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Post by klawrencio79 on Apr 1, 2024 17:49:04 GMT
In both the Friday the 13th remake and the first Transformers movie, Travis van Winkle plays a douchebag character named Trent. That means that Friday the 13th and Transformers share a cinematic universe and I'm here for it. This is how Robot Chicken episodes are conceived. You're telling me that Michael Bay produced movies weren't creative enough to come up with 2 different names (or actors) for a similar character? Maybe Travis van Winkle is the single greatest method actor of all time? If you dare call him anything but Trent, you disrupt his process and he'll body slam you into the craft services table and fuck your girlfriend.
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Post by sdm3 on Apr 1, 2024 17:58:43 GMT
I was on a flight home the other day and was trying to find something to watch, and rather than do something real that I'd really have to pay attention to I watched The Equalizer 3. I don't know if I'd ever seen more than 30 mins of either of the previous 2 Equalizer movies, but this one was the perfect watch-on-a-plane movie. It's got a surprisingly relaxed pace for what's supposed to be an action movie, and in fact, it's got very little action. There were a few moments of Denzel kicking ass, and those scenes are compelling, but even those are done a remarkably slow pace for a bloody scenes of violence. There's kind of a story, but nobody really cares. Denzel is charming and stoic, it takes place in Sicily, which looks beautiful (although it's apparently it was shot elsewhere in Italy), the men in town are nice to Denzel, the women are beautiful, and then he kills some guys in gruesome ways that sort of conflict with the otherwise easy pace and tone. Anyway, it was a good time for a that doesn't require your full attention. Like one of those old man Liam Neeson action movies but clearly of a much higher caliber. I still think the first one is the best (and no, not just because it takes place in Boston). It has its moments, but I remember being bored with this one. I appear to be in the minority, though. I agree that the first is the most coherent and gripping; very enjoyable. The second was somehow kind of a mess and oddly boring at the same time. I think I posted here that I enjoyed the third one for much the same reasons goons mentioned; I liked the locations and the leisurely pace.
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Post by sdm3 on Apr 1, 2024 18:04:26 GMT
OK, so while I did think Driver was his usual excellent self, I have an issue with the casting. The one thing that I don't always understand is why put American actors into roles where they speak with an accent, but then have everybody speak English. Yeah, I pointed this out when I saw it. There are some sections where characters speak in "broken English." It makes no sense at all.
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Post by klawrencio79 on Apr 1, 2024 18:25:03 GMT
OK, so while I did think Driver was his usual excellent self, I have an issue with the casting. The one thing that I don't always understand is why put American actors into roles where they speak with an accent, but then have everybody speak English. Yeah, I pointed this out when I saw it. There are some sections where characters speak in "broken English." It makes no sense at all. I'm going to find your review in this thread so we can compare notes. Was it around the time of its release?
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Post by Rey Kahuka on Apr 1, 2024 18:32:32 GMT
Time to talk about a serious film.
Godzilla x Kong (2024)
Truth be told, I'm not even sure how to pronounce this out loud. Godzilla ecks Kong? Godzilla Times Kong? Godzilla Mulitplied By Kong? Godzilla By Way Of Kong? Why are Godzilla titles suddenly math equations all the time? I digress...
We talked about this a little recently, and just the other day I was ripping this movie on another board here on the forum. But at the last minute, I decided to take the fam to see it on Friday afternoon. It was everything I expected (and that's not a compliment), but I have to say: by the end, I had a good time. These movies have gone from the 'grim and gritty' reboot of 2014 (which I really enjoyed, for the record) and devolved into the silly monster mash features we all grew up on. No real plot to speak of, minimal characterization; in fact, every character seems to exist purely to spew exposition, even on topics they couldn't possibly have any comprehension of. But I've come to the conclusion that you can't think while watching this movie. Like, at all. If you can manage that somehow (and it gets easier as it goes along, as your brain goes into temporary shutdown involuntarily), it's a hoot. Put it this way, Godzilla gives Kong a suplex at one point. Oh yeah, that happens. He also takes down another giant ape like a linebacker going after a contract bonus. Kong uses a baby giant ape as a club to beat on other attacking apes, I shit you not. I could go on, but I think you get it.
What's hilarious is that it isn't the giant creatures running around defying the laws of physics, or 'Hollow-Earth' and everything that entails, that pulls me out of the movie. Rather, it's the collateral damage, the absolute carnage wrought by these titans as they tussle. Sure, it's the kind of thing that happens in every superhero/sci-fi movie, but usually not until the third act, with the aggressors responsible for most of the damage-- and never on this scale-- especially when you're supposed to be rooting for one of these things to win. Stranger still is the fact that the movie always goes out of its way to make you understand there are in fact people in this city that's about to be completely leveled, but never once shows anyone directly affected on screen. In fact, the only person you see killed on screen is the ornery security guard who accompanies our intrepid heroes to Hollow Earth (he's eaten by a tree). Back on the surface, the creatures demolish Rome and leave the pyramids piles of rubble, because it's always sexier to have these scenes play out with famous landmarks as a backdrop.
In reality (and this is what the first movie was about), the world governments would be hellbent on destroying these titans at all costs. Godzilla, who exists to 'protect the natural order' does just as much, if not more damage than the malevolent creatures threatening humanity intentionally. He kicks over buildings, throws other creatures through skyscrapers (that would be very much inhabited), and swims up rivers as the plates on his back tear down bridges with cars falling into the water below (of particular note with recent events in Baltimore), and everyone just accepts it. They send some drones at him when he attacks a nuclear plant (he was gassing up for a big fight), other than that, hey, what can you do? Just let him sleep in the Colosseum and knock half of it down as he steps out after a nap. The loss of life would be staggering. Tens of thousands on the conservative end, millions dead most likely. And you're supposed to just tune that out, because that isn't the point of the movie. If they aren't going to show anyone being killed, can you just say you predicted which city they'll attack and evacuated it days ago? Or get down there and show us the brutality and tragedy of all of this?
This is what I enjoyed about the Monarch show on Apple TV. It delved into the ground level stuff, it showed us what it was like from the layperson's perspective. And it was awesome. But again, if humanity isn't what you're going for here, just have these creatures duke it out at Chernobyl, or one of those ghost cities in China. Don't give establishing shots of people running for their lives and then expect us not to give a shit as the 'heroic' creatures reduce cities to rubble. And at the end, Godzilla returns to his new lair in the Colosseum for another nap in a callback gag, as if that makes it all better.
All of the other nonsense, Kong getting an infected tooth replaced (which served no purpose to the plot, by the way), Godzilla performing wrestling moves, it's hilarious as hell. And having a nine year old with me helped me realize who the audience is supposed to be at this point. So I rolled with it, and had a blast. Make no mistake, from a storytelling standpoint, it's the definition of a bad movie. And yet it does exactly what it's supposed to do, for exactly who's supposed to enjoy it. So it's a successful movie by that definition. It's just one of those movies that you have to throw up your palms and say, "Whatever," and embrace your inner child, or the nine year old sitting next to you.
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Post by klawrencio79 on Apr 1, 2024 18:32:40 GMT
Looks boring. I'd ask the girl at the counter if it's a prequel to Ford v. Ferrari, but my wife told me not to harass her with dad jokes anymore. It does.. and it's strange because I don’t think I've ever described a Mann movie as boring before. It might just be a bad job by the marketing team. Naturally I'd side with your wife there, but I'm just astonished that you can buy tickets at a counter from a real person still. I kinda thought that was a thing of the past. But I still haven't been back to a theater for a new movie in almost a year and a half, so maybe the old ways are returning and I'm just out of the loop. I've actually been wondering about this. It used to be that you could waltz right up to the counter at the airport and buy a ticket for a flight, right then and there, and be on your merry way. Is that even still an option? What about calling the airline and booking the way? How quickly would TSA arrest you if you just walk up to a counter with nothing but a backpack, ask when the next available flight is, and agree to take that flight? Hell, I used to have to stand outside for hours on end to buy concert tickets.
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Post by sdm3 on Apr 1, 2024 18:36:34 GMT
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Post by klawrencio79 on Apr 1, 2024 18:43:52 GMT
Time to talk about a serious film. Godzilla x Kong (2024) Truth be told, I'm not even sure how to pronounce this out loud. Godzilla ecks Kong? Godzilla Times Kong? Godzilla Mulitplied By Kong? Godzilla By Way Of Kong? Why are Godzilla titles suddenly math equations all the time? I digress... We talked about this a little recently, and just the other day I was ripping this movie on another board here on the forum. But at the last minute, I decided to take the fam to see it on Friday afternoon. It was everything I expected (and that's not a compliment), but I have to say: by the end, I had a good time. These movies have gone from the 'grim and gritty' reboot of 2014 (which I really enjoyed, for the record) and devolved into the silly monster mash features we all grew up on. No real plot to speak of, minimal characterization; in fact, every character seems to exist purely to spew exposition, even on topics they couldn't possibly have any comprehension of. But I've come to the conclusion that you can't think while watching this movie. Like, at all. If you can manage that somehow (and it gets easier as it goes along, as your brain goes into temporary shutdown involuntarily), it's a hoot. Put it this way, Godzilla gives Kong a suplex at one point. Oh yeah, that happens. He also takes down another giant ape like a linebacker going after a contract bonus. Kong uses a baby giant ape as a club to beat on other attacking apes, I shit you not. I could go on, but I think you get it. What's hilarious is that it isn't the giant creatures running around defying the laws of physics, or 'Hollow-Earth' and everything that entails, that pulls me out of the movie. Rather, it's the collateral damage, the absolute carnage wrought by these titans as they tussle. Sure, it's the kind of thing that happens in every superhero/sci-fi movie, but usually not until the third act, with the aggressors responsible for most of the damage-- and never on this scale-- especially when you're supposed to be rooting for one of these things to win. Stranger still is the fact that the movie always goes out of its way to make you understand there are in fact people in this city that's about to be completely leveled, but never once shows anyone directly affected on screen. In fact, the only person you see killed on screen is the ornery security guard who accompanies our intrepid heroes to Hollow Earth (he's eaten by a tree). Back on the surface, the creatures demolish Rome and leave the pyramids piles of rubble, because it's always sexier to have these scenes play out with famous landmarks as a backdrop. In reality (and this is what the first movie was about), the world governments would be hellbent on destroying these titans at all costs. Godzilla, who exists to 'protect the natural order' does just as much, if not more damage than the malevolent creatures threatening humanity intentionally. He kicks over buildings, throws other creatures through skyscrapers (that would be very much inhabited), and swims up rivers as the plates on his back tear down bridges with cars falling into the water below (of particular note with recent events in Baltimore), and everyone just accepts it. They send some drones at him when he attacks a nuclear plant (he was gassing up for a big fight), other than that, hey, what can you do? Just let him sleep in the Colosseum and knock half of it down as he steps out after a nap. The loss of life would be staggering. Tens of thousands on the conservative end, millions dead most likely. And you're supposed to just tune that out, because that isn't the point of the movie. If they aren't going to show anyone being killed, can you just say you predicted which city they'll attack and evacuated it days ago? Or get down there and show us the brutality and tragedy of all of this?This is what I enjoyed about the Monarch show on Apple TV. It delved into the ground level stuff, it showed us what it was like from the layperson's perspective. And it was awesome. But again, if humanity isn't what you're going for here, just have these creatures duke it out at Chernobyl, or one of those ghost cities in China. Don't give establishing shots of people running for their lives and then expect us not to give a shit as the 'heroic' creatures reduce cities to rubble. And at the end, Godzilla returns to his new lair in the Colosseum for another nap in a callback gag, as if that makes it all better. All of the other nonsense, Kong getting an infected tooth replaced (which served no purpose to the plot, by the way), Godzilla performing wrestling moves, it's hilarious as hell. And having a nine year old with me helped me realize who the audience is supposed to be at this point. So I rolled with it, and had a blast. Make no mistake, from a storytelling standpoint, it's the definition of a bad movie. And yet it does exactly what it's supposed to do, for exactly who's supposed to enjoy it. So it's a successful movie by that definition. It's just one of those movies that you have to throw up your palms and say, "Whatever," and embrace your inner child, or the nine year old sitting next to you. I haven't seen this one yet, and I'm sure I will, but your post triggered two things in my mind. First, the part about collateral damage in these movies is always fascinating to me, mostly due to the absurdly inept way the DC movies handled it. I'm sure we've talked about it before, but Man of Steel has Superman and Zod tossing each other through the entire city, killing tens of thousands of people in the process at least. Naturally, that garnered a little backlash as Superman would normally want to preserve life at all costs, rather than just not have it even register as something for him to consider. So what do they do after that movie? In Justice League, in every scene of destruction, there's some red shirt in the background saying something to the effect of, "it's OK, it's after 5 pm, downtown is empty!." It's so stupid, they'd be better off just letting Superman murder everyone and it would make more sense. Second, Godzilla's wrestling moves. So I rewatched Garreth Edwards' 2014 entry recently, which I didn't like the first and only other time I had seen it. Killing off Bryan Cranston and centering the movie around human tree Aaron Johnson was a terrible idea and the movie sinks once he becomes the focus. But, the movie actually does an incredible job at showing the true scale of Godzilla. He's largely shot from the ground up, everyone feels the weight of every lumbering footstep. He moves slowly which adds to the idea of how powerful he is; because he moves slowly, he moves with purpose. As the sequels go on, it's always an aerial or wide shot, he's running around, jumping all over the place, smiling at King Kong, etc. Yeah, first Godzilla v Kong is definitely the most fun of the first 3 entries, but they're basically the same characters in terms of their abilities in that movie, which inherently makes it less interesting. Plus, by shooting him this way, the entire scale and power evaporates and makes for a less threatening scenario. Maybe that's just me.
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Post by klawrencio79 on Apr 1, 2024 18:45:07 GMT
Wow, I completely forgot that Patrick Dempsey was in the movie, and I watched it less than 48 hours ago.
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Post by sdm3 on Apr 1, 2024 19:13:59 GMT
Killing off Bryan Cranston and centering the movie around human tree Aaron Johnson was a terrible idea and the movie sinks once he becomes the focus. The big rumors in the UK are that this guy (ATJ, I mean - not Cranston) is going to be the next James Bond. Which isn't saying much; it seems to be accepted practice over here that the tabloids just make stuff up about the Bond films every few months. I liked ATJ in Bullet Train, at least.
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Post by Shane Falco on Apr 1, 2024 19:17:56 GMT
You're telling me that Michael Bay produced movies weren't creative enough to come up with 2 different names (or actors) for a similar character? Maybe Travis van Winkle is the single greatest method actor of all time? If you dare call him anything but Trent, you disrupt his process and he'll body slam you into the craft services table and fuck your girlfriend. I can't remember if this was just a rumor or actually confirmed at one point but supposedly Tony Danza always had to play characters named Tony because he was too stupid to react to being called anything else, same for Charlie and Charlie Sheen. However I figure the Sheen one is more so he was probably just too drunk or drugged up to bother.
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Post by Shane Falco on Apr 1, 2024 19:22:20 GMT
Killing off Bryan Cranston and centering the movie around human tree Aaron Johnson was a terrible idea and the movie sinks once he becomes the focus. The big rumors in the UK are that this guy (ATJ, I mean - not Cranston) is going to be the next James Bond. Which isn't saying much; it seems to be accepted practice over here that the tabloids just make stuff up about the Bond films every few months. I liked ATJ in Bullet Train, at least. I still remember to this day the Tom Hiddleston rumors and at that time was the "relationship" with Taylor Swift being used as publicity that he could be seen as a ladies man and Taylor was trying to get the soundtrack song. Thankfully that never worked out. Bullet Train was a lot of dumb fun. Watching that movie I didn't even realize that was the same dude that played Quicksilver in Age of Ultron. His character and brother were my favorite part.
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Post by masterofallgoons on Apr 1, 2024 19:29:13 GMT
I was on a flight home the other day and was trying to find something to watch, and rather than do something real that I'd really have to pay attention to I watched The Equalizer 3. I don't know if I'd ever seen more than 30 mins of either of the previous 2 Equalizer movies, but this one was the perfect watch-on-a-plane movie. It's got a surprisingly relaxed pace for what's supposed to be an action movie, and in fact, it's got very little action. There were a few moments of Denzel kicking ass, and those scenes are compelling, but even those are done a remarkably slow pace for a bloody scenes of violence. There's kind of a story, but nobody really cares. Denzel is charming and stoic, it takes place in Sicily, which looks beautiful (although it's apparently it was shot elsewhere in Italy), the men in town are nice to Denzel, the women are beautiful, and then he kills some guys in gruesome ways that sort of conflict with the otherwise easy pace and tone. Anyway, it was a good time for a that doesn't require your full attention. Like one of those old man Liam Neeson action movies but clearly of a much higher caliber. This is probably the perfect description of that movie. You're right, it has an action set piece to start and then it's like an hour of him ambling around Italy, making me want to go visit there. Then he gruesomely murders some clowns. Then he turns into Michael Myers and gruesomely murders a bunch of clowns. It's also amusing that you can see how this movie was scaled to what Denzel, and probably Antoine Fuqua, wanted to do. Denzel isn't quite Steven Seagal, but he's like 70 now, so his movements in the action scenes are so minor, and so much of the action takes place off camera and ultimately with his character having creatively arranged dead bodies around for the final bad guy to find... much like Michael Myers, as you said. And of course, Denzel and Antoine Fuqua probably just wanted to hang out in Italy, and I can't blame them... and maybe he wanted to hang out with Dakota Fanning again for a couple of days, or just give her the gift of an Italian vacation without having to work much. It's like what Adam Sandler has been doing for like 20 years, but not annoying and stupid.
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Post by Shane Falco on Apr 1, 2024 19:35:03 GMT
Watched a 4 episode documentary called Quiet on the Set which focused on early 2000's Nickelodeon kids/tween shows that focused on producer/creator Dan Schneider and his questionable (at best) behavior. He was behind widely popular shows like All That, The Amanda Bynes Show, iCarly, Victorious, Zoey 101 etc. It focused on how toxic his sets could be and how he would treat some of these kids. As well as employing 3 pedophiles and sex offenders around these kids. One producer named Jason Handy was arrested after sending pictures of himself to kids while police raided his home and finding thousands of images and stuff of child porn as well as zip lock bags with names on them containing "tokens" one of which was like a nine year olds underwear. Another producer named Brian Peck completely manipulated his way into Drake Bell's life (of Drake and Josh fame) since he was a cast member on The Amanda Bynes Show up until his own Drake and Josh show. This guy manipulated Drake into distancing himself from his father who was his manager and didn't trust Peck with his son because he felt there was something creepy with him, which was defended by other producers as him being gay and telling Drakes father that maybe he is homophobic when he tried to complain about weird touching. It lead to Drakes management being taken over by his mother who Brian Peck earned her trust and would take Drake on auditions hours away and let him stay at his home over night. Well, this of course leads to Peck sexually assaulting Drake when he was like 14 or 15 and Drake felt trapped. He was alone at this guys home hours away from home. Had no idea how to get out of the situation and was also getting his dream career while being preyed upon by a producer. The details of these assaults are disturbing as the series showed some of the accusations Drake made against Peck when he later got arrested. It took Drakes girlfriends mother to figure out something was off when this 40 year old was constantly calling her home while Drake was there. Eventually Drake couldn't surpress his trauma anymore and broke down. This lead to Peck confessing over the phone that was tapped by police. Because Drake was a minor at the time the documents were sealed and he wasn't named in the case. According to Drake nobody knew it was him that this producer assaulted multiple times. This series was the first time he spoke publicly about this. He talked about how much support this Peck guy got from people in Hollywood who sent letters of support to the judge. People like James Marsden, Alan Thicke, Rider Strong, etc. Drake sat in the court room with his brother and parents being the only ones 9n his side while Peck had an entire courtroom side filled with support. Peck only got like 14 months in jail and registered as a sex offender only to still get jobs on kid shows upon his release like Suite Life of Zack and Cody. You had other former child stars that worked for Dan Schneider telling stories of how much of a nightmare he could be and how he played favorites. His big favorite was Amanda Bynes who he at one point tried to get her amancipated while letting her live at his house. Schneider would also create very questionable scenes in these kids shows of sexual nature. On Zoey 101 a 13 year old Jaime Spears got yogurt squirted on her fame in what was a simulated c** shot. None of the kids in these scenes knew what was going on. Ariana Grande would suck her own toes (Dan had a perverted foot fetish and would have to see these kids feet as part of the audition process). Grande would also try and squeeze juice of of a penis looking potato as well as pour water on herself while upside down. Victoria Justice would have ketchup poured on her feet. Creepy stuff. After watching this I did some Reddit and YouTube deep dives as I remember some of these stories and knew the weird foot fetish stuff but nothing more. Janette McCurdy from iCarly and Sam and Cat fame wrote a memoir titled "I'm glad my mom is dead" and went into detail about her traumatic experiences on set leading to eating disorders and other issues. Her mother was truly horrible btw. Included in her book was a letter her mother wrote her about how disgusting it was for her to be dating a black NBA player and that she and her brother would disown her, all while telling her to send money because their fridge broke. While what I type next are strictly rumors I find them incredibly believable. Jaime Spears got pregnant which led to Zoey 101 getting canceled. Rumors are that Dan Schneider is the father. A blind item (usually anonymous tips givin to tabloids or TMZ types) was posted about a well known tween star being impregnated by a producer well her senior. This lead to what is rumored to be payments of hush money and payments to Jaime's ex to pretend he is the father when apparently they were broken up for a long while and in separate states this whole time. While Amanda Bynes was living with Dan rumors are they were also sexually active leading to Bynes getting multiple abortions. She has had Twitter posts about things suggesting this and it was all part of her mental breakdown that lead to people brushing her off as nuts. She compared Dan to Harvey Weinstein. Victoria Justice got black balled for a while because she refused to sleep with Dan. This lead to her being phased out of Victorious which she was the main star of in favor of Ariana Grande and Liz Gillies getting the majority of screen time. Gillies who was dating and later married a friend of Dans who was like 36 and she was 16 when they met, likely grooming there. Rumors are that Ariana was more willing to "play the game" for Dan which Victoria was unwilling to do which lead to bigger breaks for Grande. McCurdy would mention how much special treatment Ariana got on Sam and Cat which she was never granted. Another blind item from the same guy who brought the Spears situation to light mentioned how an of age cast member (Victoria was one of the only of age cast) declined advances from a producer who had multiple under age relationships on the side. It later came out this blind item poster was a lawyer of one of the higher ups at the studio and had been proven right multiple times to give further credence to these items. Dan who would employ multiple pedophiles and would have friends 20 years older than a minor date. While having perverted scenes in his shows like a yogurt shot to Spears face, you have to question would he be above sleeping with these kids or assaulting them? The whole thing is truly disturbing and it is amazing how some of these kids managed to grow up relatively normal (Miranda Cosgrove and Victoria Justice) while others suffer from alcoholism, drug abuse, mental breakdowns (Drake Bell and Amanda Bynes). Not all these kids had the same experiences but one has to question how much is still out there we don't know because people are still reluctant to speak out. Horrific stories in this thing, but I think the documentary is poorly focused and not generally well made. Despite what everyone has infers and all of these rumors that you mention, the general sense of this whole production is that Dan Schneider was a dick, and not a pleasant guy to work for, and possibly abusive but only just bad enough that he didn't cross certain lines. Meanwhile, only one of the three episodes is dedicated to the two separate guys that were actually horrific abusers in the worst possible ways... and Josh Peck, who is remarkably open about what happened to him, even says that the only person in the industry who was really there for him and supportive of him was Dan Schneider. And as for all of those suggestive moments on camera, yeah, that shit is gross, but also a lot of it is strung together to make it seem like everyone and anyone would know what it was suggestive of, while really some of it feels like sexually inappropriate, but also a lot of it can easily be chalked up to just kids finding gross or awkward things being funny. 10 year olds laugh at things like people falling into slime, or somebody getting hit in the face, or someone getting soaked by water, or some biting their own toenails, etc. There's legitimately horrible and illuminating stuff in here, but there's also a lot of other stuff that feels unnecessary to even bother with taking up the runtime. And the two ladies are talking heads in this thing that don't belong here add nothing. Everybody else has some insight or actual experience with this story, and meanwhile there are two women who are noted as 'Culture writers' who talk as if they have some authority on not only the facts of what happened, but also the morality of everything. It's a compelling story, but poorly made piece for a number of reasons, and like a lot of these kinds of documentaries it's just simply too long. Had they focused this thin into one feature length piece instead of 3 episodes of a series, it might have been more effective. Doing the deep dive I did after watching it was a lot more interesting as they would go into far more detail about the meat of the documentary and stuff that they probably couldn't speak on whether legally or because they were just rumors idk, like the Dan sleeping with Bynes and impregnating an under age Jaime Lynn Spears. The two women who worked under Dan, that entire story was needless once you got into the sexual predators of the thing. Sorry but you getting paid so little and having to deal with the "boys club" aspect of the writers room isn't at all necessary. The same goes for one of the child actors being replaced. That shit is just show business, sucks to happen to a kid trying to get his family out of a tough situation but its not the companies responsibility to just keep you employeed. It would have been far better had the whole thing focused on what happened with Drake Bell and had gotten interviews with the likes of Amanda Bynes or Jenette McCurdy to go deeper into things Dan actually did other than some former child actors that likely were doing this documentary as a form of a paycheck or get attention. I only was aware of one of them.
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Post by masterofallgoons on Apr 1, 2024 19:37:32 GMT
You're telling me that Michael Bay produced movies weren't creative enough to come up with 2 different names (or actors) for a similar character? Maybe Travis van Winkle is the single greatest method actor of all time? If you dare call him anything but Trent, you disrupt his process and he'll body slam you into the craft services table and fuck your girlfriend. I've seen that dude in about a half dozen Hallmark movies, and he was in that Arnold Schwarzenegger Netflix show... and while I refuse to look it up, I'm now convinced that his character was named Trent in every one of those. I'm gonna write a modern day adaptation of Rip Van Winkle where the character is even more dickish, and cast him as the title character in: Trent Van Winkle...coming soon...
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Post by Rey Kahuka on Apr 1, 2024 19:46:43 GMT
I haven't seen this one yet, and I'm sure I will, but your post triggered two things in my mind. First, the part about collateral damage in these movies is always fascinating to me, mostly due to the absurdly inept way the DC movies handled it. I'm sure we've talked about it before, but Man of Steel has Superman and Zod tossing each other through the entire city, killing tens of thousands of people in the process at least. Naturally, that garnered a little backlash as Superman would normally want to preserve life at all costs, rather than just not have it even register as something for him to consider. So what do they do after that movie? In Justice League, in every scene of destruction, there's some red shirt in the background saying something to the effect of, "it's OK, it's after 5 pm, downtown is empty!." It's so stupid, they'd be better off just letting Superman murder everyone and it would make more sense. Second, Godzilla's wrestling moves. So I rewatched Garreth Edwards' 2014 entry recently, which I didn't like the first and only other time I had seen it. Killing off Bryan Cranston and centering the movie around human tree Aaron Johnson was a terrible idea and the movie sinks once he becomes the focus. But, the movie actually does an incredible job at showing the true scale of Godzilla. He's largely shot from the ground up, everyone feels the weight of every lumbering footstep. He moves slowly which adds to the idea of how powerful he is; because he moves slowly, he moves with purpose. As the sequels go on, it's always an aerial or wide shot, he's running around, jumping all over the place, smiling at King Kong, etc. Yeah, first Godzilla v Kong is definitely the most fun of the first 3 entries, but they're basically the same characters in terms of their abilities in that movie, which inherently makes it less interesting. Plus, by shooting him this way, the entire scale and power evaporates and makes for a less threatening scenario. Maybe that's just me. We can all agree killing off Cranston and focusing on ATJ is ass backwards, but I just love grounding the concept, literally and figuratively. The kid in you loves the creatures tossing each other around, but the adult in you wants more out of a story. They've gotten further away from that with each entry, and GxK is the logical conclusion to that. Creatures of that size running around, jumping, performing complex h2h maneuvers. You're just watching a video game now. Maybe they'll use the Monarch show to give us the human side, as the movies continue down the path to lunacy. There's this incredible flashback scene in Monarch where one of the main characters (a teacher in San Francisco) is on the bridge as Godzilla lumbers through and destroys the bridge. She barely evacuates the bus she was on before it falls into the water, surely killing people who were close to her. Godzilla looks over, makes eye contact with her and roars like the fucking world is ending, and it may as well be for that character in that moment. It's one of the best scenes in any Godzilla property ever, whether you enjoy the Monarch series as a whole or not (I do). As far as the franchise goes, the sky is the limit when it comes to craziness. It's only a matter of time before Godzilla does a combination tail whip/roundhouse kick, or one of the exposition machine humans says, "Before they canceled funding to the project, we were able to build Kong a shotgun." I've said after the last three of these now that I can't imagine where they go from here, but they keep finding a next level of nonsense to go to. My wife (who doesn't like these movies at all and was actively annoyed at how much my son and I liked it) said, "Next time they have to come up with a monster with three heads or something," thinking that would be the height of ridiculousness. I reminded her they already did that two movies ago, and King Ghidorah is a staple of Godzilla lore. Next up will probably be a mashup with the Independence Day franchise, featuring Kong throwing flying saucers like frisbees. Not gonna lie, I'd watch that. That said, I can't stress enough to you guys how amazing Godzilla Minus One is. GxK is pure schlock, Minus One is the opposite. It's pure human drama with Godzilla as a backdrop. I posted some quick thoughts a few months ago, but I may have to go into a full spoiler review later. Put it this way, my wife agreed that it was a good movie.
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Post by klawrencio79 on Apr 1, 2024 19:55:35 GMT
I haven't seen this one yet, and I'm sure I will, but your post triggered two things in my mind. First, the part about collateral damage in these movies is always fascinating to me, mostly due to the absurdly inept way the DC movies handled it. I'm sure we've talked about it before, but Man of Steel has Superman and Zod tossing each other through the entire city, killing tens of thousands of people in the process at least. Naturally, that garnered a little backlash as Superman would normally want to preserve life at all costs, rather than just not have it even register as something for him to consider. So what do they do after that movie? In Justice League, in every scene of destruction, there's some red shirt in the background saying something to the effect of, "it's OK, it's after 5 pm, downtown is empty!." It's so stupid, they'd be better off just letting Superman murder everyone and it would make more sense. Second, Godzilla's wrestling moves. So I rewatched Garreth Edwards' 2014 entry recently, which I didn't like the first and only other time I had seen it. Killing off Bryan Cranston and centering the movie around human tree Aaron Johnson was a terrible idea and the movie sinks once he becomes the focus. But, the movie actually does an incredible job at showing the true scale of Godzilla. He's largely shot from the ground up, everyone feels the weight of every lumbering footstep. He moves slowly which adds to the idea of how powerful he is; because he moves slowly, he moves with purpose. As the sequels go on, it's always an aerial or wide shot, he's running around, jumping all over the place, smiling at King Kong, etc. Yeah, first Godzilla v Kong is definitely the most fun of the first 3 entries, but they're basically the same characters in terms of their abilities in that movie, which inherently makes it less interesting. Plus, by shooting him this way, the entire scale and power evaporates and makes for a less threatening scenario. Maybe that's just me. We can all agree killing off Cranston and focusing on ATJ is ass backwards, but I just love grounding the concept, literally and figuratively. The kid in you loves the creatures tossing each other around, but the adult in you wants more out of a story. They've gotten further away from that with each entry, and GxK is the logical conclusion to that. Creatures of that size running around, jumping, performing complex h2h maneuvers. You're just watching a video game now. Maybe they'll use the Monarch show to give us the human side, as the movies continue down the path to lunacy. There's this incredible flashback scene in Monarch where one of the main characters (a teacher in San Francisco) is on the bridge as Godzilla lumbers through and destroys the bridge. She barely evacuates the bus she was on before it falls into the water, surely killing people who were close to her. Godzilla looks over, makes eye contact with her and roars like the fucking world is ending, and it may as well be for that character in that moment. It's one of the best scenes in any Godzilla property ever, whether you enjoy the Monarch series as a whole or not (I do). As far as the franchise goes, the sky is the limit when it comes to craziness. It's only a matter of time before Godzilla does a combination tail whip/roundhouse kick, or one of the exposition machine humans says, "Before they canceled funding to the project, we were able to build Kong a shotgun." I've said after the last three of these now that I can't imagine where they go from here, but they keep finding a next level of nonsense to go to. My wife (who doesn't like these movies at all and was actively annoyed at how much my son and I liked it) said, "Next time they have to come up with a monster with three heads or something," thinking that would be the height of ridiculousness. I reminded her they already did that two movies ago, and King Ghidorah is a staple of Godzilla lore. Next up will probably be a mashup with the Independence Day franchise, featuring Kong throwing flying saucers like frisbees. Not gonna lie, I'd watch that. That said, I can't stress enough to you guys how amazing Godzilla Minus One is. GxK is pure schlock, Minus One is the opposite. It's pure human drama with Godzilla as a backdrop. I posted some quick thoughts a few months ago, but I may have to go into a full spoiler review later. Put it this way, my wife agreed that it was a good movie. Yeah dude, Minus One is high atop my list, I am definitely going to watch it and I've heard nothing but glowing things. And totally fair re: the "fun" aspects of these movies. Godzilla 2014 is impressive in terms of how massive he appears to be and that's all in how he's shot. But Godzilla vs Kong is the more watchable movie, by leaps and bounds (see what I did there!).
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Post by masterofallgoons on Apr 1, 2024 19:57:25 GMT
Horrific stories in this thing, but I think the documentary is poorly focused and not generally well made. Despite what everyone has infers and all of these rumors that you mention, the general sense of this whole production is that Dan Schneider was a dick, and not a pleasant guy to work for, and possibly abusive but only just bad enough that he didn't cross certain lines. Meanwhile, only one of the three episodes is dedicated to the two separate guys that were actually horrific abusers in the worst possible ways... and Josh Peck, who is remarkably open about what happened to him, even says that the only person in the industry who was really there for him and supportive of him was Dan Schneider. And as for all of those suggestive moments on camera, yeah, that shit is gross, but also a lot of it is strung together to make it seem like everyone and anyone would know what it was suggestive of, while really some of it feels like sexually inappropriate, but also a lot of it can easily be chalked up to just kids finding gross or awkward things being funny. 10 year olds laugh at things like people falling into slime, or somebody getting hit in the face, or someone getting soaked by water, or some biting their own toenails, etc. There's legitimately horrible and illuminating stuff in here, but there's also a lot of other stuff that feels unnecessary to even bother with taking up the runtime. And the two ladies are talking heads in this thing that don't belong here add nothing. Everybody else has some insight or actual experience with this story, and meanwhile there are two women who are noted as 'Culture writers' who talk as if they have some authority on not only the facts of what happened, but also the morality of everything. It's a compelling story, but poorly made piece for a number of reasons, and like a lot of these kinds of documentaries it's just simply too long. Had they focused this thin into one feature length piece instead of 3 episodes of a series, it might have been more effective. Doing the deep dive I did after watching it was a lot more interesting as they would go into far more detail about the meat of the documentary and stuff that they probably couldn't speak on whether legally or because they were just rumors idk, like the Dan sleeping with Bynes and impregnating an under age Jaime Lynn Spears. The two women who worked under Dan, that entire story was needless once you got into the sexual predators of the thing. Sorry but you getting paid so little and having to deal with the "boys club" aspect of the writers room isn't at all necessary. The same goes for one of the child actors being replaced. That shit is just show business, sucks to happen to a kid trying to get his family out of a tough situation but its not the companies responsibility to just keep you employeed. It would have been far better had the whole thing focused on what happened with Drake Bell and had gotten interviews with the likes of Amanda Bynes or Jenette McCurdy to go deeper into things Dan actually did other than some former child actors that likely were doing this documentary as a form of a paycheck or get attention. I only was aware of one of them. A lot of these people and the show they were in were on the air well after I was a kid watching Nickeloden, so I'm not really familiar with a lot of them, but I don't think anyone was trying to get attention or money. A lot of the kids who are now grown up and talking about this are not in the industry at all anymore. I don't doubt that anyone speaking out is doing so honestly. And the two female writers who felt disrespected are within reason to feel that way. A lot of what they talked about was fucked up, and maybe crossed some lines into illegality. They can make a good case for sexual harassment and unfair pay and other abuse stuff. But yeah... it all pales in comparison to what is discussed by Drake Bell, and to an extraordinarily lopsided ratio. It's not even in the same ballpark. The problem with this documentary series is that the ratio is lopsided in the opposite direction. It's essentially the 'Dan Schnieder documentary' and they try to make more out of his abuses (and there were abuses) than the much more heinous ones, when really he should have been used more like a framing device. Some of that stuff is significant, but not as significant as the other stuff. I don't necessarily wanna litigate the differences in degrees of horrible abuse, but there is a clear difference here and the more heinous behavior deserves more of the attention. As far as the other rumors and allegations go, they seem a little far fetched, but not impossible.
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Post by masterofallgoons on Apr 1, 2024 20:06:30 GMT
We can all agree killing off Cranston and focusing on ATJ is ass backwards, but I just love grounding the concept, literally and figuratively. The kid in you loves the creatures tossing each other around, but the adult in you wants more out of a story. They've gotten further away from that with each entry, and GxK is the logical conclusion to that. Creatures of that size running around, jumping, performing complex h2h maneuvers. You're just watching a video game now. Maybe they'll use the Monarch show to give us the human side, as the movies continue down the path to lunacy. There's this incredible flashback scene in Monarch where one of the main characters (a teacher in San Francisco) is on the bridge as Godzilla lumbers through and destroys the bridge. She barely evacuates the bus she was on before it falls into the water, surely killing people who were close to her. Godzilla looks over, makes eye contact with her and roars like the fucking world is ending, and it may as well be for that character in that moment. It's one of the best scenes in any Godzilla property ever, whether you enjoy the Monarch series as a whole or not (I do). As far as the franchise goes, the sky is the limit when it comes to craziness. It's only a matter of time before Godzilla does a combination tail whip/roundhouse kick, or one of the exposition machine humans says, "Before they canceled funding to the project, we were able to build Kong a shotgun." I've said after the last three of these now that I can't imagine where they go from here, but they keep finding a next level of nonsense to go to. My wife (who doesn't like these movies at all and was actively annoyed at how much my son and I liked it) said, "Next time they have to come up with a monster with three heads or something," thinking that would be the height of ridiculousness. I reminded her they already did that two movies ago, and King Ghidorah is a staple of Godzilla lore. Next up will probably be a mashup with the Independence Day franchise, featuring Kong throwing flying saucers like frisbees. Not gonna lie, I'd watch that. That said, I can't stress enough to you guys how amazing Godzilla Minus One is. GxK is pure schlock, Minus One is the opposite. It's pure human drama with Godzilla as a backdrop. I posted some quick thoughts a few months ago, but I may have to go into a full spoiler review later. Put it this way, my wife agreed that it was a good movie. Yeah dude, Minus One is high atop my list, I am definitely going to watch it and I've heard nothing but glowing things. And totally fair re: the "fun" aspects of these movies. Godzilla 2014 is impressive in terms of how massive he appears to be and that's all in how he's shot. But Godzilla vs Kong is the more watchable movie, by leaps and bounds (see what I did there!). It annoys the shit out of me that it's not available to stream anywhere. Apparently ToHo studios had a non-compete clause with with Warner Bros and agreed to not release a Godzilla movie in the same year as Warners, which evidently means both theatrically and on streaming... which is so dumb. I don't see any way that the love for Godzilla Minus One would do anything but support the general audience's interest in seeing more Godzilla. It's very silly. They could have turned it into some kind of promotion, added a category on the Max app to stream however many Godzilla movies or whatever... it just seems so foolish and short sighted. Anyway... I probably watch this one when it hits streaming. I kinda liked the 2014 Godzilla. That sense of scale and intesnity worked on me to some degree. I saw the previous on in the theater and was underwhelmed despite thinking it retained some of that scale since I can barely remember if there was even an attempt at a plot. I pretty much felt Godzilla vs Kong was waste of time. It was aggressively stupid, but mostly not in a good way, and I thought the effects were worse than they were in the previous movies.. and the whole 'hollow earth' thing was really stupid, the attempts at humor never landed, and the fights were bland and over the top at the same time. But I'll probably see this one anyway eventually.
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Post by masterofallgoons on Apr 3, 2024 16:18:25 GMT
I kinda forgot that I also watched 12 Mighty Orphans on that flight home. I know we all made fun of it several pages back, but it wasn't terrible. Just entirely average. Everything about it was pretty much exactly what you'd expect, and you can feel which parts of the story are actually true and which parts are just typical screenwritery moves for an 'inspirational' movie. Everyone grows and learns in all the ways you'd expect, the good guys get a favorable ruling in the most ludicrous way possible at exactly the right moment, the genteel and affable old guy with a drinking problem just decides to get sober during half time of the big game, the bad guy gets his comeuppance at the end, the team learns that they don't need anyone else and that they are now a surrogate family, and everything works out for everyone. It's shot entirely in sepia tone, everyone is very folksy, and all of the main boys' troubles and antics are essentially innocent.
It's fine. It couldn't be more fine. It's nothing other than just fine.
Good cast though, and Luke Wilson's accent isn't as bad as it seemed in the trailer... even though he's really not a good actor. I enjoyed seeing some of the legendary actors mixed with some less starry character actors like Vanessa Shaw and Newman (Wayne Knight) hamming it up as the bad guy, and then legendary comedian Ron White as the sheriff... I know he's done movies, but I don't ever recall seeing him act before. It's not much of a part, but it's just funny and very subversive to see a guy like that in a movie like this.
But yeah. It's fine. There isn't another word to encapsulate how adequately unremarkable this movie is.... just.. fine.
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