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Post by Power NeXus on Sept 18, 2011 22:37:40 GMT -5
Who are those idiots?
I didn't agree with anything they said.
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Post by Admin on Sept 19, 2011 9:28:42 GMT -5
That's Morph an Dane.
/shifty eyes
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Post by Erik-El on Sept 19, 2011 19:28:14 GMT -5
Captain America: The First Avenger I loved the skinny Steve section of the movie. I loved the act right after transformation. It was all very digestable and enjoyable for me. No, where I get hung up is after he wins over the soldiers. The fighting montage (just like everyone else) was just unsatisfying. They stated they did it so sequels can be made for the WWII scenes but I do not get how that is the case. It could have been easier to have a scene where they mention that he had been a soldier for a while rather than showing us just tiny snippets of battles to imply that. Tommy was funny, Hayley Atwell was very likable, Chris Evans played his part better than expected and Stanley Tucci was also great. Best expected death for a comic book movie this year. Everyone else was eh in my opinion. Hugo did not impress. He was not bad, he was actually doing very well. It just seemed like his heart was not in it. Bucky was just okay and his death felt like it came and went in a blink before they moved on with the next section of the story. Everyone else was completely forgetable. I think the most disappointing thing about this movie was the action. The romance was there but not really a focus of the movie. Like it was an afterthought. I did not feel it as deeply as I wanted to. To the point were the death scene missed its mark on me, at least to its fullest effect. I know it hit ckal right on the money but it did not quite make it for me. I wanted more Super stuff. I wanted more feats. Damn impressive feats. I wanted more development for the romance as well. This movie was good but fell short for things that could have been easily fixed without even having to add much time to the film. I suppose they can touch on some of this stuff more in WWII sequels but it could have also been added here. Still a great movie though.
Conan Never saw so I cannot judge.
Cowboys and Aliens Really wish I saw because I am a Daniel Craig fanboy.
Green Hornet This is a action/comedy comic book movie that is done exactly right. And that is coming from a guy that absolutely despises Seth Rogan as an actor . The action was good, the comedy was good. I did not have high expectations for this movie because I do think Rogen is a crappy actor but he turned out to be a great sidekick in this movie yuk yuk. I think the reason why it was good was because it was deliberate to make the hero of the movie more like the sidekick. Some of the things were a bit on the cheesey side like the mid-life crisis of the main villain but other than that, it easily surpassed my low expectations. Jay Chou was completely awesome as well.
Green Lantern Ugh... Instead of really going into detail why this movie was shit, I will just hit the highlights. Comedy, bad. This is how an action/comedy is done badly. Action, bad. CGI, bad. Like ckal said, it was very amateurish. Romance, non-fucking existant. Plot, bad. I wish they would have just cut out Hammond completely. The only thing I really liked in this movie was the GL suit. I think that was the one CGI thing they did right.... Expect for the dead looking eyes thing. I do not get that. Despite all that, it did have some moments were it climbed back from utterly terrible. I will probably get this movie when it hits the $5.00 or $7.50 bin at Wal-Mart.
Priest Never saw so I cannot judge.
Thor Where to begin? This movie was just shy of the great mark for me. It was actually my favorite for the year. I thought the romance was done pretty well actually if you just gloss over the fact that Portman was falling in love with a man she thought was actually crazy and homeless. It had a lot of great humor and the action was satisfactory though I have not seen the deleted scenes so once I do, my opinion on the action may change. Tom Hiddleston was phenominal as Loki and Chris Hemsworth was just about the perfect Thor. I did feel that everyone short of Chris, Tom and Natalie fell a bit short of blowing me away but nothing about this movie detracted from the film. Nothing pulled me out of the moment. Well, nothing except the amazingly short final battle. I know it was done to show what an absolute badass Thor is while powered but all it really did for me was limit Destroyer's badass mojo. It was just too one-sided once the powers came back. I could have used a bit more Thor with powers scenes but not at the cost of his human scenes. Everything about this movie was completely enjoyable except the Destroyer fight. Oh and Natalie was unbelievably hot in this movie.
Transformers 3 I always imagined that I would never find an actress that I liked less for Transformers than Megan Fox. It turns out that I was right. The fact that some Victoria Secret model with no prior acting experience can come out of nowhere and out act Megan is mind blowing. Now, that is not to say that Rosie Huntington-Whiteley was amazing. She was just okay, which is a lot better than I can say about Megan (haterrrrr). I felt like the plot was still a little weak but miles above Transformers 2. The action scenes were pretty decent (except one stuck in the eye scene I felt was stupid) and the humor was great if you love pee pee and poo poo jokes. However, the one thing I loved about the movie was that Optimus was the fucking man in this movie. He executes an already defeated foe like a fucking boss. Now some might say that is not Prime but who cares. It made Prime one badass motherfucker. Plus he cuts his way through Decepticons like tissue paper in another scene. When Prime gets tired of the bullshit, he one shots everyone. Shockwave was a bit disappointing. He was blown up as this new mega Decepticon that was supposed to wreck house but he fell pretty easily. Overall I felt pretty good about the movie, humor aside. The parents were not overdone either. It was a pretty decent movie that almost made up for the shit that is 2.
X-Men: First Class I really liked this movie and I completely agree with k4tz in that we should say "fuck the old continuity" because really the old continuity had become a ball of shit. X1 and X2 were great films. X3 and Wolverine were so terribly bad that I will never buy them. Even from the $5.00 bin at Wal-Mart. I could have done without the characters that did not serve the movie like Darwin. Angel seemed more like fan service in that she was a stripper and also served the purpose of being "the weak willed one that turns". Zoe Kravitz did not do a good job portraying the character. I also did not like that they used a virtually unknown and even more so, completely unimportant character from the Marvel continuity. I have yet to see anyone that ever gave two shits about Tempest. The interaction between Xavier (James McAvoy) and Erik Lensherr (Michael Fassbender) is inagruably the best aspect of the film. What makes it more impressive is that compared to the entire movie, they did not interact very much. Their scenes together were just that powerful. My favorite scene with them was actually the training scene. But I would have to say that Michael stole the show even between the two of them. The other characters I just could not really connect with aside from Mystique. No one was really bad besides Zoe. In fact, everyone that had lines in the film was quite good. I really liked Rose Byrne as Moria. I was even pleasantly surprised that they changed her role in the film away from the comics. It served the movie nicely. The action scenes were fine except where ckal mentioned the ho-ho throwing Havok. I thought of them as hoola hoops myself because of the stupid way he fired them before getting his suit. I also agree that the movie was really good. It fell just short of great because of some of the things I mentioned.
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Post by ckal on Sept 19, 2011 19:53:00 GMT -5
Cap- Yeah I completely agree about the Bucky death. It just happened so sudden. I didn't really feel it. I honestly felt it more in this TV spot before it came out. They should have lingered on it a bit more, had Cap show a bit more emotion, and added some music like in this TV spot:
About the physical feats, he ran really fast, jumped really high, bent a metal railing, punched, kicked, and threw guys into the air, etc. I would have liked to see a couple other ones as well, like I said in the video, I would've loved to see Steve push the car over and rip the door off it's hinges.
I think the weakest part of the movie was the montage section. It could've been handled much differently, as if they had just took that 5 minutes and had him and the Howling Commandos go on a mission (which would've added some sorely needed screen time and bonding time between these characters, as we didn't even hear their names once), and then put a subtitle on the screen that brought you up to the present, essentially skipping over years without a fucking montage.
I thought the romance went over pretty well, most likely due to the fact that it wasn't the center piece of the movie. I think it worked better that way, and it was probably the best romance in any superhero movie.
I think they could've added some more gritty and physical fighting to the movie as well. I was hoping we could see Cap just put his shield in front of him, and bulldoze over like 6 guys at once. They also really didn't show Cap actually fighting until the end of the movie. Before he gets his last costume, they just show him on camera surveillance. Another minor piece they could have added was inferring that some time had gone by for Cap's intensive training.
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Post by Erik-El on Sept 19, 2011 20:01:14 GMT -5
Yeah. The shield use is another thing. I wanted to see his super soldier accuracy with the thing. Show that is really is an extension of himself like in the comics. I suppose the reason they held back on that is because non-comic fans just would not understand it.
For me, the romance was more developed when Howard Stark pulled down his shades than all of Rogers' and Carter's interactions. Okay not really, it just was funny to type out.
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Post by Admin on Sept 20, 2011 15:49:56 GMT -5
Just spotted you post, Erik. I'll reply later.
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Post by Erik-El on Sept 20, 2011 18:46:12 GMT -5
Just spotted you post, Erik. I'll reply later. Just spotted? How could you miss it? Giant wall-o-text.
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Post by NorCalCO on Sept 27, 2011 13:13:38 GMT -5
Sorry I'm a little late to the party here, just haven't had 30 minutes to sit and watch all 3 videos with as busy as I've been the last few weeks. I really want to say thanks to Chris and Greg for taking the time to make these videos and for using them to help bring good conversation to the Ledger. I know how difficult it is to put effort in on something and then not get much feedback. In any case, great job both of you!
I personally thought this year was one of the best we've ever had for CBM's and it definitely produced some of my Top-5 CBM's of all-time. That said, I'm going to write a little about each of the movies as I list them in my personal order of preference:
1. Captain America The First Avenger:: Ok, so I have to preface this with the fact that Cap (Steve) is my single favorite comic book character of all time and that this was, for me, one of the most highly anticipated movies of all time. I know that because of those facts I probably have blinders on about some of the negative things that were mentioned by others. I thought the story and special effects were extremely well done. Going in my main concern was "how are they going to do this without it seeming corny" and I walked out of the theater and literally said "they pulled it off!" So much of what we love about comic books just doesn't carry over well in to a reality based environment, but I think Marvel Studios did an outstanding job of making these characters work on the big screen. I like the fact that they took the time that they did developing who Steve is at his core: his character, his perspective, his sense of duty and honor and his willingness to sacrifice himself for the greater good. Fundamentally Steve was portrayed exactly as I believe he should be. I know a lot of people hated the whole USO aspect and the montage, but I think we learn a lot about Steve in those scenes and I believe they help round out the picture of who Steve becomes when he finally does go in to the fray. Aside from Chris Evans as Cap, I think Stanly Tucci and Tommy Lee Jones were the stand-out performances. Tucci as Dr. Erskine and the interactions between he and Steve were some of the most moving scenes in the movie and I felt it when he was killed, even though I already knew what was coming. To me that is no small feat and could have just as easily ended up being anti-climatic for someone that already is familiar with Captain America's origins and timeline. Somewhat negative things for me are the fact that the love aspect did feel somewhat contrived to me, especially the scene where the other woman was coming on to Steve and Peggy walked in. I understand why it was there and I think it was necessary, I just think it could have been done a little better. I also think Bucky's death felt a little rushed and should have been lingered on a bit longer. I thought the Red Skull was done pretty well and I generally enjoy Hugo Weaving. As a general rule, he plays a great villain (Agent Smith and voice of Megatron). I thought the Nazi / Hydra-tech was well done. I was concerned about this being a period piece and having the tech seem overwhelming. I think how it was done and the things that were used (guns, vehicles) were not too over-the-top and remained somewhat believable for the time line. All-in-all, for me this was one of the greatest CBM's of all time and up there with the first Iron Man and The Dark Knight. Rating: 9/10
2. X-Men First Class:: My first comment here is going to be more about the X-Men movie universe and then I'll get on to being more specific about First Class. I'm one of those people that doesn't get all worked up when the CBM's don't follow the comic books themselves verbatim so I went in very excited for this movie. I know the original intent was to make this a prequel to the X-Men Trilogy and basically ignore X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The problem that I have is it's kind of a prequel and kind of a reboot. They played off of the things from the other movies that they wanted to, and basically ignored other huge aspects (too many continuity glitches to list here). I would have much preferred it was just one or the other. I know they are basically talking about it like it was a complete reboot now, but I think if that had truly been the case then we might have seen much different characters than we did. They clearly avoided major X-Men characters that had already been used in the other X-Films, with the exception of Emma Frost, who could not be fit in to this timeline. Now all of that said, I loved this movie for what it was and found myself really able to look past the ridiculous way Fox has handled this film property in general. Fassbender and McAvoy are both incredible as Magneto and the Professor respectively. I could not imagine anyone else playing either character. To me the relationship and interactions between the two made this an amazing movie. We had powerful and moving, yet vulnerable, characters with real emotion in the scenes between them. I was impressed all the way around. Their solo scenes and the way both character was developed was well handled as well. My personal favorite scene in the film was the bar scene in Argentina. There, and in other places in the film, I think an exceptional job was done in regards to the use of Magneto's powers. Very impressive stuff! For the supporting cast I thought Shaw (Bacon) was extremely well done. I love Emma Frost and think her character was handled fairly well for the most part. The rest of the background characters were handled with varying degrees of positive and negative aspects, but worked for the most part. Darwin did feel like he was thrown in just to die though and Angel felt like she was thrown in just to switch sides. In my mind though, all of these minor negatives are far overshadowed by the film as a whole and the incredible performances by Fassbender and McAvoy. Rating: 9/10
3. Thor: I'm not the biggest Thor fan in the comics and I generally just enjoy him as a supporting character in the Avengers and other books. All the times I've tried to read his solo title it never holds my interest for more than an arc or two. I have to admit that I really enjoyed this movie though. I'm familiar enough with the mythology of it all (Asgard, Midgard, the 9 realms, etc.) to have enjoyed the way all were handled in the film. Main complaint would probably be that the action scenes felt like they went very quickly, but then I understand that Thor is a "God" and he should be able to handle just about anything very quickly. Aside from that, I seriously would have liked to see this movie be about 20 minutes or so longer. While I do feel that it was extremely well done in almost every aspect, the fact that Thor goes from "spoiled, arrogant God" to "wise, mature God" literally overnight was a little hard to swallow. I think lingering longer on his internal changes and more scenes in regard to this aspect would have been a good idea. I do understand though that these movies are made for everyone, not just us comic book fans, and that character development like that might make the movie drag for "Joe Public." I do have to say the action sequences and special effects were great. Hemsworth was great as Thor and Loki was exceptional. I also enjoyed the Warrior's Three, although would have liked to see more of Sif and Thor interacting. Also, Idris Elba as Heimdall stole every scene he was in. In general just a great cast and really enjoyable movie. Rating: 8/10
4. Green Hornet: I've never read the comic but have seen the old school television show. I really enjoyed this movie. The comedic aspect was a lot different than a lot of what we generally see in CBM's. I also appreciated the relationship as it developed between The Green Hornet and Kato. Good special effects and tech, a decent villain going through some type of mid-life crisis and a fair supporting cast all worked together to make this a very fun movie. Rating: 7/10
5. Green Lantern: I've read very few GL comics over the years, but have always enjoyed them when I did. I really wanted to love this movie and walk out of the theater saying "wow, DC hit another home run" but that was just not meant to be. The pacing felt off, the special effects were lackluster, Parallax wasn't all that impressive, relationships felt forced, the comedy fell FLAT, the constructs were cheesy, etc. Again, I really wanted to love this movie but just couldn't. Marvel has set the bar so high for CBM's the past few years that this movie was almost like a joke. They did so great with Batman Begins and TDK that I was really looking for this to be on the same level. I really hope the Superman reboot is more on par with Nolan's Batman franchise than this mess. Rating: 3/10
I still want to see Cowboys & Aliens and plan on purchasing it on BluRay when it hits.
Thanks again for the great video reviews guys!
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Post by Admin on Sept 27, 2011 17:43:14 GMT -5
Thanks for taking the time and watch and reply, Lee. I'll definitely share my thoughts on your post when I have time.
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Post by Erik-El on Sept 27, 2011 17:52:37 GMT -5
Thanks for taking the time and watch and reply, Lee. I'll definitely share my thoughts on your post when I have time. He says knowing full-well he never will.
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Post by Admin on Sept 27, 2011 17:54:53 GMT -5
ckal gave you plenty of attention, cry baby.
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Post by Erik-El on Sept 27, 2011 18:02:32 GMT -5
ckal gave you plenty of attention, cry baby. Bu-but..... you said you would reply t-to meeeeeeeee!
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Post by ckal on Sept 27, 2011 23:52:00 GMT -5
Thanks a lot Lee. I haven't been able to read your run down yet but will when I get a chance.
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Post by NorCalCO on Sept 28, 2011 0:32:35 GMT -5
Looking forward to furthering the discussion.
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Post by Admin on Sept 28, 2011 9:29:20 GMT -5
Erik-El, -Cap- I completely agree and it's nice to see I'm not alone with those opinions. The first 40-45 minutes were great imho, but then roughly before the montage is when it really lost quality, imho. -Green Hornet- You didn't like the main villain? Blasphemy! I loved him and thought he was hilarious. But yeah, really enjoyable but it felt a bit long at times to me. -Green Lantern- Agreed. Replacing Hammond with more time on Oa/more Sinestro would have really benefited the movie. Unfortunately, they didn't do that. -Thor- Meh, I really don't have any issue with the Destroyer fight. He got his powers back and proved you don't flark with him when he has them. Plus, vs Loki was the final battle I loved this movie and re-watched it on blu-ray the other day. Also, I thought the supporting cast was really funny. -TF3- I was also glad the time w/ the parents was limited. They're funny, but we really had too much of them in the previous two. The Fox/Whiteley dispute doesn't really matter to me, seeing as her (being Sam's gf) role has always been pretty limited in comparison to the rest. I never really expected quality acting from either of them, and neither really did anything that made me groan or laugh at how bad the acting was. So, I never had an issue with either. -X-Men:FC- I watched the deleted scenes and Havok was meant to kind of guilt-trip over Darwin's death (seeing as he took part in the plan that killed him). It didn't add much to the character (at all), so I was glad Vaughn deleted it (same goes for the other deleted scenes). Man, Fassbander + this movie = like a boss. Loved it.
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Post by Admin on Sept 28, 2011 9:29:32 GMT -5
I'll respond to Lee later today.
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Post by Admin on Sept 28, 2011 13:56:33 GMT -5
@lee: Hell, thank you for taking the time to watch it. Shooting the shit with ckal about this stuff is easy Definitely a good year when you have more than two good comic book movies, and a fair amount of pretty good ones! I completely agree they did a good job with the character. Personally, my problems are more-so from the director/flow of the movie. It's easy for many to label it as just some cheesy/campy/stupid musical act in the movie, but like you're saying, it goes a lot deeper than that. It gave Rogers more charisma/confidence and built him as a symbol to the American people. But then when he went overseas, it was a reality check to see he doesn't mean a thing to the troops. I think that definitely pushed him to act out, turning him into the real Captain America. Agreed 100% I'm with you. I had no real emotional connection to the romantic element, and that really took away from the impact at the end of the film. Yeah, everyone seems to feel the same. That reminds me, aside from the scientist and Jones, I thought the supporting cast was kind of weak. In Thor I loved them and wanted them to have more time, in Cap I went "who's that?" Yeah, he gave a good performance, but I feel like his script really limited him. I disagree, but I'm glad you enjoyed it Personally, I'd give it a 7-7.5/10. Not a bad movie by any measure, but I was kind of let down when comparing it to the other excellent CBMs. Yeah, the direction was definitely very confusing to many, and understandably so. But personally, I'm happy with this being a new set of continuity because imho it blows the other X-films out of the water. Agreed. They both gave incredible performances and the chemistry between them was great. They were easily the highlights of the movie for me. I have no issue saying the satellite dish scene moved me. YES! Mine too. I'm not sure if you've seen Inglorious Basterds, but it definitely had that vibe and Fassbender is in the scene, too. Great scene. For some reason, they took out an extra kill Magneto had when breaching the Russian base. After getting inside and knocking out two guards, he had another guy (holding a knife) stab himself in the gut. I guess they thought it was too violent, but it really wasn't gory at all. Oh well. Agreed. Bacon did a good job as Shaw and while Emma was limited, certainly an amusing role (Russian general comes to mind). I'll gladly agree to that. Exact same for me. That seems to be the biggest problem most people have with the film. personally, I thought the ice giants fight was a good length, and the destroyer armor, while short, showed off how epic Thor is. Definitely. There's tons of deleted scenes. Yeah, it definitely was a short period of time, but I guess I was okay with it since he went from an invincible figure to a mere man in a moment. For sure. Same here. I thought they were all amusing characters so I'd love to see them get more screen time. DO NOT CONFUSE MY APPETITE WITH APATHY! I'll get to the rest later.
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Post by Admin on Sept 28, 2011 17:29:27 GMT -5
There's nothing I disagree with here, lol.
Totally agree with the complaints. Did the franchise make you want to see more from Oa/Sinestro, though? Basically, I walked out of the movie going "Man, they really need to expand on the GL universe for the next one AND fix those problems."
A bold move, purchasing a blu-ray without a purchase! It's an enjoyable movie, imho. There was one plot point that really pissed me off, but I don't want to spoil anything. It's definitely a good popcorn movie.
Thanks for taking the time to watch/share your thoughts.
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Post by NorCalCO on Sept 29, 2011 13:21:11 GMT -5
Totally agree with the complaints. Did the franchise make you want to see more from Oa/Sinestro, though? Basically, I walked out of the movie going "Man, they really need to expand on the GL universe for the next one AND fix those problems." It definitely did. The characters themselves hold my interest, I just think it came down to really poor execution on the part of the filmmakers. A bold move, purchasing a blu-ray without a purchase! It's an enjoyable movie, imho. There was one plot point that really pissed me off, but I don't want to spoil anything. It's definitely a good popcorn movie. I know what you're saying, but honestly if I had taken my wife and son to see it in the theater like I wanted to it would have easily been $30. Might as well own it for the same price. Thanks for taking the time to watch/share your thoughts. Glad to do it.
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Post by Admin on Sept 29, 2011 13:23:46 GMT -5
"It definitely did. The characters themselves hold my interest, I just think it came down to really poor execution on the part of the filmmakers."
Agreed. Hopefully, this was a wake-up call to Warner Bros that it's either give a movie your all, or don't bother.
"I know what you're saying, but honestly if I had taken my wife and son to see it in the theater like I wanted to it would have easily been $30. Might as well own it for the same price."
Valid point, sir. Especially when Target is selling blu-rays on their release day for like $22ish + tax. How expensive is a standard movie ticket out there in the San Francisco area? I'm right next to NYC and it's $12, and like $20 for 3D.
I re-watched X-Men: FC and Thor on blu-ray this week and definitely stand by picking X-Men: FC as my favorite CBM this year.
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