Movie Thread

[bobby 55]

After LMAO at Baby's Day Out, I won't criticise anyones choice in movies.

Edit: Since it's been several hours and nobody else has gotten it:

I like Quentin Tarantino films.

I don't remember asking you a damn thing.

Pulp Fiction..... line spoken by Samuel L Jackson's character. It's taken me all day to remember where I heard it.

[chris the cynic]

I don't watch new movies (expensive, too many).

My mother loves going to the theater. She watches romantic comedies with my sister, more or less everything else she'd want to see with me. So I see new movies on a fairly regular basis, and the standard they have to be for us to see them isn't, "Seems like it's going to be good," but, "Seems like it might be good when taken in the context of what is currently produced."

If we'd gone to Ninja Assassin expecting something of great artistic worth we'd have been let down, but as it was we both liked it.

The Day the Earth Stood Still, the original, was decent but slow. I'm told the remake made the whole story about global warming and recycling, and I was told that by a child; I thought that distasteful, so I didn't see the remake.

The new one:

Alien: There are only a few planets capable of supporting life, you're fucking this one up. You have to go.
Member of Monty Python: Wait a minute, you were fucking your planet up. Why did you get a chance we don't get?
Alien: I hadn't thought of that. At this point I'll have to destroy your civilization to keep you from being turned into targeted gray goo. Goodbye civilization.

Sorry Trestkon, I didn't like The Princess Bride . I think I'm the only one on the internet who didn't. I saw it within the last few years, so I might have missed the right age. I liked Carey Elwes more in The Pentagon Wars.

What do you think the right age is? Anyway, there's clearly something wrong with you but it can't be that bad because The Pentagon Wars was indeed excellent.

[Trestkon]

Sorry Trestkon, I didn't like The Princess Bride . I think I'm the only one on the internet who didn't. I saw it within the last few years, so I might have missed the right age.

I watched it 2 days ago. Although that wasn't my first viewing, of course :p

[loony636]

I like Quentin Tarantino films.

I don't remember asking you a damn thing.

What?

Say what again motherfucker. I dare you, I double dare you.

*cough*

Anyway, the Lord of the Rings films are pretty much my favourite films ever. And anything with Kenneth Branagh in it.

[Xesum]

The Princess Bride?!?!

That film was great. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.

[Trestkon]

The Princess Bride?!?!

That film was great. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.

The Cliffs of INSANITY!!

I think one of the reasons that movie remains great (aside from great acting, story, etc.) is that they used very few special effects, so it ages quite well. Except for those swamp rats....

[chris the cynic]

Rodents of unusual size? I don't think they exist.

[Xesum]

They're in Oblivion so they must be real!

Mind you, so are mudcrabs... pesky little things.

[justanotherfan]

So I see new movies on a fairly regular basis, and the standard they have to be for us to see them isn't, "Seems like it's going to be good," but, "Seems like it might be good when taken in the context of what is currently produced."

Yeah, I know many people who love movies. It's a pastime entertainment for them, a part of daily life even. Without knowing any movies, conversations are made difficult...still, I've found people who love movies don't necessarily do classic movies. When it's rentals, and I walk into the room, I wonder how many movies are produced yearly and how many of the terrible ones must make money.

What do you think the right age is? Anyway, there's clearly something wrong with you but it can't be that bad because The Pentagon Wars was indeed excellent.

For once I won't argue against that . There is something wrong, or at least negatively different. Just can't sit through a movie, too restless or bored. Last theater movie I saw was either Stealing Harvard or Attack of the Clones, and I miss a lot in the theater since there's no pause button.

I'm not sure what the right age would be for Princess Bride. Maybe young enough on the first viewing to not anticipate the story. A lot of the humour is great, similar to HHGttG, with absurdity and logic jokes, but I missed a lot of them sitting through the story; the quotes are great.

That's awesome that you've seen The Pentagon Wars though. I saw it on HBO in the mid 90's, and it was nearly impossible to find afterward. Sort of like mixing Sgt.Bilko, Periscope Down, and an expose, with a little interoffice bickering (ie. I'm not going to read the novel it's based on). There's some hilarious quotes, like "He can't have his ammo, not unless he runs alongside this thing carrying it", and the summary of the final Bradley, but it even has some Princess Bride type humour-
Madame Chairwoman: Am I to understand you were not in favor of the tests Col. Burton proposed?
Major General Partridge: Absolutely not.
Madame Chairwoman: Absolutely not yes or absolutely not no?
Major General Partridge: Absolutely not absolutely.
--

If anyone wants to do the classic movies thing too, and has a PVR, they play a lot of them on TV every week. Even new-ish ones. It's how I saw Hackers, HHGttG, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Moll Flanders, and many more...watch the first two, skip through the third, and don't watch the last unless you want to destroy your memory of the novel.

I remembered a movie like Hackers from the 90's, but not the name. It started off with a teenage software pirate hacker stereotype, selling games and software before they were released. I think the police catch him early on as well. I have no idea if it was any good, but it's annoying to not remember it, especially when I've found some of my favourite movies from the list of ones I saw and didn't remember well.

[chris the cynic]

I taped it when it was on HBO, I have it on VHS to this day.

For those who have no idea what it is, The Pentagon Wars is about the testing of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, which is pretty well summed up in this exchange:

Major General Partridge: Just because the tests didn't always come out the way Colonel Burton expected, is no reason to assume that anything devious going on.
Madame Chairwoman: I ask you general, filling the fuel tanks with water for a test to check the combustibility of those tanks, that wasn't devious?
Major General Partridge: If the tanks had been filled with fuel, there's a good chance the vehicle would have exploded.
Congressman: Isn't that the point?
Major General Partridge: If the vehicle had exploded, we couldn't run additional tests! I can't order up a unlimited number of Bradleys, just to blow them up. Unless, of course, you're telling me to spend more money, which I can't imagine you are.
Madame Chairwoman: General, I believe that efforts were made to make the Bradley amphibious.
Major General Partridge: Yes... although how that's relevant I fail to comprehend...
Congressman: How many Bradleys were lost during that experiment?
Major General Partridge: Lost?
Congressman 2: The report says four of the Bradleys sank during testing.
Major General Partridge: Well, that is a matter of opinion.
Madame Chairwoman: It's not opinion, general. Four Of Them Sank.
Major General Partridge: [pause] Technically, yes.

After that chunk of quotage there's probably no harm in dumping a few more quotes:

Col. Robert Laurel Smith: In summation, gentlemen, what you have before you is...
Sgt. Fanning: A troop transport that can't carry troops, a reconnaissance vehicle that's too conspicuous to do reconnaissance...
Lt. Colonel James Burton: And a quasi-tank that has less armor than a snow-blower, but has enough ammo to take out half of D.C.

Major General Partridge: Even a heat-seeking missile can miss a target.
Madame Chairwoman: General, I see here that you taped electric hotplates to the surface of the vehicle to help your heat-seeking missile find its target, and that the temperature of the vehicle was so high that it could have fried an egg - at twenty feet!

Major General Partridge: The Paveway is one hell of a bomb. Laser-guided, state-of-the-art.
Madame Chairwoman: And it proved what? That we have an effective weapon as long as the enemy allows us to build a two-story crane directly above their tanks?

Major General Partridge: We have had some spectacular successes.
Congressman: Such as?
Major General Partridge: That's classified information.

[bobby 55]

Col. Robert Laurel Smith: In summation, gentlemen, what you have before you is...
Sgt. Fanning: A troop transport that can't carry troops, a reconnaissance vehicle that's too conspicuous to do reconnaissance...
Lt. Colonel James Burton: And a quasi-tank that has less armor than a snow-blower, but has enough ammo to take out half of D.C.

That's hilarious.

[justanotherfan]

Yep, that's the final Bradley summary. It's an exchange between characters and flashback characters, with some excellent timing. The film could be condensed to Sgt. Bilko, minus Steve Martin, plus a more serious Kelsey Grammer and some better satire. Bilko was good too, as was the Phil Silvers Show, but absurd humour works better for me than silly humour (which is also an art). It can be found online now, DVD supposedly.

I've found a few actors that I really enjoy. Kelsey Grammer is one. I've just discovered the guy in Blow Dry was also in HHGttG, Bill Nighy; if anyone has recommendations for his movies, I'm interested. This thread started me looking for films again, so I'm going to get Bob Roberts, Truly Madly Deeply, Hot Fuzz, Closet Land, and Mesmer. Mesmer even has Michael Nyman for the soundtrack, so I'm excited about that, and Hot Fuzz seemed great from a preview in a BBC interview I saw.

I have to post in another thread about movies. I might be rewatching a lot of the ones I have. I do that more, skipping through things I saw and enjoyed. That might be part of what's gone wrong, that I enjoy the familiar more than the uncertain

[chris the cynic]

Yep, that's the final Bradley summary. It's an exchange between characters and flashback characters, with some excellent timing.

The way that bit is cut together is wonderful.

As it turns out, everything is on YouTube, including this movie.

This does a good job of showing the context leading up to it the part in question, but cuts out a bit early for my taste. (To be clear, it contains the entire quoted bit, but stops quite literally the second after the last word in the quote.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyakI9GeYRs

If you're willing to watch ten minutes to get the context of what's going on look at the above, if you just want to see what justanotherfan and I are talking about regarding that quote I'd recommend going here and starting around 2:24 and watching for about two minutes. (The guy with the glasses is the designer.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-1yOB4JHLU

[bobby 55]

Hahahaha! Thanks for the links. That has made my day.

[Grammatolatry]

Omg, the Indiana Jones movies. He was gorgeous to look at back in his day.