The only recent film I want to see in a theatre is Turbo Kid.

seriously.

ZERO STARS BULLSHIT. BRAD BIRDPOOP.

A YCDTOTV movie would actually be interesting!

I WANT YOU TO TAKE ME TO THE PLACE I SAW WHEN I TOUCHED THIS.

hehe

Consider me pumped for Avengers: Age Of Ultron, or, as I shall refer to it from this point onward, AAOU.

>>I'm almost sixty, and in my lifetime, the inevitable trend has been that TV gets smarter, and movies get dumber.

I think I meant to say "the overall trend".

Actually, when I saw his graying hair, that was the first thing I thought he was going to do.

In a David Lynch, maybe, but not in a Disney.

Incidentally, I think I'm serious about this. The conscious decision to make Clooney look old is a way of establishing the parameters of where their relationship is supposed to go, and letting the audience know what to expect. It's like the old westerns, where the good guy is the one in the white hat, or romantic comedies where we know that the guy with the receding hairline isn't supposed to get the girl, and we're supposed to root for the guy with the nice hair.

John, nowadays, we see a creepy old man running around with a little kid, we don't think "oh look, there goes a Good Guy". I'm sorry, but that's just not the way things work anymore.

The "tell" is when he hops in the bathtub, hits the Cialis button and boinggggg! off they go into orbit.

Okay, are you finished, Homer?

I'm guessing he IS the good guy, and the he DOESN'T bang the kid.

Now, my point, which is kind of serious, is that if they potrayed Clooney like he's usually portrayed, as a sexy heartthrob, the audience would be confused. They wouldn't know what to expect, and with this kind of movie, knowing what to expect is... well, expected.

My point is that these entertainment movies have a whole set of convention s that they use to tell us the meaning of what's going on, what to expect and who to root for, and after a time, it's not hard to start interpreting life like this.

No, if he were a sexy heartthrob, then you'd know that he's routinely getting it on with a bunch of hot babes, like maybe the kid's mom or something. Nobody would be confused about that.

Making him look old and gross, and then having him hopping in a bathtub with a girl a quarter his age, that's not going to put anyone at ease. The grey hair makes his age *obvious*, the lack of any outward signs of an adult sex-life makes his behavior suspicious. It doesn't confuse anyone, either - we the audience know damn well what's going on. George Clooney can't pull the wool over our eyes with that sweet-and-innocent grandpa routine of his.

I'm guessing he doesn't bang the kid, either - because this is a Disney movie, and it's rated PG. But yeah, the meaning is pretty obvious, and it's NOT hard to interpret what the movie is getting at...!

There's no two ways about it, John: guys like Clooney, they're not fooling anyone.

Homer, none of this has much to do with what I said, so I don't have to dispute you or add anything.

It's got everything to do with what you said. Your thesis is that if you're an elderly man, all you have to do is look old and unthreatening enough, and nobody will notice you hopping into a bathtub with a girl who's fresh out of middle school. I'm telling you this is not the case.

George Clooney has groomed a vulnerable young lady, a girl who's obviously got family issues back home, and actually convinced her that by straddling him in a bathtub, they will both be whisked away to a magical gumdrop land where all her dreams come true. Giving Clooney gray hair isn't going to change that. It's not going to fool anyone; if anything, it's going to make what a Godawful creeper he is even more obvious.

>>It's got everything to do with what you said. Your thesis is that if you're an elderly man, all you have to do is look old and unthreatening enough, and nobody will notice you hopping into a bathtub with a girl who's fresh out of middle school. I'm telling you this is not the case.

And I'm telling you that's not my fucking thesis. And I'm not going to repeat my thesis, because you won't read it that time, either. You don't care what my thesis is. You're just riffing, and that's fine. Riff away.

>> that's not my fucking thesis.

YES IT IS. You said, and I quote:

"The conscious decision to make Clooney look old is a way of establishing the parameters of where their relationship is supposed to go, and letting the audience know what to expect."

... and I'm telling you that's wrong. Audiences know he's a creep, and making him look old doesn't make the situation any better. If anything, it draws MORE attention to their age gap, and makes us expect even worse behavior from Clooney T. Pedobear.

What you said before that didn't even reference that this was a movie.

>>Your thesis is that if you're an elderly man, all you have to do is look old and unthreatening enough, and nobody will notice you hopping into a bathtub with a girl who's fresh out of middle school. I'm telling you this is not the case.

What would worry me about you... if I was inclined to worry about such things, is that you lump the Avengers with those other two. That's just just sheer insanity.

Yeah seriously, unless you're some kind of self loathing "I HATE THE MAINSTREAM!" hipster, what's wrong with The Avengers?

Oh, I forgot Star Wars.

Avengers is somehow above the crowd of tentpole movie bullshit? Explain.

I'd lump it in because of the cardboard-cutout characterizations, the adolescent fantasy, and the too-cute Thor's hammer clip from earlier this week. I don't get superhero stuff. I see how some of it is cooler or more well done, but what's the fucking difference, really?
Also, Whedon fanboys have wrecked any interest I ever had in Whedon. They're the motherfucking worst.

I hate most wide-release movies because of what they actually are, not because they're popular. Hipster is a stupid fucking word to use relative to the Avengers. I don't imagine that crowd protesting it.

The first Avengers movie was amazing. It portrayed all these comic book heroes as believable characters, with relationships between them, and each relationship has it's own arc. There was a Hawkeye/Black Widow relationship, a Tony Stark Bruce Banner Relationship, and a Tony Stark/Steve Rogers conflict that is resolved quite movingly in the climactic scene. The first hour of the film is mostly talk, and it's quite satisfying to watch, and the last two acts which are solid action, wouldn't work as well without it.

Man of Steel, on the other hand is ponderous, and overblown. There's a long origin story you've seen before, and action sequences that are more exhausting than thrilling. Everything about Krypton is played up like Wagner. There's some ridiculous bullshit about Kal-El being the first kryptonian "natural birth" in centuries not born out of an incubator, and some other ridiculous bullshit about how he's carrying all the genetic material from everyone who lived on krypton. It's been added to his DNA. Either one of these might make an interesting (if unnecessary) addition to superman's myth, but together they kind of cancel each other out. There's not much point in having him be the first natural birth, and then souping up his DNA.

There's some good stuff in there. It's not shit. But it's definitely shit compared to the avengers.

I know that I'm going to see Batman v Superman, but I'm not expecting much. I'll be seeing the Age of Ultron ASAP,

But this amusement park tie-in? Judging by trailer, I wouldn't cross the street to see this.

What about Nar Shaddaa? Neo-Tokyo? New Caprica? Qu'noS? Ar? Niihama? Olympus? Tiphares? Tharkad? Layered? Giha? Graviton City? City 17? New New York? Every futuristic version of Detroit? Every city in every cyberpunk universe ever? Southern Cross? Rapture? Cwcville?

The only cities I can think of that offhand which fit your description are this one, and maybe Crystal Tokyo.

All I know is that I've seen this city looks familiar as hell. The tall skyscrapers connected by some kind of conveyance. It's a very retro idea of the future.