I think I’m missing the joke here. This reads more like a “You had to be there” anecdote.

“Well, ya see, my career kinda depends on it. So I’d say it’s mighty important!”

I’d most definitely give them more than “decent.”

The premise is actually in line with how NASA operates. Mission specialists are experts in their field and are given enough astronaut training to make the flight and survive on board with the other astronauts.

And the self-detonation thing is a trope, but let’s not pretend that James Cameron is above simple storytelling or that simple storytelling is bad. That moment doesn’t work because of the surprise thrill of “Oh no! Remote detonation!” but because of the emotional payoff between those three characters: Harry, AJ, and Grace.

I don’t know if I’d choose any Bay film over Cameron’s best, but The Rock and Armageddon are up there IMO.

Both are more than solid spectacle crowd-pleasers—and both lean more into Cameron-style earnestness than some of the crassness that can sour Bay’s later work.

I’d say Armageddon, especially, could be in the same conversation as some of Cameron’s work.

Trump is definitely a wannabe fascist and his authoritarian tendencies and constant scapegoating of minority populations while harkening back to a mythical time of American greatness and emphasizing might is right from the fascist playbook. You can blithely claim it ain’t so, but that doesn’t mean everyone else is going to forget what they’ve seen.

And if you think that the religious right has nothing to do with the battle over abortion rights in the US, then you simply have not been paying attention and should not be speaking on the matter.

So no, you’re just downvoting stuff you don’t want to hear.

Considering we just saw an attempted insurrection by a very popular American fascist and former president and we rolled back abortion rights, I don’t think discussion of the fragility of American democracy in the face of the religious right is too off-base.

But you’re clearly more interested in downvoting and dismissing than discussion, so have a good one and stay insulated.

That’s a bold claim presented with no evidence or argument.

It’s dangerous and ahistorical to believe that American democracy is invincible and that fascism or theocracy could never happen here.

James Cameron

It would look perfect, and he would find a simple human story that resonates, while introducing the greater world.

Overall, I don’t the film came together to be more than the sum of its parts.

The plotlines interweave and we get those nice moments of recognition, but it didn’t seem to amount to more than just happening.

IMO Gangs of New York is much more action-y and easy to get into. I mean, it opens with a big gang war full of over-the-top characters and then dives straight into a classic revenge tale.

There Will Be Blood if much more a slow burn character study.

Given your tastes, I’d say go for Last of the Mohicans (a Michael Mann flick) or Gangs of New York (Martin Scorsese flick).

As someone else pointed out, they used a lot of CGI in the new Dark Crystal series.

Can you think of any modern examples with zero CGI? I’m coming up blank.

If it was staged, who’s benefitting from it?

Not Smith, not Rock, not the Academy. So who?

Saw it a couple weeks ago and I’d give it a 6-7 out of 10.

Some neat ideas, but probably would have been better as a short IMO.

It might be assumed that the Russians took the money when they whacked Alonzo.

If that’s the case, then I could see Jake either A) saving the money for his family and his new kid, B) surreptitiously giving it away to causes he deems worthy in his area, or C) a combination of both.

Absolutely not.

There have been great designs and memorable characters, but the xenomorph is, IMHO, a true work of genius from Giger and has not come close to being matched.

Predator benefits from being a cinematic originator of the “hunter alien” trope and an incredible design.

I can’t think of a single design that comes anywhere close to either.

Sorcerers Apprentice, perhaps?

Really might be called Dragon Wars.

For a sensitive topic and on an Internet forum where you have to scroll down and actively decide to read comments about the joke, it’s fine.

Agreed. I like Kubrick, but never bought into the mythologizing.

I love that shit.

I love the whole hyperbolic and romanticized take on the game and the players. Stone is so at home in the quintessentially American.

The Way of the Gun

Drive

Is it? I thought it was just bad to end an antibiotic run early, if you actually had something you were trying to knock out with it.