Objection!

[Dan Mancini]

When we were mulling a "Cinema's Douchiest Presidents" episode, Robertson's President was definitely on the list...as was Donald Pleasance's.

[Bryan Pope]

Good call, Mach6! F*** Snake Plissken! Robertson all the way.

[Mach6]

F*** Snake Plissken! Robertson all the way

Bryan, you actually reminded me of one more strength that President Robertson has.

Campaign Finance Reform: Since he eliminated the two-term rule, think of all the hundreds of millions of dollars that was not spent on all those negative attack ads or automated phone calls every four years. The lobbyists would lose so much of their power. The best part is there wouldn’t be any of those boring debates where the participants dodge the important questions & keep saying the same talking points over and over.

The more I think about it, the more I wish Snake just targeted the EMP device on Cuervo Jones’ third world allies instead of the whole world. President Robertson 4 Life!

[Mach6]

Superman/Superman II
If I remember the Superman commentary correctly, Donner & Mankiewicz said the original ending to Superman has Supes saving Lois Lane just in time by lifting her car as it was filling up with dirt out of the crevasse that was caused by the “missilequake”. Lois would’ve then told Superman about how he should’ve came here quicker & joked about who’s going to pay for the damages done to her rental car. Finally, the last shot would’ve shown the missile destroying the phantom zone jail in space & freeing General Zod & his crew.

I still prefer the original ending in the theatrical version even though it’s illogical & has the let’s give Superman another power that fits the script problem. It’s more epic & ambitious to have Supes defy his father (with Marlon Brando echoing “It is forbidden”) & turn back time to save the woman he loves than what Donner & Mankiewicz were talking about.

I agree with most of what Dan said about Superman II. It really is out of character & very irresponsible for Superman to give up his powers just so he can go all the way with Lois. Maybe if the movie had established that Superman had defeated every major bad guy & terrorist group or brung in a new era of world peace, he could follow the “my work is done here, I can live a normal life” route. He would come off less selfish. I’ve never seen the Donner cut & judging by what Dan said, I may never want to if Donner kept in all the goofy stuff we hated about part II. It seems the only reason to see the Donner cut is for the Marlon Brando/Jor-El footage.

Even with all of II's flaws, I still enjoy Terence Stamp’s awesome performance as General Zod, the introduction of Zod’s crew to the astronauts’ scene, & the big battle on the streets & skyscrapers in Metropolis. I know the effects are outdated, but it’s still one of my favorite action scenes in a superhero movie.

Since we know Zod is going to be in Snyder’s Superman reboot, I wonder if there’s any actor out there now that can surpass Stamp’s performance. Then again, most of us thought nobody would ever come close to Jack Nicholson’s Joker & Heath Ledger proved them all wrong.

[Dan Mancini]

I still prefer the original ending in the theatrical version even though it’s illogical & has the let’s give Superman another power that fits the script problem. It’s more epic & ambitious to have Supes defy his father (with Marlon Brando echoing “It is forbidden”) & turn back time to save the woman he loves than what Donner & Mankiewicz were talking about.

I agree. The turning-back-time thing fits much better at the end of the first movie (which is fine by me, since I prefer to ignore all of the sequels anyway). The problem with swapping the ending, though, is that Superman II then needed to be about the consequences of Supes defying Jor-El, and it's not. It's a festival of super-boning, punking Canadian truck drivers, and Lex Luthor buffoonery instead.

And, yes, Zod is easily one of the most entertaining movie supervillains of all time.

[Dave Ryan]

Superman/Superman II
Since we know Zod is going to be in Snyder’s Superman reboot, I wonder if there’s any actor out there now that can surpass Stamp’s performance.

I'll throw two out that I'd love to see do Zod: Patrick Stewart and Ralph Fiennes.

[Dan Mancini]

Superman/Superman II
Since we know Zod is going to be in Snyder’s Superman reboot, I wonder if there’s any actor out there now that can surpass Stamp’s performance.

I'll throw two out that I'd love to see do Zod: Patrick Stewart and Ralph Fiennes.

A year or so ago I'd have said Mark Strong, but he's the de facto suave bad guy in everything now. Tom Hardy would be a different yet badass way to go, but considering he's playing Bane in the next Batman flick that's probably out of the question.

[Boba Fett]

I would love to see Viggo Mortensen as Zod, but Snyder has already shot that rumor down.

My pick would be Ron Perlman.

[Mach6]

The A-Team vs. The Losers

SPOILER ALERT:

I know I’m really late with this but I just saw The Losers for the 1st time completely on Cinemax a few days ago. I had already seen The A-Team when it was at the theaters.

I give a big edge to The Losers since it has a better villain, direction, humor, & all the actors know what type of movie there in unlike The A-Team. Like Steve said, Patrick is a great villain & his performance is more impressive given the small amount of screen time he got. Hell, even his Canadian 2nd in command was a d-bag I wanted to see die a horrible death. Evans is awesome in every scene (my favorite is using his "telekinetic abilities" on the guards) but Dean Morgan was solid too as the leader. All the action scenes were well handled & I wished I could’ve seen the super ridonkulous sniper/motorcycle/jet liner finale at the theater with a raucous crowd. I also agree with Steve on the hilarious use of Journey throughout the movie. I am biased since my Chicago White Sox used “Don’t Stop Believing” as their theme song for the 2005 World Series championship run.

The Losers isn’t perfect though. The snuke: Didn’t any of the screenwriters watch that South Park 24 parody episode with Hillary Clinton? Yeah, I bet al-Qaida really cares about the amount of pollution or global warming their next massive attack may cause? Horrible idea! The second major problem I had was Max barely got any comeuppance. I don’t expect every main bad guy to get killed, but except for his snuke plan failing, Max got off almost scot-free. He escapes with about $400 million from the courier drive, only gets shot once in the shoulder, has his arm in a sling, & then has his watch stolen by some stereotypical Latino gangsters on a commuter bus. Wow what punishment. Maybe in the sequel he can escape again, twist his ankle & have his I-pad stolen. Way to go Losers, you really avenged those 20+ kids that died in the helicopter crash at the beginning. Other than that, I really enjoyed it & I would be on board for the sequel.

The A-Team has a lot of problems. Like Vin Diesel in Fast Five, Liam Neeson seems to think he’s in a serious action movie & Bradley Cooper thinks he’s in another one of his comedies. Cooper’s performance was very obnoxious. The humor (outside of Copley’s Murdock) didn’t work for me, especially Mr. T finding his “inner peace”. I dug the opening act & the flying the tank sequence but the finale was mediocre CGI overkill. The only major advantage The A-Team has over The Losers is in the main babe character. Jessica Biel absolutely destroys Zoe Saldana in the hotness department. Zoe needs to eat more than just one cheeseburger. If they ever do a sequel, they should just go The Incredible Hulk route. Get a new cast, director, & forget the 1st one ever happened.

[Mach6]

Best Practical Movie stunts with Big-A$$ Trucks

I want to give props to Death Race (2008) for The Dreadnaught oil tanker/truck scene. It had real flamethrowers on it shooting a ton of fire at the other racers & that was the real deal when it smashed into the trap & the tanker/carrier part flew up in the air. There was some CGI enhancement with the “weapon operators" also flying in the air off the crash but still a very impressive stunt.

[Mach6]

Hollywood Conceits that Drive Me Insane!

The conveniently malfunctioning cell phones with no signal or no bars. Horror movies in the late 90’s & most of the 00’s were the guiltiest. For a long time, all the monster or slasher had to do was cut the telephone post or wires to isolate the cannon fodder. Scriptwriters had a hard time adjusting to the availability of easily accessible mobile communication devices. In order to show why even the dumbest person couldn’t call 911 or anybody for help, the writers just took the easy way out & say the victims are in an area with no service. So Wrong Turn is guilty on two counts of Evil Hillbillies & lousy cell phone service.

To be fair, this happens a lot in 24, but most of the time the cells don’t work due to the terrorists having a cell phone jammer or by hacking CTU’s “Gibson”. I doubt the Wrong Turn hillbillies could do either.

I hope with the miraculous invention of 4G, I won’t have to see this conceit in movies taking place in the present or the future ever again.

[Dan Mancini]

That's a great one, Mach6. I'm stupefied we didn't think of it.

[Steve T Power]

That's a great one, Mach6. I'm stupefied we didn't think of it.

I had a tirade about this a while ago with someone. In this age of smartphones - GPS, apps, etc etc etc... It seems like Hollywood has NO IDEA how these devices work, and have actually changed daily living for most people. Even shows like CSI seem to ignore the power that people have today - basically walking around with a live internet connection, and more apps and abilities than you can shake a forensics lab at.

[mavrach]

Nice! Or you could reverse that and find older movies whose tension would be removed if they only had cell phones. Duel for example would be obsolete. It'll probably be hard for today's kids to watch movies like that because they've always known life with cells.


I also like it in movies, when kids are playing video games and they still make "bleep-bloop" types sounds that sound like an Atari 2600, yet they've got a Xbox 360 controller in their hands.

[Steve T Power]

Nice! Or you could reverse that and find older movies whose tension would be removed if they only had cell phones. Duel for example would be obsolete. It'll probably be hard for today's kids to watch movies like that because they've always known life with cells.


I also like it in movies, when kids are playing video games and they still make "bleep-bloop" types sounds that sound like an Atari 2600, yet they've got a Xbox 360 controller in their hands.

Sound Engineer: "I've had these Foley CDs since 1992 dammit! They're fine!"

[Mach6]

Or you could reverse that and find older movies whose tension would be removed if they only had cell phones. Duel for example would be obsolete.

With cell phones, Duel would be over in about 20 minutes. Dennis Weaver would’ve already called the police the 1st time the diesel truck was messing with him. He could take pictures or a video of the truck & its’ license plates. He could probably find out on his own which truck/oil Company that truck belonged to or who the mysterious driver was. You wouldn’t even need to get to the Weaver goes paranoid in the diner scene.

Sound Engineer: "I've had these Foley CDs since 1992 dammit! They're fine!"

How dare you Mavrach & Mr. Power accuse those sound engineers of being lazy &/or cheapskates! For all we know, those kids were playing Activision Classics or Midway presents Arcade’s Greatest Hits/The Atari Collection on their X-Box.

[Dan Mancini]

I also like it in movies, when kids are playing video games and they still make "bleep-bloop" types sounds that sound like an Atari 2600, yet they've got a Xbox 360 controller in their hands.

Or the fact that every make/model of cellphone sounds like an iPhone.

[Mach6]

Or how about the person with important information essential to the bad guys & good guys who gets killed in a foot chase when he/she runs across the highway or any two-lane street.
Forget about anti-lock breaks or getting bruised ribs or broken bones, when an oncoming vehicle blindsides somebody, they get hit full force & are dead meat. This just struck me as I saw this happen all in one weekend while watching Taken, Killer Elite, & a recent episode of NCIS: Los Angeles. Granted if you’re not looking both ways when you’re crossing the street this can happen to you in real life as well, but the death rate is 99.1% in action movies & TV shows.