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mind the walrus posted:It was an admirable philosophical intent, but execution always matters more and they executed the idea pretty loving terribly, and it was obvious they hadn't planned to. Yeah, the second and third ones are a different thing from the first one because they probably had the overall throughline but weren't sure how to pad it out and added all of the extra layers of STUFF. Speed Racer has the same overall arc of rejecting a horrible system to create the better future for everyone, while doing the Path of Neo joke of making it an unambiguous triumph and celebration. Edit: I remembered the old thing about how the Wachowskis originally wanted to do one prequel and one sequel at the most. Expanding out the Second Renaissance content to a full movie probably wouldn't have worked great but that being an early idea fits with the two sequels feeling padded. Shiroc has a new favorite as of 04:54 on May 11, 2020 |
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May 11, 2020 04:51
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Loomer posted:Yeah. Some of his lines and nonfighty scenes in John Wick 2+3 are incredibly poorly performed. He’s not a good actor by any stretch, even if he’s a great performer in a few select areas. ...eh? I'm not gonna call any of Keanu's work in those movies Oscar-worthy but there wasn't anything in either that struck me as distractingly bad, and honestly the series as a whole has kinda vindicated my opinion that Keanu can be a legit good actor if he has the right material Keanu works best when you put him in the role of a character who is just absolutely tired and done with everyone's poo poo; Neon Demon uses him amazingly well in this kind of role, and the John Wick movies basically trade on the exact same thing
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May 11, 2020 04:55
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Also, I'm just gonna say it, the rave thing in Reloaded has actually aged fantastically, because I don't know if y'all were paying attention but EDM and rave culture had a huge resurgence over the past decade If anything, it's better now than it was at the time for that reason, because in 2003 they were still kind of a dying relic of the 90s... and then about 7ish years later Skrillex happened and now it's suddenly not dated anymore
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May 11, 2020 04:56
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WeedlordGoku69 posted:Also, I'm just gonna say it, the rave thing in Reloaded has actually aged fantastically, because I don't know if y'all were paying attention but EDM and rave culture had a huge resurgence over the past decade Skrillex happened like 10 years ago old man. I wouldn't pretend to know if EDM is on its way out but considering I last heard of it being remotely big around 2014 I wouldn't hold my breath. WeedlordGoku69 posted:Keanu works best when you put him in the role of a character who is just absolutely tired and done with everyone's poo poo; Neon Demon uses him amazingly well in this kind of role, and the John Wick movies basically trade on the exact same thing Shiroc posted:Speed Racer has the same overall arc of rejecting a horrible system to create the better future for everyone, while doing the Path of Neo joke of making it an unambiguous triumph and celebration. And that idea makes way more sense than what we got. I do think if they had compressed Reloaded/Revolutions into one movie "Oh no Agent Smith went rogue and is viral-taking the Matrix" while skipping over the Architect bullshit would have... it wouldn't have been as good but we probably would be going "yeah fair enough B+." Still gonna die mad about the monsters though. Like I bet at one point that was the idea and they loved the idea too much to take it out of the script, but all it does is highlight a much better possible version of what you're watching.
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May 11, 2020 05:42
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mind the walrus posted:Bingo. I think Keanu is a very good actor with a tiny range, plus Ted for some reason. I get the impression Ted is closest to his IRL personality. And Speed Racer is indeed deeply underrated.
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May 11, 2020 06:24
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mind the walrus posted:Speed Racer was way better than it should have been and it sucks how few people seemed to be in on the joke. John Goodman as Pops is the best part of that movie. "Ninja? More like non-ja" is so stupid but I still crack a smile when I get to that part.
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May 11, 2020 06:27
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Second Renaissance aged well because it says that humans would rather die under capitalism then live in a post scarcity world.
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May 11, 2020 06:32
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mind the walrus posted:Skrillex happened like 10 years ago old man. I wouldn't pretend to know if EDM is on its way out but considering I last heard of it being remotely big around 2014 I wouldn't hold my breath. he's still around and it never went away, it basically just merged with pop music/top 40. the current equivalent hotness would probably be The Chainsmokers or Marshmello e: yeah I just looked up vids of Ultra Music Festival from last year and there's still loving shitloads of people going, even for relatively B-list artists WeedlordGoku69 has a new favorite as of 07:02 on May 11, 2020 |
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May 11, 2020 06:56
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Speed Racer is an absolutely brilliant movie. I still completely love that the movie opens with Speed trying to defeat the literal Mario Kart time trial ghost of his brother (who is absolutely not the mysterious Racer X at all, that would be silly and shame on you for even thinking that).
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May 11, 2020 07:29
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Suddenly I remembered that Dexter's Lab had an episode that was one extended, very direct parody of Speed Racer. And while I think it aged really well because at this point they're both 'classic cartoons' in a general sense that can be thought of in the same sphere, I'm really curious how it played at the time, since the whole thing was a children's cartoon from the nineties directly referencing one from the sixties. Over here in Australia the same network aired both Dexter's Lab and Speed Racer reruns, so it felt contemporary in that way; was that also true in the US?
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May 11, 2020 07:46
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Yep, we had Speed Racer reruns at the same time as Dexter’s Lab, or close to it, in the States.
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May 11, 2020 07:54
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Wait, there was a Woody Woodpecker movie ? Ahem. The Matrix sequels had serious problems, but I won't hear a word said against the highway sequence. That's action, music, and editing converging on perfection.
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May 11, 2020 08:12
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Cartoon Network tried to make Speed Racer into a pretty big deal for a brief period. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vT0-UjS2NNs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTteJTKX-6w Speed Racer also ended up on the the Speed network here in the states too. It's kind of weird. I don't think Speed Racer had any kind of ongoing popularity in Japan (and if I'm wrong, someone please correct me), but over here in the USA it was treated like...I don't want to say it's treated like a BIG deal, but for a long while it certainly felt like it. There have been multiple attempts in the west at doing sequels, re-imaginings, and follows-ups, though none of them ever really took off.
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May 11, 2020 08:17
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mllaneza posted:Wait, there was a Woody Woodpecker movie ? Yes and while it wasn't brilliant it was weird enough to be interesting. Rather than Man Vs Nature, the plot involves the developer bribing Woody after an initial bit of MvN tension with peanut butter cookies to leave his team alone, and Woody ends up helping them build the thing. It inevitably goes wrong when Woody tries to add a fresco to the wooden wall, but punctures too far by accident, knocking himself out because he hit a power cable, and by the time he comes to the building has burnt down. He spends the rest of the movie feeling like total poo poo about it too, doesn't try to excuse himself or anything or play it off with a joke. The actual tension comes in comedy poachers who have a cute scene where they are performing an auction via skype to sell internationally. There were some really dumb jokes though like Woody pooping on a villain's ice cream then him eating it, and even the character's like "Yeah, sorry you had to see that, that was unnecessary..." It felt like there was one writer fighting studio mandated stupid ideas and doing his best to do interesting things despite shoehorned poop jokes.
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May 11, 2020 08:20
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Vandar posted:Cartoon Network tried to make Speed Racer into a pretty big deal for a brief period. Astro Boy used to be big too, the early anime dubs caught a bit of the magic that was cartoons which did things Western cartoons didn't and took themselves and the audience more seriously. Having higher production values also helped. The kind of show that inspires future generations of animators like how 90s anime inspired the current generation.
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May 11, 2020 08:57
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mind the walrus posted:Bingo. It's been said a million times-- it's the perfect adolescent empowerment fantasy, most likely because the Wachowskis were infusing it with their own experience as trans women, suffused with being the flashpoint for groundbreaking cinema tech and getting the cocktail of 90s club wear, wire fu wuxia, pseudo-spiritual transhumanism, anime and video game conventions, and late-century US ennui exactly right. It is absolutely a story that never needed any follow-up. It says a lot that according to Will Smith, the Wachowskis spent their entire pitch to him to play Neo talking about the bullet time effects instead of the plot (hence why he turned it down).
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May 11, 2020 13:16
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Imo Keanu is like Nic Cage, they can nail it when given the right part; and when they either don't care (Nic cage) or are miscast (Keanu) I still enjoy watching them most of the time.
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May 11, 2020 13:34
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Agent Smith is one of my fav characters of all time tho
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May 11, 2020 13:53
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The other day I saw Keanu Reeves play a serial killer in The Watcher (2000), and it was one of the worst things I've ever seen. It makes all his other performances look Oscar-worthy.
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May 11, 2020 14:12
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oldpainless posted:Agent Smith is one of my fav characters of all time tho More like oldemotionless
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May 11, 2020 14:23
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I think that 2003 me didn't really understand that you couldn't really do more Matrix sequels that were like the first movie; they needed to either drastically change the rules of the actual Matrix or have them take place not in the Matrix in order for them to be able to tell stories that had like a plot arc or 'reasons for anyone to ever punch or shoot anyone'. The Matrix, taken as a stand-alone movie, is brilliant but taken as the start of a film franchise is... um... not strong. There aren't any real questions left unanswered within the text of the actual film in The Matrix to build a 'sequel' on and so what we got might have been the best possible take on trying to do one (though 2003 me and 2020 me don't enjoy what we got).
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May 11, 2020 14:25
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artsy fartsy posted:The other day I saw Keanu Reeves play a serial killer in The Watcher (2000), and it was one of the worst things I've ever seen. It makes all his other performances look Oscar-worthy. I feel like the late 90s-early 00s was when Hollywood was at their peak 'miscasting Keanu Reeves'. When it comes to acting, he can only really do two roles: the bland, neutral protagonist, and Theodore Logan. So in essence, he can either do one role, or no role. But he's also really dedicated and really friendly, which makes him absolutely perfect for those two sorts of roles: he's personable and friendly enough to get exactly the set rapport you'd want out of something like Bill and Ted, and he'll dedicate himself to stunts and training to a level that you'd need for a movie like John Wick. Weirdly, these two things came together in the Matrix, but not in a way you'd expect; sure he was down for all the stunts, but also, the Wachowskis demanded everyone working on the film have an understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of the movie. But while Reeves wasn't the quickest to understand the concepts (that would apparently be Lawrence Fishburne) he might've been the most dedicated study, because he understood how important it was to their whole idea.
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May 11, 2020 14:28
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oldpainless posted:Agent Smith is one of my fav characters of all time tho More like old legolas
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May 11, 2020 14:28
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BioEnchanted posted:Yes and while it wasn't brilliant it was weird enough to be interesting. Rather than Man Vs Nature, the plot involves the developer bribing Woody after an initial bit of MvN tension with peanut butter cookies to leave his team alone, and Woody ends up helping them build the thing. It inevitably goes wrong when Woody tries to add a fresco to the wooden wall, but punctures too far by accident, knocking himself out because he hit a power cable, and by the time he comes to the building has burnt down. He spends the rest of the movie feeling like total poo poo about it too, doesn't try to excuse himself or anything or play it off with a joke. The actual tension comes in comedy poachers who have a cute scene where they are performing an auction via skype to sell internationally. There were some really dumb jokes though like Woody pooping on a villain's ice cream then him eating it, and even the character's like "Yeah, sorry you had to see that, that was unnecessary..." If literally any other poster had written this synopsis I wouldn’t believe it, but BioEnchanted never jokes about the weird media they consume.
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May 11, 2020 14:35
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Zedd posted:Imo Keanu is like Nic Cage, they can nail it when given the right part; and when they either don't care (Nic cage) or are miscast (Keanu) I still enjoy watching them most of the time. I remember a very stereotypically CineD rant where Keanu and Cage are compared to Arnold Schwarzenegger; what they do might be called Mega-Acting, character acting or just a narrow range, but they have a very particular character type and they stick to it, which is rather alien to Hollywood's usual style of just having a very charismatic/attractive lead. Used exactly the right way, they work incredibly well, since they channel that charisma into a very particular role. Arnie is probably an interesting example as he realised his gimmick early on and gives his all into it; everything from speech therapy to maintain his signature accent and physical training to maintain his mannerisms is meant to maintain a signature gimmick. The Rock might also be comparable, as the whole thing is quite closely similar to a wrestling gimmick.
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May 11, 2020 14:59
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The worst Keanu Reeves casting was when he played a young Prince Siddhartha in 1993's Little Buddha. Keanu Reeves attempting an Indian accent in brownface is, uh, interesting. https://youtu.be/2QT4mFNVyzc
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May 11, 2020 15:10
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I'm uncertain how to take Keanu's performance in Knock Knock, which is a sleazy Eli Roth exploitation film masquerading as an arch, self-aware critique of sleazy exploitation films. I'd say he's cast well because he's a gormless lump that squints and grunts through events his character barely understands, but I've never been able to figure out whether he understood that the movie he was appearing in was bad. Like not badly done, but morally reprehensible.
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May 11, 2020 15:24
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Reeves was very believable as a pedophile pimp in The Bad Batch
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May 11, 2020 16:30
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artsy fartsy posted:The other day I saw Keanu Reeves play a serial killer in The Watcher (2000), and it was one of the worst things I've ever seen. It makes all his other performances look Oscar-worthy. Apparently Reeves's signature was forged on the contract. He had talked to the director years before the movie was made about being in it and forgot all about it. In the meantime the director got the financing for the film by telling everyone that Keanue Reeves was going to be in his movie. When Reeves looked at suing the guy he realized that just being in the movie was going to be easier and cheaper than a lawsuit. In exchange for the studio heavily downplaying his involvement in advertising he was legally barred from speaking negativity about the movie for a year post-release. Almost exactly a year after the release of The Watcher, The Guardian published an article all about it, but it was immediately sidelined because 9/11 happened a couple of hours later.
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May 11, 2020 17:53
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Keanu Reeves' best performance is as a dog faced boy in the cinematic triumph Freaked.
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May 11, 2020 18:57
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Speed Weed had an impact in Japan, but it's also extremely old. The mach 5 and the trunk monkey made an appearance in yoru no yatterman a couple years back but I think that's about it for direct references.
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May 11, 2020 19:06
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Volcott posted:Speed Weed had an impact in Japan, but it's also extremely old. The mach 5 and the trunk monkey made an appearance in yoru no yatterman a couple years back but I think that's about it for direct references. The TV producer guy?
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May 12, 2020 00:32
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Speed Racer was not executive produced by Speed Weed but can you imagine if it was?
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May 12, 2020 02:33
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 but instead it's at 4x speed
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May 12, 2020 02:37
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mllaneza posted:Wait, there was a Woody Woodpecker movie ? for sure, you couldn't even tell that the cars were missing axles and the actors looked like ps2 characters on my 2003 divx rip
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May 12, 2020 02:57
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Volcott posted:Speed Weed had an impact in Japan, but it's also extremely old. The mach 5 and the trunk monkey made an appearance in yoru no yatterman a couple years back but I think that's about it for direct references. OK so the conversation had moved to Keanu so I was thinking there was a weed themed sequel to Speed that had an impact in Japan
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May 12, 2020 12:17
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Cleretic posted:Weirdly, these two things came together in the Matrix, but not in a way you'd expect; sure he was down for all the stunts, but also, the Wachowskis demanded everyone working on the film have an understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of the movie. But while Reeves wasn't the quickest to understand the concepts (that would apparently be Lawrence Fishburne) he might've been the most dedicated study, because he understood how important it was to their whole idea.
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May 12, 2020 17:15
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purple death ray posted:OK so the conversation had moved to Keanu so I was thinking there was a weed themed sequel to Speed that had an impact in Japan I’m bookmarking this post so if I get a fever, I can refer back to it and hopefully make that part of my fever dreams.
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May 12, 2020 17:27
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Dirt Road Junglist posted:I’m bookmarking this post so if I get a fever, I can refer back to it and hopefully make that part of my fever dreams. Take 50mg of diphenhydramine (Benadryl, Tylenol PM, etc) and put on some futurama while you’re falling asleep the next time you’re running a good fever, your brain will cook up some delightful stuff for you.
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May 12, 2020 18:10
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Ugly In The Morning posted:Take 50mg of diphenhydramine (Benadryl, Tylenol PM, etc) and put on some futurama while you’re falling asleep the next time you’re running a good fever, your brain will cook up some delightful stuff for you. I once had a raging case of some stomach bug that came with a 103 degree fever. I’d been reading Scott Pilgrim that week, and had just uncovered a box of old GamePro magazines, so I was feverishly convinced I had a gaming mag from the past that had a feature on an upcoming Scott Pilgrim game (this was before the movie; there was no game at the time), and somehow GamePro was able to see the future.
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May 12, 2020 18:19
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