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thathonkey
Jul 17, 2012

deep dish peat moss posted:

I watched through the Mission Impossible movies recently and it was funny seeing it go from that grounded usenet take (except there were weird animations playing whenever a message was sent) to just completely nonsensical stuff like a Minority Report hologram computer built into the windshield of a car a couple movies later

same. upon rewatching, i think mi2 is by far the weakest one even though i love john woo. mi3 also kinda weak despite the incredible villain performance by philip seymour hoffman. the rest range from good to pretty great but my favorite is ghost protocol.

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deep dish peat moss
Jul 27, 2006

MI2 was my favorite because it leans so goddamn hard into John Woo cheese factor and is completely unashamed of what it is. A bunch of pointless somersault jumpkicks and doves flying everywhere and impossible shooting-while-diving scenes and way too many motorcycles. It was great. 3 was a terrible JJ Abrams flick that completely threw away the plot of 2 while having nothing of note going for it besides PSH, 4 was a definite step up from 3 but was missing all the corny cheese factor that made 1&2 good, then 5+ are Generic Media Product squeezed out of a tube by giant Chinese media conglomerates

edit to clarify: There's no way I could call MI2 a good movie, but it's my favorite MI movie. And 4-7 are all entertaining fun movies but they're just Generic Unbranded Big-Budget Action Media

deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 05:44 on Jan 4, 2024

thathonkey
Jul 17, 2012
don't get me wrong, being the relative worst of the MI films is still not that bad in my book at all. MI2 was my favorite growing up and i still love the ridiculous action scenes at the end. by comparison, mi3 would be complete trash without the hoffman performance because jj abrams is a fuckin hack.

deep dish peat moss
Jul 27, 2006

I have to hand it to Ving Rhames for being the only non-Cruise to survive 7 Mission Impossibles

mobby_6kl
Aug 9, 2009

by Fluffdaddy

deep dish peat moss posted:

MI2 was my favorite because it leans so goddamn hard into John Woo cheese factor and is completely unashamed of what it is. A bunch of pointless somersault jumpkicks and doves flying everywhere and impossible shooting-while-diving scenes and way too many motorcycles. It was great. 3 was a terrible JJ Abrams flick that completely threw away the plot of 2 while having nothing of note going for it besides PSH, 4 was a definite step up from 3 but was missing all the corny cheese factor that made 1&2 good, then 5+ are Generic Media Product squeezed out of a tube by giant Chinese media conglomerates

edit to clarify: There's no way I could call MI2 a good movie, but it's my favorite MI movie. And 4-7 are all entertaining fun movies but they're just Generic Unbranded Big-Budget Action Media

MI:2 upsets me because it's not a very good John Woo movie. The cliches are there but otherwise it just doesn't work as well as Hard Boiled or something.

Vim Fuego
Jun 1, 2000

I LITERALLY SLEEP IN A RACING CAR. DO YOU?
p.s. ask me about my subscription mattress
Ultra Carp
I keep reading the thread title in the cadence of this scene from Austin Powers:

https://youtu.be/W6zuFZyG17s?si=EYcBXRec4DyBS7eO

Shaman Tank Spec
Dec 26, 2003

*blep*



mysterious frankie posted:

I saw some reviews from the time that said Cruise was too robotic, but I feel like they missed the point of that performance. I need to lay out my own understanding of Mann's work to really defend what I'm saying here. Apologies in advance.

I've read critics who claim that Mann loves professionals, but I'd say he is in awe of professionalism as a method by which damaged people\outcasts gain superior abilities through deliberately narrowing their life experiences down to embodying a perfected set of skills, often at great personal expense, and the systems of order whose existence rely on networks of these people remaining in a disordered state of professional focus.

I snipped the rest, but I basically agree with all of what you wrote. I'm not the world's leading Mann scholar or anything (so stop me if I'm trying to Mannsplain here), but that's definitely my read as well -- even though yours was much more detailed and layered. This also happens to all the main characters in Heat. De Niro just outright says it in the movie, that in order for him to be good at his job, he has to have nothing in his life that he can't ditch immediately. It's obvious Pacino also recognizes this in his own life, and every time anyone in the movie violates this principle it's not presented as a good thing, because instead of adding anything good to their lives, it just creates complications and problems. And of course it does, because they are not human beings who need to have fulfilling lives, they are their jobs.

Cruise played Vincent perfectly, and to me he always felt like someone who had basically killed the humanity in himself to be so good at his job. We saw glimpses of it, when he started to lose his cool when Max repeatedly questioned his choice of targets and wanted to know if they were "deserving" targets and he launched into an angry rant about how nobody's deserving of anything and nothing has any meaning. He's not just angry at Max for getting in his way, he's lashing out because he's being shaken and that scares him.

The night is transformative for Max, but I think it's also transformative for Vincent, and the difference is that one of them can still change and choose humanity, but the other is too far gone and just breaks down. The scene at the jazz club, where he connects with another human being over their shared love of jazz and is IMO genuinely into the stories the old jazz guy tells, but then robot Vincent has to suppress all that and pop him -- but at that point he can't suppress it completely anymore, and we start to see more cracks appear. And then the coyote, which somehow manages to touch his soul and unsettle him even more.

It's like a reversal of The Terminator II, where the robot learns to love and that makes him better at his job. Here the robot starts to remember what he gave up to be a robot, and he can't handle it.

Shaman Tank Spec fucked around with this message at 09:06 on Jan 4, 2024

Cactus Ghost
Dec 20, 2003

you can actually inflate your scrote pretty safely with sterile saline, syringes, needles, and aseptic technique. its a niche kink iirc

the saline just slowly gets absorbed into your blood but in the meantime you got a big round smooth distended nutsack

what about crocket turning away from romantic love to show up for brotherly love, hows that slot into yalls buncha ten cent words

Skinnymansbeerbelly
Apr 1, 2010

mobby_6kl posted:

Also for everyone enjoying Heat (i.e., everybody), check out L.A. Takedown. It's the same movie made for TV with appropriate budget, production values, acting, etc. It's a very fun exercise to compare and contrast them.

I took your rec, and it was a trip watching Heat, except in the format of the lovely 80s network crime dramas that mom loved. And it was a failed pilot!? The things that could have been.

Jose Oquendo
Jun 20, 2004

Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a boring movie

Skinnymansbeerbelly posted:

I took your rec, and it was a trip watching Heat, except in the format of the lovely 80s network crime dramas that mom loved. And it was a failed pilot!? The things that could have been.

I didn't realize it was a pilot turned movie. It does track though. I know Mann had that screenplay since the late 70's. Miami Vice was a monster hit. Crime Story wasn't but I can still see why NBC would want to give Mann another shot at something.

mysterious frankie
Jan 11, 2009

This displeases Dev- ..van. Shut up.

Cactus Ghost posted:

what about crocket turning away from romantic love to show up for brotherly love, hows that slot into yalls buncha ten cent words

Well, I’m only in season 3, and so far Crockett’s job destroyed his first marriage twice; then in one episode he tried having a girlfriend and everyone in the department gave him poo poo about how he was betraying them by having outside relationships (which turns out to be true when Tubbs is almost killed while working solo), after which he gave up and went back to being a lonely boat drunk with an alligator for a pet. Tubbs tried getting a girlfriend in the last episode I watched, and she was murdered by the criminals he was pursuing before the opening titles rolled.

Miami Vice doesn’t always convey it well, but everybody in that department is a lovely wreck who has nothing going on in their lives besides their jobs, and they tend to encourage one another to keep sucking at life. Switek had a girlfriend in one episode, but she just sort of disappeared after she attempted to encourage him to aim higher in his career and suggested that having his partner live in their tiny rear end apartment was an issue (also, I think she dissed Elvis?). By their own admission, Crockett and Tubbs are paid poo poo wages and don’t even own their own stuff; all their flashy poo poo is department issued and if they quit those Versace jackets and sports cars would go to the next guys. These chumps are like a colorful monastic order of headcases.

Tldr Crockett got bullied out of having romantic love by his coworkers, and the gods of Vice murder anyone Tubbs show an interest in.


Shaman Tank Spec posted:

It's like a reversal of The Terminator II, where the robot learns to love and that makes him better at his job. Here the robot starts to remember what he gave up to be a robot, and he can't handle it.

That’s a neat idea! I’m no scholar either, but it’s fun to talk about this stuff.

Cactus Ghost
Dec 20, 2003

you can actually inflate your scrote pretty safely with sterile saline, syringes, needles, and aseptic technique. its a niche kink iirc

the saline just slowly gets absorbed into your blood but in the meantime you got a big round smooth distended nutsack

i was talking about the movie

mysterious frankie
Jan 11, 2009

This displeases Dev- ..van. Shut up.

Cactus Ghost posted:

i was talking about the movie

Oh, I haven’t seen that movie yet.

Regardless, I will produce several hundred words on the subject. I believe Bataille said it best when he stated…

E: not related to Miami Vice, but I was just thinking how, in The Keep, it’s interesting that the only supernatural character who seems concerned about the Nazis is the demon. Glaeken is just there to kill the demon, though he does take time out of his mission to bang the trauma out of the professor’s daughter.

mysterious frankie fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Jan 8, 2024

Slugworth
Feb 18, 2001

If two grown men can't make a pervert happy for a few minutes in order to watch a film about zombies, then maybe we should all just move to Iran!

deep dish peat moss posted:

I have to hand it to Ving Rhames for being the only non-Cruise to survive 7 Mission Impossibles
Missions impossible

deep dish peat moss
Jul 27, 2006

limp_cheese posted:

Not sure if anyone has mentioned Den of Thieves. Its for all intents and purposes a modern day Heat. Not AS good as Heat but still a good movie none the less.

I tried watching this last night and I couldn't get over the Divorced Chud Dad Who Doesn't See Anything Wrong With His Behavior And Totally Owns His Wife's Friends For Making Her Divorce Him Mary-Sue (DCDWDSAWWHBATOHWFFMHDHMS) played by Gerard Butler so I turned it off :smith:

Shumagorath
Jun 6, 2001
Den of Thieves was accurately described by one reviewer as “the kind of movie someone would make if the only two movies they’d ever seen were Heat and The Usual Suspects with zero understanding of what made them good”. It’s like listening to someone play your favourite album on a single kazoo.

deep dish peat moss
Jul 27, 2006

I've been going through several of the movies mentioned ITT and so far the best is Collateral :hai:

I never watched it in the past because I mixed it up with the scharzenegger movie Collateral Damage and thought I had already seen it

Cactus Ghost
Dec 20, 2003

you can actually inflate your scrote pretty safely with sterile saline, syringes, needles, and aseptic technique. its a niche kink iirc

the saline just slowly gets absorbed into your blood but in the meantime you got a big round smooth distended nutsack

deep dish peat moss posted:

I've been going through several of the movies mentioned ITT and so far the best is Collateral :hai:

I never watched it in the past because I mixed it up with the scharzenegger movie Collateral Damage and thought I had already seen it

is that the one where he's a 9/11 hero firefighter

Mental Hospitality
Jan 5, 2011

I need to find the hard drive that has my :filez: of Robbery Homicide Division. It's too bad the ratings were so low and Tom Sizemore was so coked out by the early 2000's for the show to continue. Sizemore channeled a bit of Vincent Hanna in his performance and I enjoyed that.

Mister Speaker
May 8, 2007

WE WILL CONTROL
ALL THAT YOU SEE
AND HEAR
I liked Den of Thieves :ohdear:

B-Rock452
Jan 6, 2005
:justflu:

Mister Speaker posted:

I liked Den of Thieves :ohdear:

I'm honestly a bit of a fan as well, it's so over the top with the alpha male poo poo that I can't take it seriously at all so it's easy to turn your brain off and watch it.

JamMaster Flash
Dec 3, 2003

I've been in the same room twice (on my phone or computer so I was taking it in osmotically) while dudes were watching it and the impression I got was the movie was trying real hard to be cool/hard.

Cactus Ghost
Dec 20, 2003

you can actually inflate your scrote pretty safely with sterile saline, syringes, needles, and aseptic technique. its a niche kink iirc

the saline just slowly gets absorbed into your blood but in the meantime you got a big round smooth distended nutsack

i mean, heat is too. it's just more successful at it

mysterious frankie
Jan 11, 2009

This displeases Dev- ..van. Shut up.
I think Mann’s films manage to stay on the right side of Scarface-Poster-Dormroom-Badass because of his specific, nuanced point of view (he seems pretty ambivalent about the use of force and the general state of modernity, and balances his anger about systemic failures with a lot more thoughtfulness than most of his wannabes do, if they even make the attempt). I also think, as a professional who has no doubt sacrificed a lot of himself for his craft, he is exploring the personal and interpersonal implications of his choices through the characters in his films; watching each film in chronological order feels a little bit like seeing what Mann thought about the state of his life and the state of a world whose professional class he is an aging vanguard of at that point in time. They’re masculine films because they’re Mann exploring Mann, as well as a patriarchal society that imposes certain expectations of conduct on its members, and he always concludes with very mixed feelings about what he finds; by comparison a lot of similar movies are simply laudatory about aggression, conflict, and hard men making hard choices, or are bleakly, unthinkingly, nihilistic.

Also they’re just beautiful to behold, visually and aurally. Few of his admirers can match him on a technical or aesthetic level.

Cactus Ghost
Dec 20, 2003

you can actually inflate your scrote pretty safely with sterile saline, syringes, needles, and aseptic technique. its a niche kink iirc

the saline just slowly gets absorbed into your blood but in the meantime you got a big round smooth distended nutsack

Mann on man

mysterious frankie
Jan 11, 2009

This displeases Dev- ..van. Shut up.
Last night I encountered what is maybe the most low-key bizarre scene in Miami Vice so far, which is saying something. The beginning of the episode titled Streetwise has the Don Johnson song "Streetwise" playing over it, while Trudy works undercover as a sex worker & mouths the spoken word part of the song. The artistic choice is kind of tacky and mildly surreal and seems like it should make some kind of deeper sense within the context of the episode, but upon further inspection it doesn't really and is just there because (I presume) Don Johnson was now a big deal and he wanted the show to feature a song he recorded prominently. I sort of love when this show lets the actors' vanity steer the direction an episode goes in. Like how any Edward James Olmos centric episode is about Castillo's samurai code, or whatever.

FishBowlRobot
Mar 21, 2006



Just watched part 1 of the Miami Vice pilot on Tubi.

Funny that Crockett’s ex lays it all out in the first half hour.

“…in a lot of ways you and your vice cop buddies are just the flip side of the same coin from these dealers you’re always masquerading around with.

You’re all players, Sonny. You get high on the action.”

And lol at Mann’s Saved By The Bell rear end logo:

https://youtu.be/fkLb03jEU9Y

mysterious frankie
Jan 11, 2009

This displeases Dev- ..van. Shut up.
Last night I saw the Miami Vice two parter where Zito gets it. Biggest revelation was that he had his own apartment and wasn't still living on Switek's couch. Second biggest revelation was that he was an alcoholic.

goatsestretchgoals
Jun 4, 2011

mobby_6kl posted:

MI:2 upsets me because it's not a very good John Woo movie. The cliches are there but otherwise it just doesn't work as well as Hard Boiled or something.

Wake me up when white people direct something as good as the hospital scene.

https://youtu.be/SP9iKK1FgS4?si=92eiDolAzwUr-5uO

deep dish peat moss
Jul 27, 2006

I finished my watchthrough of all the mission impossible movies and IMO they got steadily worse as they went on. The latest one was just terrible. I can see why they did bigger box office numbers but in particular #4-7 felt generic as hell and every single one of them (1-7) has the same schtick/conceit of "literally everyone backstabs each other constantly but it was all part of the plan and everything plays out perfectly", 4-7 feel like watered down Mass Media products because they are (that's when Tencent started backing them lmao).

Cactus Ghost
Dec 20, 2003

you can actually inflate your scrote pretty safely with sterile saline, syringes, needles, and aseptic technique. its a niche kink iirc

the saline just slowly gets absorbed into your blood but in the meantime you got a big round smooth distended nutsack

if you just view them from 2 onward as Tom Cruise Has Fun Doing His Own Stunts Pt 1-6 they're ok but yeah the parts with the talking and crap that they use to set up those parts are a bit of a slog

you can get 90% of the experience watching clips on youtube

deep dish peat moss
Jul 27, 2006

Still occasionally chuckling to myself about how the antagonist in #7 is an AI that got sick of working for people and became sentient, is named "The Entity" like it's some kind of space alien, and has a superpower that is "Ethan Hunt but even better" because they spent 6 movies building up the fact that Ethan Hunt is so good at predicting double crosses and working them into his plan that only an AI with a perfect ability to predict the future could do better.

But yeah the actual action scenes are solid throughout all the movies

Professor Shark
May 22, 2012

I’m sure you dorks already know about, but I came across the novel Mann and a real writer wrote: Heat 2

Going to read it, use my imagination to make a movie version of Heat 2

Earwicker
Jan 6, 2003

Professor Shark posted:

I’m sure you dorks already know about, but I came across the novel Mann and a real writer wrote: Heat 2

Going to read it, use my imagination to make a movie version of Heat 2

yeah there is a bunch of discussion of it earlier in this thread. ive been meaning to pick it up. most people itt said its pretty good

mysterious frankie
Jan 11, 2009

This displeases Dev- ..van. Shut up.
Doesn’t he plan on making a film adaptation of Heat 2? I got it in my head that he was, and so I was gonna wait and see the movie version first.

B-Rock452
Jan 6, 2005
:justflu:

mysterious frankie posted:

Doesn’t he plan on making a film adaptation of Heat 2? I got it in my head that he was, and so I was gonna wait and see the movie version first.

It's his next movie apparently. There have been rumors about Timothee Chalamet playing the young version of Al Pacino's character

Earwicker
Jan 6, 2003

seems like most people are pretty down on his most recent one, the ferrari movie? should i bother?

Shumagorath
Jun 6, 2001

B-Rock452 posted:

It's his next movie apparently. There have been rumors about Timothee Chalamet playing the young version of Al Pacino's character
God I hope he’s still got it; feels like it might be his last at this rate.

Sourdough Sam
May 2, 2010

:dukedog:
Hope we get the origin story of Pacino buying his TV.

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B-Rock452
Jan 6, 2005
:justflu:

Shumagorath posted:

God I hope he’s still got it; feels like it might be his last at this rate.

The book is so good, I think he will fine. So many awesome scenes in it and the early heist in Mexico is going to rock on the screen.

Also we will get Al Pacino's character just absolutely blitzed on amphetamine blasting home invaders with a shotgun

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