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JoelSchlosberg

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Posts posted by JoelSchlosberg

  5. Posted

    "Or did they just write a song about liking to drink milkshakes?" Oh of course! Just as In the Navy is merely "an earnest celebration of sea life":

     

    In the film's funniest sequence, the current members of the Village People brazenly assert that there was nothing gay about their material, claiming that "there was not one double entendre in any of the music" and that "
    " was written as an earnest celebration of sea life. This is intercut with an interview with Henri Belolo, who wasn't a member of the band but produced their records, co-wrote many of their songs, and played a major role in inventing their image. As the singers issue their denials, Belolo talks about "how we created a gay-positive message" and discusses the barely hidden gay-cruising subtext of "YMCA." At that moment, the Village People become a different type of revisionists, rewriting their history with the self-confidence of a Soviet censor snipping Trotsky out of a photo. Or maybe they're being poker-faced jokers, too. But I don't think so: At the end of the movie, right before the credits roll, we see some post-interview footage of a Village Person pretending to throttle Kastner as he warns the filmmaker that he reads too many books.

  9. Posted

     

    It wasn't the announcers, it was just Maxie, who I'm fairly certain hadn't been hired by the tournament in any official capacity. Unless he preemptively applied for it just in case JCVD lost the first round and needed a job at his new residence.

     

    Still, she hasn't seen the Kung Fu Panda movies?

  10. Posted

     

     

    They could just have him Escape the Sarlac pit (Which I believe happened in the Extended Universe) and continue his bounty hunting adventures... Backstory be damned.

     

    Or having it before the events of Jedi, but close enough that he's still just going around being a bounty hunter.

  11. Posted

    Omg this is amazing.

     

    THEY EVEN JUST STARTED REPEATING IT! I can't believe this.

     

    Well, a presentation that's impressively fancy on first glance, but on second glance turning out to be mere gloss on repetitive, incongruous substance is The Quest in a nutshell.

     

    What's scary is that this infamous commercial put in more effort into a page of text that could easily have been a generic "Lorem Ipsum" placeholder:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHhVyC1MHmA

    It's too blurry to make out the text in the video, but here's a legible screengrab. This is what it says:

     

     

     

     

    My stories

     

     

    Little Red Riding Hood skipped happily down the path to Grandma's house. She was a couple minutes later than usually, but thought nothing of it. Grandma was too kindly a lady to care about a few minutes. Just then, she heard the sirens. An ambulance, followed by an animal control vehicle raced by her at top speed. "I wonder where they're going…" And she continued to skip down the path.

     

    Alice wandered down the dirt path, wondering what she would find next. Her adventures so far were so exciting and different. There was the Mock Turtle, the Mad Hatter's tea party, and so many others. Excited about what she may come upon next, Alice began to skip happily down the path, humming a little tune to herself. "Oh, I hope I get to meet the White Rabbit again," Alice thought to herself as she skipped through the forest. "Although my adventures here had put me in grave danger, I still am curious as to what other interesting creatures live here in Wonderland. Maybe dragons, or unicorns." The more Alice thought about her possible adventures, the faster she skipped and the happier she hummed her song. But, all of a sudden, Alice stopped. There was her next adventure, right in front of her eyes. At the end of the path there were 2 men wearing masks that covered their nose and mouth. They stood at a tall gate. Alice approached the men. "Hello," said Alice. "Sorry, kid," said the taller man, "you can't leave Wonderland. This area is quarantined with Sars."

     

    Quasimodo was a charming, well-spoken fellow, but unfortunately, misunderstood due to the way he looked. Quasimodo wanted to be like everybody else in Notre Dame. He wanted to be treated as an equal. Although a loner, one day he decided to come down and visit the town of Notre Dame. Unfortunately, once again, because of his not-so-charming appearance, people screamed in fright. A shot was fired and hit Quasimodo square in the chest. When he regained consciousness, he was in a hospital. "Doctor," Quasimodo started, "did the bullet do any damage?" "The gunshot appears to have caused only a minor flesh wound. It's that huge hump on your back that worries me. Sir, it's malignant."

  12. Posted

    Ok, let's do the math here.

    The flick was released in 1996 and that weird bar intro presumably takes place in the present (ergo 1995/6). Then, when we flash back to 1925, JCVD is clearly around 30, right?

    Which would make him around 100 years old in the bar scene?

    Only JCVD wil be able to kick some ass while being three digits old.

     

    What about Indiana Jones?

     

    And if JCVD is super old, why does he still have a full head of hair? Not only does he have a very non-receded hairline, but his hair isn't much thinned or even that grayed!

  14. Posted

    When the reporter takes the photo, not only is it in color (as pointed out in the podcast), but it's in the film's widescreen aspect ratio! The shot of the team being coaxed into smiling for the camera is supposed to represent the photographer's field of view, but the 2.35:1 rectangle of the screen and the resulting photograph does not match the camera's more squarish viewfinder in the previous shot.

    • Like 1

  16. Posted

    Why doesn't the cop who gets hit by the juggling club move out of its way or at least flinch? He could not be expected to anticipate that it would be thrown at him, but wouldn't a clearly visible object heading straight to his face from exactly where he's looking at produce at least an involuntary reflex? And it's not being hurled at him, it's just falling no more than a couple feet under the normal acceleration of gravity. In fact, the collision shouldn't have enough force (there's some additional impact from the spin of the club, but not that much since it's not rotating that fast) to knock him over.

  17. Posted

    The invitation says that the contestants are "from the four corners of the world." Doesn't that imply a belief that the world is flat, a somewhat outdated notion by 1925? If they're keeping the phrasing out of tradition, why do so when so much else about the tournament is changed from ancient times?

  18. Posted

    One minor correction, Ong Bak: Thai Warrior was in modern time, however, the second and third movies were in feudal Siam during the 1400s.

     

    Although they do parallel Bloodsport/The Quest in not only their shift to a period setting, but their diminishing returns on a larger scope.

  19. Posted

    Told you guys you should've done Double Impact. The Quest is trying to capture that Bloodsport magic again, but Kickboxer would've been a better choice if you were going for that.

     

    It occurs to me that maybe instead of trying to be another straightforward action flick like Bloodsport, The Quest is actually JCVD's attempt at a prestige picture. It all fits: the period setting, the lavish cinematography, JCVD stepping up to writer-director as his attempt at a Rocky, with the French mime getup being the cherry on top of perfect pretentiousness. (Using stilts instead of a unicycle is just about the only thing keeping him from being "objectively speaking, the most annoying person on earth" as A.O. Scott said of the French mime juggler unicyclist of The Walk.) "Pretentious" of course being the word in the English language that least applies to Bloodsport.

     

    I rarely say this, but Cannon's attempt at prestige movies are actually more successful. And when they failed, at least they gave us stuff like this:

     

    • Like 3

  20. Posted

    pretending like the Kumite was some special event and not just basically a warehouse half the size of a middle school basketball court crammed full of unwashed peasants with a single platform in the middle and hard wooden benches

     

    But as accurate as that is as an objective description, Bloodsport does somehow make the Kumite feel like an epic event. It's hard to put a finger on exactly why. Is it the music? The fight choreography giving more of a sense of stakes and danger? The passage through the corridors (filmed at the actual Kowloon Walled City) giving both more of a buildup and, paradoxically, more of a sense of focus, while the globetrotting and larger scale of The Quest overshadows the tournament itself?

  22. Posted

    I wish there were a Mike Tyson Punch Out movie for this show to cover.

     

    You know what? I'd go so far as to say that Mike Tyson's Punch-Out is more cinematic than The Quest. There's a coherent plotline, the contestants have personalities and comprehensible motivations, the music is dramatic, and it has a training sequence!

     

    • Like 1

  23. Posted

    Also in a bit of a correction, they said the Spanish fighter was just in slacks, but it looked like he was going for a bull fighter kind of motif. Although I don't know how round kicks to the face would play against a bull. And he kind of had a Xena style thing he did when attacking that was kinda weird. Maybe bull fighters do that, too? At any rate all I know about Spain and fighting is about bulls, they fight bulls and they run from bulls

     

    Perhaps the Spanish fighter's matador schtick was an homage to Don Flamenco from Mike Tyson's Punch-Out? A game which is also a series of bouts featuring contestants based on blatant national stereotypes.

     

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyakEu37whs

    • Like 3

  24. Posted

     

    Dunno about ugly. But definitely odd. Much of the human body is. What is with earlobes? I don't think it's making the best impression to send a dick pic if I am not already into it. Because then the best you get is comedy. Like the scene in FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL. I did see Nicole Byer was on Twitter drawing dresses on dick pics and sending them back when I looked her up last week when she was a guest.

     

    This got very off topic. Let's go back to JCVD.

     

    1143535-4-20-96-los-angeles-ca-jean-claude-van-damme-gettyimages.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=ieLPwkLd4JrzHPL2t6TZU0tauOoi2td7iDzO%2BALDB4bHtdsDxVXLZ93FrvJSeOfX

     

    I think this elephant looks deeply ashamed to be involved with THE QUEST and want June to investigate what he or she got paid and whether he was properly billed.

     

    Also, did you know that JCVD is female?

     

    Omission:

     

    When Dobbs introduces himself he says "My name is Dobbs...Edgar Dobbs." Obviously a nod to James Bond. Did no one notice this?!

     

    Aspects similar to James Bond movies? In this movie? I would never have guessed!

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