Fresh podcast to tickle your ear-pieces. If you haven’t seen the new ‘Battleship’ teaser, hie thee quickly to your video disseminator of choice forthwith as the ‘Lith and the Trap have wildly different reactions. Also discussed: ‘Captain America’, ‘Cowboys and Aliens’, why aliens do and do not work in movies, ‘The Ides of March’ teaser, the appeal of Ryan Gosling, and some… phew. Bunch of stuff. Also, it’s a bit shorter, so, you know, one less reason not to listen.
Hey, you forgot to add "This week's episode brought to you by negativity." HOLY MOLY guys. Let me just do a little recap...
ReplyDelete"Captain America was mediocre. Cowboys & Aliens should just be Cowboys & Cowboys. Ides of March is going to not be good. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is fat. Battleship is going to be dumb. Ryan Gosling is bad. Nobody wants to watch sad movies. Jonah Hill is a sad man. He's also skinny and not funny. Invest in furniture. The best part of film school was the deadlines. All the girls there were strippers. The Phantom Menace ruined everything. And Planet of the Apes might be entertaining."
Good lord! Somebody get me some Zoloft, STAT.
I'm picking on you, of course, but let me counter a few things. Ryan Gosling is actually pretty good. Go watch Half-Nelson. He's got another movie called DRIVE coming out that's also supposed to be the bee's knees. The fact that he's in so many films means he's being offered everything, and it feels like he's choosing wisely and taking intelligent steps. He's created a pretty smart looking resume considering he probably could've been the leading man in any number of turds. I'm not sure why he was cast in The Lovely Bones in the first place, as he's definitely too young. But apparently he and Jackson didn't see eye to eye on the character and considering how that movie turned out it kind of makes Gosling look like the smarter of the two, no? So don't hate the player, hate the game. Out of curiosity, who else - if anybody - in his age range do you guys like? Eisenberg? Gordon-Levitt? Timberlake? Basically, who's the next Christian Bale?
Also, just FYI Ides of March is based on a play called Farragut North that was supposedly based on Howard Dean's campaign. Not sure how closely the movie follows this, but Giamatti & Hoffman in the same movie is enough for me. Hopefully Clooney nailed it. Fail Safe was indeed good. Is that even on video?
Interesting talk about film school being the last time you were excited about movies. I wonder though - do you not think film school is actually responsible for this loss of excitement? I feel that way. It's like knowing how sausage is made. Learning about the process of filmmaking makes it harder to not think about that process or see that process on the screen when watching movies. It makes you more critical as a result. Makes it harder to suspend disbelief. Don't you think? Because there were certainly bad movies between 1995 and when we graduated (Lost in Space, for example). In fact, the fall after we graduated in 1999 was an amazing year for movies.
Since you brought up Phantom Menace and Lucas, I think you guys are obligated to talk about the trailer for Red Tails next week. Whoo boy.
Make that Ned Stark action figure and I'm all over it. Also, a good indicator of the success of Game of Thrones is that every time I'm in an airport now I inevitably see at least one person reading the first book of the series. There's no doubt people are picking it up in droves now that the show exists.
But anyway, what I mostly want to know is what's this unreleased 3 hour podcast you speak of??? Is that the one where you actually acknowledged the comments Craig and I posted here? Will it only exist as a rumor like a 4 hour cut of the Thin Red Line or something?
And for the record, I can think of like five girls in our film school class who were NOT strippers, Fedak. I think you owe them (and the one who was occasionally) an apology. For real.
Fried pepperoni, please accept my sincerest apologies.
ReplyDeleteHa. Nerd. Heath actually filled me in on the second stripper girl, but still...the VAST majority kept their clothes on!
ReplyDeleteYeah the episode may have been a little downbeat and negative. But that's not us! That's because of what's coming at us! Next 'cast we're just going to have to focus more on stuff we like.
ReplyDeleteGood points on Gosling. He's the leading man we're getting, so if not him, than who? I actually don't have too many issues with Gosling -- he seems to be able to act circles around most of his peers, so nothing to complain about there. I also really like Chris Pine, I think he'll be a good movie star, though I don't know about his acting chops. He didn't have a lot to do in 'Star Trek' or 'Unstoppable', so jury's still out on him. I'd have to think more on that.
With regard to the disillusionment with film discussion, I remember the late William Buck warning us once of how we'd view movies differently once we went through film school. Of course he was right. Knowing how 'the sausage is made' definitely has an impact, so I think you're right there. Part of the issue may be that the movies that are able to surprise us post-film school are rarer now and any disillusionment I feel is just me missing that experience of awe/wonder at the movies as often as I used to. Or maybe the movies are just a little worse, though I'm skeptical of that idea myself. I'm sure if I saw every movie being released like, say, Ebert, I'd have a different opinion of the state of cinema. But I would definitely say that the studio movies as a whole have been worse lately. Unfortunately, living out in the sticks, that's all I have access to.
Yeah, Red Tails. We'll see if we've all been right to consign Lucas to the has-been trash can. My thought is yes. Yes, we have.
And I love that you're seeing so many people reading 'Thrones' out in the world. I
m excited mostly out of self-interest, because the more people that read them mean the more people who will tune into the show, and the better the likelihood the series will go through all 7 books (6 and 7 being unwritten at the moment.) So when are you going to get into them?
As for the unreleased podcast, well, they're a bear to edit down is the thing. PETER: to save yourself some hours of work, what do you think of just posting the whole thing unedited? Unless of course I said something really stupid in it, then you'll need to whittle and fine-tune that thing until it's perfect.
And who was the second stripper girl? Does her name start with 'M' and end with 'eryl'?
No - and this is all according to Heath C. Michaels, meaning I do not assume even partial responsibility for any damages that may result - her name starts with an "Aim" and ends with an "E." Again, just the messenger here. Go to Heath C. Michaels for verification or further details.
ReplyDeleteSounds like you have nothing to worry about in regards to the Game of Thrones show going the distance: http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/s151/game-of-thrones/news/a332390/game-of-thrones-in-for-long-run-says-hbo.html
Chris Pine's not bad. I kind of liked him in that wine movie, Bottle Shock, too. I can see him being a movie star, same with Chris Evans. Do I see either one of them winning an Oscar? Not at the moment. You know who else is about to pop up in a bunch of movies is that Anton Yelchin guy (also from Star Trek). Will be curious to see how audiences take to him.
Man - you guys pretty much covered everything.
ReplyDeleteExcept that, indeed, Chris Evans' head was not pasted on to a skinny guy's body, at least according to Chris Evans, who swore he wouldn't let another actor play any part of Cap. Instead, it's him, but CGI'd down to a skinny dude.
Which is kind of sort of a segue to my feelings on whether or not film school ruined movies for me or not. I enjoyed movies the most when I was a kid. I loved every movie I saw. I got older and started to react to bad acting or bad stories. Then film school really peeled back the curtain and gave me more of the perspective of what is hard to do and what is not. And then there's my snobbish feelings toward CG, which holds that CG makes hard-to-accomplish or even impossible-to-accomplish things easy and possible. Which isn't entirely true, but real stunts and make up and puppets and performance do a lot more for me, in general.
So I guess what I'm saying is, it's the fault of film school and Hollywood, as I have remained constant and am infallible.
Also - I like Ryan Gosling.
I would also listen to the 3 hour podcast.
And how about that terrible trailer to Coppola's horror movie Twixt, which is something I was excited about until I saw the trailer.
Craig, I saw the same interview, and I believe that was before they even shot it. So the facts are out on that front. This week I will pose the question again about film school ruining films for students, for life.
ReplyDeleteMore trailers to be reviewed and of course we will revisit the classic trailer for Battleship, Celluloid gold!
I don't know what this site is...but I seem to know everyone on it, so I'm totally there...um...here.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that Twixt trailer is just soul-crushing from the opening frame.
ReplyDeleteHere's the trailer for DRIVE. Moorhead and I will be wearing our "Team Ryan" shirts opening night. If you guys want to get on board just let me know what size to order.
ReplyDeletehttp://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810218714/video/26233920