Interference Random Movie Talk

[namkcuR]

I like Return Of The Jedi

 

[No spoken words]

Fucking Ewoks.

You get "It's a trap!" and "Oh, I'm afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational when your friends arrive" and "if you will not turn to the dark side the perhaps she will" mixed in with "yub-yub".

You little pricks.

 

[No spoken words]

I like Jedi but would rather have loved it, and it would not have taken much to make it a film I loved.

 

[namkcuR]

I tend to cut it a bit of slack, because it was the follow-up to The Empire Strikes Back.

Almost anything would be a step down after The Empire Strikes Back.

 

[LMP]

Fucking Ewoks.

You get "It's a trap!" and "Oh, I'm afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational when your friends arrive" and "if you will not turn to the dark side the perhaps she will" mixed in with "yub-yub".

You little pricks.

My problem with Jedi is that it has this odd imbalance between awesome and camp. The Ewoks are a great idea, but horribly executed and are played for laughs and merch, that's it. I'm not even going to get into the pussyification of Han Solo.

Other than that, it's a great film, but those factors keep it a notch below Star Wars and Empire for me.

 

[No spoken words]

I'm on record on this site with saying that Empire is the best action film of all time. It's still awesome, after all these years. And, just watching 3-PO have nervous breakdown after breakdown all film long is a crack up...."BUT SIIIRRRRRR!!!"

 

[LMP]

3-PO's the unspoken hero of Empire.

Another gripe about Jedi, what the fuck does Obi-Wan do? Just sit down on a log and tell Luke everything, and nothing else.

What happened to "If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine?"

Pretty much nothing.

 

[No spoken words]

I want to make a documentary about Lazarus' hatred of Spielberg.

 

[LMP]

It'll air right after Spielberg on Spielberg, just offering rebuttals to everything Stevie said.

 

[namkcuR]

R2D2 is the greatest cinematic role with no dialog in a non-silent film barring Silent Bob ever.

I think there is a point at which you have attatched so many qualifications to a statement that the statement loses meaning.

 

[No spoken words]

I re-watched Quick Change the other day. It was not as funny as I remembered, but, it still had some scenes and moments that cracked me up. Few people I know have watched it.

 

[Lancemc]

Well, I might have to call it a night folks, the night just went balls up.

Looks like I'll be playing nurse to my intoxicated roommate form here on out.

 

[MsMofoGone]

Invasion Of The Body Snatchers

Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Jeff Goldblum, Veronica Cartwright, and Leonard Nimoy



Now, here's some freaky stuff ... with an unexpected ending.

 

[lazarus]

It'll air right after Spielberg on Spielberg, just offering rebuttals to everything Stevie said.

Anytime.

"Lazarus on Spielberg". Ratings bonanza.

Also, Return of the Jedi can suck it. I will defend to the death the superiority of The Phantom Menace to this awful Muppet-Fest.

Example #1: Mark Hamill's haircut. Just...no.

Example #2: Harrison Ford. 20 pounds overweight, sleepwalks through role. What happened to the cool, rascally badass? He ain't in this film. His performance in the Jabba's palace scenes are unforgivably bad, and his Endor material is only a step above embarassing. The high school level love spat with Leia near the end of the film? Worse than any Anakin/Padme scene in the prequel trilogy.

Example #3: Carrie Fisher. Hopped up on prescription medication and almost delirious. See above. Jabba's Palace line: "Someone who LOVES you." Oh my god terrible.

Example #4: Max Rebo's band. Okay. If you can show me something in The Phantom Menace worse than the musical number in Jedi, you win a prize. Nope, there isn't one. As bad as Jar Jar Binks was, at least he wasn't a BLUE FUCKING ELEPHANT. Who the hell designed that unique, outlandish alien? A third grader?

Example #5: Salacious Crumb. Do I even need to explain this? Again, the little muppet laughter was more grating than any single moment from Jar Jar. Sure, he wasn't in the entire film, but bad enough to tarnish the entire thing.

Example #6: Boba Fett's death. First you have the supremely awkward physical comedy of Han Solo stumbling around the skiff barge, until he "accidentally" sets off Boba's jetpack, sending the bounty hunter to his doom in the Sarlacc pit, which burps after swallowing him. Right. And people were complaining about poop jokes in Episode 1?

Example #7: The Death Star. Yeah, we saw that in A New Hope. It was a pretty cool idea in that film. Second time around? A bit redundant. Did all the creative ideas get used up in Empire? Fucking lame. Compare the moment this one gets blown up to the same scene in A New Hope. Pretty fucking anticlimactic.

Example #8: Yoda and Obi-Wan. Yoda pretty much gives Luke the opposite advice he gave in Empire. Then it was "don't face Vader, stay here and complete your training". Now it's "you must defeat Vader to truly become a Jedi". Huh? Obi-Wan, as mentioned above, SITS ON A FUCKING LOG to blurt out a bunch of exposition to Luke. Needless to say, it's not a high point. Spielberg loved this so much he used it in A.I. when the robot voiced by Ben Kingley explains the fucking movie to Haley Joel Osment. It didn't work there either.

Example #9: Ewoks. What can I say here? Again, as mentioned above, not a bad idea in theory. But considering this was originally supposed to be an Wookie planet, it could have been so much better.

Example #10: Inept Stormtroopers. Okay, they weren't exactly great shots in the last two films either, but you got the sense they were hot on the trail, always right behind our heroes. In this film, they're like silent movie boobs, tripping, getting knocked out by sticks and stones. This is how the Empire maintained their stranglehold on the galaxy? Who WERE they able to defeat?

Do I need to go on? Yeah there's a lot of cool moments with the Emperor and Vader. That takes up about 1/10 of this film. With The Phantom Menace, even if you took out all the Jar Jar material and a few bad scenes with li'l Anakin, you've still got a shitload of cool scenes spread throughout the ENTIRE film. ROTJ, on the other hand, really only comes alive in the final Death Star scenes and the space battle. That just ain't enough.

 

[LMP]

You can argue that Episodes III, IV, and V make the best trilogy, or set of 3 movies. The last hour of III is nearly perfect.

I've read various interviews with Star Wars producer Gary Kurtz talking about the Jedi that could've been:

1. Last battle on Coruscant
2. 2 Death Stars (now that would've been cool)
3. Obi-Wan would've come back from the Netherworld of the Force to help Luke fight the Emperor. I'm not too sold on this idea, but at least Obi-Wan does something.
4. Luke and Leia weren't brother and sister, the Sequel Trilogy (VII, VIII, and IX) would've been Luke searching for said sister.
5. Han, Lando, Leia, Chewie, 3PO, R2 basically start a rebellion on Coruscant instead of the fucking Ewoks.

Still, it's all about Lucas' vision, but when it involves fucking Jar Jar Binks and half-witted Wookie midgets running around killing stormtroopers with twigs to the head... there's something wrong there.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

For fall I'm looking forward to Gone Baby Gone (directed by Ben Affleck, starring Casey Affleck, filmed in Boston), the new Clooney movie Michael Clayton, and Jesse James.

I saw 3:10 To Yuma last night, not something I was all that gung ho about seeing but I thought it was quite good. Russell Crowe's performance was fantastic, he is really such a talented actor. Same for Christian Bale. I would probably give it 4 out of 5 stars. The review I read in my local paper was very good, but it seems it is getting some bad ones.

It has one of the prettiest women I have ever seen in movies in it, Vinessa Shaw. I had no idea who she was and she really doesn't look like this in Yuma- her hair is dark brown.

 

[LMP]

Lazarus, I cannot stress enough how much you need to see Empire of the Sun. It could go into your short "Good Spielberg Film" list.

 

[elevation2u]

a question to all film geeks is there such thing
as a good scary/horror movie?
if so, please recommend.

 

[lazarus]

a question to all film geeks is there such thing
as a good scary/horror movie?
if so, please recommend.

The Shining and The Exorcist are probably the two most "prestigious" horror films in terms of the directors that made them, and how shocking they were to audiences while still utilizing big name actors and production values. I imagine much of the effect in The Exorcist look dated now, but the film takes such a long time grounding you in its reality, when the shocks come they really hit home.

The Shining contains some of the strangest imagery I've ever seen, really disturbing stuff. Jack Nicholson is totally over the top, but it's part of what makes it such a fun ride.

 

[LMP]

a question to all film geeks is there such thing
as a good scary/horror movie?
if so, please recommend.

The Exorcist, The Thing, The Shining, Halloween, Alien.

 

[Lancemc]

Alien is easily the best horror film I've ever seen.

 

[LMP]

Some of the old Hammer Films, with Vincent Price, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee is some really disturbing stuff. Kind of like the "Don't" trailer from Grindhouse.

 

[elevation2u]

I've seen Shining, Thing, Exorcist, Halloween, Children of the Corn, Psycho, It yada yada yada.

I have no clue about the Hammer Films I will imdb it later.

 

[Lancemc]

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

According to Shia Lebouf.

 

[elevated_u2_fan]

^ sounds about as dumb as Attack Of The Clones...

a question to all film geeks is there such thing
as a good scary/horror movie?
if so, please recommend.

Jacob's Ladder ftw...

There are only 2 or 3 really "scary moments" but man are they disturbing...

 

[lazarus]

^ sounds about as dumb as Attack Of The Clones...



Jacob's Ladder ftw...

There are only 2 or 3 really "scary moments" but man are they disturbing...

Those people shaking their faces back in forth in the car that tries to run him down--that's nightmare inducing material.

I don't know if this really classifies as a "horror" film but it's one unique head trip.

 

[elevated_u2_fan]

I agree, it's not really a horror movie in the strictest sense but I think it bothered me more than most conventional horror movies.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

I love Viggo. He's naked again

By Gina Piccalo
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

September 11, 2007

AS Viggo Mortensen and director David Cronenberg plotted the unforgettable bathhouse knife fight in their new crime thriller, "Eastern Promises," Cronenberg told the actor he wanted realism and "body-ness." The director wanted to challenge his audience to really experience the intimacy of such violence.

"Well, it's obvious," Mortensen told him, "I have to play this naked."

Boy does he. And Cronenberg captures every clammy square inch of Mortensen's well-toned flesh as it's pummeled and slashed and slammed into the unforgiving bathhouse tiles by two clothed real-life professional fighters, turning an otherwise excruciating four minutes of film into a quintessential Cronenberg statement.

"Eastern Promises," a Focus Features release opening Friday in L.A. and in 1,500 theaters nationwide on Sept. 21, explores the fine line between fragility and brutality, humanity and horror in the lives of three Londoners: Russian mob driver and sometime "fixer" Nikolai Luzhin (Mortensen); London midwife Anna Khitrova (Naomi Watts), who is striving to unite an orphaned baby with her Russian family; and mob boss Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), who hides his sex slavery trade behind the guise of a grandfatherly restaurateur.

The film is Cronenberg's first collaboration with Mortensen since their 2005 Oscar-nominated "A History of Violence," a critical and commercial hit that fans of Cronenberg's previous work -- "Dead Ringers," "Naked Lunch" and "The Fly," among them -- considered surprisingly accessible. It's also a tough act to follow.

So far, reviews have been strong, praising Mortensen's complete immersion in the role -- adapting his body language and perfecting the accent -- calling the performance "brilliant," and even "Oscar-caliber." Indeed, Focus Features' decision to open the film in mid-September, traditionally a dead period for serious films, could give "Eastern Promises" a jump on the glut of performance-heavy fare coming in October.

And despite its disturbing subject matter and memorable fight scene, the film could prove even more commercial than "A History of Violence." It has just three scenes of violence. But the director gives each throat-slice, each blood pool a natural, three-dimensional effect.

"I have a very existential approach to the human body," Cronenberg said. "I take bodies seriously, [as if] I'm actually photographing the essence of this person."

"Unless you have a story this profound, it doesn't matter how good anything looks," added Mortensen. "Then you just get an exercise in brutality. That's what I like about his films. It's like real life."

Mortensen is only the second actor in Cronenberg's 30-odd-year career to collaborate twice with the director. (Jeremy Irons is the other, having starred as twin gynecologists in 1988's "Dead Ringers" and as French diplomat Rene Gallimard in 1993's "M. Butterfly.") The affinity between Mortensen and Cronenberg was evident as the two friends deconstructed the "Eastern Promises" naked fight scene recently, sitting opposite each other in the director's fashionable Beverly Hills hotel room, volleying tongue-in-cheek gibes, often finishing each other's thoughts.

Still, Cronenberg pointed out that it took some convincing to get Mortensen to agree to the part of Nikolai.

"He plays hard to get," the director said.

"I'm always very reticent until I have a handle on it," Mortensen said. "I wanted to make sure I had the proper time to prepare."

Mortensen researches his characters exhaustively. To understand mobster turned small-town family man Joey in "A History of Violence," he took a road trip through the Midwest and spent time recording costar Maria Bello's uncle, a Philadelphia native, to nail his accent.

For "Eastern Promises," Mortensen set out alone for Moscow, St. Petersburg and the Ural Mountain region of Siberia, spending weeks driving around without a translator. (The actor speaks Danish and Spanish fluently and can get by in four other languages.) Mortensen studied the gangs of the vory v zakone (thieves in law). He read books on Russian prison culture and the importance of prison tattoos as criminal résumés. He perfected his character's Siberian accent and learned lines in Russian, Ukrainian and English. During filming, he used worry beads made in prison from melted-down plastic cigarette lighters and decorated his trailer with copies of Russian icons.

Mortensen's work ultimately became the foundation for the role, prompting some changes in the script and even guiding Cronenberg's direction. The actor credits Cronenberg with granting him the creative freedom to push his characters into surprising places. Cronenberg said he couldn't work any other way.

"I really invented myself as a director," Cronenberg said. "A lot of directors are very territorial and they don't really want to hear anything from other people, especially actors."

"They don't want to admit they don't know something," Mortensen said.

"It's a matter of control and fear," Cronenberg concluded. Instead, he asks actors to "come play in my sandbox."

"Once you accept that childlike-ness," he said, "everything else becomes more clear."

Mortensen's 360-degree nudity in the fight scene is a prime example of how their relationship aided the film. Despite its complexity -- hand-to-hand combat among three guys in a compact and very slippery space -- they rehearsed only a few hours and then captured the fight in just two days.

"I knew I was in good hands as far as the director went," Mortensen said. "It wasn't an exploitation. . . . After that fight, my character knows everything's different. There wasn't any other way to do it. So let's get on with it. The sooner we got it over with, the quicker I could heal."

"The makeup guy would say, 'Have you seen how swollen Viggo's knees are?' " added Cronenberg. "I said, 'No. Don't tell me that.' "

Recalling his vigorous and bruising staircase sex scene in "A History of Violence," Mortensen quipped, "It's revenge for Maria Bello."

 

[LMP]

I've seen Shining, Thing, Exorcist, Halloween, Children of the Corn, Psycho, It yada yada yada.

I have no clue about the Hammer Films I will imdb it later.

it's the name of the production company, but if you check out the actors, you should be able to find their movies.

 

[Lancemc]

Teaser for coppola's Youth Without Youth

http://media.movies.ign.com/media/773/773085/vids_1.html