If you don’t follow her, there’s no reason to have any expectation either way.
Well, I do. I also don’t expect Frankie Muniz to be overly opinionated on the Boxer Rebellion.
The Person in Question
If memory serves, you were the guy who could not handle Lena Dunham’s positions, so I simply assumed Melissa McCarthy had said some things in the past that also irritated you.
I like Melissa McCarthy. Lena Dunham strikes me as a stuck up, whiny bitch; mainly, though, she just isn’t funny. Melissa McCarthy is (usually) very funny, but I’m not going to pretend that I wouldn’t be surprised if she turned out to be a scholar of the Korean War.
tl;dr: Lena Dunham irritates me; Melissa McCarthy doesn’t.
The Person in Question
What on Earth did China object to in the film?
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ghostbusters-denied-release-china-910563
China’s official censorship guidelines technically prohibit movies that “promote cults or superstition” — a holdover from the Communist Party’s secular ideology — and the country’s regulators occasionally have been known to use this obscure provision as rationale for banning films that feature ghosts or supernatural beings in a semi-realistic way (Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest suffered such a fate in 2006, thanks to its depictions of ghouls and cannibalism).
The original Bill Murray-starring 1984 classic, which never screened theatrically in China,
“It’s been confirmed that Ghostbusters won’t be coming to China, because they think it’s not really that attractive to Chinese audiences,” says one Chinese executive. “Most of the Chinese audience didn’t see the first and second movies, so they don’t think there’s much market for it here.”
I wish some hungry ghosts would come forth and swallow the Communist Party whole.
I don’t.
Ghostbusters (2016)
My biggest fear, based on the trailers, was that there would be a ton of gross-out humor. Luckily it was all in the trailers. The humor was mostly spot-on, the cast was solid, the cameos were fun, the sfx was fine, and Kate McKinnon and Chris Hemsworth stole the show.
My wife agreed with all of the above, but also said it was great to see women talking like actual women, not wearing sexy outfits, not going undercover as strippers, not being catty, and not being ditzy.
I think when they’re a little older, my daughters will LOVE this.
8/10
Agree with this.
Marnie (1964) 6/10
Not the best of Alfred Hitchcock’s work, but the acting was solid. The safe heist was interesting, the rest was meh. I did enjoy seeing Connery in something other then a Bond film from that era. In fact he played Bond rather well in this. This is definitely how I think the character of Bond should have been played if Eon Productions would have been allowed to film “The Spy Who Loved Me” novel as written, or even if Connery played 007 in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”.
Recently upon revisiting the film, I was struck at just how much Connery carries the whole damn picture. It’s really a testament to his acting strengths (something that is largely ignored) and how his range is much larger than people realize. It also helps that Hitchcock was a closet Bond fan or at least he liked to screen the competition pictures on the Universal lot despite always deriding them in print. The idea of getting Connery for himself must have appealed to him. Connery’s presence is sorely missed in the studio imposed TORN CURTAIN and TOPAZ. (Both of which have their moments. TC has two great moments and is otherwise nearly unbearable. The latter is actually quite good if you can get past the downsides and the lack of major screen charisma from any of the leads…and the fact that the ending was hastily cut out.)
I have no desire to see the new studio version of GHOSTBUSTERS. I know it will be bad and a mindless brand entry to build a new plaything for the studio. What I dislike is how the intensive online and fan backlash was immediately heralded as against the all-female main cast. I think that was just silly as the primary issue was actually one of quality control and the lack of original intent going on.
I hope it bombs because it and the vast majority of these overbloated tentpoles have no human content to them like the original film did. And I’m not even a major fan of the original.
LMS: Revisiting the Bourne series. Still a mess.
Identity: simply put the best of the series. The most original, playful and story driven. The studio should have bit the bullet and not fired Liman despite the massive production difficulties. But the big problem is how writer Gilroy apparently hated the novel (IDIOT!) and preceded to completely discard what is the author’s most famous work, one of the titans of spy fiction and one of the great fiction works of the 20th century.
But the film works due to the chemistry, casting, and Liman’s particular oddball style.
3 out of 4 balls.
Supremacy: Hiring Greengrass was a bold move, and the shaky near-docudrama style does work in that sense. But the story is practically non-existent except in bare fragments, only the barest trace of Ludlum’s gripping and truly dark plot are rpesent, they kill off a hugely important character for no reason other than to change the entire story into a simplified and rather dull generic actioner, the ending act has no driving motive…and I could keep going on and on. Suffice to say, I’ve finally made some peace with this one. It shouldn’t have made the whole world go shakycam but what it does do right it does well. I just hate that they have such little story driving it and waste characters for little to no reason.
2 balls out of 4.
Ultimatum: A mess. A mess that tries to distract from its problems by hurtling the audience into an endless chase culminating in a “resolution” that simply isn’t one. What makes it all sensical is that Gilroy didn’t even do a complete script and they started shooting without one and had to make it up on a day to day basis. I don’t blame the crew, I blame (as with the entire series) the incredibly stupid writing. The worst is making it a direct and interwoven sequel. Grrr. An overall duller and less ingenious sequel that should have been better.
2 balls out of 4. Overgenerous.
Legacy: I finally saw this one. All I can say is; they made it to maintain the rights that were about to lapse. The best bits are the non-plot ones-all kinds of little throwaways like the two on the run having to forge passports etc. which is finally SOMETHING FROM THE METICULOUSLY PLOTTED AND DESCRIBED NOVELS AND SOMETHING ACTUALLY OF THIS EARTH AND NOT SUPERMEN/SPIES DOING IMPOSSIBLE FEATS 24/7. And then you go right back to incredibly stupid stuff with some laughably bad CG in places. It would be fine to have a satellite program and agents. But they make it so damn dull that you simply don’t care. There is a minimum of story and the plot device of making the agents rely on pills to gain superior abilities is just really stupid. Rachel Weisz is the best part of the film, and really the only one that doesn’t appear to be on sleeping pills half of the time. The opening act is really poorly done and drags on interminably. The end is horribly rushed and then suddenly ends without any proper staging.
A really poor attempt overall. There is nothing to enjoy, nothing to recommend, nothing new developed, nothing said, nothing really even attempted.
Oh and look Tony Gilroy wrote and directed it. Go figure.
It really burns when you’re watching the end credits and realizing you just wasted your time completely.
1 ball out of four-only for the bits of reality, and the admittedly very few sparks of life from the two leads.
I really hope the new film is good. I know it will never be Ludlum, but Gilroy is out and both Greengrass and Damon really had to be lured back. Plus the idea of Tommy Lee Jones as a Conklin-like character is just irresistible to me. Will I be disappointed? Almost positively.
I still think you could make one hell out of a picture from at least the original novel, if not the second as well. No they aren’t perfect, and you’d need at LEAST three hours to do them justice…but if you want to talk dark storytelling that is “realistic” and not the typical Hollywood stylization, Bourne is your guy…that is I should say Delta.
But the Ultimatum novel is just plain WTF. Seriously.
And don’t even get me started on the increasingly intelligence insulting sequel novels that are still being made.
VADER!? WHERE THE HELL IS MY MOCHA LATTE? -Palpy on a very bad day.
“George didn’t think there was any future in dead Han toys.”-Harrison Ford
YT channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader
Keep Circulating the Tapes.
END OF LINE
(It hasn’t happened yet)
Can’t wait to watch that.
EDIT: Ah dammit. That third guy is on there.
The Person in Question
What! I love Rich Evans!
Keep Circulating the Tapes.
END OF LINE
(It hasn’t happened yet)
Me too!
Jesus. Skimmed through some of that and it was some of the most obnoxious “film criticism” I’ve ever seen. I hope people don’t trust stuff like this to determine whether or not a film is good.
Jesus. Skimmed through some of that and it was some of the most obnoxious “film criticism” I’ve ever seen. I hope people don’t trust stuff like this to determine whether or not a film is good.
I do.
The Person in Question
What! I love Rich Evans!
I like his laughter and I like his acting (as Jada Pinkett Smith), but I find it harder to keep up with discussions that have more than two people in them.
The Person in Question
Jesus. Skimmed through some of that and it was some of the most obnoxious “film criticism” I’ve ever seen. I hope people don’t trust stuff like this to determine whether or not a film is good.
Shrug.
I’ll post a full review once I actually see it (as soon as I don’t have to pay much for it), but every negative review I’ve seen of it confirms everything I’ve felt about it since seeing the first trailer.
Keep Circulating the Tapes.
END OF LINE
(It hasn’t happened yet)
Jesus. Skimmed through some of that and it was some of the most obnoxious “film criticism” I’ve ever seen. I hope people don’t trust stuff like this to determine whether or not a film is good.
Shrug.
I’ll post a full review once I actually see it (as soon as I don’t have to pay much for it), but every negative review I’ve seen of it confirms everything I’ve felt about it since seeing the first trailer.
Yeah, I haven’t heard any specific examples of what is good, but I’ve heard a lot of examples of what is bad. It’s not my cup of tea.
The Person in Question
The Hateful 8 - 8.1/10
Just so everyone knows, I like a lot of films with incredibly strong female characters in them (as they mentioned in the review). For example Alien and Scream.
The Person in Question
Just so everyone knows, I like a lot of films with incredibly strong female characters in them (as they mentioned in the review). For example Alien and Scream.
The sexism narrative is totally bunk. I don’t hate women, but the Ghostbusters trailers looked like trash. It was verging on disrespectful of the source material. It would be like a STAR WARS remake starring Adam Sandler.
Speaking of Star Wars, Ray was my favorite character in the new Star Wars reboot.
The Person in Question
Ray
Jesus. Skimmed through some of that and it was some of the most obnoxious “film criticism” I’ve ever seen. I hope people don’t trust stuff like this to determine whether or not a film is good.
Shrug.
I’ll post a full review once I actually see it (as soon as I don’t have to pay much for it), but every negative review I’ve seen of it confirms everything I’ve felt about it since seeing the first trailer.
Confirmation bias? Not saying you’ll like it or that it’s amazing and incapable of being criticized (far from it) but I’d suggest the best thing to do if you watch is keep an open mind.
I think the essential problem here is that the kind of comedy is just different here than in the original. TFA was a reboot for a new generation (though of course also with sequel status, though I doubt if the new film was a sequel the hatred would be much less) and the action and style was thusly updated for the new generation. Ghostbusters updates the comedy. Thing is, action isn’t all that different now, but comedy changes drastically over time. For the people who were young in 1984, this comedy isn’t for you. It’s for the people who are young now (and hopefully for some of the older people who can still appreciate it).
As for the sexism thing, I realize that’s not the only reason people are angry but it’s definitely a reason. Just because personally you don’t care that it’s women doesn’t mean lots of other people don’t. There are plenty of commenters out there who make that clear. Not everyone mad about the new Ghostbusters is a misogynist but lots of people mad about the new Ghostbusters are. Not to say if this same movie as advertised featured males it wouldn’t get hate but I think the astronomically high levels of hate we’re seeing are clear signs that misogyny is having some impact.
Not to belittle you guys but it’s unfortunate that the debate I’m having about this movie is whether it’s just some piece of garbage that should never have been made. I mostly liked the film but I do have complaints that I’d love to talk about but it’s a shame when the conversation is just about whether it’s completely unfunny (which is most certainly not the case) and not a deeper talk about the filmmaking and where things went wrong there (though of course I know people some people are picking up on that but perhaps don’t quite know how to pin point what’s not so great).
Ray
Hello!
There’s definitely an element of confirmation bias. But when all the trailers come out looking just atrocious, and then reviews from people I generally agree with on movies come out saying that it’s just as bad as the trailers, I feel pretty justified in thinking I was right. I mean, there’s “updating the humor” and then there’s replacing humor with “queef” jokes. If that’s humor for younger generations, then I guess I’m older than I thought.
In either case, I’ll abstain from commenting further until I’ve actually seen it. I do feel bad every time I talk shit about something I haven’t experienced.
Keep Circulating the Tapes.
END OF LINE
(It hasn’t happened yet)
As for the sexism thing, I realize that’s not the only reason people are angry but it’s definitely a reason. Just because personally you don’t care that it’s women doesn’t mean lots of other people don’t. There are plenty of commenters out there who make that clear.
Those are called trolls. They do that sort of thing, post inflammatory statements for attention. I seriously doubt most of those people hold those beliefs.
Not everyone mad about the new Ghostbusters is a misogynist but lots of people mad about the new Ghostbusters are.
I don’t think you can know that. I’m not so cynical to say that lots of people hate women.
Not to say if this same movie as advertised featured males it wouldn’t get hate but I think the astronomically high levels of hate we’re seeing are clear signs that misogyny is having some impact.
Or it’s because it looked like an awful cash grab remake that shits directly into the mouth of the beloved classic it was based on. As I said, it’s like a shitty Adam Sandler remake of STAR WARS. Do you want Kevin James as Han Solo? I don’t.
Not to belittle you guys but it’s unfortunate that the debate I’m having about this movie is whether it’s just some piece of garbage that should never have been made. I mostly liked the film but I do have complaints that I’d love to talk about but it’s a shame when the conversation is just about whether it’s completely unfunny (which is most certainly not the case) and not a deeper talk about the filmmaking and where things went wrong there (though of course I know people some people are picking up on that but perhaps don’t quite know how to pin point what’s not so great).
Well please do talk about it. That’s what this thread is for. I’m basing my thoughts solely on the trailers and I’ve seen people say that the trailers made the movie look a lot worse than it actually was.