Monday, September 9, 2013

F This Movie! - Riddick

Patrick and Mark Ahn are Riddick-ulous.



Download this episode here. (28.1 MB)

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Also discussed this episode: Stoker (2013), The Grandmaster (2013), Blue Jasmine (2013), You're Next (2013) , Trance (2013), Olympus Has Fallen (2013), The Brass Teapot (2013), Saturday Morning Mystery (2013)

20 comments:

  1. The 'papa johns' comment was priceless.

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  2. I feel like when (not if) Jason Momoa shows up in the next Riddick movie, he should be Dick Riddick's little brother Michael J. Riddick, but everyone could call him Mick Riddick. Dick and Mick Riddick. Do you hear that noise? That's the sound of money being printed.

    I had a great time at this movie. I thought that I liked this movie as much as I did because it was the product of a singular vision and a passion to have their vision translated to the screen no matter what. And because I could see the fingerprints of the people who made it happen. I LIKE to see fingerprints on my movies and know that the people who made them cared about them and bled on them instead of a bunch of suits in a boardroom checking off boxes on a piece of paper. Lastly, I thought I liked it so much because the world feels more consistent and interesting to me than other sci-fi universes, like The Matrix and Ridley Scott's Alien universe. But as it turns out, I liked it so much because I'm a big dork.

    I pulled a marathon and watched all of the Riddick movies, including the Dark Fury animated doohickey, and came out on the other side a much bigger fan of the whole thing than I was before this past weekend. The storytelling is really consistent even though it's been told over 13 years. I mean, Chronicles of Riddick, the 2004 movie, is a little bit much for one movie but I know that they packed as much in as they did because they knew they might not get another movie. And as big as it is, it still feels like a part of the same world. The 2004 movie has an awful lot of ideas in it, but it's that HUGENESS that made me appreciate what they did with Riddick (the 2013 movie) by scaling it back. After the way things got left in the 2004 movie, they found themselves into a corner. Because of that, I like the second act of Riddick just the way it is. They did all their clean up in act one and then used act two to return Riddick to his roots as the killer that strikes in the dark. I really needed that second act for me to care about the character again. By allowing us to see the effects of Riddick instead of 30 minutes of Riddick himself, they put some mystery and intrigue back into the character. He needs to be an anti-hero, not a hero.

    These movies are pretty fantastic. Better than most things that are coming out these days. If every summer movie could follow the mold that Riddick operated within and have a budget at less than 50 million dollars, mid-grade actors, and plots that were full of action but still smaller in scope than a weekly muthafuckin' apocalypse, I'd open my own movie theater.

    Riddick is awesome. I'm so glad America made it number one.

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    1. I'd totally go to the Holland Cinema Paradiso, where the popcorn is always buttery, the 3D filter is always off the projector, and nobody checks their text messages.

      I like what you brought up about the second act. I think it was sort of jarring to go from spending so much time with him to just catching peeks of him; he went from vulnerable to invincible really quickly.

      But, still happy that this movie exists!

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    2. Your bringing up text messages reminded me of what happened during my theatrical experience of Riddick. Various cell phones kept ringing during the movie and one guy actually ANSWERED the phone during the movie. It's been a long time since I've seen someone have balls big enough to do that.

      At the Holland Cinema Paradiso, you don't just get kicked out for that offense, you get f*cked up. In a bad way.

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    3. I continue to be amazed at all of the movie theatre rudeness stories I hear from you guys - ONCE in the 15 or so movies I went to this year was I momentarily distracted by a lit cell phone screen a few rows down for about 5 seconds. No noise, no talking, no lengthy texting - apparently I live in some sort of paradise of polite moviegoers because it sounds like you guys deal with this crap all the time.

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    4. Well, when selling cellphones, everybody teaches you everything it does, not how to use it, or how to stop using it. It's the equivalent of selling cars and not teaching people how to stop. At least with cars, people get the training elsewhere for how to use the things. Anyway. I wouldn't mind being part of the Holland Cinema Paradiso bouncer crew. I'd step on offenders with golf shoes.

      @Sol - you really must live in paradise. I always have held that Canadians are generally polite folk. Just for the record, I don't feel like I deal with it all that often, but enough that I get nervous when people are milling in, hoping I'm with a good crowd.

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    5. Sol, the theatrical experience is pretty awful here where I live. Most of the movies I went to over the summer (the ones that draw the big crowds) had rude people in them kicking the backs of seats and talking loudly. Also at Riddick was a dude hanging his bare feet over the row of seats in front of him. The cell phone thing took the cake, though.

      When my wife and I saw the last Harry Potter movie, *spoilers for the last Harry Potter movie* there's a part where Harry appears to have died and is in a white place that looks like the afterlife. There's a glob of gooey stuff under one a bench that's Voldemort. When that appeared on screen, someone in the theater loudly announced "that's some nasty shit!"

      I mean, it was, but I hate movie theater comedians who think they're cute.

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    6. Okay, I did just about spray my keyboard with coffee reading that but yes, it has no place in the theater!

      It just occurred to me that maybe it's because I look so tough and awesome that people in the theater behave themselves just because I'm there. I think Mark and I would make a helluva bouncing team at Holland Cinema Paradiso (plus I heard he knows Kung Fu)!

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  3. Riddick was nothing close to white chicks.

    -Anonymous


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  4. Mark, you should ALWAYS start with the Young Guns podcast.

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  5. Stoker is my #2 movie of the year so far. Yes.

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    1. Joseph - I really enjoyed STOKER. It hasn't been a good year at the movies, but the top of my list are crowded with the smaller ones that are all their own thing.

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    2. I know a couple of people complained that STOKER was maybe too much of a SHADOW OF A SOUBT riff to which I reply, maybe, but if you're riffing on top-shelf Hitchcock I've no problem with that.

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    3. I can understand that argument. The movie is still just so much fun, though. I'll take weird and stylish and engaging any time.

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  6. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47rIvUs_bRk

    The Science behind Riddick

    -Anonymous

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  7. Good podcast as usual guys and normally I seem to be on the same side as you guys with perhaps a few minor caveats to the movie here or there. I actually saw Riddick at the Rosemont in Chicago this week and the theatre was really nice, good audience, super clear picture and sound and I am sorry guys but F this movie in the butt.

    I can appreciate the fact that Vin Diesel tried to do something different that was a passion project and I will agree this is something I would like to see more of at the movies, more middle budget original action or sci-fi movies. However Riddick just doesn't get the job done. Most of Vin's narration is awful, the CGI effects are unbelievably distracting just a small step above Sci-fi channel and the acting stays at total amateur level.

    My biggest beef with this movie is I just didn't care what happened to any of these bounty hunter a-holes. Also I get they had a low budget but they really couldn't go practical with any of the effects? one of the only cool moments in the movie for me was a practical effects shot SPOILERS AHEAD one dude gets his head chopped off halfway with a machete. Look I know the budget was only about 30 million but I would have really hoped David Twohy could have stretched the dollar further. To my recollection Duncan Jones did Moon for a pretty low budget and the effects in Moon were really good. Also that movie had Sam Rockwell, he's awesome.

    Last gripe, can we please put a moratorium on flying jet car cycles in movies, I really can't remember the last time that looked cool in a movie regardless of the budget, hell even Looper screwed that up and I loved Looper.

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    1. That's a nice theater! All digital, which isn't the best, but they do still have some 35mm capability. That's where we saw NotLD a couple weeks back.

      I totally get your objections to Riddick, which is why I say on the podcast that I wouldn't blame anyone for not liking it. It's just a case of me not minding some of the things that bugged you -- the VO is riddickulous, but that's part of the charm. The effects are not great, but I'll take this movie with uneven effects over not having the movie at all (or Transformers, which has amazing effects but is garbage for my eyes). And I have to admit that I liked the flying motorcycles. I agree that they're lame (and more jarring in Looper), but this movie had such an early '80s sci-fi fantasy throwback vibe that of COURSE it had to have flying bikes. And it reminded me of Flash Gordon, which I count as a plus.

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  8. I'm so glad both of you liked this, not because I liked it too and need verification of my opinion but because I wanted to like it for all the exact same reasons you did. I love the whole Riddick series (including Dark Fury), and I came away from Riddick disappointed. I was sad they didn't do either the Riddick as long movie or the return to Furya movie and instead basically remade Pitch Black with an admittedly intriguing opening. Also glad I wasn't just going crazy and that you still saw the movie's flaws, and a bit jealous that I didn't have the same positive reaction.

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