Episode 207 - Dragon Blade (w/ Daniel Radcliffe, Erin Darke)

[RyanSz 3140]

23 hours ago, Cam Bert said:

I loved these commercials and every so often a new one will pop up. What's weird is in Japan a celebrity appearing in a commercial is not a bad or uncommon thing. Scarlet Johanson was the spokesperson for Lux cosmetics, George Clooney was for Nescafe, Brad Pitt hocked Levis I believe at some point. A large majority of Japanese commercials feature Japanese celebrities. From A list actors and actresses to pop stars to comedians, famous people appear in commercials all the time. I would hazard to say they appear in a majority of them. It is not seen as odd here as it is in the west. It's like Super Bowl spots year round. You're not selling out by doing the commercial. In fact a lot of companies insist on getting big names for the ads because it creates a level of trust and belief in the product. "Hey if this famous person is willing to talk about it, it must be good" type attitude.

Jones isn't even the craziest offender.

 

[Cameron H. 23786]

10 minutes ago, Elektra Boogaloo said:

You know, I bet it’s just some other guy named Dan and he delights in pretending he is Daniel Radcliffe. It’s a bit. It has very little pay off, but some people are not professional comedians for a reason, right?

I don’t know. There’s a kind of thrill in the anonymity the Internet provides. We can be anyone we want. For instance, you guys have no idea that for all this time, I’ve actual been star of screen and smaller screen Kirk Cameron! (The “H.” stands for Christ. As in, Jesus H.)

Gotcha!

Now, let me tell you about my favorite fruit: bananas...

[WatchOutForSnakes 807]

7 hours ago, Elektra Boogaloo said:

Will Ferrell did beer commercials in Sweden.

The Jim Dale audiobooks are very good. But I saw everyone freaking out that Harry Potter was with Jason and I thought, "but maybe Jim Dale is Jason's Harry Potter and Radcliffe is some upstart youngun." Also Jason is in show business so I am sure he knows how to play it cool.

I still want to know if it was Daniel who posted Dragon Blade in our movie recommendations thread (and also, randomly, a theory about the Lake House). IS HE ONE OF US? Did you even ask, Paul? Jesus. Think about us for a change.

The poster was originally "dandandan" and he changed his name after I suggested he might be Daniel Radcliffe. Suspicious? Yes. Am I stalking him? Again, I am not sure.

I am here for you on this theory. 

[sHicks Mckwicken 5]

Unbelievably the fact that the Romans helped them build a city in 15 days might be the most historically accurate thing in this movie.  Rome use to dominate in warfare back in the day.  And the way they accomplished this was with heavy armor, lots of training and most importantly... engineering.   The rules of ancient warfare meant that defending walls gave you a huge advantage.  Like you need to have 3 to 5 times the number of troops to attack a properly built fort.  And the Romans where the best in the business at building walls.  Roman soldiers where said to be able to build a camp, while under attack, in as little as a couple hours.  They built bridges, layed roads, made siege weapons on the go, nothing stood in their way.   One time after the Germans told them that the Rhine river was the limit of roman power, Julius Cesar had his men build an overly elaborate stone bridge across 300+ feet of river in ten days, just to flex on the Germans.  These guys where so serious about construction that each Roman legionary had as part of his equipment a shovel, alongside his sword and spear.  And even weirder the way in which they fix the walls is somewhat accurate too.  One thing the Romans really did right was concrete.  They used to make everything with it, from the coliseum to the aqueducts, roman concrete was the shit.  Much of it still going strong til this day!  That's why roman buildings are so well preserved thousands of years later.  So it is entirely possible for John Cussack's army to build reasonable walls in 15 days.  

No, the real question here is why exactly did Jackie Chan have to build the city in 15 days?  no one ever came to check that the walls where done.  And even though they spent all that time building this great defense, all of the fighting takes place out in the open in-front of the walls.  Building the city, like this whole movie, was a waste of time.

[IRONicmerMAN 391]

I have not seen this film yet.  I've been slowly making my way through the podcast episode and decided to start over today.  After about halfway through, I finally realized that I was picturing Keanu Reeves whenever they were talking about John Cusack.  I imagine that would have been a much different ride.

[WatchOutForSnakes 807]

6 minutes ago, IRONicmerMAN said:

I have not seen this film yet.  I've been slowly making my way through the podcast episode and decided to start over today.  After about halfway through, I finally realized that I was picturing Keanu Reeves whenever they were talking about John Cusack.  I imagine that would have been a much different ride.

New theory: Keanu Reeves was the first choice to play Lucius and Cusack's performance is actually John Cusack as Keanu Reeves as Lucius. I imagine their delivery of "I've never seen a Chinese sword." would play exactly the same. 

[JammerLea 2070]

Oh man, so I was so excited to hear that HDTGM was doing a JACKIE CHAN movie, as I've been working on collecting his films. Except my problem was I didn't have this one. So I called my local CD Exchange to ask for it, and immediately was asked if I listen to HDTGM lmao. And then the copy I picked up didn't work, and I finally got a working copy today and watched it and...

I dunno, I've seen worse Jackie Chan films.

The worst for me was the stupid clunky slo-mo and the terrible use of flashbacks. Like some of those flashbacks just being a 4 second view of Adrian Brody sitting?? Okay???

(Actually anytime Brody was on screen I could not stop thinking about Brodyquest)

I only had time to listen to half the episode so far, I'll have to finish it tomorrow, but so far it's been an enjoyable listen.

Small correction though, someone said that during the final battle the falcons came with the Parthians, but they actually were brought by the Han Chinese. Moon's group had one at the beginning of the film when she fought Huo An and lost her veil. It was definitely a Birdemic amount of birds that didn't seem to relate to the amount of falconers.

Also I'm pretty sure the reason Moon "gives herself" to Huo An is because her face was revealed to him when the veil was lost. I have no idea if there's any actual cultural traditions from ancient China that supports that sort of thing, but it feels like something I've seen in Jackie Chan films before, as well as other Eastern media. It seems pretty bizarre from a Western perspective though. 

 

And just to be a show off, here's my current Jackie Chan collection (no, I've not watched them all)

Sorry to just dump and run...

 

[tomspanks 9039]

@JammerLea - WHEELS ON MEALS

Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao run a food truck in Barcelona and "deliver" food on skateboards.  Bonkers.

[Cameron H. 23786]

3 minutes ago, tomspanks said:

@JammerLea - WHEELS ON MEALS

Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao run a food truck in Barcelona and "deliver" food on skateboards.  Bonkers.

Why are the wheels on the meals? Sounds gross.

[JammerLea 2070]

30 minutes ago, tomspanks said:

@JammerLea - WHEELS ON MEALS

Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao run a food truck in Barcelona and "deliver" food on skateboards.  Bonkers.

Haaa! I saw that a loong time ago. My dad has it on VHS. I've been wanting to add it to my collection, but it hasn't happened yet. (I think I'm missing about 11 films.)

[taylor anne photo 11311]

13 hours ago, JammerLea said:

(Actually anytime Brody was on screen I could not stop thinking about Brodyquest)

[JammerLea 2070]

I did get to finish listening to the episode this morning.

I don't know why, but for some reason I thought the sky-plank that Falco and Publius fell from was an outcropping to redirect water off the building, but I have no idea if that's what it really was or if it fits that style of architecture. Also... where was that place?? It was overlooking a city obviously, but what city? Also was it the same place where Tiberius was holding Lucius? Because I don't remember any high cliffs around where Huo An infiltrated Tiberius' place, nor do I recall seeing any during the final battle. Where the hell was ANYTHING in relation to anything else?? There's absolutely no sense of distance or travel time.

Also I feel like there might have been a bigger punch for Yin Po's betrayal if he had actually been introduced to us prior to the betrayal. I still don't know who he was.

This movie's storytelling is just... not there. It's like when someone is telling you some long-winded story about something that happened to them, but they forget details and just try to shove them in randomly as they remember them. I guess the slo-mo would be the story's 'uhh's and 'umm's.

[Elektra Boogaloo 3371]

On 2/19/2019 at 4:00 PM, Cameron H. said:

Well, now you’ve got me curious...

I checked out his post for The Lake House, and was pleased to discover that, not only was I the only person to like “Dan’s” post, I suggested he should have it submitted to The New Yorker - because it was written in a lovely free verse. Which means, while Elektra may be inadvertently stalking Mr. Radcliffe, he and I obviously share an ineffable, metaphysical connection that none of you plebs can ever even begin to understand. We are bound for one another like Keanu and Sandy-B. Fact.

(And, if it turns out forum Dan isn’t, like, Dan Dan, then that’s cool, too. I’l take any Dan in the storm really. I’ll horde all the Dans.) 

 

So I went and read possibly!Daniel’s post in the Lake House thread. Didn’t realize it was a poem. Why wasn’t this read in corrections and omissions at least? He must have been devastated to not win no prize. 

[Cameron H. 23786]

18 minutes ago, Elektra Boogaloo said:

So I went and read possibly!Daniel’s post in the Lake House thread. Didn’t realize it was a poem. Why wasn’t this read in corrections and omissions at least? He must have been devastated to not win no prize. 

Daniel later that night:

[WatchOutForSnakes 807]

47 minutes ago, Elektra Boogaloo said:

So I went and read possibly!Daniel’s post in the Lake House thread. Didn’t realize it was a poem. Why wasn’t this read in corrections and omissions at least? He must have been devastated to not win no prize. 

I think you should win C&O forever and for all time for discovering Dan's true identity. You should get Daniel Radcliffe's voice on your voicemail a la Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

[taylor anne photo 11311]

On 2/19/2019 at 5:55 PM, grudlian. said:

The Bill Murray selling Suntory was based on the Akira Kurosawa and Francis Ford Coppola ads.

She said it's based on William Shatner doing commercials over there when they met.

[grudlian. 4725]

7 hours ago, taylorannephoto said:

She said it's based on William Shatner doing commercials over there when they met.

I know I've heard her talk about her dad doing the commercials. I probably mixed them up.

[Phil A 0]

I've only just caught up to this episode (I was about 5 behind), and I didn't realise that this was coming up - I saw the poster and thought it would be a fun film to watch on Netflix... 15 minutes in I just gave up as it was just so jumpy and random. I'm sure someone out there actually likes how this was filmed, but I certainly didn't.