Here we are again – I hope you folks enjoyed our Comic-Con coverage… I feel that we really hit it out of the park this year thanks to our awesome team of writers!
As usual – talk about whatever you like as long as it’s related to movies, TV or Screen Rant itself – just remember to play nice. 
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Hugh Jackman Reveals Summer Start Date for ‘Wolverine 2′ 
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‘Iron Man 3′ Begins Production; Secures Increased Budget 
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Yeah Antman he was also the driver they picked up at Bobs Big Boy here in Toluca lake. (movie HEAT)
I live right down the street from that joint. Every friday night they have a car show there,,,,
^
I though The Unit was good (because of Robert Patrick) but overall I was turned off by the “Army Wives” aspect to the writting,,,
yeah they shoulda just left the wives mostly out of it, except for macks hot wife lol
I don’t see the redemption in that. However my comments were more directed at SOA and Sopranos. Those shows are about awful people doing awful things and making it look cool and not so bad. When I watched Sopranos I kept getting the vibe they were trying to say this stuff isn’t so bad almost trying to justify these horrible disgusting people.
well, TV, movies cant always be about the good guys…ooo hey, that is another great show, The Good Guys.
Aaahhaaahaaa yeah I remember Dennis Haysberts wife was the ringleader.
Now here’s how its gonna go down sugar,,,
Ah get out! The View meets the A-Team.
LOL..the only wife that mattered was macks wife lol
The only show that topped the Sopranos in terms of shock value was OZ,,,,,
^
Both were guilty pleasures in the lower base areas of entertainment and both extremely well written,,,
I (look away) liked them both,,,,
well, we all have different tastes, i try not to judge anyone based on movies, shows, music, to me its all a generational thing, we all grew up listening, watching different stuff, even though i say the music of todays prettty much sucks, i wont bash anyone for liking that twerp Bieber
I can enjoy a film about bad guys as long as it’s clear they are bad and as long as there are ripple effects from their actions. Take The Shield horrible guys on the strike team but they mean well and like to think they are good and in the end they pay for every thing they do.
I see your point Daniel, I didn’t watch Sopranos until I was given the series for free about a year after the show ended.
Totally agree that its violent. They tried to justify the behavior of Tony through his shrink but yeah Sopranos is an acquired taste.
Around the time of watching the Sopranos series dvds (obama election year) I was in the mood,,,
P.S,,,
It was pretty cool to watch the entire series in a few months.
The obama parallels ruined “The Unit” for me,,, lol,,,
No but really!
Daniel if the Sheld is based on a hit squad within the police force, that’s no different then Dexter,,,
Dexter is a crime scene blood splatter investigator for the miami police dept. When he’s not dismembeing other bad people,,,
He’s a family fun anti hero ,,,
They aren’t a hit squad they called less people in seven season than dextar does in on season lol. They killed a few bad guys but usually they frame guilty guys or steal money from criminals but every single human life taken in the show matters and people suffer for it.
Can anyone one give me recommendations for trippy mind-f*ck movies? I want to like have my mind blown haha. I’m looking for trippy movies with good twists and/or anything (fiction or nonfiction) to do with space-time, wormholes, string theory etc. Any ones spring to mind that I should check out?
Primer!
So trippy it caused me to spell my own name wrong…
Definitely not much that’s centrally about unusual celestial phenomenon but what about of the mind and perhaps of the other?
You could try Ken Russell’s stuff or “Dr. Tarr’s Torture Dungeon.” If your looking for SciFi fare only, “Primer” is an excellent time travel film. You’ll be puzzling over that one for awhile. Some others;
“Brazil”
“Future Cop”
“The Last Days Of Man On Earth”
“Time Bandits”
“Liquid Sky”
“The Magnetic Monster”
“The Power”
“The Mind Benders”
“The Presidents Analyst”
“Privilege”
“Project X”
“The Quatermass teleseries”
“Scanners”
“Solaris”
“Videodrome”
“PI”
“eXistenZ”
“Tetsuo” 1 and 2
“FLCL”
“GITS” SAC & SECGIG
“The Fountain”
“I Married a Strange Person!”
Some not SciFi but head stories
“House Of Games”
“Wait Until Dark”
“Der Zauberberg”
“El Topo”
“The Holy Mountain”
“Santa Sangre”
“Naked Lunch”
“Dead Ringers”
“Blue Velvet”
Old man, that’s a truly mind-scrambling list. Allow me to add Tarkovsky’s Stalker to your Solaris choice, and a couple of other David Lynch ones: Eraserhead, Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive. A Snake Of June, by the same guy who did both Tetsuo movies, shows how he’s grown as a filmmaker in a similar way to David Cronenberg.
Also Memento, Nic Roeg’s Walkabout and The Man Who Fell To Earth, Donnie Darko, A Scanner Darkly, and 2001: A Space Odyssey.
You are so so correct Big D! Thank you, I’ve been trying to think of Tarkovsky’s “Stalker” all dang day! Yes it’s an excellent film. The others you mentioned well really no list would be complete without them. “The Man Who Fell To Earth” the Criterion collection. I wouldn’t own it any other way, and Lynch’s “Eraserhead,” “lost Highway,” and “Mulholland Drive” are just natural follow ons to “Dune,” and “Pretty as a Picture.” If he’s going to rent “Donnie Darko,” “Memento,” and “A Scanner Darkly,” then he’s certainly had to run across “Fight Club.” I have to admit I haven’t caught Roeg’s “Walkabout” myself yet, but have you seen “Don’t Look Now?” I think Roeg could teach Nolan a thing or two…
Fight Club definitely! Don’t Look Now’s a classic – it gets called a horror movie but it’s so much more than that. Walkabout is a near-wordless, hallucinatory parable of culture-clash and childhood perspective.
I know Daniel’s not keen on Fight Club!
@ Daniel f
That’s how you do it (watch TV and play video games)..you don’t have kids. I work two jobs (one full-time at a hospital) and one with a home care company for people needing oxygen at home (part-time), I do two weeks of call a month (24/7) at the hospital and I usually spend an extra 30-40 hours those weeks in at all hours of the night and EARLY morning.. We have three little boys (7,5, & 2) who keep us very busy..I am rennovating our 90 year old farmhouse and maintaining a 40 acre property with our gardens for organic crops..When I do have some free time I don’t want to waste it on TV..I usually read a book or work on some Power Point presentations for educational activities at the hospital..catch up at Screen rant, or watch a movie that I have been meaning to see..We have plenty I haven’t seen yet..
I have not seen one single episode of anything TV related in the last 10 years..the last thing I regularly watched on TV (and i was single theN) was Law & Order and the Simpsons and that was in 1999…I have some TV on DVD like seasons 1 & 2 of Lost, House MD and I even have the first three seasons of Entourage but I haven’t watched any of it. I guess when the boys are older and doing there own thing I may find some time to start watching TV again but I have to say I really haven’t missed it at all..
Neotiger I highly recomend FAQ about Time Travel. It’s really well done and funny as well.
See that’s why I hate people saying they don’t have time for TV. It’s a dumb thing to be bothered by I admit.
It’s not that you don’t have time for you just have things you would rather do. Like you said youd prefer to read or watch a movie.
Personally I prefer television over movies. There are usually only 3 or 4 good movies a year but I have at any given year at least 7 great shows on tv to watch. Tv generally has better character development and overall writing and instead of waiting 15 years for a full franchise of 2 hour films I can get a long story that usually stays good in continuation.
To each their own though
i agree daniel, i find myself going to the movie maybe 3-4 tims a year these day. i do watch my fair share of tv lol, more than i realized, but i also play video games, read, goof off at the beach, things like that.
We all have our life paths,,,
I wish I had a career in San Diego Antman. I’d prefer living there over LA anyday,,,
im lucky..i was born and raised in sann diego…rare for someone my age, considering al the east coast transplants we get year after year. funny though, i like LA a lot, i mean sure there are a lot of areas a white guy like me avoids lol, but it has tons of good places to eat.
If you ever get up this way let me know Antman,,,
I actually grew up in Newport Beach Ca and then later decided to make my fortune in show biz.
for sure, like i said, i love titos tacos. i get up that way maybe a few times a year, when i neeed a change of pace from SD.
man i totally flaked about X games, i missed all the good stuff!!!
I’ve never been to Titos, Tacos,,, but hey what the hell,,
Oh god 790 I hate San Diego it’s among my most hated cities. Not a big fan of LA but I like it much more than alot of other big cities. Certainly not on my top 10 most hated SD is for sure.
Wow Anthony you me and 790 all live in southern California. I live in a very small town near Bakerfield only 100 miles from LA not to far from San Diego my GF is from SD so cool.
I know what you mean about LA and food. To this day best pizza I ever had is from LA I think it’s called Frankies it’s near The Whiskey. By the way I love the whiskey.
Huh I thought you were on the east coast Daniel.
Food, traffic and egos, that’s LA,,,
Nope 790 I’m actually a west coaster. I was born in Texas but 97% of my life has been right here in so cal.
Honestly traffic and egos are every big city with out exception. Even San Diego by the way. All those things come with the big city life it’s part of the package. It’s why I like small towns near medium size citys that are nearish big citys. I can have anything I need but still live in low crime and low traffic.
what can one possibly have against san diego daniel? lol. you should love it, you got a good woman from here so it cant be all that bad
Actually she was born where I love moved to San Diego at 18 moved back here last year. I guess I shouldn’t of said from there lived there for a couple of years. The majority of my problems with SD are the same as my problems with most big cities only SD lacks anything appealing for ne other than Comic Con there no really cool places for me to go like LA has and the food wasn’t at all impressive it was all negatives like most big cities but lacked the positives that most have to offer. I also have one or two issues with the city that I’ll go ahead and keep to my self rather than make this even more off topic of films.
ahhh, no worries, youre still cool in my book
there seems to be a bizzaro anthony here lurking bout in ‘rantland, so im gonna have to come up with a different handle other than using my real name lol
I’m a huge RDJ fan but I could never recomend Scanner Darkly to anyone that film was disturbingly bad RDJ was the only decent part.
As far as mind bender and cool scifi films go I would suggest The Machinist, Identity, The Prestiege, Inception of course, Memento, ethernal sunshine of the spotless mind, serenity,1408, FAQ about Time Travel, Equalibrium, Being John Malcovich,
OK I’ll bite Daniel f. What didn’t you like about “A Scanner Darkly?” Have you read the book? Did you like the book? Do you know that Dick uses a ‘trash on trash’ method of telling Science Fiction stories and that’s what makes his stories better than most Science Fiction? Did you know that most of his stories adapted to the screen are much less faithful than “A Scanner Darkly?” If you hated Scanner have you read “Ubik?”
On a separate note why “serenity” as a mind bender? I thought it was pretty straight forward story wise.
@the old man
sorry for the confusion my list was made to include both good Sci Fi and mind benders. In retrospect I should of seperated them but I was lazy.
As far as Scanner Darkly goes I know nothing about the author. I made my judgement based on the film alone and not the writers history or style. I don’t care who wrote or who directed a judge the film based on how good it was. I found the film to be awful. First and formost the star of the film. Mr Dude himself is one of the worst actors in the history of film and makes even good film bad by being in them. Point Brak man aside the concept while yes trippy was lame and pathetic in my opinion. It was just poorly written. I had no idea it was based on a book. I hope it was a bad adaptation and the book was better because the film was very badly written. Poor concept, poor star, while trippy it lacked the interesting quality. It didn’t bend my mind it just made me realize the writer had done far to many drugs and needs to go to rehab before constructing an interesting story.
The visual style was the only Interesting part of it though after 15 mins it became less interesting and very annoying,
Scanner is Philip K Dick, who, you guessed right, did far too many drugs. The dedication/list at the end of friends he lost is real. The sense of paranoia, unknown conspiracies that may or may not be taking place solely in the main character’s or the reader’s head, is present in much of his work, and survived the transition on screen in Blade Runner and Total Recall. As the old man points out, it’s actually one of the more faithful adaptations of his books.
I’m not exactly the biggest Keanu fan either – at least you’ve got the buffer of him being rotoscoped here. But poor concept? Addicted undercover narcotics agent is given an assignment to watch a known drug dealer who turns out to be himself: that’s a GREAT concept.
I’m more intrigued by you recommending Equilibrium, which I found a ball-less, badly-written, by-the-numbers formulaic rip-off of every dystopian future vision from 1984 to Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451 and Logan’s Run, but lacking the courage of its own convictions of any of those. Thank God for the “jump-to-fight” option on the DVD.
You actually consider that a great concept? I thought it was one of the dumbest concepts ever. It’s like the worst plot I dead you ever hear always ends with something along the lines of ” and it turns out he’s been the guy the entire time but didn’t know.” it reminds me of Adaptation where Nic Cage makes the idiotic pitch for the movie The Three ” it’s a cop investigating this kidnapper but it turns out he was the kidnapper” so lame. Completely uninteresting and pathetic that established so called talents come up with it.
While Equalibrium wasn’t the greatest film ever made it was based on interesting concepts and themes. Dealing with emotion and it had great acting. It isn’t amazing but it’s worth checking out where as scanner darkly is my most regreted DVD purchase ever. I’m still pissed about that but I saw RDJ and got excited.
He DID know though, that’s the whole point! It’s the opposite of “didn’t know x the entire time”, it’s how the mind gets to the stage where it convinces itself it DOESN’T know the difference between reality and hallucination. That blurring in both internal narrative and literal terms is completely intentional, and is there on that final list of damaged individuals – the last name is Dick’s own.
You’re right, Equilibrium had an excellent concept (religious dictatorship, where all emotion is suppressed with drugs THX 1138-style, which is another I’d recommend to neontiger)…that it lacked the will to explore the ramifications of in any way, instead using those ideas as a sketchily-rendered backdrop to hang the amazing gun kata scenes on.
Being John Malkovitch is a fine choice, BTW. Funny, thought-provoking and totally unpredictable. I haven’t seen FAQ but I’ve heard that’s a good one
.
No more Substance D for me…
Look at the much deeper ramifications Daniel it’s really the same thing people do all the time, they hold two opposite ideas or ideals that if you looked at them closely you would see that believing them both is believing their opposites. Like it’s there but it’s not. A tautology, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle applied to our personal outlook! In seeing you change it! We do that with our perceptions all the time. Like looking at an x-ray without having a clue what things should look like. Is that big dark spot a solid mass or empty space? The more we compare something we don’t know to something we know the more assumptions we make about it. Of course if you can’t see it any other way your fixed with your own perceptions, never seeing what’s there. A persons imagination can run out, despite having very accurate data. For example can mayonnaise lead to space travel?
Meh to each his own I guess I found Scanners concept to be really dumb and poorly conceived not to mention full of bad acting and void of substance. We can’t all agree no big.
Like I said Equalibrium had good acting, substance and a good concept. It had plenty of faults of course but in the end is was a fun movie with some substance. I would give it a 7/10.
FAQ is mostly a comedy but a hilarious one that has a lot of fun with Time travel and paradox. Surprisingly for a comedy it does a decent job of handeling time travel and doesn’t screw it up like most films. I was impressed.
“Void of substance” is slightly ironic there…
PKD’s novels can be brilliant and exasperating in equal measure. The Man In The High Castle, for instance: set in an alternate 1960s San Francisco where Germany and Japan won WWII, and the Pacific States are under Japanese occupation. The story-within-the-story concerns an author who’s written his own parallel earth novel where the Allies won…though it’s unsettlingly different from our real history. The ending makes no sense. Simple as that. I found out subsequently he’d arrived at a non-ending by casting the I Ching (which also features in the main story, some of the characters using it to determine their actions) to determine the plot itself, no matter what the outcome. An occasionally maddening but gutsy experimenter in the nature of reality via narrative structure and subject matter, as well as narcotics. He didn’t do anything by halves…
I didn’t know FAQ was a comedy – I’ll give that a go.
Like I said I don’t know crap about the books. I havnt read them I’ve only read one Philip K dick book I didn’t enjoy it really he wasn’t my style nothing against him it just wasn’t for me. I’m not bashing the author just that one film.
I never said I didn’t like Fight Club. Sure it’s a little over rated but I enjoyed it. I pretty much like most things with Ed Norton. It was an enjoyable film but I don’t think it’s as great as most people think it is.