Leaderboard

Joan is the superior Cusack

It reminds me of the various jokes Family Guy did about old tough guys like Robert Mitchum and Joe Pesci and how antiquated they would be in modern definition of the term. While Willis wasn't what Steven Segal would become in the 90s in terms of body type, he had the unfortunate fact of being an action star in the time of Arnold, Stallone, Lundgren, Van Dam, and even Gibson. His saving grace was similar to Gibson in that they had legit acting abilities and were allowed to showcase them, while guys like Stallone and Arnold have only been able to really do so now in some of their more recent roles. Unfortunately the crossover success in an action star who could actually act was he gained an ego from it which has utterly ruined him for the last 15 years. Especially in a time when action stars now are usually leaner or muscular but not exaggerated like the stars of the 80s, a guy like Willis would be either a parody character or he'd be that guy you see on the cover a bunch of C-grade action DVDs that you kinda recognize but never really remember.

100%! And in a special pocket!!! Why would you even bring your real passport?!? It's the equivalent of "Oh I can't come out to play my mom says I'm grounded"

I've enjoyed Cusack in various things over the last 20 years like Con Air, Grosse Pointe Blank, and even Identity, but it seems like whenever a pitch is brought to him he's told the character that he'd be playing along with motivations and emotions behind them and his only response every time is "and he's on quaaludes right?" As for Willis, I've said in this forum before that the only time he's really tried in the last 15 years were in movies that either had Red or Die Hard in the title, and everything else he just phoned in. Looper is the one outlier as it does come off as a genuine performance from him but after the fallout from Cop Out and how he was canned from The Expendables 3, he's been almost completely straight-to-video, which is kind of sad considering he was a top leading man for the prior 25 years. Hell even when he gets a theatrical release it's like he can't remember how to do it, as in Death Wish he was basically mugging and laughing into the camera when his character is supposed to be a depressed vigilante hunting the people who killed his family members.

Yeah, it's been sad to see a guy who seemed so promising basically become the role he played in High Fidelity, which is his last good movie by my reckoning. I loved Better Off Dead and Say Anything... too, and liked the stuff he was doing with his pals Tim Robbins and Jack Black, like Tapeheads and Bob Roberts (and, I guess, High Fidelity again). Somewhere along the line he probably should have fired his agent, because unlike his sister Joan who has made a good career out of wacky character roles, John seems to have spent the last ~20 years wobbling between roguish leading man in forgettable romcoms and sinister bad guy in forgettable action films.

I would say that Travolta and Cage always without fail give something 110%. Even if the movie is not worth it, they give it their all. Sure the movie is horseshit but that is never the fault of their own. I think Willis is slipping into that Cusack territory. Some of these movies he's just sleep walking through, or clearly he showed up and was like "You got me for a day, I will not do reshoots, I will not do ADR and I will not get out of a chair." When it's a more studio movie he tries but clearly he knows what films are being dumped and you can tell. Cusack I agree I don't think has tried since.... Being John Malkovich? I will admit I am a fan of his 80s comedies. I like Better of Dead and I liked Say Anything... but I think that was the extent of it. I think that's also part of the problem. He kinda got into his mind set that's who he was and has the ego as if this was still 1989. He's gotten older and more bitter and just gave up. Not charming, not talented, just flat and one note.

Out of all of those John Cusack has to be the weakest in the bunch. Cage and Travolta are both capable of turning in interesting performances in otherwise dull movies. Bruce Willis still has the ability to convey some level of charm or charisma even when he's in something he clearly doesnt give a shit about. John Cusack was in some movie where he played a contract killer or something with Thomas Jane, and it was midway through when I realized that John Cusack has never really been good in anything and it blew my mind that someone as boring as he is onscreen managed to have such a solid career for as long as he did.

I know pre-9/11 airport security wasn’t as stringent as it is today, but how dumb do you have to be to leave your real passport easily found in your luggage? Is it possible the Finnish hacker wanted to get caught so he didn’t have to get involved with Travolta’s insane antics?

Hello Darkness my old friend...you got that fifty bucks you owe me?

How much wood would a wood would wood if a wood would buffalo buffalo buffalo?

Has John Travolta silently snuck his way into becoming the new Nick Cage? Considering some of his roles that I've seen recently...I'm kind of enjoying the unbridled insanity. And what is his most unfortunate facial hair + head hair combination? Battlefield Earth Swordfish Killing Season The Fanatic something else?

Two questions: 1. Where is Sam Shepherd's security detail at the moment that he is shot while fly-fishing? I know that his personal bodyguard/lackey is busy getting himself blown up (again with a ball-bearing shrapnel body, which for a solo-target car bomb -- why?) but if he's really a senator, shouldn't he have Secret Service on him too? Seems like someone at Homeland Security dropped the ball. 2. Why does Hugh Jackman have to be American in this film? Why can't Stan be Australian so that Hugh Jackman doesn't have to put on a fake accent? Vinnie Jones is there speaking with his normal cockney voice, which I'd argue makes even less sense because why would a British man care about American homeland security interests ... but there is nothing in the script that demands Stan be American. Sure he has an American child but she's barely ever been around him so she wouldn't have picked up his jargon. That kind of thing get explained away all the time in movies: Why is Sandy Australian in Grease? Because her family moved to the states last summer for her dad's work. Easy -- one line explains it away and it never has to be brought up again.

Okay I want to talk a little bit about Stanley Jobson's FBI profile we see. So when The Lone Gunman are talking about him his profile pops up on screen. Here is a screen shot of it. It's hard to read but here is what it says that I have questions about. "PLACE OF BIRTH DRIPPING SPRINGS HEIGHT 6'2" WEIGHT 185 BUILD LEAN SCARS AND MARKS RIGHT SHOULDER 7" CUT" So as we all recall the opening shot is of Hugh Jackman shirtless hitting golf balls from his trailer. We all get a very good look at his upper body. Are there any note worthy scars or marks? Well he has a very bizarre tattoo that goes across his left shoulder. What about his right shoulder? Nope that looks perfectly fine and nice. So where is this 7" cut they are talking about? The tattoo he could have gotten after prison and therefore not on his file but if he had such a large cut on his shoulder that they had to make note of it why is it not visible two years later? That is unless of course we all assume this is some sort of penis reference. Yes I went there and I am sorry.

This movie was a crime against style. No one looked good. Travolta has that landing strip on his face, side highlights, AND A BERET . He goes on about how "clothes make the man" while he's out here looking like a Men's Warehouse reject. High Jackman is playing golf in a bright orange loincloth and has the shittiest earring I ever did see. Poor Halle Berry looks like THAT (IS a goddess not of this world) and they put her in the most God awful fabrics known to man. That blue blousey number?! Did the costume designer just hate everyone on set? I'm not even going to touch on the daughter's clothes

Presented without comment.

Regarding Travolta's little bikini wax goatee. They were hip in the early 2000s, plenty of dudes had them, I called it the Nu-Metal goatee.

Being the big basketball fan that he is, I was surprised that Paul thought Patrick Ewing was the only one with acting experience. Larry Johnson had his alter ego character, ‘grandmama’ that he played in several Converse commercials and in an episode of Family Matters. And he should have remembered that Barkley has done acting before, including Look Who’s Talking Now, which they covered on the show. BTW, which is more insulting, having the dog in Space Jam named after him or that homemade doll of him in Look Who’s Talking Now?

Paul talking about the Monstars "stealing the soul" of the basketball players has made me realise something. This movie completely ripped off Mortal Kombat. Mortal Kombat, an otherworldly antagonist comes to earth, taking the souls of great fighters for himself, forcing Lord Raiden to put together a plucky team of heroes in an effort to defeat him In Space Jam, an otherworldly antagonist comes to earth, taking the souls of great basketball players for himself, forcing Bugs Bunny to put together a plucky team of heroes in an effort to defeat him. On top of that, Lola, the highly skilled female character has to rebuff the advances of Bugs Bunny, a super-famous male character, before realising that he's a great guy all along? SONYA BLADE AND JOHNNY FUCKING CAGE. Also, the importance of water. Showing that the Looney Tunes had the talent all along in Space Jam, and how Liu Kang defeat Sub Zero in Mortal Kombat! Mortal Kombat came out in 1995 Space Jam came out in 1996 More imporantly, Warner Bros, the company that owns the Looney Tunes, also own New Line Cinema, who made Mortal Kombat. That's why there wasn't a sequel, SPACE JAM: ANNIHILATION, because Michael Jordan found out that Shao Kahn was gonna break his neck 10 minutes into the movie, and Bugs Bunny was going to be played by James Remar.