Good in Theory (Bad in Practice): Scenes That Have Gotten Our Hopes Up, Only to Let Us Down

Have you ever heard someone talking about a scene in a movie and you're thinking to yourself, Holy shit! That sounds so awesome! And then you watch the movie and the scene is utterly lame and you feel foolish for ever thinking it was going to be good or entertaining to begin with? Well, it has happened to all of us! Here's a list of some of our favorite let downs. (Joe)

Spider-Man III: Peter Parker Goes Bad


Aliens, men made of sand, piano sequences, and clay-faced Toby Maguire. What isn’t there to love about Spider-man 3? A lot, there is a lot you can’t love about Spider-man 3. Bad acting, horrible dialogue, James Franco…and who okayed casting Topher Grace as Eddie Brock?

When I was just a lad, Venom was portrayed as this giant terrifying creature. Apparently Topher Grace fits the mold. Anyways, this movie had a chance to do something really great and Raimi seriously dropped the ball. I completely understand that the Spider-Man movies were supposed to be fun and campy, but there is one scene that took it to a whole new level. When the alien symbiotic takes over Peter’s suit, he starts to feel more confident and powerful. This was their chance to show how powerful and dangerous it was. Instead, Sam Raimi thought it was a better idea to turn this into a huge long sequence of terrible jokes. It starts with Peter combing his bangs forward over his eyes like some fourteen-year-old scene kid. He then proceeds to walk down the street pelvic thrusting and double gunning at every single female he sees. Some laugh, some cringe, and some are into it. The scenes greatest/worst moment is Peter arriving at the bar MJ is working at and he sits down at a piano and starts playing some jazz tune. While the band is playing, Peter starts swinging (weird nobody questions this) and dancing around the bar, snapping like a maniac and dancing with Gwen Stacy and kisses her to make Mary Jane jealous.

Seriously guys? If you want to show Venom as this creature that turns people into public enemies, you cant have a scene where people are dancing around, calling people hotlips and saying “now dig this.” It completely takes away from the aspect of “evil.” Fortunately, this drop-of-ball if you will has given us one of the most laughable sequences in movie history. For this, Sam Raimi should be given a medal of honor, then shot.

Four Brothers: Car Chase

Four Brothers tells the touching story of four adoptive brothers, some of whom have fallen onto the wrong side of the law (and by some I mean all), coming together to help track down the gunman who shot and killed their adoptive mother.

The scene I'm pointing out occurs somewhere in the middle of the movie. They've been playing detective and track two men down who might have information (or the murderers) involving the death of the interracial brothers' mother. The two men somehow escape questioning and get to their car, only to be pursued by Mark Wahlberg, Outkast, some other singer and the dude from Tron: Legacy AKA The Four Brothers.

The movie is set in Detroit during the winter months, so there is snow. For anyone who haven't driven in snow: Go fuck yourself! I wish I was you! You have no idea how great you've had it every holiday season! For those of you that have driven in snow: You get it. When it snows it seems like everyone either slows down way too much, or they're trying to show off how badass they are by speeding far too much. When it comes to the actual driving, you've got to be careful to not go too fast because then you're just not going to stop. Sometimes you don't stop even if you're going really slow.

One thing I'll point out is most of the chaos while driving in the snow happens mentally. I'm usually muttering to myself and waiting to slid into a car, or person, or animal, or a something.

The issue with the scene is it's a blizzard. Oh yeah! Chaotic blizzard car chase! It's never been done before and people hate driving in the snow! Slippery sliding and shit in the house! False. What we get is the slowest car chase of all time. It looks like the cars are going about twenty miles an hour, gently bumping into one another. The absence of other cars on the road makes this scene even more boring. Other drivers are the worst part about driving in the snow, and now we've got a 3am chase through the streets of Detroit, where no one else seems to drive. They even tried to put a flat tire into the scene to build the tension, but the blow out didn't seem to affect the brothers' car in the slightest? Oh, shit! Tension!

An added bonus to this: The guys being chased are overacting way too much. Their screams, while they assumed would build the tension and make the whole situation seem a lot worse, actually makes the whole cars bumping look even more ridiculous. There isn't panic in their voices, just forced screams.

Robocop: Shoot-Out

Scenes that are great in conception and yet have little to deliver? Pardon my blasphemy, but I'm throwing in Robocop.

Now, to be fair, others come to mind. Take Home Alone, for example. A little boy has two crooks run a gauntlet of near fatal, intricate, and brilliantly timed traps building up to a promising boss battle only to have these invincible foes be knocked cold by an arguably delicate shovel-tap (spoiler alert? No. If you haven't seen Home Alone, go to hell).

But then there's Robocop: Verhoeven's masterpiece. Don't yell just yet, I love the movie. But I have a major complaint every time I watch it. There comes a point in the film where Robocop (part man, part machine, all cop) enters a warehouse/drug factory determined to senselessly beat the balls out of his psychopathic nemesis, Boddicker. But to get to him, Murphy-redux has to shoot his way through a literal warehouse of armed men one by one, destroying everything that moves. So to recap: a goddamn robot gets to go on a limitless shooting spree against dozens of heavily armed men in an enormous building filled with chemicals and catwalks and glass and guns and drugs, destroying everything in its path until it gets to the guy on the other side. Whoa, awesome. Even as I write that I'm crossing my fingers for chain reactions of people getting lit on fire while running through mountains of cocaine, stumbling into a scaffolding of paint thinner that falls over, crushes a guy in half, lights off some gasoline which explodes a window which sends shards of glass into twenty guys' eyeballs, and Robocop just strolls through the flames unscathed, casually shooting other precarious barrels of deadly acid above even more enemies.

But instead, Robocop just targets everybody and casually shoots them all one by one. The end. Thank God he's at least walking while this happens, not just standing still. The only improvement the audience gets to what otherwise is just “bad guy shooting, Robocop shooting, bad guy dying” is the faintest hint of one guy unintentionally harming another, which, really? C'mon. It might as well be slapstick. I want something that makes “mousetrap” crap itself. I want mayhem. Even Big Willie Style wreaked more havoc in the hangar at the end of Bad Boys. Give the armed robot a chance.

To be fair, Robocop does proceed to immediately throw Boddicker through several panes of glass for no reason whatsoever, very satisfying. And I get that the scene needs to keep up pacing, that it's an important scene in the movie that brings out a hint of Murphy's “anger.” But to write such an open-ended and promising scenario for what we all accept as a ludicrous and over-exaggerated movie to begin with, why not go full monty? Lord knows Verhoeven doesn't get his reputation by holding back.

Top Ten of 2012

by Joe

Here's my disclaimer: I didn't see all the movies I wanted to see this year. I missed Safety Not Guaranteed, Beasts of the Southern Wild, The Silver Linings Playbook, and Zero Dark Thirty. Would one of these movies made its way onto my list? Maybe! I don't know! I haven't seen them yet! But the movies below are movies I definitely did see and liked a whole lot.

Let me know what you're favorites were at the bottom.

10) The Dark Knight Rises

This one almost didn't make it. I think it fits in perfectly with the trilogy they made, but it's not as solid of a stand alone movie as the other two. But, it is still a pretty damn good movie. Opposed to pointing out logical jumps in the plot, I'm going to focus more on how this movie didn't collapse under the weight of itself.

The expectations were set so high, and it still was able to handle the pressure. They were coming off of Ledger pushing The Dark Knight to the high rankings of super hero movies. One of my complaints about the first two movies was that Bruce Wayne seemed to take a backseat to the villains and plot. Christian Bale was finally able to have a Batman movie to himself. There wasn't as much Batman as one would hope in a two and half hour movie, but watching Bruce Wayne try to pull himself back together was fascinating.

Then we have the baddies! Tom Hardy was a perfect follow-up to Heath Ledger. Bane was so calm and calculated, bringing a steely terror to the franchise. Anne Hathaway proved everyone wrong--with a sexy and cool turn--when she owned the role of Selina Kyle.

I've always been a sucker for Batman, and even while I tried to think of a movie I liked more than The Dark Knight Rises, I failed to come up with anything that could knock Nolan's final chapter in the series off this list.

9) Flight

My only complaint about Flight? It is a little long, pushing close to two and a half hours. This year seemed like it was the year of long movies, though. We've got Jack Reacher, This is Forty, Django Unchained, Les Miserables, Lincoln, and The Hobbit: An Extremely Long Journey all pushing two and a half hours. But whereas some of those felt too long, Flight was only kind of long.

Denzel Washington is enough reason to watch this flick. He is one of the great actors I have had the privileged of growing up watching. He is always good and entertaining, but not necessarily always captivating. I haven't seen his last few movies, not because they didn't look good, but because they looked too safe and generic. This one, on the other hand, isn't about the plot, but rather the character. And they got the man to play the part.

The movie follows a pilot that was able to safe over a hundred people on a plane that crashed due to mechanical failure. The problem is that the pilot was super hammered while he was supposed to be flying the plane. The bulk of the movie deals not with the plane crash (they get that out of the way right at the beginning), but with the alcohol addiction that possesses this one individual. If it weren't for Daniel Day-Lewis and Joaquin Phoenix, I would put all my money on Washington winning an Oscar for this performance.

 8) Killing Them Softly

It's a mob movie with not a lot of mob. There is a lot of talking, but it's mostly the state of finance and hookers. The dialogue in this movie doesn't really deal with the plot of the movie, but the problems that are present in the lives of a lot of Americans.

The fact that the movie is brave enough to crawl along at a snail's pace, and still keep me on the edge shows the subtleties of Killing Them Softly. Now, there is violence. I mean, killing is in the title. And much like Drive, the violence is amplified on two levels. First they've enhanced it so it is often realistic. They drop the music out, and we get the sound of every punch, or shot, or bit of broken bone. Secondly, they sandwiched the violence around an otherwise boring movie. Not a lot happens. The plot is simple and could have been told in twenty minutes if a fast-paced director like Michael Bay directed the movie. But the slowness of the movie helps push those violent bits to the core of our minds. We are completely focused on Ray Liotta's cries while he begs for his life. And it impacts us all the more.

An added bonus to this flick: Brad Pitt. He's the man, and he gives one of the coolest speeches at the end of movie. This is his movie, but generally takes the back seat during scenes, letting Richard Jenkins or James Gandolfini really shine.

7) Django Unchained

Tarantino makes cool movies. That's the best way to describe what he does. Take a look at Inglorious Basterds and you can see that even when making a war movie, he has this hip edge that makes his movies just cool. The soundtrack has a lot to do with Tarantino hitting that threshold, but a lot of it is in the dialogue.

So from the standard Tarantino elements, let's take a look at the movie itself. We've got Jamie Foxx in one of his best roles. Will Smith was originally offered the title role, but in the end, I think Foxx was the better choice. He's got the swagger that is so important to the character. Leonardo DiCaprio plays one of his first bad guys, and while it wasn't as diabolical as I was lead to believe, he does pull of the despicable. It's almost how good natured he seems to be about everything that makes it even worse.

This might also be the bloodiest movies Tarantino has made. The only other flick to rival would be Kill Bill vol 1, but still, even if they're comparable you can imagine how much corn syrup went into making this thing. It might be the most fun I had at the movies all year. Good Christmas!

6) The Master

Paul Thomas Anderson knows how to make movies. He is our modern day Scorsese or Coppola. For The Master he's taken a pretty heavy subject--and controversial for some--and really pumped an intriguing, surprisingly objective story behind it.

We follow an ex-sailor drifter across the United States. He has a substance abuse problem with drink, and I say drink opposed to alcohol because he is consistently making his own potions throughout the movie. He encounters a charismatic man who has some similarities to L. Ron Hubbard, the mastermind behind Scientology. The two men find a kindred spirit in the other, and we're shown what happens with the primitive mind comes into contact with the evolved. This isn't to say one is better than the other, but we see each of the strengths and weaknesses work against one another.

Joaquin Phoenix, playing the ex-sailor, gives the best performance of his career. He has taken not only the lines, but the body language and took in all the qualities of this character. The facial expressions he silently presents shows the insanity before he even has to mutter any one of his lines. And then there is Philip Seymour Hoffman. The man who never disappoints. An original score from Johnny Greenwood doesn't hurt, either.

5) Cloud Atlas

I still feel like I need to see this movie again and again. Within the first twenty minutes I knew I wasn't going to keep up, and decided to just let the movie flow over me. The visuals are spectacular and it proves the Waschowskis haven't lost their zeal for pushing the limits of technology (this was also co-directed by Tom Tykwer, of Run Lola Run fame).

Upon first exiting the theatre I told people that this movie was going to be one that people looked back on as a game changer. I stand by that notion, but at this point I'm not really confident in what game it is changing. I just know that it is upping the game for sci-fi flicks and epics. The way it is able to weave so many different stories together, while not giving equal weight to each one, they definitely make you feel for all the characters. I hadn't felt this overwhelmed in a movie since Inception.

The cast is delightful across the board, and I'm a little in love with Ben Whishaw.

4) Holy Motors

Foreign movie alert. Dumbo French movie a lot. Another crazy confusing blending of genres alert!

If Denis Lavant wins an Oscar for acting I will be a happy man. I don't expect him to win, but I think from everything I've seen this year he deserves it. I would like to try to explain the flick to you, but in the end, I'm still not so sure what I watched.

The movie is built on vignettes, that don't necessarily have anything in common except they're all tied to the main character's job. What is his job? I have no idea. But it's great!

The movie feels like David Lynch and David Cronenberg got together, hashed out an idea, had someone write the whole thing in French, and then filmed in with the perfect blend of their signature styles.

3) Cabin in the Woods

Another movie that was just too much fun. Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon knew exactly what they were doing when they made this movie. The first half is so over the top cheese ball that you're not expecting to see the second half as it amps up the action.

They've infused such a sick amount of humor into watching people die, but in through all the laughs, there is a lot at stake. The gore and violence is over the top enough to laugh at, but still based enough in reality that the horror fans will rejoice. It's not meant to be scary, so while you're twidling your thumbs don't be tempted to turn it off. You've got to give it a chance, and if you're a normal person, it'll pay off.

And Richard Jenkins is the best.

2) Looper

I've yammered on enough about how much I love Rian Johnson. He has the rare ability to take genre movies that we think we've seen before and transcend them above a regular popcorn flick. That's precisely what he does here.

Time travel is a sticky subject to get into. So what does Johnson do? He makes it pretty damn vague, and essentially doesn't spend the time to try to justify his choices. This is the way it is, and that's all there is about it. I like that tactic, and it seems to spill over throughout the whole movie. There are hints at parallel universes intertwined with a linear timeline, but to make the story work he lets the audience think about some of it by themselves. You want to figure it out? Have fun. You want to just enjoy the movie? Even better.

The action is fantastic. Watching a man fall apart because the mob is dismembering you're past self was incredible. I never thought about that and how it would work, and it turns out that I loved it. Also, Joseph Gordon-Levitt does a perfect Bruce Willis. He should win the Oscar for Best Being Bruce Willis. Not one of his movements seemed to be out of place. He even got the dry laugh down to a T. Like Tarantino, Rian Johnson knows how to make cool movies.

1) Seven Psychopaths

This isn't the best movie I saw this whole year. If I'm being completely honest, I would have to crown Flight or Argo as the best movie I watched. But this list isn't about what I thought the best made movies were, but rather my favorite movies of the year. What movie made me the happiest while I watched it? Seven Psychopaths.

Basically, within the first five minutes of the flick Reid look over at me and told me I was being really loud with my laughter. He slouched in his seat, in what seemed to be massive embarrassment. Alas, I did not stop laughing throughout the entire movie.

The cast was spot on, each showcasing a specific brand of humor. My favorite character had to have been Sam Rockwell, being overly ridiculous for the majority of the movie, and then explaining how he would end the movie was priceless (by the way, this is a meta-movie, so be prepared). The dialogue was quick and witty. Some of it was unnecessary, but all of it was enjoyable.

And then on top of the humor, there were some touching moments throughout the flick. Christopher Walken and his wife made me feel lucky to have a significant other. The story of the Viet Nam vet was the tying thread that brought the movie to the number one spot of my list. It took the movie past a few laughs and gave it a living pulse. To have a #1 movie, you need to put some heart and thought behind it and that's exactly what they did here.

The Hobbit: A Review

by Joe

I'm going to go ahead and say that I haven't read the The Hobbit novel. Yes, so this review isn't really how well they adapted the book, but rather it's looking at the movie on its own. Which probably isn't a good thing.

Like I said before, I didn't feel like I really needed to watch hobbits and dwarves walk around for another twelve hours. At this point I've sunk another three hours of my life into watching these bitches walk around. The majority of the movie is Gandalf yelling run, and then all the shorter dudes start running through the woods. What does this mean? The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is exactly what I thought it was going to be.

It starts off with broad strokes and explanation of blood-lines and dwarf history. The audience gets caught up with major motivations for later characters at the beginning. This takes about fifteen minutes. Then we're stuck with what felt like forty-five minutes of dwarves overtaking Bilbo's house. They just eat and burp and Bilbo asks them to stop. For forty-five fucking minutes. In retrospect, I realize it was probably closer to thirty minutes, but still much too long to explain the basic concept of the journey. Bilbo is the chosen fourteenth member, but he says 'no thanks.' Then he thinks about it. Will he or won't he? Oh, he does.

They set off and encounter trolls and orcs and we get some more back story on Thorin. Some albino orc really fucking hates him. And Thorin the dwarf hates the orc back. So there is some history. They want to kill each other so bad! They talk with some elves, then walk into a mountain that is filled with goblins. And (if you've seen the trailers) this is where Bilbo comes into contact with Gollum and it starts to feel a lot like a prequel, which I realize it kind of is, but at the same time kind of isn't.

The basic premise of the movie: let's get to a mountain to reclaim the Dwarf homeland.

Here are my issues: this fucker is long. Along with being long, it meanders through most the scenes and it just feels like they wanted to get past the two and a half hour mark as some sort of justification for making three movies. Because the scenes tend to run on the long side the movie gets boring.

At times the effects look dated. I mean, The Lord of the Rings was a game changer when it comes to CGI, and The Hobbit won't have the same classification. I will say, though, when Gollum is on screen the effects are breathtaking. There are moments when they've outdone themselves, but it seems like they focused on select scenes while quickly putting together others. The inconsistency was distracting to me.

And now the things I liked: Martin Freeman is the shit! I thought he did such a wonderful job as Bilbo. He was by far my favorite part of the movie. The scene when he meets up with Gollum was filled with scene chewing, but instead of rolling my eyes I bought into it. It was the only time I didn't mind Peter Jackson running the clock out. Freeman fits in so well with all the LotR members that you would have assumed he was always a part of it.

The last forty minutes are quick moving with a lot of action. Then there are also bits of calm when Bilbo's character is changing and it starts bringing the whole ensemble together. I just wish they could have kept it as two movies to make the stories a bit more fluid.

Anyone is excited for this flick won't be disappointed. It has pretty much everything I imagine a Hobbit fan to hope for, but it kept running its wheels a bit too much for me. My favorite part of the whole thing? The Pacific Rim trailer.

Alien Ripoff: This Trailer is Terrible

by Joe

I just watched this trailer for Storage 24 over at Videogum.com, and holy shit, this is bad.

Before I get into the whole thing, here's the preview:

I really liked Prometheus. I realize a lot of people didn't like it as much, but I would rather not get into the cycle of trying to explain what I think happened in the movie, and how there really weren't all that many plot holes, while people on the other side continue to believe adamantly in the opposite.

  But regardless of how you felt about the movie, one must admit that the trailers they released for Prometheus were impressive. They didn't really show you much, and didn't tell you anything other than the basic plot--that being there are some scientists going to a different planet. I thought the most effective element of those trailers was the strange scream/alarm noise that would pulse, getting louder and louder until the end. It seems that I'm not the only that it made an impression on.

This isn't the first trailer I've seen rip this sound off from the Prometheus trailers, but I can't remember the other one. I guess the reason I'm posted this is because coupled with that sound we see shots that were taken directly from the Alien franchise. Look at the screen shot before you even hit play for the trailer. It looks nearly identical to the most iconic shot from the Alien movies (and it's from the third one, for anyone who cares).

Then there are the face huggers. Did anyone else see the face huggers in this rip-off? I did, and it made me mad. But at the same time I'm reminded that we haven't seen a plethora of cheap knockoffs over the years. It might be that I'm too young to remember and none of the movies that knocked off the Alien movies are worth remembering (clearly), but it seems like people have been fairly respectful of this series. Now that we're going to see a sequel to Prometheus I'm curious about whether we're going to see an onslaught of shitty alien movies coming our way or not.

Our Favorite Action Movies

Action movies will rarely make your jaw drop at the beauty of the story, or characters, or imagery. But a lot of the time they get your fists pumping and blood rushing.

Here are some of our favorites:

Emily's Pick:

The Rock (1996), directed by Michael Bay

Picking a favorite action movie is potentially one of the hardest selections I could be asked to make. Every other genre has a clear winner for me: comedy = The Big Lebowski, 80's = Dirty Dancing, Drama = The Pianist, Sci-fi = Aliens, Action = ...? Part of be wants to bestow this honor to a childhood favorite like The Last Action Hero (it has Action in the title, helllloooooo), but another part of me wants to give it to a series with a cultish following like Fast and the Furious, but I just can't bring myself to give Paul Walker's bad acting any sort of praise. Unless he's shirtless. Then maybe.

Clearly I'm thinking too hard on this, so I'll dial it back and let my heart guide me.

Come to find out my heard has interesting/questionable taste. It leads me to Nicolas Cage. What a hunk. I know it's gross and weird, but I think crazy Nic is so dreamy. How could I ever be so smitten with a dude who made his escape from the loony bin and just happened on to a film set? Alas, the heart wants what the heart wants, thus determining my favorite action movie, The Rock. it has everything I could hope for in this kind of movie. An amazing cast: Nicky-poo, Sean Connery, Ed Harris, and so many other supporting actors with crazy credentials it's astounding. Then there's the goose bump inspiring soundtrack/score by Hans Zimmerman that literally inspires. And of course the overdose of crash/boom/bangs typical of the action world all pulled off effortlessly and accompanied by just the right amount of cheesy/corny lines to remind us all that, "Hey! This is a movie. It should be fun!"

All these things combined make The Rock my #1, and the only action movie that can distract me from homework/cleaning/social functions without fail every time USA channel airs its horribly censored version twelve times a year. I don't care if you're crazy, a vampire, a car thief, or a treasure hunter. I love you Nic Cage. You make great action movies.

Mark's Pick:

They Live (1988), directed by John Carpenter 

When asked what my favorite action movie is, the first one that came to my mind is John Carpenter's They Live. Why They Live? Simply because is great fun. I think the whole point of an action movie is to make grown men feel as excited as they were when they were ten and filled with endless excitement and imagination. That is exactly what this movie does to me, makes me feel like a kid again. 

It has aliens, violence, and stars a professional wrestler (Rowdy Roddy Piper). This movie is like an action movie version of an episode of The Twilight Zone. It's about a drifter who stumbles upon some sunglasses designed to show all of the subliminal messages that aliens are using to exploit the human obsession with wealth and the need to conform and do as they are told.... so naturally he now has to take it upon himself to save the planet. He sees the world as it really is and the world is black and white and full of aliens that look anorexic corpse's posing as humans to take over the world. 

What the movie may lack in substance and detail it makes that up with unnecessary fight scenes over putting on a pair of sunglasses and awesome one liners like " I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass... and I'm all out of bubblegum." No matter how many times I watch this movie it always keeps my attention and puts me in a great mood.

Joe's Pick:

True Lies (1994), directed by James Cameron

There is one thing that no one can deny: James Cameron makes great action movies. Look at the filmography--Terminator, T2: Judgement Day, Aliens, Avatar, and of course, True Lies.

This movie has it all!

-Shoot outs.

-Espionage.
-Being sexy.

-Humor.
-Skiing.
-Horse chasing a motorcycle scene. On rooftops.

-Tom Arnold.

-Helicopters.

-A few false endings.
-Bill Paxton.

-One-liners.
-World Domination.

I mean, what more do you want? On top of all this, it's fairly family friendly. I first saw it when I was about ten-years-old, and can confidently say I enjoyed it as much then as I do now. The plot--and subplots--have a lot to do with terrorism, nuclear warheads, and keeping your marriage spicy. There is about forty minutes of Schwarzenegger following his wife out of (justified) paranoia that she is cheating on him. It is kind of ironic, considering she has no idea that he is a secret spy assassin.

And that's the whole point of the movie! Betrayal! Excitement! Sure, it's overly long, but there isn't a dull moment in this one. Either Tom Arnold is saying something hilarious or Arnie is shooting someone. Remember the bathroom boxing scene? Love it love it love it.