OhBollox secret is out. They’re just reposting stuff they heard on podcast. And here we all thought you were smart and cultured
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I have just listened to it, and it made me watch the film twice.
OhBollox secret is out. They’re just reposting stuff they heard on podcast. And here we all thought you were smart and cultured
The bad news is I listen to a lot of podcasts.
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Escape from Mogadishu. Apart from the broad comedy Koreans feel must be in almost every film, there’s few laughs in this one, a rather grim story about North and South Korean diplomats forced to flee Somalia because of a little bit of civil war. The action is excellent, there are lots of genuinely loud gunshots, and a Korean audience will feel special empathy for crowds of people being suppressed by heavy handed government violence. Where the film falls short is in the contact between the two Korean peoples, as they struggle with mutual suspicion despite a shared language, and to a certain extent, culture, in a foreign country where they are obviously alien. There isn’t enough mixture of the two groups for the ending to work, although there are effective individual moments, like shared meals and occasional conversations, where you feel the two sides are beginning to bridge an impossible divide. A very well made film nonetheless, with solid acting, effects, swift action, genuinely funny lines, and a touch of real emotion.
Running Man is a solid movie, but was also the basis for the presentation I made in my multicultural film class where I pointed out that I fully believe even in the beginning of his career Arnold had the mind of a politician, making sure he always had these vaguely ethnic love interests who were attractive but whose interactions with him were relatively chaste, in order to court as many demographics as possible without alienating hardcore racists too much. See also: Commando. See also: Eraser. See also: True Lies (okay, Tia Carrere wasn’t a true love interest, but that might just prove the point more).
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He was also one of the few (modern) stars to consistently push for script control, too, that I know of anyway. I’m sure it’s more popular now, but he wanted oversight and veto even back in the 80s, to somewhat mixed results I’m sure.
Exit. A mad scientist releases a deadly gas in Seoul and a would-be couple must escape the resulting cloud of vapour. I enjoyed the Hell out of this film. It has some great scenes and thoughtful details (roads full of vehicles with occupants all dead from the gas, and inside each vehicle, a phone ringing as relatives try to contact them) but mainly it’s a solid mix of comedy and action, as the two evacuate from a birthday party, complete with drunken family members hoovering up the remaining food and alcohol, and flee through and over buildings using their climbing club skills. The premise is fairly silly, but I would happily watch this again, it’s one of the most feel-good films I’ve seen in ages. Despite being fairly low budget, it’s composed well, with good use of foreground and background, especially for the comedic moments, and the acting is acceptable to good across the board. Loses a point for a mad scientist villain, and loses another for the female lead, Im Yoon-ah, playing second fiddle to Jo Jung-suk when it comes to the climbing, when it was shown in flashback that she was the better climber. Still, for every flaw I can bring up ten good things, and the film is so positive without being overbearing about it I have to give it serious praise. Juxtaposing so much fun with a disaster shouldn’t work but it does.
I’m using Occam’s razor here and assuming he’s attracted to “ethnic” women. He did have an affair with his Hispanic maid and had a child with her. I would argue that his marriage to Marie Shriver, from the Kennedy family, was more an example of his political ambitions but who knows.
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One Shot. Worth it just to see Scott Adkins, no one’s idea of a masterful actor, outperform Ryan Philippe in an action film. As funny as that is, it’s only a few scenes in an otherwise unremarkable film, shot in one faux take, as a team of Navy SEALs and a CIA analyst plucked right out of Zero Dark Thirty turn up at a terrorist interment facility to escort a prisoner. The camp is then conveniently attacked by terrorists. The film’s biggest draw is arguably the camera work, which is immersive enough, except there are some obvious limits on what they can achieve, and due to these limitations, the camera is often looking the wrong way, covering whichever character is being followed at the moment, but focussing on them and their background rather than what they are looking and shooting at. This makes other weaknesses like CGI muzzle flash all the more apparent, and while bits and pieces of the weapon handling are good, the style forces the usage of CGI for things like spent cartridges being ejected, which takes me right out of the film. The lack of any recoil carries through to the physicality of the scenes, including things like disrupting the connection between shooter and target, and this robs quite a lot of the action, which is superbly choreographed and otherwise solid, of weight and import. It’s very respectable just as an achievement but there are too many constraints the film cannot escape.
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I’ve been seeing a lot of talk lately about Hollywood dropping firearms all together in favor of true non-operable props after Baldwin shot two people, so be prepared to see more and more CGI gun effects in the future.
I don’t know much about guns, but I thought it’d be easier to completely disable a gun in an obvious way, then cgi it out after. Like fill the barrel with neon orange plastic, orange tip, the works. Then just cgi the tip out
Or just, you know… practice basic firearms safety.
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You hush your whore mouth.
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I’ve been teaching my kids since they could pick up a nerf gun, if 50+ year old actors can’t get it right, there is no hope for them.
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Same. My kids never touch them and even they know to always treat them like they’re loaded, etc.
Darwinism usually wins.
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I have not touched a gun since I got out of the Army. 8 years of firing weapons was enough, especially the hard ass armorers who would make you clean the weapons way beyond what was necessary just to go home.
Possible, but I think he’s too smart to make a movie based solely on what he wants, especially since there is no reason to believe he bedded all these chicks. Like or hate the guy, no one can realistically call him dumb. And it worked, given that the movies I mentioned were all hits. Also, Total Recall fits the bill too now that I think about it.
Also, I get the feeling he’s just attracted to good-looking women. Like, period.
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Also, I get the feeling he’s just attracted to good-looking women
That piece of shit.
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Red Notice, on Netflix.
How in the actual fuck is this formulaic piece of shit the number 1 movie on Netflix? Even Gal Gadot in a bathing suit can’t save this poor take on a buddy movie / wannabe Dirty Rotten Scoundrels / James Bond meets Indiana Jones b-roll.
I beg you, if you love yourself in any way, do not make the mistake I made by watching this. I’m not even upset about the 2h I spent, just about the fact that it kept getting worse and I didn’t stop.
Even worse is 10-1 they make a second one.
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Yikes–thanks for the warning! Mrs. Biff and I were going to watch that this weekend. Looks like we’ll do a holiday movie instead.
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I can find no better screenshot to epitomise The French Dispatch than this. The film is a man telling you a very silly, elaborate joke, absolutely deadpan, and delighting in every wrinkle of the tale, and each individual chortle you make, and the more you laugh, the more earnest he becomes. You probably know by now what Anderson’s films are like; detailed, layered, full of ridiculous ideas, very funny, and at the same time played entirely straight. His obsession with artifice and facade is only grown more elaborate, the lines and delivery punchy-rapid-fire-formal, the acting flawless is strictly limited and narrowly focused.
When the film was about an hour in, I noticed what it was doing with the structure, and started laughing at the sheer effrontery of it, the balls-out cheek to essentially start a story and then go on huge digressions which actually make up most of the film, so they’re not digressions at all. Places, people and events are made up with bewildering rapidity and aplomb, and there is such an array of good actors it becomes a challenge to name them all. Each story features an array of sets, some openly fake, some on a stage, some re-staged on an actual stage, and you begin to wonder how many of the crew were worked to death. If you’re on board with the twee, artificial nature of the presentation, then it’s delightful, and I am. An enormous twenty-tiered cake of a film.
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