I'm gearing up to watch The Nice Guys, Shane Black's summer semi-hit that got pretty solid reviews, but didn't quite break out in a big way. Seems to have been something of a cult affair, with "disappointing" box office returns.
It does have a 91% Rotten Tomatoes score though — not that I give a fuck. I'm watching it because I love Ryan Gosling and Russel Crowe, and have literally never been disappointed by the performances of either, even if the movies themselves have been shit.

This was actually quite brilliant. And fucking hilarious. Think All the President's Men meets Big Lebowski with a little Lethal Weapon thrown in there. Extremely worthwhile. Loved it.

Wild. I watched that last night too. Excellent set designs/art direction. A few plot points don't make any sense, but it's a mostly fun ride. Although there's a really unpleasant, dark streak running through this if you watch closely.

Also watched KEANU. Key and Peele are brilliant but this was a major disappointment.

finally got a copy of A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Life (thanks, rappard!), so will rewatch that tonite

I think I picked up on that. Are you referring to the weird little flashbacks that suggest that Healy's character is a desperate, lonely dude who only finds purpose in violence? The "Diner" scene really gave me pause, because he continued to beat the guy into a pulp long after the threat was neutralized. Classic tortuted hero? Or his drinking?

Or are you just talking about the general secondary premise of the entire movie, which is that industry and commerce are more valuable than ethics, moral, or even human beings? Detroit and all that?

Or (Jesus I guess there was a lot of dark shit, now that I rolodex through it all) the fact that Holly had to do all the driving for a never quite specified reason, and was way too involved in her dad's work? How a 13-year old was made to look after her comically charming, but very genuinely hopeless, depressed, degenerate father?

I think The Nice Guys was a smarter film than it appears to be at first glance.
There's a lot going on. It pushes buttons, like with that "electric car" comment at the end. Truth is, the US didn't even need Japan to build fully functioning electric cars five years after the events of the movie. We had that shit nailed down by, like, 1981 (well... 1881 if you wanna get real picky about it). But the country is built on the big three (that bit was true enough), and the briefly revitalized electric auto movement of the 1980's, which was in fact a direct response to California fuel emission regulations as I'm sure you recall, was positively sniped by the auto-industry and state and federal governments.

Sorry, not trying to get pedantic, I'm not old enough clearly remember the electric car false starts in the '80s, but I do remember '97.

Anyway, I think the film got a bit "meta" (such a trendy word these days... thanks, Deadpool!) with the whole message about the big three auto companies. It became sort of a real life version of the "experimental" film the film was about, and it did this with several subtle, muted digs at the American auto industry that were peppered throughout the if you kept your ears open. References to ethanol, a by-proxy condemnation of the corruption of the auto companies, made in third person. It's like it was trying to be the very protest film that the movie itself revolved around, but less overtly.

And I hate to say it, but the fact that it was in and out of theaters in 2 weeks despite getting rave reviews, starring two of the most beloved actors of our time and being directed by the dude who made blockbusters like Iron Man 3, is kind of telling. Makes me wonder if strings aren't still being pulled to at least minimize the reach of films that tackle these issues.

It almost reminds me of that Matt Damon/
France's McDormand film about the natural gas companies leading rural communities to the proverbial slaughter by getting them to agree to have their farmland "fracked." I think it was called The Promised Land. Anyway, it wasn't a masterpiece by any means, but it laid bare some unpleasant truths about the fracking industry, and the complete control drilling companies have over public opinion. It was an important movie, but it wasn't given the time of day, and barely spent a week in theaters.

Anyway, this is the stuff I find most unsettling about the film, and it's not really "about" the film as much as the film's subject matter.

That line "nothing can stop Detroit" also hit pretty hard.

It has a nasty misanthropic air and too much unpleasant violence, I guess so you'll take it more seriously. The director is kind of dumb and can't really sustain the proper tone. Should I laugh when so and so gets shot or not? I sometimes got confused, like the innocent neighboring lady who accidentally gets shot through a window. I felt bad even through I think I was supposed to be enjoying myself. I'm not sure. You know, more I think about it, it really is a shitty movie. And it seems a setup for an even shittier sequel.

EDIT: I wrote while you posted. Looks like you got suckered. It's a stupid popcorn movie that no one should take seriously as a political statement.

Wow, you're a fickle little fucker. AND you write slow. ;)

The director is dumb, sure. The movie was solid though. And yeah, there were some issues with tone. The neighbor getting shot was kind of a bummer, but it was incidental violence, designed to elicit a kind of startled "ha-ah!" rather than an outright laugh. That shit's everywhere, and it's more gruesome in many films than it was in Nice Guys.

I'm surprised at how you can like a film, and then say it was shitty after something like one minute of reflection. Serious about-face. I don't trust your perspective at all now because. Nothing prone to change that quickly should be taken seriously.

JESUS but you write slow.

Remember when Marvin got his head blown off in Pulp Fiction? That was incidental violence of the highest quality. Awful, yes, but tell me you didn't laugh out loud the first time you saw that (and every time thereafter). Tell me you didn't laugh, and I'll slap your lying face with a leather glove.

I said it was "fun." I think I was thinking of the part where Ryan Gosling tries to manage his pants, gun, door and magazine. Classic. I wish whoever made that scene made the rest of the film.

Maybe I am fickle. I haven't actually liked a film in a long time. They mostly suck, I think.

from most recent to farther back

concussion - a 2013 rose troche production about affluent cheating lesbians in post-gentrification new york. it moves at ultraslow pace but the story ultimately proves good.

max manus - 2008 norwegian action movie about their ww2 resistance hero. the story is a bit choppy but the movie is alright.

largo winch - preposterous euro/asian corporate intrigue/revenge action flick that manages to be entertaining in the face of extensive cheesiness if that's what you come to expect, in a transporter 2 kind of way but without so much driving, instead with megacorporations, helicopters, boats, knife fights, you name it

mesrine - 2-part quasi-epic biopic about 70's french criminal jacques mesrine. it's basically a crime/action flick, but really well shot, good writing, and some awesome performances. i enjoyed it.

the names of love - sort of hilarious french romcom of the kind you never could make in 'merica because it would require knowing history and shit like that, but with tits so america would say no again. not a great movie but kind of a breath of fresh air, like-- there was sex but it wasn't rape-like.

potiche - françois ozon in goofy mode looks at women's lib in 70's france, starring catherine deneuve as a bourgeois aged housewife and a mastodontic gérard dépardieu as a communist politician. yes yes, with musical numbers.

wendy and lucy - a slow-moving but nice indie short-story-type neorealist movie about a homeless girl stuck in oregon on her way to alaska looking for work. with carey mulligan doing her best to look plain.

dc cab - worse than i expected and i expected bad

stripes - kinda funny 80s comedy, with tits

coming up next:

renoir (some french biopic)

andrzej wajda's "a generation", first of his much praised ww2 trilogy. been waiting for this one a while

I swear, this is the only one I'm interested in watching.

Well, the spirit of the movie had nothing to do with any bloated plot or possible political undertones. It was all Gosling and Crowe. And I just love those guys.

About 15 minutes into the movies I made a comment to the effect of, "this is the most talking Ryan Gosling has done this decade."

He's on his way. He'll be one of the greats in a few years' time.

it really sucked

i grew up in dc so i wanted to like it but disappoint

2 out of 5 stars

If it stars Mr T, it's already four stars, no matter what.


Check out "The Believer." (2001)

he's not even that much in it, that's part of the problem

Will do. Haven't seen that one. Thanks.

DC Cab rules. crap movie but fun.

Saw this in theater. 3/5 stars. I was bored with the same old action tropes (swarm of bug-like bad guys? check. controlled by a master controller? check. Bad Guy has beef with federation? check)

I liked it enough as an entertaining swashbuckler, but it in no way made me think anything remotely star trek-ian. I like Trek for the moral dillemas, the personal dramas, and the difficult questions that the characters must deal with. this beyond movie has none of that.

Sorry to hear that. I still haven't seen it. They pulled it from local theaters after less than three weeks. Odd, considering it received pretty good reviews and made a fair amount of money and was unanimously praised for being better than Into Darkness (which I liked, 'cause it was fun). Oh, and considering it's the 50th anniversary. Stupid local theaters.

I'm still going to see it, and I'm certainly going to give it a chance, but it bums me out a bit to hear your reaction, because I like Star Trek for all the same reasons you do.

:(

I had just watched the TNG 2-parter Time's Arrow (where they find Data's head in a cavern on Earth that had not been touched for 500 years, and they end up going back in time to meet Mark Twain), and that two part episode had more intellectually stimulating ideas and dilemmas than all the recent Trek reboot films.

I have to say I enjoyed the writing of the individual trek characters better this time. Pegg and whoever else helped him write it seem to understand the inner workings of the interpersonal relationships that make people love Trek. The failures were more in terms of the plot devices. (plus I HATE it that they feel like they have to destroy the enterprise in every fucking movie.)

I think the whole speculative/moral dilemma/evolutionary philosophy angle of the original Star Trek and most of its greatest incarnations is a bit lost on the modern era. Deep down, beneath the make-up and the impossible space explosions and action scenes, Star Trek is a whip smart commentary on the nature of humanity, and how war — and, more sugnificantly, peace — fit into the dream of an eventual and improbable utopia.

Looking back at Roddenberry's original storylines and characters, it's all about the importance of peace, and the distinctly non-military way in which peace might ideally be maintained by a semi-military force. Its truly defining plot points often deal with disastrous mistakes made in this fictional future during the 20th and 21st centuries, i.e. NOW. The greatest Star Trek moments concern themselves with issues of friendship, camaraderie, compromise, the measured resourcefulness of a group of post-conflict peace-keepers and meaning of "humanity" itself. Some of the best moments come from pure dialogue, instead of raw action. Some of the most powerful scenes depict a these peace-keepers as the weigh the pros and cons of breaking the peace in various trying situations, and the greatest virtue of it is that they almost never resort to violence when good, sensible governance could be used to achieve the same goal.

I think this stuff is just a bit too boring for the audiences they're trying to reach. They've mostly abandoned these elements for the new films. In the hands of JJ Abrams, I think it was a match made in heaven. That man has always wanted to make Star Trek. Look at LOST, and tell me the same themes of governance at the edge of civilization (the "frontier") aren't firmly in place throughout the series. But Abrams is being tapped as a "turnaround artist" for flailing franchises, the Mitt Romney of sci-fi cinema. And his talents as a storyboarder, produced, director and creator are being pushed aside by his ability to reliable make blockbusters.

In his hands, I think the new Star Trek films would have eventually found their footing. But now, if this movie really is a disappointment, then I'm afraid it may be the end of the line for Star Trek in cinema.

Though I think a modern film with the TNG cast would definitely draw in some bucks. Those TNG kids are the world's biggest nerds. For serious. They'd pay millions just to see a 2010s Patrick Stewart "make it so."

Anyway. What the fuck were we taking about again? Oh yeah, LOST! LOST was great. ;)

Hah! Yeah. That poor ship! I mean, just the events of the TNG episode "Cause and Effect" alone see (or imply) the destruction of then Enterprise-D, like, 20 fucking times.

But, y'know, it's always destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed, rebuilt. And I think it's only happened in three movies, if you count Beyond. I know it was blown to shit in Search for Spock and Generations, but I think the rest of the time it merely sustained some heavy damage, from, I don't know, plummeting to Eart's surface or some such thing.

Tell me (and don't worry about spoilers because I don't give a shit, I'll always love Star Trek) ... does the Enterprise "return" in some form at the end of the movie? Or do they manage to rebuild it somehow? It would be really hard to imagine a 50th anniversary film that didn't end with the/a(n) Enterprise soaring off to boldly go do stuff. :)

I do like that poster, and the fact that it pays tribute to the 1979 film.

you better believe it returns!

I do. I do believe.

i was gonna say "it has its moments" and then i went looking for a review and found ebert saying in 1983 "it has its moments"

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/d-c-cab-1983

and i agree mainly with everything he says there, but i'd add

1) just like it wasn't about taxis it wasn't about dc except you get to recognize some landmarks. the movie doesn't reflect dc culture. but the zones do get a mention (now they use meters)

2) it was probably funnier in 1983 than in 2016

but yes, it has its moments. i laughed the most when i spotted some bush in that woman who runs out to what seems to be the old H street NE (decades before hipsterization, i wonder how it looks like today)

i watched police academy for the first time the other day. i have no idea how i made it so many years without watching it. i prefer watching comedies to other genres.

i must say michael winslow (the guy that does SFX with his voice) is brilliant. i want him in every movie ever. no movie without michael winslow.

agree here.

I would like to mention historic Star Trek move toward LGBT community and portraing famous captain Sulu as a gay in the last Star Trek instalment which I found unnecessary plus funny, but hey...what should I say.

nice scenes and action, plot pretty much same.

Beastie Boys and Public Enemy!

edit...i was surprised to see Simon Pegg as one of the script writers. I do not why, I just did. just checked imdb. he is writting alright. hmm. but Star Trek?

the original script for the Trek Beyond movie was even more actgion packed and had very little interpersonal interactions. Pegg and his buddy rewrote the script to its final form.

Came across this film distribution co. on Vimeo. Artspoitation. After every trailer, I think, "Yeah, I'd watch that."

https://vimeo.com/artsploitation/videos

Pegg was the major driving force behind the movie. It had production troubles early on when Abrams left, and Pegg initially quit. It took meeting with the director (what's his ass from Fast and Furious part 9,000) for him to change his mind. Can't imagine why, but I guess he saw a fellow Trek nerd in... y'know... what's his ass.

But Pegg's writing credit was one of the first big pieces of news surrounding the film. I'm surprised you didn't know about it.

the h8full eight.. i really digged it. kinda slow burn build up but i love kurt russel and sam jackson so im cool with that

the h8full eight.. i really digged it. kinda slow burn build up but i love kurt russel and sam jackson so im cool with that.

it was prototypical Tarantino flick. the dialogue was witty, snarky, yet sophisticated. the plot was like a subverted Gabriel Garcia Marquez magical realism, like magical urbanism.. a blend of the criminally psychotic with a gentile politeness, what was so superb about Pulp Fiction.

i felt like it was Pulp Fiction meets Inglorious Bastards set in the west however i didn't see Django so i can't say anything about it.

the scene where the set up took over Minnie's made me realize how much this polite ambush trope is a big part of Tarantino flicks (Vincent and Jules at Marvin's apartment, the wedding scene in Kill Bill, the Nazis raid in Inglorious Bastard.. the ambush at Minnie'a in h8ful eight) i never realized it was all the same until this one
i particularly liked the costumes and cinematography.

You should check out RECRUITS. Everyone should.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNnNvUTug50

So bad, you can see the boom mic not once, but twice! Plus, natural breasts throughout, so it's sort of feminist I guess.

Yeah, "polite ambush" ... Nice.
I loved the "flashback" scene you're referring to, when the plot really started to unfold. Excellent. And how about Channing Tatum not sucking?! Good for him!

I thought it was quite different from a lot of Tarantino films in that it had the feel and scope of a stage production. Never has a Tarantino film been so focused on one setting. But that's a classic trope in itself. Gave the movie a classiness.

Most writers/directors wouldn't have been able to pull this film off. It was almost entirely dialogue focused, something you just don't see much in films these days (except for stage/screen adaptations like Doubt). I don't think anyone else could have held audience interest through the first ¾ of the film. For Tarantino, it probably was no challenge at all.

What a shit film. I applaud the ambition, but fuck that noise.

wat da fuc.

go watch cartoons

Pssh. I almost never watch cartoons usually. ;)