Is Not Is Too!

TOPLIST #1: X-Men

               T:
          Just got back from Days of Future Past. Probably the
          best since X2. It's really about discrimination and fear
          again, instead of about superpowers.
               R:
          Yeah, after a couple of movies they just sort of throw
          those themes out the window. First Class tried to find
          them again.
               T:
          Last Stand has the themes more than First Class.
               R:
          Does not!
               T:
          Does too!
               R:
          Let us make an X-Men toplist.

On 7th place I have X-Men: First Class.

Really?

          Of all the franchises I grew up with X-Men the most.
          The comics, the TV show, now the movies. More than
          Star Wars, more than any other geek thing that I was
          far too into. And to me, Matthew Vaugn doesn't get
          X-Men. He makes fun movies, but they're not X-Men.
          Vaugn has far too much fun. But X-Men isn't
          Avengers. X-Men isn't fun. X-Men is about
          discrimination and racism, about fear, loneliness and
          group behaviour. It's like Vaugn just wanted to make
          a Bond movie.

This is nothing like Bond.

          My problem with Matthew Vaugn's X-Men is a bit
          like your problem with the JJ Abrams Star Trek
          movies. They're fun, but they're not Star Trek. I didn't
          grow up with Star Trek, so it's all fine by me.

          But those are discriminatingly bad! But I understand
          the comparison. I really liked Magneto in First Class
          though.

          Yeah, Magneto's storyline was great. But I had a
          problem with most of the other mutants. Banshee and
          Angel, the girl who spits fireballs. Those aren't cool
          powers. Especially not for a movie. That entire
          Xavier storyline, which is basically about a rich kid
          who get's off on peoples powers. First Class
          should've been what it was originally going to be:
          X-Men Origins: Magneto. With just Magneto and
          Sebastian Shaw as the only mutants. But now they
          had like a thousand different mutants running around
          in that movie, far too many for the sixties, when
          nobody in the world was supposed to even know they
          existed. Days of Future Past tries to rectify some of
          that, bringing the mutants more undercover, instead
          of out in the open. Which works better with X1.

I haven't seen Days of Future Past yet, so I don't have

a 7th place.

               R:
          On 6th place I have X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
               T:
          Me too.
               R:
          It's an hilariously melodramatic shit of a film. Dumb
          characters, horrible writing. Only some of the scenes
          with Wolverine being witty were sorta funny.
               T:
          It drifts off pretty far from the Wolverine and setting
          we saw in X1, to which this is essentially a prequel.
          And some of the VFX are really bad.
               R:
          How could they approve those?
               T:
          I have no idea. I used to superhate Origins as well,
          but not anymore. Maybe I've gotten used to it, maybe
          I've discovered the good bits in it.
               R:
          Oh you actually watched this more than once?
               T:
          I told you, X-Men is my bible.
               R:
          Oh yeah, right.

               R:
          On 5th place I have The Wolverine.
               T:
          Me too! It's very 'different' isn't it?
               R:
          This is kinda like Bond. Reminds me somewhat of
          You Only Live Twice.
               T:
          I don't really watch Bond films. I liked the red-headed
          girl. Yukio. But I found it a little weird that the whole
          mutant issue wasn't really going on in this movie,
          whilst this is supposed to happen after Last Stand.
               R:
          I guess all of that isn't really going on in Japan.
               T:
          Setting it in Japan was a nice breath of fresh air though.
               R:
          I thought this was everything Origins should have been.
               T:
          Maybe, though I didn't really get what exactly
          Wolverine's arc was in this. That was left far too
          vague to focus on it so entirely. The swordfights were
          great, by the way.

On 4th place I have The Last Stand.

Again: Me too.

It's a fine continuation of the first two, but it suffers
from crowded plots and characters.

          Really? Than you won't like Days of Future Past,
          which is the most crowded of all X-Men movies yet.
          But I thought Last Stand was kinda simple in it's story.
          Little exposition and stuff, but more made as the third
          act to a story, the trilogy, which made this the action
          climax. I think it works if you think about it like that.
          But you're right that they introduce a lot of mutants
          that don't really have a function, like Vinnie Jones as
          Juggernaut, which was terrible. Though, to Brett
          Ratner's defense, he was cast when Matthew Vaugn
          was still going to direct it I think. Matthew Vaugn
          really doesn't get X-Men.

It focusses on cool mutant powers too much, and it's
missing the themes of X1 and 2.

          No! It has those themes, with the cure, the oppression.
          That subplot of Rogue deciding to get rid of her
          powers.

          I thought that was Mystique's story in First Class.
          Before first class she wasn't that interesting a
          character.

          First Class is a 60's revenge movie. Last Stand is
          Brett Ratner trying to make a Bryan Singer movie,
          which is closer to what X-Men should be I think.

I just enjoyed First Class a lot more.

          So on 3rd place I have X-Men: Days of Future Past.
          The middle act is a little slow, as it over-X-plains the
          plot for non-X-perts. But the first and final thirds of
          the movie are as good as Singer's other episodes. It
          didn't really feel as big as the budget suggested it was
          going to be, but then again, X-Men movies have
          never really felt huge in the way Avengers or
          Transformers feels huge. It focusses more on
          character. Which is also sort of my only problem with
          DOFP. The movie's main story is about Wolverine
          having to convince Xavier to become the Xavier we
          know from Patrick Stewart. This is fine, but the
          depressed Xavier just isn't one I personally like very
          much. Also: I would've liked to have seen more of the
          future bits, 'cause they were awesome. These are
          minor details. Overall it was very good. A return to
          form for the franchise with a nice teaser for the next
          part: X-Men: Apocalypse.

          My 3rd place has First Class, which we already sort
          of discussed. It has some of the same problems that
          Last Stand has, being overcrowded with plot and
          characters, but it was more enjoyable. But I really
          would've wanted it to be a Xavier/Magneto buddy
          cop movie à la Lethal Weapon.

My 2nd place is X2: X-Men United, which is a
terrible title by the way.

But a great film.

It's a lot cooler than the first one, more slick and
actiony. Especially in that opening scene.

          My 2nd place is the first one actually: X-Men. A
          great way to start a franchise and introduce the
          universe, the characters and the themes.

               T:
          My 1st place is the only one left: X-Men. The movie
          that sort of started the comic book movie craze and, I
          would say, is still the best one ever made. The
          dialogue and the metaphor are so spot on that they
          overshadow the comic book fun in a great way,
          making it very real, for a comic book movie. Maybe
          even the most real of all comic book movies. This is
          one of my all time favorite movies.
               R:
          My 1st place goes to X2 for the same reason why The
          Empire Strikes Back is the best Star Wars movie. Like
          Empire this too is very dependent on the first film, but
          it continues and improves on it's characters and
          themes in a great way.
               T:
          Let's recap.

   T:    R:
7.   First Class    -

6. Origins Origins

5. Wolverine Wolverine

4. Last Stand Last Stand

3. Future Past First Class

2. X2 X-Men

1. X-Men X2

COMMENTARY #1: Godzilla (1998)

I just saw the new Godzilla movie.

I have not seen it yet.

While it was a lot more loyal to the

original japanese movies, and the

monster fight scenes were absolutely

epic, I didn’t really connect to the

characters. In fact, most of what they

do has no influence on the story at all,

and the female characters are reduced

to the bare minimum. They could’ve

easily cut about 45 minutes of scenes

with humans without any effect on the

story. Cranston’s character is the only

one that was sort of interesting. I like

the ‘98 Godzilla a lot more. There, I

said it. When that came out 16 years

ago (!), I was eleven and it blew my

mind to shit.

As a kid yes, but as an adult no. It has

the Episode 1 syndrome.

It does not!

It does too!

Let us watch Roland Emmerich’s

Godzilla.

For some reason also the name of our

hero.

Yeah, they changed the name of the

main character to honor the designer.

He’s the guy who also did the robots

from I, Robot and the werewolves

from Underworld I think.

Honor the designer? The writer just

needed a funny name, because people

saying your name wrong is fucking

funny.

We’ll never be able to find out if that

was what it was, ‘cause they’ll never

admit to it not being an homage.

Though I must say that

tapadopapopoulos is a pretty funny

name.

Now, the opening credits of the new

Godzilla actually have a very similar

vibe, though they don’t fit that movie

all that well. They should have just

started the movie, like with the Dark

Knight. No title, no nothing.

Would’ve suited that movie better. But

I like it here.

Boom. Leon is in this bitch.

Yea, as a lovely french stereotype.

I don’t think that counts as a stereotype,

but he is definitely French. The whole

thing where all the french characters are

called jean-something is a weird joke.

My main problem with the french thing

is that they were the ones who caused

this with all of their nuclear testing. In

reality up until 1998 the french have

caused exactly 210 nuclear explosions,

whilst the americans detonated 1032 of

those assholes (the first two of which

were in Japan). Emmerich is german, so

I don’t think he really minded who

created ‘Zilla. This was probably the

studio saying that some other country

had to be the cause.

Saying stuff like: “where is my

croissant?” makes him a bit of a

stereotype.

There’s a lot of silly cliche’s yes, but

the character itself is not a stereotype.

The-French-secret-agent-who-hates-

american-coffee-and-is-unaware-of-

donuts-but-loves-Elvis is not a

stereotype.

Love how they go from huge-hint-at-

what’s-going-on to huge-hint-at-

what’s-going-on during this opening bit

where they introduce the main

characters. Finding these footprints is

kind of like them finding the planes in

Close Encounters.

Sure, but having two whole sequences

of boats being destroyed was really

unnecessary.

Yeah, he must really like fish. Godzilla,

not Emmerich. Or maybe Emmerich too.

Who knows.

There are rumors…

Was Jean Reno also holding a camera?

Maybe they're watching Godzilla '98 on

VHS.

I like how both this and the new movie

reference the original name Gojira on

multiple occasions.

And an American reporter saying it

wrong as ‘Godzilla’ is also a nice

reference.

See! I told you this was like Close

Encounters! They both have boats on

land as part of their huge-hint-at-

what’s-going-on-montage. Love how

they did this shot by the way. I think the

boat is a miniature that is composited in?

Looks pretty epic. Say what you will

about Emmerich, but he knows how to

make stuff look huge.

Yeah, this is a miniature. The 90’s was

a great period of still using old practical

effects and using the latest (but not

always realistic) CGI and digital

compositing.

Emmerich know how to make things

huge? No way! Godzilla looked no

where near as big as it should have

been. The first 10 minutes of

introducing Godzilla was great. The

camera was always on the same level

as the people, making Godzilla really

big. But after awhile they got lazy with

the animation. Godzilla was suddenly

moving way too fast for its size. and

instead of Godzilla being huge the

buildings looked really small.

True, I meant it more in the sense that

the could’ve had a ship in the dock with

some scratches on it. But with

Emmerich, the entire ship is on a beach,

with tanks and jeeps beside it, hundreds

of extras, etc. Spielberg did this with

encounters, but a lot of big budget

movies are actually kinda small. The

special effects are big, but the sets are

small. Not with Emmerich. There’s

always people running around in the

background. In some ways the 90’s

were the best era for VFX. Sure, the

CG wasn’t that great yet, but combining

CG with miniatures and puppets really

diverts your attention from the VFX to

the story (assuming there is a story).

Spielberg (really all filmmakers before

CGI) was doing things small because

he had to. The technology was simply

not advanced enough to do everything

a filmmaker wanted. I think having

these kind of restrictions makes for

really creative solutions to tell a story.

This shit also kicked be in the face

when I first saw it. They might have

used some miniatures, but in a shot like

this I think they really just pulled that

entire ship under at full speed with the

stuntmen on it.

I think they used miniatures for some

shots. Sometimes the water looks really

weird

Hank Azaria is in this as well. The cast

is actually pretty great. Broderick, Reno,

that guy from Spinal Tap. Azaria’s life

action career never really took off. I

thought he was funny in this and in

Mystery Men where he was the fork

throwing Blue Raja. But both those

films sort of flopped I think. So now

he’s back doing 80% of all Simpsons

voices.

I always had the impression that he was

being paid handsomely for The

Simpsons and having small roles in

films was just something he did for fun.

Godzilla makes wood explode

That poor guy super-died.

Nice practical creature FX

That shit is practical? Awesome. Also:

A lot of people super-die in this movie.

Most of the close ups were made with a

puppet Godzilla. I think they could

have done more practical shots in the

style of the Rancor in return of the Jedi

or the aliens in Alien3.

Alien3 has some of the worst

compositing possible by the way.

Yeah, that was a problem, but the

movement of the aliens was great.

Even Barney looks more like Godzilla

True, he doesn’t really look like the

classic Godzilla, though from an

objective point of view I think this

makes a lot more sense than the fatzilla.

What is he, descended from hippo’s?

The only reason Godzilla was fat in the

first place is because they had to fit a

guy in that suit. I thought they did a

great redesign. But fans don’t want

redesigns. They want the exact same

thing. A guy once told me the

Transformers movies suck because the

transformers don’t look exactly like they

do in the cartoons. Of all the reasons he

could pick, THAT was why he thought

those movies sucked. There is no way

Bay could’ve made a bunch of colorful

boxes look real.

The problem with this design is it looks

like a dinosaur and not a monster. I

don’t mind a redesign either but using

the Godzilla name was completely

unnecessary. Emmerich saw the

Jurassic Park movies and wanted to

make a dinosaur film for himself.

Knowing that he couldn't get away

with making another dinosaur movie he

used the godzilla name without looking

at the original movies. Its is really

disrespectful, and if you want to make a

remake you need to have respect for the

source.

That’s true. If this was called

Cloverfield it might not have flopped.

Lets fly low between skyscrapers in

Apache helicopters. Smart!

But it looks awesome. I love how they

have New York be this rainy colourless

place.

I bet they used rainy and foggy weather

to get the CGI more realistic. Around

this time it was really hard to get a

realistic CGI character/monster in bright

sunlight. Jurassic Park being the

exception.

That might actually be true, because the

sunlight is exactly where Disney’s

Dinosaur (2 years after this) completely

failed. Whether it is just to get away

with effects or not, it does add a nice

atmosphere.

Now these guys, the Mayor and his

right hand, are called Siskel and Ebert.

They even kind of look like them. I

never really got why.

HA! You’re right! Does Ebert eating a

lot of candy also has something to do

with this?

I feel this is overlooked. The main

female character in this is actually

pretty fleshed out. She’s not a damsel

in distress, she’s not some evil bitch.

She has her own motives and her own

arc. She makes bad decisions and good

ones. Almost reminds us of a real

person. Good on you, Hollywood!

Strong female leads was a product of

the 90’s I believe. Now we have strong

psychical female leads who are also

really sexy looking (Transformers,

Sucker Punch, the Resident Evil films),

which I think is weird. nothing against

women being psychical and being sexy,

but it feels like Hollywood is missing

the point.

Thank god! The Pepsi machine still

works.

Product placement is at the heart of

hollywood. It’s why they get to make

the big movies.

Bad VFX. Soldiers coming out of

nowhere.

I have to admit: I didn’t notice it.

This whole scene feels like a

Scooby-Doo chase.

It does, doesn’t it? I never got how

something as huge as Godzilla could

hide, nor why they would fly at

eye-level with him/it, instead of above

him/it. It does make for some awesome

shots.

The King Kong shot.

It's too bad that Emmerich was being

inspired by american monster movies

and not the japanese ones.

At one point you could see one of the

monsters of Ray Harryhausen on a

television screen.

“Well, he was eating, so he must be a

female who is pregnant.”

Those are some massive mood swings...

Great way to keep things secret.

They should’ve written ‘Son of

Godzilla’ on the tape. I never want to

see that again.

I’ll admit that this whole egg/babyzilla

thing ventures pretty far from the

original films. Also: Those eggs are

gross and seem a little big for what

comes out of it. I thought they were

supposed to be all curled up in there?

That’s what radiation does to ya.

I always wondered, Godzilla was the

first of its kind right? But did he himself

mutated into something big or was this

mutation passed on over generations?

If so, there must be more godzilla’s out

there only smaller like Matryoshka dolls.

Oh, yeah, it’s definitely the Matryoshka

thing. There we’re gonna* do a sequel

called Godzilla Reunion where all the

different sizes of Godzilla were reunited

and snapped together into MegaGodzilla.

*not gonna

I would actually go see that.

A sequel to the new Godzilla has

already been greenlit, so who knows

what will happen.

By having Godzilla and young

Minizilla’s he got to have T-rex and

raptor action scenes. Emmerich had

know idea what to do with Godzilla.

He really just wanted to make a Jurassic

Park film.

Can you blame him? I’ll answer that

one: No one can be blamed for wanting

to make a Jurassic Park film. Except for

maybe like Lars von Trier. I would

never want to see his Jurassic Park.

Who do you think would make a great

Jurassic Park movie?

No Spielberg’s allowed.

Other director? Wes Anderson. Pretty

much the same movie, but with

characters having an existential crisis

and cartoony stop motion dinosaurs.

And really bright colors.

I was gonna say Wes Anderson! Those

raincoats already look like they belong

in a Wes Anderson movie anyway.

That is actually the only director where

you’re certain that even a Jurassic Park

remake thing would be awesome.

We should disagree more.

Whats this movie trying to tell me?

Be sympathetic to Godzilla or see it

(and its children) as a threat?

It was a threat, but not by intent. It

was just an animal trying to protect

itself. This is actually some nice

commentary on the way we treat

nature. We should be careful because

our reckless intrusion on nature is

having a bigger and bigger influence.

Like when they just discovered that

something inside most pesticides is

actually killing all bees. That shit will

fuck up the entire ecosystem. Without

bees plants won’t reproduce. If plants

die out, no oxygen. Oversimplifying,

yes, but not untrue. The movie isn’t

super clever or anything, but then again,

neither is any other Godzilla movie ever

made. I prefer it over the new one,

where Godzilla is like Mother Nature’s

Neighborhood Watch or something, but

also there to protect mankind? If you’re

there to protect nature, the first fuckin’

thing you do is kill all humans. But no,

Godzilla was all like: “Sorry I let my

dogs loose around your kids, let me just

punch them to shit and I’ll be on my

way.” All that movie missed was

Godzilla giving Quicksilver and The

Scarlet Witch the thumbs up before

returning back to the ocean.

The point the movie its trying to make

is fine, but I have no idea what the film

wants me to think at times. It's all over

the place. Especially the music. The

music contradicts the scenes a lot of

times. in one scene The movie wants

me to be sympathetic to Godzilla and

the next scene it wants me to be afraid

of it. It feels like a guy punching a dog

almost to death and then suddenly pet

him and saying everything will be all

right.

Is not!

Is too!

R: T: