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ChunkStyle

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Posts posted by ChunkStyle


  1. This movie invokes the classic trope of pulling the hero who is no longer doing their job back in because the decision makers are desperate and the hero is the only person who can save the day. But has that decision ever been reached so quickly before? Isn't it like 1 hour after Sid 6.7 emerges from the cocoon that they are passing a pardon across the table to Denzel? Every single cop on the force should feel slighted they didn't even give them a chance to catch Sid. They all got jumped in line by convicted murderer Denzel. The flimsy excuse being that Denzel did the best against Sid in VR. But they are testing that VR system on prisoners and he happens to be a prisoner who was a cop. Maybe an active duty beat cop in the VR would have taken Sid down in no time.

    • Like 5

  2. Does this movie hold the record for "Most Minutes of Other Movies Shown Within the Movie"? The coveted MMOMSWM. Bruce Lee should probably get 5th billing in this. I'd say beyond throwing out 40 pages the director found a really great way to make this movie cheaper. Just put in someone else's film.

     

    I found the set design for Arkadian's combo living room/office/kitchen/(bedroom?) really gross. If I spent 23 hours a day in that room like they apparently did I'd also turn out evil.

     

    Leroy was a real asshole wearing that giant hat in the movie theater.

    • Like 5

  3. How much of this movie would you say is made up of shots of Dragon Sound sitting in their convertible, looking around somewhat apprehensively at an obviously hostile situation, and then just continuing to sit there for far longer than any rational human would?

     

    I didn't put a stopwatch on it but I'm going to guess 20 minutes.

    • Like 3

  4. At the beginning of Jane's computer programming class, the instructor congratulates the class on finishing third in the international computer programming contest. This is a real thing! The ICPC has existed since at least the seventies (the actual UCF finished in 15th in last year's contest).

     

    Anyways, finishing third at ICPC is a pretty impressive achievement for a class that still needs the directions for starting up BASIC from the MS-DOS shell written on the chalkboard.

     

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    Also, BASIC? Really?

     

    Didn't he announce that they finished in 4th place? That really stuck out to me that in this insane movie they didn't even bother to give themselves a podium finish.

    • Like 4

  5. HDTGM have really done a service for all mankind with this movie and episode.

     

    The only thing that could have made this movie better is if one of the production logos at the start of the movie had been the UCF Computer Science Department. Y.K. probably convinced them to split the budget as this movie would be a fantastic recruiting pitch. Speaking of the budget how is it possible this movie cost $1M ($2.2M in 2017 dollars)? How much of that made it to the screen? 10%?

     

    One thing I really loved is that it kind of felt like an old Hong Kong Kung Fu movie in that every person in the movie seemed to know some level of martial arts. And they all use it a lot. When the band that was fired go and confront the club owner it immediately breaks out into fight between them and when it was finished it had the feeling of "This is normal. This is how we resolve things in Orlando."

     

    The club owner might be my favorite because he had the bold vision to go for the Las Vegas residency model for his musical act. He knows that Orlando is a destination city and when families are bringing their little kids to Disney World the trip won't be complete until the whole family has gone to a seedy night club and seen the best fucking Taekwondo rock band in central Florida.

    • Like 4

  6. I also totally missed the "2 years later" part of the movie and when it came up on the podcast I thought they had it wrong somehow. It is shocking information because it takes a bad movie and made it retroactively worse. If they really went two years like that then if it wasn't for the happenstance of the food fight getting them detention together they would have just kept going like that until graduation and never seen each other again. In my Bratz movie the food fight just sped up the inevitable rejoining of the friends. It wasn't the most critical juncture of their young lives.

     

    On a more petty note I was out on this movie right away due to the awful looking opening credits. I imagined an intern half way out the door taking the film to print when someone came running in saying "Holy shit! We forgot this movie needs opening credits!" and they had to throw them on in 7 minutes.

    • Like 5

  7. Absolutely hilarious episode and Mary Holland is the best. But I have to come in with the biggest omission in the history of HDTGM.

     

    The night shift technician enters the control room not knowing that they day shift guy has been murdered. He complains about him leaving a mess. Then:

    Timestamp 16:47: He puts the leftover half of a donut in his mouth.

    We stay with him in real time as he chews, reads, chews, looks around suspiciously, chews, answers the phone, and chews.

    Timestamp 18:50: He is attacked from behind and as part of his shocked reaction he opens his mouth to reveal it full of donut.

     

    What the fuck kind of everlasting gobstopper donut is that!?!

    • Like 13

  8. I wanted to write something about the weird self driving car and weird future guns they were using. Now it's a common problem in sci-fi to have way too advanced technology in the future. Take Back to the Future Part II, they jump 30 years into the future and now you have hoverboards and self tying shoes and hologram Jaws. In 30 years technology does change. A computer in 1977 is very different than one in 2007. Yet Timecop is only a 10 year jump into the future. That's not a long time. Take the iPhone which is 10 years old this year. It is different but is all that different? Also guns and cars are two things that don't change all that rapidly.

     

    Here is my personal story of stupidity while watching this movie. For whatever reason the age of this movie didn't make it into my higher brain function. And no amount of 90's mall footage was breaking through. So when the crooked cop pulled out the high tech gun I was just wondering "how'd that guy get such a cool gun?". It wasn't until they showed the self driving car that I finally remembered that 2004 was in the future for the original audience.

    • Like 4

  9. There is only one true victim in this movie. The consciousness of JCVD that raises that kid from 1994 to 2004 in the Happy Ending Timeline and then is shoved into the void when protagonist JCVD comes into the picture.

     

    Regarding the plot point that the same matter can't occupy the same space at the same time. Isn't that true for any matter? I think you've got nuclear fusion in that case. But even going by the movie's definition that holding hands counts as occupying the same space but it has to be the "same matter" our bodies are constantly replacing our skin. So unless you went back in time just a few days and shook hands with your past self it isn't the same matter.

    • Like 9

  10. I think Michiko is the most interesting character because how often is the most sympathetic figure in a movie such a minor character? First her ninja brother gets killed. He had it coming but it is still tragic for her. Then because Eyeliner Ninja is too dumb to have the Ninja Empire as the prime suspect of the revenge killing she loses another brother and she gets tortured over something she knows absolutely nothing about. In any run of the mill screenplay she'd be the emotional focus of the film. Maybe in 200 years time film historians will say the limits of cut and paste were like the malfunctioning shark in Jaws.


  11. the ending of the movie deserved some major discussion. for those who didn't watch the movie or couldn't sit through the whole thing, here it is .. and bare in mind this is after 90 mins of one of the most confusing movies i've ever seen

     

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    big fight scene. good ninja wins (at least i think he was the good guy) and gets ugly statue back so the bad ninja does the honorable thing and, with a little flick of the wrist, blows himself up. good ninja looks behind as if to say "Uh?" .. THE END ... THIS MOVIE IS NUTS!!!

     

     

    This has to be the most unintentionally hilarious ending shot to a movie I have ever seen.

     

    The thing I was really curious about was near the beginning when the Ninja Empire #1 and #2 come upon the carnage of the traitors' escape. They survey the scene briefly then move on. As they do #2 decides to step directly onto the back of one of the corpses.

     

    What I really want to know is was he directed to do that or was that a choice that actor made in the moment? Either way it really gives some depth to a character. One that we never see again?

     

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    • Like 1

  12.  

     

    However, if I might build on your points, if - as Packard claims - they are now the legal owner of these cars, why do they bother chopping them up? Aren't they their cars now? Are they just stripping them for parts? Why? So they can have faster cars to win more races for more cars? Why not sell the cars and make money? I just don't get the street pirate gangs' end game...

     

    We're just like Darwin and that dude no one gives a shit about anymore.

     

    I think we have to assume that Dipshit, AZ (did they ever name the town?) must have some really dense laws regarding road piracy. Things like all spoils gained in a race are yours however by law the vehicle cannot stay in its original state and must be broken down into its component parts etc etc.

     

    By the way you're Darwin in that analogy.

    • Like 5

  13. I would like a literal how did this get made for this movie. To me it felt like some movie producer bought that Dodge Turbo Interceptor at an auction, decided it was cool enough to be the star of a movie, and then hired Mike Marvin and told him he had 4 weeks to write a script and finish pre-production.

     

    The part of this movie that I loved was that the road pirate gang was operating under the premise that as long as they stole someone's car after a race then everything was square and legal. Even when the opponent had been forced into the race at the threat of rape and/or murder. And based on Packard yelling at Rughead that he almost lost a race maybe they would actually surrender their car after a loss? It doesn't seem like their operation was any secret and Randy Quaid never busted them so maybe it is all legal and I'm the dummy.

     

    If I was going to find one little flaw with this movie that wasn't mentioned in the episode it would be that this movie lacks the tiniest bit of dramatic tension. The "good guy" is essentially omnipotent and the gang he is fighting stand absolutely no chance against him. There isn't one second of this movie where you think "uh oh how is Wraith going to get himself out of this one?"

    • Like 7

  14. Maybe I misunderstood, but weren't we promised the new Summah Single at the end of the episode?

     

    Also, Laibach are Slovenian, not German. I hope I cleared that up for the zero people who care!

     

    I think they just forgot to append it. Bandcamp is a good place to check it out. Full songs no snippets. https://howardkremer.bandcamp.com/track/six-pack

     

    On a separate note "Please honor the button, Kulap." is definitely the phrase of the day.

    • Like 1

  15. Man, I'm so annoyed, I sorta remember yeeears back when I lived in Michigan my parents and I had gone to this restaurant that had a framed piece of clothing that Arnold Schwarzenegger had worn that I thiiiink was from The Running Man, and my dad thinks it was from that movie too, but we can't remember what restaurant it was. It's driving me craaaazy!

     

    Hopefully a tiny hard hat.

    • Like 3

  16.  

    What makes it even worse is the old lady. She is openly cheering for a guy who, to her knowledge, opened fire in an attack helicopter on unarmed people trying to get some food, in fact, she said he was a "bad motherfucker". Now it makes me wonder what she did when she watched the news.

     

     

    I think the old lady is a good focus point for this movie's view on society as a whole. It is very grim. The opening text ends with "When high-tech gladiators are not enough to suppress the people's yearning for freedom..." That seems to say that the primary thing that makes people OK with living in a fascist police state is that they get to see an unarmed person run down and killed by stalkers every now and then. They are lied to and told the runners are criminals but regardless having their blood-lust sated is what is keeping them accepting of their situation. If this movie gets remade Alfonso Cuaron should direct it to really land the message.

    • Like 4

  17. Listened to the ep, I haven't seen the movie, and probably won't get to for a while, being that my homework tonight is to watch TIMECOP for tomorrow's show, but just a thought I had...

     

    Talking about the different levels in the game, is it stated specifically that Subzero(?) is ALWAYS the first opponent? Because it's possible that they could rotate their stalkers between different episodes of the show, thus allowing the other stalkers to gain their own fan followings.

     

    The live audience fans pick which stalker comes out. A fan is chosen at random Price Is Right style and then that fan makes the pick.

    • Like 3

  18. Great episode. I am totally cool with Kulap showing up on every podcast I listen to from here on out.

     

    Here is a question for Arnold historians. Is there another example of the villain coming back with a better one liner than Arnold like happens in this movie? When Arnold tells Dawson that he'll be back Dawson is taken aback for a second but then comes right back with "Only in a rerun." Dawson was the clear winner in that exchange.

     

    I appreciated that this world is suffering a food shortage but Arnold is still getting 10,000 calories a day in prison to stay gigantic.

     

    Maria Conchita Alonso is definitely more cavalier with her security deposit than I ever was. She bolted her Solo Flex right into those hardwood floors.

     

    I am guessing that whatever Runner success happened in the game prior to Arnold showing up is when Sub Zero got called in when the runners happened to be in the other 399 blocks that didn't have an ice rink.

     

    It was very bold of the rebels to put their base in the Running Man arena. A place that is absolutely covered in cameras.

     

    MCA never got a chance to watch the unedited Butcher of Bakersfield footage before she hands it over to Mick Fleetwood. She is grabbed as soon as she pulls it out of the drawer. What if the unedited footage showed Arnold murdering innocents it just had more swearing in it?

    • Like 8
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