Oblivion

[inactiveuser501 168]

Well, my main argument is: there's a hell of a lot of other movies that should be covered before dipping into the pool of films that are just derivative or mediocre or flawed with some redeeming qualities... or I guess more accurately, films that lack the insanity that other HDTGM movies exhibit. And if we're talking about the value of covering a film in terms of general audience satisfaction, then the fact that there's such a dispute about this one kinda closes the book on it, IMO. There's lots of badly-ADR'd fish in the sea, as it were. I mean, I'd like an episode about Kick-Ass 2, but I can accept that there are lots of graphic novel loyalists or people who aren't as put off by the tasteless stuff that I might not get that episode.

 

And Isaiah, on the idea that it simply needs to be discussed... don't get me wrong, I got no problems with the fact that you feel that way, but for me, taking on that ideal elevates the value of criticism a bit too high for my personal tastes. I don't see a major correlation between creative visionaries and their critics; I think most critics feel that it's a symbiotic relationship, but the creatives seem to see it as a parasitic relationship (albeit one that they tolerate, because they're the ones who get to do what they wanna do and make movies). Anyway, I digress... point was, I know we can agree that the main thrust of the show is for humor, and though the issues you have with the film are definitely topics for critical discussion, I don't see them as such a viable goldmine for jokes.

 

Having done standup for a bit and spent some time with comics, I guess this is just personal preference. I don't like having actual conversations about movies with 99% of comics. We just don't see eye to eye in critical terms, because I'm an extreme sincerist, and most comics are extreme cynics. I stopped listening to Doug Loves Movies for that reason. So, when an episode of HDTGM becomes more about legit criticism than jokes, I'm out. I might just seem like an outlier or somebody who shouldn't be listening, but personally, I see a pretty solid line between criticism and jokes, and I'm here for the jokes.

 

I'm not even necessarily placing it in a "I hate it for critical reasons". I legitimately did laugh at this film, because it felt like it was so grandiose, and to see not just a lack of substance, but a lack of coherency in what was being established with the clones and the ending and the characters, it was just mind boggling. I understand that it's kind of a cynical POV, and that can rub people the wrong way. It certainly has for me in the past (*cough cough* Spice World *cough*), but a joke is a joke to me. If it lands, it stands.

 

 

Ok, it isn't even Judge Dredd. IMO it's not the worst or craziest Tom Cruise movie of the past decade, it's not even the worst or craziest recent Tom Cruise movie where he plays a character named Jack.

 

I wonder if some of the divide isn't that some of us were able to come up with internal explanations of some things that made it more coherent for us. I am a little confused as to what you found confusing about Melilssa Leo, is it her as an actress of her character? Also What was it about the cabin that you found puzzling?

 

This is probably the most grandiose movie by Tom Cruise that has nothing in it.

 

I actually had to look at Melissa Leo performances to see whether or not this was what she actually was like. The Southern Accent was just so weird in this movie's setting, I felt like she was going to say "Darlin', wouldya like 'nother slice of pecan pie?" at any minute. It was just so crazy to see that character appear on screen and then to learn later on it was Melissa Leo. It felt like she was talking what foreigners think southerners sound like.

 

And I COULD HAVE SWORN it was established that Earth was uninhabitable which is why the entire species left. So to see that cabin, decked out in nostalgia and Yankee's Caps, just made me think "Where LITERALLY ON EARTH did he get this cabin and these items, when his exploration in his space car shows no signs of civilization at all? DID HE JUST SAVE THEM?"

 

I was glad that it wasn't little green men, the greys or some other humanoid form of life. Of course I could have done without the HAL 9000 eye.

 

They had $120 Million dollars. I think they could have managed getting an actual person to be the villain.

 

Again, the main reason I think an episode is warranted is just because Jason thinks it's stupid, and hell, if it's just him and 3 other comedians he found who laughed at Oblivion, I'd be happy as a clam.

[PhillipMedoc 648]

At least the villain wasn't a giant Hellraiser baby face?

 

Still can't believe that they literally called that thing Deus Ex Machina. I guess a majority of the movie going population might not get that "joke", but COME ON.

 

Having done standup for a bit and spent some time with comics, I guess this is just personal preference. I don't like having actual conversations about movies with 99% of comics. We just don't see eye to eye in critical terms, because I'm an extreme sincerist, and most comics are extreme cynics. I stopped listening to Doug Loves Movies for that reason. So, when an episode of HDTGM becomes more about legit criticism than jokes, I'm out. I might just seem like an outlier or somebody who shouldn't be listening, but personally, I see a pretty solid line between criticism and jokes, and I'm here for the jokes.

When did you stop listening to DLM? I just started maybe a few months ago and it's pretty much all jokes. It's rarely cynical, and I've never heard anyone be as dismissive as say, Retta (which was hilarious, though). The DLM episodes with Pete Holmes, Jeff Garlin, and TJ Miller are god tier comedy podcasting gold; Doug never even gets to talk about movies because Pete and Jeff won't shut the fuck up. You should give it another shot, the recent one with the Sklar brothers is pretty good.

[rcavanah 21]

When did you stop listening to DLM? I just started maybe a few months ago and it's pretty much all jokes. It's rarely cynical, and I've never heard anyone be as dismissive as say, Retta (which was hilarious, though). The DLM episodes with Pete Holmes, Jeff Garlin, and TJ Miller are god tier comedy podcasting gold; Doug never even gets to talk about movies because Pete and Jeff won't shut the fuck up. You should give it another shot, the recent one with the Sklar brothers is pretty good.

 

Eh, the whole "Skyfail" thing (I loved that movie and thought it did a good job at providing a nostalgic retrospective on the whole series), and some of the tiny, tiny reasons Doug picks on stuff.... like complaining about the fact that in the Muppets, the talent the new Muppet discovers is that he can whistle... I mean, that's neither a joke nor a legitimate complaint... it's just a description of a thing that happens.

 

I just don't watch movies for the same reasons as most comics, I suppose. It's probably cheesy, but I'm a big-picture guy, and I tend to walk out of movies going, "It wasn't the best movie of all time, but hey! I sure am glad movies exist." Don't get me wrong, I've talked to Doug several times and I love the guy, especially when he's talking about anything but movies, but it's just something about the way many comics practice their passions, and are in patterns of making cynical observations (a necessary evil, at worst) that gets me frustrated/depressed sometimes. It's a big part of why I quit after a short go at doing standup, myself.

[seanotron 2307]

The thing I love about this show is the balance of the 3 personalities. Jason is on the extremely cynical end, and has a tendency to hate almost everything. June, on the other hand, gives absolutely every movie a fair shake. She's kind of the Roger Ebert of the group. Paul is essentially the moderator who brings the two extremes together to balance them out. The three of them working in tandem is what makes it all work. That's why I think shows where one of them is missing don't work as well, even when they plug another guest into that spot. I also think that's why the show manages to appeal to sincerists, cynics and everyone in between. There's an entry point for everyone.

[PhillipMedoc 648]

Seanotron, you're the bee's knees and hit the nail on the head. It's really a perfect match of personas who have found their roles and are essentially at the top of their game for this show after doing 70(!) episodes. It's very much like Who Charted; Kremer and Kulap have settled very much into their bizarre/perfect morning radio DJ type format and have figured out how they best complement each other (witness the recent crisis of Whooch fans due to KuKu or WieWie being gone).

 

Doug Loves Movies is a very different beast altogether; I guess I just enjoy the live comedy aspect of it -- almost all comedy is best with an audience and I don't even listen to it for the movie discussion; he just gets a lot of interesting guests that I enjoy, and sometimes in very odd teamups (e.g., Kumail Nanjiani and Mark Maron). I like listening to people laugh, it helps me get through the day. It's really not even comparable to HDTGM, which rides a very fine line betwixt mockery, criticism, bewilderment, and all of the above.

 

And this is a form of analysis/entertainment which only recently became possible because of the nature of mediums like podcasting or youtube. They don't have to censor or respond to network notes. I think the explosion of high quality podcasts like ALL OF EARWOLF really shows what the future of pop culture media is looking like, and "old media" is rightly shitting their pants and trying to adjust (the Daily Beast bought Newsweek and killed the print edition; that's pretty crazy to me). I work in some capacity in the music industry and it's an extremely painful change, but I think it's going to be a better place for consumers (and I don't use that word in a derogative sense). I think content is much more creative, interesting, accessible, and hopefully we figure out ways to ensure creators are being paid.

 

Sorry, I'm getting way off track here. I've had like four gluten free beers. IsaiahER, I think you've made your case for this particular film, and everyone has debated it politely. I haven't seen it myself (no interest), but I lean towards the voices that say that HDTGM should cover movies that genuinely, in a broad consensus, are next level bonkers and invite the question. There's so many films that are not good or have some issues, but don't merit a whole lot of discussion. If you showed an average person Oblivion, and then made them watch Samurai Cop (or Riki-Oh, or Dreamcatcher, or any Segal film), I can guarantee you 100% of the viewers would have WTF questions about the latter and not much to say about the former. Like this guy upthread said:

t's probably cheesy, but I'm a big-picture guy, and I tend to walk out of movies going, "It wasn't the best movie of all time, but hey! I sure am glad movies exist."

Which is what I said coming out of Iron Man 3 and Pacific Rim. My reaction (and the other dozen people in the audience) who walked out of Fast 6 was "What the shit was... I don't even?" but with big smiles (which was my reaction to Gymkata years ago on VHS). That's HDTGM to me.

[Lando 2019]

This is probably the most grandiose movie by Tom Cruise that has nothing in it.

 

He has been in a movie called "Knight and Day" where nobody was named Knight and nobody was named Day.

 

I actually had to look at Melissa Leo performances to see whether or not this was what she actually was like. The Southern Accent was just so weird in this movie's setting, I felt like she was going to say "Darlin', wouldya like 'nother slice of pecan pie?" at any minute. It was just so crazy to see that character appear on screen and then to learn later on it was Melissa Leo. It felt like she was talking what foreigners think southerners sound like.

 

Yeah, I have certainly seen better from her, I didn't think it was terrible, but I thought it was passable. But I know where you are coming from. I grew up in New England and am particularly sensitive to a bad Boston accent.

 

And I COULD HAVE SWORN it was established that Earth was uninhabitable which is why the entire species left. So to see that cabin, decked out in nostalgia and Yankee's Caps, just made me think "Where LITERALLY ON EARTH did he get this cabin and these items, when his exploration in his space car shows no signs of civilization at all? DID HE JUST SAVE THEM?"

 

They framed it as if there were habitable zones on earth and he was patrolling one, the rest of the planet had pockets of radiation that made it on whole uninhabitable (remember his helicopter-esque plane warned him when he got too close to a supposed irradiated zone and told him that it was fatal). For all we know the cabin could have been some doomsday prepper's bug out location that he just happened to stumble across in one of his runs. It did have a wind generator and solar panels after all.

 

They had $120 Million dollars. I think they could have managed getting an actual person to be the villain.

 

I'm a big nerd who watches a lot of sci-fi and likes to contemplate extraterrestrial life when I watch those kinds of movies. I am partial to the approach to extraterrestrial life that essentially we would have developed in a different environment and had to evolve in a completely different manner and thus a humanoid creature of roughly our size is far less realistic than something like the sentient planet of Solyaris, which is the approach that this movie took. I will say though that The World's End handles the same issue in a much more coherent and entertaining manner.

[wyldride 285]

They framed it as if there were habitable zones on earth and he was patrolling one, the rest of the planet had pockets of radiation that made it on whole uninhabitable (remember his helicopter-esque plane warned him when he got too close to a supposed irradiated zone and told him that it was fatal). For all we know the cabin could have been some doomsday prepper's bug out location that he just happened to stumble across in one of his runs. It did have a wind generator and solar panels after all.

 

The "radiation zones" were a lie. That's why he was fine when he flew into it. It was a trick to keep the clones from meeting each other.

[Lando 2019]

I think he was asking why would Worker 49 think it was safe to goof off in the cabin if the world was uninhabitable, to the clone he was in a safe zone. Or maybe he didn't pick up that the original narrative laid out by 49 was a lie from the Melissa Leo hologram.

[thestray 361]

After all that's been said about this movie in this thread, I feel like literally nothing actually funny about this movie has been brought up yet. That's pretty much why I don't think it's good HDTGM fodder.

[Blueman29X 72]

I don't doubt that an Oblivion episode would be great, but if I would prefer something that enters the realm of Samurai Cop/Miami Connection. Then again I haven't seen Oblivion yet, but from all the talk on the forum, I'm gathering that its not the most enjoyable experience.

 

 

He has been in a movie called "Knight and Day" where nobody was named Knight and nobody was named Day.

Really? I always assumed it was a buddy cop movie starring Felicia Day and the ghost of Ted Knight.

 

*Chirp* *Chirp* *Chirp*

[Lando 2019]

If you're a fan of the post-apocalyptic genre (which I am) then it's a decent film. There are some beautiful scenes, some well done special effects and cool soundtrack (kind of reminded me of Metroid)

[Lando 2019]

So is Oblivion now a metaphor for Tom Cruise's career? Once he's done with one sci-fi Groundhogs day film he is reborn into another one:

[seanotron 2307]

All the reviews I've read for Edge of Tomorrow are actually really positive. I think Cruise has found his career sweet spot in Sci-Fi. He's a nutter but I love him in stuff like this.

[Lando 2019]

Don't get me wrong, I'm gonna see the shit out of it but the trailer felt like deja vu.