Rolling Marvel Cinematic Universe thread (+ a poll: Classic or Dud?)

X2 is still the best comic book movie

Ghost World, Akira, Men In Black, American Splendour, Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, The Death Of Stalin, Zombillennium, Oldboy, Barbarella, Blue Is The Warmest Colour and Batman Returns are each at least 60x better than X2.

any kind of movie can be good is basically how i break it down to an extent; i think i probably enjoyed Wiseman's National Gallery as much as I enjoyed the first Avengers movie... though mostly because of lack of superhero fatigue. Laika's films are universally great, 75% of Pixar's stuff is great, all the Marvel films I've seen (prob about 70% or so of the complete collection?) are at least enjoyably watchable if not very memorable or life changing, 90% of Studio Ghibli is great, two Aliens films are great, two Terminator films are great, one Predator is great, two Mad Max films are great. DC almost always sucks, Sony Marvel almost always sucks. 100% of Kurosawa is great, 70% of Miike is great. I'm a... drumroll please... POPCORNTIMIST

xpost History of Violence, yo

Surely American Splendor, Death of Stalin and Blue is the Warmest Color are only "comic book movies" to the extent that's their original source material; only the first shows a direct thruline with the original product and the other two are auteur pieces imo.

"Hey, howabout we have that old Spiderman theme tune, people will LOVE that! And we could have that Hulk guy say "you wouldnt like me when I'm angry", people will remember that!"

In fairness, I don't know if the Marvel studio films did these groaners again.

Thought that Detective Dee film was really poor, and I really like Tsui Hark. Some say that's one of his better recent-ish films and I really hope that isn't true.

If all the superhero films fell out of favor, surely they would be replaced by pirate films!

nerd

Yeah, forks otm. Superflicks are primed to be somewhat successful just on the basis of their existence but they gotta maintain their a-game in order to maintain that success.

I mean, I have way more affinity for the X-Men than most of the material adapted for the MCU, but I've only seen maaaaaybe like half/one-third of the X-adjacent films because they're mostly pretty 'ehhhh' if not outright bad.

i liked the first raimi spiderman but have not fucked with any of the ones after that.
apparently Homecoming and Far from Home are pretty good?
Spiderverse was, as everyone assured me and I finally discovered on my own, really really good.

xpost History of Violence, yo

this is one of the five most boring films I’ve ever seen in a cinema

Surely American Splendor, Death of Stalin and Blue is the Warmest Color are only "comic book movies" to the extent that's their original source material; only the first shows a direct thruline with the original product and the other two are auteur pieces imo.

Guardians Of The Galaxy or Avengers Endgame have way less of a throughline to the original product than Death Of Stalin

Endgame has no discernible thruline period! That's the knock against it!
GotGalaxy is ALSO imo an auteur piece

forks, Homecoming is one of the best and highly-recommended, but Far From Home is (in my dissenting opinion) kinda lower-tier MCU.

i've got both to watch when i'm ready but my next planned home movie binge is gonna be Starlings/Kestrel's Eye/Pica Pica/Light Year: four mostly-wordless films by Swedish documentarian Mikael Kristersson about BIRDS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk9vv8n-L0s

watched this last night and it was pretty great, though explicitly for kids. Those of you raising anyone between five and twelve, there's an english dub version that would go over well i think!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3QkSzpNGW8

Yeah lest anyone itt fall under the misapprehension that I am a MCU obsessive simply because disaffection with my job leads me to post about it incessantly, 90% of my film viewing tends to be from like pre-1960. Got some sweet Murnau on the way to my home as we speak (alongside a copy of Beware! The Blob for balance).

the absolute weirdest take by people who would traditionally be into comics, related ephemera, nerdy stuff is that they're the prime audience or even a majority of the audience in theaters

It shocks people when I tell them that superhero movies have a negligible impact on comic sales - TV series like The Boys or Preacher create a much larger bump for GNs than any MCU movie has for its respective characters.

Yeah, they are publishing fewer Avengers book today than they were when Iron Man debuted.

Probably due to a (thankful) lack of synergy. There have been multiple occasions wherein a Marvel character featured in a new movie wasn't even featured in their own title at that particular time.

Or like (if my memory of the timeline is correct) when Incredible Hulk was released while comics Hulk was busy being a space gladiator.

Yeah, they've been bad at connecting it to the source material. But then again, the next Thor film is based on the Jason Aaron run, and I tried to find out what that consists of, and it's like five different books stopping and starting and getting renumbered all the time. Who has any time for that?

I think people are misunderstanding the main appeal of the Marvel franchise, honestly. It's pretty much all about extremely beautiful and charismatic people saying funny things to each other. There's a reason the most succesful Marvel directors have been comedy directors.

I mean, part of it is Marvel's inability to actually produce or market trade paperbacks and place them in bookstores

Juuuust wait. Perlmutter is slowly being shown the door, it seems.

Jason Aaron's run on Thor is pretty great btw tho it starts to run in circles a bit.

Read The Unworthy Thor, if nothing else!

"I don't eat them. I tried, you know? That's not cuisine. Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well made as they are, with cooks doing the best they can under the circumstances, is junk food. It isn’t the cuisine of human chefs trying to provide emotional, physiological experiences to another human being."

― drunk on hot toddies (morrisp), Friday, October 25, 2019 5:49 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I maintain that the analogy is "that's not food". I mean, I don't think that Scorcese considers them not collections of moving images or anything, but it's on the level of "McDonalds isn't food".

That said, the last McDonalds I has did definitely provide an emotional and physiological experience.

(as usual on action films, DJP otm)

Yeah, I actually typed it that way first, but then overthought it.

I mean, I don't know what the food equivalent of a "theme park" would be. A banana split?

Noma?

tasting menu at WD 50

"Endgame:" https://money.cnn.com/2018/01/05/news/guy-fieri-restaurant/

I mean they're just going to wind up burning themselves with that shit ultimately, particularly as they continue to lean heavier on regurgitation of their own supply. Cut to five years from now as tumbleweeds drift through a multiplex

Independent theaters will have been killed by then.

― now let's play big lunch take little lunch (sic), Friday, October 25, 2019 8:23 AM (yesterday

The Art Theater in Champaign announced today they're closing in six days.

If all the superhero films fell out of favor, surely they would be replaced by pirate films!

Disney is prepared: https://variety.com/2019/film/news/pirates-of-the-caribbean-reboot-craig-mazin-ted-elliott-disney-1203383993/

Many xps but ...

Of course Speed Racer > 95% of MCU

I thought all people who haunt pop culture message boards knew this?

Also, if I had a kid I would take that kid to Fury Road in a heartbeat, faster than I’d give that kid up for adoption were they to ask to see an Avengers movie

P sure Immortan Joe's face being ripped off might have upset me as a 7 year old

O sorry spoilers

Mad Max might be my favorite action films. But they could suffer the homogeneous fate if they keep cranking out movies.

Fury worked largely due to the gap between movies and managing to up the world building and over the top vehicular mayhem from Road Warrior.

Still possibly my favorite action flick of the century

Thunderdome can go fuck itself

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/014/245/8d8.gif

I have no memory of a face being ripped off.

I was quite surprised a while ago by what some of you would even shield your young teenagers from. It's often something completely unpredictable that scars children (like my youthful trauma over Labyrinth, Dark Crystal and John Cleese's Clockwork).

It's really fast.

Also, if I had a kid I would take that kid to Fury Road in a heartbeat, faster than I’d give that kid up for adoption were they to ask to see an Avengers movie

The sexual politics of Fury Road might make it tougher or more challenging for younger kids, and even if that stuff goes over their heads it's still a pretty relentless, intense movie. I love all the Mad Max movies, even Thunderdome, with Thunderdome probably being (by design?) the best for kids. It's still violent but it's a lot goofier, and iirc the only one of the three with no rape or implied rape. Great score, too.

(Should note that I did see Fury Road again recently, this time with my older kid, and while she sat through it I can't get her to even consider Thunderdome. One and done.)

(The face rip is really fast, that is.)

You don't remember this?

https://cinemorgue.fandom.com/wiki/Hugh_Keays-Byrne?file=Immortan_Joe%27s_death.png

I mean it's how he died!

Bleh. Just imagine bacdude with no mandible

*a dude

"I mean they're just going to wind up burning themselves with that shit ultimately, particularly as they continue to lean heavier on regurgitation of their own supply. Cut to five years from now as tumbleweeds drift through a multiplex"

Independent theaters will have been killed by then.

― now let's play big lunch take little lunch (sic), Friday, October 25, 2019 8:23 AM (yesterday

The Art Theater in Champaign announced today they're closing in six days.

― now let's play big lunch take little lunch (sic), Saturday, October 26, 2019 9:45 AM (four days ago)

Fathom have been told that two weeks ago's 40th anniversary national Alien screenings are the last time they will ever be able to show any Fox movie.

Balboa Theatre in SF had a Planet Of The Apes festival booked weekend after next, have now lost all eight films to which tickets had already been sold

Christmas screenings of Die Hard have been pulled from multiple theatres in the US and Canada

not sure where today's Leave Her To Heaven screening is meant to be happening

uggghghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Man, Fuck Disney.

KILL THE MOUSE

any opportunity to be total dicks

No one would have expected them to be particularly cool about the Fox acquisition but they're just straight-up showing their asses with this shit.