The Big Picture: Summer's End

RJ 17

The Sound of Silence
Nov 27, 2011
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The Dubya said:
RJ 17 said:
I think it's more the fact that he quite clearly lets his politics color his reviews and that's what gets people upset. I really don't mind, as reviewing things through a political prism is just another way of reviewing them, but a lot of people tend to get pissed off when "Liberal Reviewer Only Likes The Movie Because It's Liberal Propaganda!"

Hell, I'm a conservative and I just kinda chuckle and say "Ohhhhh Bobby, Bobby Bobby Bobby...really? You just LOVED the movie about every single right-wing stereotype invading the White House to take out "Not-Obama" purely because it makes fun of conservatives?" Maybe it's just the fact that I like reviewers that talk fast that I keep coming to watch his videos, but really I take his political stances with a grain of salt...I'd imagine there's a lot of people on this forum that can't take ANYTHING involving politics so lightly, however.

Incidentally, that's why I stay the hell away from the Religion and Politics forum on this site. Seriously, you say ONE thing on there - doesn't matter what - and your in-box will be full for the next three weeks with pissed off people that are more than eager to tell you just who incredibly wrong you are. :p
Yeah I don't bother really dabbling in politics either, which is why I guess I don't get rubbed either way when Bob brings in a political spin to what he's talking about. And just to be fair, that wasn't the ENTIRETY of the White House Down review, rather just one aspect of it he personally dug/found amusing. He's never been the one to outright say "Fuck [this side or that side]"; he pokes fun at everyone. Whatever's convenient/relevant for the review.
It's pretty clear though that he views things with a liberal/progressive skew, though. And yes, to be fair that wasn't the entire point of his review of that particular movie, but he certainly made it sound like that was one of his favorite parts of the movie.

Another thing that I was going to mention in my previous post is that a lot of people - myself included - don't like mixing their politics with their entertainment, even when said entertainment's politics happen to match their own. Take Elysium for example. As has been pointed out numerous times in this very topic, a lot of people didn't like the obscenely heavy-handed politicking going on in that movie and that's why they didn't like it in general, Bob on the other hand loved it. And that's where disagreements and rage start to seep in: people would rather have him criticize the unashamed lack of subtlety when a movie clearly has an agenda rather than buy into it whole-heartedly. Personally I treat such movies the same way I treat Bob when he gets political: I just role my eyes and move on.

In the end, people need to realize that Bob's a movie reviewer on the frickin' internet...surely there must be SOMETHING better these people can do than get all pissed off about his political views. If it REALLY bothers them that much, I just have to wonder why they bother watching his videos in the first place. I do it because as I mentioned before: I just find them to be entertaining, regardless of what he's "preaching". :p
 

Ariseishirou

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Aug 24, 2010
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Agree with many, but Elysium was heavy-handed to the point of outright dim, and it laid on the sap so hard at the end it tore me right out of the film. As my BFF pointed out to me later, it's also essentially just District 9 again, followning exactly the same formula, from "hero as minor functionary for the bad guys" to "accident forces him to join the good guys" to "friend amongst the good guys has an adorable child that causes him to sacrifice himself in the end". The only improvement Elysium had was Kruger.

Of course, it would have been greatly improved by an end credits scene that shows the medpods running out of power/resources in a couple of hours, then being ripped apart by the poor people for parts, while the people of Elysium reprogram their computer and nothing changes.

My BFF had an even harsher end credits scene in mind when I mentioned this: flash forward to months/years later, on Elysium, only it too is now overcrowded and covered in slums.
 

tzimize

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Mar 1, 2010
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Bob, I really dont get why you disliked Superman so much, but still think so much of Pacific Rim. Superman was pretty ok, except for a couple of things.
1: The fact that the whole movie was downbeat and depressing, when its about the character that best embodies hope.
2: Superman killed the bad guy. While it was refreshing that he didnt win in a stupid way, it just messes up the character (imo).

Pacific Rim, while it was a visual spectacle...was just weak. I was actually cringing in my seat more than once from the script. And while I know you shouldnt expect much from a summer-movie, I expected a BIT more since it was from Guillermo. Pacific Rim was a let-down. The action was spectacular, but the scenes in between (and there were a lot of them) were boring and/or stupid for the most part.

Ariseishirou said:
Agree with many, but Elysium was heavy-handed to the point of outright dim, and it laid on the sap so hard at the end it tore me right out of the film. As my BFF pointed out to me later, it's also essentially just District 9 again, followning exactly the same formula, from "hero as minor functionary for the bad guys" to "accident forces him to join the good guys" to "friend amongst the good guys has an adorable child that causes him to sacrifice himself in the end". The only improvement Elysium had was Kruger.

Of course, it would have been greatly improved by an end credits scene that shows the medpods running out of power/resources in a couple of hours, then being ripped apart by the poor people for parts, while the people of Elysium reprogram their computer and nothing changes.

My BFF had an even harsher end credits scene in mind when I mentioned this: flash forward to months/years later, on Elysium, only it too is now overcrowded and covered in slums.
I so much agree. Elysium had some pretty cool scenes, but the plot/ending was just awful.
 

newwiseman

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Aug 27, 2010
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I'll agree with everything but The Conjuring.

It certainly has the best build up of any horror movie I've seen in years but all the tension is lost the instant the witch ghost is revealed... she just looked like a bad Sam Raimi ripoff, and no matter how good the rest of the film is I'm not scared of Sam Raimi monsters. If they had kept her off screen or just invisible then maybe my pulse would had kept up through the film, as it was I got pretty sleepy during the very predictable third act.
 

Kyrian007

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What has MoS fans sooooo defensive? It's not just here, I see it on other forums I frequent as well. I disagreed with several of the common arguments against MoS, even some that Bob has picked on. I guess I just like "grimdark," MoS's tone didn't bother me. I can suspend disbelief, so I don't nitpick every so-called "plot hole." In MOST areas I was ok with MoS. It didn't make my personal top 10 either, but it doesn't offend me. But to say "I'm not even watching next week. He'll just pile on some more." Well, take your ball and go home, just remember whom that solution is most often attributed to.

However to be completely honest (a search history check could "out" me here) yes, I hated MoS. I'm not even sure Bob even mentioned the one thing that makes me HATE that movie. All in all I didn't have a problem with much in that movie. But I had such a big problem with something that happened in every single second of MoS that I couldn't walk away without hating it. Persistent (indeed all-encompassing) shaky-cam. They never explained how or why Jimmy Olsen was able to capture all of those moments (even the ones on Krypton and during Clark's childhood) on his iPhone. So maybe I am just watching to see if he mentions the unforgivably crappy cinematography and terrible and unwatchable aesthetic choices. But mostly I'll watch because I respect Bob's reviews, even if I don't agree with them, even if they won't change my opinion of something I've already seen and we disagree on. Positive reviews from Bob have led me to a few movies I would not otherwise have bothered with. And with one exception ("Drive" if you must know) I've enjoyed them all. Just because someone (reviewer, commenter, whatever) has a different opinion than someone else, doesn't make them their arch-nemesis.
 

Metalrocks

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wow, half of these movies are not even out yet in my country. "your next" comes out by the end of this year. some of them i rather wait until its out on dvd.
 

Strazdas

Robots will replace your job
May 28, 2011
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A nice list and a few movies i havent seen which i will get to (probably when they go out on DVD).
But please dont make Man Of Steel another Spider-Man. we get it, you dont like it, you dont have to repeat it in every video.
 

thenightgaunt

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Great video and the new add for your book at the end surprised me and ended with me doubled over with laughter until my sides hurt. Well done sir. ^_^
 

Gordon_4_v1legacy

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Nuxxy said:
It's similar with Pacific Rim. If Raleigh had died in Mako's arms in the end, saying something about how "now we're both free from what's been haunting us", it could have been with hope towards the future but with poignancy towards the losses incurred to achieve it. But it was more of a "WE WON!" elation
The problem with this is what exactly? Stacker and Chuck Hansen already had the heroic sacrifice part done and dusted; killing Raleigh in Mako's arms would have been needlessly twisting the knife, especially since I took his experience to be learning how to live again, rather than just exist.

Hell I was just grateful that Mako and Raleigh didn't fall in love, for avoiding that horse-shit plot point alone I hold Pacific Rim higher than most summer action films.
 

daxterx2005

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The only one on that list that I missed was Maniac, as a matter of fact I'd never even heard of it.
I'm going to seek it out now.
 

Ashley Blalock

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Instead of a worst of list a most disappointing list does sound more interesting. It's easy to get a bad movie with poor directing, poor writing, and poor acting, but it takes something to be able to have good components and end up with something that left people thinking they wasted their ticket money.
 

Daaaah Whoosh

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I'm surprised Great Gatsby made it on the list. The entire film, to me, felt like big setpieces where nothing happened, music that felt woefully out of place and useless in the context, and dialogue ripped directly from the book, with very little commentary on the side of the actors as to what their characters were actually feeling. The whole time, I either felt like the only reason I knew what was going on was because I'd read the book, or I felt like absolutely nothing was happening and if I had been watching it alone I would have asked for my money back. But if it worked for other people, perhaps people more in tune with popular culture or whatever shit you need to be into to get such a film, then I will accept that it worked for those people.
 

JimB

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Gordon_4 said:
I was just grateful that Mako and Raleigh didn't fall in love.
Thank you. The whole idea of girlfriends being handed out by the universe as rewards for surviving traumatic experiences has been done to death in pretty much every movie ever.
 

Arppis

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pottyaboutpotter1 said:
Well, at least we're not getting another video of Bob criticizing The Lone Ranger again.
Yeah... yeah... but next episode will be about Man of Steel... AGAIN.
 

Wolfenbarg

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Oct 18, 2010
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Didn't you rip Gatsby a new one? Where in the hell did that 180 take place and why didn't you even mention it? It was extremely jarring to see that turnaround, especially while clips of its bad visual style were on display. How weird.
 

Nuxxy

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Gordon_4 said:
The problem with this is what exactly? Stacker and Chuck Hansen already had the heroic sacrifice part done and dusted; killing Raleigh in Mako's arms would have been needlessly twisting the knife, especially since I took his experience to be learning how to live again, rather than just exist.

Hell I was just grateful that Mako and Raleigh didn't fall in love, for avoiding that horse-shit plot point alone I hold Pacific Rim higher than most summer action films.
Also so glad it didn't turn romantic. For a few seconds at the end it looked close.

I'm all for a more 'fun' movie over the overly-serious stuff we've been having, but I felt the film could have done with a bit of gravitas, something for the audience to emotionally invest in. A heroic sacrifice isn't one if the remainder of the characters (and thereby the audience) don't feel the loss. Any pilot who died fighting kaiju should be considered a heroic sacrifice. But when Crimson Typhoon and Cherno Alpha were taken out no one at home base even appeared shocked. Despite that each of them has crews of 100s, probably tight knit communities. No one angry? Despaired? Crying? Nope let's keep looking at Mako and Raleigh, looking unsurprised.

To me, Raleigh's death could have been symbolic. He could have represented the past, the victims of the years of battling the kaiju. Mako could represent the future, the survivors who owe everything to those who lay down their lives. It could have been a passing of the torch between the generations, a final chance for the past to inspire the future and the future to thank the past. And it would have meant something to the audience.
 

Hyperactiveman

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And yet I had to work my ass off while Pacific Rim was in the cinemas... Leaving me to go with friends later to see City of Bones, Elysium, Star Trek and Man of Steel.

And in order of me seeing them: terrible, too political, sorta good and really disappointing.