What have you watched lately?

[Diabolical]

Buzz Lightyear of Star Command went to series.
I think Patrick Warburton was the voice of Buzz.
It sucked.

[Tom Foolery]

Okay, the way you were mentioning it with the other Pixar spinoffs, I thought it was some new film project they were doing.

[anarky]

The Karate Kid III. Holy fucking shitballs. I had never seen it. I own it, because, when they first put the movies out on DVD, the only way to get any was to get all. My daughter wanted to see them all. It's like they tried to make up for the second movie not being a huge step down from the first by making this one extra shitty.

It's honestly like the writers and director had never seen the second one, and only saw half of the first on a TV at a bar while they were shitfaced. Miyagi and Daniel are completely unrecognizable. There's no explanation for why they're both coming back from Okinawa, without their women. (Okay, there's a half-assed explanation as to why Daniel's girl isn't there, but saying she was going to come to America, then got a job in Tokyo, that doesn't really explain why Daniel's immediately looking for dates.) Miyagi's lifelong dream was apparently to open a bansai store (WTF? and how the fuck would it stay in business?), but he spent all his money rebuilding his old girlfriend's house in Okinawa (in spite of, oh, it being pretty clear that the rich-as-hell Sato was rebuilding everything to make up for being a dick for forty-odd years).

Creese (I think that's his name--the Cobra Kai sensei) wants revenge, so he goes to an old army buddy, who's such an obnoxious corporate villain stereotype that the Captain Planet villains groan when he comes onscreen. His master plan is to bring in some celebrity karate champ and force Daniel to compete in the next annual championship (looking at the time of the first couple and what's implied here, about two or three years should've passed), then pretend to be a good guy and train Daniel, physically hurting him by making him punch boards (again, forgetting the ice blocks scene from #2, since this should be no big deal at all). Nothing makes any sense. The bad guys are transparent, making you think both Miyagi and Daniel were somehow injured and rendered severely retarded somewhere between this movie and the previous one, and they embark on all sorts of insane, blatantly criminal acts to pressure him into entering the competition. (Why's he need the title? And why does Daniel have to defend it for him to get it? Who the fuck knows?) About ten minutes in, you start to wonder if this series takes place in a parallel world where police simply don't exist (since the rampant shit-kickings in #1 were already straining plausibility), until, after the guys should've already been on fucking death row for breaking and entering, vandalism, extortion, assault (including kicking the shit out of an uninvolved woman), burglary, and bad hair, and not being secretive about any part of it, Daniel finally, offscreen, goes to the cops, who refuse to do anything. Yeesh. The villain claims Johnny from #1 died; it's never clear if he did or this is bullshit to feed into their ridiculously overcomplicated scheme. If it is true, the way it happened doesn't fit with the 80s-style change of heart the character clearly had after the previous tournament. Also, Daniel does a lot more offscreen that supports the mental retardation theory.

Creese at one point actually tries to fight Miyagi one-on-one, despite all three main baddies being present and able to gang up on him. How did the people making the movie forget the fucking parking lot showdown? Trust me, the audience can't. He should be fucking scared shitless of Miyagi. After beating them all one-on-one and making a comment about now it being okay to fight because honor's involved (Bizarro Miyagi himself skipped #2), he trains Daniel, the love interest completely vanishes and never shows up again, and it cuts to the tournament. The celebrity thug is beating Daniel, scoring a point and then doing something illegal to lose the point on purpose (one of the few, if not the only, slightly clever thing in the whole movie). Daniel never does a signature move, because the writers weren't smart enough to make one up. Baddie mocks the crane kick, but we never even see Daniel trying that or the equally goofy drum punch (at least #2 had Chozen counter the crane kick). The refs clearly aren't watching, because, after a comment about the next penalty resulting in disqualification, he starts pushing Daniel around between rounds and shit. It goes to sudden death, where the baddie beat Daniel for several minutes, then starts yelling about Mr. Miyagi being a lying shit and a fraud whose karate is weak (in front of him, apparently having suffered amnesia because of the shit-kicking Miyagi laid out on him and forgetting that said "fraud" beat him and two guys who are supposed to be better within a two minute span not that long ago). Apparently, insulting Miyagi is the last straw, and Daniel starts performing an incredibly basic kata, after which he kicks the dude and knocks him down, winning the tournament, and leading the audience to believe "sudden death" means "villain beats the shit out of the hero, then hero wins for doing just once what the villain's been doing for ages."

Then it ends. No comeuppance for any of the bad guys, who are very clearly too fucking stupid to have learned anything at all and will try this same sort of stupid shit, possibly involving jetpacks and choreographed dance numbers to make it more ridiculous, within a week.

At several times in the last half hour, I asked everyone in the room, "Why do they care? Why does anyone on either side of this care? If either side realized they have no reason to care, this movie could end right now!"

Unless someone in Hollywood does a great Karate Kid 5 movie about Daniel-san having to pass down Miyagi's teachings, I choose to believe this shit never happened, and Miyagi lived in Okinawa with his old girlfriend until he died of a ripe old age, and Daniel returned to America with his girlfriend, where Sato helped him set up a chain of dojos that taught the Miyagi style of karate to kids everywhere.

[anarky]

Wow. I was just looking for reviews of KK3, because purposefully viewing and reviewing shit movies sounds kinda inane and I wanted to see how many people had done just that (oddly, few, if any).

THIS MOVIE WAS BY THE SAME FUCKING WRITER AND DIRECTOR AS THE OTHER TWO?!? AND THE DIRECTOR DIRECTED MOTHERFUCKING ROCKY?!?

Learning that Is like walking in on your mom and dad having kinky sex, then realizing it's actually your mom and Roseanne Barr.

[Tom Foolery]

The Impossible. The true story of a family that survived the Tsunami in Thailand in 2004. It's pretty fucking intense with great performances, even from the kids. I felt the emotional climax was the family reuniting(I dare you not to choke up when the three little brothers find each other) but the movie continues on for like another 20-25 minutes, which I felt dragged. But well worth watching. Naomi Watts totally deserved her Oscar Nom. And bonus; you see her titties a couple times.

John Carter. What with all the talk and comparisons to Speed Racer and Lone Ranger(both of which I loved and are awesome), I decided to finally check this movie out. I was dissapointed. It takes too long to get moving. It never really develops the characters enough to give a shit about. There was never a sense of seriousness to, nor was there any attempt at making it humorous and fun. It deliberately strattled the line of bland. The goal of the bad guys is never made clear. It's sort of touched on WAY late in the film, but even the bad guy didn't seem all that concerned about it. All of the main antogonists go out like bitches(except the Thern, who gets away clean). It was a waste of supporting actors like Bryan Cranston, Ciaran Hinds and James Purefoy(who had the best scenes in the film, why wasn't HE cast as Carter?). Taylor Kitsch was mistcast and has all the charisma of a lawn dart. There was never any chemistry/tension between him and Dehah. Those moments always felt like the Director was just offscreen going "Okay! awkward stare! Now look away! Blush!" The air battle scenes should have been more epic and frenetic, instead of poorly paced minor skirmishes. Besides Purefoy's "Take me hostage" scene, the only time I laughed was when JC attacks...Mandingo? Paisano? Voldemorto? (whatever the evil centipede walking city is called) and finds out everyone is in Helium and Tars smacks him upside the head. It's hard to sit through 2 1/2 hours of film and never have a smile on your face. Especially a Sci-Fi Fantasy Action film. Even Schindler's List had a few moments of levity. Just dullsville. Imagine if after the opening Space Battle in Star Wars, they cut to 1950's Modesto, CA and you see a young George Lucas get off a bus, then take a pointless long car ride before having a terminally dull conversation with a lawyer for ten minutes before cutting back to the Droids landing on Tatooine. Tedious. And Bland. Which I said already, it bared repeating.

[jjreason]

Zero Dark Thirty. You all lived through the last 12 years as did I. I'm not sure I took a single breath after the helicopters lifted off for the mission, if I did it was shallow. The part leading up to that was all well & good (& even had James Gandolfini for a few minutes), but it's all about the raid.

[Diabolical]

G.I. Joe: Retaliation - Meh.

Evil Dead - Remake Meh.

Despicable Me 2 - Not bad, but I only went for the Minions anyway.

Pineapple Express - Revisited the stoner action flick. Franco is hilarious.

Hot Fuzz - Revisited the action movie homage. Shaun of the Dead is still better.

Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope - The Morgan Sprulock directed, Joss Whedon produced documentary filmed at SDCC 2011 which follows a handful of attendees, each with a different reason for attending. Pretty good but reinforced my belief that I never want to go to SDCC. Too many people and I'd never be able to see/do what I wanted.

Pacific Rim - Story is a little weak but giant robots fighting giant monsters for two hours is bad ass.

[Ran]

I was wondering about Pacific Rim. The commercial called it the "Star Wars of its generation", which along with "Animal House of its generation", usually means the movie isn't that good.

Smokey and the Bandit. Still pretty funny, you sumbitch.

Smokey and the Bandit II was on right after it. Tapped out within 20 minutes.

[DeckardSmith]

How many movies is that now that've claimed to be the "Star Wars for a new generation"? A hundred? 200? Even the goddamn Prequels weren't "Star Wars" for a new generation.

[jjreason]

Completed the Kathryn Bigelow (Sp?) double feature with Hurt Locker last night (& this morning, yes old guys all asleep during movies). Another good movie, worth the time to watch.

[Tom Foolery]

I enjoyed Hurt Locker much more than Zero Dark Thirty. ZDT was overly long and dry and had too much nazel gazing from Chastain for the first two hours.

[anarky]

Wasn't Titan AE the first "Star Wars for a new generation"?

Yup, that piece of animated... it's not even distinctive enough to call it shit. The one with Janeane Garofalo playing a kangaroo alien sidekick.

[Tom Foolery]

The first one I remember was Fifth Element. That was before Titan AE.

[Ran]

I just googled "Star Wars for a new generation". The first link that popped up was for John Carter, followed by Pacific Rim and Episode 7. Going through the next couple pages of results, there was Lord of the Rings and Avatar. Looks like there were quite a few more, but I didn't click on the links.

[Diabolical]

I remember the "Star Wars for a new generation!" tag being applied to Starship Troopers.