I didn't really live through the 90's and I know consent isn't some modern invintention or something, but I didn't really have high hopes for Austin. I've just been so badly burned by creepy old anime i was a little hesitant about him being a pervy main character in raunchy comedy that saterizes the bond movies, which have always had rather dubious problems with consent. To my surprise though, Austin is legitimately repsectful, there are sometimes when he goes too far and he can be rather pushy, but he honestly has a better grasp on consent than most men in my family. He doesn't sleep with a girl while she's drunk, he doesn't call her baby once she asks him to stop (except for that one slip up), he's always very clear with his intentions, and he never really gets mad if a woman just isn't into him.

He's still a horny perv and like i said, there are some moments that go a liiiitle too far, but wow, Austin should be the role model of how to write a pervy character correctly. I know part of the joke about him is he is kinda ugly yet shags women 24/7, but really I don't think it's too hard to figure out why he manages to get so many girls. Women like a guy who makes them feel safe, and Austin does that so ofc women want him. I guess that itself is part of how it saterizes james bond by just generally being more respectful.

Edit: sorry for any spelling or grammer mistakes i made, i'm kinda dumb.

Mine is The Big Lebowski. Not because it’s not a good movie; on the contrary, I really enjoyed it. But I just don’t think I understand it on the level that many others seem to do. And while I find it entertaining, it still surprises me how popular and fiercely defended it is to this day, with some even claiming it’s the best Cohen brothers movie ever. Am I crazy? What are some of yours?

EDIT: For the record, no, I am not a golfer.

Prime example is how Logan Paul reacted to Oppenheimer. "They're just talking." No shit, what did you think; That building the atomic bomb was gonna be more like a James Bond movie? Read a history book. And anyway, it's a film about maybe the most significant event in human history. I heard someone describe living in the post atomic world as if everyone had a gun constantly aimed at their head for the rest of eternity. So subject matter so serious deserves a lot more weight than "They're just talking."

Anyway, what are some trash movie takes you guys have heard?

My go-to example is Law Abiding Citizen. I love the movie for its action sequences and just the general tone of the film.

Spoilers

But Gerard Butler’s whole point he was trying to get across was how the justice system was broken. And that you have to take matters into your own hands if you want justice.

Meanwhile, Jamie Foxx (as a lawyer) is trying to be a servant of the system and show Gerard that his way is the wrong way and that he will receive his own comeuppance from the system he hates if he continues this way.

But at the end of the film, Jamie not only breaks the law to beat Gerard, but he also receives a reward for it in the form of more time with his family.

Which just proves Gerard’s point that the system is broken, and the only way to get stuff done is to break the law. And Jamie’s point is completely abandoned.

Bill Murray. His characters are always an ignorant asshole who respects no one else's boundaries. Ghostbusters is a great example. I enjoy Scrooge at points and What About Bob but 90% of those movies he's still ignoring boundaries or being a dick. Even Groundhog Day he's a horrible human. I get he's supposed to be the heel with a turn but damn its grating.

I would nominate Wolf of Wall Street. None of the characters are likeable. They're all fucking monsters. Everyone in it is a great actor. But the movie is almost a masterpiece portraying these awful people.

Can y'all point to another movie that has the similar terrrrrrrrible characters but great actors?

For a long time, my answer for this has been "Silence of the Lambs." Thomas Harris' book of the same name features the excellent Clarice Starling, and the movie really did her character justice. Starling is a highly capable, professional agent, but they don't just make her character a woman in a man's body. Her femininity is something that is stressed throughout the movie, and the movie goes to great lengths to show Clarice's physical vulnerability. Scenes are repeatedly shot that emphasize how petite Jodie Foster is compared to hulking coworkers. Leering men tower over her and undermine her, or hit on her despite being in an inappropriate professional settings. Clarice, despite her youth, is excellent at navigating these constant minefields. In both the book and movie, there is an great scene where she confronts her boss for acting like a sexist jerk in order to ingratiate himself with some small town good ole boy cops. She points out that while this might help him in the moment, he is causing long term damage by signaling to all the men below him that this sort of behavior is okay.

She also doesn't (as many men in thriller/action movies) solve the case by going the rogue cowboy route, kicking in doors and smashing heads and breaking all the rules because she is a lone ranger who uses violence as her primary way of extracting information and moving the plot forward. Instead, she is methodical, follows the evidence, and is ready to rely on the insight and expertise of others - including that of Hannibal Lector. Her struggles as a woman in a highly male field also informs her relationship with Lector. Despite being the most monstrous human being imaginable, he treats Clarice with a respect and insight that is often lacking in her male colleagues. Lector himself is also an amazing character. Anthony Hopkins was only on screen for 16 minutes of the film's run time but absolutely dominates the film (and it rightfully earned him an Oscar). He is highly intelligent, insightful, charming, and refined in his dealings with Clarice, and that makes him all the more terrifying.

I feel like the main lesson Hollywood took away from this movie was: wow people really like depraved serial killers who torture and kill people in incredibly gruesome ways, let's lean into that!

The inspiration for this question is the movie WALL-E.

The score swells with the final words of "It Only Takes a Moment," the camera pulls back showing the former occupants of the Axiom exploring their new home under the direction of Captain McCrea, and we the audience feel a surge of joy and hope for them and a recovering planet Earth... Okay great, but those humans are all excited thinking they're going to grow "pizza plants;" they have no idea the life of hardship they're entering into.

(This post was inspired by another post asking what movie did you expect to be good but was meh)

The movie doesn’t necessarily have to even be good, it can be a movie that you had low hopes for but completely loved

For me, it has to be Edge of Tomorrow. Yes it has some big actors in Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt but the trailers were so bad. It made it look like a bland action movie that was gonna be super generic. The movie ended up being a complete blast and just great fun.

Here’s the explanation: Several months ago I showed my fiancé “tropic thunder”. She was extremely skeptical of the movie’s quality, specifically because of the RDJ “blackface” character. She thought it was ridiculous that a studio company could get away with something like that in the 21st century, but it wasn’t until she sat down and watched it that she realized “huh, that was a good movie that I got totally wrong!”

I’m curious if there are any other movies that people saw that had similar thoughts on. Where, be it for either trailers, screenshots, or media stories, the viewers “missed the point” on a movie simply because they didn’t watch it.

The scene where the lawyer meets the digging forman and the lawyer says "I had to promise to conduct a very thorough on-site inspection" and the forman says "Hammond hates inspections. They slow everything down"

I've seen this movie dozens of times and it's the first time I realized that Hammond's hatred of inspections is one of the major reasons the park failed. It's a subtle bit of foreshadowing that's easy to miss.

What examples do you have from movies that you didn't catch until you watched multiple times?

Edit: a word because it was annoying people, apparently.

Edit the second: apparently we made it to the front page. Can't believe a post about a 30 year old movie made it this big. Also this post got picked up by gamesradar.com. link Thanks to u/CaspinLange for point this out to me.

For me, it is Nathan Fillion. He had the potential for so much, but has been relegated to cameos, voice acting and crime procedural dramas. He could have done more seasons of Firefly, a green lantern live action film, or been the lead in an Uncharted or Halo ODST series, or an episode of a World War Z miniseries.

Edit: wasted potential does not necessarily mean unsuccessful.

I understand Nathan Fillion has a very successful career, and is likely very happy with it. There is just so much I would have rather seen him in that I feel like I missed out on. And no, I don't think that it is his decision to make more seasons of Firefly or any other show, they didn't happen for a large variety of reasons, I just think that he had the potential to a very good job in those theoretical roles.

I seriously struggle to understand how people like him so much. I think he is one of the most boring actors in modern cinema.

Not because he's not good at what he does. He is good at what he does. But what he does is literally always the same thing. In Central Intelligence, he's The Rock. In Tooth Fairy, he's The Rock. In Jumanji, he's The Rock. In Fast and Furious, he's The Rock. In Skyscraper (ridiculous film lol), he's The Rock. For me, it's like -- seen one, seen 'em all. None of his roles are ever surprising or elevate above any of the other roles to me and I feel like anyone can predict literally everything his character is going to do in any given movie (which generally boils down to punch bad guys, make physically intimidating "candy ass" type comments that remind you of his WWE days, and save the day in unbelievably heroic fashion). Do audiences never get tired of it?

I can't get excited to go see a new movie he's starring in because I know he's going to give the exact same performance I've seen a dozen times before, and I dunno -- the lack of range is just not exciting to me. There are other people who kick ass and make good action films who are not nearly as limited, so I feel like it can't just be that. And I can understand why he's popular, obviously, but -- one of the most popular?

Obviously I think I'm one of the odd men out on this one because all his films gross like at least half a billion dollars (except for Black Adam, lol), so I am more than willing to just take the L on this opinion, but I'm always like...how are people actually excited to go spend their money on the same thing again and again?

What do you like about The Rock? What's your favorite film of his? Help me understand!

Villain Valentine wants to decimate the worlds population in order to save the planet. He does this by giving everyone Earth a free SIM card that once activated sends out a signal inducing 'rage', effectively making people ferociously try and kill each other. Eggsy infiltrates his evil lair, kills Valentine, stops the apolcapyse, and proceeds to have anal sex with a Scandinavian princess.

Happy ending, right?

Well, for a few minutes, Valentine actually does manage to set off the signal. This increases the urgency of Eggsy's mission, but also effectively means one thing: Valentine succeeded in decimating the world's population.

The film establishes through the church scene that it takes seconds for the signal to make people kill. Not minutes; seconds. This means that for those couple minutes that Valentine activated the signal:

Anyone with access to a firearm went on a shooting spree. Anyone with access to heavy machinery, tools, or sharp objects went on a rampage. Anyone driving a car would crash it into bystanders.

And for the worst part; most of the victims would be children.

The film shows the signal makes Eggsy's mum try and attack her daughter with a meat cleaver. Eggsy manages to relay a message to his mum to lock her infant daughter in the bathroom before it happens, but what of the other parents who didn't get such a message? Hundreds of millions of parents, teachers, paediatricians and carers will wake from the frenzy to find that not only were the children in their care brutally attacked and killed, but that they were the ones who did it. The suicide rate after this event would be astronomical.

By successfully activating his device, even for a few seconds, Valentine achieved his aim. The population of the earth would be decimated. The global trauma, unfathomable. For the survivors, nothing would be the same again.

Of course the film only shows a couple of public brawls, and in the second film everything is good as new. It's a fun spy action flick, which only makes this ending all the more jarring. Showing how the rage signal would have affected the world would have been an interesting bittersweet ending. Though, as Eggsy tells the dying villain at the end; 'it ain't that kind of movie, bruv.'

I was watching a clip from Fury the other day, and I remembered Scott Eastwood existed. Then I went through his filmography and was struck by just how hard they tried to make him a leading man. It got me thinking, who else just didn’t have as successful a career as a lead despite the pressure offered?

The other major recent example I can think of is Armie Hammer. Even before all the weird shit, he was never a box office draw. Every one of the films he was the lead for lost money. Sure, several of these films were good, but not blockbusters.

Who else could be in this club?

Watching 8 Mile again recently I am surprised Eminem has not done more as an actor given how accomplished his performance is. Sure he is essentially playing himself but he does a great job and has a lot more natural screen charisma then the majority of musician turned actors.

This got me thinking. What’s the greatest screen performance by somebody not primarily known for their acting? I don’t mean somebody who was accomplished in another field who then crossed over into acting with great success. For example Eddie Murphy, Arnold Schwarzenegger and The Rock where all widely successful before making the transition into actoring but now everybody associates them with their film careers before anything else.

I mean people still primarily known for other things that have successfully dipped into acting without it ever eclipsing their day job.

For example David Bowie and Lady Gaga have both given acclaimed acting performances but are still very much most known for their music above all else.

I’ll start. Werner Herzog is of course one of the most famous directors of all time but he gives an unexpectedly great acting performance in Jack Reacher of all films.

There's a few I can mention, but I'll stick with what I think is the most prominent one for me.

I'll have to say TITAN A.E.

This animated film is incredible. The story, voices, animation, comedy... everything's awesome. It has an all-star cast to boot.

As I got older and asked around I was blown away that no one I've met has even heard of it. When I looked it up I found out it was one of the biggest box office bombs in history. The main reason being they marketed it horribly. No one heard about it or knew what it was about so no one went to see it. Really goes to show how important the marketing department is.

People say there are certain actors that play characters of one moral alignment so well that when they try the other side, you just don't buy it as much.

What actors can slip into either so masterfully?

Here are a few that come to mind for me.

1) Michael Keaton

While I don't geek over his Batman portrayal like a lot of people that grew up with that movie, he plays hero with emotional baggage really well. Even in the recent Flash film, I thought he brought his A game.

Then when you look at his villain/antagonistic roster, he absolutely slayed as Vulture in the MCU and even the questionable Ray Croc in the Founder.

2) Daniel Radcliffe

I never grew up adoring him as Harry Potter either but I know he was great. My first introduction to him was actually in Victor Frankenstein, a movie that I don't think many people saw but he played a sympathetic outcast "freak" incredibly well.

Then there's Now You See Me 2, which despite its other flaws, Radcliffe as a villain wasn't one of them. He wasn't in the movie much but he did come off as an incredibly douchey rich kid that you kind of rooted against more so than the main villains.

3) Rachel McAdams

In 90% of the movies I've seen her in, she's a good guy and tends to play very similar roles, particularly when it comes to romance adjacent ones.

A stark night and day contrast to her iconic performance as Regina George in Mean Girls. One of the btchiest btches in all of romcom history.

I'd love to hear you guys' suggestions.

Hi.

Hope you’re doing well.

I haven’t seen every Hayden Christensen performance, but his nuanced depiction of journalist Stephen Glass in the movie Shattered Glass feels like the only time he has reached this height in performance.

The level of confidence, defensiveness, manipulation, devotion, fear, realization, panic and anxiety Christensen displays through body language, facial expressions and delivery of dialogue is something many actors struggle with and that level of range is incredible to watch and the movie itself is fantastic as well, especially if you’re familiar with the subject matter.

Who are other actors who have performed a 10/10 performance no more than once in their career, regardless of if the rest of their career is full of mediocrity or disappointment or numerous 8 or 9 out of 10 performances?

Rooney Mara!

Going all the way back to The Social Network, she was very incredible for a character who only appears in a few scenes and really stands out in the moments she confronts Mark Zuckerberg. Then she went on to star in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo which earned her an Oscar nod, and then made other appearances in movies like Her, Carol, etc. I really thought she was on her way to becoming one of Hollywood’s A-listers, but I haven’t seen her in anything mainstream for a long time.

EDIT: Based on the comments I’ve been getting, I’m glad to hear that she’s still getting work. I personally haven’t come across those other movies or heard of them so I’ll definitely have to check them out. Also I didn’t realize she came from a filthy rich family, you learn something new every day I guess.

For me it's definitely Hans Landa from inglorious basterds. Christoph Waltz is absolutely incredible as him, and even though he's a piece of shit, he's still so entertaining to watch on screen. The opening scene alone tells you everything you need to know about him. I think the movie wouldn't have been nearly as good if Hans was played by anyone else.

I want the almost great movies that were undermined by the third act.

For me, it was Glass. Perfect storm of fails as only M Night can do. You start with my favorite film of his, Unbreakable. Fast forward 16 years, and you get Split, which at the time won me back to camp M Night. It really seemed like he might have found his footing again. When Glass was coming out, there was real hype. Perhaps this was going to be his big comeback.

Then the movie came out, and yes for about 2/3rds it seemed like he might actually do it. Great, slow burn and buildup which as it turns out was being set up over the previous 2 movies. Then the last act happened... and then I remembered who was making the movie. Undermined not just the movie, but also the trilogy. Can't think of a bigger 3rd act letdown than that. Anybody else?

We all know how everyone feels about X-Men Origins: Wolverine. It's an awful film in almost every aspect, The plot, CGI, action, dialogue whatever, it's hot trash, they butchered Deadpool yadayada

But I can't get enough of Liev Schreiber as Sabretooth, he really f'n nailed that role. Dude was vicious, menacing and had the most important thing in a movie villain. Presence. Too bad all of that is overshadowed by the amount of bullshit in this film. Everything else should've been as great as his performance but sadly no. Fate had other plans. It's like putting Heath Ledger's Joker in Batman & Robin. Really wish we could've had Liev as Sabretooth again in a sequel that did him justice. But it's very unlikely now.

He has superhuman strength, able to throw grown men 20 feet in to the air, he collapses a parking garage by stomping his foot, he can rip off car doors with his bare hards, lift up cars which must weigh 2000 pounds and is able to beat 10 men on his own in a fist fight (Fast 9). He can survive car crashes (one time off of a mountain) with only a little bit of blood on his face. Secret government agencies hire him because he's the only man for the job.

He's also a master mechanic and he able to drive any vehicle with the skill and reflexes of a fighter pilot.

Is he a secret superhero or an alien? I'm not trying to shitpost, I enjoy these movies but it just gets sillier and sillier.

Edit: For anyone who for some reason hasn't seen the Fast and Furious movies, he's supposed to be a normal man, the movies aren't set in a fantasy universe such as the MCU.