The terrible movies and reviews thread

[Sturgeon]

I'm not putting this here because it looks terrible, but because I don't think there is a separate thread for movies in general (but I'm probably wrong). The POCCNR avengers knock-off looks like a pretty solid watch

Since movies/music/art/whatever is subjective, I always figured that the "terrible" part of the title in this and the music thread was something that could be taken both literally and facetiously.

[Sturgeon]

Twin Perfect does a great job reviewing Hook:

[Sturgeon]

Relatively interesting listbait from CineFix:

[Donward]

Remember when I said that Hollywood needed to make more Westerns?

 

Yeah. I didn't mean this pile of horse shit.

 

 

I might do a further fisking of the Magnificent Racially Acceptable Seven later in comparison to the original Magnificent Seven.

 

 

And of course this was a remake - and improvement - on the Akira Kurisawa classic Seven Samurai.

 

 

Now there are all sorts of complaints I have regarding the quality of the musical sound track presented and a comparison of the actors as well as themes about honor and redemption.

 

But with the older films, Samurai and Seven, the motivations of the heroes and the villains and the towns folks MAKE FUCKING SENSE. It's a trailer of course, but I don't really understand the motivation of the badguy in this flick other than that he seems to be a sneering, corporate bad guy with legions of henchmen who are willing to go galloping into murderous crossfires in order to kill innocent women and children and burn down their schools and churches. For what reason?

 

Even Calvara, in the 1960 Seven, knew he couldn't kill off the townfolks since he needed them to grow the corn and beans and chickens his men needed to survive the winter.

[Donward]

I suppose a minor quibble would be the fact that the original Magnificent Seven, Yul Brenner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, James Coburn were COOL. Effortlessly cool. Just by being on the screen you could tell they were comfortable in their own skins and the characters that they portrayed. Steve McQueen was so cool, they paid him to do movies where he raced cars and motorcycles that way he could have enough money to race cars and motorcycles in real life. 

 

And in action, these characters are cool. Cool and deliberate. There is no unnecessary flash. No extravagance. They deal in lead. 

 

Contrast that with the Millennial shitters in the 2016 re-remake. I like Denzyl Washington and he's a good actor. But the producers of this film don't even let him play his character. He's doing a pale imitation (hehehehe) of Jaimie Foxx in Django Unchained. Oh, look, it's a black bounty hunter in a Western. I wonder why Hollywood made that casting decision?

 

And the rest of the characters are about as subtle as gangbangers driving a lowered Cadillac Escalade with rims, ground effects and a sound system blaring. Look at the Chinese knife fighter dude who is supposed to mirror James Coburn's character and all the rigmorale he puts into stabbing someone at the 1:13 mark. Compare this to James Coburn at 1:35 in the 1960 version. There's a world weariness and reluctance. He has killed before. He knows he will kill again. And he has been pushed to kill now. It is a task, and a chore and one where he knows that no thanks will be given and only trouble will result.

 

With this modern incarnation all I see is just empty flash. It's not good enough that we are presented with a retelling of two of the classic movies of the past century. No. We must have a Gatling gun for some reason. We must have more dynamite than is needed to mine the Comstock Lode. We must have tits. Because fuck if the Magnificent Racially Acceptable Seven are going to fight for a trio middle-aged Mexicans.

[Meplat]

I suppose a minor quibble would be the fact that the original Magnificent Seven, Yul Brenner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, James Coburn were COOL. Effortlessly cool. Just by being on the screen you could tell they were comfortable in their own skins and the characters that they portrayed. Steve McQueen was so cool, they paid him to do movies where he raced cars and motorcycles that way he could have enough money to race cars and motorcycles in real life. 

 

And in action, these characters are cool. Cool and deliberate. There is no unnecessary flash. No extravagance. They deal in lead. 

 

Contrast that with the Millennial shitters in the 2016 re-remake. I like Denzyl Washington and he's a good actor. But the producers of this film don't even let him play his character. He's doing a pale imitation (hehehehe) of Jaimie Foxx in Django Unchained. Oh, look, it's a black bounty hunter in a Western. I wonder why Hollywood made that casting decision?

 

And the rest of the characters are about as subtle as gangbangers driving a lowered Cadillac Escalade with rims, ground effects and a sound system blaring. Look at the Chinese knife fighter dude who is supposed to mirror James Coburn's character and all the rigmorale he puts into stabbing someone at the 1:13 mark. Compare this to James Coburn at 1:35 in the 1960 version. There's a world weariness and reluctance. He has killed before. He knows he will kill again. And he has been pushed to kill now. It is a task, and a chore and one where he knows that no thanks will be given and only trouble will result.

 

With this modern incarnation all I see is just empty flash. It's not good enough that we are presented with a retelling of two of the classic movies of the past century. No. We must have a Gatling gun for some reason. We must have more dynamite than is needed to mine the Comstock Lode. We must have tits. Because fuck if the Magnificent Racially Acceptable Seven are going to fight for a trio middle-aged Mexicans.

 

They were also using actors in roles where they have to kill someone, where said actors more likely than not had actually killed someone, or had come damn close.

[Legiondude]

Remember when I said that Hollywood needed to make more Westerns?

 

Yeah. I didn't mean this pile of horse shit.

I swear if they even bat an eye towards Tombstone...

 

[Sturgeon]

EFP is always great:

 

[Sturgeon]

[Vanagandr]

So I just watched through Seven Samurai again and watched Magnificent Seven for the first time on Donward's prompting, and I can see no way that the remake will not fuck everything up. I don't know if there was a single line in the original that didn't need to be there, but from the trailer it looks like Hollywood thinks that the movie is supposed to be about witty shitty one-liners and ramming how badass the studio thinks their characters are down the collective audience's throat. Maybe it'll still be a decent movie in that it will be entertaining and over the top, but there's no way it shares anything more with the original than the name.

[Walter_Sobchak]

I wished I had responded to this thread earlier.  That video on what's wrong with the Marvel movie symphonic universe is spot on.  I hate what has happened to most movie soundtracks these days.  Even worse is what has happened to most move trailers.  They don't even have music.  Instead, we just get a low brass horn blowing (ala inception) intermittent whole notes followed by that weird "whub whub whub" sound denoting that the hero is doing something in slow motion.  God forbid we actually have our heroes doing something to a memorable score.  

 

If you doubt the power of a good orchestral score, go re-watch Conan the Barbarian.  The score is by Basil Poledouris, it is the best part of the film.  Most of the "actors" in the film can barely talk, let alone act, and yet the score carries it along.  It's an amazing piece of film scoring.  If you have never watched Conan the Barbarian, well, perhaps you should not be here.  This forum has standards.  

[Sturgeon]

I am a gigantic Conan fanboy, ever since I read a Conan collection as a kid. I discovered the Schwarzenegger movie later on, and loved it, too.

I even liked the remake with Jason Momoa (who is in some ways the more faithful Conan, actually).

I don't know why scores these days suck so bad, but they do.

[Walter_Sobchak]

I have to say, the Jason Momoa film was terrible, although I liked him in the role.  He more closely fits the description of Conan in the books.  

 

The most important thing in a movie like Conan is a good villain. The original Conan had James Earl Jones as some creepy Atlantean sorceror who could turn snakes in arrows.  The remake had as a villain.....someone I completely forgot about. 

 

That said, Conan the Destroyer was one of the biggest disappointments of my childhood.  Grace Jones and Wilt Chamberlain.  Ugh.  

[Sturgeon]

The remake had CGI as a villain. In that respect, it was a tour de force of commentary on modern filmmaking.

[Sturgeon]

I have to say, the Jason Momoa film was terrible, although I liked him in the role.  He more closely fits the description of Conan in the books.  

IIRC, Momoa is too tall for Conan, but basically spot on otherwise.

Conan is supposed to be this dusky, pitch-headed small panther-like fellow ("pantherine" is actually used as a descriptor of Conan a lot in the books). One of the things I do not like about modern depictions of Conan and clones of Conan is that Conan in the books isn't the strongest, fastest, or more agile guy out there. IIRC, in the very first story he goes up against a guy who is his physical superior in every way, and if I remember correct, Conan is unarmed and the other guy has a weapon.

Conan's outstanding quality is his animal cunning. He has a will to survive against all odds, and that makes him extremely dangerous and slippery. He's almost impossible to kill, and if there's a way for him to kill you, he will find it and do it.

 

In more recent depictions, this is usually not adequately captured. I should make the distinction that Conan's animal cunning isn't the result of external forces, but of Conan's own intelligence and ability to think on his feet. This makes it difficult to capture, because it's easier for writers to just let Conan win through convenience or circumstance, rather than his virtues.

And that animal cunning is what makes Conan cool, because if you put yourself in the antagonist's role... What can you do? You have to like, wrack your brain over and over again, and try to think like Conan, which is virtually impossible because his animal cunning is basically a superpower, or else he'll win.

That's why he always wins.

[Sturgeon]

I just watched The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and learned two things:

1. Terry Gilliam has had a source on weapons-grade LSD since at least 1988.

2. Uma Thurman was absolutely smokin hot in the 1980s.

[D.E. Watters]

I just watched The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and learned two things:

1. Terry Gilliam has had a source on weapons-grade LSD since at least 1988.

2. Uma Thurman was absolutely smokin hot in the 1980s.

Have you watched Brazil?  It was basically Terry Gilliam's take on Orwell's 1984.

[Sturgeon]

Have you watched Brazil?  It was basically Terry Gilliam's take on Orwell's 1984.

 

Oh yeah, I've watched Brazil. And Time Bandits (one of my favorites). And Tideland (fucking bizarre, he'd really gone off his rocker by that point).

[Sturgeon]

 

[Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect]

That movie makes me feel bad.

[Sturgeon]

If Frozen were written by collimatrix:

[EnsignExpendable]

You'd think that a head of state with the ability to control the climate and create an invincible army of unfeeling behemoths would be rather expansionist.

[LostCosmonaut]

Tom Hardy is going to play Ernest Shackleton; https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/oct/21/tom-hardy-ernest-shackleton

[LostCosmonaut]

I saw The Accountant over the weekend.

 

It was an inspiring story about a man who overcomes autism to became a leader in his chosen career field. While it definitely affects him, the main character is still able to function well in society, with not a single anime body pillow to be seen.

[Mogensthegreat]