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Comment count is 27
Bort - 2014-08-27

Every great movie needs someone to be insufficiently impressed; that's me and "Guardians of the Galaxy". My complaints:

1) I was spoiled by Andy Dwyer on "Parks and Rec"; once you've seen Chris Pratt in friendly golden retriever mode, it's hard to be satisfied with anything else. So that's my problem and not the movie's.

2) Very little of the movie was the characters having a whole lot of choice; almost everything in the movie was the heroes finding themselves in circumstances where either they did "X" or they died.

3) Peter Quill's character arc. The movie established right from the start that Peter Quill was basically a boy who never grew up, and having established that (and, I feel, implied that it was a problem), they were obligated to do something with it. They really didn't. I was hoping, maybe, that he would come to terms with his mom's dying, or that he would think about becoming a man his mom would be proud of (and saving Xandar would easily satisfy that), or something. Sorry movie, you put it out there, it's your job to do something with it.


Vesuvius - 2014-08-27

As for 3) - He did come to terms with his Mother's death. He'd run from her deathbed and not been able to bring himself to open her gift for his entire life. He did at the end. Wasn't that showing exactly what you're talking about?


Bort - 2014-08-27

I guess I was looking for events to force him to confront it, and we didn't see that. (Unless we're going to count that vision as he was holding the Infinity Stone, but that felt like weak sauce too.) He was just sort of doing better at the end.

My brain my be corrupted by a thing I saw online, this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4OHRLZQabc

Which is a piece of this (worth watching in its entirety):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q07y1JFeEE

According to that philosophy, events should force the hero to overcome his great weakness, and I didn't see that in GotG. Events forced Peter Quill to do lots of things, but not that.

Also, as a big ol' DS9 nerd, I watched GotG and couldn't help but see similarities to the DS9 pilot, in which Ben Sisko realized that his life had stopped after his wife's death and he needed to move forward again. I was looking for something comparable in GotG and didn't get it; maybe that's entirely on me too.


Xenocide - 2014-08-27

2) That's true up to a point, but the whole impetus behind the third act is that the characters DO have a choice: They can run away and live on, or they can go help save Xandar, a prospect which implies near-certain death. The fact that they choose the latter option is what cements their evolution from a bunch of random space weirdos into guardians.


Old_Zircon - 2014-08-27

Having seen most of the Linklater movies, I don't understand why anyone would ever expect anything to come out of that guy that was excruciating.


infinite zest - 2014-08-27

I liked The Newton Boys and Scanner Darkly was pretty to look at. Slacker and Waking Life I liked in high school and early college respectively, probably because I was getting mega-baked all the time. I've actually never seen Dazed and Confused, just parts of it when housemates put it on.

School of Rock, despite the utterly predictable story, achieved something similar to what Jay and Mike are talking about with GotG for its genre: if I was a kid, I'd actually be inspired to pick up and learn a musical instrument in the same way that kids will want a Rocket Raccoon action figure. That being said, Boyhood's Metascore sits at an actual "100" (not sure how that works given that there's two 75s and a couple of high 80s) and GotG is at "76." If I was a total Luddite and knew nothing about either of these places, I'd trust the numbers the same as I'd trust Urbanspoon if I was going on a date looking for a restaurant.

I've mentioned it before, but Jay and Mike and I used to work at the same movie palace. Like the Alamo in Austin, it's an institution, but when it was Oscar season you better believe we kept those movies until the envelope was opened. I remember working the day before Thanksgiving when No Country for Old Men opened and it was about 750 people vs. just me. On a Wednesday afternoon. So when I actually got a chance to see it I was like "fuck Cormac McCarthy and fuck this movie adaptation" simply out of spite for the asshole customers (y'all know this but it is a good movie.. not great). and Brokeback Mountain broke my back for other reasons. Not literally but close. We'd always have about an hour to chill, mostly bitching about the customers and a movie that will "change your life" that we couldn't see, and eventually didn't want to. I love the guys and think people need more critics with that perspective as opposed to guys and gals who went to journalism school and never had to deal with theatre work, but it's probably a subjective approach. That being said, I'll just watch GotG again instead of Boyhood.


Old_Zircon - 2014-08-27

I'll be honest I hated Waking Life so passionately that I haven't seen anything he made since it. I genuinely don't remember if I've actually seen Slacker or not. I feel like I did see it back in high school an then blocked it out somehow, but maybe it's just one of those movies like Night On Earth that I couldn't bring myself to bother with because I was SUPPOSED to like it so much.

Waking Life is one of the only movies I've seen that actually made me angry.


Old_Zircon - 2014-08-27

I forgot he did School Of Rock. I had to tun that off after 15 minutes, now I know why.


Old_Zircon - 2014-08-27

I also forgot he did Dazed and Confused. That one was pretty entertaining but as an artistic achievement I'd put it slightly behind Wet Hot American Summer or something. It was a fun, light movie that didn't really say much.


infinite zest - 2014-08-27

SoR had a Bad News Bears feel to it, which I find naturally charming and fresh in the post-grunge era of..

Linklater did the remake of Bad News Bears oh god no.


memedumpster - 2014-08-27

I didn't even finish Waking Life. I rage quit that movie.

Scanner Darkly surprised me, we went into the theater to roast it and ended up watching it instead, then feeling terrible afterwards because it was depressing.


Old_Zircon - 2014-08-27

I really,REALLY liked the book A Scanner Darkly so I refuse to watch the movie, for the same reason I refuse to ever watch the Stuart Little movie.


Old_Zircon - 2014-08-27

I had to watch Waking Life in the theater as part of a class or I wouldn't have finished it. It was a senior, honors seminar in surrealist film. In which the professor used the word "surrealist" interchangeably with "surreal" and rejected outright that there was any connection between Jodorowsky (whom she had never heard of before I showed the class Santa Sangre) and surrealism.


infinite zest - 2014-08-27

God I hate that feeling. Mine was Emir Kusturica but same thing: Woosh. We were watching movies like fucking Fight Club in my film studies class. Not that I have a problem with that movie (it was actually cool because I was the only one who knew the author and the location of the Fight Club house) but seriously. Every college freshman had that fucking poster on their dorm room wall. Names like Jodorowsky and Kusturica aren't necessarily as household as Lynch or Fincher, but if you're going to be teaching a fucking class, know your shit, especially if your "shit" involves a director who won the Palme d'Or.


Spit Spingola - 2014-08-28

Bernie is pretty good.


infinite zest - 2014-08-27

"If I was a total Luddite and knew nothing about either of these p̶l̶a̶c̶e̶s̶" Sorry meant to say movies.


infinite zest - 2014-08-27

Sorry, meant to be a reply to me. How's it going, me? Still working on that album? Oh yeah you are..


EvilHomer - 2014-08-27

I wish they'd go back to the serial killer gimmick.


memedumpster - 2014-08-27

The conversations about movies that start in threads on their videos is the only reason to view the pages, I never watch their vids, they bore the piss out of me.


Rodents of Unusual Size - 2014-08-27

It just occurred to me no one has really been as popular as Siskel and Ebert at movie reviewing but these guys have become real favorites of mine lately. I truly enjoy their style.


Caminante Nocturno - 2014-08-27

The way Boyhood was made is very impressive and deserves some admiration, it's just a pity that they used all of that effort and time to tell such a boring story.


Bort - 2014-08-27

Reality shows know better than to tell the story that actually unfolds.


fluffy - 2014-08-27

Yeah, the first half was pretty good when it was about family angst and turmoil and a kid's point of view on his mom trying to figure shit out, but then it turns into whiny emo Tortured Artist tropes that don't go anywhere.


subduralhematoma - 2014-08-27

Guardians of the Galaxy is the most overhyped movie in existence. Can we just admit it sucks already?


DrVital - 2014-08-28

I am Groot!


Caminante Nocturno - 2014-08-28

Rocket Raccoon is mai waifu.

Desu.


FABIO - 2015-07-26

Holy fuck yes. I had to hunt this old video down after just having now watched it just to preach how much it sucked.

I thought it was crazy, in an age where it's trendy to call every movie misogynistic, NOBODY called out this piece of shit when it's blatantly on display. It was a PG rated BangBus episode for the first half.

Every other part was a slapshod frankenstein of star wars cliches and ill-fitting cameos. At the end, they defeat the bad guys with not one, but TWO care bear stares.

Dawn of the Dead: James Gunn :: Event Horizon : Paul WS Anderson


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