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Wheat Loaf posted:Which American movies have tried the same balance of action, comedy, drama and romance and gotten it right? As far as big movies go, I feel like Indiana Jones and Lethal Weapon come closest (though obviously they're a lot less elaborate than a Jackie Chan movie would be) but I may be completely off the mark there. Kingsman comes to mind that's quite tone-shifty.
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# ? Apr 20, 2018 10:18 |
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# ? May 28, 2024 14:30 |
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Kingsman 2, Kick-rear end 2 and Machete Kills. Probably the three most (or at least three of the most) disappointing sequels I've seen in the past 10 years.
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# ? Apr 20, 2018 10:23 |
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Pirates of the Caribbean, any of em. Some more successful than others, for sure. Mask of Zorro has that a bit too.
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# ? Apr 20, 2018 12:06 |
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I’d say Spider-Man 2 hits all of those beats pretty effectively.
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# ? Apr 20, 2018 16:24 |
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Mask of Zorro is really great, then they totally got all goofy for the sequel and killed it. Also throwing out that my absolute favorite Jackie Chan movie is Drunken Master 2 just for that incredible ending sequence.
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# ? Apr 20, 2018 18:01 |
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Wheat Loaf posted:Which American movies have tried the same balance of action, comedy, drama and romance and gotten it right? As far as big movies go, I feel like Indiana Jones and Lethal Weapon come closest (though obviously they're a lot less elaborate than a Jackie Chan movie would be) but I may be completely off the mark there. It’s light on the action, but The African Queen ticks a lot of those boxes. CelticPredator posted:Pirates of the Caribbean, any of em. Oooooh, good call, especially Curse of the Black Pearl.
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# ? Apr 20, 2018 18:56 |
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Mask of Zorro is really great, then they totally got all goofy for the sequel and killed it. I saw that in the cinema with my parents when it came out. It's a strange movie and I've probably posted about it in this thread before. They made it about seven years after the first one, which is pretty unusual for the late 90s / early 2000s, and they went out of their way to change the original ending (an elderly Diego watches his son assuming the mask and riding out as the new Zorro) so they could continue with more sequels, but they never did anything else with the property. It feels the studio realised they didn't have anything for that month so they dug up an old IP they weren't doing anything with. One persistent thing is how Zorro has a sword but never cuts or stabs anyone (I'm pretty sure he doesn't even cut his mark on any of bad guy's cheek), he only knocks them over with the flat of his blade. He has a whip, but he only uses it to swing from things and never as a weapon. Every time a bad guy is shown falling from a great height, the movie always makes a point of showing them getting up and staggering off. Of course, there's also the thing where these Confederate army officers show up to protest the admission of California into the Union because it means Union states will outnumber Confederate states - a full 11 years before the Confederate States existed.
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# ? Apr 20, 2018 20:03 |
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Den of Thieves had tons of potential. But when the main star is obviously experiencing eating difficulties, having the main star surrounded by ripped dudes in the finale?
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# ? Apr 20, 2018 22:28 |
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Wheat Loaf posted:Which American movies have tried the same balance of action, comedy, drama and romance and gotten it right? As far as big movies go, I feel like Indiana Jones and Lethal Weapon come closest (though obviously they're a lot less elaborate than a Jackie Chan movie would be) but I may be completely off the mark there. I often compare Jackie Chan and Speilberg, because they have the same understanding that action=story. That a character needs to fight like their character and a fight scene is a story, not just a bunch of stuff that happens. Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Mask of Zorro is really great, then they totally got all goofy for the sequel and killed it. DM2 is loving great, and it's his best 'proper' martial arts movie, in the sense that it's just a martial arts movie with few other plot distractions. Even the lesser fight scenes in that are amazing.
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# ? Apr 21, 2018 02:29 |
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Agreed, his 1st skirmish with Yuen Woo Ping under the train is so great to watch, and their next meeting is full-on bananas (split bamboo poles cutting people up)
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# ? Apr 21, 2018 04:44 |
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Fart City posted:You’re not missing anything (though I think SMG has a boner for it and will tell you otherwise). The most notable trivia about the production was that all of the wonderful practical effects were CGI’d over because the studio got weird about how the puppets looked on set (without proper lighting). The part I didn't like about The Thing prequel was how they introduced a way to visually tell if someone was taken over, which kind of ruins the suspense. IIRC it was that the alien couldn't replicate anything inorganic and so if someone had any dental work or even just an earring it would be gone if they were taken over.
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# ? Apr 21, 2018 15:11 |
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muscles like this! posted:The part I didn't like about The Thing prequel was how they introduced a way to visually tell if someone was taken over, which kind of ruins the suspense. IIRC it was that the alien couldn't replicate anything inorganic and so if someone had any dental work or even just an earring it would be gone if they were taken over. didn't that end up being mostly a red herring since they figured it out after most of the people with fillings and earrings were already dead/taken over, or am I wrong on that?
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# ? Apr 21, 2018 16:08 |
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LORD OF BOOTY posted:didn't that end up being mostly a red herring since they figured it out after most of the people with fillings and earrings were already dead/taken over, or am I wrong on that? Something like that. They kinda subvert/deflate the blood test scene by doing a fillings check and I think the majority of characters just didn't have fillings.
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# ? Apr 21, 2018 17:39 |
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There's a prequel to The Thing?
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# ? Apr 21, 2018 22:28 |
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Roth posted:There's a prequel to The Thing? It is confusingly enough also called The Thing. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0905372/?ref_=nv_sr_2
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# ? Apr 21, 2018 22:38 |
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Roth posted:There's a prequel to The Thing? You might as well watch Thing 51 and get a different take on the same source material.
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# ? Apr 21, 2018 23:07 |
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Roth posted:There's a prequel to The Thing? It fails the Gene Siskel test of "is this movie more interesting than a film of the cast having lunch? Given that it has a who's who of Norwegian actors in it and they apparently out partied the Americans every night, the answer is "no."
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# ? Apr 22, 2018 00:04 |
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Wheat Loaf posted:Which American movies have tried the same balance of action, comedy, drama and romance and gotten it right? As far as big movies go, I feel like Indiana Jones and Lethal Weapon come closest (though obviously they're a lot less elaborate than a Jackie Chan movie would be) but I may be completely off the mark there. Star Wars
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# ? Apr 22, 2018 04:07 |
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verdigris murder posted:Den of Thieves had tons of potential.
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# ? Apr 24, 2018 10:15 |
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Because I recently rewatched it, I've thought of another movie that I think gets an almost perfect balance of all those ingredients, and because I mentioned Lethal Weapon I'm surprised it didn't occur to me earlier: Maverick with Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster and James Garner.
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# ? Apr 29, 2018 12:50 |
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Man, if Proud Mary had half the style of its marketing materials it would've been great. Instead it's about as by-the-numbers as it gets and I think every action beat was in the trailer.
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# ? Apr 29, 2018 14:46 |
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drat, I was disappointed with Scorched Earth. It has some good fight scenes, and honestly a remarkably good plot, but the direction just didn't cover Carano's weakness as an actress as compared to Haywire, and its cinematography was just the very functional sort that I associate with 90s action movies where there is little distinction in style. After watching both John Wicks, Both Raids, Atomic Blonde, and anything with Scott Adkins in it I feel like I'm at a loss to find more action movies with great staging and choreography.
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# ? Apr 29, 2018 22:28 |
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Yeah, working with non-actors is one of Soderbergh's things. Hard for that not to be her career high.
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# ? Apr 29, 2018 22:31 |
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Halloween Jack posted:After watching both John Wicks, Both Raids, Atomic Blonde, and anything with Scott Adkins in it I feel like I'm at a loss to find more action movies with great staging and choreography. I assume you saw Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning in your Adkins binge? It was the first (and still only) Adkins movie I've seen, but I was blown away by how great it was. Still haven't seen Regeneration, though. Don't forget about Dredd, if you want great staging and choreography, even if it doesn't have as much hand-to-hand fighting.
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# ? Apr 29, 2018 23:24 |
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Halloween Jack posted:After watching both John Wicks, Both Raids, Atomic Blonde, and anything with Scott Adkins in it I feel like I'm at a loss to find more action movies with great staging and choreography. SPL aka Kill Zone 1 & 2
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# ? Apr 29, 2018 23:31 |
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Wheat Loaf posted:Because I recently rewatched it, I've thought of another movie that I think gets an almost perfect balance of all those ingredients, and because I mentioned Lethal Weapon I'm surprised it didn't occur to me earlier: Maverick with Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster and James Garner. Yeah, this is a really fun movie. Did anyone see The Assignment? Worth watching? I like Walter Hill's stuff. Very gruffy and gritty.
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# ? Apr 30, 2018 00:43 |
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Narzack posted:Yeah, this is a really fun movie. Did anyone see The Assignment? Worth watching? I like Walter Hill's stuff. Very gruffy and gritty. It is not. It's all over the loving place and has no energy, exactly like Hill's last film. It also seems to be trying to say something, but I don't know what.
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# ? Apr 30, 2018 00:58 |
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Oh, man, Bullet in the Head is a skip, too? Although, I swear I saw that movie, like, ten years ago.
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# ? Apr 30, 2018 01:35 |
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Narzack posted:Oh, man, Bullet in the Head is a skip, too? Although, I swear I saw that movie, like, ten years ago. It just has no energy. Walter Hill's style is a little like...I don't know, Cormac McCarthy's. Some actors get it (like Nolte and Boothe did) others don't. No one in Bullet in the Head gets it, except, maybe, Momoa, but he's barely in the film aside from killing some people.
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# ? Apr 30, 2018 02:24 |
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Narzack posted:Yeah, this is a really fun movie. Did anyone see The Assignment? Worth watching? I like Walter Hill's stuff. Very gruffy and gritty. it's not, like, terribly made, but it's not good enough to overcome the fact that it's insanely offensive from its very premise
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# ? Apr 30, 2018 03:44 |
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You guys are talking about Bullet TO the Head. Bullet IN the Head is a classic Woo film well worth watching.
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# ? Apr 30, 2018 04:06 |
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Wandle Cax posted:You guys are talking about Bullet TO the Head. Bullet IN the Head is a classic Woo film well worth watching. also this Bullet In The Head owns
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# ? Apr 30, 2018 04:35 |
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At least Bullet to the Head gave Sly another axe fight scene
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# ? Apr 30, 2018 04:37 |
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I didn't watch Bullet in the Head for many years because Chow Yun Fat wasn't in it. It's a powerhouse Woo film made at the height of his talent and featuring many other great HK actors. Don't be stupid like me.
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# ? Apr 30, 2018 16:55 |
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Wandle Cax posted:SPL aka Kill Zone 1 & 2 The third SPL film, Paradox will be out on US blu-ray next week. Not enough Tony Jaa but it's still real good and Louis Koo does very well for not being a fighter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raF9-6wFXIg Megaman's Jockstrap posted:I didn't watch Bullet in the Head for many years because Chow Yun Fat wasn't in it. No Chow Yun-fat, but Bullet in the Head still has a slightly better cast than A Better Tomorrow III imo. Simon Yam has never been as cool as he was in that movie.
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# ? Apr 30, 2018 17:35 |
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A Better Tommorow 3 isn't even a Woo film, is it?
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# ? Apr 30, 2018 17:53 |
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Narzack posted:A Better Tommorow 3 isn't even a Woo film, is it? No, but Bullet in the Head was basically Woo's version of A Better Tomorrow III after he and Tsui Hark split over A Better Tomorrow II HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Huh. That explains a lot. Yeah, it's pretty clear watching them that both writers were working on it together, then split and took it their own ways. Like how Simon Yam and Anita Mui are both playing pretty much the same character. Both movies are fantastic and imo on par with the first A Better Tomorrow. It's clear some poo poo went down in the making of A Better Tomorrow II, but I still think it's decent and the action at the end makes up for most of its earlier problems. The 2010 South Korean remake of the first film is bland and boring. A Better Tomorrow 2018 is just bad. FancyMike fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Apr 30, 2018 |
# ? Apr 30, 2018 17:59 |
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FancyMike posted:No, but Bullet in the Head was basically Woo's version of A Better Tomorrow III after he and Tsui Hark split over A Better Tomorrow II Huh. That explains a lot.
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# ? Apr 30, 2018 18:02 |
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Speaking of John Woo...
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# ? Apr 30, 2018 21:48 |
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# ? May 28, 2024 14:30 |
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I didn't know Woo was getting back into Hollywood movies. When was his last one? Or maybe he's been back for a while now and I just didn't realise.
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# ? Apr 30, 2018 21:56 |