Something Wick This Way Comes

Iron Chef Chairman was so good in this
Sonny Chiba vibes, sorta? anyway he was dope

it's true he ruled and now I've updated my desire for a Henry Golding action vehicle to include him as the buddy

i do wish he'd used his martial arts chops more on iron chef. bobby flay needed some kicking.

disappointed nobody shushed them when they were fighting in the stacks.

― Philip Nunez, Wednesday, 22 May 2019 22:38 (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

big guy shushed john

anyway this was good, I was trying to place where I knew the actor playing Zero the head sushi assassin from and it turned out I have only ever seen Mark Dacascos before as the Chairman on Iron Chef America

Dacascos was, improbably, my fave of the main villains so far

he’s had a pretty solid career outiside Iron Chef doing direct-to-video action movies (TONS of them), and he’s always popping up on tv shows

and yeah, def the most charisma of the Wick villains to date

apparently Hiroyuki Sanada was originally going to have that role but he turned it down for the small part he had in Avengers Endgame

I'm basing this off of a couple of film writers and speculation, but if so: rough move

I mostly associate him with Brotherhood Of The Wolf.

OMG wait wait so you're telling me that OTT Iron Chef America announcer dude is actually in this thing and I wasn't just indulging in one of my trademarked flights of unbridled fancy when I saw an Iron Chef reference itt, okay I probably need to see this immediately.

dude leave now & go directly to the movie theater

rewatching JW2 on Wednesday, started going "it's been 20 minutes since John Wick's been thrown backwards through a pane of glass" and then someone would promptly throw him through a pane of glass, backwards

tonight this kept me so distracted with a) setpieces and b) camp that when when Wick and the fighty dudes ended up in the all-glass hall of trophies with 20 minutes left, I went "holy shit NOBODY HAS THROWN JOHN WICK BACKWARDS THROUGH A PANE OF GLASS ALL MOVIE, here. we. fuckin. go"

and, dear reader, we went.

hahaha

backwards through ALL of the glass

even the trophies, inside the glass cases sitting on the glass floor, were glass

the glassberries taste like glassberries XD

disappointed nobody shushed them when they were fighting in the stacks.

― Philip Nunez, Wednesday, 22 May 2019 22:38 (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

big guy shushed john

I like how they didn’t bother reminding you that he’s wearing a bulletproof suit from John wick 2. One of my friends didn’t remember about the suit as was a little confused by how he kept getting shot and not getting hurt at all, but also not THAT confused because hey, John wick.

john wicking mechanism iirc

I thought this was even more senseless/nonsensical than the last one, with ... OK results. They really could have called it "Ow, My Balls" for all everyone got punched, kicked, shot, stabbed and, er, bit between the legs. I found it amusing that just about every trailer beforehand was for a similarly ridiculous OTT action movie: Rock and Statham, more indestructible assassin porn in "Anna," Gerard Butler fighting drones or something. Anyway, all these years later who knew that "Punisher: War Zone" would be one of the most influential action movies of all time.

Seriously, though, it's so weird they went with "Parabellum" in the title when the title should really have been "John Wick Chapter 3: Excommunicado."

Highlight of the screening may have come when I bought the ticket, to be honest. I figured I would be the only one there, but ahead of me in line was a probably septuagenarian (or possibly older, tbh) couple buying their own John Wick tix! I wonder if they had a good time? Behind me was another very elderly couple, and here was their exchange:

Man: What is John Wick?
Woman (sneering dismissively): It's stupid. It's about a detective or something.
Man: A detective?
Woman (derisively): I don't know what it's supposed to be about. But it's about ... something.

It’s about a man who is sad, MA’AM

Oh, and I've got to say, I'm shocked they did not find a way to weaponize all the broken glass in this! I was sure someone was going to get glass thrown in their eyes, or their face shoved down in the glass and stepped on or ... anything, really.

I was proper into this one

Even Larry who I found embarrassing last time, I was delighted by his energy - felt like he was doing a Welles bit or something

It was starting to lose me for similar reasons to jw2 and then berry came in and from then on I had no complaints really

LOL, I literally just had to google "Larry John Wick." Fittingly for this film: it was in one eye and out the other.

I thought the final punching/kicking stuff at the end was kind of boring, after the motorcycle/horse stuff, or even the ... knife museum? That part was great.

between MA'AM and 'in one eye and out the other' youse are doing this movie full justice itt god bless

also my pun about wicking

I finally saw the first John Wick movie last night

holy shit was that great, even if it was a hilariously bleeped-for-television-but-still-contained-all-the-violence

When the police officer showed up at his house, I lost my shit

And David Patrick Kelly! These aren’t rewatch films for me so I forget all those fun bits from the first one until I’m reminded

I’ll co-sign the villainess and raid recs itt btw, and both are so convoluted plotwise that these stand out as models of economy in comparison

Keanu and Fishburne chemistry is palpable, can’t wait til they tear it up in IV

forgive me fader for I have sinned (wins) wrote this on thread self-rejected thread ideas on board {a secret borad} on 27-Dec-2016

peak-era mark dacascos poll

Fishburne's acting choices are so amazing in this

I don't know anything about Iron Chef, but I totally recognized Dacascos from "Brotherhood of the Wolf." Now *that* was a weird movie.

Is it just me, or did his character in this shift suddenly from generic zen master to total bro?

well yeah its a big jump he essentially hops from steve jobs to a steve jobs fan in one moment

lol

I have no idea what the original plan was like, Dacascos was going to originally play a smaller role and Hiroyuki Sanada was the big bad before he declined and appeared in Avengers Endgame instead. Seems like a bad misstep, but maybe he got some of that Avengers money for barely appearing in a subplot.

Dacascos improvised the couch scene! So much weird awkward energy

And then the rest of the movie he's all "dude, that was awesome!" (gives thumbs up)

I've been trying to figure out if this tidbit is something that was cut from dialogue or if Dacascos came up with it for his vision of the character's backstory

He has students in one of his last missions he kind of overstepped the boundary and was also deemed excommunicado until The Adjudicator comes and sets him back on a mission.

backwards through ALL of the glass

“If you look in John Wick, I think we did something like 39 scenes with reflections. Every scene opens with a reflection, whether it’s in a mirror or in a puddle.”

https://birthmoviesdeath.com/2019/07/01/the-universe-of-john-wick

On the same level w/ the shining in regards to mirror usage imho

This was amazing, hit after hit - along with everything already mentioned:

Assembling a Colt just for one shot.
The moment when they realise they're having a fistfight in the knife room.
Horses, also more horses.
Randall Duk Kim, the Keymaker from the Matrix II, as the doctor (also his tinge of annoyance at the alacrity with which John helps with the cover-up).
Asia Kate Dillon as the adjudicator (though with this as with Ruby Rose in 2, I'm not entirely certain whether it's actually over the line between 'cool to see because striking' and 'cool to see because weird').
Angelica Huston working ballerinas to death! Ballerinas with "Si vis pacem, para bellum" tattoos!
Upside-down orthodox cross branding!
V sinister concierge at the Casablanca Continental.
Jerome Flynn rolling all the scenery around in his mouth.
"I get it" <- been mentioned before, but it's such a great encapsulation of the character and how no-one else could really do it.
Saïd Taghmaoui - who I would like to say I remembered from La Haine, but it's probably actually from Wonder Woman.
Mark Dacascos, who I can't believe I didn't recognise - Brotherhood of the Wolf is one of my favourite films.
I was not expecting that they just went straight for 'finger off'.
"Is he one of yours?" "Well, he was."
What the lighting in the executive lounge(?) did for Ian McShane's eyes in that scene.
"Guns. Lots of guns" <- legit mad that they put this in a trailer.
The interesting levelling up from the corresponding Matrix lobby scene - general gunfire only stuns them, you have to pay attention to finish them.
The palpable pissed-offness when they come back in to get more guns.
Not forgetting that John Wick is weapon capacity porn.
An outside fireplace on a roof!
And yeah, the end.

I thought Laurence Fishburne was playing in much the same register as the second film, there's a lot of "..baby"s in there as well.
One scene that I actually thought went on too long (though I understand that methodically working your way through a crowd of goons is vmic) was the escape from Berrada's, there was a lot of shoot and shoot and dog and shoot and shoot and dog. Also did Jerome Flynn just shoot the dog's armor and wind it, then?
Halle Berry doing All the Acting in her first scene didn't really come off, I thought.

I would not have expected halfway through that nearly everyone lives, Mark Dacascos and Jerome Flynn are the only big name casualties.

Oh and the fact that the entire administrative staff for the serial killer underworld are tattooed alt types dressed up like 50s secretaries.

Also darragh very otm about what makes this series work throughout this thread.

keanu is very lean too

noticeably not!

Very insightful commentary there Andrew, though it’s shame about the belly projecting you’re falling prey to

My belly projects on its own.

Also yeah, I have come to terms with with the fact that quantity rather than quality is my forte. But enough about my belly.

After watching JW2 the night before seeing JW3, me and my gf got into a big discussion about what we imagined the backstory for the Lance Reddick's concierge character would be, which basically came down to 2 options - either he's an ultra-elite concierge and the nyc continental is like the ultimate job in the ultra-elite concierge world (what better test of your skills than maintaining yr composure & decorum while serving a bunch of people who are violent mass murderers, often literally splattered in their victims' blood), OR he's an ex assassin who has transitioned into the concierge position in his retirement (who better to know & anticipate the every need of NYCs assassins than a former assassin).

In JW3 when he begins grabbing huge guns and expertly offing people without batting an eye, we excitedly looked at each other and were like well, I guess that settles that question

Oh and the fact that the entire administrative staff for the serial killer underworld are tattooed alt types dressed up like 50s secretaries.

I want to say this was there from the beginning? At least the second one. It was a really striking choice. Made it seem like a combination of secretary pool, bookie's den, and roller derby recruitment office.