Edgy MD

In the oppressive atmosphere of Franco's Spain, a genial middle-aged teacher who is mad for the Beatles goes off on a whim to try and meet John Lennon, who is in the country filming How I Won the War. He picks up a pair of runaways separately along the way and they make a weird little family as they head down to the Mediterranean — the oldest the only one with a dream while the young woman and teenage boy seem resigned to their pointless existence.

How much of a downer is that? Han, after all the character growth he supposedly went through, is hanging on as a septuagenarian smuggler? And Chewie is happy to be along for the same going-nowhere ride decades in, still looking for that one big score that can really save their necks? Without even their cool ship to brag about.

metsmarathon wrote: the remnants of a soundly defeated german empire took a mere two decades to rebound into one hell of a formidable military machine following the great war. They had a state. Yeah, I'd've liked a little more history. I had a stake in the victory of the the rebel fleet in the original series. I'd've liked to have known how they let the vanquished enemy come on back into being the galaxy's dominant power.

Yeah, the remnants of the Empire went and rebuilt (seemingly) their entire infrastructure, without even having the treasury of a duped Republic to exploit. Goofy.

John Church, once the subject of the handsomest wedding photos, is an unsigned minor league free agent. And it's February 5. It's feeling end-of-the-liney, good John. What now?

I'm getting wildly divergent opinions on this. From "What? You haven't seen it. Drop what you're doing now and I'll take you." to "Nothing I haven't seen on LifeTime."

I like how the lousy cut makes that card more authentic.

Ceciliani may be Cecili-goney, as he's been DFA'd to make room for that roster-hog Yoenis Cespedes. Let's see if he survives his designation as well as he survived his two runs through the Rule 5 crucible.

Elster88 wrote: Edgy MD wrote: With the Han analog from this film, Poe Dameron, all you know about him is that he's a hotshot pilot. And that we have to learn through a quick force-feeding, when he's called the resistance's "best pilot" in the crawl, and him boasting "I can fly anything" as he kicks into action. Bam, I’m supposed to care about this guy? He's the fifth most important character in the story, so no, you're not supposed to overly care about him. The story was busy developing the other characters. And it developed them well. And calling him a Han analog is a silly, gross oversimplification. He (spoiler)=#FFBFFF]fired the shot that destroyed the enemy's super-weapon, saving the free peoples of the universe(/spoiler). He presumably was supposed to matter. This script was distressingly unimaginative. We were up to 22 plot elements cribbed from earlier films before we just got bored with counting. The rough part is that this isn't a failure. This is a success, from Disney's point of view. This is the way they make films.

Well, considering there's strong evidence suggesting the NFL got to make some personal cuts, that makes a lot of sense.

I didn't particularly appreciate it either and I'm full of joy. Isn't it possible that what he wrote is just his honest assessment? There is something very wrong with the state of the film industry today. Speilberg and Lucas have said as much themselves, even as they largely blame themselves for it.

LA Times is far less generous than I was. The issue, however, is whether "The Force Awakens" even deserves to be considered as a movie, because it's not. It's the anchoring element of a vast commercial program, painstakingly factory-made for maximal audience appeal, which means maximal inoffensiveness. The result tells us a lot about the state of entertainment today, and about the future of Hollywood. Abrams seems to follow the precept that the surest way to keep from putting a foot wrong is to walk only within the footprints of one's predecessors. As has been noted by a few reviewers who braved the intimidating weight of "Star Wars: the Phenomenon" to write critical pans, the new movie obsequiously replicates the formula of the original -- its set pieces, rhythm, pacing, even dialogue -- almost without advancing the story at all. It's a mark of Disney's own caretaker mentality that not only is a Jar Jar Binks-level blunder absent from "The Force Awakens," but so is surprise or even much suspense. One has to be a pretty inattentive viewer to be surprised or shocked by either the big reveal in the story (no spoilers!) or its denouement.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Is that "meh" grade you, Edge? Yeah, me. Sorry. I mostly found it too bloated with the old cast and new cast elbowing for screen time and space. It allowed too little time for you to develop a connection with the newer characters including protagonist Rey, and associate protagonist Finn. You knew a lot about Luke's internal life before he started having adventures. Even Han has a developed back story before you get off of Tatooine (which is part of why people care so much about whether Greedo shot first). With the Han analog from this film, Poe Dameron, all you know about him is that he's a hotshot pilot. And that we have to learn through a quick force-feeding, when he's called the resistance's "best pilot" in the crawl, and him boasting "I can fly anything" as he kicks into action. Bam, I’m supposed to care about this guy? (MINOR SPOILER)=#FFBFFF]And then he disappears for more than half the film. (/MINOR SPOILER) That's far more crudely drawn and rolled out than the characters in the original film (which I appreciate more each day), where we're, like 2/3 into the picture before it becomes a battle film. I think I’d have rather had a slowly unfolding story. To slip into this long-awaited gift deliberately. Abrams was able to escape this trap of being encumbered by too many characters when he took over the Star Trek franchise, the new timeline concept allowing him to have the old characters and most of their established backstories and audience's relationship to them, without having to haul out most of the old actors. And then he doesn’t have to waste too much screen time, making you care. You already do. That said, he indeed did give us significantly more Kirk and Spock backstory and exposition than he gives Rey and Finn here. There’s also things that don’t quite make sense (not as many as in Star Trek, perhaps), at least to my fool head. (MINOR SPOILER)=#FFBFFF]Who’s the hermit-like guy at the beginning? Why haven't Chewbacca or Akbar aged at all? Chewie was already 200 in the first film. (/MINOR SPOILER) (LARGER SPOILER)=#FFBFFF]How do we have a weapon that’s basically a cannon carved out of a planet that can destroy other planets? How does it move into position throughout the universe? Does it somehow fire energy blasts from far off and they all go into warp fields, and then somehow come out of warp and hit their far-off targets? That’s weird.(/LARGER SPOILER) And how does a non-jedi (seemingly in touch with the Force, but a non-jedi nonetheless), as well as a random non-Force-oriented-at-all guy get to (SPOILER)=#FFBFFF]pick up a light saber and go blow for blow, parry for parry, with a sith or sith-paduan or whatever he is?(/SPOILER) It was funny when J.J. Abrams re-used plot lines and devices in Star Trek from earlier films, because it was in a new timeline, and it was amusing to think that history unfolds similarly but different in two parallel timelines if they spring from a recent common temporal point. Here, what with the (SPOILER)=#FFBFFF]secret plans hidden in a lost droid (smaller, cuter, more cherubic) that the agents of the dark side are looking for(/SPOILER) and (SPOILER)=#FFBFFF]giant planet-destroying enemy weapon/impenetrable base with one fatal flaw(/SPOILER), a creature cantina, a desert planet to begin on, it didn’t seem amusing, but rather seemed uninspired/lazy. When freakin’ Han says (SPOILER)=#FFBFFF]”So, it’s a Death Star,”(/SPOILER) he seems to be commenting on how been-there/done-that unimpressed he is with the script. “This is all you got, guys?” And what is with J.J. Abrams and geo-genocide? You think he’d have gotten his rocks off enough by imploding Vulcan. But here in an instant, (BIG SPOILER)=#FFBFFF]he wipes out a half dozen generally peace-loving planets, just to move the plot ahead for our protagonists, who scarcely seem to acknowledge this unthinkable horror. When Alderan is destroyed in the original thing, it’s an abstraction to us. We’ve never seen it and don’t have a relationship to it, so we can move on with the story. But we know that it’s a horror when Ben is thrown by it — shattered — though light years away. It's why he comes to realize that his mission must be intentionally suicidal. The weight of this loss is a specter throughout the rest of the film. Ben/Obi-Wan's universe has been upended. Here, we have planets we know, worlds we've walked on. I saw what seemed to Coruscant (sp?) which presumably is as populated as any place in the galaxy, go up. Later, Republic. My wife said she thought Endor went up too. So no more Ewoks in the universe, you psychotic freak. Just how much desolation do you really need to set your plot in motion, J.J.? I'm with Ol' Ben. I felt as motivated to die here as moved to fight. Moreso.(/BIG SPOILER) Things I liked included the new protagonista (posh accent aside) and the production design — including, as noted, thrusters on the underside of the Millennium Falcon. I like the general outline of the story, except those turns noted above. The bad guy, I’m torn about. I mean, that’s a recognizable villain. A child of heroic idealists who are in the busy business of reclaiming the world from bad guys to make it better for kids just like him. But they are struck by the reality that, whatever your good intentions may be, raising children is damn hard. So they ship him off to boarding school, bypassing the meritocracy they worked so hard to build, taking advantage instead of their special connections. The kid’s growing pains are exacerbated by further alienation and bitterness at his seemingly hypocritical parents, failing plainly in their attempts to hide their contentious marriage, and he falls for a philosophy that gives him the certainty his parents could not. I mean, we all KNOW this kid. Many of us are terrified of him. That said, his Hogwarts-esque hair/pallor looked ridiculous, and the idea that he’s a whiny rageaholic seems so lame-o for a sith or a sith-in-training or whatever. If Force users, good and bad, have had anything in common through the six prior films, they all seem to advance in their abilities through self-discipline, not by breaking all their toys whenever they don't get what they wanted. So, good job in setting the universe back in motion. But not so good at getting me engaged and in sympathy and solidarity with the principals.

marathon's questions were answered. There were definitely small thrusters and stabilizers on the belly of the Falcon.

This is a three-year-old thread. Wow. We need a poll.

Well, yeah, this was another pointless exercise, except as bait for another Oscar for Tom Hanks. The real story is that of the pirates coerced into doing something criminal lest something worse be done to them, their families, and their villages. Hanks only real backstory/character development before the crisis hits is his wife driving him to the boat and they're worried about their kids, not taking school seriously, not ready for the competitive world of the future. He's US! Or something. Then bam! He's somehow in the Indian Ocean, without any explanation how they got across the Atlantic and around the horn of Africa so fast. The pirates use their sonar to spot a convoy of ships playing safety-in-numbers, and stupid Captain Phillips is all alone miles behind, going it alone, and you start to get the idea that Phillips isn't exactly the brightest barnacle on the hull. He berates his men for their cowardice but you know, part of your job as captain is to instill your men with confidence through your sheer and obvious competence. But it's not jumping out me. What he has going for him is he keeps his head when tempers flare. And he never attacks the pirates, believing he can somehow reason (or bullshit) his way out of his ship being boarded, and then himself being kidnapped. But he's not above setting them up. If I want to see miserable Somalis quixotically going up against the might of the US military, I've got Black Hawk Down. At least that didn't try to play the Tom Hanks-is-a-stand-in-for-every-decent-American-of-a-certain-age-and-solid-value-system card. Do a comedy.

Didn't find a thread on it, but saw Sage rip in one or two other threads. My wife rented it two or three times and I finally sat down with it. What did you think?

cooby wrote: is that the camp one? Yup. Good Snoopy subplots too.

I have not. But I am prepared to offer a favorable critique of Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown. Or, as we called it in the day, Genus Enim Animarum Vestrarum, Carolus Fuscus.

Pat Zachry! And from a bidness standpoint, it would have implied a first step in relaunching the franchise, instead of the just, "Peanuts movie, done. No need to open THAT box again."

There have been four motion pictures and dozens of TV specials, mostly created by Charles Schulz and his handpicked partners, it seems a little ambitious to title it The Peanuts Movie, no?

At the height of Cold War tensions, an insurance lawyer (Tom Hanks) gets improbably recruited by CIA Director Allen Dulles to negotiate an exchange of prisoners. As out of his element as he is, he's not above going a little rogue. Tom Hanks stars and Steven Speilberg directs. Thomas Newman scores, which is amazing in that it's the first time Speilberg hasn't used John Williams in seemingly forever. (Since 1985's The Color Purple, actually. I just looked it up) I don't know if that means Williams is in semi-retirement or he is just up to his eyeballs in Star Wars work, or maybe it's just what it is. Anyhow, it kind of splits in half, with the first half being a courtroom drama without much courtroom, and the second half being a thriller without much action. But tension mounts. It does manage to mount. I'm always a little leery of films labeled "Inspired by True Events," but there I was last night, soaking it up with a box of Junior Mints. [fimg=350]http://img.123movies.to/2015/10/20/poster/Bridge_Of_Spies_2015.jpg[/fimg]

I guess what it really had a swing at speaking to is the why? When things really start to suck, and they could suck more tomorrow, and there's a good chance that nobody is aware of your existence or what you're trying to do with the days you have left to you... why go on? Ridley Scott, at 78, and living in the wake of the suicide of his younger brother and fellow filmmaker, might have been in a meaningful position to take a crack at that one, as big as it is.

That's pretty much where I was at, though I was more charitable in my rating than you. Where was the wrestling with the loneliness, looking up at the Martian starscape? Why no depiction of the mood on earth until the very end when you see dancing in Times Square? A man is the only living thing on a planet. That's an incredible and profound and terrifying thing. And then he makes life by growing potatoes. That's really profound. A lot of the people in this world live almost entirely on a single subsistence crop: potatoes, rice, kasava. Whatev. Science! It's cool — but not as cool as it could be — as a science adventure. It hints at offering the punch back at our culture of dysfunction and showing how we can pull together as teams and solve problems when we have to, but with none of the satisfaction — or even the roadmap — that Apollo 13 offered. The latter was used for years at business retreats. I hesitate to praise Ron Howard to the skies, but I don't see this having that sort of long tail as a team-building exercise. It even has a built-in metaphor for faith-and-science, as Watney carves up a crucifix for kindling, but it becomes a grinning, wink of a moment. That the credits roll to the tune of "I Will Survive," pretty much sums up how deep it hits or how deep it really wants to hit. Where were the minions?

I'm heading to Mars this evening. A lot has been commented on about how many films feature (in part or whole) rescuing Matt Damon. Not knowing his family status in The Martian, I'd like to note that a lot of films feature (in part or whole) a parentless Matt Damon. Has any actor ever been so consistently been portrayed for sympathy? He regularly gets orphaned and marooned. Meanwhile, An Alarming Number Of People Think “The Martian” Is A True Story.