Something Wick This Way Comes

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.

Oh yeah it was definitely in the second, slightly more striking in this one just because we see a lot more of them.

I instantly got a crush on the trans gal with the snakebites in the secretary pool

Huh, did not read them that way.

they're shown operating an actual old-timey phone switchboard!

I am watching the 2nd movie for the first time right now and the secretary pool scene really got to me

The scene of Common and Keanu casually walking down crowded hallways firing silenced pistols at each other was hilarious

^^^ amazing scene

Iirc that was directly inspired by a filming experience from the first one?

yep

keanu was walking down a corridor after lunch and who comes walking towards him but common and they drew silenced pistol and fired upon each other and they both thought "that would make a good scene if this movie were to require a sequel"

kinda disappointed we never got a djp jw3 update

Wick 3 was awful

Ian McShane does some quality work hamming it up but they wasted Halle Berry and her dogs and it's missing 99% of the humor of the first one.

yr awful

I irl lol’d for “I get it”

it's missing 99% of the humor of the first one.

John Wick horsefights a bunch of dudes in the face

is this the one where they have a big fight in a knife museum?

Yeah

also a library fight where Wick gets shushed and murders the shusher with a book

NBA's Boban Marjanovic gtfo with that shit MZ. the boss fight at the end of 3 is so fucking good. wick getting thrown through glass followed by iron chef fight is never going to disappoint.

also, rewatching 3 now and the scene where he shoots the doctor twice had me wanting a miniseries on that guy because he clearly has stories in the wickverse.

The non-gun fighting was worse than in the other two, the library fight was super stilted and they were obviously making pro wrestling-contact.

halle berrys dog mauling like 30 guys wasnt enough dog action?

think this was my favorite one yet, he goes on a vision quest in the sahara ffs

Cool side characters are only cool when they're not in the movie very much. There was a lot less of Berry's dogs than I wanted, which is the exact right amount there should be.

The dog stuff was distracting. I kept trying to analyze how each shot was set up and executed

tshot

a lot less of Berry's dogs than I wanted, which is the exact right amount there should be.

otm

Dogs scene was great. By far the best film in the series.

I like when he does the finger to pay obeisance to the assassin king

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZti8QKBWPo

....what?

https://64.media.tumblr.com/e4519dd57da2cab6efecb4ef612e5ea1/tumblr_noryc5GWgW1u5vpdco2_250.gif

what?

honestly it doesn't look great

A History of Violence except maybe in the Wickniverse this time? eh

Wickstended universe, surely

TOR had a long piece a while back positing Wick as a Portal Fantasy https://www.tor.com/2020/05/20/what-if-i-told-you-john-wick-was-a-portal-fantasy/

I think it’s a Catholic-libertarian-monarchical dystopia where the Reformation never happened. Hitmen function like privateers, the steampunk HQ the source of all the letters of marque.

I was looking for a thread about this franchise. I have absolutely no context for it but tried watching 3 last night and what did I just see? Got about 35 minutes in.

iirc you had seen the book fight and the horse fight by then, so who knows why you stopped