What Tom Cruise Movie will they do next.

[Johnny_Short_Torso]

War of the worlds was horrible... you know your movie sucks when the honest answer to the question "Is the 50 year old movie better than the one I made?" is yes! And Minority report was also pretty devoid of passion and substance too.

[Rattrap007]

Holding out hope for Mission Impossible (Movie Improbable), War of the Worlds (with the girl who never ages), and Minority Report (No officer I didn't intend to jaywalk so why am I being ticketed?)

[Hobbit]

I'd like to see the Last Samurai riffed to ribbons. He had no business being in a samurai movie. The movie was so chock full of anachronisms, Hollywood delusions, and other period innacuracies. Any soldier fighting in full scale war with no helmet and using a sword as a primary weapon instead of a polearm would be worm food in a minute.

But, as far as the list goes, I have a feeling Eyes Wide Shut could be hillarious.

Actually, if you look at the History Channel's 'History vs. Hollywood' documentary (which comes with the DVD), it's actually pretty accurate for a Hollywood movie.  The lack of helmets was purely cosmetic (allowing you to see the actors' faces) and only footsoldiers fought with polearms.  Samurai typically rode into combat and then used their deadly, razor-sharp katanas to slice down their foes.  Japanese soldiers continued to use these things all the way through WWII.  Not all footsoldiers used polearms, either.  While they were easy to use and allowed attacking at a distance, making them ideal for conscripts and defensive units, they weren't very mobile, were very weak on the flanks, and could be torn to pieces by any experience sword-wielding unit with decent armor.  Remember, the Greeks used pike-wielding hoplite units while the Roman legions mainly used short swords, large shields, and specialized javelins called 'pila' (singular 'pilum').  The Romans won against the Greeks by out-maneuvering the hoplites and hitting them in the flanks and rear, where the pikes did little good, and defeated similarly mobile armies by making their sword-wielding units easy to turn and strong in the flanks.

History aside, I still think it's an enjoyable movie.

As for Eyes Wide Shut, I highly doubt it.  I don't see Mike riffing what basically amounts to porn with a plot flimsier, yet more convoluted, than your average porn film.  I want to see them tear apart MI:2.  That movie was awful.

[RobtheBarbarian]

Personally I hated The Last Samurai with a dark, spiteful intensity. It's every Japanophilic western misconception about Samurais congealed into one seething, sticky mass of "i teh leet samuraiz!!! pheer my KATANA!". It's like the writers went into a mall and asked a bunch of kids hanging out in the arcade what Samurais were really like:

"Katanas could slice through solid metal, dude."
"Samurais NEVER ran from battle. They didn't even feel fear."
"NINJAS!!!"
NINJAS!!!"
NINJAS!!!"
"NINJAS for the win, ell-oh-ell!"

I'm gonna go find my nitro pills and maybe punch an anime fanboy in the teeth....

[Sideswipe]

Days of Thunder all the way.  Its basicly Top Gun on the ground.

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

my picks

a few good men
collarteral
and legend

although only legend is really all that cheesey i like it when they riff on good movies.

[Bob]

Days of Thunder all the way.  Its basicly Top Gun on the ground.

Amen, and the long sequences of "let us ram our two cars together and the rest of the field defies physics and cannot catch up to us while we are slowing down and ramming each other" must be riffed.

[Hobbit]

Personally I hated The Last Samurai with a dark, spiteful intensity. It's every Japanophilic western misconception about Samurais congealed into one seething, sticky mass of "i teh leet samuraiz!!! pheer my KATANA!". It's like the writers went into a mall and asked a bunch of kids hanging out in the arcade what Samurais were really like:

"Katanas could slice through solid metal, dude."
"Samurais NEVER ran from battle. They didn't even feel fear."
"NINJAS!!!"
NINJAS!!!"
NINJAS!!!"
"NINJAS for the win, ell-oh-ell!"

I'm gonna go find my nitro pills and maybe punch an anime fanboy in the teeth....

Once again, check out the documentary.  They did their research, and while they added a couple of over-the-top moments (Tom Cruise throwing his sword and cutting through a gun), their depiction of ancient samurai culture was fairly accurate, although they omitted the parts where women were second class citizens, if that.  Most of the Japanese actors were veterans of Japanese samurai films, and knowing what kind of legacy they were trying to live up to, would not have taken the role if it had been as you described.  Ironically, most of the things you described as being what a 'teenage fanboy' would think of samurai are cliches in Japanese samurai movies, right up to the fact that one ninja is dangerous, while a bunch of ninjas are cannon fodder (a cliche that was actually started by James Clavelle in his novel, "Shogun").

[RobtheBarbarian]

[Once again, check out the documentary.  They did their research, and while they added a couple of over-the-top moments (Tom Cruise throwing his sword and cutting through a gun), their depiction of ancient samurai culture was fairly accurate, although they omitted the parts where women were second class citizens, if that.  Most of the Japanese actors were veterans of Japanese samurai films, and knowing what kind of legacy they were trying to live up to, would not have taken the role if it had been as you described.  Ironically, most of the things you described as being what a 'teenage fanboy' would think of samurai are cliches in Japanese samurai movies, right up to the fact that one ninja is dangerous, while a bunch of ninjas are cannon fodder (a cliche that was actually started by James Clavelle in his novel, "Shogun").

Maybe I should have said it more reminded me of Japanophilia that I come into contact with on a daily basis far more than I would prefer to. The film certainly isn't the worst example of it's kind, but it's still pretty romanticized (I wouldn't take the History Channel's word at face value on a lot of things). They did their research more than some cases, but they still fell into the trap of portraying the samurai as fighting for the abstract ideal of honor over all worldly concerns; samurai were little more virtuous than western knights and followed the bushido in about the same way that knights adhered to chivalry. Not bad exactly, but not really the whole story.

[Hobbit]

Maybe I should have said it more reminded me of Japanophilia that I come into contact with on a daily basis far more than I would prefer to. The film certainly isn't the worst example of it's kind, but it's still pretty romanticized (I wouldn't take the History Channel's word at face value on a lot of things). They did their research more than some cases, but they still fell into the trap of portraying the samurai as fighting for the abstract ideal of honor over all worldly concerns; samurai were little more virtuous than western knights and followed the bushido in about the same way that knights adhered to chivalry. Not bad exactly, but not really the whole story.

Well, duh!  It's a ficitonal movie, not a documentary.  And I think you're painting brushstrokes too broad on the samurai and the medieval knights.  Many of them did believe in honor, and fought for such causes.  Others did not.  In the case of "The Last Samurai," the History Channel does point out that the samurai resistant to industrialization mostly saw it as an erosion of their power, though there were a few exceptions.  However, a bunch of feudal tyrants trying to hold on to their power by sticking to an old system that oppresses women and subjugates the poor into a serf class don't make likeable protagonists.  But anyway, back to the romanticizing, let's compare.  Troy:  A morally ambiguous stab at creating an entirely historically accurate recreation of a war that is solely know through the fictional, mythological account written by Homer.  As a result, it's not bad, but it's also pretty boring.  Kingdom of Heaven:  Another morally ambiguous account of a war that tries not to take sides and stick solely to the historical facts.  Once again, not bad, but it drags in places and doesn't really capture the imagination.  300:  An over-the-top, romanticized, mythologized version of a historical battle that both picks a side and takes a lot of liberties with the history to make the movie good.  As a result, it's an AWESOME movie, espeically in IMAX.

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

(a cliche that was actually started by James Clavelle in his novel, "Shogun").

how clavell start that?  one ninja failed in his mission and many ninja succeeded in theirs

[RobtheBarbarian]

Troy was boring and vapid because the script was poor and there was far too much downtime with the talkies between actors not exactly known for their acting. The siege of Troy was supposed to have gone on for years, wasn't it? If that's the case, it's no one's fault but the writers for including only two or three brief battle scenes focused very narrowly on Brad Pitt and company. I hesitate to say that I could come up with a better movie based on Homer's stories, but I firmly believe that it wouldn't be hard. On the other hand, 300 deserves as much respect as Grand Theft Auto. I understand the commonly-cited excuse that it's meant to be purely entertaining, but since when did shallow, albeit decent action scenes make a good movie?

I think attention payed to historical plausibility (or lack of) has less to do with the quality of the movie than you say it does. You want to talk romanticized? Have you seen King Arthur? That movie was "romanticized" out the ass and it was still a horrible movie, which leads me to believe that the accuracy of the movie has less to do with the quality of it than the writing and directing (A Bridge Too Far is a good movie that is relatively accurate). The reductio ad absurdum of "it's not a documentary" doesn't explain why a movie can't have a reasonably accurate backdrop to a well-written story.

[Hobbit]

Troy was boring and vapid because the script was poor and there was far too much downtime with the talkies between actors not exactly known for their acting. The siege of Troy was supposed to have gone on for years, wasn't it? If that's the case, it's no one's fault but the writers for including only two or three brief battle scenes focused very narrowly on Brad Pitt and company. I hesitate to say that I could come up with a better movie based on Homer's stories, but I firmly believe that it wouldn't be hard. On the other hand, 300 deserves as much respect as Grand Theft Auto. I understand the commonly-cited excuse that it's meant to be purely entertaining, but since when did shallow, albeit decent action scenes make a good movie?

I think attention payed to historical plausibility (or lack of) has less to do with the quality of the movie than you say it does. You want to talk romanticized? Have you seen King Arthur? That movie was "romanticized" out the ass and it was still a horrible movie, which leads me to believe that the accuracy of the movie has less to do with the quality of it than the writing and directing (A Bridge Too Far is a good movie that is relatively accurate). The reductio ad absurdum of "it's not a documentary" doesn't explain why a movie can't have a reasonably accurate backdrop to a well-written story.

Yeah, it's possible to be 100% historically accurate and still be a good movie, but it's not that easy.  Besides, 300 is based on a comic book, which was based on a historical battle.  And I don't see King Arthur really romanticizing and fictionalizing a whole lot.  It seemed to be going for the same 'real story version of a mythologized character' angle that Troy was going for.

how clavell start that?  one ninja failed in his mission and many ninja succeeded in theirs

An army of ninjas and an inside man sent to get the Englishman (can't remember his name, as it's been a while) mostly fails and actually gets him to want to leave the island quickly, but a single agent sent to burn his boat keeps him in place.

[RobtheBarbarian]

And I don't see King Arthur really romanticizing and fictionalizing a whole lot.  It seemed to be going for the same 'real story version of a mythologized character' angle that Troy was going for.

If you've got a minute and the desire, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Arthur_%28film%29#History lists most of the nonsense from King Arthur. I know a bit about ancient history and I can vouch for everything wikipedia lists there. What gets me about King Arthur is that there isn't anything real about it at all, and it clearly declares itself to be a historically accurate telling of the "real story". It's not a "we took some liberties but don't claim to be accurate in the first place" movie, it's more of a "we slopped some made-up bullshit into a bad movie and claimed with a straight face that it really happened that way" movie. Whoever made it refused to take a shred of responsability and either make it a fantasy, admit it was inaccurate or make it accurate.

I know it's hard to make an accurate historical movie, but I never expect or want 100% - just a reasonable lack of imaginary, romanticized fallacies.

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

An army of ninjas and an inside man sent to get the Englishman (can't remember his name, as it's been a while) mostly fails and actually gets him to want to leave the island quickly, but a single agent sent to burn his boat keeps him in place.

uh for the record a ninja didnt burn the boat.  one of toranagas secret members did  (a peasent if i remember right), and they horde of ninja with an inside man werent after the englshmen they were after his translator.  but they were coming for the translator.  they did fail but only because she commited suicide

sorry man thats my favorite book.  and i just dont see the point your trying to make manifest in the book.  remember the first ninja we saw was sent to kill the englishman.  the single ninja failed horribly.