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Post by mr. excellent on Jun 22, 2021 16:23:24 GMT -5
Update on Je1ght8: no reply. ![:-/](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/undecided.png) Not going to harass this person anymore. Oddly, enough, I actually do think it's the Je1ght8 from years ago with the Deadpool profile pic. On an unrelated note, I'm currently watching Warrior and finished season 1 of Euphoria. Of Warrior, I will say that the martial arts action is top notch and the story is fun to keep up with. It's set in the 1800s and it's about warring Chinese gangs in San Francisco. They're pit against working class Irish men who are starving and angry about it, as well as cut throat politicians who are manipulating everyone while getting in over their heads with the underworld at the same time. Euphoria is basically about teenage life today, but told as a parent's fever dream / nightmare. Of the two shows, I got through Euphoria more quickly. It's easily the most raw show I've ever seen, and for some critics and viewers that was problematic. Not so much in its rawness, but perhaps in the way the message is not always driven home. Maybe things come off as gratuitous or something, I don't know. For me, I found the show profoundly entertaining and it paid attention to certain types of kids that rarely get the spotlight. I recommend it. If you're depressed or going through some stuff right now, maybe save it for later though. It's heavy. I didn't want to make a thread for it because it doesn't seem like something we'd all be watching. If anyone else is watching it though and would like a space for it, let me know.
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Post by BackinBlack on Jun 24, 2021 23:08:38 GMT -5
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Post by mr. excellent on Aug 7, 2021 20:27:55 GMT -5
Sort of random, but I saw The Suicide Squad last night, as well as a fake trailer for No way Home the other day. With The Suicide Squad being such a visual feast and the trailer including some great moments from prior Spider-Man installments, that got me thinking... What are some moments from the Spider-Man movies that have stuck with you? While there are several in the Raimi series, the one that most surprised me was the scene in Spider-Man 3 (2007) after Flint Marko becomes the Sandman. He's trying to figure out how to reconstitute himself in his human form, and the way Sam did it, it was just so artistic. In Amazing Spider-Man 2, there's the scene when Gwen falls down the clock tower. Spider-Man shoots a web to save her, and the web line reaches out like a hand. While many criticize the movie for killing her, myself included, Marc Webb brought the scene to life in a way that was really moving. There are movies that kill off their characters but fail to make their audiences feel. While I disagree that that scene had to happen that way, Webb really got me. Unfortunately, in the Watts Spider-Man movies there aren't any scenes like that for me so far. We'll see how this one goes.
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Post by mr. excellent on Aug 11, 2021 20:18:18 GMT -5
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Post by brotherandbassist on Aug 12, 2021 21:53:23 GMT -5
I think I like Batman The Animated Series even better though
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Post by mr. excellent on Aug 13, 2021 2:32:42 GMT -5
Yeah, Batman: TAS is the gold standard, so much so that it outshines just about everything else from the era. That said, Superman: TAS does have a lot of that Bruce Timm magic though.
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Post by brotherandbassist on Nov 8, 2021 9:44:44 GMT -5
This is a post, it contains words. Thank you for your time
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Post by BackinBlack on Nov 9, 2021 5:58:20 GMT -5
This is a post, it contains words. Thank you for your time As a follow up, this is a post that also contains words replying to your post that contains words.
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Post by brotherandbassist on Nov 12, 2021 14:39:00 GMT -5
Groundbreaking conversations happening here.
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Post by BackinBlack on Nov 12, 2021 14:46:06 GMT -5
Indeed.
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Post by brotherandbassist on Nov 12, 2021 14:57:41 GMT -5
In all seriousness I'm quarantined. Again! Until Tuesday. So I'll probably pop in a little more often
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Post by mr. excellent on Nov 12, 2021 20:19:39 GMT -5
Oh man, hope you don't get hit hard by it. I thought you were trying to boost the post count, I didn't even check to see what it was. Wait, did I just win???
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Post by brotherandbassist on Nov 14, 2021 16:02:16 GMT -5
I have no idea haha you'd have to ask backinblack or webber. Yeah, I'm fine now. Wasn't for a bit though
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Post by mr. excellent on Feb 19, 2022 15:32:48 GMT -5
You know, I just posted in the Top 10s thread and I thought it would be fun to elaborate a little over here. Maybe not on all of them, we'll see how it goes as I type them up. 1) Spider-man: No Way Home is listed as number one because it's easily the most successful combination of being a good movie, a financial success, and culturally significant. It's strongest sign in the moviegoing world that we're coming out of the coronavirus pandemic, slowly but surely. It's the biggest movie to come out since 2019, and top 4 worldwide all time (not adjusted for inflation). It gave us all 3 Spider-Man on screen (and Charlie Cox as Daredevil!) in a way that worked. Even if the movie mechanics didn't work 100%, people were so emotionally connected to it that it didn't matter. 2) Shang Chi may have been the best movie of Marvel's Phase 4 movies, even including Spider-Man Far From Home. It was Marvel's first true martial arts film, and it opened us to a new world, with lots of secrets to discover, in a beautiful way. It also brought us an all star cast and introduced a lot of people (myself included) to the legend, Tony Leung. 3) Spider-Man Far From Home: This is the most fun live action Spider-Man movie I've seen since the original Spider-man film. I saw this in theaters 4 times, which for me, is tied for my personal best. 4) WandaVision: While it was middling along the way at times, it had some fantastic performances. Kathryn Hahn is so good, Marvel is giving her her own show. Elizabeth Olsen does all eras of television without blemish. Paul Bettany is great. Teyonah Paris, Randall Park, and Katt Dennings were a trio no one knew they wanted, but almost everybody loved. There were also some emotional through lines that Marvel was able to play very, very well too, and overall it left the Marvel Universe in an interesting place when all was said and done. 5) Eternals: This has to be a tie for Marvel's biggest swing, possibly ever. Without Infinity War and Endgame as a combo, or the very idea of the MCU itself, I don't think any single movie comes close to what they tried to do in this movie. I don't think they stuck the landing, but there's also some things done in here that don't get enough credit. I mean, the conclusion of the Ikaris story? Wow. 6) Loki: For me, this was Marvel's most exciting prospect, next to WandaVision and Dr. Strange Multiverse of Madness. Had they been able to keep the level of story telling of the first one, maybe first two episodes, I think this would've been the top show of Disney+'s first slate of releases. 7) Black Widow: Serviceable. It could have been more, and yet, Scarlett Johansonn was stronger than ever in the role, and I really enjoyed what they did with David Harbor and Florence Pugh was a ton of fun. Oh, and that opening cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit was haunting, given what happened. ![](http://webber3000.com/smiley/cool.gif) Falcon and the Winter Soldier: This show was the biggest disappointment for me. I didn't enjoy the Sharon Carter stuff and thought the execution of the super soldier serum story was boring. The things they did do well really resonated with me, and yet there was a lot of empty space that undercut the develop of those good things. The MCU has always been known for its snappy pacing and tight story telling. It's what it gets criticized for too, not allowing the right moments and emotional beats to simmer enough. So it's odd that they wasted a lot of time in this show with a conflict they should have been able to make compelling, but didn't. On a character level, there's no doubt that Sam Wilson has some franchise best moments here, but the same can't be said for Bucky. Isaiah Bradley's story was great, and I even liked John Walker well enough (even if everyone else wanted to hate the guy). It's hard to replace someone as likeable as Chris Evans, especially when everyone wants to see more of him. 9) Hawkeye: This may have been inspired by Matt Fractions' Hawkeye, but it had to contend with blending what Jeremy Renner had already established. There's nothing wrong with the way Renner played Hawkeye and Renner is a good actor, but I also think that the MCU didn't do a lot with Renner's casting in the first place. Hailey Steinfeld was fun though. Beyond that and some fun stuff with the trick arrows, this show didn't show me the magic. 10) What If? Unfortunately, 80% of the series felt like a giant commercial. I was initially excited to have Jeffrey Wright narrate the episodes, but after seeing the show I'm not a fan of that narration heavy style. I think this should've played less like "The Twilight Zone" and more like "Black Mirror" where every episode just throws the audience right in, sets the stage for itself, and goes from there. Now, I wouldn't have minded the "Twilight Zone" narration heavy style had the episodes been longer to actually develop things on their own, but that simply wasn't the case. Instead, you had extremely truncated stories with unnecessary retellings of the MCU stories they were being spun from, and it just didn't do it for me. I don't have much hope for the second season and hope that Marvel has a totally different approach for their future animated ventures.
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Post by mr. excellent on Aug 14, 2022 12:39:25 GMT -5
My wife and I recently watched the latest season of Alone on Netflix. Basically, these outdoorsmen with extreme survival skills are allowed to take 10 items with them (I'm not sure if any particular items are restricted). I don't think they are told where they'll be dropped, but they are left to fend for themselves. The longest survivor wins. The production crew does come in with a scale and doctors to evaluate the contestants every so often to see if they are medically fit to continue. They let these guys push themselves to the extreme though. I'm not sure how many seasons there are, maybe 8? We've only seen one, that being the most current.
What blows my mind is that you can kind of start watching and establish your favorites, but by the end, your humanity as a viewer kicks in. You want so desperately for them to catch a dang fish or snare a rabbit or something that it's sad when any of them gets eliminated. It's definitely one of the most intense reality tv shows I've ever seen. Everyone in the top 4 lost over 30% of their body weight by the end. There was a guy who spent 6 months gaining 45 pounds before the show began. He was a big guy to begin with, but by the end of the show he'd lost like 90 pounds in like 79 days. Crazy show, and one that I definitely want to check out earlier seasons of.
On another topic, it's safe to say that Phase 4 has been a mixed bag. A lot of fans have somewhat turned on the franchise. As they say on "The John Campea Show" though, winning cures everything. If Wakanda Forever really nails it, a lot of people are going to come back over. If the subsequent projects like Quantumania, The Marvels, and GOTG Vol.3 are all great, I'd argue the fervor for the MCU will be back to Infinity War / Endgame levels. For me, the biggest letdown of Phase 4 is the diminishing of things that are special. Things like the Infinity Stones, alternate universes, pocket universes like spiritual realms, the cosmic entity of Eternity itself, people with superpowers, etc. I understand why they turned the Infinity Stones into literal paper weights in Loki, but I was not a fan of how the lore was expanded for spirit realms in Moon Knight. I was not a fan of how Eternity was portrayed in Thor Love and Thunder. I was not a fan of how the we blitzed through dozens of alternate universes in Multiverse of Madness while only really inhabiting a couple of them for more than a second or two. While I didn't really enjoy the execution of the Eternals movie as much as I'd hoped, one thing they did very well was convey the magnitude of the Celestials. Watching Eternals, I don't feel that that film diminished the sheer awesomeness of Celestials as these mega giant star sized, capital G level cosmic beings. I know Ego says God with a little "g", but that's played more for irony and laughs, especially when you see what the universe's gods are really like in Love and Thunder.
Phases 1-3 did a good job of building the lore of all these cool concepts and even paying some of them off by the time we got around to Endgame. Phase 4 took those cool concepts and sort of just, half assed them. If Phase 5 and 6 can make these concepts cool and excited to discover again, then I'm here for it. If not, then for me, the MCU will have peeked in Phase 3. Time will tell though. Here's hoping.
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