Donomark

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  4. Every Film You've Watched in 2023

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Super Mario Bros. (1993), Resident Evil (2002), Doom (2005), and Dead or Alive

    Watched all of these last week for the purposes of our latest QnoA outing, and it was a wild-ass time. Speaking briefly so as to further advertise the episode, were I to rank these four films I'd put Super Marios Bros. dead last, as it was practically about nothing and mostly went by name recognition without being anything like the games. 

    Matter of fact, I'd probably go this way:

    1) Resident Evil (2002)

    2) Dead or Alive

    3) Doom (2005)

    4) Super Mario Bros.

  6. Every Film You've Watched in 2023

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Robocop 2 and Robocop 3:

    Yeah, these were pretty lousy.

    Robocop 2's problem is that it's cleary made without a script. Production was during a Writer's Strike (timely!), and the original film's screenwriters were fired, so this one just meanders with subplots and no central theme or major idea beyond redoing much of the first one. In both Robocop 2 and 3, we waste time by relitigating what the first film explicitly settled on at the end: Robo IS Murphy. He's not Alan Moore's Swamp Thing I.E. a creature created in thinking he's Murphy. So going over that again is pointless. OCP trying to redo/outdo Robocop isn't a bad thing to return to, but it feels repetitive. We also don't know how Robocop's appreciably changed Old Detroit, for better or for worse. Crime is as bad as ever, and that's not impossible, but Robocop's presence is like he didn't affect a goddamn thing. Sometimes people recognize him, sometimes they don't. Didn't he make the news in the last film?

    The bad guys are lame. The evil kid feels the most purely like something Frank Miller would've come up with (he co-wrote both sequels) but IDK for sure if he did. The young actor was good but he was entirely without context. Caine was a lame, OTT villain who doesn't come anywhere close to the fun menace of Clarence Boddicker for his friends. That he was a means to an end in creating Robocop 2 (the cyborg) took too long to realize. I really didn't like the mayor's acting, which flirted with outright coonery at times.

    The final battle is decent though. Although the stop-motion is more obvious than ever, stuff actually happens and it's a cool visual to see Robocop having a public battle in the streets.

    But there are detours about him being nicer and friendlier, there's a solid 20 minutes where he is not in the movie at all and we focus too much on the lame villains. Sgt. Reed isn't in it as much, Lewis doesn't do much of anything aside from having a Lois Griffin haircut. And the movie has an ending so abrupt and out of nowhere, I nearly had whiplash.

    Robocop 3 is more recognizably bad. It's lamer and softer due to the PG-13 rating which robs the series of it's trademark uber-violence. It's plot is slightly more linear and easier to follow, but it goes for sentiment in a way that feels alien to the franchise. Robocop joining rebels fighting back against Nazi-esque gentrification is too ham-fisted of an idea to pull off earnestly without the traditional satire, that it doesn't work for the character IMO. Lewis dies and the movie barely seems to care. We have long scenes about the humanity of Robocop AGAIN, and there's more little kid shenanigans. The Japanese robots are total Miller, but they're really goofy and you're just unsure how racist they might be. This was an easier watch for me than 2 because it had the trappings of a plot, but it is hella f'n lame and not really worth viewing.

  8. Superman: Legacy

    in Comic Book Adaptations

    Posted

    I'm unfamiliar with both of these actors, but in the physical lineup I was rooting for David Corenswet. He looks like the son and younger brother of Christopher Reeve and Henry Cavill.

    Everyone has been telling me that Rachel Brosnahan is perfect casting, so I'm down. I hope so, because the live action Lois Lanes have majorly sucked, more often than not. Teri Hatcher and Erica Durance are both better than the movie casted actors.

  9. Every Film You've Watched in 2023

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Robocop (1987): Directed by Paul Verhoven

    I mean, whaddyu want? It's Robocop. It's a classic.

    I really payed attention to the satire aspect this time 'round (my second ever viewing), as I don't think I quite clocked it the first time over 15 years ago. It's really slick, like hardly ever looking at the camera. The gratuitous violence and pure cynicism while still having genuinely moving scenes like Murphy-as-Robocop going through his old home. It's just undeniably great. Also, partly due to the premise of the character, but ALL of the bad guy actors are just relishing this script. Kurtwood Smith gives the best performance, but Miguel Ferrer is so much fun as well. "Life in the big city" is one of the craziest retorts to sympathy for a guy getting swiss-cheesed by a giant mecha I've ever heard in my life.

    This was filmed in '86 and came out in '87, this was influenced a ton by Dark Knight Returns, right? In addition to the way the news is characterized somewhat, there's also the scene of Robocop bursting through a wall to apprehend a gunman with a hostage. I might be conflating inspiration with reactions, Bruce Timm has said he watched Robocop and got a big Batman vibe off of Peter Weller's visage in the robo-suit. But between the overrun city, crazy criminals, the violence and political commentary, the two are extremely similar.

  12. Every Film You've Watched in 2023

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Donomark
    clarification

    The Flash:

    I....did not think this was very good.

    Look, it's evident that the production hell on this movie ran its scars all over. This thing wrapped filming at least 2-3 years ago. With various re-shoots and the all the stuff with the larger DCU shifting, I'm not bothered by any of that. Also the director changed hands quite a bit. I can also separate Ezra Miller's performance and unending presence in the movie from their larger crimes. This isn't "All the Money in the World", it's a DC Comics movie, I can get into the headspace where I can make a clean break for two hours.

    I think there are other outlying problems. For one, it is a genuine bit of misfortune that the world's had ten years of a definitive, generational Barry Allen in Grant Gustin before this came to theaters. Little kids are now fans of the Flash, and Grant in their Barry. That doesn't automatically mean they wouldn't be able to accept this version, but Miller's Barry is so aggressively weird and off-putting. Is is neurodivergent commentary? I honestly don't feel like giving the writers that much credit, because it's played for awkward comedy 100% of the time. It's way, Way WAY worse when we're inflicted with two Barrys at once. That gives Miller the opportunity to act the same character in two completely different ways, and I have to give credit where it's due and compliment the seamlessness of it. At no point are you taken out of that aspect, and they should be praised for it. But younger Barry is insufferable. Who cares if it's the point, we're saddled with this character for the rest of the film and he's abrasive and obnoxious. 

    The movie also has a terrible handling of tone. It's not the mere fact of it being comedic, that's not the issue. I think the film knows when to let serious moments lay serious, so it's not an MCU thing. But the actual humor itself I find uncomfortable. The DCEU has historically distinguished itself from the MCU by having a rougher, almost meaner edge and sensibility than its competition, and I think for a Flash film it rings wrong. I find Barry unsympathetic throughout much of the use of his powers. He's always stealing stuff, and there a bit where Ezra Miller's naked for way too long that even I - ME - found pretty unpleasant. It's not the existence of humor, it's, like, fart humor. Just weird. Plus, can we kill this runner of describing the DC Heroes in the most stoner, dumbassed terms? Like, Aquaman just lives to be a goofy meme with arguing that he's a mermaid and stuff. It's beyond old by now.

    Most people are feasting on the CGI criticism, and it's objectively apparent. The director argues that the low quality of it was intentional, and IDK if I buy that but personally it didn't bother me. It's blatantly fake, but not in ways which kill the scenes for me. I actually think the way Flash's speed is depicted in the first act is cool and somewhat unique, and that the Speed Force for once feels like the Speed Force from the 90s Wally West comics. That all rang true.

    My favorite element of the movie is, surprisingly, Michael Keaton. It's like he never left as Batman. I've long felt that his inclusion in this kind of story made no sense, as he played an incredibly esoteric version of the character that is in almost no way reconcilable to the comics, but was cool for the time. He works in this film. The logistics of his inclusion actually don't make a lot of sense at all, but he acquits himself well. I would go on to say his big action sequence is up there as the best Batman fight scene on live-action film (because he doesn't stab anybody in the chest or some shit). Sasha Calle's Supergirl has little on the page for her to do, and kind of wastes her by the end of the movie, but she had a ton of screen presence and just looked terrific in every shot. I hope she's back for Supergirl of Tomorrow, she deserves a solo movie.

    The final stretch with the continuity and meta-legacy references are, IMO, fun enough. After Across the Spiderverse and Multiverse of Madness and No Way Home, this movie didn't seem to care about actually explaining what's going on the least, so it's total fan wank. There could've been way more, and I mean WAY more than what they gave us. Some obvious references just seemed to be passed over. The CGI is bad, but in my opinion they don't exactly go into unethical terms. Without spoiling things, it's not like Rogue One where they literally try to act as though dead actors are still alive through the magic of filmmaking. People are crying foul, but I think for the kind of film this was, the result is far less bad faith than the critics are describing it as, but that may just be me.

    The very last 90 seconds of the film is an instant classic, though. For all the movie's faults, that is one of the best endings to this kind of movie in the world.

    Overall though, I have to imagine all of the early praise and cries of "BEST DC MOVIE EVER" were just urgent commands from higher ups to help sell this thing, because this really is not strong. There's cool stuff in it, but aside from some of the mother stuff including at the end, I could not get immersed in it. It feels like the bulk of it was done in that hazy 2016 period, where it seems they didn't know how to do these kinds of stories. I'm glad to be on the other end of it, but this will go down as a bad foot for The Flash to start out on in his big-screen solo outings. No pun intended.  

  13. Every Film You've Watched in 2023

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Tombstone: (Unofficially) Directed by and starring Kurt Russell

    Been meaning to seen this for a while. I thought it was okay. Far less intricate than I was expecting. But it's a solid watch. All-star cast with Gorilla Grodd, Lois Lane, Batman, Yondu and Ego the Living Planet among them. As everyone says, Val Kilmer's Doc Holliday is absolutely the standout. Kurt Russell is pretty good too. I was surprised that Sam Eliott leaves the film by the end of the 2nd act. I agree that the film ends anticlimactically. Overall it was good, but didn't knock me out as I thought it might. 

  14. RIP John Romita, Sr.

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    An icon...perhaps the last of the old guard? He'd been working since the late Golden age.

    I saw JRjr at C2E2 back in March, and he was looking quite old. That's when I figured his father may be not long for this world.

    One of the ALL TIME great artists. Just a wonderful illustrator, and by all accounts a wonderful persona as well. 

  15. Every Film You've Watched in 2023

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse

    Saw this twice like I did with the first film, and with No Way Home just to give the experience a strong think. I'll give fuller thoughts elsewhere but for now I feel that this is a seriously important comic book film and a transcendent piece of media in western animation. Screw Spider-Man adaptations (although it's a brilliant one at that), there's way more going on in this movie than just doing in-jokes on the franchise. We're talking about an explosion of cultural representation. The art design, music and writing are all so strong that there's nothing else like it. The closest it feels is anime, and the more thematically exploratory kind like Cowboy Bebop. Many people complain that it's in unfinished story, and it is, but for the time I had with this one, there were so many terrific qualities to this that it's separate from the whole of the story on a pen-to-paper plot standard. 

  17. Every Film You've Watched in 2023

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Falling Down: Directed by Joel Schumacher, starring Michael Douglas

    Been meaning to watch this for a long time, I hadn't ever really heard of it until a girlfriend recommended it to me a few years back. 

    To be honest, while the film is a really clever idea of a story, neatly directed by Joel Schumacher (Batman and Robin WASN'T HIS FAULT PEOPLE), I think it suffers from a problem it only could recognize decades later - and not at the time in 1993. The movie doesn't really view Foster as a threat, at least in the same way as people who aren't Cishet white men view him. 

    I think Ebbe Roe Smith's script is confused. We start off with Foster being racist towards the Korean guy in an explicitly racist way, demanding that foreigners present gratitude towards (white) America. This scene is buttressed by incredibly stereotypical chicano gangbangers menacing him. So far, the antipathy Foster shows towards the world is racialized. 

    The complication starts when he encounters and eventually kills the nazi guy. Just as an aside, I've grown to dislike movies where protags kill people with nazi beliefs, as it only works to absolve and separate their politics. A similar scene bothered me in the first Kingsmen movie, which justified Colin Firth killing a church full of people. But in Falling Down, we've got a nazi archetype rendered in crayon, killed by Foster in what was initially defense but ultimately cold blood. This works to make Foster not as bad as that guy, both in his own mind and the view of the movie, for its own sake or sake of the audience's piece of mind. That's cowardly. If he can terrorize a Korean shopowner but kills a cartoon nazi, that means that his racism against the shopowner was justified, in the movie's eyes. It's one thing for himself to see a difference, but with that scene the movie tries to have it both ways.

    That's more of a technical read of the character, but on the whole, while Michael Douglas did a fantastic job - I was never behind this guy. The movie wants to you be, at certain instances. Not ultimately, but not completely against him either. But no, fuck this entitled, murderous, wanksty douchebag. He's every type of Repub scum that walks around today complaining about every little thing not having its back broken to conform to what he likes and is used to. I found the movie interesting, and Robert Duvall was terrific. Douglas was terrific. But at the same time, the failure to recognize the type of main character it was presenting frustrated me. 

     

  21. Every Film You've Watched in 2023

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    You may be aware of it, but Rocky was originally meant to die in the street after winning the fight. Stallone changed that ending cuz it sucked.

    Fast X
    It's funny, I looked back and saw that I never wrote down my thoughts on seeing Fast 9, which I saw in theaters with a friend. Briefly, that film is one where the series absolutely jumps the shark. Not strictly because they go into space, but because the series becomes so meta that it openly takes itself far less seriously. I think this began happening after Paul Walker died, because while Fast 6&7 were definitely OTT, there was still a grounding to the proceedings, if only just. The third act of 7 absolutely began to lose its mind, but it keep on the right side I feel. By Fast 9, not only are they commentating on the ridiculousness of the plot, they're actively forgoing making the plots believable, and ditto for the characterization. Also Vin Diesel took himself WAY too seriously, throwing out all the natural charisma he has for the role of a stoic, silent superhero. That's not Dom from the series, that's...IDK, Bloodsport or some shit. He was the only one in the movie who was entirely humorless, but the plots now revolve round his character and the vortex he creates, and it really sapped the energy from the movie.

    Fast X is an improvement. Right off the bat, Diesel plays Dom happier, more at ease and more mature. There's a glint in his eye that'd been missing since the first film. He's still Mr. Superhero, but there's a touch more flexibility in his performance. I think all the actors are having a blast, and it helps because as a Part 1 of ?, it watches like Infinity War where the characters are all separated and given things to do. Some characters are brought in rather organically, and it feels less contrived (mostly). Jason Mamoa is unquestionably the best series villain with the best gleefully flamboyant performance. He's chewing the scenery up like it's his last meal, and it's fun! Brie Larson is also really good too, although too many new characters are simply related to previous characters.

    The series by this point is a soap opera, it's a telenovela. You either roll with the incredulous action and twists, or you don't. For the most part, I had fun, although two scenes nearly broke me. One involved the very last scene before the credits, and the other was the ease of how Cypher escaped her medical bed. That was one of the stupidest, most conveniently placed scenes I'd ever witnessed in my life.

  22. The All-Purpose Flickchart thread

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    On 5/24/2023 at 7:26 AM, You Know Who said:

    A two-fer this time since both have already been recorded:

    The Lion King (1994) vs Black Panther

    Pocahontas vs Avatar

    Black Panther

    Hmmm...idk!

    21 minutes ago, slothian said:

    The Godfather Part II vs Raiders of the Lost Ark

    Who Framed Roger Rabbit vs Hot Fuzz

    Psycho vs The Thing

    Haven't seen Part II

    Roger Rabbit

    The Thing