just going to go ahead and have a Captain America: The Movie thread

hayley atwell is some kind o' somethin'

nrq, are u such a relentless horndog in your published crizizism?

i'm more confident in nolan's ability to stage an action scene these days than i used to be; i just think the batsuit is limiting for any hand to hand fight scenes. more importantly, he understands suspense and the value of a real sense of danger. i just used batman begins as an example because the first half is fairly engaging (imo) and once he becomes batman the movie sorta deflates. the promise of action is usually more potent than the presence of it in these movies

the first iron man is fun, but the action in it is weightless - you get the sense downey & co could carry the movie even if he never put the suit on. you wouldn't be able to say the same thing about one of the bourne movies, for better or worse

It helps that RDJ is pretty much the walking embodiment of Tony Stark in both look and attitude.

I don't really get the Bourne comparison?

integral action vs. window-dressing, i think?

to my reading, in the bourne movies the action has (um) a dramatic purpose and serves to advance the plot, while in the batman they could be excised w/o damaging the plot progression

(sub in 'character arc' or 'genre necessaries' for 'plot progression' if you like)

io9 had a rave review of the film http://io9.com/5823515/captain-america-is-an-incredible-war-movie-that-just-happens-to-star-a-superhero

very detailed review of the plot w tons of spoilers so don't read it unless prepared to know the whole film going in

i just mean like, the action is the selling point of the bourne movies; the movies exist to give context to some incredible, dynamic action sequences. there's definitely some other stuff of value going on in the margins, but you're not going to those movies to spend more time with beloved characters like... Conklin and Nicolette. most superhero movies cant pull off that level of asskickery (especially origin movies, where its just about setting up the status quo), so they gotta do other things to keep you interested. thats why i think raimi's spiderbro movies worked with audiences who dont ordinarily care for this stuff - they're already fun just as these heightened reality melodramas with a kind of timeless feel to them

the problem with cap - i liked this movie btw! - is that he spends the whole movie effortlessly plowing through every obstacle. i dont think chris evans gets a single scratch or nick on him. so you can basically lean back and go 'eh, he's got this' the whole time.

It helps that RDJ is pretty much the walking embodiment of Tony Stark in both look and attitude.

RDJ is easily the best actor playing a superhero in anything since Chris Reeves, I think. Iron Man would be significantly worse without him. I can't say that about any other current superhero films I've seen; the actors are fairly interchangeable.

you'd think audiences would have reached their saturation point by now. this is the umpteenth mediocre superhero film this summer.

the first Burton Batman,

can't believe anyone still reps for this garbage

Yeah, that first movie blows. After all the portent of the beginning, it devolves into ... a countdown plot to poison the water supply of Gotham!!!

I like the number that Comics Alliance did on the first Batman:

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/05/23/batman-1989-review/

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/05/30/batman-1989-part-two-review/

(They've been going through all the movies these past few weeks.)

2nd Burton Batman is great fuiud

adding a bunch of people to the enemies list

Oh, wait, I misread Burton Batman as Batman Begins. Regardless, Burton Batman has major issues, but it does strike a nice balance between comic book and dark batman. Second Burton Batman has superior set/costume design; Pfeiffer's cat woman might be the most iconic villain in one of the ultimately least iconic superhero sequels. And also, Batman Returns has ... a plot to poison Gotham's water supply, too?

2nd Burton Batman is great fuiud

^^^agreed!

Oh, wait, it's a killing of the first born plot. But the second Burton Batman does have Danny DeVito eating off someone's face, no?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7PuqHC8KaE

i do love batman returns - saw it in the theater when it came out, i was 7 years old, its really just a crazy burton movie that happens to have a batman cameo in it. its got tragic penguins, killer performances from devito and walken, plus michelle pfeiffer is the definitive catwoman imo - nobody will ever change my mind on this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onHNcxo-Lmk&feature=related

But anyway, Captain America. I laughed but it looks OK.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0j-Zrbo7rA

the first movie is a total mess - veers wildly in tone, character motivations make no sense, plot has literally no regard for a coherent sequence of events, majority of the acting is terrible etc

the first movie is hilarious and fuiud

Michael Keaton wtf

batman returns is fantastic imo but its probably not a great 'superhero movie' the carnival atmosphere makes it too ridiculous and lurid but w/e

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA6hZ4f34II

^^ HILARIOUS

look all i'm saying is if you give a major super hero franchise kick-off to the guy who made frankenweenie you get what you pay for

I mean, come on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxySK01v1os

the first movie is hilarious and fuiud

it is hilarious. because it is SO BAD

They should have Prince play a villain in a new Batman.

Now imagine the movie actually started with this scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n4s-lkYm0w

i loved dark knight as much as the next guy who didn't think it was The Greatest Film of All Time but i will take a movie where thugs deface fine art to the sound of prince over Brooding Arguments About Creeping Fascism every day of the week

xpost -- Compare and contrast:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-sV-O2-jCY

(Or eight million other films, obv.)

ppl hating on "Batman" need to reexamine their aesthetic priorities IMO

I get the feeling Prince was the only one that realized how ridiculous the whole endeavor was:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3Bj_So1PuA&feature=related

I am pretty certain Jack Nicholson and Michael Keaton got it, too

i am pretty sure nicholson was lol'ing all the way to the bank and i salute him for it

You're goddamn right he was:

http://promovieblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/jack-nicholson-the-joker-money.jpg

and wheeeereee is the BATman...

I kind of wonder if Prince wasn't shown any actual movie footage and just had visual cues of what the characters looked like and someone summarized the script

Thinking about the artistic process of Prince is probably something I could do for decades and still be puzzled, though

i have a feeling prince was shown some sketches of the joker's outfits and combined with some vague memories of the tv show cranked the whole thing out in an afternoon between lunch and his nap.

I wonder what the soundtrack discussions were like. "Who would really nail the feel of Tim Burton's Batman?" "Well obviously someone famous for being horny and funky, right? Horny and funky are definitely the adjectives that spring to mind looking at the storyboards."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt2nc2NkcGE

I am pretty sure the discussion was more like "$$$$$? $$$$$$. $$$$$ PRINCE!" "$$$$$$$$!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Oh man I'm going to have Batdance stuck in my head the rest of the afternoon, aren't I?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyrdui5wQmE

^^ classic material

He's at least awake in LE. And Terence Stamp is fun.

Finally watched this. Pretty similar to Iron Man in that I was way more into the first half of it than I thought I'd be, then really lost my connection with it as it moved from the origin to the 'action' and the climactic fight with the bad guy. It sort of rallied itself for the big finish with the plane; I loved how kind of tame and 40s and melodramatic they played it, like, yeah, you know what, in 2011 you can still get tears to well up with just a guy and the gal who like each other (but have never even held hands) having their last conversation while he goes off to be a hero, etc. Just wish it had been built up to that a little better... feel like a lot of movies these days have this too-smooth CGI quality and I think that applies to the plotting too sometimes, it just kind of slides its way along from the baddie fight scene to the sacrifice etc.

Agree that giving the bad guys bloodless ray guns and having them not be Nazis was a super disappointing head-scratcher. I mean, I'm fine with it being the Red Skull and Hydra goons but can they have a little more ideology, something to really make you hate them? The movie's fucking Captain America, I think the time for subtlety has passed. That being said, I was just over the moon for the idea of Cap as a seasoned USO entertainment veteran who's "punched out Hitler over two hundred times" - it's cute, it adds tons of period flavor, makes everybody feel more like people than CGI people, which I think was a real risk with this potentially one-note, personality-less character and this kind of blank, bland actor.

Overall, not the worst of these things I've seen.

I mean, I'm fine with it being the Red Skull and Hydra goons but can they have a little more ideology, something to really make you hate them

they are transhumanists

Finally watching this. Completely forgot that they got Joe Johnston to direct. All of the period dieselpunk/art-deco vibe seems perfect for him, and everything he tried to do with The Rocketeer twenty years earlier.

The ropey CGI work from pre-serum Rogers to some of his early stunts is intolerable and almost inexcusable, tho. Just use real stuntmen and erase the wires, that's what computers are for.

This was great!