Recent Posts

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General (Off-Topic) Discussion / Re: The Funny Pictures Thread

« Last post by RVR II on Today at 07:16:58 AM »

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General (Off-Topic) Discussion / Re: What Projects / Tasks do you have going on / to do??

« Last post by RVR II on Today at 06:46:17 AM »

Finally getting the suspension fixed Monday morning on my 99 Dodge Ram truck. The upper and lower ball joints have been bad for years and never had the money to get them fixed until now .
Got brand new upper and lower control arms, idler arn, and Pittman arm from Moog parts on Amazon for over $600 dollars and the labor will be over $700 but they will finally be fixed once and for all

Got all that done and it drives like a new truck again! Got the coolant and brake fluids flushed along with the AC system checked yesterday and confirmed that my evaporator has a small leak so it will need to be replaced which will require pulling the dash. My dashboard is already cracked and removing it will cause it to break apart more so I ordered a replacement dash board from LMC Truck parts so that will be here in a few days. While the dash is out I'll probably replace the heater core as well to eliminate any future problems with it.
Work schedule permitting I'll get that done next week and that should be it for truck repairs 

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Movie Talk / Re: What was the last movie you watched?

« Last post by Darth Geek on Today at 06:21:44 AM »

My morbid curiosity got the better of me and I finally watched Ant-Man And The Wasp. I regret it. Just like my morbid curiosity with BvS and Justice League. While not as bad as those, I still found this movie annoying and particularly unfunny. I literally only laughed at one joke. When the ants kept being eaten by seagulls when Ant-Man was calling them to help him.
In the first one my primary issue was Scott Lang wasn't interesting and that inexcusably insulting fight with Falcon. In this one I didn't mind Scott Lang. If anything his scenes with his daughter were a highlight. I didn't think he did anything particularly stupid, which is what I expected from the trailers. No, the problem is all the other characters are stupid. In the first movie I really liked Hope, and wish she had just been the hero, but here SHE IS STUPID! The beginning scene with her trying to buy the tech from the black market arms dealer was what really annoyed me. Why are you trying so hard to pay money to people who likely stole the tech in the first place?! What makes it worse is that Walter Goggins is AWFUL in this! He is just insufferably lame as even a minor villain. Hell, at one point Hope actually says "Really? This guy again?" because even she can't believe the movie is still wasting time with this jackass. I didn't care that much for Michael Peña's character in the first Ant-Man, but I didn't hate him. Here he is excruciatingly unfunny. And I felt bad, because I like that actor and he can do much better.
This has to be the WORST reason for the villain to hate the good guy (Well, she hates Hank Pym, not Scott Lang) I have ever seen! It is clear that her father is entirely at fault for the accident that caused her affliction, and her actions working for SHIELD are her own. It's just shockingly bad writing. Lawrence Fishburne is the only really likable character here.
I did like the opening scene, because it looked like the filmmakers were referencing Dave Made a Maze (a phenomenal movie).

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General (Off-Topic) Discussion / Re: The 'Particularly Amusing' Cartoon Thread

« Last post by Kete on Today at 05:55:07 AM »

I have an old swing that looks exactly like that on my property, now the urge to make a sign that says that is going to bug me for a while.

Or until you make that sign.

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General (Off-Topic) Discussion / Re: List of Crap #115: Top 50 Movies of the 70s Countdown!

« Last post by Edward J Grug III on Today at 12:25:31 AM »

I rewatched Dirty Harry for the first time in 15 years right after the list started, so too late to vote for it. However, it's still tremendous.

Are any of the sequels worth a look? I'm pretty sure I've not seen any of them.

In my opinion Magnum Force is the only other one worth a darn, though it's a step down. The series gets increasingly outlandish as it goes and loses sight of what made the original so good.

Edit: In regards to your comment in the western LoC… you should know that rape is the driving plot thread in Sudden Impact.

Thanks! I'll check out Magnum Force if I get the chance and leave it at that.

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General (Off-Topic) Discussion / Re: List of Crap #115: Top 50 Movies of the 70s Countdown!

« Last post by George-2.0 on Today at 12:07:03 AM »

I rewatched Dirty Harry for the first time in 15 years right after the list started, so too late to vote for it. However, it's still tremendous.

Are any of the sequels worth a look? I'm pretty sure I've not seen any of them.

In my opinion Magnum Force is the only other one worth a darn, though it's a step down. The series gets increasingly outlandish as it goes and loses sight of what made the original so good.

Edit: In regards to your comment in the western LoC… you should know that rape is the driving plot thread in Sudden Impact.

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General (Off-Topic) Discussion / Re: List of Crap #115: Top 50 Movies of the 70s Countdown!

« Last post by Edward J Grug III on March 20, 2019, 11:59:46 PM »

I rewatched Dirty Harry for the first time in 15 years right after the list started, so too late to vote for it. However, it's still tremendous.

Are any of the sequels worth a look? I'm pretty sure I've not seen any of them.

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Movie Talk / Re: Popeye (1980) WITH SPOILERS!!!!

« Last post by Edward J Grug III on March 20, 2019, 11:57:48 PM »

I will also say, if you want to give the music a try - It IS better outside of the film. Altman really pushes things and pushes a lot of the songs tot he background. If you have access to the actual album on Spotify or whatever (not sure where it will appear to stream outside of Aus, and I own a copy anyway) I think it is extremely worth a listen, especially if you enjoy the work of Harry Nilsson, which I mostly do.

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Movie Talk / Re: Popeye (1980) WITH SPOILERS!!!!

« Last post by Edward J Grug III on March 20, 2019, 11:54:54 PM »

So now that this thread is here, is there a good way to catch up on Popeye's vast comic strip history? I checked out "Popeye: The First 50 Years" from a library when I was a kid and loved the rich backstory, but never really had a way to get more.

Sadly, the best books are (mostly) out of print currently. If your library has the recentish Fantagraphics reprints, those are the way to go: http://www.fantagraphics.com/series/popeye/

The first book is a little slow to get started as Popeye was not intended to be the star of the strip and turns up later, but it picks up.

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Movie Talk / Re: Popeye (1980) WITH SPOILERS!!!!

« Last post by Edward J Grug III on March 20, 2019, 11:52:38 PM »

This seems like a pointless exercise since you somehow insist you know better than the person who wrote the movie, but I do love to talk Popeye, so...

Yeah, by the time the movie was made the voice of Popeye had been well and truly established, but the cartoons also clearly based on the way the character was written in the comics.

And you keep circling the same point, that Bluto was made the main villain in the film despite being a minor character in the comics - But I still have the same answer for you - At that point the franchise was 60 years old and the character was made more famous after the fact, but he was still taken from the comics. He was made famous by the cartoons, but still not created for the cartoons. I don't see how this supports your argument any more than all of the characters I listed that were either more prominent or ONLY in the comics supports mine. Even Bluto in the film works for Poopdeck Pappy, a big character from the comics.

Here's Robert Altman on Popeye: "Altman said his intention was to recreate the artistic style and philosophical approach of the original Segar comic strip. "

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/675533/A-look-back-Popeye-comes-out-of-can-for-91-festival-retrospective.html

Which i think is paraphrasing him from here (page 19 middle paragraph): https://books.google.com.au/books?id=TIj12IGUmkYC&pg=PA17&lpg=PA17&dq=robert+altman+interview+popeye&source=bl&ots=9wjhNkAxJ9&sig=ACfU3U2dLyCl2_pR8CNNyEN4hNThPxPZMw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwieuvf_zpLhAhU2_XMBHaFKDqk4FBDoATAHegQIBxAB#v=onepage&q=robert%20altman%20interview%20popeye&f=false (

So now you have the director AND the writer saying what it is based one.

Here's every essay I can find that talks about the source of the film - I didn't omit any:

Owing more to E.C. Segar’s original Thimble Theatre strip than the more widely known Fleischer Studios cartoons that followed

https://thedissolve.com/features/departures/503-how-robert-altman-turned-popeye-into-an-altman-mov/

For anyone who'd grown up on the King Features Popeye cartoons, the movie's approach was probably confusing. (Who were all these townspeople? Does Olive really have a brother named Castor?) That's because 'Popeye' owes far more to E.C. Segar's 'Thimble Theatre' funny-pages origin and the amazingly clever (even by modern standards) Max Fleischer animated theatrical shorts -- many of which were also musicals -- from the '30s. But as if Altman was anticipating his audience's misplaced notions of what was to follow, the movie begins with the black-and-white animated intro from the Fleischer cartoons in which the cartoon Popeye cuts things short. "What's dis? One of Bluto's tricks? I'm in the wrong picture!"

https://diffuser.fm/popeye-movie/

With the story based more on Popeye’s original source material – E.G. Segar’s “Thimble Theatre” comic strip from the 1920s –  and not on the more recognized fiction created by the Fleischer Brothers for their Popeye cartoons in the 1930s and beyond, misplaced dismay was to be expected.

https://hollywoodsuite.ca/connect/popeye/

Written by Jules Feiffer, Popeye is at once warmly faithful to Segar’s original Thimble Theatre strip, more so than the popular cartoon—eg. this Popeye hates spinach—but the script is also laden with political parody and social satire. It wouldn’t be an Altman film without it. And if there’s one thing this quirky picture is, it’s a Robert Altman film.

https://screenmayhem.com/another-look-jeremy-carr-on-robert-altmans-popeye/

The audience isn’t allowed the gratification of the climactic moments in the Fleischers’ Popeye animated cartoon series; Altman seems almost embarrassed by the conventions. He’s trying to do this literal version of the Popeye comic strip and at the same time he doesn’t want it to add up to Popeye.

https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2018/03/07/popeye-1980-pauline-kael/

His run as a big-time, big-studio filmmaker effectively ended in 1980 with the comic-strip adaptation Popeye, a holiday family film that was actually a substantial box-office hit at home and worldwide, but acquired a reputation as a bomb because it wasn’t what anyone expected in the age of the blockbuster. Altman shackled frenetic stand-up sensation Robin Williams in a role that required him to freeze his face and mutter, while Jules Feiffer’s screenplay hewed closer to the eccentric seaside adventures of E.C. Segar’s Thimble Theatre strip than the boisterousness of the well-loved Fleischer Studios cartoons...

https://film.avclub.com/robert-altman-1798226806