“a disconnect that gets amplified by the now de rigueur shaky-camera”

I cannot bear to watch any film presented in the juvenille ‘shaky camera’ style. Makes my head spin and ache. Any film that starts like that, I’m outta here.

A friend worked on this movie. He overheard this conversation between the Producer and the Studio: Producer : yeah we’re making this action movie with Jai Courtney. It’s got huge explosions, and you wouldn’t believe the amount of cars we destroy. It’s …

Now a question. When the team goes into a sealed room at Chernobyl (yes, that one) one of them mentions that “radiation has been pooling in here for two decades”. Can anybody please explain to me how radiation accumulates in pools?

Don’t get me wrong, there is a time for a hand held camera as used by Kubrick, Friedkin, Spielberg, Scott, but that hack Greengrass completely overdid it in his Bourne movies and all other hacks now follow.

I will take them to almost any movie they want to see as long
as it doesn’t have detailed sex scenes. Not because they don’t
know about it; it just makes them all embarrassed. They don’t want to even think about it. In 7th grade
health class they showed these kids a movie of a child being born;
explicit to say the least. They told me that the whole class
put their heads on their desk and didn’t watch.

Amjean on February 17, 2013 at 11:14 AM

Now there’s an ad for abstinence. Either you’ll have to go through this or have to watch it close up in great gory detail. Make it a screamer with lots of bodily fluid. Can’t lose.

You have great sounding kids.

You mean I won’t be able to watch John McClane battle his way through the zombie apocalypse to reach the cause of the viral breakout, Zombie Hans Gruber out for revenge?

trubble on February 17, 2013 at 10:23 AM

Hmpf. That’s a better movie right there than 80% of what’s offered.

They were smart, taut films that limited plot holes

Umm, really? You mean like the cargo/passenger aircraft in the second movie – that has an ejection seat?!? Nooooo, hardly a plot hole at all in that one…….. *eyeroll*

Stretching your view of reality is at the heart of these “action genre” young-guy-centric flicks…and with each appearance of the “Expendables”, mine stretches and never quite works the wrinkles out as it contracts back into my head….

I say “young-guy-centric” because that is, or must be, the target audience of these popcorn burners…young guys suspend disbelief just to get through life…chest bumping is a way of life among men of a certain age…or, historically, it ends up being so…after all, old men start wars, but young men think that they can fight them….

…better Stallone and Segall as an outlet than picking fights across international borders….

As cinema, it fits snugly in its genre. If you wanna see Shakespeare, go see some actual Shakespeare. (As an aside, go to Amazon and search “Shakespeare globe”, and there’re more than half a dozen DVDs of productions filmed in the reconstructed Globe Theater in London. They’re mostly the minor comedies, but the Henry IV parts 1 and 2 are splendid! But, sadly, young guys generally might have to wait to middle age to appreciate them.)

What struck me about this installment of the franchise was Mr. Willis’ age, quite frankly. “Die Hard With A Walker” must be in the works, surely. Still spry now, time takes no prisoners, and his days of being slammed down construction scaffolding, into furniture and through plate glass and then standing back up is coming to an end. Disbelief will only suspend so far.

I feel that I can say this because Mr. Willis, God bless him, is four days older than I am…and, yes, it really IS all about me in the end. I know what it’s like just getting out of my arm chair, let alone dangling from the back of a cargo helicopter.

…and, inevitably, all “Die Hard”‘s are compared with the first in the franchise, and none really measure up. That would be impossible. The first “Die Hard” pretty much put the genre on the map, and is frankly transends the genre. It is a treasure.

Think that a little strong? Well…if a boring pot of tripe like “Out of Africa” or “Kramer Vs. Kramer” can win Oscars, “Die Hard” can be treasure. *PPPHHTTTT!*

Standing by itself in the movie-going marketplace today, it’s a pretty good film, and if your disbelief hasn’t been worn out by the Obama Administation’s handling of foreign affairs and the economy, you’ll enjoy it for what it is.

This isn’t a bad popcorn movie for those who just want to see gunfights, tracer rounds, explosions, and John McClane killing scumbags.

-
So I’ll be adding it to the collection then… “Don’t encourage him.” pfft… Too late!
-

The fake trailers in between were in truth the best part of “Grindhouse,” IMO. Two of them were even made into movies after the fact (the illegal-alien sympathizing “Machete” and “Hobo with a Shotgun,” which won some Canadian filmmaking contest to get put into “Grindhouse,” IIRC).

My favorite, BTW, was “Don’t!”

I would have liked a film make from the trailer for:

‘Werewolf Women of the SS’.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AFpMu6ZdFk

Has a very distinct ‘Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS’ look and feel about it.

Oddly enough, the DHS troopers shoot mostly center mass. Which goes against George A. Romero’s unwritten law about head shots.

Jack Deth AKA: TankerGuy54.

Jack Deth on February 17, 2013 at 11:17 AM

Well, don’t tell DHS about that.

Let the clowns learn the hard way…like the rest of us had to.

:-)

That would have been Bruce Willis’ brief role as Lt. Muldoon in Robert Rodriguez’s godawful ‘Planet Terror’.

Jack Deth on February 17, 2013 at 10:45 AM

Yea, but the second half of that double feature with Kurt Russell getting his ass kicked by the three chicks was freaking awesome. Wish I could remember the name. Death something?

msupertas on February 17, 2013 at 11:42 AM

Death Proof, which was the Quentin Tarentino-directed half of the “Grindhouse” double feature.

The fake trailers in between were in truth the best part of “Grindhouse,” IMO. Two of them were even made into movies after the fact (the illegal-alien sympathizing “Machete” and “Hobo with a Shotgun,” which won some Canadian filmmaking contest to get put into “Grindhouse,” IIRC).

My favorite, BTW, was “Don’t!”

LtGenRob on February 17, 2013 at 9:50 AM

Exactly! Rottentomatoes is, well, pretty rotten.

Are you kidding?

I was watching Live Free Or Die Hard just last night as it has been on all week.
The number of impossible things in that movie were too numerous too count.
Can a man outrun a Harrier jump jet?
Can a guy fall out of a helicopter and just dust himself off?
Can you shut down a whole regional electric grid but then turn on one elevator in one building in seconds…?

Show me a guy who can shoot himself through the shoulder with a 9mm and a half hour later is just sitting on the tailgate of an ambulance with a bandage on like it was a scratch.

You pretty much have to take a break from reality in all Die Hard movies.

That would have been Bruce Willis’ brief role as Lt. Muldoon in Robert Rodriguez’s godawful ‘Planet Terror’.

Jack Deth on February 17, 2013 at 10:45 AM

Yea, but the second half of that double feature with Kurt Russell getting his ass kicked by the three chicks was freaking awesome. Wish I could remember the name. Death something?

What strikes me as interesting about this is that I’ve seen several movies and TV shows where this same picture is prominently displayed in the sets of government buildings. (IE Jack Reacher, Eureka)

“Well DUH… They’re US government buildings, of course they’ll have that picture.”

Sure but… Who here recalls W’s presidential portrait in the movies of the day?
What was also odd was that A – it was a gun range (they keep presidential portraits in gun ranges?) there was NO US flag, there was no New York flag… Heck there were no other identifying marks that this was a police station except for the New York police station badge fathead on the other side of the wall ad the presidential portrait was as big as it! Worse, they framed the shot of a discussion between two people not with McClain on one side and his buddy on the other but with McClain on one side, his buddy in the middle and the portrait fully displayed on the other.

IE It wasn’t accidental…

It’s just more proof that the leftists (and the director proclaimed he was) are worshipping a cult of personality… (And not the country… No US flag…)

Or Twelve Monkeys.

Good point, Ed.

I saw on Red Eye this week that DHS has a new training film out. On how to kill Zombies during the upcoming Zombie Apocalypse.

Oddly enough, the DHS troopers shoot mostly center mass. Which goes against George A. Romero’s unwritten law about head shots.

Jack Deth AKA: TankerGuy54.

Rated R for violence and language…nothing these kids don’t see
on XBox and hear (language) in their hockey games.

I will take them to almost any movie they want to see as long
as it doesn’t have detailed sex scenes. Not because they don’t
know about it; it just makes them all embarrassed. They don’t want to even think about it. In 7th grade
health class they showed these kids a movie of a child being born;
explicit to say the least. They told me that the whole class
put their heads on their desk and didn’t watch.

We saw “Side Effects” (not with the children and definitely not
for any children) and it was pretty good.