Film Flam

[Telarus]

Interesting, considering I ran into this:

https://plus.google.com/118107718720313034250/posts/95xdpGRB5K1
Allen Varney
Shared publicly  -  10:23 AM
#ManOfSteel

Official licensed, corporate-approved sermon outlines and resources for ministers to promote the new film Man of Steel to their congregation. Superman clearly isn't strong enough to drive moneylenders from the temple.

http://manofsteelresources.com/

(Via Jim Lowder.)

[Faust]

Well it makes sense it goes against the Kryptonian ungodly way of reproducing. And he's less like Jesus in this movie then he has ever been on screen. Dean Cain included.

[Salty]

Noooooooooo!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/47_Ronin_(2013_film)

stars Keanu Reeves and an ensemble of Japanese actors.

[Count Chocula]

Sharknado. Ian Ziering, Tara Reid. Lookout Citizen Kane!

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Noooooooooo!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/47_Ronin_(2013_film)

stars Keanu Reeves and an ensemble of Japanese actors.

Having burned through all the pre-Code talkies I could find, I'm now watching silents.
Fuck Keanu Reeves. Lon Chaney Sr. FTW.

[Salty]

The film Super starring Rainn Wilson and Ellen Page is the whimsical story of a hapless, earnest man whose drug and alcohol abusing wife goes back to old habits, which propels him to do good in the world by becoming a real super hero...

...until it becomes a film about Ellen Page's character raping Rainn Wilson's character...

...at which point I stopped watching.

Well done, assholes, and thanks for the imagery.

0/10.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Wait, WHAT?

[Salty]

Yeah, seriously.

It's also ANOTHER film in which Ellen Page is inappropriately infatuated with a much older man with whom she has no business being infatuated with.

I don't get it.

It was weird. It also got extremely violent out of nowhere. And, it's just bleh.

Also, like God Bless America, it seemed to glorify extreme revenge for petty acts, without any sense of satire.

Maybe I missed it.

[Salty]

Motherfucking Stagecoach.

I was given a copy of the 1986? TV starring the Highway Men (Johnny Cash, Willie Nelsn, Waylon Jennings, Krist Kristofferson).

It was pretty entertaining, I like quite a few Westerns.

Last night I watched the original, the one that Orsen Wells watched over and over while making Citizen Kane.

Here are my thoughts:

WHAT IN THE FUCK WAS WRONG WITH THOSE ASSBAGS?

Firstly, I really dislike the element of casually using Native Americans as two dimensional villain hordes, for obvious reasons.
That said, the remake does acknowldge this, with Willie Nelson talking about how he admires Geronimo, and how he was just doing what anybody facing overwhelming odds and exterminaton would do.  I seem to recall Kurt Vonnegut making similar statments in regard to suicide bombers.

Ok, as for the purely artistic perspective.

The original Stagecoach is pretty perfect. It uses humor but is not a comedy, there are no needless lines or scenes, it touches on quite a few issue with subtly and grace. Social pariahs (The Whore and the Jailbird), hypocritical bankers and their effect on America (quite early and astute), the way that people come together under duress. And when The Lady decides that The Whore ain't all that bad, but can't possibly allow herself to comprimise her own social status it is done with such subtly and grace...I can hardly describe it. Certainly no better than those fine actors. The Disgraced Gentleman is handled quite well, and his near use of his last bullet to save The Lady from being taken alive is pretty brilliant. The Drunk Doctor is pretty damned great. All in all, from beginning to end, this movie is perfect.

So why, in the sake of fuck, those country music stars felt it necassary to improve on this is totally beyond me.

Willie Nelson is Doc Holiday insteady of some Drunk Doctor? Doc Holiday who died at, what, 35? I put that to self-indulgance. He really liked Doc Holiday and wanted badly to play him on TEEVEE. Ok, fine. Whatever. The Whore is totally re-written to be an much older and cynical character. Stupid. In the original this character is like any other woman with no other options or resources who is villainaized heavily by her community. In the remake, this character is resigned to not finding a lover who lasts. Bleh. Flat, unintersting. Almost  comical.

The wiskey salesman is made british, presumably to get in a dig at the british which takes all of the subtly laid down conflict between a newly reunited union who have no choice but to live amongst one another again. Perhaps to avoid southern apologetics that the Highway Men must surely have been prone to? Who knows.

The Lady is not really interesting either, perhaps in order to add to the importance of the country music stars? Also, she just doesn't really shine. Not that anyone does in the remake. As I said, it is fairly entertaining.

But that is just it. The original Stagecoach is art, care woven into every frame. The remake is just a bunch of jerks playing movie stars because they can. Though, I will say, none of them are really shitty actors.

One last note, and this really gets to me.

When the Drunk Doctor smokes a cigar in the stagecoach, it very obviously bothers The Lady. Once the doctor realizes his error, he puts it out. When Doc Holiday does so, The Gentleman uses the same line, "A gentleman does not smoke the presence of a lady." but Doc Holiday says, "I hope you don't mean to suggest I am anything but.' BECAUSE HE IS SO BADASS.

The Lady in the remake doesn't mind at all. Not at all.

What shit. What horrible shit. GAHD.

There, I feel better.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

[Salty]

ELF IS CLEARLY THE MOST TERRIFYING MOVIE OF ALL TIME.

[Cain]

I don't know...Troll 2 is pretty frightening.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyophYBP_w4

[Salty]

I don't know...Troll 2 is pretty frightening.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyophYBP_w4

OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOD!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

That is truly the most terrifying movie ever made.

[Faust]

It's not as painful as "Manos"