Film/Video Discussion Thread - The Bear and Badger

bad_hair_day

Mad Men owes it a drink Reg. Seems the most underrated Scott film.

davyK

What was with that racist thing in Crimson Tide? Out of the blue and then forgot about later? Bizarre.

b0r1s

There’s the talk about the horses. Which touches on the colour of them and how obedient they are, but that is a key point between their two points of view and does come back later.

Then there is the ongoing undercurrent of Alabama being the name of the sub and the greatest place on Earth, as part of the opening speech by Hackman.

I’m trying to recall an outright racist thing said. What was it?

davyK

The horse talk. To me it was racist. It was insinuating behaviours & qualities connected with colour. There was a link to me from cattle prod to whip. It was an ugly scene, mainly because it came out of nowhere and was then ignored afterwards. I'm afraid it put me off the whole film and I expected better from both actors.

Maybe there were cuts made that exposed racist tendencies. Fair enough. But even then for it to be ignored afterwards didn't make sense to me.

b0r1s

I don't think it was that simple, imo. I think it was Hackman testing Denzel at the beginning, where they talk about the horses and he asks him what he likes to do, he says riding horses and asks him which types. Denzel says Arabian. Then Hackman talks about the most disciplined horses in the world being the white horses from Portugal, can't recall what they are called. Hackman is insinuating that perhaps white people are more disciplined.

Denzel corrects him, I think in the officers dinner scene later and says they are not from Portugal but from somewhere else and that they are born black. So this is the younger generation correcting the old guard, who is not outright racist, but has long held probably prejudiced views.

Then at the end of the film...

Spoiler:

davyK

Spoiler:

That whole horse black/white thing just felt out of kilter with everything else that had happened even allowing for their conversations at the start - it was too close to being racist and wasn't what Hackman's character was about as far as I could see. The film could have done without it. That whole side issue with Cap Kirk and Scotty didn't fit either - but hey - it's a big daft film and I love that sort of thing - it's just I was expecting something else. Washington is too heavy a guy to play that right. And Hackman was coasting and taking the money - that film was well below them both.

mistercrayon

I didn’t realise there was a sequel to Inside Man.

b0r1s

I can’t help it. I just love the film. Can watch again and again.

regmcfly

At an absolute loose end today so I watched Avengers Infinity War.

There's something really impressive about how this bunch of 3.5-4 star movies really stays watchable and amiable throughout their run times. Someone working wonders over there.

b0r1s

I put a lot of Avengers working down to Whedon. He know's how to weave lots of characters together and drops dialogue that is witty banter, but can still drop a big dramatic hit when needed.

regmcfly

Yeah, it absolutely uses the Buffy formulae.

b0r1s

Love a bit of Buffy

davyK

I enjoyed the 3 (or was it 4?) ensemble Avengers films even though I didn't watch any of the supporting stuff. My latent Marvel knowledge from my comics reading childhood probably helped it. They are wondrous things really - it walks a thin line - stray at all and they could have become an unfocussed mess. They hang together rather well. The one thing that I thought didn't seem right was Thanos v Hulk which was never adequately explained - that issue was just brushed aside...maybe that happened in the comics or was there an explanation in a supporting film?

regmcfly

Well in the first part of the double header wot I just watched they just had

Spoiler:

I can't remember the second part. Will watch tomorrow.

Raiziel

Infinity War was the only Avengers film I enjoyed. I just don’t think I’m big on Marvel.

I watched Man of Steel last night. I still like it.

regmcfly

Raiziel wrote:

Infinity War was the only Avengers film I enjoyed. I just don’t think I’m big on Marvel.

I watched Man of Steel last night. I still like it.

I like man of steel, and I hate all of the rest. They actually did superman right and that's great but it Morrisons everything else and they struggle to reconcile that when he has to be part of the justice League.

I think infinity war is better than endgame because it's more daring, but I haven't seen endgame since the cinema and I'll give it a shot tomorrow.

g.man

Endgame pales in comparison to Infinity War imo.

Diluted Dante

davyK wrote:

I enjoyed the 3 (or was it 4?) ensemble Avengers films even though I didn't watch any of the supporting stuff. My latent Marvel knowledge from my comics reading childhood probably helped it. They are wondrous things really - it walks a thin line - stray at all and they could have become an unfocussed mess. They hang together rather well. The one thing that I thought didn't seem right was Thanos v Hulk which was never adequately explained - that issue was just brushed aside...maybe that happened in the comics or was there an explanation in a supporting film?

I can't work out what you mean by this Davy. What wasn't explained?

davyK

Diluted Dante wrote:

I enjoyed the 3 (or was it 4?) ensemble Avengers films even though I didn't watch any of the supporting stuff. My latent Marvel knowledge from my comics reading childhood probably helped it. They are wondrous things really - it walks a thin line - stray at all and they could have become an unfocussed mess. They hang together rather well. The one thing that I thought didn't seem right was Thanos v Hulk which was never adequately explained - that issue was just brushed aside...maybe that happened in the comics or was there an explanation in a supporting film?

I can't work out what you mean by this Davy. What wasn't explained?

How he was beaten and why he just ran away. It's the effing Hulk here - a character who gets stronger as you hurt him and he gets angrier. So what was the story with the Thanos fight? Reminded me of the eagles being ignored in LoTR.

davyK

g.man wrote:

Endgame pales in comparison to Infinity War imo.

Yeah - End game reduces down to a formulaic caper film. Fair enough - the story does leave the author boxed in at the end of Infinity War.

SonicBoomBoy

g.man wrote:

Endgame pales in comparison to Infinity War imo.

Endgame was pants.

mistercrayon

I liked Endgame for what it was a giant orgasm after 19 films. I liked infinity war a lot less.

I don’t think I really thought much of many of the marvel films. There’s not enough emphasis on the action (it feels like their philosophy is “we’ll imply the punch” - so things will zoom out or flash to the baddie rather than the hit).

I think my favourite of the super hero films is Wonder Woman precisely because they cared about the action. Of the marvels I think Black Panther was probably my favourite and maybe doctor strange.

Diluted Dante

davyK wrote:

How he was beaten and why he just ran away. It's the effing Hulk here - a character who gets stronger as you hurt him and he gets angrier. So what was the story with the Thanos fight? Reminded me of the eagles being ignored in LoTR.

Oh right. Thanos is as strong and way smarter. Hulk is stupid and has absolutely no finesse.

davyK

Diluted Dante wrote:

davyK wrote:

How he was beaten and why he just ran away. It's the effing Hulk here - a character who gets stronger as you hurt him and he gets angrier. So what was the story with the Thanos fight? Reminded me of the eagles being ignored in LoTR.

Oh right. Thanos is as strong and way smarter. Hulk is stupid and has absolutely no finesse.

I suppose. Thanos being the genius he is would have a strategy. Maybe I'm thinking about this too much.

SonicBoomBoy

Nah, you're not, it was just pants. Infinity was glorious and set a tone the next couldn't follow.

g.man

Endgame also fucked me off because we always knew there would be some sort of time-fuckery or parallel universe bullshit going on, which is fine, but on first viewing of IW, you couldn't help but notice things like Captain America now has a beard, or Black Widow's hair is suddenly blonde. To me this kind of pointed to them doing clever shit with the characters to make them look subtly, but noticeably different from their other selves when the time-fuckery kicked in.
There really was a tonne of incidental changes to the appearances of individual heroes, so this seemed like a well thought out no-brainer. Ooooh, I see what you're doing here and it's clever!
Turns out that none of this was in any way relevant, and they didn't really have a clever plan at all. Probably just wanted to sell more toys.
*shrug*

Kow

I still don't understand. Are there 2 Captain Americas in the world?

davyK

Ah.....Thanos had the power infinity stone in the gauntlet when he beat the Hulk.

These things matter.

g.man

Kow wrote:

I still don't understand. Are there 2 Captain Americas in the world?

Fucked if I know.

LivDiv

Got to admit I'm not sure I remember all that much of the plot of Endgame.

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