Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[iam416]

[Dr. Strangelove]

Honestly the mid to late 90's were a time of incredibly shitty summer blockbusters. Bad as Congo may be, at least it (or the book I mean) is an original story. So I'll throw out Godzilla '98 as the worst of the era.

* Film was extremely over-hyped in advance of its release,
* The characters were annoying and constantly cracked inappropriate jokes
* The female lead was aggressively annoying
* Fans of the actual Godzilla films were like: NOT MY GODZILLA
* Shamelessly rips off Jurassic Park. Godzilla was clearly modeled to look like the T-Rex and there's even a scene where Godzilla chases a car that might as well be plucked straight from JP. The fight at the end with the baby godzillas was clearly ripping off the velociraptor scenes.
* Godzilla shrinks and grows to be whatever size the scene needs him (her?) to be. Sometimes he's 90 stories tall. Sometimes he can fit in the sewer system. It's awesome.
* Horrible CG that didn't even look good at the time.
* Great big FUCK U to that ending

[AlabamAlum]

"Signs" was worse.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Incorrect

However, Problem Child 2 may give it a run. Did you actually pay to see that in a theater?

[AlabamAlum]

Incorrect

However, Problem Child 2 may give it a run. Did you actually pay to see that in a theater?

"signs" was horrible. Never let how insulting it was to suspense and alien invasion genres go unpunished.

*Aliens come to Earth to take it over. Fine.

*These aliens send a sort of recon team down.

*The alien recon team is naked.

*Water (which is in our air, our soil, falls from the sky, and covers 70% of this planet's surface) burns them like acid. But the aliens STILL come down naked and without masks.

*The aliens' only weapon they use is a poof of noxious gas that farts out of their wrists.

*This gas is so innocuous that an asthmatic child isn't harmed by it because his labored breathing is too inefficient.

*These galaxy-traveling advanced aliens can't figure out how to get into a boarded-up house or out of a locked pantry.

*The alien communications can be picked up on K-Mart baby monitors.

*There is a scene where the family's German Shepherd turns on the family and viciously attacks the little girl because it sensed the "predator" (the alien) out in the cornfield. This is not how German Shepherds work (or any dog). But that was the reason given by the vet (played by M.Night Shamalamadingdong himself).

*God wanted to save the world and also restore the preacher's faith (played by Mel Gibson) so he has the vet kill the mom by hitting her with a car and pinning her to an oak tree so she could give the "swing away" advice to her son, the baseball player, before she died (because she apparently can't give that advice unless she is hit by a car and dying).

*This sets up the horribly contrived scene of the son fighting an alien in his living room and swinging his baseball bat at the alien but instead hits the many full glasses of water the little girl has inexplicably festooned around the room and the water burns and kills the alien (the same alien who has been walking around naked in a cornfield - because no one, apparently, puts water on a cornfield). Anyway. They discover how to kill the aliens, the world is saved, and the preacher gets his faith back. Horrible. But people loved it. They were moved to tears. I was enraged.


---------------


Yes, I saw PC2. Part of it, anyway. Free tickets. Took the family. Walked out after 15 minutes.




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[AlabamAlum]

Oh, I forgot ANOTHER ridiculous part about "signs": Crop circles were a prominent feature of the film. Yeah, that's another way the aliens communicated with each other. Crop circles.

Christ on a cross, that embarrassing, insulting piece of shit film got 73% on Rotten Tomatoes.

[Dr. Strangelove]

I'd love to give you a point-by-point summary of everything that's horrible about Godzilla '98 but that would require watching the film again

I just recall that to lure Godzilla out they build an enormous pile of fish in Times Square or something like that and try to get him with helicopters when he shows up. It doesn't work so Plan B is build another pile of fish, this time in Central Park, only use more helicopters this time. It doesn't work.

Also should note that at this point it's established that Godzilla cannot outrun a NYC taxi cab, even though the streets are blocked by tons of shit and rubble and debris, but he CAN outrun military-grade helicopters

Anyway, the pure fucking hackery of the ending has always stuck with me. Godzilla laid eggs in Madison Square Garden (the babies are significantly dumber versions of the raptors from JP). So the Air Force bombs MSG to hell. Godzilla comes back one more time after that...whatever. But the last scene we are taken back to the fiery ruins of Madison Square Garden and the camera is very slowly creeping through the devastation. After about 3 seconds it's blatantly obvious what's going to happen but we get to slowly follow the camera for 45 seconds until finally...WHAT's THAT? Omigosh, an egg??? One egg survived! Oh shit! Oh no! And we slowly creep up to the egg until it cracks and a CGI baby godzilla pops out and screams at the audience.

Sudden cut to black. Roll credits.

Crank up a motherfucking Puff Daddy song that samples a much better song.

fuuuuuuck youoooooooouuuuuu, movie!

It's one of the dumbest, most obvious set-ups for a sequel that never came I've ever seen.

[AlabamAlum]

Godzilla was bad. I think everyone expected it to be bad. "signs", however, was touted as a good film. It had good ratings. 73%. It starred Mel Gibson (who was an A-lister at the time) and Joaquin Phoenix, M. Night wrote it (who at the time was not regarded as the ass clown he has become to be known as).

Godzilla had Matthew Broderick in it and got 16% on Rotten Tomatoes. You knew what you were getting. Complaining about this is like bitching about a poorly made Whopper Jr.

[iam416]

[AlabamAlum]

After reading the reviews and listening to friends talk about what a great movie it was I went to see "signs". People were shocked that I hated it and defended the piece of shit as some beautiful allegory. This convinced me that M. Night was the world's greatest hypnotist. That some subliminal embedded in the film had mesmerized people into thinking it was a good film. Like the old SNL bit about the Broadway show featuring a hypnotist. "I LOVED IT. IT WAS MUCH BETTER THAN CATS. I AM GOING TO SEE IT AGAIN AND AGAIN."

You tell people that Godzilla '98 was a piece of shit and they were all "Well, yeah, why did go see that turd, anyway?"

[Dr. Strangelove]

Perhaps signs was just a bit too heady and intellectual for the likes of AA

But that causes me to reflect and recall that he once confessed to me that his favorite film franchise was the Meatballs series. He excitedly asked me what my favorite film in the series was. Before I could respond that as far as I knew there were only two movies, he blurted out that Meatballs 4 was an underappreciated masterpiece and that Corey Feldman was his generation's purest entertainer. He could sing, he could dance, he could act. He then sent me the clip below as proof of his abilities.

It was the last time I trusted anything AA sent me

[AlabamAlum]

DSL,

Did you get the faux onion rings and the 44oz Mountain Dew Baja Blast with your Whopper Jr? I hope you gave that assistant shift manager a good talking to regarding the sloppiness of your sandwich before you went to catch the matinee showing of "Fifty Shades of Gray".

[Jeff Buchanan]

An interesting Sunday read, if not a bit long. However, you have to carefully read the whole thing to get a sense of balance regarding the Trump Administration's hawkish stand against China in on-going trade negotiations. The source requires consideration.

I found the article worthwhile. I have generally supported Trump's claims which, although they're an exaggeration appealing to his base, involve such characterizations as the "rape of America by China." There are trade inequities between the US and China that are real but how they have been characterized by the Trump administration could be misleading. To that end, there are opposing views on those inequites and how to resolve them outlined in this article - too complex to summarize. Won't try. You have to read the article, sorry.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...threat/587536/

[Jeff Buchanan]

....... BTW, the big news this morning is all about the multiple, coordinated church and hotel bombings in Srl Lanka. I'm in Milan IT so, I've been getting the news for the last 5h. No group has claimed responsibility but the attacks were very well coordinated with the targets being Easter worshipers and tourists. Commentators have pointed out it's early and lazy to name ISIS or it's affiliates behind this but, duhh. Not the Tamil Tigers who have been integrated into government and quiet for a decade.

[Dr. Strangelove]

....... BTW, the big news this morning is all about the multiple, coordinated church and hotel bombings in Srl Lanka. I'm in Milan IT so, I've been getting the news for the last 5h. No group has claimed responsibility but the attacks were very well coordinated with the targets being Easter worshipers and tourists. Commentators have pointed out it's early and lazy to name ISIS or it's affiliates behind this but, duhh. Not the Tamil Tigers who have been integrated into government and quiet for a decade.

Yeah, just hearing about this. Highly coordinated. 3 churches, 4 hotels, and an overpass all targeted with a death toll over 200 now and climbing. Horrible. Little surprising that more foreigners weren't killed with hotels being a primary target.

Saw a report that the govt may be shutting down social media until further notice? For spreading misinformation or something?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48001720