Bast at the Movies v2.0
Since I don't have a thread to keep track of shit I've watched, now I do again.
Batman (1989):
For years, I've had people telling me I need to see this. Fuck those people. This was the stupidest fucking superhero movie I've ever seen, and I've seen Spider Man, which has nickelback or default or one of those other shitty bands on the soundtrack. Here's a quick rundown of the stupid shit in this movie:
1. The Joker taints all kinds of chemical products in Gotham to give everyone his characteristic face. He appears on TV informing that people will die if they use any number of chemical combinations. Lots of people die, others are smelly. Then, he appears on TV announcing that he'll give away 20 million dollars to prove he's better than Batman (who was never all that well liked by the people of Gotham to begin with). His intention is to gas all of these people, but he shows up with his gassing balloons and gives away money anyway. He could have just, you know, kept the money. Batman should have let him get away with that particular scheme, considering you'd have to be a fucking idiot to go there in the first place, and the scheme would have cost the Joker 20 million and only eliminated the thousands of stupid people.
2. Batman and Vicki are hanging from a ledge. The Joker is on the ledge. What does he do? He dances around, and then stomps on bricks that they aren't hanging from instead of their knuckles.
3. Vicki sees Bruce Wayne get shot in the arm. Bruce shrugs it off. She doesn't suspect anything odd about this.
4. When Batman drops into the art gallery/restaraunt he pulls out a bigass rope gun thing and puts it 3 inches from the Joker's face. It shoots ropes to the left and right, and the Joker is left unharmed. The Joker has no super powers, had Batman instead pulled out a handgun, he could have killed the Joker and that would have been it.
5. Batman can design and build a plane that has robe grabbers to carry off the dangerous gassing floats. He also puts machine guns on it. The robe grabbers work perfectly, but the machine guns can't kill the Joker for some reason even with some kind of target lock.
6. Rather than coming up with semi-intelligent schemes to defeat Batman and/or take over the city, the Joker chases Bruce Wayne's girlfriend even though he has a girlfriend that could be her sister already.
In other words, the Joker is Skeletor and Mumm-Ra class stupid. Batman is barely smarter, even though he has all the toys. Did Joel Schumacher really kill this franchise, or was it just too stupid to die before he got his hands on it?
Vanishing Point (1997):
A watered down TV version of the 1971 classic. It still has a lot of cool cars (particularly the white '71 Dodge Challenger that Viggo Mortensen drives, and a black '68 Dodge Charger sent to chase him). However, the plot is much, much more PC. In the original, the protagonist was a pill-popping ex-cop, ex-race driver who only wanted to deliver a '71 Challenger from Denver to San Francisco in under 15 hours for money. The movie was nihilist/ existentialist as hell, from the endless reckless driving to the naked chick on the motorcycle in the desert. This was weak. Viggo was an ex-army ranger, ex-race driver who had converted to catholicism and was trying to get from Arizona to Idaho in time to see his daughter's birth. The naked chick on the motorcycle was not even naked. The blind black DJ passing him messages even before he was being chased was replaced by Jason Priestly, a conspiracy theorist DJ. Selling snakes to crazy revivalists in the desert was replaced by selling snakes to the Magic Indian. The ending was the biggest insult/cop out, though I won't spoil it for those who have yet to see the original. Final verdict, see the original. It's better. They're remaking it again as a big-budget studio movie sometime in the next couple of years. Expect the 1971 one to continue to be better.
Last Action Hero (1993):
I have mixed feelings on this movie. On the one hand, the frame story with the kid is annoying as fuck. I wanted him to get killed always. The "magic ticket" was also stupid. However, the movies within the movie (Jack Slater 3 and 4) were fucking awesome. Arnold knows he's out to be as ridiculous as all fuck, and I love him for it. There are cheesy one-liners, a hot chick or 10, and excessive violence. I was thoroughly entertained until they left the movie to chase the bad guy into the real world. Then it got pretty gay.
Interesting flick. Directed by Terence Malick (who later did The Thin Red Line, his first movie in 20 years), this has Martin Sheen as a quasi-James Dean figure who casually persuades a 15 year old girl to come with him after killing her father. She reminisces about how many lawmen get killed on their trip into Montana as if she were talking about last week's grocery list. It held my attention, and it was a very unconventional film overall.
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(6/8/05 9:03 pm) Reply
Re: Bast at the Movies v2.0
That's why I file Batman away in my "why Tim Burton is a Fucking Hack" dumpster right next to his version of Plannet of the Apes.
Don't Blame Me, I Voted For King Steve
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Re: Bast at the Movies v2.0
Shocked, and appalled. I've never heard such a scathing review of what is undoubtable the best Batman movie in the series. Unbelieveable.
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Re: Bast at the Movies v2.0
In an attempt to be open-minded, what did I not see in Batman that everyone else saw? There were a few stylistic choices that looked cool, though that was about all I got out of it.
One of those movies of the film canon that movie nerds like to rave about. Has Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Jack Nicholson. Fonda and Hopper are hippie bikers. They do a lot of drugs. They get thrown in jail with Nicholson, a local lawyer/drunk on their way to Mardi Gras. After they're let out, they go into a diner. The next day, the local rednecks kill Jack for no apparent reason. They go anyway. Then the direction style shifts from lazy documentary style 35mm to frantic 16 or 8mm showing Fonda and Hopper wandering around St. Louis Cemetary #1 with two New Orleans whores in some kind of drug haze. I was basically bored for the first 45 minutes before they met Jack Nicholson, who put on some kind of crazy and convincing accent, then bored again after he died until the camera style switched from boring to weird. After that, they go back the way they came, and two more rednecks shoot Fonda and Hopper from their truck for no apparent reason.
I think I was mainly bored for the first hour because I already know what hippies do, which is hang out at communes and smoke a lot of weed. This was probably surprising and shocking in 1969, but it came off as dated, along with most of the hippie music in the movie. Jack was apparently acting his ass off here, and Hopper might have been, since I'm used to seeing the hyperactive Hopper of Apocalypse Now. Had the subject matter been different, the directoral style would have been fine, but I wasn't learning anything new for most of the movie. I also don't think I like the implied message, that "free" people will always be killed for no reason by people who are afraid of them. Mostly the part about how dirty hippes are actually "free" and I'm not.
Re: Bast at the Movies v2.0
I think that you just overanalyzed the whole thing. I've never even noticed any of the things that you mentioned. I think that Batman is an excellent movie.
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Re: Bast at the Movies v2.0
I think I expected Joker to be badass and evil, with Batman being smart and kickass. I only like stupid villains on cartoons and/or comics.
Re: Bast at the Movies v2.0
I think you didn't like easy rider for the same reason you didn't like most of the drive from Montana to Tennessee, you are unable to relax and enjoy the scenery, you always have to be doing something. Also: All the weed they smoked in the movie was real.
And I enjoyed the parts of the montana drive where there was something to see. Western Montana is awesome, but eastern montana until you get to the black hills sucks, and then the black hills to Minnesota sucks more.
Re: Bast at the Movies v2.0
Pulp Fiction (1994): Or, Bast ruminates on a film he's seen before.
I convinced mom to rent this movie in 1995. About the time the holiest of holies was mentioned, mom had become so horrified that she made us turn it off and forbid us to ever see it. Naturally, I borrowed it from my best friend when I was in high school sometime in 96 or 97 and watched it on a sick day. That was the last time I'd seen it in its full, unedited entirety, until today. Since then I've become something of a Tarantino affictionado. I saw Jackie Brown at the cheap theatre. I saw Reservoir Dogs on a very early dvd, and bought the laserdisc on ebay. I even hunted down True Romance. Finally, Kill Bill vol. 1 and 2, and Four Rooms. Now, Pulp Fiction again, all these years later.
The snappy dialogue has lost some of its luster due to every retard repeating it and referencing it. Not much though, it's still good dialogue. The fallout from Tarantino's resurrection of old careers is now very apparent. Without this movie, Travolta would never have been able to make Battlefield Earth. Sam Jackson is still magnetic, and chews plenty of scenery. Bruce Willis still kicks ass, and it's clear his later roles were a side-effect of this one. Mr. Wolf is great too. The restaraunt/dance scene with Uma was the weakest part of the movie when it came out, and it stands out today as the masturbatory scene Tarantino had to know it was. It's also the most sorely dated. I can still smile at a royale with cheese, but after every also-ran in the 90s tried to dance like that, I was looking at my clock the whole time.
All in all, I know this is a movie that is still leaving its mark on movies today. However, if I were to pick a Tarantino movie to sit down and watch, this would not be it (unless I were allowed to fast forward though the entire Uma sequence).
As of now, I rank Tarantino movies on the "gross watchability" scale as follows:
1. Reservoir Dogs. No fat, all lean.
2. Kill Bill, both volumes. Oozes cool and style, and nobody has ripped it off yet except for increasingly annoying commercials stealing from the soundtrack.
3. True Romance. Great character actors bring this Tarantino script to life. A great movie that not many people know about.
4. Pulp Fiction, for reasons above.
5. Four Rooms, because he didn't direct the whole thing.
Honorable mentions go to all of the English-language Robert Rodriguez movies that don't involve children. They're related, but not that closely.
Re: Bast at the Movies v2.0
I've heard good things about True Romance, and even know a good deal of the story. I will probably see it over this summer, or I will borrow it from my friend in the fall at the latest.
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Re: Bast at the Movies v2.0
See it soon. It's worth seeing for Gary Oldman, the Dennis Hopper/Walken scene, and the scene where James Gandolfini beats up dude's wife alone.
A half decent action/horror pic. I really wanted to like this more than I did, but everything about it seemed like Aliens, only cheaper and worse. A bunch of people crash land on a planet with no night due to having three suns, except every 22 years there's an eclipse, and total night. Problem is, a bunch of aliens come out of the caves whenever there's an eclipse and kill stuff. Vin Diesel has some kind of eye modifications to where he's great in the dark but useless in the light. The aliens look CG and lame.
Interesting flick, and exceedingly well written. I had a hard time watching it in many places because the thoughts going through the main character's head were painfully familiar, and the stupid actions he usually took were all too realistic. There were a ton of awkward moments punctuated by humor and then more awkwardness. I would say that I didn't so much enjoy this flick because it was too eerily familiar.
At least I now get all the Favreau references on that one Sopranos episode.
Re: Bast at the Movies v2.0
Collateral Damage (2002):
Arnold's next to last movie before becoming governor. It also sucked. Truth be told, the fact that he only killed two people in the course of the entire movie makes me think it was written for Keanu Reeves or Will Smith. No one-liners, no humor, unless you count Leguizamo rapping, which I don't. The body count was painfully low. What the shit, people? Also, John Turturro, who is puerto rican, says he's canadian?
A pretty good action/fake history movie revolving around a treasure hoarded by the Knights Templar and the Freemasons.
Nicolas Cage's family has been hunting said treasure for about 6 generations, treasure supposedly buried by the very people who founded our country. He spends the movie hunting down various clues to the treasures whereabouts while staying one step ahead of a rival after the same treasure.
It's a pretty cool flick, even if the historical facts and the Secret Society information was stretched a bit. Over look a couple of other minor details in the acting, and you've got an amusing movie. I enjoyed.
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Re: Bast at the Movies v2.0
Land of the Dead: Entertaining, not a bad Romero movie, not his best, but not bad either. it's a lot less predictable than most horror movies, as I only called two character's deaths before they actually happened, also notably lacking was a romantic subplot. I really liked the dumb guy, maybe better than the main character. Dead Reckoning was fucking awesome. definately worth a watch if you're into zombie movies, or horror movies in general.
Re: Bast at the Movies v2.0
I'll mirror TQ's sentiments here. I enjoyed it, but it had a big "been there, done that" feeling. I didn't mind the absence of a romantic subplot, but I did mind the absence of any kickass characters. We all love the black cop in the original Dawn, and the cast is small enough to make the rest of the people memorable. Even Sex Machine gets retroactively cooler after seeing Dusk Til' Dawn. Day had some fun ones too. Everyone loves The Captain. He's crazy and loud and threatens to shoot people for no reason. The crazy scientist and Bub the Zombie are great too. None of that coolness is present here. Dennis Hopper was underused. He wasn't crazy, and he wasn't nearly evil enough. None of the main cast amused me, though Asia Argento was hot, and the one-eyed guy wasn't bad.
The zombies were up to Romero standards, however. He wisely made them move at slightly slower than normal speed, rather than jumping on the "REALLY FUCKING QUICK ZOMBIE" bandwagon a la 28 Days Later and the Dawn remake. What I think was missing was atmosphere. In the original Dawn, there was a definate feeling of dread in the air. Everyone had been living normally until recently, when everything became totally fucked. Day was great too, in that everything was progressively more fucked, and everyone was even more crazy. Here, things seem less fucked. The ranks of zombies are thinner somehow, which I'm not entirely clear on, considering the city's army wasn't nearly strong enough to go clear out the countryside (unless someone got smart and used nukes on the big cities, as was suggested in Dawn). Zombies seem more like a nuisance than an ever-present threat, and I don't like that. Nobody in Dawn or Day would have even considered staying on the mainland if they had the option.
I'm reluctant to even read more reviews, considering some idiots will go on and on about OMG HOPPER=BUSH, but overall I think this was a fun but far less memorable entry to the Romero canon.
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