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Film Thread.
I thought a trio of themed threads about other entertainment media might be good. If you're not interested, please just ignore the thread and pick some threads that interest you from here: http://celephais.net/board/view_all_threads.php

Anyway, discuss films...
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Cormac McCarthy Movies 
I only have one left to see, and I'm pretty sure it's going to suck (Maaatt.... Daaamon!):

No Country For Old Men: 10/10
No complaints, one of the best movies of modern terms. McCarthy basically defined the neo-western, so it was great to see this come out the same year as The Assassination of Jesse James (beautiful movie) and There Will Be Blood (also amazing stuff) and measure up to both, at least.

The Road: 9/10
I also loved John Hillcoat's The Proposition, and I think this adaptation captured the book very well. The ending might have been too different, but overall it was really faithful to the bleakness of it.

The Counselor: 8/10
I don't understand the bad reviews this got, maybe parts were a bit cheesy or extreme, and yeah the cast was too Hollywood-ish (unlike the above two movies), so that not everyone disappeared into his or her role. In fact few did. But it hit the main McCarthy-style points pretty damned well.

Child of God: 8/10
The most disturbing McCarthy film made, and more disturbing than any of his books I've read even (haven't read this book, but Blood Meridian is a tornado of violence). Super disturbing; more disturbing than most horror movies. But with a point: "He was just a child of god, much like yourself perhaps." Bleak setting, great acting.

The Sunset Limited: 7/10
Goes on a bit too long (some dialogue should have been cut, since it's more or less the same confrontation in different ways of approaching it), but great performances from both main actors; definitely worth watching. 
 
Max Max: A Very Angry Road
This film is H Y P E D. You've no doubt heard about the glorious visuals, not just Tom Hardy and his dystopian facial stubble, but also of the bleak, vast desert landscapes, covered in angry angry men in angry angry cars.

This movie features a car chase. I also features pretty much nothing else. I hope you like car chases. If you've seen the other Mad Max films, you might be surprised in this one to see that Max is not really the sole protagonist. Instead, the role is shared with the very furious Imperator Furiosa, played by a one-armed, shaven-headed Charlize Theron.

Furiosa is leading an escape from a city run by a very bad, very angry man, taking with her said angry man's very unfortunate harem of ladies, including the mother of her unborn child. Thank god she's here, because she is at least slightly more verbose than Max, who mostly just grunts.

I saw this in a 3d IMAX, and that's definitely recommended, as the spectacle is amazing. The sheer scale of the action. The sets, costume, vehicles all bring to mind scenes from the Burning Man festival, but also make Burning Man look like a trip to the seaside.

It's a well-realised world, that doesn't try to wow you into saying "LOOK HOW MUCH WORK WE DID ON THIS", but there is clearly a lot of visual detail that is not really focussed on or explained. You're never explicitly told who anyone is, where or what anything is, or what's happened. You're very much dropped into this world - and it's been a while since I've seen the original trilogy (was it a trilogy?) so explanations and backstory were not springing into mind.

That works for it and against it. The lack of exposition makes the situation mysterious and vaguely intriguing, but the lack of context made me feel like I was starting a box set on the second disc.

Walking out I felt like i'd gone through the meat-grinder, with a lot of truly exciting moments and stunts, but not necessarily satisfied with an engaging character arc or story. It shines brightest in small character moments, like an out-of-character thumbs-up from the humourless Max, or a moment of fragility from Furiosa.

Mostly, it made me feel like the next film will be something worth waiting for. Perhaps now they've got a lot of the non-stop action out of the system, they will take some time to try something a bit slower-paces and more story driven. 
I Quite Liked It 
saw it yesterday and thought it was better than pretty much all action movies that Hollywood has putout over the last 5 years. 
Starbuck 
Couldn't have said it better. It's so over-hyped for how little movie is there.

Don't get me wrong, the action is all top-notch and the visuals are great, but it just doesn't take enough time to make you care about anyone.

I tend to feel so much more invested in an action movie when the characters are more than just archetypes with paper thin backstories 
 
Who cares? Max Max is a spectacle and it's a fucking GLORIOUS spectacle at that. We're considering another viewing it was so good. 
Didnt Know There Was A Child Of God Adaptation 
!!!
excite.

also hoping to catch mad max if I ever find a spare second. previews really turned me off but post-release hype getting to me.
might just do ex machina though... 
Warren 
Well, I care if I'm paying money to go see a movie and not a trumped up music video (I mean, the number of times they cut to the guitar dude alone shows they probably consider it one)

My high watermark for action movies is Terminator 2. It's got tons of great action set pieces, lots of tense chases, and yet SOMEHOW it still manages to tell a lot of story and make me emotional when I see Arnie boiling up in a pit of lava.

There's nothing wrong with Mad Max but I don't get why people are losing their shit over it when it's nothing more than a good car chase. 
 
Terminator 2 
Is a sexy film but it's badly written in a lot of ways. Terminator 1 is far superior as a film. 
Go On... 
 
Do I Have To? 
T1 - He arrives naked, kills a bunch of street hooligans for their clothes
T2 - He arrives naked, shows up in a really busy bar and "kills" a bunch of bikers in full public view

T1- His eye needs to be removed so he disguises this fact by putting on shades
T2- He puts on some glasses in a silly nostalgia trip, no utilitarian purpose at all

T1- Tells people "fuck you", this is how humans talk
T2- Has no idea how to insult people or any concept of human behaviour (despite being a disguised murder robot from the future)

T1- Indiscriminate murdering
T2- Arnie signs agreement to not kill anyone in the film onscreen (despite being a disguised murder robot from the future), he doesn't even kill anyone before his pep-talk from John Connor

T1- No kids
T2- Bloody kids all over

T1- No smiley robots
T2- T800 needs to be taught to smile, T1000 doesn't. The T800 has "detailed files" on the human anatomy, and is designed to infiltrate and be perfectly disguised as a person (even down to the bad breath)

T1- Isn't a pinocchio story
T2- Is a pinocchio story, vomit.

T1- Doesn't have to bash you over the head with stuff
T2- Bashes you over the head with plot stuff, like when T800 showers 50 cops with bullets and grenades and then has to prove he didn't kill anyone by doing a scan (what happens if he did accidentally kill someone? Does he crash? Does he need resetting?)

Now don't get me wrong, I freaking love Terminator 2, it's a glorious film in many ways but despite how badly the special effects have aged in T1 it is still the better film in my books (and I watched Terminator 2 first, I love T1 way more, same with Aliens/Alien) 
 
The problem with Terminator 2 is Edward Furlong. He kills any scene that he speaks in. Dead. 
 
Miles DYSON... She's gonna blow him AWAY!!?!


Buet Keeeling Myalls Dyson might achewally prevent da waaarrugghhh 
 
if you freezeframe the T2 bluray at the exact right time you can see robert patricks balls 
 
Do that a lot, do you? 
 
 
That is the main plus point of T2. 
Mad Max 
the reason I liked it, at least my initial reaction to it, is that it thankfully avoids over exposition and B grade backstory that is now common in every action movie for at least the last 5 years. eg spiderman 'learnt' to web-sling by practicing at the docks, oh really how fascinating....

That doesnt mean that it cant not have a decent story/plot/script and still have glorious action scenes but right now, in the deluge of avergae superhero movies every week, I will take what I can get.

Will it stand the test of time, not entirely sure but I still think it will be a decent watch even in the future (I would personally rate it about a 7-7.5/10). It is definitely overhyped though but hey we live in the age of everything either being the best or worst thing ever. 
 
I think the film deserves the hype, if I hadn't have heard so much hype about it before going in I would have come out lauding it as much as everyone else.
It took me a bit of reflection to think whether it was worthy, it is.

Age of Ultron unfortunately was a big of turds. 
Nitin. 
So is that a scientifically accurate 725/1000 rating? ;) 
Shambler 
no there is a variance of 50/1000 depending on how I am feeling on any particular day :) 
 
I liked Age of Ultron mainly for the characters. Whedon writes really good characters.

But I realized how far I've let my standards bar fall. Once I saw Mad Max, I was like ... OH right, THAT'S what an action movie looks like. 
 
Oh, and the Hulk. Iron Man trying to subdue an out of control Hulk was pure amazeballs.

Go to sleep!
Go to sleep!
Go to sleep! 
 
Ah what'd I watch the other day that was good, ah it had the rock in it... thanks imdb, it was Snitch http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0882977/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_25

I occasionally stumble upon good action movies just by leaving the movie channel running. There was another good wrestler one actually I saw recently, with Dave Bautista in it - House of the Rising Sun. Aw gee, 4.4 on imdb. Well it was better than that.

The traditional action movies don't seem to make big box office numbers anymore, they just trickle in under the radar.

The comic movies we've been seeing recently aren't really traditional action. They're more fantasy-action.

Watched Oblivion a couple weeks ago, that was great. Who was saying their aren't any good action movies anymore? Or did I just make that up?

Re t1 vs t2... t2 is an action classic. t1 is just one of those dark, budget sci-fi actions from the 80s that people forget about. I certainly did and would pick t2 over it any day, even if t1 is better written. 
 
T2 had the T-1000 or whatever it was called. The liquid metal terminator. That, alone, made it better. 
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