Quick clips for Thursday January 8
Everything's coming up Rourke-y
Fresh off the news that Mickey Rourke will have a role in The Expendables, the single most important film of our time, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter are both claiming that the divine Mr. R is set to play a villain in the next Iron Man movie. Actually, Sam Rockwell is gonna play a villain too. And Don Cheadle is going to play War Machine. And they are apparently casting someone to play Natasha, who is known as The Black Widow in the comics (and a love interest of Tony Stark's). And Hawkeye is in it. And Gwenyth Paltrow is back as Pepper Potts. And they're going to introduce (conceivably soon) Iron Man's nemesis, The Mandarin (he does not wear orange).
Uh oh.
Um, somebody needs to get me director John Favreau on the phone STAT (I've always wanted to say STAT but the situations don't exactly present themselves often to movie critics). I'm being told that Mr. Favreau has no idea who I am and asked "What's a Syrek?" Okay, well, if I could talk to Johnny, it would go something like this: "Hey, loved you on 'Friends.' Anyway, quick thought: you are going to eff this franchise right up. Seriously. Having rewatched the first film just last week, you got everything so, so right. Most notably, you let Iron Man be the star of Iron Man. Just like when Raimi made Spider-man the star of the first two Spider-man movies (before giving the third film over to the villains and, thus, ruining it...yes, the dance sequence had something to do with it but dammit Favreau we don't have time for this shit). Unlike Batman and Superman who must feed off those around them because they are inherently boring, what made Iron Man so good was Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark. It was his movie. Now, don't get me wrong, there is no such thing as too much Mickey Rourke. I love the idea of him as the Russian villain the Crimson Dynamo, and the thought of Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer (the guy who designs evil superpowered suits for bad guys) will work in conjunction with that...STOP THERE. No Mandarin. No Natasha. You can have War Machine, but only if you punt Hawkeye. The risk you are running is moving the focus from what made people pop a metal chubbie over your film. Don't lose it. Now, I'm going to go back to my job which wouldn't pay for one week of your catering."
Ratings that mean less than approval from Larry King
Look, at the exact moment that I realized I could never, ever, never show The Dark Knight to a child of 13 whose parents I didn't hate, the MPAA ratings became 100% meaningless. Oh, they had been on their way for years, but they finally crested that wave just recently with things like the fact that the monster-infested Unborn got a PG-13 as well. That movie has crab-walking people with their heads turned the wrong way. You do NOT show that to 13 year olds. You don't show that to easily influenced adults (yes, I'm scared). So, when Rope of Silicon, the dirtiest sounding movie news site out there, announced that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince got a PG rating and that the Watchmen-related Tales of the Black Freighter scored an R, I thought...um, I don't care. Seriously, don't try to read into whether or not the new HP flick is going to be dark enough (the lead actor showed his wang in public recently, how much more hardcore do you need?). And don't worry about whether or not the direct-to-video pirate tale (which I can't believe we're getting) will be violent enough. Just be happy that both of these things are happening. I really just wanted to use this "news" to take a second to flip off the MPAA again. It's really high time we start taking them to task for their blatant negligence. They let violent, awful conduct go through to warp children and slap an R on anything with a dirty word or boobie in it. I know this is common knowledge to most movie fans, but we should really find a way to take these windbags to task. Suck it MPAA (that's my new platform).
Quantum revisited...please don't use that as a title
Okay, so people have already kind of forgotten about Quantum of Solace, the best action-thriller of the year. This pisses me off. Thus, I'm going to use the news that this has become the top-grossing (non-adjusted for inflation...but inflation is for wussies) 007 film of all time in the United States. Sure, it topped just Casino Royale, but that shows that the state of the Bond union is stronger than our economy or penchant for peace. To reflect for a minute (because I don't think it's going to make my top 10...although it was a down year so it's possible), Solace was (for me) about as perfect as a Bond movie could be. Super hot chicks (Fields was way, way hotter than the lead floozie by the way), awesome fight sequences, global intrigue, and even a gadget or two. The set pieces were incredible, as were the chase scenes, and Daniel Craig was born to play this guy. Born to do it. If he wasn't Bond, he'd be actually working for MI6. So...why aren't more people satisfied with this flick? Why am I not hearing raves about it? It's really beyond me. Did you want LESS action? I know that the box office hype was swallowed up by Twilight, one of the many sins of that film, but what gives with dudes not freaking out over how awesome this was? I can only conclude that it is title-related, in that people don't want to even say Quantum of Solace, lest they catch it. Thus, I say give the next film a title like Nut-Crunching Action.
Fresh off the news that Mickey Rourke will have a role in The Expendables, the single most important film of our time, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter are both claiming that the divine Mr. R is set to play a villain in the next Iron Man movie. Actually, Sam Rockwell is gonna play a villain too. And Don Cheadle is going to play War Machine. And they are apparently casting someone to play Natasha, who is known as The Black Widow in the comics (and a love interest of Tony Stark's). And Hawkeye is in it. And Gwenyth Paltrow is back as Pepper Potts. And they're going to introduce (conceivably soon) Iron Man's nemesis, The Mandarin (he does not wear orange).
Uh oh.
Um, somebody needs to get me director John Favreau on the phone STAT (I've always wanted to say STAT but the situations don't exactly present themselves often to movie critics). I'm being told that Mr. Favreau has no idea who I am and asked "What's a Syrek?" Okay, well, if I could talk to Johnny, it would go something like this: "Hey, loved you on 'Friends.' Anyway, quick thought: you are going to eff this franchise right up. Seriously. Having rewatched the first film just last week, you got everything so, so right. Most notably, you let Iron Man be the star of Iron Man. Just like when Raimi made Spider-man the star of the first two Spider-man movies (before giving the third film over to the villains and, thus, ruining it...yes, the dance sequence had something to do with it but dammit Favreau we don't have time for this shit). Unlike Batman and Superman who must feed off those around them because they are inherently boring, what made Iron Man so good was Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark. It was his movie. Now, don't get me wrong, there is no such thing as too much Mickey Rourke. I love the idea of him as the Russian villain the Crimson Dynamo, and the thought of Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer (the guy who designs evil superpowered suits for bad guys) will work in conjunction with that...STOP THERE. No Mandarin. No Natasha. You can have War Machine, but only if you punt Hawkeye. The risk you are running is moving the focus from what made people pop a metal chubbie over your film. Don't lose it. Now, I'm going to go back to my job which wouldn't pay for one week of your catering."
Ratings that mean less than approval from Larry King
Look, at the exact moment that I realized I could never, ever, never show The Dark Knight to a child of 13 whose parents I didn't hate, the MPAA ratings became 100% meaningless. Oh, they had been on their way for years, but they finally crested that wave just recently with things like the fact that the monster-infested Unborn got a PG-13 as well. That movie has crab-walking people with their heads turned the wrong way. You do NOT show that to 13 year olds. You don't show that to easily influenced adults (yes, I'm scared). So, when Rope of Silicon, the dirtiest sounding movie news site out there, announced that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince got a PG rating and that the Watchmen-related Tales of the Black Freighter scored an R, I thought...um, I don't care. Seriously, don't try to read into whether or not the new HP flick is going to be dark enough (the lead actor showed his wang in public recently, how much more hardcore do you need?). And don't worry about whether or not the direct-to-video pirate tale (which I can't believe we're getting) will be violent enough. Just be happy that both of these things are happening. I really just wanted to use this "news" to take a second to flip off the MPAA again. It's really high time we start taking them to task for their blatant negligence. They let violent, awful conduct go through to warp children and slap an R on anything with a dirty word or boobie in it. I know this is common knowledge to most movie fans, but we should really find a way to take these windbags to task. Suck it MPAA (that's my new platform).
Quantum revisited...please don't use that as a title
Okay, so people have already kind of forgotten about Quantum of Solace, the best action-thriller of the year. This pisses me off. Thus, I'm going to use the news that this has become the top-grossing (non-adjusted for inflation...but inflation is for wussies) 007 film of all time in the United States. Sure, it topped just Casino Royale, but that shows that the state of the Bond union is stronger than our economy or penchant for peace. To reflect for a minute (because I don't think it's going to make my top 10...although it was a down year so it's possible), Solace was (for me) about as perfect as a Bond movie could be. Super hot chicks (Fields was way, way hotter than the lead floozie by the way), awesome fight sequences, global intrigue, and even a gadget or two. The set pieces were incredible, as were the chase scenes, and Daniel Craig was born to play this guy. Born to do it. If he wasn't Bond, he'd be actually working for MI6. So...why aren't more people satisfied with this flick? Why am I not hearing raves about it? It's really beyond me. Did you want LESS action? I know that the box office hype was swallowed up by Twilight, one of the many sins of that film, but what gives with dudes not freaking out over how awesome this was? I can only conclude that it is title-related, in that people don't want to even say Quantum of Solace, lest they catch it. Thus, I say give the next film a title like Nut-Crunching Action.
posted by Ryan at
8:58 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home