sycasey 2.0

Oh! And to answer Amy's question, there actually is another Ralph Macchio, a writer and editor for Marvel Comics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Macchio_(comics) I suspect this is who they were thanking in the credits.

I'm loving St. Clair and support any plan to get her in more episodes.

I think this is a very good movie, not a great movie, but I agree with the argument that the Marvel franchise is too culturally important to leave it out. The Avengers is the best single representation of both the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the rise of the superhero genre in American film. I vote yes. I also sometimes think about why superheroes and why now. I think it says something interesting about the current cultural moment that THIS is what young people are looking to see on movie screens. Probably the only other franchise with this much cultural cache for younger generations is Harry Potter, which is another story about people with special powers who use teamwork to defeat evil. Westerns were about lone-wolf tough guys. Star Wars was mostly about the personal development of one hero, and then that of his father (until Rian Johnson came in and turned the whole thing on its head). Marvel movies are about assembling a super team. I think you can draw a straight line between this and the political movement being started by the Parkland kids. This is their thing. That's also why I don't just dismiss these movies as fluff; I think they speak to the cultural moment in a profound way. The DC movies fail, in part because they are shoddily constructed and poorly planned, but also because they try too hard to be "dark and gritty" and (Wonder Woman aside) don't commit to the idea of heroes being heroes. Marvel does, and that's why they dominate.

So when Gerard Butler's daughter was watching TV and anxiously awaiting her father's fate on board the space station, I was wondering how any TV network managed to get such glorious high-definition footage of something that is happening IN ORBIT. Does this local station have HD cameras in OUTER SPACE now?

Yes, I also have to ask, even if Orlando has to be the target, why Ed Harris doesn't just come up with some excuse for why he can't be there? If he wants to survive to be the next President, he should probably be anywhere other than Orlando. Surely this flaw in his evil plan must have occurred to him when he was forced to race out of the city, dodging lightning bolts on the freeway. Then again, he also pulls the Dr. Evil move when he explains every bit of his evil plan to Jim Sturgess before actually making sure to kill him off, so he might not be all that thoughtful of a villain.

An excellent observation from my wife: When Gerard Butler is introduced to his team of scientists, they give him a bunch of sass for 5-10 minutes or so, and then near the end of the scene he says his name and they're all like: "You mean you're THE Jake Lawson?!" And yet . . .

You could watch the 1998 movie!

I liked him in Looper and Moonrise Kingdom. The thing with Bruce Willis is that he does a lot movies where he clearly doesn't give a shit. If it's a director he respects you can see the difference.

Some news! https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/boomerang-reboot-ordered-at-bet-as-a-tv-comedy_us_5accf4b2e4b0e37659b142f3

Just be warned . . . the movie is a little bit of a tease on the Geostorm.

I'm definitely going to miss Devin's input on this one.

I'll start off saying something nice: Boomerang played better this time than the last time I watched it (when I found it insufferable and needlessly cartoonish). Like Amy, I was also struck by the fact that it's an all-black cast seemingly living in an all-black world, including all of the high-powered professionals we see. It is refreshing to see that. But that said, it's still a movie with some pretty retrograde sexual politics. I'd say it's even retrograde by 1992 rom-com standards; the female characters (however well-played they are) only exist as signposts for the development of our asshole leading man, and the movie seems to operate under the constant assumption that men are just dogs who can't control their sexual urges. As a comedy, Boomerang is usually amusing but rarely laugh-out-loud funny. As a depiction of an all-black cast living in an all-black world, it's interesting but hardly the obvious ground-breaker in this regard. The Cosby Show had already been around for 8 years. Coming to America had basically already accomplished this for Eddie Murphy, four years earlier (and is a better movie). As mentioned, Reginald Hudlin had already made House Party, another popular comedy with an all-black cast (also probably a better movie). So I think Boomerang's status as a trailblazer is . . . questionable at best. Beyond that, there isn't much reason to recommend it as a mediocre rom-com with some very problematic aspects. I'd love to have Marc Bernardin back as a guest host, hopefully to discuss a better movie next time.

I don't think he actually gets to shoot the rocket launcher, though. I really hope Ed Harris got paid a lot for this movie.

Same! Gerard Butler always delvers the HDTGM goods.

Die Hard is also clearly an example of a super-popular action movie featuring non-bodybuilder as the star. The whole appeal of it was that Bruce Willis was playing an average guy. Excellent point.

Those Greengrass movies are the only time the shaky-cam action actually worked for me. Most of the time I hate it.

What's a little motherloving on the side, if you get to stay in that beach house?

True, though I imagine they usually aren't upper-class people with beach houses.

I guess MAYBE Australian culture is different, though in my experience with Australians it seems like they are no less permissive or free-thinking than Americans. Probably even more so, really.

Though from the little time we see them together, he seems to treat his wife pretty poorly. And I get it, he felt trapped into the marriage. But it's as you say, just don't get married! If this movie took place in the 1950s I'd understand the heavy social pressure to get married, but in 2013?

It's been a while since I saw the film, but from what I remember a close reading actually reveals that the torture largely didn't provide the results they needed.

I know there's plenty of room for disagreement on Zero Dark Thirty, but I agree 100%. The end of the film depicts a "War on Terror" that has lost its way.

Yes, and I think that approach is inadequate. I hope that is clear. I will also stipulate that my reaction is based on moral precepts that I brought into the movie, as I presume are many people's. And?

Yeah, there are a couple of "or" clauses in that original post so I think I'll stand by my claim that I offered "satiric/trashy" as one of many approaches. But anyway, this tangent isn't important. Hopefully my meaning has been made clear over the course of this entire discussion. interesting question. First of all, my comments are always only going to be about my interpretation of how a movie works or doesn't work and why. So to say "It would be better if . . ." is just to provide context for what kind of approaches I think WOULD work for similar material, and to demonstrate that I'm not dismissing this one just out of discomfort. I don't feel the need to stamp "just my opinion" on every post because I assume that's understood. Of course there's no such thing as universally "good" or "bad" art. I see and acknowledge the idea that a work of art just needs to be internally consistent unto itself, but on the other hand . . . most art is made for an audience. The artist doesn't just keep it in a box. If people who watch your movie keep missing the point of the movie or find it less than engaging, then maybe there is also value to those judgments? Much as the audience can take or leave the work, the artist can also take or leave the response. But I would say there is value in the dialogue between the two.

I guess it is kind of a turning point in the dominant mode, though I will say that Harrison Ford already fit the bill and had been doing it for a decade before Point Break. The discussion about what makes for a "good" actor in an action movie is an interesting one. It depends on what you mean by "good." Is Keanu Reeves a chameleon who can slide into any role? Certainly not. He ain't Gary Oldman. But he does have screen presence. I would say that Reeves is a great physical actor, but he is limited vocally because he can't do anything about that surfer-boy cadence he always carries. In this regard, he's not all that different from Arnold Schwarzenegger: both of them are at their best in action-heavy roles that don't require them to talk too much. For Keanu: Speed, The Matrix, John Wick. For Arnold: Terminator, Predator, Conan. The exception would be if they are playing comic roles that deliberately make fun of the actor's persona (Bill & Ted, Kindergarten Cop).