Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

[WindupAtheist]

Seriously, everyone hears me stick up for Star Wars and thinks that means I think George Lucas is some sort of Great Filmmmaker(tm). No. He's a pulp-genre schlock merchant with lots of imagination and high production values, who incorporates a lot of basic mythological themes that most modern movies consider themselves too sophisticated to embrace.

But it's fun, and nobody else really does it. That's all. Crystal Skull was fun. It's popcorn fare. It wasn't meant as anything more.

[Grand Design]

I think the best of Star Wars was Empire, and that was in spite of Lucas, not because of him.

I think I might have liked Return of the Jedi if Lucas hadn't been a pussy and passed on Cronenberg to direct it.  God, would that have been pure awesome - probably better than ESB. 

Fucking Ewoks.

[Numtini]

Spielberg, on the other hand, has been responsible for a few of what I call "perfect movies".  Jaws, for one.  Raiders for another.  It's obvious to me that he's less interesting as an older director than he was when he was young.

I'd agree with this, particularly Raiders which is as close to perfect as any adventure movie.

On the early vs. late Spielberg, I think Spielberg is a real master at manipulating audiences and he's so good at it, that he just throws it into his movies and doesn't bother to do anything else anymore. I love his movies until I walk out the door and then I feel dirty. His earlier movies had a lot more real human elements, not just audience manipulation.

Oh and living on Cape, you don't even want to know how many times we've seen Jaws or as a town employee how accurate the portrayal of town government is.

[Johny Cee]

Spielberg, on the other hand, has been responsible for a few of what I call "perfect movies".  Jaws, for one.  Raiders for another.  It's obvious to me that he's less interesting as an older director than he was when he was young.

I'd agree with this, particularly Raiders which is as close to perfect as any adventure movie.

On the early vs. late Spielberg, I think Spielberg is a real master at manipulating audiences and he's so good at it, that he just throws it into his movies and doesn't bother to do anything else anymore. I love his movies until I walk out the door and then I feel dirty. His earlier movies had a lot more real human elements, not just audience manipulation.

Oh and living on Cape, you don't even want to know how many times we've seen Jaws or as a town employee how accurate the portrayal of town government is.

 

STAYOUTOFTHEWATER NUMTINI!!!

[Ironwood]

War of the Worlds was fucking tripe.

Which was a shame, since it started out so well and had the potential to be the best adaptation yet.

[WayAbvPar]

Wasn't Tom Cruise prominently involved? That would make it a non-starter in my book.

[Grand Design]

Despite Tom Cruise embodying the essence of flakiness, he's still a great actor.  I watched Lions for Lambs in its entirety just because his performance was so good.

[Cyrrex]

Despite Tom Cruise embodying the essence of flakiness, he's still a great actor.  I watched Lions for Lambs in its entirety just because his performance was so good.

I know it's an unpopular opinion around here, but I am forced to agree.  I think he's actually a really talented actor.  And a douchbucket in real life.  But I can distinguish the two.

[Grand Design]

Right.  I have to judge him on his craft, and its hard for me to name a performance of his that was poor. 

[HaemishM]

Right.  I have to judge him on his craft, and its hard for me to name a performance of his that was poor. 

lolwut

[Stormwaltz]

I think he's actually a really talented actor.  And a douchbucket in real life.  But I can distinguish the two.

/signed

As for Indy4, it was flawed on the conceptual level.

Raiders - Judaic myth
Temple - Hindu myth
Crusade - Christian myth
Skull - Aliens

One of these things is not like the others.

George Lucas knows effects, but he's always been a lousy writer and a poor editor. The problem is, he's come to think he's a great writer and editor. In the past, he accepted the advice and guidance of those more talented than himself. In the gap between the trilogies, people slobbered his knob for 15 years, and he came to believe the hype.

It's auteur mentality and nothing more. It sucks, but the only person who can fix it is Lucas himself.

[Grand Design]

It's auteur mentality and nothing more. It sucks, but the only person who can fix it is Lucas himself.

As in, getting the hell out of the way.  Lucas should confine himself to being a producer.  He has the money, the studios and, obviously, the CGI.  He's missing the golden opportunity of being a benefactor to up and coming talent.  Instead, he still envisions himself as the imaginative young director that he once was and is clueless to the fact that he's been jaded by his own success.

Right.  I have to judge him on his craft, and its hard for me to name a performance of his that was poor. 

lolwut

Yes, the list of poor performances that you cited is convincing.  Tom Cruise is a Hollywood whore - certainly you can name a couple of films.  I've never even seen Jerry Macguire, so you could probably throw that in and I'd agree.  Even when Tom Cruise phones it in, he's better than, say, Nic Cage.  I will grant you that he doesn't broaden his range much.  Even Bruce Willis did 12 Monkeys, which completely reversed his image as a one trick pony.  But 'lolwut' is well above par for someone with your reserve of bile.

And don't say Eyes Wide Shut.

[HaemishM]

Eyes Wide Shut. 

Here's my problem with Tom Cruise as an actor (wholly separate from the batshit insanity of his "religion). He's a one-trick pony, and not a very good one at that. He's all flaring nostrils and cockgobbling smile and that's it. The Color of Money, Risky Business, THOSE are things he's good at. Hell, I'll even give you Top Gun because he's a cockgobbler in that one as well. But can you really tell me there's much range between A Few Good Men (boring other than Nicholson's few minutes) and The Firm? His best performance of a character that wasn't himself was in Collateral and I'll give you that. But there's not a lot of range between Ethan Hunt in the Mission Impossible movies and that character - other than a better writer and director. Interview with the Vampire was Tom Cruise if he were gay and immortal. Jerry Maguire was Tom Cruise as L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics. And Eyes Wide Shut was just bad.

Of the movies I've seen Cruise in (and that happens to be most of them according to his IMDB entry), he's had what I consider one good performance and a shitton of performances where his character served as a thin veneer on his own personality.

Brad Pitt has range. Kevin Spacey has range. Tom Cruise does not have range.

Oh and Nic Cage. He's pretty much the same, but at least he's not a Scientologist.

[Big Gulp]

Kevin Spacey has range.

I'd contest this one.  I've never seen one of his movies where he didn't play the usual Kevin Spacey smarmy douche role.  I can't even count Seven because he's just a creepy smarmy douche in that one.  Maybe The Usual Suspects, but he's really more of a caricature in that movie.

I'd also contest Brad Pitt, but not as vehemently.  If you want range you don't go with movie stars, you go with character actors.

[Abagadro]

Raiders - Judaic myth
Temple - Hindu myth
Crusade - Christian myth
Skull - Aliens

Should have gone with Joseph Smith's golden plates for the last one. 

[Johny Cee]

Eyes Wide Shut. 

Here's my problem with Tom Cruise as an actor (wholly separate from the batshit insanity of his "religion). He's a one-trick pony, and not a very good one at that. He's all flaring nostrils and cockgobbling smile and that's it. The Color of Money, Risky Business, THOSE are things he's good at. Hell, I'll even give you Top Gun because he's a cockgobbler in that one as well. But can you really tell me there's much range between A Few Good Men (boring other than Nicholson's few minutes) and The Firm? His best performance of a character that wasn't himself was in Collateral and I'll give you that. But there's not a lot of range between Ethan Hunt in the Mission Impossible movies and that character - other than a better writer and director. Interview with the Vampire was Tom Cruise if he were gay and immortal. Jerry Maguire was Tom Cruise as L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics. And Eyes Wide Shut was just bad.

Of the movies I've seen Cruise in (and that happens to be most of them according to his IMDB entry), he's had what I consider one good performance and a shitton of performances where his character served as a thin veneer on his own personality.

Brad Pitt has range. Kevin Spacey has range. Tom Cruise does not have range.

Oh and Nic Cage. He's pretty much the same, but at least he's not a Scientologist.

Collateral?


If you can play one narrow range of characters really fucking well,  than there is no problem with that.  Christopher Walken since the mid '80s?  Deniro since '89?  Ron Pearlman?  Adam Baldwin?  Pacino since '90?  Samuel Jackson?

Spacey is a great example of this.  He HAS range,  as you can see from his '90s appearance on SNL in almost every skit,  but especially the one where he played a bunch of different actors auditioning for roles in Star Wars (great skit).

He hit on a general type of character that he really nails,  and since then he's tended to take those roles.

[Triforcer]

Interview with the Vampire was Tom Cruise if he were gay

If? 

[Abagadro]

Even though he did a decent job acting wise, he was horribly miscast as Lestat.

[HaemishM]

Collateral?


If you can play one narrow range of characters really fucking well,  than there is no problem with that.  Christopher Walken since the mid '80s?  Deniro since '89?  Ron Pearlman?  Adam Baldwin?  Pacino since '90?  Samuel Jackson?

The thing is, I don't necessarily think any of those are great actors other than Deniro or Pacino, and since as you said, neither has really stretched themselves that much, they have been resting on their laurels. Although, if you watch Heat, both Deniro and Pacino are absolutely transcendent in that movie, range or no. The scene in the coffee shop where the two are talking is one of the greatest filmed and acted scenes in cinema history. Cruise could NEVER have pulled that off.

As for Brad Pitt's range, looking at his entire career, he is one of the few star actors who has consistently taken roles that go against type, and he's still doing it. His pikey in Snatch has as much to do with his character in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and Burn After Reading is so far from his character in 12 Monkeys to not even be in the same field. Yes, he's a star, but he's also not allowed himself to just coast along in typical Hollywood bohunk fare.

There's nothing wrong per se with staying in your acting comfort zone. Adam Baldwin and Ron Perlman are great examples of that. But I wouldn't ever call them great actors. Grand Design and Cyrrex said Tom Cruise was a great actor, I disagree vehemently. At his best, he's no more than mediocre.

[Cyrrex]

I don't think you're wrong about him being something of a one trick pony...but I do think that within that narrow range, he is quite good.  I suppose that's the difference.

[Tebonas]

Tom Cruise is one of the cases where I can't distinguish his performance from himself. I realized that when I saw Top Gun recently and his movie laugh there reminded me so much of his real life crazy laugh that I had to switch the channel.

Plus, I won't give money to known Scientology shills, even if they were good actors.

[shiznitz]

Cruise's producer character in Tropic Thunder was perfect. Perfect. However, in movies like Last Samurai and Vanilla Sky, Cruise added nothing to the role. He isn't that much unlike other actors in that sometimes the role just doesn't fit.

[Ingmar]

Even when Tom Cruise phones it in, he's better than, say, Nic Cage.

HOW'D IT GET BURNED

[NowhereMan]

I've seen the 'highlights' youtube video of his version of the Wicker Man and I cried inside. There is no way they cut out some sort of amazing bits in between and that is a travesty of film history.

[Grand Design]

Wicker Man is unintentional comedy gold.

[DraconianOne]

Nic Cage's Wicker Man makes baby satan cry. And stomps on the spines of poor disabled, dyslexic seal pups.

[Venkman]

Why the fuck do those two Star Destroyers in Empire crash into each other? Were they planning on pinning the Falcon between them?

Can't immediately recall this. Was it when they were fleeing Hoth or before they suction-cupped to the back of the Star Destroyer? If it was the former, if I recall it was because the Ion Cannon knocked out their power. Which is something I never understood. If they had one of those things, why didn't they have ten of them. Then when the Empire inevitably showed up, disable everything and then take your sweet ass time lollygagging out of there.

[Abagadro]

I just think it is in keeping with the law that all Imperial officers are British and stupid.

[NowhereMan]

I thought that was a general rule of hollywood movies. I need to try and find a link to the Monkey Dust sketch of Anne Frank, where she and her Jewish friends are all happy go lucky Irish folk and the Nazis are evil British cowards but everyone gets saved by the blond haired blue-eyed American GI who then snogs Anne. After punching out Hitler in his London stronghold.

[Venkman]

Wasn't that Top Secret!, that Val Kilmer flick from 84?

[WindupAtheist]

Can't immediately recall this. Was it when they were fleeing Hoth or before they suction-cupped to the back of the Star Destroyer? If it was the former, if I recall it was because the Ion Cannon knocked out their power.

I doubt a disabled and powerless ship was participating in a chase.

Which is something I never understood. If they had one of those things, why didn't they have ten of them. Then when the Empire inevitably showed up, disable everything and then take your sweet ass time lollygagging out of there.

I know, right? And like the Rebels have some warships, but why not have infinity warships? That would make winning a lot easier.

[Venkman]

Infinity warships?

Can't immediately recall this. Was it when they were fleeing Hoth or before they suction-cupped to the back of the Star Destroyer? If it was the former, if I recall it was because the Ion Cannon knocked out their power.

I doubt a disabled and powerless ship was participating in a chase.

Still haven't had time to queue up the sequence, but my thought went like this: Star Destroyer (SD) 1 turns to chase the Falcon. SD2 is closing in. Ion cannon fires, hits SD1 and/or SD2. Inertia takes care of the rest.

But the more I think about it the more I don't think it was the Hoth escape sequence.

Because this sub-topic matters. 

[Ironwood]

No, you're not right.  They both just fucking crash into each other chasing the falcon from opposite ends.  It's fucking stupid.  The theory, I suppose, was that SD are able to go REALLY, REALLY FAST, YOU JUST DON'T SEE IT MAN !

Which actually takes you back to the Original Star Wars where those two Star Destroyers were 'catching up' to the falcon over tatooine.  I always thought that was fucking stupid too.  It can do the Kessel Run, amirite ?

Though I agree with the snarkiness of WUA.

[Venkman]

The Falcon wasn't going at max speed in both cases to maintain maneuverability. You can't outrun a tractor beam but you can out-manuever it.

And remember that the Kessel Run is measured in distance traveled not raw velocity ("3.2 parsecs"). There's a whole story to that, but the short form is that the Kessel Run goes around a collection of black holes (which later is understood as the Empire's Maw complex for high tech weapon research). The reason the achievement is significant is because Solo came closer to the event horizon than any craft before it, thus shortening the distance from start to finish.

Back to the original derail though: I'll need to watch it again. I am probably wrong though.

[Merusk]

You're mixing EU and Movies. Stop that shit.  That explanation is a bad writers attempt to fix Lucas' gaffe 20 some years later and it sucked.  Yes, Lucas didn't know a Parsec was a distance, 99% of the audience didn't either. Accept it was meant to be a spacy unit of time and move on. Otherwise, begin bitching about the explosions and fireballs and the WW2 fighter plane physics the X-wings and TIEs were using as the battled over the trench.  Which then begs the question, why the fuck did you need to run the trench?  Coming at the site from orbit is somehow less reliable than needing your energy projectiles to make a 90 degree turn and continue for several hundred miles in a straight line down a shaft that's only 6' wide?

Look, everyone likes to Nerd Rage about the new movies but that's because you're old and watching them. I've said it before, I'll say it again. The old movies sucked just as much as the new ones.  Filled with plot holes, convenient twists and deus ex machina out the ass.  The more you analyze them the more you'll realize this and hate them as much as you hate the prequels.   So you have  a choice, eat the popcorn and shut off the brain or discard them as shit.

Yes, the SDs run into each other.  Yes, it's incredibly stupid.  No, you're not going to get a better resolution than "well if they were ships on the ocean, they might have..."  But even then the captains would have to be drunk or incompetent to such a degree that Vader was justified in fragging their asses.

/nerdrage