – not a SINGLE head shot shown amongst them, they just fall over so could easy have just been blown off their feet and get up again, then tucker is overwhelmed. so pretty much nothing in this comment is accurate:
“the guy is getting dragged through a dark and bumpy sewer, holding a pistol in each hand, and, while just sort of aiming, manages to get a perfect headshot on four zombies running after him at full speed.”
no perfect head shots, in fact no visible head shots from tucker, and 4 missed altogether.
being wrong is a bugger, eh
How do you figure there are no headshots? The zombies fall down dead! Just because their head doesn’t explode doesn’t mean they’re not dead. And besides, the perfect aim of that guy works just fine with any other scene in the movie where no one misses.
Amd who ever said the guy didn’t get eaten? What the fuck does that have to do with anything?
Admit it, those “four other people” are fifteen cats.
huh? i said that it shows no headshots, as you specified, which considering how often they occur in the movie is odd and suggests that perhaps he’s not hitting them in the head at all, just blowing them off their feet as happens regularly throughout the movie, and then they just get back up again as pesky zombies do. why wouldn’t it show them being hit in the head if that was the case, the shots knock them over but they are not necessarily to head. hopefully that’s a bit clearer from me.
It’s an action scene. Look at the 4-5 zombies killed before the guy is dragged, they don’t shot their brains blowing out, but it seems pretty clear that they’ve been killed. Not every zombie death is a gore gag.
whatever you say. i’ll just add this may be the stupidest online dispute i’ve ever engaged in. i blame boredom from doing the dreaded admin, i don’t know how people do it day in day out. they should get a medal.
I believe in the Director’s Cut, all of the head shots are put back in, and they even add some more.
I win!
OK, so put a better way: In 300, there’s a bunch of stuff that happens in slow-motion on the same cool-looking but not particularly dynamic backdrop, and very often the movie spends so much time queuing up something faux-awesome in slow-mo that the actual execution — the actual action, what we actually see happening — winds up totally boring or underwhelming. So it surprises me that Sucker Punch, which has less of that tendency, in addition to being less racist and simplistic (even if you consider it simplistic!), seems to be considered the less entertaining movie. I just find it sort of funny that the whole world developed a Zack Snyder Problem *now*.
As for entertaining misfire being kind of a thumbs-up… I’m not much for being precious about saying a movie is pretty good or worth seeing. Sometimes an entertaining misfire (or semi-misfire, or mixed bag) is more worthwhile than a competently made but sort of unexciting attempt like The Lincoln Lawyer. But I think my review does a better job than my own reductive summary of “basically thumbs-up” so feel free: http://bit.ly/ezVysL
Hopefully you won’t find it too condescending. I just find it odd that you’re arguing circles around a movie you haven’t seen, saying YOU find it inconceivable that *I* find it inconceivable that… etc., etc.
My problem with 300 was that they spend all this time building up all the ruthless killers the Spartans have to face and they’re far too easily dispatched. It almost takes more time to describe how fearsome, deadly, and invincible the Immortals are than it takes for the Spartans to dispatch them. The only enemy that gives them any problems are the chained giant things, and the only reason they lose is entirely unrelated to the battle. That’s just boring action.
Still need to see Sucker Punch. Thought I could sneak it in before work this week, but their website had the wrong showtime for the early matine. But I’ll see it on my weekend (Thursday and Friday), and we’ll see what happens.
When I finally saw 300, after every guy under 30 told me how spectacularly badass it is, I couldn’t believe how hilariously awful it is. It plays like a parody. Watch the nearly naked tough guys spew over-the-top macho dialogue. Wonder when they’re just going to get it over with and have an orgy already. Watch them brutally slaughter anything in their path in slow-motion. Repeat for 2 hours. I really don’t understand how anyone other than 15 year-old males and gay porn aficionados likes that movie.
Wow Paul, that’s a generalization, and ignore the entire heart of the movie.
No IO it’s just my opinion of 300. Just because we disagree doesn’t mean I ignored “the entire heart of the movie.”
Joe, I liked that part of the movie…because it’s a guy telling a tale about how great they are. So he spends a ton of time setting up these amazing foes and how unstoppable they are, and then it’s like “and we just wiped them out.” It wasn’t boring to me, like I don’t expect Bruce Lee or Steven Seagal to have a problem offing dudes.
Paul, your opinion is not a piece of gold, and you are ignoring the heart of the movie. I am not stating that you are making some solid points but you are still ignoring it to make some joke about it turning on guys who like guys and gals who like guys because it obviously had to work for women in some way to get that big.
Who ever said their opinion is a piece of gold? I never did. Not sure why that would even be mentioned in the first place. And I’m not ignoring anything. Not thinking the same as you does not mean I am ignoring something. It means we feel differently about 300. Didn’t mean to draw your ire so early in the day. Normally I like to wait until at least late afternoon.
Sucker Punch is like watching Zach Snyder masturbate for two hours. And while masturbation if fun, it’s not a group activity.
it reminded me of conversations i had when i was 10, where you could spend hours with your friends talking about who would win in a fight between Captain America or Batman, or why Transformers were superior to Go Bots.
You could have King Kong and Godzilla speed skating around the rings of Saturn while the Death Star gets gang banged by Galactus if you wanted, but it’s meaningless if it’s just eye candy.
And the movie really was stupid. I see all these people calling it smart. How the hell did that happen?
What was smart about Sucker Punch?
You could say it was visually dazzling, or that it was dark… but how was it smart?
Maybe you just ignored its heart.
anghus, you’ve totally been masturbating wrong. Haven’t you even seen Skinemax movies, you can get like five women doing it in the same room at ONCE!
i could argue that it had no heart either.
SPOILER
just because she kills her sister accidentally and is institutionalized doesn’t mean there’s anything about baby doll that is salvageable or worthy of pity. Especially since Snyder gives the entire tragedy 4 minutes before we see SUCKER PUNCH in the window on the way to Lennox House. So basically, Baby Doll’s entire existence prior to the institution is a music video style montage “pre-credits”.
Snyder’s dreamy visual style doesn’t help with grounding things in reality. Maybe if he’d shot the “real world” bookends in a more traditional style and saved his more surreal style for the institution….
maybe if he had given Baby doll some time to be developed as a character before devolving her into cliche and fantasy…
maybe if he hadn’t been so hellbent on getting to the “cool stuff” at the expense of the characters and the story…
maybe if he had spent five fucking minutes creating a logic to the world he was trying to create. Where did all these crazy worlds that she created come from, what was her inspiration, what were her influences?
It’s just jerking off. Snyder playing with all the crayons in the box and ending up with a beautiful disaster.
Paul, again it’s not about what you saw, it’s about what’s there, and it’s about you just ignoring it. The same goes with Anghus and why Sucker Punch is pretty smart but see it the way you see it, because apparently there is only one way to see things, and mentioning that there is another way is disrespectful.
OK IO. Clearly anyone in the world who dislikes 300 only does so because they willfully ignore its heart. Next time you dislike a movie I like, I’ll just say it’s because you choose to ignore what is so obviously there. That’s a really well-reasoned, logical argument.
To echo anghus, what is the heart of 300 that I am choosing to ignore?
io, once again you’re reverting to form.
don’t invalidate me, invalidate the argument.
Q: How is Sucker Punch smart?
Paul, that you can’t get how this; “When I finally saw 300, after every guy under 30 told me how spectacularly badass it is, I couldn’t believe how hilariously awful it is. It plays like a parody. Watch the nearly naked tough guys spew over-the-top macho dialogue. Wonder when they’re just going to get it over with and have an orgy already. Watch them brutally slaughter anything in their path in slow-motion. Repeat for 2 hours. I really don’t understand how anyone other than 15 year-old males and gay porn aficionados likes that movie”
represent anything more than a snarky response, that ignores every aspect of the film to be snarky, and how anyone responding to it as kindly as I have is doing you a favour is a fucking mystery to me. Seriously, that’s just snark and you are ignoring the whole big part of the film for your snark.
Now, if I am ever just snarky to be snarky, please respond to me like you stated because I will have it coming. Seriously man, you get so upset over anyone stating the obvious to you. Seriously.
Anghus, why waste my time? It’s not that you or Paul are fucking morons but you feel how you feel, and there’s no budging. I could budge, I could spend thousands of words trying to budge you, but there’s no freaking point. You disliked the movie for whatever reasons people like you hate a movie, and that’s that. You don’t care about Sucker Punch, you won’t watch it on cable to give it another chance, and that’s reason enough not to bother with a response.
I will tell you that you miss the entire point of Baby Doll’s character in the framework of that story. It’s not her story. She’s a means to an end.
Sure it was snarky, but it was also honest. That is how I feel about 300, that it’s repetitive and features a plethora of unintentionally funny macho dialogue spoken by nearly naked dudes. It also has more slow motion than every Van Damme movie ever made combined.
So please, explain to me what the heart that I am willfully choosing to ignore is. I’d like to know. And I’m not upset. I’m just tired of the same old crap from you.
I am tired of the same old crap from you. Once you hate something, that’s it, and then you ask people to waste their time explaining shit to you. I can type well over a hundred words a minute but I sure as shit will not waste my time explain the heart of 300 to you. It’s there, it’s glaring, and they even ripped off the music from Titus to trigger an emotional response which simply did not work on you.
Again, you folks love to point at me, but you are the most stubborn lot of folks on the net. Once you have seen it and it sucks, that’s it for you. Hell, unlike any of you, I willfully admit when I may have been wrong on a movie, and I even gave fucking Avatar another chance.
Seriously, if you have a problem with me being perplexed by grown ass people with such stubborn fucking opinions, then fucking excuse me. I am sorry for being the open-minded one on here, that might bust your balls over something snarky, but doesn’t really give a shit if missed the obvious. I pointed it out Paul, you didn’t see it, and that’s efuckingnough for me brother.
ETA: It’s like stating Mad Men is all about the 60s and that’s it, emphatically, and then getting pissed when someone points out that it’s not. It’s also like rain on your wedding day, running out of gas after passing a service station, and beating Mario 3 before beating Mario 2. Which really isn’t Mario 2 but you know what? Fuck those Super Mario All-Star loving 20 somethings. SUPER MARIO 2 FOREVER! LONG LIVE EGG THROWING!
Okay, I’m going to break my silence of neutrality and ask: What is the heart of 300? It’s a simple question that you haven’t answered yet.
And you said I am angry. And you accuse others of having stubborn opinions. Fascinating.
Here it is, with no snark. In my opinion 300 features unintentionally funny tough guy dialogue, an excessive amount of slow motion, and is very repetitive. It’s 2-hours of the men talking followed by brutal battles and not much else.
Wait, you pointed out what the heart of 300 is? Where?
Damn you Lex! I was sitting on that SP/JANIES GOTTA GUN comparison for days and I JUST dropped it in Voynar’s column 5 mins ago. Bastard.
io’s defense when backed into a corner is to declare others as “angry”.
he is incapable of coherent discussion.
I’m not going to point out to you where th heart is, because if you don’t see it, then apparently it’s not there, right?
Also, Paul, if you really want to ever make me angry. Accuse me of being stubborn. Please. I still hate freaking Cavill as Superman (hate the decision more if Matt Bomer being gay kept him out of the cape) but I can admit that I overreacted. I can admit when being wrong and damn right I will gloat when being right :P!
Nevertheless, you saw 300, you didn’t see any heart there, and that means IT’S NOT THERE! Obviously I am wrong wrong wrong, and that’s that.
ETA: Oh fuck you Anghus. This is a COHERENT DISCUSSION and you and Paul do read as ANGRY. You in particular come across as freaking militia member some times! Excuse me for stating as much.
The fact that I am typing this out and the above out in a coherent way and have explained to you why I refuse to answer your question, is reason enough to prove that you are in capable of coherent discussion. When someone states why they won’t do something and you ignore that to insult them, then that’s on you Anghus. Seriously, stay white, stay angry, and keep on hating Pixar.
You guys trying to get a well-reasoned response out of IO is like trying to get two cats to French kiss. It doesn’t work but it can be pretty entertaining to see what happens.
See but I never said you are wrong, wrong, wrong. I expressed how I felt about it, and then asked what the heart that I missed is. You suggested that I was willfully ignoring the heart. That’s a cop-out argument and could be used by anyone who is defending a movie they like that someone else doesn’t. It does seem like you prefer getting angry and defensive when asked to elaborate on a claim you make rather than explain yourself. And again, not angry. That’s pretty funny Big Perm.
Paul, you are wanting me to explain something to you about a movie you hate. Even if I type it out, I explain it to you, that does not mean you are going to agree with it. You are just going to write something snarky, treat me like an idiot, and what will that accomplish?
Again, I never really liked Jeff McMahon on this blog, but he did make one point that in hindsight now could have saved me a lot of suffering on this blog. He stated once that people on here are not going to change their minds, so why bother trying to make them change their minds?
He’s right. You hate 300 and stated so, I do not hate it, and can state why. I simply refuse to do so because what’s the point? What’s in it for me? Nadda. Zip. Zelch. Zed. ZEROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
If you were someone else, maybe it would be worth it, but you and Anghus have no respect for me. Why bother writing an explanation out to people who think I am an idiot? It’s pointless and not worth doing.
You hate the movie. Have fun with it.
I remember when the film came out Stephen Hunter of the Washington Post (who I believe is the only other film critic than Ebert to win the Pulitzer) wrote a lenghty article related to how empty in thought and lacking in heart 300 was. I searched for the article but alas could not find it.
If I had no respect for you IO, I wouldn’t ask in the first place. If you disliked a movie I liked and I said you felt that way because you intentionally ignored its heart, I imagine you’d object to that and ask me what exactly you’re missing.
And why would anyone bother coming here to talk movies if they felt it was pointless to discuss them in detail, whether it’s movies they like or dislike?
I don’t really see why lacking in heart is a problem…at least, not all the time. I’d hate to see a heartless Rocky movie or a Coppola movie, but something like 300? Works for me. Like, I don’t watch a Jackie Chan movie for a good story, or Commando. ALTHOUGH if they ever had a good story that would be nice. But how often do you get the best of all worlds?
Paul, it is pointless, and I get nothing from it. Sorry but it’s not worth my time.
ETA: Seriously, I get my balls countlessly busted over all manner of shit, so why put something out there that’s just going to get me more crap? There’s no point for me to write something that’s going to get me attacked and attacked and attacked and attacked and attacked.
It’s a fucking ouroboros and I am sick of eating the tail.
You are something else man. Why should anyone here ever bother asking you about anything? It would seem to be a total waste of their time.
I believe this is it hcat.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/08/AR2007030802188.html
I like 300 a fair bit, but don’t really see much heart in it, either.
There’s nothing wrong with liking 300 or Sucker Punch…
that doesn’t mean they are smart or have heart. Sometimes people like a movie and they feel they need to defend it with attributes it doesn’t have.
If you like films by Zach Snyder, so be it, but let’s not call them smart or lie to ourselves that they have heart.
I love Face/Off, but it is not smart. I think people don’t realize that you can enjoy junk, but please… call it junk. Don’t try to put a fresh coat of paint on it and call it ‘restored’.
Paul, when it’s not a waste of my time, then I will post. Again, I ask you: what do I gain from this? You are still going to hate the film. No matter how persuasive I can be, will my explanation change your mind? Probably not, so again, why should I bother?
Your mind is made up. If your mind was not made up then maybe, but you hate it. You hate it to the point of being snarky, so why fight you on it? I own the collector’s edition box, so I like the damn thing. You don’t. Yay.
ETA: Yeah, Face/Off brought about face transplant surgery. So, uh, yeah it’s smart, but you thinking you can state how films and filmmakers should be viewed is so you.
Face transplant surgery is smart? Ok….
Always seemd rather gimmicky to me – and I ADORE that flick.
Because IO this a movie blog where movie lovers come to talk movies. We share opinions and argue and debate merits. No one expects to agree all the time, but where’s the fun in throwing your hands up and refusing to participate just because someone disagrees with you? Seems to defeat the whole purpose of a place like this.
Paul, not only do I not buy this is a blog for movielovers, because it’s not. I also do not buy that this is a place to share opinions, particularly my opinions, because I have motherfuckers attack them and use them as a way to belittle me as a human being.
After apparently being the bane of the world for liking Paul and Sucker Punch. Why bother sharing every little thing with people who clearly question ever motive I have and believe that out of the THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS of films that I have seen in my life, that I only love one genre, and that’s it.
When I feel like sharing, I will share, but this is a blog for people to bitch about movies. Outside of Lex and I, there’s not much LOVE ABOUT THE MOVIES. So excuse me for not wanting to get shit on again for finding 300 to have heart and Sucker Punch to be a smart film.
are you suggesting that face transplant surgery came into being because of face/off?
seriously? please tell me you were joking.
he’s joking, right?
Well I am a movie lover and come here to talk movies. I assumed everyone else was in the same boat, but maybe I’m wrong. I never said you only love one genre. I never called you names for liking SP and Paul (which I really want to see). I talk about movies I love every day IO (yesterday that included Passenger 57 and Fled), so spare me the “only Lex and me love movies” bullshit.
I come here to talk movies, and it seems everyone else does too. Get over your victim complex, IO.
Anghus, it’s a sci-fi film, and like most sci-fi films it inspired. If I am incorrect, so be it, but you have Itunes because of a ST:TNG episode. These things happen and nice way to be an asshole as usual… asshole :D!
Paul, you give me shit about EVERYTHING. Why would I want to explain why I see a film a certain way with you of all people? You attack me every fucking chance you get and like the passive aggressive soul that you are, act as if you never wanted to attack me. Go up to the top of this thread, read your response to me about groupthink, and you might get the point.
Seriously Paul, I am stating to you what will happen, but here are some bullet points to help you out:
1) I will give you my explanation.
2) You will disagree with it.
3) Some other asshole will show up, state that I am an idiot for seeing something differently than they do…
4) and then I will have to respond to them.
5) This goes on and on and on.
Again, I have had enough of steps 1-5. I find something more in these films, you do not, and I am just going to leave it right there. If that bugs you, fine, but steps 1-5 really piss me off and I have decided enough is enough.
ETA: Story like everyone else, you enjoy taking a shot at me. It’s also not a victim complex because if there’s evidence to support something, it’s NOT A FUCKING COMPLEX!
Paul and Anghus do not give a shit what I think about anything. Neither do you. There’s enough evidence to suggest that whenever I have ever gone into detail about anything, I get attacked for being an idiot, and apparently I suck cock or something. That’s what happens, so excuse me in this case for not wanting to explain myself to three people who simply do not give a flying fuck about me.
I just don’t see where I unfairly attacked you abut 300. And why did you even respond to my 300 post in the first place if you didn’t plan on discussing it? If you truly believed I would just attack you, why did you direct a response at me? Is that not an attempt to engage in a discussion? If you feel all I do is attack you and now refuse to discuss what you meant by its heart because you are always under attack, it makes no sense to respond to me at all about 300. Right?
IO – It is a complex. You’ve many times freaked on me for simply disagreeing with you, with no attack involved. I know you don’t see it, but it’s there. Hell – you JUST equated being asked where the heart in 300 is to saying you suck cock. That’s a RAGING complex, friend. Sorry.
You say I don’t care about your taste – and that’s just, sorry – but stupid. As Ive said many times, my taste in film is probably closer to yours than anyone else here. But you attack for the slightest thing. Remember when I talked about how stoked I was for The Avengers, and Whedon doing it – and then mentioned how I didn’t like some scenes in Iron Man 2 – and you jumped down my throat saying how “against’ Avengers I was. Complex, brotha.
Oh, and just for clarity, I looked up the first face transplants. Of course, we know about the one in 2005, but the technique is traced back to a surgery performed in 1994 (which was technically a face re-attachment, after a girl lost her face in a threshing machine) but pioneered the basic technique. Wouldn’t be surprised if that case was the inspiration for the film – but that’s merely a guess.
No, I stated what I wanted to state. You are the one who wanted more explanation and I have gone out of my way to explain why no more explanation is coming. Seriously, you don’t give a shit about me as a poster on here, if I vanished tomorrow you would rejoice, and I simply see little value in discussing things in detail with someone who thinks I am an asshole.
ETA: Alright Story, good to know about the transplant, but it’s not a complex. Did you read what’s happened to me the last two weekends? Did you? Not a complex at all and you could give a flying fuck about me as well, so excuse me for constantly believing you are always taking a shot.
Yes, IO, I have read. A few times you get singled out, but 9 times out of 10 – you bring it on yourself.
It makes no sense to direct a post at someone you have no desire to have a discussion with because you believe they always attack you. Is anyone here worth discussing movies with? Who meets your standards? I only think you’re an asshole when you get like this, playing the victim and getting super-defensive and claiming everyone here is out to destroy you. When you discuss movies in a reasonable fashion, I enjoy your commentary very much.
Story, that right there is why I care little about you, because apparently I deserve to be punched in the face.
Paul, you have never ever seemed to find anything I post reasonable, and I responded to you with a statement. That’s it. It has heart in it, disagree all you want, but I find it to have heart. That’s all I choose to give you.
story, there’s been other films/books/twilight zone episodes about altered appearance and face surgery.
to suggest that face/off is ‘smart’ because it used the inexact science of face transplant surgery is like saying paycheck is ‘smart’ because it employed time travel as a device.
an io is fine until he turns on the people he’s discussing film with. you can see the exact moment when it turns. the other day we were talking sucker punch and the conversation went like this.
me: zach snyder is a blight.
io: you’re fucking bitter
why does the discussion get turned to me, or paul, or anyone else? the only time io gets brought up negatively is after his inevitable descent into anger and rage and name calling.
most of us here are just talking about movies and can disagree on topics without getting personal. io can’t.
io, you’re usually the one firing the first shot.
on other topics, i have to give credit to Lex. When i was watching Sucker Punch and Scott Glenn says “take off your shoes” to Emily Browning, i was half convinced that line was directed to Lex.
Anghus, YOU GET PERSONAL ON ME ALL THE TIME! Again, after reading that people like you think I have it coming, when I never fire the first shot, but respond to it. I sort of figure that there’s no fucking point to expound with some of you.
Especially you, of all people, who treats me like an asshole for liking whatever I like. Seriously, the fact that you folks think it’s my fault, when I have never treated you as bad as you have treated me, is fucking laughable. That’s reason alone to share what I want to share and ignore those who I want to ignore.
ETA: Seriously I find it fucking laughable that you and Paul act as if you give a shit about anything I post, when you two go out of your way to take shots.
IO, you are a revisionist historian. Go back and reread how all this started. I made a general statement about 300 and how I feel about it. You claimed I missed its heart. I said it was just a matter of us disagreeing about the movie. You then responded like an asshole with this: “Paul, your opinion is not a piece of gold, and you are ignoring the heart of the movie.” So you in fact started it down this road. I stated my opinion of 300, and you made it personal, you made it about me and not the movie.
Paul, you act like your opinion is a piece of gold, and no one can comment against it. Sorry, I disagree with your rant against 300, the movie has a heart, and that’s still where I am leaving it.
Again, you all think I should be beat down on this blog, and blame me for getting beat down. Excuse me for being severely pissed off about this and not exactly wanting to share with with people who think I deserve to be treated like shit on this blog all the fucking time.
io, i gave you a specific example.
i called zach snyder a blight.
you called me a bitter old hen.
specific example, specific reference. that’s you firing the first shot friend. that’s you not discussing the movie and instead turning the discussion to the person posting rather than the movie being discussed.
and this is getting boring. lets get back to talking about a movie.
anyone see Source Code yet?
How do you go from me expressing an opinion about a single movie to me believing that my opinion is gold? I don’t understand where you’re getting that from. I have never suggested that I believe that, because I don’t. It’s completely untrue.
If you disagree with me, fine, then tell me why. I have disagreements with people here all the time (like Big Perm regarding 300). But they don’t get offended and take it personally. You chose to make it about me and not the movie. You started it down this line. And now you’re playing victim.
Not yet anghus but I’d like to see Source Code and Insidious this weekend. Both look pretty good and worth the trip to the theater.
Anghus, you see it that way, I see it as you taking a shot, and me responding to you. That’s how I work. I never start it. I just finish it. You folks seem to miss the part when you trigger the response.
Paul, again, you believe it’s my fault all the time, and that I have being treated like shit coming. Sorry if that’s PERSONAL TO ME and makes everything with you and others FAIR GAME.
ETA: Oh yeah you two, referring to you as BITTER and goofing on how you value you your opinion, is nothing like being attacked for just liking a movie. Seriously, I get attacked for just liking movies and being excited for movies, and in this thread you state I cannot have coherent conversation.
So apparently, you can be personal all day and have to me, but whenever I am… I should be fucking figuratively shot and my body figuratively dumped in lye. Real equality there, folks.
“Story, that right there is why I care little about you, because apparently I deserve to be punched in the face.”
And there ya go – you don’t actually cop to any of your own behavior – it’s always everyone else. My pointing out that I like the same movies as you, and showing examples of you flying off the handle unproved, or wondering how asking about heart” is akin to calling you a cocksucker is somehow punching you in the face. Right.
Pretty much the definition of a victim complex.
“Paul, you act like your opinion is a piece of gold, and no one can comment against it. Sorry, I disagree with your rant against 300, the movie has a heart, and that’s still where I am leaving it. ”
It’s perfectly fine to disagree. People have varying opinions all the time.
But YOU made it personal. Paul talked about the movie – YOU talked about PAUL. Yes, you took personal flack after that – but it was you who took it down that road, and then whine about the fact that people respond to you in the tone you establish.
“I should be fucking figuratively shot and my body figuratively dumped in lye. Real equality there, folks.”
Yes, asking you to act like an adult is EXACTLY the same as shooting you and destroying the body. Jeebus….
I think IO deserves to be punched in the face.
Perm, whenever you are in the area, let me know, and you can try.
Story, I never ever fly off the handle without a reason and as I have stated to you time and time again: if I disagree with you, I am going to go after you, because all of you go after me.
Again, I have nothing in common with you because I would never want anyone in here, excluding Perm, to be treated the way I am by a bunch of dudes. Who thinks it cool to attack people for not being just like them.
The fact that some of you think it’s a victim complex, while ignoring A SHITLOAD OF EVIDENCE, makes it all white, doesn’t it?
“Story, I never ever fly off the handle without a reason and as I have stated to you time and time again: if I disagree with you, I am going to go after you, because all of you go after me. ”
Stop being such a fucking baby. You went after me without me every doing anything to you.
You bitch about people not accepting your opinion, and then flat out state you’ll attack anyone who has a differing opinion than yours. You’re a child.
“You all go after me” – Thus the victim complex, kiddo.
IO, need I remind you the tirades you went on after I had the temerity to suggest that the marketing for Scott Pilgrim wasn’t all it could be? You called me all sorts of names and acted like I killed your dog. And I never attacked you or the movie, just its marketing.
And your response to Lex’s negative review: “Lex, you’re a fucking idiot.”
Story, people go after me whenever I post an opinion. The fact that you don’t get this, is beyond me. Also, you stop being the little kid who shows up to scream “NEENER NEENER.” We have nothing in common and stop acting as if we do.
Paul, yeah it’s Lex. Lex and I have a conversations all the time away from here. I can tell him he’s a fucking idiot, he can tell me I’m a fucking idiot, and nothing is worse for wear. Why? We get along. I do not get along with you, anghus, or Story. I never have.
I also want you to post me calling you names. Please, point them out, because outside of calling you a BITCH. Which I am not sure that I ever have, I refer to you as Paul, because I just like the tone it sets.
I also got pissed at you about Scott Pilgrim because you did your passive aggressive bs which is annoying. If I was too mean to you, sorry, but you went out of your way to be a dick to me about Scott Pilgrim, and YOU FUCKING COPPED TO IT LATER!
Again, you don’t like me, and I am sick of trying to be nice to people who don’t like me and believe that I AM A PIECE OF SHIT WHO SHOULD BE DESTROYED FOR DISAGREEING WITH YOU. I’ve had a enough. Excuse meeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!
Waaaaah!
Again story, so I should enjoy being treated like shit? Please Mr. Adult, give me your reason as to why I should not be pissed off for the countless attacks thrown my way. Please, illuminate me.
Search Scott Pilgrim and go through the posts from August. They’re right there. You insulted me and called me names for calmly and rationally suggesting that SP’s marketing was ineffective and poor. You attacked me and made it about me rather than sticking to the movie and its marketing campaign. This is hardly the only time you’ve done this. It’s sort of your M.O.
When were you ever nice to me? That’s news to me.
Why would I be nice to you, when you are never nice to me. Not only did I not call you any names but if I did, you sort of had it coming for the way you responded to what I posted after seeing it early. You pretty much stated that I am a fucking idiot, whose opinions about certain movies should not be trusted, and that shit has stuck FOR FUCKING MONTHS! You fucking labelled me with some shit and it’s yet to go away. Thanks. Thanks a lot.
Not what I said at all, and not sure how that justified your nastiness for me speaking critically of a studio’s marketing campaign. But of course you would never call anyone here names, and if you did, they clearly had it coming for having the audacity to express an opinion different from yours. But you’re only an innocent victim in all of this. Right.
“Again story, so I should enjoy being treated like shit? Please Mr. Adult, give me your reason as to why I should not be pissed off for the countless attacks thrown my way. Please, illuminate me.”
The point being, you’d get a lot less shit if you stopped acting like a child all the time. People have disagreements on this board all the time. But you’re the only one who nails himself to a cross over it every time.
Paul, do you get that I have been attacked for the most innocuous shit ever? If I get attacked for something, yeah, I am unloading, but go read my posts over the weekend. How bad did I respond to Don or Anghus? Asshole? Motherfucker? Yeah that’s god awful compared to the way they treated me.
You are also giving me shit for posts that happened before the edit button. I edit the hell out of everything for a reason because sure as shit, those posts were mean and vicious in the past, and that’s the reason why I have apologized to Leah. I admit they were mean but that’s like years ago, get over it.
I would get over things, if I were not attacked for countless reasons. Seriously, you want us to be cool Paul, don’t give me shit for thinking critics may have gone groupthink on Snyder. I explained myself but you treated me like an asshole with post after post as if I did not give an explanation.
Seriously, since the first day you’ve shown up on this blog, you’ve been giving me shit, so excuse me for not being your biggest fan. The fact that you put up there that you occasionally like our exchanges, is mind-blowing to me. Absolutely mind-blowing.
ETA: Story, get the fuck out of here! Some of the most vicious and mean threads ever on this board, have NOT included me, and this is what pisses me off about your accusation. You fuckers cross the line with one another in ways I never have. Hell, I thought the piece of gold line was innocuous for fuck’s sake, but there have been times when everyone in a thread were beating the shit out of one another with ZERO INVOLVEMENT FROM ME.
The fact… the simple fact… that you exclude that history to beat up on me as if I do bad all by myself, is simply bullshit. Seriously, I can be an asshole, but go read my posts since the invention of the edit button and note that I am guy who definitely needs more than one draft.
Seriously, that you can’t for a minute see my side, is reason enough to never explain why I see 300 as being a movie with a lot of heart. The fact that you think it’s a victim complex when I am not treated as fairly as everyone else, is fucking astounding. I bow to your blinders.
What, you aren’t responsible for what you write unless you can edit? How about not being a dick the first time around?
And yes, there are probably more viscous arguments – that’s WHY I said there are lots of arguments here. But I don’t see anyone else playing the persecution card like you do.
my knowledge on insidious is sparse. i’ve seen the geek sites talking about it, and i’ve seen some really terrible commercials for it.
source code is getting better reviews than i would have thought. then again, the adjustment bureau got good reviews and i thought that was a well acted piece of high concept crap. i’m hoping source code doesn’t end up being the same.
“You folks seem to miss the part when you trigger the response.”
That’s some pretty wild reasoning there. You are the one responsible for your own behavior, not other people, no matter how they might “trigger” feelings within you.
Story because I start off pissed off and work my way back. Sorry my process doesn’t work for you.
Most of the reviews for Insidious are positive, and apparently it’s far more subtle and less gory than one might expect from the Saw guys. I’m hoping it’s a good creepy-kid flick. I also hope Source Code is better than The Adjustment Bureau. I almost liked the latter, but in the end pretty much agree with your assessment.
Here are some of the good reasons IO attacks people:
1) Posters here are meanies!
2) Angry Angry ANGRY!!!
3) You all are stupid idiots.
4) His penis hurts him.
I wish I could post declarative statements about films without being shit on it. That would be swell.
You can. It’s when you post about other posters that you get (rightly) shit on.
i so wanted to like the adjustment bureau. loved damon and blunt. loved the idea. no stakes, poorly directed, silly third act.
Yeah I was really into it for about an hour. Damon and Blunt are great and I’m a huge Anthony Mackie fan. But it totally falls apart in the third act.
Story, what Anghus posted up there about Adjustment Bureau, is about as down right mean as one can get online. It’s dismissive of anyone who likes the film and pretty much shuts down all discussion about that film with anyone who also doesn’t hate it. Excuse me for thinking that’s worse then figuratively shitting on people. Not that shitting on people is right either but there’s a more diplomatic way to do things without shutting shit down all together.
Which is REASON NUMBER FUCKING ONE why you will never get me to respond to a hater ever again.
This?
“i thought that was a well acted piece of high concept crap.”
What’s so mean about that? He clearly states it’s only his opinion and says nothing at all about anyone who likes the movie.
Yeah it’s a HIGH CONCEPT CRAP is all that matters in that sentence, which means there’s no reason to discuss it with him unless it’s with you. Someone who hated the movie.
Again, you guys don’t give a shit as to why I feel the way I do. You are just waiting for an opportunity and I refuse to give them anymore, or at least I will try my damnest to do so.
But he clearly states that it is only his opinion. It doesn’t shut down all discussion or claim that people who like it are idiots. You are reading things that just are not there. I didn’t hate the movie at all. I think it’s a solid 6/10 that falls short because of a pretty weak third act.
See that’s reasoned, that’s fine, but his opinion is that it’s quality shit. Again I ask, what’s the point in discussing the movie with him? Seriously, you dislike freakin 300, which is fine, but there’s just no point in going out on a limb.
I found AB to be extremely entertaining, if rather light. I would argue that it was well directed. The performances from Damon and Blunt (their chemisty was fantastic) and Mackie were very good, and I thought it was well-shot with some nice compositions. The “chase” sequence was well-put together, and I liked the subtle sci-fi vibe. It’s a much sweeter movie than I expected. And yes, the stakes are rather low and hardly as ominous as the ads would have people to beleive. But it was definitely a better than average flick, and refreshing in its own way. Not great or even very good but solid and worth checking out. (I was much higher on it after my inital impression, as is often the case; but it’s still a charming, cool movie.)
“Story, what Anghus posted up there about Adjustment Bureau, is about as down right mean as one can get online. It’s dismissive of anyone who likes the film and pretty much shuts down all discussion about that film with anyone who also doesn’t hate it.”
It’s an opinion. Who cares? Just because someone states theirs doesn’t mean you have to agree with it.
Besides, how is what he said different AT ALL from the “it’s awesome and if you don’t like it, you don’t get it” type declarations you make? That leaves just as little room for meaningful discussion. And, as has been pointed out – he flat out says it’s just his opinion, and doesn’t tag any judgments onto other people, which the “you don’t get it” response very much does.
He states his opinion calmly and divorced from any attacks – and you call him a hater. Amazing.
“Seriously, you dislike freakin 300, which is fine, but there’s just no point in going out on a limb.”
You also refused to discuss the point with those of us who like it, too. We don’t hate the movie, we just took away a different read of it than you – and asked for clarity on where you were coming from without attack – that IS discussion, and you wouldn’t engage.
You seem to be saying there’s no point in having a discussion unless someone thinks exactly what you do – but that’s not discussion. It’s the groupthink you spent so much time railing against a few days back.
Right about now, even Christian is thinking, “God, I’d rather read a 500-word dissertation on Taylor Momsen from LexG than this IO feud.”
WAAAAAAAY back in the thread:
“Joe, I liked that part of the movie…because it’s a guy telling a tale about how great they are. So he spends a ton of time setting up these amazing foes and how unstoppable they are, and then it’s like “and we just wiped them out.” It wasn’t boring to me, like I don’t expect Bruce Lee or Steven Seagal to have a problem offing dudes.”
But the scene with the Immortals is like having Bruce Lee get to the third floor on Game of Death and taking out the opponent there with one punch. You can’t make almost an entire movie with the scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indy shoots the swordsman over and over. Not that I don’t occasionally like action movies where the villains just plain suck at what they do (I also loves me some Commando), but aside from the subplot with the wife, which was good, 300’s self-seriousness took out the entertainment value for me.
No one wants THAT.
Caught some of 300 on Telemundo a few weeks ago. Wouldn’t have known who he was in 2007, but noticed that MOST CHARISMATIC MAN ALIVE Michael Fassbender is all over that thing, skulking around in the background mostly.
Guy must have the best life ever.
Seriously, what’s bothersome is the whole; “YOU SUCK BUT WE ARE ALL GOOD” sentiment. This is the hot blog, everyone has taken a shot at everyone at some point, but apparently I have the most loaded gun. Which is just ridiculous. I just don’t get why apparently I am the worst at this when I haven’t pulled half the shit most people have pulled.
Seriously, excuse me for being perplexed by the complete lack of empathy.
there is one very good reason to watch 300, lordhavemercy (do not bother clicking if you don’t like silly fan montage vids and NIN and the bender kicking ass and taking names wearing virtually nothing):
oh and edited to say, stelios most certainly does NOT skulk around in the background as lex suggests, he is one of the main characters
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ODIYeeG5GE&feature=related
but in all seriousness, while i’m not a huge ‘300’ fan i actually kinda like it, style over substance in a BIG way — but i feel the camaraderie of the gorgeous boys as they blood-sprut their way to certain death, even if there isn’t a whole lot more going on. and lena and butler have a lovely, palpable connection and passion; i feel their longing and grief, hoping to get back to one another but knowing deep down it’s a lost cause. a rather minor note in the movie but it works for me. not sure that really constitutes ‘heart’, but there is some decent chemistry, and sometimes that’s all you can hope for.
where 300 arguably does achieve its goal is in the production design, which really, really captures the look and essence of the graphic novel in a cinematic form to a T – i think snyder and co. deserve some kudos for that achievement. the film very closely follow the GN, and that is – as is so often the case with comic adaptations – both a blessing and a curse. that it’s empty spectacle is certainly arguable and i tend to agree, but in my eyes it rises above pure forgettable mediocrity a bit just by virtue of design, total commitment from the cast with some decent chemistry and swordplay, and some unbelievably rockin’ bods.
Nah, we all suck to a degree. Yes, we all takes shots at one another. We just don’t complain about being picked on.
Story has anyone ever stated that you suck because you like a movie, then did it again the next weekend? Seriously, your lack of empathy for that, is staggering.
Ive been told, by you, that I suck for not liking one enough. Same difference.
I have had clashes with Cloverfield fans who said I should’ve been aborted because my taste was so horrible. *shrugs*
that’s ok JUST IGNORE MY CLIP. i’m going to go weep quietly in the corner now
(nah, not even)
That you see them as the same, when one has to do with me and nothing to do with you, is absolutely freaking ridiculous. That you make it about you, when it has nothing to do with you, wow, man. Wow.
ETA: If everyone loves Fassbender as much as you do Leah. That guy is going to be paid for the rest of this decade.
“I have had clashes with Cloverfield fans who said I should’ve been aborted because my taste was so horrible. *shrugs*”
Yeah, Ive been under fire on a science fiction site this week for NOT picking 2001 as the bestest film evah! Sorry, I appreciate it more than enjoy it.
“That you see them as the same, when one has to do with me and nothing to do with you, is absolutely freaking ridiculous. That you make it about you, when it has nothing to do with you, wow, man. Wow.”
Wait…. you ask if we’ve been treated that way, and by answering you, we’re making it about us?
Oh….. kay….
I like 2010 more. It’s Roy Schneider. He’s just awesome in that film and I like that Hal is exonerated of all crimes.
ETA: No you stated me being thrown under the bus is the same as me stating you suck for not liking Paul or Sucker Punch. I honestly, I don’t remember, which means I was probably fucking around.
Again, a fucking movie critic that gets paid to be a fucking movie critic, basically stated I am ruining Hollywood. Seriously, that’s a fucking shot, and that you think me stating you SUCK is the same as that, well, the fuck is that shit.
I hope Source Code will be good. I didn’t see Adj Bur yet. I had kinda planned to, got busy and then some of the things I read made it seem a little light.
I’ve more often found stakes being too high to be the culprit to ruin a movie far more frequently than stakes too small. One of the things I loved about the series 24 was that they’d frequently try to stop the lead domino from falling, not necessarily “SAVE THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE!!”
Yeah the Adjustment Bureau is so far from being light, that it’s like tungsten. It’s that awesome.
“No you stated me being thrown under the bus is the same as me stating you suck for not liking Paul or Sucker Punch. I honestly, I don’t remember, which means I was probably fucking around.
Again, a fucking movie critic that gets paid to be a fucking movie critic, basically stated I am ruining Hollywood. Seriously, that’s a fucking shot, and that you think me stating you SUCK is the same as that, well, the fuck is that shit.”
WTF are you going on about? You asked if anyone had told me I sucked for my views on a movie – and I answered.
I don’t know, I think there was a miscommunication up there, and I don’t know where really. So to sum: we see things completely different, but I will do my part and try not to be as quick on the draw.
That aside, where are this bastion of sci-fi fans, that still love 2001? I’ve met one person in my entire life who love that film and get rather shocked when meeting someone else who loves it/likes it.
2001 is a masterpiece; I don’t think I’m alone on that one. Though perhaps I should add that this is only my opinion, and by stating it I do not mean to impugn the intelligence or integrity of anyone who might not share it. I can get this notarized if need be.
Boy, this is some thread. Thankfully, what could have been 100+ posts about whether or not 300 “has heart” instead became 100+ posts about why such a discussion would be a waste of time.
I love 2001. Who doesn’t??
Me!
IO – Fair enough, bro.
As for 2001, I only saw it maybe a year or so back. So, aside from there being no “newness” factor at all, I had seen all the key moments referenced/homaged/parodied so much over the years, that much of the films impact was blunted by familiarity before the fact.
I was in the sixth grade when I first saw 2001, and while I had seen references/homages/parodies, the form of it was so different and original that it was stil a formative experience. I’m not hating on anyone for not finding it to be a blast to watch but I think it’s an important, vital work of art that everyone interested in movies should watch. It’s a triumph, in my humble opinion. (An opinion that is obviously not original and the broad consensus…)
The novel, which Clarke wrote concurrently with Kubrick writing the screenplay, is great and is interesting in that it’s much more concrete in terms of theme or character. Worth reading for any sci-fi or Kubrick fans out there.
Yeah I absolutely hate IO. It gives me gas, so look forward to something NEW whenever I can figure it out something new.
Now, with 2001, I don’t hate it at all, it pretty much changed the world in it’s way, but the lack of Schneider always bugged me. Luckily, 2010 gave me the Schneider I was missing in the original, and a the earth of two suns. Good times. Good times.
The thing I dislike most about 300 is that Mann was allegedly preparing a similiar movie based on the novel Gates of Fire. Would have much rather seen that version but it falls into the ‘didn’t get out of the gate fast enough’ heap along with Baz’s Alexander the Great and Ridley Scott’s Crisis in the Hot Zone (both also beat by Warner projects)
I feel ya, IO. 2001 without Scheider is like JAWS without Dennis Quaid, or THE EXORCIST without Richard Burton, or THE STING without Jackie Gleason and Mac Davis. 🙂
That’s it yancy. HOW DARE YOU COMPARE 2010 TO JAWS 3D and THE STING II! FIGHTING WORDS, YANCY! FIGHTING WORDS!
Yeah the Mann project was allegedly supposed to star Clooney. I would’ve liked to see what that collaboration would be like.
To be honest when these historical projects compete (like when the DePalma/Nic Cage, Nolan/Carrey and what would become THE AVIATOR were all in development), as a viewer I would be perfectly content to go out and see each movie, as I’m sure each take would be radically different but apparently the conventional wisdom is that audiences can only handle one movie at a time on a certain subject.
Does anyone remember the Guy Ritchie crusades project that he had in development, maybe even before SWEPT AWAY? I remember thinking it sounded cool…The thing about these historical movies is that, with time, people can dust them off and try them again, as Nolan may be doing with his Hughes project.
EDITED: I found it. THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA.
http://blog.moviefone.com/2005/10/05/ritchies-next-great-idea/
The last time I saw 2001 in its entirety was when I was in my early high school days, trying to work through the classics and all that. Sadly, I had (At the time) undiagnosed ADHD, and wasn’t quite ready for it. Now, I can manage, I have the Warners’ Kubrick collection on DVD, and I just need to clear 2-and-a-half hours out of my day, which keeps getting harder, sadly.
I wouldn’t put 2001 on top of the list either, but for the life of me I can’t think what I would put up there, though the original Apes and Boyles Sunshine is somewhere up near the top. So I’m curious if its not 2001 what holds the title?
I remember next to nothing about 2010 but do love Scheider esp 7ups, Blue Thunder, and All That Jazz. Good looking without being overly handsome, tough without channeling Clint, he’s like your friend’s dad that all of a sudden takes out the mafia.
2001 is the pinnacle of filmmaking.
IO, why do you come to this blog? I’ve asked before and never gotten an answer.
Well, 2010 did have Helen Mirren looking provocatively sweaty…
Martin, why do you come to my blog :P?
I’ve actually never seen 2010, but I have a hard time believing Peter Hyams made something that compares favorably to Kubrick. But if it’s got a sweaty, 40-ish Helen Mirren, I may have to find out for myself.
I did not state it’s a better movie than 2001. I simply like it better than 2001, it has a more hopeful message, and I like the way they exonerate Hal. Seriously, check it out. It’s worth your time.
I’m always… not exactly frustrated, but still kind of sigh any time a slightly older film geek declares either 2001 or Dr. Strangelove as their favorite Kubrick.
They’re both obviously great, both masterworks, but as a Gen Xer who grew up watching The Shining, Clockwork Orange and Full Metal Jacket like they were Rocky, Jaws and Star Wars, just seems to be a generational divide where to guys who maybe saw 2001 in that initial run were BLOWN AWAY by it, especially in those heady counterculture times… and to the guys like me a generation younger, you just kind of grin and bear the first 70, 80 minutes waiting for HAL to go nuts and the trip sequence and, of course, the final hotel room scene.
And the latter mostly I enjoy because it looks so much like The Shining, which is my favorite movie of all time.
Yeah, 2001 is brilliant and ahead of its time and beautiful and sinister and everything… but it’s also a little lopsided and portentous compared to all the Kubricks that came after it.
Eyes Wide Shut I like better too. What do you want to see, that dude jogging upside down, or a naked masked orgy where all the chicks have model bodies?
I dig Barry Lyndon. The sheer beauty and weirdness of that movie. Good times. Good times.
Yes, Barry Lyndon is awesome.
I think a lot of my love for the Clockwork and on Kubrick is, The Shining was like a formative experience for me on par with what Star Wars was for most kids. I was eight or nine, my mom let me stay up a little too late to watch it not really knowing how freaky it would be, and I was SCARED SHITLESS. To this day, maybe the only movie that actually SCARED me, almost traumatic to see that and have that Kubrickian imagery haunt your dreams and see those twins and that bear and that elevator shaft and Shelly Duvall’s terrified faces in reaction and the “Great party, isn’t it?” guy.
I guess if you saw The Shining when you were 28 or 35 and already knew everything about film and lighting and composition and Kubrick and had worshipped at the altar of 2001 and Lolita and Strangelove already, your perception would be totally different (and indeed, initial reviews were mixed.)
But that being my entree to Kubrick style AND one of the key movies that made me love film and which freaked me out for DECADES when no other generic “creepy-crawling in the dark with zombies and slashers” movies could… I guess I always held THAT as the main frame of reference and wanted all the other Kubricks to be more like The Shining, instead of vice versa.
Lex: 2001 is also pretty damn funny, but a lot of people miss that (they miss it in a lot of his films, actually, except the ones where it’s obvious, like STRANGELOVE and LOLITA).
EYES is great, too. My favorite Kubrick changes from viewing to viewing. I think most of his stuff is masterful.
“…initial reviews were mixed.” That’s true of ALL Kubrick movies. I think he even mentioned this himself in the Playboy interview. His films rarely look or feel anything like their contemporaries, so much of the audience (including critics) resists. Then they give ’em another chance down the road and suddenly “get” it. I’m generalizing, of course. Some people never warm to his stuff, but you do see this pattern a lot.
i first saw ‘2001: a space odyssey’ when i was a kid in a double feature with ‘the groove tube’ of all things in this tinpot little cinema, i remember the upholstery on the seats was all worn through and ripped, and toward the back of the theatre there were these couch-like two-seater love seats (thank goodness i was too young to realise what people likely got up to in those, i bet it would have looked like a body-fluid massacre under one of those forensic UV lights gizmos).
anyway the first show was ‘the groove tube’, so there i was, a little kid of maybe 7 or 8 or so watching this goofy inappropriate sketch show with a lot of profanity and naked people and some weird clown, and then ‘2001’ played on what seemed like a fucking ginormous towering screen and just totally freaked me out – it felt like sitting thru some incredible acid trip but as a clueless child. HAL scared the living crap out of me (to this day just hearing rain’s voice makes my skin crawl) and i remember trying so hard to follow what the fuck was going on — and even weirder, because the movie is such a tour de force of visual storytelling with less emphasis on dialogue and traditional narrative, i actually DID understand it in some bizarre, primal way, the unseen alien intelligence and the unbelievably frightening artificial intelligence and the savage dawn of humanity and the unfathomable vastness and psychedelia of space and dave’s frightening, lonely but ultimately transformative journey, and i ‘got’ it all without really understanding any of it, it was one of the most bizarre experiences of my young life and i will never, EVER forget it as long as i live.
Ha! The Groove Tube!!! They probably scheduled those together because The Tube opens with that parody of the 2001 ape scene, where the apes start jamming out to Curtis Mayfield. So that’s sort of an inspired combo!
Groove Tube was making the HBO rounds in late 1983 and I HAD to see it because it had my IDOL Chevy Chase in it, and the cable guide promised it to be a CHEVY CHASE vehicle. So I was thinking it’s be like Modern Problems or Oh Heavenly Dog or Foul Play or Under the Rainbow and some Saturday night the old man was out and Mom, who loved movies, was like, sure, a nice Chevy comedy, fire it up.
It starts with those gorillas jamming out then cuts to some TOTALLY 1974 Andy Samberg looking guy chasing a naked chick through the woods and getting blue-ballsed, cut to a shot of these geeky sadsack running into a cop with his dick flopping. I was all of 10.5 and Ma pretty much flew out of the chair like The First Power to cut that shit off at the pass. Wasn’t til four, five years later that it came back around on cable and was SO, SO DATED, and Chevy was only in two skits. But to this day I remain fascinated by that, and own Groove Tube on DVD, despite all but none of it being remotely funny in 2011.
“The Tube opens with that parody of the 2001 ape scene, where the apes start jamming out to Curtis Mayfield. So that’s sort of an inspired combo!”
oh yeah, i’d completely forgotten about that, i’ve only seen ‘the groove tube’ once since then and that was ages ago. i don’t remember it well at all, mainly the clown
Lex, we’re very close in age – as is IO who’s afraid to admit it – so my love of 2001 isn’t a nostalgic waxing, which I do agree occurs for everyone. I think Tron is the greatest, recent example.
The point of film is to do what theater cannot on several layers, and that’s what Kubrick accomplished.
…and Belzer as president was always the funniest moment to me in Groove.
Come to think of it, I was about 10 when I first saw 2001, and maybe there is something to coming to it that early, responding in some primal way, with no baggage about its place in film history or homages or parodies. I didn’t intellectually understand it, but it had an impact, and of course each subsequent viewing has always yielded something different.
Afraid to admit what? You haven’t asked and I have loved Tron since the very moment I saw it in a theatre and I still love it. Good lord, what a movie. Nevertheless, growing up, my friends and I were all about A Clockwork Orange, and only towards the end of our Kubrick love did we decide to watch 2001 around 17 years ago.
I think I was 12 when I saw 2001 on video. I remember being bored by the beginning, confused by the end, but I really liked the middle, and HAL was my favorite character. And saw 2010 a few days later and liked it more. I’m sure I’d feel differently if I watched them both now, but I’ve never been able to make myself sit all the way through 2001 again.
Guess I need to track down 2010.
Since we’re all sharing our 2001 stories:
Saw it in 1983, in fifth grade. Our teacher would ALWAYS talk it up in class, and I was a budding movie geek and wanted to know what the fuss was; I had seen The Shining by then but probably wasn’t aware they were by the same director, even though by then I already knew what a director did and loved Carpenter and Spielberg. But, I don’t know if the guy was a big stoner or what, but he’d mentioned how great it was and how cool it looked, etc etc.
One night it was going to air on the Boston station, BUT our whole class was having some sleepover birthday party for some kid… I was so pissed and antsy about seeing it, I commandeered the entire birthday party and made a crew of BORED OUT OF THEIR MINDS 9- and 10-year-olds sit there watching 2001 stretched over three hours. I can’t believe the parent didn’t kick me the hell out for cutting the cake and dancing and games short for three hours of Keir Dullea.
But to this day, I still hear the one dumb-ass’s voice in my head who said, when Dullea’s opening all those slats to empty HAL’s memory: “WHOA, that would be a cool place to keep your tapes.”
My 2001 story is I got it on Netflix, watched it one Saturday morning last spring. Not very epic.
That’s an awesome story, Lex. It kind of reminds me of when I was going to the movies with a big group around 2000 or so. I insisted we see Soderbergh’s SOLARIS, despite the fact that no one else wanted to and that they had probably never seen anything remotely like that before.
I was enraptured.
Everyone else (with one exception) hated me and the movie.
GOOD STORY.
Hey, Storymark, you’re a teacher, right? Ever get a crush on any of your students? I’m going for my license this fall, and I CANNOT WAIT to be around all those hot ass 12 grade girls.
MMMM BAIT.
Yeah my 2001 story is not that awesome. I rented and watched the VHS. End of story. (I actually think I did try to watch it with friends the night before but it was late and we were too tired.)
I’m pretty sure I’m the last generation to have a lot of experience with VHS tapes. There was something magical about them, and I’m not being sarcastic at all. (Obviously, I prefer better quality and (especially) the proper aspect ratios DVD and Blu have brought.)
I still use a VCR twenty times a week.
Fuck DVD and fuck DVRs. VHS ONLY. Still tape all my movies off Starz and HBO on SLP, three to a tape.
You are fucking crazy to still use a VCR. Seriously, get out of 1994, and join the future brother.
My favorite VHS memory is renting LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT with a friend. The video didn’t even have the title printed or stickered into that center triangle thing. It literally just had a peice of ripped paper taped to the side with the title scrawled in marker. We watched it in the morning and both squirmed in silence at how horrifying it was. We both felt like fast forwarding through the rape scenes, which were so grueling but we didn’t. And then, of course, there’s that awesome catharsis at the end with the…well I won’t spoil it. It was a memorable movie experince, and I think the poorer quality and the fact that it was a physical object made movies like that on VHS so much more dangerous and scary and forbidden feeling.
VHS RULES
Lex – No, I have not. I have had them crush on me before, and it’s awkward as hell.
From the way you talk, if you start in the fall, you’ll be fired by November. Might want to scale back the adolescent obsession a few dozen notches.
VHS was such an integral part of my development, Im starting to feel nostalgic. I still have one hooked up, but don’t think Ive actually used in in at least 6 years.
I used to run the VHS dept. in an old big box media store in the 90’s. They allowed me to create an entire section for the verse sparse selection of widescreen VHS tapes available. That was my baby there, though I did have to spend half my time explaining to people what the hell widescreen was.
The last time I used a VHS to tape anything, maybe like 4 or 5 years ago with the Howard Stern show. After they introduced the replay, that retired the VCR.
I still have about a hundred old movies that I never upgraded to dvd (is there any real reason to get a fresh version of She’s Having a Baby or Dante’s Peak), the VCR is hooked up in the basement and I still use it about twice a month.
the 2001 stories remind me how young many of the commenters here are.
having a VCR and movies on VHS = perfectly reasonable
having only a VCR and movies on VHS = mental
(and i’m sure a mum/dad is going to let some little shit commandeer their kid’s birthday party sleepover and force an entire class of hyper, bored children to watch a 3hr obviously commercial-addled version of ‘2001’ on TV without just switching it off or some such, or the kids just wandering off or staging a mutiny. FAKE STORY)
Look, I would still be looking at Beta tapes on my Beta machine were it not for my fear that, once it breaks down, no one will know how to fix it. And before anyone asks: Yeah, I still have several Beta tapes. Some still in the freakin’ shrink wraps.
Joe, you can still find functional beta machines for reasonable prices and the tapes for pennies. I did love that classic epics were like 2 to 4 tapes long. Such a great little entertainment machine that deserved more time in the sun.
my uncle still has a betamax and a HUGE library of tapes. last time i saw him in austin a few years back we watched ‘the dead zone’ and ‘dirty harry’ on beta, it was comedy
Let’s just say as a parent I’ve learned that VHS is much much more durable than DVD. We have about 60 VHS’s the kids can watch, but most of the kids DVDs are long scratched into unplayability.
You know, I can’t win for losing with Leahnz, who clearly has Lex Derangement Syndrome, ready to POUNCE no matter what the fuck I say; I could state that James Cameron directed The Abyss, and she’d jump down my throat about it. I share a benign, 100% true tale from my innocent youth, and I get “FAKE STORY.”
Seriously, Crone, you are NUTS.
pfft. you have clearly never been around pre-teen kids for any length of time, lex, to concoct that little story.
so 9/10yr-old-you forced the early end of someone else’s birthday party at someone else’s house with a class-lot of hyper kids because you wanted to watch 2001 on tv, wherein you then forced said lot of bored children to sit thru 3 hours of a very slow movie (which most kids can’t sit thru for longer than a half hour, i’ve been there) that at that length must have been riddled with commercials during which time the admittedly bored natives would have grown especially restless, and you would have me believe the bored kids just sat there quietly in front of the telly hating you and didn’t just start jabbering/doing whatever they wanted/whine to the parent in charge – and the parent just let you commandeer the party and make all their guests bend to your will and quietly watch 3 long hours of ‘2001’?
malarkey. and anyone who’s been around kids knows this doesn’t ring even remotely true. kids – esp. in groups larger than 2 – live by the law of the jungle and would have mutinied after a short period of boredom, there is NO WAY you are making a bunch of 10 yr old boys (or girls for that matter) sit still for a boring 3 hr movie they don’t want to watch at a sleepover without it devolving into chattering pandemonium. if you’re gonna try and make up some ‘cool’ story, at least make it remotely plausible. maybe there’s a kernel of truth in your tale, like you went and watched 2001 on tv at some sleepover. at least that would be believable.
You are CERTIFIABLE. Why the FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK would I make up THAT stupid story? Sorry I don’t have PICS OF THE EVENT from fall 1983 to verify it. JESUS CHRIST.
You are CRAZED. It’s a true story. Obviously there was grumbling and kids breaking off and playing games and doing their own kid thing, but the TV stayed on and I was some kind of lame ringleader so a core group stuck with it out of loyalty to my lame commandeering, but none of them seemed to enjoy it.
And long as I’m telling COOL TALES, I also commandeered the set at ANOTHER sleepover to watch NEIGHBORS in the same era, and the year before some of us watched LOVE AT FIRST BITE on NBC. I WAS A REBEL, with all my COOL adventures that later I’d hope to impress LEAH FROM NEW ZEALAND with.
I’ll also say, this occurred in New England, where kids were sort of precocious and little eggheads who liked reading and stories and sci-fi movies. When I moved a year or two later to THE RUST BELT, I noticed immediately that, yes, kids were little ADD cases who only liked sports and still watched cartoons and were like YEARS behind in maturity from kids in New England. I don’t know why that is, but it being a part of the country with sort of an upper-crust, elitist blueblood tradition, in my experience kids up there (New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut) were a lot more advanced than their age for kids in, say, West Virginia and Ohio.
lol, hilarious. so i was spot on and you are, as usual, full of shit. you’ve gone from:
“I commandeered the entire birthday party and made a crew of BORED OUT OF THEIR MINDS 9- and 10-year-olds sit there watching 2001 stretched over three hours”, replete with you supposedly cutting the party short to force the kids into sitting thru your movie…
to the truth: the tv being on in the background while most of the kids did whatever the hell they wanted except for a little group of kids you could get away with BULLYING into doing what you want, even as they didn’t like it (kudos, what a charmer)
case in point. and that you think your initial exaggeration is somehow the same as what you admit above – that you didn’t commandeer the ENTIRE party AT ALL, or make everyone watch 2001, but rather most of the kids ignored you and the tv and partied on except those few you manged to bully into watching a movie they clearly didn’t enjoy -shows just how desperate you are for attention, and demonstrates two things: you exaggerate to try to sound ‘cool’, and you’ve ALWAYS been a bully.
(what’s wrong with just being honest? but why bother with the boring truth when you can dramatically asshole it up for the chimps in the peanut gallery)
Leah, even people who like me, even family members, even exes, even lifelong friends, ABSOLUTELY KNOW I exaggerate about 60% of everything, because I AM A CONSUMMATE SHOWMAN. Really, that wasn’t implicitly evident in my original post? EVERYONE knows when I LAY DOWN SOME TRACKS, there’s some dramatic license to put on a good show.
Also, you DO know NOBODY here cares or was impressed or GIVES A SHIT AT ALL, right? From my initial post to your SHERLOCK AND WATSON DEDUCTION, nobody cares.
I think sometimes, quite honestly, you have such anger toward me and SUCH a negative opinion (because OH NOES I called Christian Whoever a gaylord), that you miss a lot of the SUBTLE GENIUS of my postings.
I’d still TOTALLY bang your old ass though.
BETTER TAG:
This is like an episode of fucking COLD CASE, me under the hot lights rehashing some 1983 birthday party that I barely remembered that was lost to the sands of time.
i have ZERO anger towards you – i don’t know you – so don’t flatter yourself sweatballs. i’m laughing it up having a few drinks with the lads after a long week and having a lovely time (and i don’t “miss” a single THING about you, that’s what bugs you so much; that you think i think you’re a psycho because you called christian a mean name once just proves how fucking delusional you really are — and i wouldn’t let your never-sees-the-light-of-day jello butt anywhere NEAR me even if you were the saviour of humankind, but keep on dreamin’, skids. rock on)
and no, i don’t think many people give a shit about anything on this blog in the greater scheme of things
Lex: Maybe Leah was traumatized as a child by the talking upside-down penis with the hat and the eyes stuck on its scrotum from THE GROOVE TUBE.
Jello butt? Hey, anytime you wanna put up a picture of your old 50-year-old faghag ass, feel free. But, right, you won’t.
“nikki whisperer”? Al, maybe you were traumatised by being born a twat and having to go thru life thinking you’re clever by changing your moniker to ‘nikki whisperer’. good one! (what did i say about lex’s chimps)
oooh, lex called me a ‘faghag!’ such original showmanship, where does he come UP with this stuff? (and my ass, which is nowhere near 50, still looks damn fine)
yeah waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah you expect me to believe you saw groove tube and your family just brought you to a double feature of a raunchy 7os counterculture skidooo and a stoner epic, waaaah FAKE STORY, zinky winky, right a doo and a chingwag. The weeee nipper couldn’t make it thru a digiridoo and a wooby wooo of those two, sorry I’m with some mates at the pub havin a big of a wag as the wee nipper zoopie zoos, but no way you could’ve seen a double features of that LEAH, because it’s a FAKE STORY because, zoooby zooo and a wanky woooo, the wee nipper chin wag woo, I just happen to HIRE me a DRIVE IN GUIDE from Auckland in 1975, when you were 40 years old and woopeee wooo, and no such DOUBLE FEATURE ever existing, so as usual you’re full of shit and a woope-wooo, winky dooo, chin wag chin wag
i just rub my clit thinking of big jim dusting off my pussy, and a woopeee woo and wee nipper too
good lord, never go full retard, don’t you know
That’s a PITCH PERFECT Leah imitation. I’m still rereading it and CRACKING UP.
Hey LEAH, look up a picture of EMILY BROWNING or KRISTEN STEWART or DAKOTA FANNING.
Try being, looking, acting and talking MORE LIKE THEM. I’d like you better, and I’d get harder for you when I eventually bang your hot old cougar ass.
Do I need to break this up by going back to one of the original arguments of this thread and mentioning I saw Sucker Punch and thought it was a gigantic mess? Didn’t hate it. Love the soundtrack, but the simple fact of the matter is the story doesn’t work on any level.
When they slip into the burlesque level, they don’t explain how this works in the real world. Like do they just let a lot of the female asylum inmates hang out unsupervised with the chef with the knives? And if Rocket doesn’t exist, how the fuck does that scene go down in the real world? And the selling points, the extremely stylized action sequences with undead WW I soldiers and gigantic robotic samurai are-when you break it down to brass taxes-completely superfluous. There would be nothing missing from the story if they didn’t exist and replaced with an actual choreographed dance. Just that shallow little BS about the guardian angel. It’s the dream within the dream, and if their dancing evolves into that, how the hell do you interpretive dance fighting a train worth of robots in the future on another planet? That’s Cirque du Soleil shit right there. I can understand why they’re impressed with Baby Doll.
I get it, it’s metaphor, but you have to tether it to something, and the second level doesn’t do enough and the third doesn’t do it at all. So, sure, I’ll enjoy it for a few minutes at a time, but as a full-blown movie, just doesn’t work.
Straatman, IT IS A MASTERPIECE, it is what ALL OF CINEMA is about, it is beautiful, sad, exciting, BRILLIANT, and the best movie of the decade so far.
YOU WILL BOW TO IT. Especially Browning and Hudgens.
And Cornish.
Hey, STRAATMAN:
Didn’t the girls give you a BONER? Then how could you give it ANYTHING less than four stars?
THE ONLY POINT OF ALL CINEMA is for PRETTY GIRLS TO GIVE MEN AN ERECTION. Even Godard said this.
HOT WOMEN = MASTERPIECE. Don’t be a homo.
Godard: “All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl.”
Joe Leydon,
Just recently watched Godard’s “A Life to Live”, and I would argue that both that movie and SP are doing SOMEWHAT similar things in the way they portray a soceity engineered to crush women unless they find a way to fight back/resist and the way they visually feshtize their female leads. The opening shot of ALTL is Karina’s face from a few angles for over a minute, and she looks so incredibly beautiful. The movie starts with the male gaze, and then shows it ramifications for the next 90 minutes. (I haven’t read any film criticism on what Godard was going for, so I could be completely off. There’s a lot going on in it.)
I’m not saying Snyder is equatable to Godard. Just noticed a few themes in VIVRE SA VIE that were being discussed with SP.
Why do people always forget the second n…….?
Could this be the only blog thread in the known universe where you’ll find references to Jean-Luc Godard, Zack Snyder and The Groove Tube?
Joe your Astros had an opening day worthy of my Brewers. Lyon and Axford not off to a good start.
It’s going to be a long season…
At least your team is “rebuilding.” The Brewers have no such excuse.
Be a Cubs fan. Only a Cubs fan knows the pain of the Central Division. Oh… the pain of it all.
Now Joe wrote this; “When they slip into the burlesque level, they don’t explain how this works in the real world. Like do they just let a lot of the female asylum inmates hang out unsupervised with the chef with the knives?”
They sort of explain how it works via Sweat Pea’s introduction. Basically, it’s projection therapy, and Baby Doll is using it to get through her week of hell.
Now, the chef leaves his knives out because the pig didn’t expect the girls to turn on him. They are girls living in fear. People living in fear are not exactly known for raising up and taking arms.
“And if Rocket doesn’t exist, how the fuck does that scene go down in the real world?”
What makes you think Rocket doesn’t exist? All of the girls, I believe, can be seen in the theatre scene introduction.
“And the selling points, the extremely stylized action sequences with undead WW I soldiers and gigantic robotic samurai are-when you break it down to brass taxes-completely superfluous. There would be nothing missing from the story if they didn’t exist and replaced with an actual choreographed dance. Just that shallow little BS about the guardian angel. It’s the dream within the dream, and if their dancing evolves into that, how the hell do you interpretive dance fighting a train worth of robots in the future on another planet?”
Now folks are going to go on about MAKING IT PERSONAL but where’s your imagination Straat? Much like Inception… YES… MUCH LIKE INCEPTION… Baby Doll creates dreams that help her complete her mission. We also have no idea if it’s dancing she’s doing or something more, because it did may Joe cry. Whateverthecase, she uses her mind to create those dances and get her through her mission.
“That’s Cirque du Soleil shit right there. I can understand why they’re impressed with Baby Doll.”
We shall see on the extended cut!
to straatmann: * “Don’t be a homo.”
* ah, this little gem just sparkling away for the next time lex trots out his priceless ‘i’ve never said ANYTHING homophobic i’m not a homophobe AT AAALLLLL’ rant
(and jkill…nah, i won’t bother if nobody else has)
You bring up INCEPTION. That movie spent 40 minutes making SURE everyone knew what was going on, whereas this one just spends five minutes setting up the situation, giving a half-hearted explanation, and then just dumping the audience. For instance, let’s take Rocket…..
SPOILER
Okay, if she really existed, then that means four people, including the main character, died so the selfish bitch can live, and the caretaker of the place has WAY more problems on his hands than forging a signature for his own personal game. And the action sequences are her version of sitting on her back and thinking of England? Good, I feel so much better about this movie. Of course, there’s always the “It’s just a projection and didn’t really happen” excuse, so……. what happens in the projection doesn’t matter…… except when it does? There’s lacking imagination and there’s the MOVIE STRAIGHT-UP HAVING HOLES IN NARRATIVE.
One sees holes. The other sees walls. It’s like Portal. The fact that you thought Rocket did not exist is a problem but there is a reason why Sweat Pea is equipped the way that she is in the dream state. I will explain it later but think about Sweat Pea and the conclusion of the movie, and I think it makes more sense.
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